MR JAMIE SHEA AND GENERAL GIUSEPPE MARANI

TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE
GIVEN BY MR JAMIE SHEA AND GENERAL GIUSEPPE MARANI
IN BRUSSELS ON SATURDAY, 17 APRIL 1999

JAMIE SHEA:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Afternoon, welcome to our briefing.

Yesterday NATO forces had another successful day over Kosovo. We made a
concentrated effort against Serb heavy weapons and armour on the ground.
In the morning, tanks and armoured personnel carriers inside Kosovo were
successfully attacked, as well as a number of fielded forces. In the
afternoon NATO aircraft again went after tanks and successfully destroyed
seven. These are the kinds of losses that clearly are going to knock the
stuffing out of the Yugoslav forces inside Kosovo, they are part of a
remorseless and painstaking approach by NATO to diminishing the killing
capability of those forces.

As the evening came in, the weather turned bad and a number of missions
were cancelled, but NATO did manage to engage successfully a number of
targets elsewhere in Yugoslavia and I will obviously ask General Marani to
up-date you on all of those in just a few moments.

At the same time on the ground in Kosovo yesterday, the Yugoslav Army and
MUP Special Police Forces continued to operate along the border area in
western Kosovo and they engaged the KLA in particular in the Djunik area
and in the Djakovica area. This of course shows that the self-declared
cease-fire that they made on 6 April is certainly not being respected,
never was respected for that account, but is certainly now giving way to a
major counter-insurgency operation. But the Serb forces have not succeeded
by any means yet in closing off the border with Albania, nor in closing the
corridor which the UCK forces have successfully opened up along the
Albanian border and which has allowed a certain number of refugees also to
exit Kosovo into Albania.

In fact the Serbs seem to be following a kind of two-in-one strategy at the
moment, combining both a major counter-insurgency operation with another
round, a particularly harsh round, of ethnic cleansing. In fact over the
last 48 hours, as you have seen, Belgrade has continued to show its no
mercy policy towards thousands of Kosovar Albanians. There have been,
again, expulsions, robbery, the burning of homes and even the burning of
livestock, which has been making it particularly difficult for those still
in Kosovo of course to feed themselves and to survive.

This of course, whether one likes it or not, is the story of the Kosovo
crisis. If I can use the words of Dean Aitchison, it is clearer than the
truth.

In Albania, since midnight, 5,500 new refugees have arrived. We have
received reports that up to 100,000 more displaced people may be trying to
reach the border at Mirana and get into Kukes and into Albania. 8,000
alone arrived yesterday. A lot of these refugees into Albania have been
ethnically cleansed from the Metrovica area, and indeed we have had reports
from refugees that some of them have been walking for five days, with no
transport at all, to reach the border. You saw the report of the
Spokeswoman of the World Food Programme yesterday saying that these
refugees are in the worst condition of any that the World Food Programme
have seen of late arriving in Albania, they have suffered dehydration, of
course, lack of care and many of them, including children, obviously report
traumatic experiences that risk to scar them for the rest of their lives.
But of course at least they are in Albania and can now be cared for by the
UNHCR and by the other relief organisations.

NATO again, as I have always stressed, is going to play its role in helping
these refugees inside Albania. Allied Harbour goes ahead, the bulk of the
headquarters arrives today as you know and 50% of the troops that are
committed to Operation Allied Harbour are already there. Their main task
is going to build tent accommodation on the coastal area of Albania so that
the best part of the 100,000 refugees plus in Kukes can be evacuated
immediately to safer areas. I say safer for two reasons: the first reason
is because of course the lack of sanitation and the risk of gastroenteritic
diseases that the refugees have; but also because the Yugoslav forces have
been shelling the vicinity of Kukes and Tropoje in recent days and
therefore the situation is also risky for the refugees from that point of
view as well. So we have to get them to safer areas quickly and the
shuttle service, the helicopter shuttle service that the NATO soldiers have
set up between Tirana and Kukes will be augmented today by the arrival of a
large number of US heavy lift helicopters.

At the same time we have a final force balancing conference at SHAPE this
afternoon to fill in the remaining elements, basically engineers, medical
support, of Operation Allied Harbour. And the United States Special Task
Force, Shining Hope, is running a ferry shuttle service between Ankona in
Italy and Djuvess in order there to bring in much needed supplies.

At the same time we have set up in Thesiloniki Airport last night a
tactical airlift co-ordination element which is bringing in also by air for
example tents for 600 refugees currently stranded in Durres, and we are
conducting just north west of Durres today a reconnaissance in order to
site a camp for an additional 5,000 refugees. Also NATO forces are
currently constructing accommodation for a further 5,000 refugees north of
the town of Schroder and we have given 15 trucks to the UNHCR to help
strengthen their operations, and NATO forces helped to unload 28
humanitarian flights arriving yesterday at Tirana.

In the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia the situation is equally grave
at the moment. More than 10,000 new refugees crossed the border there
yesterday and you have seen the reports from the Spokesman of the UNHCR in
Skopje indicating that another 100,000 refugees may well be on their way.
And NATO forces in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are seeing
what they can do to expand the current tent capacity of the camps,
currently trying to increase that capacity to over 86,000 bed spaces,
unloading yesterday 27 aid flights and so far NATO forces in the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia have delivered up to over indeed 4,000 tons
of food.

Now we are obviously still concerned, as everybody knows, with the plight
of those still in Kosovo and we are very glad that yesterday some trucks of
a Greek non-governmental humanitarian organisation, just before midnight,
managed to reach Pristina with important supplies for the local population.
There are three Greek non-governmental organisations which are currently
operating inside Kosovo, they are the only ones, at least to my knowledge,
and we hope of course that they will not be impeded in any way by the
Belgrade authorities from carrying out their extremely important mission in
the present circumstances.

At the same time on Monday the Secretary General will be receiving the Head
of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mr Samaruga, who will be
here and I understand that Mr Samaruga will also be shortly visiting
Belgrade in order to seek access into Kosovo for the International
Committee of the Red Cross. NATO, for its part, is continuing to use its
reconnaissance assets over Kosovo to try to pass information on to the
UNHCR as to the location of the internally displaced persons, at least
where they are in groups and therefore can be located from the air.

As you have heard in the news, ladies and gentlemen, a young lieutenant in
the Yugoslav Armed Forces was captured during the night of 13/14 April by
the UCK near Junik near the border with Albania, and yesterday the Albanian
government passed him to the US military authorities in Tirana, he was
taken by helicopter down to Tirana yesterday. I want to report that he is
in good condition, he has been examined by a doctor, he has been given
shelter, food and has access to religious counselling, he has also access
to the International Committee of the Red Cross and he will have all the
protection and rights accorded by the Third Geneva Convention. He will be
able to send and receive mail, communicate any complaints, receive medical
care and to have his habits, customs and religious practices respected. He
will not be used for propaganda purposes.

Finally, NATO continues to be very concerned by the mounting reports of
atrocities and General Marani will be reporting in just a moment on our
latest finding concerning mass graves. It is clear that there is mounting
evidence of detentions, summary executions and mass graves. Refugees have
reported incidents in at least 50 towns and villages throughout Kosovo in
recent days regarding summary executions, these of course will have to be
investigated, as you know. We have also now reports of several mass graves
and refugees have reported also two incidents in recent days which are
particularly worrying: 45 Kosovar Albanians killed in an ambush in Pec;
and 60 also killed in another incident in Kosovo as well. In fact some
refugees have even reported that Kosovar Albanians have been forced to dig
these mass graves and put the bodies in. If this is true it would be again
another particularly alarming story.

I know that yesterday - Friday - the Yugoslav authorities declared a day of
NATO atrocities throughout Yugoslavia, but again I think that historians
will not retain that particular conclusion. It is clear that
unfortunately, whether one likes it or not, a great deal of killing has
been taking place in Kosovo over the last few weeks, in fact from the
various reports of refugees, just putting the figures together, and of
course all of this has to be verified, but just the figures we have
received so far suggest that over the last three weeks 3,200 people have
been killed in Kosovo. This figure of course is simply a back of an
envelope calculation, but it gives you an order of magnitude of what we are
hearing. We do know that 200 residential areas have suffered severe damage
and we indeed ourselves in the Alliance have photography of 18 burnt
villages just at the present time.

So again I am afraid I don't have much good news for you today. The
situation in Kosovo remains bleak and NATO remains all the more determined
to put a stop on this. I will call on General Marani now to please give
you his daily operational up-date.

GENERAL MARANI:
Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen.

In the last twenty four hours the weather deteriorated during the day which
adversely affected night operations. Three packages were flown with mixed
success and the remainder were cancelled.

This map shows the areas where day attacks took place against fielded
forces in and around Kosovo. In a good start of the day, tanks and
armoured personnel carriers were hit, together with other targets.

The strategic targets shown on this map were engaged. There was an attack
against an ammunition plant in Valjevo. There was limited Serb helicopter
activity and, once again, man portable surface-to-air missiles and
anti-aircraft artillery fired at NATO aircraft, without success.

Today I have three pieces of target imagery to show. The first one is pre-
and post-strike pictures of Urosevac Army Garrison. Second, the following
video shows an attack which took place yesterday against a Hip helicopter
at Pristina Airfield. Finally, this video shows weapons hitting an army
barracks at Vranje. Once again this was from yesterday.

NATO Air Forces continue their day and night strikes against strategic
infrastructure and fielded FRY military and special police forces. These
strikes continue to cause serious damage to the FRY military and will
further degrade their capability to commit atrocities against the Kosovar
Albanian population. All of our aircraft have returned safely from
yesterday's missions. A technical defect caused an A-10 to land at Skopje
and an F-15 had to jettison weapons and a fuel tank into Garda Lake during
a diversion from Aviano.

Serb action continued on the ground in Kosovo. The main areas are shown on
this map. Once again the activity has been concentrated in the western
area, near the Albanian border. The self-proclaimed Serb cease-fire for
the Orthodox Easter, which was never fully implemented, appears to have
come to an end. We are also seeing increased evidence of ethnic cleansing
between Dakovica and Urosevac resulting in the increased outflow of
deportees to the south. There also appears to be movement towards the area
of Gnjilane which has been largely untouched until now. The following
video shows burning houses in the region of Dakovica. This is an infra-red
video and hot is white. As the picture zooms you will see the burning
houses to the left of the screen.

Finally, you may have heard reports of atrocities in the region of Izbica.
This image, taken on Thursday, shows what may be up to 150 graves near the
village. The inset, taken on 9 March, shows the area in its original state.

MARK:
Just a couple of points. You mentioned that the UCK was holding open some
form of corridor, is this a genuine corridor, could you expand on that?
And also is there now a feeling within NATO that given the length of the
air campaign and the likelihood that it is going to continue longer, that
you would in a way prefer the refugees out, where you can look after them,
and so that you have more freedom of activity within Kosovo to attack
targets without collateral damage? And finally, have you anything more on
the convoy incidence?

JAMIE SHEA:
Mark, let me start with the third question because obviously it is the one
that you have all been anticipating and I just have to be frank with you, I
have received over the last 24 hours no new information on the convoy
incident. For information to go out, the information has to come in of
course, and I have made it clear that if I have fresh information I will
pass it on, but the investigation to put the facts on the table continues.
So that is the best, the most honest, answer that I can give you on that.

As to the other two questions that you ask, yes we have had indications for
days now that the KLA has been successful at opening a corridor over the
Albanian border into Kosovo around the village of Tropoje. I am not sure
how wide it is or how considerable it is, but the reports that we have had
are that a certain number of refugees have been able to use that as a kind
of channel into Albania, whereas elsewhere of course the Serb forces have
been trying to close the border with Albania, at least many of their
operations, mining and so on, seem to point in that direction.

As to the other aspect of the question, clearly no. I can understand, I
have made the point myself, that a refugee across the border is at least
somebody whose life can be saved, maybe not psychologically but at least
physically, and that is at least something; whereas of course the plight of
those still in Kosovo is extremely grave. But we do not want the
depopulation of Kosovo. It is essential, of course, for the future of
Kosovo that a certain number of people are able to stay there and our aim
of course will continue to be to do everything we possibly can to stop the
violence before the last Albanian is pushed across the frontier, in a train
or a tractor. No, the real concern, as you know, is with the physical
condition of these people. One of the reasons why we may have been seeing
over the last couple of days a kind of second round of major ethnic
cleansing is because a lot of the refugees have been living off their
supplies since being pushed out of their homes, they have been living in
woods and so on, and supplies eventually come to an end and as the water
dries up, and as the food stops, you have to come down from the mountains,
to come out of the woods and seek some alternative, and that may be one of
the reasons why we suddenly see more refugees leaving. Another explanation
is the counter-insurgency moves which have accelerated, as the General and
I have been saying, in the last couple of days and particularly uprooting
refugees as the Serbs destroy more villages in an attempt to extirpate the
UCK by destroying all of the infrastructure surrounding them. But that is
the best answer I can give you on that one.

QUESTION:
General, you have been saying all long that you have severely hit the
command and control of the Serbs in the last 25 days. How do you explain
that they seem still so effective in ethnically cleansing the area?

GENERAL MARANI:
For ethnic cleansing you don't need a very strong structure in terms of
command and control. What you need is a gang, or a number of gangs,
military or paramilitary, you tell them to proceed, they won't need any
more orders, they will just go ahead with that ethnic cleansing, it is not
an aircraft or an ordinary military unit doing a fight, a battle. Ethnic
cleansing doesn't require such a structure.

QUESTION:
So am I right in understanding that there is not much you can do with your
aircraft to stop ethnic cleansing?

GENERAL MARANI:
I wouldn't say so. We cannot totally prevent ethnic cleansing, of course,
especially if in our action we are so much concerned about collateral
damages, but I wouldn't at all say that there is not much that we can do to
prevent ethnic cleansing with air power.

JAMIE SHEA:
Just to add to what the General said, of course to the extent that the
tanks leave then these paramilitaries will suddenly find themselves a
little bit vulnerable because the classical tactic of the Serbs has been to
use tanks to surround the village, then use heavy artillery to shell it, to
soften up if you like the local population, and then when they are all
shell shocked is to send the paramilitaries in to give everybody one hour
to leave, take a last look around, hand over all of their money and
documents, grab a couple of clothes and then sort of jump in the tractors
and leave. So these are the classical bullies and to the extent that their
rear logistics go, the tanks, the artillery and so on, they will be
increasingly isolated and will have to withdraw as well. But it is true,
one thug with a kalashnikov can be very intimidating when he is pointing it
at a lot of old people, a lot of defenceless women and children, and it is
very difficult for any force, any kind of iron force, to put a total stop
to that in the short term, but it can be stopped ultimately and that is
what we are going to do, we are going to stop that ultimately.

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS (CONTD)

GEORGE:
Would you mind explaining why the Serbian officer has been taken to the US
headquarters and why not to the headquarters of the Allies?

Secondly, could you say some words on how things stand on the diplomatic
field? I understand that Belgrade rejected the latest Kofi Annan proposal
so what is going to be the next? Is there any new initiative, new
discussion, new channel to use and also do you have contact with the
Russian mediator, Chernomyrdin?

JAMIE SHEA:
OK George! On that one, why he was taken and put in the hands of the US
authorities, I don't know quite frankly but you can rest assured that this
prisoner, this captive, will be taken excellent care of by the US forces I
can assure you, in fact he is probably going to be much better looked after
and much better cared for in his current situation than where he was just
three or four days ago but anyway, I'll leave him to be the judge of that
situation.

On the second question, the diplomatic front, it's true, yes, that the
Ambassador to the United Nations of Yugoslavia informed Secretary General
Annan yesterday that Yugoslavia rejected Mr. Annan's initiative, a very
reasonable, very balanced initiative which has the overwhelming support of
the international community. I think it shows just once again how
Milosevic wishes to defy the entire international community but at least
that was a proposal, as I say, that clearly had the endorsement and the
backing of the entire international community and therefore shows that all
of us are standing firm on our principles, there's no compromise on this,
we know what we want and we're not going to settle for less.

As for the Russians, Mr. Chirnomyrdim is a very experienced politician and
he carries a great deal of weight in the international community. If he
can pull the rabbit out of the hat and persuade Milosevic to see reason, as
I say, we would welcome that provided that we have an agreement of
Milosevic to accept the five basic objectives which I never cease to
enumerate in all of these briefings so perhaps I won't do it today just to
spare you but you know what they are and we've made that clear all along
and we'll see exactly what success Mr. Chirnomyrdin might have over the
next few weeks but we've always welcomed Russian initiatives that can
persuade Milosevic to accept the basic requirements of the international
community. We are not asking for anything else but we won't settle for
less, let that be clear. I understand that Mr. Chirnomyrdin may be having
discussions in Bonn, I saw something in the news about this, but we'll wait
and see how that develops.

STEPHEN:
Two questions for the General. First of all, on the attacks on the
convoy which have been the subject of your investigation, I realise that
your investigation is underway but can you at least answer what would be a
very much simpler question? Can you now confirm how many attacks your
planes made on the road west of Djakovica on Wednesday and how many bombs
they dropped?

The second question concerns a question that was asked yesterday. Do you
have any estimates now of how many fielded forces, how many armoured
forces, the Yugoslavs now have in Kosovo and what proportion of those have
been damaged by your attacks east of Djakovica?

GENERAL MARANI:
The answer is "No" for both questions.

STEPHEN:
Is that "No" or you can't tell?

GENERAL MARANI:
I cannot tell.

JAMIE SHEA:
At the present time.

GENERAL MARANI:
At the present time, of course.

STEPHEN:
Have you got any idea when you're going to be able to tell us this?

JAMIE SHEA:
Stephen, the military commanders are going to be putting together a kind of
overall assessment in the next few days as we begin to prepare for the
Washington summit and so once the assessment has been put together,
obviously we'll share the results with you that we can share. That
exercise is ongoing and will be submitted to NATO Ambassadors in the course
of the week before they leave on Thursday for Washington.

ANTONIO:
General, one of the 40 journalists who went to the place, Robert ?? from
"The Independent", he gives the numbers of the pieces of mortars, bombs or
whatever found in three different places and I suppose that NATO is now
already investigating. How long will it take to let us know exactly where
these weapons came down?

And Jamie, another question. Concerning the number of fugitives running
from Kosovo, we do know that a second wave of people are just being thrown
away, in about four weeks' time there will be nobody else over there to
chase. Will it make NATO's strategy change whilst the start of the
strategy was to try and help these people to stay home and not be killed?

GENERAL MARANI:
Keep in mind that pieces and debris can be moved around but what you are
saying we will investigate, also which the debris you were talking of
belongs to what and that will be part of the answer. Of course, we will
say also what this debris came from, from where they come and where they
have been delivered.

JAMIE SHEA:
Antonio, between February and October 1998, Belgrade's actions in Kosovo
had resulted in more than 2,000 killed, 250,000 displaced, over 50,000
refugees and we already had even before NATO acted, two well-reported
massacres of 45 Kosovar Albanians at Rajac on 15 January and of 25 Kosovar
Albanians at another place just about a week later if I remember. So again
clearly this not a question of NATO being responsible for what was really
for Milosevic business as usual all along and we have spoken at great
length in these briefings about the way in which this was being prepared
systematically both politically and militarily with the build-up of forces
well before NATO acted.

Again, there are just two differences now vis-�-vis the previous situation
which is that Milosevic is now paying a price and the price is going to be
heavier and NATO action is going to allow these people to go back to their
homes whereas in the previous scenario they would have obviously been
refugees for the rest of their lives.

I personally do not believe that Milosevic is going to succeed in throwing
everybody out before we finally stop him. There are still quite a lot of
people actually, if you do your calculations, inside Kosovo, hence our
concern about their plight and we are going to insist on the right of all
of these people to go back so ethnic cleansing may have taken place in the
short term but it will be reversed in the long run, it will not be allowed
to stand and that will be a big victory for the principle of
multi-ethnicity not just in the region but I think throughout Europe.

DOUG:
Jamie, I'd like to ask you is there any unease or disquiet among the Allies
that the time taken to clarify this unexplained convoy incident could begin
to dent what has been, I think, fairly strong support among Western public
opinion for what NATO was doing?

And for the General, could you give us an up-date on when the Apache
helicopters and the other systems - multiple-launch rocket systems - will
be operational, not just deployed but when will they be put into the
battlefield?

JAMIE SHEA:
Doug, clearly, as I said yesterday, there are some incidents that we're
able to clarify immediately and there are others which take more time and I
would like for all of them to be in the first category obviously as you can
well imagine as the spokesman of this Alliance but this is one which is
taking longer. We've told you what we know already and in …

COMMENT (inaudible)

JAMIE SHEA:
No, I have said I have told you what I know.

SEVERAL COMMENTS (difficult to transcribe)

JAMIE SHEA:
You can interrupt me if you wish but I've told you that I've given you the
information that I know and my mind is clear on this one, Christopher, I
have told you what I know and the General has told you what he knows. We
can stay on the subject for as long as you like but my line will be the
same: when I have more information, when I receive more information, I
will pass it on. Every day, I stand up here, I give you all of the
information in my possession.

If I can go back to answer Doug's question, if I may, Doug, as I said,
there are some incidents which take longer. When I have more, I will pass
that on, OK, and that may be tomorrow, it may be the next day, I don't know
but today, I just do not have any more. It's something that the military
authorities are looking at; I know that when they have it, when they've
got all of the facts on the table, they will inform me and I can pass it to
you and I of course will continue for my part to make whatever effort I can
to help in that respect.

DOUG:
Is there worry about the effect on public opinion?

JAMIE SHEA:
Public opinion obviously is uneasy whenever there is an incidence in which
NATO is responsible for harm to civilians. Let's face it, we are the
people in this operation who are there to save lives, to help, that's why
we got involved in the first place, that's where there's been this enormous
mobilisation not for strategic purposes, not for sort of classical
interests but for humanitarian purposes. This is perhaps one of the very
few genuine humanitarian conflicts in modern times so of course it's
embarrassing for us if harm is inflicted on civilians.

It may also, Doug, by the way, say something about what the public expects
of NATO. It may be even in a strange way flattering that the public
believes that NATO has the competence and the professionalism to conduct
this type of operation with no accident whereas in any previous conflict
accidents were an accepted part of daily life. As you know, I was a
student of history before I got involved in this business and in the Second
World War for example when Bomber Command went up at night they wrote off
between 15 and 20 per cent their crews every single night over Germany and
they dropped thousands of bombs in the hope that one of them would hit a
bridge or a target somewhere and we know from that type of conflict what
the consequences were for the civilian population and if you remember that
and look at the situation today, the progress has been absolutely
exponential but having said that, it's still not perfect and probably never
will be even if it can be reduced further.

I know that SACEUR has again been looking at all of the instructions to the
pilots - and maybe the General could comment on this - since this incident
to see what we can do to further minimise even when we're already at the
minimum possible level, the possibility of this happening again but we're
not going to have an accident-free campaign but again, as I said yesterday,
let's not sort of lose sight of the wood for the trees quite frankly in all
of this. While this has been going on, thousands of people have had their
lives ruined by the Serb security forces. As I said, that is the story
and I think that's what historians will retain as the story of this
particular crisis.

If you listen to the Kosovar Albanians - and several of them have been on
tv over the last few days - they have also made it clear that they want
NATO to continue because they know that their only hope comes from us.
We're not a perfect organisation but at the end of the day there is no
other option if we are to stop this and make it get better in the long run
so as I say, let us be judged by the final result and not by a yellow card
in the first half as it were. That would be the plea that I would make on
this particular one.

Will public opinion continue to support us? Yes, I believe so because I
think public opinion understands full well that if these things occur it is
purely as a result of an unfortunate accident and people want justice to be
done and they know that NATO is there to get justice done. Just to sort of
call this off and do nothing would be to give a kind of carte blanche not
just to Milosevic but to every dictator around the world to brutally
repress his population with impunity and I don't think anybody quite
frankly in Europe wants to have the 21st century begin on the same lines as
the 20th century in that regard.

I do apologise, I gave such a long answer to Doug that I forgot there was a
question for the General. Excuse me, we'll come to you right away!

GENERAL MARANI:
As soon as the Apaches go into operation you will know. I'm not going to
tell everybody when they will go into operation and you can easily
understand why.

JAMIE SHEA:
OK, the General is giving me a much-needed lesson in brief answers.

QUESTION:
How will NATO cope with the so-called Serbian propaganda machine?

JAMIE SHEA:
Well, you know the old phrase that you can't fool all of the people all of
the time. I personally think the best thing is to let the Serb propaganda
machine continue because I think propaganda at the end of the day is its
own worst enemy, it's counter-productive, it's obvious when people are
telling lies. I'm a great believer in the fundamental good sense of the
average citizen in our countries, I think he and she knows perfectly well
who is telling the truth, who is trying to give an honest version of the
facts albeit with the occasional correction or rectification as we go along
in what after all is sometimes a confused and confusing situation, and who
is constantly twisting the truth, never even trying to tell the truth in
the first place, always giving opinion rather than facts so I'm quite happy
for the Serb propaganda to continue because I don't think anybody is fooled
quite frankly.

Having said that, I think that it's really a tragedy for the Serb people.
These are the people who are suffering from this because the Serb people
have been deprived of what everybody is entitled to in a democracy - a free
and independent media, journalists who could sit here and ask me the
questions that you're asking me. I'd love to see President Milosevic stand
in my place answering some of your questions on some of the other incidents
that we have reported on. I wonder how he would do faced with those
questions and what kind of answers he would give? Let's move on.

JOHN:
Two questions, Jamie, one for you and one for the General.

The detention of the Yugoslav soldier that you mentioned raises the issue
of what you now know about the treatment of the Americans who were captured
in Macedonia and what is the last information that you have about them and
how you think they might be treated?

A couple of weeks ago, someone here asked the General's predecessor about
the wisdom of providing food through air-drops to the people still inside
Kosovo. Given their plight is as you yourself described it today, is it
time to consider doing that again and if not, why not?

JAMIE SHEA:
John, I'll try to answer those. I must confess I haven't any up-date on
the three US servicemen but I shall try to find out because obviously this
question is always an important one. I know that the United States had
asked the Swedish government, representing its interest I believe in
Belgrade, to intercede on its behalf but that was refused by Belgrade so I
have no up-date on that particular story although I shall try to find out
but obviously the US spokesman will naturally be updating you.

As to the food-drop issue, as you know, we are currently studying that in
the Alliance, not just that but a number of possibilities that might be
used to bring supplies to the needy. You heard SACEUR the other day be
quite candid on this and say that it's not an easy option in terms of the
number of flights that you would need to use, the fact that you would need
to use C-130 transport aircraft, they would have to fly low, they would
obviously be very vulnerable to interception by anti-aircraft fire or
man-held portable air-defence systems. There is no guarantee that we could
get the food to the people who need it to have it and the last thing we
want to do is to feed the Serb army as you can well imagine but I want also
to say that we're not excluding it either. These options are simply still
under study in NATO and if a decision is made, I'll tell you. However, we
are also, as I said in my briefing, extremely keen to see what we can do to
get access into Kosovo by international….

QUESTION:
….about not having any further information about the specific convoy
incident but in at least two cases mentioned in "The Independent" the
fragment of ordnance had the particular serial number still visible and
intact upon it so as a general point, do NATO's accounting procedures
permit you to narrow down a particular piece of ordnance to a particular
mission and if not, how far can you narrow it down and secondly, just going
back to the pilot's remarks played to us the other day, he talks about
handing over to the forward air controller. It has been suggested to me
that "Forward Air Controller" is the title of a crew member aboard an A-10
aircraft but not an F-16 aircraft. Is that the case?

JAMIE SHEA:
These are really two questions for the General.

GENERAL MARANI:
It's not the case. A forward air controller called "AFAC" can be on board
any aircraft. As you will recall, in Vietnam very light aircraft were
used for forward air controllers so any aircraft can be used as an AFAC.

SAME QUESTIONER:
And the other question about how far you can narrow down the particular
piece of ordnance with a particular serial number, is it to an individual
mission or is to a batch of missions or what?

GENERAL MARANI:
We can narrow down, of course, starting from the fragments, to at least
which batch and who was using that batch of ammunition but as I said, apart
from the relevance of knowing which aircraft dropped which bomb, the debris
can be carried around very easily so it will be one of the items of the
investigation but for sure will be treated as evidence in brackets.

DOMINIC:
(QUESTION IN FRENCH)
JAMIE SHEA:
(REPLY IN FRENCH)
DAN:
Your map showed a lot of activity on the Prizren Djakova-Decani road. Is
the presence of refugees on that road making it difficult to do anything
about that and what in fact yesterday did you try to do about all that
activity on that road?

GENERAL MARANI:
The presence of refugees makes everything more difficult regardless of
where they are. Of course, where the activity is higher, the presence of
refugees makes things even harder.

DAN:
(inaudible)

GENERAL MARANI:
Yes. I said the presence of refugees. I don't understand exactly what
kind of answer you want.

DAN:
Were the refugees there yesterday and did that make it difficult for NATO
to operate there yesterday?

JAMIE SHEA:
Dan, maybe I can have a crack at this. It's of course difficult where you
have places where there are a lot of refugees because as I said, the
counter-insurgency operations of the Yugoslav army have a double objective
- to defeat the KLA and at the same time to deprive the KLA of a kind of
surrounding infrastructure by of course destroying houses and forcing
people to flee in the hope of isolating them from their hiding places if
you like so the two aspects in Yugoslav tactics have gone together: defeat
the KLA but also clean it out. You will remember the famous phrase of Mao
Tse Tung of "emptying the water in which the fish swim", it's a similar
type of thing at the time and so clearly in those areas there are a number
of refugees on the road. That's a factor we have to take into account and
we will continue to take into account obviously.