UNMIK-KFOR-OSCE-EU-UNHCR Press Briefing: 8 September 2000

UNMIK Spokeswoman Claire Trevena
KFOR Spokesman Major Scott Slaten
OSCE Spokeswoman Laura O. Mahony
UNHCR Spokeswoman Paula Ghedini
EU Spokeswoman Irene Mingasson

UNMIK Spokeswoman Claire Trevena

IAC/Day against Violence

The IAC is meeting today. It will be receiving an update on tomorrow. s Day Against Violence. The day will see speeches from the SRSG and political leaders at the National Theatre at noon and a march will go from the theatre to the Philosophy faculty and back. There are events in seven towns in Kosovo. Just a note that roads around Mother Theresa in Pristina will be closed before and during the march.

Dr Kouchner will be appearing on a round-table discussion on RTK this evening - about the Day Against Violence. He. ll be joining Kosovo political leaders. The programme is aired at 7.30

The IAC is also getting a briefing on next year. s budget - on which work is already starting -- and will again be discussing the Technical Agreement on electricity imports. Irene will have more on this.

The co-heads of the Department of Education will be giving the IAC a briefing, and answering questions, on a range of issues including education for Kosovo. s minorities.

Papandreou

After the IAC the SRSG Bernard Kouchner will be meeting with George Papandreou, the Greek Foreign Minister. There. s a photo-opportunity at the front entrance of this building at noon.

International Judges

This afternoon sees the swearing in of a new international prosecutor for Pristina - he. s Gary Garland from the UK. And also Dr Ingo Risch, from Germany, will be sworn in, as an International judge for Prizren. This brings the total to 7 international judges and three prosecutors.

Flight for hope

Tomorrow 35 children are being flown to France for medical treatment. - 24 Albanian youngsters and 11 Serbs who are suffering from various serious illness. Those coming from Mitrovica will be transported on Dr Kouchner. s helicopter and the SRSG will be joining them on their flight to France. The medical move has been organised by a number of organisations including the NGOs La Chaine de L. Espoir and Doctors without borders, the French Ministry of Defence and KFOR.

There will be a press briefing before the flight at 1.30 at the airport, with Dr Kouchner, and the founder of La Chaine de L. Espoir, as well as KFOR. There will be a bus to take the media to the airport. See Sylvana for details. There is a media alert - and a press release - on this outside.

Police

In Kosovo Polje/Fushe Kosovo police found a rocket launcher and three grenades in an abandoned house. This came one day after a major KFOR weapons search in the village.

And in Plava Village, in Dragas, UNMIK police raided a bar which was being used for prostitution. The male bar owner was arrested along with eight women.

Road Repairs

The repair work on the western Mitrovica bridge has started. It involves an equal number of workers from the the Serb and Albanian communities in the town. The French Agency for Development (AFD) has donated the 3 million DM required for the work, and the French company Fressynet will be in charge.

Next week will also see road repairs on the Pristina - Gnjilane/Gjilan road and the Mitrovica - Pec/Peja road. There will also be patchwork on the ringroad round Pristina from Slatina to Lipljan/Lipjan .

WHO

And a couple of notes for next week. On Monday at 12:00 - after the regular briefing - the World Health Organisation will be holding a press briefing on its polio eradication campaign.

There will be a major emergency exercise on in the Battery Factory Complex in southern Mitrovica Wednesday 13 September. The exercise will involve KPC, UN and local fire fighters, local medical teams, KPS, UNMIK Police and KFOR. We have a media alert on this outside.

KFOR Spokesman Major Scott Slaten

Weapon Seizure

Yesterday afternoon, a KFOR patrol from MNB West was conducting a reconnaissance mission near the village of Batuse / Batusa when they spotted a blue Opel Kadett parked in a suspicious area.

The KFOR soldiers moved to the site and examined the vehicle. The driver was absent at the time. A search of the vehicle revealed a large amount of weapons, ammunition and explosives.

The weapons included three AK-47 assault rifles, one sniper rifle with scope, one PPSH-43 submachine gun and one additional submachine gun. There was also a large amount of explosive triggering devices and communication equipment to include eight walkie-talkies, timers, remote control receptors, antennas for remote control, 40 meters of wire, battery chargers and batteries that all could be used to detonate explosives.

In addition to the weapons and bomb making material there were 2200 rounds of 7.62 ammunition, two anti-fragmentation vests and one camouflage uniform. Documents and photographs of the Kosovar Albanian owner of the vehicle were also discovered. The confiscated items and documents were then handed over by KFOR investigators to UNMIK Police for further investigation.

Car Thieves Arrested

Early this morning in MNB West, KFOR soldiers assigned to Task Force Falco stopped a Cherokee all terrain vehicle for a random inspection at a check point. After the vehicle was halted one of the Kosovar Albanian occupants fled from the scene. The other two were apprehended and handed over to UNMIK Police for investigation.

Armed Wedding Guests

Shots were fired in MNB East in the vicinity of Hodanofc / Odanovce yesterday afternoon. KFOR soldiers from the 503rd Military Police responded to the scene at noon and discovered a Kosovar Albanian wedding convoy. One of the vehicles was identified and searched for illegal weapons. One suspect was handed over to UNMIK Police after a 7.62 automatic weapon was discovered. The wedding party was then allowed to continue without problems.

UNMIK Police has taken over the case.

Media Opportunities

The press is invited on Monday, 11 September to attend a mass destruction of ammunition and weapons seized during cordon and search operations conducted in Kosovo over the past few months. The majority of weapons and ammunition, that will be destroyed, were taken from the Drenica Valley MNB Centre search operation. The event is scheduled from 1:45 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Transportation for the press corps will leave from the KFOR Press Information Center in Pristina at 1:45 p.m. Interested journalists are kindly requested to sign up for this event before 10 September with the Media Operations Section of the CPIC.

OSCE Spokeswoman Laura O. Mahony

Out-of-Kosovo voting:Voters list

From IOM in Vienna, the provisional voters list for out of Kosovo voting currently stands at 35,341 registrants - 33,371 who registered by in-mail method, and 1,979 in person in Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro.

ECAC Appeals

Yesterday, the Election Complaints and Appeals sub-Commission began adjudicating on the Out of Kosovo Voter Appeals. On the cases reviewed yesterday, 141 appeals were successful to be included on the Out of Kosovo voters list. Those names will be sent to IOM in Vienna later today. The ECAC is currently dealing with a total of 799+ appeals. A further 3,000-3,500 appeals are on their way. They hope to complete the process of reviewing them over the next fortnight.

Ballot papers

Meanwhile, printing is currently in England of the Out of Kosovo ballot papers. The printed ballot papers will be sent to Germany this weekend. They will then form part of the voters packs which will be mailed to the Out of Kosovo voters. The voters pack will consist of ballot paper, ballot envelope, parties programmes, instructions how to complete the ballot and the return envelope. They must then mail their completed ballot back to Vienna with their voters receipt. The envelopes have to reach IOM by election day - October 28.

Update on in Kosovo voters list

Processing of the C-20 forms received during the CAC period has been completed. These are the forms people filled in to request corrections to the PVL. Meanwhile, the data that was discovered to be missing form the Provisional Voters Lists has now been entered. The most time-consuming issue remains that of sorting through the discrepancies in the municipality names and standardising them.

Free campaign advertising on broadcast media during the election campaign

The political entities have been given until the end of today to submit their written requests to broadcasters to avail their free broadcast spots.

Election Training

There is a number of different training programmes going on. The women candidates have been undergoing training this week. Training will start next week for the Municipal Elections Commissions. There. s also training going on for political parties and campaign financing, and there is also training going on for media monitoring for NGO observers.

UNHCR Spokeswoman Paula Ghedini

UNHCR will be hosting the Humanitarian Issues Working Group in Geneva at our headquarters on Monday 11 September. Dr. Kouchner and our special envoy Eric Morris will be attending the workshop which is a twice-yearly event, and it began under the auspices of the Dayton Peace Agreement and it essentially aims at looking at the progress of returns of displaced and refugees. For this HIWG we will be talking in great length about the situation in Kosovo and refugees and displaced persons from Kosovo throughout the region. Different regional officials from different governments in the area will be attending as well as the major donor countries who will have a presentation there.

EU Spokeswoman Irene Mingasson

Electricity

On Wednesday, there was a meeting of the Governing Board of the BPK, where the issue of the changeover to the EURO was discussed. As in the case of the EU Member States, which join the EURO, the introduction of the new currency implies a wide range of preparatory measures. You will hear more about this question in the next weeks.

Revenue report

Last week saw another success in the steady increase of revenue collection. For the first time, more than 7 million DM have been collected from customs, sales taxes and excise duties.

Trade & Industry

Yesterday was the first meeting of the Steering Committee of the ICU, the Interim Credit Unit. The ICU is a non-bank finance institution funded by the World Bank and the EU to make loans of up to 300,000 DM to private businesses. The next meeting will take place on the 26 October when the first applications will be considered. The first loans may be made by November.

Department of Reconstruction

The Co-Heads of the DOR, MM Hajrizi and Dickinson, visited various municipalities during the last weeks, and met with municipal administrations and NGOs, which carry out reconstruction projects on the ground. The objective is to reinforce the grass-root input into the planning of reconstruction priorities for the next 3 years. The Co-Heads welcomed the great amount of work achieved by the local and international communities.

Questions:

Q: When you arrived Irene there were serious power and water shortages. And when you are leaving now there are still serious power and water shortages. Would you say during your tenure here, the work of the energy sector here, Pillar IV has improved?

IM: I definitely think that the work of Pillar IV has improved. I think it has developed. The EU pillar has achieved a considerable amount of work. And this includes also the work achieved in the electricity sector. As we all know the difficulties faced in this area are numerous and are due to lack of maintenance for a long time. We knew from the beginning that it would take time and urgent measures had to be taken and it takes time to organise cooperation between international donors.

Q: One of the problems you have been facing is the bad payment schedule of the local consumers. Has that improved and do you have any guesstimates on how many people are actually paying their electricity bills.

IM: I don. t have the latest figures. There has been slight progress. But it is still a big problem. Basically important rehabilitation work is being undertaken to provide the electricity sector with new equipment. This is being carried out with international money but at some point the electricity company has to take over and have the financial means to do it.

Q: Are teams of KEK going of to cut electricity of those who are not paying being accompanied by men from a local security agency?

IM: I don. t know.

Q: The Greek Foreign Minister who is here today. What do you know about his visit and what is the message he is bringing from Athens?

CT: I don. t know the message he will bring but I do know that he is meeting Dr. Kouchner at noon. We will know when the meeting is finished what he has said. Before he has the meeting, we don't know what he is going to be saying.

Q: Can KFOR tell us in civilians terms what all those weapons mean.

SS: Basically, the weapons themselves are not a significant find. The small arms would be enough to outfit two or three of you here in the room and that could do damage in a small way. What is significant though is the timing devices and the communication equipment that was seized. That equipment can be used to attach itself to a large amount of explosives for remote controlling and detonating bombs. The most significant part of this find was the fact that we were able to seize all this electronic equipment and it will keep someone from making bombs for the future. Fortunately the explosives themselves, not a large amount was included in the find.

Q: Did the car (carrying the arms) come over from Albania or was heading towards Albania?

SS: This is still part of the investigation. I know it was near the border. It was parked in a suspicious manner. It is part of the investigation to ascertain, who is came from, who the owner is, whether the owner is connected. We have documentation now which links the vehicle to a suspect. However, we don. t know if that vehicle is stolen. There is a lot that will come out from the investigation.