Icy Panopticon (Koha Ditore)
In his regular column, Enver Robelli anticipates a difficult year ahead which, he says, will be marked with standstill, impoverishment and desperation of the people of Kosovo. The only cure for this will be emergence of new political alternatives and a comprehensive mobilization of the population against the alliance of crime and evil which Robelli claims is composed of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and its “sub-branch”, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK). The January “panopticon” cannot truly begin, remarks Robelli further, without making public the activity of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commanders, beginning with Sami Lushtaku, currently on trial for war crimes. The news that Lushtaku, “the godfather of organized crime and corruption”, has now also been charged by EULEX for corruption in a case involving a six-million-euro tender for the Kosovo Energy Corporation (KEK) came as no surprise to the Kosovo public, observes Robelli.
He then focuses on the LDK’s leadership over Pristina over a fifteen-year period during which the city has been totally destroyed and members of family, mafia, and regional clans installed in all major municipal posts and public enterprises. “Citizens of Pristina should take the LDK seriously only if it introduces other people who are ready to assume public responsibility,” writes Robelli.
Robelli also speaks about the way things are run in the public broadcaster, RTK, and says that it is entirely under the PDK control. He suggests that a new way to fund the broadcaster should be found immediately and that it should not be supported by the Kosovo Assembly.
Robelli concludes that Kosovo is actually neither run by the PDK nor the LDK as both parties are absorbed into other problems. The LDK is currently dealing with accommodation of its militants in government positions while the PDK leaders are unsure whether they will be overcome by the special court’s “tsunami”. This is why the party is making efforts to include in the law on the establishment of the special court an article which stipulates that the Kosovo budget will cover all legal expenses for possible indictees. Robelli believes the special court will be the only way to clean Kosovo from people suspected of having carried out hideous crimes during and after the conflict.