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Comment: Serbian Cabinet Deal Clears Way for Security Service Reform

15 05 2007  

New government has real opportunity to step up long overdue reforms to security agencies.


By Daniel Sunter in Belgrade

A belated agreement by Serbia's democratic parties to form a new government has opened the way for overdue reforms to the security agencies to take place.

The leading parties of the so-called "democratic bloc" finally hammered out a deal on a new cabinet on 11 May, after finalizing complex arrangements over control of the security sector.

Under the deal, the conservative Democratic Party of Serbia, DSS, led by the Prime Minister, Vojislav Kostunica, will retain the interior ministry, while the centrist Democratic Party, DS, of President Boris Tadic, is to take control of the defence ministry and military intelligence agencies.

The two parties will share control of the state Security and Intelligence Agency, BIA, under a "double key" principle.

This means the two parties will appoint the director and deputy director respectively, and the two men will have similar powers.

Synchronization of the operation of the security agencies will be placed in the hands of the Council for National Security, presided over by the President Tadic.

The political agreement guarantees continuation of reforms in the defence sector in line with NATO standards as well as strengthening hopes for more efficient democratic control of the security agencies and overall reform of the sector.

It also raises hopes of the eventual capture of suspects requested by the Hague war crimes tribunal who are believed to be hiding in Serbia.

An agreement on division of control over security was the main point of contention between the parties in the past weeks and months, blocking all attempts to form a government.

General elections took place almost three months ago but as no party won enough votes to form an independent government an agreement on sharing power proved elusive.

A political crisis in Serbia ensued after Kostunica's party then supported the election of Tomislav Nikolic, vice-president of ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party, SRS, as speaker of parliament.

His term in office was brief, because the DSS, the Democrats and the reformist G17-plus then reached a coalition agreement just before expiration of a May deadline.

Reform of Serbia's security agencies, burdened by the history of recent wars and by the legacy of Slobodan Milosevic's regime, is widely seen as necessary.

The agencies have not been properly reformed over the last seven years because of rivalries among the democratic parties.

The fact that the party led by President Tadic will take over control of the defence sector indicates the likely continuity of reforms in this area leading to the transformation of the Serbian army.

The first major changes in the army took place in 2003, when Tadic's party first took over the defence ministry.

Reforms continued and intensified in the years to come through cooperation with NATO and with leading members of the alliance like US, Britain, Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark.

The growing dynamics of the Euro-Atlantic-oriented reforms resulted in a Status of Force Agreement, SOFA, between Belgrade and Washington in September 2006.

At the same time, the army established a partnership with the National Guard of the US state of Ohio.

Then, last November, Serbia was admitted to NATO's Partnership for Peace program, PfP, at the NATO summit in Riga.

The Serbian army and NATO-led international forces in Kosovo in the meantime have increased cooperation in order to strengthen stability in the sensitive administrative border area between Kosovo and the south of Serbia.

The internal organization of the army has been overhauled in accordance with NATO standards with a view to its becoming a fully professional force by 2010.

Under the coalition agreement, Tadic's party will also control the Military Intelligence Agency, VOA, and the Military Security Agency, VBA, which come under the defence ministry.

Conservative circles in these agencies are believed to have provided much support for Hague fugitives since Milosevic's fall, including the former Bosnian Serb commander, Ratko Mladic.

Besides that, the resources of military security service have been misused in the political feuds that have occurred between the two main democratic parties.

Reform of the civilian security agency, BIA, will present an even greater challenge. This organisation has yet to shake off the legacy of the Milosevic era, when it was used by the regime to undertake assassinations of political dissidents and reporters and act as a liaison with the criminal underworld.

After Milosevic's fall it was also associated with the assassination of the prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, in 2003.

While reform of this agency is clearly overdue, leaders of the big democratic parties have instead made used of the BIA over the past seven years to pursue political feuds and survey rivals.

Hopefully these bad practices will now come to an end thanks to the coalition agreement's new system of checks and balances aimed at preventing any party from gaining a monopoly over the BIA.

It remains to be seen which direction the interior ministry will take in the hands of Kostunica's DSS, which has been in charge of this ministry over the last three years.

During that time the ministry failed to demonstrate much willingness to capture fugitives suspected of war crimes, while the police still lacks a clear development strategy operating in accordance with European standards.

The strong centralization of the force has led to a lack of transparency in relation to the media, and to slow and poor reactions to interethnic incidents in Vojvodina.

There have also been cases of inappropriate conduct on the part of the elite Gendarmerie in its contacts with Albanian population in the south of Serbia.

Some of these problems, especially in the area of monitoring the operation and coordination of the security agencies in the search for the Hague fugitives, could be resolved by the Council for National Security.

This was formally established back in January 2006 but due to misunderstandings between the democratic parties it did not commence operations. The new coalition agreement stipulates that the Council will not start work immediately under Tadic's leadership.

The importance of reform of these agencies, leading to full cooperation with the Hague tribunal is indicated by the fact that the failure to deliver Mladic by a May 2006 deadline led to the freezing of Serbia's negotiations on a Stabilization and Association Agreement, SAA. This in turn helped prompt the fall of the Kostunica government.

The former government had some initial success in cooperation with ICTY in those cases when former army and police officials agreed to go to the Hague voluntarily. However, once the list was reduced to those who refused to surrender, cooperation practically ceased.

Experts in Belgrade explain the failure of the government to fulfill this obligation as a consequence of insufficient reforms in the security agencies and police, lack of clear political will and the fact that Kostunica's minority government depending on support of the Socialist Party of Serbia, formerly led by Milosevic, which opposes cooperation with the Hague.

The distribution of responsibilities within the army and security agencies announced by the new coalition will clear a space for the government to take more decisive steps in reforming the security agencies, and in integration and cooperation with the Hague tribunal. Whether this chance is used to the best effect remains to be seen.

Daniel Sunter is head of Belgrade based think-tank Euro-Atlantic Initiative. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.