LOCAL PRESS

 

Vucic: New page of our joint future (Tanjug)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic assessed today following talks with the B&H Presidency members that a new page of joint future had opened. He told a press conference that they talked openly and sincerely, and that such talks are the best. “I believe we have opened a new page of our joint future,” said Vucic. They discussed concrete projects, economic topics, and, as he put it, they reached agreement on holding a joint session of the two governments in September.  “Serbian wishes the best possible relations with B&H,” stressed Vucic. Chairman and members of the B&H Presidency Dragan Covic, Mladen Ivanic and Bakir Izetbegovic arrived in Belgrade at noon on an official visit to Serbia at the invitation of Prime Minister Vucic. “My message to Izetbegovic, Covic and Ivanic is that this is also their home. No chapters depend from this,” said Vucic. He pointed out that when it comes to the arms industry, Serbia and B&H could appear together on third markets, which would mean more jobs for the citizens of the two countries and more money for companies. “I think we managed to agree for the working groups to work on this in Sarajevo and Belgrade in the following days,” said Vucic, adding that existing cooperation would be raised to a higher level. When it comes to cooperation in the field of energy, Vucic said they discussed the power network between Bajina Basta, Visegrad and Plevlja in Montenegro, adding the two countries could achieve good progress in tourism as well. “We are looking into the future, we respect B&H and we wish to have best possible relations. It doesn’t mean that we will agree on everything from the past, but it means that we will sincerely wish and know how to correct things in the future,” said Vucic.

 

Covic: Past to historians, future to us (Tanjug)

The Chairman of the B&H Presidency Dragan Covic has stated that the past between Serbia and B&H should be left to historians, and that representatives of authorities should look forward and raise cooperation to the highest possible level. According to him, one should not pay attention to the advocates of bad relations, but to the “large masses that want a different future”. Covic especially stressed the importance of the Conference on Western Balkans in Vienna on 27 August, when, as he put it, he expects a strong step forward. Following this, a joint session of the Serbian government and the Council of Ministers will be held, said Covic, adding that the Serbian President will be invited to visit Sarajevo in October. “That is the path, there is no other,” added Covic and said he would strongly support the joint projects announced by Prime Minister Vucic.

 

Izetbegovic condemns all war crimes (Tanjug)

Bosniak member of the B&H Presidency Bakir Izetbegovic pointed out that every war crime, regardless against whom it was committed, was still a war crime. Izetbegovic told a press conference in Belgrade that it is insignificant whether the crime in Srebrenica occurred more than eight thousand times or eight times in some other place, and that every perpetrator will be tried. Recalling that Sarajevo suffered the horror of war, and that every third Sarajevo resident was shot and wounded, while every tenth was killed, Izetbegovic pointed out that Sarajevo still had the strength to stop the crime against the Serbs. “The fact that some things perpetrated by some rebel commanders against the Serbs were stopped in Sarajevo is proof that we are not the side that has systematically encouraged crime,” said Izetbegovic.

 

“Srpska” will not support formation of Kosovo army (Politika)

Isa Mustafa and Hashim Thaqi will try to push through tomorrow two proposals in a unified item on the agenda of the Kosovo Assembly: the adoption of constitutional amendments and the formation of the Kosovo army. Pristina press opines that the authorities wish with this move to also receive support of the Albanian opposition, but it will be in vain, because the deputies of the Serb (Srpska) List, without whom amendments to the constitution cannot be adopted, will not vote for this unified item on the agenda. The Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric says that the issue of the so-called Kosovo army is not and cannot be on the agenda because the position of the armed forces in Kosovo and Metohija is regulated by the Kumanovo Military-Technical agreement and UNSCR 1244. “The only legal armed forces in Kosovo and Metohija can be KFOR and the Serbian Army with the approval of the KFOR commander. This topic has not be linked either officially or unofficially with the formation of the Union of Serb Municipalities (ZSO), which needs to be formed without delay and additional conditions, because all of them have been achieved based on the Brussels agreement,” Djuric tells Politika. The Minister for Communities and Returns in the Kosovo government Dalibor Jevtic says that the provincial government has not yet officially forwarded the proposal on the unified voting to the Kosovo Assembly, but recalls that everybody is acquainted with the principled stand of the Serb List that its deputies will not vote for the Kosovo armed forces. “Our coalition partners from Mustafa’s Democratic Party of Kosovo and Thaqi’s Democratic Union of Kosovo have been informed about this. The Brussels agreement does not envisage the formation of the Kosovo armed forces this year and the international community does not expect this as well. Before it is placed on the agenda of the assembly, we need to previously discuss the Kosovo armed forces,” Jevtic tells Politika. The caucus whip of the Serb List in the Kosovo Assembly Slavko Simic says that at the session of the assembly presidency he opposed the intention to include on the agenda of the next session on Thursday the examining of the amendment to amend the Kosovo constitution aimed at transforming the Kosovo security forces into armed forces. Gracanica Mayor Vladeta Kostic says that setting new conditions that have not been mentioned in the Brussels agreement has become practice for the Albanian side. “I see the entire story regarding the army as feeling the pulse and compensating political points that the Albanian parties are losing over the formation of the special court,” says Kostic. Jevtic announces that the Serb List deputies will vote for the formation of the special court that should investigate the war crimes committed by the terrorist KLA in 1999 and 2000.

 

Kosovo’s road towards UNESCO, from tweet to reality (RTS)

If one is to believe social networks, Kosovo has applied for UNESCO membership. This was announced last week by Kosovo Foreign Minister Hashim Thaqi on Tweeter. The question is how much is a tweet close to reality. A tweet for internal need or Kosovo’s diplomatic offensive?

Judging by the date of Thaqi’s tweet, Kosovo applied for membership five days ago. But the request, Paris says, has not yet arrived. That is why Serbia is not yet reacting, the Serbian Foreign Ministry states. The Ministry adds that any examination of Kosovo’s application would not only represent a violation of UNSCR 1244, but would also have a very negative impact on the current Belgrade-Pristina dialogue in Brussels. Serbia has committed itself precisely with the Brussels agreement that it will not block Kosovo’s membership in international organizations. Not even a veto would help. There are no legal blocking mechanisms in UNESCO, only political remain. Nenad Djurdjevic from the Ethnic Relations Forum cited the example of Palestine, which is not an UN member, but was admitted in UNESCO. “That is a political issue that primarily depends from good international sponsors that the interested party has in the international community. If this succeeds, Serbia has small chances to block something,” says Djurdjevic. Pristina hopes this is how it will be. However, they don’t know why they application has been travelling five days to Paris. “We don’t have information where is the application but it is very important for Kosovo to become an UNESCO member because many monasteries and facilities that are under the protection of Kosovo laws will be even more protected under this agreement,” Besim Tahiri from the Kosovo Institute for Local Self-Administration says. Pristina believes that they will be closer to UN membership and new recognitions of statehood with UNESCO membership. Still, they admit they don’t know whether they will achieve the first step. “We still don’t know whether this is realistic, it is very difficult because, firstly, the decision is not only with UNESCO, but with states that haven’t recognized Kosovo,” says Tahiri. Uncertaintty regarding Kosovo’s diplomatic routes must not be an alibi for Serbian diplomacy for inaction, analysts opine. “This silence that speaks much more than words is silence with which the Serbian Foreign Ministry is sending a message, I am concerned that this silence is similar to the one regarding the British resolution on Srebrenica, when they simulated a surprise – that we received the resolution overnight,” says Djurdjevic. Four Serbian monasteries in Kosovo have been placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. If Kosovo becomes a UNESCO member, it is important how the Serbian Orthodox Church will protect its interests. Experts say that it is more important how Serbia will protect its political interests.

 

Montenegro arresting “by order” (Novosti)

Serbian retired general Borisav Djukic (67) is not the only Serb war crime suspect arrested in Montenegro. Djukic was arrested by the warrant of the Zagreb National Bureau of Interpol, on suspicion that he had committed a war crime in this state during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. He is currently in Spuz, in a separated part with all those waiting for extradition. The procedure in this case is long and may last up to seven weeks. While this arrest is gaining increasing publicity in the media, those who have longer memories recall that the general of the Serbian police Vlastimir Djordjevic, the then former head of the department of public safety of the Serbian Interior Ministry, was arrested in Budva on 17 June 2007. He was expressly extradited from Montenegro to the Hague Tribunal for the war crimes in Kosovo and Metohija. He was recently convicted to 18 years in prison, while he was sentenced to 27 years in prison at the first-degree verdict. Nearly three years later, the Montenegrin police arrested Serb Nikola Munjes, by the warrant from Croatia, in Dobra Voda near Bar on 24 May 2010. Namely, the Zupanija court in Zadar declared in March 1995 guilty in absentia Munjes, with Branko Bota (45) and Sava Saric (61) for torturing, as members of the Krajina militia, Croatian residents and physically molesting one person in November 1991, whereby they committed a war crime against civilians. Munjes was sentenced to nine years in prison, Bota and Saric to seven years each. After the arrest, Munjes was extradited to Croatia. The same happened to Stanko Kovacevic from Knin, who was extradited to that country on 17 February 2010, after the arrest in November 2009, also by the Interpol warrant for the alleged war crime. While the witnessed criminal Hashim Thaqi is freely moving in Montenegro, where he also became an honorary citizen of Ulcinj, and former general Agim Ceku, suspected of war crimes against the Serbs in the Medacki dzep, enjoys no less hospitality, the authorities in Montenegro are arresting those pointed at by the provisional authorities in Pristina. Likewise, Miras Misko Gegovic (68) from Djakovica was arrested by UNMIK’s warrant on 19 February this year, over the alleged war crime against the civilian population in Djakovica in 1999.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Cvijanovic to Moore: Referendum in accordance with the Constitution of B&H (Srna)

The Prime Minister of Republika Srpska (RS) Zeljka Cvijanovic stressed today during the talks with the head of the OSCE Mission to B&H Jonathan Moore that by referendum on the Court and the Prosecutor’s Office, as the highest form of democratic expression, the system returns to the Dayton framework, and that is not something that is against B&H Constitution. Cvijanovic pointed out the determination and efforts that the the RS government shows on the European path, adding that the mechanism of coordination is on that path, which takes into account the constitutional responsibilities of the entities, the most important question, reads the press release by the RS government. She reminded that one of the priorities of the RS government is a reform of the educational system in the RS, with an emphasis on the reform of secondary and higher education. At the meeting they also discussed other reform processes in the RS regarding the economy, health system and social protection. Cooperation between the RS government and the OSCE Mission was estimated as very good.

 

Covic: I was not even invited to the celebration of the “Storm” (Vijesti.ba/slobodna-bosna.ba)

I am aware of the relations that we have today, and that’s why I think that the “Storm” and all the other storms that happened in B&H and Croatia must not be the subject of constant speculations. I’m up for leaving that time to the historians, and for turning ourselves to the future, said Dragan Covic, Croatian member of the Presidency of B&H. Covic also commented on Croatian marking the anniversary of the “Storm” and the announcement of Aleksandar Vucic and Milorad Dodik, who said that that day will be a day of mourning in the RS and Serbia. “That is the reality of our surrounding, so we have a minimum of three different perspectives. What is a crime for one, it’s another’s hero. The war should be viewed in that sense. Each victory is for one a day of celebration and for the other one a day of mourning. I am a Croat and a representative of the Croat people and of course I have my own relations in regard to all the events in this region and I’m not hiding it. I am aware of the relations that we have today, and that’s why I think that the ‘Storm’ and all the other storms that happened in B&H and Croatia must not be the subject of constant speculations. I’m up for leaving that time to the historians, and for turning ourselves to the future,” said Covic. Asked whether he will be present at the marking in Zagreb or Knin, he said: “I was not even invited. Now I can say for sure that I will not be present in Zagreb, as for other events, we shall see,” he said.

 

Josipovic: Serb leadership in Croatia did not find a motive for joint celebration of Storm (Oslobodjenje)

Ivo Josipovic, president of the newly founded party Forward Croatia! Progressive Alliance held his first press conference after the party’s founding. He especially commented on the economic situation and security issues connected with the refugee crisis, as well as the 20th anniversary of Operation Storm. Josipovic said that the structural reforms expected from the government have not been implemented, as the public and foreign debt have dramatically grown and many experts foresee a Greek scenario for Croatia, as in the impossibility of debt repayment and a fight for their write-off. He referred to the fact that many countries cancelled their participation in a military parade in Zagreb to mark the 20th anniversary of the military-police action Operation Storm. He said that the government and president had not raised empathy of cooperation in the military parade with their foreign policy. “But this is not a defeat of external, but rather internal policy,” said Josipovic. As he said, Croatia is right to celebrate Operation Storm, but the celebration for several years has not had an integrative function, as at it the hands of reconciliation has not been offered, and as leading representatives of Serb institutions in Croatia have not found a motive to jointly celebrate Croatia’s victory. “Every one of our men won Operation Storm, victorious were democracy and human rights, and with it Croatia established a democratic homeland for all,” said Josipovic. He pointed out that Croatia is facing serious security challenges, saying that a refugee crisis is on the doorstep, and warned of geostrategic changes and the danger of exposure to terrorism. Ivica Pancic, vice president of the party, commented on the problem of immigrants, especially the "thousands and thousands of those who plan to cross the Serbian-Hungarian border, and who after enhanced Hungarian controls will seek other paths.” Pancic said that in the past several weeks, the number of illegal immigrants from Serbia to Croatia has increased several times in comparison to the entire last year. He said that Croatia is threatened by the great number of immigrants from Serbia, Macedonia, and then from Greece, Turkey, and Romania, and the Croatian route crosses to Croatia and Slovenia. "The belief that the border with Serbia is secure and that the Danube will solve everything is false, and it is little known that there are around one thousand kilometers of land borders where all the time smuggled goods and people are running,” said Pancic. He said that immigrants will become a humanitarian, security, and then a political problem. “I wouldn’t share the concerns of some media on the inflow of Islamist jihadists and the like, but it should be known that among all the unhappy people there can be those who have their own other plans,” concluded Pancic.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

The bullies who run Kosovo (politico.eu, by Chuck Sudetic, 21 July 2015)

Hashim Thaçi and the rest of the Kosovar political elite are frustrating investigations into murder, kidnapping, and trafficking in human organs

The Albanians of Kosovo — the Kosovars — revere the United States of America. They also gaze with longing eyes upon their richest near-neighbor, the European Union.

And with good reason. The United States and its European NATO allies, after all, carried out the 1999 bombing campaign that wrenched Kosovo from Serbia, and effectively gave it to the 1.7 million Kosovars who comprise about 93 percent of the country’s population. The U.S. and EU member-states delivered the diplomatic clout that resulted in the Republic of Kosovo’s recognition as an independent state by over 100 countries. They have also, along with American and European NGOs, given the Kosovars impressive amounts of financial, legal, and economic assistance. Now the Kosovars are seeking a lifting of EU visa restrictions, which would allow them to travel freely in Europe, as well as the conclusion of a Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU, which would set their country on course for EU membership. Given the support Kosovo has received, and the warmth ordinary Kosovars hold in their hearts for Washington and Brussels, any Kosovar leader who jeopardizes the country’s relationship with the U.S. or who acts in ways that retard or halt Kosovo’s integration with Europe is clearly risking a sharp political or popular backlash, or worse. And yet, according to diplomats who have worked in the Balkans for decades but who spoke only with assurances that they would remain anonymous, the Kosovo Albanians’ most-powerful leaders are on the brink of inflicting unprecedented damage on Kosovo’s relations with the U.S. and the EU. The foremost of these individuals, the diplomats said, is Hashim Thaçi, Kosovo’s former prime minister, now its foreign minister and deputy PM. He is the country’s most-powerful public figure.

* * *

Thaçi and other members of Kosovo’s political elite who have been named in Western intelligence reports as organized-crime figures are, the diplomats say, sacrificing the best interests of the Republic of Kosovo and the Kosovars in order to protect themselves from criminal prosecution. They are doing so by defying efforts by Washington and Brussels to establish a special court to undertake prosecutions stemming from allegations that Thaçi and other commanders and soldiers of the Kosovo Albanian insurgency — the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) — were involved in about 400 cases of kidnapping, forced displacement, illegal imprisonment, and murder after NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999. These Kosovar leaders, the diplomats say, have effectively plied their influence to prevent Kosovo’s parliament from passing a legislative package, including constitutional amendments, that would allow for the special court’s establishment. “If this doesn’t pass, United States relations with this Kosovo government and future Kosovo governments will deteriorate,” said one Western diplomat, referring to the legislative package on the court. “The United States wants to demonstrate the depth of its commitment to have these allegations heard in a credible process.” Any such deterioration would mark a sea change in a friendly relationship that began more than a quarter-century ago, when Serbia’s strongman, Slobodan Milošević, rose to power and resorted to wholesale violence to quash Kosovo’s autonomy within the former socialist Yugoslavia’s Republic of Serbia. “We are all speaking with the same voice, including all the visitors who come from Brussels to discuss changes to the visa regulations and the Stabilization and Association Agreement,” said another diplomat who has represented his European country in Kosovo for years.

A U.S. warning

The victims of the alleged kidnappings and murders in 1999 and 2000 were mostly members of Kosovo’s Serb, Roma, and other minority groups; but these victims also included a significant number of Albanians who were fingered as Serb “collaborators” or who ran afoul of the KLA’s commanders in other ways. Investigators have accumulated evidence showing that several of the murders were linked with the sale for profit of their victims’ organs, but are still working to amass sufficient evidence to bring indictments against individuals suspected of being involved.

European Union officials as well as diplomats from the U.S. and EU member-states said the special court stands to benefit Kosovo’s people, because it will at the very least clear the air of the allegations hanging over dominant members of the government. The court, the diplomats added, might also contribute to a desperately needed cleansing of corrupt officials whose activities stifle the growth of Kosovo’s economy. The special court would nominally be located in Kosovo and would operate under Kosovo’s own laws. But the court would have foreign prosecutors, judges, and staff and conduct its trials outside Kosovo. Holding such proceedings in the country would expose court officials and, more critically, prospective witnesses and their family members, to violence and intimidation. Gangland killings and intimidation of diplomats are hardly unusual in Kosovo; and the Kosovars’ traditional practice of blood vengeance, which demands retaliation even against family members of a violator, still trumps Western-style rule of law. The latest U.S. warning to Thaçi and other members of Kosovo’s government and assembly came on July 12, when a senior State Department official vigorously urged Kosovar leaders to effect the constitutional changes by August 1. During a series of heated meetings in the country’s capital, Priština, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland informed Kosovar leaders, including Thaçi and another former KLA commander and former prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, that a failure to meet the deadline would result in “consequences” she did not specify, said a Kosovo-based source who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the risks entailed in divulging such information.

* * *

Diplomats and officials from the U.S. and the European Union states have repeatedly informed Kosovar leaders that, if they fail to see to the adoption of the amendments, the U.S. would neither veto nor otherwise block the establishment, by the United Nations Security Council, of a special UN criminal court to hear the cases. Placing the criminal cases under the jurisdiction of the UN — something Russia has demanded for years — could endanger the Republic of Kosovo’s international standing. It would create an opening for Serbia, which is close to Vladimir Putin’s Russia and has never surrendered sovereignty over Kosovo, to frustrate Kosovo’s wider acceptance as a sovereign state. Kosovo has yet to secure UN membership: Russia and China, permanent members of the Security Council, refuse to recognize its independence. Five EU member-states—Slovakia, Romania, Greece, Cyprus and Spain, with separatist fears of their own—also refuse to recognize the country.

Thaçi is behaving like a caged animal” — an international official in Priština

Despite these warnings and despite explicit and repeated assurances by Kosovar leaders that the required constitutional changes would pass, Kosovo’s assembly thumbed its nose at the U.S. and EU on June 26 by voting down the amendments. Thaçi — who for years was the go-to guy in Kosovo for American, European, and UN officials — has religiously expressed public support for the special court and claims to be pressuring recalcitrant deputies in his own party to vote for the amendments. It’s one thing to say he supports the court, but the fact is he’s the one man in Priština who can make it happen, and it hasn’t. Western diplomats speculate that his outward support is political theater and that Thaçi is working behind the scenes — intimidating members of his own political party — to delay the court’s establishment for as long as possible. Is this, diplomats wonder, because he fears being indicted? Delaying the court’s formation would — through the further loss by attrition of witnesses to crimes committed 16 years ago — weaken the evidence a prosecutor might bring against him and other potential accused. “Thaçi is behaving like a caged animal,” said a senior representative in Priština for a major international organization. “Kosovo’s people would be happy to be rid of him, but they don’t know how to be rid of him. Thaçi controls the government and economic life. There is no chance for new, young leaders to emerge. There is no hope for new businesses to succeed.” A significant number of opposition members of Kosovo’s assembly, including members of Haradinaj’s AAK party, voted against the amendments. Western diplomats in Priština question whether these assembly members, like Thaçi, fear being arrested, tried, and sentenced to lengthy jail terms. Since decisive nay votes on the constitutional measures are coming from both Thaçi’s PDK party, which dominates the Kosovo’s present government, and from opposition parties, diplomats said that a resulting deterioration in Kosovo’s relations with the U.S. would affect future Kosovo governments of any party until such time as the court is established. A former Western diplomat, who worked for years in Priština, said the U.S. would clearly not turn its back on Kosovo entirely or abandon efforts to strengthen rule of law in the country. But Washington would likely stop encouraging American and other Western investors to do business in Kosovo and might cease advocating for the country’s recognition by other states and for Kosovo’s further integration into the European Union. “I do not count on the assembly passing the constitutional amendments,” the former diplomat said. “Thaçi announced that he will not bring the measure to the assembly unless he is sure that he has the votes for it to pass. This effectively means that he does not have the votes, or doesn’t want to have the votes.” “I don’t rule out Thaçi finding some excuse to kick it down the road,” the former diplomat continued, speculating that there might be an attempt to delay further the special court’s formation by referring the matter to Kosovo’s constitutional court. Some Western diplomats and analysts from international organizations say that recent armed clashes between KLA “separatists” and special police in Macedonia, as well as a sudden, surprising surge in the number of illegal Kosovar migrants delivered by people smugglers to Hungary’s border with Serbia in February might have been warnings from Kosovo’s underworld leaders to the EU of what the havoc they can cause the EU if Brussels does not back off on the court issue.

* * *

Assertions that KLA leaders were involved in a spate of kidnappings and murders and other grave crimes after the NATO bombing campaign in 1999 were first aired in 2008 with the publication in Italy of “La Caccia,” the memoirs of the former UN war crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, which I co-authored. At Russia’s behest, the Council of Europe, in 2009, launched an investigation under Dick Marty — a former state prosecutor from Switzerland and a member of the Council’s Parliamentary Assembly — to examine the assertions made in La Caccia. Marty’s report named Thaçi as the leader of organized criminal enterprises that flourished in Kosovo and Albania from 1999, and implicated him in kidnappings, murders, and organ-trafficking operations that claimed the lives of Serbs, Roma, Albanians, and persons from other ethnic groups, some of whom were abducted in Kosovo, transported across the border to secret detention camps in Albania, and eventually killed. After Marty released his findings, the U.S. and the EU organized, under EU auspices, a special criminal-investigation unit to develop evidence and decide whether there were sufficient grounds to press criminal charges. In July 2014, the special investigation’s chief prosecutor, Clint Williamson — a former United States ambassador-at-large for war crimes and one of the drafters of the criminal indictment against Milošević by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague — announced that his team had procured enough evidence to support indictments against senior KLA members. The charges Williamson listed included unlawful killing, abduction, illegal detention, sexual violence, forced displacement of individuals from their homes and communities, and the desecration and destruction of religious sites. “The evidence is compelling that these crimes were not the acts of rogue individuals acting on their own accord, but rather that they were conducted in an organized fashion and were sanctioned by certain individuals in the top levels of the KLA leadership,” Mr. Williamson wrote in a statement outlining the investigation’s results. The evidence and detailed findings are sealed until a court is established to hear the cases.

Mogherini, Clinton write Thaçi

Western diplomats, including individuals at ambassadorial level, have said that Thaçi has engaged high-price foreign legal advisers and lobbyists, who have informed him that the push for establishment of the court has been the work of “low-ranking” individuals in the State Department and did not have the backing of officials in the department’s top offices.

The United States and European countries knew 10 years ago that Thaçi and his men were engaged in drug smuggling and creating a mafia state” — a European ambassador

Yet the prosecution effort has had the public support of Lady Catherine Ashton of the United Kingdom, until late 2014 the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy; her present successor, Federica Mogherini of Italy; the former U.S. secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, now a front-running candidate for president; and a staunch supporter of Kosovo’s independence, Vice President Joseph Biden, who wrote a letter to Thaçi exhorting him to cooperate with the investigation. According to Council of Europe investigator Marty’s findings, European intelligence agencies were reporting in the mid-2000s that Thaçi and his allies were exploiting their position in Kosovo’s government and, by 2010, had amassed personal wealth totally out of proportion to their declared employment. “The sad thing is that the United States and European countries knew 10 years ago that Thaçi and his men were engaged in drug smuggling and creating a mafia state,” said a European ambassador who has followed the Balkans for decades. “The attitude was, ‘He’s a bastard, but he’s our bastard.’” Thaçi has for years vehemently denied any involvement in organized crime and corruption. He has scoffed at the allegations made against him in the findings of the Council of Europe’s investigation, which, he said, besmirched the Kosovo Liberation Army and the memory of those fighters who gave their lives for Kosovo’s independence. In late 2010, the press in Kosovo reported that Thaçi had threatened to name publicly every Albanian who assisted Marty in his investigation. In May 2015, Thaçi voiced his support for the special court before the United Nations Security Council, telling the body that Kosovo’s government would back its establishment. “We believe most of the charges are groundless,” Thaci said. Westerners who have met Thaçi during recent weeks say he appeared to be cool and comfortable while discussing the special court issue, and even seemed unpleasantly surprised that the Kosovo assembly voted down the measure on July 26. Albanian observers and Western diplomats say Thaçi is now attempting to demonstrate his value to the West as, among other things, an ally in the fight against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Another former ambassador from a Western European country said the corruption and organized crime activities in Kosovo include transportation of illicit drugs, people smuggling, smuggling of goods, trafficking of women for prostitution, money-laundering, organ-trafficking, and running protection rackets. He added that the Kosovo’s Albanian underworld works together with criminal gangs in Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Albania, and other countries. Kosovo’s Albanian underworld has allegedly succeeded in corrupting even members of the large European Union rule of law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, which Brussels established to investigate and prosecute cases involving corruption, malfeasance, and organized crime.

Chuck Sudetic has followed the former Yugoslavia and its successor states for more than three decades and covered the Yugoslav wars from 1990 to 1995 for The New York Times. His latest book is “Dubrovnik: In Recountings true and exact…”.

 

Bosnia’s Back in the Boiler (Sputnik, by Andrew Korybko, 21 July 2015)

Three separate pressure points in the country are threatening to convene into a major source of destabilization sometime in the near future.

Bosnia is back in the spotlight as the source of Balkan instability, with three serious issues cropping up in the country in just the past two weeks.

Anti-Serb sentiment reared its ugly head when a vicious mob attempted to stone the Serbian Prime Minister to death during his commemorative appearance at a Srebrenica memorial.

Then, in reaction to the proposed creation of a Court and Prosecutor’s office that would have illegal jurisdiction over the entire country (violating the Dayton Agreement that ended the civil war), the autonomous Republika Srpska announced that it will hold a referendum on the issue, which drew extremely hysterical rebukes from the rest of Bosnia and the West.

Finally, just this Sunday, a UK newspaper revealed what many had long suspected, and it’s that ISIL may have finally set up base inside the strategically located country.

Although appearing to be three separate issues, all of these flashpoints have the distinct and real possibility of merging together (as Balkan crises quite often do), and interestingly enough, certain outside forces might nudge events along this scenario in order to promote their geopolitical goals over the region.

Recipe For Disaster

Let’s look a bit more in detail at the individual parts of this larger problem:

Vucic Assassination:

The Serbian Prime Minister was almost pelted to death with stones while paying his respects at Srebrenica, the site of a tragic event that Serbs regard as a crime and not “genocide”.

In fact, just immediately prior to the assassination attempt, Russia vetoed a UK-sponsored UNSC resolution to recognize the event as such. It stated that the document’s clear political motivation in labelling the events “genocide” unevenly attributed blame to the Serbs, would have incited more ethnic hatred, and could have aggravated regional tensions. Sadly, Russia’s valiant effort didn’t preemptively quell the forthcoming violence, since according to Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik, former Balkan warlord and wanted war criminal in Serbia, Nasir Oric, disguised himself in the crowd that day and incited the masses to riot, which led to them trying to kill Vucic.

Republica Srpska Referendum:

The fragile two-decade-long peace in Bosnia is held together by the extraordinarily complex and generally unworkable Dayton Agreement agreed to by all sides in 1995. It places a foreigner in control of the country’s most important position, the Office of the High Representative (OHR), while creating a mangled ‘power-sharing’ apparatus for the citizens themselves.

The specific composition of the two chambers of parliament and the tripartite, rotating presidency invites a lot of discussion but discourages any real decisions from being made. While the country’s two constituent entities (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska) are nominally autonomous, there’s been an overall trend towards Sarajevo and the OHR overstepping their authority over the Serbs, ergo the current crisis. Republika Srpska asserts that the Dayton Agreement doesn’t give the OHR the right to create a nationwide court system, let alone one that it feels will be institutionally biased against Serbs.

In response, its National Assembly has agreed to hold a referendum, but this has led to frenzied rhetorical attacks that President Dodik is trying to break apart Bosnia. In reality, the country’s other forces and the OHR have been trying to push the republic into this position for quite a long time in order to justify possible punitive measures against it. They’ve never gotten comfortable with the idea of Serbian autonomy, and they especially fear Dodik’s recent outreaches to Russia (he attended the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum last month). It’s for these reasons that Nuland strongly alluded to Republika Srprksa in declaring that “it is unconscionable that the unity of the state is still publicly questioned” and implicitly blamed it for Bosnia’s failure to formally join Euro-Atlantic structures.

ISIL:

Bosnia has been a hotbed of Islamic militancy and a destination for foreign terrorists since the beginning of its civil war in the 1990s, but with the rise of ISIL, it looks to have once more reverted back to its notorious role as the jihadi gateway to Europe. Even before ISIL’s propaganda video extolling the ‘virtues’ of Balkan jihad, a terrorist targeted the town of Zvornik in Republika Srpska in late April, screaming “Allahu akbar” before shooting three police officers and getting killed as a result. With Bosnian intelligence revealing that 150 of its citizens have already joined ISIL (and 50 of them having returned back to the country), it shouldn’t be surprising that the terrorist group’s flags were reportedly flown in a small village like Gornja Maoca (controlled by radical Wahhabists) or that the British just reported on the existence of a base in Osve, both of which coincidentally abut the Republika Srpska border. Complicating the threat even further, some fear that the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants (some of whom are legitimate refugees) that have flooded the region since the beginning of the year might have created a ‘humanitarian cover’ for terrorists to exploit in infiltrating the region, making many nervously wonder whether Gornja Maoca and Osve are just the tip of the iceberg.

Explosive Combination

These three destabilizing factors – anti-Serbian sentiment, Sarajevo’s constitutional oversteps, and ISIL’s covert growth – dangerously risk combining into an explosive mix sometime in the coming months. While it’s impossible to predict the future, one can in fact make an educated forecast about where certain indicators are headed, and in this case, it’s fairly troubling.

Republika Srpska’s expression of constitutional autonomy is ruffling feathers all throughout the federation, and if a compromise isn’t reached, the planned referendum will surely be held. All the while, anti-Serbian rhetoric and political scare tactics are being used in a coordinated effort to paint Banja Luka as Bosnia’s bad guy, a one-sided view which is being disseminated by both Victoria Nuland and now Federica Mogherini. Remembering how anti-Serbian sentiment was quickly channeled into an assassination attempt against the visiting Prime Minister in Srebrenica, it’s logical to conclude that a similar, more professional stoking of ethnic hatred over a longer period of time could produce a more widespread and violent effect in all of Republika Srpska against all Serbs. Add in the ISIL factor and its two sympathizer bases right next to Republika Srpska (plus the Islamic terrorist attack in Zvornik), and it’s foreseeable that an anti-Serbian terrorist war might break out right around the time of the planned referendum.

Who’s Poisoning The Well?

But who would want to break Bosnia apart? Most likely the same forces that wanted to tear Ukraine apart in order to drag neighboring Russia into the fray. These actors identify Republika Srprska as being ‘Serbia’s Donbass’, in that there’s deep ethnic, cultural, and historical bonds linking the two entities despite the international border between them. If they can tempt Serbia into an intended quagmire by using dead Serbs as ‘bait’ (as they failed to do with dead Russians in Donbass), then they could destabilize the whole country and stop it from becoming Balkan Stream’s continental hub. As with most wars then, a forthcoming one in Bosnia would be truly about energy geopolitics.