UNMIK-KFOR-OSCE-EU Press Briefing: 22 September 2000
UNMIK Spokeswoman Nadia Younes
KFOR Spokesman Major Scott
Slaten
OSCE Spokesman Roland Bless
EU Spokesman Mike Todd
UNHCR
Spokeswoman Paula Ghedini
UNMIK Spokeswoman Nadia Younes
Witnessing of FRY Election
UNMIK, backed by KFOR, will follow all possible activities on Sunday very carefully and take necessary measures to prevent any security incidents. Ensuring security and maintaining law and order in Kosovo will be our guiding criteria and to that end security measures in high-risk areas on that day will be beefed up.
UNMIK will bear witness of any inflated claims related to the so-called FRY elections in Kosovo.
That means that, although we will not officially monitor any polling facility, UNMIK and KFOR will be in a position to assess the approximate magnitude of the activity in Kosovo. We will witness and watch what is happening at the polling stations and will be in a position at one point on Sunday to report on what happened during the day in Kosovo.
UNMIK and KFOR are finalizing plans for the witnessing of the so-called elections. Obviously for security reasons, to protect the security of those who will be witnessing, we are not ready to go into details of this plan.
As you know UNMIK is present in all the municipalities in Kosovo. We will be drawing on our international staff, with KFOR backing to watch what is happening.
KTC/Elections
The Kosovo Transitional Council was yesterday briefed on the preparations for the upcoming municipal elections by DSRSG Daan Everts and a team of election officials from the OSCE.
The KTC members were assured that every Kosovar who registered between April-July, will be able to vote in the municipal elections. The Kosovar leaders were urged to ensure that the election campaign stayed within limits. There have been some complaints of intimidation which have reached the Central Election Commission. All cases of violence and intimidation will be dealt with very strictly by the CEC.
Members raised the issue of fair and equitable access to broadcast and print media during the election campaign. They were told that if they have any compliant, they should file it, which would then be investigated and necessary action taken.
They were also informed about the shortcomings in the voters list and were assured that these would be cleaned up and be ready for the October 28 elections. Many of the mistakes had crept in because of different spellings of the municipalities names.
In this context I once again wish to strongly refute allegations in the Kosovo media about the civil and voter registration. These allegations are irresponsible, misleading and factually incorrect.
No one disputes that there are errors in the provisional civil and voters registers. There would be in any database of such a magnitude. However, work is underway in correcting these mistakes in order for the voters list to be ready for the upcoming elections.
There have also been problems in putting together identity cards, partly because of information and party because of technology. We are aware of the magnitude of the problem and UNMIK is hiring people to sort it out. All the data is being checked manually against the registration data.
Deneral Jankovic/Hani-I-Elezit border point
An inspection on the structural integrity of the first bridge north of Deneral Jankovic/Hani-I-Elezit border is being carried out. At present trucks exceeding 50 tons will have to use a one lane bypass if they want to use this border point. The work will continue for a few weeks.
Alternatively, truck drivers can use the Globocica border point. By the end of the day today, UNMIK Customs would set up a customs facility at this border point to handle truck traffic, which decides to use this border point.
Gracanica case
The detention hearing of the three persons who were detained in the Gracanica case was held yesterday at the end of the initial 72-hour period. They have been further detained for a month on the orders of an international judge.
UNMIK Police
Yesterday evening, unknown persons threw an explosive device was thrown at a Kosovo Goran house in Dragash town in the Prizren region. Tow elderly occupants suffered shock. They were treated in the hospital and released.
In another attack in Gnjilane, two K-Albanians males threw a hand grenade at the home of a Serbian family causing minor damage to the property. In Ajvalia village in the Pristina region, a hand grenade was thrown by unidentified persons on a local petrol station causing minor damage.
UNMIK Staffer
On 15 September, a UN employee was taken in by UNMIK Police following allegations of indecent exposure. He was handed over to UN Security to carry out investigations.
Under UN regulations, an individual is charged and has the right to respond before action is taken against him or her. The UN Headquarters in New York has prepared formal charges. But this situation can take several weeks to complete.
UNMIK recommended the strongest possible actions be taken against the staff member, and that he be summarily dismissed.
In the meantime, the staff member has tendered his resignation, which has been accepted by UNMIK. However, the decision to waive functional privileges and immunities of international staff is made by the Secretary General in New York. UNMIK had recommended that the privileges and immunities be lifted so that the staff member can be tried in the Kosovo courts. New York has approved the waiving of immunity of the staff member and therefore the police investigation will go on and eventually be handed over to the local justice system.
SRSG to visit Dragash
As part of his “Outreach Initiative”, SRSG Kouchner will visit Dragash municipality tomorrow, where he will meet representatives of both Albanian and Goran communities. The programme includes a public meeting and a meeting with municipal council members.
Media which wants to follow the SRSG’s visit should contact Francois Charlier in the Press Office. UNMIK transport will depart from the rear entrance of the Government Building at 9 a.m. tomorrow.
KFOR Spokesman Major Scott Slaten
LDK Attack
Early yesterday afternoon, the Lipjan / Lipljan office of the LDK party was attacked by four men, who broke a number of windows and assaulted the local LDK leader. The party leader was only slightly injured and did not require medical attention. UNMIK Police is investigating.
Shots Fired; Women Arrested
Yesterday afternoon, following reports of shots fired in Lipjan/Lipljan, two Kosovar Albanian women were arrested and a pistol was confiscated. The women were taken to the UNMIK Police station in Lipjan/Lipljan for questioning.
PDK Rally
Yesterday afternoon, approximately 400 people attended a peaceful rally of the PDK party in Lipjan / Lipljan. No incidents were reported.
Hand grenade in discovered in can
Yesterday afternoon, a handgrenade in a can wrapped in tape was discovered in Lipjan / Lipljan. The device was similar to the one used against UNMIK Police a few days ago. A KFOR Explosive Ordnance Disposal team was dispatched to the scene and destroyed the device. UNMIK Police is investigating.
LDK Attack
Early last night, a strong explosion took place in the village of Krajishte / Krajiste, in the front yard of a local LDK leader. A KFOR Explosive Ordnance Disposal team responded to the incident. The party leader reported that he had been threatened earlier in the day. UNMIK Police is investigating.
Shots Fired
Last night, a KFOR patrol responded to reports of shots fired in Podujeve / Pojujevo. As a result, a Kosovar Albanian male was detained and his house searched. During the search, a pistol, five pistol rounds and two rifle magazines were discovered. The weapons were taken to the Podujeve/Pojujevo police station. Investigations are ongoing.
Children Turn-in Toy Weapons
Since last December, children in Prizren have had the opportunity to
voluntarily turn in their toy weapons in exchange for plush animals,
pencils and exercise books. The KFOR Civil-Military Cooperation
office runs the program and collects approximately 200 toy weapons each
month from willing children. According to German Navy Lt. Holger Lippman,
while they realize they cannot rid Prizren of toy weapons completely, they
hope to achieve an
educational effect and thus contribute a small share
to peace in Kosovo.
OSCE Spokesman Roland Bless
With reference to what Nadia already said, we have this factually wrong article yesterday in one of the dailies: there is a statement by ambassador Everts to that extent outside available for you, and I would just like to restate the figures: The entry at the provisional voters’ list right now stands at 930,000 – all other figures are not correct. The margins of error within that, all types of error, is estimated at staying around five per cent. Right now a team of 40 people in two shifts is working to bring that down. Our data base experts expect it to be way below the five per cent that we presently have. To re.. the debate of yesterday, these errors are not relevant for voting. Relevant for voting is a successful registration. That is based on a serial number which is unique. It has been bar-coded in by a infrared pistol. These mechanics are foolproof – there is no error there. No data has been lost as was wrongly stated. Some data could not have been retrieved, some data was not being transmitted back from India – all that is true, but no data has been lost. The right to vote does not depend on your name being correctly spelled on the voters’ list – that is not relevant. Relevant is registration slip and some photo ID if need be. Everybody who has registered will be able to cast a ballot.
Coming to the Central Election Commission (CEC) and the Election Complaints and Appeals sub-Committee (ECAC). I was asked several times when sanctions are going to be dished out. Yesterday the ECAC decided up on such sanctions. Following parties were warned: AAK, LDK, PDK and PLK for not notifying UN Civilian Police 96 hours ahead of holding rallies. This is on various locations throughout Kosovo. Today, three fines are going to be dispatched to PDK, AAK and again to the PDK for different locations within Kosovo. The dispatchment of fines requires a 48 hours notification period. That’s the law. I will brief you on the details no Monday or Tuesday next week. The fines are on between 500 and 1,000 DM.
The ECAC yesterday also dealt with appeals of people which were not included on the voters’ list for out-of-Kosovo application. All to all 4,852 persons have contested their denial of being added to the voters’ list. 1,643 of these appeals were decided upon positively. These 1,600 and some people will be added to the voters’ list, that means 33 per cent of the appeals were met with a positive decision by the ECAC.
Today, the voting package is sent out. Yesterday the material was packaged, today the voting material package is sent out to roughly 38,000 out-of-Kosovo voters. These people will get an envelope by mail. They will get a ballot paper where they can mark their party or candidate of their choice, and they will get a candidates’ list where they take a 3-digit figure and enter that manually on the ballot paper if they favor one individual candidate. This is then put into a secrecy envelope. The registration slip without the Kosovo registration is added. It has to be mailed to Vienna by 27 October – one day ahead of election in Kosovo, where the envelopes will be opened and the counts will be added to the counting process in Pristina.
Other announcements: first to party support, I was asked several times
where we stand on this, so I can announce today that four western
governments have contributed to roughly 1,000 000 DM being made available
for parties in terms of campaign support. The money comes from the
governments of Germany, Norway, the United States and Switzerland. In the
coming few days we are going to work out a formula for the displacement of
such money. Some of the money is conditional – it can only go to radio and
TV-productions for instance, and it should not go to the bigger
parties.
I announced a series of handouts and fact sheets.
This one here is on voting. The last one we had was on local governance.
UNHCR Spokeswoman Paula Ghedini
As a follow-up to the run-along-table initiative and as part of UNMIK’s (..?) initiative for non-Serb minority project, there will be a follow-up meeting with Roma representatives on Monday 25 September, involving UNHCR, UNMIK, OSCE including 10-12 representatives of various Roma communities throughout Kosovo, and they will be briefed by various (..) and departments of the UNMIK structure. This will be more of a technical meeting and hands on to deal with specific problems various communities are facing still in Kosovo today.
EU Spokesman Mike Todd
Power Update
As of 3.00am this morning Kosovo B1 of the Kosovo B Power station is once again operational. This will provide a major boost to the region’s power supply. There have been some problems this week, which has made load shedding necessary, due to cooling problems with Kosovo A3, this unit is expected back in full service next Wednesday.
The major overhaul of Kosovo B2 is continuing, yesterday a vital piece of machinery: a low pressure rota, crucial to the operation, arrived at the plant. Repairs are expected to be completed by early December, in time for the forthcoming Winter.
Water News
There is some very positive news from the water sector. This weekend will see the return of one of the three vital water pump motors that serve the Pristina region, ending a period of major uncertainty over water supply. Air lifted for repair to Germany in August, the motor’s successful return is a considerable achievement, and has helped prevent serious water shortages. It will arrive back in Kosovo at the weekend to begin functioning immediately. A press notice on this will be issued this afternoon.
Next week will see a second damaged water pump transported to Germany for repair. There will be a media opportunity arranged for this event where details of the ongoing progress and developments in the Water Sector will be announced.
New Tax Office
The Central Fiscal Authority has opened a new tax office this week, designed to offer guidance and assistance to taxpayers. The new office will help to provide a much more service based approach to the process of paying taxes.
General EU News
Yesterday saw the very successful visit by the European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten. Mr Patten took the opportunity of the visit to affirm the European Union’s commitment to the ongoing support of Kosovo.
Questions:
Q: Can you say whether you expect to have witnesses for all of the voting stations in this weekend’s elections and can you say why there was an apparent change of policy concerning the monitoring of these elections.
NY: Monitoring is not the word we have been using. Neither has the word observing been used. We are going to watch, we are going to witness. I think Dr.Kouchner has made it quite clear that we are not considering those so called elections here as legal. But we will watch and we will make some announcements on Sunday as to what we have seen. I don’t want to go into the operational details. But we will be witnessing pretty much everything that is happening here in Kosovo.
Q: The question was will you be able to cover every single voting station. Why has there been an apparent change of policy to witness the election taken in the last few days? Who asked you to do that?
NY: On the second question, I think if you were at Dr. Kouchner’s conference here, the reasons why we have decided to witness the election is to counter any claims unfounded, exaggerated claims regarding what could be happening in Kosovo. On the first question, as I told you we will not go into the operational plan of how we will witness the so-called election. And therefore, I am not at liberty to tell you which polling stations will be witnessed and watched and which will not. However, I can say that we will roughly cover most of the polling stations.
Q: Can you tell me how many NUMIK personnel will be involved in witnessing and whether the OSCE will also be contributing to it. And also which foreign missions have you asked here to contribute personnel.
NY: I am not going to go into the details of the numbers of personnel that will be used on Sunday to witness the elections for obvious security reasons. The staff that will be witnessing the election are international staff drawn from throughout the mission. I also earlier stated that all out municipalities are covered, we have staff in all the municipalities. This will be drawn upon as well.
Q: Have the ballot boxes which AFP observed in Strpce town hall been removed from UNMIK property.
NY: UNMIK occupies only two floors in that building. The rest of the building is not UNMIK property.
Q: Will KFOR and UNMIK escort Serbian opposition monitors to polling stations in Kosovo? Does KFOR and UNMIK Police know what’s happening with the Serbian population. Are they going out of Kosovo or are they returning back on that day because we witnessed today a convoy of Serbs being escorted in the direction of Podujevo.
SS: Since the KFOR has been here, we have conducted escorts of convoys of inhabitants here in Kosovo that go back and forth between Serbia and Kosovo. It’s nothing new. As far as requests for escorts for officials or opposition leaders, I don’t have any information on that at this time. The last information I had was that no requests had been made but I can take that as a query.
Q: Jeff Fischer announced last Tuesday that he would approach the CEC to waive or adapt the rule for those people who wanted to vote but who don’t have the blue registration. Was that discussed yesterday in the CEC?
RB: No it was not discussed yesterday. The CEC looked into photo ID requirements for the elections process but this is just one of the many scenarios that we are looking at and I am happy to announce that in our background briefing next Tuesday, we will be taking the media through about 20 different scenarios, people showing up at the wrong polling station, people showing up having a blue slip but no photo ID and people showing up with the slip having been lost or stolen. About 20 of those will be explained to you.
Q: There have been some secret meetings between UNMIK officials and the Serbian power corporation. What was issue at that meeting? Secondly, there were three arrested in Gracanica, now you are talking of three. What happened to the other three?
NY: On your second question first. We announced two day ago that three had been released. There was not sufficient evidence to hold them and three are being held by UNMIK Police in this ongoing investigation.
MT: Obviously meetings are ongoing, but I don’t think the word secrecy is appropriate for any of them.
Q: Municipal council offices do not count as public buildings. Neither schools count as public buildings. Dr. Kouchner said public buildings will not be used for the Yugoslav elections. Which public buildings does he mean?
NY: I will tell you what exactly means. The use of public buildings or UNMIK administration buildings is officially disallowed, use of schools, churches, private residences, will neither be supported nor physically prevented, except for security considerations, obviously.
Q: inaudible………….local municipal administrative buildings within them. If it’s not an UNMIK building because only two floors in it are UNMIK offices, what is an UNMIK building. It’s the local administration, it’s UN backed local administration.
NY: As I said it depends on the municipality. In some municipalities, UNMIK building is the building where the UNMIK municipality has its headquarters. It’s the entire building. In other cases, like the case you are mentioning, the UNMIK portion of the building is only two floors.
Q: Has UNMIK or the OSCE been officially informed on where exactly polling stations will be set up on Sunday.
NY: We have and idea yes. But as I said there is not much more information that I am willing to share with you in terms of numbers of polling stations or the number of staff that will be involved in witnessing the elections. And that is for security reasons.
Q: I asked why was the decision to witness taken at such late stage and could you comment on the fact that the US and the EU could have put pressure on the UN to introduce this witnessing programme.
NY: I know you are trying to find some angle here. There is no angle. The decision was taken to witness the election precisely for the reason I gave you. I don’t think it was late, you are the one who has decided that it was a late decision. It was not. It was part of our planning of when we were going to do it and how we were going to do it. On the second issue you probably know as well as I do that we consult constantly with all governments who are involved and who are interested in Kosovo. It could well have been that this was part of the consultation, but I think that there was any pressure put on us. I think that a part of our plan was to make sure to able to say that some of the claims may be wrong. To be able to do that we had a plan to witness the election.
Q: Surely it can’t be a state secret to know where the polling stations are in an election. It must be in the public interest to know that. At the same time don’t you think it is like waving a red flag to (..) and that Mr. Milosevic will be able to accuse UNMIK, OSCE, KFOR of getting involved in some way, and in his eyes, tampering with these elections?
NY: I’m perfectly sure that it will not be a secret to the journalists. What I’m trying to tell you is that we will not, at this point, reveal the details of how we plan to witness that election: which specific polling stations we are going to be watching. That we will not do, and that is dictated by security reasons. But I’m sure that you will know, if not before us, at least as we know it, where the polling stations will be.
Q: If the witnesses witness an election carried out in ordinary circumstances and the claims from Belgrade appear to tally with is going on in Kosovo, will UNMIK release a statement saying the elections have gone well?
NY: It is very hypothetical. As I said, we will be releasing information on Sunday at one point.
Q: Have there been security plans made for witnesses who are going to witness the Yugoslav elections? You know, to not to make them sitting ducks in the Serb areas.
NY: We are planning as much as possible with the highest priority being the security of the people who will be doing witnessing. Yes, there are plans for all kinds of contingency, but I will not go into them here.