MR JAMIE SHEA AND GENERAL GIUSEPPE MARANI

TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE
GIVEN BY MR JAMIE SHEA AND GENERAL GIUSEPPE MARANI
IN BRUSSELS
ON WEDNESDAY, 28 APRIL 1999

JAMIE SHEA:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to our daily operational up-date. After the
break of the Washington Summit; I'm delighted to be once again joined by
General Marani up here on the podium for the SHAPE operational up-date.
Things are getting back to normal.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Serbia is a country which throughout its history has
had some bitter and tragic experiences standing up to external
dictatorships. It did this heroically in 1915 and then again during the
dark days of the Second World War. The problem of course for the Serb
people today is not to vanquish an external dictatorship, but an internal
dictatorship.

Now over the last few weeks we have had an impression that the support of
President Milosevic is virtually total, that the whole country is
radicalised behind a form of extreme nationalism, that there is no
opposition, that nobody dares to speak out. But I believe that this unity,
based on fear, is beginning to fragment in Serbia today and opposition from
within the country to the campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and to the
course of confrontation with the international community, that that
opposition is beginning to grow. In other words, beneath the permafrost
there are some green shoots of democratic recovery.

Now as you all know, Vuk Draskovic was the first major Serbian politician
and a Vice Prime Minister of the regime to break ranks with Milosevic, and
repeatedly on three occasions in recent days. He has accused Milosevic of
lying to his own people, of isolating the country and of heading on a
meaningless confrontation course with the international community. He'
also advocated a military force inside Kosovo in conjunction with the
United Nations. And since the statements by Vuk Draskovic, we have become
increasingly aware that other politicians across Serbia are also beginning
to feel increasingly uneasy about the direction in which their country is
going, and they're speaking out also in support of the Montenegrin
government, which has come under marked pressure from Belgrade in recent
days, as you know, particularly to merge its security forces with the
Second Yugoslav Army. And therefore, Montenegro is no longer the only
centre of organised resistance to Milosevic's rule.

Yesterday, there was a demonstration by several thousand people in the
Serbian town of Kacak, led by the Mayor, Velimir Iullic, and let me quote
you what he said. He said: "With this prayer, we have joined the
democratic forces and the whole people of Montenegro, who persistently
resist the warmongering policy of Belgrade." Now, the Mayor of Kacak is
from an opposition party whose election victory in 1996 in the municipal
elections was recognised by Milosevic only after months of night by night
pro-democracy demonstrations that many of you of course will remember very
well; it was a demonstration that people power does indeed exist within
Yugoslavia today. And the fact that he has chosen to raise his voice at
this time is a sign that democracy in Serbia has not been extinguished and
that there are many brave people who are willing to take the risks to their
own personal well-being, as well as to their political futures, to speak
out against the extremist and destructive policies coming from Belgrade.

Let me give you some other examples in recent days. Mr Nenad Canak, the
Serbian leader of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina, who has
said: "Belgrade is trying to open some sort of talks again without any
change in their position. I think they are in a serious panic. We knew 10
years ago that what is happening now with the NATO airstrikes had to happen
for the simple reason that he who lives by the sword will die by the sword."

Let me give you another example, Mr Goran Selenovic, the leader of Serbia's
main Social Democratic Party, the Civil Alliance. Now his party has been
broken up and he himself has been drafted into the armed forces, yet
yesterday he said: "The manner in which Belgrade managed the Kosovo crisis
and the talks in France were the prelude to the grave devastation of the
country. Any proposal to overcome the current crisis must involve
essential political changes."

Or take the example of Mr Miodrag Vukovic, a leading figure in the party of
President Djukanovic of Montenegro. He has spoken up in support of
Draskovic's comments as: "courageous and politically responsible. A
different democratic Serbia is emerging from the underground. Draskovic's
voice encourages Montenegrin citizens in the belief that the promising
looking Serbia has not been defeated."

Now I realise that these of course are isolated, if nonetheless brave
figures, but they are political leaders, they represent political
undercurrents inside the country and I find it significant that they have
chosen this particular time to begin to raise their heads above the
parapet. It suggests that the tide may be beginning to turn against
President Milosevic.

You have heard the report of nine Generals having been placed under house
arrest. You have also heard reports that morale is cracking inside the
armed forces in Kosovo. The UCK have reported to us, via Nato governments,
that they have found a large number of uniforms that have been cast aside
by members of the armed forces who have deserted. Many young men are
refusing to obey the call-up, several of them have fled to the Republika
Srpska, or have fled to Hungary and have tried there to obtain visas to go
abroad, even though they risk very drastic sanctions if they are caught
evading military service. And we know that in a special decree issued just
two days ago, the Belgrade government has put all of the private TV and
radio stations in Serbia under military control and forced them all to
broadcast the Radio Television Serbia programme, and Mr Draskovic himself
has been the victim of that and has protested against it. And we know that
the Kosovo Liberation Army in the meantime is getting numerically stronger
and we have reports that as many as 12,000 have now been infiltrated back
into Kosovo. They continue to take losses, they don't have a great deal of
equipment, nor a great deal of training, but they are continuing to fight
and harass the Serb forces.

And perhaps most interestingly of all, in the last 24 hours, a member of
the Socialist Party, Mr Lilic, on a trip to Libya, has also begun to
suggest that the solution for the country is some kind of political force,
international force, under the United Nations inside Kosovo, the very
internationalisation of the Kosovo crisis that Milosevic has been refusing
now for several months. And at the same time, the party headed by his own
wife, Mrs Markovic, JUL, has now issued a statement saying that Belgrade
would be prepared to accept a UN presence in Kosovo.

Now it's too early to know exactly what these possible overtures mean, but
they do suggest that some people are beginning to look for an exit
strategy, that they need a way out and that therefore they have at some
time to recognise the reality and cooperate with the international
community, and we shall be obviously tracking very closely those, do I dare
again call them green shoots of recovery and cooperation, over the next few
days. So there is a democratic Serbia lurking in the underground and we
hope very much that it will be increasingly strong and increasingly vocal,
as it was after the municipal elections in the autumn of 1996, in coming days.

At the same time, NATO continues to give itself the tools to finish the
job. We've had in the last 24 hours a series of new forces coming. As you
know, the United States has called up some reservists, over 2,000, Canada
has announced it is sending 800 troops and 8 CF-18s to the theatre, Turkey
is preparing a force of 1,000, it was announced this morning, to be ready
also for a NATO-led peace implementation force in the area. Hungary has
granted the use of its air bases for tanker refuelling aircraft which will
shortly be arriving. So clearly NATO is getting stronger all the time. I
expect further measures in the next few days to give ourselves all of the
capabilities we need to push this through until we arrive at a successful
conclusion.

I'd now like to ask General Marani to give you the operational up-date for
the last 24 hours. Thank you very much.

GENERAL MARANI:
Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. NATO's air campaign is moving
systematically and progressively to attack, disrupt, degrade and ultimately
destroy Mr Milosevic's military and special police forces, his sustaining
infrastructure, command and control and other targets associated with his
system of repression. Our Allied campaign is working.

NATO forces' support for non-governmental organisations and governmental
institutions of Albania and FYROM continues and contributes significantly
to the relief efforts in these countries.

In the last 24 hours, there were 15 aid flights flown into FYROM with 17
tons of food and water, 25 tons of tents and 37 tons of general stores. To
Albania, there were 28 aid flights, delivering 57 tons of food and water,
63 tons of medical supplies and 180 tons of tentage. This brings to date
the following totals delivered by NATO: 3,174 tons of food and water; 794
tons of medical supplies, and 1,719 tons of tentage.

Now turning to Serbian ground operations in Kosovo : Serb forces continued
to conduct counter-insurgency operations in the Podujevo, Glopocica and
Suva Reka areas, as shown on the map. They also continued their effort to
interrupt the UCK resupply lines in western Kosovo, on the Albanian border,
as shown here. UCK guerrilla operations continued through Kosovo, as
depicted on the map.

Turning to Serbian air force activity, Serb air defence activity was light.
Two shoulder-launch surface to-air-missiles in addition to anti-aircraft
artillery fire. No FRY air force fixed wing activity was noted and once
again, we had no NATO aircraft losses.

I will now turn to Nato operations. Yesterday, Allied aircraft attacked
the following target sets: strategic command and control facilities and
nodes of communication.

This is a video of an earlier attack against the Ivanjica radio relay site,
one element of the command and control structure. The integrated air
defence system was again targeted, as shown. Petroleum storage and
production facilities continue to be targeted, including the facilities at
Pristina and Pozaga.

This is a video of a previous attack against the fuel facility.

We again targeted lines of communication, including the bridges at
Milosevo, Tristinik and Kosmaica. Serbian forces infrastructure were
struck, such as the army training areas at Surdulica and the army barracks
at Belgrade. We also attacked fielded forces in Kosovo, including
multi-launch rocket systems, armoured vehicles, mortars, radars, military
storage areas and a MUP command post, as shown on this video. We await
full battle damage assessment of these attacks. Weather prevented further
attacks on other planned targets.

Yesterday, SACEUR discussed the Serb reinforcement of the VJ forces in
Kosovo. There has been some misinterpretation of this reinforcement. Let
me clarify its significance. It in fact demonstrates two points. First,
the Serb military cannot make good the losses the air campaign has
inflicted on their forces in Kosovo. The Serbs are unable to reconstitute
their forces in Kosovo and must rely on reinforcement with new units from
outside Kosovo. Second, it demonstrates yet again Milosevic's
miscalculations. He thought he could defeat the KLA in a short 5 - 7 day
operation with his existing forces on the ground. This, as the
reinforcement and duration of his operations in Kosovo shows, was
completely wrong and is further testimony to the success of the air campaign.

That concludes the operations briefing for today. Thank you.

QUESTION, Newsweek:
General Marani, is there any indication or can you tell us if any of the
bombing raids being run by NATO now have dropped down to lower altitudes,
if there are there any operations either being conducted by the Apaches, or
by A-10s, or by Harriers, any planes that have dropped down below the three
mile limit in altitude?

GENERAL MARANI:
As you can understand, we will adapt and we are adapting our tactics to the
existing conditions. Now, stating exactly what is the operational
altitude, or the dropping altitude, of our aircraft is not a gift that I
want to make to the gunmen of FRY. But what I can tell you is that of
course we are adapting our tactics to the existing environment and the
three miles, when it's necessary it is three miles, when it's not necessary
it is less than that.

GEORGE FORIS:
Jamie, you were mentioning that the voice of the opposition is getting
stronger and stronger, but are you sure that it means that those persons
would be ready to accept these five points? For example, Mr Draskovic in
Rambouillet was quite against the presence of the international forces and
the referendum in three years time and things like that, so they are
perhaps against Milosevic but do you have any signal that they would be
more co-operative in terms of the final solution?

General, do you have any recent information on what went wrong in
Surdulica, where civilian casualties were taken and do you have any
figures of how many casualties?

JAMIE SHEA:
George, it's too early to say of course just how bold and how widespread
these green shoots of democratic recovery are going to prove to be, of
course, but we wish them well because they are in the interests not only of
the international community, but also of the future of Serbia itself.

Let us say that a NATO-led peace keeping force in Kosovo would be there as
much to guarantee the rights of Serbs in Kosovo as the rights of other
communities. And the whole point of this political strategy that led to
Rambouillet was to keep Kosovo in Yugoslavia, in other words to arrive at a
solution which would enable the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia to be
preserved because obviously the policy of confrontation and sectarianism
was driving Kosovo, we all know this, in the opposite direction, away from
autonomy and towards an aspiration to independence that the international
community did not support. So clearly, there is nothing anti-Serb in what
the international community is proposing, indeed an international presence
in Serbia, in Kosovo, would be something which would undoubtedly stabilise
the situation in the country overall, I believe so.

So I would not say that Mr Draskovic accepts at the moment perhaps the idea
of a NATO-led presence, but what I do know is that the rhetoric is
changing, even among members of the government, away from what we heard a
few days ago where the statement was that members of such an international
military force could only come from friendly countries and would have to
exclude countries which have been participating in Operation Allied Force,
towards statements which say an international presence under the UN would
be acceptable if it included Russia. Now there is a big difference there
and I see that as a sign that a sense of realism is beginning to dawn, and
people are looking for a way out and realise that they have to be more
flexible. But it's too early to say.

But let me make one thing clear : whereas Belgrade has to be flexible,
NATO is not going to negotiate on its key conditions, we are not going to
meet Yugoslavia half-way on those, and for a very good reason, because
we've had the experience before of compromise deals worked out with
Milosevic that proved untenable, that collapsed within a matter of weeks,
which then took us back to the status quo ante and often in worse
circumstances than when we had signed those agreements in the first place,
agreements which were really unverifiable with no effective implementation.
So we have been there before, we are not going to go back there, so we are
going to stay rock solid on our fundamental principles, we believe they are
reasonable and the Serbs should see them as reasonable as well. They offer
the only way out for Yugoslavia at the present time and therefore it 's in
the interests of Yugoslavia to accept them.

GENERAL MARANI:
I can only confirm what this morning has been said by Mr Shea.

QUESTION:
… circumstances?

GENERAL MARANI:
The circumstances, how can I say what has happened, if you put it into
context, is the fact that as General Clark said yesterday, after more than
4,000 attack sorties, one bomb went astray. We told you initially that
although we put all our effort in avoiding collateral damage, things like
this can happen and in fact they happened. Over so many bombs dropped, so
much activity, then I would say that our efforts to prevent collateral
damage are quite successful, within human limits of course.

MARGARET EVANS, CBC :
Jamie, you mentioned the UCK, you said that 12,000 had been infiltrated
back into Kosovo. Are you saying that that is in addition to the UCK
forces that are already there, can you give us a clearer idea on the
number? And General Marani, can you tell us what's happening with the
integrated air defence system, you said it was targeted again, we were told
more than a week ago by British defence officials that the system was no
longer integrated, have they managed to repair it, what's the status there
please?

JAMIE SHEA:
Margaret, on the UCK, the information I have is that without knowing the
exact number, but they have at least 12,000 inside Kosovo, it's difficult
of course to know the exact number in the present circumstances, they are
still able to operate, albeit under obviously very difficult conditions.
They claim in fact to have taken a number of prisoners from the Yugoslav
army, but of course only one such prisoner has been handed over to Allied
authorities in Tirana, that's the Yugoslav Lieutenant of course that you
know about already and who I add is being treated very humanely by the
United States authorities. They are trying also to create two corridors
from Albania into Kosovo which can be used of course not only as resupply
circuits but for the evacuation of refugees and displaced persons in the
safest circumstances. So that's all I have at the moment for you on that one.

GENERAL MARANI:
Going back to the integrated air defence system, any air defence system,
to work at its best, has to be integrated. As you realise, in a conflict
there is a contest between the destruction that are made and the
reconstruction that is made on the other side. If you want, as was stated
a few days ago, if you want an integrated air defence system to remain this
articulated, we must keep up with the reconstruction and therefore
periodically target that system again in order for it to remain non-effective.

DOUG HAMILTON, REUTERS:
General Marani, something I don't quite understand, General Clarke was
quite clear yesterday, he said there were about 40,000 Yugoslav troops and
special police in Kosovo, that they were being reinforced, they were
getting help from the Second Army in Montenegro, he said that this pattern
could continue and we could at any given moment actually see more troops in
Kosovo rather than less before NATO in the summer was able to intensify its
attacks with more aircraft. In other words, he was saying that Milosevic
has not seen fit to withdraw a single soldier so far, despite 4,400
airstrikes. What are you saying now to clarify this?

GENERAL MARANI:
What I'm saying is that if Milosevic wants to put more soldiers in Kosovo,
that is his decision, as well as it is his decision not to comply with the
demands that have been put on to him by the international community. But
let me say that more soldiers means more targets for us and if he wants to
play this game, we are ready for it.

JAMIE SHEA:
Doug, I think it's also a sign of desperation that he ploughs in the
forces, day in and day out, and still is unable to subdue the UCK or to be
in a position where he feels he has effective control over his own
province. I think it's very telling that with 40,000 troops in a place the
size of Wales, he is unable to be in a position where he feels he has
effective control, so I interpret it as a sign of desperation and
ultimately counter-productive.

JAKE LYNCH, SKY NEWS:
Jamie, is this the moment where NATO could help political figures like Mr.
Draskovic by indicating its preparedness not to amend or compromise on the
five essential conditions but perhaps to reconsider some terms of the
Rambouillet accords like for example the unfettered free movement of
international troops throughout the whole of Yugoslavia or their complete
immunity from local civil, criminal and administrative law and is it not
the case that any leader, Mr. Draskovic or anyone else, would find if very,
very difficult to agree such conditions?

JAMIE SHEA:
Well, those conditions operate in Bosnia and I don't think you would argue
for one minute - that by the way is under the Dayton Agreement - that that
in any way is being counter-productive in Bosnia or is impeding the
reconstruction of Bosnia, quite the reverse. If NATO forces enter any
area, it will be under legal arrangements and rules of engagement which
ensure that they can carry out their mandate in an unfettered way
completely but obviously the circumstances of the deployment is something
that is going to have to be looked at closer to the time, as you can well
imagine.

But I want to reiterate once again that as far as the five core principles
are concerned and which you are very familiar with, Jake, we're not going
to compromise on them because to show any flexibility would not only give
Milosevic the feeling that he can negotiate, he can try to seek a way out,
he can play cat and mouse and prolong the agony when we want to shorten the
agony to the extent that we can but would lead to a messy arrangement which
Milosevic would try to undermine and we would be back to square one within
a matter of months. We went through that in October, where the
international community believed it had an agreement and one month or two
months later the fighting resumed, the international verifiers on the
ground were increasingly hampered in going about their business, Milosevic
was surreptitiously reintroducing forces into Kosovo and preparing for his
offensive, so as I say, we have learned the lesson there and we're not
going to repeat that in the future.

MARK LAITY, BBC:
Two points: could you give us an update on where you are on reaching an
agreement on the oil embargo and second, could I push a little bit on the
Surdulica incident, do you have any more details as to what caused it,
technical malfunction, cloud or something of that kind and also there are
reports which there were two bombs that missed. You said one, are you
certain it is just one or is there some doubt as to whether it was one or two?

JAMIE SHEA:
Well Mark, first question to me: on the "visit and search" regime, this is
still being worked by the Military Committee and it hasn't yet arrived on
the table of the North Atlantic Council but I anticipate it will do very
soon and I'll give you a daily update as to its progress. The Military
Committee is looking of course at the strictly military aspects and the
Ambassadors will have to look at the political aspects, particularly the
legal basis, once they have the documents and they'll get to that very soon.

Now as I mentioned yesterday, this is a complicated business, we have to
define the zone of operations, we have to calculate the number of ships
that would be required, we have to calculate how the rules of engagement
would work in specific cases, of course. We also have to see, following
the decision of the Heads of State and Government in Washington, how we
would limit the impact on Montenegro, which is something, as you know,
which features specifically in the Summit declaration. So there are some
complicated things, as the Secretary General explained, when we announce
this and implement it, we have to be sure it's going to work and that all
of the various aspects are being looked at in advance but we're going at it
quickly, the Military Committee has it again today and as soon as it's with
the Council, I'll let you know and as soon as we have a broad-based concept
of operations, I'll comment on the details further.

As for the incident yesterday, I'll ask General Marani to comment on that.

GENERAL MARANI:
When I said that we confirmed the bomb that Mr. Shea was talking of this
morning, I did mean that we can confirm that one bomb went astray. We
cannot exclude that, as you say, another bomb could have been in the same
conditions and therefore have caused some collateral damage but what we can
confirm is that one bomb hit outside the target area.

ANTONIO ESTEVES MARTINS, RTP:
Thank you Jamie. I'd like to go back to what the Secretary General said a
while ago concerning the feeling of the other countries of the area not to
change borders and what you just said repeating that the Alliance always
wants to keep Kosovo inside Yugoslavia. Is it realistic now to address
to the Serbian democrats a message as clear as this, that Kosovo remains
part of Yugoslavia after we go back to the table, that is still the idea
inside the Alliance?

JAMIE SHEA:
Absolutely. The alternatives are two, Antonio, either partition and we
know that partition would re-open the border issue in the whole of the
area. What would be the impact on Republic Serbska of partition and
historical precedents for partition have not been very favourable, quite
frankly, they have often led to antagonism rather than constituting a
solution to a political problem.

Secondly, partition suggests that the only stability in the Balkans is on
the basis of mono-ethnic statelets and yet we know that democracies tend to
be multiethnic societies because multiethnicity breeds a culture of
tolerance, of understanding, of a spirit of compromise, a spirit of willing
to understand if not always embrace the values of your neighbours and our
future for the Balkans is in a multiethnic Balkans because ethnic groups
live on each other's territories. We know this, there are Egyptian and
Muslim, Turkish communities inside Kosovo, even some Croat villages believe
it or not - I didn't realise this myself until today when I learned this.

Similarly, Bosnia, all the countries of the area, Yugoslavia itself is a
highly multiethnic society if you look at Sanjac, if you look Vojvodina and
the rest and so partition is simply a recipe to form monoethnic states that
would be stabilising for the area. The second thing is independence for
Kosovo but that would create many of the same issues.

So no, our formula is for far-reaching autonomy following a transitional
period in which of course Kosovo would have to be under the protection of
the international community and would have to be reconstructed and it's
more likely, in my view, for Yugoslavia to go in a democratic way if part
of Yugoslavia is already a multiethnic, democratic society under the
influence of the international community. We would have a better chance
than if it were hived off completely because as we found, any kind of
partition tends to encourage the extremist parties rather than the
democratic parties in the states that survive.

NEIL KING, WALL STREET JOURNAL:
Jamie, for weeks we heard rather detailed stories from here about the
condition of the displaced people within Kosovo, we heard about diseases,
we heard about possible starvation. There's been a noticeable lack of
such information, especially in Washington, it was rather dramatic. Does
that underline the fact that these people's lot has gotten better, which of
course isn't likely to be the case, or does it actually underline a certain
helplessness on NATO's part to actually come to the aid of these people?

JAMIE SHEA:
Well Neil, this is of course a key question that you ask. We know from
the UNHCR that has been receiving people as they crossed the borders into
Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia that they are not
starving, not yet, but they are undernourished and they obviously do show
the effects of wear and tear, they are in worse physical condition - we
know this - than the people who left at the outset of the current crisis
about a month ago, so clearly there is reason for concern. On the other
hand, two Greek NGOs have managed to get some food in and some doctors,
particularly into Pristina hospital, 19 trucks went just the other day.
They have found by the way in the hospital several people suffering from
shrapnel wounds, which suggests that they have been bombarded in the hills
and have been forced to leave and I reported on this earlier, so there is
concern about their condition.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is trying to gain access to
Kosovo, Mr. Samaruga discussed this in Belgrade on Monday with Milosevic,
and we hope very much this can happen because by far the best immediate
answer is for international relief organisations to have the sort of access
that the Greeks have been managing to achieve. I've even seen,
incidentally, a report that a Red Cross convoy of 12 trucks and two cars is
going today from Nis to Pristina of the Yugoslav Red Cross, which is an
interesting development and additionally, a further Greek humanitarian
convoy is scheduled into Kosovo on 30 April so it seems that some limited
supplies are getting in and I know that certain neutral countries are also
looking at being able to play a role in this respect.

But again, I have to come back to the fundamental point: the only way that
we are going to resolve this is to stop the fighting at the end of the day,
otherwise we are tackling the symptoms of the problem, albeit necessary
because it's always necessary to try to feed people or relieve their
suffering, rather than the root causes which is the repression by the
paramilitary forces.

NATO for its part - and I want to stress this as the Secretary General did
- is not excluding action of its own. Our action is basically in two
areas, first of all the extent to which we can use our intelligence
resources to monitor the movements of these internally-displaced persons
and try to locate where they are better than we can, at least as far as
they are in groups which could be identified through aerial reconnaissance;
and secondly, we are still considering this whole business of air drops,
despite the obvious operational difficulties that you're well aware of and
as soon as either of those two comes to fruition I'll report on that.

QUESTION:
My first question has to do with representations that were made yesterday
regarding the tankers. The statement was made that we are seeing ten
tankers offloading 24 hours a day. Reports from the scene from
journalists who are there are saying that they see very little activity in
Bar and certainly not bring on the scale of a 24-hour offloading. I wonder
if you could clear up the discrepancy there.

And the second question has to do with remarks that General Klaus Naumann
made yesterday in which he suggested there was a flaw within the strategy
of the campaign and that flaw was that NATO was dealing with a reasonable
man and that a responsible person would not let their country be bombed
into rubble; he thinks that now the reality of the intransigence of Mr.
Milosevic seems to almost militate for a rethinking in the campaign asking
the question: How does relentless bombing lead to the political goal, lead
to the objective of removing his troops from Kosovo?

JAMIE SHEA:
OK, well, thank you for that question. I think that the first point
about Bar is that we have given you the information we have. I have
obviously not been in the lucky position of being on the dockside in Bar
for several years but we do know that Milosevic has brought in tankers and
I have even statistics on the amount of oil that he may have been able to
gain over the last few weeks. We also know, by the way, that he is trying
to commandeer from Montenegro control over Montenegro's domestic supply of
oil and fuel, particularly in Bar itself; it's a sign, I believe, of how
difficult the situation has become regarding fuel supplies, the price of
gasoline has shot up, there has been a decree promulgated by the government
to take over civilian stocks of fuel, petrol stations have been
commandeered, buses in Belgrade and other cities are operating at far less
than full capacity in order to be able to purloin fuel, so clearly there is
a great need there.

As far as General Naumann is concerned, I saw his remarks. I don't quite
interpret them the same way as perhaps you do. I think the first point is
that we are very, very far away - and will remain very, very far away -
from reducing Yugoslavia to rubble, quite the contrary. We are taking
every precaution in what we are doing with our targeting, to strike only at
military targets and of course Milosevic can prevent even more destruction
by agreeing right away.

This brings me to the second point, is he an irrational leader? Well, his
habit in the past is that when he really does see that there is no way out,
when he knows fully well that the international community is united and
fully determined, he does, even at the 11th hour - or shall I say the
11.3/4 hour? - seek a way out so I wouldn't quite credit the idea of an
irrational leader who is, if you like, going to go down in a kind of
Wagnerian, if you like, ending. No, I wouldn't do that and I think at the
end of the day there are enough people around Milosevic to persuade him to
do the opposite, to stop that before it happens.

The next remark is that this is an air campaign which is slightly different
from what you may have seen in the past and therefore I wouldn't judge this
air campaign by necessarily the parameters of previous air campaigns. It's
highly accurate, it's progressive, it's moving against the Serb forces in
Kosovo. Over the next few weeks, many additional capabilities are going
to come in and I don't think we should sort of write the history books of
the air campaign before we've lived through this period. We will succeed
in diminishing very dramatically indeed the capabilities of the Serb forces
through the air campaign. There isn't really any other way which would do
it faster and more successfully, quite frankly, at least I haven't seen
another way. There are other suggestions but when you study them, they're
not quite the panaceas that they may seem at first sight.

EKREM KRASNIQI, ZERI:
I will go back to the final solution you were talking a little bit before
about Kosovo. Since '91, the Albanian people have been asking for
independence, since '89, Serbia has refused everything which is more than
autonomy, even autonomy and hearing you talking about partition, I would
like to know which is the message of the NATO Allies to Albanians after 13
months ethnic cleansing, especially the last months. Are you saying that
the message of NATO is: Forget independence, accept autonomy or we will put
in front the partition of Kosovo?

JAMIE SHEA:
Well, I think what most Albanians want, quite frankly, if I can interpret
them, is to be able to go home, to get on with their lives, to go back to
farming their fields or working in their offices or whatever, to
reconstitute their families, to be able to carry out the basic functions of
citizens in any democratic society without worrying that in the middle of
the night somebody is going to come knocking on their door and order them
out at gunpoint and strip them of their possessions, take away their
menfolk or mistreat their women and then confiscate their identity papers
and throw them across the border. I think what most Kosovar Albanians want
is simply to lead, like all of us, a normal life in which the state is the
protector of the human rights of its citizens and not the oppressor of the
human rights of its citizens, where it's the law that applies rather than
the law of the jungle and that is exactly what the international community
is going to do, we are going to provide that protection which is going to
make that happen and I think that that is, at least as far as I see it, the
key aspiration of the Kosovar Albanian people. We continue to believe that
the best future is in a far-reaching form of autonomy which will give all
of the constitutional guarantees that the Kosovar Albanians want without
independence being necessary.

I think what has happened in the past - and I can understand the reason
for this - is that many Kosovar Albanian intellectuals and politicians have
decided that independence was necessary because they saw that they could
not within Yugoslavia have these guarantees of their ethnic identity but
not so much of their ethnic identity, their basic individual human rights
and therefore it was, if you like, an extreme alternative. But once
autonomy becomes possible - and Rambouillet by the way is a very, very
far-reaching form of autonomy, it is very difficult to see anything in
constitutional practice elsewhere in the world that quite goes this far -
they have most of the trappings of full self-government that they will be
content with. The problem is not so much independence versus autonomy,
the problem is how can you live in a democratic Serbia with your human
rights being protected? That's the fundamental problem, at least the way
I see it.

DOMINIQUE THIERRY, RFI:
General, could you give us an update on the deployment of the Apaches and
the accompanying sets of multiple rocket launchers, Bradleys and are the
Americans going to replace the one that burned down and in which condition
could they operate if you are still not controlling the air space in
Kosovo? Could you risk deploying them if portable missiles are still being
launched on a daily basis against NATO planes?

GENERAL MARANI:
Controlling the air space doesn't mean that there isn't the slightest
possibility that a manned portable missile can be fired. Of course,
controlling the air space means other things: that other aircrafts cannot
operate in that air space, that anti-aircraft system cannot operate or if
they do operate, they have to do it with the very great risk of being
immediately destroyed. This is controlling the air space.

Of course, there are risks in this operation but let me say that the Apache
is not the weapon, the Apaches are part of an integrated system composed of
many parts, including aircraft, including sensors, including the Apache,
including everything that NATO can provide to make their operation safer
and more effective.

Of course, the Apache has a very specialised role and this is why they have
been brought into theatre. They are all there, they are getting organised
to start operating. As I told you, it's an integrated operation, they
need to be interfaced with all the other components to operate safely and
effectively and this is why it takes some time but believe me, this is a
very small time compared also with the historical records.

QUESTION:
Le G�n�ral Clark a dit hier que l'OTAN est en train de gagner et que
Milosevic est en train de perdre mais est-ce que chaque jour qui passe
n'est pas au contraire une victoire de Milosevic dans sa guerre contre la
population civile au Kosovo et si � la fin l'OTAN gagne bien s�r est-ce
qu'il y aura assez de Kosovars au Kosovo pour constater la victoire ?

JAMIE SHEA:
Moi je ne pourrai jamais caract�riser ce qui se passe au Kosovo, le
nettoyage ethnique, les exactions contre la population civile comme une
victoire quelconque; c'est une tr�s macabre d�finition de victoire mais
vous savez que parfois dans des conflits, cela a toujours �t� le cas dans
l'histoire, il y a un point tournant, quand les jeux sont faits m�me si,
si vous voulez, la victoire finale prend encore du temps mais � partir de
ce moment -l�; � partir d'un certain moment le r�sultat final devient
in�luctable. Ce n'est pas une question de "si" c'est une question de
"quand" et je pense que nous avons atteint, nous avons d�pass� ce point
culminant. Maintenant notre devoir c'est d'essayer d'�courter le d�lai
qui reste au maximum. Il reste toujours 1 million � peu pr�s de Kosovars
au Kosovo donc je crois que oui finalement il restera beaucoup de gens.
Ils seront dans un �tat tr�s d�licat c'est certain , il faudra reconstruire
les maisons, les aider � reconstruire leur vie, je croire qu'ils d�pendront
de l'aide internationale et surtout de la nourriture internationale au
moins pendant deux ans parce qu'il faudra au moins deux ans pour
reconstituer les r�seaux de distribution et le cheptel, le b�tail et la
production agricole. C'est tout � fait certain il restera une grande
t�che. Mais nous allons pouvoir rapidement renverser le nettoyage ethnique
rapidement malgr� les �vacuations provisoires la plupart des gens reste
proche du Kosovo, ils veulent retourner, ils vont pouvoir retourner
rapidement et donc je crois que finalement nous allons pouvoir tr�s
bient�t atteindre nos objectifs et finalement commencer � donner au peuple
Kosovar une certaine justice. Je sais qu'ils ont beaucoup soufferts mais
au moins ils auront la garantie que c'est fini; que cette fois c'est fini,
qu'on va tourner la page et qu'ils vont pouvoir construire leur avenir
d'une communaut� ethnique sur une base de protection donn�e par la
communaut� internationale et �a c'est ma d�finition de la victoire. Merci
beaucoup.

JAMIE SHEA:
Ladies and Gentlemen, we will be back tomorrow for the usual update at 3
p.m. so let me wish you a very pleasant afternoon in the meantime. Thank you!