UNMIK-KFOR Press Briefing: 7 July 2000

UNMIK Spokeswoman Ms Nadia Younes
KFOR Spokesman Major Scott Slaten
EU Spokesman Christian Lindmeier
UNHCR Spokeswoman Paula Ghedini
OSCE Spokesman Roland Bless

UNMIK Spokeswoman Nadia Younes

Argentinian police officer
There is sad news. An Argentinian police officer, Julio Castro, working with UNMIK Police in Pristina, died early this morning of a heart attack. He had the heart attack at home and by the time he was taken to the Pristina Hospital, he was pronounced dead. He was a veteran of peacekeeping missions and had served in two or three previous missions with the U.N. as a police officer in the Balkans with UNPROFOR and UNMIBH.

There will be a memorial service at 10 a.m. at the UNMIK HQ tomorrow.

Water
The water problem unfortunately is still ongoing. During the last few days water supply conditions have deteriorated in Pristina mainly due to the lack of electricity. You will be briefed on the electricity situation by the EU after I finish.  The main pumping station at Badovac has not been supplied with electricity by the KEK, as a result the pumping stations do not function and the quantity of water pumped has been reduced. Unfortunately, the citizens continue to waste water hosing the streets.

The Pristina municipality has checked all the car washes in the city to see who uses drinking water and who uses their own wells. The municipal inspectors will start issuing fines to people who violate the municipal instruction on the use of drinking water.

IAC
IAC is meeting today. They will be discussing the draft regulation on self-government of municipalities.  That is a discussion that has already taken place twice in the IAC.  It  will continue today.  The Co-head of the department of Sports, Mr. Jean-Selim Kannan, will also brief the members about the activities of his department.

Strpce
You may have seen the press release that was issued yesterday in Strpce on the resumption of the convoys from Strpce.  Let me give you just a little bit of background.  There was a meeting yesterday afternoon chaired by the deputy regional administrator, Marcel Cintalan, in Strpce, attended by representatives of KFOR, UNMIK Police and the local political leaders of the Serb community.  During that meeting, the local Serb community agreed verbally to cooperate with UNMIK and KFOR. The Serb leader is expected to meet with the Serb  community on Monday and discuss whatever transpired in this meeting. He will be scheduled to meet with the Deputy Regional Administrator on Tuesday.  In the meantime, KFOR agreed to restart the convoys, the first of which left this morning at 9 a.m. and the second was scheduled to leave at noon. The Kosovo Police Service in Strpce and the local UNMIK Serb staff are all back at work today. The regional administrator Marcel Cintalan will be overseeing the municipality of Strpce.

UNMIK Police Update
A 46 year old Albanian male was shot dead in front of the municipality building in Podujevo yesterday at 5 p.m. The suspect, who fled the scene, has been identified but not located yet.

A six/seven month old girl/child was found dead shortly before midnight last night near the Pec railway station. That’s all the details we have, we will have an update later when we have more details.

A Romanian UNMIK Police officer was attacked by two unidentified Kosovo Albanian men in Mitrovica south around 9 p.m. yesterday while he was in the parking lot of the municipal building. The attackers asked him about his nationality and where he was working in Mitrovica. The officer managed to defend himself and ran to safety in the municipality building. He was not injured. The motive of the attacks is believed to be the suspicions that he was a Serbian.  Obviously, in all of  these cases investigations are ongoing.
 
Prisoners escape
As you are already aware, two Serbian prisoners escaped over the last two days, one in Mitrovica and the other in Kosovo Polje. The police are investigating both cases. In the Mitrovica case, the two officers who were supposed to be guarding the 60-year-old patient, Arsenije Jovan Vitosevic, (charged with mass murder) have given their statements. Police has also taken the statements of the doctors and nurses at the hospital. The patient escaped when after seeking permission to go to the toilet they found their way out of the hospital. The same thing happened in Kosovo Polje.  Scott will brief you on that incident.

KFOR Spokesperson Major Scott Slaten

All sanctions lifted from Strpce
During a meeting here yesterday between Strpce civil leaders and representatives of UNMIK and KFOR, an accord was reached enabling all
sanctions imposed on the municipality to be lifted on a trial basis. The
meeting, the last of three held over the past five days, was held at the
UNMIK headquarters building at 11 am.

The Deputy Commander of Task Force Falcon, Civil Affairs, explained that the citizens of Strpce had shown significant progress in each of the categories UNMIK and KFOR needed in order to remove the sanctions. "We termed them 'measures of progress', to be used as indicators to gauge the improvement of the cooperation of the citizens of Strpce."

He also stated that the people of Strpce had started complying with the measures almost immediately after the first meeting.  "We asked them to turn from violence to talk ... to turn from the violence like that displayed at the riot on June 23rd."

As of yesterday, all sanctions were lifted from Strpce on a trial basis, and today escorts for Strpce convoys will begin again in accordance with the normal schedule.  KFOR emphasizes that convoy escorts are a privilege, not a right, and that they are always dependant on the citizens maintaining the levels of co-operation and communication toward a safe and secure environment that was reached this week.

Reconstruction Assistance
KFOR MNB South soldiers continue to work to improve the conditions for
the people living in their sector.

During the past year reconstruction activities concentrated on the rebuilding and winterization of housing units, reconstruction of schools, medical services and the distribution of relief supplies.

After arriving in the southern sector of Kosovo, a comprehensive winterization program was started to prepare the inhabitants for the coming harsh weather. An investment of over 7 million DM prepared 1600 homes for the winter and provided shelter for 17,000 people.

During the same period, a total of 401 homes were rebuilt using 650,000 DM.  Another 340 homes are currently under construction at 1.5 million DM and an additional 166 homes are being planned for the future.

Realizing the importance of education for the future of Kosovo KFOR invested 1.4 million DM for the reconstruction of 27 schools in the MNB South sector.  Currently six additional schools are under construction and 10 million DM has been allocated for 17 more schools.

Additional infrastructure projects are also being planned and constructed to include, 133 kilometers of road and bridge repair, playground and kindergarten improvements, hospital construction and water purification and distribution.

Additionally 675 tons of relief supplies of food and clothes were distributed as initial aid and relief assistance.

As part of this project, KFOR Turkish soldiers from Task Force Dragash conducted additional relief operations in their sector. During the period they vaccinated 6348 children from disease, medically examined more than 21,000 patients and distributed over 150,000 doses of medicine.

The entire civil-military co-operation effort is for the benefit of all people living in Kosovo. The program includes initial aid and serves the purpose of alleviating the severest hardships for the people living here.  It is always successful in those areas where the people support KFOR's efforts.

KFOR has and will continue to work closely with the population of Kosovo in order to improve the living conditions for all people living here.

Suspect Escapes
A Kosovo Serb man being held in connection with resisting arrest and an attack on KFOR soldiers on the 15 December 1999 escaped yesterday afternoon from a KFOR field hospital in MNB Centre.

Mile Pavic, a 40 years-old resident of the village of Slivovo, was at the hospital in Kosovo Polje for the removal of his appendix.  The operation was successfully completed and the patient recuperating when he escaped from the facility. He was last seen wearing a hospital gown.

Photos of Pavic have been distributed to KFOR checkpoints and patrols. Both KFOR and UNMIK Police are searching for the suspect.

Chemical Explosion
In MNB Centre, an explosion was reported in the town of Gnjilane at 3:30 p.m. yesterday in the local concrete factory. A preliminary inspection reported that due to the extreme temperatures yesterday, a 50 Kilo tank busted releasing chlorine fumes.

KFOR Military Police along with UNMIK Police closely cooperated and evacuated the area. Traffic control points were also established to block access to area. UNMIK requested a Hazard Materials Team (HAZMAT) team for support.  By 5:30 p.m. the threat had diminished and was reported under control.

EU Spokesman Christian Lindmeier

Concessions for public property
Before I give you the electricity update, let me give you two other points.  The finance administration instruction number 5/2000 was signed this week by the co-heads of the Central Fiscal Authority.  The instruction specifies the conditions under which concessions may be granted in respect of facilities, works or services which are under the authority of the U.N. mission in Kosovo. Top examples for that are the concession for public property, mining rights, mineral rights and so on. Revenues for these concessions shall be deposited in the Kosovo Consolidated Fund and reduce public expenditure charges to the Kosovo Consolidated Budget.

White paper for enterprise development
On behalf of the Department of Trade and Industry, the white paper strategy for enterprise development will be published by the end of the month and the public will be informed, on time, when and where to get it.  If journalists, nevertheless, are beforehand interested, please come and see us.  The reason being, don’t try to get copies somewhere else because the posibility is quite high that you don’t get the latest version.  Consequently, your information may then be quite inaccurate.

Power situation
As you all noticed, we have a major problem outhere and I have a full report which is brand new.  So I am just going to read the whole report to you:  “At the beginning of the week, the power situation was stable, and no load-shedding was necessary.  Some minor problems with coal mills at B1 were identified.

I don’t know if you knew, we had the Unit A-3 running and B-1.  That was the situation throughout the weeks before.

The power situation deteriorated substantially after the 400 kV line to Macedonia tripped on Tuesday (4 July) afternoon, which resulted that B1, in order to keep the supply-demand balance, had to stop temporarily.  Re-starting was planned for the next 3-6 hours, however, due to a problem with one motor the unit could not be re-started.  In addition, an auxiliary transformer was damaged, of which scope cannot be assessed as long as transformer oil, sent to Macedonia in the meantime, is not analysed.  The preliminary results of the analysis will be communicated by phone today (Friday)” so we hope to have results today.  “Depending on the type/scope of the damage, further steps will be defined.  In the worst case, its repair may take several months, as the transformer has to be sent to the manufacturer (MINEL, Serbia) or equivalent repair facility.

In the given situation, an attempt to start B2 was made, however, unsuccessfully since 5 leakages were found.  The dispatch centre of KEK tried to get emergency import from several countries (Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece) but without success.  Therefore, substantial load-shedding (60-70%) was necessary on Wednesday (5 July) and Tuesday (6 July) morning.  The unit B2 was restarted on Tuesday late morning and was supposed to reach its standard available capacity (approx. 220 MW) in the afternoon.  By doing that and having A3 in operation, the power situation should have become stable (300-350 MW available) in the evening of the same day.  Already while re-starting the unit, problems with the feed-pump (due to very bad quality of oil) were identified, and the unit could reach rather pretty low availability during the evening.   Another problem appeared afterwards – a short-circuit on the 0.4. kV side (fan on a low-pressure heater), and the unit tripped at 3.25 am today morning.  It has been decided that oil for the pump has to be changed.  The unit may be back by 6 p.m. today provided no further problems are identified.

Regarding A3 (presently also out of operation), mainly due to a damage on the feed-water channel (according to my information, some 10-14 days would be necessary for the repair) and partially due to a long period of extremely high temperatures, which resulted in a very low level of water in a (backup) river, the unit had to be stopped yesterday afternoon because of insufficient inflow of water into the plant.

In the given situation, when practically no indigenous power generation was available, (except production HPP Gazivode from time to time) Kosovo remained interconnected to the 400 kV network.  The dispatch centre of KEK made endeavours to find electricity abroad but without any success so far.  The details would be as follows: import from Bulgaria may be possible next week only; Albania has its own power reductions; Romania, perhaps after 12 o’clock today if a nuclear power plant can be successfully restarted (moderate probability). Some megawatts are taken from Serbia, which is sufficient for most emergent customers (e.g. hospitals).  Extreme load-shedding is required as long as at least one of the units is back.

UNHCR Spokeswoman Paula Ghedini

Just to let you know that the second visits to be organized by UNHCR with the participation of several agencies and the visit of Dr. Kouchner, Mr. McNamara and KFOR, OSCE and hopefully three Albanian leaders will take place on the thirteenth of July to Peja to visit the Roma and Egyptian communities there.  Following the visits of the delegation on the seventh of June to Ferizaj and Prizren we have seen a great deal of progress in many different areas including initial go-and-see visits that have come in to see some of the Roma communities in those areas.  So we hope that some of these go-and-see visits and some returns of displaced and refugees, Roma, Hashkalis and Egyptians living abroad will also be encouraged by the visits that are scheduled to take place next Thursday.

If anybody would like information on some of the communities to do some pre-thirteenth visits on their own, please contact me and I will give some of the contact information and the locations that we will be going to.  And if some of you are interested in the actual visits themselves and would like to cover that, please contact me at this point and next week we will try to organise early on with the UNMIK PI section on the venue and also the logistics for the visits.

There may also be some new information available for you. I announced last week on the Humanitarian Co-ordination Information Centre (HCIC) Encyclopedia CDROM, which is available.

Many of you have been coming and asking for maps, needing them for one year review stories.  Please contact the HCIC which has a full collection of maps, including all the assistance areas, all the AORS as well as municipal and administrative offices.  So that’s available in the HCIC.  Thank you.

OSCE Spokesman Roland Bless

British donate generators
Thanks to a generous donation by the British government, the OSCE is able to provide all five district courts in Kosovo with generators. It’s 130 KV. The important work of the Kosovo judiciary like many other institutions has been affected by the inconsistent nature of the power supply in Kosovo and therefore we are glad to start installing the new generators together with the UN pillar II as of next Wednesday in Pristina. The other district courts will follow.

Registration update
My second point is the registration update. The total as of 6th July was 879,137 applicants had registered. The break down by region is Prizren 190,437, Mtirovica 110,847, Pec, 164,650, Gnjilane 171,938 and Pristina 241,265. On top of that you should count an additional 44,000 of Kosovo registrants, who have filed their applications.

In order to continue the countdown of registration which is supposed to be finishing by 15th July. On Sunday, the one mile race to register will take place in Pristina.

Central Election Commission
The CEC met yesterday. This week the CEC started the important and voluminous work of approving 30 municipal election commissions. There was no decision yet. They have started discussions of the adoption of electoral rules for candidates’ lists. As you know parties certification has almost completed. Now the candidates have to be submitted by the parties in order that the ballots can be printed. There is a important deadline and the candidates list should be submitted by 21 July.

The third element that the CEC dealt with the appeals and complaints procedures in the upcoming elections. We should a decision on this in the next meeting of the CEC next Wednesday.

Questions

Q: Given that the case with the Dita newspaper is the only one which the temporary media commissioner is dealing with at the moment, given his extraordinary wide ranging powers of sanction, can you tell us why is it taking so long for him to come to a decision?

RS: One of the reasons is that the temporary media commissioner is not in Pristina. Second of all there is no need to rush. As with all legislative procedures and practice has to be established and careful consideration in these cases seems to be quite logical.

Q: You say “there is no need to rush”. So are we going to happily wait while Dita carry on publishing photographs.

RB: Well, I mean it is retroactive. Things have happened. Douglas Davidson is expected to be back tomorrow. The competence is really his and he will issue whatever measure is necessary to try to remedy the violation, a violation which has been communicated to Dita.

Q: What exactly is the position of the OSCE on what law did Dita break by publishing those pictures?

RB: The OSCE stand is based on Regulation 2000/37, which is the law of Kosovo. Section 4 of this regulation states “Owners, operators, publishers and editors shall refrain from publising personal details of any person, including names, address or place of work, if the publication of such details would pose a serious threat to the life, safety or security of any such person through vigilante violence or otherwise”. So it is based on this regulation that the sanctions could be envisaged and the competence to impose sanctions resides with the temporary media commissioner.

Q: This is for the EU. You aid that the EU had said set by the end of the month for mining and other areas that you listed. Does that include Trepca? And is the ownership now clear and will there be a tender for Trepca?

CL: This does not include Trepca. Trepca is a different case. This is on certain other concessions. And Trpeca (ownership) is not yet clear.

Q: As we have established Dita newspaper has broken Section 4 of the special provisions of what they should or shouldn’t be doing by publishing these pictures. The position is completely clear and it would seem the longer the OSCE temporary media commissioner takes arriving at the decision, the less the credibility and strength of the OSCE to deal with such an infringement continues to take place. Would you agree?

RB: If that is your interpretation, that your interpretation. You are a journalists. I give you the facts. The point is the Temporary Media Commissioner has the competence to issue sanctions and as in any other case, be it the court case, I cannot deliver you a result before such a decision has been taken. All the rest of it is mere speculation and that I would rather leave to you.

Q: Can you tell us when we might be getting a decision, Monday or Tuesday next week.

RB: Yes, I would guess beginning of next week. But I cannot guarantee you that.

Q: As far we know, it is the UNMIK administration and your pillar that is incharge of everything in Kosova, which means if we do not have power, the primary responsibility is yours. What are you going to do in order that Kosova people have power.

NY: That’s not quite an accurate statement and you know that. There is a department of utilities which is co-headed by two, one international and one Kosovar. They are equally responsible for the utility situation in Kosovo. We now have a structure, which you know, is the JIAS, in which responsibility is shared by the Kosovars. But I will pass the floor to Christian (EU spokesman).

CL: What they try to do is what they stated in the report. The problem with the whole electrical system as the water system is that due to the neglect of about 10 and more years of bad maintenance, so if whole systems are broken down, it takes while to repair that. Of course we could shut down all the generators and repair and rebuild them within the next one or two years. But that’s of course not what we can do. So we need power now and all these systems which were half way working have problems. They do what they can to get the electricity back as soon as possible. There are long term programmes to get the power secured for the winter, for example, which includes major overhauls of the units of B2. That contract has been signed already. So there is a lot going on. But when disaster strikes, as in this case, we have to take emergency measures.

Q: My question is that UNMIK and UN are in charge of everything in Kosovo, whatever structure, that’s all under the control of UNMIK. So whatever happens, I need to know if I am going to have power tomorrow.

NY: We all want to know that. We are all frustrated. It’s a difficult time. We had a very difficult time in winter. It was an unusually cold winter and unfortunately we are facing an unusually hot period in the summer. As Christian has very rightly said, this is not the only place which is having the problem of electricity. We cannot import electricity because those countries are having there own problems with electricity. All we can tell you is that steps are being taken and hopefully they will kick in.

Q: My question is about the department of civil security and emergency preparedness. Why has it not been established officially, as it was planned.

NY: We have one of the co-heads who has been appointed. The second one is still being discussed, he has been not appointed yet. The regulation has not yet come out.

Q: This is a follow up of the Dita questions. I want to know according to that regulation no names can be published. But what about the people who were involved in the massacres. Can we publish their names.

RB: This comes back to the philosophical debate we had on the print code for a long time. The position which is internationally acknowledged and which Kosovo has to accept sooner or later if it wants to go for European values, is that the courts are the courts and the press is something else. It’s not the domain of the press to hand out sentences or verdicts.

Q: The local media reported the tense situation in Velika Hoca, where the municipal administrator was attacked. Do you have any information on that?

SS: Apparently there was a gathering of people in the village following detonations which were heard earlier. There was a barricade erected and occupied by approximately 50 people, who then threw stones at KFOR soldiers and UNMIK representatives. An UNMIK vehicle was reported to have been damaged during this action. However, by the 6th at 0150 in the morning, the situation had become calm, the barrier had been removed and investigations had begun as of yesterday. A new barrier was erected in the village with about 40 people yesterday at about 1050.  It was cleared by a recovery vehicle at noon and a German soldier was slightly injured by a stone that was thrown by someone in the crowd and we are continuing to investigate the situation in the village. It is not know who initiated this incident. KFOR will continue to secure free access of the inhabitants to and from the village. The situation was described earlier as tense and international organizations are recommended from visiting the village at this point to keep the situation calm.

NY: Let me add something. You asked about the administrator and the local community officer. When the violence began they were meeting with the local Serb leaders. They were having one of their regular meetings with them and that’s when they started hearing the detonations. As they came out in the street there was a lot of harassment of them and in fact they were pretty afraid. They jumped into their cars and went to look for KFOR to the edge of the town and that’s where they were stopped by the barricade and they had to take refuge with some of the local population that shielded them, but I understand from my colleagues out there that it was a very hair raising situation and it could have turned much uglier.

Q: When it comes to trying to bring import power, do you think it’s because they don’t have power or there are other problems that are barriers to importing power into Kosovo.

CL: No at the moment it’s the first point. The only electricity we are getting at the moment is 35 MW from Serbia. Albanian has its own problems at the moment and as I said Romania needs to restart its nuclear power plant to get some extra power. Kosovo is included in the whole big electricity system, which extends throughout the Balkans and the former Yugoslavia. That’s why these power lines go from Serbia through Kosovo to Macedonia. That’s why if there is a problem in the Macedonian power line, it affects here in Kosovo.