Governatore numero uno: Paddy Ashdown

IL GOVERNATORE COLONIALE ("ALTO RAPPRESENTANTE") DELLA
BOSNIA-ERZEGOVINA, PADDY ASHDOWN, LICENZIA I POLITICI CHE NON GLI VANNO
A GENIO SENZA DOVER RENDERE CONTO A NESSUNO

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Da: Rick Rozoff
Data: Mar 8 Lug 2003 19:39:36 Europe/Rome
Oggetto: [yugoslaviainfo] Republika Srpska President Denounces
Ashdown's Violation Of Human Rights

http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2003/07/4-SEE/see-080703.asp

-[R]epublika Srpska President Dragan Cavic called
Ashdown's directive, in which the high representative
also sacked two Bosnian Serb legislators, a "violation
of human rights and the principles of democracy,
[including] the right to work and [to express] one's
own political opinion."

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
July 8, 2003

HIGH REPRESENTATIVE FREEZES BOSNIAN SERBS' FUNDS...

High Representative Paddy Ashdown announced in
Sarajevo on 7 July that he has frozen the bank
accounts of four family members of indicted war
criminal Radovan Karadzic and 10 additional people
believed to have helped him evade capture and
extradition to The Hague, RFE/RL's South Slavic and
Albanian Languages Service reported. The U.S. Embassy
to Bosnia said in a statement that it has added three
of those 10 names to President George W. Bush's recent
Balkan blacklist of people on whom the United States
has imposed political and economic sanctions. The EU
recently announced a Balkan blacklist of its own, but
it does not include economic sanctions. PM

...WHICH BRINGS ANGRY RESPONSES

In Banja Luka on 8 July, Republika Srpska President
Dragan Cavic called Ashdown's directive, in which the
high representative also sacked two Bosnian Serb
legislators, a "violation of human rights and the
principles of democracy, [including] the right to work
and [to express] one's own political opinion,"
RFE/RL's South Slavic and Albanian Languages Service
reported. Elsewhere, Milenko Vracar, who heads Nova
Banjalucka Banka and is included on Ashdown's list,
said he has resigned his post pending clarification of
how he came to be included, Deutsche Welle's Bosnian
Service reported. He suggested that "certain people in
the Republika Srpska," whom he declined to name,
wrongly supplied his name to Ashdown. PM

Da: Rick Rozoff
Data: Sab 5 Lug 2003 09:07:47 Europe/Rome
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Oggetto: [yugoslaviainfo] Viceroy Ashdown 'Running Bosnia Like A
European Raj'

http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/cu/Qbosnia-ashdown.R4CB_Dl5.html

Ashdown "running Bosnia like a Raj" says thinktank

-The office of the high representative (HR), which
Ashdown has been running since May 2002, can "dismiss
presidents, prime ministers, judges and mayors without
having to submit its decisions for review," the study
said.
"It can impose legislation and create new institutions
without having to estimate the cost to Bosnian
taxpayers. The HR is not accountable to any elected
institution at all," it added.


LONDON, July 5 (AFP) - The top international
representative in Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown, is
frustrating the state's development into a functioning
democracy through his exercise of absolute power,
according to a study by a leading thinktank on Balkan
affairs, a British newspaper reported Saturday.

The study by the European Stability Initiative (ESI)
accuses Ashdown -- the former leader of Britain's
Liberal Democrats -- of turning Bosnia into a
"European Raj", deploying the methods and lessons of
the British in India in the 19th century.

The 15-page report, leaked to The Guardian ahead of
its official publication next week, is an analysis of
seven years of western efforts to turn Bosnia into a
liberal democracy following the 1992-95 war there.

The thinktank, based in Berlin and Sarajevo, said the
sweeping powers vested in Ashdown are enfeebling the
state, discouraging local political initiative, and
entrenching a culture of international dependency,
according to the broadsheet.

The thinktank's central criticism of the international
regime in Bosnia is that there are no checks and
balances on Ashdown's powers, and no accountability,
whether locally or internationally.

The office of the high representative (HR), which
Ashdown has been running since May 2002, can "dismiss
presidents, prime ministers, judges and mayors without
having to submit its decisions for review," the study
said.

"It can impose legislation and create new institutions
without having to estimate the cost to Bosnian
taxpayers. The HR is not accountable to any elected
institution at all," it added.

Gerald Knaus, director of the ESI and one of the
study's authors, told The Guardian that "you can't
create a stable democracy by these authoritarian
methods".

"There's a fundamental flaw in the system," he said.

Ashdown's spokesman, Julian Braithwaite, defended the
Briton's record.

"Bosnia is not a European Raj, as they say
provocatively. This is a polemic, but there's an
important debate going on, and it is a contribution,"
he told the daily.

The study is said to warn the international community
that the Bosnian model should not be copied in the
rebuilding of Afghanistan and Iraq following the
recent wars there.

The ESI's study is to be followd by a lengthier report
of peacekeeping and nation building in Bosnia, the
paper said.

Muslims, Serbs and Croats fought a ruinous ethnic war
in Bosnia from 1992-1995. A total 12,000 international
peacekeepers are now deployed there under the terms of
the 1995 peace agreement.


http://www.makfax.com.mk/news1-a.asp?br=44455

MakFax (Macedonia)
July 10, 2003

UN report says there are 500.000 pieces of illegal
weapons in Kosovo


Civilians in Kosovo possess 330.000 to 460.000 pieces
of illegal weapons, such as heavy machine-guns, rifles
and guns, which is a serious problem in the province,
says the new United Nations report, worked out by a
group of independent experts. The report was made upon
a request of the United Nations Development Program
(UNDP).

The report contains data on types of weapons, the way
the weapons get in Kosovo, who owns such weapons and
what is the public opinion on possession of illegal
weapons.

The report was presented at the UN biennial meeting of
states on small arms, taking place in New York, 7-11
July. The meeting addresses the national, regional and
global implementation of UN Plan of Action (PoA) to
prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in
small arms and light weapons, agreed at the 2001 UN
conference on small arms.