Europe, Headlines, Human Rights

BALKANS: Now the Safest

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jun 15 2008 (IPS) - After years of bloody chaos, instability and violence, the Balkans have turned into one of the safest areas in Europe, a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) report says.

"People are as safe, or safer, on the streets and in their homes as they are in most parts of the world," the UNDOC report says. But the report also includes a warning on continuing links between "business, politics and organised crime."

The report, 'Crime and its Impact on the Balkans' covered Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Kosovo, the former Serbian province which unilaterally declared independence in February.

"The vicious circle of political instability leading to crime, and vice-versa, that plagued the Balkans in the 1990s has been broken," said executive director of UNODC Antonio Maria Costa who presented the report in Brussels.

The report went almost unnoticed internationally and also in the Balkans.

For the first time in decades, major crime-related indicators such as murder, rape, robbery, theft and assault fell way below figures seen in Western Europe, the report shows. The number of murders fell almost by half, from 2,185 in 1998 to 1,130 in 2006.

In Albania, the murder rate of six per 100,000 in 2002 was about the same as the United States, but Croatia had a lower murder rate (1.8) than the United Kingdom (two per 100,000). Romania with 2.5 was apparently safer than Switzerland with 2.9 murders per 100,000.

In Serbia, the rate dropped from three per 100,000 in 1998 to 0.95 in 2006. In Kosovo the decline was the biggest – from 11 in 1998 to 2.9 in 2006.

Western Europe has twice the rate of burglary and 15 times as many robberies as the Balkans.

Western Europe had 1,009 burglaries per 100,000 people in 2006, the Balkans 402. Western Europe had 378 robberies per 100,000, the Balkans 26.

The number of car thefts in the United Kingdom (1,330 per 100,000 cars) is ten times higher than in Macedonia (133).

"The Balkans saw brutal wars, state-sponsored organised crime and then the transition," sociologist Stjepan Gredelj told IPS. "Things have dramatically improved since, and economic development has taken over. The real rule of law has yet to be established in many areas, but things are definitely better now."

"We've finally reached a normal situation again," psychology professor Zarko Korac told IPS. "Former Yugoslavia was a very safe country, but everything went into pieces with the violence and bloodshed of the wars."

However, the report stands by earlier evaluations that the Balkans remains a major transit zone for Asian heroine destined for Western Europe. Those estimates suggest that 80 to 100 tonnes of Afghan-produced heroine are smuggled through the region annually.

The Albanian mafia controls some 20 percent of the European narcotics market, the report says. But this influence is on decline, the report says; in 2000 it controlled some 70 percent.

Human trafficking often associated with the Balkans is on the decline as well. The UNDOC assessment is that some 25,000 people were trafficked in 2006 through the region; eight years ago the number stood at 120,000.

"Organised crime remains one of the main targets in the efforts to improve the rule of law in Serbia," Justice Minister Dusan Petrovic said at a recent conference for judges working in the Special Court in Belgrade. The court was established in 2003 to deal with major cases of organised crime, such as smuggling of cigarettes and gasoline during the sanctions period in the 1990s.

"One of the first steps is the new law, which will provide for sentenced criminals to be left without property obtained illegally," Petrovic added.

Verica Barac, head of the Serbian Anti-Corruption Commission, says graft is the most dangerous legacy of the recent past.

"One in five people in Serbia say that they were asked for money for something that should have been provided free of charge – when obtaining licences, in hospitals, within police or even the judiciary," Barac said at a recent press conference. "The system here needs improvement in order to fight this cancerously spread disease."

The UN report says that in part demographics will keep crime low. "In most countries (in the Balkans), only seven to eight percent of the population falls into the group at highest risk of becoming involved in common crime: males between the ages of 15 and 25.

"This is not likely to change in the near future. Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Moldova report some of the lowest rates of lifetime births per woman in the world (1.2). In proportion to the general population, Bulgaria has the smallest child population in Europe. Emigration of young males in search of work further reinforces this demographic profile."