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