IFOR AFSOUTH TRANSCRIPT Oct 31, 1996

In the interest of speed transcripts of IFOR press briefings are issued in unedited format Transcript of the Press Briefing held on 31 October 1996

Colum: first item on the agenda, let me remind you of the next meeting of the presidency which will take place tomorrow in the National Museum at 0930. The meeting will consider questions of the council of ministers and they will go on to discuss their own rules and procedures. Also there have been a number of spin-off working groups as you know from the new three-man presidency. Yesterday, for example, at the OHR, one such working group took place. In addition, we had in the OHR, a meeting of the associations of displaced persons and refugees and they have produced a document which is available on the table outside and Najara here also has copies of that. We have here, this morning, also, IPTF commissioner Peter Fitzgerald, whom I welcome. He has a few remarks to make to you. Peter . . . Commissioner Fitzgerald: thank you. Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I thought it would be appropriate that I would come before you this morning to try and clear up some matters that have arisen over the last couple of days and apparently some confusion about. So what I propose to do is to read out a brief statement and then later on, I will answer any questions that you might like to ask me about this. This issue is in relation to the war criminals list from ICTY and the presence, or the alleged presence at least, of some of these in the police force up around Prejidor. Some issues have been raised over the last couple of days about reports that had been made to me and to my headquarters and what action, if any, that we had taken in relation to these reports. So what I will do is give you the sequence of events as I know them, I'll tell you what I have done and what we propose to do, and then I can answer any questions, hopefully, that you might have. On the 20th of October, I received a fax which was dated the 27th. The date on the fax was originally put on as September but is clearly an October fax which is indicated by the date at the top of it. This fax indicated that did, that certainly they were unknown to my police officers. I have sent a senior police officer from my headquarters to Prejidor to carry out a full investigation. I have asked them to investigate two areas. First of all, to establish that if the persons named in the report are in fact the same people on the ICTY list, and secondly to establish what went wrong with our reporting system that this serious matter was not reported to my headquarters at the time, and to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that if there are any faults in our system of reporting, that they should be corrected. I will be reporting to the OHR and the other principles later today on this whole issue. Recognizing that it is the responsibility of the parties to arrest and to surrender war criminals to ICTY, I have written to Interior Minister Kihac demanding the removal of these officers from the police, that they be arrested and that they be surrendered to ICTY. I have also incidentally indicated that if there are any other such persons within the police force, that similar action should be taken. As you will be aware, the IPTF are not mandated nor indeed have we any executive authority to arrest people ourselves. The responsibility rests clearly with the parties. I sincerely regret that the report made on the 12th of July was not brought to my notice at that time. Had it been, I would certainly have taken action on it. It is clear to me now that the IPTF made a genuine mistake in this, that it was not reported. I have taken steps to ensure that similar mistakes will not be made in the future and I would hope that I can stand over that assurance. In conclusion, I would like to say to you that this was a genuine mistake on the part of IPTF. There's no questions of coverups, there's no questions of not doing what we're supposed to do. It was a simple slip-up. Thank you.

Colum: Brett. Major boudreau: thank you. Good morning and happy Halloween. Yesterday was another busy but relatively quiet day in the area of operations. You will have heard by now of the death of an American sailor in MND North's area yesterday, of an apparent suicide. The COMARRC, Lieutenant-General Sir Michael Walker, expresses his sympathies to the family and comrades of the sailor. Out in the field, MNDs provided an increased military presence in the Sapna thumb, Vrbanja valley, Titov Drvar and Mostar areas. A number of cantonment site inspections were carried out in areas near "hot spots" in the area of operations, and all were found to be in compliance. A Joint Military Commission meeting was hosted by Lieutenant General Walker and attended by Generals Delic, Budimir and Tolimir representing the three faction military forces. Items on the agenda included the recent destruction of unoccupied, derelict houses. COMARRC reaffirmed our commitment to assisting the international community to combating the obstacles to the return of refugees and displaced persons. In that vein, we are vigorously pursuing our investigation into the recent spate of destruction. Notwithstanding the efforts of the international community and of the associations of displaced persons and refugees from across Bosnia, early yesterday morning, explosions were reported by the IPTF in the area of Domanovici, which is between Metkovic and Stolac. Upon investigation, MND South-West discovered three unoccupied houses that formerly belonged to Bosniac families further damaged at Bivolje Brdo, Lokve and Pot Kosa. At his JMC, COMARRC also reinforced to the three factional military leaders that their ability to train would remain directly linked to their efforts at mine clearance. At present, both the VRS and the ABIH in MND's North and South-West are prohibited from conducting training for their unacceptable efforts to date. Our engineer staff are hosting a meeting today with the faction chief engineers to discuss the issue of demining and how to kickstart their programs, amongst other items. Yesterday afternoon at a checkpoint two kilometres North of Gabela, and by a senior officer from my headquarters who is up there at the moment. So, perhaps by the end of today, we'll have definite information on this. Q: Commissioner, will you release the July memo from the Prejidor station, or the Banja Luka station, that never reached you? Commissioner Fitzgerald: will I release it? No, I won't release it. But I can certainly quote from it if you want me to. And I quote, "we have obtained an unofficial list of war criminals from the ECMM. Having checked this, we note that Mr. Dragaca" again, I'm sorry about the pronunciation. This is the former police chief that was in Prejidor. This was the tone of this report. It was in relation to him specifically. "is not on it but there are three names that match three police officers in the Prejidor area." And they named the three people. On the following page of that report, it says, "the first complete duty roster of Prejidor has been submitted to IPTF on the 11th of July to prepare for the upcoming vetting of local police. The roster was compared to an unofficial list of war criminals indicted by The Hague tribunal. Three names match that list." Colum: do you have a follow-up question? Q: will the IPTF vet the RS police or was this something that changed between July and now? Commissioner Fitzgerald: the vetting process . . . We have under the Dayton Agreement, an obligation to restructure, to downsize, and to train the local police and to introduce principles of democratic policing to the police. We have received very good cooperation on the federation side and that process is well in hand at the moment, and in fact, most of the vetting has been completed on the federation side. On the Republik Srpska side, we have not made the same progress. The RS have accepted the principles of democratic policing, they have accepted the code of ethics. The minister has, in principle, accepted that his police force needs to be organized, restructured and downsized. But we have not, as yet, reached agreement with them on the structure of this reorganized police force, nor indeed on the downsizing and of the eventual numbers. Q: yes, Commissioner, can I ask how long will it actually take to positive identify these people? Do you have a number of days? Are we right in thinking that basically, they're going to be identified once the Serbs have agreed to remove them so that you can present it as sort of a fait accompli? Commissioner Fitzgerald: no. My intention is not to do this. As I said, we have to be sure of our facts. We have to be sure of what we're reporting. I can't give you an absolute date or time when this investigation will be completed. The instructions that I've given to my people is that this investigation be carried out as quickly as possible so that we can be sure of our facts. But having said that, we are reasonably confident that the people named are in fact serving police officers without being absolutely sure. Based on that, I have written to the Minister of the Interior, naming these four people, pointing out to him that it was his responsibility to remove them from the police force, to arrest them and to hand them over to ICTY. Indeed, it's the same with any other indicted criminals that may be within his force. Q: it was confirmed for me two days ago by a U.N. official that these people were working as police officers and they were the same ones on the list. So now obviously there's some sort of backtracking in the meantime. Can you tell me what information do you have that leads you to believe that yes, they probably are the people on the list? Commissioner Fitzgerald: first of all, let me emphasize quite clearly that there's no backtracking. This is important. I don't want anybody here to think that we're covering up anything or that we're backtracking. There's no question of that. We've got nothing to hide. I have told you a few minutes ago that my people made a mistake in not sending this report forward to me. I accept that a mistake was made and I apologize for it, and we're taking whatever steps are necessary to try to ensure that no further mistakes will be made. In relation to the people mentioned, we have information that they are there. I have my people inquiring as to the positions that they hold and if, in fact, the names that have been given to us that do match the ICTY list are the same individuals that are wanted by ICTY. It's a question of getting a clear identification of these people and we're working on that and hopefully, within a very short period, we'll have something definite. Q: okay, I'm presuming then that they do match the list and they are the same people. You've written to the Minister of Interior asking for . . . Can you tell me exactly, are you asking him to make sure that these people are taken from their positions and that they are handed over? And what steps are you taking to make sure that that actually is going to happen? Commissioner Fitzgerald: I have, first of all, told him about the information that I've received, that I am satisfied that these people are serving police officers, that he should remove them from their posts immediately, that they, together with any other indicted war criminals that might be within the RS police force, be arrested, and that they immediately be handed over to ICTY. And as to what further steps will be taken to ensure . . . Once we have established the absolute presence of these people, we will be checking to see if in fact they have been dealt with as requested. I will be raising the issue later today with the High Representative and the other principles. I have also incidentally told the minister, "should the authorities of RS fail to rectify this breach of the Peace Agreement by arresting and surrendering all these indicted persons, I recommend that the appropriate action be taken by IFOR and the relevant states and the United Nations." Q: Commissioner, two questions and then one for Colm. Could you give us the name of this ECMM Prejidor officer who informed IPTF on July? Commissioner Fitzgerald: no, I don't have a name. It's not a question of a named ECMM officer. What I said was that we suspect that . . . "we have obtained an unofficial list of war criminals from ECMM." So this was a list that my people in prejidor received . . . Q: sorry, my mistake. Second question. What you call duty roster, do you have it for the whole of RS? Commissioner Fitzgerald: no, we do not. Q: why not? Commissioner Fitzgerald: because we didn't get them I suppose is the quick answer to that. Early this year, February, March, when we were looking at the structures of all of the police, I wrote to the ministers, asking them to submit lists of their numbers, their organizations, their structures, their units, all of these sort of things. This was so that we would know precisely where we are and what we need to do in relation to restructuring. I have just now written to the Minister of the Interior for RS, asking him for lists of his personnel and confirmation from him that there are no other indicted war criminals within his police force. Q: Colum, this all sounds like major non-compliance on the side of RS. You are dealing with a government which is not only not destructing itself from Radovan Karadzic and not Mladic but is employing at least four indicted war criminals in its police force. And with the help of ICTY yesterday, got a document proving that the government of RS is an official contact with another war criminal Milan Mardic . We have it with a signature, we have it with official stamp on letterhead. Is this compliance or not compliance? Colum: if it's true what you have, Jan, then it is non-compliance. Q: and what are you going to do about it when you have a government, proven in seven cases, to be in direct contact with indicted war criminals? Colum: well, the same answer that I gave yesterday. First, the general answer and second is specific answer. The High Representative, Mr. Bildt, from the very beginning of his mission, has taken the lead in demanding that people on the list of alleged war criminals, indicted war criminals, should be arrested without delay and transferred to The Hague. On the specific level, in regard to what Commissioner Fitzgerald has just explained, if the facts are ascertained, and a speedy inquiry has been promised by the Commissioner, then the OHR will do exactly the same thing. It will demand from the highest level of RS authorities that these people, and any others such as the one you mentioned if that is also true, be arrested . . . First of all, removed from their post, secondly arrested, and thirdly, transferred immediately to The Hague. Anybody else? Phillip and then Adriann. Q: couple quick questions for the Commissioner. To be clear on the vetting of the police force because.. In Haiti when the U.S. was in charge of the vetting of the police force, they had some kind of authority over who would actually serve in the police force, and it's unclear whether . . .what that really is. Because I know, at least in one case in the city of Begonjo, there's a Deputy Police Commissioner who has been asked by your Deputy Police Commissioner to leave his post. And he's been fingered by four U.S. police officers as having been involved in a narcotics and drug ring . . . And sex as well . . . That involved several Middle Eastern U.N. officers who were subsequently transferred to Tuzla. So first of all, how does that vetting process work when you make a request for the removal of somebody. And secondly, the second question, if you can remember all that is, in terms of cooperation and coordination with IFOR . . . On the coming across of war criminals in the normal course of your duty . . . I know that on most issues, you've been working closely with IFOR troops and you've been patting each other on the back and the normal course of your duty. But in fact, can you confirm that in the normal course of your duty, you would not make a telephone call to NATO and tell them that you've come across a war criminal . . . And so you could facilitate, possibly, an arrest? Commissioner Fitzgerald: it's hard to remember all of that. In relation to the vetting process, if I can just very briefly . . . Because I don't want to delay everybody too long. Yes, we have a vetting process in place. What happens is that, first of all, I have some months ago, issued guidelines in relation to principles of democratic policing and basic human rights. This has been accepted by the federation police force and, indeed, by the RS police. All police officers are issued these guidelines. They have to study these and they have to do a written examination. They also have to go through a check to see that their character is consistent with the character that would be expected of a police officer. They are considered to be unacceptable if they have been convicted of any breaches of human rights or if they have been reported by IPTF for non-compliance. We also check the lists of the persons vetted with ICTY to try to make sure that none of these are on the war crimes list. They go through a process of vetting . . .they have psychological tests and then, having gone through all of that, we then will publish, in the local newspapers, the lists of any polices officers who have gone through that process and who we propose appointing to . . As the new police. This is to give the public an opportunity to have some input into this if they have any complaints to make about these police officers, if they have any complaints to make in relation to abuses of human rights issues, anything of that nature . . .that we would have an opportunity of hearing from the public and investigating any complaints made by the public. We then appoint the police officers to the new police force on a temporary basis first of all to give us an opportunity to further assess their qualifications and then eventually, when we're satisfied, they will be appointed. We feel that the vetting process is a reasonably good one. I'm sure it's not perfect and I'm sure adjustments might have to be made from time to time, but we are satisfied that it's a fairly good vetting process. On the second issue in relation to cooperation with IFOR and patting each other on the back. We have a very good working relationship with IFOR. I think I'm proud to say that. I think we do work well together. IFOR supports us whenever we need the support of IFOR. And certainly, if my people were to come across indicted war criminals, we would report it to the appropriate authorities, not only to IFOR but indeed to the OHR and ICTY. Q: so in other words, you are saying that in fact, you would pick up the telephone and report it to IFOR? Commissioner Fitzgerald: I wouldn't say that we would be as casual as to pick up a telephone and report it to IFOR but certainly we would inform IFOR . . . As well as the other agencies. Q: just a quick clarification. This ECMM list, was it your, was it the IPTF who made the link or was it the ECMM who pointed the finger. In other words, your people got hold of this ECMM list which simply listed these people and they then checked that against the roster, or the ECMM included elements which pointed out the presence of these people? Commissioner Fitzgerald: no. From the information I have received, the ECMM simply gave this unofficial list to my police officers in Prejidor. When my officers got the list of officers recorded for duty in that area, they checked the list of officers against this list supplied by ECMM to see if there were any matching names on it. Colum: Karin again Q: if it has been clarified that these four people are the alleged war criminals who are on the list, Colum, how quickly . . . What sort of a time limit would you give the Minister of Interior for removal, first from office, from arrest, and then handover? Colum: yesterday. That's been the phrase used by Mr. Bildt, that they should be removed yesterday, meaning that they should be removed immediately, and arrested immediately. Question: okay, and if they don't cooperate and do that immediately, I mean, are there any steps that Mr. Bildt may encourage be taken? Fitzgerald: well, if we come back to this frequent question, as to what leverage we have, it's political, diplomatic, and economic. Question: Commissioner, I'm really confused with operations here. ECCM, what is it? Number one. Number two, what does it mean to have an unofficial ECMM list? And is that list the same one that ICTY has provided earlier on? Fitzgerald: I'm not in a position to say, because I haven't actually seen the list that was supplied. Question: why is it called "unofficial?" Fitzgerald: because (interruption) Fitzgerald: a list of war criminals, alleged war criminals, indicted war criminals, issued by any other organization than ICTY would be unofficial. It is simply in that context is say unofficial. However, there have been past arrests it's simply that we like to think we have a good working relationship with all of the international agencies here. And there would be a frequent exchange of information between us. Question: . . . Inaudible (no microphone). . .ICTY list to compare the names with the RS police? Fitzgerald: I'm not saying that they didn't. All I'm saying now is that the names match the names of three police officers, but no further identification was established or has been. Question: Commissioner, you say that none of your men have come across them in the normal course of duties, but the question was asked yesterday about Nedeljko Timarac who was apparently the Chief of Forensics, and we were told that the IPTF, its general practice that when a mass grave is opened that IPTF has to be present. No. That's not the case. Fitzgerald: no, the IPTF would not be present at the opening of graves, no. From time to time, it may happen that there might be some IPTF, but certainly it wouldn't be policy, and we would not be present at openings of mass graves, as a general rule. Question: and, I believe there have been joint patrols going on in the region for awhile, as well. But in those joint patrols, none of your men have patrolled with any of these men, is that correct? Or has that been checked? Fitzgerald: yea, I've received a follow-up report from the District Commander in Prijedor, if I can find it. . .here we are. . .let me see. . .(pause). . .he said yesterday in this follow-up report that it is unknown when and if IPTF monitors have been in direct contact with these men. I've also received another report indicating that there's no information available to suggest that any of these people have been either in contact with, or seen by my people. But having said that, because positive identification has not been established, as yet, I can't positively say to you that none of my people have seen, or been in contact with them. They just might have been, and not have known it. Question: do you, is it IPTF policy to have an ICTY list, or were they, I'm, I'm not quite clear. I believe the list came out, and I wasn't here, but I believe a list came out very early in the year. But you compared against an unofficial list in July. Is that when you got the roster, or I guess I'm not clear why you didn't have an official list, and what your policy is on this sort of check? Fitzgerald: the official lists are issued from time to time, they're updated, and they're renewed, and so on. And yes, we would circulate the official list to all of the, all of our police stations. As to why it was or was not checked, I'm simply not in a position to say. I don't know, and I don't want to answer when I'm not sure. Question: Commissioner, when your officers, officers made the connection between the ECMM unofficial list and the duty roster, they decided to take it upon themselves to make the positive identification of these officers and not to forward it to headquarters. Why did it sit for so long without ever getting to you? Fitzgerald: no, what happened was, that when they made this, this check on the list. . .my, we make out, each of our districts would make out a weekly report that would be filed with each regional commander, covering a whole series of issues -- ranging from operations to logistics, to communications -- all of these things. In this report for the week, the sixth to the 12th of July, the included this reference to these three officers, and the names haven't been checked on this list. That report went to the regional commander in Banja Luka, and there it stayed for some reason, that I don't. . .I don't know what happened or why it wasn't reported to my office. Question: . . .know as soon as possible, why it didn't get from Banja Luka further? Fitzgerald: I can certainly do that. As I said to you, I have a senior officer from my headquarters up there at the moment trying to establish why this wasn't reported and what changes, if any, need to be made in our reporting system to ensure that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. But, yes, I'll be happy to tell you when I find out. Question: I'd like to follow up on the issue. From the call that you read us, it sounds that there was a question addressed to ECMM. I was wondering whether, you see, I spoke with the ECMM in June and one of the monitors of ECMM told me that he's regularly having dinner and playing cards with the police station officer Drugaza, and I ask him whether he had contact with any other guys, because he said, I'm told that he's a war criminal, but he's a good partner. So I was wondering whether someone else heard how good a partner he was, and ask whether we could check it against the list? And I have another question. . .do you have a name of the ECMM officer who was apparently answering to a question from IPTF, from what you've read, the quote suggests that this is answer, and I know that there was an exchange? Fitzgerald: the quote doesn't suggest that at all to me. It says that simply, ECMM submitted this list to my people. I took that to mean that in the normal course of exchanges between the various organizations that information is exchanged and this is only part of this exchange. There's nothing in it to suggest that it was submitted as a result of a request from IPTF. Question: OK, my other question is, your officer who is now in Prijedor will he physically go to the police station in Prijedor, and if he asked for one of the war criminals and one of them says, "oh it's me," what will he do? Fitzgerald: (laugh) well, as I've said, we don't have any executive authority to arrest anybody. We are simply police monitors. We don't have any powers of arrest and it's not in our mandate to do so. So, if he goes to the police station and he says to me that this guy is sitting in the station now, and he admits to being the war criminal, I will certainly be getting on to the High Rep and company to get advice as to what further action, what further immediate action needs to be taken. Question: I guess I have a follow-up question for Colum. . . Colum: I thought you might. . .we will pass it back to the IPTF. . .(laughs) Haselock: that was a joke. . .it's in the transcript. . .that was a joke. Question: Commissioner, can you confirm the report that the vetting process of RS police has been stalled? Fitzgerald: no, I can't confirm that. It's . . .it's very difficult to try and move everything forward at the same pace that we need to move forward. We are doing as much as we can to move the whole process forward. . .we had a meeting in Dublin recently, in order to try and raise funds for the training to re-equipping, and the restructuring of the police forces at which the Administer of the Interior for the Republic of Srpska attended. He did indicate, that in principle, he recognized the need to restructure and re-organize and indeed to downsize the RS police. Since getting back from Dublin, I've been on leave, I just got back last week, but we will be meeting with the minister early next week to try and move this whole process forward, and I'd like to feel that we'll make some good progress on this. Question: but, wasn't it your idea to start the vetting process early in Spring of this year? Fitzgerald: we, in Spring, no, not in Spring, because when this mission come off the ground for the IPTF it was early February when I arrived. At that stage there was only little over 300 IPTF monitors in the whole country. We immediately, at that stage, fell into the transition of the Sarajevo suburbs back to the federation, and for a period of what six or seven weeks we were almost exclusively involved in this process. When that was completed, we didn't have an assessment of the police, the numbers, structures, organizations, all of these things I mentioned earlier. And having done that, we then started to reach agreements on the restructuring, downsizing, writing my guidelines on the principles of democratic policing. All of these things take a lot of time because the Dayton Agreement sets down that we must ensure that policing is carried out in accordance with international standards. But when I sat down with some of my officers to decide what was this international standard, we began to realize that there really is no such thing as international standards of policing, because what's acceptable as a policing standard in Dublin, might not necessarily be the same acceptable standard in Sarajevo or in Boston, or in anywhere else you care to mention. So rather than looking at international standards, we decided that we needed to look at the principles of democratic policing which would run through any police force which would need to be accepted by any police force. And it was based on these principles that we then moved forward, that I issued my guidelines. Question: so, do I understand it right that IPTF doesn't have the list of current police officers of Republika Srpska? There is no police, no vetting procedure going on? Fitzgerald: there is no vetting procedure going on in the Republika Srpska at the moment. That is correct. If there are no further questions, thank you very much.