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

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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