UNMIK Press Briefing - 5 June 2000

UNMIK Spokeswoman - Nadia Younes
KFOR Spokesman - Major Scott Slater

UNMIK Spokeswoman Nadia Younes

As you are aware, the Serb National Council yesterday announced its decision to absent itself from this week's meetings of the IAC and the KTC. The SRSG Bernard Kouchner has expressed his regret over this announcement. Dr. Kouchner understands the decision as a protest and a sign of outrage over the recent violence, which has caused a high degree of anger and distress among the Serbs and with the international community. He joins the SNC in condemning in the strongest possible terms the upsurge of violence over the past week, which appeared to have been concentrated and organized within two regions of Kosovo and which has terrorized the innocent population. He reiterated that these acts only strengthen the hands of extremists and serve to destabilize Kosovo to the detriment of everyone else living here.  (There is a new statement, and it is available outside the briefing room).

Mitrovica trials

The trial of two Serbs, Miroslav Vukovic and Bozhur Bishevac, indicted for genocide, will open in Mtirovica District Court tomorrow. The court has five judges, including the international judge Karphammer and two other professional and two lay judges. In another case, in the District Court in Mitrovica, an Albanian will also be tried for murder. The accused in the drive by shooting of Serbs in Cernica was put in pre-trial detention until 29 June by the international investigative judge, Antti Ruotosalainen, last week. This morning, Mitrovica Regional Administrator, William Nash, and Sylvie Pantz, representing the SRSG, swore in a Serb municipal judge and 56 Albanian and two Serb lay judges.

IAC

The agenda for the IAC, at tomorrow's meeting will be two regulations, which were signed earlier---one on the appointment and removal of international judges and prosecutors and on licensing security services providers in Kosovo.  These two pieces of legislation have already been discussed in the IAC and will be brought to their attention.

The IAC will also discuss the closure of Dita and the planned legislation in the print media.

The security situation with special reference to the upsurge in violence against the minorities and Serbs will also be discussed. The other issues to be discussed would be the parallel funds that exist, including the so called Bukoshi fund and the draft regulations on the privileges and immunities of liaison offices here in Pristina. The IAC will also be briefed on the registration process, the OSCE's report on the students' election and the visit to the Roma community. As you know, this visit was planned for some time now and it had to be postponed from last week.  This visit, which would include the IAC leaders, together with UNMIK and UNHCR has now been rescheduled for Wednesday.  They will be going to visit Roma camps in Prizren and Ferizaj.

UNMIK Police

There has been no significant violence over the weekend. Yesterday, an UNMIK Police team which tried to stop a car on the Klina-Gjakova road was fired upon by the occupants of the car, which escaped in the direction of Gjakova. No one was injured and an investigation is under way.

Closure of "Dita" Newspaper

On Saturday morning at around 7.30 a.m., UNMIK police put into effect an executive decision signed on behalf of the SRSG by his principal Deputy, Jock Covey, ordering the temporary closure of Dita offices in the Media House of Pristina for eight days.

Basing himself on the authority vested in him by Security Council resolution 1244, the SRSG recalled his power and duty under the terms of the resolution to maintain civil law and order, and to protect human rights, including the right to life.  He noted that the article published in Dita on 27 April had put Petar Topoljski at risk of life from vigilante violence by including personal details of his name, family details, place of work and movements.  (It also showed a picture of him and his address). Petar Topoljski was killed shortly after the publication of the article.
 
The editor of Dita subsequently stated in an open letter to SRSG on 19 May that his paper would continue to publish the names of individuals it considered to be "involved against Albanians", (a threat he has repeated again following the open letter). This displayed a pattern, which would inevitably put such persons at risk of life from vigilante violence, and furthermore threatened to likewise put at risk members of the international community whom Dita deemed to "stand behind " those individuals.
SRSG therefore concluded that the two articles mentioned above violated the letter and the spirit of resolution 1244 and ordered the closure of Dita for one week.

UNMIK believes that there is a major difference between broad responsibility of the media to tell the news as they find it on the one hand, and on the other hand the responsibility of any society to treat suspects and accused persons fairly and as innocents until they are proven guilty. In all circumstances, the police are the first instance where such accusations should be brought forth for investigation. This is especially important in a post-conflict situation where emotions are still very raw - and in a region where the press has been used historically to manipulate public emotions.

This particular case of Petar Topoljski, where an individual is put in the public spotlight in language everyone understands to be a threat, made it the responsibility of UNMIK and the administration to act. UNMIK also intends to do more in order to apply the principle underlying the Dita case.  We are in the process of finalizing some emergency legislation which will be quite limited and of a very temporary nature, with the purpose of ensuring that the printed media refrain from acts of endangerment, such as publishing personal details on any suspected or accused person which could pose a serious threat to the life, safety or security of any such person through vigilante violence.

Our rationale for invoking Security Council resolution 1244, was that there was no legislation available in the books specifically dealing with this sort of case. As you also know, the suggested code of conduct to regulate the printed media has been opposed from many quarters, and the current self-regulation code has not been accepted or applied by everyone.  That is why the resolution 1244 was invoked since it covers the issue of security and the question of law and order enforcement, which is the prerogative of the SRSG.

KFOR Spokesman Major Scott Slaten

The Commander of KFOR, Lt. General Ortuno, joins UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General Kouchner in expressing his regret over the decision taken by the Serb National Council to suspend their participation in the Joint Interim Administrative Council and the Kosovo Transitional Council for the next week. "This is an unfortunate decision", stated General Ortuno, but I understand the outrage of the Serb community but I also believe strongly in the opportunity to constructive engagement in the face of such acts of terror. KFOR has responded robustly to the recent upsurge in violence directed at the Serb communities in Kosovo. They have constantly redirected forces to concentrate on potential hotspots, increase the number of patrols searching for illegal weapons and work closely with the UN civilian police and the local communities in an effort to identify and bring to justice the criminals and extremists who are behind these cowardly attacks.

These efforts can only serve to assist in establishing a secure, democratic and tolerant environment, where refugees and displaced persons can return to their homes and help to build a prosperous society.

During the past 24 hours there were no significant reports in the KFOR area of operations.

Questions

Q. You are saying that the police is the first place to go to report these accusation. But why did UNMIK police not react until after Dita published its piece in order to protect Mr. Topoljski or take him in for questioning?

NY. First of all we are saying, and maintaining that UNMIK police is the first instance where accusations should be taken to concerning any suspect or accused war criminals. The Dita article, unfortunately, was not brought to the attention of the highest levels of the UNMIK administration and we only heard about it after the murder of Petar Topoljski. This is an unfortunate circumstance.

Q. His body was found a week after he went missing. Why did you not find out that he was missing?

NY. There was an ongoing search by the police to try and find him after he had been kidnapped. Unfortunately, that search did not produce any results but as soon as we found out that he was missing we were looking for him and there was an investigation that was going on.

Q. Nadia, you talked about some sort of code that is going to be imposed now…can you give some more details on that, now you're talking about censoring the media more strongly?

NY. On the second question, no, it's not a question of censoring the media. What we will offer is a very narrow temporary measure, which will particularly regulate and legislate the kind of events that happened following the publication of the Dita article, which endangers the life of the citizens. It is not a media code per se, it is a much more narrow kind of legislation. I cannot go much more into details because at this point it is still being discussed and it has been sent to New York for our legal people there to have a look at. It will be discussed tomorrow in the IAC, if it's ready, and then it will be promulgated.

Q. You talked about the organization of the attacks in MNB(C) and MNB(E), do you now believe that the eight murders that occurred last week were coordinated and organized?

NY. We've said that the upsurge of violence was in those two regions. If you read the statement of Kouchner, and I will quote him, he says, "…which appeared to have been concentrated and organized within two regions of Kosovo and which has terrorized innocent people", I don't think it goes as far to say that this is a coordinated organized crime but we certainly have noticed that those two regions have been more targeted in the last week…

Q. …are you saying that these are connected?

NY. …that we cannot say, it is still being investigated.

Q. At the last meeting of the IAC the Serb representatives have accused the American President Bill Clinton and Monika Lewinski for the suffering of the Serbs in Kosovo and even accused the American forces of these things and for the last incidents. How do you estimate the situation in the American sector and why do you think all these incidents were mostly…exclusively in the American area of control?

SS. Firstly off, I'll have to refer your question about political issues to the State Department. As far as the area that these incidents are occurring, currently right now it's very simple to say that it's concentrated in a certain area. We've had incidences throughout the last year and we've noticed that we've had peaks and troughs. When we get to a peak it's very simple to say that the violence is concentrated in one region.

Q. Kouchner announced a month and a half ago that he was going to form a body formed by people to discuss/define the status of Kosova. Now the Security Council meeting will be held and as far as we know Bernard Kouchner is planning to go there and ask for a better definition. Does he have a concrete plan decided here?

NY. I'm not sure that the qualification of a body is accurate. There have been public discussions in which he has said he would like to have a pact with the Kosovars in which two things would be explained and outlined. The first thing is to explain what substantial autonomy means as it appears in resolution 1244 - that's one thing he would like to have defined and explained. The second is to also define what is the role of the minorities of Kosovo in the society of the future. Those are the two things that are being worked on, not just here in Kosovo, although obviously this is where the lead is being taken on it, but it is also being discussed in Capitals - the question of definition of substantial autonomy and the question of where do we go after municipal elections.

Q. Today is the first day of the Habitats work. They will deal with the property issue. Can you tell us more about this…how will they deal with the property issue?

NY. I'll find out for you and give you some more information later.

Q. In addition to withdrawing the observers, the Serb National Council leveled an appeal to the Serbian President for assistance. Isn't that a more significant political development than the actual withdrawal of the observers and isn't it a defeat for the United Nations in its attempts to promote the development of an independent Serb identity here?

NY. First of all they didn't withdraw - let's make that clear, they absented themselves for one week, during which they'll probably be in New York. On the other question, we have said publicly that there is a need to engage Serbia in discussions about Kosovo. We discuss with the Yugoslav Government here - their representative is here on the ground - they have a liaison office in Pristina. So we do discuss with the Yugoslav Government at some level, as well as in New York obviously. So it is not a closed door. As I said, why the SNC has decided to do that…I think it is for them to explain. We have certainly spoken to the Serb opposition for example and we have spoken to Serbs that have come to the recent conference together with the opposition. UNHCR is in touch with the Yugoslav Government on matters concerning internally displaced persons, not at the level of those who are indicted, but I cannot comment on why the SNC would want to engage the Serbs - they must have their own reasons for it, which I think they can explain. But I think everyone is aware that there has to be a way in which some form of communication can be done with the Serbs at some level.

Q. I would like to know what kind of specific issues were discussed with the Serb oppositional parties and representative of Yugoslavia in Pristina.

NY. I'm not sure that those are public discussions that I'm going to discuss with you here. These are ongoing discussions about issues of mutual concern with their representative, Mr. Vukicevic. This is not a public debate.

Q. You were saying that you would have to ask the SNC for a comment on why they felt like this was necessary. But how do you perceive that, the fact that they feel as though they have to go back to Belgrade to get some of their security issues.

NY. We have no comment on that.