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Press Briefing Notes, 7 October 2003
UNMIK Spokesperson Sunil Narula
KFOR Spokesperson Chris Thomson
UNMIK Police Spokesperson Derek Chappell
OSCE Spokesperson Sven Lindholm
EU Spokeswoman Monique De Groot
UNMIK Spokesperson Sunil Narula
Invitations for the talks
SRSG Harri Holkeri will be sending out formal invitations for talks today to leaders of the PISG and Serbia and Montenegro. Once these invitations go out, we will issue a press release later in the day.
Announcement
SRSG will also deliver a speech that will be broadcast on all three TV stations in Kosovo. The speech will be broadcast tomorrow morning. We are in working with the TV stations on this. If we issue it this evening, it will clearly be embargoed till tomorrow morning.
Vienna arrangements
Arrangements for journalists for Vienna are being made. We will issue a media advisory sometime this week. Tentatively, I would suggest that you book your air ticket. As for accommodation in Vienna, you are responsible for it.
KFOR Spokesperson Chris Thomson
COMKFOR Lieutenant General Holger KAMMERHOFF, statement on assuming command
It is indeed a great honour for me to assume command of the men and women of the 33 nations that presently constitute KFOR. In the 4 years that this NATO-led operation has been ongoing a great deal has been achieved. This has only been possible as a result of the coherent and cohesive strategy that we and our colleagues from UNMIK and the other international organizations have maintained throughout the period. It is thus my intention to continue, and where possible improve, KFOR's close support role in the fulfillment of UNMIK's aims and intentions.
I am obviously very pleased that the citizens and media of Kosovo consider KFOR "a very well respected institution". Here in Kosovo the United Nations and NATO have their largest worldwide operation in terms of both numbers and breadth of activity. I am therefore confident that we will move forward on the route to multi-ethnicity and integration towards a situation of tolerance and dialogue where violence will not be tolerated. Stable continuity of policy in moving Kosovo forward towards the increased economic performance that will certainly come with stability and improved public order is therefore my key message to the citizens of Kosovo today.
As COMKFOR I have a very wide range of responsibilities. Key amongst these is to act as the Final Authority regarding the implementation of Article 5 of the Military Technical Agreement and the security aspects of the peace settlement it supports. I cannot do this without the day-to-day military professionalism of the multi national, multi religious and multi ethnic Force that I Command. Many of the nations represented within KFOR have been at war with each other within living memory. That is now behind them and their culture of cooperation at all levels, and the successes that such cooperation demonstrably achieves, is something in which I take, and will continue to take, enormous pride.
I am convinced that a stable and peaceful Kosovo will represent a major contribution to the future stability of Europe. We, by whom I mean NATO, UNMIK, UNMIK-P, OSCE, the other international organizations and all the people of Kosovo, must not fail to seize the opportunity that is currently open to put the past in the past and move forward. If we do not, it is not only us that will suffer; it will be the future generations of Kosovo.
INTEROPERABILITY EXERCISE
KFOR will conduct an Interoperability Exercise (IOX) from 07 to 10 Oct 03, in the MNB-SW AOR. The aim of this IOX is to train Recovery and Transportation teams and test the Interoperability of different recovery systems and services as following:
1. 07 Oct: Arrival Day
2. 08 and 09 Oct: Exercises Days
3. 10 Oct: Exercise and Visitor Day (Media event)
The MNB'S will participate with different types of recovery vehicles, transportation vehicles (APC, IFV, CRANES, WRECKER, Etc) and services belonging to MNB-SW and in particular to all the nation troops contribution.
The total amount of vehicles and personnel is:
· Recovery vehicles: 13
· Casualty vehicles: 15
· Supply means: 18
· Personnel: 135
· Nations Participating: 9
The place of the exercise area will be the CAMP "VILAGIO ITALIA" in PEC. The Media event will start 11:00AM and will last 2 hours. The Media representatives will be welcomed and a dedicated Press Advisory will be released tomorrow.
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In the last week KFOR has seized:
· 17 Rifles.
· 7 Pistols.
· 1 Support Weapon.
· 3 Anti-Tank Weapon.
· 6 Rockets or Missiles
· 41 Grenades or mines.
UNMIK Police Spokesperson Derek Chappell
Homicides
Last week the Police dealt with 4 murders in two separate criminal incidents.
Three of the victims died as a result of a single attack last Thursday,
2 October in Glamnic village, near Podujevo. In this case a man armed
with a handgun shot dead three men in a parked car. We have established
that the reason for the killings was a dispute within the family. It appears
that the dispute involved the ownership of an axe. Three men were killed
over the ownership of an item of property worth about 15 Euros. A family
member has been arrested.
In the second murder, unknown gunmen opened fire at a group of people
as they left their home in Upper Strelc village, near Peja. A 37 year
old K Albanian man was struck and killed. No suspect or motive has been
identified.
Extortion
On 4 October North Mitrovicë Police were informed of an attempted
extortion. A masked K Albanian male had approached another K Albanian
man and demanded a large sum of money. The suspect claimed that he represented
the AKSH. The suspect was later identified and arrested at an address
in North Mitrovicë.
Under arrest is a 21-year Kosovo Albanian. We believe that the motive
for this criminal act was purely criminal.
Update on injured German officer
Last week a German Police Officer was viciously attacked and struck repeatedly on the head as he left the Police building in South Mitrovicë. His injuries were life threatening and he was taken to Germany for specialist treatment. I am pleased to report that he has regained consciousness and is recovering. His attacker has been remanded to 30 days pre trial detention.
OSCE Spokesperson Sven Lindholm
Seminar on Provisional Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes
The OSCE would like to thank the media for its coverage of this important
event. There was a great turnout of the Kosovo legal community as they
begin to understand the changes and challenges once these new codes come
into effect. I would also take this moment to thank the Council of Europe
who were a key co-organiser of the event, as well as an expert contributor
to the Codes.
Visit of Italian Delegation
Today and tomorrow a delegation from Italy - the director of the Italian
Academy, Dr. Marisa Zotta, the Vice Prefect of the Italian Ministry of
Interior, Dr. Benedetto Onorato and their interpreter, Dr. Lorenzo Lentini
- will be in Kosovo. They will be visiting the Presidency, the Prime Minister's
Office, the Ministry of Public Services, the Italian Mission and Italian
Carabinieri as well as the Municipal Assembly of Mitrovicë/Mitrovica.
This is a follow-up to the ambitious training programme run by the Italian
Government for Kosovo civil servants in Rome earlier this year. About
400 civil servants profited from an extensive training programme in the
Italian Academy of the Ministry of Interior in Rome.
Parallel Structures report
Issues of discrimination have been a key theme in past human rights reports
by the OSCE. The concerns focused on access to essential services, primarily
for minority communities. But these issue - property rights, access to
justice and public, civil, and political structures and individual security
- hold true in another area.
Parallel structures have become a highly politicized issue. There are a number of services in key public sector areas not been mandated by UNMiK. It directly affects the rights of individuals, as two administrations operate in Kosovo.
This OSCE report analyses the effects an impact of parallel systems.
In criminal law the most serious problem had been the risk of double jeopardy. In civil law, the validity of decisions taken by parallel courts, for example in cases of divorce, the payment of alimony or an inheritance dispute, still need to be determined. Children do not receive the same education because of the existence of two school systems with different curricula. Individuals driving with licenses issued by the Serbian authorities have been arrested for possession of forged documents.
The report looks at the progress UNMiK has made to overcome some of the difficulties, including the deployment of the Kosovo Police Service and the opening of courts in northern municipalities of Kosovo. It also sees that Provisional Institutions of Self-Government (PISG) should provide essential services, like education and healthcare, that accommodates the needs of all communities.
Yet, it is important to mention that all parallel structures cannot be dealt in the same manner as some are, for the time being, providing services to people, people who have benefited from them in good faith. And so, recommendations can be divided into three categories: [1]Reducing the demand for parallel services by improving services; [2] Reducing the supply of parallel services through negotiations; and [3] Imposing enforceable policies to support Kosovo institutions.
This needs to be urgently addressed, as it will reduce and eventually
eliminate the dependence of some communities upon parallel structures.
EU Spokeswoman Monique De Groot
Clarification of current situation regarding the privatization process
Due to ongoing UN legal clarifications needed for privatization, the third wave of tenders launched on 10th September 2003, with an envisaged bid date of 11th November 2003, has been cancelled.
The privatization process will be resumed as soon as the outstanding legal issues have been clarified by the Legal Office of the United Nations.
Question:
Q: Sunil, could you just please explain to us why would Mr. Holkeri given address for the people in the morning, are people suppose to work in the morning, which are the target group that he is trying to reach?
Sunil: There is no particular reason behind it. I assume it will be run through out the day till the evening.
Q: Sven, your report says that power structures are in contravention of UN SC Resolustion1244 and then you in the second recommendation say that you want some of these issues to be resolved through negotiations. I mean is this contravention it self of the principal that you are trying to halt here, I mean do you negotiate about contraventions or are you just trying to impose a law here?
Sven: Before I answer, I also do want to mention that we will be holding further experts briefings this coming week and next week and of course that you are on the invited list. Now to answer to your question, once you read the report you will then see for example in education. Now a person, a child does have a right to education in their own language. At the moment there are schools for Kosovo Serbian children where they are receiving an education. Now they are not specifically working with the ministry of education which exists here. For example, if there was an agreement between the ministry of education, science and technology here and the ministry of education in Serbia whereby diplomas, curriculum can be recognized as such, that would of course simply improve the situation. In that way, it would be much easier for the children for their education, and this is what I am saying that some of the parallel services are not specifically detrimental but actually can be helpful. It is just that they needs to be working within Kosovo's institutions and structures.
AP: You also say that some of these issues which you have raised could be good to negotiate in the up coming talks. I mean do you think that you should negotiate on these issues, which are enshrined in resolution 1244? Is 1244 negotiable?
Sven: I cannot speak about 1244, I have to leave that to Sunil. But again that is probably simply recognizing the fact that it exists but its ensured that the services are provided equally without discrimination, fairly, evenly across the board. That is a major human rights concern, non-discrimination, and that is a principal that we are trying to uphold and make sure that UNMIK and the provisional institutions and whatever else, do uphold it.
Q: Who will be invited by Mr. Holkeri to participate in the talks in Vienna?
Sunil: We will issue this press release this afternoon, giving out the details.
Q: Is this OSCE report sufficient incentive for you to try and uphold what you are mandated with?
Sunil: If you read and see the report, it mentions a inter-Pillar working group that is looking at this area of parallel structures and the whole idea of this group is to see where you can eliminate some structures and where you can integrate them into this existing structures in Kosovo. And we are quite concerned about it. That is why we are working, the OSCE and Pillar II, are working on this.
Q: Monique, what was the real reason for canceling the third tender on privatization? And why did the head of KTA resign?
Monique: He resigned for personal reasons, what I can add to is what I just said is the main thing that lacks clarity is the outstanding legal lack of clarity to deal with the issue of immunity for those who are directly responsible for the privatization process. I would like to add that, of course, especially for all of us in Kosovo, the current situation is far from satisfactory, the kind of obstacles we are facing right now are not sort of uncommon and unfamiliar to any privatization process that has happen in the world. Unfortunately it has happened now the issues have to be resolved so that we can move ahead.
Q: Can you mention some obstacles that KTA is facing now, in this third stage, because we only had two?
Monique: What do you mean by the third stage?
Q: That this was the third tender; we have already had two previous. Why were no there obstacles in the previous two?
Monique: Because the legal concerns were only raised recently and when our attention was drawn to it, we had to look again at the legal situation and then it made us decide that for the moment we should cancel the current tender until things have been sorted.
Q: In the past two days we have had three suicides. What do you think the reason is for this? Do you know? According to the figures this year the suicides have increased surprisingly. The question is about the case that happened yesterday in Glamnic village, where three gypsies from Albania attacked a female resident of Glamnic, and assaulted her, demanding money and jewelry, do you think that the all those who are washing our windows, asking money from us, who come from Albania, would have to go through checks by UNMIK police and KPS. Or you are just going to let them do the washing?
Derek: There are a lot of questions there! To go back first to the one on suicides. We do keep track of the numbers of suicides. My observations are that a good number of suicides are caused by social pressure, some may be related to traumatic events that happened during the war, but certainly I have noticed a number of suicides that are caused by social pressure, for example, pressures within a family. Let us say that a young girl who might want to date a particular boy, and which does not have the approval of the family and that generates tensions within the community and within the family. She might want to get married to somebody who the father does not agree to. And a good a number of suicides, especially amongst young people seem to involve these kinds of pressures, and that could possible be the effect of the influence of western European society gradually encroaching on traditionally values within the Kosovo Albanian society. It is more of a cultural problem. Now we did have a very sad event two days ago, in which two people died, and you are probably referring to the case of the young girl who jumped off a building in Pristina. That is a subject of a police investigation and I can't comment on that right now. But I assure you that when we have finished our investigations we will give you full details on that one as soon as we can.
The second question about gypsies. I think that we have all noticed a huge increase of in the number of people on the streets of Pristina, particular, those begging, people on the street corners who are washing car windows, who are displaying injuries and asking for money. It has been a huge increase this summer. Some of these people are probably entering Kosovo illegally by coming across the borders and without coming through recognized crossing points. I am not sure if there are local laws controlling begging and soliciting money. Normally in most countries, in most jurisdictions, these are laws are enforced locally by the cities. In other words you have state laws for the country and then each city will impose its own laws with begging, panhandling. I think that I have to talk to the justice department to see if there are such laws here. But if there weren't, I would think that the Pristina municipality could have an ordinance to control these people, when we find people who are begging and we find out that they are illegally in Kosovo, of course we will deport them.
Q: Can you guarantee that all people who are invited would be issued visas?
Sunil: Yes, I hope so; I don't see why they shouldn't?
Q: Have you got problems with visas?
Sunil: Do you mean invitees or journalists?
Q: Invitees.
Sunil: No I am not aware of that.
Q: So everyone who might go to Vienna will have a visa?
Sunil: Yes, I do not see why they shouldn't have it. I am not aware of any problems or any prospective problems.