TRANSCRIPT OF BACKGROUNDER
GIVEN BY MR JAMIE SHEA
IN BRUSSELS ON TUESDAY, 4 MAY 1999

JAMIE SHEA:
First of all I would like to announce that this afternoon, at the regular
briefing at 3.00 pm, General Jertz will provide you with a detailed
overview of the NATO campaign thus far against Milosevic's fielded forces
in Kosovo.


As you know, our strategy is to pin down these fielded forces, cut them off
and take them out, and General Jertz today will expand on that strategic
thinking and up-date you on our progress to date. But I would like to
emphasise already this morning that we are pinning those forces down. Last
night we continued our pursuit of Milosevic's regular army and his special
police forces, once again attacking the full range of fielded forces in
Kosovo, including armoured vehicles, artillery positions, command posts,
radar sites, surface to air missile support vehicles and troops. The
weather was favourable for most of last night as well.


Secondly I would like to emphasise that we are cutting those forces off.
Even as we pressed the attack against those fielded forces, other NATO
aircraft were involved in pushing our attacks against the strategic targets
throughout Yugoslavia, the aim being to isolate those fielded forces even
further and cut them off from their commanders and their supplies. We
struck hard at command centres, we attacked the Mount Vala national command
bunker, we attacked military command bunkers at Rakovica and Pristina, and
we attacked the special police headquarters at Valjevo.


We also went after many elements of the Yugoslav military communication
links. We attacked radio relay stations, satellite communication
facilities and transmitter sites at Uzetza, Ivanica, Novi Sad and Korjerec.
We also attacked a number of supply depots and lines of communications
that Belgrade uses to resupply their fielded forces. We attacked in this
respect the fuel depot at Porzec, the ordnance repair centre at Kacak, and
the highway bridge at Bari.


And I would like thirdly and finally to emphasise that we are taking those
fielded forces out.


On top of the wide variety of military equipment, such as tanks and
artillery, military vehicles that were struck by NATO aircraft in the last
24 hours, we also attacked Yugoslav aircraft, we have concentrated attacks
at two airfields, the first at Ponikve and the second at Obrva. I would
also like to inform you that all NATO aircraft returned safely to their bases.


Finally, before going to questions, I would like to inform you, as I
mentioned yesterday, that the out-going Chairman of the NATO Military
Committee, General Klaus Nauman, a familiar figure to most of you, if not
all, will come down this afternoon at 4.30 to give a press conference, his
final press conference as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee. There
will be a formal handover ceremony here on Thursday morning, I will give
you details later on for that, when he will be succeeded, as you know, by
Admiral Venturoni of Italy. So today, 3.00 and 4.30 for the press events
and I hope at 3.00 pm also to be able to give you the final programme for
the visit of President Clinton to NATO headquarters in the morning.


JONATHAN:
Two things. Could you say a little more on this alleged incident of NATO
striking a bus yesterday? And also there are press reports from the States
suggesting that the increase in Alliance warplanes being damaged or
whatever, 3 or 4 in the last few days, is indicative of them flying lower.
Now I know you are very reticent about giving altitudes, I am not asking
for specific altitudes, but are NATO planes beginning to fly rather lower
than they have been in the past, particularly against targets such as
fielded forces in Kosovo?


JAMIE SHEA:
Thanks for those questions. First of all on this bus incident, last night,
yesterday afternoon, last night throughout the night the NATO military
commanders have conducted an exhaustive, a thorough check of every attack
that we carried out yesterday. All pilots have been interviewed, all of
the gun camera footage has been reviewed, at least appropriate to the
particular geographical area, and I can state today that we can find no
evidence, I repeat no evidence, of any NATO involvement in this incident.


Now if I can I would like to make an exception to what I normally do here
and go ON BACKGROUND, just to give you a little bit of context. I would
like to go now on background as a NATO official and give you a little bit
more, but on background.


On background I will tell you that where this alleged attack is alleged to
have taken place, which is a village called Savine Vode, which is west of
Pec, we have a very hilly wooded area which has seen very intense
skirmishing between VJ and MUP and UCK forces over the last few days, it is
also classic ambush territory, it is a combat zone. And we know that the
Yugoslav paramilitary, the MUP, routinely use civilian buses to transport
their personnel around Kosovo. Now all of you have seen these TV pictures
and from those TV pictures, at least the view that I have and the view that
many of my military colleagues share, is that this bus could have been
wrecked by small arms or mortar fire rather than hit by a NATO missile. It
could mean that the bus was ambushed there but, and I want to stress this
on background, we don't have any specific information which would confirm
that. All I want to say is two things, and I have said this on the record,
we have no evidence whatever, after a very exhaustive analysis of any NATO
involvement in this incident; and secondly, looking at the circumstances,
other explanations seem plausible too. So that is all I have for the time
being on that one.


To go back ON THE RECORD now, that is it, background finished, back on the
record, I think that if you look at the number of sorties that we have
carried out, well over 14,000 and probably closer to 15,000 after last
night's operations, the number of NATO aircraft which have been hit by
bullets or anti-aircraft fire is extremely small. And I would see the
answer here Jonathan, not a question of altitudes, and I am not going to
comment on altitudes, but simply a question of the intensity of our air
operations, and also of the fact that the Yugoslavs in the last few days
have been using their air defence a lot more, in other words they are
firing everything they can get their hands on up into the air, there has
been more activity in terms of launching Sams and classical anti-aircraft
fire, even if much of it is unguided by radar systems, because we have
jammed those radar systems quite effectively. And so obviously if you are
saturating your airspace with anti-aircraft tracer fire, the chances are
that a NATO aircraft may be hit sooner or later, that is obvious.
Fortunately in many cases as you know the NATO aircraft have managed to
make emergency landings, the pilots are OK and as you know in the two
instances where aircraft crashed, although we do not have definitive
accounts as to how that happened, the two pilots were rescued. So I think
that is the explanation rather than the question of altitude, which I don't
want to comment on.


GEORGE:
Could you say some words on the recent developments on the diplomatic
field, you know something on these famous 4 points of Milosevic and also
the result of Chernomyrdin in Washington. Do you have any comment, any
reaction? And also there was a report that the American President
announced the possibility that the airstrikes might be suspended
temporarily, is it some American initiative or something which was
discussed or envisaged already inside NATO?


JAMIE SHEA:
No, I think the President's remarks, which I heard, were very clear
yesterday and as you know other senior US officials have also confirmed
what the President said, which is that Milosevic must meet the 5 conditions
of the international community. President Clinton was totally unambivalent
on that yesterday afternoon. The five are: stop the killing; Serb troops
out; international force in; return of all refugees; and political
settlement on the basis of Rambouillet. And I also think that the President
was very clear too that what we are looking for is equally clear and
equally unambivalent evidence that Milosevic is not only affirming that he
is going to meet those 5 conditions verbally, but that he also shows action
in terms of beginning to withdraw those forces and making it clear that
those forces are leaving, and all of them are leaving. So our conditions
are clear, the President restated those conditions yesterday and I don't
think you can see this as implying any change from our previous position.


Secondly, on the diplomatic front, well obviously I have always made it
clear that we want a diplomatic solution here and we are going to join
every effort to achieve a diplomatic solution provided that it is on the
basis of those 5 conditions. At the risk of repeating what I always say,
but sometimes repetition is not a bad thing, we believe that anything short
of those 5 conditions would not represent a solution, it would represent
perhaps some sort of temporary relief, but we would soon be back in the
same problems where we are today. Those 5 conditions is a sine qua non of
achieving peace, not just peace but peace with justice. You see for us
peace is important, but peace to last has to be peace with justice and only
those 5 conditions deliver peace with justice.


Of course the talks between Russia and NATO Allies are going to go on. As
you know, the G8 I understand had a successful meeting at the level of
Political Directors, Mr Chernomyrdin goes up to New York today to see the
UN Secretary General. We are very pleased that Russia is engaging with us
in such a forthright way to work through the differences that we may have
to try to achieve, and we hope we can achieve, a common position. The
Allies are also engaging with Russia, as you know we are going to continue
that effort, but my feeling is we are not quite there yet, I think that is
the sense, but obviously the work is going to go on.


JULIE:
There was a report about a missile strike at the Morina command post, the
border post between Albania and Kosovo, I wonder if you could fill us in on
that? And secondly, there has been, or there seems to be, an increased
activity on the part of Yugoslav troops in terms of their air defences, is
there any indication that they have been holding them in abeyance until the
Allied troops fly lower?


JAMIE SHEA:
On the first one, one of the big problems that we have had in recent days
is the fact that Serbs consistently shell villages in northern Albania, and
as I have said the problem is not only is that a violation of Albanian
territory, but secondly many refugees are in that area, particularly in
Kukes, about 140,000, and they are obviously at risk from that kind of
activity, and in fact some members of the international relief
organisations have come close to being injured a few days ago in this
shelling. So clearly we are going to do what we can to destroy those
artillery pieces close to the border which are responsible for that firing,
and that was what we were doing the other day because those artillery are
very close to the border.


JULIE:
… that they were going after?


JAMIE SHEA:
Yes, we go after Serb artillery, mortars and all of that, which are
lobbying shells into Albania and the Serbs have already terrorised the
Kosovar Albanian population inside Kosovo and I think it is rather macabre
that they continue to threaten them with these shells once they are outside
Kosovo. It is bad enough that they are condemned to be refugees, albeit
temporarily, without having then to suffer the added danger of being
shelled by artillery across the border. So we will continue to do that,
naturally.


On the business of the air defence, I think I gave my answer there when I
hopefully answered Jonathan a moment ago, that the Serbs of course have a
big air defence, we have known about that all along, and obviously they
will try to use it to the best of their ability. But I think the fact that
they have achieved so few hits in so many thousands of sorties by NATO
aircraft night, after night, after night, particularly given the enormous
number of NATO aircraft which are now flying 24 hours a day, shows that we
have got that problem under control even if we can't eliminate all risks,
as you know. And there is always a chance, as I said earlier, of an air
defence system hitting a NATO plane because of a lucky strike, that is why
our pilots have to continue to strike the air defence every night because
it is something that you can never say that you have entirely eliminated.
The Yugoslavs can always try to patch it back together again, maybe not as
an effective air defence for the whole country, but to give it local
effectiveness and it is something we take very seriously, and we take our
pilot protection very seriously.


JOHN:
If my memory serves me, we haven't heard anything in the past couple of
days about the hundreds of thousands of displaced people inside Kosovo. At
one point there were discussions in the NAC I believe about whether an air
drop of relief assistance to these people was feasible. Are those
discussions still going on?


JAMIE SHEA:
John, those discussions are still going on and I did yesterday spend some
time in my briefing dwelling on the plight of Prizren and the 50,000 people
who have been displaced from Prizren, which is the latest town cleansing
operation that we know about, and which is now well documented by the way
and we have got lots of evidence now, not just from refugees but from
international organisations too on the plight of those poor people.
Clearly this remains a major concern, we know that, but I have to come back
to my fundamental point that aid drops, if they are to be done, carry great
risks, we know about those. Even if they were done in a very intensive
way, they would not succeed in bringing food to all of these displaced
people. And why are they suffering? They are suffering of course because
they are being moved around by Milosevic, because they have been ordered
out of their homes, and because the Serbs as I said yesterday, according to
the World Food Programme, are refusing to sell them food or supplies, or
even burning food shops which they used to frequent.


Clearly the refugees that are arriving in neighbouring countries are in a
worse physical condition than what happened some time ago. This makes us
all the more determined obviously to carry on and drive the Serb forces out
of Kosovo, because the only way we can address this humanitarian crisis is
by stopping the fighting. It is like that old Chinese proverb of feeding a
person for a day with a fish or teaching that person to fish, and we have
to go for the fundamental solution of this problem. But again, this is
something that is still under review. But even the international aid
organisations acknowledge that if NATO began to air drop food, not only is
there no guarantee that it would actually get to the right people of
course, but it would also help the Serbs to better locate where these
internally displaced people actually are and therefore they would then be
able to move against them, and that is again a risk that you have to factor
into all this. The best way we can help these people is to stop the
fighting and that is by the way what these people want us to do.


MTV:
There were reports saying that Yugoslav forces from time to time attack
NATO soldiers in Macedonia along the border, and there were some reports
saying that this caused some concern on the NATO side. Do you have any
further information on that about the situation on the Macedonian side?


JAMIE SHEA:
We know of course, as you do, that three US Servicemen, now thankfully
free, were captured by Yugoslav forces in the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia, so this is certainly a threat that we take seriously, but most
of the incidents that have occurred in the Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia have been people who maybe are sympathetic to Belgrade, ethnic
Serbs living there, who have stoned the vehicles of KFOR troops while they
have been driving up and down. Obviously this is something that we take
seriously because we are very concerned with force protection and we have
looked into safety regulations for our forces to ensure that they are not
exposed to this type of risk. But I think the problem has been more at
that level than at the level of infiltrations of Yugoslav forces or
deliberate military attacks, but obviously force protection is an extremely
important criterion.


PATRICIA:
We are hearing reports from the United States that the NATO or the US, and
this isn't clear, who holds the two Yugoslav military prisoners, first of
all is it NATO or is it the United States?


JAMIE SHEA:
Patricia, I said the other day if you remember, I was asked this question
and I said they were in the custody of the US military authorities and the
US military authorities have the responsibility for that decision.


PATRICIA:
So what are you hearing about whether they will be released?


JAMIE SHEA:
I have absolutely no comments on that and I have no information either.
That is something that you will have to address to the US military
authorities.


PATRICIA:
And why is it US military when they are part of a NATO operation?


JAMIE SHEA:
Because they happen to be in the hands of the US military authorities and
the US military authorities will take the decision in that case.


PATRICIA:
Even though they are part of a NATO operation?


JAMIE SHEA:
Yes.