September 29, 2005

ERP KiM Newsletter 29-09-05

Serb president Tadic seeks papal visit, discusses fate of Kosovo Serbs with Pope

President Boris Tadic and Pope Benedict XVI

Released : Sep 29, 2005 8:44 AM
Associated Press

VATICAN CITY-Serbian President Boris Tadic met Thursday with Pope Benedict XVI and said he hoped the pontiff could visit the country "very soon," but said certain preconditions had to be negotiated first with the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Tadic had invited the pope to visit, and that the pope had thanked him for the invitation and "expressed hope that such a visit could take place in the future."

Tadic told reporters that the possibility of a papal visit was raised during his 25-minute meeting, the first between a pope and a Serb president. There were some "preconditions" that had to be worked out first, Tadic said, referring to an agreement with the Serbian Orthodox Church to invite the pontiff.

A pope has never visited Serbia, a traditional ally of Russia, partly due to an enduring rivalry between the Catholics and the Orthodox, the two traditional Christian churches separated since the Great Schism in 1054.

"I have a very significant dialogue with the Serbian Orthodox Church. The Serbian Orthodox Church is a part of our society, and I appreciate the role of the Serbian Orthodox Church in our country. But this is a very specific dialogue between two Christian churches," Tadic told reporters after the meeting.

"I hope we are going to organize this visit as soon as possible," Tadic said.

He said his visit to Rome was a sign that relations between the two churches had improved.

"The dialogue is much better than before," he said, noting that representatives of the two churches would be meeting soon to launch a new ecumenical initiative.

Benedict has made reaching out to Orthodox churches a priority of his pontificate.

The president of Serbia-Montenegro, Svetozar Marovic, had tried in 2003 to organize a visit by late Pope John Paul II to Serbia-Montenegro, but the head of Serbia's Orthodox church, Patriarch Pavle, suggested then that he would not be welcome.

Hard-liners and conservatives in Serbia often perceived John Paul II as a foe who contributed to the violent breakup of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s because of the Vatican's quick recognition of predominantly Roman Catholic Croatia.

While John Paul did visit some Orthodox countries during his pontificate, Serbia, like Russia, had remained closed to the idea of a papal visit.

The Vatican's daily news bulletin reported Thursday's audience with Tadic without giving details.

Tadic said he and the pope also discussed the "huge problem" of the fate of Serbs in Kosovo, which has been an international protectorate since 1999 when a NATO air war forced former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end a crackdown against rebel ethnic Albanians in the province.

Serb officials have hoped the Vatican could influence ethnic Albanians in Kosovo to improve situation for the minority Serbs and preserve Serb Orthodox monasteries that were destroyed during a rampage by ethnic Albanians in March 2004.

The future status of the region, which borders Albania and Macedonia, remains a contested issue and U.N. mediated talks on its future are to begin in December.

New misunderstandings emerge

(BetaWeek, Sep 29)

Only months away from the expected beginning of talks on Kosovo's status, Belgrade is yet to produce a clear strategy for the province. In the past few months, Serbian Premier Vojislav Kostunica and President Boris Tadic have built a framework plan on the vague formula "more than autonomy, less than independence." Some details from the plan were unveiled last week by the newly-appointed president of the Coordinating Center for Kosovo and Metohija, Sanda Raskovic-Ivic. According to the Kostunica-Tadic plan, Belgrade will keep its sovereignty, while the executive, judicial and legislative powers would be transferred to Kosovo Albanians. Kosovo would remain under the jurisdiction of Serbia and Montenegro, as U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 prescribes. The army and police of Serbia and Montenegro are expected to guard the borders Kosovo shares with Macedonia and Albania. The plan also provides for one defense minister and one foreign minister. Kosovo would not have a separate chair in the United Nations. Similar powers were enjoyed by Kosovo while it was Serbia's province within the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. When the state began to fall apart, the Kosovo local parliament wanted the province to become a republic. In return, Slobodan Milosevic's regime decided to strip Kosovo of its autonomy. It appears that Belgrade wants to swing the pendulum back, but it is quite unlikely that the Albanian side would agree, after years of so-called passive resistance followed by a bloody war.

Differences

Disclosing the details from the Kosovo plan have created new political misunderstandings in Serbia. The earlier assumption that neither the ruling coalition nor the opposition could get a realistic perspective of things, or produce a solution that the Albanians, too, might accept were confirmed once again. Most politicians could not help looking after their ephemeral, daily political needs, and presenting themselves to voters as a force that would never accept an independent Kosovo. Serbian President Boris Tadic, whose attitude to Kosovo is more flexible than Kostunica's, explained that Belgrade had no intention of governing the Albanians again, but that it couldn't "simply give up its historic territory inhabited by some 100,000 Serbs." Tadic criticized Sanda Raskovic-Ivic for unveiling the plan the two topranking politicians had designed, thus making room for the assumption that the granting of executive, judicial and legislative competence to Kosovo was still uncertain. Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic, who is also the Serbian Renewal Movement leader, favors a version of the so-called Z4 plan, which had been offered to Serbs in Croatia ten years ago. Draskovic says that Kosovo and the Republic of Serb Krajina that existed a decade ago in Croatia have nothing in common, but he would offer to Albanians their own government, premier, parliament, president, police, currency, budget and the right of representation in the Serbian Legislature and government. According to the Z4 plan for Krajina, it should have been entitled to representation in all international organizations, except for those symbolizing state sovereignty. The Serb majority in Krajina would accept to respect Croatia's outer borders. Draskovic says this is the formula that should be a cornerstone in the search for a solution in the Serbian-Albanian talks, but that there are other models to be tabled as well, such as that of South Tyrol, Oland Islands, or that applied by Flemings and Walloons in Belgium in settling their grievances. Serbia's largest parliamentary party, the ultranationalist Serbian Radical party, has dismissed both plans as unacceptable for Serbia, accusing their authors of treason. Deputy president of the Serbian Radicals Tomislav Nikolic demands that Belgrade's strategy on Kosovo should be voted in by the Serbian Legislature as the only valid platform for the talks.

Talks

The general expectation is that the talks on Kosovo's future status would begin by the end of the year or, possibly, early next year. Before that, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide is to deliver to the U.N. secretary general a report on the situation in Kosovo, which might take place in October. Once he received the report, Kofi Annan would recommend a further course of events. The authorities in Belgrade stick to the standards-before-status formula, insisting that it makes no sense to begin the Kosovo status talks before the international standards have been met. On the other hand, the preparations for the talks have gained such a momentum that Draskovic, having returned from New York, where he attended the U.N. General Assembly session, made it clear they were "almost certain" to begin by the end of the year. Kosovo Albanian leaders have already set up a negotiating team, explaining that independence was the only acceptable option, which they are ready to discuss in terms of realization, but with no doubts as to its feasibility. When it comes to the ultimate goal, the differences within the Albanian team are hardly perceptible. The positions of Belgrade and Pristina differ so much that any effort to bring them closer to a compromise would be doomed to failure and to no avail, at least at this early stage. Hence the shuttle diplomacy, used as a communication bridge between the opposed sides ten years ago, at the talks concerning Bosnia and Herzegovina and those held in Rambouillet, appears to be the only acceptable solution for the time being.

Trial of six former ethnic Albanian rebels set to begin in Kosovo

GNJILANE,  (AP) - The trial of six former rebels charged with committing war crimes against fellow ethnic Albanians during Kosovo's 1998-99 war was adjourned Thursday after the defense objected to the trial's location.

Former rebel fighter Selim Krasniqi and four associates sat before a panel of three international judges in the district court of Gnjilane, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the province's capital, Pristina. One suspect remains at large.

The U.N.-appointed judges adjourned Thursday's opening session until Oct. 13, when the suspects were expected to enter their pleas.

In the meantime, the judges said they would consider the defense's objection to the trial being held in Gnjilane, after the case started with a court in southwestern town of Prizren.

The six former rebels are charged with the illegal imprisonment, torture and killing of seven fellow ethnic Albanians in mid-1998 in central Kosovo village of Drenovac, according to the indictment.

Krasniqi, the most senior former fighter in the group, was arrested early last year by U.N. special police units and NATO-led peacekeepers. At the time, he was serving as regional commander of the Kosovo Protection Corps, a civil emergency unit created after the disbanding of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army.

The war pitted ethnic Albanian rebels against Serb forces loyal to the former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, and ended in mid-1999 after NATO air strikes forced the Serb military to pull out of Kosovo, leaving United Nations and NATO in control.

The U.N. appoints international judges and prosecutors in sensitive cases, and U.N.-run courts have tried several former ethnic Albanian rebels for war crimes allegedly committed against Serbs and fellow ethnic Albanians suspected of collaborating with the Serb regime.

Veteran associations have protested against the trials, calling them politically charged.

Separately, the Netherlands-based U.N. war crimes court has charged six ethnic Albanian rebels, including Kosovo's former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj, who faces 36 counts for his wartime role.

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