Headlines in Print Media |
Dnevni Avaz: Leutar case getting continuation – Prosecutor Bisic against Miso’s verdict; The Hague Prosecutor in Sarajevo – War criminals will be tried in BiH as well
Dnevni List: After yesterday’s meeting between High Representative and Chief Prosecutor of The Hague Tribunal : Appeal to RS authorities: Arrest Karadzic
Vecernji List: Barisa Colak, leader of strongest Croat party in BiH, confirmed: HDZ and SDA sign cooperation
Slobodna Dalmacija: New organizational set up of Federation Army does not have place for all senior officers: Brigadiers and generals must give up ranks
Glas Srpski: RS Minister for Religions, Dusan Antelj: Conflict at any price; Trebinje: Cause of death still unknown
Nezavisne Novine: Carla del Ponte meets Paddy Ashdown in Sarajevo: BiH judiciary should try war crimes; Following the crime that happened in September 1995 in Bosanski Petrovac: Indictment against General Dudakovic being prepared in Banja Luka; CIPS project: IC cards from 10th December
Blic: Ivanic: Minority government or PDP will be opposition; Dodik: We need five more mandates for majority; BiH could stay without 150,000 citizens; Broken windows at Trebinje’s chapel; Kalinic: To form authority in Srpska as soon as possible
War crimes |
Vecernji List (front and page 14, by Eldina Medunjanin, “Del Ponte does not trust Bosnian judiciary”), Dnevni List (front and page 3, “Appeal to RS authorities: Arrest Karadzic”) and Slobodna Dalmacija (last page, by Dinko Pasic, “Joint statement by Ashdown and del Ponte: BiH authority must be capable of processing war crimes”) carry respective reports on the Ashdown’s meeting with Del Ponte. Dnevni List and Slobodna Dalmacija retell Tuesday’s joint HR and ICTY statement, whilst Vecernji List, apart from extracting lines from the joint statement for its report, stresses that del Ponte is unhappy with the BiH judiciary and that the reason behind the distrust is her conviction that all the cases of war crimes in BiH are still politically sensitive. Medunjanin says that there are no information whether del Ponte and Ashdown talked about claims by Munir Alibabic that Ashdown impedes arrest of Karadzic, however Vecernji List’s Zdenko Jurilj on page 2 says that del Ponte asked Ashdown what were the reasons behind the Alibabic removal.
Dnevni List features an editorial on page 2 by Miso Relota entitled “Carla del Ponte does not want to wait any more”. The author says that Karadzic enjoys a secret support from a part of the world which frustrates del Ponte. According to Relota, del Ponte believes that the tolerance threshold has been passed a long time ago.
“The apprehension of the indicted war criminals and their transfer to The Hague remain the priorities (of SFOR),” the NATO Secretary General, George Robertson, said in an interview with Oslobodjenje (front page, p 7). Robertson condemned the export of the arms from BiH to Iraq.
The Head of the RS Government Bureau for Cooperation with ICTY, Dejan Miletic, confirmed that the Bureau is preparing the indictment against General Atif Dudakovic, for war crimes committed in 1995, during military operations in municipalities in western BiH (Nezavisne Novine, p 7)
The RS Government’s bureau for relations with the Hague tribunal on Tuesday forwarded to the Hague tribunal’s office in Banja Luka a criminal case against eight Bosniaks (Hadza Efendic, Ibro Merkez, Osman Subasic, Abduselam Sijercic Pelan, Mustafa Adzem, Jakup Makas, Kemal Culiman and Ahmet Sejdic) suspected of committing war crimes against Serb civilians and POWs in the area of Gorazde between 1992 and 1994. As individuals who had command and other prominent posts in the Bosnia-Hercegovina Army and the then civilian authorities in Gorazde municipality, they are suspected of planning, inciting and ordering organized attacks and raids on the surrounding villages, settlements and suburbs of Gorazde with Serb population from May 1992 to the end of 1994. (Blic p 7)
Tuesday’s Washington Post reports that as the chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte briefed U.S. and European diplomats at the Swiss ambassador’s residence in Belgrade last month on her latest efforts to capture Balkan war criminals, a wanted former Bosnian Serb general, Ratko Mladic, sat down at a nearby restaurant and dined with friends, according to sources close to the prosecutor. Del Ponte was not aware on that Oct. 21 evening that just blocks away at the Konak restaurant in Belgrade’s Topcidersko Brdo neighborhood, one of the Balkans’ most notorious war crimes suspects was publicly flouting demands that he surrender to the war crimes court in the Hague. It was not the first time. Mladic’s whereabouts in Belgrade have become an open secret and the Yugoslav authorities have either been unwilling or unable to capture him, Del Ponte said. Mladic has slept at the home of a former Yugoslav general and visited the main military hospital in Belgrade at least twice this year, according to Del Ponte. “I have good information” about Mladic’s activities,” Del Ponte said. “And the authorities in Belgrade didn’t deny it.” (Nacional p 3, Dnevni Avaz, p 2)
Nacional (p 3) reports that today Carla Del Ponte will delivered five sealed indictment to Yugoslav Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of Yugoslav Council for Cooperation with the Hague, Goran Svilanovic. One of idictees is Milorad Ulemek Lukovic Legija, former commander of “Red Berets”. Apart from him, two former war commanders that are in pension now, and two opposition politicians who and military units in Croatia and Bosnia during the war are also indicted.
On the day that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Belgrade, the centre of the Yugoslav capital was covered with posters calling for the protection of former high-ranking Yugoslav Army officer Veselin Sljivancanin. The Hague tribunal has charged Sljivancanin with committing war crimes against the civilian population in Vukovar. “We will not give you Veselin Sljivancanin. We will defend him until the end. He carried out his military oath with honour. There will be no retreat, no surrender,” is written on a poster, signed by “the Committee for the Defence of Veselin Sljivancanin“. (Nacional p 3)
BiH state-related news |
The BiH Presidency members Mirko Sarovic, Dragan Covic and Sulejman Tihic on Tuesday received the Principal Deputy High Representative, Donald Hays, and the Senior Deputy High Representative, Gerhard Enver Schroembgens. The issues discussed at the meeting include the Orao affair, the current economic situation in the country, procedure of drafting the state Budget for the next year and the future reform of the BiH Council of Ministers. (Oslobodjenje, back page, Dnevni Avaz, p 8, Dnevni List, p 5: “Mutual respect and high-quality dialogue”, Nezavisne Novine, p 4)
Sarajevo dailies, Dnevni Avaz (p 12: “Dodik will no longer participate at the meetings related to the customs administration reform”) and Oslobodjenje (p 8: “Dodik missing five mandates”), and Banja Luka’s Nezavisne Novine (p 5: “SNSD missing five mandates”) reported on a Tuesday’s meeting of the SNSD President, Milorad Dodik, with the CAFAO Chief for BiH, Allen Jensen, and the Adviser with the EU delegation for BiH, Renzo Daviddi. According to Avaz, Dodik stated after the meeting that the SNSD representatives would no longer participate the OHR meetings related to the customs reform initiative. Oslobodjenje wrote that during the meeting the three officials discussed the problems related to functioning of the BiH customs and the possibility of establishing a single customs administration in BiH. “The BiH and RS authorities should bare the responsibility for the increasing centralization of the BiH institutions, and we, as an opposition party, think this is not our responsibility,” said Dodik.
At a session in Sarajevo on Tuesday, the BiH Council of Ministers did not decide to ban import of the milk from Slovenia in spite of a suggestion to do so by the BiH State Veterinary Office. The main reason was the opposition expressed by the BiH Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Minister, Azra Hadziahmetovic, who said there were no enough arguments for making such a radical move. (Oslobodjenje, front page, p 6, Dnevni Avaz, p 8)
Poll: Majority of RS citizens do not consider BiH their own state |
Daniel Omeragic described the result of this poll as disappointing in the Oslobodjenje In Focus column.
Leutar case |
“We have still not received the verdict. When we receive it, we will study the matter and lodge a complaint since we believe the Court had enough evidences we were collecting for months. The court proceeding in Leutar case has not finished yet,” the Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor, Mustafa Bisic, said in an interview with Dnevni Avaz (front page, p 5).
Post election developments |
In addition, the senior official of SDA, Adil Osmanovic, stated for Nezavisne Novine (p 5) on Tuesday that SDA reached an agreement with HDZ regarding the establishment of authorities in BiH and that SDA expects the Party for BiH to join that coalition. The SDS Spokesman, Dusan Stojicic, indirectly confirmed that coalition between SDA, SDS and HDZ on the state level was a done deal. Stojicic stated that it would be impossible to create stable majority on BiH level without the support of national parties.
Vecernji List also reports that HDZ was to meet the US Ambassador Clifford Bond yesterday afternoon. Slobodna Dalmacija carries Covic as saying that the decisive factor in establishing of the state authority will be the High Representative for BiH, Paddy Ashdown, after he returns from Brussels. (Dnevni List, p4, Slobodna Dalmacija, p 13)
Slobodna Dalmacija (front and page 13, by Marijan Sivric) reads that the US Ambassador to BiH, Clifford Bond, is likely to fail in his attempt to form an authority without national parties i.e. without SDA, SDS and HDZ. Sivric substantiates this claim by saying that Bond had failed to win over leaders of PDP and Party for BiH, Mladen Ivanic and Haris Silajdzic, the parties, according to the author, without whom there is not even an theoretic chance of forming parliamentary majority in the RS and State Parliament. Sivric goes on to say that Milorad Dodik, “known for egoism and arrogance”, as put by Sivric, will not agree to Ivanic’s party taking the leading role in the RS Government and Ivanic taking the office of the BiH Foreign Minister unless pressured by Bond to form a coalition with “his biggest rival, also a pet of the IC, Ivanic”. Sivric sums it up by saying that even if the all parties succumb to pressures exerted by Bond, creation of an authority without national parties in not possible because the BiH Constitution would not allow it. “In the best case, they will have half the MPs in both entities and they need the majority”, says Sivric adding that if the election results were to be respected, SDA, SDS and HDZ will take over the authority.
SDS Spokesman, Dusan Stojicic, stated that the majority in RS National Assembly will be made of RS parities, without SDA (Nezavisne Novine p 5). On the other hand, SDA’s Adil Osmanovic says that SDA is ready to create majority in RS Parliament with SDS, PDP, SP RSand few small parties, and support Mladen Ivanic for the Prime Minister’s post. According to Osmanovic, SDA discussed this idea informally with PDP but not with SDS. The daily quotes Osmanovic as saying: “SDA did not talk with Milorad Dodik’s SNSD, Dodik is against cooperation with national parties. By saying that he does not want to establish authorities with SDA, SDS and HDZ, he excluded himself from negotiations.” SDS’s Stojicic agrees with Osmanovic that Dodik excluded himself from negotiations, eve though SDS offered him cooperation. The SNSD leader, Milorad Dodik, stated on Tuesday in Banja Luka that SNSD is missing five votes in order to create majority in the RS National Assembly. Nezavisne Novine (p 5)and Glas Srpski (p 2)quote Dodik: “The only ones whom we can ask these votes from is PDP. Due to our stand that we do not want to negotiate with SDS, PDP has suddenly become important party in RS.”(Blic p 2, Vecernje Novosti p 13)
“The PDP is of opinion that Mladen Ivanic and Milorad Dodik should enter the Council of Ministers and that Prime Minister designate should be from the PDP. The RS Government (Serb ministers) would be composed of PDP, SPRS and some other parties without the SDS. That would be a minority government and it would most probably get support from the SDS. In a case that this variant is not realised, the PDP will be an opposition party,” leader of the PDP Mladen Ivanic said. He told Federation TV’s programme “60 minutes” that it was not true he had been blackmailed by the SDS and Serbian State Security into forbidding to enter into a coalition government headed by Milorad Dodik with his programme Partnership for Changes. “During its two-year work the Government headed by myself has been severely criticised by the SNSD. Therefore a coalition with them would mean recognition of these criticisms, i.e. confirmation that the SNSD is right,” Ivanic said. Ivanic confirmed that the PDP was under international pressures to form coalition with moderate parties without nationalist parties such as the SDS and the SDA. “The international community has invested a great effort regarding that,” Ivanic said. (Blic p 2)
The High Representative-related news/letters |
“Lack of agreement on dual citizenship with countries in which BiH has Diaspora is continuation of ethnical cleansing,” reads a letter sent to the High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, by the BiH Diaspora. Citizens of BiH who live abroad ask the High Representative to speed up the process of signing these agreements, so that BiH does not stay without 150,000 of its citizens. The agreement on dual citizenship has been signed with Yugoslavia, while negotiations with Croatia are underway. The Council of Ministers has adopted proposals of agreements with Sweden and Great Britain, while agreements with Macedonia, Switzerland and Turkey have been prepared. If these agreements are not signed by the end of the year, BiH citizens who have citizenship of these countries will stay without BiH citizenship. Signing of agreements has been supported by New Zealand, and replies from Canada, Australia, Italy, Holland and France have been waited for. The offer for signing the agreement has been refused by US, Hungary, Austria, Russia, Denmark and Germany. (Blic p 6)
RS developments |
The SFOR officials have admitted that they knew from before that seven combat helicopters, (for which they claim are camouflaged as helicopters for medical purposes) were located in Zaluzani barracks of the RS Army (Nezavisne Novine, p 2).The daily quotes SFOR Spokesman, Ives Vanier as saying: “We have known for the helicopters from before. We just wanted to draw the attention of the public to the fact that helicopters are there, as the RS Army ignored SFOR requests to take off weapons from those helicopters.” Officials of the RS Army have stated on several occasions that helicopters were not hidden and that they could have been seen during all arms inspections carried out so far. (Blic p 6)
Vecernji List (page 2, by Branka Stevandic) carries an editorial dealing with the Orao affair and the information that during the SFOR inspection in the Zaluzani barracks SFOR found extra 7 helicopters that the barracks are not allowed to have according to the Dayton Peace Agreement. The editorial says that the RS authorities are convinced that they have done enough when the punishing of the persons responsible for the Orao affair is in question. The editorial says that Mladen Ivanic, the Prime Minister of the RS Government, and other RS officials believe that the resignations that have been submitted so far are appropriate punishment, however, none of them talks about the political responsibility. The editorial says that ”it seems that the OHR is insisting on this kind of responsibility exactly and the OHR states clearly that that person must be the Commander in Chief of the RS Army”. The editorial concludes: “The threat to Mirko Sarovic, the Commander in Chief of the RS Army, is for the time being only a part of the strategy whose purpose is getting of a political consent for the realization of the political projects of the International Community. Sarovic and SDS do not have a lot of choice: either consent or removal. The problem is that the final result of their decision is the same.”
The RS Minister for Religions, Dusan Antelj, stated that in his view, by the decision to destroy the orthodox church in Srebrenica and remove orthodox cross placed on a hill overlooking Srebrenica, somebody wants to cause a conflict that can have serious consequences on future of this municipality (Glas Srpski, cover page). The Cabinet of Srebrenica Mayor, Sefket Hafizovic, made the decision. According to Antelj, SDA stands behind such decisions: “With such decisions, somebody wants to prove that Srebrenica is not under the RS authority, Also, an attempt is made by such decisions to reopen an old story on some special status for Srebrenica. So far, the RS authorities have never questioned construction of mosques in the area, even when they were built on socially owned land.”
Unknown perpetrators broke on Monday night windowpanes on the newly built chapel in the local graveyard in the settlement of Podgljiva, Trebinje municipality, The Public Security
Centre of Trebinje confirmed to Srna. The police is taking all necessary measures to find out perpetrators of the vandal act in which significant damage estimated at 700 convertible marks was done. (Blic p 7)