KOSOVO: RESPONSE TO NARCOTICS AND CHEMICAL CONTROL

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 PRISTINA 000768

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR, EUR/SCE, DRL, INL, AND S/WCI, NSC FOR BRAUN,
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER, OPDAT
FOR ACKER

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: SNAR PGOV KJUS KCRM EAID KDEM UNMIK KV
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: RESPONSE TO NARCOTICS AND CHEMICAL CONTROL
SECTIONS OF 2007-2008 INCSR

REF: STATE 0136780


1. (U) Following is the submission from U.S. Office in
Pristina for the narcotics and chemical control sections of
this year's INCSR report.


2. (U) SUMMARY: Kosovo is primarily a transit point for
heroin originating in Turkey and Afghanistan and destined for
Western European countries, but it does have a small and
reportedly growing domestic narcotics market. Kosovo faces
serious challenges in its battle against narcotics
trafficking. Its borders are porous, there is reported
corruption among its Border Police and Customs officers, and
its unique status under UNSCR 1244 as a United
Nations-administered territory prevents it from entering into
most bilateral, multilateral and international agreements,
including the 1988 UN Drugs Convention. Kosovo's final
status is currently under negotiation, and the United States
and the European Union intend to continue providing rule of
law technical assistance, training and equipment donations,
which will help Kosovo to more effectively combat narcotics
trafficking.

Status of Narcotics in Kosovo


3. (U) Kosovo is a transit point for heroin originating in
Turkey and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan and destined for
Western European markets. Narcotics traffickers capitalize
on weak border control in Kosovo. The Kosovo Border Police
is a young service, lacks basic equipment, and only has a
mandate to patrol the green border (area where there are no
official, manned border or administrative boundary line
gates) from two to three kilometers beyond the actual border
and administrative boundary lines. NATO's KFOR has roving
teams that patrol the green border up to the actual border
and administrative boundary lines, but traffickers easily
take advantage of numerous passable roads leading into Kosovo
that lack border or administrative boundary line gates.
Moreover, narcotics interdiction is not part of KFOR's
mandate; they seize narcotics they happen to encounter while
performing their duties, but they do not actively investigate
narcotics trafficking. Border Police and Customs agents are
susceptible to corruption. Kosovo officials are attempting
to tackle the problem, but United Nations Mission in Kosovo
(UNMIK) officials believe some officers allow narcotics
shipments to pass through the border and administrative
boundary gates.


4. (U) Kosovo is not a significant narcotics producer, but
Kosovo police have found cases of small-scale marijuana
cultivation, mostly in the form of plants mixed in with corn
crops or cultivated in back yards. They have also found some
uncultivated marijuana plants growing in rural areas. Unlike
last year, there have been reports of seizures of large
quantities of precursor chemicals in Kosovo. However,
Provisional Institutions of Self-Government (PISG) and UNMIK
officials have found no direct evidence of narcotics refining
laboratories.


5. (U) Information on domestic narcotics consumption is not
systematically gathered, but PISG and UNMIK officials agree
that there is a growing local market and that illegal drug
use is on the rise. The Ministry of Health believes levels
of narcotics consumption among teenagers and university-aged
young adults, the primary users, are comparable to those in
most Western European countries. Drugs of all types,
including heroin, are reportedly available in Kosovo.
Cocaine cases increased in 2007, but the vast majority of
addicts referred for treatment were heroin users.

Kosovo Actions Against Drugs in 2007


6. (U) Policy Initiatives. The Government of Kosovo is just
beginning to address the narcotics problem, and there is no
national counternarcotics strategy. The Kosovo Police
Service (KPS) and Ministry of Health, however, reported that

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they are advocating for creation of an inter-ministerial
committee or working group, coordinated through the Office of
the Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister, to draft such a
plan. As of October 2007, no inter-ministerial body had been
created to address narcotics.


7. (U) With an eye toward eventual EU accession, Kosovo sent
a representative from the Ministry of Health to an EU
conference on "Tackling the Drug Problem in the Western
Balkans" in September 2006, and determined a number of
priorities for action based on the EU Drugs Strategy
2005-2012. The priorities included evaluation of the current
situation, definition of a counternarcotics strategy and
action plan and creation of implementation structures such as
inter-ministerial working groups. Because of the Kosovo
budget cycle and the fact that the priorities were identified
late in 2006, officials were unable to formally address them
in 2007. Individual ministries, however, pressed forward
with counternarcotics initiatives in accordance with EU
goals. The Ministry of Health reported that it included in
its strategic plan and budget request for 2008-2013
accurately assessing the extent of the drug problem in
Kosovo, developing a national strategy for preventing drug
use among adolescents and youths, creating regular mechanisms
for monitoring drug use levels among adolescents and youths,
and increasing services to drug addicts. Similarly, the
Ministry of Interior Affairs reported that it is working to
increase Kosovo's narcotics investigation capacity and help
it meet European Partnership Agreement Program (EPP) goals by
training counternarcotics officials, procuring technical
equipment and strengthening inter-agency cooperation.


8. (U) Law Enforcement Efforts. The counternarcotics
competency was transitioned from UNMIK to KPS in May 2006,
and narcotics-related arrests have reportedly increased since
the KPS took control. From January to August 2007, the KPS
arrested 612 people on narcotics charges and filed 221
narcotics-related cases. According to KPS statistics, 93
percent of those arrested were Kosovo Albanian and four
percent were Kosovo Serb; 96 percent were male. In the same
period, they confiscated 15.3 kilos of heroin, 2.2 kilos of
cocaine, 21.7 kilos of marijuana, 61 grams of ecstasy, and 4
kilos of other narcotic substances. UNMIK Police statistics
were similar. From January through mid-October, they
reported 251 narcotics-related cases; 94 percent of those
arrested were Kosovo Albanians, five percent were Kosovo
Serbs, and 96 percent were male. They also reported the
seizure of 11.7 kilos of heroin, 22.9 kilos of marijuana, 1.9
kilos of cocaine and 61 hits of ecstasy.


9. (U) KPS counternarcotics officers face many challenges.
They lack basic equipment and resources, and undercover
operations are complicated by the fact that they can only
monitor mobile telephones on the Vala 900 network. The
Serb-controlled Mobtel mobile telephones and land lines are
beyond their reach. Kosovo's small size also hampers
undercover work because communities are tight-knit and
everyone knows who is working on counternarcotics. The KPS
also noted a decline in effectiveness after it decentralized
the counternarcotics division in 2005. They had hoped to
return to a centralized system in 2007, but still remained
decentralized as of October 2007. The KPS Department of
Organized Crime's director reported that coordination between
the headquarters and regions improved in 2007 and that
decentralization is less of a problem today.


10. (U) Illicit Cultivation. Kosovo is not a significant
narcotics producer, but the KPS has found some evidence of
small-scale marijuana cultivation. According to UNMIK Police
statistics, there were 32 cases of marijuana cultivation from
January through mid-October, totaling 21,075 plants. Most
cases involved marijuana planted together with corn in rural
areas, but there were some cases of plants cultivated in
gardens. There have been reports of seizures of large
quantities of precursor chemicals in Kosovo, but PISG and
UNMIK officials have found no direct evidence of narcotics

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refining labs.


11. (U) Corruption. There have been no arrests for
high-level narcotics-related corruption in Kosovo. There are
reports of corruption among Border Police and Customs
officers, but the KPS and UNMIK Customs Service say they are
attempting to address it. Cases reportedly tend to involve
officers turning a blind eye to narcotics trafficking or
accepting bribes to allow narcotics to get through border or
administrative boundary line gates. KPS officials see the
potential for problems due to the officers' low salaries and
lack of benefits, and they believe corruption exists in the
regional counternarcotics offices.


12. (U) Agreements and Treaties. Due to its unique status as
a UN-administered province of Serbia, Kosovo is not a party
to the 1988 UN Drug Convention or any other international
conventions or protocols. Its constitutional framework,
however, calls on it to respect the principles of UN
conventions.


13. (U) Kosovo is unable to enter into most binding bilateral
or multilateral agreements, but it participated in a UN
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) meeting in Vienna as an
observer in 2007 and it cooperates and exchanges information
with countries in the region through informal bilateral and
multilateral meetings. For example, KPS counternarcotics
officials met with their Albanian counterparts in March and
their Macedonian counterparts in August, and they plan to
meet with Montenegrin counternarcotics officials before the
end of 2007. The Ministry of Interior Affairs (MOIA)
reported that Kosovo participated in the latest in a series
of informal regional coordination meetings in Bucharest in
July; it resulted in an agreement among western Balkans
countries to cooperate in the fight against organized crime,
including narcotics trafficking. The MOIA also reported
informal cooperation with regional organizations such as the
Bucharest-based Southeast European Cooperative Initiative, or
SECI Center.


14. (U) Drug Flow/Transit. Kosovo is reportedly a transit
point for heroin from Turkey and Afghanistan, most of which
is destined for Western European countries, including
Switzerland, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Norway and
Sweden. Kosovars regularly travel to these countries to
visit relatives living in them, and UNMIK and KPS officials
believe much of the drug trade is managed through family/clan
networks. Most drugs illegally enter Kosovo overland from
neighboring countries. Officials believe one major route is
from Turkey, through Bulgaria and Macedonia, and another is
also from Turkey, but through Bulgaria and Serbia. There are
reports of collaborative arrangements between Kosovo Serb and
Kosovo Albanian criminal groups for drug trafficking, and
UNMIK Police believes there is a connection between drug
trafficking and human trafficking. Anecdotal evidence
suggests the drugs are broken down into smaller quantities in
Kosovo before heading to Western Europe. UNMIK officials
report a lot of small movements of narcotics, such as two to
five kilos on one person or 10 to 20 kilos in a bag on a bus.
The major transit points are Gjilan, Prizren and Mitrovica.
As of October, the highest number of seizures was in Pristina
(58) and the lowest number was in Ferizaj (17).


15. (U) Domestic Programs. Kosovo lacks an overall policy
for dealing with existing and potential narcotics-related
problems, but the PISG is increasingly aware of the dangers
of narcotics. The Ministries of Health and Education run
some domestic prevention programs, and community police
officers visit schools throughout Kosovo to educate students
about the risks associated with drug use. Non-governmental
organizations assist with some of these efforts.


16. (U) There are no reliable estimates for the number of
drug addicts in Kosovo. Drug treatment is provided by the
Pristina University Hospital Psychiatry Department, but only
one doctor and one nurse are devoted to treating drug

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addicts. They offer detoxification programs for motivated
patients, but they report disappointing results due to the
fact that many of the addicts are poor and unemployed. There
are no other structured drug treatment programs. Methadone
is not prescribed because the law does not authorize its use.
Some addicts receive anti-anxiety medication or
anti-depressants to relieve withdrawal symptoms, while the
most severe, agitated patients receive anti-psychotics. The
Pristina University Hospital Psychiatry Department says that,
on average, three to four people are in in-patient treatment
at any given time, and the overwhelming majority of them are
heroin addicts. The number of addicts receiving out-patient
treatment is reportedly much higher, but the hospital
declines to give a figure. Other regional medical centers'
psychiatry wards reportedly do what they can to assist drug
addicts, but they do not devote staff to their treatment.


17. (U) The Pristina University Hospital Psychiatry
Department notes that the number of patients is increasing
and it sees an urgent need for a genuine drug treatment
program, which has more and better trained staff, offers
individual and group therapy, and is separate from the
psychiatric ward. It also wants to expand its services to
include a "maintenance program" based on a Swiss model. It
would medically administer narcotics to addicts who do not
want to undergo a detoxification program in order to reduce
the legal and social costs to the state that come from the
addict committing crimes to finance his or her habit. In
October, the Pristina University Hospital Psychiatry
Department presented a strategic plan for 2008 to 2013,
including these goals, to the Ministry of Health; it is
pending approval. Hospital officials consider construction of
a separate drug treatment facility a priority because they
believe only the most severe cases ever reach them due to a
dual stigma of patients being labeled drug addicts and
erroneously viewed as mentally ill after seeking treatment in
the psychiatric ward.

U.S. Policy Initiatives and Programs


18. (U) Bilateral Cooperation. Kosovo cooperates with the
United States on counternarcotics issues to the extent
possible, but Kosovo's unique political status hampers
bilateral cooperation. Kosovo cannot legally enter into most
bilateral, multilateral or international agreements,
including extradition treaties, until its final status is
resolved.


19. (U) In 2007, the U.S. Department of Justice conducted
extensive training for prosecutors in the new Kosovo Special
Prosecutors Office (KSPO),which handles narcotics
trafficking and other sensitive crimes. Projects included
translating a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) recognition
manual on drugs and drug precursors and bringing an American
drug task force prosecutor to Pristina to give the KSPO and
KPS a two-hour presentation on narcotics prosecutions and
informant handling. In past years, the United States
Government has also provided technical assistance and
equipment donations that directly or indirectly support
counternarcotics work in Kosovo. The United States
Government also funds and contributes the largest the largest
contingent of police officers (over 200) in the UN Mission in
Kosovo, including monitors and mentors of KPS officers
working on counternarcotics efforts.


20. (U) The Road Ahead. Kosovo's final status is currently
under negotiation, and the United States will continue to
provide rule of law assistance to Kosovo for the foreseeable
future. The EU is planning a rule of law mission under the
auspices of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP).
The U.S. is coordinating its rule of law assistance goals and
priorities for Kosovo with the EU, and will continue to
provide training, technical assistance and equipment, which
directly or indirectly supports counternarcotics work, to the
KPS and Kosovo's criminal justice sector. The U.S. will also
continue to contribute police officers to the civilian police

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mission in Kosovo, including some with special
counternarcotics skills.



KAIDANOW