KOSOVO: PROGRESS ON SERBIAN CULTURAL HERITAGE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000147 SIPDIS DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE NSC FOR HELGERSON E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/08/2019 TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL KV UNMIK SUBJECT: KOSOVO: PROGRESS ON SERBIAN CULTURAL HERITAGE ISSUES, BUT CHALLENGES REMAIN Classified By: Ambassador Tina S. Kaidanow for Reasons 1.4 (b),(d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY Recent developments related to issues surrounding the Serbian Orthodox Church's (SOC) patrimonial sites in Kosovo have produced a mixture of progress in some areas and continued challenges in others. At the urging of moderate SOC leaders in Kosovo, the SOC's ruling Synod has given full backing to the Council of Europe-led Reconstruction Implementation Commission (RIC),which will soon resume rebuilding 35 SOC sites destroyed in the March 2004 riots. The court case involving the long-running property dispute between the Visoki Decani monastery and the Decani municipal government also has started moving again now that EULEX is working with the court. In addition, the ICO has met with some success in convincing the municipal government to honor the monastery's protective special zoning area in the municipal urban development plan. The clarification of legal issues resulting from this pair of developments could assist Embassy efforts to find an out-of-court settlement. Finally, it is now clear that the SOC will not be able to participate in the ICO-led forum on cultural heritage, which was designed to speed the implementation of Annex V of the Ahtisaari Plan. UNMIK and SOC moderates have proposed a new format under EU leadership, but it is not clear that key stakeholders will accept the proposal. While progress in the RIC and the land dispute case are welcome, SOC patrimony will ultimately be protected only inasmuch as Annex V is enforced. This makes finding an acceptable format for the cultural heritage forum a key priority. END SUMMARY. RIC Restarts... ¶2. (C) After a lengthy period of inactivity stretching back more than a year, the Council of Europe-led RIC may soon resume its work with the full backing of all stakeholders. On April 2, RIC Chairwoman Emma Carmichael told us that the SOC had agreed to a new template to issue tenders for work which, when advertised in Serbia, would not bear the Kosovo government logo. Tender documents published in Kosovo will still feature the government logo. This small adjustment, plus the lobbying of the SOC's Synod by Father Sava Janjic of Visoki Decani monastery, has led both the Serbian government and the previously-divided Synod to endorse the RIC fully. Sava told us April 6 that the Synod, led by Metropolitan Amfilohije, has completely sidelined hardline Bishop Artemije Radosovlevic's efforts to stop the RIC. As a result, Carmichael reports that the RIC is ready to begin issuing tenders as soon as possible. (Note: Major reconstruction work on most of the RIC's 35 sites is now complete, and the remaining tenders will deal mostly with interior reconstruction of buildings and smaller-scale projects. End Note.) ...Along With The Special Chamber ¶3. (C) The court case involving the land dispute between Visoki Decani Monastery and a pair of long-defunct socially-owned enterprises (SOEs) is also moving forward. (Note: The municipal government is now an interested party to the case and is acting as the representative for other local (Albanian) actors claiming interests in the disputed land but lacking legal standing. End Note). The Privatization Agency of Kosovo's (PAK) Special Chamber of the Kosovo Supreme Court is hearing the case. After a delay of several months while the court transitioned from UNMIK to EULEX control, on March 10 a panel of international judges ruled in favor of a motion made by UNMIK Legal Advisor Ernst Tschoepke (acting under Kosovo law as the legal representative for the SOEs) to exclude the SOEs' private attorneys from the case. The ruling followed Kosovo law, which mandates that the Kosovo Trust Agency (KTA - now the PAK) has the exclusive role of representing SOEs in legal disputes. ¶4. (C) A related legal issue is the monastery's special protective zone (SPZ),an 800-hectare area surrounding the monastery. Development and construction within the zone are PRISTINA 00000147 002 OF 003 severely restricted by law. On March 26, ICR Pieter Feith visited Decani and was assured by the mayor that the municipality's urban plan would be issued in accordance with the SPZ law, which had been a previous point of contention. ICO officer Andrea Battista reported to us on March 27 that this reassurance from the mayor represented a success for the ICO, which had been working for months with the municipal government and Kosovo's Ministry for Environment and Spatial Planning to develop Decani's municipal plan. (Note: All of the land disputed in the court case is included in the Decani SPZ, which would restrict its use for any owner other than the monastery. End Note.) Comprehensive Settlement Best Option ¶5. (C) While the municipality will remain involved in the court proceedings, it will not do so as a party with a direct interest in the land itself. Despite numerous politicized assertions purporting interest in the disputed land, neither the municipality nor other local Kosovo Albanians have any legal ownership rights. It is also important to note the Decani SPZ's special designation restricts the land's use. The monastery's current use of the land for agriculture does not violate the SPZ law, but any other business use would likely run afoul of the law. (COMMENT: For these reasons, we do not see a straight court decision on the dispute as the optimal way to resolve the dispute, as both the mayor of Decani and opposition leader Ramush Haradinaj, who is from Decani and is leader of the mayor's AAK party, have made it clear that they will not accept an adverse ruling from the court. They have also asserted "the right of the citizens of Decani" (a thinly-veiled reference to local ex-KLA business leaders) to use land in question regardless of its actual legal status. We believe a more comprehensive, court-endorsed settlement would be the only possible way to settle this case in an amicable fashion. The court's decision to exclude the SOEs' attorneys, the absence of any other local claimants with legal standing, and the SPZ's constraints may make a settlement more attractive to the municipality, Haradinaj, and any other interested parties, though this is not a given. END COMMENT.) ¶6. (C) The basic outlines of the settlement are as follows: the municipality and all other interested local parties would drop their claims to the land in question, which would remain under the control of the monastery. In turn, the monastery would ask the Special Chamber to rule in its favor on the dispute in question, while simultaneously awarding to the municipality other parcels of land in the Decani town center that the monastery owns. (Note: The Embassy is considering an additional "sweetener" as part of the settlement in the form of assistance projects for the impoverished Decani municipality that suffers from central government neglect due to the fact that it is opposition leader Ramush Haradinaj's home base. We have met with all parties over the past year and are prepared to suggest this settlement to Haradinaj once the court case moves towards a final judgment. We note that all of this is still exploratory and should not be discussed outside the USG. End Note.) Fate of the Forum ¶7. (C) Although the RIC and the Decani court case have moved forward in recent weeks, another important effort to protect Kosovo's SOC heritage has met setbacks. We have learned that the SOC, contrary to earlier indications, will not participate in the cultural heritage forum organized by the ICO and the Kosovo Ministry of Culture. On April 6, Father Sava confirmed reports that the Serbian government had made it clear to the SOC Synod that any forum sponsored by the ICO, even in low-key fashion, was unacceptable. (Note: ICO intends the forum to serve as the Ahtisaari-mandated Implementation and Monitoring Council (IMC) tasked with implementing Annex V of the Ahtisaari Plan, which is devoted to protecting cultural heritage. End Note.) At the same time, we have learned that UNMIK has withdrawn from the forum, taking UNESCO with it. PRISTINA 00000147 003 OF 003 Re-Format? ¶8. (C) On April 2, Dmitri Slabchenko of UNMIK's Office of Political Affairs lobbied us on a re-formatted cultural heritage forum which would be acceptable to Belgrade and all other stakeholders. Slabchenko, who worked on Annex V during the Ahtisaari Plan negotiating process, acknowledged that UNMIK could not take any leading role in the forum for a variety of reasons, chief among them the GOK's strong opposition to any UNMIK-led process. Slabchenko is now advocating an EU-led process, with UNMIK participation only to ensure the presence of the SOC and the Serbian government. On April 6, Sava described a similar format to us, while pointing out that the ICO would remain as a key member of the forum and maintain its role as the legally-mandated implementer of Annex V. Sava pointed to the rejuvenated RIC as a model for the cultural heritage forum, where UNMIK's presence in the RIC has helped keep it viable while not disrupting the RIC's work. Sava placed particular emphasis on the RIC's role as the sole official channel of communication between the SOC/Serbian government and the Kosovo government, and posited that UNMIK could play a similar role in a re-formatted cultural heritage forum. Sava stressed his heavy interest in advancing the implementation of Annex V, which he sees as the only way to preserve the SOC's patrimony in Kosovo. COMMENT ¶9. (C) We can take some encouragement from the developments in the RIC and the Decani land dispute. Certainly, the Decani dispute still requires a great deal of work, but there is a way forward. Assuming the court case progresses, we will intensify our efforts to bring the parties to a settlement. Sava has made it clear that the land issue, which the monastery views as an existential question, takes precedence over all other concerns, including the implementation of Annex V. ¶10. (C) Untying the Gordian Knot of Annex V implementation may ultimately prove even more challenging than the land issue. While an UNMIK role in cultural heritage discussions can be contemplated, an UNMIK leadership role in this area, or even the appearance of one, is likely to be met with strong opposition from the Kosovo government. It is also unclear whether ICO would accept a changed role; working-level ICO officers have rejected an UNMIK role, but ICR Feith's view is not yet clear. The idea of an EU-led forum, possibly a re-formatting of the current ICO/Kosovo-led grouping, makes some sense, but this requires active EU leadership. If this effort is to succeed, we strongly advocate that any such EU leadership be local (i.e., from Pristina),rather than from Brussels or elsewhere. Nonetheless, we acknowledge that Annex V will be endangered if the political impasse over its implementation continues. END COMMENT. KAIDANOW