NORTHERN KOSOVO SERB MAYORS NOT MASTERS OF THEIR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000598 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE NSC FOR BRAUN USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/17/2016 TAGS: PREL KCRM PGOV PINR KDEM UNMIK YI SUBJECT: NORTHERN KOSOVO SERB MAYORS NOT MASTERS OF THEIR OWN DOMAINS REF: (A) PRISTINA 484 (B) PRISTINA 575 (C) PRISTINA 587 Classified By: CDA T. KIRK MCBRIDE FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. The mayor of the Serb-majority northern Kosovo municipality of Zvecan insisted to USOP that his decision to cut ties with the Kosovo Government was a reasonable expression of frustration with the failure of the Kosovo police to solve crimes against Serbs. The mayors of the other two northern Serb-majority municipalities -- Leposavic and Zubin Potok -- claimed no up-tick of violence in their communities and were hard-pressed to defend their companion declarations cutting ties with Pristina. After talking separately with each of the three mayors, we are left with the impression that their declarations were not so much coordinated among themselves as orchestrated by a third party. Circumstantial evidence suggests that Marco Jaksic and his Association of Serb Municipalities is more likely to have served as conductor than Sanda Raskovic-Ivic and Belgrade's Kosovo Coordination Center. International community donors are actively coordinating assistance for the north to maximize efficiency and engagement rather than merely replacing Pristina funds now rejected by the municipalities. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (SBU) After five weeks of deflecting USOP requests for meetings, the mayors of Kosovo's three northern Serb-majority municipalities agreed to discuss their June declarations cutting ties with Kosovo's Provisional Institutions of Self-Government (PISG). On July 13, A/DPO, PolOff and PolFSN met separately with each of the three mayors -- Velimir Bojovic of Leposavic, Dragisa Milovic of Zvecan, and Slavisa Ristic of Zubin Potok. We suspect they agreed because we made clear the USG is considering an increase in assistance to the north and because we asked Marco Jaksic, the Executive Order-listed president of the Association of Serb Municipalities, to persuade them to talk to us. ZVECAN MAYOR: SINCERELY ANGRY ABOUT CRIME -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Most of a recent wave of violent crimes against ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo, culminating in the June 1 murder of 23 year-old Miljan Veskovic, has occurred in the municipality of Zvecan (Ref A). Mayor Milovic said he fully supported the June 2 declaration of the Zvecan Municipal Assembly cutting ties with the PISG, calling it a reasonable response to what he called wide spread panic among his constituents after the Veskovic murder. In comments that tracked almost verbatim those of his Leposavic and Zubin Potok colleagues, Milovic said Kosovo Serbs in the north have no issue with local Kosovo Police Service (KPS) officers whose role in investigating crime, they said, is confined to securing crime scenes for the regional KPS. Without being asked, all three advocated an increase in local KPS responsibilities and a strong local voice in selecting municipal-level police chiefs. (NOTE. Local KPS officers in the north are virtually all ethnic Serbs, many of whom by several accounts also work as plainclothes officers for the Serbian ministry of the interior police (MUP). Regional KPS units are much more ethnically integrated. END NOTE.) ¶4. (SBU) Milovic agreed that noncooperation with regional KPS seems counter-intuitive as a means of fighting crime. He said Zvecan Serbs have nothing to lose, however, since the crimes are not being solved anyway and even suggested that members of KPS regional units might themselves be responsible for crimes since Kosovo Albanians officers can drive freely in and out of the north in their police vehicles. Milovic evaded our repeated questions about clandestine MUP activities in his jurisdiction and said he was putting his hope for solving the crimes in UNMIK's international police. (NOTE. Amcit Gary Smith, CIVPOL regional commander for Mitrovica, told CDA on July 16 that Milovic is not at all cooperative with CIVPOL's presence in Zvecan. END NOTE.) PRISTINA 00000598 002 OF 003 LEPOSAVIC AND ZUBIN POTOK MAYORS: SINCERELY INTERESTED IN USG MONEY -------------- -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Mayor Bojovic of Leposavic and Mayor Ristic of Zubin Potok readily admitted that there has been no increase in crime in their municipalities. He qualified language in their June declarations regarding a deteriorating security environment as intended to support the Zvecan declaration. Bojovic said that in Leposavic's only recent security incident, 99% of local Serbs "know" that a fellow Serb threw a hand grenade (that fortunately did not detonate) into a local coffee shop for "business reasons." He claimed that MUP could solve this and any other crimes committed in Leposavic "within 24 hours" but said they were not allowed to. Ristic could not allege even a single recent breach of the peace in Zubin Potok and rationalized his declaration as an effort to force compromise in the final status process. ¶6. (SBU) Bojovic and Ristic agreed reluctantly to discuss security and changed the subject to possible USG financial assistance at every opportunity. Sports facilities, roads, and tourism development topped both their wish lists. Bojovic handed us a CD detailing possible Leposavic targets for USG assistance. BIRD FLU CIVIL PROTECTION COMMITTEES? -------------- ¶7. (SBU) With what seemed like coordinated talking points, the mayors downplayed the call for "civilian protection committees" in the declarations, saying the committees have been widely misunderstood. Milovic and Ristic said sheepishly that these committees were originally created in response to requests from Belgrade and the PISG to plan for bird flu outbreaks and said that their mandate has been expanded to include civil emergencies such as floods, earthquakes and fires. He added that the committees will have a few employees to plan disaster response but for the most part they will have a civilian structure based on voluntary work. ¶8. (SBU) Ristic said that since there are no natural disasters at present, the members of these committees will be used to assist local police in crime prevention. Milovic said citizens will observe possible troublespots and assist the police by reporting suspicious activity. (NOTE. Nebojsa Jovic, a leader of the hard-line Mitrovica Serbian National Council (SNC) and close associate of E.O.-Listed SNC leader Marko Jaksic made similar comments to PolOff on July 3 (Ref B). Jaksic is also a member of Belgrade's final status negotiating team and a member of the Zubin Potok assembly. END NOTE.). Milovic insisted that these are not "defense" organizations, and he called the Reuters report which quoted him as saying that 385 former members of the Yugoslav army will come to Kosovo from Serbia to defend Kosovo Serbs from Albanians "nonsense." Ristic said that there has been "false" information that these committees are a military or security force. DISSATISFIED WITH CCK CHIEF RASKOVIC-IVIC -------------- ¶9. (SBU) On July 13, the head of the Serbian government's Kosovo Coordination Center (CCK) Sanda Raskovic-Ivic visited Kosovo to attend the groundbreaking for a new sports complex in Zubin Potok. Bojovic complained bitterly that the CCK was building the complex in Zubin Potok and not Leposavic. He said that Zubin Potok and Zvecan always get more funding, because they have Ristic, Jaksic and Mitrovica regional CCK head Momir Kasalovic. ¶10. (SBU) Zvecan's Milovic even more pointedly criticized Raskovic-Ivic, complaining that she had that day taken him to PRISTINA 00000598 003 OF 003 task over living conditions for Kosovo Serb internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Svinjare living in Zvecan. He said 35 of those families are living illegally in unfinished apartment buildings without sewage, electricity or water, creating a health hazard for themselves and the surrounding community. He said the Zvecan assembly decided on July 12 to close the buildings to prevent a health epidemic. (NOTE. Acting SRSG Steven Schook told A/DPO on July 14 that Raskovic-Ivic had that day told him one of her primary missions is to prevent more IDPs from leaving Kosovo and moving to Serbia. Schook was encouraged in this regard by a Raskovic-Ivic statement to the press calling on Kosovo Serbs to stay in Kosovo and wait out the status negotiations process. END NOTE.) DONORS COORDINATING INCREASED ASSISTANCE TO THE NORTH -------------- -------------- ¶11. (SBU) All three mayors readily admitted that the only practical effect of their anti-Pristina declarations is that PISG funds would no longer be accepted for municipal salaries and projects. International Community representatives, including USOP/USAID, will meet jointly with them on July 18 to discuss security and wade through competing lists of proposals for quick impact projects in the north. ¶12. (SBU) COMMENT. Pressure is building in the north (ref C),and these adaptive mayors are determined to parlay that serious circumstance into short-term profit for their municipalities. The challenge for the international community is to coordinate assistance projects that stimulate economic and social development rather than merely finance the decision of these municipalities to reject Pristina's outreach. The limited insight of the Leposavic and Zubin Potok mayors into their own declarations against the PISG suggest that a third party put them up to making them. The open disdain for CCK's Raskovic-Ivic displayed by Bojovic and Milovic suggests that CCK is not the primary actor in the north. We believe that Executive Order-listed Marco Jaksic -- president of the Association of Serb Municipalities and the Serbian National Council, member of the Belgrade final status negotiating team, and willing facilitator of our trip to visit the mayors, -- is a more likely coordinator of events in the north. END COMMENT. ¶13. (U) Post clears this message in its entirety for release to Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari. MCBRIDE