Maciej Zaremba answers the Kosovo governor..
It is not surprising that Kosovo governor Joachim Rücker in his comments on my reports (Dagens Nyheter, June 17th) trivialises the corruption and the legal mess. It is his own province that he is defending. Before he (in August 2006) was appointed head of UNMIK, Rücker was (since February 2005) responsible for "the fourth pillar" - the one concerned with financial issues, where most of the scandals occur.
What is surprising, however, is that the governor of Kosovo calls my description of the Kosovo-Albanianss lack of legal rights untrue. They can in fact win their cases against UNMIK in court, he says.
Raising my eyebrows I can only refer to the Ombudsmans reports (Fifth Annual Report s 29 ff) or the Council of Europes resolution 1417 (Protection of human rights in Kosovo), that condemn the very incongruities that I have described but that do not exist according to Kosovos governor. The case involving Mrs Zogjani, who was not allowed to complain about gender discrimination that UNMIK subjected her to, has the diary number 1470/04.
When someone tries to bring an area of serious anomaly to light, it is natural that the negative gets the focus. Those that are doing a decent job could indeed easily feel unjustly hit by the criticism. But judging by the reactions I have been getting from Kosovo, the "honest and devoted" do not feel "humiliated" by my UNMIK judgements. On the contrary they feel encouraged, they write.
Neither they nor even Joachim Rücker are responsible for UNMIKs bizarre form of government, which makes no difference between legislative and executive power and whose authorities have legal immunity. I was trying to show that it is this construction that corrupts the mission, attracts opportunists and silences necessary criticism.
Finally I have to comment on an incomprehensible statement by Joachim Rücker. I wrote that if a Kosovar gets his property damaged by a KFOR soldier who is, for instance, from Azerbaijan, Mongolia or Morocco, according to UN rules he has to seek compensation in the respective country. I was questioning whether this rule really showed concern for the rights of Kosovo Albanians. But according to Joachim Rücker, the fact that I doubted this was racist.
Let me remind the UN governor that in none of these three countries the authorities fulfil the UNs requirements for a state governed by law. That is the problem, not the skin colour of the soldiers.