Hello
and Welcome to Week in Review where we bring you some of the main news items in
and around Kosovo. [In English version.. I’m Jackson Allers]
1
Toping the early part of this week’s news…
New
UN Head in Kosovo, SRSG Soren Jessen-Petersen paid his first official visit to
the Albanian capital, Tirana, on Tuesday. His visit came on the heels of an
upset football victory over the European Champion Greek team by the Albanians
last weekend. Although football was a topic of conversation, during meetings
with Albania’s top officials, Jessen-Petersen stressed regional dialogue as a
way to accelerate the process of considering Kosovo’s future status.
UNMIK
On-Air was in Tirana when Albanian President Alfred Moisiu Jessen-Petersen
reaffirmed that a stable Kosovo was good for the entire region.
SRSG
Jessen-Petersen
“The president has reaffirmed that Albania is
firmly in support of seeing a multiethnic Kosovo that is a safe place for all
where everybody born and living there has a future.”
Jessen-Petersen also stated that Belgrade’s
interests in Kosovo would be recognized but not at the expense of the primary
role Kosovo’s institutions must play.
Jessen-Petersen
also visited Macedonia on Thursday stressing
MUSIC
3
In
local news….
This
week the World Bank awarded a grant of $4.5 million U.S. dollars to reduce drop
out rates and improve attendance records in Kosovo’s schools. The Canadian
Agency for International Development offered $1.2 million Canadian dollars to
the project.
This
is the second such funding effort by the World Bank, which estimates that over
a three-year period of time, some 400 schools throughout Kosovo will benefit
from the funding, including schools in rural areas.
The
Kosovo Ministry of Education is managing the project with local assistance
coming from the George Soros funded Kosovo Foundation for an Open Society, or
KFOS, which provided an additional $100 thousand U.S. dollars. Dukagjin Pupovci
is the head of the Kosovo Education Center - the organization picked for
technical assistance on the project.
“We
will offer a professional assistance for these projects but we will also create
a local capacity in Kosovo that will ASSURE THE NEED to provide similar
assistance in the future.”
Stay
tuned as UNMIK On-Air explores this issue in more depth.
4
Meanwhile…
The
United Nations administration in Kosovo confirmed this week that there are
indeed aspects of the Serb plan for decentralization that could be discussed in
relation to the Pristina plan on reforms for local self-government.
Although
Kosovo officials have dismissed the Serbian plan as unworkable, citing the
decentralization plan drafted with the local government, UNMIK and USAID, UNMIK
spokesperson, Mechthild Henneke, emphasized the two key points that overlap in
the two plans.
“If
you look at Belgrade’s proposal for decentralization, you can see that the most
essential points are security and institutional guarantees and these two issues
are very important for the minorities. ”
UNMIK
head, Jessen-Petersen sent a letter to Serbian Prime Minister, Vojislav
Kostunica reiterating UNMIK’s readiness to enter into formal discussions about
what parts of the Serbian Decentralization plan could be incorporated.
In
related news, Serbian President Boris Tadic railed against SRSG Jessen-Petersen
on Thursday for comments made during his Albanian visit. While in Tirana,
Jessen-Petersen declared that Serbs who do not participate in the October
Parliamentary elections in Kosovo risk being cut out of discussions on the
provinces future.
For
this reason, Jessen-Petersen outlined what he expects from Belgrade’s top
officials
“I trust, although I have been given no
indication, that Belgrade’s officials will recommend that Kosovo Serbs
participate in the elections.”
“and that leaving the recommendation for too
late would be both logistically difficult and technically difficult”
5
MUSIC
The
Hague war crimes tribunal is set to indict two Albanians for what the court says
were crimes committed during the 1998-1999 Conflict with Serbian forces.
Florence
Hartman, a spokesperson with the court is quoted as saying that the fresh
indictments for the former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters would be made public
by year’s end.
No
names were mentioned. The Hague has already indicted three former KLA fighters
for war crimes committed in 1999.
And
finally…
German
Defense Minister, Peter Struk is calling for an in-depth investigation into the
death of a 61-year old Serbian man killed during the March riots in Prizren.
Prizren is where the German KFOR camp is located, and political analysts
suggest that