UNMIK-KFOR-OSCE- Press Briefing: 24 July 2000

UNMIK Spokeswoman Susan Manuel
KFOR Spokesman Scott Slaten
DSRSG Pillar III, Democratization Institution Building, Daan Everts
Head of the Joint Registration Task Force, Jeff Fischer
OSCE Spokesman Roland Bless

UNMIK Spokeswoman Susan Manuel

As most of the political leaders remain in the US for a conference, there will be no Interim Administrative Council on Tuesday or the Kosovo Transitional Council on Wednesday.

Last week SRSG Bernard Kouchner appointed Mr. Bislim Zyrapi as the Kosovar co-head of the Department of Civil Security and Emergency Planning. The UNMIK co-head is Mr. Roland Nilsson. This department has yet to be officially established as the regulation which mandates it is still under preparation. I think you know that Mr. Zyrapi of the PQLK party (the Kosovo Liberal Centre Party) is the former UCK General Staff Chief of Operations. Nilsson has lead several divisions of the Swedish Rescue Service Agency. He also worked in Bosnia. We’ll let you know when that regulation is signed.

In Gnjilane today in the Gnjilane District Court the Momcilovic trial is continuing with judge Patrice de Charette presiding.

From UNMIK Police it was more or less a quiet weekend although in Prizren a 21-year-old Kosovo Albanian , Mr. Avni Taiire, was murdered early Sunday morning in the village of Zrze, southwest of Orahovac.

From Mitrovica the International Prosecutor David Hartmann is objecting to a story that appeared in the local press about the chain of events with the release of Mr. Vukovic last week from the Mitrovica District Court. Mr. Hartmann would like to confirm that Mr. Vukovic did indeed attend these examination hearings before judge Shyqri Syla. Mr. Vukovic was brought to the court by UNMIK Police from detention and at the end of the hearing judge Syla ordered the police to release Mr. Vukovic, which he told the court would happen in about half an hour later. He was thus released after that hearing according to the local judicial practice and the law. Mr. Hartmann also denies that there was any pressure on him or on the judge to release Mr. Vukovic, because according to the local judicial practice and the law, article 191 on the Law on Criminal Procedure, which says that a judge will release a suspect taking into account his roots in the community where his home is, his membership in the community and so forth. David Hartmann said, and I quote: “The law and human rights conventions apply to all, including those who are accused of having committed a crime, and custody is an exception which must be justified, not a blanket rule”. He is talking about the case of pre trial detention. 

DSRSG Pillar III, Democratization and Instituiton Building, Daan Everts

The registration now completed has been a spectacular success. Considering that we had a slow start, because of all sorts of circumstances the whole registration period was less than two and a half month, and to capture over a million is of course spectacular, given the circumstances of the people living in remote areas. So on that one there is reason to be satisfied. I would like to publicly commend the Kosovars for turning out in such huge numbers in order to take seriously the reconstitution of a civil registry which is the bases, not just for the elections, but also for the whole administation of Kosovo, so it is a very important duty that has been performed, and again, I would like to congratulate people for taking part in this very basic important democratic process.

There is one shadow over this success, and that is the abstention, the non-participation of the Kosovar Serb community. Very regretable, and we have gone out of our way to try to convince the leaders, because it is mainly a choice of leaders rather than of people in this case. To tell the leaders to advice their community well. And advice them well means that you do what is important to them for their future place and role in Kosovo. And that can not be else than partaking in the democratic processes and in the politics of the area. And abstaining, excluding oneselves, isolating oneselves necessarily leads to marginalization, and that is the last thing you should wish for the Kosovar Serb community. So we have tried hard in many meetings, in direct meetings with leaders, though there were some couragious leaders who said yes, let us call for participation, but within 24 hours they were silenced. Registration cites in Leposavic where they wanted to join the process were intimidated. There was a very obvious visible prescence of extremists who simply wanted to deny these Serbs their rights to participate. So we regret this very much. We have not given up. We keep talking to the community, of course. We have the strong sense that individuals in Kosovo are interested, they see the need to be part of a new society. To have access in the future to administrative services and to economic activity. All of that, of course, is less likely to reach them when they are not part of the official population. So we have the feeling in this case that some of the leaders are really not representing their interests well. That they are poorly advising their followers. And this is true to an even larger degree for the Belgrade-authorities, who have systematically argued and adjutated against the registration and participation in the elections. I think again this is very poor judgement, and in effect  we should hold them responsible for this boycott. This very much injures the interests of the Kosovo Serbs.

From here we will move to the election preparations and the tremendous pressure on the organizer of the elections, OSCE, but also the political parties, that have to be part of it all, obviously. They have responded very well. They have realized that a lot is at stake. They have accepted some very tough deadlines to submit applications for certification in each of the 30 municipalities. They have met those deadlines. Now they are up to another tough deadline on the candidates. Thousands of them for the municipalities. They have to complete that by 28 July. So I realise, we all realise, that we are putting them to very tough tasks, which they have responded in and have been very cooperative. We are grateful for this. We also have on the side of legislation for the election a good progress. There is a central elections commission that is in fine form, it is doing very well. All of us here have experience in similar commisions elsewhere; in Bosnia, Albania and Croatia. This one compares very well indeed. It is a very professional body, and in fact it is ahead of the schedule in terms of rules and procedures for electoral combat. So on that the news is good, but the timeline is tight and a lot has to be done. We are confident that we can deliver.

Head of the Joint Registration Task Force, Jeff Fischer

I would like to just accentuate some of the points the ambassador made and provide you with some additional detail on the process itself. We have received over 1 000,000 applications within Kosovo and over 180,000 outside of Kosovo. This indeed is an encouraging figure, however I would like to introduce one note of caution on this. These are un-audited reports. We will have to go through and verify our reporting from the field. We will be doing sorting for duplicate registrations, we will be calling out ineligible registrations that are discovered. So this figure is going to fluctuate somewhat, both inside and outside, and I introduce this so that is does not become a note of concern when it occurs. These are provisional figures, but in any case one must be encouraged by the results.

Indeed we have conducted surveys to attempt to substantiate our turn-out. A research and polling agency conducted a survey in Pristina for example on July 7 and 8. In that survey 91 per cent of the people interviewed had registered, and were able to produce their registration receipt. With respect other places in Kosovo, the original projection that IOM had made for applications to be received, was around 200,000. They have achieved roughly around 90 per cent of their goal. We have also, I believe, been able to reach groups that have traditionally been marginalized in processes of this kind; women, youth and people with disabilities. We conducted a spot survey of the roughly 1,300 applications that we had received – 49 per cent of those Kosovo-wide were women. We have also seen this substantiated in other surveys.

We formed an alliance with Handikos, the Kosovo-based disability advocacy organization, and Handicap International through Finnish funding, and were able to transport 2,000 people to registration centres, who otherwise because of their disabilities would not have been able to register. So I believe we have had both quantity and quality to the numbers involved.

 I think we should note several useful bi-products that have emerged from this registration process, directly attributable to it. Many of the facilities that we employed as registration centres required extensive refurbishment and repair in order to conduct business. We were able to repair over 300 hundred such centres, and noting that disability teams equipped over 90 of those with ramps so that they are now permanently wheelchair accessible. It was necessary for us to develop a system of numbering for the various municipalities, towns and communities. This was required because of variations in spellings, not only between Serb and Albanian spelling, but even within the languages themselves. So there is now a place code or P-code system existent in Kosovo, providing a numerical name, if you will, for all communities.

Over 2,000 Kosovars of all ethnic groups were employed in this process, many of them gaining skills in the use of our registration technology which they can benefit from in other occupations. It was necessary for us to establish 30 municipal records offices. Through these offices we have been able to reconnect thousands of Kosovars with their identity documents or backups to their identity documents that have been lost or confiscated during the process. And I think it should be noted that that there was no loss of life in any registration centre.

The legacy here is that a non-political registration process has been completed that can serve as a baseline for additional work on an expanded civil registry. Ambassador Everts made reference to the next step in the process. This next step involves on the political side the verification of what we will anticipate will be over 6,000 names of political candidates verified that they are indeed registered voters and meet other eligibility criteria. The next phase of the process is what we are terming the claims, additions and confirmation period that will begin in the latter part of August where registrants will be able to verify the information that has been collected to be sure that they have been properly characterized. The Joint Registration Task Force is beginning its dissolution process. We are transitioning our registration responsibilities to Pillar II and the Office of the Civil Registrae, and our office and my responsibilities will then focus on election specific tasks as we move forward towards an autumn event.

Questions

Q: Do you have any idea or even a rough figure of how many Serbs may have registered or any other minorities – a sort of a rough figure. And following on from that, you mentioned intimidation that happened after some Serb leaders thought of registration. Could not that have been anticipated, and do you not regard that as a failure that basically the intimidator won. That people did not register, because a bunch of thugs turned up and stopped them?

DE: On the first question, roughly less than 1,000 Serbs have registered spread over different areas. Could we have anticipated the heavy-handed tactics? Yes, we did, in the sense that I have talked quite strongly to several leaders who we know have controlling influence, particularly in the north. To tell them that at least allow people a free a choice. To advice against registration is one thing, but do not physically prevent people from expressing a different view. I got these assurances that they would be against intimidation and they would be not standing in the way of a free choice. And so when I again called I said why this breach of word, they said that it is not us but people who feel they have to make their views known. So this is not a fair game, and no rules. So it is very difficult. We have asked of course, how to continue, how to pursue. The SAC – whether that could offer a window of opportunity if there is a determined effort from the more enlightened Serb leaders to bring some on board, so not all is lost. But the opposition is strong. Do not forget that it is particularly in the north quite a risk to take a different position from what is officially decreed out there. Under Belgrade influence. Because there is a stronghold over people in terms of pension payments, freedom of movement across the boundary. So people do risk and are fearful of retaliation that can be quite nasty. And it is not so much even the physical intimidation on the spot because we can do something about it and we have of course additional UNMIK and KFOR deployments. That is not the point. It is more the silent, longer-term retaliation threats made. Some of the staff were forced to quit or persuaded (arm-twisted) to quit from the registration cites. All these innuendos and secret threats like the fact that you may be arrested when you go across the boundary because you are not officially, according to Serb law, allowed to share personal data with foreign agencies. It is always a pretext to arrest people if you wish. So all these threats circulated, and that is enough for people not to take the risk. And I respect that. You can not expect everyone to be a hero. And hence our admiration for those who stood up and said we are going to do what is best for the Kosovo Serbs. And they do not give up and we will stand behind them. We will try to be as supportive as we can be.

Q: Were there any incidents where the KFOR and UNMIK security presence on the ground of the registration points tried to prevent intimidation taking place, and were there any incidents where UNMIK was successful? The second question is that you said in your statement that you regret that the Serbs did not participate, but stressed that the OSCE will continue to try to accommodate the Serbs and involving them. How do you intend to accomplish this given the fact that so few people have registered?

JF: There were several occasions where we did have weapons brought into registration centres, and there were some threatening gestures against both KFOR and CIVPOL. Less than a dozen incidents occurred throughout the process. This is an opportunity for me to highlight the roll UNMIK Police and KFOR played in providing security, and the excellent job they did in ranking registration cites according to the level of threat perceived, allocating their resources to those areas where the threats were most pronounced, and I think the relatively low level of incidents is a testimony to the effectiveness of the planning that was conducted and their role.

Q: You said that this operation was effective. Practically no Serbs registered so the intimidation seems to have been entirely effectful despite any KFOR and UNMIK presence.

JF: Well the intimidation that you are referring to is the form of intimidation that is very difficult to reach with police forces and armies. This flies under radar, and the type of intimidation that we experienced was, as I just described, really something that was much more overt. A weapon in the polling station and disarming the person, that is where I think the role of the security forces come into play. But the type of intimidation as I understand many Serbs have experienced, was different to what a standing army is able to address.

DE: We have to look at and analyse the municipalities to see what the situation exactly is. And look at what is possible to ensure – at least some kind of political representation, and you know in the municipal law there is an opening for appointed representatives. Some other measures could be envisaged. We are in the middle of this.

Q: As far as I understood it is Belgrade influence that caused the result that the Serbs did not register. And the other thing, you were saying that the Serbs who registered are like heroes in Kosovo. I just want to make it clear. Does it mean that Belgrade influence in Kosovo is still present?

DE: You are asking the obvious. Of course there is considerable influence, and there are considerable holes of Belgrade through party structures and some of the enclaves. And the retaliation options are quite considerable because there are still pension payments made, there are other transfers done. In the north, I think, it is the free movement to markets and relatives in Serbia that is important and can be denied, so there are many ways to make people tow a line. And they have been very obstinate in their opposition. There was simply no way to talk, and have them listen to the other arguments which I am convinced are the superior ones. We have had numerous talks with the commission here in Pristina on this, but the line has always been the same. It was a simple njet. We have brought international pressure, a special trip to Moscow in the hope that their influence could be effective, the G6 and the G8 have made special appeals, it all fell on deaf ears. And of course the most visible demonstration of ill will was the flat refusal to have us go and register the IDP refugees in Serbia from Kosovo. And a whole lot of them we kept insisting that it would be in their direct interest, because they would be on records. This is their property, their land, their houses, whatever they have left behind, so it would reconfirm their place in Kosovo. But they were simply deprived from being counted in. It is a very irresponsible and inconsiderate and unloyal attitude. It is a typical stand of people looking to the past instead of the future.

Q: In your 20 meetings with Serb leaders in Kosovo you have been trying to convince them to participate in the registration process. But even more in Leposavic you promised them some sort of concession for the new elections in Kosovo community elections. After the decision of the Serb leaders to not participate in the registration process what do you think will be the consequences for you as an international body in Kosovo and for the Serbs and their leaders in the future?
DE: Well that is a very large question, but we will of course remain our policy of inclusiveness, so one way or the other the Kosovo Serbs will be dealt with, treated and consulted as an intricate part of the society in the making of a new democracy. So we are not going to be hindered from reaching out to the Kosovo Serb community, like the others. Do not forget the Roma community which is in a precarious situation as other minorities.

Q: Back to the numbers again. Do you have any sort of estimate of how big a percentage of the population registered in this phase?

JF: We have 1.9 million within Kosovo as a consensus figure, and 1.2 million 16-years and above. So I think regardless of how our figures are going to fluctuate, we are well into the 80 per cent of the eligible population going into elections.

DE: We definitely think the figure is in the high 80s, around 90 per cent.

Q: Can you tell me what kind of problems you have had with the Turkish minority?

DE: That is of some concern. Clearly the Turkish minority think of themselves as an intricate part of Kosovo, there is no problem with their commitment to Kosovo. There is a language issue that became part of the discussion. The Turkish community would not participate in the registration before Turkish was officially recognized in wordings that resembled the constitution of 1974. To UNMIK this was to broad, because this means that everywhere there lives one Turk this will happen. The recommended language is that where there is a substantial portion of the population it is officially recognized. Dr. Kouchner went beyond this, and said that where they have a Turkish representative in the municipal councils, Turkish could be officially recognized. Half of them said yes, the rest said no.