SFOR Transcript Feb. 19, 1997

In the interest of speed transcripts of SFOR press briefings are issued in unedited format Transcript of the Press Conference held on 19 February 1997

C. Murphy: good morning, everybody. I should have brought my skis. It looks like very pleasant ski weather in Pale. Just a few points this morning. As you know, the Council of Ministers of the new government of Bosnia and Herzegovina will meet again tomorrow at noon in the National Museum in Sarajevo, and we feel that the Council has made good progress, if slow. They've adopted their rules of procedure, which have not however been signed yet. And, as we've been saying, the ministers are making progress in continuing to institutionalize by these regular meetings the business of the new government of Bosnia and Herzegovina as it comes together. One such problem that they will have to deal with of course is Mostar, and although some of the tensions in Mostar have abated, we do believe, as we have said, that sooner or later the power of gangster chauvinism there will have to be broken. But we will await the investigative report of the IPTF, which Alex will have more to say about in a few moments. Today the High Representative Mr. Carl Bildt is in Brussels. He will brief the North Atlantic Council, and then he meets with the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council. That's our board of directors, if you will, and measures for the implementation of the Brcko decision, and their implementation will be on the agenda. We expect to focus also on police issues in that regard. On the subject of economics, and some reorganization in the Office of the High Representative: as you know, Mr. Sklar has left. He was the Special Representative of the President of the United States, working in tandem with us and working in parallel with the Office of the High Representative. That system has now been changed. A new representative has been appointed. He's Mr. Claude Gantz, and he is a distinguished U.S. businessman. That operation has been folded into the Office of the High Representative. So, although remains a special envoy, he will come under the authority of the High Representative, Mr. Carl Bildt, and we take the opportunity of thanking Mr. Sklar in leaving. Mr. Bildt expressed for the public record his high appreciation of the work Mr. Sklar has done. Cutting through in many cases bureaucracy, which was something that was needed, and the close cooperation we have had with Mr. Sklar has been of great importance in shaping improved mechanisms for coordinating economic assistance. And since we're in Pale, let me stress once again that our task and our wish and our objective is to see that far more international aid goes to the Republika Srpska. Only two percent of the funds set aside by the international community reached the Republika Srpska, as you know, in the last year. There is a catch up program. We want to see that improved, but it depends, of course, on both entities working in close cooperation in the new joint institutions of the new government of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Andrew. Maj. Saddleton: good morning everyone. Since last Wednesday SFOR has continued to maintain a high profile in Mostar, by conducting checkpoints and patrolling throughout the city. The situation remains calm but tense. SFOR, in conjunction with the International Police Task Force, has assisted in returning 23 Bosniac families who were expelled from West Mostar at the beginning of the week, to their homes. SFOR will continue to maintain a substantial force in Mostar whilst the situation remains tense and whilst senseless acts of violence such as the throwing of grenades, which we saw through the whole of last week, continue to happen.

SFOR has joined the international community in calling on the local police and local authorities to investigate and bring to trial all those who are responsible for these random acts of violence. In Brcko, leading up to the decision on the future of the city on Friday, SFOR maintained an increased presence, monitoring the situation carefully and preventing any outbreak of violence. SFOR was pleased with the level of restraint and calmness that was demonstrated during the arbitration announcement. Local authorities were very cooperative throughout the process. They acted responsibly and their efforts to maintain control as well as basic law and order are applauded by SFOR. On 11 February, a T55 tank belonging to the VRS was spotted about 200 meters outside its cantonment site in the Russian sector. This was a clear violation of the Dayton Peace Accord and as such the tank has been confiscated and will be destroyed, under the authority of the General Framework Agreement for Peace. On 17 February there was a mine strike involving an SFOR vehicle. Shortly before 1 a.m., approximately 10 kilometers South of Tuzla, an armored HMMV vehicle drove over a mine at the intersection of routes Arizona and Pear. The mine appears to have been placed in a pot hole. Thankfully, there were no injuries. However if the vehicle had been a soft skinned military vehicle or a civilian vehicle, there could have been casualties. SFOR deplores and condemns those who would place such an indiscriminatory weapon with the obvious purpose of causing injury or death. Finally, since last Wednesday SFOR has conducted a total of 165 compliance inspections 38 ABIH, 51 HVO and 76 VRS. C. Murphy: Alex. A. Ivanko: the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, Ambassador Kai Eide, is in Brussels today to take part in the Steering Board meeting of the Peace Implementation Council. Ambassador Eide will brief the participants on issues related to policing, and on relevant requirements in that area in preparation for the implementation of the Brcko arbitration decision. Some worrying news from Prijedor: between approximately 2300 hours on the 17th of February and 0300 hours on the 18th of February, three explosions occurred in Prijedor. All involved small quantities of plastic explosive. The first explosion occurred outside the home of a local resident and resulted in structural damage to the roof, ceiling and windows of the home. Shortly afterwards, in the same street, a second explosion occurred outside the home of two IPTF monitors, one of which is the Prijedor station commander. The windows of their house and windscreen of a UN vehicle were damaged. The third explosion occurred outside the home of another UNIPTF monitor, resulting in slight damage to a private vehicle, and more serious structural damage to a house nearby. No injuries were sustained in the three attacks. Prompt action by the Republika Srpska police in Prijedor resulted in the arrest of a 50 year old mentally disturbed man. As we understand, a quantity of explosives was recovered from his home. IPTF monitors supervised the interview of the offender. The UN international police believe that the evidence indicates that this was an isolated incident, and the UN international police would like to commend the local police who acted both promptly and professionally. And, for those who are interested, tomorrow's program of the UN Human Rights Special Reporteur for the Former Yugoslavia, Elizabeth Rehn, it is the following: she will be at the Holiday Inn Mostar. She will arrive sometime around 12 o'clock. She will be meeting with both the Mayor of Mostar, Mr. Ivan Prskalo, and the Deputy Mayor, Mr. Safet Orucevic. She will then meet with the leader of the Islamic community in Mostar, and with the Catholic bishop. At 1600 hours she plans to have a media opportunity. That's all I have, thank you. C. Murphy: Johan. J. Verheyden: good morning. Yesterday there was a meeting of the Military Liaison Mission. (indiscernible) these meetings are conducted twice weekly, and are checked by the OSCE. These meetings are used for a lot of purposes, mainly to present new ideas and projects towards the parties, and the MLM is part of the Annex 1B of the Dayton Peace Agreement, referring to the implementation of the regional stabilization. Results of yesterday's parties are actually fourfold. First of all, parties agreed to find the common interpretation of the definition of a weapons manufacturing capability as contained in the Vienna Agreement. These discussions, of course, will continue as they are not fully finished. Secondly, the parties agreed to establish a working group under the chairmanship of the OSCE Office of Regional Stabilization, to harmonize their points of entry and exit for the flight inspections under Article Two of the Annex 1B of the Dayton Peace Agreement. In the first meeting of the working group on this issue will take place in Sarajevo on Friday the 21st, in February. The parties will also try to find a way of cooperation with the OSCE Office for Regional Stabilization to arrange demonstrations of new types of weapon systems. And the fourth, and last: the Herald of the Military Liaison Missions of the RS offered a visit for the Military Liaison Mission of the Joint Federation at the new military HQ in Vyilanov. And then, the day before yesterday, Ambassador Frowick went and met Madame Plavsic, and they discussed preparations for the forthcoming local elections. And I'll read two quotes for you from Ambassador Frowick. It says that, "before the local elections are held, there is still a lot of complicated work to do, and we shall continue with consultations with the RS, as scheduled and agreed last year." And Ambassador Frowick also confirmed that election rules based on the memorandum of understanding signed in Banja Luka on the 30th of November, 1996, were in accordance with the provisions of the Dayton Peace Agreement. And he pointed out that the last ruling of the arbitration commission on the status of Brcko, would lead not to any changes in the election rules. And that's all I have today. C. Murphy: questions? Yes, Chris. Q: Colum, four questions for you. C. Murphy: four? Q: firstly, why was there no announcement of the report that the Donor's Conference which is, I understand, being put back to March or April? C. Murphy: can I take the questions one at a time? Q: this one is in two parts. C. Murphy: all right. Go ahead. Q: was there no announcement because they're worried about losing the confidence of the donors. C. Murphy: the answer to that is no. Putting something like this together is a messy kind of business until all the pieces are in place. We feel that it will happen. I think we expected some slippage actually, so we made no special announcement about it because the day has, all of the details have not been firmed up yet. I think this is the normal procedure. And you had two other questions? Q: yes. Could you tell me what the status is of the (indiscernible) regarding international aid? And secondly, are you aware of (indiscernible). C. Murphy: yes. I'm aware of such reports. Also, as you know, it was under sanctions. We are very interested in the figures involved. Coincidentally, they may be the same kind of figures we are interested in looking at the accounting, but I won't have any further comment on that until tomorrow or the day after. Q: there is some sort of embargo on it? C. Murphy: there is an embargo on it because they have not fulfilled some of the agreements that they had signed up to, and so, if such money reached them, it would be possibly, I say possibly, a violation of that sanction. Q: (indiscernible) C. Murphy: on the impart, there were other things that had to be put in place that were not done, but I will comment more further on it tomorrow. You had a fourth question, or that was it? Q: that was it. C. Murphy: anybody else? Q: this is one question for official. In fact, I'm sure you've been asked this before, but why are you sitting in front of symbol of Republika Srpska? There are no symbols of international community here, and (indiscernible)? C. Murphy: well, I shall answer that first. It's a very good question, and I think maybe we should bring with us some symbols next time of the international community. Your point is well taken. I think you're absolutely correct, and I think we will do that. Secondly, the press conferences here have been, in fact, mostly attended by international officials, and, if anything, the journalists have been slow in coming here, but that has taken a good turn. Thirdly, I am not sitting under a portrait of doctor Karadjic, which would not be tolerable. I am sitting under, although I haven't looked at it carefully, the crest of the Republika Srpska. The Republika Srpska is one of the two legal entities of Bosnia-Herzegovina. And I think, I don't see a great deal of problem with this, although we will bring our own symbols next time. A. Ivanko: I would like to add to that that we are charged a substantial amount of money by the Holiday Inn for doing press briefings there. We were offered this place free of charge. If the federation authorities can find space to offer us free of charge, we will be very happy to sit in front of a Federation flag and to do the press briefing in front of the Federation flag. Q: it's all a matter of money then? A. Ivanko: I'm just saying that if we are provided with other facilities, we will be very happy to use those facilities. Right now we're paying a lot of money for the facility in the Holiday Inn. We're being charged, I don't want to give you the exact number, but it's beyond anything reasonable, and if the Federation authorities want us to do a press briefing free of charge, we will be happy to sit in front of their flag also. C. Murphy: so now we've had one question of four parts, and one question for four people. Does anybody else have three questions for four... Yes? Q: how much money do you get charged? And also if the AFP (indiscernible)? A. Ivanko: we don't have a Holiday Inn logo, by the way, behind us at the Holiday Inn. But no, we will not discuss the financial arrangements. I can tell you that a substantial amount of money is paid by both SFOR, the United Nations, and OSCE for those press facilities. K. Janowski: here we are being hosted by the municipality, by an official institution. At the Holiday Inn we are on a commercial basis. It's not the (indiscernible)? Q: if I remember it right, in the beginning of IFOR mission, people complained they didn't want to sit in front of United Nations flag, so they took it off. But nobody is doing anything about entity symbols. A. Ivanko: we are here as the guests of the Pale municipality. Republika Srpska is a recognized entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, as far as I understand, none of the people here have any problem sitting in front of the coat of arms of the Republika Srpska. Am I correct? ("yes" from the panel) Q: are you... A. Ivanko: I think we answered that question, let's move on, OK. Q: Mr. Ivanko: be more specific about the situation in Mostar. (indiscernible) wounded soldiers from HVO the day before yesterday? A. Ivanko: as far as I know, from, I think, that SFOR had that. Maj. Saddleton: yes. The story is that they were bending some ammunition boxes, I think it was, and there was a grenade left in one of the boxes, and it exploded, and there was one HVO dead and three injured. It was outside Mostar, about five kilometers outside. A. Ivanko: just to add to that, 23 out of the 28 expelled Bosniac families from West Mostar have returned to West Mostar, with the assistance of the UN and SFOR. The other five families do not wish to return to West Mostar. The situation seems to be calm and quiet. The mostly West Mostar police check points have melted away. So, we rarely now see any illegal checkpoints, but the problem is there is very, very little movement across the bridge. Although there are no checkpoints, there are probably a lot of checkpoints in the heads of the people, because there is very little movement across the bridge. Q: question for Kris. What's the current situation with final project of return to Stolac? K. Janowski: well, the situation remains unchanged with regard to the final project. The return is on hold. It has been put on hold after the incident in Mostar, and it's on hold. I think we still have to (indiscernible) before we can actually do it. As you remember, the last attempt to return those people to Mostar ended in a hostile situation, and stone throwing, and essentially a difficult security situation, and that was before the Mostar events. We do not expect the situation to get any better after the Mostar events, so it would be a bit fool-hardy, for security reasons, now to try again, because we are very likely to encounter exactly the same situation. So, let's see how things go, and we'll decide whether to resume trying or not. Q: (indiscernible) K. Janowski: oh, yes. Absolutely. I mean, we got a letter from Mr. (indiscernible), who is the head of the exiled community. And he said that they were not prepared to go because of the obvious security risks, and it is ultimately his call, his decision whether they are going to go or not. I mean, if they decide to do it, we have no business telling them not to. We can only advise them on the security situation. At the moment, they agreed with us that the security situation is such that attempting another return at this point would not be, really, very productive. C. Murphy: anybody else? If not, thank you very much. I'll see you next week.