VZCZCXRO3780
PP RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA
RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHPS #0163/01 0611658
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 021658Z MAR 07 ZDK
FM USOFFICE PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7103
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 1069
RHMFISS/CDR USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
RHFMIUU/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

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000163 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR DRL, INL, AND EUR/SCE, NSC FOR BRAUN, USUN FOR 
DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER 
 
C O R R E C T E D  C O P Y (SUBJECT CHANGE) 
 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PREF EAID KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: UPDATE ON KOSOVO PRIORITY STANDARDS 
 
 
PRISTINA 00000163  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED, PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY:  Kosovo's Provisional Institutions of 
Self-Government (PISG) are finding it difficult to close the 
book on the remaining Contact Group (CG) Priorities for 
Standards.  We believe all CG offices here would agree that 
at least nine of the 13 Priorities are complete and that the 
only thing keeping us from ten is the failure of the PISG to 
reconstruct or compensate owners for the estimated 24 
commercial properties damaged during the March 2004 violence. 
 We at USOP also part ways with the Russian office here, 
believing that PISG assistance to UNMIK on prosecutions from 
the March 2004 violence has been completed, bringing our 
tally to ten.  More needs to be done on the two Priorities 
relating to the property rental scheme and enforcement of 
housing ownership decisions.  PM Ceku's principal adviser has 
promised to finish up on commercial property damaged in March 
2004 by the end of March, at which time we also expect 
completion of the appeals process for the 672 property claims 
currently outstanding.  END SUMMARY. 
 
Dispute over which standards have been completed 
 
¶2. (SBU) On January 26 PM Agim Ceku convened local Contact 
Group representatives and announced that from the 
government's point of view, the 13 priorities for Standards 
implementation are complete.  In its draft Technical 
Assessment, UNMIK proposed defending the government's claim 
"considering that points 3 (rental scheme) and 4 
(implementation of Kosovo Property Agency decisions) fall 
under the Kosovo Property Agency and police, neither of which 
are under government control."  It added that regarding 
points 7 (investigations of and prosecutions for March 2004 
violence), "it is difficult to envisage under what 
circumstances the March 2004  investigations can ever be 
declared complete, since the possibility of new evidence and 
new prosecutions will always be present."  We convinced UNMIK 
to delete this language, none of which was contained in the 
Technical Assessment delivered in New York. 
 
¶3. (SBU) We believe that three of the 13 priorities are still 
outstanding; the British office here in Pristina is of the 
view that only two are outstanding, and the Russian office is 
holding firm on four.  The other Contact Group liaison 
offices have never expressed opinions on the matter, but we 
believe they too would agree that there are three 
outstanding. 
 
PISG finally agrees to deal with commercial properties 
 
¶4. (SBU) After our January 19, 2007 trip to Svinjare, all of 
the CG representatives agreed that reconstruction is finished 
at Svinjare, a Kosovo Serb area heavily damaged during the 
March 2004 violence.  However, no one -- including Kosovo's 
Provisional Institutions of Self Government (PISG) -- has 
focused on the other half of that priority, repair of or 
compensation for 24 commercial properties throughout Kosovo 
also damaged in March 2004.  UNMIK essentially has checked 
off this standard in its Technical Assessment out of fear 
that any reconstruction that is not occupied will be 
vandalized, but PM Ceku's advisor Avni Arifi told us they 
have simply run out of money because of cost overruns related 
to the work in Svinjare.  The British and Russian offices 
share our view that this Priority is only partially completed 
and the Kosovo government needs to do more on the commercial 
property aspect.  An international who performed an 
assessment of the commercial properties in 2005 confirmed 
that there are up to 24 properties, but that most of the 
larger ones in Fushe Kosova/Kosovo Polje have already been 
rebuilt.  He said that an UNMIK estimate of 10,000 euros per 
property is high.  With prodding from us, PM adviser Arifi 
told us recently that in the near future the PISG would set 
up a Commission or some other vehicle to determine damages, 
with the government then putting that amount of money in 
escrow. 
 
Priorities relating to property still a problem 
 
PRISTINA 00000163  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
 
¶5. (SBU) According to UNMIK's latest assessment, the Kosovo 
Property Agency (KPA) has extended the rental scheme to all 
of the 5,247 residential properties currently under its 
administration.  The head of KPA informed us that as of March 
1, 2007 it has contacted 2,182 of the 3,500 known property 
rights holders and 1,627 of them have consented to have their 
property included into the scheme.  Forty nine occupants are 
paying rent and 26,001 euros have been collected, of which 
19,000 have already been sent by KPA to the property owners. 
The first 12 evictions of occupiers who declined to pay rent 
were also carried out in January, after which the KPA 
initiated an outreach campaign to identify tenants for these 
properties.  We do not believe that, with less than one 
percent level of participation, this Priority can be 
considered implemented.  The Russian office agrees with us, 
but the British office does give the PISG the nod for setting 
up the rental scheme, although its representative notes this 
could change if more people currently occupying properties 
owned by others do not begin to pay rent. 
 
¶6. (SBU) According to the KPA's latest figures, there are 
still 672 decisions by its predecessor, the Housing Property 
Directorate, that remain on appeal and must then be 
implemented.  KPA head Knut Rosandhaug stated at the March 1 
meeting of the Property Rights Standards working group that 
the Housing and Property Claims Commission (HPCC) will render 
decisions on these appeals when it meets the third week in 
March 2007.  None of the liaison offices here count this 
Priority as being completed despite the fact that it is the 
HPCC -- not the PISG -- that is holding things up.  The KPA 
is generally satisfied with the cooperation it is receiving 
from the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) in carrying out 
evictions and preventing re-occupations.  After we raised 
with UNMIK officials in December 2006 the failure of UNMIK 
CivPol to implement Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) 
developed in August 2006 for the KPS to use to deter and 
remedy re-occupation after eviction, and subsequent to 
UNMIK's Legal Advisor issuing an opinion that a prosecutor is 
not required to carry out any subsequent removals of illegal 
occupants or re-occupants of KPA-administered properties, the 
UNMIK Police Commissioner finally approved the SOPs in 
February 2007.  Unfortunately, the UNMIK Police Commissioner 
resigned after the February 10 demonstrations in Pristina, 
before he could implement the new standard operating 
procedures. 
 
PISG has done what we asked on March 2004 prosecutions 
 
¶7. (SBU) On January 16 PM Ceku convened a meeting with the 
Minister of Justice, the President of the Supreme Court and 
the Chief Prosecutor at which they issued a joint statement 
calling for witnesses to cooperate with police investigating 
the March 2004 violence and publicized various means 
available to the public to give information to the police. 
The British office agrees that this satisfies the letter of 
the CG Priority, but the head of the Russian office here 
takes a more principled view that they do not care about the 
actual language of the CG Priority, but rather they and 
Moscow are interested in results. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Cases related to the March 2004 violence continue to 
be brought.  UNMIK announced February 28 that an 
international prosecutor filed an indictment in the Pristina 
District Court on February 20 against five Kosovo Albanians 
for their role in allegedly burning down several buildings in 
Fushe Kosova/Kosovo Polje during the March 2004 riots.  These 
additional suspects mean that a total of eleven persons are 
currently under investigation for these crimes. 
 
¶9. (SBU) COMMENT:  All CG offices here agree that nine of the 
13 Priorities are complete and that the only thing keeping us 
from ten is the Kosovo government's reluctance to figure out 
how much it will cost to reconstruct or compensate owners for 
the estimated 24 commercial properties damaged during the 
March 2004 violence.  PM Ceku adviser Arifi has promised that 
the government will set up a new Commission or other vehicle 
 
PRISTINA 00000163  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
to determine how much money is necessary and then will set 
that amount aside in escrow.  We will continue to press the 
PM's office on completing this Priority.  While we are 
willing to consider the CG Priority concerning assistance to 
UNMIK on prosecutions from the March 2004 violence complete, 
the Russians will probably never agree, since they believe 
the high-level people truly responsible for the violence will 
never be charged. 
 
¶10. (SBU) At this point, the two Priorities relating to the 
property rental scheme and enforcement of KPA decisions 
cannot be counted as accomplished.  These two are also the 
most important for Kosovo Serbs since the processes involved 
will help secure their property and even put some money in 
their pockets from rental payments to which they are 
entitled.  Our unrelenting pressure on the government and the 
KPA have been the driving force on getting the rental scheme 
up and running and promulgating the new SOPs for evictions 
and re-occupancies through the UNMIK bureaucracy.  The 
property-related standards, however, cannot be considered 
complete until the KPA has finalized its appeals process and 
the police have enforced these remaining decisions.  The 
Kosovo government has finally realized the importance of 
getting the KPA to finish its work and has recently proposed 
a strong candidate to fill the job as deputy director of the 
KPA, a job that had been unfilled for almost a year.  END 
COMMENT. 
 
¶11. (SBU) U.S. Office Pristina clears this cable in its 
entirety for release to U.N. Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari. 
KAIDANOW