VZCZCXRO5738
OO RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHPS #0280/01 0881344
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 291344Z MAR 06
FM USOFFICE PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5961
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0626
RHMFISS/CDR USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
RHFMISS/AFSOUTH NAPLES IT
RHMFISS/CDR TF FALCON
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RUEPGEA/CDR650THMIGP SHAPE BE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
RUFOANA/USNIC PRISTINA SR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000280 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE, AND EUR/SSA, NSC FOR BRAUN, 
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/29/2016 
TAGS: PGOV KJUS KCRM EAID KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: SLOW GOING ON TRANSFER OF LAW ENFORCEMENT 
RESPONSIBILITY 
 
REF: A. 05 PRISTINA 1150 
     ¶B. PRISTINA 64 
     ¶C. STATE 42864 
 
Classified By: COM PHILIP S. GOLDBERG FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D). 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY: As evidenced by the fourth meeting of the 
stakeholders, UNMIK is in no hurry to transfer competency to 
the Kosovo government for law enforcement and the European 
Union is even less anxious to assume UNMIK's oversight role. 
Since the meeting, the PISG has named ministers of internal 
affairs and justice in the new government of Prime Minister 
Agim Ceku, but the EU is still asleep at the transfer switch, 
even as UNMIK prepares to depart.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (SBU) UNMIK held the fourth meeting of the Working Group 
on Future Arrangements for Rule of Law in Pristina on 
February 22.  Members of a visiting EU fact-finding mission 
took part.  UNMIK Department of Civil Administration head 
(and now acting PDSRSG) Nell Waring discussed UNMIK's recent 
signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the OSCE on 
field presence pursuant to which UNMIK will withdraw 
technical staff from seven major municipalities and the OSCE 
will backfill the positions with generalists who will adopt 
monitoring roles in place  of the more operational roles 
played by their UNMIK predecessors.  Anil Vasisht, head of 
UNMIK's Municipal Coordination Support Unit, warned that 
under UNSCR 1244 the OSCE does not have a mandate to take an 
active role in the municipalities and that post-status, its 
role could be even more circumscribed. 
 
UNMIK'S INTERIM REVIEW OF NEW MINISTRIES DELAYED 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶3. (SBU) UNMIK's Senior Advisor for Police and Justice Nick 
Booth said that the first interim review to determine if the 
new ministries of internal affairs and justice established by 
an UNMIK decree on December 20, 2005 are being set up 
properly will occur in April.  He added that the permanent 
secretaries assigned to the new ministries brought over a 
 
SIPDIS 
limited number of staff, but that none has gotten onto the 
payroll without competition and proper vetting.  A 
representative from the visiting EU delegation said that the 
EU was sending two individuals with previous experience in 
Kosovo to monitor the early stages of formation of the 
ministries. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Head of the COE office in Pristina, Zurab 
Katchkatchishvili, offered to arrange a study visit for 
representatives of new ministries to see how the COE works. 
He argued that COE standards on prisons and police should 
guide any transfer of oversight responsibility from UNMIK to 
the EU. 
 
UNMIK SPELLS OUT WHAT EU NEEDS TO DO ON POLICE 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶5. (SBU) Don Evans, the head of UNMIK's Transitional 
Monitoring Unit, reported that there are 500 international 
police officers in the monitoring unit that assesses the 
activities, actions and behavior of the KPS and its officers 
throughout Kosovo.  Evans suggested that prior to the 
transfer of policing to the new Ministry of Internal Affairs 
the number of monitors should be increased to 830 and that EU 
standards for policing should already be in place at the time 
of the transfer.  Steve Bennett, the AmCit head of the 
OSCE-run Kosovo Police Service School, noted that although 
200 Kosovars on staff there have been transferred to the 
Kosovo Consolidated Budget (KCB), the Ministry of Public 
Services has informed the school that since it is not yet a 
part of a ministry, these transferred staff cannot be paid 
out of the KCB. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Deputy Police Commissioner Hutchings said that there 
are 5,000 Kosovo Police Service (KPS) officers in the field 
and four special protection units (SPU), although he noted 
that the Pakistani SPU team will depart in May.  Hutchings 
 
PRISTINA 00000280  002 OF 003 
 
 
suggested that the EU will have to provide its own SPU 
capacity or an EU police rapid response unit.  Rapid response 
units from the KPS have been used for crowd control for the 
past six months, but SPU elements are still responsible for 
prisoner escorts, a capability the KPS is not yet politically 
ready for, according to Hutchings.  He also wondered if the 
EU would be able to take over this function by the projected 
January 2007 transfer of responsibility for the police from 
UNMIK to the EU.  Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) duties 
currently handled by Team 6 internationals will eventually be 
transferred to a KPS SWAT team which will begin training soon 
but lacks necessary equipment.  Hutchings noted that there is 
a large number of minorities in the current class at the KPS 
school in Vustrii, and that the KPS has sent 14 minority 
policemen back to their home villages.  The officers work as 
safety officers in village police substations, most of which 
lack a constant supply of electricity. 
 
UNMIK DOJ WILL INVIGORATE TRANSITION OF JUSTICE SECTOR 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) The new director of UNMIK's Department of Justice, 
Al Moskowitz, noted that UNMIK has not yet transferred its 
criminal division (including oversight of prosecutors and 
judges) to the PISG.  He admitted UNMIK DOJ has not 
energetically engaged with the Kosovo government on this 
issue in the past.  A representative from the visiting EU 
delegation shared Moskowitz' assessment that progress on the 
transfer of competencies relating to criminal justice and the 
courts to the PISG has been slow and suggested that it needs 
to speed up.  The EU representative added that although UNMIK 
is pulling back its field staff, the OSCE already has a 
mandate to monitor the justice system in Kosovo in terms of 
its compliance with domestic law and international human 
rights standards and to recommend sustainable solutions to 
ensure that these standards are met. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Edward Tawil from UNMIK's Office of the Deputy SRSG 
for Police and Justice said that UNMIK needs to open more 
court liaison offices and to hold special court open-house 
days in certain minority enclaves.  He urged the EU 
delegation to be mindful of the high level of intolerance and 
discrimination against non-Albanian minorities in general, 
and against ethnic Serbs in particular. 
 
BORDER CONTROL AND CUSTOMS PREPARE TO TRANSITION 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶9. (SBU) Several UNMIK representatives noted that 
transitioning of border control lags behind other law 
enforcement competencies because under UNSCR 1244 UNMIK 
cannot give it to the Kosovo government prior to the 
completion of status talks.  Border and Boundary Police head 
Aleksandr Yeliseyev said that pre-transition planning is 
currently underway.  He estimates that based on a German 
standard of 1.5 officers per kilometer, Kosovo will need 
1,700 border police officers.  He added that this year the 
number of officers in the field will reach 1,400.  Work 
continues on a mounted patrol for the border with Macedonia 
currently patrolled by KFOR.  Another representative from the 
border police lamented a lack of a legal basis or visa regime 
for denying entrance to Kosovo in addition to existing 
manpower and equipment shortages.  Deputy Commissioner for 
Police Operations Hutchings stated that Kosovo is becoming a 
safe-haven for criminals, especially from Serbia and 
Montenegro.  He also noted that PISCES system donated by the 
USG does not give enough information on the passport-holder 
and is not being used by EU-member countries. 
 
¶10. (C) Like border control, customs operations continues to 
be a competency reserved to UNMIK.  Customs receipts make up 
75 percent of the Kosovo Consolidated Budget (KCB); in turn 
the customs service's 574 officers are paid out of the KCB. 
Customs chief Paul Acda complained of political interference 
in VAT collection at point of sale, singling out officials 
from the government's senior coalition partner, the 
Democratic League of Kosovo.  He said that unlike the norm in 
 
PRISTINA 00000280  003 OF 003 
 
 
Europe where point-of-sale VAT should be two to three times 
greater than what is collected in customs at the border, in 
2005 Kosovo customs collected 196 million euro while only 30 
million euro in VAT was collected at points of sale.  Acda 
also pointed out that Kosovo has become a transshipment point 
for branded IPR-violating clothing from China which arrives 
at Pristina's airport on a monthly flight via Kazakhstan.  Of 
the 6,500 tons of clothing delivered every month, Acda 
believes 2,500 are sold locally and the rest transshipped 
onward to points in Europe.  When questioned by the EU 
delegation on the customs services' capacity to investigate 
smuggling, Acda responded that although customs has 26 
German-trained investigators, there are few prosecutions 
since few local prosecutors understand the complexity of 
customs violations. 
 
¶11. (C) At the February 24 QUINT justice sector meeting in 
Rome, UNMIK expressed a strong interest in the rapid 
transition of justice and police to the PISG.  While UNMIK 
clearly wishes to get out, the Europeans (particularly Italy 
and France) emphasized in Rome they would push for heavy EU 
involvement in justice and police, believing that leaving 
control over these institutions to the Kosovars would result 
in increased organized crime which would adversely affect 
Europe.  For all their talk at the Rome meeting, the 
Europeans have yet to take action on the ground in Kosovo 
(other than sending in two advisors to the new fledgling 
ministries of internal affairs and justice) to define their 
post-UNMIK role in these sectors.  END COMMENT. 
 
¶12. (U) This cable is cleared in its entirety for release to 
UN Special Envoy Ahtisaari. 
GOLDBERG