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22 December 2002, Sunday Edition
CONTENTS
· AAK
calls on Kosovo Assembly to approve declaration on Kosovo independence
(Koha Ditore)
· Rugova: The
objective of all Albanians is integration in NATO and EU (Koha
Ditore & Bota Sot)
· Surroi: The
death of this (non) self-government (Koha Ditore)
· Haradinaj:
Constitutional Framework and UNMIK mission are obsolete in Kosovo (Epoka
e Re)
Kosovo Media Highlights
AAK calls on Kosovo Assembly to approve declaration on
Kosovo independence (Koha Ditore)
Ramush Haradinaj's party, the AAK, adopted a resolution on Saturday which
calls on the Kosovo Assembly to declare a Kosovo's independence, reports
Koha Ditore.
The AAK has called on the Kosovo Assembly to approve the declaration on independence and call on the USA, EU and UN SC to officially recognize the state of Kosovo. The AAK statement was issued after a National Council Meeting organized by the Alliance on Saturday in Prishtina. "The sovereignty of Kosovo, both de facto and de jure, is in the hands of the people of Kosovo and nobody else and they enjoy the full right to decide its destiny and for the solution of the final status of Kosovo," says the first paragraph of the declaration. The AAK National Council decided to approve the declaration based on historic conferences that took place from WWII all the way to the KLA war and post-war developments.
"The AAK asks the Kosovo Assembly, as the first internationally recognized assembly of Kosovo and as the highest authority, to adopt the declaration of the independence of Kosovo," says the second paragraph of the declaration.
The president of the AAK, Ramush Haradinaj, said that this came as a consequence of the dilemma as to how Kosovo can function in the face of current developments. He stressed that the unwillingness of the international community to transfer competencies to local institutions according to a previous agreement has made Kosovo a place where things do not move along. "A joint agreement exists in the AAK, but we believe that it is by other parties and by the parties representing the minorities that we are being held hostage. Kosovo is a hostage of the final status," said Haradinaj.
"We at the Alliance are ready to support Kosovo's independence and we are doing this formally with a declaration for a Kosovo that is an independent state for all the citizens of Kosovo," said Haradinaj.
"The AAK calls on the UN SC to recognize the reality in Kosovo as a joint achievement by the people of Kosovo and the international community and to approve it with a resolution that will recognize the independent state of Kosovo," says the third paragraph of the declaration.
AAK president Ramush Haradinaj said that declaration of Kosovo's independence isn't anything new for Kosovo. "This isn't anything new, it is only a confirmation of a determination and I believe that other political parties have a similar feeling," said Haradinaj.
Top
Rugova: The objective of all Albanians is integration
in NATO and EU (Koha Ditore & Bota Sot)
Albanian youth from all Albanian lands met for the first time in a conference
organized by the LDK Youth Forum in Prishtina. The topic of the conference
was, "The youth - one more chance for integration," reported
Koha Ditore &Bota Sot.
Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo Assembly President Nexhat Daci and Minister for Non-Residential Issues Bexhet Brajshori participated in the opening of this conference. "I am pleased to be here among you who have joined together to talk about issues that preoccupy all of us," said President Rugova. "Given the fact that we are together at this conference, it can be said that the objective of all Albanians is integration in NATO and the EU and long-lasting friendship with the USA," said Rugova.
"Kosovar youth has an obligation to create a living environment which can absorb all the civil values and show the international community that Kosovo and Albanians wherever they may be are mature and ready to face all challenges," said Kosovo Assembly President Nexhat Daci.
The Albanian youth organization that participated in this conference is calling upon international factors, the USA, EU ad UN to formally recognize Kosovo's independence as the only solution that would ensure security and stability and enable all process of integration.
Surroi: The death of this (non)
self-government (Koha Ditore)
Koha Ditore carries the fifth and final part of what it refers to as a
Christmas letter from the paper's publisher, Veton Surroi, to SRSG Michael
Steiner. Surroi wrote:
13. The functioning of our place is immeasurable. Our functioning as a society rathr resembles our relations with electricity. On the days when restrictions are long, we are satisfied with the schedule 3 hours on and 3 hours off. When it becomes 4 to 2 we feel even better. The same thing happens with the operation of the institutions; a year ago it was sheer pleasure when Kosovo's first democratic assembly was elected. Today we are asking this assembly to do something, and we are happy if it passes one or two bills. Tomorrow we will be satisfied if it approves ten bills. When you don't have a state you are the same as with electricity: you are satisfied with whatever you get because you know you could be left without it.
We have not closed the conceptual circle: we don't have a political system, an economic one, an energy system or any other. We improvise, now a little bit more elaborated than three years ago, but it is still improvisation. The local population is being kept alive by two effects: the feeling of freedom and the hopes for independence. The feeling of freedom has been felt for the first time in the history of this nation, it is slowly turning into a feeling of unconsciousness, which means that we are taking freedom, freedom from oppression as a natural feeling, and not as a feeling that it was won only three years ago. This is good; it is good for a whole generation to have the feeling that they are born free.
The hope for independence, or, as it is being called, the issue of status, has, after all, emerged from the unconsciousness and it is being articulated more loudly. This is a process that cannot be setback until it isn't consumed. And it will become stringer by each day of inefficient administration in Kosovo.
You tried to face this issue in the beginning and you were right when you brought up the standards. Later on you used UN Security Resolution 1244 as protection and you directed Kosovar politicians that demands on the status should be directed to the UN Security Council, which in the end will decide on the issue of status.
As I didn't agree on the conceptual concept of the standards, I don't agree with you regarding the Security Council. In fact, based on Resolution 1244, the UN Security Council is obliged to find an organizing form to define the status (taking in consideration Rambouillet) but it cannot decide on the status.
What does this diplomatic formulation mean? Essentially in the years of UNMIK administration and based on the circumstances in Kosovo, Serbia and beyond a form is to be found that will fulfill the aspiration of the majority of the Kosovars for their need for security and stability in the region. In this process the UN SC will have very little to say, two other important international denominators: the USA's need for satiability in the Balkans and the European integration process as the biggest stabilizing process in the continent that we have ever known. Within this constellation, the need for a dialogue between American-Russian and Europe-Russia will enter so Russia will be a part of the solution and not the problem.
14. If these are two basic international factors, then the path toward
defining the status has already started. In one hand, American engagement
in the Middle East and central Asia will call for additional political
measures for stabilizing the Balkans, and on the other hand we have already
seen that there can be no greater stabilizing effect in former communist
countries than the process of transforming the country in preparation
for integrating into the EU.
In this contest, Kosovo is facing two aims at the same time: to transform
itself in the direction of EU standards so it can start its merited status
of independence, but at the same time to define its post-status positions,
and this means integration in EU.
When placed in such way, the dilemma for the future of Kosovo's status across the main obstacle to this process is how to form a path where in the end Kosovo and Serbia will both become equal EU members, on their own merits. While the main dilemma of inner transformation in Kosovo doesn't revolve around the need to fulfill the standards of a chief administrator, but how to form an efficient democratic state of Kosovo with parameters measurable by European standards.
Doesn't this simplify the whole issue of paralysis that we are going through? Kosovo has gone through centuries of experimental models for governing, from the Ottoman Empire to an autonomous self-rule and in the end a system of apartheid. Kosovo is now tired of these experimental models. Can we create a sustainable model that can measure the growth? Isn't this being offered by the process of European integration, which transformed post-dictatorial societies, both in the east and in the west into propulsive societies?
15. Today's Kosovar paradox and at the same time the challenge, isn't the conflict between the UNMIK Administration and the issue of Kosovo's permanent status as a state. But it is a conflict between the culmination of this model of governing (or not governing) and the historic need for Kosovo to become a EU member within this decade. We are talking about two extremities: the first, Kosovo is more or less being administered by improvising. On the second, Kosovo is a part of the European continent as an equal with others, in terms of administration and the civilized values.
The end of the EU's expansion could happen by the end of the decade, and all of the Balkans would be included. This applies also to Kosovo, which, after a NATO intervention in 1999, was returned to the nest of western civilization.
16. When in the beginning of this year you came to Kosovo, I told you
that you are the right person at the right moment for Kosovo. I haven't
changed my mind, and I believe that in these past ten months you have
touched some of the key issues of our social lives, from privatization
to Mitrovica.
However, the model of this governing, or non-governing has been consummated.
Things cannot be touched only on the surface, Kosovo needs deep structural
transformations. This in essence mans that there is a need to change the
structure of decision-making, the economic structure, political dynamics…
In these changes, you have two roles that you can successfully play. The
first is that your post is similar to the head of the state, which has
a reserved right to veto, but at the same time isn't the head of the executive,
the judicial, the energy company, the apartments etc. The second is that
you become a bridge for a new consensus between Kosovo and Euro-Atlantic
Union. A consensus that will create Euro-Atlantic integration a model
of developing our society and the foundation that Kosovars alone can lay
down.
With hopes that you will have a Merry Christmas in peace and spent among
your loved ones, I wish you health and happiness in the upcoming year.
Veton
Haradinaj: Constitutional Framework and UNMIK mission are obsolete in Kosovo (Epoka e Re)
Epoka e Re carried an exclusive interview 'under candlelight' with AAK president Ramush Haradinaj.
Mr. Haradinaj why do you think that the court sentence by an UNMIK judge
against your brother and four of the former KLA officers was unjust?
I am sure that Daut is innocent because not only I but also others saw
the irregularities in the main court sessions. I am certain that the judge's
decision was an unjust one, bizarre, and, as I have said earlier, it has
a political background.
There were comments that this trial was set up. Do you believe in this?
Yes. There was some abuse of procedure by the prosecutor. Then there were
irregular decisions by the judge, but I can say more concretely it is
an abuse that is being done to the situation in Kosovo, the conditions
that we are in because of the UNMIK Administration. I believe that the
main responsibility for the situation that has been created lies with
UNMIK's chief administrator Michael Steiner, who allowed such developments.
What did you mean when you said about the trial, 'What happened in the
court in Prishtina is an assassination of justice. We will remain in Kosovo,
while internationals one day will leave'?
It is logical that we expected that the court panel would deliver a just
decision and it had our unreserved support that it could justly assess
the accusations against Daut Haradinaj and the four KLA officers from
Dukagjini zone are true or not. As it happened, though, it didn't deliver
justice but a blow to justice. I will say it again: it was an assassination
on justice. Justice was killed with such a sentence. We are aware that
in Kosovo we aim to form our own institutions, and mechanisms for security
and justice. We expected a lot from those who came to Kosovo under the
name of UNMIK who had the task and responsibility, but those who misused
these responsibilities in such an unscrupulous way should leave Kosovo.
We have said that we will aid them to leave Kosovo as soon as possible.
If you evaluate that this was a political trial, then logically what
are political consequences?
I believe that the consequences are evident in society and distrust of
the international community which the people of Kosovo trusted them blindly
and it is a message that we take our fate in our own hands and will not
allow Kosovo to be led by anyone but the people of Kosovo. I believe there
is a negative side but also a positive one, the fact that as a continuation
we have come out of the KLA, we have offered in a democratic way to transform,
demilitarize and build a society. I can say that this good will of ours
was misused. With this case the people of Kosovo will not allow their
fate to remain in limbo, but we will deal with it.
You said, 'people trusted them blindly'. What do you mean when you say that?
We hoped that the international community in Kosovo, the people that represent the UN in Kosovo, would not misuse the mission that was entrusted to them and that they would know how to capitalize on the success of all the work that was done by the world in Kosovo for the good of Kosovo. I believe that for the moment this isn't so, from the joy we had when freedom arrived, the craving for integration, we forgot to look at many abuses and vices that appeared in Kosovo.
Given the current realities, is the Constitutional Framework obsolete?
In fact, Mr. Haradinaj what are the things you agree and disagree with
international community?
I believe that our approach was sincere: in the future we want to form
a democratic society with the rule of law. We want to from a society based
on laws and a constitution. I believe that the international community
it has been acting with arrogance. It isn't taking into consideration
the Assembly and other levels, all the way up to the most sacred values.
Let us not forget, if a nation has a sacred value which they won't allow
anyone to touch, we the people of Kosovo - in this case and I personally
- believe that these sacred values are the fight of Kosovo Liberation
Army and we will not allow anyone to touch or damage them. I believe by
what it is doing the international community, which has done so much for
Kosovo, is now losing so much.
Mr. Haradinaj, is the Constitutional Framework obsolete?
Not only the Constitutional Framework but also the UNMIK mission has become
obsolete in Kosovo. We as a party and I, but also within Kosovo institutions
and the people of Kosovo want to have a permanent NATO mission in Kosovo.
We are open to suggestion that the KFOR mission become a permanent NATO
mission in Kosovo. I also believe that UNMIK's mandate should end, competencies
for governing Kosovo should be transferred to local institutions and remain
open in the future to be monitored by the international community and
UN. I believe that the time has come for the Kosovo Assembly and Kosovo
institutions to declare independence, but we have to show decisiveness
in bringing independence to life. I believe this is going to happen in
the very near future.
Mr. Haradinaj do you see a solution?
Kosovo should deal with its own fate. Kosovo institutions have to take
Kosovo's fate in their hands. We have to act and reconfirm our determination
for Kosovo's independence, which in this case is a solution of compromise.
If this determination and the will of the people of Kosovo aren't defined
soon, then confusion will be created which will bring harm. We will not
depend on this preamble, but we will act concretely so the Kosovo institutions'
progress will reconfirm our determination and give support to the formation
of an independent state of Kosovo and our demands to take up competencies
in all other fields where previously Constitutional Framework was in charge.
How do you assess the appointment of judges and prosecutors by UNMIK
chief administrator Michael Steiner?
We are aware that all Kosovo communities have to be represented on all
levels, judges, prosecutors, municipal judges, district judges and Supreme
Court judges. However we do not agree that on such a sensitive issue anyone
should act in such an indifferent way as Mr. Steiner did. To appoint judges
in a society which is still being consolidated. To intervene in the justice
system without considering the legitimate institutions that were elected
in a democratic fashion, the Assembly, we believe that this was a grave
mistake.
Mr. Haradinaj, taking in consideration all circumstances, what do you
think about Kosovo's future?
The current situation and developments pave the way to ask whether Kosovo's
institutions can continue to function as they are now, with limited competencies.
Can we be so disinterested regarding the situation in Kosovo, starting
with the fact that there is no electricity, that unemployment is very
high, we have a difficult economic situation, problems in education and
difficulties in many other fields? Can someone still say that the issue
of electricity is a reserved power while we continue to remain in darkness?
These are concrete and practical questions to which we have to give an
answer to the people of Kosovo. I believe that the answer should come
from the Kosovo Assembly and the Government and I believe that we would
be capable of fulfilling our responsibilities and we would give Kosovo
citizens an answer to all of their questions.
Kosovo Press Headlines
Koha Ditore
Front page
· AAK calls on Kosovo Assembly to approve declaration on Kosovo
independence
· Adelina in Sweden, Leonora cannot stand on her feet
· Surroi: The death of this (non)self-government
· Life between disappointment, insecurity and little hope for the
future
· Standards before Status now in a video clip
Other headlines
· Rugova: The objective of all Albanians is integration in NATO
and EU (2)
· Local municipal building in Dibër burn down (2)
· PLK marks its 11th anniversary (4)
· Patten: FBI can give confirmation on the serious situation in
Albania (5)
· Accreditation of Serb University in Mitrovica discriminates Albanian
students (5)
· Smuggling the biggest competitor (6)
· 70 land owners wait for a compensation from KFOR (6)
· Kukës: Shishtavec farmers give in before Vushtrri potatoes
(6)
· Thomson: To be a MA is an oath for all members (7)
· God wanted to bring Leona and us together, say humanitarian parents
(8)
· Two new schools are being built in Prizren (8)
· Why is Dubrava Prison in darkness ()
· In Gjilanë there are still homeless families (9)
· Carl Bildt: World cannot allow for Cyprus to be divided (10)
Bota Sot
Front page
· Rugova: All Albanian lands are on the path of democratic and
economic consolidation
· Berisha: Diaspora a strong spiritual tie with mother land
· Belgrade to surrender to Hague
· Moisiu: America saved us twice
· Is Kosovo Petrol financing bad groups in Kosovo?
· Adelina: Leonora and her mother caused the incident deliberately
· Mërgimi Brigade freedom fighters will die on the first day
of freedom
Other headlines
· Admiral Johnson and Gen. Mini have evaluated that security in
Kosovo has achieved progress (2)
· Switzerland donated 550,000 Swiss francs for Prishtina Directory
for Property issues (2)
· USA, UN and EU are called to recognize Kosovo's independence
(3)
· The conference supports every initiative that goes in favor Albanian
integrations (3)
· KPS intervened successfully in a training act in Kastriot (3)
· Let Kosovo win is the motto of the liberals (3)
· LDK and PD defined the agreement on coalition (3)
· Moisiu-Campit: Albanians to enter Italy without visas (4)
· Tetovo: Two killed and one wounded (5)
· Successes are mine, failures are yours (5)
· Kosovo wine reached the German market (8)
· Fire destroyed Municipal building in Dibër (11)