UNMIK-KFOR Press Briefing: 8 November 2000
UNMIK Spokeswoman Susan Manuel
KFOR Spokesman Major Steven
Shappell
UNMIK Spokeswoman Susan Manuel
Father Sava Janjic will resume his regular briefings following this one.
NIS
Demonstrations went on overnight in Pristina and Djakova over the situation at the prison in Nis.
Meanwhile, SRSG Bernard Kouchner and his staff have been working for the past three days to contribute to a solution and ensure the protection of the prisoners, particularly the Kosovo Albanian detainees.
At about 11:30 last night Dr. Kouchner met with a delegation of demonstrators who included Dr. Flora Brovina, Fatmir Limaj, Shukrie Rexha, Ramush Haradinaj and a delegation from Djakova.
Dr. Kouchner then issued a statement expressing his grave concern over the situation of some 320 Kosovo Albanian detainees in Nis. In his statement, he urged the Belgrade authorities to take all possible measures to ensure the security and well being of all prisoners, in particular the Kosovo Albanian detainees. He then called UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan who also issued a statement along the same lines, again calling on the authorities to do their utmost to protect the prisoners.
Since Monday, Dr. Kouchner and his staff have been in discussions with various foreign capitals asking for their intervention on behalf of the prisoners in Nis. These calls continued through last night.
Last night Dr. Kouchner was also in touch with the team of Ambassador Henrik Amneus, Special Envoy for Persons Deprived of Liberty due to the Kosovo Conflict. Mr. Amneus then went to Nis where he met with the justice ministers who convinced the prisoners to agree to a 24-hour moratorium on their demonstration. The ministers are to return tonight with a package of proposals.
We have been informed that an amnesty law may be promulgated in the next several days.
Dr. Kouchner was also in touch throughout the night with Natasha Kandic, head of the Humanitarian Law Fund in Belgrade, who has also been working to restore calm in all Serbian prisons.
As a result of these actions, the demonstration in Pristina dispersed at around 1 a.m.
Meanwhile in Djakova, the UNMIK municipal administrator informed a crowd of demonstrators there of the actions being taken by the SRSG here in Pristian.
At 3 a.m. another demonstration formed here outside the government building of people from Djakova. Dr. Kouchner returned and met with a delegation of five of them. He informed them that the Kosovo Albanian detainees in the Nis prison appeared to be safe. The crowd then dispersed.
However, we are expecting another demonstration here at about 1 p.m today.
KTC
There may be a statement coming from the Kosovo Transitional Council on the situation in Nis. They are meeting now discussing the security situation, the election results certification and establishment of municipal assemblies. They will also talk about preparations for winter, including the projected electricity and water supply and an analysis of communities that may be at risk this winter.
Water
Apparently a pipe has burst in Sunny Hill but the EU Pillar is working
to fix it.
Swearing-ins
On Saturday at 10:30 a.m. Dr. Kouchner will conduct the swearing-in of the Pristina Municipal Assembly over in the Municipal Building. Of course media are invited.
There will be simultaneous ceremonies in 27 municipalities around Kosovo which were certified yesterday.
We have the final list of names of the elected assembly members for you here if anyone needs them. It is quite bulky.
We will also have a special press briefing on Friday on the municipal
assemblies and other structures, and the schedule of implementation of the
results of the recent elections.
Blanca Antonini, co-head of the
Department of Local Administration, will give the briefing here at
noon.
At 11:30 instead of our regular briefing, Eric Morris, Humanitarian Coordinator for Kosovo and Tom Koenigs, head of Civil Administration (Pillar II) will speak on plans for winterization for all Kosovo people in possible need of assistance.
UNEP
United Nations Environmental Program has sent a team to Kosovo to analyze the possible presence of depleted uranium in soil, water, air and food, particularly in western Kosovo. They will be working here until 19 November and the results of their investigation will be known probably in the very beginning of the year.
From UNMIK Police
The Spanish Special Police Unit on Monday conducted another large seizure of weapons in the Djakova/Dakovica area. (Cafa Morina and Stubla). Four houses were searched, and one person detained, while two others are being sought.
The Spanish SPU seized one light machine gun, four assault rifles, 2 SKS rifles, one pistol, one hunting rifle, six explosive devices, 1574 rounds of 99mm ammunition, 1800 rounds of machine-gun ammunition, several hundred rounds for various kinds of pistols and rifles and blasting caps and other explosive materials.
Yesterday in Djakova, UNMIK Police reported that Mr. Hysen Mahmutaj was shot in the back as he left a café where he was being harassed by several gentlemen for holding a picture of Ibrahim Rugova. UNMIK police are seeking a suspect identified by the victim, who is currently hospitalized. The victim claimed he would be killed for having gone to the police so UNMIK police and KFOR have set up a 24-hour protection of him in hospital and of his family house.
There was a murder yesterday evening in Vitomirica village in Pec/Peja. A Kosovo-Bosnian woman was shot and killed by a Kosovo Albanian male after her son had an altercation with the suspect. Another member of the victim's family was also injured during the attack which police say was intended to target the woman's son, however she was in the way and was the one who received the bullet. A Kosovo Albanian male suspect is in custody.
WHO press brief
The World Health Organization's Environmental Health Unit will hold a press briefing tomorrow at 9 a.m. on the recent developments in environmental health in Kosovo. They will discuss the expansion of testing of drinking water and the remobilization of sanitary inspectors. The expansion of community-based sanitation and environmental health improvements through the Healthy Village programme, improved hospital hygiene and new developments in solid waste collection. The briefing will take place at the WHO office on M. Popovic ST. No. 1.
Housing and property claims…
We issued a press release yesterday on the new regulation on residential property claims which sets forth the rules of procedure and evidence for making claims to the Housing and Property Directorate and Claims Commission.
The press release is long and complicated regulation. It is outside and if you need the regulation, please contact me or contact the press office.
Also later today there will be a press release of the new Department of Health and Social Welfare, social assistance strategy for category two. These are extremely needy people and the press release will detail the requirements for eligibility. There will be just a small number of people assisted. They will now be accepting applications at all the centers for social work, so please pick up this press release later today.
KFOR Spokesman Major Steven Shappell
Weapons Cache Discovered
I have got just one item this morning. As Susan said, there has been a major weapons find in Multinational Brigade East, just before 1 p.m. yesterday. KFOR Polish-Ukrainian Battalion soldiers assisted by UNMIK Police found a weapons cache in a cave north of Dac Mala near the border with FYROM. The entrance to the cave was booby-trapped with mines. KFOR Explosive Ordnance Disposal troops safely disarmed the mines, allowing the soldiers and the police to search the cave. So far, up to the end of yesterday, the soldiers have found 43 82-mm mortar rounds, 38 D40 rockets, 38 RPG-2 grenades, two RPG launchers, 25 mines, nine boxes of 12.7-mm machine gun ammunition, a heavy machine gun, a grenade launcher, a SGMT rifle, five RPG-7s and 170 blocks of dynamite in various sizes. As additional booby-traps were found in the cave, the investigation of the find was halted at 8 p.m. last night, and was started again this morning. Additional finds will be announced. We are arranging a helicopter that will leave here around 13.30 for any journalists who are interested in going out there and we will show you what we have found and you can talk to the soldiers. If you are interested in doing that, see Dimitry, our Ukranian in media ops.
Questions
Q: Do we know whether these weapons find belongs to Kosovo Albanian elements or to the Serbs since booby trapping of weapons cache is not particularly common?
SS: At this point we do not know whom it belongs to. Obviously somebody who plants booby traps definitely does not want to be found. We are still investigating. I don’t know right now.
Q: Major Shappell, did the weapons find come out because of intelligence you have received or you just stumbled upon it?
SS: We don’t have any information right now, hopefully we will be able to tell you that when we take you out there. If not, I will get that information for you later.
Q: Susan you have got a kind of cell that is supposed to deal with problems or incidents of political violence before, during and after the elections. Do you now have any report for us? What are the conclusions of this cell?
SM: The cell has not produced any report yet. It is meeting regularly and actively and I think there have been many public statements that the pre-elections period was in fact very violence free. But the work of the cell is ongoing and we have just had an incident last night that appears to be political, but there is no report now, no.
Q: What would you do if it were proved that the incident might be political? What might be the consequence for the people who might be involved?
SM: It is a good question because in the pre-election period we had measures at our disposal to eliminate candidates. But I think it is still important for the general picture of the situation. I don’t know exactly what measures we would take if we could prove a trend in the post-election period. But the main purpose at this point is protection and to keep the peace. So we would use those analysis to design the protection basically.
Q: Major Shappell, there has been a statement by the Commander of Multinational Brigade North regarding his concern about some kind of violence in that sector and he said he was fully against it. And now there has been a big operation during which a weapons cache was found. Is there any connection? Does it mean that the Commander of Multinational Brigade East or somebody in that brigade had information about this weapons cache or any violent people?
SS: I don’t know whether there is any connection between John Hardy's statement that was released two days ago and the finding of this weapons cache. Again, I don’t know what information led to the discovery of this. The search is still ongoing and hopefully, we will get this answer for you later on as to what particularly drove us to this weapons cache.