West to grant Kosovo full sovereignty

PRISTINA, Kosovo – Kosovo was to be granted full sovereignty by the West Monday, September 10, over four years since it declared independence, in a celebration marred by new Serbian allegations about organ trafficking.

Western powers members of the International Steering Group — which has overseen Kosovo since its 2008 unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia — are set to announce the end of supervision over the territory.

However, on the eve of the meeting a Serbian prosecutor revealed that Belgrade has a former Kosovo rebel witness who allegedly took part in removing the heart of a Serb prisoner for the international black market in organs during the 1990s Kosovo conflict.

Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic told AFP the witness had testified about “harvesting organs from Serbs kidnapped during the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo” and said he personally took part in a gruesome operation.

Kosovo’s foreign minister, Enver Hoxhaj, dismissed the revelation as “propaganda” and an attempt to “blacken a very big day for Kosovo”.

“We had precise information… that a day before ending the international supervision of Kosovo, Serbia would publish very bad news for Kosovo,” he told AFP.

Claims of organ harvesting by the KLA during and after the 1998-99 conflict are being investigated by the European Union following a hard-hitting 2010 Council of Europe report that found a group closely linked to Kosovo’s prime minister, Hashim Thaci, carried out organ trafficking during and after the conflict with Serbian forces.

Thaci and he Kosovo authorities have denied the claims.

On Monday Kosovo tried to look to the future, with Hoxaj describing full sovereignty as “a new chapter” and saying that from now “our country will be like other countries”.

“We expect this act to strengthen our international position and help a lot in gaining new recognitions and becoming a full-fledged member of all international mechanisms,” he said.

The ISG — which consists of 23 EU countries, the United States and Turkey — will formally announce the end of supervision after an afternoon meeting.

It will be attended by Dutch diplomat Pieter Feith, who chairs the International Civilian Office (ICO) which will also be closed down, Thaci and a host of other international and Kosovo officials.

Ahead of the decision on Kosovo’s full independence, President Atifete Jahjaga said that her country deserved to become equal with others.

“Kosovo today is a country that fulfills all the conditions to become a state with a clear Euro-Atlantic integration perspective. We are a free country,” she said in her address to the nation just hours before the ISG meeting.

However, the Zeri newspaper warned of “many challenges ahead” as “expectations of the citizens were not fulfilled”.

Kosovo is among the poorest regions in Europe, with almost half of the population jobless and poor, according to international surveys.

The territory and its two million majority ethnic-Albanian population has been under some form of international administration since a NATO bombing campaign forced then Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic’s troops out of the Serbian province in 1999.

On February 17, 2008, it unilaterally declared independence from Serbia and has since been recognized by some 90 countries, including most EU nations.

However, it continues to face opposition from Belgrade, Moscow and Kosovo’s ethnic Serbs, who make up about six percent of the population, living mainly in the north on the border with Serbia.

The end of international supervision will not affect the presence of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force in charge of the security situation or the European rule of law mission EULEX, which was created to boost the justice system. – Ismet Hajdari, Agence France-Presse