IFOR AFSOUTH TRANSCRIPT Oct 11, 1996

In the interest of speed transcripts of IFOR press briefings are issued in unedited format Transcript of the Press Briefing held on 11 October 1996

Patrick Svensson: good morning ladies and gentleman. Today I have with me the UN IPTF Deputy Police Commissioner Robert Wasserman, and Mr. Wasserman will make a brief statement regarding the situation in Mostar where there will be a transfer of authority from the WEU police to the UN IPTF next week. After a brief statement we'll open up for your questions. Robert Wasserman: there are really two things happening on the 15th of October. The first is that the responsibility for monitoring within the Blue Zone in Mostar will transfer from the WEU police to IPTF. And secondly the WEU will hand over authorities that are now held by the WEU for policing in the Blue Zone to its minister and his deputy of the canton. In the second instance, it is the intention to continue the work of the unified police force of Mostar until such time as the new federation police are established in the canton and at which time the unified force will become a part of the new federation police at cantonal level. To ensure that the unified force moves forward and as a part of the IPTF mandated. Responsibilities for the restructuring of the police within the federation, the IPTF will assign a co-ordinator of the unified force of Mostar who will work with two deputy co-ordinators, one from East Mostar and one from West, so that the current activities of the unified force will continue as they have been. There will be actually no change in the operations of the unified force from what has been. We simply will assume a co-ordinating role that the assignment of a senior officer from headquarters to serve as the co-ordinator in Mostar. In terms of the transfer of authorities for monitoring in the city, we will assume as of Tuesday the responsibility for monitoring of police activities in the city and we will see some changes. The IPTF mandate is a very strong... Its monitoring mandate among other things, and its... We had a series of meetings yesterday quite successfully with force. We will have substantially more who will be involved in monitoring activities throughout the city per se, and those will come from our district in Mostar. Maj. Haselock: any other questions? Colin... Yeah, Colin. Q: I'm sorry, will the unified force be operating outside of the Blue Zone? R. Wasserman: as well, they will still operate only inside the Blue Zone. Q: O.K. Maj. Haselock: Cassandra at the back. Q: yes, Mr. Wasserman, when will the IPTF hand over complete responsibility to the local police of the unified police force in Mostar. R. Wassermann: the hand-over is actually occurring on Tuesday. The authorities do not go to IPTF, but they go to the cantonal administration. And we simply are serving in a co-ordinating role with the agreement of the cantonal ministers and the mayor and the governor. Q: I see. And how long is the co-ordinating role supposed to last? Do you know... R. Wasserman: until... At least in that role , until the new federation police at the cantonal level are established, and we hope to have that in by the end of this year. As you know we have been involved in a major process of downsizing the police within the federation. We have been going through a bedding(?) process. The Mostar area has been bedded. We simply must have in place at the cantonal level through out the federation the administrations and constitutions and authorities that will allow the new federation police to assume office. As soon as that happens, that will occur.

Q; just could you give us a rough idea how many IPTF policemen will there be in the city? Hundreds, two hundreds? R. Wasserman: three thousand... No, I don't... I have no idea actually as of today. We are a small force of seventeen hundred and twenty-one. We can not increase that size, so we are having to make adjustments within our staffing and that work is going on over the next five days. I can answer that best at the Tuesday meeting. Q: on a different subject, since we have you with us today; rarely do we get to question the IPTF directly. As I understand there was only one single internal investigation about police misconduct in the past year. And this involved the case of what appeared to be drug and sex ring in Bugojno and Travnik area, involving several Jordanians. Now that investigation began, I believe, at least 45 days ago. We were told at one point that we would have some kind of assurances of what was going to be done. I know several people were transferred, and a report was made, and it was given to New York. I wonder if we've made any progress on this internal investigation, and can you confirm it was the only internal investigation of police misconduct since the mission began? R. Wasserman: No. Next. Q: excuse me sir. If you care not to speak about this, I mean, several thing have been said on and off the record, but... I would appreciate if you could comment on this since it was a public... It was made public at the point of the investigation when it began. Just to clarify for us why these gentlemen were transferred and why no action -- direct action -- was taken as a result of the investigation. R. Wasserman: all I know is the story that you reported in your sources, and as you know, I believe most of that was inaccurate. I have no further comment on it. Q: what stage is the unification process at in Mostar at the moment and can you say... Can you tell me whether or not the chief of police from West Mostar is, in fact, co-operating fully with the police with the... Well up until now, the WEU police and the process of unification. R. Wasserman: I can only say that he fully participated in the meetings yesterday. Q: is he attending, is he sitting in at the joint headquarters in Mostar? Is he co-operating at that level? R. Wasserman: I'm not sure as to the state of the... That relationship. I know at the meeting I called yesterday of both chiefs, he did appear. And he participated fully in the discussions. Q: is there one joint uniform yet? R. Wasserman: no, there will not be until the new federation, police are established, because that is the uniform of the new federation police. You may see a re-marking of the vehicles. You certainly will see some kind of a new license plate in place because we can no longer use the WEU license plates. That is all being worked out in the next four days. I have an advance team there that's working those out. P. Svensson: any other questions for the Commissioner. Maj. Haselock: thanks very much. R. Wasserman: thank you. Svensson: thank you. Maj. Haselock: we'll reconstitute again in two minutes and start again. (Start of normal press briefing) Major Haselock: I'll start by formally saying good morning. Psalm 39, verse 3: I held my tongue and spake nothing; I kept silence, yea, even from good words; but it was a pain and a grief to me. Patrick. Patrick Svensson: wow, Simon, way to go. Well, that's a tough act to follow. I have some explosions to mention this morning. Not so exciting. Yesterday at approximately 13:30 hours, four explosions occurred in the general area of Mombasic, which is in Northern Bosnia. This is an abandoned village, situated in the zone of separations... Zone of separation. The explosions occurred in quick succession and destroyed six houses. Window panes were also broken in the nearby village of Jasikovac, but no casualties were reported. Patrol from our IPTF station in Bijeljina visited the spot and searched the area. At the time, a large crowd of people from the federation side gathered near the IEBL, and this crowd was quite agitated and threatened some retaliatory action. However, IPTF Bijeljina managed to calm down the situation and the crowd eventually agreed to resist from any hostile course of action, and they dispersed peacefully. This investigation is ongoing, IPTF is involved as well as both the federation and the RS police. In addition, there was another explosion yesterday at about 1920 hours in Stanic Rijeka where one unoccupied house was blown up. There were no injuries at this location, and IPTF is investigating as well as in co-operation with the local police forces. That's all I have. Thank you. Kris Janowski: I will just have a brief announcement on behalf of the United States Embassy. U.S. Assistant Secretary for Population and Refugee Affairs will be visiting Gorazde on Sunday. She will be at the Gorazde Collective Center between 11 and 12 on Sunday, and all media welcome. Mr. Rici from the US Embassy is here, over there actually, and he's happy to answer any questions about that visit. That's all I have, plus the house in Stanic Rijeka that was destroyed by an explosion is one of the houses that are being rebuilt as part of the UNHCR shelter program. It's a apparently a Moslem house. What has been happening in Stanic Rijeka -- the people were going there during the day to work on their houses. It's an agreement signed at the beginning of May with the Republika Srpska authorities. So we are quite concerned about it. It's basically a threat to the... Our agreement and return to the zone of separation there. Tom Walker: right, what was it Simon? Pain and grief. Yeah, we've got a lot of pain and grief at the European Commission this morning 'cause we've got no electricity. So, I was going to fax this to you, but, I'm sorry I'm just going to have to make a verbal announcement instead. We've got two European Commissioners coming tomorrow . That's Emma Boninno who is the Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs and Marcelino Oreja -- he's the Commissioner for Media and Culture along with the President of the European Parliament who's name is Claus Hansch (h-a-n-s-c-h). Now, they're going to be flying in with the German Foreign Minister Claus Kinkel. I'm sure most of you are aware of that visit. Now, when Kinkel goes off to do his political stuff in the afternoon, our Commissioners and the President of the European Parliament are going to re-open the tram-way to Ilidza, which has been closed since the start of the war. There's going to be an opening ceremony starting at Stup Transformer station. If you don't know where that is I can explain to you afterwards. That's at 15:20, tomorrow afternoon where there's basically going to be unveiling the plaque and switching on the power. And then a tram will take everybody down to Ilidza tram and bus station where there are going to be speeches from the Transport Minister Rasim Gacanovic, possibly Mr. Kapetanovic as well. That's about, 15:40 and I anticipate the ceremony will finish about 16:15. Obviously you're all very welcome to attend those events, I think they should be quite good photo opportunities at least. And then I understand that I think Mr. Kinkel is giving his press conference here at about 4:30 in the afternoon and, Commissioner Boninno will follow straight on afterwards, probably at about five o'clock. Anyway, any questions on any of that, please see me afterwards. Thanks very much. Maj. Haselock: just before we take questions, there is announcement by the OSCE, that there'll be a press conference at 1600 in Banja Luka by Ambassador Frowick, hopefully along side Mrs. Plavsic. 1600 in Banja Luka, today I understand. OK. Questions please. Matt. Q: good morning. I hope you will be able to say something. Silence is golden, but... A lot of bang, bang on the zone of separation, I mean explosions here and there. I mean you didn't mention it in your... But I mean I suspect that IFOR is aware of it and there is... It seems to be people running around the zone of separation with explosives underneath their arms and blowing up people's houses. It is quite worrying because... And you guys are patrolling along there. Maj. Haselock: yes. Q: ...you might involved. I mean, you know, blowing up a houses is quite dangerous. Maj. Haselock: yes. Q: are you investigating, are you assisting in investigation, are you aware of these events? Maj. Haselock: we are aware of the explosions, yes. I mean, the IPTF have explained the circumstances. We are investigating... Involved in investigations. I can't really say any more than that because I don't know any more than that. It is not the first time there's been incidents. If they are exploding houses, which is what they seem to be on this occasion, particularly in Stanic Rijeka, that is extremely worrying. A number of the other explosions, we have in fact been cows treading on mines so there was a variety of explosions in the zone of separation. But things like this are clearly worrying and we will assist the IPTF in investigating and take action if necessary. Q: Stanic... Especially Stanic Rijeka was one of the projects that UNHCR seem to focus a lot of their attention. I mean, there are being press releases and so on that situation there, the last few days. Are you considering maybe as in this case of Jusici, maybe stationing a more semi-permanent IFOR personnel there in Jusici, they were like guarding their houses while the people were away? Are you thinking of doing that... Maybe have a people patrolling there at specific village to...? Maj. Haselock: no, it is too early to tell. I mean we, as you know, in principle we are not in favor of putting static guards anyway... Anywhere, because that is very heavy on resources and it means... It leaves other places perhaps less secure. So in principle, we don't normally like putting static guards on places as I say, because it makes us static. But, it may be something we may consider in the future. We'll see. Karen. Q: Patrick, can you just give us more details on the houses? Whose houses were they to the best of your knowledge? Were they being rebuilt, and what side of the zone of separation were they are? P. Svensson: I do not have too many details yet. All I know is that this village, Mombosic is an abandoned village situated in the zone of separation, but I really have no more detailed information regarding the houses. K. Janowski: I understand that this house in Stanic Rijeka was on the Serb side of the line, and it's a formerly Muslim house that was part of the reconstruction or shelter project. Q: so I am just trying get... K. Janowski: .... To return and to by Muslims to that area. Q: but can we understand that the houses are Muslim houses and that the explosions came from the other side or is that information just too vague right now? P. Svensson: well, concerning the area of Mombosic, it's a bit too early to say, but I will get back with more information tomorrow. Q: can you at least tell us, what's the nearest town or nearest large village to Mombosic so we can find it on a detailed map? P. Svensson: sure, and I mentioned that... Colin, the closest village is Jasikovac. Q: ahhhh... P. Svensson: yeah. I am sure you know where that is. Q: ah... Excuse me, can you tell me what the closest large village is to Jasikovac? P. Svensson: yeah, well I believe it's... Well, our IPTF guys - they came from Bijeljina, so in that general area. We can look at the map afterwards. Q: OK. Thanks. Maj. Haselock: Giles. Q: so would it be fair to characterize this as far as you can tell -- your suspicions -- that this is attempt by the Serbs to prevent Muslim reoccupation of these houses? P. Svensson: is that a question? Q: yes it is. P. Svensson: well, I mean, I don't want to characterize it at all yet, until we have a bit further information. I would refrain from commenting on it. Maj. Haselock: there have been other incidents like this. Clearly they are of concern. The thing about Stanic Rijeka was the fact that there was an agreement in that area and we believed, I think everybody believed, that that was an agreement which was likely to be upheld. So whatever it is, it is disappointing and... K. Janowski: what it is also considering, considering the stuff that the Bosnian Serb propaganda was putting out about Muslims occupying Stanic Rijeka and going in and taking over and so on and so forth. I think it's not a huge... Really jump to conclusions that it was a way of disinviting the Muslims, you know, in that area. Maj. Haselock: any more.. Jennifer.. Q: Simon, what kind of steps can you take? You said that you would investigate, and if you find, say in Stanic Rijeka, that it was the Serbs, what kind of steps can IFOR take? Maj. Haselock: well, first of all, we are not the principal investigative agency. I mean, that is the local police and the IPTF. The point is that if we are able to interdict, and we know movement of people who are liable to place such explosives, we will do so by patrolling the area. But it depends very much on what actually occurs. I mean we have... We do patrol the zone of separation fairly carefully. Our presence in zone of separation is higher than anywhere else. In principle we will try to deter these sorts of things. If necessary we may increase our particular patrolling in those areas, but that is yet to be decided. Our general impression of these things is to prevent. That is what we will try to do. OK. Thank you very much.