UNMIK-KFOR-OSCE-EU Press Briefing: 20 October 2000
UNMIK
Spokeswoman Claire Trevena
KFOR Spokesman Major Steven R.
Shappell
OSCE Spokesman Roland Bless
EU Spokesman Mike
Todd
UNMIK Spokeswoman Claire Trevena
To remind you: 15:30 this afternoon there is going to be a press briefing. Sylvia Pantz, the head for the department for judicial affairs, will be holding the briefing. It is to answer questions following the release of the report on six months of the judicial system.
Crime
UNMIK Police are investigating the death of a Serb man who was found under a tree in an open field in Mirace village in Vucitrn/Vushtrri. The man’s body has been taken to Pristina hospital for an autopsy to determine the cause of his death.
There’s been another attack on a Roma family, this time in Stimlje/Stimje on Wednesday evening. A grenade was thrown into a house, injuring a 60-year-old woman and a nine year old child.
There’s been an armed robbery in Urosevac/Ferizaj on Wednesday night. Four masked men, two armed with handguns, robbed the Metali company. The suspects tied up the guard, cut up the safe and removed a certain amount of money.
Also on Wednesday night, a complete safe was stolen from the Norwegian Red Cross in Pristina. Five masked men entered the building, tied up the security guard and escaped with the 300 kilogram safe.
One finale note: the Council of Europe Election Observation Mission is holding a press conference on Monday at nine in morning. Lord Russell Johnston, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly at the Council of Europe will join the head of mission, Victor Ruffy to discuss its second report on the elections, and that is going to be at the Grand Hotel.
KFOR Spokesman Major Steven R. Shappell
KFOR Commander Comments on OSCE Legal Review
KFOR Commander Lt. Gen. Carlo Cabigiosu has been briefed on the OSCE's Six Month Assessment of the judicial system in Kosovo. After the briefing, he made the following statement:
KFOR, as mandated by UNSCR 1244, is working to support UNMIK within its
means and capabilities. Together, we are working to establish an
effective system dedicated to the rule of law. We welcome any and
all outside reviews of our policies and practices by
competent
organizations. We recognize that there are challenges
associated with the current judicial procedures in Kosovo. Let me
assure you KFOR and the entire international community are working
diligently to improve the effectiveness of the judicial institutions of
Kosovo.
We will carefully review the report and it recommendations, and if necessary, amend our operational procedures related to the detention of arrested individuals.
Weapons Seizures
Yesterday throughout the day, KFOR units continued search operations for the purpose of rooting out illegal weapons wherever they may be. Planned and random searches were conducted in all Multinational Brigade areas. Weapons were found and confiscated in Multinational Brigades Centre, West, South, and East.
Grenades Thrown, Shots Fired at KFOR Compound
Last night, unknown assailants threw two grenades at the KFOR Russian
Battalion compound in Buroje / Brocna. Both grenades exploded about 200
meters from the compound. A short time later, automatic weapons fire
was reported near the compound as well. KFOR will not tolerate
attacks upon its soldiers, and will use all necessary means to counter
such attacks. In response to the incident KFOR Multinational Brigade
North increased its presence in the area, and continues to investigate.
There were no reports of
injuries in connection with the incident.
Minefield Discovered
Yesterday afternoon in Multinational Brigade East, KFOR Task Force 2-327 Infantry soldiers discovered a previously unknown minefield near Vrboc / Vrbovac. The soldiers immediately marked the area with engineer tape and "Mine" signs. For their safety, local residents are cautioned to respect these signs and avoid this newly detected minefield.
KFOR Operational Reserve Air Insertion Exercises
The KFOR Operational Reserve - composed of British, Greek, Ukrainian and U.S. elements will be conducting an Air Insertion exercise in the Multinational Brigade East sector early next week.
The Air Insertion exercise takes place Monday near Gjilan / Gnjilane, and entails the force's insertion by helicopters - Ukrainian MI-8 Hips and American UH- 60 Blackhawks and CH-47 Chinooks -- into a town, where they will conduct security patrols.
The KFOR Operational Reserve force provides the KFOR commander additional assets and greater flexibility during the Kosovo municipal elections. The force is training in MNB East to familiarize the unit with the sector's command, control and communications in the event the unit is called upon to augment existing peacekeepers. It also offers the opportunity to exercise the One Team, One Effort concept guiding KFOR.
Media wishing to attend the Air Insertion Exercise need to report to Camp Monteith Gate 1 Monday no later than 9:00 a.m. Special concerns should be addressed to SSG McGuire at the KFOR Press Information Center no later than noon Sunday. KFOR press passes are required for both events. An Albanian interpreter will be available.
Bus transportation from the KFOR CPIC in Prishtina / Pristina is available. The bus will depart the CPIC at 7:45 a.m. and return to the CPIC upon the completion of the exercise.
KFOR Multinational Slingload Exercise
KFOR US and Russian elements will conduct a joint slingload operation Tuesday at Camp Monteith. A U.S. Army Chinook helicopter will be rigged to carry tactical vehicles, and will then conduct a tactical air insertion mission.
Media wishing to attend the training should report to Camp Monteith Gate 1 no later than 4:00 p.m. Tuesday. Special concerns should be addressed to SSG McGuire at the KFOR Press Information Center no later that 4:00 p.m. Monday. KFOR press passes are required for both events. An Albanian interpreter will be available.
OSCE Spokesman Roland Bless
On elections: yesterday we had a meeting of the Central Election Commission (CEC) which was probably the last CEC meeting before the election. On election day, just to be precise, it will be on Saturday 28 October.
On election day CEC will meet more or less permanently, interrupted by visits to polling stations just to go and see for themselves. After having voted themselves at their respective registration polling sites around Kosovo early around seven o’clock.
The decisions of yesterday that were taken are referring to one element which has to do with out-of-Kosovo voting. The Prizren candidates list that was sent out to out-of-Kosovo voters had a mistake and we had to re-send it. Therefore the CEC allowed two additional days for, by mail voting to arrive in Vienna, for votes going towards Prizren municipality only.
They also had a briefing on the election day and polling station procedures and they were given a briefing on safety procedures which are planned for election day.
The second topic is a media monitoring issue. Some radio stations in Kosovo were sent warning letters with a warning period of three days to correct their reporting with reference to equitable coverage given to the parties. I do not name the radio stations at this stage. It is a warning to correct what has been monitored as a very clear bias, either against some parties or in favor of one particular party or candidate. If radios don’t comply by this warnings they face sanctions by the ECAC.
On a very related note: we keep getting information from political parties and also from independent observers of the process that small parties and independent candidates do not get any coverage at all. We all understand that they will not get as much as the bigger, but they don’t get any coverage at all. So if I could just give that to you as a collegial advise that you maybe want to look into that in your reporting and also include the smaller entities. Otherwise, again, the ECAC might see into the matter and sanctions might be coming forward. So this is just a little heads up.
I have a status report on domestic observers. So far 2,200 domestic observers have been accredited: being party nominated observers or NGO nominated observers. I have a statistical breakdown available for you outside. On top of these 2,200 we have about 1,800 more applications pending, so that we can expect to have 4,000 domestic observers on election day. This is a phenomenally high number, and I also communicate these figures to you because this will be one element that could lead to crowding in polling stations on election day, and there might be some regime to shift entry the polling stations including observers, media and of course voters who have the first priority.
We also have prepared for you an extensive press release regarding the electoral count process as election day approaches. You find it outside.
The next topic” Elections Complaints and Appeals Commissions (ECAC) decisions: I was referring to nine decisions which were made last Tuesday, and I promised you the full text version of it for Wednesday or Thursday. I have to apologize – we only got them today. You will found these outside. So these are no new ones. I referred to them already last Wednesday.
Yesterday some of you were present at the inauguration of the Media Press Centre. We will start having regular elections briefing on coming Monday at ten o’clock. We will have a briefing every day towards end of the week, and on election day we will have probably several briefings a day. You can expect briefings on such issues as valid and invalid ballots, the counting procedures, the tabulation procedures, the security arrangements for election day. Also how results will be announced and in what expected time period. There is of course two big unknowns on this: that is the ECAC caseload, how many complaints will be filed regarding the election – we have no idea whether it is going to be dozens, hundreds – that will be determine the announcement of results, because you can only announce results if all the ECAC and CEC complaints cases have been decided. And the second one is the conditional ballot amount by human error. Not the one we are responsible for by technical error, but by human error. People going to the wrong polling station is usually the most frequent committed error in that respect.
Having said all this: I will step down from the podium next week. I will not be here for elections. We will just transfer our information operations over there. One thing we will do here, nonetheless, is the presentation for you after next minority report. The way it looks now is that we either present that to you on Monday or maybe Wednesday. I think it is by now the sixth update. You can expect Everts and the head of UNHCR, Eric Morris to present that report.
Regarding Jakup Krasniqi, who was reported of having being taken off the candidates list. This is not correct. Jakup Krasniqi was never on the candidates list. He was one of 49 candidates that registered in a different municipality than where they wanted to stand as candidates. All parties and candidates involved in such a mismatch of municipality and candidate allocation were informed by letter on 11 September this year and they had three days to respond to that. Jakup Krasniqi also got such a letter or his party did. We have no reaction here, and it was because of that that the head of mission Daan Everts informed Mr. Krasniqi on 18 October that he will not be on the candidates list. This is referred to in some of the media and we have had questions to that.
EU Spokesman Mike Todd
Presumptive Tax
The presumptive tax, passed as a regulation in May, is a monetary payment to the Kosovo Consolidated Budget based on a business’ presumed income. The Deadline for payment of the first collection of the presumptive tax, October 15, has now passed.
Over ten thousand, of a registered total of around 25,000, businesses have paid the tax and the total amount of collected payments is over six million DM; vital revenue for the Kosovo Consolidated Budget.
The CFA Tax Administration’s work is now focused on those businesses that haven’t paid.
Power situation
Some slight problems where caused earlier in the week by a fault with the B1 unit but this was soon rectified. Last night, and this morning, there has been some load shedding due to the fact the A3 generator had to be shut down because of a leak in the economiser. The problem is not serious and it should be back in service by the beginning of next week. In the meantime temporary imports from Greece are being arranged to cover the power deficit. Imports from Bulgaria paid for by international donations, continue. The power situation remains stable.
This week, limitations did have to be placed on the local water supply to allow the vital work of unclogging Pristina’s sewers to go ahead, part of PUDs ongoing preparations or winter.
Senior Officials from the Public Utilities Department gave a briefing yesterday on the exact preparations, and expected situation, for winter, of all the utilities: power, water and waste. Copies of the information they presented are available outside.
Housing
As of this week, close to 16.000 houses are either finalised or under construction.
The housing reconstruction programme has, from the beginning, been working to help the most vulnerable and needy families in Kosovo. The houses being reconstructed have all been either seriously damaged or destroyed. The programme is designed to help those who are not in a position to be able to help themselves.
With the progress now being made, particularly over the last months, there is now some confidence that the target figure of 20.000 houses, rehabilitated by the international donor community, will be reached.