|
UNMIK-OSCE-EU-UNHCR Press Briefing, 4 October 2001 UNMIK Spokesman Simon Haselock
New Transitional Administrative Departments Yesterday, the 20 administrative departments were clustered into nine transitional administrative departments, which will be in place until the new ministries are formed after the elections. These transitional departments will be run by international officers until the new ministers are appointed. All Kosovo co-heads have gone on leave from 3 October. They will be on paid leave until 17 November. This step has been taken because many Kosovo co-heads are contesting elections. Murders There have been two murders in the last 48 hrs. A 44 years old K Albanian resident of Little Bosnia quarter of Northern Mitrovica was found dead in his vehicle on Tuesday night on the southern edge of the Mitrovica east bridge. MSU Carabinieri responded to the scene. He died as result of a single gunshot fired at close range in his head. UNMIK Police is investigating. Yesterday afternoon two K Albanian yougsters opened fire in Vitomirice, a predominantly Bosniac town east of Pec, killing an adult Bosniac male. Preliminarry investigations indicate it was a old family dispute. Yesterday morning three petrol bombs were thrown at a K Serbian occupied residence in Germia - Pristina. Minor damage were caused as result of a small fire. Illegal Constructions Demolished On Wednesday 3 October Pristina Municipality completed the demolition of seven constructions that had been illegally built on municipal land. The action had been decided by the Municipal Assembly in July. Three out of the seven constructions were restaurants, among which the Turkish Restaurant opposite Police Station one. and Shqiponia, in the courtyard immediately behind the Turkish restaurant. Three other constructions were garages and the last one was the illegal extension of office premises, also in the same area. Owners reacted peacefully, also because the action had long been scheduled and all the preliminary administrative steps had already been carried out. According to the UNMIK Pristina DMA, further actions should take place in the near future. Property Tax On Thursday 4 October at 10:00h. the Obilic/q MA will hold an extraordinary meeting to set a range of different tax rates to apply to all privately-owned properties (shops, businesses, apartments, houses). Obilic/q Municipality is one of the three municipalities Kosovo-wide to take part in the "tax property pilot project", which should be shortly extended to the rest of the municipalities. Media will attend the session, and will meet with the UNMIK MA, the President of the Assembly and international and local experts after the meeting. Press Conference On Monday, 8 October, a team of experts from UNIFEM, Ms. Elizabeth Rehn, former SRSG in Bosnia and Herzegovina and former defence minister of Finland, and Mr. Victoria Brittain, Associate Foreign Editor of Guardian, will hold a press conference here in the auditorium at 1400 hrs. They are visiting Kosovo from 6 to 9 October, as part of a visit to the Balkans, to prepare a report on the impact of armed conflict on women and the role of women in peace-building. In Kosovo they will be meeting political leaders, women's groups, administrators and others. They will be coming to Kosovo from Belgrade. There is a detailed media advisory on this visit outside.
Elections As you all know the election campaign period is now underway - that runs 45 days ahead of the election. 24 hours before election day, no campaigning is allowed. The campaign period is intended to make sure all political entities and the media behave responsibly ahead of the election. As Ambassador Daan Everts and the SRSG underlined at the campaign period launch, it is important that everyone makes this a calm and peaceful election. The Challenge Period For the voters, next week sees the start of the challenge period. This is a time when the voters list is available for public scrutiny; registered voters can have a look at the voters list for their polling station and if they are concerned about names on it - people who they believe are not eligible -- they can raise their concerns. A photo ID must be presented by anyone wishing to review the List. No information may be photocopied or taken in written form from Centres and no one is allowed to write on the list. Challenges are thoroughly investigated by the Election Complaints and Appeals sub Commission. and the person whose name is being challenged can obviously respond. In Serbia proper and in Montenegro there is a confirmation period in which people can confirm the information about their entry on the Voters List is correct. Civil Administration On Monday, the OSCE is running a seminar for political candidates on "Getting Ready to Govern". The seminar is designed to provide candidates with an overview of the rights, responsibilities and competencies they will have as members of Kosovo's new government body. This one, being held in Prizren, will be the first in a week long series of training around Kosovo. If you would be interested in attending one of the sessions please contact Sven in our press office. Meanwhile the OSCE is continuing its training of civil servants. Today there's a seminar for municipal employees in Zvecan on how municipal employees can provide a good level of service to local people And on a non-election event Friday, the Kosovo Law Centre, together with the Law Faculty of
Pristina University, will
Tomorrow, 1st October, the European Commissioner for External Relations, Chris Patten, and the EU's High Representative for EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, will be visiting Kosovo. They will be meeting with Kosovo's political leaders as the election campaign gets under way. They will also be holding meetings with the new COMKFOR, with the UN, OSCE, and EU representatives, as well as the donor agency, the Agency for Reconstruction. There is a Press Conference planned for tomorrow at 1.00 O'clock here in the auditorium, but we will send confirmation of that this afternoon.. Euro Just a note on preparations for the introduction to the Euro. The new regulation on money laundering is in the process of development. A meeting was held last week with representatives of Customs, the UNMIK Legal Office and KFOR to discuss the preliminary draft. A revised draft will be issued early next week to the International Monetary Fund and other institutions for comments. And in a related news to that the BPK will present tomorrow to the Chamber of Commerce a proposal on the new insurance regulation and on the introduction of the Euro. The presentation will be given by BPK Director, Mohamed Bouaouaja and will begin at 10 am at the Chamber's Headquarters, here in Pristina. The media are welcome to attend.
Figures Estimated number of returnees
(approximately)
56,373 Estimated Total remaining 25,451 Returns Displacement The Macedonian Red Cross as of up to 30th September revised its figures to a number of internally displaced of 41,212. This figure can be broken down into 37,617 in host family accommodation and 3,595 in collective centres. The situation in Macedonia remains calm amid the smooth transition between the outgoing 4,700 NATOs arms collecting soldiers and the arrival of 1,000 soldiers for its new mission, Operation Fox, to protect the international monitors. The High Commissioner during his visit on Friday expressed hopes that the new international security force, together with the increased number of international monitors, will contribute to the further easing of tension between the communities and fill the security gap in the conflict?affected areas that armed groups and paramilitaries might exploit. He called also for the immediate formation of a mixed police force and the revival of civil administrations to build confidence in the peace prorcess and allow refugees and displaced people to return in safety. UNHCR is continuing to distribute 80 return packages containing blankets, mattresses, plastic sheeting, tools, jerry cans, kitchen sets and hygien kits to villages of Tearce and Vratnica in the Tetovo region, northwest of fYROM. In the village of Tearce, most of the 1,000 ethnic Macedonians have fled during the conflict. About 30 families have now returned, adding to some 60 elderly people who remained in their homes. In Vratnica, about 30 Macedonian families who had fled have now returned. While many villages have been gradually showing the signs of normalcy with returnees working to prepare for winter, there are still areas where situation remains volatile. In the village of Neprostino, a mixed village north of Tetovo, UNHCR yesterday found 7 Macedonian families, mostly elderly, huddled amid heavily destroyed houses. These families spoke of lootings and gunfire during the night and were extremely frightened to venture out of their homes. Many displaced villagers were present on a day?visit, but said they will not return until the security condition improves. UNHCR promised to deliver aid supplies this week to those who remained in the village. Detailed Field Report On 2nd October, UNHCR made a distribution to the village of Gornje Palcište, SW of Tetovo city. Returnee kits, containing mattresses, blankets, kitchen sets, plastic sheeting, and hygienic kits, were distributed to 20 families, while a further distribution of 40 kits were made to Kamenjane, further south of G. Palcište, intended for the people from the village Jelovjane, west of the area, with a population of 1,400 ethnic Albanians, hosting 130 IDPs. Two trucks carried a distribution of 64 returnee kits was made to Jažince village while 68 were given to Orašje village (both Albanian). In attendance was the (ethnic Macedonian) mayor of Vratnica municipality, who met the respective villagers, offering confidence. The municipality of Lipkovo is being visited on a regular basis. At a meeting in nearby Kumanovo town, the leaders reported that the 19 villages in Lipkovo now have 19,000 residents - up from 15,000 two weeks ago. The municipality had a pre-war population of about 30,000. UNHCR also visited the neighbouring villages of Matejce and Vištica in Lipkovo municipality, as well as Lipkovo itself. Around 85% of Vištica's 1,070 residents are back in the village, joining 40 who never left. Roughly 95% of Matejce's population of over 1,500 has returned. Except for 60 people, all of the inhabitants fled in May. UNHCR delivered 60 return kits to Vratnica and a further 200 were delivered to Matejce, where they have been stored in one of the few remaining shop premises, for distribution over the next few days. UNHCR also visited Sindelic, east of Skopje where some three hundred families displaced from Kumanovo and Aracinovo are situated. There are 340 children of school age that require improvements to the schooling location, as they have problems with overcrowding and the overburdening of the school resources and facilities. In Ljubanci, discussions were held about the ambulanta and the inception of the residents from Ljuboten who require its use. The Albanians from Ljuboten are still wary of crossing through the police checkpoint that lies between the two villages (some one and half kilometres apart). Ljubanci has requested that residents from Ljuboten are welcomed and should at least send their children to receive their vaccinations. There has also been a local initiative towards reconciling the two estranged communities. Today there was a meeting with the mayor of Cair municipality with the subject of innoculations for the children as the aggenda. It has been proposed that these children could be escorted from Ljuboten to Ljubanci. Bus Service Information - Freedom of Movement Upon request by the government, UNHCR began the service in the Tetovo region on 21st September, providing three buses which have been making three round trips from the border town of Jažince in the northern axis to Tetovo town in order to facilitate the freedom of movement of both communities. In addition to the Tetovo region, UNHCR has been holding discussions with local authorities and communities about the possibility of providing bus services to areas in the Skopje and Kumanovo areas where checkpoints are restricting movements. The following services are in operation: (1) Tetovo?Šipkovica (1 bus); (2) Tetovo-Brodec. Security Situation In general, the security situation inside fYROM appears to be becoming increasingly more peaceful, with fewer and fewer reported incidents. Having said that, there were several incidences in the Tetovo area. On 2nd October at 2100hrs an explosive device detonated at a Macedonian home, causing material damage but no injuries to persons.
Q: If you could tell us the talking points of the SRSG tomorrow in New York. SH: This is not so much a discussion about what he has been talking to Covic, this is a report on the last three months. It is a general report and we will give you a complete copy of his text. He will be talking generally about progress, essentially about the elections, about the discussions with Covic, about progress that has been made or not… across the board. I can supply with a complete text of what he says. Q: Do you know if the Serb coalition 'Return' will campaign at all? What are their plans for the campaign period? CT: We don't know what their plans are yet, but they have the right to campaign as any other party or political entity has the right to campaign. Q: Did they come up with a list of candidates like the other parties? CT: The list of the candidates, not yet, No. Q: Is there a deadline for issuing such a list? CT: Not really, I mean we need to get the list as soon as possible in order to be able to go through the candidates and make sure they are all eligible to run. So we do need it obviously ahead of the election so that people know who the candidates are going to be. So the electorates know that, but there isn't a specific date that is the dateline. We would like it as son as possible, but we don't have a fix date when we need it by. Q: I want to know the nationality of the person who was shot in Mitovica? SH: According to my original notes, he was a Kosovo Albanian. There is a report in the other press, which has just been handed to me, saying that he was Turkish. I don't know whether the police can shed any light on that. UNMIK Police: We believe that he was an Albanian. SH: Kosovo Albanian, we think. Q: What is the total number of Serbs registered for the elections who have the right to vote? CT: We will not have the number. We don't do any ethnic breakdown in any registration, so we don't know any ethnic group's total number. So we cannot give you the complete number of Albanians, Turks or anyone. Q: But Ambassador Everts said that you could give those numbers to the media. CT: I was sitting there in the interview with you and he was talking more generally about figures. We don't make an ethnic breakdown on the forms we have no way of checking ethnicity. The only way we can tell is by location, by name and we don't go though it that closely. I mean if you have registered, you would know from the form itself there is no where where there is a question about your ethnic background is.. Q: Just the average? CT: It's the figure that we have been giving out over the last couple of weeks, of the number of people who've registered who boycotted the election last year, who are in areas that are largely Serb-dominated, either in Serbia proper, in Montenegro, in the north of Kosovo, and throughout Kosovo we have come up with about 170 thousand people that have registered, but as I said we can't say all those are Serbs. We have Turks there, we have Romas, we have Ashkali or Bosniaks, and other people who boycotted the election before. Q: What will be the agenda got the talks between the political parties and Mr. Solana and Mr. Patten. MT: I am not sure whether there will be a discussion with each political representative, but the idea is, I think, just to show their support for the political process. But I am not sure exactly what they will be discussing. Q: Claire, the reason why you are not giving us the figures, is it a political one? CT: It is just completely impossible to give a figure because on the form that people fill in for registration, there is no where that asks ethnicity, so there is no way we could know what ethnicity people are. If someone has a Serb sounding name, they could be serb they could be another ethnicity. We aren't going to break it down that way. Q: Would it not be interesting for UNMIK finally to have a figure of the Serbs who have been registered in Serbia and Montenegro, given that in the past there have been a lot of speculation on the Serbs fleeing Kosovo.? SH: We have come up with a general figure of minorities, which as you hear about 170,000, most of them predominantly will be Serbs, because, as Claire said, they were registered in Serb areas. They will also include those who are under the age of 18 and not necessarily registered to vote because of age limitations because it goes back to sixteen. So these are people who are previously not registered from the minority communities who boycotted last year; they include Turkish, Romas, etc, and the under eighteens. But, no, we dot actually have a category of ethnicity in the same way as you don't have a category where Albanians are concerned. I mean the whole question about who has come and who has gone against ethnicity is an interesting question from both sides. I mean it is not just a question of more or les Serbs being registered. The same question is raised as to whether there are more or less Albanian Kosovars who have been registered, as well. It applies across the ethnic divide. It shouldn't be just the Serbs who are necessarily focussed on where this issue is concerned. Q: This one is for the EU. Considering the allegations and accusations about corruption in KEK, from the local level to internationals, are there any plans.. or on-going investigations? MT: I think in a Press Conference here last Thursday, Andy Bearpark stated that each donor agency, who gives money to the power, and they would be many, has its own specific and very rigorous procedures, and as far as they are concerned it is the tax payers money from their countries being spent from their relevant countries. And as Andy said, although there all these allegations around of corruption, there are no specific evidence being presented, so as soon as evidence is presented action will be taken., if that were the case. SH: I'd like to contribute here as well because I think the job of investigative journalism is to investigate and if you have got specific evidence and you present it we'll welcome that, and bring it to the right people. Because they will investigate it, but the fact is at the moment there is no hard evidence, and the money, as Mike said, donated by the various international donors is the subject of rigorous checks. There is a different question between whether money is spent as best as it should have been or whether that is corruption. And in any single project that any organization in the world does, there is always questions whether that money could have been spent in a better way in a different way. That is an entirely different issue. Specific allegations about corruption need to be brought to the attention of the right people. There is no evidence at the moment, and this money is very carefully monitored by those organizations that donate it. Q: Does UNHCR have the exact number of Serbs who fled Kosovo? AT: We did registration last year and the year before. A total of 230,000 minorities are IDPs in Serbia and Montenegro. And we have approximately 170,000 Serbian IDPs that were registered there during that registration. Q: Was that registration cover everyone in the family, including children? AVGS: Yes.
|