TRANSCRIPT OF BACKGROUNDER
GIVEN BY MR JAMIE SHEA
IN BRUSSELS ON WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 1999

MR JAMIE SHEA:
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I am here for the usual overnight update.


As you know, the Secretary General is currently in Albania, moving on to
the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia this afternoon. He is visiting
not only government leaders and NATO troops, but also refugee camps in both
countries. And if the Gods are on our side, and I hope they will be, we
should be able to have a video link with him at the
3.00 pm press conference.


As he is in the refugee camps today, I thought that I would take a moment
to remind you of what drives the resolve of the Alliance in this campaign,
it is obviously the people of Kosovo, first and foremost those refugees who
want nothing more and deserve nothing more than to be able to return to
their homes and live in peace with their fundamental human rights
protected. And it is because of our concern for the refugees that we will
not follow any false promises of President Milosevic of partial
withdrawals. I have spoken to SACEUR this morning and there is no
withdrawal. The only withdrawal that can count for NATO, as I made very
clear yesterday, is a full withdrawal and with full verification by the
international community that that is actually taking place. Because of the
refugees also, we are continuing to encourage the diplomatic efforts of
others around the world in keeping with the principles that were defined by
the G8 last week and those diplomatic efforts must impress upon President
Milosevic that he must agree to nothing less than our five demands. If
this crisis is to be resolved, and those refugees are to be able to go
back, President Milosevic has to accept each and every one of our five
non-negotiable demands. He must stop the killing; he must withdraw all of
his Army and special police forces from Kosovo; he must accept the
presence of an international security force with NATO at its core to
guarantee peace and stability inside Kosovo, he must allow the
unconditional, unrestricted, unimpeded return of every single refugee; and
he has to work towards a permanent political solution based on the
Rambouillet peace plan.


And I would like to stress that these are not simply NATO's bottom line,
they are also the refugees' bottom line. Because those refugees are
obviously not going to even dare to return to Kosovo as long as the Serb
forces remain, particularly after what has happened over the last few
months. They will not return, every single one makes this clear, without
an international military presence to protect them. So partial withdrawals
or no partial withdrawals, until President Milosevic accedes to our five
key demands, NATO will press on with its Operation Allied Force.


And last night that is exactly what happened. As you know, we had one of
the busiest 24 hour periods in the campaign to date. You have seen from
the list that we circulated just a few moments ago that NATO aircraft
attacked the full range of Milosevic's military forces on the ground in
Kosovo. On numerous occasions we struck tanks, armoured vehicles,
artillery pieces, anti-aircraft artillery, mortars, command post, several
assembly areas and troops, particularly in the Suva Reka, Junic and Stimple
areas. In addition there were also strikes against numerous military trucks.


And I want to stress that even vehicles that the Serb forces try to
disguise and hide to protect them were successfully struck yesterday. So
it proves that we are able to get round that particular difficulty.


At the same time we struck again a number of strategic targets throughout
Yugoslavia, including 5 airfields, 8 bridges and 4 war material sites.
Indeed I would say that the list of targets for once is almost too long for
me to read, that is why you have the details. But I
do want to underline that we had another successful strike against the
Yugoslav Air Force yesterday, destroying 5 MiG 21 fighters and this is
further decapitating the Yugoslav Air Force, and I am pleased to announce
that all NATO aircraft returned safely to their bases.


Indeed over the last 24 hours we conducted the highest number of strike
sorties to date, that is 327 strike sorties, bringing the total number of
sorties overall to just below 20,000 now. And this puts once again
President Milosevic on notice that the pace of our attacks against his
forces in Kosovo will continue, will intensify until he accepts the five
conditions and withdraws his forces from Kosovo.


I would just like to finish by saying that in addition to the North
Atlantic Council meeting, which begins now at 11.00 am, there will be this
afternoon one of our regular meetings with the partner countries of the
Alliance in the EAPC, or Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, that is at 3.00
this afternoon, with our 24 partner countries, during which of course we
will discuss, as we did in Washington at the level of Heads of State and
Government, the situation in Kosovo and exchange information, updates and
impressions.


I have to go quite quickly this morning, you will excuse me for that,
because of the Council meeting, but I will take a few questions.


PAUL:



Does the highest number of strike sorties also mean the highest number of
bombs and missiles, and can you give us a short up-date on the
Apachehelicopters?


JAMIE SHEA:
Without having at the moment an exact figure for the number of ordnance
that was dropped, you can see from the targets that we struck, not simply
targets that we targeted but targets struck from the list today, that it
was a very extensive night of operations indeed. And I again want to stress
that much of the work last night was against the fielded
forces in Kosovo itself. We really now are able, and SACEUR made this
clear to me this morning when I spoke to him just after 9.00 am, to engage
increasingly those fielded forces in Kosovo and put them under pressure.
So I will see if I can give you a figure on ordnance in due course.


As for the Apaches, the Apaches are training, that is almost completed.
And General Jertz has been quite open in telling you that we want those
aircraft to be effective. Now they are not going to be effective if there
isn't adequate training. The pilots have to be familiar with the terrain
of course, they have to work out their tactics. Once those aircraft are
engaged, those helicopters, we want them to be fully effective, and
therefore it is worthwhile making sure that they train adequately for what
is after all going to be a difficult mission, but that is going ahead very
expeditiously in Albania at the moment.


JULIE:



Could you confirm that the Ambassadors have asked the NATO military
planners to concentrate on Kosovo, both because it is more effective at
this point and because they do not want to see any more errors of the kind
that we saw last Saturday in Belgrade?


JAMIE SHEA:
Julie, nobody, not just NATO Ambassadors, but nobody, including NATO
spokesmen, want to see errors of the kind that occurred in Belgrade at the
weekend. SACEUR came up last night, he briefed the Ambassadors in a long
session, and let me just tell you what happened. First of all he gave the
Ambassadors a very detailed account of the operations since the very
beginning, stressing that we were conducting this air campaign in a very
progressive, deliberate way; stressing also, as I have, that we are
increasingly effective against the fielded forces in Kosovo itself; he also
gave, as you would expect, the Ambassadors an account of how the mistake in
targeting had occurred which led of course to the attack on the Chinese
Embassy and assured them that the procedures had been revised in such a way
to minimise the possibility that such an error could occur again.


At the same time, and I can stress this to you, the meeting concluded with
a reaffirmation, not a declaration, there wasn't one, but I can tell you a
reaffirmation that we will continue the operation as we are doing it at the
moment. There will be no change in the operation, it is going to go ahead
and I think last night is a demonstration that it is going ahead.


JOHN:
I was quite interested to read in the briefing this morning the line "Our
campaign to pin down, cut off and take out Serbian forces is gathering
pace". I would just say one would hope so, as the bombing is in its 50th
day today.


JAMIE SHEA:
We never said that this was going to be over after the 5th day. We always
knew, given the large apparatus of repression that Milosevic has gathered
in Kosovo, that it would take a time to degrade that to the level at which
those forces would realise, and President Milosevic would realise, that
they have no option to be withdrawn. But we are getting on with the job
and increasingly successfully and that is what counts.


MARGARET EVANS, CBC:



The NAC was called by the Canadians last night, the special session. They
called it, so they say, because they felt that they were ill-informed about
what had gone on in Beijing because they felt that they weren't being kept
informed properly and they had to call for it.
The fact that they did that, does that say to you that some governments,
you said yesterday that there was complete unity, does it suggest that some
governments are actually losing faith in the way that this campaign is
being handled?


JAMIE SHEA:
No it doesn't Margaret, I can assure you of that. And again, judge us by
actions. You saw last night another very extensive range of air
operations, you have seen in capitals that all governments continue to give
their full support to this operation and that is going to continue to be
the case. SACEUR comes frequently to the Council in order to brief on
operations, he is the Commander and it is his duty to keep the Ambassadors
informed and to make himself available for questions, and that is a routine
thing, it happens every week. The only reason why the meeting was at 7.00
last night, as opposed to 11.00 yesterday morning, was because a number of
Ambassadors who are double hatted were at the Western European Union
meeting in Bremen and of course had to get back in time to listen to
SACEUR, so we did the meeting at 7.00 pm. But SACEUR gave a very full,
very convincing account of the operation and afterwards everybody was
agreed that we have no alternative but to continue, and we will continue.
So I don't see this as any kind ofspecial meeting quite frankly, it was a
normal meeting but it just happened to be at 7.00 pm as opposed to 11.00
am because of the WEU Ministerial.


CHRISTOPHE:
I have two questions. The Russians are reported to demand that Chinese
forces are part of the international forces in Kosovo? And to what extent
will the government crisis in Moscow hamper peace efforts?


JAMIE SHEA:
On the departure of Mr Primakov I have no comment, that of course is
entirely an internal matter for Russia. But I obviously hope and expect
that it would not have any significant effect on the international
diplomacy which is on-going at the moment and which is particularly
intensive this week incidentally, with Strobe Talbott in Moscow today
seeing Mr Ivanov this morning, Mr Chernomyrdin later today; with Mr
Vedrine having been in Moscow, with President Chirac about to arrive. I
think this is very much a week in which Russia and the Allies will be
engaging. And of course we have also the G8 meeting coming up on Friday to
continue the work on implementing, or finding modalities of implementing,
the principles agreed in Bonn by the G8 just a few days ago. So I am
certain that that process is going to go on.


The second point about China, I also learned with interest about the
possibility that Mr Chernomyrdin had raised in Beijing of possible Chinese
participation in a future peace implementation force in Kosovo, an
international security force. NATO has always said that we believe that a
force in which NATO countries at the core come together with other
countries, particularly countries which are members of the UN Security
Council, members of the P5 on the UN Security Council, is something that we
are very receptive to, so let's see how this idea develops. But if China
wants to be part of the solution to Kosovo, that
of course is something that we very much welcome both diplomatically and
also with the possibility of a Chinese presence, but let's see how it
develops.


QUESTION:
A brief calculation of how many MiGs are left, MiG 21 and 29, after
destroying 5 on the ground according to your report, how many more are left?


JAMIE SHEA:
I will get that figure for you at 3.00 pm, I will ask General Jertz to give
you the exact figure. It is quite a high percentage I can assure you of
the Yugoslav overall Air Force now and I know as far as MiG 29s are
concerned that well over 65% have been destroyed, but the MiG figure is a
legitimate question and I will answer that or I will ask General Jertz to
answer that at 3.00. That is a figure that I am certain we have but
unfortunately I don't have it in my head at the moment.