[Nettime-bold] (Fwd) IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, No. 283, Part I

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

This is both interesting - first the allegations that international rule 
in Bosnia is as corrupt as a local would be and second the book 
published by Belgrade's independent radio B92 - by Dobrica Cosic, 
the widely perceived godfather of the Academy of Sciences 
Memorandum in 1986 - the blueprint for Milosevic's nationalist 
policies. Maybe a book of Karadzic's poems would be in order, now 
when we are at that?

ivo




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	WELCOME TO IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, No. 283, Part I, September
27, 2001

	BOSNIA: CALLS FOR END TO DAYS OF THE CONSULS?  Sarajevo leaders
seize on a series of international scandals to press the West into giving
them more control over the country. By Amra Kebo in Sarajevo.

	SERBIA: REBRANDING COSIC  B-92 raises eyebrows by publishing a
Dobrica Cosic book which apparently attempts to exonerate him for creating
and supporting Milosevic. By Svetlana Slapsak in Ljubljana.

	ALBANIA DENIES TERRORIST LINKS  Tirana claims it has done its utmost
to root out individuals suspected of having links with extremist
organisations. By Teodor Misha in Tirana.

	************************* http://www.iwpr.net
*************************************

	EDITOR'S  NOTE - In light of the Crisis, IWPR will be highlighting
any relevant articles across all services. A full archive page is in
preparation. In the meantime, see:

	TASHKENT BRACED FOR WAR:
	http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/rca/rca_200109_71_1_eng.txt
	The Uzbek leadership looks set to help the US in its war against Bin
Laden and his Taleban allies. By Galima Bukharbaeva in Tashkent (REPORTING
CENTRAL ASIA No. 71)

	MOSCOW STEPS UP 'WAR ON TERRORISM': 
	http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/cau/cau_200109_99_1_eng.txt
	Following the terrorist outrages in America, Russia looks set to
step up its operations against Chechen civilians.  By Marina Rennau in
Tbilisi (CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE No. 99)

	VIEWPOINT: A LESSON FROM THE BALKANS: 
	http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/tri/tri_235_5_eng.txt
	Using the Balkan experience as a guide, the United States could best
honour its victims by committing itself to an international criminal court.
By Anthony Borden in London (TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 235)

	US 'ARRIVES' IN UZBEKISTAN:
	http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/rca/rca_200109_70_5_eng.txt
	American warplanes may soon be flying out from Uzbek airports in a
US-led attack on neighbouring Afghanistan. By Anthony Borden and Saule
Mukhametrakhimova in Tashkent (REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA No. 70)

	************ VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: http://www.iwpr.net
************************ 

	BOSNIA: CALLS FOR END TO DAYS OF THE CONSULS?

	Sarajevo leaders seize on a series of international scandals to
press the West into giving them more control over the country.

	By Amra Kebo in Sarajevo.

	For the first time since the end of the Balkan wars, Bosnia is
stirring with a desire to stand on its own feet without international
supervision. Triggering the new attitude has been a crop of scandals showing
the country's Western overlords, who have guided its post-war fortunes, are
themselves by no means free of incompetence - or worse. 

	"We need expert assistance from the international community but we
don't need other people to make decisions for us any more," Zlatko
Lagumdzija, Bosnia's premier said during a visit to Brussels last week. And
in what could signal a new era in the attitude of Bosnia's leadership,
Lagumdzija went on, "The role of the international community is to help us,
but not to work, think and decide for us."

	The statement surprised Bosnian and international officials alike.
Often during the past decade Western leaders appeared more concerned than
Bosnia's own leaders about the country's well-being. This was especially so
during and immediately after the war when nationalist-oriented, corrupt and
incapable authorities appeared keener to acquire money and political status
than to further state interests. 

	As a result, it was the West which had to run most everyday affairs,
including legislation and the appointment (and occasional sacking) of local
officials. An international authority was essential to override petty
political squabbling and impose a common currency, license plate and
numerous other practical steps to make the country work. However, this
situation started to change after the election of November 2000, when
moderate parties took over the leadership of the Bosniak - Croat Federation
and won considerable influence in the other Bosnian entity, Republika
Srpska.

	Since then, international organisations working in Bosnia have come
under public pressure to improve their performance. This attention was
heightened by the outcry over a tender for the franchise to provide the
third mobile telephone service in Bosnia. Some accused Western officials of
letting the tender go for a giveaway price.

	It turned out that the Communications Regulatory Agency, CRA - a
body set up by the main international authority here, the Office of the High
Representative, OHR, in 1998, to issue communications licences - had set the
tender at a price equivalent to two million German marks. Critics said this
represented around a tenth of its real value. 

	Local media denounced it as robbery. They suggested that some
foreign officials in Bosnia had sought to fix the tender price to favour a
specific Western company. "National resources cannot be sold for two million
marks," Lagumdzija said. He insisted the tender be reopened and the price
increased.

	The former US ambassador to Bosnia, Thomas Miller, also asked the
agency to reopen  the tender. He explained that the American Western
Wireless Company wanted to compete for the business but had not had enough
time to assess it.

	For weeks the CRA refused to back down, despite government pressure.
The agency continued to receive backing from Bosnia's top Western official,
High Representative Wolfgang Petritsch. The affair soured relations to the
point where Lagumdzija refused to meet Petritsch and the CRA head, Jerker
Torngren, citing "other important obligations".

	Eventually the CRA cancelled the tender but Torngren denied this was
due to government pressure. He said it was because one company had withdrawn
completely from the tender and another had pulled out partially.

	While the mobile phone dispute was still raging, the Bosnian
leadership clashed with the OHR on yet another issue. This was a report that
the OHR was ready to hand out the job of printing new Bosnian identity cards
to the giant Siemens company.

	The project, which would establish the first proper register of all
Bosnian citizens, was said to be worth about 50 million German marks. But
Sarajevo leaders claimed the price was too high and the deal too cloaked in
secrecy.

	"The deal was too unclear although OHR claims it has acted
properly," said Svetozar Mihajlovic, Bosnian state minister for civil
affairs and communications. A commission formed by the state government
reported it had found a number of irregularities in the process, including
the way in which Siemens was chosen and the price that was accepted by OHR's
political team.

	OHR denied the charges and warned that affairs like this could
jeopardise future foreign investment. Later, however, OHR said the deal with
Siemens was never finalised and agreed that the Bosnian leadership should
take a prominent role in such matters.

	But scandals kept popping up. OHR again came under fire over the
conduct of an independent audit of one of the biggest companies in
Herzegovina, Aluminium Mostar. Bosnian leaders and local media challenged
the audit's finding that the privatisation of the company, which had taken
place during and after the war, was legal.

	They claimed that several Bosnian Croat political leaders,
war-lords, shady businessmen and criminals participated in the transaction
which was made possible by a sudden decrease in the company's value, from a
pre-war figure of 1.4 billion marks to 190 million marks. 

	Aluminium Mostar currently employs 30,000 workers, most of whom are
Bosnian Croats, and registers annual export worth more then 350 million
marks. The British Ambassador to Bosnia, Graham Hand, said the privatisation
of Aluminium was criminal because it was carried out after its real value
was artificially reduced.

	While these disputes were still raging, the independent watchdog
Transparency International issued a report entitled: "Even the International
Community Is Not Immune to the Plague of Corruption". Although the report
proved to be nothing much more than a compilation of media articles, it
struck near panic into much of the international community in Bosnia. Later
Boris Divjak, president of the Transparency International office in the
country, claimed the West had tried to stifle the report.

	All these events indicate that, for a change, the pressure for
improved performance is being directed at the international community rather
than local leaders. At the same time, at least some Bosnian authorities
appear ready to shoulder responsibility free from international supervision.

	Ironically, this should please the OHR. Wolfgang Petritsch has long
supported a model of "partnership and local ownership". But other Western
officials still believe Bosnia is not yet ready to control its own fate. 

	Amra Kebo is IWPR's assistant editor in Bosnia, and editor with the
Sarajevo daily, Oslobodjenje.


	SERBIA: REBRANDING COSIC 

	B-92 raises eyebrows by publishing a Dobrica Cosic book which
apparently attempts to exonerate him for creating and supporting Milosevic.

	By Svetlana Slapsak in Ljubljana.
	 
	After years battling against the Milosevic regime and the ingrained
nationalist ideology which drove it, B-92 - the highly regarded
Belgrade-based independent radio station - has just published a book of
interviews with the godfather of Serbian nationalism, Dobrica Cosic.

	The appearance of the collection, Chasing the Wind, under B-92's
Samizdat imprint, is pretty ironic, given the nature of Cosic's extreme
views. Samizdat's editor Dejan Ilic, however, has been quick to defend the
decision to publish the volume, saying it was just "one of the series of
books ... whose aim was to achieve better and more complete understanding as
to what lead to disintegration of Yugoslavia".

	Now 80, Cosic is widely considered the most prominent Serb
nationalist thinker of the former Yugoslavia. While he's revered by some as
the "father of the Serbian nation", many see him as the prime author of
Yugoslavia's disintegration. In many ways, Cosic has played the part of
Frankenstein, unleashing the monster Milosevic over whom he loses control,
but ultimately destroys.

	But after so many years of repression and censorship why does B-92
choose to publish a collection which would have no trouble finding some
other publisher sympathetic to Cosic's views? 

	The book itself has provoked no serious reviews, no critical
analysis. Some 
	right- wing media have naturally commented favourably, while the
Belgrade-based Vreme and Croatian Feral Tribune have gently mocked B-92.

	The muted reaction seems par for the course for today's Serbia.
Compromise is the order of the day, and there's practically no debate on the
excesses of nationalism, nor any questioning of the fact that many of those
who committed crimes in its name are in power today. Such exploration is a
little too painful.

	This, despite that he's disliked by many liberals in Belgrade. A
shiver ran down the spines of many of those who watched him stand side by
side at the presidential inauguration of Vojislav Kostunica last October -
the ceremony that finally confirmed Milosevic's fall from power. 

	Yes, they realised Cosic was enjoying his moment of sweet revenge on
Milosevic - the protégé who carried him politically to the heights and then
dumped him unceremoniously in 1993. But critics also took it as a disturbing
sign that Serbia may be willing to dispense with its nationalist leaders but
not the ideology behind them.

	Cosic and Kostunica go back a long way. Yugoslavia's president was
once a prominent member of Cosic's dissident circle in the Eighties and is
seen by some as his successor as patriarch of the nationalist right.

	Cosic has been out of the media spotlight for some time, dogged by
rumours of ill health and the book could be his apologia, his
auto-whitewashing, exonerating him for creating and supporting Milosevic. 

	The book tries to showcase Cosic as "the greatest Serbian
intellectual" and as the only man "able to confront Milosevic", according to
a phrase Slavoljub Djukic, his interviewer throughout the book, repeats time
and again.

	In the interviews, Cosic presents himself as an ever-curious
intellectual, instinctively searching for the truth, and, at the same time,
striving for the progress of his nation. He readily admits to making
mistakes, though he says they were made in the spirit of enquiry and as a
consequence of his pursuit of higher nationalist ideals.

	His attitudes about Republika Srpska's, RS, role in the Bosnian war
leaves one in no doubt that here is a man whose ideas remain ruthlessly
partisan.  "The gravest mistake of Republika Srpska was the war for
Sarajevo. More Serbian than Muslim parts of the city were destroyed, to say
nothing about how the blockade of Sarajevo was used by media against the
Serbs." 
	 
	And RS leader Radovan Karadzic is judged merely from the perspective
of failed Serbian goals. "From my personal experience, he is a gifted,
intelligent, capable man; a very good speaker, communicative, inventive." He
was also, according to Cosic, "strong-headed and tragically stubborn." 

	As one might expect Cosic remains adamantly opposed to Karazdic's
indictment by The Hague tribunal. "Only in an epoch of dishonor, of
triumphant American and European hypocrisy, only in a world in which
violence is the rule, injustice is law, and the lie is truth, could Radovan
Karadzic have been proclaimed and pursued as a 'war criminal'." 

	Like so many of Serbia's hard-line nationalists, Cosic's background
was firmly rooted in the Communist Party, through whose ranks he emerged as
a writer after the end of the Second World War. His lengthy novels about the
dilemmas of Serb villagers during the conflict became obligatory reading in
schools.

	By the early Sixties he was Tito's "court" writer and would
accompany the former Yugoslav president on board his ship Galeb on missions
to the Third World. 

	His descent followed later that decade, when he publicly supported
the disgraced secret police chief and Yugoslav vice-president, Aleksandar
Rankovic, who was a Serb. Cosic was expelled from the party in 1968 for
opposing government policy on Kosovo, which gave the local Albanian majority
greater control over the province.

	His literary career came to a standstill, but he re-emerged in the
late Seventies, with the novel Time of Death, about Serbia during World War
One (an abridged version was published in English by Brace Jovanovic). 

	Time of Death was written with a different ideological framework to
earlier works, woven around the themes of Serb national heroism and
suffering. The novels that followed, Believer, and then Traitor, openly
revealed an anti-communist viewpoint. These views were sharply displayed in
the novel Time of Authority, which showed communism destroying the lives of
Serbs who had survived both world wars. 

	Cosic found a home among the intellectuals and artists of the
Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, where he held his salon. His circle
included the painter Mica Popovic, Borislav Mihajlovic-Mihiz, an influential
thinker, and Matija Beckovic, the most prominent nationalist poet.

	The debates in Cosic's circle turned endlessly on the themes of the
collapse of the traditional patriarchal Serbian family, torn apart by
communist ideas, and on the loss of Kosovo. Cosic's central theme was that
the Serbs usually lost in peacetime what they gained in war.

	Behind the theory of the individual Serb as victim lies the wider
idea of the nation that is selfless but abused by others. The Serbs, Cosic
said, were sacrificing themselves while the "others" in Yugoslavia were
waiting for an occasion to stick a knife in their backs.

	In the late Eighties, Cosic sought the support of the political
elite in Serbia. He and his fellow nationalists thought that the state,
whatever its ideology, was indispensable in the fight against the
Kosovo-Albanians and others who were perceived to be a threat to the Serbs.
They were on the lookout for a crucial figure in the communist hierarchy to
promote their cause.

	Even while Ivan Stambolic was in power, Slobodan Milosevic was
selected as their discreet champion. Some of Cosic's circle started to build
a nationalist icon out of the small-time party apparatchik who had never
publicly expressed any serious thoughts on nationalism at this time.
Overnight, Milosevic became the "saviour of the Serbian nation".

	With the break-up of Yugoslavia and the eruption of war in 1992,
Cosic became president of the new, truncated federal Yugoslavia, comprising
only Serbia and Montenegro. In one of the interviews in Chasing The Wind, he
describes Milosevic kneeling in front of him, begging him to help Serbia. 

	This image may have sprung from Cosic's imagination as, after one
year in office, Cosic was toppled during a parliamentary crisis initiated by
Milosevic and executed by his then ally, the ultra-nationalist paramilitary
leader and suspected war criminal, Vojislav Seselj. Cosic endured a
humiliation he would not forget.

	Cosic's place on the Serbian political map today is imprecise. There
are reports of serious differences between him and Kostunica, not over their
nationalist programme, but over strategy. In Belgrade, some believe Cosic
was behind the decision to surrender Milosevic to The Hague. It was,
perhaps, the perfect revenge for his humiliating fall from grace.

	Svetlana Slapsak is a professor of humanities at Ljubljana's ISH
graduate school.


	ALBANIA DENIES TERRORIST LINKS

	Tirana claims it has done its utmost to root out individuals
suspected of having links with extremist organisations.

	By Teodor Misha in Tirana.

	Following the terrorist attacks in the United States, Albania has
been fending off claims that the country has been harbouring terrorists
suspected of having links with Osama bin Laden. 

	The government of Prime Minister Ilir Meta, which has guaranteed its
support for the US war on terrorism, has staunchly denied speculation in
certain domestic and foreign media that bin Laden - the individual widely
suspected to be behind the attacks on the Pentagon and The World Trade
Centre - used Albania for his operations.

	The interior ministry has released statements in the past week
saying that, while the 1992 - 1997 government of former president Sali
Berisha may have had a laissez-faire policy towards terrorists, subsequent
Socialist governments had done their utmost to root out any individual
suspected of having links with extremist organisations.

	The interior ministry has been particularly incensed by an article
in the Washington Times on September 18, which appeared after several
reports of links between Albania and bin Laden in the right-wing Serbian and
Macedonian press. The article alleged that Albania might well have served as
the springboard for the attacks in Washington and New York.

	Albania's interior minister Ilir Gjoni rejected the allegations out
of hand. His cause was bolstered by the US ambassador in Tirana, Joseph
Limprecht, who commended the Meta administration for its collaboration with
anti-terrorist efforts over the past three years. The ambassador also said
Washington had neither identified nor located any terrorists cells in
Albania.

	In attempting to set the record straight, Gjoni as well as
ambassador Limprecht have suggested that the former Berisha administration
may have had a lax policy towards Islamic extremists.

	Gjoni hinted that in the early - to mid - Nineties, the country had
been a terrorist's dream, having close ties with Islamic nations and very
porous borders. 

	The Islamic connection can be traced back to 1992, when the
Tirana-based Economic Tribune published a letter from Berisha to his prime
minister, Aleksander Meksi, in which he said was going to help accept aid
from Muslim countries because the West had not lived up to promises of
financial assistance.

	According to the letter, the only condition for economic support was
that Albania join the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, OIC - an
umbrella organisation for all Muslim countries. He hoped this would serve a
dual purpose: firstly provide much needed money for the country's disastrous
economy and also spur West into cranking up the flow of aid. Parliament,
however, failed to approve OIC membership.

	But help did come in the form of the Arab Albanian Islamic Bank. It
became the first foreign bank to set up operations in the country - and
money soon began to pour in for the purpose of building mosques and Islamic
centres. 

	In a sort of quid pro quo, a large number of individuals from
Islamic countries were granted Albanian nationality. President Rexhep
Meidani's adviser on legal affairs, Theodhori Sollaku, who held the same
position back in 1992, said citizenship was only conferred after background
checks had been made by the interior ministry and secret police. 

	But the decision to appoint a prominent Islamic intellectual,
Bashkim Gazidede, to head the Shik secret police has raised concern that
suspected terrorists may have acquired citizenship at the time.

	Gazidede, however, is no longer available to shed light on the
affair. He fled Albania in 1997 after blaming Washington for the near
outbreak of civil war which followed the collapse of pyramid investment
schemes. Gazidede accused the CIA in parliament of involvement in the civil
unrest which brought down the Berisha government. .

	Gazidede is known to have sought asylum in Syria and is believed to
be currently residing in Libya. 

	That existence of terrorists on Albanian soil came to light in 1998
when, as a result of a combined Shik-CIA operation, several Egyptian
individuals wanted for plotting atrocities in Egypt were extradited there.
They were later brought to trial and executed.

	Citizenship laws have been tightened up since, with thorough checks
on applicants made in collaboration with international agencies. All Arab
citizens in Albania are carefully scrutinised and many Islamic foundations
closed.

	"In Albania, there is no longer an Islamic threat," said Albanian
police chief Bilbil Mema. "This country is no longer a refuge for Islamic
terrorists." 

	Teodor Misha is editor-in-chief of the Albanian Observer magazine.

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	IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, No. 283, Part I

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