UNMIK-UNMIK Police-KFOR- Press Briefing, 28 March 2002

UNMIK Spokeswoman Susan Manuel
OSCE Spokesman Sven Lindholm
EU Spokesperson Monique De Groot
KFOR Spokesperson Drew Andersen

Spokesperson

UNMIK Spokeswoman Susan Manuel

SRSG Michael Steiner is today in Tirana addressing the Fifth Summit of the Heads of State and Government of South East European Cooperation Process. He was to have met with President Meidani this morning. Copies of his speech will be available later today.

On Saturday Mr. Steiner will visit Prizren, arriving at the German KFOR base at 9 a.m. and heading into town at 10 a.m. where he will be meeting local authorities and visiting cultural sites. WE will have the full program for you later. Please see press officer Christian Lindmeier for further information.

On Sunday he will visit Gnjilane, arriving at 10 a.m.. Again the program will be available in our office tomorrow, but his stops in town will include the police station, hospital and the Roma Street. At 1300 he will meet municipal leaders in Viti/Vitina and at 2:30 he’ll visit an integrated school and Catholic church in Binac. From there he goes to Letnica where he’ll meet Croatian representatives and refugees from FYROM. Please see Jim Ocitti in the Press office or call press officer Ali Iftikhar in Gnjilane for further information.

Tomorrow Dr. Bernard Kouchner, former SRSG and currently the Minister of Health of France, will receive an award at the University of Pristina. For details of his visit please call Francois Charlier at 00 41 22 799 8506.

I have available in my office the briefing by UN Assistant Secretary General Hedi Annabi to the Security Council yesterday. It is a good synopsis of recent developments in Kosovo to have for your background.

From the police, two major traffic accidents resulted in the death of six Kosovo residents. Although the rate of traffic fatalities has been reduced due to strict policing and speed traps, we still face a problem with speeding, reckless driving, bad judgment and rudeness to police attempting to enforce the law. Police say 450 tickets were also issued yesterday, and we arrested six people for assaulting members of the KPS for attempting to enforce traffic laws.
On prisoners: we are reviewing the cases of the remaining prisoners. Some do not have complete case files. Some may be released as soon as the reviews and file work is finished.

Monday is a UN holiday, therefore there will be no press briefing.

OSCE Spokesperson Sven Lindholm

On Saturday, the graduation of Class 18 of the Kosovo Police Service School will be held at the university sports centre at 10:30. This class of 296 now brings the total of number of trainee police officers to 4,685. Dr. Ibrahim Rugova will give the keynote speech.

Today the Kosovo Judicial Institute (KJI) is holding another information session on trafficking and how to deal with alleged victims of trafficking within the parameters of UNMiK Regulation 2001/4. This session is for judges from Minor Offices Courts, which is the level at which the decision whether a person is a victim of trafficking or a perpetrator of prostitution or a related crime is made. The KJI hold these sessions to enhance the legal education of judges and prosecutors, their knowledge of criminal and civil law relating to international
human rights standards. This is a repeat of the session held last week.

Over the next two days, as part of the OSCE-coordinated Assembly Support Initiative, training is being provided to staff who will support the committees. Mr Michael Link, a member of the Free Democratic Party of Germany, will lead the session. The focus is on the practical running
the Assembly member services as well as the practical work of parliamentary committees, including mechanisms to support members of the Assembly – such as drafting legal texts and organising the daily work of the Assembly while in session. This ASI session is run with the support of the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung.

EU Spokeswoman Monique De Groot

Privatisation

The EU Pillar delegation that went to New York to discuss the Kosovo Trust Agency regulation has returned to Kosovo. A working level group of experts have reached an agreement on the structure and powers of the KTA and have made a recommendation to Senior Management in the United Nations and in UNMIK as to how to proceed. Despite reports to the contrary in todays newspapers the regulations which would allow for privatisation to begin in Kosovo have not yet been adopted.

The next steps are as follows. As soon as the senior managements of the UN and UNMIK have finally agreed on the contents, a package of two enabling regulations will be submitted to the PISG for consultation. This is expected to happen in the coming weeks. The consultation period will last for 28 days. A reasoned response to comments from the PISG will be given and recommendations may be accepted or rejected. This final package of regulations will then be forwarded for promulgation.

The package that is expected to be adopted outlines the procedures by which the KTA will be able to privatise the operations and assets of the SOEs. It is expected that first meeting of the Board of Directors of the KTA will be held before the end of the Summer.

Update on TRASING

Representatives of the Quarry workers and UNMIK Transitional Department of Trade and Industry (TDTI) officials have been continuing negotiations this week over Trasing’s rights to operate the separation plant at the Korrotica quarry.

They met quarry workers on Wednesday and provided them with a Memoradum of Understanding to address some of the worker's concerns. The quarry workers will take this to the workers they are representing and negotiations brokered by the TDTI will resume next week.

Statement from the Supervisory Board of Higjiena Teknika

Following the departure of the International Director, the Supervisory Board of Higjiena Teknika met to discuss a replacement strategy. At the meeting held on Tuesday 26th March it was decided to advertise the post of Director of Higjiena Teknika. This position will be advertised in the coming weeks.

News from the European Agency for Reconstruction:

There will be a press briefing on European Agency for Reconstruction's programme for Kosovo in 2002 at 1300 today. It will be held at the Agency, in the Museum of Kosovo.

This year, the Agency is managing EUR134.4 million of EU funds for Kosovo. There's a media alert, and background material with more information outside.

Questions:

Q: Are you sure there are no other Albanian prisoners in Serbia?

SM: We have just learned that there are 11 criminal psychiatric cases that were in the Hospital of Belgrade Central Prison and we are bringing them here tomorrow. They were in a completely separate category from the civil prisoners. They are psychiatric cases so they will be brought to Dubrava Prison Hospital where they will be treated and their cases will be reviewed to see what should be done to assist them.

Q: Any more political prisoners?

SM: No, we don’t believe there are any more political prisoners now.

Q: So, you believe in Serbian justice?

SM: We believe that, through our dialogue and work with Belgrade, we have all the known prisoners from Kosovo, either here ,,,or the psychiatric patients I was telling you about are en route. They will be here tomorrow. The prisoners who are now in Dubrava,--their cases are still under review. In some cases we do not have their complete files, so there may be some prisoners we missed or there may be more people released, I cannot tell you how many, or who or when. But, we are reviewing all the files of all the people who are in Dubrava now.

Q: Does this mean that the job of UNMIK is finished here in searching for other prisoners?

SM: You mean in Serbia? Yes, we believe that everybody that has been held in Serbia is here or in the case of the 11 psychiatric patients they will be here tomorrow.

Q: Question for KFOR. Drew, tomorrow will be the one year anniversary since Kerim Lawton was killed. KFOR said that there is a report which was handed over to the Macedonian Government. Do you know what has happened to the investigation and will the excuse be that the Macedonian Government is still looking into that?.

DA: Unfortunately, I am not in a position now to say anything more about that, because I am not fully briefed on it. I will look into it and perhaps provide a press briefing on that later on.

Q: When should we expect the Privatization Law to be passed?

MDG: As I just said explaining the process, first the senior management in the UN and UNMIK have to agree on what has been proposed and will send out a package of regulations for the professional institutes of self-government for consultation. They can make their comments then they can be accepted or rejected, and then we start. If it is the way it looks right now, the first meeting of the Board of the KPA is expected to be held before the end of the summer. Then the process will start.