TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE
GIVEN BY JAMIE SHEA AND COLONEL KONRAD FREYTAG
IN BRUSSELS ON SUNDAY, 11 APRIL 1999

JAMIE SHEA:
Ladies and Gentlemen, good afternoon! Welcome to the daily briefing.
As you can see, I'm joined once again at the podium by Colonel Konrad
Freytag of SHAPE, I'll begin and then Konrad will give you the military
operational up-date.


First, let me say that, as you know, operations continued yesterday evening
and during the night. The concentration was on targets in Kosovo itself,
particularly an assembly area, petroleum, oil and lubricant facilities at
Pristina and there were some Cruise missile attacks against two radio relay
stations. I stress, as always, that these were strictly military targets
but as you can see, last night NATO had a night of relative restraint, we
were mindful of the Orthodox Easter celebrations.


At the same time, the Yugoslav armed forces continue to demonstrate signs
of wear and tear as a result of our operations. One thing that we are
tracking at the moment is the mobilisation problems and the manpower
call-up problems that the Yugoslav army is facing. Belgrade is turning
wherever it can to identify officers and men that can be called up, even
going as far as the Republic of Serpska to find these people. The
civilian population is now subject to fuel rationing as the fuel supplies
are being used exclusively now for the military and their operations in
Kosovo.


I saw earlier today that President Milosevic had issued a statement on
Tanjug calling on the population to work harder as a way out of the present
crisis but I do not believe that the problems of Yugoslavia are going to be
solved simply by its population working harder, they'll only be solved by
having a policy of co-operation with the international community and not
confrontation.


At the same time, we see that the Kosovo Liberation Army is far from
vanquished, there are still several instances of fighting in which it
continues to put up localised armed resistance, even some local attempts to
retake territory in Kosovo from the Yugoslav forces.


Here at NATO headquarters, our plans for Operation "Allied Harbour" are
going full steam ahead, yesterday the Ambassadors here of the 19 Allied
countries approved the operational plan for this mission. I remind you
this is the mission to deploy a headquarters and a force of NATO soldiers
in Albania to help with humanitarian relief, that operational plan is also
being shared today with Partner countries and we would welcome, as I have
said already, maximum Partner participation in this force.


Tomorrow, there will be a Force-Generation Conference at SHAPE for this
force, which is coming along well I am pleased to say. Many Allies and
Partners have shown an interest in participating, in fact, an Italian force
of about 1,500-2,000 soldiers will begin deploying already on Tuesday and
that deployment will take about nine days.


At the same time, the ACE Mobile Force (Land) which, as you know, is the
designated headquarters for the mission in Albania, will soon begin a
direct liaison with Albania and with the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees in order to co-ordinate its deployment which is due to begin on 14
April, that is to say already early next week.


The primary tasks of the NATO force in Albania in support of the
international relief organisations will be to look at what we can do to
upgrade roads because one of the big problems with relief supplies at the
moment is the condition of the roads which means that we have to rely upon
helicopters for relief supplies, to co-ordinate transportation, to provide
medical aid, to look what we can do to help build some new refugee camps in
order to take as many people as we can away from the border town of Kukes
where about 100,000 refugees are currently located and finally, to organise
as efficiently as possible the operations at Tirana airport where, as you
know, many flights are arriving every day, humanitarian flights but also
military flights connected with NATO's deployments in Albania.


We continue obviously to look very carefully and closely at the refugee
situation, we know that 4,000 refugees entered Albania earlier today and
the border with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, although
formally closed, doesn't mean to say that refugees aren't going there too,
the government of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is continuing
to say that it will accept refugees that arrive and of course we are
extremely worried about the fate, as I've been saying in recent days, of
the internally-displaced persons inside Kosovo itself where obviously the
reports indicate a great deal of human suffering and a shortage of basic
commodities such as food and medical supplies. You heard Robin Cook, the
UK Secretary of State, say in his briefing today that based on
conversations with a Kosovar Albanian leader, up to 400,000 people might be
in this condition of internally-displaced people inside Kosovo itself and
therefore that is something which concerns us and we are continuing to
track that closely but I'd like to stress that if there are people
displaced inside Kosovo, it is the fault of President Milosevic because
they are displaced through the actions of his forces in evicting them from
their homes and yet at the same time preventing them from being able to get
to the borders where they could be looked after by the international relief
organisations so that is a very big concern of all NATO countries at the
present time.


Finally, before I hand over to Konrad, let me just make clear that as we
have the meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers here tomorrow, beginning at
10.00, we will not have the daily briefing at 3 p.m., that will obviously
be displaced tomorrow by the ministerial press conferences and the
Secretary General's press conference at 3.30 tomorrow afternoon, followed
by the US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. We will go back to the
pattern of 3 p.m. briefings on Tuesday when, as I mentioned yesterday,
SACEUR will be here to give you an operational assessment of the military
activities thus far.


That is what I have for you and now I'm going to hand over to Konrad
Freytag.


KONRAD FREYTAG:
Thank you, Jamie. Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. Again it is me
you have to endure this Sunday.


In the past 24 hours, poor weather has caused some targets to be adjusted
and some cancellations. Even so, good overall results were achieved.
Seven packages - that's how we call the groupings of aircraft - were flown
and three further packages were cancelled due to the weather. There were
also several Cruise missile launches and all aircraft have returned safely.


The strategic targets which were attacked are shown on this map and as
Jamie already mentioned, they included ammunition storage, POL air
facilities and bridges together with attacks on communication facilities
and SA-3 and SA-6 sites, at least one SA-3 was destroyed. Fielded forces
in Kosovo were also engaged. The attack against the Pristina POL air
storage site was effective and the engaged integrated air defence and
command-and-control facilities were damaged. Detailed results on the
remaining targets are awaited.


As the tempo of NATO operations increased, several SA-6 sites engaged NATO
aircraft and a number of manned portable missiles were fired, none of our
aircraft were hit.


Once again, the Yugoslav army and special police forces continued their
activities. This map shows the main areas of their actions south west of
Pristina between Orahovac and Urosevac. Overall, Yugoslav forces
appeared to be focusing on defensive and force-protection measures against
NATO attacks.


As I mentioned earlier, there were previous attacks against fielded forces
in Kosovo and this picture taken on 9 April shows some tanks that we
damaged as a result.


I have also some videos and they show an attack against buildings on
Sijnica airfield taken from two separate aircraft in the formation. In
both cases, the lead aircraft's weapons impact first. Here you see the
lead aircraft first followed by the wingman's attack.


Now I would like to turn to other issues:


We spoke yesterday of the need to be certain of our facts before commenting
on reported atrocities in Kosovo. This picture shows an area near
Orahovac - actually it shows two pictures combined into one; on the left,
the earlier image and the right photo was taken on 9 April. The
freshly-turned earth could indicate the position of possible mass graves.
However, this can be confirmed only when the area has been inspected.


I also covered yesterday the subject of Serb damage to civilian property
and these following images show damage to villages around Kosovska
Mitrovica which have not been the subject of NATO attacks; both graphics
show the area before and after Serb attacks. The damage, as I also
mentioned yesterday is similar to what we have seen in the past in Bosnia
and in Croatia.


Finally, I will return to the subject of displaced persons in Kosovo.
This map shows where we have indications of large groups of individuals,
probably displaced persons and the following two pictures provide evidence
of vehicles and displaced persons in the region of Malisevo. The
difficulty in assessing the total number of people in the area remains,
however we must assume that the living conditions are deplorable.


In summary, NATO military forces continue their day-and-night flights
against strategic targets in staging areas of Yugoslav forces despite
difficult weather conditions. We have again inflicted significant damage
on the FRY military and security forces and will continue to degrade their
capability to attack innocent civilians. I repeat that all of our
aircraft have returned safely to their home bases.


NATO forces are in overdrive to help with efforts to relieve the situation
of the refugees in Albania and in Fyrom. During the past 24 hours, there
were 52 aid flights into the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
delivering 772 tonnes of food and water, 407 tonnes of medical supplies and
1,107 tonnes of tentage. In Albania, 56 aid flights delivered 219
tonnes of food and water, 24 tonnes of medical supplies and 100 tonnes of
tentage.


That ends my briefing, thank you very much.


JAMIE SHEA:
OK Konrad, thanks again for that, let's go to questions.


QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
AUGUSTO:
Jamie, I will again put the same question like five days ago. You all are
aware that the war situation is with the people inside Kosovo. Really, is
anybody planning the way how to help them because they are already starving
despite the dangers that they can be killed by military forces?


JAMIE SHEA:
Well, I've stressed that in my briefing today as I have in previous days as
one of our primary concerns. We are trying very hard, as you can see from
some of the photos that Konrad showed, to get as much information as we can
about where these people are, what is happen to them and I asked a series
of questions yesterday on that and of course we would like Belgrade also to
help us to reply to those questions because they are in the best position
to give us the responses. We are looking at this situation, that's all I
can say for the time being. We are looking and when I can say more, I
will say more.


At the same time, I know that the Red Cross, the International Committee of
the Red Cross, has been in Belgrade trying to get access to these people
for humanitarian purposes inside Kosovo as their remit obviously allows
them to do so and I very much hope that Belgrade would grant the Red Cross
and other humanitarian organisations immediate access to bring immediate
assistance to these poor people.
JAN:
We are getting reports from the Yugoslavs that a NATO plane has been downed
in northern Serbia and that three civilians have been killed in northern
Kosovo. I was wondering if you had any comment on that and also an
up-date on these Apache helicopters, when are they going to begin
operations and do you expect them to tip the balance?


JAMIE SHEA:
Konrad may have something to say on this but let me just say for my part I
haven't heard this morning anything about a downed NATO aircraft. When
these things happen, I usually hear about it very quickly but I haven't had
anything thus far but obviously, Jan, I will check just to make absolutely
certain that this is not the case but you know there have been lots of
hoaxes about downed aircraft so let's check that one out for you.


As for the Apaches, I reported yesterday in my briefing that the first
initial elements are starting to arrive. Just before the weekend, five
C-5 US aircraft arrived with the forward components, there are going to be
192 flights into Tirana in the next few days to bring in the whole
complement of the 24 Apaches together with the Bradleys that are going to
protect them plus of course the multiple-launch rocket system components.
All of these will then have to be assembled. I think the Pentagon, if I
remember, have given a figure of, say, 10 days/2 weeks but obviously there
is a sense of having them as quickly as possible but at the same time, let
me not give you the impression, which I think would be erroneous, that the
Apaches are somehow the 7th Cavalry arriving on the scene. We have a
great deal of aircraft already there in the theatre and we are able to
prosecute this operation with increasing effectiveness and very
successfully with the aircraft we have at the moment. Of course, the
Apaches give us an extra capability, that's why they are being brought in
but please do not see it, if you like, as deus ex machina if I can use
that term, which are going to turn the situation around. No, we have lots
of aircraft and we're doing the job without the Apaches at the moment.


Konrad, anything that you want to add on that?


KONRAD FREYTAG:
Yes. As of 5 o'clock when I stepped into this room, there were no
aircraft losses by our force. I have seen that report you might refer to,
that is an AFP report which refers to Tanjug and Tanjug quotes a Mr. Arkan
as the witness of it. You can see that in AFP if you want to.


MARK:
Jamie, you talk about you're looking very seriously at trying to help the
internally-displaced refugees. Isn't the truth that in fact there is
nothing you can do, you can't do air drops with slow-flying transport
aircraft so is there anything at all which they are looking at apart from
that?


Colonel Freytag, the weather has again turned against you. Have you had
any evidence of Serb forces withdrawing, any evidence of morale cracking
within Kosovo and can you elaborate on the comments about wear and tear and
poor morale because these are obviously early signs which don't seem to
have any kind of real back-up to them?


JAMIE SHEA:
OK. Well, three things, Mark, that I'd like to say in reply to your
question: The first thing, I come back to the fundamental point that the
best thing that NATO can do for the humanitarian situation in Kosovo is to
drive away the Serb forces, they are the cause of the agony of the Kosovar
Albanian people and as long as they are in Kosovo there will be killings,
there will be expulsions, there will be suffering and it's only once those
forces have withdrawn and an international security force has been deployed
to protect the Kosovar Albanians that we will be able to put a stop to this
so we have to keep our eye on the solution and there is only that one
solution.


The second point is that there is a mission obviously for international
relief organisations to be inside Kosovo checking on the situation and
bringing immediate relief to these displaced persons. It is up to
Belgrade to allow these organisations in to do their job. Unfortunately,
that is not the case today, almost none are there and in tiny numbers if
they are.


Thirdly, NATO is a planning organisation and as you would expect, we are
looking at this but I don't want to comment further until I have something
solid on this to say, it would be premature for me to make any
announcements or to give any indications at the present time. When I'm
able to do so, you know me, I will.


KONRAD FREYTAG:
Let me start with the weather. Yes, the weather had a negative impact, as
I mentioned, on our missions, we had to cancel three flights but it also
had of course a negative impact on the intelligence-gathering and you
probably noticed that my pictures about the possible mass graves and the
destruction were of 9 April, not of yesterday or this morning.


On the morale, we have initial reports that our attacks have affected the
morale. We see some reports about units being drunk, not obeying orders
any more but it's too early to come with an assessment on this.


On the Yugoslav forces withdrawal from Kosovo, we don't have any indication.


JAMIE SHEA:
Mark, very briefly, on this business of morale what I can say is that
Belgrade has introduced rather draconian laws to deal with failure to
respond to call-ups, draconian laws involving long prison sentences and
that suggests if these laws are necessary that they have a problem
obviously with recruitment at the present time.


One of the great ironies of this whole affair is that many of the people on
their call-up lists are Kosovar Albanians who of course are Yugoslav
citizens and therefore subject to military service but you will not be
surprised to learn that they have not responded very enthusiastically or in
great numbers to their call-up papers.


MARGARET:
Jamie, I was wondering if you could elaborate on your comments at the
beginning about you were mindful of Orthodox Easter. Are you saying that
there was actually some sort of political decision not to continue with the
intensity of previous days or was it just in fact that you had bad weather?


JAMIE SHEA:
No.


MARGARET:
Colonel Freytag, could you tell us how many Cruise missiles were launched
last night and could you also tell us how many fielded forces were engaged?
We have lots of information about how many NATO soldiers are cooking meals
but we can't seem to get very fundamental information about the military
campaign out of you and could you also give us your assessment of what is
happening along the border of Albania in the Tropolje region where the KLA
has substantial army bases and supply bases? Is it your feeling that the
Yugoslav troops are actually trying to follow the KLA into northern Albania
which is considered to be lawless and actually finish the job that they've
started?


And Jamie, I think you said that the KLA was far from vanquished. Could
you elaborate, could you actually give us some statistics that would allow
us to understand that that was actually a verifiable statement?


KONRAD FREYTAG:
No statistics on the Cruise missiles, I'm not authorised to give you these
kinds of figures.


On the Yugoslav armed forces' activities, we know that the 252 Armoured
Brigade was heavily involved in this but I mentioned in my briefing that
the activities are on a lower scale than earlier.


We did not see UCK activities during the last 24 hours.


JAMIE SHEA:
Margaret, in reply to your questions, first of all yes, there have been
some firing incidents on the Albanian border, there have also been very
limited incursions of Yugoslav jets into Albanian air space, this by the
way has been going on for several months, plus reported firings of some
shells over the border into Albania. Reports the other day suggested that
four UCK soldiers may have been killed in that fighting. From what I have
heard, from what I see from reports I receive - and I've no reason to doubt
these reports - the UCK is still active. French journalists reported the
other day that they had even managed to tie-up some Yugoslav forces inside
Pec, which is largely a destroyed city at the moment, by cutting off escape
routes along the roads and that came from several French journalists that
managed to get into that area.


In recent days, there has been some localised fighting, it is absolutely
true that the Yugoslav army has managed to demolish the seven regional
command centres of the UCK as a result of its recent offensive but on the
other hand, the UCK still seems able to mount certain hit-and-run,
guerrilla-style attacks even if obviously they are not in a great position
at the moment to fight a full-scale land battle against the tanks and the
artillery of the Yugoslav army. There is no indication that their
recruitment has dried up, they are clearly trying to create some internal
supply lines and to regain territory where they can.


I've always said that one rarely manages to extirpate such movements
through a policy of bloody repression, those examples exist in similar
movements all over the world, almost none have ever been eliminated through
repression. Like mushrooms, as I said, in the field they have a tendency
to spring up again rather quickly and I doubt if the UCK has any major
recruitment problems after what has happened in recent weeks but as I hear
more on that topic, I'll come back to it in briefings.
KONRAD FREYTAG:
Margaret, I apologise I did not answer your question on the border regime.
We have reports that the Yugoslavs have closed the border to Albania and
that they open it for a certain amount of time and expel Kosovar Albanians
into Albania and that is for about an hour, 1500 people, and then they
close the border again.


MARGARET:
The question was actually do you feel that the Yugoslav army is trying to
follow the KLA back into their strongholds in northern Albania and finish
what they've started and actually wipe out the KLA? And Jamie, you didn't
answer my question about Orthodox Easter.


JAMIE SHEA:
Oh yes. Margaret, excuse me, thank you for reminding me. I really don't
want to add anything on that subject to what I said at the beginning
(laughter). No, what I said at the beginning and I think that's all I need
to say on that particular topic.


As for the border, what we've had over several months - and you know this -
is a pattern of minor border violations, air space, shelling over the
border. I have absolutely no indication whatever that there has been any
plan by the VJ, the Yugoslav army or the special police forces to launch an
incursion into Albania as such and NATO statements on this topic have been
extremely clear and persistent in recent days in any case.


QUESTION:
I think, Jamie, it is not premature to ask about NATO's Partnership for
Prosperity concept as part of a post-war package.


JAMIE SHEA:
Yes, I'll be pleased to comment on that. This is an idea in gestation and
I think in the next couple of days and weeks you'll be hearing more about
this. What I believe is now clear in the international community is that
we have to develop a long-term, comprehensive programme for the countries
of the former Yugoslavia and the wider region, a programme that tries to
bring them back into the European mainstream so that they can follow where
Central Europe has successfully gone in recent years.


This is not specifically a NATO responsibility because it has also a major
economic component where the EU, the IMF, the World Bank and these
institutions will have a major role to play, it also has a
democracy-building component in terms of pluralism of the political
process, pluralism of the media, elections where clearly the OSCE and the
Council of Europe and other institutions would have a leading role to play
but there may well be also a key role too for NATO. That is why the
Secretary General in a speech in London a few weeks ago spoke of a
Partnership for Prosperity. We have seen, for example, how successful the
Partnership for Peace has been elsewhere in Europe to create enduring links
between the military forces of countries that have been adversaries in the
past, how through exercises and contacts and arms control agreements,
transparency and defence budgets, confidence-building measures, one can
overcome old suspicions and foster an approach of security based on
co-operation, not confrontation.


And you know already with Bosnia that we've had for some years now a very
successful security co-operation programme that involves visits and courses
and various contacts so this is an idea still in gestation, as I say, but I
think everybody recognises that what we have to do is not simply put out
the fires that we have seen in the former Yugoslavia in recent years but
develop a long-term fire-prevention programme which would go beyond simply
crisis management and trying to ward off humanitarian crises and stabilise
the situation and offers a perspective to this region, a perspective to
encourage countries to work together and in which, as I've said earlier, a
democratic Serbia would also have an important role to play and which would
be a clear message to the people of Serbia that we are not against them, we
want, too, for them to be able to reap the same benefits of integration and
prosperity, of openness, of being able to travel without a visa, that are
open to the other peoples of Europe.


DOUG:
Jamie, the NATO Secretary General, Javier Solana, told the BBC radio in an
interview today that there were signs of cracking-up in the Yugoslav
military and in the entourage around Milosevic. I assume this means
perhaps more than just getting drunk and I wonder what does NATO think is
happening with people close to Milosevic, what are the signs?


Colonel Freytag, if I may, are you saying that the Yugoslav forces are
forming a line of defence between Urosevac and Orahovac and is that in
preparation for what they are assuming will be a NATO force coming towards
them at some point?


KONRAD FREYTAG:
To answer that quickly, yes, that could be a possible intention. They
always say that they wait for the invasion of NATO and they would fight the
NATO forces and stop them there.


JAMIE SHEA:
Doug, we have some indications that yes, the purge of the other echelons of
the Yugoslav armed forces may not have ended with the replacement of eight
generals in Montenegro last week but I'm not going to say more on that now
until we have confirmation that that has indeed happened but if it is the
case - and as I say preliminary indications are that things are happening -
it would indicate Milosevic still has certain problems with some of his
generals and that some of his generals may not be totally on board this
campaign of repression and misuse of the army that's going on in Kosovo so
that's all I want to say for today but as these indications become clearer,
I'll be happy to come back to them in the future.
DOMINIQUE THIERRAY:


En français peut-être... Attendez-vous des renforts pour renforcer le
nombre d'avions que vous aurez à disposition en Italie et deuxièmement,
est-ce-que certains de ces renforts seront- ils stationnés au côté des
hélicoptères Apaches en Albanie, et puis pour Jamie, deux questions :
qu'entendez-vous par retenue qui aurait été exercée la veille de - pour la
trêve de - Pâques et deuxièmement l'opération "Havre Allié" en Albanie
n'est pas uniquement une opération humanitaire, il y a un élément
militaire, l'envoi d'hommes sur le terrain. Dans quelle mesure cela ne
risque-t-il pas d'être interprété notamment en Albanie comme un signe
d'intervention de l'OTAN pour stabiliser la frontière albanaise.


KONRAD FREYTAG:


Pour les renforcements, oui nous attendons des renforcements d'avions. Les
Américains ont annoncé 80 plus ou moins, nous attendons aussi des
hélicoptères qui arrivent bientôt.


JAMIE SHEA:


Oui, voila. Et les Britanniques comme vous avez vu, Dominique, emploient
HMS Invincible qui est également équipé d'avions et d'hélicoptères et
d'autres pays de l'Alliance également ont annoncé l'emploi d'avantage
d'avions. Ceci va nous permettre de faire deux choses, d'abord de pouvoir
opérer 24 heures sur 24, peut-être de manière permanente dans l'air, et
donc de profiter de toutes les occasions qui vont se présenter pour
attaquer directement les forces serbes au Kosovo même. Deuxièmement, elles
nous permettront d'avantage de voler par tous les temps, par tous les temps
météreologique sans perte d'intensité. En ce qui concerne le Pâques
orthodoxe, non j'ai dit ce que j'ai dit et je m'arrête là.


A oui, en Albanie, aujourd'hui c'est mon jour de ne pas repondre aux
questions. Excusez-moi. Voilà, pour l'Albanie il s'agit d'une force
purement humanitaire. Cette force ne sera pas équipée pour autre chose que
sa mission humanitaire et donc c'est une mission comme je l'ai decrite pour
venir en aide aux organisations internationales dans le domaine de la
construction de camps de réfugiés du transport des vivres, de la
distribution des vivres, etc.. Il ne s'agit de rien d'autre que d'une
force humanitaire.


DOMINIQUE THIERRAY:


Je parlais de l'interprétation que l'on fera de cette force on Albanie.


JAMIE SHEA:


Non, nous avons clairement expliqué à l'Albanie la raison d'être de cette
force et d'après moi il n'y a pas de malentendu là-dessus.



TURKISH TELEVISION:
My question is for Colonel Freytag. There are going to be more or less
700 aeroplanes and we've seen over the last few days there are less sorties
and less air strikes and the weather is of course bad but as not as bad as
it was the first day so why less sorties and less strikes? Is it because
of only the weather, the human shield or any other reason - of course there
is the Easter - or what are the main reasons because normally you keep
saying that operations could go on day and night and now Jamie just said
that you need some other aeroplanes so that you can do operations around
the clock so why are there less sorties with that many aeroplanes?


KONRAD FREYTAG:
Actually we did not talk about 700 aircraft but about 400 and these 400
will be reinforced by some more, yes, for an increase in some areas and
that, I think, all I should add to this.


QUESTION:


Colonel Freytag, can you elaborate at all on any information you can glean
from the photographs of the new mass grave and for example in the past,
when you have seen a grave of this size, how many bodies have eventually
been found in them?


KONRAD FREYTAG:
For this they are not qualified enough and you would need forensic experts
on that. We know this and as I have said with all caution these are
possible mass grave sites but we need to be very careful on that.


JAMIE SHEA:
Absolutely. As Konrad said, we are simply indicating something from the
air that could be a mass grave and based on our experience of Bosnia, where
of course a number of mass graves were identified and uncovered and from
the air looks somewhat similar, and that is the reason why we have shown
you this photo and said this could be a mass grave but obviously it will be
up to the International Crime Tribunal, once it is able to go into Kosovo,
to conduct a thorough investigation. Hopefully, we can help the work of
the Tribunal but the Tribunal will be the one for conducting the
investigation, not us.


ANTONIO:
Colonel Freytag, we have seen people on the bridges in places like Belgrade
and Novi Sad. How difficult is it now for the air strikes to hit those
points that in other parts of the country have been hit before?


Jamie, 75 trucks coming from Russia with the military's help -
Hungarian/Ukrainian. Some of the trucks are supposed to have something
else than humanitarian aid. Can you tell us more about this?


KONRAD FREYTAG:
For the first part of your question, yes, we can deal with this problem and
as you know, we have not hit any bridge where human shields were but I
think it is a plan of the Yugoslav authorities to do that and I cannot
understand that they do it. We also see other indications that they try
to put human shields up, innocent people, but we have not targeted those
bridges where they are.


SAME QUESTIONER:
They look volunteers, the people.


KONRAD FREYTAG:
This, I think, would require a careful analysis that they had volunteered.
We have seen throughout the years how many people have demonstrated against
President Milosevic and you see the same faces but they are now for him,
you see how they are motivated by pop concerts organised by Mrs. Arkan so I
would consider this an orchestrated thing, I am sure we are able to cope
with it.


JAMIE SHEA:
We are not going to threaten civilians' lives in any way, that is clear.


Antonio, in response to your question, yes, you are right, Hungary has
inspected this humanitarian convoy of Russia at the border with Ukraine and
obviously the reason for the inspection is to ascertain that this is indeed
humanitarian assistance. There is a UN arms embargo applying - 1160 - to
Yugoslavia and that has to be respected of course by all parties. I
understand from the information I have that the convoy contained eight fuel
tankers and of course that is a directly military asset in the current
environment and there were some armoured personnel carriers and also a
number of vehicles which are clearly military in use, armoured vehicles,
but also a number of trucks which contained medicine and children's toys, I
understand, and normal foodstuffs so the position of Hungary is the same as
the position of any member of the United Nations in this type of situation
which is that those vehicles which clearly are humanitarian will be allowed
to go on to deliver their supplies, which I understand are destined for
Montenegro from the information I have, whereas of course those which can
have a military use will not be allowed to go on but let me make it clear
NATO countries, like any members of the United Nations, are not blocking
legitimate humanitarian aid, I want to make that clear but of course only
try to filter out those elements which could have a military use.


XAVIER:
Colonel Freytag, could you elaborate a bit more on what you plan to do with
the Apaches? Are you going to target more directly for instance the tanks
etc?


Jamie, two questions. Which is the correct accurate figure, the 150
targets affected, as the British Foreign Office said on Friday or the 100
targets which evoked General Naumann in Bonn and could you confirm if it is
true or not that some NATO planes have distributed texts with Kofi Annan's
declaration on Belgrade?


KONRAD FREYTAG:
OK. Concerning the Apache, the Apache will be added to our disposition in
order to attack ground forces in Kosovo and we hope that this will be a
very effective addition to our engagement for the ground forces and special
forces of the Yugoslav authorities.


JAMIE SHEA:
Xavier, the two questions you directed at me: first of all, regarding 100
targets, 150, I wouldn't see a discrepancy there, I think it depends on how
you categorise a major target but let me again say that I've asked SACEUR
to come and talk to you on Tuesday on the operational assessment at this
stage and I think SACEUR clearly will go into all of this with you in the
appropriate detail.


As for the question of the leaflet drops, yes, we have on a few occasions
dropped leaflets into Yugoslavia simply to allow any willing Yugoslav to be
able to read the position of the international community in the widest
sense. I am not sure how many people have received these leaflets and I
haven't had any audience reaction so far - I'll pass it on to you if I do
have- but of course we want to communicate our message not simply to you
but also to the people of Yugoslavia as well.
JIM:
I want to go back to the Kosovska Mitrovica picture of the mass grave.
This didn't come just from nowhere, did you have some sources telling you
to look there, did you associate it with any activity by Yugoslav army
troops there? That is for you, Konrad.


For you, Jamie, I want to just ask you whether at this point a battle plan
is emerging on the Yugoslav side and politically the goals of Mr. Milosevic
right now as NATO sees them.


KONRAD FREYTAG:
First of all, yes, we had reports on atrocities in Kosovo and that is what
I briefed to you so we were carefully doing our aerial intelligence to see
whether we would find evidence of these and we had Yugoslav military acting
in the Radovac and Urosevac , as I briefed you and in that area we found
this picture, not where you mentioned.


JAMIE SHEA:
Jim, thanks for that question. It's difficult for me to say exactly what
President Milosevic's political plan is. As I say, he doesn't give very
many speeches or newspaper interviews in which he explains these kinds of
things in the way that obviously people in democracies tend to do and have
to do all the time.


Secondly, it is not clear that he has any kind of political plan for
Kosovo, otherwise I think he would have negotiated more seriously at
Rambouillet and in Paris. Quite the reverse, he seems to have only
military solutions for the domestic problems of Yugoslavia. We saw this
first of all applied in Croatia and Slovenia back in 1991 when the Yugoslav
Federation broke up, then we saw it applied in Bosnia and now we see it
applied in Kosovo. If there's been a political plan for the region, it has
tended to come more from the international community than from Milosevic
himself so it's difficult for me generally to speculate on what that may be.


Of course, I think for now he probably wants to divide NATO if he can, he
probably wants to get away at least with some of what he would call the
spoils of victory in his own eyes in terms of the refugees not coming back
to their homes, otherwise why would he force them out if he were planning
to allow them to go back to their homes, it would be a rather
counter-productive strategy but beyond that it is difficult to know.


But we know what our plans are and that's really what matters. It's not so
much what Milosevic wants because we know that that is not acceptable, it's
want we want, the international community, that counts and here we are very
clear. In contrast to Belgrade, every time we come up here we state
clearly what our goals are, a democratic, multiethnic Kosovo, the right of
return of all of the refugees and displaced persons to their homes free of
intimidation, an international security force which would be able to go
there and ensure the protection of the refugees and a political process
based on the Rambouillet agreement which gives Kosovo an enhanced status of
autonomy and I think at the end of the day is really what's going to be the
difference in this whole affair is that we have a vision for the future
which is constructive and Milosevic, tactician though he may be in the
short term, doesn't really have any kind of long-term vision either for
Kosovo, for Yugoslavia or for the region as a whole.


We'll stop there and, as I say, you will have the press conferences
tomorrow. I wish you a pleasant end to the weekend, thank you very much
for coming.