January 30, 2007

KiM Info Newsletter 30-01-07

Serbia offers interior independence to Kosovo-Metohija

Belgrade, Jan 29, 2007 - Advisor to the Serbian Prime Minister and coordinator of the state team for negotiations on Kosovo's future status Slobodan Samardzic stated today that Serbia offers interior independence to ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo-Metohija through an agreement which would symbolically preserve "the membrane of Serbian sovereignty" over the issue of the province.

In an interview for the Reuters agency, Samardzic said that Serbia only needs respect of its borders, adding that interior organisation of the state may ensure maximum flexibility.

He explained that Belgrade will not govern all other issues related to the vital interests of ethnic Albanians, such as economic, social and cultural ones. He also stressed that these issues could be directly related to financial institutions.

Belgrade's plan does not insist that Serbia controls the border and this matter could be left to international police, said Samardzic and stressed that the Serbian side does not demand that its army and police return to the province.

He said that in ten years' time, Serbia's and Kosovo-Metohija's membership in the EU would reduce the importance of borders and equalise the monetary and customs policy.

Samardzic noted that Belgrade has not been offered the chance to come up with its own suggestions and added that applying pressure is not a good way to solve this issue in the next few months, as the West is doing now.

The problem of Kosovo is 100 years old and Ahtisaari provided only three hours of Serbian-Albanian status talks last year with a note that it was the meeting of the deaf.

Serbia's plan is a multi-layered plan of administration under the umbrella of Belgrade, he said and concluded that Europe is brimming with successful self-determination stories with no secession.

Serbia offers Kosovo separation but not divorce

REUTERS, By Douglas Hamilton
7:33 a.m. January 29, 2007

BELGRADE - Serbia is offering 'internal independence' to the Albanian majority of Kosovo under a deal to preserve a symbolic 'membrane of Serbian sovereignty' around the breakaway province, a senior Serb official said on Monday.

'Serbia does not need much. It needs only respect for its borders,' Slobodan Samardzic told Reuters in an interview. 'On internal arrangements we can have maximum flexibility.'

'In all matters connected with their vital interests - economic, social, cultural - the Albanians would not be governed by Belgrade,' he said. They could have 'direct links to financial institutions'.

The proposal described by the political adviser to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica does not at first blush seem totally at odds with what diplomats say the West is proposing.

U.N. special envoy Martti Ahtisaari is due to present a Western-backed Kosovo plan to Belgrade on Friday. While diplomats say 'independence' is not mentioned, it will however be on offer to Kosovo a few years down the line.

Kosovo's 90 percent Albanian majority demands nothing short of independence from Serbia, blamed for 10,000 deaths and the expulsion of 800,000 in a military campaign by late strongman Slobodan Milosevic to crush a 1998-99 separatist uprising.

NATO bombed Serbia for 11 weeks to compel it to withdraw its forces in

mid-1999 and the United Nations has been in control ever since. The question of Kosovo's future status was in limbo for six years until the U.N. made it a priority in late 2005.

NO SERB BORDER POLICE

Kosovo was not a priority of reformists who ousted Milosevic in 2000. The plan was formulated in 2006, but made scant headway against a prevailing impression that independence was a done deal. Now Serbia is fighting what may be the final battle.

Samardzic said the Serb plan does not insist on Serb control of the borders, but would leave the job to international police.

'Border control by Serbs is a dream,' he said. 'Albanians would not like to see Serb police in the border posts. We do not insist on returning our military or police to the province.'

In time, border control would be taken over by Kosovo and Serb police, but the borders would remain Serbia's.

In 10 years, he suggested, European Union membership for Serbia and Kosovo would reduce the practical significance of borders and homogenise monetary and customs policies.

Samardzic said Belgrade had not been given the opportunity to present its proposals. He said it was unwise to press, as the West is now doing, for a solution in coming months.

'The problem of Kosovo is 100 years old... Ahtisaari allowed only three hours of Serb-Albanian talks on status' last year.

'It was a dialogue of the deaf,' he remarked of that episode. Serbia's democratic leadership should get a fair chance to lay out its vision of a new relationship.

'Kostunica and (President Boris) Tadic are not Milosevic', the aide added.

They want a chance to tell Albanians: 'We understand your desire for independence. But you must understand our desire to preserve our state's borders.'

GIVE US TIME

Samardzic described the Serb alternative as a 'multi-layered system of government under the umbrella of Belgrade'.

'Nothing would be imposed,' he stressed. 'Europe is full of successful stories of self-determination without secession.'

Serbia's plan would be signed by Belgrade and the United Nations with Albanian agreement and an open-ended international security and supervisory presence would remain in Kosovo. A provision allowing for a review in 20 years would be included.

As diplomats also report of the Ahtisaari plan, Kosovo's two million Albanians would grant special status to the 100,000 Serbs, permitting them to live with open links to Belgrade, plus a veto on decisions directly affecting their communities.

Kostunica is counting heavily on Serbia's traditional ally Russia to block independence at the United Nations. And Russia, according to a senior Western diplomat close to the talks, is 'very sceptical' about Ahtisaari's plan.

Moscow also insists on a delay until Serb leaders have agreed on a coalition government following an inconclusive general election on Jan 21.

Kosovo: The illusions of independence

SERBIANNA (USA)ANALYSIS
By M. Bozinovich

January 29, 2007 -- Ahtisaari has written a secret plan for Kosovo status, yet major news media outlets are leaking details about it galore and all the leaked details are aimed at propping up Kosovo Albanian side telling it that there is no reason to pull out of the status process just yet.

So, the leaks are loaded with vivid details that the independence is postponed until a new UN resolution will be written sometimes in summer that will overwrite the existing Resolution 1244 that assigns sovereignty to Serbia and that the replacing UN resolution will pave the way for Kosovo Albanians to unilaterally declare independence so that individual countries will then line up to recognize it.

In exchange for Kosovo Albanian patience till summer, leak these sources, Kosovo will immediately obtain characteristics of an independent nation.

"Although details of his plan were kept secret, it is known that they would allow Kosovo to join international organisations, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and, eventually, the UN itself. Kosovo would also be allowed to raise its own security force and its citizens to have dual nationality," writes Muslim Peninsula from Qatar.

At this point in the status process, it is futile to talk of the proposal's details. After all, isn't it a secret!

A prudent question then is why are the emerging leaks exclusively aimed at Kosovo Albanians.

The direction of the leaks is suggestive that Washington is seriously concerned that Muslims of Kosovo will unilaterally cut their losses from these profitless status talks, tell Ahtisaari to go back to Finland and raze riots across the province to the level where NATO will not be able to quell them.

Agim Ceku's appeal for calm in the province on January 29, 2007 is not suggestive of his altruistic motives to be the man of peace, but that Ceku is under tremendous pressure to resort to violence because, as he says, appeals across Kosovo are made to abandon the process.

"Let's keep our eyes open, preserve the calm and security in Kosovo," Ceku said in his weekly radio address. "Any breach of these parameters would be fatal for us."

Here, Ceku indicates that Kosovo Albanians have been put on a stern notice by Washington that their independence hope will completely vanish if they resort to violence. On the other hand, Washington is deliberately irritating them with a leakage that the word "independence" has been taken out of the proposal.

"Washington and the EU fear the absence from a UN resolution of the key word - 'independence' - could anger Kosovo Albanians and prompt them to declare independence unilaterally;" writes Daniel McLaughlin for Financial Times.

Washington's paramount objective in the Kosovo status settlement is to keep Kosovo Albanians engaged in the process so that it can make them feel that the US worked very hard to give riotous Kosovo Albanians a favorable and sympathetic world forum for their doomed independence cause. That this is so, we hear Ceku's appeal not "to resist a process that has never been more favorable to us."

Towards the goal of making the illusion of favoritism in the status process, Washington has done a remarkable job in lining up high profile news media dogs to fuel this sympathy: from the Wall Street Journal arguing that Kosovo should be independent because Serbia lost moral authority to have it to the London Independent who ridiculously claims that we have entered the age where sovereignty no longer matters.

Then, Washington has engaged most pro Albanian personalities to manage the process: from Marti Ahtisaari who as chief of the International Crisis Group has been a long time advocate of Kosovo independence. to envoys like Frank Wisner familiar to Kosovo Albanians because of his father who smuggled Nazi Albanians out of Kosovo and into Albania in a futile attempt to topple communist Enver Hodxa.

Washington has also engineered good-will gestures towards postponing war crimes cases of Albanian Ramush Haradinaj and has pressured Carla Del Ponte, behind the scenes, to lay off the current Kosovo Albanian Prime Minister Ceku who is knee deep in murders of Serbs.

The reason that Washington is going out of its way to create this media illusion in favor of Kosovo Albanians is a fear that Kosovo Albanians will cut their ties to the negotiating process and unilaterally declare independence.

If the status process is deemed illegitimate by the Muslim Albanians, that could trigger radical Jihadists in the province to wage attacks on NATO by using Iraq-style tactics that could radically strain NATO troops there and perhaps chase them out.

"KFOR is prepared for all eventualities,' NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters after a meeting Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski. "Let nobody in Kosovo have any illusions that they should test KFOR . That goes for the majority and the minority," he said.

Increasingly, Kosovo Albanians view NATO chief as irrelevant and this is perhaps why NATO abandoned Mladic extradition and moved to swiftly integrate Serbia into its fold.

It is these dictates of military urgency that were perhaps leaked to the floor of the Senate from the State Department in early January assuring no debate and a unanimous passage of a Senate Resolution 36 that paves the way for arming of Serbian military, training of Serbian military personnel at West Point and integrating Serbian spy agency BIA into the network of CIA.

Although official Washington sees its embrace of Serbian military as separate issue from Kosovo it increasingly appears that they may not stay separate for very long.

New UN resolution if Serbia rejects Ahtisaari's plan Pristina

Makfax news agency, Skoplje, 30.01.2007 12:27

The UN Security Council will come up with a new resolution leading to Kosovo's independence if Serbia rejects Martii Ahtisaari's proposal, Kosovo's newspapers said.

Pristina's daily Koha Ditore quotes unnamed Western diplomats as predicting such an epilogue to the Kosovo status process.

Koha Ditore quotes Western diplomats as saying that in the next two months they will try to convince Serbian authorities to accept the Kosovo status plan due to be presented by the UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari.

The paper also claims that Russian mediators have already handed over the Ahtisaari's plan to the authorities in Belgrade, adding that Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica got outraged when he read the draft.

The paper says Russia, despite its strong objections to Ahtisaari's draft-plan, is unlikely to put itself at risk with a veto at the UN Security Council if the Contact Group members comply with the agreement reached recently in Vienna.

Although the plan's contents have not been made public yet, and Russia has allegedly hailed the plan, unnamed Western Diplomats says this is a fictious postponement of status settlement for another two months by mid-2007.

Pristina's daily says European and American diplomats will be visiting Belgrade and Pristina next month in a bid to defuse tension after the presentation of Ahtisaari's plan. /end/

EU's Solana: U.N. plan on Kosovo could be finalized by end of February

Associated Press, January 30, 2006

BRUSSELS, Belgium_EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said a U.N. plan on the future of Kosovo should be finalized by the end of next month before going to the U.N. Security Council for approval.

U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari will present the plan to ethnic Albanians and Serbs on Friday. The plan is widely expected to call for conditional independence for the restive province of 2 million, despite Belgrade's insistence that Kosovo remain within Serb borders.
After the blueprint is presented in Belgrade and Pristina, Kosovo's capital, Ahtisaari will invite both sides to respond to it.

Solana said he hoped all parties involved _ including Russia _ will eventually endorse the plan, which was drafted after yearlong negotiations with the Serbs and ethnic Albanians.
"I don't believe anybody will object (to) the plan," Solana told journalists.

Russia traditionally has allied itself with Serbia, which considers Kosovo the heart of its ancient homeland and insists that it remains part of Serbian territory. The province's ethnic Albanian majority has been pushing for outright independence. Russia has insisted it will only accept a negotiated, not an enforced, solution of Kosovo's status.

The U.N. Security Council will have the final say on Ahtisaari's plan.

Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since mid-1999, following NATO's air campaign that ended a Serb crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.

Russia Reacts Coolly to U.N. Report on Kosovo

DEFENSE NEWS (USA)
Posted 01/29/07 16:45
By BROOKS TIGNER, BRUSSELS

The nations orchestrating Kosovo's independence from Serbia have splintered over a new report for achieving that goal, with Russia alone giving a cool reception to the idea.

The report remains confidential. According to diplomatic sources here, it studiously avoids any blatant references to the word "independence" for fear of stoking tensions - already high - between Belgrade and Kosovo, and between the latter's ethnic Albanian majority and Serb minority.

The much-anticipated report by Martti Ahtisaari, the United Nations special envoy to Kosovo, was presented Jan. 26 to the six-nation Contact Group on Kosovo (France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom and United States). Ahtisaari will travel in February to the Balkans to unveil the content of his proposal to Belgrade and Pristina.

As expected, all but Russia approved the report and its recommendations for organizing Kosovo's de facto separation. Allied with Serbia, Russia said it awaits Belgrade's reaction before drawing its own conclusions.

Whether that will be officially forthcoming anytime soon is an open question, however. Following Serbia's national elections Jan. 21, a new government has yet to be formed. However, nearly all parties oppose outright independence for Kosovo.

NATO troops are standing by if there's trouble.

During a Jan. 26 meeting of allied foreign ministers, for instance, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said NATO "fully supports and will play its part in the U.N.-led process to resolve Kosovo's final status." The alliance currently has 16,000 troops to oversee the breakaway province's security.

Meanwhile, other regions of the world with separatist movements based on uncertain legal premises such as that of Kosovo are closely watching what happens in the Balkan province.

In the last year, for instance, Russian officials have made ambiguous statements about any imposed independence for Kosovo and the implications for territories such as Moldovo's breakaway Transdnistria province or the Caucasus' three so-called frozen conflicts - South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, and Nagorno-Karabach, the Armenian-ethnic enclave which Azerbaijan lost to Armenia in 1994.

Armenia's Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan said last week in Yerevan that "fresh thinking about Nagorno-Karabach's status" was needed and that "the conventional legal treaties and conventions of the past 100 years do not apply to today's situation" in the enclave.

Armenia effectively incorporated Nagorno-Karabach into its territory as a separate entity, though the international community does not recognize the enclave's independence.

Kosachov: Serbian Constitution Needs To Be Respected

RTS in Serbian, 29 Jan 07 Moscow

Vice President of Russian Parliament and the president of the Foreign Affairs committee of the Russian Parliament, Konstantin Kosachov, stated that Russia will not accept the proposition of Kosovo status, until the same has been accepted by Belgrade.

"We can not accept a decision whose result would not take into consideration the attitude of Serbia", stated Kosachov, emphasizing that "Russia should oppose to every decision that is not accepted by all sides".

He emphasized that the attitude of Russia towards the independence of Kosovo is negative, which is known to all Russian partners. In the interview to Banja Luka daily Pravda, Kosachov stated that this is the attitude of all of the Russian political parties and Russian government.

"We understand how much the issues of Russia and neighboring countries depend on solution of Kosovo problem. If the solution is such to reflect the interests of only Kosovo Albanians and the attitudes of Belgrade and Serbia are not taken into consideration, this will lead to dangerous precedent", stated Kosachov.

He emphasized that Kosovo is not a unique case, nor is it an exception and estimated that a Kosovo solution is possible with the preservation of Serbian integrity.

"Compromise which Belgrade is ready to accept is good enough, because it is ready to guarantee peace and security to the whole country, including Kosovo", stated Kosachov. Translated by Maja Matasic

Russia: Proposal Needs To Be Examined

B92 in English, 28 Jan 07 Davos

Russia’s deputy prime minister said Saturday that his country needs to examine the Kosovo status proposal.

"We need to examine (U.N. envoy Martti) Ahtisaari's plan carefully," China’s Xinhua agency reported Dmitry Medvedev as saying. Medvedev is attending the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

"We are not all sure that this option is the best," said Medvedev.

He said the Kosovo problem cannot be addressed in isolation from other similar issues. Otherwise, the handling can become a precedent, he said.

International precedents can be positive or negative, said Medvedev, adding his country does not know whether Ahtisaari's proposal is a good one or not.

Ahtisaari on Friday briefed the United States, Russia and key European countries on his proposal for the future status of Kosovo, a Serbian province put under U.N. administration in 1999 after NATO air strikes on the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Ahtisaari's proposal, which opens way for Kosovo independence, immediately created division between Russia on the one hand and the United States and Europe on the other.

There are reports that Russia has asked for more time on the issue as Serbia has yet to form a government. (Xinhua) Transcribed by Aleksandar Stamboliski

Kosovo's prime minister appeals for calm amid tensions ahead of U.N. proposal

Associated Press: Monday, January 29, 2007 11:24 AM

PRISTINA, Serbia-Kosovo's prime minister appealed to ethnic Albanians on Monday to remain calm, just days before a U.N. proposal on province's future is unveiled.

U.N. special envoy Martti Ahtisaari will present ethnic Albanians with his proposal on Friday. His plan is widely expected to call for conditional independence for the province of 2 million, despite Belgrade's insistence that Kosovo remain within Serb borders.

Prime Minister Agim Ceku, who is part of ethnic Albanian team engaged in resolving Kosovo's disputed status, urged the province's citizens "not to fall prey of appeals ... to resist a process that has never been more favorable to us."

"Let's keep our eyes open, preserve the calm and security in Kosovo," Ceku said in his weekly radio address. "Any breach of these parameters would be fatal for us."

There are fears the U.N. report could spark renewed violence between Kosovo's Serb minority and its majority ethnic Albanians, who want independence from Serbia.

A youth group calling itself "Self-determination" called for a Feb. 10 protest against the U.N. plan and ethnic Albanian leaders.

The group has held many protests against the U.N. administration in the province, and opposed talks with Serbia over Kosovo's future. In November, the protesters overturned a concrete barrier shielding the U.N. headquarters and pelted the provincial government's building with stones and splashed red paint on its windows and walls.

NATO's Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer warned ethnic Albanian majority and the Serbs minority on Monday against violence, saying the alliance's 16,000-strong peacekeeping force was ready for "all eventualities."

Kosovo has been run by the U.N. since 1999, when NATO bombing ended a crackdown by Belgrade on separatist ethnic Albanian rebels.

NATO ready for "all eventualities" in Kosovo

Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:51 AM ET

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO's 17,000-strong Kosovo peace force is on alert for potential violence as the United Nations prepares to reveal plans for the future of the breakaway Serb province, the alliance's chief said on Monday.

U.N. special envoy Martti Ahtisaari is due on Friday to go to Belgrade and Pristina to present long-awaited proposals expected to grant virtual independence to the majority Albanian province.

The NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) has sought to keep the peace there for eight years since the alliance drove out Serb forces accused of ethnic cleansing, and is geared up for new tensions triggered by the Ahtisaari report.

"KFOR is prepared for all eventualities," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters after a meeting Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski.

"Let nobody in Kosovo have any illusions that they should test KFOR ... That goes for the majority and the minority," he said, referring to tense relations between the U.N.-administered province's 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority and local Serbs.

NATO forces were caught by surprise in 2004 when 19 people were killed during a bout of rioting by ethnic Albanian mobs who burned Serb homes and U.N. vehicles.

Alliance diplomats fear the political limbo after last week's inconclusive Serb elections could delay a settlement on Kosovo, setting off tensions just as the United Nations proceeds with a delicate handover of authority to the European Union.

"The NATO allies support the proposals President Ahtisaari is going to present to the parties on February 2," said de Hoop Scheffer.

"We support his timelines. And I think it is important that all nations and countries in the region do the same."

The EU is preparing to take over responsibility for policing the province and wants to launch a rule of law mission of up to 1,500 personnel by mid-year -- always assuming Kosovo's status is settled by a U.N. resolution by then.

Scheffer: Don’t Test NATO

B92 in English, 29 Jan 07 Brussels

NATO's 17,000-strong Kosovo peace force is on alert for potential violence.
The preparations come as the United Nations prepares to reveal plans for the future the province, the alliance chief said on Monday.

U.N. special envoy Martti Ahtisaari is due on Friday to go to Belgrade and Pristina to present long-awaited proposals expected to grant virtual independence to the majority Albanian province.

It remains uncertain, however, if any of the high state officials in Belgrade will meet with Ahtisaari on February 2.

KFOR has sought to keep the peace in Kosovo for eight years since the alliance drove out Serb forces accused of ethnic cleansing, and is geared up for new tensions triggered by the Ahtisaari report.

"KFOR is prepared for all eventualities," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters after a meeting with Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski.

"Let nobody in Kosovo have any illusions that they should test KFOR ... That goes for the majority and the minority," he said, referring to tense relations between the U.N.-administered province's 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority and local Serbs.
Macedonian president stressed that Macedonia will support any durable solution to Kosovo that would guarantee stability in the region.

NATO forces were caught by surprise in 2004 when 19 people were killed during a bout of rioting by ethnic Albanian mobs that burned Serb homes and U.N. vehicles.

Alliance diplomats fear the political limbo after last week's inconclusive Serb elections could delay a settlement on Kosovo, setting off tensions just as the United Nations proceeds with a delicate handover of authority to the European Union.

We Declare Independence Ourselves

Express in Albanian, 27 Jan 07 Pristina

Members of Kosovo Negotiation Team are seriously considering the possibility of unilateral declaration of independence. Meanwhile the international community will establish the favorable terrain to make this decision.

Muhamet Hamiti, Fatmir Sejdiu's high political advisor admitted to the Financial Times that Pristina is considering this possibility, but he added that the Kosovo party, however, prefers to work within the framework of the negotiation process initiated by the United Nations.

"We have been independent since 1999, but our sovereignty should be recognized by the international community. We don't expect our independence and sovereignty to be a gift from somebody", had stated Hamiti.

Also the German prestigious daily Der Spiegel has written on a unilateral step by Pristina. According to this daily, Chief Negotiator Martti Ahtisaari's plan for Kosovo will leave the issue of Kosovo's status formally open, while the Western countries count on Kosovo to declare its independence.

This daily reads that "in the very secret project, Ahtisaari has sketched complicated paths, which, if possible until summer will enable Kosovo's secession from Serbia without any major break of violence". "The essential idea is that Kosovo should declare independence itself, meanwhile the international community will establish conditions for this", reads Spiegel.

However, it is said that the status issue will remain formally open until the moment the 1244 Resolution becomes ineffective, which since the end of war in 1999 determined the international control over Kosovo. Without removing of this resolution the declaration of independence is impossible.

The possibility of unilateral declaration if independence, which Hamiti talks about, has been circulating as an idea lately, since it is clearer each day that Ahtisaari's proposal will not foresee independence for Kosovo, but it will leave it as an open option. At the same time he will open way to the Kosovo's statehood.

Meanwhile the declaration of independence by Pristina-which most likely will be done at the Kosovo assembly-, comes as a reaction of the Negotiation Team, members of which by this act would "pay off" in front of the assembly and the citizens. Since they have been promising that the end of negotiation process will be finalized with international recognition of independence, throughout the process of negotiation. But more than anything this act would calm the extremists in the country, which have already started threatening that they will use all the means to reach the long waited goal of the people for independence.

If the international community would not obstruct this step, as the German daily reads, the declaration of independence would give the chance to the other countries to recognize this decision separately. Translated by Blerim Beqiri

Damaged Kosovo churches, mosques to be rebuilt

PRISTINA, Serbia, Jan 29, 2007 (AFP)

The UN mission in Kosovo said it signed an agreement Monday with UNESCO to reconstruct and conserve seven damaged cultural heritage sites.

Covered by the agreement were three churches and a monastery of the Serbian Orthodox Church, two mosques and a Turkish bathhouse, the United Nations mission, UNMIK, said in a statement.

UNMIK chief Joachim Ruecker said the project, backed by a US donation of one million dollars, "will serve as a model for other similar agreements to follow, enabling work to commence for the preservation of all types of heritage."

"Cultural and religious sites are a truly remarkable testament to Kosovo's distinctive history and their protection and preservation is integral to the process of improving and consolidating relations between the different communities in Kosovo," he added.

A total of 10 million dollars had been pledged by various donors for the restoration and conservation of cultural heritage sites in Kosovo as a result of a 2005 donor conference convened by UNESCO in Paris.

Kosovo has been under United Nations administration since NATO intervention halted a crackdown by Belgrade-controlled forces against ethnic Albanians during the 1998-1999 conflict in the disputed Serbian province.

SRSG signs agreement with UNESCO on Kosovo heritage conservation

UNMIK/PR/1633
Monday, 29 January 2007

PRISTINA – Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Kosovo (SRSG) Joachim Rücker signed with UNESCO in Paris today an agreement for implementation of the first project for the restoration and conservation of cultural heritage sites in Kosovo pursuant to pledges made as a result of the Paris international donors conference of May 2005. Ms. Françoise Riviere, Assistant Director General for Culture, signed the agreement on behalf of UNESCO.

“I welcome the signing of the agreement that will serve as a model for other similar agreements to follow, enabling work to commence for the preservation of all types of heritage in Kosovo,” the SRSG said, “Cultural and religious sites are a truly remarkable testament to Kosovo’s distinctive history and their protection and preservation is integral to the process of improving and consolidating relations between the different communities in Kosovo.”

The agreement signed today defines the framework for cooperation between UNMIK and UNESCO for restoration and conservation of seven cultural heritage sites for which the United States has pledged one million USD. The sites covered under this project are: the Church of the Presentation of the Virgin in Lipjan/Lipljan, the St. Sava Church in Mitrovica, the Hadum Mosque in Gjakovë/Djakovica, the Church of St. Archangel Michael in Shtime/Štimlje, the Budisavci Monastery in Klinë/Klina, the Mosque in Deçan /Dečani and the Hamam in Mitrovica.

A total of 10 million USD were pledged by various donors as a result of the 2005 Donors Conference convened by UNESCO in Paris. Pursuant to this, in September 2006 an Umbrella Memorandum of Understanding was signed by UNESCO with UNMIK, on behalf of the Provisional Institutions of Self Government (PISG) in Kosovo, covering the scope of intervention for the rehabilitation, safeguard and preservation of the Cultural Heritage in Kosovo. As a final step agreements, similar to the one today, will be signed for each specific project already agreed upon by several donors with UNESCO.

Fatic family returns to Pec

BBC Serbian (UK)
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
By Tanja Vujisic, BBC correspondent in Pec

Once upon a time there were some twenty thousand Serbs living in the municipality of Pec.

After the 1999 war in Kosovo not one Serb remained in the city.

After almost eight years the first Serb family, the Fatices, returned to their native city.

The Fatic family returned to Pec after 7 years where they live a difficult life

With the help of the organization UN Habitat, they managed to reclaim their apartment, which had been illegally occupied for seven years.

The organization repaired the hardwood floor, which had been damaged, and the Danish Council for Refugees gave them two beds as they found none of the household furnishings they had left behind seven years ago.

The family lives in an unheated house with a leaky roof. They did the electrical wiring themselves and they are more frequently without power than with it.

Seventy-five year old Branko Fatic emphasizes that they feel forgotten and abandoned by everyone, adding that an exceptionally difficult life in Belgrade and poverty forced them to return to their native city.

"I paid one thousand dinars' rent. Now they are asking for three and a half thousand. I don't even have a bathroom. I don't even have a water heater to take a bath. When one has no money, one has nothing. Today a couple living in Belgrade are complaining; the woman has a salary and the man has a salary and still they are complaining. I'm not complaining. We need everything for our empty house but without money, all we can do is be quiet. I have no one to help me, not a single Serb," Branko Fatic tells the BBC.

The three-member family survives solely on Branko's pension of 8000 dinars.

Since the first day of their return to today, no one has visited them except journalists. They have never received any aid in food, medicine or clothing.

Branko emphasizes that they are surviving thanks solely to the sisterhood of the Pec Patriarchate; however, he admits that with age and illness the once weekly trip to the Pec Patriarchate is growing more and more difficult for him.

"I don't even have a bicycle. If I had one, I would go with the bicycle but I don't. I have a driver's license but I cannot buy a car. I pay five euros for television. I pay seven euros for the telephone; the children from Belgrade call, I have to answer them," emphasizes Branko Fatic.

Leposava Fatic says that from time to time she has to go to the marketplace in the center of the city and that so far the Albanians have done nothing bad to her.

However, the family's fear is ever present, especially at night.

"Sometimes I wonder if we will wake up alive in the morning. They have begun banging on our doors. Several times they banged on the door at night when we have had no electricity for four or five hours. I go to the marketplace because it has to be done. How can you survive if you don't go out to buy something," says Leposava Fatic.

Leposava says that she and her husband are determined to stay in Pec for good because, she says, their seven children and grandchildren already have an extremely difficult time as they spend their refugee days in (central) Serbia.

"We have nowhere to go. We have no chance of selling (our property) and even if we did, where would we go? We have so many children who are not working.

We have nowhere to go. We have 17 grandchildren. One of my sons, a policeman, was killed. One of my daughters died. We will stay as long as we possibly can. We will see what will happen and how things will be if they turn for the better," says Leposava Fatic, a member of the only Serb family to return to Pec since the 1999 war.

Explosion damages local party headquarters in eastern Kosovo

Sunday, January 28, 2007
PRISTINA, Serbia
The Associated Press

An explosion damaged the local headquarters of a Kosovo political party in the eastern part of the province Sunday, police said. No one was reported injured.

The explosion occurred around 6.15 p.m. (1615GMT) and is believed to have been caused by a device outside the building in the town of Gnjilane, some 60 kilometers (40 miles) east of Kosovo's capital Pristina, police spokesman Veton Elshani said.

The damaged offices previously belonged to the local branch of the ruling Democratic League of Kosovo. But recently there have been disputes in that area after some party officials opted to split from it and create their own party.

The new party's name is the Democratic League. But it was unclear to whom the party offices now belong.

Police could not confirm whether the political offices were the target of the blast. The explosion also shattered the windows of several businesses nearby, Elshani said.

Two explosions hit the area in September, targeting vehicles belonging to government officials.

Kosovo has been run as a U.N. protectorate since the end of the 1998-1999 conflict between Serb forces and ethnic Albanians seeking independence.

A U.N. envoy on Kosovo's future will present his proposal to ethnic Albanian leaders on Friday.

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