UNMIK-KFOR-OSCE Press Briefing: 18 September 2000

UNMIK Spokeswoman Claire Trevena
KFOR Spokesman Major Scott Slaten
OSCE Spokesman Roland Bless

UNMIK Spokeswoman Claire Trevena

Culture

Just a reminder that immediately after this briefing, the co heads of the culture department . Edi Shukriu and Gonzalo Retamal . will be briefing about the launch of the cultural season for the theatre, orchestra and dance troupe.

Rexhep Luci

The investigation into the killing of the Pristina planner Rexhep Luci is continuing. The head of the department of judicial affairs has now appointed an international judge and an international prosecutor on the case. UNMIK is determined that those responsible are brought to justice.

A number of media outlets are reporting that Enver Sekiraqa was arrested in relation to Mr Luci. s killing. The police however say they have no suspects in the case.

Ethnic Crime

There have been a number of apparent attacks on Serbs and Serb property in the Gnjilane/Gjilane area. Most of you are already aware of yesterday. s report that a Serb man was killed when a grenade was thrown at a Serb church in the town. (Scott will have more on that).

Another Serb man reported that a grenade exploded near his home yesterday afternoon. And a molotov cocktail was thrown at a vacant Serb house last night. No one was injured in the last two attacks.

In Urosevac/Ferizaj a Kosovo Albanian man was arrested by UNMIK Reg. Invest. after a Roma was killed in a bar and three others were injured, one of them seriously, after a dispute. The Kosovo Albanian was wounded in the incident and is now in Camp Bondsteel.

Mitrovica

An update on Mitrovica Detention Facility. There have been a number of changes at the facility to improve security. There. s an expanded guard force inside and outside the prison and those judged not up to the job by the new administration are being dismissed. There. s also a new supervisory regime inside the facility with supervisors checking on cells every 15 minutes and the cells being searched every day. Prisoners are now in uniform . orange jumpsuits. In addition more gates and bars are being installed.

We should be issuing a press release on this later today.

Acid Spill

The clean up is continuing in Mitrovica following the sulphuric acid leak. PH levels in the Ibar river are reported to be near normal . at 6 rather than 7. The transfer of acid from the leaking and suspect tanks should be completed by tomorrow. The next issue, which is being worked on, is removing the acid from the site.

Town Hall

The SRSG Bernard Kouchner is tomorrow going to be in Viti/Vitina where he. ll be meeting local leaders. He. s also holding a Town Hall meeting t here. This is part of his Outreach Project and is a chance for him to talk to local people, to get hear their views and to continue his campaign for tolerance between the various communities. The meeting is at 3.15 tomorrow afternoon in the town. s cultural centre. If media want to get on the bus to the event they should contact Francois Charlier in the press office. It will be leaving at noon.

Dr Kouchner is also holding town hall meeting Gjakova/Djakovica on Wednesday. That. s also in the town. s Cultural Centre. Again Francois will be organising a media bus.

KTC

And a final note; this week. s KTC is being held on Thursday rather than Wednesday.

Press Release from Department of Culture

The Department of Culture (DoC) is pleased to announce that the seasons of three major Kosovo performing arts institutions: the National Theatre, Shota Ensemble of Song and Dance and the Kosovar Philharmonic Orchestra will open this month.  The DoC has worked with these institutions to prepare projects for the season 2000 to 2001.

The Philharmonic Orchestra has been re-established after a 10-year pause thanks to the financial support of the DoC and the Kosova Foundation for Open Society (Soros Foundation).  The DoC is contributing 249,930DM and Soros 90,000DM to subsidise a 10-month season of chamber concerts, with additional symphony concerts if further funding is secured.  The programme includes concerts by composers ranging from baroque to contemporary, including Vivaldi, Elgar and Faure.  The first concert will be on Wednesday 27th September in Pristina (venue tbc).

The National Theatre will launch its new season on Wednesday 20th September with . Trains. by Haqif Mulliqi.  The wide-ranging programme for the coming year includes works by both local and international playwrights, though unfortunately due to lack of support from donors the original project has been modified.  The DoC is contributing 461,390DM to this year. s season, supplemented by 150,000DM from KFOS. 

The Shota Ensemble of Song and Dance will perform in the regions this week (beginning 21st September), with a performance in Pristina on Monday 25th at the National Theatre.  The season includes traditional dances from various regions of Kosovo, accompanied by folk instruments. Shota have won much critical acclaim for their choreography, rhythms and costumes.  The DoC is providing 186,990DM for the first six months of the Shota project.

The press are invited to attend a rehearsal at each of the three institutions this week.  To be arranged via the DoC (contact details on the handout).

KFOR Spokesman Major Scott Slaten

Update on Grenade Attack in MNB East

This is an update on last night's KFOR Press Release #09-19.  KFOR and UNMIK Police  investigators now believe that the Kosovo Serb man, who died as a result of a grenade explosion in Gjilan / Gnjilane, may have been a victim of an attack.

It is now reported that the man is believed to have been working on a car near his house when a grenade was thrown, fatally wounding him. The injured man then received first aid from a KFOR medic and was transported by UNMIK Police to the Gjilan / Gnjilane hospital were he died enroute.

KFOR and UNMIK investigators conducted a search of the crime scene and the man's home. The activating spoon of an M-47 hand grenade was discovered in the alley next to the man's residence.

It was initially believed that the man was handling the grenade when it exploded. However, investigators now feel he was a victim of an attack, which is linked to another similar attack earlier in the afternoon.

Another grenade was thrown into a Kosovo Serb home in Gjilan / Gnjilane. No injuries were reported in connection with the blast. The explosion did severely damage a refrigerator in the home.

UNMIK and KFOR investigators believe the two attacks may be linked. UNMIK Police is investigating.

Molotov Cocktail Thrown

Last night it was reported by KFOR MNB East, that a 14 year-old Kosovo Albanian boy threw a Molotov Cocktail onto the lawn of a Kosovar Serb home in the town of Gnjilan / Gnjilane. A neighbor of the family extinguished the flames and witnesses identified the youth. The boy was then apprehended and questioned by UNMIK Police. He stated that he had been paid to throw the Molotov Cocktail.

KFOR US soldiers from Task Force 1-36 cordoned off the area and searched the boy's home. Nothing additional was discovered. The boy was detained for questioning and later released under the care of his parents due to his age.
UNMIK and KFOR are continuing to investigate.

One Killed; Three Injured in Shooting

Soldiers from MNB East, assigned to the US 503rd Military Police Company, reported a shooting last night in the village of Firaje / Firaja which left one Kosovo Roma dead and three injured.

The shootout was reported as occurring between the Romas and a Kosovar Albanian man after an argument ensued. The Kosovar Albanian used an AK-47 Assault Rifle in the shooting and was wounded during the engagement. After the shooting, the man fled from UNMIK Police and KFOR Military Police into the local KPC headquarters. KFOR US Military Police then captured the suspect.

The wounded were taken to the local hospital for further treatment. Two of them were later transported to the Prishtina / Pristina hospital.  The Kosovar Albanian suspect in the case was transported to the Camp Bondsteel Medical Facility and released early this morning to UNMIK Police for questioning. UNMIK Police is conducting the investigation.

Mine Strike

Yesterday afternoon, KFOR Headquarters in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonian (FYROM), was notified that a FYROM military vehicle struck an anti-tank mine near the FYROM / Kosovo border.

KFOR headquarters at Camp Able Sentry, Skopje, dispatched a Medical Evacuation helicopter with a doctor and translator. The helicopter then flew directly to the site where the evacuation team stabilized a 27 year-old FYROM soldier who had suffered severe injuries to his legs.

The medical evacuation team then flew the injured soldier to the Camp Bondsteel Medical Facility in Kosovo, where KFOR doctors rushed the man into surgery, only one hour after being notified of the mine strike.

At 11:20 p.m. the injured man was out of surgery and is currently recovering from his wounds. The majority of damage caused by the blast was to the man's lower legs, primarily the right foot. None of the injuries are listed as being life threatening.

The FYROM Army chief of Staff and two doctors are scheduled to arrive this morning at Camp Bondsteel to visit the injured soldier. KFOR MNB East is also arranging transportation so that family members can visit the soldier.

KPC Shooting Update

The KPC member, who was reported as being shot yesterday and medically evacuated to Camp Bondsteel Medical Facility, is currently listed as being in stable condition. It is also reported that the man is paralyzed from the waist down. He is currently listed as a member of the KPC assigned to the MNB North area.

Search operation in Stimlje/Shtime

Weapons were seized this morning in Stimlje/Shtime. KFOR MNB Centre Finnish Battalion soldiers carried out the search operation following an incident that occurred yesterday afternoon.

At approximately 5.20 p.m. on Sunday 17 September shots were heard coming from a wedding party in Stimlje/Shtime. When a KFOR MNB Centre Finnish Battalion patrol stopped a vehicle convoy from the wedding party a man jumped out of one of the cars and aimed a pistol at the patrol. He cocked his weapon several times, emptying the magazine and then ran away.

This morning at approximately 7.a.m. a follow-up search operation recovered approximately 100 mixed cartridges; 2 kilos of explosives; fuse wire; one pistol; one rifle; 3 F1 hand grenades with primers and several camouflage uniforms with the UCK insignia.

More information will be released when it becomes available.

OSCE Spokesman Roland Bless

On elections: last Friday I tried to explain the spending limits and the mechanism that would allow parties to only spend one DM per voter per municipality. The Central Elections Commission (CEC) now on last Friday has approved provisional voter figures for each municipality. They range from 112,000 in Pristina, which is the maximum, down to 10,000 in Obilic . that is the lowest registration figure. For five municipalities; that is Novo Brdo, Leposavic, Strpce, Zubin Potok and Zvecan, there was not registration in meaningful numbers. Therefore CEC decided to seal the spending at the (lumpsum) of 2,000 DM. That means now that parties can spend or any political contender running in the elections, can spend this amount of money in each of the municipalities as decided by CEC. There is a reporting mechanism in place, and these figures are made public. You as journalists, and of course the public at large, will have an opportunity to come and check on what the parties and candidates have reported on having spent (press release outside).

With the election date coming closer; voter information material production is gearing up. I have to announce that there is a first hand out of fact sheets in a series of five on municipal governance. Others will be produced on voting, on women. s participation in politics, on out-of-Kosovo voting and on the CEC. These handouts are going to be produced in 250,000 copies, and they are produced in Albanian, Serb and Turkish.

Questions:

Q:  You said he emptied his magazine. Is this a military way of saying firing?

SS: Not necessarily. There is no report that the weapon was fired. It could have been emptying the magazine, to get rid of the rounds inside. I don. t have any reports whether shots were fired. I don. t think so

Q: Is there a special  stage of alert for KFOR in Macedonia, Albania and in Kosovo because of the Yugoslav elections.

 SS: As we have stated continuously for the past few weeks, KFOR is prepared at anytime to deal with the security situation. We are not on an alert status. We are constantly on alert everyday since we entered the province a year ago. So I don. t know what you mean by alert?

Q:  I mean a special military status set up to deal with this special situation which is the Federal Yugoslav elections?

SS: No, as I have stated before, we don. t recognize the Yugoslav elections. We handle the security situation assessed each and everyday in all the Mobs. We are fully capable handling any situation arises.

Q: So, you are not in a situation of alert right now?

SS: No, we are prepared to do our job on a daily basis

Q: How many indicted war criminals have remained in Mitrovica detention center and what is their nationality?

CT: Indicted by whom?

Q: By the ones who arrested them

CT: I will find out the actual figures for you. I know some charges are genocides, some charges are war crimes. I will get the breakdown for you.

Q: An UNMIK employee has been arrested on Friday for a serious sexual offense of public masturbation in front of children. As an UNMIK employee, he does benefit from a certain immunity. Will this man be prosecuted? Or there is one law for UNMIK and one law for local pervert?

CT: He is under investigation by our own security department which is treating this matter very seriously. There is not one law for UNMIK or one law for others. There is an issue that he does have immunity at this moment that may well be waived, but the bottom line is that UNMIK employees are expected to abide by the law of the land and we do treat this with the utmost seriousness.

Q: Has UNMIK now decided not to move the prisoners from the jail in Northern Mitrovica?

CT: That policy is still being looked at, but  in the meantime we have to improve the security  in the detention facility. So we have been working very hard on doing that.  The other issue is still being looked at.

Q: In today. s Belgrade press, the federal election commission said that there are going to be 300 polling stations in Kosovo for the 24th of September vote? Have you been notified yet of their plans? Have they asked for security? Does 300 seem rather a lot of polling stations to you, considering the number of people likely to vote?

CT: We have not been informed on this. The number of polling stations is being organised by Belgrade. It is up to Belgrade to decide how many polling stations they believe they would need. But we have not been informed. We will not be assisting them with polling. It is a federal Yugoslav election.

Q: What about the number of polling stations?

RB: It is exactly the link we don. t want to make. For the upcoming municipal elections on 28 October, we are looking at fifteen hundred polling stations for Kosovo.
Q: The SRSG Bernard Kouchner is organizing Town Hall meetings around Kosovo and especially with Albanian Community. Why are you excluding in this case, the Serb community and why Mr. Kouchner is not visiting the Serb community talking with them and see what kind of problems, and understand why the Serbs are not participating in the Kosovo elections?

CT: He is not excluding the Serb community at all. He is actually very inclusive. He is looking at going to various Serb enclaves to have the Town Hall meetings. At each visit he goes on, he is visiting Serb representatives there. As you know, when he went to Skenderaj, he went also to the monastery there and talk to leaders. On each visit where there is a Serb area, he is trying to include the Serbs. The reason why he is doing his outreach campaign is to promote the issue of tolerance. There is no way that we are excluding any part of the Kosovo community for this. We are trying to be as inclusive as possible.

Q: Mr. Bernard Kouchner has been excluded by Serbs from meeting them like in the case of Obilic?

CT: Not to my knowledge at all. As I said, he has been as inclusive as possible.

Q: Clearly in Cerkvena Vodica, they refuse to meet him. Did they give you any reason why they don. t want to meet Mr. Kouchner?

CT: I have got no information on that. I will come back to you.

Q: When is Dr. Kouchner planning to visit Zubin Potok, Leposavic, Mitrovica North for public meetings?

CT: I don. t have his exact schedule. I know he is doing Town Hall meetings through the end of this month and into the beginning of next month. I don. t have the precise schedule of exactly all those ones are.

Q: Yugoslav elections: It was said that there would be 300 voting places. Who is going to secure the Yugoslav authorities to bring the 300 boxes here?

SS: From a KFOR point of view no requests for security have been made. It is up to the Yugoslav officials if they want to drop boxes into Kosovo.

CT: Our policy is that UNMIK Police with the assistance of KFOR is going to try to keep Kosovo as secure as possible. We are not assisting Yugoslavs in their elections, we are maintaining security.

Q: Follow up: I understand these technical things of what is UNMIK and KFOR policy, but: What if the Yugoslav authorities will come in a convoy on Saturday or Sunday with 300 boxes. How are you going to take care of security. ?

CT: This is something we are looking on in each instance when people are coming to the boundary, we are looking into how to ensure security . KFOR is examining this the whole time.

SS: From my point of view it is purely a security issue of what could transpire if the problems develop. The actual elections themselves or the polling are not the problem. The problem is what transpires because of that and results in violence or problems in the local communities. We are ready to deal with those situations, but as far as with the elections we have stated before, it is immaterial. The Serb elections will have no bearing on the lives of the people here in Kosovo.

Q: If you require something like 72 hours notice before a visit: aren. t you going to require some notice of the transfer of these balloting boxes from Serbia? Isn. t there a cut-off point approaching this week when you are going to have to say to Belgrade . look, you are too late, you can. t spin this on us on Saturday afternoon?

CT: It is a 96 hours period that we look at before a visit. I think we are getting a bit hypothetical here because if we are talking about what ballot boxes they are bringing in . we don. t know what sort of ballot boxes they are. It may be a card board box. You can get 300 cardboard boxes in a truck very easily. I think this is getting very hypothetical. We have had no notice from Belgrade about anything about these elections.

Q: Don. t you think you are using security as an excuse to allow those elections to be held here?

CT: I think that security is a prime issue. It. s not a matter of whether we are using it to allow or not allow. The elections are happening. There. s no way we are going to try to stop them. They are Yugoslav elections. They. re happening in areas that Belgrade wants them to happen. Security is not an issue of allowing or not allowing. Security is part of our role.

SS: KFOR. s position in this is that we are interested in the security of the communities and the people here in Kosovo, we are not interested in the security of the elections themselves. We have already stated that we don. t recognize those elections, and it is immaterial. Now when you want to talk about the municipality elections later in Kosovo we will have an active plan to ensure that those elections and those polling stations are secured. But as far as the Serb elections we have no plans at this time to participate actively with the security of those polling stations.

Q: I. m not talking about the municipal elections, I. m talking about the Yugoslav elections . that you are using security. Those elections will arise tensions here. Are you going to stop those elections from being held in Kosovo . if they arise tensions?

CT: No, we are not going to stop them from being held. You. ve heard Dr. Kouchner so many times on this; about why we are having the elections here; that he regards it as a provocation to have the elections here; that there is a right to have the elections here . Yugoslavia can hold elections in Kosovo, federal and parliamentary elections. At the same time, part of our mandate, both UNMIK and KFOR, is to ensure the well being of all Kosovars and therefore we have to security into account.

SS: We are well staged to handle any situations that do develop. If a situation develops we will react, but we can. t react on . what-ifs. and . maybes. . If something develops then we. ll deal with it.

Q: It. s an open secret that Slobo is going to try and steal some votes in Kosovo. There are some independent elections monitors that want to come down from Belgrade to observe the elections in Kosovo. They feel slightly fearful of what. s going to happen to them. Are you going to provide special security for them? To protect them against Slobo. s thugs in Kosovo?

SS: To my knowledge we haven. t received any requests at all for additional security by any agencies coming out of Serbia.

Q: If you were asked for special security where they can monitor the elections, would you provide that?

SS: Each situation is handled on case-by-case basis. Honestly: until the situation arises we can. t address it. We are back into speculation.

Q: How many Serbs do officially live in Kosova (Milosevic. s claims it to be more than 250,000). Most probably he. ll going to claim that he won over 200,000 votes in Kosova. You. re not participating in verifying it, so what will be done about it?

CT: Nobody knows how many Serbs there are here. We have got an idea of how many people are here now; we have a registration estimate of just over 100,000.

Q: He claims to have more than 200,000 votes in Kosova.

CT: That is something for the Yugoslav people to deal with.

Q: At the risk of sounding hypothetical: the elections are 6 days away, and there is going to be the distinct possibility that around 200-300 polling stations will be sprung on northern Kosovo. You must have some sort of security plan envisaged for what is going to happen in this case. You can. t deal with such a mass incident on a case-by-case basis. And there doesn. t really seem to be any central coordination, or really any idea of what you actually are going to do at the moment.

SS: I beg to differ. As I have stated in the past: all the MNBs are prepared to handle any situation that may arrive in their sectors. The commanders are well aware of the situation, they understand that there could be a potential for an increased level of violence caused by the elections being held here in Kosovo. We are prepared. We have troops on the ground.

Q: Zubin Potok, for instance: 80 polling stations arrive and being set up in the space of two hours. Would you feel you had enough troops on the ground if there were any Albanian reactions to this?

SS: First off: the polling stations themselves don. t pose any threat. However, if the local inhabitants react in a violent manner, then we will react accordingly to deal with that situation.

Q: You are always mentioning the respect of this sovereignty of Yugoslavia, resolution 12:44 when it comes to Yugoslav elections. But the fact that you came here was not the fact that Mr. Milosevic was willing to let you come here or his government in Belgrade. The fact is that you came here after NATO made the war. You didn. t really ask for any like real permission from Mr. Milosevic or his people to come here. Why are you using that as an (?) to allow Yugoslav elections. What. s the reason for allowing the Yugoslav elections?

SS: This is one of the by-products of coming from democratic nations. It is very simple if you are a despot or a dictator who 1) controls the media and 2) can basically say whatever you like to. However, unfortunately . fortunately actually, we represent democratic institutions. Now we all know what 12:44 stated when we came in here. We understand that. Once again: we don. t support the elections that are being held in Serbia because they are not being held using international guidelines for democratic elections. (..) But the elections will have no impact on the people who live here. KFOR is here. UNMIK is here on a day-to-day basis. The Serb national elections will have no impact if you are a resident living here in Kosovo.

Q: Claire, have you received a request from Kostunica or any other Serbian political official for approval to return to Kosovo to hold a rally here?

CT: We have had no further requests from the ones we got last week. The last one was Mihailovic, and he gave it too late. That was the last one.

Q: If polling stations arrive at the border without 96 hours notice. If there. s a convoy of Serb vehicle that turns up at gate 1 or 3 or wherever, are they going to be allowed to cross? It. s no longer a hypothetical question. It. s six days away. You. ve had, as you say, no requests. If you don. t receive a request, and they turn up on Saturday, it this case-by-case basis going to be decided by a Belgian NCO standing at gate 1 or are they going to radio down here and ask what to do?

CT: We have had no requests. I. m not sure that we necessarily will get a request to say that we are going to bring in ballot boxes. If we don. t get a request, two things could happen: one is that they might be stopped. It. s unlikely. What would more likely happen is that like most vehicles coming through from Serbia, they. ll be searched, if weapons are found they. ll be seized, and they. ll be allowed to proceed on their way. Bringing in boxes into Kosovo is not a security threat.

SS: And as far as the request that had been made: the request are made in order to participate in political rallies which could have security issues associated with them. The polling boxes are not a security issue.

Q: (unaudible).. Some political rallies have been banned because they pose a security threat. Do you think the active polling in Kosovo is in itself a security threat?

CT: There is inevitably going to be the possibility of a lack or problems with security when people are voting. We don. t know who is going to be outside, we don. t know what sort of pressure people are going to put on it. We don. t recognize these elections, but we accept that they take place.

Q: Prisons in Mitrovica: We were here when Dr. Kouchner said that the prisoners will be taken away from the Mitrovica prison. There must be a higher rule. Someone who is beyond Mr. Kouchner who can decide to keep these people in prison. Who is that person who has decided to keep these people in prison? Is that Kofi Annan, or is that one of the Security Council nations, or was it a decision by the UNMIK prison chief in Mitrovica?

CT: The SRSG, Dr. Kouchner, is the person who is the administrator for Kosovo. In Kosovo he is the highest level person there is. The decision on moving the prisoners has been made. It is still being worked out how to implement it. I. m not saying that it isn. t happening, I. m just saying that it hasn. t happened yet.

Q: One third allegedly of the people who committed war crimes have escaped from that prison. And that was a very secure prison before, and so many have escaped. Dr. Kouchner said that they are going to be moved. On the day when they were supposed to be moved, they were prevented by a crowd of demonstrators. Does this mean that the (..?) the pressure of the local population there?

CT: We certainly haven. t bowed to the pressure from any part of the population. We have increased security there, which was a necessary thing to do, and we are still looking at ways to move prisoners out, and we need to move them out. This is still something that is being addressed, but essentially we had to increase security there and we have done that. It is an ongoing process. This is an update on what is happening in the Mitrovica detention facility, it isn. t an end of what is happening there.

Q: But they will be moved?

CT: They may be moved.

Q: So now it is maybe?

CT: I. ve heard that they are going to be moved. I haven. t heard in recent days any strategy when or where they are going to be moved to.

Q: Claire. If these independent managers come down from Belgrade, wouldn. t it be nice of you to assist them a little bit. Show them around. Provide them with logistics. Would you do that?

CT: Scott says we haven. t been approached down this at all.

Q: Would you assist them in monitoring the elections?

CT: Who are these managers? We do not even know who they are. They are not even international, neutral monitors. We are not assisting these elections.

SS: As far as the security situation here in Kosovo. Everybody keeps harping on this. We understand there could be an increase. That (..) to the Kosovar Albanians who live here. If they turn around and attack Serbs who are trying to poll, then we will deal with it as a security issue. If they ignore the Serbian elections being polled here, and the only violence is between Serbs of different political parties, then we will react in that manner. The issue is not the polling itself. It is the actions being conducted during the polling

Q: (inaudible) about the Serbs attacking the Albanian

SS: We will react in order to maintain a secure environment here. It is immaterial what ethnicity you are. That. s what my point is. If Kosovar Albanians decide to stay home during this period and don. t bother this, then our direction will be at the Kosovar Serbs. But if they turn around and attack Kosovar Albanians, we will react accordingly. That. s my point.

Q: It seems that the strategy for this election is very confuse. Does UNMIK have any strategy for these Yugoslav elections? For example, how UNMIK will react if Milosevic announces that some people have won the elections in some municipalities in Kosovo.

CT: They are not holding municipal elections here, we do. They are holding parliamentary and presidential elections.

Q: How can you know for sure when you tell us that you have not been informed officially by them?

CT: That. s just what we were being told. Just those two, they are not holding municipal elections here.

Q: Yes, but what will be your reaction if they announce the results of voting and the new administrators of the Kosovo municipalities will be treated by UNMIK?

CT:  They cannot be recognized because we are not recognizing these elections. They are not holding municipal elections, but we are holding them. So if they announce that they have held municipal elections here, we will denounce this as farce. Because they just can. t have municipal elections here. Municipal elections are being held in Kosovo on the 28th of October and are being run by the OSCE.

Q: I f we have a situation on Saturday where large numbers of people turn out to set up polling situations inside Northern Kosovo which will obviously bring with it a security problem. Despite the fact that you claim that all this is highly hypothetical, do either UNMIK or KFOR or both, have a coordinated security plan how to deal with this eventuality. And if you don. t have one. Why don. t you have one?

SS: Yes there are plans in order to take care of the increased security risk throughout Kosovo. Are our plans orientated on the polling issue itself? No. Our plans are orientated on what may occur, what demonstration may occur, what social unrest may occur, what violence may occur throughout all the regions here in Kosovo and we will respond accordingly, regardless of ethnicity to take of the situation in order to maintain calm.

Q: Let me be more specific. In the coming days, are you going to physically reinforcing troop elements in and around the Serbs enclaves where Serbs might hypothetically, on a case by case, decide to vote.

SS: I won. t go into the inches and ounces of each MNB and each Serb community here, but I will say that we understand what may transpire and we have forces on the ground that are available to respond to whatever may develop during this period.

Q: Is it allowed with the resolution 1244 for a Kosovar person to be a member of the Yugoslav parliament since the Yugoslav elections are being held here?

CT: Sure
SS: Would you like to run?