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The beginning of the 90s in the Balkans was marking an uncomfortable beginning for the then Yugoslavia. After Tito’s death in 1980, tensions within Yugoslavia were re-emerging, from nationalist groups calling for more autonomy, tensions calls to the declarations of independence of Croatia and later Slovenia.

Conflict and resentment would not stop there. In 1991 this discontent spread to Bosnia and Herzegovina. BiH, a country inhabited by Serbs, Bosnian Muslims and Croats, would soon face the war. BiH Serbs threatened bloody war if the majority Bosnian and Croat communities tried to break away. The war started and the Serbs were taking control of most of the country, of course with the support of Radovan Karadzic[1] and under the leadership of Ratko Mladic[2], genocide took place in Bosnia against the Bosnian population.

This would later be called the greatest failure of the United Nations in Balkans, as the genocide of civilians took place in the area controlled by UN troops UPROFOR, who were stationed in the area called as a “Safe Zone”.  UNPROFOR was deployed in BiH according to UN Security Council Resolution 819 with the aim of reaching an agreement between Serbs and Bosnians. The agreement was reached in 2003 which demilitarized Bosnians but not Serbs, and this turned out to be fatal for Bosnians. 

Two years later, in 1995, Serbs killed and massacred over 8,000 civilians of the Bosnian Muslim community in Srebrenica. What happened in Srebrenica, was the largest massacre in Europe since World War II. Hundreds of Russians and Greeks also took part in the massacre on the Serb side. This whole event took place in the eyes of the United Nations mission UNPROFOR. The United Nations had made Srebrenica a safe haven for civilians, but this did not prevent Serbian soldiers from attacking the “Safe Zone” controlled by UN troops.

Now more than 25 years after this genocide, more than 1,000 troops from the Srebrenica massacre are still missing, and among other things, BiH is still fighting on its way to meeting the priorities of joining the European Union. BiH, after a five-year political stalemate, only last year managed to approve in Parliament the Rules of Procedure for the Stabilization and Association for the Parliamentary Committee, this is just one of the 14 main priorities that must be met on the road to the EU.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers & Specialist Prosecutor’s Office for Kosovo in The Hague were established at the persistence of the international community with the relevant constitutional changes by the Assembly of Kosovo. The Special Court as it is referred to in Kosovo is temporary and although it is a part of the judiciary in Kosovo, it operates independently and is funded by the European Union.

Its establishment follows a 2011 Council of Europe report in which Swiss Senator Dick Marty prepared which spoke about alleged crimes committed by KLA members against ethnic minorities and political opponents from January 1998 to December 2000. Dick Marty’s report accuses Kosovo political leaders of organ trafficking and other crimes committed in Kosovo and Albania. This had severely damaged the image and future of Albania from a geo-political perspective as a member of NATO and as a contender for eventual membership in the European Union. The presented evidence by Marty is also very controversial and inconclusive.  A few years before the report, Gazeta Express in Kosovo published a wiretapping of an alleged member of Serbian secret service trying to buy services of a Kosovo Albanian to testify about organ harvesting scandal for the same court. This scandal was stopped by the Kosovo police but the attempt to buy witnesses is a major problem in establishing truths. 

The investigation of the swiss politician, Dick Marty on organ trafficking and other crimes in Kosovo and Albania was not finding evidence even after some of his trips through the region. War crimes investigators from EULEX (European Union Justice and Justice Mission in Kosovo) also told Mr. Marty that the allegations against the authorities were a terrible “tale”. Marty, known for his “investigations” on CIA secret prisons in Europe is also known to have opposed Kosovo’s Independence and is now collaborating with Serbia in attempts to mine Kosovo statehood. Dennis McShane, a former UK minister of EU, says in a authored text in Open Democracy that “Dick Marty’s report to the Council of Europe reflects the unfortunate politicisation of that body by Russia since accession in 1995. Kosovan politics is not clean, but there is no evidence of organ trafficking by Thaçi. And Marty’s judgement is clouded by his anti-American instincts”. McShane also says that “There is not one single name or a single witness to the allegations that Thaçi was involved in the harvesting of human organs from murdered victims. That such disgusting practices happened and happen elsewhere in the world is not in doubt. But Marty fails to link Thaçi directly to organ harvesting though the lurid title of his report – “Illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo” – is designed to maximize headlines”. The report was initiated by Konstantin Kosachev and Mikhail Margelov, Russian MEPs along with Milos Aligrudic, MP from Serbia, Yevhen Marmazov from Ukrainian Communist party (banned since 2014) and MEP. Other MPs followed from various parliamentary groups of the European Parliament. 

In 2015, Kosovo was led to believe that UN will establish an international tribunal to investigate Kosovo for the allegations. In fear of Russian influence on the UNSC, Kosovo Assembly in 2015, voted in favor of establishing a Special Court and considered its establishment as “A challenge that Kosovo must pass”. It is clear that all this was created by the extraordinary pressure exerted by the diplomatic representatives on the Kosovo institutions by asking the Kosovo Assembly to establish its own Special Court that will look at the crimes of one ethnicity only in the context of so many war crimes of Serbian military unindicted by the ICTY and other courts. Opposition political parties opposed the establishment of the Special Court on the pretext that they were not opposed to a war crimes tribunal, but demand that it be comprehensive, and not judge only the Albanian side. 

Immediately after the war in Kosovo, a justice system was built by the UNMIK administration, a fragile and dysfunctional system. UNMIK, also disapproved the practice of trials in absence so most of the accused of war crimes in Kosovo, who were Serbs and managed to flee in 1999 went free. This crippled Kosovo justice system to deal with war crimes thus heavily building the distrust of Kosovo people in justice system. 

Over the past year, security risks related to Islamist terrorism in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province have increased exponentially. The northern areas of the country, the poorest in Mozambique despite the presence of important mineral and hydrocarbon deposits, are affected by an Islamist insurgency, which in the early years was a strictly local issue, but with the prolongation of this and the rise of the Islamic State in Central Africa (ISCAP), it has transformed and consolidated as a regional threat, also due to the growing presence of foreign Islamist terrorists.

The jihadist propaganda message has found popularity among the majority of the population due to numerous factors related to social and economic problems, unemployment, exploitation by foreign companies, abuse and marginalisation, factors that have led many people, young people in particular, to support extremist Islamist groups. Moreover, the province of Cabo Delgado has for years been the focus of considerable investment in infrastructure for the extraction of oil, natural gas, pink sapphires, rubies and gems. However, the local population is excluded from job opportunities, to the detriment of foreign workers, and in many areas, land is being expropriated without adequate compensation, with violence, robbery and abuse by the private security forces of the various companies, with the complicity of the Mozambican police, creating demoralisation and social stress among the local population. Many people are being raped or killed, farming and fishing communities have been displaced. 

Ethnic rivalries also play a key role, as most of the insurgents come from the Kimwani ethnic group, marginalised by the Makonde, the ethnic group of the political elite. 

The jihadist group operating in Mozambique, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, is Ansar al-Sunna Wa-Jamma (ASWJ), an ultra-conservative Wahabi religious organisation (early members were followers of Aboud Rogo Mohammed, a radical Kenyan cleric), which was militarized from 2015 to 2017. ASWJ’s first militants, the group’s leaders, were radicalised to jihadism and trained in Tanzania, Sudan and Somalia (by former Mozambican policemen and border guards fired by the government or by trainers from the Somali jihadist group al-Shabaab). The group initially limited itself to insurgent operations against private and government security forces, without a proactive propaganda or political agenda. The group gained prominence in October 2017, when 30 armed militants attacked a police unit in Mocimboa da Praia. The group’s leadership pursues goals centred on the creation of an Islamic State governed by Shari’a, the rejection of the government’s secular education system, is anti-Christian and anti-Western, prevents people from attending hospitals or schools it considers un-Islamic and aims to take control of the Cabo Delgado region in the north of the country, exploiting the delicate situation of economic crisis to recruit men and expand its control (recruitment is mainly through family ties and radical mosques.  The group uses videos to radicalise poor, marginalised and unemployed young people).  The group operates with small, hard-to-detect cells of 10 to 30 militants, use guerrilla tactics and operate relatively autonomously. The group controls mosques, or has built its own, where its members preach anti-state ideology and a radical interpretation of Islam. Estimates of the number of militants in the group vary between 450 and 1,500. ASWJ finances its operations with proceeds from the illegal trade in wood, rubies, charcoal, and ivory, as well as exploiting the illicit trafficking of heroin from Pakistan to Tanzania, Europe, and South Africa. The group is also involved in the illegal trade of ivory and smuggled goods. Additional funds come from sympathisers, who donate via electronic payments (using income from smuggling, religious networks and human traffickers, ASWJ sends young men to Tanzania, Kenya and Somalia for military training).

The Afghan war which began in 2001 is now the longest war in American history. The war had formally ended in December 2014 and had cost $578.7 billion. There are about 2,500 U.S. troops currently in Afghanistan.  [1] Another report states that the war has by now cost more than $2 trillion, and more than 2,300 American lives. More than 38,000 Afghan civilians have been killed.[2]

Earlier, the February 2020 Doha agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban had called for a complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan by the May 1, 2021 deadline in return for the Taliban entering peace negotiations with Ghani Government in Afghanistan which is its adversary, desisting from attacking US or NATO troops, and decreasing violence in the country. The Taliban had also committed to prevent Al Qaeda, or other militants, from launching terrorist attacks from Afghanistan. Since entering last year’s peace agreement with the US., the Taliban have indeed halted all attacks on U.S. or NATO forces. Afghan government’s security forces and civilian casualties remain high and there have been an increasing number of unclaimed bombings and targeted killings in the past few months. [3] The Afghan government and the Taliban have blamed each other, and the IS.[4]  Later, the Taliban stalled the talks with the Afghan government as it did not meet the condition of the released of thousands of their men in a prisoner swap.[5]

On March 18, 2021, a meeting was hosted by Russia in Moscow to break stalemate in the Afghan peace process. Pakistan, China, the US and representatives of the Afghan Taliban and the Afghan government attended the meeting. A joint statement issued after the meeting urged both Afghan government and Taliban to hold talks to conclude the long-awaited peace agreement. Abdullah Abdulla, head of the Afghan peace council also called for an end to violence and the acceleration of the peace talks.[6]

On March 19, 2021, the Afghan government and the Taliban agreed to accelerate peace talks The Head of the Afghan peace council Abdullah Abdullah indicated his desire to talk with the Taliban to bring peace. The Afghan government reiterated its commitment for the peaceful settlement of the crisis in Afghanistan.[7]

On March 21, 2021 Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made a visit to Afghanistan and met with Afghan President Ghani. They discussed the peace process and concerns over rising violence, according to the statement. The visit came at a crucial time for the Afghan peace process as US President Joe Biden’s administration reviews its plan for Afghanistan ahead of the May 1 troop withdrawal deadline agreed by the previous Trump administration with the Taliban.