NEW KOSOVO GOVERNMENT PUSHES STANDARDS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000302 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: NEW KOSOVO GOVERNMENT PUSHES STANDARDS IMPLEMENTATION REF: PRISTINA 299 Sensitive but unclassified. Please protect accordingly. ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: New Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku has produced a 91 item "to do" list for the next three months on standards implementation. UNMIK's Office of the Strategy Coordinator has drafted a complementary list of 25 standards-related action items and tasked the Provisional Institutions of Self Government (PISG) with ensuring compliance in time for UNMIK's next technical assessment of standards implementation. Completion of all taskers on both lists would significantly advance standards implementation, primarily by clearing up old business on which progress had stalled somewhat before the last technical assessment in December 2005. Ceku's challenge is not to reinvent the standards working group process but to re-invigorate it in time to avoid a second consecutive lackluster UNMIK report to the United Nations Security Council. To meet this challenge, Ceku and the PISG must go beyond the box checking and inspire real progress on the ground. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (SBU) Fearful that a second consecutive lukewarm report on Kosovo by UNMIK to the UNSC would negatively affect ongoing talks on Kosovo's final political status, new Prime Minister Agim Ceku is attempting to re-invigorate efforts to implementation of the "Standards for Kosovo," UNMIK's blueprint for democratic institution building in Kosovo. (NOTE. UNMIK produced an internal "technical assessment of standards implementation" in December 2005 and submitted a report on Kosovo to the UNSC in January 2006. The assessments and reports are generally completed quarterly. END NOTE.) Ceku has set out to ensure positive reviews by making standards implementation a priority of his government. On March 17, barely a week in office, Ceku produced a 91 item action list covering all eight standards: functioning democratic institutions, rule of law, freedom of movement, sustainable returns, the economy, property rights, cultural heritage and dialogue with Belgrade. ¶3. (SBU) The Ceku proposal contains commitments on several long-awaited items that, if realized, would demonstrate progress by the PISG towards creating a Kosovo in which minority communities could reasonably chose to remain. These include passage of new laws on the use of minority languages (already vetted by the OSCE and Council of Europe) and on cultural heritage (more problematic, since it contemplates explicit protections for Serbian Orthodox religious and patrimonial sites). In the area of rule of law, the PM's plan requests that UNMIK Pillar I (law and order) conclude investigations regarding the March 2004 riots and initiate prosecutions in remaining cases as warranted. (NOTE: UNMIK reports that there are 98 outstanding investigations relating to the March 2004 riots and 71 other cases awaiting trial. UNMIK's international prosecutors and judges are responsible for these, so the PISG rightly attributes any lack of progress by UNMIK in this area. END NOTE.). The Ceku action plan also calls for an increase in the number of police sub-stations and court liaison offices in minority or other under-served areas. ¶4. (SBU) Although the Ceku plan calls for the ministry of local government to endorse protocols on the return of displaced persons with Macedonia and Montenegro, it does not address returns from Serbia, where most of Kosovo's displaced live, or mention that a protocol with Serbia has been stalled for more than a year over whether to encourage return by Kosovo Serbs to other than their places of origin. (NOTE: Pristina is convinced that Belgrade wants to engineer returns to Serb enclaves which would then join Serbia in some sort of post-status "anschluss." UNHCR and UNMIK have only recently begun to consider assisting returns to settle in Kosovo outside their places of origin. END NOTE.) Regarding freedom of movement, the plan requests quick action on multi-language signage and municipal websites and setting up translation units in those municipalities that have not yet PRISTINA 00000302 002 OF 003 gotten around to it. The plan also calls for the establishment of Serbian language primary and secondary schools in Pristina -- a largely symbolic gesture since there are virtually no school-age Serbs left in Pristina. ¶5. (SBU) Perhaps the plan's strongest point is its call for operationalizing the Kosovo Property Agency (KPA) to, among other things, implementing a rental scheme for residential properties (reftel) owned by displaced persons (usually Serbs) and occupied by other displaced persons (usually Albanians). (COMMENT: Implementing a rental scheme would, in our view, be a sea change in Kosovo both for the rule of law and IDP rights. The mainly ethnic Albanian squatters will certainly disagree with having to pay market rents for premises which, in most cases, they have no right to possess permanently. END NOTE.). UNMIK TO PISG: "HELP US THROUGH THE NEXT FEW MONTHS" -------------- -------------- ¶6. (SBU) UNMIK's one-page remedial plan, given to the PISG on March 27, provides a shorter (and overlapping and complementary) "to do" list of things UNMIK evidently feels the new Kosovo government should be able to achieve over the next 30 days. Entitled "Six Headlines to Achieve for the Next Technical Assessment," the plan calls for progress in the areas of the use of the Serbian language, completing reconstruction of property damaged in the March 2004 riots, establishment of the ministries of internal affairs and justice, minority transport, the fight against corruption, and the establishment of the KPA. The items, many of them already realized in whole or in part, provide a low bar for the PISG for achieving a passing technical assessment grade and, consequently, a favorable UNMIK report to the UNSC. (NOTE: Bryan Hopkinson, deputy political director at UNMIK, tells us that the next formal UNMIK report to the UNSC is due on May 15 and that the technical assessment is expected in New York 30 days prior to that. If the date of the UNSC report slips to early June, as UNMIK and UNOSEK are proposing, then the date of the technical assessment would change accordingly. END NOTE). The Serbian language provision in UNMIK's plan is fully compatible with the corresponding provision in the PISG action plan and calls for more and improved Serbian language translation units in several municipalities. A minority transport item calls upon the PISG to take over UNMIK's management of both the no-charge bus service in ethnic Serb areas and the so-called "Freedom Train" connecting Serb areas immediately south of the Ibar to the northern municipalities. UNMIK also supports a quick start for the KPA, an idea that already has significant international support. ¶7. (SBU) COMMENT: Rather than remain the box-checking exercise it had become, standards implementation needed to be re-energized, and the PM and UNMIK have together tried to achieve that. Ceku has asked that every Standards Working Group meeting begin with a report on progress towards completion of his 91-item list. During its April 6-7 visit to Kosovo, the Contact Group should insist the Ceku government make good on its plan for quick passage and implementation of laws on the use of language and the protection of cultural heritage. The PISG should rely on international experts from the OSCE and COE to review these and any other new laws to ensure they meet international standards and set Kosovo on the path towards European integration. In addition to setting up the new ministries of internal affairs and justice with sufficient numbers of ethnic Serb employees and increased numbers of police substations, the Contact Group should demand Ceku institute through these new ministries a "zero tolerance" policy on inter-ethnic violence. The Contact Group should ask the Kosovo government to focus its energy and resources on sustainable returns even if it requires rethinking its views on return to other than place of origin. Lastly the Ministry of Local Government Administration should become a watchdog over corrupt municipalities by insuring transparency in PRISTINA 00000302 003 OF 003 fiscal matters at the local level. END COMMENT. ¶8. (U) This cable is cleared for sharing with UN Special Envoy Ahtisaari. GOLDBERG