Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06PRISTINA310
2006-04-10 10:40:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Pristina
Cable title:  

SCENESETTER FOR APRIL 14-15 VISIT OF SPECIAL

Tags:  PREL PGOV PHUM KDEM UNMIK YI 
pdf how-to read a cable
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PP RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHPS #0310/01 1001040
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 101040Z APR 06
FM USOFFICE PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6007
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0644
RUFOANA/USNIC PRISTINA SR
RHMFISS/CDR USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
RHFMISS/AFSOUTH NAPLES IT
RHMFISS/CDR TF FALCON
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RUEPGEA/CDR650THMIGP SHAPE BE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000310 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE, NSC FOR BRAUN, DOJ/OPDAT FOR
SEASONWEIN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/07/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR APRIL 14-15 VISIT OF SPECIAL
REPRESENTATIVE FRANK WISNER

REF: (A) PRISTINA 290 (B) PRISTINA 299

Classified By: COM Philip S. Goldberg for reasons 1.4 b/d.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000310

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE, NSC FOR BRAUN, DOJ/OPDAT FOR
SEASONWEIN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/07/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR APRIL 14-15 VISIT OF SPECIAL
REPRESENTATIVE FRANK WISNER

REF: (A) PRISTINA 290 (B) PRISTINA 299

Classified By: COM Philip S. Goldberg for reasons 1.4 b/d.


1. (C) SUMMARY. Coming on the heels of the April 6-7 visit of
the Contact Group and the April 3 Vienna meeting on
decentralization, Ambassador Wisner's April 14-15 visit
presents an opportunity to push Kosovo Albanian leaders to
come to closure on some decentralization issues (municipal
partnerships, asymmetrical devolution of competencies,
selection of local police chiefs and judges) and to set the
stage for late-April consideration of others (redrawing of
boundaries to create new municipalities, the special case of
Mitrovica). Looking further ahead, Ambassador Wisner should
push Kosovar leaders to finalize opening position papers on
protection of the Serbian Orthodox Church and its religious
sites, minority protections/returns, and the special case of
Mitrovica. He should push Kosovo Albanian authorities to
implement a rental scheme for thousands of properties owned
by Kosovo Serbs but occupied by Kosovo Albanians and to
launch a "zero tolerance" initiative regarding interethnic
crime. Finally Ambassador Wisner should again encourage
Kosovo Serb leaders to find their voice and should roundly
criticize a new policy of Belgrade's Kosovo Coordination
Council that compels Kosovo Serb public servants to reject
salaries paid by Pristina. END SUMMARY.

New Unity Team Better, But New Problem Emerging
-------------- --------------


2. (C) Special Representative on Kosovo Status Talks
Ambassador Frank Wisner will find on his April 14 arrival a
Kosovo political landscape significantly changed since his
February visit. Three of the five ex officio members of the
Kosovo Albanian negotiating team (aka the "Unity Team") have
changed -- President Fatmir Sejdiu replaced the late Ibrahim
Rugova, new Prime Minister Agim Ceku replaced Bajram Kosumi,
and new Assembly President Kole Berisha replaced Nexhat Daci.

Gone are the ego-driven spats and political infighting that
plagued the old team and made even suiting up a road team for
Vienna very difficult and fielding a team with real authority
to make a deal a practical impossibility. In its first month
the new team has shown itself far more cooperative than its
earlier edition both in its internal deliberations and in its
relations with the international community. The naming of
the previously obstructionist Hashim Thaci (leader of the
opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo) to lead the Unity Team
delegation to Vienna for the March 17 UNOSEK session on
decentralization proved to be a particularly inspired
team-building initiative.


3. (SBU) Although the Unity Team received solid marks for its
March 17 performance, its grades for the April 3 follow-up
meeting were passing only because the performance of the
Belgrade team reportedly lowered the curve substantially.
Going into that meeting, leaks in the Kosovo press had the
team objecting strongly to UNOSEK suggestions in a supposedly
confidential document that "partnerships of municipalities"

SIPDIS
might prove useful vehicles for channeling Belgrade support
(particularly health care and education services) to Serb
majority municipalities in Kosovo.


4. (C) More generally, the "Political Group" that provides
technical support to the Unity Team has lately shown serious
fractiousness that has translated into delay in producing
draft position papers and into working level disconnects
between some Political Group members and staff from the
United Nations Office of the Special Envoy for Kosovo
(UNOSEK) in Vienna. The immediate points of Political
Group-UNOSEK contention involve decentralization, but
potential irritants involving principles and pragmatics of
religious site protection are beginning to loom as well. The
Unity Team's draft position paper on the preservation of
cultural heritage sites is becoming seriously overdue.

Ambassador Wisner to UNity Team: Old Irritants Are Gone; Time
For You To Lead

PRISTINA 00000310 002 OF 003


-------------- --------------
--------------


5. (C) Ambassador Wisner should attempt to bring the Unity
Team back onto the negotiating high road. Post's soundings
of UNOSEK and Unity Team staff make clear that Ora party head
Veton Surroi and Ylber Hysa, his deputy, are the prime
instigators of the objections to the UKOSEK suggestion on
partnerships and that the two have adopted a similar hard
line on UNOSEK bridge proposals on Serbian financial
assistance to Serb majority municipalities and protection of
patrimonial sites. The latter is particularly problematic in
that Hysa is drafting the team's position paper on cultural
heritage. Although we are not privy to the draft paper, we
understand that Hysa objects to expressly recognizing the
Serbian Orthodox Church and its patrimonial sites as
deserving of particular protection as distinct from other
elements of Kosovar heritage.


6. (C) Ambassador Wisner should impress on Surroi and the
entire Unity Team that these legalistic opbjections are as
damaging as the ego-laced clashes that so marred the efforts
of the previous team. Ambassador Wisner should offer
reassurances that UNOSEK's suggestions, however open to
interpretation particular phrases may appear, will not
provide vehicles for Belgrade to hold onto Kosovo and will be
given an appropriate legal review when the working documents
otherwise prove acceptable to the parties. The Ambassador
should straightforwardly inform all team members: that the
international community did not take Kosovo from Serbia by
military force just to later return it by the back door; that
municipal partnerships will pose no threat to Kosovo's final
status, once determined; and that Unity Team obstructionism,
notwithstanding recent substantial improvements, remains the
most serious obstacle to overt international community
support for the Kosovo Albanian cause and to speedy
resolution of the status issue.

Highroad Map
--------------


7. (C) During an April 7 Contact Group-Unity Team session,
DAS Rosemary DiCarlo took the Unity Team to task for the
evident nothing-is-decided-until-everything-is-decide d
approach of its negotiators in Vienna. The DAS suggested
that pocketing a few deals along the way would show to the
Kosovo public that its leadership is ready to back up its
words with actions on the ground aimed at achieving a
multiethnic future. Ambassador Wisner should re-inforce the
DAS' message by suggesting elements of the decentralization
talks that are ripe for interim accords. Possibilities
include the asymmetrical devolution of governing competencies
according to municipal capacity and the local selection of
judges and police chiefs. The Ambassador might also mention
to the decidedly pro-American Unity Team that local selection
of judges is an American innovation (almost unknown in
Europe) and that police chiefs will be selected from a pool
of candidates all of whom will have been approved by
Pristina.


8. (C) Looking ahead to remaining decentralization issues and
to the next UNOSEK agenda items, Ambassador Wisner should
express concern to the Unity Team that the drafting of
position papers on cultural heritage and minority
protections/returns seem to have stalled. Ambassador Wisner
should explain that the international community demands very
serious protection, much more than has been offered to date,
for the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) in Kosovo and that
protection of the SOC should not be hidden in general
platitudes about preserving Kosovo's cultural heritage. He
should tell team members that the world hopes Kosovo protects
its culture but demands that the SOC, with its tragic recent
history in Kosovo, be afforded very special protection. The
Unity Team needs to understand that the SOC may be handcuffed
by Belgrade regarding participation in these talks but that
the international community stands ready to ensure that
international best practices prevail to deliver a much better

PRISTINA 00000310 003 OF 003


deal for the SOC than has so far been offered by Kosovo
Albanians. The Unity Team could make a good start by
assuring the ambassador that a draft law on religious
freedom, stuck in committee, will be passed immediately.


9. (C) Anticipating the next layer of Unity Team resistance,
the Ambassador should make clear that the international
community holds Kosovo's external borders to be inviolable,
but believes its municipal boundaries to be in play and
subject to the "generosity principle" the Contact Group has
repeatedly urged on the Unity Team. In this same vein, the
ambassador should suggest the Unity Team undertake to draft a
position paper on the special case of Mitrovica.


10. (C) Ambassador Wisner should refer to the list of
deliverables he suggested during his February visit and
should single out property rights as an area with particular
potential as an interethnic confidence builder (ref B). Now
that UNMIK is phasing out the Housing and Property
Directorate (HPD),run by internationals, in favor of the
new, PISG-controlled, Kosovo Property Agency (KPA),the
burden of performance is shifting to Kosovars. In
particular, HPD left behind, by design, more than 5,000
so-called "administered" properties in which tenants are
allowed to stay in the residences of absentee landlords
without paying rent. Most of these cases involve Kosovo
Albanians living in houses and apartments owned by displaced
Kosovo Serbs. A potential 11,000 additional claims involving
agricultural and commercial properties were not subject to
HPD jurisdiction and now must be resolved by the new KPA.
The HPD never intended to leave nonpaying tenants in place on
a permanent basis. The KPA and PISG -- with assistance from
the international community -- must now figure out how to get
all these legalized squatters to pay market-based rents. The
shear number of such cases means that implementation and
enforcement of a rental scheme will be a major undertaking.
But fundamental rule-of-law principles demand that it be
done.


11. (C) The new government has made a good beginning on
outreach to Kosovo Serbs and non-Serb minorities. Speeches
(especially with majority community leaders speaking in
minority languages) and visits are important, but there must
be more speeches from more official sources and, at the same
time, more than speeches. The ambassador should suggest that
the PISG become the champions of a "zero tolerance"
initiative on interethnic crime. The Ambassador should call
for unilateral initiatives to build awareness in the Kosovo
Albanian community and confidence in the Kosovo Serb
community, including the launching of a zero tolerance
approach to interethnic violence (an inityiative COM has
proposed and PM ceku has agreed to launch),the aggressive
removal of ethnic graffiti, the establishment of a rental
scheme for people squatting in residences owned by displaced
persons, and more urgent restoration of Serbian Orthodox
churches. The rigorous Kosovo Police Service investigation
of the recent stabbing on the bridge in Mitrovica was duly
noted around the world. Kosovo Albanian leaders must now
impress on their constituents that the old tolerance of
violence is at an end and that citizens who withhold
information about interethnic violence are themselves
criminally liable.

Kosovo Serbs
--------------


12. (C) Should Belgrade persist in coercing Kosovo Serb
public servants to forego salaries paid by Pristina (ref B),
the ambassador should raise the matter with Kosovo Serb
leaders, most of whom will be sympathetic to the plight of
the Kosovo Serbs forced to chose one salary over the other.


13. (U) Post clears this cable in its entirety for release to
Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari.
GOLDBERG