IFOR AFSOUTH TRANSCRIPT Sept 28, 1996

In the interest of speed transcripts of IFOR press briefings are issued in unedited format Transcript of the Press Briefing held on 28 September 1996

Colum Murphy: good morning everybody. Just Simon and I this morning. At 11:35, Ambassador Frowick will be here with his team from the OSCE to give you, I think, some of the answers that... To questions you'll be asking. This is the weekend when the elections certification process will play out, and of course, the OSCE leads on that, so they will be here as I said -- 11:35. We therefore all await the first meeting of the new presidency sometime early next week. The High Representative, Mr. Carl Bildt, has as you know returned from New York. A number of his activities there were misreported. In fact, a good meeting of the contact group took place and informal and essential briefing of the UN Security Council took place. But much hangs there from the outcome of the certification process for the elections. These of course have consequences for sanctions, among other things. Two other points. Today, as you know, the Dublin Conference goes on. That is important for the whole question of police reform throughout Bosnia Herzegovina. And finally, I want to inform you that the steering board will meet in Sarajevo on Wednesday, the second of October, and a press conference will follow that; we will give you the time as we get closer to the day. Simon. Maj. Haselock: thanks very much. Good morning everybody. I'll try not to upset anybody today. Just a few items of note today, other than, of course, the exceptional performance of IFOR carrying out its mandate around the area of operations with troops from 35 nations etc., Etc. Now, on the Jusici story, I'm sure you were wondering how quickly I could get 'round to that. We are still assisting in the effort to bring the refugee situation to a peaceful and Dayton-friendly conclusion. We continue to broker meetings and deal with the security issues. And yesterday, the Russian troops in the village discovered a hand grenade in one of the houses there, and three further hand grenades beside the road in the area which had been previously cleared. And that's another reason to argue that what we continue to believe is that Jusici needs a fresh s tart, with the refugees leaving, so that the resettlement procedure, as we've articulated over the last few days, can begin and start seriously again at last. And if it does, you know, to use a cliché, despite the cynicism of many: from little acorns mighty oak trees May grow. As you know the problem started because about 100 people jumped the gun in the first place and went into that are of the zone of separation led by men with weapons that we then had to confiscate. At a meeting yesterday, the UNHCR, IFOR and the refugee ministers from the Bosnian side all urged the group to use the UNHCR process and stop halting the process which was therefor preventing the system in other villages continuing. We may hear more today, and indeed, we hope that we will. The police on the Serb side are remaining calm and patient. And we still regard that as encouraging, because clearly we need agreement from both sides to solve this properly. In Dayton, you'll recall, it says very clearly: the parties will work with UNHCR to undertake the "peaceful, orderly and phased" return of refugees in accordance with the UNHCR repatriation plan. And clearly this is the basis upon which this problem will be resolved. The words of Dayton are the words that we go by. The refugee leaders said yesterday that they realize they're holding up the progress for tens of thousands of refugees who also have the rights to settle in other areas. But they said they can't leave, even for a short time, while the UNHCR checks their papers and makes sure they have a legitima te claim to live there. The UNHCR and IFOR even provided assurances that as soon as an application is approved, those people can move back to the village permanently, straight away. They don't have to all move back as a group. And they can still come in during the day and work on their houses until the approval system has taken place. Clearly, the village needs a lot of work while the process is underway and the UNHCR have promised that the process should take no more than 15 days despite the fact that many of the initial forms were incomplete. Meanwhile, of course, the village will be secured by us from other outsiders menacing the refugees or their houses. We think that this is a good deal for the Jusici villagers. They get their houses, and we will ensure that nobody interferes with them while their papers are being processed. There's help for the refugees to resettle. But there's no help for unauthorized take-overs in the zone of separation led by armed civilian groups. IFOR (inaudible) clearly encourages refugee resettlement. We wish to do so. Because every village that's resettled in a peaceful, orderly way becomes one less hot spot for us to deal with. And using a bit of North American "hometown homily," a village like that becomes a sleepy valley full of hound dogs and happy homesteaders.

We hate hotspots, but we love hound dogs and happy homesteaders. (inaudible) C. Murphy: sounds wonderful. Can we say it again? Maj. Haselock: finally, one more item. A local paper here in town, Dnevni Avaz, published an article that we think requires a little correction. The article alleged that IFOR had somehow authorized a military exercise in the area of Scepan-Polje area -- an exercise by a VRS brigade. We aren't sure why Dnevni Avaz should publish such a howler, but there is absolutely no truth in it. None of the factional armies so much as moved troops out of barracks or for a parade, for any reason without us knowing about it. They have to approve training prior to them... It being carried out, and military training for the factions is strictly limited to exercises of battalion-size and below. On a number of occasions, as you know, when troops have moved unauthorized, those vehicles and weapons involved in the exercise have been confiscated, and we'll continue to do that. So there's absolutely no truth in the allegations in Dnevni Avaz, and there has been no VRS brigade exercise in that area. Thanks very much. C. Murphy: questions. Q: two question please. To Mr. Murphy: do you know where and when the presidency meeting will take place, and if Mr. Bildt will held the first meeting. Question to Mr. Simon: your comments on the statements of Mr. Hasan Muratovic from yesterday where he had some, maybe, sharp comments on your yesterday statements. Thank you. C. Murphy: the answer to your questions is no. We do not know yet, strange as that sounds. It's for the three members of the presidency to talk to each other. It's for us to facilitate and encourage that, and we're still waiting for them to complete their discussions if they are in contact wi th each other this weekend. As to the location, same answer. Simon. Maj. Haselock: I understand that the comments of yesterday have been received, and I have gained a certain amount of notoriety as a result of them. I just remain to say that they represented not just the opinion of IFOR. They represented the opinions of the international community that was there at the meeting when those remarks were first made. What was said at that meeting will be confirmed by Carl Bildt's office, by the IPTF, by both General Heinrich and General Walker who were at that meeting, by the UNHCR, and also by the chief of staff of the OHR who was also there... The OHR, rather, who was also there. So this is not me nor IFOR making these remarks. It is the international community as a whole who were all at the meeting when those remarks were made. C. Murphy: anybody else? Karen. Q: yeah, Colum just back to the presidential meeting. Are they all talking with one another at the moment, or what stage is it at? C. Murphy: they are supposed to be talking to one another at the moment. We hear unsubstantiated rumors that one or other agrees to am particular location, but we have to wait out the weekend to see whether they reach an agreement on whether this meeting will take place on say, Monday or Tuesday . So, they are supposed to be talking to each other. And we don't confirmation yet as to whether they've reached an agreement. Q: but how are they talking to one another? I mean, how is that process going on? Is the OHR involved in that as well? C. Murphy: the OHR has been monitoring that and encouraging that and talking to the different parties, but they're supposed to talk to each other, and we don't know the answer to that yet. Q: but how are they talking to each other? I mean... C. Murphy: they're supposed to talk to each other by telephone or by written communication. Q: right, and so there's still a dispute whether it will actually be held in Sarajevo, is that correct? C. Murphy: it's more correct to say that they haven't yet agreed on a place of meeting. Q: (inaudible)... We might know Tuesday? C. Murphy: we would expect so. Yeah. Anybody else. Maj. Haselock: good... Ah, ah haa. Nearly got away with it. Q: about Jusici. I was wondering... You said that you are waiting for an answer from the people moved there later today. You're expecting them to say that they will leave, and if so, when will that be? Maj. Haselock: well, we won't know until we hear. I mean, we hope that they will leave. We hope that they will abide by the suggestion that we've made. And we have undertaken that we will protect the work that they've done this far while they go away and get their papers processed. But, I mean, I don't know whether they will. I don't know when they will, and we will have to wait and see what's... Q: you don't know when they will answer? Just later... Maj. Haselock: no, no. We just hope we might get something this evening. I don't know. C. Murphy: this must be a record for the least number of questions asked at a press conference. Maj. Haselock: no, it's not. It's not. It's not. C. Murphy: anybody else? Q: yeah, I'd like to ask about the happy hound dogs. C. Murphy: yeah, Kurt has a question about the happy hound dogs. Q: ... More appropriate for after the briefing. C. Murphy: for after the briefing. If there's nobody else, the briefing of the OSCE is at 1135. Thank you.

Transcript of OSCE press briefing held on 28 September 96 N. Schultz: good morning ladies and gentlemen. This morning we have with us Ambassador Robert Frowick, Sir Kenneth Scott, the Senior Deputy of the Elections of the OSCE, Jeff Fischer, Director General of Elections and the Honorable John Reid, PEC member. And Ambassador Frowick has a statement for you. Ambassador Frowick: rather than a statement, I would just describe what I am going to say as remarks. As you may know this week, there has been a Contact Group Ministerial Meeting in New York that is attended by the Foreign Ministers of the Contact Group countries as well as the European Union Troika and the EU Commissioner, Former Minister Vandenbroek. There's been intensive interest in New York in connection with the activities surrounding United Nations General Assembly and the forthcoming discussion in the Security Council on resolution 1022. Interest in these elections. Now, when I returned from that meting yesterday, I had three questions on my mind which I thought would be timely to discuss with you today. One, the lingering debate over the database and the whole question of how many people were in the electorate and the rather confused situation that has been the case in the aftermath of the war. I assume you will have seen the statement that I issued yesterday and which I took responsibility for some mistaken use od documentation during the rush of events as we were going through the counting procedures. Secondly, I was concerned over the... Calling the meeting of the Provisional Election Commission to discuss the recommendation of the Election Appeals Sub-Commission that, in light many of the problems during the elections, we should consider a formal recount of the vote. I assume you will also s een the decision of the Provisional Election Commission that we circulated yesterday evening. I' d like to explain that we had there all the representation within the commission, that is to say by the Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Croat member of federation, dr. Kovac from Republika Srpska, as well as the designee of the High Representative, Minister Reid and Sir Kenneth Scott, myself as chairman. We invited Judge Lyngehajm to get his remarks as... In addition his colleague Mr. Bowman. On the other side we invited Mr. Fischer the Director General for elections to give his views on this matter. And in my view, there was a very balanced and detailed discussion of the entire question. And the third thing that was on my mind when I arrived back in Sarajevo has to do with the municipal elections. As you know we had had a tentative judgement to try and go forward with these and dates were announced several days ago for a late November time frame. I'm sure you all are aware too t here are many concerns about whether it's really possible to have these elections before the end of this year, and I would just say that my colleagues and I will be looking in depth at this to make a final decision on the matter immediately. That is to say this weekend. I'd like to open the discussion for questions and answers now, and we have here I think the expertise to do with all your questions. N. Schultz: thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Before we get started as you see, we have a translator here. But, in the interest of time, could you raise your hands if you need translation. Any translations? Right. That part of the production begin over, we will take your questions now. Colin. Q: O.K. Hopefully you will have the expertise to a address this. Even though you've dismissed the easc's complaint, the elections... The PEC never addressed the fundamental issue around the EASC's problem, which was that the numbers are suspicious. Even though the EASC came up with some numbers , the OSCE has never produce a single scrap of statistical evidence -- a single statistical model -- to support your assertion of 3.5 - 3.2 million voter universe. You've simply taken the Bosnian statistics office report there. Given the fact there that even with the 3.2 million potential turn out, you are looking at the moment in 95 percent turn out, after subtracting people that didn't vote. After subtracting the people that did not vote, you've got a 95 percent turn out. Don't you think you're dodging the issue at this point of the possibility of fraud by simply doing a retabulation. J. Fischer: I'd like to take that question. The ... A turn out figure is a measure of the people who cast ballots. We have the numbers of people who cast ballots. Calculating in people who have contemplated casting ballets into a turn out figure is, to me, highly suspicious arithmetic. The OSCE has been consistent in stating that the total voting population is, in effect, an unknown. We are guilty of inconsistency by having different estimates which we have used at different points in time. I've researched our files and found a document dating back to April that used the 3.2 figure. I've looked at our press office reports and they've used the 2,9 figure. I fully admit that that inconsistency has caused some confusion. So the... Really the numbers question on this, I think, should be put to rest -- that this 95 percent figure is not the case if you were to calculate this against a realistic assessment of what voter turn out means. Q: according to your own estimates that was signed by Christian Christianssen on September 16, according to those numbers, you have potential population of people who did not vote. We know that they didn't vote because they either didn't register or people who did register didn't vote. You come out with about 580,000 people -- not counting the people who could not found their name on the list at this point. J. Fischer: there are... The document to which you refer is an internal planning document, which was never endorsed by the administration of the election. If it was leaked, than it was leaked for some suspicious purpose and... And I, I don't necessarily stand by those figures. Q: but Christian Christianssen was sent to do that join analysis on the specific request of the Ambassador Frowick, as were the other principals that were sent by their chiefs. J. Fischer: well, I understand if you went through the exercise and it was an internal document and it should have been kept an internal document. Ambassador Frowick: you could also note that if the electorate is somewhere between 3.2 million and 3.3 million, and you know, who knows exactly what the figures are under the circumstances, but that's, that is the range that I think all of us must recognize as reality, and than you have a maxim um of 2.4 million or so who voted, that figures out to something over the 70 percent of the electorate. Q: that's assuming that every single person voted though. Ambassador Frowick: I just think that a figure that's relevant too. N. Schultz: Mike.. Q: do you stand by the document of the 16th, or do you reject it. You said you don't necessarily stand by it. Is it... Whether or not it is internal document, is it an accurate document, or do you reject its figures? J. Fischer: it is a document which provides estimates which we looked at as one of several inputs for planning ballot distribution, ballot production and the like. I won't necessarily say that I flatly reject all aspects. There is a lot of information in it, but we certainly, I certainly reject being bound to a singular figure of 2.9 million in the electorate. Q: was Mr. Christianssen wrong in signing that document than. J. Fischer: Mr. Christianssen worked on the document along with three other researches. He was certainly correct in signing it as a product of his work. Q: I am little confused. Does it represent the official feeling of Fisher: no, there is no truth to that. Q: Mr. Ambassador the... The tenor of the complaint by the EASC says... Gives a total of 77% voter turnout, but it says "the voter turnout does not take into consideration any of the factors which are known to have placed obstacles in the way of certain voters or groups of voters." And if you s tand by your numbers, the complaint says, "in the view of the sub-commission, the global turnout figure of 77% is considered, in the light of known obstacles, so high that it raises a significant possibility of double voting, other forms of fraud or counting irregularities." Are you going to ask them to investigate the possibility of double voting, other forms of fraud or counting irregularities? Have you found any evidence of it? And are you still open to the possibility that it may have taken place? Ambassador Frowick: I really don't know what much to add beyond the statement that was issued by the Provisional Election Commission in dealing with all of these questions. There were... The reality is that there were over 2.4 million people who voted. We had always said that this would be an imperfect electoral process complicated by all of the centrifugal political force questions that were unleashed during the war and that were still at work in the political process. We had always indicated there would be special difficulties in this. There are clearly a number if instances -- I don't know how many have come before the sub-commission -- dozens of serious concerns, maybe hundreds of individual compllaints of not being on the voters list and so on. We have to make a judgement about the overall integrity of the electoral process. We now have the overall assessment of Mr. Van Thijn, the other day, which I thought was quite balanced. It took into account that there were problems on that day. And then we had to take into account, in the Provisional Election Commission, this whole question: should we have a recount? Should we go back over all of that in the way it was suggested there? What is our sense of perspective on it? We have taken a long time to get through all of this careful ly and try to do it correct... Appropriately from the standpoint of integrity. The effect of what was done in a retabulation of the voting and a detailed analysis municipality by municipality was, I suppose in the view of some, tantamount to a kind of a recount. And I think that by now, we just have to make a judgement: was this an effective, reasonable overall result, or wasn't it? And it was the view of everybody in the Provisional Election Commission, which is the body responsible for guiding this whole effort, that we have imperfect, difficult, questionable but acceptable overall results. Jeff fischer: I do have one... I do have one footnote on this. There is one turnout figure we do know. The refugees who requested absentee ballots. There were roughly 480,000 refugees who requested absentee ballots. Of those, I think 392,000 cast ballots. That's an 82% turnout rate. That's one that we can stand by, because there was a bona fide registration process, if you will, that did establish a given universe of voters in that. If the turnout -- the figures -- appear high to some, you have to take the reflection of the refugee vote as calculated into the overall turnnout , and the figure of 82% in that regard. Q: your own sub-commission says that the straight numbers, which doesn't take into account any voters who are know... You know, "obstacles" is the word they use. And I think we all have to concede that there were... Do you concede that there may have been large obstacles to voting, perhaps larger than there would be in any other country that has practiced democracy for a longer period of time? K. Scott: I hope we can get away from this numbers game. There are only two facts that we know. One is that there were 3,550,000 people on the voters list. And the other is that 2.4 million people voted. We have no idea how many people were killed; there are various estimates. The sub-commission has made an estimate which looks perfectly reasonable to me. We have no idea how many people didn't vote because they decided on the day not to vote. The sub-commission arrived at a figure of 77% vote; they regarded that as being suspiciously high. The Provisional Election Commission doesn't regard it as being suspiciously high. 23% of the known electorate didn't vote, so what's the problem? Q: well, Sir Kenneth, nobody wants to get away from this numbers game more than I do, trust me. But your own Election Appeals Sub-Commission says the numbers are high, and fraud is suspected. It seems... It appears after a week, two weeks of dealing with this story and the numbers game that the OSCE doesn't appear to be even trying to check. You haven't... I'm told that you haven't run any list of the dead against the list of voters because it's too complicated to do on your computers. I'm told that there have been irregularities have been irregularities, but nobody can draw the line between a lot of little irregularities and one big fraud. And... K. Scott: which list of the dead are you talking about? Q: well, there's the Red Cross... The International Red Cross has a list of... ICRC has a list of 14,000 missing. K. Scott: yeah, would you like us to check those 14,000 names against the voters list? Q: yeah, that would be great. K. Scott: yes, well, round about next Summer, we could give you an election result. Q: well, how about if you give me the list, and you give me the voters list, and you give me one of your computers, and I'll do it in two days? K. Scott: right. J. Fischer: you haven't worked with this data base... Q: well, I can build another one that will work. It's a list of names. J. Fischer: we have undertaken, actually, several transparency exercises in the course of this discussion. I chose two small municipalities earlier this week -- Kupres and Trnovo. There were four polling stations in each municipality. One represented around 4,500 voters; one -- 2,4430. We took all of the polling materials from these and reconstructed them, checking the vote, checking the poll books and did not find any problems associated with that. On Wednesday, we invited representatives of six political parties into the computer room where the tabulation occurred. They were able... They spent several hours checking the tally sheets which we received from the counting centers against what had been entered on to the computers. They registered no objections with us as a result of that exercise. As indicated earlier, in our work to fulfil the spirit of the decision, the recommendation of the sub-commission, we ran an entire retabulation, in effect, an electronic recount of the process -- found a few minor discrepancies but no problem. I've had someone else work on a spot check of invalid ballots. I received that report this morning and haven't had a chance to digest its contents yet. So I don't think that we can be accused of being unresponsive to this. We have taken measures to look at complaints and to follow up with exercises that we believe would reveal problems if we saw them. And we're satisfied with the results of these tests. K. Scott: and can I remind you that Mr. Van Thijn, the coordinator of the international monitors in his final statement, said that on the basis of 4,000 reports he'd received from his observers, he confirmed that 97% of the polling stations where the voting process was conducted, the process was conducted properly. So we have got evidence from the ground that does not lead us to suppose that there was a major amount of fraud at the polling stations. Ambassador Frowick: and the same kind of input we received from 1,300 supervisors. Nobody is saying that these elections went off with perfection. Everybody acknowledges that they were imperfect. We said all Summer they would be imperfect. There has to be a sense of perspective ultimately and a judgement as to the overall result. It seems to me that Minister Van Thijn, who has... Had been objectively critical of various aspects of the whole process all the way through the year, has given us a balanced, overall assessment. N. Schultz: Karen. Q: yeah, Jeff. Can you just tell me again: when did the OSCE start to organize these elections? J. Fischer: I think the first part of February would be the time that I would mark or end of January. Q: okay, and at what stage did you know that the base figure for the electorate would be taken from the 1991 census? J. Fischer: that was in the Dayton Agreement, so it was evident at the signing of the agreement that that would be the basic eligibility document for voters. Q: so it would have been known from quite very early on that in fact, the total electorate would be taken from the 1991 census, so therefore, you had quite a bit of time to come up with a fairly legitimate figure, would that be correct? J. Fischer: well, the provisional voters list which came as an extraction from that data base was not produced until April, I believe, or May... So April I guess it was. I wasn't here at the time. So you would have to mark it at that point in time as being the first indication we had of what the maximum figure could possibly be. Q: okay, so that's obviously a fair bit of time that you would have had. Now what I can't make out here is that you... J. Fischer: well, I wouldn't necessarily agree that that's a fair amount of time to be planning an election. We've always operated... Q: no, it's a fair amount of time to have known what the figure could possibly have been. So can you explain: why have you been switching between a figure of 3.2 [million] and a figure of 2.9 [million] when you clearly have had quite a lot of time to know what that figure might have been? You mentioned earlier that you went back to some statements you had where you gave... You were... You saw some reference to a higher figure of 3.2 [million]; this was March or April, you mentioned. J. Fischer: yes, I fully admit that I have been inconsistent in the way that I've used these two figures. This is part of the product of the unknowns that we've had associated with this exercise. But inconsistency is all we're talking about. The figure has been used by some departments within my unit of 3.2; of other departments of 2.9. And I'm guilty of using both. Ambassador Frowick: can I just say that it seems to me that it happened in the rush of events. I remember I myself, in the Spring, had been looking at that 3.5 figure, and we'd figure roughly 200,000 to 300,000 people probably are deceased during the war, so it should have been something like 3. 2 million. Then we went off... Q: with all due respect Ambassador, I mean, I think coming up with a figure doesn't require a hell of a lot of time. You go back to statistics; you have a statistical office in the... In Sarajevo. I mean, this is a basic figure to begin the election process. Ambassador Frowick: you're quite right. You're absolutely right. All I can say is it was a mistake. It was in the rush of events one day when we got into the whole question of post-elections, and we'd been working to try to get through the elections. I went over to the elections component and I said, "where are the exact statistics on what this electorate should be?" And I was pointed toward a unit that's supposed to be on top of this, and some... For some reason, it had started using the UNHCR figures related to refugee questions at 2.9 million. And I am guilty of going from that and coming to a press conference and saying 2.9 million was the estimate. But it was a mistake; it's an aberration. It seems to me that it should be abundantly manifest by now that that was wrong. Q: would you accept then that it has seriously dented the credibility of the OSCE for future work in elections. Ambassador Frowick: well, I would hope that people would recognize that if we acknowledge that that was a mistake and we try to correct it here in this time as we are wrapping up our efforts two weeks after the elections take place, that it would be, you know, accepted that it was a shortcoming. And we would hope that that would be one of the lessons learned for the next time around if we do these municipal elections just like getting it better on voter's registration and all the other questions that we're dealing with. N. Schultz: Colin. Q: okay, just trying to avoid numbers for the moment, I mean, assuming that you never really knew how many voters there could be, assuming that there was never any analysis on how many people could have voted or did vote on the day, I mean other than the actual polling list -- dropping out the wh ole question of 500,000 or 600,00, you're monitoring, your monitors, your teams of monitors, by your own Admission, only covered 70% of the actual polling stations. Not a single polling station was covered for the entire 12 hour period, and so far, you've been able to tell us that you have checked four or eight polling books out of 4,625 polling books, and you haven't found any problems and established that as a basis for credibility at this point. You've re counted the sheets that came from the counting centres, and they generally work out with what you have in your computers and that is given to us as some sort of basis for credibility for these elections. Given the fact that, as you say, you've never really had any idea how many people could have voted or how many people did not vote on the day; given the fact that your own Election Appeals Sub-Commission has said these numbers appear suspiciously high by their own calculations; at this point, given the fact that Mr. Izetbegovic's lead over Mr. Krajisnik is only 42,000, 41,000 votes, how can you, in good conscience as an election commission, say that you don't have to check anything more, that there's no more... That there are no more problems? I mean, you know, you are saying sort of you have to be... You have to look at this in perspective, I mean, I thought your job is to look at this in the perspective of providing credible results for elections, not providing convenient results for the elections. Ambassador Frowick: I have to object to that characterization. There hasn't been anything convenient about it. It's been a belabored detailed effort in good conscience. It's two weeks now since the elections took place. We had thought that the count would be over within a week. We've been tr ying and trying to search after truth, to get to exactly what has happened and to take a balanced and reasonable judgement. Jeff. J. Fisher: yes I think the.. This election has been one of the most heavily monitored electoral processes in recent history. The number of supervisors, monitors and press deployed is unprecedented in this region. We have been responsive to the concerns expressed by the public to evaluate the pr ocess; and as I explained earlier, undertaken spot checks and tests to see where, if we can detect, where there were problems. We have not found these problems. We have relied upon the reports of supervisors and monitors to guide us to problem areas. The Appeals Sub-Commission has reported instances of localized malfeasance and has taken actions on that to dismiss Local Election Commissions who may have been problematic or polling station committees who did not behave properly. That certainly is a valuable contribution that the sub-commission has provided. But to echo the Ambassador, to characterise us as somehow looking for a convenient way out is incorrect characterization, and I don't believe that it is in keeping with the scrupulous effort that we have undertaken to organise these elections. Q: sorry, with all due respect..... N. Schultz: ...Colin, Colin, Colin, excuse me Colin, there are couple of more people who have not asked questions yet and we don't have much more time. Q: yourself said ...inaudible... N. Schultz: Colin, Colin, Colin... Ambassador Frowick: I never said that. Q: inaudible..... N. Schultz: ...Colin, Colin... Go ahead please. Q: you said you take the last census as a basis. Do you know how many electoral body -- Muslim, Croats and Bosnians.. Bosniacs and Serbs the last elections in Bosnia, if you know these figures? The second questtion - your comments of icg comments last days and if you see those arguments are a ba sis to make some correction on this so- called elections? K. Scott: the figures of the number Serbs, Croats, Bosniacs and others in the 1991 census are a matter of record. What we do not know is what proportion of Serbs, Croats, Muslims and others died or were killed during the war because there are no proper records. So we don't know the proportion o f Serbs, Croats, Muslims and others on the... Who were eligible voters this time. There is no way of telling that. Q: the last census... Do you know difficult, please provide us? K. Scott: well, you can find them in the records. I haven't got them in my head. But they are a matter of record. J. Reid: the state statistical office will be happy to give that to you. N. Schultz: the statistical institute has been told that reporters might want to come and look at their records and they are prepared to show them to you. Q: you know, because I contacted the Bosnian institute for statistics and they gave some figures to me. It seems that the whole population of the Serbs, under those statistics, took part in this elections, which is impossible, of course. So that... Please provide the correct figures? K. Scott: what possible evidence have you got for that statement? Q: comparing to the Bosnian statistic institute, the Serb, the whole population before the war was 1.3 million people. The whole population in whole Bosnia. It is correct or not? Since you take these figures as a basis for your work. J. Reid: we never divided them by ethnic grouping. We only used them in a gross way. It was not of interest to us to divide them, and we did not need to divide them by ethnic group. K. Scott: if this election had been as rigged as you all seem to think it was, you would have expected the three ruling parties to win an overwhelming majority of the seats. We all knew that they were going to win the election. But nonetheless, 16% of the seats in the house of representatives o f Bosnia and Herzegovina and 30% of the seats in the Republika Srpska assembly and 17% of the seats in the federation house of representatives were won by opposition parties. That leads us to suppose that at least it was a reasonably democratic way of allowing people to express their will. Q: there is a lot of talk about how supervised these elections were, but I mean, compared to Namibia and Cambodia, the big problem is - you didn't have supervisors and monitors in every polling station all the time. You only had supervisors, monitors in polling stations a minority of the time th at the voting station was open. So the observations of those monitors and observers are surely not... Do not... Do not have the final word on whether fraud took place or not, because... I mean what surprises me about the 97% figure is that three percent of the LEC's tried to cheat while there were supervisors in the room. Doesn't this come down to a sort of "a priori" decision whether... You think... If you think that the elections were probably fair, then you ratchet up your estimates of the total electorate to 3.2 million. And, if you got no particular vested interest in believing that the elections were free a nd fair, you take the only professional estimate of the electorate which has been 2.9 [million]. The only... The only professional attempt I've seen to estimate that has been done by the UN three different ways, and it comes at the 2.9 which makes the turn out look very dubious . Doesn't it come down to a basic decision... If you want this election to look reasonably OK, the turn out to look ok you just choose your number, you choose 3.2? J. Reid: maybe I have... We've been going back over the files to look at some of our planning documents and I have in front of me one that stated --the 11th April 1996 by... And signed off by Audry Johnson who was our computer person at that time -- and they were looking at the data base that we have. And her comments are - the 1991 up dated list per Audry Johnson, voters equals 3,200.000. She used then the UNHCR figures for March 1996 as adjusted for refugees at 900,000; internal displaced persons, the calculation was 865,800, and the voters remaining in place with calculated at 1,765 ,800. That was the first planning document that we had, came out of our examination of the PVL when we had received it. And I will leave it up here and you can come and look at it afterwards. We haven't made copies because we only discovered it this morning. But, our first planning document which was imbedded in the system was for 3.2 million voters on the list. Ambassador Frowick: and incidentally through the Spring, based on those initial planning documents, the decisions were made on how many ballots would be purchased , all the rest. It's just that when we got past the elections and we started looking again with the people that were in place then f or statistics on the electorate, somehow this UNHCR document - 2.9 million was given to us and it was a mistake. I take responsibility for that, for the mission. J. Fisher: I think one of the problems that we had was that we had a lot of discontinuities in the staffing of the OSCE mission. For example, Audry Johnson who did this work was with us for about one month and gone. Then we had a hiatus of about six weeks to two months before we got another person to deal with information technology. And so what happened was that when you look at the pattern of people who were coming in, we did not have an appropriate build-up of election people. We really only got our build-up probably in June and July. And a lot of things of this nature were imbedded into the system, but they're not obvious when you went back to look at the documents because of the nature of the organizational build-up that we went through. And those of us who were there at the beginning can tell you that the build up was excruciatingly painful and slow and difficult. N. Schultz: we are going to have to stop now. The Ambassador has to leave. I want to tell you though, that over on the table, there are the retabulation figures that we've refereed to, the PEC statement from yesterday and, I think, just about every other document you've asked for. Q: (inaudible) N. Schultz: I can answer it. Or Jeff can answer it. The Ambassador just has to go.