TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY MR JAMIE SHEA
AND BRIG.GEN. GIUSEPPE MARANI
IN BRUSSELS ON MONDAY, 19 APRIL 1999

JAMIE SHEA:
Ladies and Gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome to the briefing.


For the last five days at this podium I have been asked repeatedly by you
to give you the full facts and details concerning the convoy incident near
Djakovica last Wednesday. I have promised you that when the inquiry at
Aviano was completed, you would be given the facts. You want the facts,
today you are going to get them. Brigadier General Dan Leaf, who has been
in charge of this inquiry, a very intensive, very detailed - I warn you -
inquiry over the last five days is going to be here at 4.00 o'clock, in one
hour, and he will present you an exhaustive account of all of the
circumstances surrounding this incident, backed up with visual material,
and will answer your questions. NATO keeps its promises. And when he has
finished his presentation I will invite you to compare the facts with what
you may have been told by other sources about this particular incident.


In the meantime, I will up-date you on the other issues. First of all on
the operational side, we had some severe weather last night causing some of
the aircraft sorties to be cancelled, but I am happy to report that all
aircraft returned safely. General Marani, in the usual fashion, will
up-date you on some of these operational details in just a few moments, but
let me say that we struck yesterday at a series of strategic targets
throughout Yugoslavia, that was the focus, particularly the petroleum
facilities, including two sites at Novi Sad and Smederevo, we also damaged
some ammunitions storage centres, some manufacturing complexes at Parasin,
Pristina and Bugatovac, and we revisited Pristina Airfield.


The Serb side fired a number of FA6 surface-to-air missiles but with no
radar guidance and those were not successful against NATO aircraft.


On the ground we continued to see a large degree of fighting across Kosovo,
obviously in the area that I have been earmarking in recent days along the
Albanian border, but also in the north around Podujevo and Metrovica, and
more to the south around Malisevo as well, as the Serb forces attempt to
dislodge the Kosovo Liberation Army and disrupt their lines of
communication, particularly by trying to strike against their footholds
near the border with Albania. In fact we have reports of large movements
of Serb forces across Kosovo as these operations continue. Unfortunately
many internally displaced persons, 80,000 up in the north, are caught up in
these troop movements with obviously great risk to their well-being and to
their lives.


As you know, over the last 24 hours we have continued to be alarmed by the
number of refugees fleeing Kosovo, 40,000 in fact over the last 24 hours.
In fact Yugoslavia is unique among European countries in that its only
current export commodity is people rather than goods, 630,000 thus far have
been obliged to leave and seek shelter in other countries. And indeed even
when they get to the border, after walking for days, often in very poor
physical condition, the borders are closed and that has happened with the
Albanian border this morning. They are then stuck there, often facing
military fire such as shelling. In the case of one tragic incident
yesterday involving a family of 7 in a car hitting a mine with 5 dead,
including children. This is a kind of Grand Old Duke of York strategy of
marching people to the border and then marching them back again, not
allowing them, even at their moment of suffering, to seek shelter.


At the same time we have increasing reports inside Kosovo that the Serb
forces are creating a kind of anti-humanitarian corridor from the north
down to Pristina, funnelling about 150,000 internally displaced persons so
that at Pristina they can be put on trains and sent south towards the
border with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. This suggests that
this is not simply random ethnic cleansing, but it is being done on an
almost scientific and systematic basis.


Of course NATO continues to be very concerned and continues to be in the
forefront of international efforts to deal with the influx of refugees.
AFOR - the NATO Force in Albania - is continuing now to be active. Today
it is co-operating with the Albanian government to send 30 trucks up to
Kukes from Tirana in order to move refugees away from the Kukes area where
the sanitation is bad and there is military activity across the border,
including cross-border shelling, and to take them down to refugee camps
elsewhere.


This is the difference, if I may say so, between the situation in Albania
and the situation in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, because the
refugee camps in the latter are relatively near the border, whereas in the
case of Albania there is a major transport problem in order to take the
refugees from Marina and Kukes and take them to different camps inland.


So one of the critical tasks of the NATO forces is to try to help with that
transport. We now have a number of helicopters running a shuttle service,
as you know, we have managed to get that up to 40 flights a day and on the
way up go military medical teams and engineering units to work on the roads
and the infrastructure, and on the way back come refugees to be resettled.


Yesterday the NATO forces unloaded 30 relief flights and the Americans
involved in the Joint Task Force Shining Hope at Ancona have offered to the
UN High Commission for Refugees a number of roll-on, roll-off transport
ships to take food directly across the Adriatic. So we continue to be
very, very active in that area.


In the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia we still face refugees,
particularly people crossing illegally into the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia, avoiding the recognised checkpoints, and at the moment the NATO
forces there, under General Sir Michael Jackson, are responding to the
request of the UNHCR for extra support, particularly expanding the existing
refugee camps to accommodate this greater influx.


So those are the essential points in the last 24 hours and I will now ask
General Marani to give you his operational up-date, and then we will
respond to your questions and we will probably have a slightly shorter
briefing today in order to have our presentation set up for 4.00 pm.


GENERAL MARANI:
Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen.


NATO military forces continue their day and night strikes against strategic
targets and military infrastructures through the FRY, despite difficult
weather conditions. NATO forces also continue with their humanitarian aid
efforts. During the last 24 hours there were 14 aid flights to the FYROM
and 32 to Albania.


In Kosovo Yugoslav Army and Special Police Force action continues in the
areas shown on this map. Forces are still preparing defensive positions in
the west as well as engaging UCK units. Cross-border artillery action
against UCK supply routes has also been detected.


Yesterday saw an increase in reported Yugoslav helicopter and fixed wing
activity. NATO forces were not in a position to engage these aircraft. A
number of surface to air missiles were fired unsuccessfully against NATO
aircraft which all returned to base safely.


As I stated, poor weather restricted attacks against fielded forces in
Kosovo. However, strategic targeting continued, as shown on this map,
amongst others, military targets in Paracin (ammunition depot), Baric
(explosives plant), Novi Sad (radio relay and petrol refinery) and Subotica
(reporting point) were hit.


Yesterday we discussed the difficulty of attacking military targets close
to civilian facilities. This picture shows a fighter aircraft parked close
to a civilian aircraft at Belgrade airfield in order to prevent NATO
targeting. Actually it is not close but it is underneath the tail of the
civilian aircraft, you can see it from the shadow.


With the benefit of better weather, until yesterday, we have been building
an improved picture of the fate of displaced people in Kosovo. This map
shows the main concentrations together with estimates of the numbers of
people. The arrows indicate the direction of the Serb forces thrust
against the Kosovar Albanians. This picture shows people massed on the
roads in the Malisevo region.


You will be aware that Serb forces continue ethnic cleansing. This graphic
shows more civilian buildings burning in the village of Racaj. Once again
there has been no NATO action near this village. It is not that easy to
see, but you can see the flames in white.


Finally, this composite picture shows the possible mass grave sites at
Izbica and Pusto Selo. As we stated yesterday, the similarities between
the two sites can be seen and the difference between what we have seen in
Bosnia Herzegovina.


This completes my brief. Thank you.


JAMIE SHEA:
Ladies and Gentlemen, just before we get to questions, I forgot to mention
to you that, as I think you know, Prime Minister Blair of the United
Kingdom will be here tomorrow morning seeing the Secretary General,
visiting NATO Headquarters, and the press conference between Prime Minister
Blair and Secretary General Solana will be here at 12.45.


FREDDIE:
You mentioned fighting in Kosovo and had one or two words to say about
interrupting the KLA's communications etc. Is this fighting between very
minor engagements, between 2 or 3 people, or is this something bigger? And
we had a briefing this morning by the Albanian Ambassador to NATO and it
appeared that Serb forces were building up on the Albanian frontier, is
this to do with the concentration of KLA inside Albania?


JAMIE SHEA:
Freddie, thank you for those questions. Yes, I have reported in recent
days principally about fighting along the Albanian border, particularly
around Djakovica and up to the border itself, but the latest reports that I
have been seeing is that fighting is taking place again in the north, as I
said, around Podujevo and in other parts of the province, including eastern
Kosovo which has not in the last few days been associated with that type of
fighting.


Now as for the UCK, I have made the point in the past that President
Milosevic has been the best recruiting sergeant since General Kitchener in
the First World War, only of course he recruits people to fight against
him, not to fight for him. And you, like me, have seen the television
pictures of many people streaming in to countries in the region wanting to
put themselves at enormous risk because they are so outraged at what their
fellow Kosovar Albanian kin have been suffering, and I think that is the
clear case, that this type of repression is ultimately counter-productive.


So the UCK seems not to hold terrain any longer. Its 7 principal
headquarters have been dismantled by the offensive of the Yugoslav Army in
recent weeks, they have obviously suffered casualties, but they also seem
to have inflicted casualties on the Serb forces, they seem to have reverted
to a more classical guerrilla hit-and-run type tactic but which does seem
to have the capacity to harass the Serbs and as the Serbs are forced to
hunker down under the threat of NATO action, obviously the possibilities
for the UCK increase. And I stress again, we have no direct links or …
(pause in tape) …but the UCK will only go away, that is clear, when we have
a multi-ethnic democratic Kosovo in which people wouldn't need to have
Kalshnikovs under their bed in order to be able to exercise their human
rights and live in safety and freedom.


GEORGE:
How would you comment on the fact that Belgrade has interrupted their
diplomatic relations with Albania? Isn't it another sign that the Yugoslav
Army is preparing to attack Albania, and should it happen, how much force
is there to resist?


JAMIE SHEA:
George, Yugoslavia seems to believe that its best future lies in isolating
itself from the rest of the world, it has broken off diplomatic relations
with a number of NATO countries, it has now broken off relations with one
of its immediate neighbours - Albania. Yesterday I saw that the Yugoslav
Ambassador at the United Nations, Mr Janovic, turned down once again the
proposals of the UN Secretary General. There seems to be a kind of mania
of self-isolation which I don't believe is in the interests of the Serb
people but characterises the scene at the moment.


As for the question of a threat to Albania, NATO has made its position
perfectly clear in that respect and I think Belgrade has heard that. We
have seen cross-border shelling, we have seen a few border incidents, but I
do not believe that the Yugoslav forces have either the will or the
capability to seriously threaten Albania.


BILL:
Tomorrow will mark the 28th day of this campaign, basically the end of the
fourth week, beginning the fifth week. When Operation Allied Force first
started, two of the main objectives expressed by yourself and NATO was to
weaken Slobodan Milosevic and to keep Kosovo safe. In effect it can be
argued that Milosevic, politically anyway, is stronger now within Belgrade
and it is the Kosovars who are on the run, basically not safe. At what
point does NATO admit that its strategy has to change?


JAMIE SHEA:
OK Bill, I am grateful for that question. Bill, since when was a dictator
defeated in 24 hours? I am sorry, but human rights, freedoms, values, are
not simply things to proclaim, they are things to be defended. Defending
them is sometimes difficult and long. It took 6 years to defeat fascism in
Europe in the middle of the 20th century. I think we can take 2 months, or
3 months, to defeat President Milosevic quite frankly. There are no easy
solutions and we never pretended that there would be an easy solution.
Dictators are very resilient, they don't have public opinion saying well
this is rather silly, shouldn't we stop this? They don't, they can
manipulate that public opinion, as you well know. They tend to rule not
through the ballot box but through the barrel of a gun and their security
forces. So they are tough nuts to crack and there are plenty of examples
that you can cite and I can cite as to that. But because our cause may
take a little bit longer than 24 hours to accomplish doesn't make it any
less necessary or any less just.


President Milosevic is a person who is rarely seen in public, except at
very carefully stage managed occasions as when he was visited by President
Lukoshenko of Belarus last week. He doesn't give any interviews, he
doesn't make any public appearances, he sleeps every night in a bunker and
a different one at that. Those are not what I would call the movements of
a strong leader, quite frankly, and every day when he wakes up he is less
strong in terms of the security forces and the tanks and the artillery that
he controls which at the end of the day are the mainstays of his regime, in
the final analysis.


So I would ask you, and I am sure you would, I know you will, to look a
little bit beyond the appearances of the TV screen and ask yourself just
how strong he really is.


BILL:
Just as a follow-up, I am not suggesting that this should take place within
24 hours but we are coming up on one month and should it be a legitimate
question to ask, should the current strategy be altered and changed?


JAMIE SHEA:
The more just your cause is the longer you are justified in pursuing that
cause, obviously. The strategy is going to work, it is working at the
moment. No alternative strategy would go faster, by the way. I know that
there is a lot of talk about ground troops but in my opinion they are not a
panacea either in this particular situation given the lead time that it
would take to put them together, to introduce them into the theatre, to
deploy them and all the rest. And of course time is the one thing that we
want to compress to the maximum because we are aware, NATO does not want
this to be a long drawn out effort, but we are convinced that it is a cause
that does justify taking some time if that is necessary, and we will
continue. But at the end of the day this will have a snowball effect, once
the system starts to crack it will start cracking quickly, it will be
cumulative, not linear. We will reach that point as soon as we possibly
can. But every day, as I mentioned, when Milosevic wakes up, no doubt his
Head of Security comes along and says well President Milosevic the news is
that overnight 30 more tanks have gone, 50 more artillery pieces have gone,
more military lines of communication, more loss of morale, more desertions
in the army, and I just hope that in fact somebody is giving Milosevic that
message. One of the problems with dictators is that often they are not
told reality by their aides and that is sometimes why it takes a while to
seep in, but it will seep in.


QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
ANTONIO:
We all learned about this "horseshoe strategy" to push people out of
Kosovo. You told us a few days ago that suddenly it stopped. Now it is
coming back again and people seem to be more and more pushed to the border
where there are mines and they get……Can you tell us what NATO intelligence
thinks about what is going on exactly and wouldn't it be easier for
Milosevic to keep those people inside, their troops could move with their
civilian convoys and it would be maybe easier to prevent any air strikes?


General, you told us about some helicopter activity, air activity, in
Kosovo. Can you tell us exactly what kind of helicopters, what kind of
planes, were used and can you tell us what is nowadays the military
capacity of Milosevic inside Kosovo and what has been in terms of
destruction of material reached by NATO after four weeks of air strikes?


JAMIE SHEA:
OK, well Antonio, thank you for that. Of course, it is the leaders of
Yugoslavia who should be up here explaining why the resumption of the
"horseshoe campaign"I - not me, we have to fall back obviously on
speculation. There are various reasons. I think one obvious reason is
because the Yugoslav army hasn't defeated the UCK, the UCK remains a thorn
in their flesh and so they have to continue operations and their strategy
for defeating the UCK is to defeat every single thing around it, houses,
livestock, whatever and that means refugees, that means displaced persons
and that's certainly what is happening in the north around Pudejevo (phon)
and Metrovisca at the moment and what is happening along the Albanian
border for certain.


Another hypothesis is that many people, internally-displaced persons, have
simply given up the struggle to survive inside Kosovo and are fleeing. If
you are sleeping in a wood and it's raining every night and one day it's
hot but at night it's very cold, it's only a question of time before your
physical health declines to the degree that you have to leave and what has
been reported by the World Food Programme and the United Nations High
Commission for Refugees is that the people who are arriving now are in much
worse shape physically than the people who were arriving in sort of "Ethnic
Cleansing I" just a few weeks ago so there may be something in that as well.


A third explanation is it could be to destablise the neighbouring states
and Milosevic is having another heave, if you like, with his refugee
battering ram to see if he can seriously destabilise the two surrounding
states but that's going to work even less than it did last time because we
are in a much better position now in terms of the co-operation between
NATO, the governments and the international relief organisations to handle
the new influx of refugees but at the end of the day put the question to
Belgrade and hopefully you'll get an answer.


GENERAL MARANI:
Just to explain how the situation is in Kosovo now and all over Yugoslavia
actually, Yugoslavia is surrounded by air forces with a percentage of
aircraft always flying. In any place of Yugoslavia, any aircraft flying
over Yugoslavia can be hit depending on its relative distance from an
airborne ???? Of course, in this situation they cannot hope to conduct
significant missions either support or interdiction or transport, they have
to be quick to take off, move and land and we are able to see them. Of
course, there are places where terrain-masking is used, therefore we would
lose sight of them temporarily while they are moving from one place to
another but the concept is that they don't have any freedom of movement in
terms of aircraft, either fixed-wing or rotary-wing. If they succeed in
taking off, their mission has to be short, has to be of limited size and
with limited scope. This is how the Yugoslav air force is acting now.


SAME QUESTIONER:
In Kosovo, on the air capacity what evidence also concerning the capacity,
what have you done?


GENERAL MARANI:
The capacity cannot be measured only in the number of aircraft, rotary or
fixed wing, that are flying or the number that could be flying. You have
to measure the capacity in terms of capability to conduct a mission. If
Milosevic keeps his aircraft, rather than fuel them, hidden in bunkers and
caves without using them, a big result has been already achieved because he
won't be using them. Of course, every time he tries to use these air
forces we try to hit them on the ground and in the air. Aircraft have been
destroyed in the air, a few of them in the air, the vast majority has been
destroyed on the ground either in bunkers or in open space. You have seen
in the past few days a tape of the destruction of a Hip helicopter in
Prizren airfield and also a MiG-21 a couple of times. Therefore, I would
say that there is no match for the Yugoslav air force really.


MARK LAITY (BBC):
I asked yesterday about an oil pipeline through Hungary. I understand
there is no oil pipeline there now but there is one through Bulgaria and
there are oil tankers still going into the Montenegran ports. NATO has
put immense effort and you've detailed how you've destroyed the refinery
capacity, 70 per cent of their stocks. What are you doing, then, to stop
them replacing those stocks and are you pressurising Bulgaria to cut off
its own oil pipeline and are you considering a sea embargo of some kind?
It seems peculiar to bomb them on the one hand and allow them to re-supply
on the other.


JAMIE SHEA:
Thanks for the question, Mark. Well Mark, you remember the famous dictum
of Napoleon, don't you, that an army marches on its stomach; if he were
alive today he would say an army marches on its oil reserves so you're
absolutely right, oil is a critical factor. We know that we have taken
out about 70 per cent of the military supplies of fuel and we do know from
the reports that we receive that the Yugoslav army is hurting now because
of a lack of oil, both of supplies and the ability to distribute it, to
deliver it.


Obviously, we would hope that all countries of the international community
would be mindful of UN Security Council resolution 1160, the arms embargo,
naturally - that's the first point - and would also not wish to do
anything, undertake any action which could prolong this conflict by
supplying refined oil to Yugoslavia naturally but on the other hand, we
have to be consistent with international law as well.


Our military authorities are looking at what the options are to, if you
like, screw the tap down still further and we haven't drawn any conclusions
yet but they are looking at the options. There are many others by the
way, Mark, in addition to the two that you have mentioned, particularly of
course inside Yugoslavia itself, of further attempting to disrupt the
ability of Belgrade to move oil around and so I wouldn't at this stage -
and you'll understand the reason why - want to comment further but let's
just say that you're aware of it and we are even more aware of that and we
are going to do whatever we can within the existing scope of our operation
to make the oil run out quickly because anything that can be done of course
to induce Milosevic both at the strategic level and at the tactical level
to understand that he has no choice but to meet the objectives of the
international community, is something that we're obviously going to look at
very, very carefully.


DOMINIQUE THIERRY, RADIO FRANCE INTERNATIONALE


Deux questions si vous permettez. La première - est ce que vous pouvez
être un petit peu plus précis sur ce que vous appelez le couloir
anti-humanitaire et les trains de réfugiés qui iraient vers le nord de
Pristina, je n'ai pas très bien compris, est-ce que surtout vous pouvez
être plus précis et puis deuxième question : quelle est votre appréciation,
est ce que vous n'êtes pas inquiet de la capacité de mouvements que se
réservent encore, dont disposent encore semble-t-il les forces Yougoslaves
et en particulier leur capacité malgré ou grâce à la méteo et peût-être
même aux civils qui sont sur les routes, leur capacité à renforcer leurs
positions défensives aux frontières en particulier.


JAMIE SHEA :


Nous savons à partir de rapports de réfugiés arrivés en République
ex-Yougoslave de Macédoine que l'armée serbe a constitué ce que j'appelais
un couloir anti-humanitaire à partir de Podujevo et jusqu'à Pristina, le
long de cette route là qui est utilisée en particulier pour le transport de
réfugiés et les réfugiés dans ce couloir sont privés de nourriture pendant
au moins 24 heures/48 heures. Ils arrivent à Pristina et puis à partir de
là on les met soient dans des trains soient dans des bus pour les
transporter vers la frontière macédonienne, donc voilà les informations
dont nous disposons, mais je voulais insister sur le caractère organisé et
systématique de ce genre d'expulsion. Ça c'est donc une réponse à votre
première question et en ce qui concerne votre deuxième question, il est
absolument incontestable, que l'armée serbe a été obligée de ralentir ses
activités pour préserver son pétrole mais en même temps les chars,
l'artillerie se cachent de plus en plus dans les habitations civiles,
endommagées par exemple, et vous avez vu déjà je crois nous allons vous
montrer tout à l'heure un exemple où les avions de l'OTAN arrivent quand
même a pénétrer et a détruire des chars, des artilleries qui se cachent
quand même dans des habitations sinistrées civiles donc ils essaient de se
cacher mais quand même ils ont du mal a se cacher.


JAMIE SHEA:
Given the presentation at 4 o'clock and the need for a little bit of
preparation time, I will take one final question from Mr. Cresnici (phon)


MR. KRASNIECI: (VERY DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND)
I have two questions concerning the situation of displaced persons in
Kosovo and second concerning ….. forces.


The first question is since the first day of the crisis you have always
shown great concern about the situation of internally-displaced persons but
up to now nothing has been done with them. It is my understanding that
knowing that those displaced persons inside Kosovo tomorrow or the week
after are going to be put out of Kosovo….being not doing up to now. Can
you tell me please if there is a second explanation why those persons are
not helped up till now?


The second question is we have seen yesterday some scenes of military
equipments in ????? Can the possibility of sending troops inside Kosovo
by ………. push or speed-up the NATO thinking about ground troops?


JAMIE SHEA:
OK, thanks for those two questions.


On the internally-displaced persons, there is no immediate solution, that's
part of the tragedy of this situation. The Secretary General will be
speaking to the Head of the International Red Cross on the telephone this
evening, Mr. Samaruga, and of course we will be exchanging all of the
information we have on this situation. I know that the Red Cross is
making an effort to get approval from Belgrade to begin again its
activities inside Kosovo and you know of the very valiant efforts by some
Green non-governmental organisations to help, even being able to have
doctors now operating in Pristina which is encouraging but of course much
more has to be done and I said yesterday that NATO will provide all of the
information it has to help international relief organisations locate these
groups of internally-displaced persons, some of which you saw on the slides
of General Marani today.


But again I come back to my fundamental point that first of all, if
Milosevic is determined to expel these people, then at least them leave
instead of what I called the "Grand Old Duke of York strategy" of marching
them to the border, keeping them there and in some cases marching them back
again or making life even more miserable while they are at the border
waiting to leave in terms of mines and shelling and all the rest. If one
wants to be inhumane, it's only necessary to be inhumane once, one doesn't
have to sort of try to find new variations on the theme of inhumanity in a
somewhat perverse way quite frankly. But the greatest contribution that
NATO can make obviously will be to stop the fighting because I come back to
this fundamental point: as long as the fighting continues, the suffering
will continue. We can't really begin to reverse it until we've stopped
the fighting so we have to keep our eye on the ball in that respect and on
that fundamental objective.


Can you repeat your second question:


SAME QUESTIONER (JUST AS DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND!)
……………………kind of attempt to put some military troops, Serbian troops, in
Kosovo and my question if that possibility can push….


JAMIE SHEA:
Ground troops on the NATO side, no.


SAME QUESTIONER:
Would you rather 40,000……


JAMIE SHEA:
We know that about 8,000 extra Yugoslav forces have been sent to Kosovo in
recent weeks. Again, I think it's a sign of how difficult Belgrade is
finding it to bring the area under total control but as far as NATO ground
troops are concerned, no, the policy is the one that you know which is that
we continue to want to bring the violence to an end using our air assets
and to deploy an international security force thereafter.


Ladies and gentlemen, I'd be grateful if you would kindly evacuate the
press theatre so that we can get our presentation installed and organised
and we'll see you back here in exactly 22 minutes. Thank you very much.