UNMIK-KFOR-OSCE-UNHCR Press Briefing: 28 July
2000
UNMIK Spokeswoman Susan Manuel
KFOR Spokesman Major
Scott Slaten
OCSE Spokesman Roland Bless
UNHCR Spokeswoman Paula
Ghedini
UNMIK Spokeswoman Susan Manuel
SRSG Bernard Kouchner will meet the Turkish foreign minister Ismael Cem in Ankara on Monday to discuss the issues of Turkish language, registration and other issues involving the Turkish community in Kosovo.
The Interim Administrative Council will not meet today, but again next Tuesday,.
The UNMIK Police are recruiting another class of the Kosovo Police Service. The list of applicants who have been shortlisted for testing, along with the date of testing will be displayed on notice boards on all UNMIK Police stations and regional headquarters. All applicants should visit the nearest UNMIK Police station or regional headquarters to check their names. They are also asked to bring all their original documents or copies of them.
The police have reported an increasing number of thefts of NGOs. Normally
there. s a large amount of cash that may be held in the office for
payroll purposes or buying humanitarian assistance. Often safes are
stolen.
This robbery on 25 July from the International Rescue
Committee had a particular kind of loss. We have reported that seven armed
men, clad in black and wearing masks broke into the International Rescue
Committee premises in Pristina on Tuesday night and robbed the office at
gunpoint, tying up the guards who were later found walking with their
hands tied by UNMIK Police.
In the case of the IRC, $15,000 in computer equipment was stolen. But the most vital that was lost was the information these computers contained.
Mr. Richard Jacquot, Country Director of the International Rescue Committee in Pristina is making an appeal on behalf of all beneficiaries of humanitarian aid in Kosovo in the direction of those who visited the IRC Offices.
. The dramatic loss is the information these computers contained, especially about the beneficiaries the IRC serves. IRC Kosovo employs 250 national staff who spent days in the villages and towns of Kosovo, collecting information about ordinary Kosovars who suffered tragically from the war. The data and information on the stolen computers concern children and youth, women, families in villages who have lost their homes and their belongings, communities that have been victims and who need assistance through their grieving process and help in rebuilding their lives. The information has no value for the people who took these computers or who would buy them on the black market. But for the thousands of beneficiaries, that information is priceless. I am asking the individuals who visited our office that night to weigh the financial gain these seven computers represent against the tremendous value the information these computers contains for the people of Kosovo. I am appealing them to return these computers, one way to another, to the IRC. .
UNMIK Office of Culture for Pristina announces that the French movie "Comme elle respire" . (. She lies like she breathes") made in 1998. It will run from Friday for one week at 9 p.m. at the ABC theatre. Starring Mari Trintingnant and Guillaume Depardieu. There will be subtitles in English.
KFOR Spokesman
Major Scott Slaten
Incidents During the Past 24 Hours
Hand Grenade
Yesterday morning, an explosion was heard, possibly from a hand grenade, in a street in northern Mitrovice / Mitrovica. An UNMIK police patrol responded to the scene while KFOR French Mechanized Battalion troops secured the area. No damages or injuries were reported as a result of the explosion.
Joint Search Operation
In MNB West KFOR Italian soldiers with Task Force Falco and UNMIK Police conducted a house search as part of a joint operation. One AK-47 Assault Rifle and several hundred rounds of ammunition were confiscated. KFOR Italian Military Police arrested three men who were in the building at the time of the search.
Shots Fired
A shooting incident, inspired by road rage between two drivers, was reported in Prishtina/ Pristina yesterday evening.
Shots were fired from a blue Mitsubishi jeep at another car when the jeep was unable to pass. The driver of the jeep was reported to have been driving erratically and attempting to pass slower traffic in a difficult stretch of road.
A blue jeep was later stopped at a vehicle checkpoint on the road to Skopje, however, after a thorough search, nothing was found.
Medical Assistance
Yesterday at 10:00 a.m., a 40 year-old Kosovar Albanian woman suffered from a heart attack while on board a civilian airliner flying from Zurich to Pristina.
The aircraft commander requested permission for an immediate landing from the Pristina Control Tower. KFOR Italian Air Force Detachment personnel, currently responsible for operations at the Pristina Airport, immediately began emergency procedures. An ambulance responded to the request and was positioned next to the runaway. During this time, the flight crew was continuously reporting on the woman. s condition to a doctor waiting on the ground.
The aircraft landed at Pristina Airport and the woman was medically evacuated to the KFOR British Military Field Hospital in Pristina where she received medical care.
Yesterday morning, also at the Pristina Airport a young KFOR Russian soldier was seriously burned. The KFOR Italian Operation Centre requested medical evacuation and the soldier was transported by British helicopter to the KFOR Russian Military Field Hospital in Fushe Kosove / Kosovo Polje.
Diesel Spillage
KFOR Swedish and Norwegian fire engines gave assistance yesterday afternoon to a leaking civilian tanker which spilled diesel fuel on the road at Slatine / Velika (three kilometres south of Fushe Kosove / Kosovo Polje).
The Swedish fire fighters dealt with the contaminated ground at the site of the spillage while KFOR Norwegians soldiers emptied the remaining fuel from the leaking tanker into one of their own tankers. The area is now clear and determined to be safe.
UNHCR Spokeswoman
Paula Ghedini
Ethnic Albanians are continuing to leave the JFK-area of Northern Mitrovica, causing great concern to all us who are working up in that area. While we are seeing some returns to the primarily ethnic Albanian areas of Suvi Do and Bosniac Mohala, we are seeing that families continue to trickle out of the next JFK-area. In the last 2 ½ weeks we have 21 families that we know of who have left and fled to the south, as well as a few others who have moved to other areas within Bosniac Mohala.
We are quite concerned by this because it seems to be a growing trend. Some of them have been physically or verbally threatened, others have been evicted from their homes. There is a very significant security presence there by KFOR and UNMIK Police that we are quite satisfied with. We think at this point that because of the area, being as mixed at it is, and because of the pressures of ethnic Serbs who have been displaced from elsewhere looking for other places of residence in the north, the ethnic Albanians that are remaining in this JFK-area are being pressured to leave increasingly. We believe that there are still approximately 100-150 isolated families that live primarily in Serb or mixed areas, that are continuing to be harassed almost on a daily basis in some cases. Despite this we are encouraged by the fact that some of the returns that have happened to the Suvi Do area have happened without incident, and without any repercussions from the other Serb neighbours. So we are once again appealing to those populations living in the area to please contribute to allowing the conditions that would allow minorities to stay living in their own homes. This would be for the ethnic Albanians living in the north as well as of course, the ethnic Serbs that are still in very small numbers living in the south. We continue to monitor the situation every day with daily visits and phone calls to monitor the specific security incidents and conditions that each of the families are facing. Unfortunately we don. t have exact numbers, the numbers we are working with are 2,000-4,000. These are high estimates for the north Mitrovica area. Because the last census was done in 1991 and largely boycotted by the ethnic Albanian population, the figures are very quite questionable, as well as the fact that there has been a great deal of movement from February 1999 until February 2000.
The second item is that in addition to the Kosovo Encyclopedia, which was made available a few weeks ago from the Humanitarian Community Information Centre, there is a new CD-ROM that is available on reconstruction.
OSCE Spokesman Roland Bless
First let me remind you that today is the deadline for submitting candidates lists. Political parties wishing to contest in the upcoming elections have up to tonight to hand in their candidates lists to an OSCE office throughout Kosovo.
The DITA-case: as we have communicated to you yesterday the temporary media commisison has ordered DITA to suspend its operations. DITA has reacted to this by announcing in a editorial today that they will do so. Therefore the temporary media commissioner has decided to take them for their word, and see if they cease to publish from tomorrow. If they fail to do so, law enforcement mechanisms will be put in place.
There is some important training procedure going on for the Police corps; a two day workshop teaches police, officers, defence councils and public prosecutors international standards of pre-trial criminal procedures; if someone is detained up to the court cases, initiated (..), the possibility for police officers to actually communicate their experiences on the ground.
This afternoon we have a meeting with the Central Elections Commissions (CEC) with three main topics: the composition of the municipal electoral commissions . there are going to be 30 of them, a discussion on setting rules for . access to the media during the elections campaigns, and regulations regarding campaign financing: how much finance means participating candidates be allowed to use in the upcoming elections campaign. If the CEC makes a decision on these issues you can expect information on this early next week.
Questions:
Q: A Turkish truck driver was seriously injured four days ago near the border to Macedonia, and he is still in the Pristina hospital where the doctors are fighting for his life. Have you got the details of this incident, and have you got the first results of the investigation?
SS: I have don. t have any further details. Please see me afterwards.
Q: Today the media report that there is a possibility for elections to be postponed until spring next year. What is your comment, and what are the sources for this?
RB: I only have the same sources as you have; apparently Victor Guti, the Council of Europe, Head of Monitoring Operations, has been reported saying something on this regard. I don. t know if he said this, but it is not Victor Guti who decides on the date elections . it is SRSG Dr. Kouchner.
Q: Scott, how did the Russian catch on fire at the airport?
SS: I don. t have the details on that. The information just came in this
morning, but I believe it was an accident.