VZCZCXRO3379
OO RUEHAG RUEHDA RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHLN RUEHLZ
RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHPS #0302/01 0951714
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 051714Z APR 06
FM USOFFICE PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5995
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0639
RHMFISS/CDR USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
RHFMIUU/AFSOUTH NAPLES IT
RHMFIUU/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

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000302 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE, AND EUR/SSA, NSC FOR BRAUN, 
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: NEW KOSOVO GOVERNMENT PUSHES STANDARDS 
IMPLEMENTATION 
 
REF: PRISTINA 299 
 
Sensitive but unclassified.  Please protect accordingly. 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY:  New Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku has 
produced a 91 item "to do" list for the next three months on 
standards implementation.  UNMIK's Office of the Strategy 
Coordinator has drafted a complementary list of 25 
standards-related action items and tasked the Provisional 
Institutions of Self Government (PISG) with ensuring 
compliance in time for UNMIK's next technical assessment of 
standards implementation.  Completion of all taskers on both 
lists would significantly advance standards implementation, 
primarily by clearing up old business on which progress had 
stalled somewhat before the last technical assessment in 
December 2005.  Ceku's challenge is not to reinvent the 
standards working group process but to re-invigorate it in 
time to avoid a second consecutive lackluster UNMIK report to 
the United Nations Security Council.  To meet this challenge, 
Ceku and the PISG must go beyond the box checking and inspire 
real progress on the ground.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Fearful that a second consecutive lukewarm report on 
Kosovo by UNMIK to the UNSC would negatively affect ongoing 
talks on Kosovo's final political status, new Prime Minister 
Agim Ceku is attempting to re-invigorate efforts to 
implementation of the "Standards for Kosovo," UNMIK's 
blueprint for democratic institution building in Kosovo. 
(NOTE. UNMIK produced an internal "technical assessment of 
standards implementation" in December 2005 and submitted a 
report on Kosovo to the UNSC in January 2006.  The 
assessments and reports are generally completed quarterly. 
END NOTE.)  Ceku has set out to ensure positive reviews by 
making standards implementation a priority of his government. 
 On March 17, barely a week in office, Ceku produced a 91 
item action list covering all eight standards:  functioning 
democratic institutions, rule of law, freedom of movement, 
sustainable returns, the economy, property rights, cultural 
heritage and dialogue with Belgrade. 
 
¶3. (SBU) The Ceku proposal contains commitments on several 
long-awaited items that, if realized, would demonstrate 
progress by the PISG towards creating a Kosovo in which 
minority communities could reasonably chose to remain.  These 
include passage of new laws on the use of minority languages 
(already vetted by the OSCE and Council of Europe) and on 
cultural heritage (more problematic, since it contemplates 
explicit protections for Serbian Orthodox religious and 
patrimonial sites).  In the area of rule of law, the PM's 
plan requests that UNMIK Pillar I (law and order) conclude 
investigations regarding the March 2004 riots and initiate 
prosecutions in remaining cases as warranted.  (NOTE: UNMIK 
reports that there are 98 outstanding investigations relating 
to the March 2004 riots and 71 other cases awaiting trial. 
UNMIK's international prosecutors and judges are responsible 
for these, so the PISG rightly attributes any lack of 
progress by UNMIK in this area.  END NOTE.).  The Ceku action 
plan also calls for an increase in the number of police 
sub-stations and court liaison offices in minority or other 
under-served areas. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Although the Ceku plan calls for the ministry of 
local government to endorse protocols on the return of 
displaced persons with Macedonia and Montenegro, it does not 
address returns from Serbia, where most of Kosovo's displaced 
live, or mention that a protocol with Serbia has been stalled 
for more than a year over whether to encourage return by 
Kosovo Serbs to other than their places of origin.  (NOTE: 
Pristina is convinced that Belgrade wants to engineer returns 
to Serb enclaves which would then join Serbia in some sort of 
post-status "anschluss."  UNHCR and UNMIK have only recently 
begun to consider assisting returns to settle in Kosovo 
outside their places of origin.  END NOTE.)  Regarding 
freedom of movement, the plan requests quick action on 
multi-language signage and municipal websites and setting up 
translation units in those municipalities that have not yet 
 
PRISTINA 00000302  002 OF 003 
 
 
gotten around to it.  The plan also calls for the 
establishment of Serbian language primary and secondary 
schools in Pristina -- a largely symbolic gesture since there 
are virtually no school-age Serbs left in Pristina. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Perhaps the plan's strongest point is its call for 
operationalizing the Kosovo Property Agency (KPA) to, among 
other things, implementing a rental scheme for residential 
properties (reftel) owned by displaced persons (usually 
Serbs) and occupied by other displaced persons (usually 
Albanians).  (COMMENT: Implementing a rental scheme would, in 
our view, be a sea change in Kosovo both for the rule of law 
and IDP rights.  The mainly ethnic Albanian squatters will 
certainly disagree with having to pay market rents for 
premises which, in most cases, they have no right to possess 
permanently.  END NOTE.). 
 
UNMIK TO PISG: "HELP US THROUGH THE NEXT FEW MONTHS" 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) UNMIK's one-page remedial plan, given to the PISG on 
March 27, provides a shorter (and overlapping and 
complementary) "to do" list of things UNMIK evidently feels 
the new Kosovo government should be able to achieve over the 
next 30 days.  Entitled "Six Headlines to Achieve for the 
Next Technical Assessment," the plan calls for progress in 
the areas of the use of the Serbian language, completing 
reconstruction of property damaged in the March 2004 riots, 
establishment of the ministries of internal affairs and 
justice, minority transport, the fight against corruption, 
and the establishment of the KPA.  The items, many of them 
already realized in whole or in part, provide a low bar for 
the PISG for achieving a passing technical assessment grade 
and, consequently, a favorable UNMIK report to the UNSC. 
(NOTE: Bryan Hopkinson, deputy political director at UNMIK, 
tells us that the next formal UNMIK report to the UNSC is due 
on May 15 and that the technical assessment is expected in 
New York 30 days prior to that.  If the date of the UNSC 
report slips to early June, as UNMIK and UNOSEK are 
proposing, then the date of the technical assessment would 
change accordingly.  END NOTE).  The Serbian language 
provision in UNMIK's plan is fully compatible with the 
corresponding provision in the PISG action plan and calls for 
more and improved Serbian language translation units in 
several municipalities.  A minority transport item calls upon 
the PISG to take over UNMIK's management of both the 
no-charge bus service in ethnic Serb areas and the so-called 
"Freedom Train" connecting Serb areas immediately south of 
the Ibar to the northern municipalities.  UNMIK also supports 
a quick start for the KPA, an idea that already has 
significant international support. 
 
¶7. (SBU) COMMENT: Rather than remain the box-checking 
exercise it had become, standards implementation needed to be 
re-energized, and the PM and UNMIK have together tried to 
achieve that.  Ceku has asked that every Standards Working 
Group meeting begin with a report on progress towards 
completion of his 91-item list.  During its April 6-7 visit 
to Kosovo, the Contact Group should insist the Ceku 
government make good on its plan for quick passage and 
implementation of laws on the use of language and the 
protection of cultural heritage.  The PISG should rely on 
international experts from the OSCE and COE to review these 
and any other new laws to ensure they meet international 
standards and set Kosovo on the path towards European 
integration.  In addition to setting up the new ministries of 
internal affairs and justice with sufficient numbers of 
ethnic Serb employees and increased numbers of police 
substations, the Contact Group should demand Ceku institute 
through these new ministries a "zero tolerance" policy on 
inter-ethnic violence.  The Contact Group should ask the 
Kosovo government to focus its energy and resources on 
sustainable returns even if it requires rethinking its views 
on return to other than place of origin.  Lastly the Ministry 
of Local Government Administration should become a watchdog 
over corrupt municipalities by insuring transparency in 
 
PRISTINA 00000302  003 OF 003 
 
 
fiscal matters at the local level.  END COMMENT. 
 
¶8. (U) This cable is cleared for sharing with UN Special 
Envoy Ahtisaari. 
GOLDBERG