LOCAL PRESS

 

Brussels, preparations for the Vucic-Mustafa meeting (RTS’ correspondent in Brussels)

It has been announced in Brussels that the EU is preparing for next week the meeting between Belgrade and Pristina at the premier level. However, Pristina keeps repeating that Kosovo Prime Minister Isa Mustafa will not take part in the dialogue until there is no progress in the visa liberalization. Following yesterday’s meeting of the working groups in Brussels, Marko Djuric says that Belgrade is ready to continue the dialogue and that it will not allow the revision of the agreed. On the eve of the announced meeting at the premier level, Belgrade and Pristina have continued the technical dialogue with talks on the formation of the Community of Serb Municipalities (ZSO), freedom of movement, recognition of diplomas. Belgrade is ready to implement the agreed completely, says Djuric, but it will not accept the revision of the agreement on the ZSO. “We expect that the parts of the agreement that are important for us will be implement completely and a clear message that we will not accept the revision or changing again what we the prime ministers agreed in Brussels on 25 August,” says Djuric. Even though there is no official confirmation of the date of the meeting between Vucic and Mustafa, the EEAS expects the two prime ministers at their first meeting in this year on 27 January. “Preparations for the next meeting at the premier level are underway. The meeting should be held at the end of this month. We are doing everything for a well-prepared meeting since normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina is important for both sides and the EU, thus, works are underway,” says the EU High Representative spokesperson Maja Kocijancic. EU sources state that Brussels sees the visa-free regime as two separate processes that should not be linked. Despite that, neither Brussels representatives nor the Djuric could confirm whether the meeting was certain. “It is certain that Serbia respects agreements, that Serbia is not changing agreements and fulfills its promises. It is certain that Prime Minister Vucic and the Serbian government are adhering to each word that had been agreed,” says Djuric. The Belgrade and Pristina working groups will discuss today the implementation of agreements.

 

UN and EU headquarters examining future model of international presence in the province (Novosti)

Unofficial information that New York is preparing a plan, according to which UNMIK will receive broader jurisdictions in Kosovo, has caused real confusion in Pristina. Neither EULEX nor UNMIK could confirm the news. “I do not have such information and I cannot comment on it,” Dragana Nikolic Solomon from the EULEX press service told Novosti. She confirmed that EULEX’s mandate in Kosovo will expire in June. “It will be on the EU member states to decide whether the work of the mission will be extended and in what format.” UNMIK spokesperson Sarah Crozier tells Novosti that there are no changes in this mission or its mandate. “Underway are budget processes that are not linked with the future work of EULEX, which is exclusively an issue, dealt by EU institutions.”

 

Tadic and Jovanovic want cooperation only with DS; Vucic without comment on opposition uniting (Danas)

The leader of the Social-Democratic Party (SDS) Boris Tadic and the leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) Cedomir Jovanovic are ready to cooperate only with the DS and call on the Democratic Party (DS) to join the alliance of these two parties, Danas has learned from sources that participated at yesterday’s meeting of the representatives of pro-European parties and movements, organized at the invitation of the DS leader Bojan Pajtic.

Asked by a journalist how he comments the announcements on the opposition uniting, Prime Minister Vucic says that he doesn’t comment intentions for them uniting or disuniting. “I will get back to this topic in 45 days, and then in 80 days,” Vucic said during the opening of the bridge in Ostrucznica. He said he wouldn’t be in the election campaign longer than 10 days and that he wasn’t thinking to hold elections in Belgrade, since the local elections will be held in nearly all Belgrade municipalities.

Opposition: We are not closer to an agreement (RTS/Tanjug)

Five parties – the SDS, LDP, the League of Social-Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV), led by Nenad Canak, the People’s Movement of Serbia (NPS), led by Miroslav Aleksic, and the Greens of Serbia (ZS) have voiced regret that the opposition representatives have remained at the initial positions. “We are not any closer to agreement than what we had been before this meeting. The ideas of the opposition representatives who were present are clearer following the meeting, but unfortunately, we are not any closer to agreement than what we had been before this meeting,” reads the joint statement of these parties.

 

Popovic with SNS? (Novosti)

Novosti has learned that the Serbian People’s Party (SNP) led by Nenad Popovic will most probably join the pre-election coalition led by the SNS. The leader of the this Euro-skeptic party that advocates stronger cooperation with Russia, as well as protection of borders over migrants, has allegedly already talked with Vucic.

 

Mihajlovic: Referendum in RS doesn’t suit Serbia at all (Danas)

“Holding a referendum in the Republika Srpska doesn’t suit Serbia at all, Serbian Deputy President Zorana Mihajlovic told Danas in an interview. She gives the reason for such a stand that the announced referendum would disrupt stability in the region about which Serbia cares a great deal, and because of which the realization of the RS President Milorad Dodik’s intention “would not suit her at all”. “That is why Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has asked President Dodik to think through the holding of the referendum, while Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic also opposed the referendum,” Mihajlovic told Danas. “Serbia is the guarantor of the Dayton Agreement based on which we have special ties with the RS. We demonstrated how much Serbia respects the RS and our people who live there on 9 January when almost the entire Serbian government gathered for the celebration of the RS Day,” says Mihajlovic. In the context of the fact that the election wave could seize the region (Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro) in the spring, and in the context of Dodik’s intention to hold a referendum in the RS, Mihajlovic tells Danas, in response to the question on whether this could shake additionally stability and security: “A politically strong and stable Serbia will be able to resist all security challenges in the region, but also to secure peace and safety to all of its citizens.”

 

Vukadinovic: Elections as referendum on “Belgrade Waterfront” (Beta)

Political analyst Djordje Vukadinovic has stated that early elections could be seen as a kind of referendum on the “Belgrade Waterfront”. He says that even though neither Belgrade nor Serbia needs elections, they would make sense precisely in the capital. “In my opinion, early elections are not necessary in Serbia, so in this sense they are not necessary in Belgrade as well, since they took place two years ago. All arguments that are valid against early elections are also valid against early elections at the Belgrade level,” said Vukadinovic. Citing arguments against elections, Vukadinovic says the government is stable, and that the opposition is thin and marginalized. “One could even say that the opposition in Belgrade is slightly stronger, than in the rest of Serbia. In that sense, one could say that elections in Belgrade would make more sense, since the opposition is stronger and in Belgrade there is this big controversy called the ‘Belgrade Waterfront’. In that sense Belgrade elections would be some kind of referendum on this project,” said Vukadinovic.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Mektic: I started the procedure for the suspension of Dautbasic (N1)

Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) Minister of Security, Dragan Mektic, confirmed for the TVN1, that the Secretary of a Ministry, Bakir Dautbasic, who is in custody on suspicion of witness tampering, will be suspended. Azra Saric is a witness in the case against Naser Kelmendi. According to Mektic, after he received the documents from the B&H Prosecutor’s Office, he initiated proceedings for the suspension, as well as disciplinary action against Dautbasic. As a reminder, Dautbasic was arrested in the police action titled “Akcija Lutka 2” together with Bilsen Sahman on suspicion of committing the criminal offense of Obstruction of Justice in the case against Naser Kelmendi. The Court of B&H, after the hearing and submitted evidence, ordered one month detention for Dautbasic and Sahman.

 

DF asks for Novalic’s resignation (Nezavisne)

“Following the decision of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FB&H) Constitutional Court regarding the regulation for the appointment of management and supervisory boards in the public companies, which was transferred from the FB&H ministries to the government, as not in accordance with the Constitution, we call on the Prime Minister, Fadil Novalic, to resign”, stated Dzenan Djonlagic, Vice President of DF, the party who had to leave the government after they clashed with their, at the time, coalition partners SDA and HDZ. The clash was caused exactly regarding this issue, the DF defending the position that the right for the appointment of the management structures belongs to the ministries. The DF was than outvote, its ministers left the Government and from that moment the process of expulsion of DF’s representatives from all government institutions at all levels began, which was recently completed with SBB’s entry in to the Council of Ministers. FB&H Vice-President, Milan Dunovic (DF), said that he is satisfied with the court’s decision, while the representatives of the SDA have not been available for a comment.

 

Covic with EU ambassadors: Strong support for the European future of B&H (Oslobodjenje)

B&H Presidency Chairman, Dragan Covic, met yesterday with EU ambassadors who once again highlighted the strong support for B&H and its European future. The main topic of discussion was the B&H application for EU membership, which is, as concluded, a very important step for the continuation of European integration process, stated the B&H Presidency. The meeting was attended by the Head of the EU Delegation to B&H Lars-Gunnar Wigemark, British Ambassador Edward Ferguson, the German Ambassador Christian Helbach, Ambassador of Italy Ruggero Corrias and Chargé d’affaires of the Embassy of France in B&H Catherine Weber.

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Police in Sarajevo arrested a man carrying a bomb (Bosna danas)

Sarajevo police officers arrested in Soukbunar a man whose initials are S.H. who threatened to detonate a bomb, stated the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Canton Sarajevo. Incident took place around 2 p.m. Police patrols were sent to the scene immediately upon receiving reports about what was going on. According to media reports, man was walking down the street with the bomb in his hand. After police arrived, he barricaded himself inside a building and threatened to activate the bomb. He was soon arrested.​

 

SDSM leader: Will Decide on Our Next Move in Coming Days (MNA)

SDSM head Zoran Zaev reiterated his party’s position in his statement to the media given on Tuesday that it will not run at elections without an agreement on the regulation of the media sphere and without a revised electoral roll. He added that the SDSM structures and the joint opposition will present their decision on taking part in the transitional government and their next steps in the coming days. Zaev also called for a mutual platform of the opposition parties that would work ‘to save Macedonia’. According to Zaev, the State Election Commission is the unique authority that has the competence to confirm the revised electoral roll, which is a prerequisite for holding regular elections. “The lawmaker envisaged 85 days for the revision of the electoral roll. As of today, until March 5, when the electoral roll should be re-examined and to be presented to the public, there are 45 days,” Zaev said.

 

Opposition consulting on joint action (RTCG)

Members of the parliamentary working group for parliamentary dialogue for preparation of elections are meeting today with representatives of the Agency for prevention of corruption. According to the media reports, the leaders of the opposition parties represented in the parliament should meet this week to agree on a joint reaction to a possible voting for confidence in the government. The opposition has not yet officially confirmed this information. The Demos says to Radio Antena M that it maintains its previous position not to reveal its further actions until the outcome of the vote is known, after which they would react appropriately. Neven Gosovic, who represents the Democrats in the Working Group, has told Radio Antena M that it is certain that group will work by the 25 January. Nedjeljko Rudovic from the Civic Movement URA told Radio Antena M that there have only been informal talks on the joint reaction of the opposition to the eventual vote of confidence to the government.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Can the New Kosovo Court Keep Witnesses Safe? (BIRN, by Marija Ristic, 20 January 2016)

Courts have repeatedly failed to safeguard Kosovo war crimes witnesses from threats and violence - now the new Hague-based special court must protect those who testify against powerful defendants.

“I have been called a traitor, an embarrassment to the nation, garbage,” recalled a former Kosovo Liberation Army fighter who made the decision to become a protected witness and speak out about what he described as the “horrors of the Kosovo war”. But the protection he was given could not shield him. He told investigators that everyone soon found out who the man behind the glass in the Pristina courtroom really was. And after that, he said, “the hell began”. “They threatened my family, my brother, my mother… My family started receiving phone calls from unknown persons. They threatened that they would hurt my family if I continued testifying,” he said. In the past 16 years since the Kosovo war ended, similar stories have been heard from numerous witnesses who dared to give evidence about the conflict which saw more than 11,000 people killed and hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians expelled. Both sides saw their fight as justified - Serbs saw the Kosovo Liberation Army as a terrorist group that wanted to seize their holy land, while Kosovo Albanians saw Belgrade’s rule as repressive. Anyone who dared to speak out about abuses committed by their own forces was seen as a traitor to their community. As a result, only few became witnesses in war crime trials, and for them, in most of the cases, it was a troubling experience. Ensuring safety for protected witnesses testifying about the crimes committed during the Kosovo war has been a problems for all the institutions that were involved in the prosecution of these crimes – the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, the EU rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, and national courts in Serbia and Kosovo. Witness protection will be also the toughest task for the newly-established EU-backed tribunal that aims to prosecute crimes committed by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army against ethnic minorities and political opponents. Last Friday, the Dutch government announced it will host what is being called the Kosovo Relocated Specialist Judicial Institution. The court, which will start operating this year, will also have a seat in Kosovo, and will be made up of international judges and prosecutors, but will operate under Kosovo law. According to many observers, one of the main reasons why the court will have some of its sessions outside Kosovo is the failure of all previous international missions and the Kosovo government itself to protect witnesses.

No security, no trust

The new court represents the fourth attempt by the international community to prosecute war crimes and other criminal offences related to wartime and post-war violations in Kosovo.

The UN backed tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the ICTY, prosecuted five cases related to the Kosovo war. In the dock were officials from both the Serbian side and the KLA. According to former ICTY prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte “the investigation of the Kosovo Liberation Army fighters appeared to be the most frustrating of all the investigations done by the ICTY”. Del Ponte was the first to openly speak out about the witness intimidation problems that she and her team faced in these cases. In her book Madame Prosecutor, published in 2009, she wrote that “witnesses were so afraid and intimidated that they even feared to talk about the KLA presence in some areas, not to mention actual crimes”. “Those willing to testify had to be transferred to other countries with their entire families and many states were not willing to accept them,” Del Ponte said. After the war in 1999, Kosovo didn’t have a police force and the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) and UNMIK missions couldn’t manage to ensure security. “I am convinced that UNMIK and even KFOR officers were afraid for their lives and the lives of their missions’ members. I think some of the ICTY judges were afraid that they would become a target for the Albanians,” Del Ponte wrote. In her memoirs, as well as in her many reports to the UN Security Council, Del Ponte said that she believes the intimidation of witnesses seriously affected the verdicts in the cases against senior KLA officials Fatmir Limaj and Ramush Haradinaj - both of whom were acquitted. Numerous witnesses changed testimonies during the trials, while others mysteriously disappeared or were killed. At the same time, according to Del Ponte, serious abuses of witnesses in local criminal proceedings in Kosovo also took place. In 2002 a bomb was put under a car of a protected witness; a year later, witness Tahir Zemaj was murdered in the town of Pec/Peja after testifying at the trial of a senior KLA official, while two other witnesses at the same trial, Sadik Musaj and Ilir Selamaj, were also killed. Jelle Janssens, the Belgian author of the book State-Building in Kosovo, says that following the 1999 conflict, a security gap was created. UNMIK, which was in control on paper, demonstrated “the inability of the international community to provide public safety and security”, Janssens told BIRN. “The fear of political instability and violence against international personnel and the need for stability to run the territory, was an obstacle to investigate and prosecute the high and mighty in Kosovo,” he said. “In these circumstances, where there was little trust in the capabilities of the international community to successfully investigate and prosecute high-profile cases and keeping people safe, people were reluctant to cooperate with the police,” he added. According to Janssens, it has been reported that judges and prosecutors were terrified every time the name of a high-ranking former KLA officer or politician was mentioned in case files. Some UNMIK personnel considered former KLA officials as keys to stability in Kosovo, like Soren Jessen Petersen, the former head of UNMIK. In 2005, Petersen supported Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj’s request for temporary release from the ICTY in order to carry on his political career until the start of his war crimes trial, despite prosecution fears that he could pose a danger to witnesses. During Petersen’s years as head of UNMIK from 2004 until 2006, ICTY prosecutors even accused his mission of not providing sufficient documents and cooperation for prosecutions. Del Ponte also alleged that UNMIK even leaked sensitive information about witnesses to war crimes defendants. UNMIK denied the allegations, but its chiefs later admitted that some of the investigations into high-level perpetrators were stopped for political reasons.

The EU inherits the problem

The UNMIK mission came under harsh criticism for years, especially after failing to maintain the peace amid several outbreaks of violent unrest that left many dead. The ICTY finally finished its investigations in Kosovo, but many cases of war crimes remained to be prosecuted. In 2008, the international community decided to give this troubling task to a new mission, this time run by the EU. The EU rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, had a difficult task - on one side, it had to gain trust from the locals, and on the other to be independent from the powerful elite which had run Kosovo since the war, under the shadow of the alleged crimes that they committed during 1999 and afterwards. Although many question the achievements of the EU mission, whose mandate expires in 2016, it had a better record when it comes to war crimes prosecutions than its predecessors. “When I conducted my field research, EULEX ran a witness protection programme. As far as I could tell and based on a number of interviews with people running that programme, it was working. EULEX officials took the programme very seriously and built in several safeguards,” Janssen said. “But I imagine that no programme is completely bulletproof: the EULEX witness protection programme took a blow when the main witness in the Klecka case committed suicide in Germany in September 2011,” he added. The Klecka case saw guerrilla commander turned politician Fatmir Limaj and nine other ex-fighters accused of brutal abuses at a KLA detention centre. The indictment was mainly based on the secret diaries and testimony of an official at the Klecka prison, Agim Zogaj, known as ‘Witness X’, a former ally of Limaj who provided information about the murders of some of the prisoners held there.

After Zogaj died, the official investigation showed that he committed suicide, but his death created fear among other potential witnesses. Witnesses suddenly started changing testimonies - claiming their original statements were doctored or not properly translated, or that they didn’t get to check what had been written in their name. Charles Hardaway, one of the leading EULEX prosecutors in the case against members of the KLA’s so-called Drenica group, who were convicted of war crimes last year, told BIRN that intimidation remained a serious issue in Kosovo. “The fundamental challenge in this case dealt with possible witness intimidation and dealing with whom we were dealing with, intimidation is the real issue, not just in this case, but in the other high-profile cases,” Hardaway told BIRN last year. “Gaining the confidence of the witnesses to assure them that they can come forward, that we can provide protective measures, that they can tell their story, that they can be heard, was the most difficult thing for us,” he added. In some cases, names of protected witnesses were even revealed on social media, including Facebook, but the Kosovo authorities have so far failed to prosecute anyone for this.

‘Traitors’ and a vengeful elite

“It takes a lot of courage to agree to become a witness, no matter where the court is located. The ICTY trials amply demonstrated that having an international court sitting abroad does not solve the witness protection problem,” Andrea Lorenzo Capussela, author of the book State-Building in Kosovo: Democracy, Corruption and the EU in the Balkans, told BIRN. Capussela said that witnesses have faced the risk of intimidation and retribution by groups like SHIK, the Kosovo security agency which was operating until 2008, and was held responsible for numerous political murders. “To protect them effectively one has to permanently move them, and their families, out of Kosovo. And even that may not be enough, as the case of the Klecka witness suggests,” he said. According to BIRN’s sources, several witnesses who are expected to testify in front of the new special court have already been moved out of Kosovo to other countries for security reasons.

According to Joao Sousa, spokesperson for the EU’s Special Investigative Task Force, which probed allegations of wrongdoing by KLA fighters and will take over the prosecutions at the new court in the upcoming months, witness protection is “of utmost concern for us and our highest priority”. “We are working with everyone we need to work with to ensure we have measures in place to protect our witnesses before, during and after trial,” Sousa told BIRN. Janssens argues that there are two main threats to successful witness protection system in Kosovo - the small size of the country and the close links that families have with each other. “The reason why the size of Kosovo is important is because law enforcement officials see little opportunities in Kosovo to relocate witnesses. You might give someone a new identity, but the risk of being seen and recognised by someone travelling from one region to another (from Peja to Prizren for example) can be quite high considering the size of Kosovo,” he said. “You do not have to travel hours or even take an airplane to get from one end of Kosovo to the other. Moreover, law enforcement officials have a feeling that Kosovo is dotted with close-knit communities. It is difficult to relocate somebody and give him/her a new identity. This is also the reason why the international community sends important witnesses abroad,” he added. According to a study published last September by the Pristina-based Centre for Research, Documentation and Publication NGO, witnesses face the risk of becoming outcasts within Kosovo society. “Many potential witnesses in Kosovo claim they will be perceived as traitors if they testify, especially in cases related to war crimes, and this can be attributed to the Albanian perception before the period of armed conflict that collaborators with the government (then Serbian) were traitors,” the study said. Another major reason for not testifying is the fear of retribution. According to Capussela, the source of the problem is “the witness intimidation machine controlled by the criminal segment of Kosovo’s elite”. “Witnesses are not in danger because Kosovars are inherently more vengeful, or more violent, than elsewhere: the problem is that witnesses face organizations - SHIK and the corresponding organisations of other politico-economic factions - that can reach them and punish them at will,” he said. Capussela said that the only way to ensure witness protection was to convince those who control such organisations that their political survival depends on preventing such intimidation. One of the leaders of SHIK was Kadri Veseli, now a Kosovo MP and a senior official with the governing the Democratic Party of Kosovo. Among SHIK’s founders were Xhavit Haliti, who is also now an MP, and Hashim Thaci, Kosovo’s current foreign minister and a candidate to become the country’s next president. All three men publicly supported the passing of a law that enabled the new court at be established. All of them have also denied any involvement in criminal activity.

Elections enigma in Serbia (Independent Balkan News Agency, by Milos Mitrovic, 19 January 2016)

Why Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has decided that country should go to early elections? Because Serbian televisions have not paid enough attention to him; due to the fact that country must not sacrifice voting for the sake of reforms; finally, spending money in electoral campaign would increase GDP. These are the answers given by popular satirical website njuz.net. But according to Prime Minister, the government needs „full mandate“, in order to complete reforms until 2020, when Serbia should end its accession negotiations with the European Union, in accordance with Vucic’s ambitious plans. Still, it’s questionable what “full mandate” means, taking into account that Vucic controls 158 members of parliament, out of 250, as well as two-thirds majority together with coalition partners. Voting would also terminate “social conflicts” in Serbia, as he said at his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) Central Committee meeting on Sunday. Premier explained that since SNS took power in 2014 – after winning elections with outright majority – country has been marred with conflicts; allegedly, SNS was faced with “enormous resistance” because “it has been striving to break the block of tycoons, politicians and criminals who haven’t find interest in progress of Serbia and in any changes”. He claimed that reforms were blocked for 10 years, until he came to power. But Vucic did not mention his own responsibility and chauvinistic, anti-European politics he has conducted from 1993 until 2008. PM’s speech followed by frenetic applause of his supporters was contradictory given that he has also said that voting is needed because Serbia needs “four more years of stability”. Serbia is the anchor of stability in the region, Vucic said. He also announced he would say goodbye to “thugs” from SNS after the voting. However, it remained unclear to whom Vucic alluded. Defence Minister Bratislav Gasic may be among “thugs”; Vucic promised his dismissal in early December, after Gasic’s sexist incident, but minister is still in the office. During 2015 certain media which became Vucic’s personal propaganda tools claimed that SNS Vice President and Deputy PM Zorana Mihajlovic took part in alleged plots against premier. The general elections will be held alongside with local ones, and voting in Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. The article published on the pescanik.net website suggested that early parliamentary elections calling reflects “intention to improve SNS’s result in local and provincial level with belief that something like this would be possible only if PM is directly involved in the campaign”. In the analysis, author Sofija Mandic wonders whether the ideal for Vucic would be to have 250 out of 250 members of parliament. “It seems that ruling party and its president strive exactly toward this objective which is worrisome, destructive and defeating for the citizens”, she concluded. Although some analysts suggest that SNS’s popularity slightly decreased, they agree that Vucic’s group would win the elections. On the other hand, the prospects for at least some democratic opposition parties could be gloomy with possible failure to pass five percent threshold and remain in parliament.

 

Audit in Divided Mostar Disappoints Opposition (BIRN, by Jure Gudelj, 19 January 2016)

Opposition parties - who demanded an audit of the administration of the divided Bosnian city - doubt it will uncover much, as they say 'the same people audited themselves'.

Opposition parties in Mostar are skeptical about the recent financial audit carried out in the administration of the divided southwest Bosnian town. "The same people audited themselves," the head of the Croatian Republican Party, Slaven Raguz, told BIRN on Monday, referring to the fact that the staff in the Office of the Auditor, like all other institutions, have been appointed by the ruling parties. "Knowing this, nothing much can be expected from this audit," Raguz said, adding that even if the audit uncovered some problems, they are likely to be ignored. "There are numerous cases where institutions ignore auditors' negative findings, so even if the auditors find some anomalies, this does not oblige anyone to fix things, or prevent anyone from continuing the malpractice," he concluded. The financial audit of the Mostar administration was completed at the end of last week. The final report is expected to be published in June, officials from the Office of the Auditor in Bosnia's Federation entity told BIRN. The audit was carried out after local opposition parties requested it, citing the extraordinary nature of the city's management. Divisions between the leading Bosniak and Croat parties, the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, and Croat Democratic Union, HDZ, have prevented the holding of local elections in Mostar since 2008. After the mandate of the last city council expired at the end of 2012, the city was left without a legislative body and was managed by its mayor, Ljubo Beslic, from the HDZ. This led to frequent allegations of financial and other irregularities. The last official audit of the Mostar administration was carried out in 2001 and opposition parties recently requested a new one. Dennis Gratz, an MP in the Federation entity's House of Representatives, from the opposition Our Party, submitted the request to the Auditing Commission of the Federation parliament last November. "There is a legal basis to request a special audit, and this is especially important due to the fact that Mostar has had no elections for seven years, [so] the budget is implemented under emergency measures that have now assumed the form of permanent temporariness," Gratz said then.

 

NATO Helps Montenegro Dispose of Yugoslav Weapons (BIRN, by Dusica Tomovic, 20 January 2016)

Montenegro is getting technical and financial assistance from NATO to deal with huge amounts of obsolete weapons and ammunition left in the country after the break-up of Yugoslavia.

The Montenegrin Defence Ministry and NATO will soon begin a 15-month programme to destroy 416 tonnes of surplus ammunition and explosives, in an attempt to solve one of the biggest security challenges in the country, the ministry said on Tuesday. The agreement which the Montenegrin government signed with the NATO armaments procurement agency NSPO provides for the safe destruction of surplus weapons and ordnance which the state did not have the resources to decommission itself. The mines and other explosives, mostly high-calibre naval and air force ordnance, are located in military warehouses in Pristan, in the Boka Bay on the Adriatic coast, and in Taras, near the capital Podgorica. "The Ministry of Defence has persistently sought to find the safest way to destroy this part of the surplus, which poses a threat to people and the environment," a ministry statement said. For almost a decade, Montenegro has been struggling to dispose of a surplus of obsolete weapons, ammunition and explosive devices that have been stored in neglected and poorly equipped military warehouses. The biggest problem was the disposal of highly toxic hazardous waste, mostly liquid explosive charges from naval mines. After the split from Serbia in 2006, Montenegro was left with 12,136 tons of ammunition in military warehouses, although the country’s estimated needs were only around 2,300 thousand tons. It was also left with 74,639 weapons of various types (excluding firearms), of which around 1,000 were heavy artillery, anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons and tanks. They came from the wartime reserves of the former Yugoslav People’s Army, which stored its arms and ammunition for emergency situations in Montenegro. Most of the weapons were flown to Montenegro during the war in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Montenegro has already spent tens of millions of euros in an attempt to get rid of the Yugoslav and Russian-produced weapons and ammunition, the majority of which was more than 40 years old. With the help of foreign donors, the defence ministry in 2007 and 2008 launched several projects which destroyed about 5,000 tons of surplus, despite criticism from the opposition and some NGOs that this undermined the security of the state and its military power. According to date obtained by BIRN, Montenegro in 2015 sold 538 tons of surplus ammunition, 255 items of weaponry and 614 motor vehicles as secondary raw materials. About 128 tons of surplus ammunition of various calibres which become unstable was demilitarised and destroyed by the Montenegrin army. A total of 104 tons of surplus ammunition was destroyed under the MONDEM programme, a joint initiative between Montenegro's government, the UN Development Programme and the OSCE. According to the latest information from the defence ministry, Montenegro still needs to get rid of at least 2,438 tons of ammunition. All the costs of the destruction of surplus weapons in Montenegro in the NATO project will be covered by contributing countries - Germany, Turkey, Hungary, Croatia and Britain.

 

EU chief gives migrant plan 2 months to work (AP, by Lorne Cook, 19 January 2016)

BRUSSELS — The European Union's top official warned Tuesday the bloc has just two months to get its migration strategy in order amid criticism that its current policies are putting thousands of people in danger and creating more business for smugglers. "We have no more than two months to get things under control," European Council President Donald Tusk told EU lawmakers, warning that a summit of EU leaders in Brussels on March 17-18 "will be the last moment to see if our strategy works." The EU spent most of 2015 devising policies to cope with the arrival of more than 1 million people fleeing conflict or poverty but few are having a real impact. A refugee sharing plan launched in September has barely got off the ground and countries are still not sending back people who don't qualify for asylum. A package of sweeteners earmarked for Turkey - including 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion), easier visa access for Turkish citizens and fast-tracking of the country's EU membership process - has borne little fruit. The failure has raised tensions between neighbors, particularly along the Balkan route used by migrants arriving in Greece to reach their preferred destinations like Germany or Sweden further north. Tusk warned that if Europe fails to make the strategy work "we will face grave consequences such as the collapse of Schengen," the 26-nation passport-free travel zone. His remarks came after Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF, said that border closures and tougher policing only force people seeking sanctuary or jobs to find more dangerous routes to Europe. "Policies of deterrence, along with their chaotic response to the humanitarian needs of those who flee, actively worsened the conditions of thousands of vulnerable men, women and children," said MSF head of operations, Brice de le Vingne. The group urged the EU to create more legal ways to come to Europe, allow asylum applications at the land border between Turkey and Greece, and set up a real search and rescue system, after more than 3,000 people died trying to reach the EU by sea in 2015. As pressure built among EU partner nations, four Central European members confirmed Tuesday their fierce opposition to a plan to redistribute 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece, and called for the strict control and registration of all refugees on the external borders of the Schengen zone. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, who form an informal grouping known as the Visegrad Four or V4, rejected any compulsory refugee quotas. Officials from Slovenia and Serbia also warned of retaliatory measures if Austria tries to slow the entry of migrants. That, they say, would cause a domino effect and ratchet up tensions along the so-called Balkan migrant corridor back to Greece, where most migrants are arriving from Turkey. "If Austria and Germany introduce certain measures that would mean tighter control of the flow of migrants, Slovenia will do the same," Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec said. Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said that Belgrade "will protect its interests." "We cannot allow the borders to close and limit the flow of migrants and they stay in Serbia," he said. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said closing borders won't prevent people from trying to enter Europe. Steinmeier said the root causes driving people to flee their homes, such as conflicts in the Middle East, need to be tackled and that Turkey's cooperation is also key. North African states must also take back failed asylum seekers like western Balkan nations already do, he added. Elsewhere, Dutch police said they arrested three protesters Monday night at a demonstration against a town's plan to build a center for potential asylum-seekers. Riot police cleared a central square in the town of Heesch after demonstrators began throwing eggs and fireworks at officers. Police say there were no injuries.

Last week, someone hung a pig's carcass from a tree near the proposed location.

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Mike Corder in the Hague, Netherlands, Karel Janicek in Prague, Frank Jordans in Berlin, and Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.

 

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