KOSOVO: CEKU OFF TO GOOD START IN HIS FIRST DAYS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PRISTINA 000229 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE, AND EUR/SSA, NSC FOR BRAUN, USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM UNMIK YI SUBJECT: KOSOVO: CEKU OFF TO GOOD START IN HIS FIRST DAYS AS PRIME MINISTER REF: PRISTINA 218 PRISTINA 00000229 001.3 OF 002 Sensitive But Unclassified, Protect Accordingly ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: In his acceptance speech on March 10 and interviews over his first weekend as prime minister, former Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) commander General Agim Ceku stressed Kosovo's future as a multiethnic state, but affirmed there can be no solution for Kosovo other than independence. Prior to reaching out to Kosovo Serbs, however, he tried to heal old wounds among Kosovo's ethnic Albanians by taking his cabinet en masse to pay respects to late President Ibrahim Rugova and his family as well as to visit the monument to Adem Jashari, the figurehead of Kosovo's Kosovo Liberation Army fighters. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (U) Ceku's first experience in the rough and tumble world of Kosovo politics occurred prior to the vote on his selection as Prime Minister in the Kosovo Assembly (reftel). Members of Hashim Thaci's Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) vociferously alleged that Ceku had failed to clean house and left in office incompetent and corrupt ministers from the government of outgoing prime minister Bajram Kosumi. Local newspapers also did not show any particular enthusiasm for Ceku over this point. Several low-ranking PDK members also tried to tarnish Ceku's record as a war hero and discredit his patriotism by stating that his wife is Croatian and his family lives there rather than in Kosovo. Sokol Bashota said that the best thing about Ceku's selection as prime minister is that, as prime minister, Ceku was no longer the head of the Kosovo Protection Corps, since he had joined the Kosovo Liberation Army (from which most of the members of the KPC were taken) only one month before the war ended. Another low ranking Kosovo Assembly member from the PDK said that it was inappropriate to have a prime minister whose family lives outside of Kosovo. (NOTE: Ceku noted in his acceptance speech that he was proud of his past as a KLA fighter, and that his every day as Kosovo's prime minister will begin by keeping in mind the KLA's values which are "sacred to all citizens of Kosovo." The physically imposing Ceku reacted to the thinly-veiled attack on his wife and family with a twenty second glare at the PDK member who made the statement. END NOTE). ¶3. (U) In his acceptance speech Ceku committed his government to building bridges of confidence between Kosovo's people and turning ethnic diversities into genuine values of its society. He said that the time of hatred, discrimination and suffering should be a thing of the past and that the time has come for interethnic reconciliation, integration and prosperity. He told members of the Assembly and representatives from international organizations and liaison offices present that one thing remains clear -- there is no freedom in Kosovo until all its citizens enjoy it. He told Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians that the key to realization of their aims is the well-being of and respect for Kosovo's minorities. In the first time in Kosovo's history that its prime minister addressed the Serb minority in its native tongue, he told Kosovo's Serbs that they have and will have their own future and that "Kosovo belongs to all of us and all of us together will create a society that will guarantee freedom, equality and economic prosperity for everyone regardless of their ethnicity." He called on Kosovo's Serbs to fight for their rights together with all other citizens of Kosovo by taking part in government institutions and by participating in everyday life in Kosovo. ¶4. (SBU) Ceku also said that implementation of UN-mandated standards would be a crucial part of his governing agenda not just because it has been set up as a pre-condition by the international community, but also because implementation will help create a democratic and prosperous state. He added that implementation of standards will be the most convincing argument in negotiations on Kosovo's status. ¶5. (U) The March 12 edition of Blerim Shala's "Zeri" PRISTINA 00000229 002.2 OF 002 newspaper quoted Ceku as saying in an interview with Associated Press that "there can be no other solution for Kosovo apart from independence." Ceku added that the only solution that would guarantee the stability and functionality of Kosovo is independence and that the integration of minorities, their security and their freedom of movement will certainly suit the interests of the majority population. ¶6. (SBU) In deference to Kosovo's celebrated dead, on his second day in office Ceku led a nearly full complement of his cabinet to pay respects to former President Ibrahim Rugova's grave in Pristina and to the site of the Jashari family deaths and burial in Prekaz. At the Jashari compound Ceku said, "this place is for me a moral and historical parliament of Kosovo...this is the place where each and every one of us should be held accountable for what we do." However, Slavisa Petkovic, ethnic Serb minister for communities and returns, did not join the delegation. His spokesperson said, "he would visit and pay homage to Jashari's graveyard, but has asked permission from Kosovar institutions and parties if he could on the same day pay homage to the Serb children killed in Gorazhdec" (NOTE: Gordzhdec is a ethnic Serb majority village located in ethnic Albanian majority Peja/Pec municipality and was the site of a shooting of two ethnic Serb children in 2002 for which perpetrators have not been identified. END NOTE.). ¶7. (U) This cable is cleared in its entirety for release to UN Special Envoy Ahtisaari. GOLDBERG