[Prishtina-E] RFE/RL BALKAN REPORT, Vol. 4, No. 51, 11 July 2000

[Mimoza Meholli]

>RFE/RL BALKAN REPORT
>Vol. 4, No. 51, 11 July 2000
>
>A Twice-Weekly Review of Politics, Media and Radio Free
>Europe/Radio Liberty Broadcasts in the western Balkans.
>
>_____________________________________________________________
>HEADLINES
>	* MILOSEVIC'S MONTENEGRIN GAMBIT
>	* SERBIAN MINISTER WARNS CROATIAN 'BANANA-REPUBLIC'
>	* ARE WAR CRIMINALS GETTING RICH IN THE HAGUE?
>	* KOLISEVSKI AND GLIGOROV
>	* ALBANIA'S NOTORIOUS ZANI GETS LIFE SENTENCE
>	* ALBANIAN GOVERNMENT RESHUFFLE IN RUN-UP TO ELECTIONS
>_____________________________________________________________
>
>
>MILOSEVIC'S MONTENEGRIN GAMBIT. The Yugoslav parliament has
>passed a series of constitutional amendments that will enable
>President Slobodan Milosevic to stay in office for another
>eight years and sharply reduce Montenegro's political role
>within the federation (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 7 July 2000).
>What Milosevic hopes to obtain by this direct challenge to
>Montenegro remains an open question.
>	In the early hours of 8 July, the Montenegrin
>legislature passed a resolution by 36 to 18 votes rejecting
>the federal parliament's recent changes to the Yugoslav
>constitution. The resolution repeatedly called the federal
>parliament's moves "illegal and illegitimate." The text added
>that the changes amount to "the destruction of the
>constitutional order" of the Yugoslav federation and
>constitute a "gross violation of the constitutional rights of
>the Republic of Montenegro."
>	The Montenegrin legislators promised unspecified
>"measures...[to] protect the interests of citizens of
>Montenegro and the undisturbed functioning of its legal
>system." The resolution also included an appeal to the "state
>bodies of the republic, especially of the Interior Ministry
>[to help] preserve peace," and called on Yugoslav army
>personnel "not to let themselves be misused against the
>citizens, institutions, and state bodies of the Republic of
>Montenegro." The legislators appealed to "the citizens of
>Montenegro, the citizens of and democratic opinion in Serbia,
>and the international community" to help find a peaceful
>resolution to the "problems in Montenegro's relations with
>the state bodies of Serbia and the federation."
>	Opening the session of the legislature on 7 July,
>Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic called the federal
>parliament's moves a "brutal attempt" to end Montenegrin
>statehood, London's "The Independent" reported. Djukanovic
>later told Vienna's "Die Presse" that Montenegro faces a very
>real danger of a civil war because the Belgrade authorities
>continue to "brutally manipulate" Montenegrin supporters of
>Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, RFE/RL's South Slavic
>Service noted. Svetozar Marovic, who is speaker of the
>Montenegrin parliament, said that the constitutional changes
>amount to a revision of the legal basis on which the Yugoslav
>federation was formed in 1992, Belgrade's "Danas" reported.
>	Also on 8 July, the legislature rejected a proposal for
>an immediate referendum on independence. Djukanovic told "Die
>Presse" that his government still wants to give Serbia time
>to consider Montenegro's 1999 proposal for the redefinition
>of relations between the two republics. He added that if
>Serbia does not agree by some unspecified future date, the
>Montenegrin authorities will hold a referendum on
>independence.
>	But this has long been his official line and reflects
>the pressure on him from the international community not to
>separate from Serbia. It remains to be seen how long he will
>be able to maintain this position in the face of deliberate
>intimidation by his enemies.
>	In Belgrade, pro-Milosevic media and several regime
>spokesmen taunted the authorities in Podgorica for not
>holding a referendum immediately, suggesting that Djukanovic
>does not want a referendum because he knows he will lose,
>Reuters reported on 9 July. Elsewhere, Serbian Information
>Minister Aleksandar Vucic threatened unspecified "measures to
>protect [Yugoslavia's] constitutional order" following the
>vote in the Montenegrin parliament, AP noted. Serbian Deputy
>Prime Minister Vojislav Seselj, who heads the Radical Party
>to which Vucic belongs, even called for the arrest of leading
>Montenegrin politicians, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service
>reported. (The Army General Staff already slammed the
>Montenegrin leadership in a statement on 4 July.)
>	The Serbia opposition, for its part, generally expressed
>outrage at the constitutional changes. Politicians as
>different as Vuk Draskovic and Vladan Batic called for a
>boycott of federal elections on the grounds that the
>opposition must not lend its name to a farce.
>	But some of the most interesting ramifications will be
>in Montenegro itself, namely: what will be the political fate
>of pro-Milosevic politicians? In the heated parliamentary
>debate, Zarko Rakcevic accused the deputies of the pro-
>Milosevic Socialist People's Party (SNP) of supporting a
>president "whose only place is in The Hague," "Vesti" noted.
>Other politicians called their pro-Belgrade opponents
>"traitors."
>	The next day, the SNP's Predrag Bulatovic appealed for a
>"dialogue" among Montenegrin leaders, RFE/RL's South Slavic
>Service reported. Meanwhile, the SNP sheepishly claimed in a
>statement that the constitutional changes will not affect
>Montenegro's status within the federation.
>	It is difficult to see how anyone could make this
>statement with any degree of sincerity, since the amendments
>will end 50-50 parity voting for the upper house and replace
>it with a one-man, one-vote system. (Serbia's population
>outnumbers Montenegro's by about 10-to-1.) As one observer
>put it, there may be a split between SNP politicians in
>Podgorica--who have to fight for their turf--and those in
>Belgrade--who just voted to reduce their proud republic to
>the status of an autonomous Serbian pokrajina, or province.
>If such a division comes to pass, then Milosevic will have
>even fewer friends and allies in Montenegro than he did
>before the amendments were passed.
>	This leads to the question of what Milosevic intended in
>the first place with his clear humiliation of Montenegro. One
>view has it that the latest developments follow the pattern
>of his behavior in the run-up to his wars in Slovenia,
>Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosova, namely: "Stay in the federation
>on my terms, or get out."
>	If this is the case, then Milosevic may be headed for
>his fifth conflict and fifth defeat. Whether the dispute
>between Belgrade and Podgorica will be settled by political
>rather than military means will depend heavily on the
>decisiveness, clarity, and resolution of the international
>community. As Croatian President Stipe Mesic put it this
>weekend, the threat of war in the Balkans "will diminish in
>proportion to the strength of the message that the
>international community sends to Serbia or to Milosevic."
>(Patrick Moore)
>
>
>SERBIAN MINISTER WARNS CROATIAN 'BANANA-REPUBLIC.' Serbian
>Information Minister Aleksandar Vucic warned the Croatian
>authorities not to assist Western efforts to broadcast to
>Serbia. He told a Belgrade press conference on 8 July that
>"the Western forces headed by the United States are preparing
>new media offensives on Serbia. They are using neighboring
>banana-republics, especially Croatia, as the most prominent
>exponent of their policies. The Serbian government is warning
>Croatia not to play with these things....Our response will be
>adequate if they dare to violate international regulations,"
>Reuters reported.
>	He added that "if it becomes necessary, we will be ready
>to [use] ultimate [unspecified] financial resources for
>defending our country from the media aggression that
>Americans are intending to carry out from Montenegro and
>other neighboring countries." He did not elaborate.
>	Vucic is known for his outspoken criticism of the
>opposition and of the private media. He is closely linked to
>the repressive 1998 media law. (Patrick Moore)
>
>
>ARE WAR CRIMINALS GETTING RICH IN THE HAGUE? The Hague-based
>tribunal is investigating persistent but unconfirmed press
>reports in the former Yugoslavia and abroad that attorneys
>for indicted war criminals pay their clients kick-backs. The
>lawyers are allegedly hired by some clients on the condition
>that they pay those clients some 20 to 40 percent of their
>attorney's fees. Such salaries range up to $110 per hour and
>are paid out of the tribunal's budget, the "Frankfurter
>Allgemeine Zeitung" reported on 5 July.
>	The wife of one indicted war criminal has reportedly
>bought a house in Belgrade with the money she obtained from
>kick-backs. Some indicted war criminals do not care about a
>prospective attorney's professional abilities or even whether
>they are cleared of the charges against them, London's "The
>Independent" reported on 7 July. "The only thing important to
>them is to get more money than they could have earned being
>free during their lifetime," the daily added, quoting Serbian
>lawyer Vladimir Bozovic at The Hague. Ante Nobilo, a Croatian
>lawyer and former diplomat, also said that he knows of such
>cases. (Patrick Moore)
>
>
>FORMER TITO-ERA LEADER DIES. Lazar Kolisevski died in Skopje
>on 6 July at the age of 88. He was a prominent functionary in
>the regime of Josip Broz Tito and briefly held the rotating
>chair of the state presidency following Tito's death in 1980.
>Kolisevski retired from public life shortly afterwards,
>RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. (Patrick Moore)
>
>
>GLIGOROV: TUDJMAN READY TO PARTITION BOSNIA IN 1991. Former
>Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov recently told RFE/RL's
>South Slavic Service that Croatian President Franjo Tudjman
>showed him a map in 1991, according to which Tudjman proposed
>to divide Bosnia between Serbia and Croatia, with a small
>Muslim rump state remaining. The two men had their
>conversation when Gligorov called on Tudjman to present the
>Gligorov-Izetbegovic plan to preserve a single Yugoslav
>state. (Patrick Moore)
>
>
>ALBANIA'S NOTORIOUS ZANI GETS LIFE SENTENCE. On 3 July, a
>court in the southern Albanian city of Vlora sentenced
>Myrteza Caushi, known as "Zani," to life imprisonment for
>multiple murders and for illegal possession of weapons,
>"Albanian Daily News" reported. Police arrested the 31-year-
>old gangster in early September 1999 after he and his gang
>murdered three people in the village of Mifol, apparently
>taking revenge for the previous killing of some members of
>their gang (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 7 September 1999).
>	After the sentence was pronounced, clashes broke out in
>the courtroom between relatives of Caushi and members of the
>special police forces, but no injuries were reported. In
>another incident, a member of a rival gang shot and wounded
>Arben Caushi, a cousin of Zani, shortly after the court
>handed down its verdict. The circumstances of the incident
>remain unclear.
>	During the anarchy that broke out in Vlora in 1997 after
>the collapse of pyramid investment schemes, Caushi controlled
>and terrorized the port-city with his gang. At the end of his
>first trial in 1998, however, the court sentenced him only
>for illegal possession of arms because it lacked evidence of
>other crimes (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 28 July 1998). He was
>released shortly thereafter. Many observers saw his release
>as indicative of the weakness of Albania's judicial
>institutions.
>	In related news, speaking in Athens on 5 July, a Greek
>government spokesman called on the Albanian authorities to
>take immediate action against criminal gangs. His appeal
>followed an incident on 3 July in which inhabitants of the
>southern Albanian village of Lazarat fired with machine guns
>for about five hours at the neighboring mainly ethnic Greek
>village of Dervican.
>	Villagers from Lazarat have repeatedly blocked the main
>road from Albania to Greece in recent years and robbed trucks
>and various travelers. They also successfully fought back
>special police forces trying to enter the town in numerous
>incidents. In May, police besieged Lazarat for three days but
>withdrew after a policeman was shot and wounded.
>	The villagers of Lazarat, which was a leper colony in
>Ottoman times, have a tradition of behaving as a law unto
>themselves (see "RFE/RL Newsline" 2 February 1999). Lazarat
>is a stronghold of the opposition Democratic Party. (Fabian
>Schmidt)
>
>
>ALBANIAN GOVERNMENT RESHUFFLE IN RUN-UP TO ELECTIONS.
>Albanian Prime Minister Ilir Meta sacked three ministers on 5
>July, "Albanian Daily News" reported. The new make-up of the
>government reflects the fears of the Socialists that voters
>may turn their back on them if they fail to deliver
>improvements in Albania's infrastructure and justice system
>before the local elections slated for October. President
>Rexhep Meidani will have to approve the changes before they
>can take effect.
>	This is the second government reshuffle since Meta
>became prime minister in November 1999 (see "RFE/RL
>Newsline," 1 November 1999). Ilir Gjoni, Meta's chief of
>staff, replaces Socialist Luan Hajdaraga as defense minister,
>and Arben Imami of the Democratic Alliance (AD) replaces the
>independent Ilir Panda as justice minister. The Socialist
>Ilir Zela, who was minister of state--a high ranking position
>in the prime minister's office--replaces Arben Demeti of the
>AD as minister for public works. Finally, Ndre Legisi,
>another senior Socialist, becomes minister of state.
>	Government spokesman Thoma Gellci said that Meta made
>the changes in order to "give a new impulse to the
>government's work." He did not elaborate. The next day Meta
>told "Zeri i Popullit" that he intends to improve the quality
>of government, most notably in the fields of justice and of
>construction and public works. The Albanian judiciary is
>notorious for its inefficiency. Similarly, many basic public
>services, such as the water supply and road systems, are
>plagued by serious faults.
>	Neritan Ceka, who is a leader of the AD, gave an
>interview to "Albanian Daily News" in which he said that he
>discussed the reshuffle with Meta and does not object to the
>changes. Ceka stressed that the AD "has received a portfolio
>much more important than the one [it] had before," namely
>that of justice instead of public works.
>	Ceka recalled that the AD's political priorities have
>been in the field of justice and institutional reform in the
>past, and that Imami played an important role in this respect
>during his stint as minister for institutional reform during
>the previous government of Pandeli Majko.
>	He regretted, however, that Meta did not give his party
>sufficient time to discuss the changes: "I am a little bit
>surprised by the way these changes were carried so quickly
>without giving us time to discuss them within the presidency
>and the party."
>	The independent daily "Shekulli" noted that "the
>dismissal of Panda can be justified by the present state of
>the judiciary, in which he could have played a stronger and
>more visible role." Concerning the sacking of Hajdaraga, the
>paper stressed: "In principle, replacing the minister of
>defense is not a casual move;...it is one of the most
>important posts in the government." Then the paper concluded:
>"As for the names of the two other Socialists, Ilir Zela and
>Ndre Legisi, there is not much to say about them. They are
>both young but do not inspire confidence, though they have
>often held party and government posts."
>	Another independent daily, "Gazeta Shqiptare," explained
>that "local elections are approaching [scheduled for
>October]. This is another reason for Albanian voters to think
>about the water shortages, the lack of electricity, the
>[state of their] roads, salaries, and pensions before they
>cast their vote. Meta seeks to improve the nation's
>infrastructure, which is why he replaced Arben Demeti. The
>unfinished reforms in the army delay Albania's integration
>into NATO, and [this along with] the poorly kept promises
>made to thousands of retired officers must have been the
>reason for the dismissal of Luan Hajdaraga."
>	Opposition Democratic Party (PD) leader Sali Berisha had
>another explanation, however. Speaking to "Rilindja
>Demokratike," he claimed that Meta's purpose is to find jobs
>for his corrupt friends. Berisha charged Meta's government
>with having "turned the prime minister's office into a school
>of theftS. By changing ministers he has gathered all the
>tenders (for awarding government contracts) in his hands."
>Berisha further reacted to the reshuffle by repeating earlier
>calls for the resignation of the government.
>	Observers note that Berisha will have difficulties
>proving his charges. But such harsh words are not unusual in
>the discourse between opposition and government in Albania's
>present-day political culture. (Fabian Schmidt)
>
>
>QUOTATIONS OF THE WEEK.
>
>"This is the final act in the tragic political destruction of
>Yugoslavia." - Miodrag Vukovic, chair of the Steering
>Committee of Djukanovic's Democratic Socialist Party. Quoted
>by "Vesti" on 7 July after the Yugoslav parliament approved
>the constitutional changes.
>
>"The Radical Party proposes that the new national anthem be
>'Onamo, namo,' whose author was the Montenegrin king Nikola I
>Petrovic Njegos." - Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Vojislav
>Seselj, at the same legislative session as approved
>Milosevic's amendments. (The current anthem is still the
>Tito-era "Hej, Sloveni," although there have been numerous
>proposals over the past decade to replace it with "Tamo,
>daleko" or other traditional Serbian patriotic songs.)
>
>"Not everyone in the Balkans loves [the international
>community's intervention in the region], but at least we
>Albanians want it, and this is our chance. We are not
>troubled by international arbitration in the Balkans....
>Until now, the Balkans have only known foreign rule, be it
>from the Habsburgs, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Ottomans
>or the Soviet Union. Now for the first time we have
>arbitration that is in harmony with the interests of the
>Balkans." - Albania's foremost writer Ismail Kadare, quoted
>by Reuters on 10 July.
>
>(Compiled by Patrick Moore)
>*************************************************
>Copyright (c) 2000. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.
>The RFE/RL Balkan Report is prepared by Patrick Moore
>based on sources including reporting by RFE/RL's South
>Slavic Service.
>
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