Prison Authority Goes To Local Government - Kosovo
UN Transfers Prison Authority To Local Government In Kosovo
The United Nations today handed over complete
management of detention centres in Kosovo to local
officials, as it continues to prepare for final status
talks on the ethnically divided province, which it has run
since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (<"http://www.nato.int/">NATO)
drove out Yugoslav troops amid Albanian-Serb fighting in
1999.
“This is yet another manifestation of the SRSG’s (Special Representative of the Secretary-General) and my own commitment to the continued transfer of responsibilities and competencies to Kosovo,” Principal Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General Larry Rossin told a ceremony at UN headquarters in Pristina, the capital.
“The transition in penal management must continue in tandem with that in the police and judiciary, to ensure a balanced growth of all three arms of justice in Kosovo,” he added, hailing this milestone achievement.
The move followed the transfer last month of some economic powers from the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (<"http://www.unmikonline.org/">UNMIK), including the chairmanship of the Economic and Fiscal Council to Prime Minister Ramush Haradina.
The centres handed over today were in Prizren and Peja/Pec. “In its quest for international standards, Kosovo has the advantage of having a brand new correctional service that has been bred in modern democratic values and does not carry the burden of retrograde penal management practices,” Mr. Rossin said.
Last month Special Representative Søren Jessen-Petersen announced agreement with Mr. Haradina’s government on speeding up moves towards a multiethnic society, noting that all involved had a very tight timetable to meet by mid-2005, when they need to show clear progress to move on to final status talks.
Both stressed then that the highest priority remained progress on the so-called Standards – eight goals in areas such as democratic institutions, minority rights and an impartial legal system – which are seen as a crucial step on the road to determining the final status of Kosovo, where Albanians outnumber other communities, mainly Serbs, by about 9 to 1. Before NATO’s intervention the province was ruled from Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Montenegro.
In March
the province was shaken by the worst violence in the five
years of UN administration when an onslaught by Albanians to
drive out Serb, Roma and Askhali communities led to 19
people being killed, nearly 1,000 injured and hundreds of
homes and centuries-old Serbian cultural sites razed or
burned.