Collaborating with corruption
Friday, July 09, 2010
This "see-no-evil" policy has yielded precious little stability. And it has allowed Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia to linger on the crumbling edge of the "failed state" abyss. These countries - not to mention their Balkan neighbors, Greece included - need to be Europeanised.
They need the rule of law. They need good governance. They need transparency and accountability. They need to wean themselves from the poisonous rhetoric of ethnic nationalism substituting as patriotism. This cultural transformation will require international unity in support of robust efforts to root out the rot and stop narrow-minded local political figures from implementing policies that are dangerous both to their countries and the region. Over the past few months, the EU's "rule of law" mission in Kosovo, EULEX, has begun doing what the UN could have and should have done long ago: investigating top local Albanian officials and their involvement in bribery and money laundering, as well as their ties to organized crime. Many of these officials are former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, a militia that led an insurrection against Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia.
While it is widely acknowledged that Khama holds the title of Kgosi, the government’s failure to properly gazette his recognition has raised serious concerns about adherence to legal procedures and the credibility of traditional leadership. (See a story elsewhere in this newspaper.) Recent court documents by the Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Kgotla Autlwetse, shed light on the intricacies of Khama’s recognition process....