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August 10, 2018
The Puppet Master Behind the Most Blatant Coup D’etat in US History
August 09, 2018
Serbian President: "I am in favor of a demarcation with the Albanians"
Serbian President: "I am in favor of a demarcation with the Albanians"
KoSSev
4-5 minutes
Aleksandar Vucic/Foto: Tanjug-Tanja Valic
„I am in favor of a demarcation with the Albanians," the Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic confirmed.
„If we ever have the opportunity to bring a solution, it has to be a comprehensive package that deals with many, many, many things, and it is not as simplified, not as simple as some imagine, like our bishops and Natasha Kandic and Sonja Biserko," Vucic said while visiting a meat processing factory in Sid.
He added: „I cannot speak about something we are talking about, because that would ruin Serbia's position and reveal our cards. When we are close to any possible solution, I will clearly and unambiguously tell the citizens what I think about it. "
He expects that the citizens will be able to recognize the right solution.
It takes two to tango
He answered the question on the demarcation posed by Rada Komazec, the editor of Jedinstvo from North Mitrovica, – whether places in Kosovo where Albanians did not pay electricity, nor any other requirements to Serbia, could remain in Serbia, and whether the fact that Dobrica Cosic advocated for some sort of demarcation with the Albanians means that he worked less for the interests of Serbia.
For the first time, the President explicitly stated today that he is in favour of the demarcation with the Albanians, although he did not provide any further details.
"You don't want ethnic boundaries? You don't want a demarcation with the Albanians? Well, no problem, tell people to get ready for Vranje in about 40-50 years" he said at the end of July, but he later claimed that it is „an optimistic scenario", and that this will actually happen in 20 years.
„I am in favor of it and I am not hiding it, I am certainly in favor of it, and that's the policy I represent. Whether it will get the support of the people or not, I am in favor of a demarcation with the Albanians,"said the Serbian President.
„That we have a territory for which it is unknown who considers it as what exactly, and what belongs to whom, that is always the source of a potential conflict, potential adversity, and plenty of adversities. Whether we are going to succeed in it or not, that's another matter. It does not depend on us. I have said countless times – it takes two to tango," he added.
Commenting on the series of the direct announcements by the Kosovo President Hashim Thaci over several days of a referendum on the secession of the Serb municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja and their merger into the Kosovo system, Vucic said:
„Well, let's hold a referendum here to see what the situation is, here's how this global warming is going, let them do everything they need and want, we will get nothing for Serbs, there is nothing for them, but there is an additional expansion of the borders. I will just say – congratulations and go ahead, and whether it will happen, you know the answer."
The difference between the lives of Serbs in the North and the South was explained by the Serbian President via the issue of electricity supply and distribution. He said that Serbs in the north, unlike Serbs in the south, do not pay electricity, „as is understandable", and that Serbia is responsible for the system in the north, but not in the south, where Serbs pay electricity to the Kosovo system.
When asked by Komazec about yesterday's announcements for Serbia's larger investments in Kosovo, Vucic listed kindergartens in Strpce, as well as „another 200 apartments in the Sun Valley by the end of the year", €8 million for the water supply in Zubin Potok, „Popovic (mayor of Gracanica) with his programs and plans", but he also added that „everything is paid from Serbia's budget".
„Not only will we not stop, but we will do it even faster and more," said the Serbian President.
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Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
August 05, 2018
Croatia celebrates 1995 blitz; Serbia calls it Nazi policy
Croatia celebrates 1995 blitz; Serbia calls it Nazi policy
4-5 minutes
Published: 06:13 EDT, 5 August 2018 | Updated: 08:48 EDT, 5 August 2018
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) - Croatia on Sunday celebrated a victorious 1995 military offensive in which it retook lands held by rebel Serbs, while Serbia's president compared the operation to the policies of Nazi Germany.
The comments by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic have whipped up tensions between two main Balkan rivals whose conflicting views illustrate persistent divisions stemming from the 1991-95 war.
The war in Croatia erupted when the country declared independence from the former Yugoslavia. Minority Serbs in Croatia, backed by Serbia, took up arms and formed their own self-declared state, rejecting the split from the Serb-led Yugoslav federation and expelling hundreds of thousands of Croats from their homes.
FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 2, 2017 file photo, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic speaks during a press conference at the Serbia Palace, in Belgrade, Serbia. Croatia is celebrating a victorious 1995 military offensive in which it retook lands held by rebel Serbs, but which Serbia's president has compared to the policies of Nazi Germany during World War II. Vucic told a gathering late Saturday, Aug. 4, 2018 that "Hitler wanted a world without Jews; Croatia and its policy wanted a Croatia without Serbs." (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, file)
More than 10,000 people were killed and many Croatian towns were devastated in the years that followed before Croatia in August 1995 took back control of the Serb-held lands. That blitz attack, dubbed Storm, sent 200,000 minority Serbs fleeing the country in miles-long columns of tractors, cars and horse-driven carts.
Croatia on Sunday hailed the offensive as a flawless military victory that reunited the country's territory and ended the war. Top officials attended a central ceremony in the former rebel stronghold of Knin that included a fly over by military jets.
U.S. and Israeli military envoys were among the guests attending the event, while Israeli jets took part in the fly by, Croatia's defense ministry said.
"(Storm) has become a textbook successful military operation," said Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic. "It was the time of total unity of the Croatian people and Croatian soldiers."
Meanwhile, neighboring Serbia mourned the hundreds of victims who were killed during the 1995 attack.
Vucic, an extreme Serb nationalist during the war, accused Croatia late Saturday of intentionally expelling Serbs from the country because of their ethnicity. Vucic evoked the fate of Anne Frank, the world famous Jewish diarist who died in the Holocaust, saying she was persecuted for the same reason as the Croatian Serbs.
"The intent was the same. Hitler wanted a world without Jews; Croatia and its policy wanted a Croatia without Serbs," Vucic told thousands at a commemoration event in northern Serbia.
Vucic's strongly-worded comments have been rejected by Croatia. The liberal Index news portal described the Serbian president's statement as "scandalous" and asked if Vucic should be barred from entering Croatia.
Croatian Defense Minister Damir Krsticevic retorted that "we didn't start the war, we defended ourselves and later liberated Croatia."
Vucic has said he wants to boost cooperation with other Balkan nations and lead Serbia toward membership in the European Union, but he also has been increasing military and other ties with Russia.
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August 04, 2018
A Final Deal On Kosovo: Compromise Or Confrontation? – Analysis
A Final Deal On Kosovo: Compromise Or Confrontation? – Analysis
Balkan Insight
18-23 minutes
As debate about the potential partition of Kosovo heats up and Belgrade-Pristina negotiations seem to be entering their final stage, BIRN asked seven experts to suggest solutions to the dispute and assess the possible consequences of territorial exchange.
Since June, both sides in the EU-mediated talks on the normalisation of relations between Serbia and Kosovo have stated that the negotiations are entering their final stage.
At the same time, there has been increasingly heated talk of an exchange of territories – swapping Albanian-majority areas in southern Serbia for Serb-majority ones in northern Kosovo – although this has never been an official topic of discussion during the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue in Brussels.
BIRN asked seven experts to give their opinions about what kind of final deal could be achieved between Belgrade and Pristina, and what the partition of Kosovo and an exchange of territories could lead to in practice.
'Both sides are interested in a cold peace'
Florian Bieber, professor for Southeast European History and Politics at the University of Graz and Coordinator of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group:
- Potential solution to the Serbia-Kosovo dispute
"While the partition idea keeps resurfacing, the EU and key members have stated their red lines against partition.
"There are numerous reasons why such a solution would lead nowhere or rather risk further tensions and conflict. The realistic solution would have to ensure that Kosovo's independence becomes accepted, especially in the UN and by the five EU non-recognisers.
"Whether Serbia formally recognises Kosovo or finds another way is flexible, but it has to be clear that Serbia de facto recognises Kosovo.
- Kosovo's partition and an exchange of territories
"I seriously doubt that an agreement would end the tensions and the dispute. Both sides are interested in a cold peace, not a new page in their relationship.
"Both keep presenting the dispute as a zero-sum game and unlike the Macedonian and Greek governments, don't seem ready to form a partnership to transform the conflict. They are both seeking to benefit from tensions in the future. After all, the conflict is a useful distraction both for the domestic audience and towards the EU.
"Once the Kosovo-Serbia dispute is settled, Serbian President Vucic would be confronted with more critical voices from the EU about the state of democracy and rule of law, thus he has a strong incentive not to find a settlement soon, and in Kosovo, the government suffers from a fragile coalition with a weak legitimacy, also making it unlikely to make any compromises.
"Considering the scepticism of EU members also raises the question what the EU can offer for a settlement. France and the Netherlands will remain deeply skeptical about enlargement, even if both settle.
"Thus, the decision on Macedonia and Albania acted as a disincentive for a compromise, as both governments ask, what can we get from the EU if we compromise?, and the answer from the EU is not clear."
'Some form of compromise'
Bojan Elek, researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy:
- Potential solution to the Serbia-Kosovo dispute
"The ultimate solution will probably have to be some form of compromise that will leave both sides equally displeased.
"With a legally binding agreement, Kosovo would have to gain de facto characteristics of statehood, including a seat in the UN and a perspective for EU membership, while Serbia could avoid an explicit de jure recognition of independence, making the agreement more acceptable for the citizens.
"No matter what the final agreement looked like, the most important thing for Serbia would have to be the protection of the rights of its citizens living in Kosovo territory."
- Kosovo's partition and an exchange of territories
"A territory swap would be a bad solution, and not just because it would pave the way for other territorial demarcations in the region.
"An exchange or partition would reinforce the nationalist approach to organising territories on the principle of 'my people, my land', which has proven impossible to implement and spelled disaster for the whole region, considering the history of the Balkans in the past 30 years.
"If a partition meant that northern Kosovo would belong to Serbia, this would further weaken the Serb community south of the Ibar river, because northern Mitrovica is the administrative, educational and healthcare centre that all other municipalities gravitate towards."
'Partition has been taboo in Kosovo'
Agon Maliqi, editor of S-Bunker, a political analysis and opinion website
- Potential solution to the Serbia-Kosovo dispute
"I find it hard to see how Vucic will agree to something that he can't sell back home as a win. He wants a deal and is in a position to sell one but wants to be seen as having got something in return for explicitly or implicitly accepting Kosovo's independence.
"That is clear from the way in which he is building up the rhetoric in domestic opinion. The problem is that Kosovo has already given as much as it realistically can in terms of minority safeguards to remain internally functional.
"So Kosovo is stuck between a rock and a hard place. It risks turning its weak external position (contested statehood) into a weak domestic one by becoming a dysfunctional state (without the slightest guarantee that Russia won't block the UN seat) or getting partitioned (which will deeply polarise Kosovo internally and disrupt the region).
"Getting any of these options to pass in Kosovo, especially when there is no strong consensus or political control like Vucic has in Serbia, will be very difficult.
"So if there is a deal – and that still remains a big if – there are three main types of outcomes imaginable, and I think that the international consensus and the ease of selling the deal domestically will determine which one prevails.
"The first option is a repackaging or rebranding of existing rights for Serbs (which are as extensive as they can get) that will allow Vucic to spin it as a win, but would not guarantee a UN seat for Kosovo because of Russia, only unlock a vague path to the EU.
"The second option would be something substantial such as a form of territorial autonomy for Serbs (which risks making Kosovo dysfunctional and increases Belgrade's control) while again not guaranteeing a UN seat.
"The third option is partition or territorial exchange (which changes the game regionally)."
- Kosovo's partition and an exchange of territories
"Partition has for long been a preferred option among both certain nationalist circles ([influential Serbian writer] Dobrica Cosic) and liberal ones in Serbia (even [late Serbian Prime Minister Zoran] Djindjic thought it was the best solution).
"So in a way it represents the closest thing to a consensus in Serbian public opinion (except the Serbian Orthodox Church, which just came out publicly against because most of its heritage is south of the Ibar river).
"The problem is that partition has been taboo in Kosovo and public opinion is absolutely not prepared to deal with the consequences and the many questions it raises about the nature and future of the state.
"We have spent ten difficult years building trust in the current model of the state. Only now has the flag started to get embraced more widely among people (although almost always in conjunction with the Albanian flag). Besides, the north of Kosovo is far from what it used to be in 2008 and so many efforts have been made to integrate the Serbs within Kosovo's system (including most recently the judiciary).
"There will be a deep polarisation because partition would automatically move the debate into when and how to unite with Albania and what would that mean for our ability to self-govern. Kosovo's society is not homogenous about this but holds various positions within a spectrum, so I feel this will paralyse us severely and for a long time.
"I can't see how partition will happen without at least some tension or violence either in Kosovo or in the region, either as a response to this solution by those that are dissatisfied, or as a means by its promoters to speed things up and create new realities on the ground that would then make it inevitable."
'Territorial division is the bane of the Balkans'
Edward Joseph, Adjunct Professor and Senior Fellow, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies:
- Potential solution to the Serbia-Kosovo dispute
"Resolution of the nearly intractable Balkan disputes rests on one factor above all: Western political will. So, 'the solution' for Kosovo doesn't happen in a vacuum; it reflects the continuum of political will not just in Europe but in Washington as well.
"As for what [Serbian President Aleksandar] Vucic can accept on Kosovo, as long as 'the solution' concretely and directly advances Belgrade's EU accession, he can – and will – accept almost anything that protects the position of Serbs in Kosovo.
"The whole notion that Vucic faces some 'choice' between the EU or Russia is a distortion promoted by Vucic himself to dampen Western pressure.
"It is entirely possible that 'the solution' on Kosovo would entail quasi-recognition by Belgrade in exchange for asymmetrical protections for Serbs in the north and south of Kosovo — provided the EU demands it and is prepared to move forward on enlargement."
- Kosovo's partition and an exchange of territories
"Territorial division is the bane of the Balkans. The notion that borders are malleable – that RS[Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska] could secede from Bosnia, for example, or that Croats could get their own entity [in Bosnia and Herzegovina], itself a precursor to eventual secession – is what helps entrench Bosnia's political polarisation.
"The same mentality is what promotes Serb intransigence in the north of Kosovo; why compromise and cooperate with Pristina as Serbs in the south do, when – if you only hold out – you might be able to secede from Kosovo altogether?
"Fortunately, the breakthrough agreement between Greece and Macedonia on the latter's name will – if the agreement survives – put a damper on division. If the name agreement enters into force, division of Macedonia is taken off the table and the country heads to NATO membership, virtually guaranteeing that the country will not be divided, no matter how restive Albanians become.
"And that automatically complicates division of Kosovo, because it makes it harder to 'compensate' Albanians there for the loss of the north. Of course, the converse is true; if there is no agreement on the name, and a movement for division of Kosovo gains momentum, then you can count on calls to hive off Albanian majority areas of Macedonia, a messy and dangerous step that only invites and incites more claims on the country.
"Those who think that Presevo Valley/South Serbia represents the 'swap' solution for the north have not spoken to the Albanians who live there. Many Albanians who live in Presevo do not relish the idea of becoming an eastern province of Pristina, cut off from the vital north-south highway that Serbia will not relinquish.
"The idea that Kosovo should be divided rests on illusions — that it would be 'just', that it would be feasible and containable rather than messy, impractical and dangerous. The more it's talked about, the more it will appear as a practical solution – which it isn't. The fact that the EU has extraordinary leverage is what makes the whole subject of territorial division of Kosovo not just impractical and dangerous, but unnecessary."
'Explicit or implicit recognition of Kosovo'
Lulzim Peci, the director of the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development, KIPRED:
- Potential solution to the Serbia-Kosovo dispute
"In my opinion, a probable potential solution for the Kosovo-Serbia dispute would be a package which would include autonomy for the Kosovo Serb community, either in a form of the Association of Serb Majority Municipalities, or of territorial autonomy without legislative competencies for the Serb majority municipalities in the north of Kosovo, explicit or implicit recognition of Kosovo by Serbia with UN membership for Kosovo, which would be accompanied by respective changes to Serbia's and Kosovo's constitutions according to the agreement achieved."
- Kosovo's partition and an exchange of territories
"The idea of the division of Kosovo has a long history, and the Serbian political establishment has never given up on it.
"This option is against the values and goals of EU and NATO enlargement, which are based on the model of multi-ethnic states and inclusive societies, not on the changes of borders of federal units of the former Yugoslavia on ethnic lines.
"The option of divising Kosovo is in concordance with the policy that Russia is pursuing in its near neighborhood, by struggling to change borders with neighbouring states along ethnic lines where Russians are the minority, at the same time as it maintains many ethnicities and peoples within its borders.
"This policy is not limited to the Moscow's near neighborhood only, given that Russia is also pursuing a policy of destabilisation of the Balkans, with its efforts to transform it into an area of perpetual geopolitical contest among big powers and the nationalistic elites of the region. Here, Serbia is playing the role of a mini-Russia in the Balkans.
"In addition, the option dividing Kosovo seriously endangers its potential for economic development, by endangering the sustainability of the water supply from the lake of Gazivode for one-third of Kosovo, as well as for cooling energy plants in Obiliq.
"Furthermore, in a nutshell, this option is against the essential interests of the Serb community in Kosovo as well, given that majority of its members (more than 60 per cent) live south of the Ibar River, and that the majority of the Serbian Orthodox Churches are located in the central and western parts of Kosovo.
"This option is about hegemonic territorial gains, rather than in the interest of all the communities of Kosovo, including the Serb community itself.
"Instead of solving anything, it can rather open up a road to hell for all the communities in Kosovo and the wider region. The memories of this kind of hell in the region are still fresh, and we shall not forget them."
'A frozen conflict could defrost'
Gordana Susa, Serbian journalist and commentator:
- Potential solution to the Serbia-Kosovo dispute
"The closer we approach the 'final stage' projected for the end of the year, the more pronounced are the delays, the futility of negotiations and tensions between Belgrade and Pristina.
"The signing of a mutually binding agreement on normalisation of relations provides the compromise for people in both societies to have more normal and safer lives, to travel, trade and deal with everyday issues.
"The agreement doesn't oblige Serbia to recognise Kosovo officially but will have to respect Kosovo institutions and laws… And according to those laws the Association of Serb Majority Municipalities will function as well.
"If we consider the [public opinion] polls showing that two-thirds of Serbian citizens believe that Kosovo is lost, but also that it should not be recognized de jure, the mutually binding agreement is the framework for both.
"If Belgrade and Pristina fail to reach a deal and sign the agreement, a frozen conflict could defrost… with very uncertain outcomes, primarily for Serbia."
- Kosovo's partition and an exchange of territories
"I don't know if partition of Kosovo is on the table, although I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it was discussed, but I'm afraid that talk of partition and exchange of territories neglects the people and opens Pandora's box again.
"If the two sides fail to reach a settlement after multiple attempts, experience has taught us that a third party will decide our fate under much worse terms.
"I absolutely support the negotiations and the mutually binding agreement, but also the obligation of the authorities, first and foremost of Vucic, to come clean and tell the public in detail and without embellishment what is going on, and how much it will cost us if we don't accept… the mutually binding agreement, and what is his 'plan B' in that case."
'Territorial integrity and sovereignty of Kosovo'
Bodo Weber, Senior Associate of the Democratization Policy Council:
- Potential solution to the Serbia-Kosovo dispute
"Negotiations are indeed entering into the final stage, that is over a final, comprehensive and legally binding agreement on full normalisation – as both parties, particularly Belgrade, did not make use of the gradual, less painful approach the original political dialogue initiated in 2012-13 offered.
"The final solution, at least of the status issue, is clear by 'the original dialogue deal', its framework and ultimate aims as more or less explicitly defined in 2011-13, and accepted by both parties, including Belgrade.
"That is a solution based on the reality that Serbia lost Kosovo, primarily due to its own policy of the last three decades. It means territorial integrity and sovereignty of Kosovo, full exercise of international subjectivity, including an EU membership perspective and Serbian support for a UN seat.
"Recognition of Kosovo as an independent state by Serbia, whereby if Serbia insists this to happen in a reduced and not full formal legal form, it has to explain and guarantee how all the aims of the final agreement can be secured this way, too.
"Finally, forms of ethnic representation and positive discrimination as embodied in the Association of Serb Majority Municipalities need to guarantee the institutional functionality of the state of Kosovo and have safeguards against any future secession of Kosovo north.
"Within such a clear framework for a final solution there is then hard work to do in negotiations over open, genuinely bilateral issues like missing persons, property issues, etc, where the Kosovan side will have to be ready to give something to Serbia, while Belgrade will have to restrain from misusing bilateral issues for reopening the status question."
- Kosovo's partition and an exchange of territories
"Any lobbying for partition, land swap etc is neither about Serbia's interests, let alone Kosovo Serb interests, but rather about traditionally conformist Balkan policy and the testing of a weakened West's resolve and red lines.
"Even in the case Vucic and [Kosovo President Hashim] Thaci agreed on such a dirty deal, no Kosovo Assembly would approve it with the necessary two-thirds majority. Not to speak about that any Western sanctioning of an ethno-territorial 'solution' would reopen Pandora's box in the region and beyond, and further destabilise Ukraine for example.
"It would even destabilise Serbia and Vucic, though he currently seems to be surprisingly unconscious about the potential consequences of his own policy.
"Finally, it perfectly demonstrates that Belgrade doesn't care about Kosovo Serbs as it has never done – the majority of Serbs live South of the Ibar – it just cares about continuing to pursue a conformist virtual, heavenly Kosovo policy as long as possible, instead of caring about the problems of the real Kosovo and the real Kosovo Serbs."
Answers have been edited for length and clarity.
July 25, 2018
Serbia would rather die than recognize Kosovo
Serbia would rather die than recognize Kosovo
Lyuba Lulko
6-8 minutes
Belgrade has come very close to recognizing the independence of the province of Kosovo and Metohija. The European press has written a lot on the subject prior to the meeting between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo leader Hashim Thaci in Brussels on July 18. What prevented the signing of the fateful document?
European officials assured that everything was ready for signing the agreement on the comprehensive normalization of relations. This is one of the main conditions for Serbia's admission to the EU, which was the main pre-election promise of Aleksandar Vucic. On the eve of the "fateful meeting," he visited Paris, where he received approval for the negotiations from Emmanuel Macron. Why Paris, but not Brussels or Berlin? Perhaps, these two centers of European influence lose their role of "Washington's poodle."
In turn, Hashim Thaci had a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on July 9. The two officials met in Ankara, Turkey, during the inauguration ceremony of Turkish President Recep Erdogan. Thaci asked Medvedev about mediation at the talks with Serbia. Nevertheless, the news about the failure of the talks came on Wednesday, July 19. Vucic and Thaci failed to find a compromise.
According to B92 website, Thaci's meeting with his Serbian counterpart was "the most complicated one in the last six years." The Kosovo leader still sees light at the end of the tunnel, but it will be "extremely difficult" to come close to it to see it better,
"Serbia still considers Kosovo as part of its territory. Both Serbia and Montenegro should understand that Kosovo is a sovereign state. We will work to reach the final agreement that will be good for both countries, but there will be more difficulties in the coming days and months," concluded Thaci.
In his brief statement to the press, Aleksandar Vucic said that the talks were not easy. "We agreed on two things. First - to continue the talks and try to find a common denominator for a common solution. Secondly, we agreed to preserve peace and stability in relations between Belgrade and Pristina," Vucic said, B92 reports.
When asked whether Belgrade could accept Kosovo's independence, the Serbian president said: "I discuss this every day - whether we are going to reach a compromise, and what kind of a compromise it will be. The only compromise solution offered by all Kosovo political forces, especially Hashim Thaci and all the rest, is the recognition of the independent state of Kosovo, which does not work."
Thus, the recognition of Kosovo by Serbia and the subsequent accession of these territories to the EU is postponed, although the Kosovars had hoped that Paris would put good pressure on Belgrade with Washington's help, at least to remove obstacles for the province on the way to international organizations. One could hold a referendum afterwards.
Serbia de facto recognized Kosovo a long time ago. All Serbian state institutions in Kosovska Mitrovica were liquidated, the local police became part of the Kosovo police. The parties even agreed on the demarcation of the border, which they only call differently. Why was it hard for Vucic to take the decision through the parliament, where his party has a majority? Perhaps, he failed to do it because of the opposition, which Serbia refers to as "pocket" opposition.
"Vucic wants to present his betrayal as patriotism, to make everyone believe that it was him who concluded an agreement and found a compromise with the Albanians to ensure peace and future for our children. In fact, however, he had abandoned Kosovo on Serbia's way to the EU," Bosko Obradovic, the leader of the "Doors" party said.
The second reason behind the failure in the talks could be as follows: Macron must have said something to Vucic, whereas Medvedev must have said something to Thaci. Probably, the matter is about global shifts in the policy of Russia and Europe in connection with the "perestroika" in the United States.
One thing will remain unchanged: both Russia and Serbia will always be the "bad guys" for the West. After the Serbs recognize Pristina, they will be forced to give away Bujanovac and Presevo - "historically Albanian territories." Their Orthodox churches and monasteries will be closed, and many other pretexts will be found not to welcome them to the EU. A report from the British Foreign Affairs Committee published for the NATO summit in London said that it would take Serbia 50-60 years to prepare for EU membership. In addition to the "chronic economic stagnation," Serbia has many other obstacles, such as constant bilateral disputes and ethnic conflicts, the report said.
Slobodan Nikolic, chairman of the Russian Party of Serbia, told Pravda.Ru that Vucic has been in power since 2012. "He has long agreed with the West to recognize Kosovo. He wants to hold a referendum in 2019 to change the status of the province in order to be given a free hand for his actions. Vucic has a lot of power among MPs, and all structures connected with the business sector and politics support him. We are a country that virtually remains under occupation. We signed an agreement enabling NATO troops pass through Serbia freely. The quantity of joint activities that we have with NATO outnumbers those with Russia three or four times," Slobodan Nikolic said in an interview with Pravda.Ru.
In 2008, the province of Kosovo and Metohija, by EU's behest, unilaterally proclaimed independence from Belgrade.
The reason for the violation of the inviolability of European borders after WWII is the bloody war that can no longer continue. In Europe, they prefer not to recollect the fact that it was NATO that started that war and destroyed the sovereign state of Yugoslavia. Today, most countries of the world recognize the sovereignty of the region. However, Serbia, Russia, China, India, Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Cyprus, Romania and several other countries do not recognize it a sovereign territory. Kosovo is currently home to about 100,000 Serbs, who mainly reside in the north of the province, in Kosovska Mitrovica.
Lyuba Lulko (Stepushova)
Pravda.Ru
July 22, 2018
The Painstaking Hunt for War Criminals in the United States
The Painstaking Hunt for War Criminals in the United States
By Eric Lichtblau5:00 A.M.
20-25 minutes
Mike MacQueen has spent three decades tracking down war criminals who have been hiding in the United States. His job description is akin to that of a police detective.
Illustration by Brian Stauffer
A few years ago, Mike MacQueen, a historian working for the Department of Homeland Security, was at his desk combing through decades-old Bosnian military records, in search of war criminals who had eluded justice. The documents listed the names of top officers in a batallion implicated in the massacre of at least a thousand Muslim prisoners at a schoolhouse and dam in eastern Bosnia, in 1995. He noticed that the name of one Bosnian Serb officer kept showing up in the logs: Ilija Josipović.
MacQueen had turned himself into an unlikely expert on the war that unfolded in the Balkans two decades ago, mastering the Serbo-Croatian language, making two dozen trips to the region, and becoming so well schooled in the war crimes that Bosnian prosecutors had flown him over repeatedly to testify at trials. He had familiarized himself with the names of many of the key figures involved in the atrocities, but he had never come across Josipović (pronounced yoh-SIP-oh-vitch). He made a note to himself to find out what happened to the Serb officer.
MacQueen, who is sixty-eight, has spent the last three decades tracking down war criminals who have been hiding in the United States. His role, first with the Justice Department and then with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been to find offenders who made it into America posing as refugees. His official title is senior historian, but MacQueen's job description is more akin to that of a police detective.
Mike MacQueen in his office in Washington, in February, 2015. He works for the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Unit, part of the Department of Homeland Security.
Photograph by Drew Angerer / The New York Times / Redux
His obsession with war crimes has taken him overseas to interview survivors or obtain documents from authorities in Bosnia, Croatia, and Lithuania. Sometimes, it has meant knocking on the doors of unwitting suspects in the United States. But on many days, it has meant simply sitting in his office, not far from the Capitol, and examining one document after another from some three hundred thousand pages of records about the conflict that he has gathered.
It can be tedious work, MacQueen told me. A tiny phonetic mistake in a foreign dialect can imperil a case. MacQueen's other preoccupation is building race cars. He uses the same detached precision to describe how he pieces together war-crimes cases as he does when explaining how he rebuilt an engine that blew out on his MG Midget during a recent race in West Virginia. Acts of mass killing can sound almost mundane as he recounts zeroing in on a suspected war criminal. "I guess it's the banality of investigating evil," he told me, a variation of Hannah Arendt's famous phrase.
After finding Josipović's name in the logs that day, MacQueen set out to learn what Josipović did during the war. Records listed him as an officer in an important logistics role at a time when the Bosnian-Serb Army was murdering eight thousand Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, in what would become Europe's first genocide since the Second World War. He didn't appear to be a low-level triggerman but, rather, an officer who rose in rank and gained responsibility as the violence grew. Where Josipović lived now was unclear. MacQueen knew that someone with his record should not have been able to get into the United States. But he also knew that the immigration system in the late nineties had allowed hundreds of Bosnian wartime offenders to enter America amid a mass influx of about a hundred and twenty thousand Bosnian refugees. As a precaution, MacQueen searched for Josipović's name in ICE's databases. A hit soon came back—from Akron, Ohio. "Josipović had fallen through the cracks," MacQueen told me. He realized that one of the highest-ranking Bosnian war-crimes suspects he had ever identified had been living quietly in the United States since 2003.
Federal agents with "ICE" emblazoned on their jackets, conducting workplace raids and taking undocumented immigrants into custody, have become a notorious sight under President Trump. But investigators at a separate ICE unit, where MacQueen works, who are largely removed from the raging immigration debate, have carried out a much less visible mission during the past nine years, targeting human-rights offenders who came to America from dozens of countries.
The immigration group, officially known as the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Unit, currently has more than a hundred and thirty-five active investigations of suspected foreign offenders now thought to be living in the United States, officials said. In April, the unit's investigation into a Liberian warlord living outside of Philadelphia, who had been implicated in murders, rapes, and enslavement in his native country in the nineties, resulted in a thirty-year prison sentence for immigration fraud and perjury—the longest criminal sentence in the team's history.
Most of MacQueen's cases have involved Bosnian Serbs, the group blamed for the bulk of the war crimes during the conflict, but his unit has also moved to jail or deport a number of Bosnian Croats and Muslims who were also accused of atrocities. He says more than fifty of the Bosnian immigrants he investigated have been forced out of the country. (Many cases have not become public, because they came in sealed immigration proceedings.) In January, after thirty years in the federal government, MacQueen officially retired, but ICE asked him to stay on for another five years as a private contractor, because his work on the Balkan front was "invaluable," Lisa Koven, the chief of ICE's human-rights law section, said.
MacQueen is determined to continue working on the investigations of the suspects he has already identified, and help prosecutors prepare to take them to court. His aim is to finish what he began and get as many war criminals as he can forced out of the country. "I don't really need the money," he said.
A native New Yorker, MacQueen comes across as soft-spoken and stoic, with a wry sense of humor, but he admits to losing his temper with suspects whom he believes are lying to him. In an angry confrontation a few years ago with a Bosnian woman in Wisconsin who concealed her involvement with a Serbian military unit, he used a vulgar sexual expression in Serbo-Croatian to show what he thought of her claims of innocence. A judge "gave me a little talking to," MacQueen said. "I have a stunning lack of sympathy for anyone with an unclean record. They can go fuck themselves."
I first interviewed MacQueen five years ago, about his earlier work in hunting Nazis. I was writing a book about the thousands of Nazi war criminals who came to America after the Second World War, and a source mentioned MacQueen's role in breaking a critical case, in 1994, when he was at the Justice Department. For years, prosecutors suspected that a Lithuanian immigrant and naturalized American citizen in Massachusetts named Aleksandras Lileikis, who had led a special police force in Vilnius during the war, was a top Nazi collaborator who ordered the roundup of Lithuanian Jews in the nineteen-forties and turned them over to the Nazis for execution. But the Justice Department couldn't prove it, and Lileikis denied any role in the massacres. "Show me something that I signed," Lileikis had dared a prosecutor who showed up at his door, in Boston, in 1983.
The case languished for a decade, until MacQueen went to Lithuania to examine dog-eared Nazi records that had become available to Americans after the fall of the Soviet Union. MacQueen scoured the Lithuanian archives for days without success. Finally, he found a canvas-bound book with the names of nearly twenty-nine hundred wartime prisoners held in Vilnius typed in Russian. (MacQueen speaks six languages, including Russian, which he brushes up on by watching "The Americans," on FX.) The logs listed hundreds of Jews, many of them children, who were jailed, turned over to the Nazis, marched to an excavation site six miles away, and methodically gunned down. In all, some sixty thousand Lithuanian Jews were massacred. In thick black ink at the bottom of an arrest order, MacQueen finally spotted the signature: Aleksandras Lileikis, chief of the special security police in Vilnius. Then he found twenty more signatures just like it.
Lileikis was ultimately stripped of his citizenship and returned to Lithuania, in 1996, where he died awaiting trial for war crimes. MacQueen considers this one of the most important achievements of his career. For years, he kept on his bulletin board in his office the Nazis' neatly typed "execution cards" for two of the Lithuanian victims—a six-year-old Jewish girl named Fruma Kaplan and her mother. Lileikis's men had jailed them after they were found hiding in a Catholic family's home. Below Fruma's name on the card was the local Nazi euphemism for what befell her and tens of thousands of others: Befehlsgemass behandelt—"treated according to orders." MacQueen rarely displays much emotion over his investigations, but he had nightmares for years over victims like Fruma. "If you have any human sensibility, it sticks," he told me.
MacQueen switched in 2004 to hunting for the perpetrators of war crimes in Bosnia. "The Nazis were all dying," he said, and a new generation of war criminals were beginning to surface in the United States. In both eras, holes in America's immigration system allowed offenders into the country based on little more than their word about what they did during the war. "We didn't learn our lesson," MacQueen said. "That the whole situation was allowed to repeat itself in Bosnia was historical amnesia."
On July 11, 1995, Srebrenica, a predominantly Muslim enclave in eastern Bosnia that had been declared a United Nations protected safe area, fell to Bosnian Serb forces after U.N. and NATO forces did little to save it. Thousands of Bosnian Muslim men were bused to schools, warehouses, and other buildings that served as makeshift prisons. In the nearby village of Petkovci, soldiers from the 6th Infantry Battalion of the Bosnian Serb Army's Zvornick Brigade herded more than a thousand Muslim men into hot, crowded classrooms. With no food or water, some prisoners "became so thirsty they resorted to drinking their own urine," according to the U.N.'s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Shouting "Long live Serbia, Srebrenica is Serbian," the soldiers shot some prisoners to death outside the school on July 15th, the tribunal found, then took the rest to a nearby dam and executed them, burying them in mass graves.
Relatives pray during a funeral ceremony in July, 2014, for victims from Srebrenica whose remains were exhumed from a mass grave.
Photograph by Samir Yordamovic / Anadolu Agency / Getty
All told, the U.N. tribunal has implicated the 6th Infantry Battalion in the murders of more than a thousand Muslims from Srebrenica, at the school and elsewhere. Using Bosnian documents and U.S. government records, MacQueen managed to identify a handful of immigrants in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and elsewhere who served in the notorious unit. In 2014, he began focussing on Josipović. "I just kept finding more and more stuff on this guy," he told me. The other 6th Battalion members he had found living in the United States were lower-level soldiers, but the logs placed Josipović several rungs above them, with a rank of company commander and the role of the chief logistics officer for the battalion in mid-1995. Piecing together Bosnian Serb Army personnel records from 1992 to 1995, he was able to track Josipović's whereabouts in those years, his promotions in rank, and, most important, his senior role at the 6th Battalion headquarters in July, 1995, in Petkovci, at the time of the killings of the Muslims from Srebrenica. There were no eyewitness accounts of Josipović's role, but MacQueen found documents that showed he had significant responsibility for a range of operations, including summoning the trucks needed to shuttle prisoners to the execution site and dispatching personnel to clean up the blood and waste from the school. Josipović "was a key functionary without whom mass-murder operations could not be carried out," MacQueen told me. A former prosecutor in Bosnia, speaking on condition of anonymity, described Josipović as a "medium to big fish" in the Petkovci operation.
In 2003, Josipović settled in the United States. On the surface, his life looked like that of many other Bosnian refugees. He was married, with three children. He spoke spotty English, but held a steady factory job. He had a house and a mortgage in a blue-collar area of Akron near a local diner. He'd received a few traffic tickets but had no major run-ins with the law.
In 2012, Bosnian officials asked the U.S. government to interview Josipović, because they thought he might have information that could help in their investigation into the 6th Battalion's top commander, Ostoja Stanišić. F.B.I. agents questioned Josipović in Akron—not as a suspect but as a possible witness. He told them that he hadn't served in the battalion and knew nothing about the commander. Two years later, MacQueen began his own investigation and learned about the F.B.I. interview. He was frustrated to read in the F.B.I.'s report just how easily Josipović had evaded scrutiny. Josipović "blew smoke" and "Bureau agents wrote it all down," MacQueen said. The F.B.I. declined to comment on the case.
In September, 2014, MacQueen obtained a search warrant and, accompanied by four immigration agents, knocked on Josipović's door. After the visitors showed Josipović their credentials, Josipović became agitated, but he agreed to answer some questions, MacQueen told me. The conversation started civilly, in English, but he began cursing in Serbo-Bosnian as questions turned to the war.
Josipović again denied serving in the military. MacQueen brought out the records showing Josipović's name, rank, and identification number. "How do you square what you're telling me with this?" he recalled asking. Josipović got his eyeglasses and began reading. He declared the records a forgery. "I don't know who made this document," MacQueen recalled him saying. It had been authenticated, MacQueen told him. Josipović's story shifted. He had served in the 6th Battalion, he admitted, but he wasn't in Pekovci. He had "granted himself leave," he said, and was visiting relatives across the river in Serbia. MacQueen didn't believe him. The bloodletting at Petkovci involved the entire unit, and Josipović's name was in the officer staffing logs. MacQueen finally left, convinced that Josipović had been lying to American officials for more than a decade.
A military roster for the 6th Battalion of the Bosnian Serb Army's Zvornik Brigade, from July, 1995, lists the name of Ilija Josipovic. War crimes investigators say members of the unit massacred more than a thousand Muslims from Srebrenica on July 15, 1995.
For two years, Josipović's case was stalled owing to a backlog of immigration cases. Photos that Josipović posted on Facebook during that time show him smiling, his graying hair cropped short, as he posed with his children at a family wedding and at a graduation ceremony for his daughter with balloons in hand. Early last year, things changed. Federal prosecutors in Ohio charged Josipović with immigration fraud, and, three weeks later, just days after his sixtieth birthday, he walked into the federal courthouse in Akron. He had decided to plead guilty, which meant near-certain deportation. His wife, who came from Bosnia with him, had died of cancer two months earlier, and he was eager to take a deal rather than face more serious war-crimes charges. "I figured it was the easiest route to go," he told the judge through a translator, before admitting he had concealed his military service in the Bosnian Serb Army. Prosecutors wanted the sure thing, as well. "This was someone we wanted to get out of the United States as soon as possible," Jason Katz, the federal prosecutor who brought the case with MacQueen's help, told me.
A deportation order came three months later. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Cleveland put out a short press release, picked up by a few media outlets in Ohio, that said Josipović was being deported "for failing to disclose his involvement in a military unit engaged in war crimes in the former Yugoslavia." The statement made no mention of his role as a ranking officer in the 6th Battalion or the unit's involvement in the Srebrenica massacre.
ICE agents put Josipović on a plane back to Bosnia last summer. Boro Josipović, his thirty-one-year-old son, told me that it was "heartbreaking" for him and his two sisters, who all remained in Ohio, to see their father deported after fourteen years in America. His father had no real choice but to conceal his military service from U.S. immigration officials in his application papers, Boro maintained, or he and his wife and three children would never have been let into the country. "He just basically wanted to provide a better life for his family," Boro said. "It was a civil war. From what I knew, he was just a regular officer."
Josipović has been living with a cousin in Zvornik since his deportation, Boro said. I asked to speak to the elder Josipović, but Boro declined several requests to put me in touch with him directly and said his father was uninterested in being interviewed. His health has not been good, Boro told me, and "he doesn't feel like talking about it." Asked whether he thought his father was involved in war crimes, Boro Josipović said he did not really know. He has heard accounts of the Srebrenica killings, he said, ''but there's so many different stories. I really don't know what happened. God only knows.''
Bosnian authorities had told MacQueen that they would consider prosecuting Josipović on war-crimes charges. MacQueen was hopeful but not confident. Over the years, he had seen many suspects—both Nazis and Bosnians—escape the punishment he thought they deserved, and human-rights advocates have long complained of uneven justice for Balkan war criminals. The U.N. war-crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which closed last December, after twenty-four years, brought charges against a hundred and sixty-one higher-level offenders, including former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević, who died while on trial; the Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladić, the so-called Butcher of Bosnia, who oversaw the Srebrenica massacres; and the Bosnian Croat general Slobodan Praljak, who killed himself in court last year by drinking a vial of poison seconds after his sentence was affirmed.
But justice has been more erratic in the cases that have been brought before the Bosnian state court. MacQueen testified as an expert in state court in the joint trial of Stanišić, the 6th Battalion commander, and his top deputy, Marko Milošević (no relation to Slobodan), for crimes of genocide in the killings at the school in Petkovci and nearby dam. Stanišić was found guilty and imprisoned, but his deputy was acquitted because of what the court called a lack of evidence.
Trying accused war criminals remains politically contentious in Bosnia two decades after the conflict. The Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has called for a referendum to reject the authority of the state court, saying it is biased against Serbs. The state court has an enormous backlog and hopes to resolve five hundred and fifty war-crimes cases involving more than forty-five hundred perpetrators by 2023. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitors war-crimes trials in Bosnia, has observed a dramatic decrease in conviction rates in the state court in the past few years. A 2016 report by the group found that "many potential witnesses have died or emigrated" and acknowledged that it would be impossible to try every perpetrator: "Innumerable crimes were committed by innumerable people. Available resources render it impossible to prosecute all those who committed crimes."
In the case of Josipović, a Bosnian prosecutor "reviewed the available evidence" and "issued an order not to initiate an investigation," Boris Grubešić, a spokesman for the Bosnian state prosecutor's office, told me. That will stand, he said, "unless we find some additional and sufficient evidence."
Free for now from the threat of prosecution, Josipović has been trying to find work in Zvornik, without success, Boro said. Father and son talk on Skype when they can. MacQueen had heard nothing about Josipović for months after his deportation and didn't know about Bosnia's decision not to initiate an investigation. He expressed disappointment but was not altogether surprised. MacQueen's main goal—getting Josipović deported—was accomplished. "We got done what we could do," he said. "He'll never be coming back."
Valerie Hopkins contributed reporting to this article.
Video
The Haunting Cries of Immigrant Children
ProPublica obtained an audio recording reportedly of crying children who had been separated from their parents and detained in a Customs and Border Protection facility in Texas. In the past two months, the government has separated almost two thousand immigrant children from their parents.
July 09, 2018
With Serbia and Kosovo both vying for EU membership, the question remains: who won the war?
With Serbia and Kosovo both vying for EU membership, the question remains: who won the war?
Robert Fisk Belgrade
57-72 minutes
Who won the war? There are a few ruins left from the Nato bombing of 1998, and outside the parliament building in Belgrade – of "Serbian democracy", more later – there is a long banner containing photographs of the Serbs who were killed in Kosovo two decades ago. Men, women children, civilians, soldiers and, of course, the occasional war criminal or two, or three.
Nato were not exactly surgery clean in its airstrikes, and the "UCK terrorists" (Kosovar Muslim militia) killed civilians. A point to be remembered here: the mass dead of Kosovo itself (from both mass murders by Serbs and promiscuous airstrikes by Nato) have no place on this record of suffering.
So it was a relief to see that Aleksandar Vucic, former sympathiser of Saddam Hussein, and Hashem Thaci, former "terrorist" chieftain in Kosovo, could meet in the EU's offices in Brussels last month as presidents of their respective countries to be told that a legally binding agreement between them was "key for their respective European paths [sic] and essential for sustainable regional stability".
Will Vucic hold a referendum for Serbs "so that the people can decide"? But how can he ask that when he said just over a week ago that "there is nothing good about Kosovo that we can get and offer to the people; just trouble and hard things…"
It sounded like blood, sweat and tears in reverse. The referendum, in EU terms, sounds even worse. Didn't Serbia hold a rather bloody referendum 20 years ago when it decided to fight for Kosovo – and for a rather dotty dictator called Slobodan Milosevic? And after a UK referendum on leaving the EU, who wants a referendum on a bloodbath to get into the EU?
July 08, 2018
Serbia recovers from ‘cultural genocide’
Serbia recovers from 'cultural genocide'
Simon Hewitt
4-5 minutes
The Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade reopened last October after a $6.8m renovation Relja Ivanic
Museum-goers are used to institutions closing for a year or three in pursuit of ambitious modernisations, but the fate of Serbia's top two museums takes some beating. The National Museum, which is due to reopen in Belgrade on 28 June, last welcomed visitors in 2003. The city's Museum of Contemporary Art, which reopened last October, had been closed since 2007.
This dual hiatus was described by the artist and critic Vladimir Bogdanovic in 2012 as "a cultural genocide against the Serbs". In 2015, the Serbian government erected a digital clock on the façade of the National Museum, ticking down the seconds until its planned reopening the following year. The deadline came and went; so did the clock.
Zoran Eric, the chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, says the "lack of political will to deal with culture or cultural institutions" was finally broken by Ivan Tasovac, the former head of the Belgrade Philharmonic, who "persuaded the political establishment that the reconstruction of the two museums was a priority" during his stint as culture minister from 2013 to 2016.
Founded in 1844, the National Museum has occupied a neo-Renaissance former bank on Belgrade's central square, Trg Republike, since 1952. Its RSD824m ($8.2m) refurbishment has increased the exhibition space to 5,000 sq. m by covering the courtyard and converting the basement into galleries.
The works will allow the museum to show more of its 400,000-strong collection, which ranges from prehistoric times to the 20th century. It is rich in antiquities from the Stobi and Trebenista archaeological sites in Macedonia (former Yugoslavia), numismatics and Medieval art, including icons, frescos and the illuminated 12th-century Miroslav Gospel.
"A lack of political will to deal with culture was finally broken"
The fine art department holds 16,000 paintings, drawings and prints, plus 900 sculptures. Its chief strength is Modern art, especially French, with works by Corot, the Impressionists, Gauguin and Matisse, as well as Van Gogh, Kandinsky and Picasso. Many of these were acquired by the Oxford-
educated Prince Paul, the Regent of Yugoslavia from 1934 to 1941. More than 500 pieces come from the collection of Erich Slomovic, a close associate of the legendary French art dealer Ambroise Vollard. Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen also donated works to the museum.
When the distinctive post-war building of the Museum of Contemporary Art reopened after a RSD680m ($6.8m) revamp last October, admission was free for the first ten days. Nearly 50,000 visitors poured in, with queues extending for more than 300 yards across its newly landscaped park. The museum could have made a small fortune by selling drinks but it has no café and little incentive to open one, since most of its income goes to the state.
Paying visitor numbers have since dropped to around 170 a day (a standard adult ticket costs RSD300, around $3). "Considering the overall interest of the Serbian public in contemporary art, the current figures are very good—and much higher than before we closed," Eric says. "Our role is to educate the public."
The new Sequences display charts Serbian and Yugoslav art from the early 20th century to the present. A modular design allows sections to be changed or removed depending on the size of temporary exhibitions. A retrospective for the Serbian conceptualist Ilija Soskic is due to open this October. The Serbian government, meanwhile, is expecting 500,000 visitors to come to the mega-exhibition on Belgrade native Marina Abramovic, planned for September 2019.
"The reopening of the museum is a boost for the city's contemporary art scene," says the local art dealer Ksenija Samardzija, although she acknowledges that the market has some way to catch up. "Serbia still has very few art collectors."
July 06, 2018
Diplomats in shock, amnesty for war crimes
Diplomats in shock, amnesty for war crimes
KoSSev
5-6 minutes
Talks on normalisation of relations in Brussels (illustration)
Amnesty for war crimes could be part of what is announced to be the „final agreement" between the negotiating teams of Belgrade and Pristina, or Kosovo and Serbia, Koha Ditore daily reported today while citing „very credible diplomatic sources." As a result, the Special Court will be dismantled. Diplomats are in shock, Koha also stated.
„Some international diplomats were shocked upon hearing of an amnesty for war crimes in Kosovo might be included in the final agreement between Kosovo and Serbia. Very credible diplomatic sources told Koha Ditore that officials in Pristina heard of such a proposal and that there was a level of readiness among the negotiators to do so, both in Kosovo and Serbia,"the Pristina-based newspaper reported.
Such an amnesty is considered „valid for both parties involved in the Kosovo war", and as a result, the Special Court will be thus dismantled.
Koha claims that the Kosovo Presidency has indirectly confirmed that an amnesty might be possible. The government and the ruling parties refused to comment, while the opposition reacted against it.
„New State and Modern Statesman", the lack of the issue in public, previous international warnings
The issue of the Special Court has been vanishing from the public eye for several months now. During that time, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, who was the subject of frequent speculations that he could be the subject of an indictment, has presented his book „New State, Modern Statesman" throughout diplomatic circles, and across European capitals.
„In the biography by British authors, Kosovo president and former guerrilla leader Hashim Thaci is portrayed as a superstar. In Pristina, it is believed that the positive image campaign is connected with the fear of war crimes charges," the newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote after promoting the book at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna.
„He could be charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court in Hague. Thaci, who always denied these allegations, has allegedly signed contracts worth millions of euros in recent years with lobby firms and law firms in the US and England. Now the fifty-year-old, with a slicked-back hair and a smile, is shining on the cover of a freshly printed book. Equally flattering is the title: 'New State, Modern Statesman'"- the same newspaper outlined.
The Kosovo Special War Crimes Court has been officially ready for operation since the 5th of July last year. However, there is still no official public information if the first indictments can be issued. During the last year and earlier this year, there were several high-profile international visits to Kosovo and a series of harsh statements of concern due to obstruction against the court operating; also, clear warnings of the consequences if the obstruction continues, including concerns from the State Department.
Meanwhile, judges held their plenary session in May. In March, former prosecutor, David Swendiman, delivered a speech in a crowded room of the Leiden University, „reflecting on the time spent in the role of a specialized prosecutor and the challenges that arise," sending a message that the court has „analyzed and reviewed about 700,000 pages of data, 70,000 documents, about 6,000 related items – videos, photos, transcripts and other materials collected during the investigation to date." Jack Smith was appointed as the new prosecutor,the list of defense counsels was expanded, and Italian Pietro Spera was appointed as Ombudsperson for the Specialist Chambers.
High expectations
The process of the founding of the court followed the report by former Council of Europe Special Rapporteur Dick Marty, who linked the KLA leaders, including, as it was speculated in the public, Hashim Thaci, with serious crimes in Kosovo and organ trafficking. It also followed an investigation by the special prosecutor of the EU Special Investigative Task Force for crimes in Kosovo since 1999, Clint Williamson. Nevertheless, in 2014, Williamson claimed that his team did not find evidence to initiate an indictment for organ trafficking, saying that the findings in the report of the EU Special Investigative Task Force, which was formed after Dick Marty's report, „fully match". This team also found „unquestionable evidence against certain KLA leaders".
For more details on the Special Court and the founding process, see our thematic page „Special Court for Kosovo".
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Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
