There is no end to the alarming news coming from Bosnia. This is beginning to alarm me too.
On 20 November The Times reports on Bosnia under the title “Outnumbered and in the dark: on patrol in badlands of the Balkans.” The article describes a remote border crossing between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro and presents it as “the first line of defence against contraband and criminals reaching Western Europe.” The author continues: “drugs are smuggled from Afghanistan through Turkey, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and then into Italy, Germany and on to France and England.” Women from Eastern Europe are “trafficked through Bosnia, many ending up working as prostitutes in English cities.”
This seems strange. Why would anybody in the EU even think that the border between two small countries, one of which has only been independent for a bit over a year, in a thinly populated area in the middle of the Balkan mountains, would be the best place to intercept drugs from Afghanistan travelling to consumers in London or Paris?
Upon reflection, a layman like myself might have even more questions. Why would an East European woman (a Moldavian or Ukrainian, for instance) consider getting into the EU by coming to Bosnia first? Is it not much more convenient to go to or via Romania? Why would a prostitute from East Europe go to Bosnia if her real destination was the UK?
Reading articles like this - and there is no shortage of them - I always wonder about sources. I know some this author did not use: Croatian authorities, for example, who share the longest border with Bosnia, confirm that the number of people caught by them crossing illegally from Bosnia has actually fallen substantially in recent years. The 2006 US State Department’s (annual) report on human trafficking also ranked Bosnia in the same category as Greece, Japan and Slovenia. In the section on “International Best Practices” it even commends the efficiency of Bosnia’s Anti-Trafficking Police Force.
Does the Times know something that neither the Croat nor the US authorities (nor the Bosnian authorities, who publish an annual organised crime report) know about?
I expand my search: perhaps there is something about the nefarious influence of the Bosnian underworld and its tentacles in the UK in the 2004 book Gangs - a journey into the heart of the British underworld by the Observer’s crime correspondent Tony Thompson? Thompson looks at 13 types of crime, from cocaine smuggling to kidnapping and gun running. The list of gangs operating in the UK that he describes reads like a small United Nations: Spanish, Colombians, Jamaicans, Nigerians, Irish, Danes, South Africans, Sikhs, Pakistanis, Russians, Chinese …
I check the index: there are references to Albanians (in the chapter on people smuggling); there is one reference to Croatia (as a country through which drugs travel). But between the entry for “Booze fighters” and that for “Bourne, Christopher Tuffy” (an English robber) I do not find any reference to Bosnia. Perhaps the Observer has missed something too?
In fact, I quite like Thompson’s book. Ever since I first read it I remember a passage where he quotes a cocaine smuggler, Rick, who explains to him that “a lot of the stuff I deal with comes in via Ireland. There’s a lot of going on over there because the Irish navy consists of something like two rubber dinghies and one of those inflatable bananas. There’s so much coastline, they just can’t patrol it all. It’s absolutely wide open.” It changed my image of the Irish coast (where I have never been): I had thought of it as merely wild and interesting, but now I see it as a very dangerous and wide open gap in the defence of the things that are dear to me. I wonder how it compares with the border between Bosnia and Montenegro. And when the Times last wrote about the Irish borderlands.
But there is one obvious difference between Ireland and Bosnia today. In Ireland there is no European Union Police Mission (EUPM). This makes it easier to write an article about organised crime in Bosnia: one does not even need to talk to any Bosnian institutions who have fighting it as part of their job description: institutions like the state-level State Border Service (now State Border Police), the State Information and Protection Agency (SIPA), the Interpol office, the state-level Ministry for Security or the integrated intelligence and security agency (obavjestajno-sigurnosna agencija). In Bosnia one is conveniently provided with all information on especially organised tours for journalists, and it is done by English speaking “Europeans”. One EU police office offers precise data: “Figures show that 50 tonnes of heroin were smuggled from Afghanistan to the West through Sarajevo in 2006, but officials seized only 72 grams”. This, we learn, is “shameful.” Another EUPM official explains that Sarajevo is “controlled by organised crime bosses.”
The author of the Times article apparently did not see much value in quoting any Bosnians: after all, as European police officers (who are quoted extensively) explain to him, Bosnian crime bosses in any case control corrupt police officers, prosecutors and judges. The population treats criminals as heroes. And police chiefs, prosecutors and judges in the cantons “have all grown up with the criminals they are meant to prosecute.” There is, one European police officer notes, “corruption from the bottom of the judicial tree to the top.” Somebody even says that “only a third of judges were beyond being corrupt.” Two thirds of Bosnian judges corrupt: that is shocking indeed. It also sounds familiar. Was this not the number quoted, wait, it was 7 years ago, just before a huge international judicial reform mission was deployed in Bosnia, which then proceeded to fire every judge and prosecutor in the country only to have them reappointed later by an internationally-led commission?
In fact, with so much bad news there is only one good thing to report from Bosnia: the fact that there is - and has been since 2002 - a European police mission. As we learn, “officers from around the world have been brought in to try to help local people get on top of things, but their mandate runs out in two years time and they face an uphill struggle.”
It is probably an interesting coincidence that the Times article (and other similar articles in other European papers) appeared on the very day that an EU press release could announce the good news: the EU had decided on the 19th of November “to extend the mandate of the EU Police Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina until 31 December 2009 … the Council also recognised that the police mission’s aim to establish a sustainable, professional and multi-ethnic police force …. has not yet been achieved.”
And it is to be hoped that this mandate never runs out. Perhaps one could also send an EUPM to the Irish Atlantic coast?
Or would that be too expensive? After all, the cost of EUPM in Bosnia (with 200 internationals at the moment) is not negligeable: 12 million Euro plus the 200 salaries of the foreigners. But given the apparent success of this mission, whose job it is to advise and help Bosnian law enforcers, this may well be worth it.
PS: One more note about drug smuggling and Bosnia. You might hear a figure quoted in international speeches (recently even by a leader of the opposition in a big EU country) . This figure was often used in the past by international organisations, including the OHR, in briefings about Bosnia: “According to Interpol assessments, 80 percent of the Western European heroin market is supplied via the Balkan route which goes through BiH.”
This sounds alarming, until one reads the original Interpol quote:
“Two primary routes are used to smuggle heroin: the Balkan Route, which runs through southeastern Europe, and the Silk Route, which runs through Central Asia. The anchor point for the Balkan Route is Turkey, which remains a major staging area and transportation route for heroin destined for European markets. The Balkan Route is divided into three sub-routes: the southern route runs through Turkey, Greece, Albania and Italy; the central route runs through Turkey, Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, and into either Italy or Austria; and the northern route runs from Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania to Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland or Germany.”
In fact, according to Interpol there is no country in the region, including Austria and EU members Bulgaria and Romania, which is not along a primary drug smuggling route. Perhaps an EUPM should be sent to every country along this route?
Faust’s Metropolis is the title of one of my favourite books on the history of Berlin. Alexandra Richie writes there:
“It is impossible to escape the ghosts of history which hover above the Reichstag and over Göring’s intact Air Ministry and around the Brandenburg Gate. They waft around the remnants of the great brick and iron railway stations and the pieces of the Wall being ground to gravel on disused wasteland on the outskirts of the city; they linger in the pungent, mustard coloured hallways of the mountrous East German housing projects and in the remnants of the Hinterhof cellars where, during the last century, the poor workers died of typhus and cholera. History is in the Landwehr canal into which Rosa Luxembourg’s body was dumped in 1919 …”
In summer, Berlin’s tragic history appears remote. The city turns into an open-air recreation park, with outdoor cafes, swimming pools in the river Spree, naked volleyball players in the Tiergarten; a place of backpackers and young Germans enjoying life, sitting along the Landwehr canal or one of the many lakes. The lightness of being in Berlin was never sweeter than during the summer of 2006 (when I last spent two weeks here) and when the city hosted the football championship. What a party that was.
In autumn, however, the city sheds its green cloak. Now some old scars on its body become more visible again; its “empty spaces, windswept fields and vacant lots” appear even more empty and cold. The sky seems to be overcast for months.
But even in the middle of this rainy time there is one exceptional date. On the 9th of November Berlin remembers its most glorious moment, not one of innocent fun, like the football celebration last year, but an undiluted moment of political joy: the fall of the wall.
It still works on me, the spell of the Berlin story. As Joschka Fischer got up last Thursday in a suite in Hotel Adlon to speak about German memories of the 9th of November (the first coup attempt by Hitler in Munich, the terror against Jews in Kristallnacht in 1938, the memories of the fall of the wall in 1989) he had his small audience captured, Germans included.
ECFR: Joschka Fischer, Nicu Popescu, Mark Leonard
One knows the stories, has heared many times about the strange fate of buildings in this town as regimes changed. Fischer recalls how his former place of work was first the National Socialist Central Bank, hosting the stolen Nazi gold, then the Central Committee of the East German Communist Party, finally the foreign ministry of a unified Germany. The story of Berlin in the 20th century is like one of those fairy tales a child likes to hear again and again to enjoy the happy ending, and get reassurance that in the end bad things turn out well. The difference, of course, is that the story of Berlin is real. I still remember a professor of mine and a lecture he gave in 1988 in Oxford: whenever he felt dispair at events in the world, he said, he would close his eyes and say “Spain, Portugal”. I would probably say “Berlin, Bulgaria”. (I hope one day I might be able to say “Turkey” as well.)
Telling European stories of success, working for more such stories to come true: that was the motivation behind the gathering in the Adlon Hotel on the 8th of November where Fischer spoke. The occasion was the launch of an institution - the European Council on Foreign relations - that seeks to restore the confidence of Europe in itself and as an actor beyond its borders. It involves as a first step gathering European politicians and former politicians, thinkers and business people (a total of 50, of whom some 30 have come to this meeting) to reflect how a confident EU might make a positive contribution to world developments. A gripping idea, but also at first sight a little presumptous: how could any gathering of a few dozen people have serious impact on the “future of Europe” beyond the walls of the rooms in which it takes place?
It takes a bit of funding to bring together a group of people, pay air fares, hotels and dinners; and somebody with a well-known name - such as George Soros, Martti Ahtisaari or Joschka Fischer - can usually persuade other people to come to a city like Berlin. However, to produce genuinely fresh and powerful ideas, that travel by themselves, become “sticky”, and change reality, is not about either money, connections or fame. It is about the ideas themselves, that can only develop through a commitment to open debate, openess to new perspectives and a healthy humility.
Following half a day of brainstorming in Berlin - first in the new French embassy on Pariser Platz and then in the Adlon - I am now full of confidence that ECFR could succeed in this hybristic mission. One of the main reasons for this confidence was the debate that took place following Fischer’s introduction.
The person of the evening was a young Moldovan who sat next to me throughout the dinner: Nicu Popescu. Together with the director of ECFR (Mark Leonard) he had written the first report of ECFR: A Power Audit of EU-Russia Relations. Still a PhD candidate at the Central European university in Budapest, Nicu grew up in Moldova. He studied both in Russia and in Budapest. I had never met him before joining ECFR. It was obvious, however, that his very biography brought a fresh and urgent perspective to any discussion of European power: to know what it means to look in from the outside, to see the huge promise the EU constitutes in its own neighbourhood, to despair at the frustratingly incoherent EU policy at times all come naturally to a Europeanizer in Moldova. And so it turned out that a report (co)written by a young Moldovan on how the EU might develop a more principled policy towards Russia came to dominate the launch of an institution which included former presidents, prime ministers and political stars who had shaped this new Europe. The commitment to an open Europe could not have been expressed any better through declarations …
Not only this: what also impressed me was the seriousness with which the report (as well as a set of ideas for draft conclusions on Iran policy) were discussed. I had seen Joschka Fischer at previous events in previous years, sometimes grumpy, impatient, reaching for his Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung whenever he felt some speaker was not trying hard to say something interesting. In the Adlon, however, and throughout the launch of ECFR, Fischer was at his very best form, analytically and as a personality moderating the debate, visibly committed to the principles of a serious think tank. Listening to a discussion on EU policy towards Russia from an informed Moldovan, Bulgarian, Czech, Finnish or Italian perspective, as took place in the Adlon that evening, was a genuine intellectual treat.
As for the report itself, it sets a benchmark for future ECFR publications. Two examples of this style and directness:
“Russia is emerging as an ideological alternative to the EU that offers a different approach to sovereignty, power and world order. Whereas the EU stands for an idea of order based on consensus, interdependence and the rule of law, Russian foreign policy is motivated by a quest for power, independence and control.”
Or one conclusion:
“Contrary to what many in Europe think, Russia’s neighbourhood policy is better developed, better coordinated and better implemented than the EU’s. Russia devotes more political, economic and even military resources to influencing its neighbourhood than the EU does. Indeed, Moscow has plenty of tasty carrots to offer its allies … ” (in this style it is easy to hear the echo of previous writings by Mark Leonard)
One has not heared such a voice in Berlin in years. Now, a serious debate might be launched not only here but across Europe.
The earlier discussion on Iran, on which many in the room had strong convictions, was no less interesting or impressive. Introduced by Tim Garton Ash, a variety of views were expressed and the conclusion reached that it might be too early to come up with a statement. On Russia, on the other hand, a consensus hardened that the simple but powerful insights of the Power Audit deserved to be made more widely known: conclusion one, that current EU policy towards Russia (and EU lack of unity) benefits no member state of the EU; and conclusion two, that any serious policy of the EU should be based on a sustained commitment to the most important common value underpinning European integration, the rule of law.
Here then are the makings of a potentially very influential institution: a forum of people such as Fischer, Ahtisaari, Belka, Emma Bonino, coming together and seriously discussing innovative, non -diplomatic analyses, prepared to be outspoken, not afraid to offend, oriented towards possible practical conclusions, and open to good ideas wherever they come from; and in addition a set of younger people and researchers from all parts of Europe with a variety of experiences and the conviction that good analysis can make a real difference.
The next day the Russia report was presented to a wider audience in the huge conference room of the German Foreign Ministry. It was the 9th of November, a good day to launch a European initiative in Berlin. It was cold outside, but the ghosts of the building were banished for good. Nicu seemed pleased, and he had every reason to be. It was a good start for a European initiative.
1st of November. I am sitting in the conference room of Hotel Tirana, the big hotel on Skanderbeg square in the heart of the Albanian capital. I first stayed here in 1990 when this country was still communist, there were no private cars on the streets, and I was a tourist guide taking around a group of Austrian adventure tourists on a study tour. Albania was then isolated; the topic today is how to finally overcome this country’s isolation in Europe.
Around the table sit the crème de la crème of Albanian diplomacy. This is the annual Albanian ambassadors’ conference. I realise that I have been invited to present some provocative ideas early in the morning to stir up debate. Next to me are the Italian ambassador to Albania, Ilir Meta, former prime minister, foreign minister and currently chair of the European Affairs Committee of the Parliament, and the head of the European Commission Delegation. The title of my presentation is “The threat of never-ending accession”. The basic idea is that Albania should seriously consider to submit an application for EU membership in the first half of next year. Here, in a nutshell, is the outline of the argument, structured around three sets of “lessons” from the recent Balkan experience: lessons from Bulgaria, from Croatia/Macedonia after the Thessaloniki summit in 2003 and from Turkey since 1999.
The first lesson concerns the success of Bulgaria entering the European Union in 2007, almost exactly a decade after the collapse of its economy in the winter 96/97 (It is a story told elsewhere on this website). It is a case of a striking and surprising transformation. It is also a story of political courage and vision on the part of the European Union, which decided from the outset to treat Bulgaria similarly to other, seemingly more advanced candidates for EU accession. It is, finally, the story of the success of single-minded determination. When Ivan Kostov, upon becoming Bulgarian prime minister in 1997, promised the Bulgarian parliament that he would pursue the goal of EU accession within a decade, polite scepticism was universal. And yet, one decade later it turns out that this ambitious goal was actually within reach.
Set yourself an ambitious goal that seems impossible and then make the process of EU accession the centre-piece of your reform efforts in a very visible manner: that is the Bulgarian lesson for Albania.
The second lesson derives from the “Thessaloniki campaign” that preceded the EU summit in Thessaloniki in summer 2003. I remind the audience that as late as the summer of 2002 there were policy papers circulating in parts of the European Commission that suggested placing the Western Balkan countries in the same category as the countries of the wider European neighbourhood (both the Western Balkans and the neighbourhood were then administratively under the roof of the Directorate General for external affairs, not the DG for enlargement): to view them as European countries, obviously, but with no real immediate accession perspective.
It took the determined efforts of the Greek EU presidency in early 2003, led by Foreign Minister Papandreou, and a broad alliance of like-minded individuals (in the European Commission and among member-states) to produce the more concrete promises of the Thessaloniki agenda.
At the same time the post-Thessaloniki experience shows the importance of the “gatecrashing principle” in pre-accession diplomacy: the need for any country that wants to make progress on the road to EU accession at strategic moments to ignore the advice, warnings and calls for patience coming from EU members and institutions who argue against pressing its case “because this is a bad moment.” Croatia ignored such advice when it decided to apply for candidate status in the wake of the Thessaloniki summit. Macedonia did the same in late 2004, when it too ignored strong lobbying on the part of some EU member states who told Macedonia’s leaders at the time not to consider submitting an application since this was “too early” and might risk rejection.
To “gate-crash” is to insist to go to a party to which you have not received an invitation. But to succeed in this, and then walk away successfully with either EU candidate status or later a date for the beginning of negotiations, a country needs both determination and good preparation. This may seem obvious, but it has some profound implications for the policies of the Albanian government.
Above all, a country needs to be able to tell a convincing story of positive change. This was something both Croatia (following the end of the Tudjman era) and Macedonia (refering to the experience of implementing the Ohrid Peace Agreement after 2001) had. So did Turkey, particularly in the period after 2001. All of these countries pursued reforms while leading a robust and determined diplomatic effort to make sure that achievements were actually widely noticed by EU policy makers.
A story of convincing change is also almost never a story about how a country fights corruption. This may seem counterintuitive: since most people assume that countries in the Western Balkans are and will remain corrupt any talk (including the most positive) about efforts to fight it only remind people of their initial assumption. Fight corruption seriously by putting in place systems of accountability in the administration, but resist talking about it too much abroad: regardless of what you do, it is not going to help improve your image and any possible success is very hard to prove to a sceptic.
Focus on achieving things that can be measured: setting up functioning standards agencies, having credible strategies to implement the EU environmental acquis (even if this takes 15 years it is worthwhile to show that you have thought about the implications of doing so now), talk about social changes that make your country visibly more mainstream European. I mention the debate over women and their position in society, and how Turkey has now overtaken Albania in terms of the number of women in parliament. And deal with the most urgent and most visible concerns of the Commission - such as a civil registry in Albania - without delay.
The party that Albania is considering to gatecrash next year is of course EU candidate status; the question in front of the government is when to submit its application for membership. I warn the audience that it has never yet worked to a country’s advantage to wait too long to knock at the European door. Albania also needs to be prepared in case Serbia submits its application sometime next year not to fall behind.
The presentation is followed by a vigorous debate. In the end I come away with the impression that Albania is in fact likely to submit its application for membership sometime in 2008.
Hoxha’s villa
The day ends in the former villa of Enver Hoxha, Albania’s long-time communist dicatator, in the centre of Bloku. This former closed communist residential district has long been turned into the café corner of Tirana, a pleasant Albanian Soho. (for more on the coffee culture of Bloku visit this website)
Inside the villa nothing appears to have changed, however: both the furniture and the books on the shelves are still those put there by Hoxha himself. His residence is now used by the Albanian government, and on this occasion for a dinner hosted by the foreign minister. Lulzim Basha for the foreign speakers at the ambassador’s conference.
The debate on “gate-crashing” continues over dinner. I will keep you posted on how it develops, but given the nervousness this might elicit among EU diplomats it is probably better to say no more here …
Belgrade, October 2007. I arrive in Belgrade to give a presentation at the 7th Serbian Economic Summit. The summit is interesting: initially some 450 people, 10 cameras, apparently huge interest. It takes the man reading out the welcoming speech of prime minister Kostunica about 30 seconds to make the transition from welcoming potential foreign investors to underlining the importance of the Kosovo issue. Later the foreign minister of Serbia tells the audience that in case of a recognition of Kosovo independence “all bets in the region are off”. This dramatic warning strikes me as a strange way of reassuring potential investors that Serbia deserves their attention. By that time the room has emptied and the audience has fallen to less than 100. The foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, young, western educated and speaking with a strong American accent, is a member of the Democratic Party. If he argues like this, I wonder, what about the rest of the political class? It is a question I will pose to many people in the coming two weeks.
In fact, the main purpose of this trip, spending almost 2 weeks in Belgrade and Novi Sad, is to find out where Serbia stands on the eve of a possible decision on Kosovo. It is also to try to define the content of a film on Serbia we are working on in the context of a large Balkan documentary series to be broadcast on German and Austrian TV in spring 2008.
How can one explain the paradox of Serbia (so much potential, and so much waste of it at the same time) to a broader outside public? As I meet a succession of analysts, politicians and friends from civil society in different cafes in walking distance from Terazije a sense of gloom, reinforced by the rain and autumn cold that has chased away the last warm days, thickens.
I will not quote my friends here directly and most of them - particularly those in government - spoke as always on condition of anonymity, but the overwhelming emotion was that of opportunities wasted, of a revolution (the toppling of Milosevic and the dismantling of his regime) agonisingly incomplete, of sterile public debates dominated (again) by the issue of Kosovo and of the wrong people (re)gaining confidence.
One friend, for a long period already very active in Serbian civil society, admits that she cannot bear to read local papers or watch Serbian TV anymore, or she would risk loosing her sanity and any ability to act. Another friend, in an important political position, shrugs her shoulders when asked about the increasingly aggressive statements coming from some members of her own government. The worrying thing, quite a few note, is that the new assertiveness of Kostunica in particular appears to be working, extracting concessions from the outside world without having to make any compromises. What the EU was not willing to give to Zoran Djindic it is now going to give to Kostunica, one says, not because he is nice but because he is difficult. Stubborness and playing the Russia card on Kosovo appears to be working too.
The appropriate joke circulating in Belgrade is this: Kostunica is like the man standing in front of a coffee machine throwing in money and getting out coffee cup after coffee cup. After doing this thirty times and standing surrounded by all his purchases somebody in the queue behind him asks when he is going to stop. Why should I stop, the man responds, just when I am winning? (one might add: regardless of how much it might cost and what to do with all the cold coffee afterwards).
What would Kostunica do if the EU were to recognise Kosovo independence, I ask. “I genuinely do not know”, one member of the government tells me, “we currently just follow him on this.” Is the flirting with an increasingly authoritarian Russia anything serious or a passing diplomatic manouvre? “I can no longer tell”, says another.
As always, there is no shortage of impressive individuals in Belgrade who have not given up the fight for a more open, more cosmopolitan Serbia. I may be wrong and it may be the mood induced also by the weather but rarely have these people – let me call them Serbia’s Europeanisers - seemed as exhausted as now in the period since 2000.
As one friend, Dejan Anastasijevic, puts it, Serbia is like a car that looks ok from the outside, but one simply cannot get it to start moving in the right direction. The wheels turn, but there is something that still blocks serious movement. Everybody has of course their own part of the answer what it is that blocks progress. For Dejan the key is the unreformed state security institutions at the heart of Serbian politics. The secret service remains unaccountable to parliament, the courts, even the government.
For Natasa Kandic, one of the most impressive defenders of human rights in the whole region, it is also the lack of willingness of facing up to the dark legacies of the immediate past. Her response is activism, as it has been for two decades: working to turn her Humanitarian Law Centre into a Simon Wiesental type centre to continue to be able to identify perpetrators of actrocities in the wars of the 1990s and bring them to belated justice.
For movie director Milutin Petrovic (known outside through his film “Land of truth, love and freedom”) the obvious turning point in Serbia’s post-Milosevic story is the assassination of prime minister Zoran Djindic, and the inability so far to get to the bottom of this sordid story. Milutin prepares to launch his own campaign for enlightenment with a documentary on the Djincic assassination.
Dejan Anastasijevic, Belgrade journalist
During the time that I am in Belgrade the cover of Vreme also highlights an article by Dejan on the failed assassination attempt carried out only a few months ago, when a bomb was placed on the window of his apartment. What is disturbing is both the event itself and the failure of a real response by official institutions in its wake. The article sums up much of the atmosphere in Belgrade in this uncertain autumn of 2007. I recommend any visitor to the Rumeli Observer to read it in full:
Vreme, October 2007: Six months later
Who put bombs on my windowsill?
by: Dejan Anastasijevic
It is six months this Sunday since a hand grenade exploded on the windowsill of my apartment. The material damage caused by the explosion was a broken window and a room drilled with shrapnel, but more permanent damage was done to my life and work. In spite of claims by top politicians and police officials that my case would have the highest priority, the perpetrator has still not been found. During these last six months, I have tried not to disrupt the investigation with public statements or criticisms of any public agency: I was hoping that, in spite of everything, at least some part of the state apparatus had a genuine interest in solving my case. Now, I begin to believe that my hope was unfounded.
My initial idea was to present this text as an open letter to the Minister of Interior, Mr. Dragan Jocic. In the meantime I changed my mind: I do not believe that the minister would reply. It is even less likely that the letter would bring any consequences for the minister and his subordinates for their failure to defend my constitutional and legal right to live. That right is denied because I go to bed every night aware that the perpetrators could come back and finish the job they started six months ago.
That is why, instead of the minister, I address myself to the readers of “Vreme”, who deserve much more to hear what I have to say. Since the investigation did not bring any results, I have had to play private detective on my own case. I admit that I do not have enough evidence to accuse anybody, but I think that there are enough clues to conclude that the attack on me and my family came from the political/police underworld which, without major problems, has managed to survive 5th October and Operation Sabre. This is the stone the state dares not look under, for fear of disturbing the vermin who prefer dark places. The following text is a simple presentation of facts, from the description of the event to information about motives and political background. Readers will be able to draw their own conclusions.
CRIME SCENE BELGRADE: The hand grenade exploded at a quarter to three in the morning of 14th April this year, on the windowsill of my bedroom facing the street. It is an old-fashioned, double-glazed window with a relatively narrow frame and, looking from the street, it is a little over two meters above ground. The outside wooden blinds were half pulled down and the Venetian blinds drawn from the inside. This explains why the attacker did not try to throw the granade inside: it might have bounced off the inner window frame and fallen back into the street. That is why he decided to use two grenades, as the police discovered, connected with tape and placed on the windowsill. He was obviously familiar with this type of grenade - he knew that one would not activate the other, so he pulled out the firing pin from both. Luckily, the explosion of the first grenade dislodged the detonator of the second grenade from the chamber, and the grenade body flew some 20 meters to the next door entrance. Another fortunate factor was that the Venetian blinds absorbed part of the blast, reflecting it back into the street. In spite of that, the bedroom was full of shattered glass and shrapnel, which drilled into the ceiling and walls. Thanks to the fact that the bed is below the window level, they missed my wife and me. Anyone standing in the room at that moment would not have survived. If both grenades had exploded, the cumulative effect would have been enough to injure both of us. This way, we were very lucky, as was our daughter who at that time was returning home from a party (she called around half past two to say she was on her way). If she had come only a few minutes earlier, she would have been in the apartment at the moment of the explosion.
In the street where I live there are no CCTV cameras, but they are situated in neighbouring streets where there are some banks and embassies. The police took all the tapes, but did not find anyone. “As if a ghost walked past,” was the comment of one inspector, concluding that the attacker took care not to be visible. Police also talked to the neighbours in a few apartment blocks around, but nobody noticed or heard anything suspicious. A reconstruction of the event would go like this: the attacker came walking (a car would not have gone unnoticed in my little street), pulled the firing pins, placed the grenades on the windowsill and sheltered from the explosion in the next-door building entrance, knowing that the time from activating to exploding is three to five seconds. After the explosion, all the neighbours came to their windows but looked only in the direction of the window where the smoke was coming from, allowing him to leave unnoticed. The fact that police blocked the area within ten minutes without catching him means that he had a car waiting for him close by.
I have to say that police arrived five minutes after the call and that their work was more than correct.
I can say the same about the director of police, Miroslav Veljovic, who helped me through the procedure of giving evidence at the police station. Unfortunately, after that the investigation became complicated.
ANASTASIJEVIĆ ON TWO LISTS: Vojislav Šešelj…
SCORPIONS AND NEIGHBOURS: Encouraged by the positive reaction of the public and promises from politicians that my case would be solved, I did not take a close interest in the investigating procedure - I believed, then, that it was best to let them get on with the job. A whole month later, I found out that the case was still in the municipal prosecutor’s office (in charge of minor offences), and that the investigation had been given to the department of the city police responsible for arson. This was despite claims from politicians, as well as Veljovic himself, that my case was attempted murder with terrorist elements. In the meantime, the press started speculating, based on unnamed police sources, that I had set the bomb in order to draw attention to myself. At the same time, I found out that the physical evidence collected at the scene will probably not be used as evidence at all, because somebody forgot to send the appropriate order to the laboratory - analysis without appropriate documentation is not admissible in court. It was almost three months later that the district prosecutor’s office, in charge for serious criminal cases, took over the case and brought statepolice into the investigation. This was another fact that I found out only indirectly, because after the initial conversations during the first few days after the attack, nobody was interested in talking to me officially.
…and Jovica Stanisic
I found out from the press that police questioned a group of “Scorpions”, a paramilitary organisation from Šid, but released them soon after. The “Scorpions” were suspects because I had written about them several times, and two days before the explosion I had talked on Radio B92 and criticised the mild sentence that a group of their members had received for the murder of six Bosnians from Srebrenica. I was not sure that members of the Scorpions had came from Šid to Belgrade to take revenge for a single radio comment, because others talked and wrote about them much more harshly then I did. They even wrote a touching message to the head of the Fund for Humanitarian Law, Natasa Kandic, in which they categorically denied involvement in the attack, saying “Dear Natasa, at least you know us, we didn’t do this…”. I tend to believe them, at least in this case.
Two or three months after the explosion, neighbours who live a few streets from me told me that police came to ask them if they saw or heard anything that night. Although they said they did not, they were asked to come to the police station and give a written statement. When they asked why, they were told that for every statement taken, a policeman gets three points, and their performance is assessed based on their number of points. I remembered then that Minister Jocic had said that they questioned over 600 witnesses in my case - that would be twenty Scorpions and 580 neighbours. All in all, a total of 1800 points.
ŠEŠELJ’S LIST: Now is the time to say something that so far I have not spoken about, in the interests of the investigation. Last year I was warned by the Hague Tribunal to be careful, because leader of the Radicals Vojislav Seselj had made a list of potential witnesses who should be eliminated or intimidated, and my name is on that list. Seselj’s wife Jadranka took the list to Belgrade and, after that was discovered, she was not permitted to visit her husband in prison for some time. The reason for putting my name on the list was my testimony against Slobodan Milosevic in 2002, from which one part, concerning Seselj’s role in Miloevic’s regime and his ties with State Security, was included by the Tribunal as evidence against him. That part will be presented to the court in writing - so I will not be called as a witness - but Seselj has the right to cross-examine me and demand that the evidence be excluded if I do not come or if, god forbid, something happens to me. By the way, a few months ago at an interim hearing, Seselj asked the court to dismiss three written statements against him because the authors had died in the meantime. I almost became the fourth.
There are two more circumstances showing a certain unhealthy obsession of the Radicals with me. Even three years ago, secretary general of SRS (Serbian Radical Party) Aleksandar Vucic held a press conference entirely dedicated to me and my colleague Jovan Dulovic, during which he distributed some written material intended to show us as morally worthless people and traitors. That material, judging by the format, style and jargon, was provided by BIA, Serbian main intelligence agency, which, bearing in mind the deep and extensive connections between the Radicals and the secret police, should not surprise anyone. Another example is that Seselj, in his book The devil’s Apprentice - Criminal Pope John Paul the Second from 2006, dedicated almost one hundred and thirty pages (out of a thousand) to me, again presenting me as a traitor and “Belgrade street scum.”
At the time when I got the warning from the Hague, I did not take it too seriously, but after the explosion I told the police about it. I got sympathetic looks, but I noticed that they did not write anything down. I also told them something I found out from a source whose name has to be concealed - that Seselj’s list was given to a person close to him with very strong connections to the underworld. That is a man who has already been convicted to jail for a violent crime some years ago, but somehow managed to avoid serving the sentence. In informal conversation, I mentioned the name of that person to the deputy district prosecutor in charge of my case. He also looked at me sympathetically.
JOVICA’S LIST: At the beginning of this month, I came to know something else and, since I have not yet shared it with the police, this is the opportunity to do so. People from the Hague Tribunal contacted me again, this time asking me to be a witness against Jovica Stanisic. That surprised me because I have never met Stanisic, and everything I know about him I wrote in “Vreme” long time ago. I was even more surprised when they told me that my name was placed on the list of witnesses six months ago (April 2nd), and that the list was delivered to Stanisic’s legal counsel. When I asked why I was not informed of this, I was told that it was overlooked “because of high turnover of personnel at the Tribunal”. I asked the gentlemen from the Tribunal if they have any better witnesses than me, and was told that there was a problem, because several people from the list had suddenly died, and others either refused to testify or changed their testimony.
I have to say that I was shocked at such a casual attitude from the Tribunal people, whose work I have long supported, towards witnesses in general and particularly me. I asked the prosecutors, as politely as I could, to erase my name from the list and inform Stanisic’s lawyers. They said they would do that, but in case they haven’t done so, I want to tell everybody one more time: I will not testify against Stanisic, and I will not testify against Seselj unless I am subpoenaed by the defence (in which case I would receive a court order).
I have to stress one more time that everything I have mentioned are facts, but that I do not dare to claim, based only on those facts, that Volislav Seselj or Jovica Stanisic are in any way involved in the case of the bombs on my window. However, I do accuse the agencies responsible for the investigation and for finding the perpetrators of not being willing and brave enough to prevent the attack and keep my family safe. I admit that I was unpleasantly surprised by the recent statement from Minister Jocic in which he said that my case will be difficult to solve “because it is not easy to resolve the case if there is no reasonable cause”. In this way, the Minister made the whole story out to be an act of god, almost like a natural disaster.
DELAYED ACTION: I said at the beginning of this article that the bomb, although it did not hit its target, left permanent consequences on my work and my life. As a journalist writing for the print, I had a privilege to be relatively unrecognisable to the general public. That changed somewhat after I testified against Milosevic and started appearing as a guest on some TV programs, but after the attack, it has become unbearable. Put simply, the publicity that the bomb has attracted (and unfortunately not my articles) makes my life as a journalist difficult. When I enter a room, I have the impression that everybody is staring at me, and sometimes I hear “Look out, bomb!”. I am sick of being asked by people “What’s up, you still alive?” although I know they do not mean anything bad. I would like to be anonymous again, at least for a while, but I know that this is impossible. My wife and daughter also have to cope with publicity that is neither welcome nor deserved.
However, I am certain that the temperature would go down if, by some miracle, the attackers were caught. I believe in that miracle less and less, in the same way as I do not believe that the murderers of Slavko Cuvurija, Milan Pantic or any other journalist or citizen who dares to get in the way of somebody powerful and unscrupulous will be caught.
Finally, I want to say something else: I do not intend to change my job, move to another address or a higher floor, nor turn my apartment into a bunker. I will not hire private bodyguards nor ask police to provide me one, but I will insist that they protect me from hooligans and criminals, just as they should protect everybody else. In my case, they slipped up.
And one other thing: in the aftermath of the bomb, when there were numerous statements from political leaders condemning what had happened, announcing their determination to solve the case, declaring that it was an attack on the state and the constitution, I must admit that I had some hope that my case would serve as an opportunity to shine some light into the darkness that we have still not escaped from since October 5th. Now I see that I was naïve; new opportunities, unfortunately, are yet to come.
How much has the radical party of Serbia changed since the late 1990s? What does it really think about Serbia’s relations with the European Union? And how does it explain its own success in Serbia’s Northernmost (and wealthiest) region, the Vojvodina?
Milorad Mircic, one of Seselj’s deputies and radical strongman in the Vojvodina
To answer these questions I meet Milorad Mircic, one of the leading radical politicians, deputy to the leader Vojislav Seselj, in a pizzeria in the centre of Novi Sad, next to the local Radical Party headquarter. I am meeting a man who has no real doubt that time is finally on his side and on that of his ideas about Serbia and the world.
Any concern I might have had about a lack of clarity on the part of a leading Radical politician turns out to be misplaced. I should have known: the party has started a poster campaign to remind people of the looming trial of Seselj, its leader indicated for war crimes, and prepares to launch another book by him.
Mircic begins by assuring me that the Serb Radical Party (SRS) has obviously not changed either its program or its ideology since the 1990s. The essence of this program remains the commitment to Greater Serbia and opposition to “globalisation”. (Both of this is in fact very visible at first glance by visiting the party’s website)
There can be no compromise on Kosovo (which is no surprise either), Serbia must never join NATO and as for the EU Serbia has other priorities: to become a bridge between East and West, a strong ally of a resurgent Russia. The rise of Russia gives him great confidence, soon more and more people will be speaking Russian in different parts of the world, and even victories by Chelsea cheer him up for this reason.
The so-called revolution of 2000 which toppled Milosevic was a betrayal, and many of Serbia’s pro-European politicians are paid agents of foreign intelligence services. With a face that expresses open disgust Mircic describes the work of members of the current government, including foreign minister Vuk Jeremic who in his view is “a clinical case - a man who speaks like us in public but then secretly asks foreign powers, even Russia, to help split Kosovo from Serbia.” Asked whether there is any event in recent Serb history that makes him ashamed Mircic does not need to think long: the loss of the Krajina in 1995 and the betrayal of the Serb Republic by the Serbian government.
Mircic is originally from Western Bosnia (Grahovo municipality). His home town has been destroyed, he noted, with the support “of your government” (he probably means Germany). It is now in the Croat-Muslim Federation which he does not dare visit, given that it is teeming with Islamic terrorists.
Talking about the Seselj trail Mircic’s eyes sparkle: Seselj is a martyr, he was a dissident in the communist period [note: when he was in prison in Bosnia], and now, in the age of globalisation, this anti-communist fighter is a prisoner again. Currently the SRS prepares for the beginning of his trail in The Hague and for the presentation of his new book.
Vojislav Seselj, leader of Serbia’s largest parliamentary party
A conference in Pristina, Monday, 8 October. The topic is the future of Kosovo. Those still present are struggling with their tiredness, as on many an afternoon at such a conference.
Then a Japanese representative of the EBRD (the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) gets up and - though soft-spoken - manages to awake the audience. “It is frustrating”, he begins, pointing out that in other countries of the region the EBRD has an annual project envelop of between 60 and 200 million Euro. In Kosovo the total value of EBRD investments is 17 million. This has to do with the unresolved status, he notes. After him an Irish consultant gets up to speak about how to attract FDI. His message is the same: uncertainty deters investors, this needs to be sorted out. Then attention needs to turn to a long list of other problems, from weak infrastructure to a badly educated work force. It is a familiar argument, and as I look around the room I wonder if there is anybody here who has not heared this many dozens of times before.
Then it is my turn. I present some of the results of previous ESI research. My ESI colleagues and myself have done so many times in the past year, to audiences of Kosovo students, to the Washington think tank community, to European officials, at conferences from Paris to Istanbul. Our analysis is compelling and alarming, or so we thought when we first presented it. At the heart of it is an idea that is deeply unattractive to European policy makers, however: that Kosovo, to develop, will continue to require serious work migration to EU countries and that EU countries should find a way to organise schemes of managed work migration in the near future.
As I speak I feel a sense of futility is rising from within: I survey the half empty room and I wonder for a moment whether anybody is ever listening to such arguments. Even if people listen, if arguments are picked up in the international press, even if the head of UNMIK and the head of the EU office (whom I will meet the next day) read and like our reports on Kosovo, does it matter? Do any of these conferences, meetings, debates, articles, reports make any difference?
Making the case for managed work migration from Kosovo to other European countries seems like tilting at windmills. Saying that Kosovo cannot afford to waste any more time and must focus on the explosive social crisis in its countryside and its medium term development is no less Quixotic.
We published our report on the crisis of rural Kosovo in September last year. Since then the diplomatic games surrounding Kosovo’s future have only become more complicated, a dance seemingly without movement.
It is October 2007 and UNMIK is still the supreme authority in Kosovo. An often announced international donors conference has just been postponed without a new date. Most of the Kosovo political elite I meet in Pristina is still spending its days preparing for meetings to discuss the status of the province.
To complete the picture, there is news from my home country, Austria, where a young Kosovar woman named Arigona went into hiding to escape deportation. Her’s is not an isolated story, unfortunately, as Austria appears ready to send back significant numbers of often already integrated refugees from Kosovo.
The story of Arigona connects the blindness of European (in this case Austrian) policies with the plight of rural Kosovo. But will even this case - which received a lot of media attention in Austria - change policy?
A friend calls me and asks me to write an op-ed on the issue for an Austrian magazine. To try to shake of the sense of futility, I agree. One never knows, and certainly an eloquent and pretty Albanian teenager is able to reach more people with her arguments than the best policy paper disseminated through the internet.
