CONTENTS

RUGOVA MET ZIVKOVIC - ALBANIANS AND SERBS STILL FAR APART
THERE IS SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE KOSOVO POLICE SYSTEM
KOHA DITORE: UNMIK POLICE
MALIQI: UNMIK ONCE AGAIN IN CONFUSION

RUGOVA MET ZIVKOVIC - ALBANIANS AND SERBS STILL FAR APART

Koha Ditore carried on page three a report from the Athens Conference "Albanians majority and minority".  

Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, LDK Chairman, met in Athens with Zoran Zivkovic, the Yugoslav Interior Minister. they held talks on which there was no statement  afterwards said the paper, referring to sources in Athens.

The leader of the party which won the 28 October elections held talks with the Serb high official after the conference "Albanians majority and a minority" ended in Athens. The Serb official repeated the invitation for talks and reconciliation between Albanians and Serbs. "I think that we should start talks as soon as possible   however there still there is no answer," said the head of the Yugoslav police and added that what has happened to Albanians last three years "is terrifying". This however does not give them the right to blame all the Serbs or to change the borders. 

Albanian representative took calmly this invitation by the high Serb member of the new government after Milosevic's downfall. "There was a genocidal war in Kosovo to expel or annihilate the Albanian population," said Koha Ditore's Veton Surroi during a press conference. "They have lost this war. Even if Serbia choose Mother Theresa for president, Kosovars would not accept Serbia as their own state," added Surroi.

Among the participants of the Athens Conference were: SRSG Bernard Kouchner, Albanian Prime Minister Ilir Meta, PDK Chairman Hashim Thaçi, PDSH Chairman Arbër Xhaferi and Kosovo Serb representatives. 

Veton Surroi in his discussion evaluated Albanian politics during the nineties as "polycentric". Regarding Serb and Croat populous movements, the Albanians did not aspire to have an ethnic center, which would define politics for all other Albanians. "The fact that Albanians in their political movements do not aspire to change any of the borders, have brought them to the point of different political solutions that would bring the borders in a lesser relevance then they have been now," said Surroi.

He added that another characteristic within Albanians is the process of building  a democratic state. "The transition in Albania from communism to democracy, or hardships in building a new democratic state as Kosovo, or transformation of unified communists state into a sate with a ethnic consensus as Macedonia, or protection of human rights and the expansion of those rights in Montenegro and Serbia, Albanians are in a very important path of defining democracy, its institutions and  understanding their value," said Surroi.            

Surroi added that Albanians have a basis for practicing tolerance. Regarding this issue, he backed it up on two views. "The first one can be extended when it deals with minorities. Second instead of creating limits for multiethnicity (as the case for Kosovo) that sound as ideological aims as the one of 'brotherhood and unity' should be the aim of creating a tolerant society". However, tolerance can exists it needs institutional backing added Surroi.

Elaborating the minority issue, Surroi emphasized that regarding Albanians their greatest challenge is how to surpass war pains and think about the responsibility towards the minorities. This he added concerns the initiative for accepting and implementing the rights, and at the same time it remains open the issue of how the minorities will accept the Albanians as political majority. "The main challenge remains how to form Serb future in a Kosovar state, independent from its sovereignty as predicted by UN Security Council Resolution UN Security Council Resolution 1244," observed Surroi.

As a factor that would define ethnic relations, security and regional cooperation Surroi mentioned regionalization and the minorities. He discussed the political process, which are the states in the region.

Surroi called KFOR as "a security umbrella" for Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia and added that it helped Macedonia in the process of democratization and better cooperation with Kosovo and it improved ethnic relations between Montenegro and Macedonia.

"Montenegro will enhance even further minority rights especially this will show in the municipal rights. On the other side, Macedonia is constantly evolving in enabling Albanians to have full rights in their own state. This is a process of forming a consensus of ethnic relations in this state," concluded Surroi.

THERE IS SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE KOSOVO POLICE SYSTEM

A member of the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) is ambushed and wounded by armed persons; a girl is stabbed several times in the middle of the town; a man is killed and a girl wounded at the market; a known political activists killed in front of his home; UNMIK receives anonymous bomb threats; a bomb is placed in an apartment and political activists are threatened…. and the list that could be called the "black chronics" would not stop with this, noted Koha Ditore on page one in a report describing the security situation in Kosovo during the recent weeks.    

After a relatively calm period, Kosovo and especially Pristina last few days has witnessed a wave of violence that no one can interpret or tell the real reasons for it.

Citizens are baffled by the situation, they turn to the politicians and police, while the latter show their amazement on the deteriorating security situation, blaming it on the others.          

Sheremet Ahmeti counselor to the police commissioner for KPS said that with all efforts by UNMIK police, which has full competency in operating through Kosovo they can hardly achieve anything without giving more competency to Kosovar police officers. "The issues of organized crime and all other hard crimes are under UNMIK police competency," said on Thursday Ahmeti. "I am aware that UNMIK police is engaging themselves and doing its best in apprehending the different perpetrators, however they come from different parts of the world they do not understand the language, the mentality of the people here and as consequence it is very hard for them to find the perpetrators of the crimes".

UNMIK police, which was foreseen that in the first months of forming to reach its peak at 6,000 members still has not achieved to fulfill this number. Police officers come from 47 different world states. Meanwhile, Kosovar police officers have insufficient competencies in the whole territory of Kosovo, they are only assistants to the international police officers, here is excluded Prishtina where some of the KPS members have become independent.

"If I am hit by a man that I am arresting I do not have the right to use necessary force, because I could be suspended," said a KPS member who wanted to remain anonyms. He mentions a case when one of his colleagues was suspended because he answered with force when attacked.

On the other hand, even though Kosovar prosecutors and judges embrace democratic methods concerning the arrest, they emphasize that sometimes just because force was not practiced on the arrested persons suspected for crimes tends towards not cooperating and not admitting the crimes they committed.

"It happens very often that with instructions from their lawyers the suspects do not admit anything because no pressure is being applied, after two days of detention they are released," told us a source close to prosecutors' office in Prishtina. They emphasize that KPS should have more room to operate and especially experts that have proved their expertise before suspension of the autonomy.

"We KPS members are in much bigger advantage and we have people who have the experience, the expertise, the will, the desire and the bravery to contribute in solving these crimes," was categorical Ahmeti.

He considers that time has come that KPS receives its competencies something that would stabilize the situation in Kosovo. "We need these competencies because e we all share the responsibility. Without these competencies we lack in our acts and our results," said Ahmeti. 

One of the main things to be done is the forming of specialized investigative services, which would only react in special cases. This would bring more security to the people of Kosovo especially in fighting crime and upbringing of the overall security situation in Kosovo.

"We need those invisible police officers, because people are much more careful when an uniformed police is near them. No one is mad enough to break in a store in front of a [police officer," said an analyst from Prishtina.

Ahmeti said that they have handed over a project for forming such a service and the answer awaited hopefully will be positive. "We are police officers members of the service, however we have not yet formed a complex service where different segments and forms for discovering crime. We have been insisting to form a information service, for which we believe we have the staff that would bring results," said Ahmeti.

Same opinion had former KLA officer Naim Maloku, which is a specialist in defensive issues. However, Maloku the solution for the security problem sees in two segments. "One is the political segment where tensions should be lowered and second is raising of the security by creating security mechanisms," said Maloku and added that these could be secret service, or state security. According to Maloku, this would be the best way to uncover crime and prevent the causes and new possibilities for crime, which would surely lower the crime level in Kosovo.

The violence rose right after local elections in Kosovo and after great political changes in the region. Analysts and many citizens in Kosovo express their doubt that current incidents are tied to different services that want to create discord among the Albanians in Kosovo and destabilize Kosovo.

"These incident cannot be outside the currents of the happenings in the region especially in Belgrade. I do not believe that these events have the source within the Albanian political factors, " said Maloku. "There is great chance that some of these events are happening according to prearranged scenario from different groups in sabotaging democracy and tolerance in Kosovo," said a Kosovo analyst.

"There is no place for us to judge for the things that are happening, we have to act and reveal these acts of crime and bring them to justice, said Ahmeti.

However, the most interesting comment came from then ordinary citizens: "Whose turn is it now?" they ask.                                    

KOHA DITORE: UNMIK POLICE

Koha Ditore on page two carried a commentary regarding the security situation in Kosovo in which it was noted:

"The wounding of a KPS police officer on Saturday in broad daylight in the center of Pristina should not have happened, and the same goes for the wounding of the 19 year-old girl two days before, in broad daylight, in the Youth and Sports Center. However, while the incident involving the girl is a criminal act and such acts happen everywhere, whereas the perpetrators are often punished, the first case involving the police officer is another case and it is directly linked to the first. The police officer would not have been wounded if those who attacked the girl were arrested.

In the press release issued by UNMIK, the day when the girl was wounded, it was said that a police officer was at the site and tried to catch the attackers. The attackers were neither captured nor arrested. The event had an entirely different flow.

The streets knew exactly what happened Thursday at the Youth and Sports Center, the same it knew that those who attacked the girl would never be arrested. The streets knew everything, it even knew the role of the police officer in all that mess.  Is it possible that the police knew all this? Every police officer, both international and Kosovar, who will try to deny this will have his nose grow for telling an obvious lie.

By not reacting against a crime UNMIK Police has caused another one and who knows maybe the cycle of vengeance will continue and we will have the third crime, the fourth and so on. The police are therefore a participator in the murder attempt against its police offer.

Of course, the police have done a great thing by arresting the attackers of the police officer. Those who shot at the KPS police officer must be punished because no one can take justice in his own hands. But, in Kosovo, with a police whom you cannot trust and with a court system more fragile than a baby's sleep, justice remains a fictive and far-away term.

Time after time, police and UNMIK administration officials joke with journalists and Kosovar citizens by pretending that they do not have a clue of what is going on: "Why are there crimes in Kosovo?" or even worse: "There are crimes because the people are not cooperating with us".

The incident at the Youth and Sports Center happened in front of many witnesses who were willing to cooperate with the police. However, the attackers were not arrested. Therefore, let us not trick ourselves. What is currently happening shows why there crimes in Kosovo: because those responsible for maintaining law and order do not respect it themselves.

We do not know whether it is about corruption, incapability, lack of will or all three. We only know that the way the problem is being approached is proving to be a huge failure. It is known by now that a lot of things have to be changed there, or else the future of Kosovars will be filled with problems. After all, what is the effect of creating of a democratic structure of police when within a year the figures of murders reaches one with three zeros".
 
Annex: Transcript of a commentary by Shkelzen Maliqi, Koha Ditore, p.10

UNMIK ONCE AGAIN IN CONFUSION

Besides lots of problems which are considered to be long-term, in December Kosovo will face two quite critical issues: elections in Serbia and the pre-announcement on the departure of chief administrator Bernard Kouchner. These two issues are eventually linked to each other. One of the reasons to Kouchner's departure, if the information is correct, can be his public stance against the holding of Serbian elections in Kosovo.

At the same time, authorities at the United Nations and other decision-making centers, even though they have not come up with a public stance, seem closer to the idea of allowing Kosovo Serbs to participate in Serbian democratic elections, which means that they will send their delegates to the Serbian parliament. If this should happen, it would mean allowing the creation of a new situation filled with anomaly: Serbs in their enclaves will have the possibility of active participation in legislative and administrative bodies of Serbia, whereas they still have an opposing stance towards Kosovo administrative bodies, both local and central. Kouchner, or the person who will replace him, will turn into an administrator of Albanians, whereas the Serbs will create direct links with Serbia. Anomaly will have special emphasis in northern Mitrovica and other northern municipalities where Serbs consist the majority of the population, and where local bodies, which will be created after local elections, would aim for full loyalty towards Belgrade and not towards Prishtina.

The formula of co-administrating Kosovo found by Kouchner last year, and which functioned with difficulties, was relatively suitable for the circumstances then, when Milosevic was in power. The majority of Kosovo Serbs were with Milosevic and against UNMIK, while Kouchner had found a group of relatively moderated Serbs with limited influence led by Bishop Artemije who agreed with a conditioned (mainly observing) participation in Kosovo co-governing bodies. But now that Milosevic is no longer in power, the majority of Serbs are swiftly converting into supporters of Kostunica, once again motivated by the idea that Kosovo is a territory under Serbia's sovereignty, and that the new democratic regime in Belgrade is more likely to protect Serbian state interests. Artemije's group is now twice marginalized and there is almost no meaning in their representatives being included in IAC and KTC.

The hasty admittance of FRY has created a complete confusion in the interpretation of Security Council's Resolution 1244, when it comes to UNMIK's competencies in administrating the will of separated ethnicities in Kosovo. Is it UNMIK's duty to administrate all of Kosovo as an instance which has suspended it, at least temporarily during the mission, Yugoslavia's sovereignty over Kosovo? Or, is the issue of sovereignty something that can be interpreted and reinterpreted depending on which regime is in power in Belgrade? And do the instances in Belgrade have the right to announce elections for the territory of Kosovo, or should this be prevented by UNMIK?

In New York, at UN headquarters, as well as in other decision-making centers throughout the world this is most probably the key issue that is discussed behind closed doors and with separate opinions. Some countries think that the duty of the mission is to create a local administration of Kosovo without interference from Serbia or Yugoslavia, whereas there are countries, allies of Serbia, which think that given changes in Belgrade Kosovo's substantial autonomy could be reached in other ways, in cooperation with the new Belgrade regime, which has the right to protect Serbia's sovereign rights in Kosovo.

In the past, UNMIK made two huge mistakes, which are now taking vengeance. The first was allowing a prolonged administration of Serbia in northern Mitrovica, which resulted in continuous obstructions of the international mission by openly violating Kosovo's territorial integrity. The other mistake was when it allowed federal elections in Kosovo in September this year. The justification that they were federal elections and self-organized, was not valid. Now, Kouchner's insistence for not allowing Serbian elections is somewhat late and without the required consensus of world super powers. What should have been clearly defined in the beginning that UNMIK is the sole sovereign instance for all of Kosovo is now turning into a mechanism that could lead towards the division of Kosovo, in two ethnic administrations, of the federalization of Kosovo in the future.

Nevertheless, the coming weeks will see the explanation of things that can cause new tensed situations and confrontations. Kouchner's formula no longer function, while new ones have not been found. It is not known what is cooking in the cuisines of decision-making centers. Serbs are in an offensive, Albanians baffled and almost without clear concepts on further steps.

A guarantying compromising solution by the internationals would be to announce the Interim Constitution of Kosovo, which would affirm the inviolable right of Kosovo's territorial integrity. The other document which would calm down Albanians would be a declaration by the super powers regarding the procedures of defining Kosovo's final status, and which would oblige both Belgrade and Kosovo Serbs to participate in the administration of Kosovo. Huge concessions were made to Belgrade during the last two months, and it is time for counterbalancing this with a serious and guarantying project for Kosovo.