SHIK

[Magda Hassan]

Some quaint notions expressed in this article but some good information too.

Kosovo's intelligence services come in from the cold
Intelligence organs loyal
to the major political parties emerge from the shadows
to vie for control over formal security structures.
Jeta XHARRA / Prishtina
The go-ahead given by the United Nations administration in Kosovo, UNMIK, on December 20 for Kosovo government to establish new justice and interior ministries has caused a stir in political circles.

The prospect of Kosovo having its own interior ministry, in particular, has led to unprecedented behind-the-scenes fighting amongst the political parties in the ruling coalition over who will have a hand in running it.

The battle is feeding concerns already held by many local and international analysts that newly-established ministries could be used as tools in inter-party rivalries, rather than working impartially to serve Kosovo's population as a whole.

UNMIK spokesperson Neeraj Singh brought home the point during a regular press conference on December 21, during which he stressed that Pristina will have just three months to see if it can hire staff for the new structures capable of ensuring "the de-politicisation of the process".

At the heart of the problem are numerous shadowy political intelligence agencies who have long dominated matters of internal security in Kosovo. Though loyal to the major political parties, these organisations - whose existence is very much a public secret - are in fact ultimately accountable to no-one and often employ their underworld networks to pursue their own agendas.

The rivalry between these various groups traces back to the mid-Nineties, when Kosovo was still held in a tight grip by the former Yugoslav government in Belgrade. It has been at the root of a number of assassinations and intimidation campaigns against party defectors and political competitors in recent years.

In the wake of this week's announcement, however, Balkan Insight can reveal that the leaders of two groups who dominate the party intelligence sector are prepared to go public for the first time in an effort to clean up their reputation for underworld thuggery and secure a role in setting up formal security structures.

Crucially, each group sees this process as a way of legitimising its activities and winning the right to transform itself into an official intelligence agency in the future.

The moves from these organisations have sparked a debate about whether and how it might be possible to integrate them into a formal security structure without empowering the criminal elements with which they are associated.

With no clear consensus reached as to the best solution, UNMIK and the Kosovo government appear determined for the moment to ignore these organisations and exclude them from official discussions about the future set-up of Kosovo's internal security.

But they may not be able to do so for long. With talks set to begin in January on Kosovo's future political status, pressure is mounting for local leaders and their international counterparts to make important decisions about how to provide proper security both for its majority Albanian population and, crucially, for its Serb minority.

BITTER RIVALRIES
Mission-head Soeren Jessen-Petersen has insisted that UNMIK will not allow politicisation of the planned justice and interior ministries. In remarks which seemed to allude to the party-affiliated intelligence services, he has said that the new structures must function "in the interest of all Kosovo citizens and not only in the interest of the political parties".

Larry Rossin, Jessen-Petersen's deputy, appeared to have similar issues on his mind when he announced in a December 20 press release that candidates for the ministerial posts, "must be people who are willing and able to work professionally and impartially, and who can earn the trust of all people in Kosovo, and all communities in Kosovo."

Kosovo has been administered by the UN since the end of the NATO bombing campaign which drove Belgrade security forces from the protectorate in 1999. While key functions have gradually been transferred from UNMIK to local institutions, this is yet to happen in relation to internal security, defence, justice and diplomatic relations.

Speaking during the "Life in Kosovo" televised debate organised by BIRN on November 23, Lulzim Peci, head of the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development, KIPRED, which has published a report on the security situation in Kosovo, explained that the party intelligence sector is currently dominated by two groups.

One, the Institute for Researching Public Opinion and Strategies, IHPSO, is a non-governmental organisation, NGO, led by Rame Maraj and widely believed to handle intelligence matters for the politically dominant Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK. The other is the Informative Service of Kosovo, SHIK, which is run by Kadri Veseli and is associated with the leading opposition party, the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK.

The KIPRED report suggests that the activities of these bodies "range from close protection of party officials to gathering information on, and intimidating, political opponents."

Amongst the acts of violence blamed on these organisations in recent years are a series of assassinations of LDK officials between 1999 and 2002, which created widespread fear amongst members of the party. Whilst nearly all these killings remain unsolved, they were generally attributed to groups associated with the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, which fought Serb security forces before their withdrawal in 1999.

A report published by the international NGO Crisis Group in May this year lists the names of numerous victims of such murders, including a number of LDK activists and bodyguards, a member of parliament and a close advisor to president Ibrahim Rugova.

On the other hand, intelligence services loyal to the LDK are also known to have issued written threats to politicians who defected from the party. Edita Tahiri, who was a senior member of the LDK until she left to form her own party prior to the October 2004 parliamentary election, has been amongst those on the receiving end of such intimidation.

There was a renewed flood of threats and security incidents in April this year, after former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj resigned the post and handed himself over to the Hague tribunal to face war crimes charges. Both the SHIK and the IHPSO appeared to be deeply involved in efforts by their respective parties to make as much profit as possible from the period of political uncertainty that followed.

THE KEY PLAYERS
The roots of the IHPSO trace back to the defence and interior ministries formed by Kosovo's parallel government-in-exile in the Nineties. The organisation's chief, Rame Maraj, currently holds the official title of special security advisor to President Rugova.

In a conversation with this author before the "Life in Kosovo" debate, Maraj freely admitted that his IHPSO was an intelligence service linked to Rugova's LDK. "The time has come to demystify these intelligence structures and show we are real people and not monsters," he said.

Maraj was alluding to hostile media coverage that followed a May 10 police raid on IHPSO offices. The police involved were investigating the bombing of Rugova's motorcade on March 15, while the president was on his way to meet with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Solana had travelled to Kosovo in order to urge Rugova to give the PDK a leading role in the government.

Crisis Group noted in its May report noted that, "UNMIK and the KPS [Kosovo Police Service] are increasingly drawn to the premise that elements within the LDK camp were responsible for the explosion." The suspicion is that the bomb, which damaged Rugova's car and injured a passer-by, was intended to provide the president with a pretext to avoid being pushed into broad coalition politics.

The SHIK, on the other hand, emerged from the Popular Movement of Kosovo, LPK, a group of activists and former political prisoners which later became part of the KLA.

The head of the SHIK, Kadri Veseli, was a member of the self-proclaimed Provisional Government of Kosovo, established by the KLA's leader, Hashim Thaci, in 1999. The SHIK continued to exist when the abortive governing body was abolished in February 2000.

Initially financed by funds left over from the war, particularly the "Homeland Calling" fund that financed the KLA, it has since relied on finances from local supporters.

Nowadays, the organisation is quite open about its activities. Veseli, who sits before a wall half covered by a huge reproduction of the SHIK's circular emblem, does not, even on the record, deny that he runs a full-blown intelligence gathering operation.

"We are in a process of transformation and have been so for the last five years," he told Balkan Insight, adding that the SHIK had hopes to play "a more active part" in Kosovo's future by "nationalising its capacities" in some way.

Both Veseli and Maraj insist that they have well-trained, professional staff who are fully capable of playing a part in whatever kind of official intelligence service might be established in Kosovo in the future.

Sources close to both services, however, paint a very different picture.

The IHPSO is thought to number around 300 people, half of whom receive a regular salary of some 200 euro per month from the organisation. The other half are employed as municipal officials, or work in other public institutions.

Amongst those working at a high level within the IHPSO are a number of people who previously worked for the Secretariat for Internal Affairs, SUP, and State Security, DB.

A source close to the IHPSO, who wished to remain anonymous, told Balkan Insight that the organisation is partly financed by donations from Kosovo Albanians living abroad. It also receives a percentage of bribes paid to the LDK by local business people hoping to win tenders for reconstruction and other work, the source added.

The same source explained that the LDK originally decided to form its own intelligence wing immediately after the 1999 conflict, amid fears that the KLA would otherwise succeed in eliminating the party as part of its own efforts to dominate Kosovo politically.

But the organisation's main aim now, the source said, is to keep PDK-head Hashim Thaci out of government.

A senior SHIK official told Balkan Insight that his own organisation is smaller than the IHPSO, with only some 80 to 120 people working exclusively for it.

Most are former KLA fighters who also worked in the Nineties for the Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms, KLMDNJ, a grass-roots NGO whose main focus was collecting evidence of human rights abuses by the Belgrade security forces.

The official explained that the SHIK comprises four directorates, one of which deals with anti-terrorism activities.

Lulzim Peci of KIPRED confirmed that the existence of both the IHPSO and the SHIK has been tolerated so far, "partly thanks to their cooperation with American and other western intelligence agencies on supplying them information regarding terrorist activities in Kosovo."

The SHIK source said that the organisation's main activity, however, is to root out those who collaborate with the Serbian secret service. "When the SHIK discovers someone is working for the Serbs, we tell them we know and either tell them to stop, or let them continue playing a double game in which we get them to send incorrect information to the Serbs," the source explained.

GOING PUBLIC
A survey for the "Life in Kosovo" debate revealed that many ordinary people in Kosovo have real concerns about these party-affiliated security agencies and would like them to show themselves in public.

"Six years after the war, there is no needs for secrets anymore - these party intelligence services should become part of our official institutions," said Osman Ragipi, a 54-year-old engineer.

Members of the SHIK and IHPSO argue that in the past they have had no option but to remain outside the system, since Kosovo has had no official intelligence service which they might otherwise have been able to join.

But amid the scrabble to gain influence within the new interior ministry, the leaders of both groups now seem prepared to come out in public for the first time in order to present themselves as viable candidates to set up an official internal security system.

"We realise we can't go on like this forever," said Kadri Veseli of the SHIK, in reference to his organisation's secretive past.

"We are looking for models of how to integrate our structures into Kosovo's institutions," he added, "by offering our men in fair and open competition for jobs in some future Kosovo intelligence agency."

TO DISSOLVE OR INTEGRATE?
A consensus is yet to emerge as to whether and how it might be possible to integrate the party intelligence organisations into an official security structure whilst separating out their criminal elements. But the majority of observers agree that the solution lies somewhere between the two extremes of either legalising the organisations in their current form or dismantling them completely.

Representatives of the international community in Kosovo have called for heavy outside supervision in order to ensure that any future interior ministry does not end up being a tool to be used in party politics.

We understand that a politician needs to be appointed as a minister," said Ian Smailes, head of UNMIK's Advisory Unit on Security, which is in charge of the Internal Security Sector Review, ISSR, process in Kosovo. "But that figure needs to appoint staff on a basis of competence and meritocracy and not on the basis of political affiliation, if there is going to be a security service that serves the whole of Kosovo."

"However, first and foremost," he added, "[the] public has to be educated about what [an] internal security sector review implies in the first place - I consider we have to educate society as a whole."

The ISSR started as a process of security recommendations drawn up by a group of 15 security consultants who came to Kosovo in April. Their work was funded by Britain's defence ministry, its Department for International Development and its Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The consultants' report, which was published on May 6 this year criticised the party intelligence bodies. "Parallel structures, both those instigated by Belgrade and intelligence structures affiliated to political parties, are significant in undermining confidence in security," it said.

But there are concerns that neither the government nor those behind the ISSR process appear willing to take the bull by the horns and start negotiating the future of these influential organisations.

Smailes told Balkan Insight, "There will be a time and a place when all the relevant stakeholders will be incorporated in the internal security sector review - every organisation that can contribute to the security and safety of Kosovo will be eventually included."

When pressed about the bodies led by Maraj and Veseli, however, he said, "I know nothing of them - I know nothing as to who they are and how many people they have".

Ramadan Qehaja, a security advisor to the government, was similarly vague during the "Life in Kosovo" debate. "I am too busy with other work on preparations for the [interior ministry] to preoccupy myself with these structures that allegedly exist," he said.

A Kosovo government advisor, who preferred not to be named, told Balkan Insight that he believed time would soon be called on such organisations. "When we establish our own security institutions, these structures know that there will be less and less of them and more and more of us, official structures," he said.

An advisor to Kosovo prime minister Bajram Kosumi, who also wished to remain anonymous, told Balkan Insight that he was convinced the international community would seek to shut down these services once official structures are created.

"The internationals will say - now enough is enough, you were needed at some times and we used you - but tough luck, this is politics and now you have to stop your activities," the advisor said.

A source within the SHIK, whilst insisting that the organisation would obey such a request if it were made, warned of the risk that its members would then go underground. "We would shut down our offices for sure," he said, adding, "But then, it is better to have an address and let people know where to find us, than be without an address at all."

In the meantime, Ylber Hysa, vice-president of a Kosovo parliament commission set up to deal with security matters, is keen to underline that the new interior ministry has not actually yet been given any mandate to establish or dismantle any intelligence services.

"It is not up to the ministry of internal affairs to create an intelligence service," said Hysaj. He added that, in his opinion, it would be better for Kosovo to have a system whereby the security service is accountable not to the interior ministry, but to the parliament, prime minister or president.

In fact, both the SHIK and the IHPSO agree that a future intelligence service should be separate from the interior ministry.

The ISSR, whose job it is to answer such important questions, is coming under fierce criticism fore failing to properly include the views of locals stakeholders.

Florina Duli, a representative of the Republican Club, a local NGO involved in consultations which form part of the ISSR process, claims that it is not only unofficial party intelligence structures that are being snubbed during the decision-making, but actually the majority of local Kosovans.

Duli told Balkan Insight that, as a result, "There is very little local ownership of the security process."

At the same time, most Kosovans interviewed by Balkan Insight believe that no future Kosovo intelligence service has any chance of survival unless it is closely supervised by internationals.

"It is going to have to be. an outsider who will decide who will be hired, judging with professional criteria," said a member of one party intelligence service, adding, "If it was a local person, the process would be unfair."

Another such source went as far as to say that the head of any new security service ought not to come from the ranks of either party-affiliated structure. "We have a lot of resentment towards each other from the divisions during the war," he said. "Too much has happened to my generation to be able to pack it all up and not look back in anger."

In the end, however, members of both services still hope to play a significant role in Kosovo's future security structures.

"We [parts of the LDK] are strongly lobbying for Rame Maraj as a future interior minister," said Genc Kelmendi, who advises Maraj. "You will see it happening in four weeks if internationals don't stop it."

"The SHIK will be the backbone of any future intelligence service because we have all the structures and professional capabilities needed," Balkan Insight's SHIK source agreed.

Lulzim Peci, of KIPRED, told Balkan Insight that it is naive to expect such a complex problem to be resolved overnight. It is not realistic, he said, "to expect any of these structures to disappear, or to be fully integrated into official structures."

A British foreign office diplomat, who wished to remained anonymous, suggested that the best solution might be to put off dealing with the formation of internal security structures "until Kosovo is ready for it". This might be sometime later in 2006, the diplomat said.

Indeed, delaying decisions on the future of the party intelligence structures currently appears to be the preferred tactic both of UNMIK and of the Kosovo government. But with talks due to get underway soon on Kosovo's political future, it will become increasingly difficult to ignore such fundamental issues.


(Jeta Xharra is BIRN's Kosovo country director. Part of the research for this article was originally carried out for the "Life in Kosovo" debate, which was organised by BIRN to discuss security matters in Kosovo. The debate was broadcast on the Kosovan public broadcaster, RTK, on November 23)

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