UNMIK ON AIR

INTERVIEW WITH SRSG

Monday 24 February

David Balham

Hello and welcome to UNMIK on Air. In the programme today… an interview with UNMIK chief Michael Steiner about arrests, crime, and the security situation.

It’s been a hectic week in Kosovo. We’ve seen prominent Kosovo Albanians in court in Pristina charged with serious crimes including murder of fellow Albanians. And, for the first time, Kosovo Albanians have been indicted by… and in three out of four cases delivered to… the International War Crimes Tribunal. The man not yet in the Hague is Kosovo Member of Parliament and prominent PDK official Fatmir Limaj, who remains in custody in Slovenia, after turning himself in while on a skiing holiday.

We asked Mr Steiner if the events of recent days indicated a change of tactic by the international community towards the Kosovo Albanians.

MS: No, I think that is a misunderstanding of how justice and a court system works. What we have is indictments by the Hague against individuals for having committed severe crimes. It’s not up to us to judge any policy which is behind that.

DB: The local response to these arrests has been far more muted than when Remi and so on were arrested last year. Why do you think that is?

MS: I think there are several factors. One factor is that people know why ICTY has been created – it has been created in order to go after war crimes in the Balkans, and people respect that. I think also secondly that the institutions understand that you cannot have it both ways. If you really want to have to have war crimes prosecuted then you cannot pick and choose. Nobody is above the law, but that means also that the law applies to everyone…

DB: Do you think it’s likely that now some Kosovo Albanians have been indicted the Serbs may be more likely to cooperate in handing over some of their more high-profile indictees?

MS: I think what we have experienced here in Kosovo as the position of the provisional institutions, which was exactly the position which we expected them to take, should send a good example also to other places, and I hope very much that for example the persons who are at large now for six or seven years and as we know are swimming relatively freely in Serbia, that also on these persons we will have progress as it is expected from the international community towards Belgrade.

DB: Both 1244 and the Kumanovo Agreement state quite clearly that a number of police should come back. The Serbian authorities have raised this recently. They have a point, don’t they?

MS: The police we have is a success story, we have a multi-ethnic police, the KPS, we have more Serbs represented there as Serbs in Kosovo… what 1244 proscribes and what Mr Djindjic has asked for is something else – it is a limited number of security forces, several hundreds as foreseen in the resolution and its annex, for guarding monuments, for mine-searching – now mine-searching is done, so we don’t need this any more. It is not police, it’s not for doing policing, it’s for very limited specific tasks. Now I tell you that we have a common assessment, shared by Washington, shared by Brussels, shared by KFOR and by us, that the time for a return and opening this issue is not there, and surely the idea that we will have some sort of displayed co-governance here, which is behind it, is not there and will not be there because that’s not the issue, we will not turn time back.

DB: The bridge gangs are still active in North Mitrovica, even though we were assured they would be removed from influence. Are you concerned by that?

MS: I mean we cannot just erase people. So it’s very clear that you have people still there who have this outdated thinking and framework they’re behaving in. But the real point is that we have now KPS active, we have UNMIK police all over the place, we have an UNMIK administration there, so these are the remnants which we always had to count on. And they are a problem, no doubt, because they’re working against the interests of the Serb population itself, we have to deal with that, we are not happy, but that’s a fact of life that you will not switch off people overnight.

DB: Another area where the same may apply: Bujanovac. There have been various reports of Kosovo Albanians becoming involved in that dispute, or that potential dispute, which is obviously destabilizing the area. How concerned are you about that, and what can we do about it?

MS: We have thank god on the basis of a mutual agreement on police cooperation a daily cooperation between the police forces, our police and the Serbian police, who exchange information. So far we are watching the situation very carefully in order to avoid that we have any escalation. So far all the rumours that there might be people with weapons going over, that there might be militarily-minded groups going over the boundary line have not been confirmed.

DB: What about the problem of organized crime in Kosovo?

MS: If we don’t address this issue then we won’t be able to make this a place where the necessary investment comes, we need to have a fight against crime, we need also the help of the population here, and the population needs to help the police if they want to have successes… people should demand from their politicians that they very clearly distance themselves from any links whatsoever with crime, from any past burdens.

B/A: UNMIK chief Michael Steiner, speaking to UNMIK Radio. And that’s all for today…