In The Result Of The Meeting, Serbian Papers Are Reporting That Two Nations Which Had As Yet Been Accepted To Have Recognised Kosovo, Now Say That They Did not.
The first serious working week after the summer vacations has already produced a wealth of stories here in the western Balkans. Some are more serious than others, unless you live here, when they’re all deadly serious. Here is a roundup of a few of them.
Outside the old Yugoslav Fed Parliament building in the Serbian capital they’re rolling up the red carpet which had been unrolled to greet delegates to the 50th birthday hit of the Non-Aligned Movement, which I wrote about here. Serbia, which hosted the gathering, is not an affiliate, but never mind that. It finds it handy to lobby over the Kosovo issue and for business.
In the aftermath of the meeting, Serbian papers are reporting that two countries which had as yet been accepted to have recognised Kosovo, now say that actually , they did not. Oman explains it just, sort of, um ah, sort of claimed it wanted Kosovo in the United Nations, but that is completely different. The West African state of Guinea Bissau claims that recognition was held up in parliament.
Vuk Jeremic, Serbia’s foreign minister adds that a criminal inquiry has started in one African country against a senior official. He revealed :
“There are founded claims that he was given a bribe from an Albanian businessperson from Kosovo in order to start the procedure to recognise Kosovo independence. If that investigation gives results we predict, this country will also withdraw its recognition of Kosovo independence.”
In the piece I wrote in this week’s print edition I noted that many states find the Non-Aligned Movement’s meetings useful because they enable nations to lobby and network. However in a stinging commentary (behind a paywall,) at Balkan Insight Milan Misic, the Washington journalist of the Serbian daily Politika, argues that the full shebang was mounted because Belgrade “needed something to lift its confidence”. It was merely a show of nostalgia for all its partakers argues Mr Misic and “dwelled on the past feats of the movement. “
At the meeting the ex-Yugoslavs all sat together. They’d better take care. Folk (particularly Croatia’s Nova TV) are raising questions. Why Ivo (Josipovic, the president of Croatia) was spending a lot of time with Boris (Tadic, the president of Serbia). 2 men of the same age, same background, same roles, same issues, what a scandal…
In the meantime, as some Croatian hacks were obsessing about Ivo and Boris a little Croatian paper, the Makarska Kronika, seems to have a world-beating scoop, if true for course. In Feb I wrote about the close connections between the previous Yugoslavia and Colonel Qaddafi. The press then wrote that his wife Safiya was initially Sofija Farkas, a Croat with Hungarian roots from Mostar in Hercegovina. According to the paper, Mrs Qaddafi has just lately been making efforts to buy land and property in Igrane on the Croatian Adriatic coast not far away from Mostar.
Mrs Qaddafi and some of the family are now in Algeria. This summer the Balkan press has been full of stories of various celebrities in diverse stages of inebriation or disrobe, from Prince Harry to Beyonc, who’ve been holidaying in Croatia. Whether Mrs Qaddafi fits the profile the Croats need, I am really not sure, if she is really a Bosnian Croat she has every right to a Croatian passport and hence visa free travel all though Europe.
On a more sombre note, Dimitar Bechev of the Sofia office of the Western european Council on Foreign Relations writes about the “protracted death of democratic Albania.” Discussing the political conflict which has paralysed Albania for the last two years he says that both Edi Rama, the leader of the opposition Socialists and Sali Berisha, the PM are the culprit. However Mr Berisha “must take the lion’s share.” He is hell bent, announces Mr Bechev, on gaining control of all of the Albanian establishments which still remain beyond his grip.
Why are ordinary Albanians willing to permit such de-democratisation? One reason could be that, unlike the other former Communist states, standard folks see in the ECU nothing different from Albania. To the side, across the Mediterranean, is Italy, with its unique brand of game-show politics ; to the south, over the mountain ranges, lies broke Greece. If this is what it implies to be an ECU state, many Albanian politicians can be excused for thinking they already live in one, or should qualify for membership.”
Not quite as dramatic, but still, alarm bells have begun to ring in Montenegro too. Thomas Roser, of the Austrian daily Die Presse has written about the series of attacks on autos belonging to Vijesti, one of the country’s main dailies. Four have been torched in the last few months. Zeljko Ivanovic, the paper’s handling editor announces that the media situation in the country is awful and that the attacks are messages from folk hooked up to orgainised crime which in Montenengro have always been believed to overlap with political interests that “they are stronger than the state” and therefore Vijesti’s reporting about such issues is useless. Who cares about the world economy when you can stress about media liberty in Montenegro. Watch this space, writes tagza.com.
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