Opinion ID: 787211
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Contemporary Country Conditions

Text: 14 Much of the record addresses contemporary treatment of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo or elsewhere in Serbia; as this is not especially relevant to the situation in Montenegro, we will concentrate only on documentary evidence addressing Montenegro. We begin with the State Department's 1999 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Serbia-Montenegro, issued in February 2000 (the 1999 Country Report); this is the latest country report available in the administrative record. While on the one hand the BIA may not `hide behind the State Department's letterhead' and place full and uncritical reliance on a country report, Ezeagwuna v. Ashcroft, 325 F.3d 396 (3d Cir.2003) (quoting Li Wu Lin v. INS, 238 F.3d 239, 246 (3d Cir.2001)), neither is it permissible for the IJ and BIA not to address the relevant country report in some detail. The first line of the 1999 Country Report reads: Serbia-Montenegro is dominated by Slobodan Milosevic, though it goes on to note that Milosevic's primary influence is over Serbia proper (and even there, not in Kosovo) and less over Montenegro. Nonetheless, given Milosevic's control over the Serbian army and federal police, the 1999 Country Report establishes that a prime force in the persecution (or worse) of ethnic Albanians was still in power at the time the administrative record was compiled. 3 15 On the other hand, the 1999 Country Report represents that Montenegro was making progress toward democracy, holding free and fair elections, and that 1999 saw even further escape from the federal control of Milosevic's regime. The 1999 Country Report further states that while the Montenegrin government generally respected its citizens' human rights, there were reports of extrajudicial killings by federal troops, forcible conscription, and violence and discrimination against minorities. Academic freedom is said to have been respected. In early 1999, the government began a program of devolving authority on local government officials in ethnic Albanian communities. The Yugoslav Parliament passed an amnesty for draft evaders and deserters in late 1995, and the Montenegrin Parliament passed a similar law in late 1999. According to documents in the record from Amnesty International, however, there is evidence that at least the latter law was not fully observed, as federal Yugoslav authorities and military police controlled the treatment of evaders and deserters. 16 The 1999 Country Report generally sounds of relative stability and democratic progress, but other parts of the record suggest that events were very fluid in 1999. For example, a series of news articles from the New York Times and reports from human rights organizations suggests that paramilitary groups associated with ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo had moved into Montenegro, perhaps at the behest of the Montenegrin police.