It’s not a good time

Albania is on the brink of an internal crisis that does not, on the face of it, seem to have any easy answers; in Kosovo the question of war crimes has once again come to the fore and the name of the current premier is being cited; Croatia and Serbia would like to proceed towards EU membership, but Europe demands as a condition, and rightly so, full compliance with the demands of the international tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. And then there’s the question of the anti-immigrant wall in Greece, the corruption in Bulgaria, the economic crisis in various states of the region… The Balkans and South-East Europe are certainly not going through a good time.Serious accusations. The latest news comes from Strasbourg: the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), meeting in plenary session from 24 to 28 January, has asked for the opening of international investigations “on the crimes committed following the conflict in Kosovo”. It is suspected, a report dedicated to the case suggests, that “organs have been removed from some detainees in Albanian territory to be transported abroad for transplants”. The Assembly has therefore ordered “investigations to check and verify evidence that has pointed to the existence of secret detention centres under the control of the Army of Liberation of Kosovo” (UCK) and the “collusion, so often denounced, between organized crime and politicians” in the country. The Council of Europe has asked that Eulex, the EU mission in Kosovo, “be given a clear mandate, sufficient resources and political support at a high level to enable it to fulfil its extraordinarily complex and important mission”. According to the resolution, approved by a very large majority, “the horrendous crimes committed by the Serbian forces had aroused very strong emotion in the world, creating the presumption that the ones were necessarily considered butchers and the others victims. The reality is rather different and more complex”, according to PACE. “The biggest fish”. The vote was based on a report drawn up by the Swiss senator Dick Marty, already well known for having revealed the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe. The report in fact alleges that the prime minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi, and various members of his government that belong to the UCK, are responsible for the trafficking of organs removed from Albanian and Serbian prisoners. The international press has shown an interest in the story: the French “Le Monde” covered it in December 2010. The British “The Guardian” commented (24 January): “Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Hashim Thaçi, has been identified as one of the ‘biggest fish’ in organized crime in the country, according to western military intelligence reports. NATO documents (marked ‘secret’) indicate that the US and other western powers backing Kosovo’s government have had extensive knowledge of its criminal connections for several years”. “It’s not the first time that such accusations – of trafficking in human organs, weapons and drugs – have been made against Thaçi and his men”, observed “Le Monde”. And the German “Tageszeitung” adds: “Is it conceivable that people have been kidnapped by the order of the prime minister of a European state? That they have then been assassinated for their organs? Is it possible that Thaçi, to whom Berlin, London, Paris and Washington had given their almost unanimous support, should owe all his power to the wealth accumulated thanks to criminal activities?”. The foreign press points out among other things that this murky affair will have serious repercussions on dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo and that the Eulex mission will be forced to open an inquiry on Thaçi’s activities. A new wall in Greece? In Greece, on the other hand, the problem – compounding that of the economic crisis – concerns the immigrants who enter the country through the Turkish frontier. In recent days 250 Afghan migrants “have occupied the amphitheatre of the University of Athens to protest against the slowness of the Greek government in processing their asylum applications. Some of the occupiers are sick and are asking for medical assistance; many others have begun a hunger strike”. The Greek daily “Kathimerini” has long focused on the issue, and in recent days carried a story claiming: “Greece is building a wall at Evros to contain the entry of immigrants”. The paper explained that the government intends to erect a barbed-wire barrier 12 kilometres long, equipped with closed circuit television. The decision was said to have been taken “after a recent meeting between Greek and Turkish bureaucrats at Edirne”, a Turkish town on the frontier with Greece. The new European “wall” could be completed within a couple of months, although the EU Commission is following the whole case with concern. According to “To Ethnos”, however, “the barrier that the Greek government wants to construct on the frontier with Turkey is a superficial response. To solve the emergency of immigration – writes the paper – its fundamental causes would first have to be addressed”: causes that “are to be sought in the countries of origin of emigrants. Appropriate policies would then have to be drawn up on this basis”, with the support of the EU and the United Nations.