UNMIK/PR/399

PRESS RELEASE - 26 October 2000

Anthony Welch Named Mitrovica Regional Administrator

SRSG Bernard Kouchner has named Anthony Welch of the UK as the new Regional Administrator for Mitrovica.

When Welch, a retired British Army Brigadier, takes up his post with UNMIK in November, he brings with him more than five years experience of working in the Balkans.

He replaces William L. Nash, the longest-serving Regional Administrator for Mitrovica, who will end his UNMIK assignment in mid-November and return to his job at the National Democratic Institute for Foreign Affairs, in Washington, D.C. Nash, himself a former Major General in the U.S. Army, took up the post in April, 2000.

Welch's immediate previous position was head of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) mission to Kosovo and Macedonia from June 1999 - July 2000, overseeing British government donor support to the region worth some $181 million. Prior to that, Mr. Welch was employed by DFID as an advisor on the restructuring and democratisation of the Armed Forces and National Security Agencies to various foreign governments in Africa and in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Albania.

From December 1996 to November 1998 he worked with the OSCE on the planning and implementation of municipal, general and parliamentary elections in such countries as Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Montenegro and Serbia.  On behalf of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, he led an Albanian political delegation during a study of the 1997 general election in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Welch headed the European Community's Monitor Mission in Albania from March 1995 - December 1996. The Mission's 23 international monitors reported to Brussels on the situation in the region with regard to political, military, economic, humanitarian and infrastructure developments. He had particular responsibility for monitoring relations between Albania, Macedonia and Yugoslavia.

Earlier, in 1994, when the post of UN Special Representative of the  UN Secretary-General (SRSG) was created for UNPROFOR, he acted as Executive Assistant to the then incumbents - Thorvald Stoltenberg and Yashusi Akashi - and, as chief of policy planning, also was the UN delegate to the NATO Ad Hoc Planning Committee on the Balkans.

Born in Hamilton, New Zealand, Mr Welch was commissioned into the British army in 1969 and served for 10 years with the 3rd Commando Brigade Royal Marines, including commanding the Commando Ordnance Squadron during the Falkland Island conflict with Argentina.  He was promoted to Colonel in 1988 and during the Gulf war (1990-1991) was principal Logistic Staff Planner for British Land Forces and acted as the senior briefer to Allied Commanders, Ministers and parliamentary Committees during Operation Desert Storm.  He was promoted to Brigadier at the end of the war and returned to Britain as commander of the Donnington Garrison in Shropshire. He retired from the Army in 1994.