11 June 2002 Afternoon Edition

I - News wires/services /broadcast

AFP
· Former Yugoslav soldier charged with war crimes in Kosovo on trial

AP
· First war crimes trial starts in Yugoslavia

B92
· Federal partners to discuss constitutional charter
· Serbian court opens first Kosovo war crimes trial
· Buha killed by two attackers with Kalashnikovs
· Djindjic looks to tighten trip on power
· DOS outlines principles of state constitution

DPA
· Serbian court opens first war crimes trial
· Ex-Croatian Serb paramilitaries arrested for 1991 rape

Reuters
· INTERVIEW-Kosovo UN chief sees more Serb returns ahead
· Hit men challenge government's grip on Serbia

Xinhua
· Albanian Police Seize 151.5 kilograms of Drugs

II - Newspapers/magazines

Frankfurter Rundschau
· Fuer Roma hat auch Cem oezdemir Kaum einen guten Rat

PROKUPLJE, Yugoslavia, June 11 (AFP) - A former Yugoslav army soldier charged with war crimes committed in Kosovo in 1999 went on trial before a Serbian court in Prokuplje on Tuesday.
This is first trial before a Serbian court for war crimes committed during the 1998-99 war in Kosovo.
Ivan Nikolic was charged in connection with the killing of two ethnic Albanian civilians on May 24, 1999, in a village located between the northern Kosovo town of Podujevo and the capital Pristina.
Nikolic, 30, had previously been charged with murder but the district court in the southern Serbian town of Prokuplje changed the indictment to war crime charges in April.
The defendant has pleaded not guilty. None of the four witnesses who soke at Tuesday's trial -- army comrades of the defendant -- directly blamed Nikolic for killing the two civilians.
The judge adjourned the trial until July 4, saying two "key witnesses" were expected to testify then.
Earlier on Tuesday, some one hundred people protested against the trial in front of the court building, in a demonstration organised by the Association of War Veterans, which branded the process "political".
In April a prosecutor in Prokuplje brought war crimes charges against another two civilians for the murder of 19 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in March 1999, after the start of NATO's bombing campaign.
These were first indictments for war crimes in Kosovo to be brought by local courts.
On March 24, 1999, NATO launched a 78-day long air war against Yugoslav armed forces, controlled by then president Slobodan Milosevic, after their crackdown on Kosovo's ethnic Albanians.
Milosevic and four other former top Yugoslav officials have been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes committed in Kosovo during the war.
Milosevic, handed over to the UN tribunal in The Hague last year after being overthrown in October 2000, is currently on trial there for war crimes in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia.

First war crimes trial starts in Yugoslavia

PROKUPLJE, Yugoslavia (AP) _ A former Yugoslav army soldier went on trial Tuesday on charges of killing two Kosovo Albanians in 1999 in the first war crimes case to be tried in a Yugoslav court.
Ivan Nikolic, 30, is charged with gunning down the two ethnic Albanian civilians in the northern Kosovo village of Peduh in May 1999 while serving as a Yugoslav army soldier during NATO airstrikes.
The district court in Prokuplje, a Serbian town near the Kosovo border, charged Nikolic with murder last year. Earlier this year, his indictment was changed to ``war crimes against the civilian population.''
The current pro-democracy authorities, which ousted former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000, are eager to start war crimes trials in domestic courts, hoping to defuse international pressure to extradite suspects to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. The U.N. court is considered biased and anti-Serb by many here.
Over the past year, the new authorities reluctantly handed over several Serb suspects to the U.N. tribunal, including Milosevic, who is currently on trial in The Hague for allegedly ordering the atrocities committed by Yugoslav troops in Kosovo in 1999.
At that time, about 800,000 ethnic Albanians were expelled from their homes and thousands were killed. Milosevic has also been charged with war crimes in Croatia and genocide in Bosnia.
During the trial Tuesday, a Serb witness testified that he ``only heard two short'' machine-gun bursts fired from a column of Yugoslav army soldiers at the ethnic Albanians. But he could not confirm that Nikolic fired the shots.
Nikolic's lawyer Bozidar Filipovic said there is no proof to back up the charges, and claimed that Nikolic is a victim of ``a political decision'' made by the government to show the world ``that our courts can deal with alleged war criminals.''
The start of Nikolic's trial triggered outrage among Serb nationalists. An association of Serb war veterans who fought in Kosovo staged a protest in front of the Prokuplje court Tuesday.
Over a hundred people greeted Nikolic with applause as he was led into court. He responded by flashing a traditional Serb three-finger victory sign.
``The authorities decided to convict some of our citizens in staged trials just to please the international community,'' said Zoran Ristic, the head of the veterans' association.
Besides Nikolic _ whose trial resumes on July 4 _ two other Serbs have been charged with war crimes in Kosovo and are awaiting trials at the Prokuplje court.

Federal partners to discuss constitutional charter

B92 - Jun 11, 2002

11:56 PODGORICA, Tuesday - The Montenegrin partners in the Yugoslav government are due in Belgrade today to discuss a constitutional charter for the future union of the two republics, reports Beta news agency.
The leaders of the three-party Together for Yugoslavia coalition will attend talks this evening in the Federation Palace. Yugoslav and Serbian state leaders will include Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and Federal Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic. (Beta)

Serbian court opens first Kosovo war crimes trial

B92 - Jun 11, 2002

11:37 PROKUPLJE, Tuesday - Former Yugoslav soldier Ivan Nikolic today became the first man to stand trial before a Serbian court for war crimes committed in Kosovo during the 1998-99 conflict.
Ivan Nikolic was charged at the Prokuplje court in connection with the killing of two ethnic Albanian civilians on May 24, 1999, in a village located between the northern Kosovo town of Podujevo and the capital Pristina.
Nikolic had previously been charged with murder but the court altered the indictment to war crime charges in April.
A crowd of some one hundred people protested against the trial in front of the court building in a demonstration organised by the Association of War Veterans.
A prosecutor in Prokuplje has brought war crimes charges against two civilians for the murder of 19 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in March 1999, at the outbreak of NATO bombing. (AFP)

Buha killed by two attackers with Kalashnikovs

B92 - Jun 11, 2002

12:47 BELGRADE, Tuesday - Murdered Serbian police general Bosko Buha was shot 7 or 8 times at close range by two attackers with kalashnikov rifles, deputy public prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic told today's edition of Belgrade daily Blic.
Vukcevic, who investigated the scene of the attack early yesterday morning, said the perpetrators had fled by car in the direction of the Chinese embassy.
A police patrol was reported to have been close but when they heard the shots the officers hit the ground, failing to see anything of the attack.
Buha, once the head of Milosevic's formidable Belgrade police brigade, was gunned down at 2.45am yesterday in the car park of the Hotel Yugoslavia. (Beta)

Djindjic looks to tighten grip on power

B92 - Jun 11, 2002

11:02 BELGRADE, Tuesday - Serbia's governing coalition agreed last night to sack 21 deputies of the Democratic Party of Serbia, accused of blocking reform by boycotting parliament.
DOS caucus chief Cedomir Jovanovic was quoted as saying the administrative board of the Serbian parliament would execute the decision today.
DOS last month threatened to sack 50 of its deputies who had failed to regularly attend parliament. The Democratic Party of Serbia, DSS, the main culprit led by Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, immediately withdrew 26 of its members from the boards of key state-run companies and announced it would form a shadow government.
A list of replacements for the dismissed MPs includes just 13 from the ranks of Kostunica's party. His main rival, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, thus stands to strengthen his grip on power even further.
The truant DSS deputies turned down an opportunity to explain their absence and save their seats. The party has threatened a complete withdrawal from the Serbian parliament.

DOS outlines principles of state constitution

B92 - Jun 11, 2002

10:44 BELGRADE, Tuesday - Serbia's governing coalition said last night it would back a constitution for the new state of Serbia and Montenegro that would ensure a sustainable union based on the principles of European integration.
A statement said the strength of the constitutional charter would rely on the backing of four main actors - the DOS coalition, the Montenegrin president's Democratic Party of Socialists, the Yugoslav president's Democratic Party of Serbia and the Socialist People's Party, the Montenegrin partner in the federal government.
All sides should take political responsibility for its implementation, said the statement, issued after a DOS presidency session last night in Novi Sad.
The coalition said the constitution should stipulate that Serbia is entering the union with Montenegro, together with its autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo. Under UN Security Council Resolution 1244, the final status of Kosovo has yet to be decided. The province's new government has pledged to secure independence.
DOS renegade, the Democratic Party of Serbia, again failed to attend the presidency session. The party, headed by Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, said it had already begun work on its own draft constitution, which it would present to the constitution commission. (B92)

Serbian court opens first war crimes trial

Belgrade (dpa) - A district court in Prokuplje on Tuesday opened the first civilian war crimes trial in Serbia, charging a former Yugoslav Army reservist with the killing of ethnic Albanian civilians in the Kosovo conflict.
The defendant, Ivan Nikolic, 30, was accused of a crime against the civilian population, the killing of two Albanians in the village of Penduh on May 24, 1999.
Some of the people gathered around the court greeted Nikolic with applause, the Beta news agency said in its report from the southern Serbian town.
If convicted, Nikolic could be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison under Serbian law.
In April, Prokuplje prosecutors also indicted Sasa Cvjetan and Dejan Demirovic, accused as killers of 19 Albanians in Podujevo on March 28, 1999.

Ex-Croatian Serb paramilitaries arrested for 1991 rape

Zagreb (dpa) - Two former members of the Croatian Serb paramilitary troops have been arrested in the eastern town of Vukovar for rapes that they allegedly committed during the 1991 war in Croatia, the police said Tuesday.
The two men, one of whom was an active police officer shortly before he was taken into custody, are believed to have committed rapes during the 1991 siege of Vukovar.
In that year, former Yugoslav National Army (JNA) with the help of Croatian Serbs, who opposed to Croatia's independence from Yugoslavia, besieged and bombarded Vukovar, causing numerous civilian casualties.

INTERVIEW-Kosovo UN chief sees more Serb returns ahead

By Andrew Gray

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, June 11 (Reuters) - Michael Steiner, the head of Kosovo's U.N. administration, says prospects are improving for the return of Serbs who fled the province as majority Albanians embrace a multi-ethnic society.
More and more ethnic Albanians recognised they could only become part of modern Europe if they embraced multi-ethnicity and more resources were now being devoted to encouraging the return of Serbs and other minorities, Steiner told Reuters.
In an interview marking Wednesday's third anniversary of the arrival of the United Nations and NATO in the Yugoslav territory, Steiner also said he hoped privatisation would begin this year and give a much-needed boost to Kosovo's economy.
Steiner acknowledged being disappointed by the small number of Serbs and other communities to return, having fled in fear of ethnic Albanian attacks. Of around 180,000 Serbs who left after the 1999 Kosovo war, only about 2,300 have returned.
``We are not where we want to be,'' the German diplomat said in the interview on Tuesday evening. ``This is why now we have to make a big effort to make...return possible in order to have a multi-ethnic Kosovo which can join European institutions.''
After years of repression by Belgrade, members of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority unleashed a wave of violence against Serbs after the war. International agencies say the violence has declined but intolerance, intimidation and harassment remain.
Steiner argued, however, there was clear evidence many ethnic Albanians now accepted Serbs should return. He noted the province's Albanian-dominated government formed after landmark elections last year was sending out positive signals.
MULTI-ETHNICITY
``It's more and more people who understand that the ticket, the entry card, to Europe is multi-ethnicity. If you want to have multi-ethnicity, you must make return possible,'' he said.
Steiner said a Serb politician had now taken up a senior post in his office as an adviser on returns and a Serb special coordinator for returns in the government would start this week.
``We have the parameters, so to speak,'' said Steiner, a straight-talking Balkans veteran who also served as the international community's deputy high representative in Bosnia.
He said the return of refugees in Bosnia should also serve as a powerful example of what should be possible in Kosovo.
``When we started in Bosnia with the (peace) implementation, we all thought it would be very, very difficult to have return in minority areas. Now what do we have... six years after? We have 200,000 refugees...returning into minority areas,'' he said.
``I think what has been possible in Bosnia, after 300,000 people dead, after such a horrible war raging there, should be also possible in Kosovo,'' he added.
But Steiner cautioned against large-scale, ``artificial'' projects to return Serbs to areas of Kosovo which were not their original homes. He said it was better to build a climate in which Serbs felt genuinely comfortable about returning.
Steiner was careful not to put a figure on how many Serbs could return this year. He said it should be more than previous years but ``cannot be a mass'' which Kosovo could not absorb.
PRIVATISATION LAW CLOSE
On the economy, Steiner said he was ``very near'' to signing a regulation which would set up an agency to run Kosovo's publicly owned enterprises and spin off subsidiaries for privatisation.
As Kosovo's final status is unresolved and the exact ownership of so-called ``socially owned'' companies -- relics of communist Yugoslavia -- is unclear, coming up with a privatisation concept has been a long and tortuous process.
Both the Kosovo government and Belgrade authorities have voiced objections to the U.N.'s plans. Steiner said the final version of the regulation would try to take on board legitimate concerns but the measure could not be held up indefinitely.
``We need to make investment possible because donors' money is going down and we have a very high unemployment rate here.''
Steiner said while confusion reigned over who should run socially owned firms in the impoverished province, criminals were taking advantage by stripping them of their assets.
``So far, the socially owned companies are in limbo. They are in a grey zone. And in this grey zone, some darker figures are trying to take a profit,'' he said. ``Each day we are losing so we have to do something.''

Hit men challenge government's grip on Serbia

BELGRADE, June 11 (Reuters) - Squads of armed Serbian police scoured Belgrade's known gangland hangouts in the hunt for killers of one of their top officers after reformist leaders vowed to end a string of unsolved assassinations.
Finding the assassins of Bosko Buha, a 42-year-old career officer with the rank of general in the Interior Ministry police, has become a test of the Serbian government's ability to tackle violent crime.
Buha was shot eight times by two unknown assailants in a riverside parking lot after leaving a restaurant with friends in the early hours of Monday morning.
A police spokeswoman on Tuesday declined to say how the investigation was going, but security sources said squads of armed detectives had visited underworld haunts on Monday evening, including a well-known restaurant.
The murder was a slap in the face for reformist leaders who made Buha the capital's police chief after they took power then promoted him to a senior Interior Ministry post.
Amid accusations nothing had changed since the unexplained assassinations which took place with increasing frequency under the regime of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, top government figures vowed this case would be different.
Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said his men would not rest until Buha's killers were found. Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said he was requesting regular updates on the case.
``Unlike in the previous murders, I expect the police to brief us about...the possible motive for the assassination of this officer,'' Djindjic told evening television.
``I don't think the killer is in limbo between the earth and the sky. I think he's among the people who had contacts with the victim, who were in some sort of relationship with him.''
COMPETING THEORIES, JOSTLING GANGS
Buha was due to be buried on Wednesday. His picture was all over Tuesday's newspapers, along with speculation about who might have had him killed, including six-month-old comments by the victim himself about previous hits.
``These are professional killers...who left no tracks behind. These were so-called pyramid killings. They were modelled on Russian mafia hits,'' Buha said in a November newspaper interview about Belgrade underworld killings.
``The person who ordered the first killings then ordered the murder of the killers...''
He said the capital of two million people supported five rival organised crime groups with no overall godfather. They were all trying to become untouchable by bribing or blackmailing senior policemen and well-placed politicians as in the past.
``I was offered contacts with some people from the underworld,'' Buha admitted candidly in the interview.
Serbia's outspoken justice minister, Vladan Batic, on Monday said Buha's killing was ``just an underworld showdown with a man who held top positions in the police for a long while.''
He did not say whether by that he meant Buha was a corrupt policeman who got too greedy or an implacable foe of the mafia.
Other commentators noted Buha had collaborated with Milosevic's political opponents in October 2000, ordering the riot squads of which he had command not to oppose the pro-democracy crowds who toppled the Yugoslav president.
This might have made him a target for political revenge.
Another report noted Buha had served with interior ministry police units in Kosovo in 1999 and alleged he had personal knowledge of the secret transport of Kosovo Albanians murdered by Serb forces during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
Magazine journalist Jovan Dulovic speculated that Buha may have been on the verge of agreeing to testify against Milosevic at his war crimes trial before the U.N. tribunal in The Hague.

Albanian Police Seize 151.5 kilograms of Drugs

TIRANA, Jun 11, 2002 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Albanian police Monday tracked down a drug-trafficking network and seized 148.5 kilograms of narcotics and three kilograms of opium, local newspaper Gazeta Albanian reported Tuesday.
A total of 70 kilograms of narcotics and two kilograms of opium were seized in a "Golf" car Monday morning in Tepelena, a town in southern Albania, the paper quoted local police as saying.
In Gjirokaster and Saranda, two other towns near Tepelena, police found 78.5 kilograms of narcotics and one kilogram of opium in several houses.
Altogether eight people were arrested on charges of drug trafficking. Police said they all belong to an extended drug- trafficking group.
Police described the seizure as "one of the most successful" in the past two years.

Fuer Roma hat auch Cem Oezdemir kaum einen guten Rat

Minderheiten-Vertreter demonstrieren für Bleiberecht - und müssen Abschiebung fürchten

Frankfurter Rundschau - 11.06.2002

Von Pitt von Bebenburg (Berlin)

Seit mehr als sechs Wochen reisen mehrere hundert Roma aus dem ehemaligen Jugoslawien durch Deutschland, um sich ein Bleiberecht zu erstreiten. Doch auch nach Gesprächen in Berlin sind ihre Aussichten gering.

Sandra kam nach Deutschland, als sie vier Jahre alt war. Heute ist die junge Roma-Frau 16 Jahre alt und geht in Essen zur Schule. Ihre Klassenkameraden hat Sandra schon seit 45 Tagen nicht mehr gesehen: Seit dieser Zeit reist sie mit etwa 600 anderen Roma durch die Republik, um ihre Abschiebung nach Serbien zu verhindern. "Ich kenne Jugoslawien überhaupt nicht", sagt die junge Frau mit dem dunklen Pferdeschwanz und dem pinkfarbenen Pulli. "Ich kenne nur Deutschland." Das gilt erst recht für Sandras drei Geschwister, die allesamt in der Bundesrepublik geboren sind.
Gemeinsam mit Ramiza aus Duisburg trägt Sandra am Montag ein Transparent durch Berlin, auf dem sie verlangen, den "Exodus des Jahrhunderts" zu beenden. Nach ihrer Auffassung wäre die Abschiebung aus Deutschland eine neue Vertreibung. Menschenrechtsinitiativen notieren, dass die Minderheit in Serbien, Montenegro und Kosovo unterdrückt wird. Nicht zufällig führt die Demonstrationsroute am Gelände für das geplante Holocaust-Mahnmal vorbei. Dort erinnern die Demonstranten an die Roma-Verfolgung der Nazis und daran, dass viele Roma nie eine Entschädigung erhalten hätten.
Seit der vergangenen Woche hat sich die Lage für Roma aus dem ehemaligen Jugoslawien verschärft. Da beschloss die Innenminister-Konferenz in Bremerhaven, dass es auch für ethnische Minderheiten aus Kosovo kein dauerhaftes Aufenthaltsrecht geben werde und "die Voraussetzungen für eine zwangsweise Rückführung noch in diesem Jahr gegeben sein werden".
Die Altfall-Regelung der rot-grünen Koalition greift für die Roma nicht, weil mit ihr nur Ausländer geschützt wurden, die schon seit längerem in Deutschland arbeiten. Die Roma jedoch, deren Duldung stets nur für wenige Monate verlängert wird, finden wegen ihrer unsicheren Lage keine Arbeit. Sie fordern deshalb auch das Recht zu arbeiten. "Roma sind auch Europäer", mahnen sie auf ihren Transparenten.
Grünen-Innenpolitiker Cem Özdemir, der zu den Demonstranten herüberkommt, nennt die Suche nach Lösungen "sehr schwierig". Im Vordergrund stehe das Bemühen, über die Außenpolitik die Lage in Serbien und Montenegro zu verbessern. Zudem wolle man versuchen, über die Härtefallkommission in Nordrhein-Westfalen, wo Sandra und viele andere Demonstranten leben, in Einzelfällen zu helfen. PDS-Politikerin Petra Pau fordert eine großzügigere Altfall-Regelung. Doch das nützt den Demonstranten nicht viel. Sie ziehen weiter - nach Hannover.