Swedish FM believes Kosovo's status to be resolved

XINHUA (CHINA), 2007-02-02 04:11:37

 

STOCKHOLM, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Swedish foreign minister believes Kosovo's status will be resolved this year, Swedish news agency TT reported on Thursday

 

Carl Bildt, who has been involved in the Balkans since the early 1990s at the start of Yugoslavia's demise, said that Friday's visit of chief UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari to Kosovo to present his plan on the disputed province's future to both sides will mark "the beginning of the process."

 

According to Bildt, "that process is going to take some time between Belgrade and Pristina, and then eventually in the (United Nations) Security Council and then the European Union."

 

The Swedish Foreign Minister, who was also an international envoy in the former Yugoslavia, added however that he thinks it will be sorted out during this year, saying he hopes "it will be a solution that takes into account all of the interests as much as possible."

 

Kosovo has been a UN protectorate since a 1999 NATO intervention that stopped a Serbian crackdown against separatist ethnic Albanian rebels.

 

The ethnic Albanians, who account for 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million population, have rejected Serbia's offer of broad autonomy within Serb borders and want nothing less than independence, according to the report.

Over 200,000 Non-Albanian Refugees Hesitant Of Returning To Kosovo

Deutsche Presse Agentur, 06:10 PM, January 31st 2007

 

The UN administrative mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) said Wednesday that about 16,100 refugees have returned to the southern Serbian province since 1999.

 

However, some 220,000 refugees, mainly Serb, Roma and other non-Albanian minorities, remain scattered throughout Serbia and Montenegro, showing little desire to return to their homes in Kosovo.

 

According to UNMIK statistics, 44 per cent of the returnees are Serbs, the largest minority population in the predominantly Albanian province.

 

Most Kosovo Serbs live in NATO-protected enclaves located mainly in the northern part of the province.

 

Many fled their homes after the 1999 clashes between Albanian rebels and the Serbian military, which in turn led to a NATO-led bombing mission that pushed the Serb forces out of the province, making Kosovo a virtual protectorate of the UN.

 

Fear of another mass exodus of Serbs from Kosovo has arisen in light of the likelihood of Kosovo gaining independence from Serbia.

 

UN Special Envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari is expected to present his status proposal to officials in Pristina and Belgrade on Friday.

 

Kosovo Albanians hope to gain independence from Belgrade, while Serbian officials want to maintain sovereignty over the province.

Kosovo Albanians euphoric on eve of UN plan

Agence France Presse, 01 février 2007 04:21

 

PRISTINA, Serbia, Feb 1, 2007 (AFP)

 

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority are excitedly counting down the hours until a UN envoy presents a plan on Friday that they are convinced will lead to independence.

 

"Frankly speaking, we have been independent since NATO expelled the Serbian military and police in 1999," says a beaming Ardita Musliu.

 

"I don't even expect in the worst dreams that Kosovo could return under Serbia's regime," says the 24-year-old resident of the capital Pristina.

 

"Of course, it doesn't mean the proposal is not important. On the contrary, we have to be assured officially by the international community that we have nothing to do with Serbia from now on," she adds.

 

UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari, who led fruitless talks between Serbia and Kosovo Albanian leaders last year, is set to deliver his proposal for the future status of the disputed province to Belgrade and Pristina on Friday.

 

Technically still a Serbian province, Kosovo has been in limbo since mid-1999, when NATO drove out Serbian forces over repression of ethnic Albanian civilians during a war with separatist rebels.

 

People in Pristina's main Mother Teresa Street were bustling with a palpable euphoria ahead of the unveiling of Ahtisaari's plan.

 

Nobody here, including Kosovo Albanian political leaders, is expecting anything but independence to come from the Finnish diplomat's proposal.

 

"The times when Serbia ruled Kosovo are over," says Fehim Aliu, a 33-year-old taxi driver.

 

"Independence is the only way to make moves forward to a prosperous future."

 

A day ahead of Ahtisaari's visit to Kosovo to deliver the draft proposal that is expected to pave the way for Kosovo's independence, there was still uncertainty in the province's media on the content of the package.

 

The Lajm newspaper published four blank pages which were supposed to carry the text of Ahtisaari's proposal.

 

"We apologise sincerely to the readers for taking Ahtisaari's draft off our pages after many suggestions from different circles," the daily said on its front page, which featured pictures of Ahtisaari walking with his briefcase.

 

The anticipation for significant changes after independence was strengthened by almost omnipresent US-funded posters declaring: "Kosovo welcomes the future."

 

However the problems in the province extend beyond independence -- the word on most Kosovo Albanian lips.

 

Some politicians warn that the trappings of statehood would not be able to resolve all problems in Kosovo, where an economic crisis may yet threaten peace and stability.

 

Veton Surroi, journalist-turned-politician, says the very fact the government did not foresee economic growth for the next three years was "alarming," in particular for civil servants who earn some 150 euros a month.

 

"It would be fair for the institutions to come up publicly and tell to teachers, health care workers and other civil servants that there won't be any pay increases, because they haven't planned for such an increase," he says.

 

Unemployment in Kosovo stands at 40-45 percent, and is rising; around half its people live below the poverty line, with 15 percent of them extreme cases; and annual per capita income is the lowest in the region at around 1,250 euros (1,615 dollars).

 

But citizens are convinced the economy will improve significantly once Kosovo becomes independent. Politicians assure them that access to much-needed foreign investment was badly affected by Kosovo's unresolved status.

 

Mazllum Zymberi, a 17-year-old pre-paid phonecard seller in the area around the UN mission's headquarters, says he earns around five euros (6.50 dollars) a day at best.

 

"With my (monthly) income of around 100 euros, I keep alive my elderly parents and two sisters. Finally, it's time to live a worthy life," he says optimistically.

 

"No one, not even our international friends, will take better care of our country than we ourselves."

 

Sixty-four-year-old pensioner Habib Krasniqi, who as a former miner suffers from bronchial asthma, gets 40 euros a month in social assistance.

 

"In the last week of January, I didn't have enough money for my medicine," he says.

 

"Kosovo as an independent country will for sure take care of its pensioners who spent almost their whole life under the iron boot of Serbia," he says.

Serb man found dead near Kosovska Vitina

Radio Television Serbia, Belgrade, Tuesday, January 30, 2007 15:19

Petko Ilic from Binac near Kosovska Vitina was found dead not far from the village where he tended sheep, reported the International Press Center of the Coordinating Center for Kosovo and Metohija in Kosovska Mitrovica, adding that Ilic was found with serious head injuries which were most probably the cause of his death.

The Kosovo police confirmed the death of the 76 year old Serb man; however, it said there were no signs of violence on the body of the deceased. According to Ilic's medical history and the statements of members of his family, he was ill and frequently lost consciousness, the police said in a written statement.

Serbia offers interior independence to Kosovo-Metohija

RELIEF WEB (SWITZERLAND)

 

Source: Government of Serbia

Date: 29 Jan 2007

 

Belgrade, Jan 29, 2007 - Advisor to the Serbian Prime Minister and coordinator of the state team for negotiations on Kosovo's future status Slobodan Samardzic stated today that Serbia offers interior independence to ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo-Metohija through an agreement which would symbolically preserve "the membrane of Serbian sovereignty" over the issue of the province.

 

In an interview for the Reuters agency, Samardzic said that Serbia only needs respect of its borders, adding that interior organisation of the state may ensure maximum flexibility.

 

He explained that Belgrade will not govern all other issues related to the vital interests of ethnic Albanians, such as economic, social and cultural ones. He also stressed that these issues could be directly related to financial institutions.

 

Belgrade's plan does not insist that Serbia controls the border and this matter could be left to international police, said Samardzic and stressed that the Serbian side does not demand that its army and police return to the province.

 

He said that in ten years' time, Serbia's and Kosovo-Metohija's membership in the EU would reduce the importance of borders and equalise the monetary and customs policy.

 

Samardzic noted that Belgrade has not been offered the chance to come up with its own suggestions and added that applying pressure is not a good way to solve this issue in the next few months, as the West is doing now.

 

The problem of Kosovo is 100 years old and Ahtisaari provided only three hours of Serbian-Albanian status talks last year with a note that it was the meeting of the deaf.

 

Serbia's plan is a multi-layered plan of administration under the umbrella of Belgrade, he said and concluded that Europe is brimming with successful self-determination stories with no secession.

Kosovo, curtain-raiser for Iraq, still in search of a solution

ATLANTIC FREE PRESS (NETHERLANDS), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 by Brian Barder

 

Anyone under the widely shared illusion that NATO's attack on Serbia in 1999 over Kosovo permanently resolved the problem of Kosovo's relationship with the rest of Serbia needs to have another think. The veteran peace-making miracle man, Martti Ahtisaari, former President of Finland and accomplished godfather of UN solutions to intractable problems, is shortly to announce his proposals for the future status of Kosovo, having consulted at length with the governments of Russia, the US, the UK, France, Germany and Italy, the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo, and many others.

 

The forecast is that (after yet another round of protracted 'consultations') he will propose for Kosovo a form of internationally policed quasi-independence from Serbia - but without any specific mention of the i-word; probably also without any entitlement to membership of the UN, other countries then free to decide whether to 'recognise' Kosovo as a state or not. This, like any other kind of severance of Kosovo from Serbia, will be bitterly and perhaps violently opposed by the great majority of the people of Serbia, and (not unnaturally) by the small, beleaguered Serbian minority still clinging on in Kosovo. For there are still some Serbs in Kosovo despite the virtual ethnic cleansing that followed the departure of the Serbian army and police in 1999 and the installation of the NATO-led international régime in Kosovo under the revised settlement programme skilfully negotiated by - you guessed! - Ahtisaari, with discreet help from the Russians and the Americans, after the NATO bombing had failed to bring the Serbs to heel.

 

There's a predictably excellent account of the current situation in the Guardian of 26 January 2007 by Jonathan Steele, who argues with his usual persuasiveness for the award of full independence to Kosovo without further delay, despite the acknowledged risks. One such risk is that when the package is submitted to the Security Council for endorsement, the Russians, traditional protectors and patrons of the Serbs, will veto it. There's also the risk of armed resistance by Serbia to the secession of Kosovo, prospect reinforced by the sweeping victory of the Serb nationalists (united in their determination that Kosovo should remain part of Serbia) at the recent Serbian elections.

 

Another risk is that even qualified independence for Kosovo will precipitate a demand by the Bosnian Serbs for secession from Bosnia and union with Serbia, a situation that could also degenerate into violence. Any move by the newly independent Kosovars, often referred to as the Kosovo Albanians, to seek a union with their kith and kin in neighbouring Albania would give a strong fillip to the campaign for a Greater Albania which in turn would arouse intense alarm throughout the region, providing another destabilising element. Yet another daunting factor is the impact of any UN-approved Kosovo secession from Serbia, justified on grounds of nationalism and self-determination, on the serious dispute between Russia and Georgia over the future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia (usefully described in an article last August in the Christian Science Monitor). There could even be consequences for Chechnya, in that case wholly negative for Moscow. Here too there's a real danger of disputes erupting, or erupting again, into violence.

 

There's a sad irony in all this. The Kosovo nationalists fighting for their independence from Serbia in the period leading up to the NATO attack on Serbia in 1999 were given a promise by the Americans of an "act of self-determination" - unmistakeable code for independence, the inevitable result of any such exercise of self-determination - in exchange for the Kosovars' reluctant acceptance of the NATO ultimatum drawn up at the Rambouillet conference in March, 1999.

 

The ultimatum had been carefully crafted to ensure that the Serbian government - any Serbian government - would reject it, as indeed it duly did. The US and some other western delegations at Rambouillet, presumably including the British who co-chaired the conference with the French, were determined to ensure that their ultimatum would be accepted by the Kosovars and rejected by the Serbs. This was designed to provide a plausible justification for the NATO aerial assault on Serbia on which Madeleine Albright, the then US Secretary of State and leader of the US team at Rambouillet, was determined, drawing on a false and misleading analogy with the west's failure, earlier, to use force against the Serbs in Bosnia until too late.

 

NATO's escalating attack on Serbia for 11 weeks in 1999 had many eerie parallels with the US-led attack on Iraq four years later, for which in many ways Kosovo was intended to be the model. Contrary to the current received wisdom, both wars were illegal, neither having been authorised by the UN Security Council and neither fought in self-defence. Both failed in their proclaimed objectives: it wasn't the NATO bombing that eventually dislodged the Serbian forces and administration from Kosovo but the flexible and constructive behind-the-scenes diplomacy of an American and a Russian negotiator (Strobe Talbott and Viktor Chernomyrdin) - and Martti Ahtisaari.

 

Both wars were unnecessary: the terms eventually accepted by the Serbs could and should have been negotiated with them at Rambouillet, producing the same as the eventual settlement without a single bomb being dropped. Similarly, if the UN inspectors under Blix had been allowed to complete their work in Iraq, they might well have been able to show that Iraq had no WMD, which would have demolished the sole British rationale (at the time) for participation in the attack and occupation. Both wars were publicly asserted to have a variety of objectives and justifications, some of each of them sold on a deliberately false prospectus. Both military actions were disproportionate to both their real and their proclaimed objectives. Both turned out to be counter-productive: the NATO bombing of Serbia actually accelerated and aggravated Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and precipitated for the first time the wholesale flight of refugees into neighbouring countries. So far from producing a solution to the problem of how Kosovars and Serbs could live together in peace in Kosovo, the NATO attack actually aggravated it, and the international administration which was eventually installed under the US-Russian-Ahtisaari settlement has merely frozen the problem - and made it worse by presiding over the expulsion of thousands of Serbs from their Kosovo homes.

 

In case some of these assertions sound improbable, I have set out the ample and damning evidence in support of them in a much earlier piece here. Nothing can excuse the brutal behaviour of the Serbs towards their Kosovo compatriots in their repeated over-reaction to the 'liberation struggle' - or 'terrorist campaign' (select whichever description you prefer) - waged until 1999 by the Kosovo Liberation Army; but it's almost equally hard to excuse the misjudgements, the duplicity, and the failure to exhaust the resources of diplomacy before resorting to the use of force, which characterised the western performance at Rambouillet leading, as it was always designed to do, to the NATO bombing campaign, just as the same failures characterised the performance of the US and UK governments over Iraq in 2003. Kosovo, not Iraq, was Blair's first illegal war; sadly, it was Clinton's and Robin Cook's, too.

 

I don't of course pretend to have a solution to the problem of what to do now about Kosovo. No possible solution is without its risks and defects, and - as Jonathan Steele rightly says today - the stakes are high, as always in the Balkans. What's certain, though, is that the intractability of the problem now is in part the fruit of the misjudgements of the western powers in 1999 in their hasty, premature, unnecessary, unsuccessful, and above all illegal resort to the use of force. History was all too soon to repeat itself.

 

Backdate: For a typically idiosyncratic take on the 1999 NATO (i.e. US) bombing written by the late Edward Said while the bombing was still going on, click here.  Edward Said was right about the effect of the bombing on Serbian support for Milosevic, whose fall occurred only months later, toppled not by bombs but by the ballot box.

And the Kosovo Goes to... the International Community?

AXIS INFORMATION AND ANALYSIS, 0.01.2007 By Can Karpat, AIA Balkan section

 

Last Friday, Martti Ahtisaari, the UN representative and mediator for Kosovo, presented his proposal on the future of Kosovo to the Contact Group at a closed-door session in Vienna. Probably no independence, but a Dayton-like broad international engagement in Kosovo. At the end, it seems that Kosovo will get rid of Serbia - to go to . the international community? Meanwhile, the coalition negotiations have just begun in Serbia. As one Serbian minister put it, "it has never happened that a European state is requested to have its key issues discussed at a time when its government has not been set up". This is a grand première indeed.

 

The Kosovo well

 

Last Friday, Martti Ahtisaari, the UN representative and mediator for Kosovo, presented his proposal on the future of Kosovo to the Contact Group at a closed-door session in Vienna.

 

All that we know is that Ahtisaari's Kosovo status proposal focused on protecting minority rights and foresaw "a strong international civilian and military presence within a broader future international engagement in Kosovo". That was what he told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe last Wednesday.

 

Of course what interests the public opinion is not this rather impenetrable and vague bureaucratic rhetoric. The main question is short and plain: at the end, independent or not independent?

 

Diplomats close to Ahtisaari state that "independence" as word does not appear in the document. Instead, the proposal intends to repeat the Dayton model, namely the establishment of an international administrator in Kosovo. As in Bosnia, there will be an international military presence backed up by NATO peacekeepers and a civilian one backed by the EU.

 

Martti Ahtisaari plans to present his proposal formally to the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians during his visits to Belgrade and Pristina on 2nd February. So as predicted, no one would be happy with the outcome.

 

The Kosovo Albanians have been assured by their politicians for years that the only possible outcome would be full independence. It was often said that this policy was quite perilous and unwise. Now the Kosovo Albanians would feel themselves frustrated by this proposal, which no doubt delivers them from Serbian control, though without turning their province into a sovereign state as they expected. What will be their reaction? Or rather let us put the question bluntly: will their reaction be peaceful or violent?

 

As to the Serbs, the proposal would mean nothing but unsaid independence for Kosovo, which is indeed the case. And all this during a most delicate period for Serbia: the post-elections period. The coalition bargain started yesterday. Would such a proposal push Serbia into the political abyss?

 

And finally, let us ask one final question: what on earth pushed the international community to such a hasty initiative? Crass ignorance of Balkan affairs? Political impatience? The traditional belittlement of the Balkans as "Europe's backyard"? Or all three of them?

 

As the outgoing Minister of State Administration and Local Governance, Zoran Loncar put it: "It has never happened that a European state is requested to have its key issues discussed at a time when its government has not been set up".

 

The elections riddle in Serbia

 

Last week the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) interim president Tomislav Nikolic stated: "The Radical Party is the winner but we shall not have the opportunity of forming a government. We are now going to see how the two parties, the Democrat Party [DS] and the Serb Democrat Party [DSS] will come together". An excellent example of Schadenfreude indeed!

 

As Nikolic put it, it is quite probable that to find a common ground between Boris Tadic's DS and Vojislav Kostunica's DSS will be a difficult task.

 

Apart the dispute over the prime minister chair, Kostunica declared that he will not accept any coalition government with the Liberal Democrat Party (LDP) in it. Note that LDP is the only Serbian party which does not oppose to the independence of Kosovo.

 

Otherwise, the DSS top official Dragan Sormaz warned, new elections will have to be called. This was a rather premature warning anyway. Should we take it as a sign of DSS' bad faith?

 

Yet, as Vojislav Kostunica himself already stated, it is now up to the President to appoint the prime minister. It is expected that Boris Tadic designate the former finance minister Bozidar Djelic to this post. As to the second problem, it may be that this would not be that difficult to push aside.

 

No matter how or when, DS and DSS accompanied by other minor Serbian and minority parties would probably form the new government at the end. However, the question is not there.

 

The main question is: will a DS-DSS coalition government, though a pro-Western and democratic one, be functional enough to face the country's serious international and economic problems? Or will it be just a suspension of sentence - as sentence called SRS?

 

One last nuance, though. Many Europeans patronise the Serbs about the January elections, reproaching them for allowing the Radicals to be the winner. However, in comparison to the last general elections on 28th December 2003, DS marked + 10.3 points, while SRS only + 1.1 point. When one thinks of the serious domestic and international problems that this country does and will face, this result is in fact a promising one for the future.

About that coal in Kosovo

FISTFUL OF EUROS (SWEDEN), January 30, 2007 by Doug Muir

 

In comments to the post on Kosovo, Alex Harrowell asked the following reasonable question:

 

"How can you have something that's both a "mineral resource grab" and an "economic black hole"?"

 

The short answer: you can, because it's Kosovo.

 

Here's why. There has been no serious investment in those mines since the Yugoslav economy hit the skids in 1986.

 

A modern coal mine is not a hole in the ground full of guys with picks. It's a major industrial installation. You have huge drills, borers, grinders, driers, fans, pumps, you name it. A big coal mine uses as much power as a good-sized town. A big modern coal mine uses cutting-edge, state-of-the-art materials technology and software. It's not guys digging coal any more. It's guys operating and maintaining big, complicated machines that dig coal. In the United States, the majority of coal miners have four-year college degrees, and need them.

 

(Here's another interesting statistic: in the last 50 years, the number of US coal miners has dropped by 68%. However, the US' total coal production has gone up by 83%. You have less than a third as many miners producing nearly twice as much coal; per capita output has gone up nearly sixfold.)

 

Now Kosovo does indeed have a lot of coal. They aren't huge deposits by world standards, but they're pretty big -- the biggest in the region, and (I'm told) fifth or sixth biggest in Europe.

 

Furthermore, it's not bad coal, for lignite. It's got some sulfur, but lignite usually does; it's not particularly dirty, nor is it buried inconviently deep. When you put the whole package together -- size of deposits, quality of deposits, ease of access, environmental issues -- it looks pretty good. Not as fantastic as some partisans claim, no, but still a major coal field that's well worth exploiting.

 

But.

 

There's been no major investment in over twenty years; and twenty years is a long damn time, in that industry. I say "over twenty years" because even back in the 1980s, the Kosovo coal fields were the ugly stepsister of Yugoslav energy. The Albanian-dominated regional government didn't have enough money to make major investments, and the federal government felt it was already throwing enough money at Kosovo. So we're really talking more like thirty years, or even more. The miners today are using equipment and techniques from the 1960s and '70s.

 

And not only was there no investment, but the mines suffered a decade of actual disinvestment in the 1990s. Slobo fired all the Albanians in 1989-90, and there weren't enough Serbs to replace them. Then there was no point in investing in a mine running at just 20% capacity, especially since Serbia was under embargo and the coal couldn't be exported anyway. So, like almost everything else in Kosovo in the 1990s, the mines went to hell. Deferred maintenance; neglect; management by political appointees; massive corruption. Productivity and efficiency, already low, actually went backwards for ten years.

 

Things have improved a bit since 2000 -- UNMIK has sponsored some modest investment, especially in safety equipment -- but not much. The mines are still running with antiquated equipment and at very low levels of productivity and efficiency. Bringing them up to date will require hundreds of millions of euros of investment.

 

Further. Because the mines are using crappy old equipment -- and are grossly overstaffed -- it's costing them way too much to produce coal. Kosovar coal should be very competitive on world markets. Instead, the mines are losing money. It costs them more to mine and process the coal than they can get by selling it.

 

All that said, the mines should be an attractive investment. A billion dollars of investment? That's well within the reach of a large modern mining company. The technology is off the shelf. The workforce is there. And once the investment is made, the mines could be some of the most productive and profitable in all Europe.

 

However.

 

One, who in their right mind would invest a billion dollars in Kosovo right now?

 

Two, the ownership of the mines is disputed. They were, after all, state-owned. The Kosovar state claims them; so does Serbia. Until that issue is settled, nobody's going near them.

 

Three, go back and look again at that productivity statistic. Any investor would want to increase productivity, which is great, except that it will inevitably involve firing large numbers of workers. The province as a whole may benefit, but that's in the long run. In the short run, it means pushing more unemployed workers onto the market in an overpopulated state that already has painfully high unemployment and is politically volatile. Even if a new investor is willing to do this, it's very questionable whether the Kosovar government would allow it. This problem is far from unique -- it's been acted out all over Eastern Europe in the last fifteen years -- but it will be particularly fraught in Kosovo.

 

Four, the Kosovar government has not taken this problem seriously. The Ministry of Energy and Mining? He's a guy named Ethem Ceku. He has a degree in history. His qualifications to be Minister? One, he was in the KLA; and two, he's the younger brother of Prime Minister Agim Ceku.

 

And five, if you really want to make those mines profitable, you have to export most of the coal. Since Kosovo is landlocked, that means railroads. Right now there's one rail line that can carry coal trains, and it runs. north into Serbia. D'oh!

 

So, somebody's going to have to spend a lot of money building a heavy rail line, either south into Macedonia or east over the mountains to Albania. Good luck with that.

 

In sum: Kosovo's coal mines are both a bonanza and a black hole. At the same time.

 

Final point: modern coal mining is not just a simple question of digging out the coal. It's more like a game of Tetris in reverse. Modern coal mines use all sorts of advanced techniques -- computer imaging, complicated software, incredibly advanced drills -- to get the maximum possible coal out. The Kosovar mines aren't using any of that stuff. So not only are they very inefficient, but they're actually wasting coal and damaging the mines.

 

Still: the coal is there, and one day someone will exploit it. But not soon.

 

When? I have no idea. So many variables!

 

But I'll be amazed if it happens within five years, and surprised if it happens within ten.

Agreement on restoration of cultural heritage in Kosovo signed

Serbian Press Agency SRNA, Bijeljina, 29-01-2007 13:45:30

PRISTINA, January 29 - UNMIK chief Joachim Ruecker signed an agreement with UNESCO in Paris today on the realization of the first project of restoration and conservation of the cultural heritage in Kosovo, advised UNMIK.

Locations that are included in this project are the church of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple in Lipljan, the church of St. Sava in Mitrovica, the Hadum Mosque in Djakovica, the church of the Holy Archangel Michael in Stimlje, Budisavci Monastery in Klina, the mosque in Decani and the hammam (Turkish bath) in Mitrovica.

"I welcome the signing of the agreement which will serve as a model for other similar agreements in the future, thus permitting the beginning of preservation of all kinds of heritage in Kosovo," said Ruecker.

The written statement says that the USA have contributed one million dollars for the restoration of these seven locations.

Various donors have committed a total of 10 million dollars at a conference in Paris in 2005 for the renewal and preservation of objects comprising the cultural heritage of Kosovo.

Finesse or fudge on Kosovo's future

IRISH TIMES, Friday, January 26, 2007 1:25 AM

 

Kosovo, the final piece in the jigsaw that used to be Yugoslavia, will learn today what degree of independence it can have from Serbia. Daniel McLaughlin reports from Pristina on the prospects for this impoverished nation with a restive minority

 

Proposals for Kosovo unveiled by a UN envoy today will satisfy neither the region's ethnic Albanian majority nor the Serbs who are loath to let it go free. But their dissatisfaction will not be enough to scupper a plan fashioned in foreign capitals.

 

Martti Ahtisaari's long-awaited blueprint is expected to outline a Kosovo that, to Belgrade's chagrin, will be able to run its own foreign policy and join international organisations but which - to the annoyance of the Kosovo Albanians - will not expressly be declared independent from Serbia.

 

The former Finnish president will tread a fine diplomatic line that he hopes will safely lead him, and Kosovo, through a field of potentially disastrous outcomes.

 

The province of two million people, 90 per cent of whom are ethnic Albanian, has not been run by Belgrade since 1999, when Nato bombs forced Slobodan Milosevic to end a bloody crackdown on separatists and civilians and withdraw his forces.

 

Since then, Kosovo has been under UN control and its leaders have refused to publicly countenance anything but full independence; predictably, in this zero-sum game, Serbia has responded by declaring its implacable opposition to such a move.

 

Knowing that Kosovars would fight rather than return to Belgrade's fold, and keen to be seen supporting the cause of a mostly Muslim people, Washington and the European Union have long favoured independence for Kosovo.

 

However their enthusiasm has been dampened by the rise of Serbia's ultra-nationalist Radicals, who won this month's election by lambasting pro-Western parties for cosying up to the foreign powers who want to "steal" Kosovo, Serbia's historic heartland.

 

The spectre of Serbia slipping into ultra-nationalist hands and becoming a zone of instability and pro-Russian sentiment at the heart of the Balkans, made Brussels and the US look for ways of finessing their final decision on Kosovo.

 

Call it finesse or call it fudge, there will be plenty of it in Mr Ahtisaari's plan, which he delivers in Vienna today to the so-called Kosovo Contact Group comprising the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia.

 

The plan will probably allow Kosovo to join the Council of Europe, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other such institutions, but will place limits - at least temporarily - on the province's sovereignty.

 

Mr Ahtisaari will also stress the need for an international presence, probably the EU, to oversee the running of Kosovo. An international military force will also remain, largely to protect Serb enclaves that may be given a large degree of autonomy within Kosovo, a move that the Western powers hope will reduce the likelihood of a Serb exodus from the region.

 

"My settlement proposal focuses strongly on the protection of minority rights," Mr Ahtisaari said earlier this week. "It provides the foundation for a democratic and multi-ethnic Kosovo in which the rights and interests of all communities are firmly guaranteed and protected by institutions based on the rule of law.

 

"It also forces a strong international civilian and military presence within a broader future international engagement in Kosovo."

 

Fearing that the lack of a definitive declaration of independence could spark unrest, Kosovo's leaders are preparing their people to accept less than they wanted.

 

President Fatmir Sejdiu announced this week that security and the rule of law would be in foreign hands when Kosovo got its new status.

 

"This will be temporary and will remain during the transition period," he said, insisting that a further period of international oversight would benefit Kosovo.

 

"We consider it as help to Kosovo institutions in order to step up our efforts for integration" with the European Union and Nato, he added.

 

The UN delayed making its recommendations on Kosovo until after this month's Serbian elections, fearing a move towards Kosovo's independence would bolster the nationalist vote.

 

Today's report from Mr Ahtisaari, which Kosovars had hoped would serve as a de facto declaration of their sovereignty, is now being described as part of a long and drawn-out process in which Serbia has a role to play.

 

"Not all answers and all words will be included" in the report, says Torbjorn Sohlstrom, the Swedish diplomat who is the senior European Union official in Kosovo. "It will be an essential building block, but this is not the end of the process."

 

Mr Ahtisaari will present his proposals to Belgrade and Kosovo early next month. According to Serb media, officials from Belgrade and Kosovo will then be invited to two rounds of talks later in February to discuss their views. After that, the plan will be put before a vote to the UN Security Council.

 

It is not clear whether Serbia's main, broadly liberal parties will have formed a new government by then, so keeping the Radicals out of power.

 

Even if a new coalition has been created, its leaders will wash their hands of any decision to grant independence to Kosovo and are likely to demand maximum autonomy and protection for Serb enclaves in the region.

 

Visiting Kosovo this week, the political director of the British Foreign Office, John Sawers, dampened Serb hopes of using the talks to stall or derail the UN plan.

 

"I don't think there's going to be a fundamental renegotiation of the whole approach," he said. "I think it's going to be a consultation on how it will work and perhaps some fine-tuning." He also said Western governments "will keep working with the Russians" to convince them not to veto the proposals in the UN Security Council.

 

Backroom diplomatic dealing appeared to be working yesterday, when Moscow's ambassador to the UN said he saw "are all sorts of possibilities . . . if the parties get into a creative discussion of the settlement."

 

Kosovo is already on the road to some form of independence and the West's support for that may result from stark reasoning: that a weary Serbia will not take up arms to keep Kosovo, while Kosovars would fight to resist a return to Belgrade's rule.

 

But how will this tiny, impoverished nation survive, with few natural resources, little tourist potential, decrepit infrastructure and a restive Serb minority and potentially troublesome neighbours? Mr Ahtisaari can say what he likes today - uncertainty will linger over Kosovo for years to come.

Fatic family returns to Pec

BBC Serbian (UK), Wednesday, January 24, 2007 By Tanja Vujisic BBC correspondent in Pec

 

Once upon a time there were some twenty thousand Serbs living in the municipality of Pec.

 

After the 1999 war in Kosovo not one Serb remained in the city.

 

After almost eight years the first Serb family, the Fatices, returned to their native city.

 

The Fatic family returned to Pec after 7 years where they live a difficult life

 

With the help of the organization UN Habitat, they managed to reclaim their apartment, which had been illegally occupied for seven years.

 

The organization repaired the hardwood floor, which had been damaged, and the Danish Council for Refugees gave them two beds as they found none of the household furnishings they had left behind seven years ago.

 

The family lives in an unheated house with a leaky roof. They did the electrical wiring themselves and they are more frequently without power than with it.

 

Seventy-five year old Branko Fatic emphasizes that they feel forgotten and abandoned by everyone, adding that an exceptionally difficult life in Belgrade and poverty forced them to return to their native city.

 

"I paid one thousand dinars' rent. Now they are asking for three and a half thousand. I don't even have a bathroom. I don't even have a water heater to take a bath. When one has no money, one has nothing. Today a couple living in Belgrade are complaining; the woman has a salary and the man has a salary and still they are complaining. I'm not complaining. We need everything for our empty house but without money, all we can do is be quiet. I have no one to help me, not a single Serb," Branko Fatic tells the BBC.

 

The three-member family survives solely on Branko's pension of 8000 dinars.

 

Since the first day of their return to today, no one has visited them except journalists. They have never received any aid in food, medicine or clothing.

 

Branko emphasizes that they are surviving thanks solely to the sisterhood of the Pec Patriarchate; however, he admits that with age and illness the once weekly trip to the Pec Patriarchate is growing more and more difficult for him.

 

"I don't even have a bicycle. If I had one, I would go with the bicycle but I don't. I have a driver's license but I cannot buy a car. I pay five euros for television. I pay seven euros for the telephone; the children from Belgrade call, I have to answer them," emphasizes Branko Fatic.

 

Leposava Fatic says that from time to time she has to go to the marketplace in the center of the city and that so far the Albanians have done nothing bad to her.

 

However, the family's fear is ever present, especially at night.

 

"Sometimes I wonder if we will wake up alive in the morning. They have begun banging on our doors. Several times they banged on the door at night when we have had no electricity for four or five hours. I go to the marketplace because it has to be done. How can you survive if you don't go out to buy something," says Leposava Fatic.

 

Leposava says that she and her husband are determined to stay in Pec for good because, she says, their seven children and grandchildren already have an extremely difficult time as they spend their refugee days in (central) Serbia.

 

"We have nowhere to go. We have no chance of selling (our property) and even if we did, where would we go? We have so many children who are not working. We have nowhere to go. We have 17 grandchildren. One of my sons, a policeman, was killed. One of my daughters died. We will stay as long as we possibly can. We will see what will happen and how things will be if they turn for the better," says Leposava Fatic, a member of the only Serb family to return to Pec since the 1999 war.

Serb man from Babin Most released by police after questioning

Radio Television Serbia, Belgrade, Friday, January 26, 2007 23:02

 

Members of the Kosovo Police Service have released Zivojin Dancetovic from Babin Most near Obilic, who was detained for illegal possession of firearms, after taking a statement in the police station in Obilic, advised the KPS.

 

During the investigation of the murder of KPS member Avni Kosumi on January 3 on the highway from Pristina to Mitrovica near the village of Babin Most, the police obtained information that there were illegal weapons in the house of Dancetovic.

 

"On Friday at about 3 p.m. police searched the house and on that occasion found one TT pistol, one AK-47 automatic rifle (Kalashnikov), two semi-automatic rifles, and about 250 bullets of 7.62mm caliber," said the KPS headquarters in a written statement.

 

By the decision of the local prosecutor Dancetovic was released and returned to his village after questioning.

 

The legal procedure in connection with illegal possession of firearms will continue according to the regular process, says the statement.

 

As part of the investigation into the killing of policeman Avni Kosumi Serb houses have been searched three times thus far and members of the Simic family have also been arrested. During the past three days some 30 other Serbs have been questioned and detained.

Explosion damages local party headquarters in eastern Kosovo

Associated Press, Sunday, January 28, 2007

 

PRISTINA, Serbia - An explosion damaged the local headquarters of a Kosovo political party in the eastern part of the province Sunday, police said. No one was reported injured.

 

The explosion occurred around 6.15 p.m. (1615GMT) and is believed to have been caused by a device outside the building in the town of Gnjilane, some 60 kilometers (40 miles) east of Kosovo's capital Pristina, police spokesman Veton Elshani said.

 

The damaged offices previously belonged to the local branch of the ruling Democratic League of Kosovo. But recently there have been disputes in that area after some party officials opted to split from it and create their own party.

 

The new party's name is the Democratic League. But it was unclear to whom the party offices now belong.

 

Police could not confirm whether the political offices were the target of the blast. The explosion also shattered the windows of several businesses nearby, Elshani said.

 

Two explosions hit the area in September, targeting vehicles belonging to government officials.

 

Kosovo has been run as a U.N. protectorate since the end of the 1998-1999 conflict between Serb forces and ethnic Albanians seeking independence.

 

A U.N. envoy on Kosovo's future will present his proposal to ethnic Albanian leaders on Friday.

Independent Kosovo in danger of 'social explosion': analysts

Agence France Presse, 26 janvier 2007 11:43

 

PRISTINA, Serbia, Jan 25, 2007 (AFP)

 

Winning independence won't resolve all problems for the people of Kosovo, where an economic crisis may yet threaten peace and stability, analysts have warned.

 

"Real problems can emerge when the people start to think with their stomachs," journalist and economic analyst Ibrahim Rexhepi told AFP.

 

Rexhepi said he did not exclude the possibility of the dire economic situation leading to a "social explosion."

 

"That's possible, in particular because leaders will no longer be in a position to give promises on independence" to placate and pacify the tense province's two million people, he added.

 

"They won't have an opportunity any more to buy time and achieve a social peace with promises," said the editor-in-chief of the daily Lajem.

 

The warnings came as a United Nations envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, presented a plan Friday that the international community hopes will end ethnic Albanians' impatience for independence.

 

Kosovo has been in limbo for nearly eight years, since NATO intervened to halt a crackdown by Serbian forces against the ethnic Albanian population during a 1998-1999 war with separatist guerrillas.

 

Ahead of the status resolution, many argue that Kosovo cannot count on a viable future as an independent state because of its economy.

 

The province's economy is, if anything, in a worse state than in the post-war period when foreign donors opened their coffers for reconstruction. But this has dried up in the past two years.

 

"There hasn't been any significant foreign investment in Kosovo so far. We need foreign capital," said Isa Mustafa, a renowned Pristina University professor.

 

Unemployment in Kosovo stands at 40-45 percent, and is rising; around half its people live below the poverty line, with 15 percent of them extreme cases; annual per capita income is the lowest in the region at around 1,250 euros (1,615 dollars); and exports cover only 10 percent of imports.

 

For most of Kosovo's people, the situation is becoming unbearable.

 

Ferat Uka, 28, travels from northeastern Kosovo to Pristina early each morning in the hope of finding any work that the capital's urban population find unenviable.

 

"If I'm lucky, I earn 30-40 euros (38-52 dollars) a week, almost enough for bread and milk for my two kids," he says.

 

"I can only dream about buying winter shoes and an overcoat for my older daughter, Merlinda, who entered school this year."

 

But Blerim Bajrami, 21, a second-hand mobile phone vendor in downtown Pristina, says the economic situation is so bad that he thinks it cannot get worse.

 

"Our leaders say (the economic situation) will be a new story in Kosovo when we become independent. I don't have a reason not to believe so," says Bajrami.

 

"On the contrary, I believe my dream to have a shop with glass and brand new cellphones around me will come true in an independent Kosovo."

 

Political leaders in Pristina are convinced the economy will improve significantly when Kosovo becomes independent.

 

Their main message to voters is that access to much-needed funding and investment was badly affected by Kosovo's unresolved status.

 

"Independence will help us," Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku told AFP in an interview last week.

 

"The undefined status was a big obstacle to tackling the economic challenges and issues. Kosovo is going to be an economically valuable and economically sustainable country. There's no doubt about that," said Ceku.

 

University professor Mustafa says that despite all the hardship, Kosovo's economy has a chance to improve, "but independence doesn't solve problems automatically."

 

The outgoing UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, which is to be replaced by a European Union-led administration, focussed on transforming social structures, rather than making the province self-sufficient.

 

UNMIK's indifferent economic management held back private sector investment, transforming Kosovo in a consumer society where streets are cluttered with thousands of mostly loss-making shops.

 

"We have to get rid of the illusion that after the independence our streets will be loaded with dollars," said Rexhepi.

 

But for people on the ground, there remains the hope that independence, and stability it brings, will mean a better future.

 

"We live a dog's life. It's unbearable when I have to return home empty-handed in the evening. I certainly hope independence will bring better days to my family and me," says Uka.