Conflict with Ahtisaari brought no results

Conflict with Ahtisaari brought no results

Kažiprst’s topics today are the Kosovo status negotiations and the talks, or the attempt to continue talks with Brussels. However, firstly I would like to ask you about something not tied to this, but to the atmosphere which has been created, among other things, and within the context of the discussions regarding Kosovo. The latest news which this morning surfaced in the morning papers is that collaborating witness Ljubiša “Čume” Buha is seeking asylum in another country. This news comes after Judge Marko Kljajević’s decision to be relieved of his position, in an atmosphere of instilling fear and threats to the NGO officials, after the firecrackers which were thrown here at the Utisak Nedelje (Impression of the Week) show guest Nataša Kandić. Comment on that atmosphere, please.

Svilanović: I think that, to my great dismay, key political players in the country, I am speaking of the largest parties, about state officials and government officials, have lost touch with how important the trial of the persons accused of the assassination of Zoran Đinđić truly is. This is the most important political and court process in this country in the last two years. And I have the impression that they have allowed tabloids and politicians and other people who are in the public eye and have an outlet in the media, to deal with this case, while the Government, state, key political parties and Zoran Đinđić’s party, stand on the sidelines and watch. It is a sad fact in my mind that in the past two years the media has focused on the comments of the GSS in this case, Čeda Jovanović and the LDP, and several NGOs which you mentioned.

In this way, there has been a marginalization of the entire situation, and many things have happened during this trial. Let me also mentions issues that perhaps are not that important, simply details, the appearance of the people who wanted to support the indictees by wearing shirts proclaiming support for them in the courtroom. There were no serious reactions to this from the Government. And that is how an atmosphere is created in which those who want to support Legija, or any of the other indictees, feel at ease, they felt powerful and felt they had plenty of space available in the media to say what they want.  And on the other side, there were no real reactions, the Government stayed quiet and statements were made which did not help the process, such as the statement by the Justice Minister that the Special Court should be shut down, and then the retraction of these statements. 

All in all, a public opinion emerged that there were on the one side the prosecution, judges, several NGOs and the GSS and LDP, maybe several media outlets, B92 included, who were interested in the case, and on the other side, Serbia itself, a huge public opinion where a completely different approach exists and every one can say whatever they want to say. We practically have gotten into a situation where the reaction to these people appearing in those shirts was like; well, alright, just like when Red Beret members showed up in their uniforms, protesting in their uniforms. So what? This has caused the trial to fall into a serious crisis. We had the situation where one Special Court prosecutor resigned, and no one cared. Now the judge who presides over the case has left as well.

B92: Well, the mandates were not extended.

Svilanović: If this ends the same way, then we should not be surprised at the atmosphere where once agains, Nataša Kandić or a few women from the NGOs are Serbia’s greatest enemies. Therefore, a very poor public opinion is being created. In my opinion, when I’m looking at the Government reactions to Kljajević’s resignation from the case, it seems as if they have realized that they have overplayed this, like they are just realizing at this moment – wait, this cannot happen, you cannot leave now. And this is obviously a case of two years in which there was no serious support from the Government.

I do not think that the Government must give their support to the judges in any way, but a public opinion must be created that will help the case function in the best way, so the judges will well, protected, and supported by the state they serve, and to feel like judges. In this case, at one moment Judge Kljajević felt he was in no-man’s-land, that he had to choose between his personal safety, the safety of his family and a court case, which obviously is not being given much attention to by the state anyway, and so he resigned. I do not know him personally, I don’t think I ever met him; I do not put him in any context, good or bad. Simply, I see that a good number of people in this country who must be aware of how important this case is are not, and I am upset about this. I think that this is illustrated the current situation in Serbia, and that is not good for anyone. I am now under the impression that people within the Government understand what has happened to them, that their nonchalant approach, and ignorance, and a mildly favorable approach…

B92: Do you think that’s the case?

Svilanović: …towards others who have something to say about this, that they have now realized that this has put them in a situation that has a way out, but is difficult all the same. One of the consequences of a judge’s resignation would be that the evidence would have to be presented again, which will in the best case scenario slow down the case and that could lead to the entire process being very prolongues and many serious things repeated. This stalling of the case is not good for anyone, and then we find ourselves in a situation that is very bad for Serbia. This is an illustration, and I think I said this earlier and will reiterate, that the overall atmosphere in Serbia today, especially in the political scene, is not the result of the democratic elections, rather a consequence of Đinđić’s assassination, this is one of the most successful political assassinations of which I have ever heard. The political scene today is a direct result of that bullet and we must be aware of this, and that is why we must focus our attention on the trial, so that it will lead to confirming the facts, to convicting those guilty, so that Serbia can move on; this way, all lost in some kind of fog.

B92: Mr. Svilanović, in addition to the many other dilemmas we have these days, one is the new Serbian Constitution. In the context of our topic today, namely the Kosovo negotiations, do you think that the constitution can be finished without knowing the results of the negotaitions?

Svilanović: Well, I can say I met privately with Dragor Hiber, who is on behalf of the DS leading….

B92: Who is the commission member, yes.

Svilanović: …these discussions, and we talked about the constitution, and then I met very officially, but in a different context, Minister Lončar, who is doing the same tbut on behalf of the DSS. And I should not discuss these talks, and I will not repeat what was said, but they were encouraging. I fall into the circle of those who…

B92: What did they tell you?

Svilanović: ...think that it would be very good for Serbia to adopt this constitution, and I would like to see this new constitution as a precursor to elections, because it is obvious that after adopting a new constitution, we could call the elections. My impression is that they are doing this without making it public so that they can finish the job in peace. As I understood it, a lot has been harmonized, there are some issues that have not been agreed upon with the Radicals. I am rooting for the constitution, if that is possible, to be unanimously adopted by the Parliament, but I do not know if this is possible. I know that there are several details, the way in which presidents are elected, and some others, which the Radicals see differently. But, since this is a legal procedure, the adopting of the constitution is done this way, and I think it is important for the Parliament to either unanimously, or with a three-quarter vote, adopt the constitution with a large majority, in order to encourage citizens to genuinely confirm at a subsequent referendum.

B92: But, how will they define a part of the territory which Serbia…

Svilanović: If you are referring to Kosovo, what I’ve been telling my colleagues from abroad is: “Let Serbia write what Serbia wants about Kosovo,” and I really think that. Firstly, this is actually…

B92: Meaning, It won’t matter anyway, or…?

Svilanović: Precisely. That is important for us anyway, so let us think about Kosovo what we want to think. The final decision, the status, whether in three months, in six, in a year, this is a simply another reality, but in every moment, should we be capable of adopt a new constitution, we should be assisted in adopting it. Of course there will be references regarding Kosovo, and I think the reference will be the one that is currently found in the constitutional charter of the former federal union, and something similar will be found here. But, using what influence I have, I tell people abroad: “Let is write what we want about Kosovo. What does that have to do with reality? But if otherwise this constitution can be the Serbian Constitution, do not take away your support, support a democratic Serbia, support Serbia to adopt this constitution.”

B92: And what does that sound like to them? What do they tell you?

Svilanović: Well, they are not against it, let me tell you, I don’t think there will be much resistance. At this moment, if Serbia decided in the Parliament to adopt a constitution and it contains a reference to Kosovo, even if that reference will in several months be completely different in relation to the eventual agreement, or, if there is no agreement, then it will be different compared to the other solution made by  the Contact Group or the Security Council, even if there are differences, that is a topic that will be solved at a later time, in a couple of years. It will be solved, it will be a topic, it is not a topic that can disappear, but at this moment Serbia should be allowed to adopt a constitution in a way which it sees fit.

B92: For the past couple of weeks we have been dealing with the verbal conflict between Belgrade’s negotiating team and Martti Ahtisaari, over Martti Ahtisaari’s comments. Then there was a response from our negotiators, then another Ahtisaari’s comment, etc. In your opinion, what are the effects of all this?

Svilanović: I don’t know, your question is in my mind the central question. Not what he said, what it means, but what the Government, through the Prime Minister’s statements and the statements of the key people within the negotiation team, practically after that you have the president’s statement, there are statements from all the relevant politicians in the country, who have entered into an argument with Ahtisaari, and if I understood the prime minister correctly, they promised to launch a diplomatic offensive and present Serbia’s stance to a wide circle of international community officials, firstly the Contact Group, and once you enter into such a collision, it’s nothing strange. These [Kosovo status] discussions evoke emotions from various sides, and we should not be surprised by these kinds of incidents. The question remains the same, what are the results? As far as I can tell, there are no results abroad, so in a way this conflict has returned to Serbia. There is a high level of tension in Serbia, a polarization of the political scene, but nothing more than that. As far as I understand, outside of Serbia, in the member countries of the Contact Group, there have been no reactions to Serbia’s demurs.

B92: Have there been negative results?

Svilanović: No, but if you saw the statement after the meeting between Minister Dinkić and Javier Solana, the last part of the statement reiterates support for Ahtisaari. So, we will simply enter a cycle where every one of our international colleagues will show support for Ahtisaari, it is obvious that this position has not been shaken, not at this moment anyway. Whether we can expect something in the long-term from his behavior and the way in which he conducts the talks, I can’t tell. This isyou’re your question about the possible negative effects is well-founded. Well, negative effects can stay within the negotiating team. I don’t known Ahtisaari well enough to see how he understands this wave of attacks that have been perpetuated in the Serbian media, but I think that he has been on the political scene long enough not to allow himself to react emotionally. So, I expect that there will not be any negative effects outside of Serbia, so this great ‘diplomatic offensive’ should be looked at by Serbia and the Serbian people as an opportunity to find out about the responsibility for what has happened in the past 15 to 20 years, whether there is such a thing as the guilt of an entire nation, this remains a debate on our political scene which will not be very important outside, and my impression was that the ambitions were a lot greater.

B92: This statement regarding the guilt of a nation, which has made one side in the negotiating process unhappy, was said behind closed doors to one member of the negotiating team. Would the talks’ results be greater if this was solved behind closed doors, through diplomatic discussions, if this campaign was not sparked, creating a negative tension between the international negotiators and the Belgrade team, and the tension within the country itself?

Svilanović: Firstly, I think this campaign speaks about the great tension in the relations between our negotiators and Ahtisaari and Rohan on the other side. Are these tensions a result of real, essential differences in their points of view? Are these tensions a result of some injustices that our negotiators feeling indignant about? Are these tensions a result of the fact that our negotiators feel negative about the discussions in general because they are afraid that the end result will be bad? I cannot know this, but it is obvious that this tension exists. I will remind you that, when Ahtisaari was appointed, Sanda Rašković-Ivić was very much against it, and that was at a time when his appointment was a done deal, and it was not clear to me what kind of sense it made to create animosity, but alright, this is clearly the way it is, the relations are not great.

Your question remains – Could this have been handled differently, more discretely, could they have gone directly to the Contact Group without letting all hell break loose in the media? Or, should a statement that was made in a private discussion be relayed to our public and should there be immediate reactions, or should Ahtisaari be approached without causing a public commotion in Serbia? I don’t know. There are situations that cannot be handled discretely. My impression is that our negotiators probably thought that a discrete reaction would not yield any results, and that is why they went public. But, as we just mentioned, bottom line seems to be, they went public with this, and it did not have much effect outside the borders of Serbia. I’m not sure they wanted to create such a polemic within the Serbian public opinion.

B92:  How much does this opinion that Serbs are to blame, this, as we call it, prejudice which exists in the minds of international negotiators, not just in the Kosovo talks, exists generally when thinking about Serbia?

Svilanović: Prejudices exist, you can be sure of that…

B92: How much do they take into consideration the fact that the prime minister is always trying to stress that “this is a democratic government which…?”

Svilanović: I know, but many more different ways to demonstrate we are a democratic state, which was his statement at the UN, or that we have a democratic government, which is his statement in this instance. Prejudices exist,  I wish to say that first and foremost, and you can be sure of that. Prejudices exist against the Serbian people, just as prejudices existed against other nations in various periods of history. In addition to prejudices, serious sanctions exist. I would like to remind you that for decades Japan was not allowed have a military, and Germany was divided in two. I don’t wish, and I hope no one takes this the wrong way, to compare Serbia, the Serbian people in the last 20 years of our history, the collapse of Yugoslavia, with the Second World War, no. But I wish to say that there were cases in history where, with or without reason…Probably there are people now, in Germany or Austria, who would say if you asked them, that was unjustified, or, that is not how it should have been, etc.

But such sanctions against nations existed, apartheid in South Africa, the whole country was under sanctions for years, etc. So, without making any comparisons, I just wish to say it is obvious that in a great part of the international public, there is a negative opinion about the Serbian people, and we should be aware of that. And I am not sure that public opinion is changing as a result of these campaigns. And now, you are going to attack the Finnish people, against Ahtisaari as a Finn, to insult them in the tabloids, I don’t see this as having any positive results. There are ways for Serbia to improve its image, but this will take time and a will to do so and a lot of political bravery. Specifically, Đinđić’s cabinet decision to cooperate with the Hague Tribunal was such a gesture. His decision to, against the will of the majority, arrest and extradite Milošević, against the will of the president, his key partner at that moment who proclaimed that this was in breach of laws, in fact did something that would change the Serbian image, that of Serbia and its government as a democratic government.

It’s too bad that several years ago, no one was aware of this, least of all the political scene, which we call the democratic Serbia, how important it was for Serbia to decide to cooperate with the Hague court, the importance of that, because that was one of the ways in which Serbia could be accepted as a democratic state which has recovered from the shock caused by the years of Milošević’s rule, which recovered from the shock caused by the collapse of the former Yugoslavia and all the things that happened in this process, and is ready to clean up its act. That still doesn’t mean that anyone is admitting to being guilty, it means that people are prepared to come to terms with a number of specific facts. Vukovar, to find out who is responsible. Srebrenica, to see who is actually responsible. Actual crimes, of which there were thousands, need to be solved. If there were a united resolve to act in this way towards the Hague Tribunal, maybe this image of Serbia would change more quickly. And now that is my message, I am under the impression that this was the case when Minister Dinkić was recently in Brussels, they awerere getting the same message from everyone. But this is being presented to our public in a different way.

B92: How realistic is his optimism regarding Serbia’s the status of a candidate country?

Svilanović: I wish to say that I strongly support the energy he is investing in making any kind of progress in this issue.

B92: Otherwise, we will have to leave the Government, in order to fulfil his promise.

Svilanović: No, I do not wish to put it in this kind of daily-political context. I support and respect people who put their political energy into one political idea and fight to realize it, and these goals I think are important, economic reforms, the banking sector, etc. But this was a fiasco, or let’s be more sensitive, it was a cold shower. Every discussion in Brussels, as far as I know, and that is evident from his statements, which are in fact as fair as possible, openly spells out he had received a clear message, and that is that Mladić and full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal is the condition for Serbia to take any serious steps regarding the question of the EU and the question of NATO, and that’s that. Whether this is justified, or good, that is a topic we can discuss and argue as much as we like, but the situation is what it is, and I think that Minister Dinkić had to be aware of this before going to Brussels. I tried to check, to see how these discussions resounded, and from everything I learned, it was a unified and unanimous message from Solana and other officials. Full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal is the condition for all of your ambitions. Whether they are your personal ambitions or the ambitions of your party or government, it’s all the same, whether it is the ambition of your people or your nation, these are the  condition ahead of you. You cannot convince international officials with photocopying papers and reports.

There are several people who have been indicted and have not been arrested - Tolimir, Hadžić, Mladić, etc, so it is not just one person. Of course, Mladić is of utmost importance for the entire international community, because he is believed to be responsible for Srebrenica, and that is clear. But if nothing happens, that fact that someone is collecting papers and saying – “Here, we have a report”, I’m afraid this won’t help our case significantly. So, the message he received is very clear, and I’m sure he will pass it on to his colleagues in the Government. I don’t doubt that the prime minister and a good portion of the cabinet seriously wish to do something about Mladić, because the Government finds itself in a tough position. If you look at the nation, you cannot compare the situation in Serbia with any country in the region. You know, I can be pro or against the Government, that is my personal choice, but objectively this Government until several months ago had to have on the top of its list of priorities, not because it wanted to, but because that was the realistic situation, Montenegro, as number one, number two - Kosovo, number three, Mladić, number four, the Bosnian genocide suit, number five, the constitution. I already said that number five should be the Government’s priority, not because it wants or must do all of this at once, and I did not even mention the economy, nor the EU, and its position cannot be compared to any other government in our region.

Of all these things, Montenegro has gone its own way, but the other topics remain, and must be taken care of. The discussion regarding Kosovo must continue, and the search for Mladić and other indictees must intensify in order to demonstrate  this is the Government’s serious commitment. Only then can we expect Minister Dinkić and an entire set of other people’s actions to actually yield results, which means that the Association and Stabilization agreement  discussions will continue, and that the agreement will be signed at long last. This would drastically change the situation in the country.

B92:  What answer do you expect Tadić to receive regarding Kosovo during his visit to the US?

Svilanović: I think that President Tadić gave a very realistic statement, I read it today and he said: “Yes, there are differences between our position and that of the United States of America regarding Kosovo, but we cannot allow these differences to disrupt our cooperation in an entire set of other questions and other areas.” The things happening at the Defense Ministry and other concrete things that are happening remain in the shadows, in fact these are the things that are helping the most to open the doors for Tadić’s current visit to the US, which is the signing of the SOFA Agreement, and before that, the visit and cooperation of our pilots, and earlier, agreements defining land security and communication lines. So many things are going on with a relative restraint shown by the media, perhaps that is for the best since it is making the Defense Ministry people’s jobs easier.

It is however obvious that at this moment, the best line of communication between us and the US is the military cooperation, and I think we need to use that channel as much as we can. The possibilities are limited, do not think that big things are possible, but the fact that several officers go on international missions is good, it demonstrates that the country is prepared to be positioned somewhere, and be defined as a true ally, which at this time means the US, the EU and a other member countries of the Security Council. This balanced approach is something that needs to be continued. What else can President Tadić do over there? Firstly, this is his third visit, if I am not mistaken, and I think this visit will be on a higher level than the last two, which is good, I am satisfied that the level of discussions is raised, at least according to announcements. But, on the other hand, as far as I know, there will be a lot of our internal political questions on the agenda, which is not the best situation, but it is our reality.

B92: Thank you for being our guest on Kažiprst.