Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

25 March 2004

BALKANS

• According to AFP, the Serbian government is pursuing new strategies to protect ethnic Serbs from Albanian violence in Kosovo. Serbian Prime Minister Kostunica reportedly presented his vision for “decentralization” and “territorial autonomy” for Serb areas during talks with top EU officials this week, stressing nevertheless that his proposal had no bearing on the final status of the UN-administered province: “I explained the idea of decentralization, that is a word that I am using, which is some sort of extra additional protection of the Serbian and non-Albanian population in Kosovo.” Serbia-Montenegro President Marovic was reported saying this idea of decentralization respects the reality, since Kosovo was already divided into Serbs and Albanian areas despite international efforts to encourage multi-culturalism over almost five years. But the idea, comments the news agency, has been dismissed by ethnic Albanians who want the whole province for themselves. Another AFP dispatch, March 24, reported KFOR’s spokesman Moran saying NATO commanders in Kosovo have been authorized by General Kammerhoff, the overall commander of NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo, to impose local curfews to prevent further violence between ethnic Albanians and Serbs.

BALTIC STATES-AIR PROTECTION

• Defense minister Ivanov said Russia will confront NATO Secretary de Hoop Scheffer at upcoming talks in Moscow over the Alliance’s plans to station warplanes in the ex-Soviet Baltic republics which will soon join NATO, wrote AFP, March 24. The report cited a NATO senior official in Brussels stating that Russia has been kept fully informed of what NATO’s intentions are, namely a “low-level deployment to give all NATO nations air protection.” The dispatch observed also that Mr. Ivanov repeated warnings that Russia reserved the right to take retaliatory steps to protect its security, saying: “We are following this situation closely and if these actions violate the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, we will have the right to take measures in the interest of our own security.” In a related report the news agency, stressing the Russian irritation for the upcoming NATO enlargement with the new seven countries, argues that Russia is specifically opposed to NATO plans to station warplanes and air defense in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, and Slovenia, which have no such defenses of their own. The report concentrated also on the importance of the next accession depicting it as a milestone for NATO, reporting its Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer as saying: “This will be a huge step towards a long-standing objective of the Alliance: a Europe without dividing lines. A Europe not only free of war, but also free from fear.”

WAR ON TERRORISM

• Police, security and intelligence agencies in Europe will have authority to hold and exchange data on individuals, and detain them, under a draft declaration on combating terrorism to be agreed by EU leaders meeting in Brussels today, writes The Guardian. New proposals purportedly include a European register on convictions and disqualifications, a database on forensic material and undefined measures “simplifying the exchange of information and intelligence between law enforcement authorities of the member states.” Other proposals, continues the newspaper, include the setting up of a common visa information system, and measures to make it easier to exchange personal data, kept on different electronic systems.

IRAQ

• According to the New York Times Ambassador Paul Bremer III, faced with a top Shiite cleric’s demands for majority rule that would dilute Sunni and Kurdish rights in an independent Iraq, during a ceremony Wednesday for the 100-day countdown to the return of sovereignty to Iraq, said: “Democracy entails not just majority rule, but protection of minority rights … For Iraq to regain its prosperity and strength it must remain united, and that unity requires that the interests of all Iraqis be accommodated. In a country as broad and diverse as Iraq it is not possible for every interest to have all it wants.” The paper observes that he made no mention of the cleric he was indirectly addressing, Grand Ayatollah Sistani, who has issued a number of political demands on behalf of the country’s Shiite majority. Meanwhile, The Independent reports that Prime Minister Blair had to accept that Spain’s incoming Prime Minister Zapatero would honor his general election pledge to pull troops out of Iraq whatever happened in the country before the planned handover of power to Iraqi interim government on 30 June.