TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE
GIVEN BY MR JAMIE SHEA, MAJOR GENERAL WALTER JERTZ AND
COMMANDER FABRIZIO MALTINTI
IN BRUSSELS ON THURSDAY, 13 MAY 1999

JAMIE SHEA:
Ladies and Gentlemen, good afternoon, welcome to today's briefing.


Last night, as you know, NATO carried out an extensive and effective series
of attacks against the Yugoslav ground forces in Kosovo. NATO struck
several armoured vehicles, also near Pristina artillery positions, as well
as troops and vehicles. We also struck at troops and vehicles, and again
artillery, near Suva Reka and east of Urosevac. But last night we
concentrated our efforts notably in the western part of Kosovo, attacking
troops, armour and artillery west of Djakovica and all the way south
towards Prizren.


Now these attacks, together with those of yesterday, show that we are
focusing now with success on those who are responsible for the killing.
Those who once did all of the heavy shooting are now on the receiving end.
Instead of hounding, they are being hounded, and this is the way it will
continue until President Milosevic and his regime accept the five
conditions of the international community: stop the killing; pull out
your forces; allow an international security force; let the refugees go
home; and agree to negotiate seriously.


President Milosevic and his regime in Belgrade haven't yet agreed to
recognise and respect those five key demands. But at least President
Milosevic has begun to recognise reality. He said yesterday, on the eve of
Yugoslavia's Security Day - a strange title in today's circumstances - that
"many members of the security forces bravely gave their lives and their
sacrifice and this is a bright example of their heroism and loyalty to
their people and fatherland". So President Milosevic at least now is
acknowledging that his forces have paid and are paying a heavy price for
their activities in Kosovo. This is one of his statements which is
undoubtedly true.


But I would like to emphasise that all of those Yugoslav soldiers did not
have to leave their lives in Kosovo. Milosevic had many opportunities to
settle this crisis peacefully. Even his adversaries - the Kosovo
Liberation Army - agreed to bury the war hatchet and they signed the
Rambouillet peace agreement. But to paraphrase Frank Sinatra, President
Milosevic preferred to settle it his way. If he had not done so, those
Yugoslav soldiers would be alive today, so their bravery and sacrifice are
more an exercise in futility than in loyalty and patriotism. Thousands of
statesmen, diplomats and politicians wanted a peaceful solution to this
crisis. One man did not.


At the same time today NATO's leaders are out and about reaffirming their
commitment and NATO's commitment to this operation and to our
non-negotiable key objectives. President Chirac is in Moscow meeting with
the Russian leadership and engaging Russia in the diplomatic process, and
he will be speaking from Moscow shortly. Prime Minister Blair, receiving
the Charlemagne Prize at Ucken this morning, has delivered a clear message:
"No compromise, no fudge, no half-baked deals". And Prime Minister
Jospin, in introducing Prime Minister Blair this morning said clearly:
"That peace within the European Union is not sufficient if it co-exists
with violence outside the borders of our Union. Let's not be afraid of the
words. Crimes against humanity are being perpetrated in the heart of
Europe." And in a few moments President Clinton in Washington will deliver
a major address on Kosovo at the National Defence University.


Yesterday the Secretary General of NATO, Dr Javier Solana, visited Albania
and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. He spoke to the leaders of
both countries. He expressed NATO's support and appreciation for their
efforts under difficult circumstances. He expressed once again NATO's
solidarity with these neighbouring states and said that NATO would not
allow them to be threatened. And he heard from them directly how much they
want and need NATO to be successful in this Kosovo crisis, not simply so
that they can be relieved of their refugee burden, but also and more
importantly, so that they can be stable, secure and successful democracies
without Milosevic's Sword of Damocles of insecurity permanently dangling
over their heads.


The Secretary General engaged them on the ideas that NATO is currently
developing as part of the south east European initiative and the stability
pact to help those countries build a more secure and integrated future. He
also engaged them on the membership action plan which NATO agreed at the
Washington Summit which will help them to prepare more actively for future
NATO membership.


The Secretary General also visited the AFOR and KFOR soldiers, 20,000 in
all, in both countries and saw at first hand the very good work that they
are doing to help with the refugee crisis. At the moment AFOR is building
2,000 refugee places a day. We plan to have 59,000 places by mid-May and
172,000 by mid-June.


AFOR is also helping to improve Albania's infrastructure, particularly its
roads and its airports and this will help its future economic development.
And in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia there is now surplus
capacity - surplus capacity - for refugees. And the Secretary General also
saw the excellent cooperation between NATO and the lead agency, the UNHCR,
and we have asked Commander Maltinti to come back today and brief you in
detail in a moment on these humanitarian efforts.


But finally, and perhaps most significantly, the Secretary General visited
two refugee centres, Elbason in Albania and Segrane in the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia. The Secretary General assured the refugees that
NATO would create the conditions for them to go home. They all expressed
their support for NATO's air campaign. They all said that NATO's five
conditions are their five conditions. And as you saw on TV, they chanted
"NATO, NATO" as the Secretary General went through the camps.


As the Secretary General was leaving Segrane yesterday evening, one old man
came up to him and said that he had been hiding for several weeks in the
mountains of Kosovo to escape the Serb forces. He said he had seen his
family murdered and his home burned. But he told the Secretary General:
"Bomb us. Destroy our houses. Kill our people, if you must. But whatever
you do, do not stop the air campaign. Do not stop until Milosevic has been
defeated." And NATO can say to that man that we will do all we can not to
harm the Kosovar Albanian people, nor the Serb people for that matter, and
we will do all we can not to destroy their homes. But we will do all we
can to stop Milosevic and to make sure that those people return to their
homes.


I would like now to ask General Jertz to give you the operational up-date,
and then Commander Maltinti will brief you on the humanitarian situation.


GENERAL JERTZ:
Good Afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen.


The military operations briefing today will include an overview of the
current status of humanitarian operations by Commander Maltinti of SHAPE,
as already mentioned.


Let me start with some more clear words. Despite reports in the Serb media
we have not, repeat we have not, detected any evidence that Serb ground
forces are leaving Kosovo so far. However, we strongly believe that the
effectiveness of our recent air strikes against ground forces in Kosovo has
caused some tactical redeployment in the forward areas, probably to seek
better refuge or to regroup.


Let me now be more specific on what we achieved in the last 24 hours. Our
operations did go on, striking a full range of Serbian ground forces in
Kosovo, particularly in the Prizren, Stimulje, Suva Reka and Junik areas.
Targets included the 211th, the
125th and the 243rd brigades. We hit armour, revetted vehicles, trucks,
artillery and mortars, troops in the open and a surface to air missile
vehicle.


Our operations began with an early morning strike package which
successfully attacked bridges at Milosevo and Olata, military vehicles and
armour near Prizren, a storage tunnel, a Sam 6 site near Prizren, Sam
standing for surface to air missile.


By mid-morning a package including Jaguars, F16s, Harriers, Etendars and
EA6Bs, … hit numerous targets, including the radio relay station at
Metrovica, an artillery position near Prizren and the Morina highway bridge.


Mid-day operations included strikes against petroleum facilities near
Piranum, plus a command post, several tanks and armoured vehicles in
southern Kosovo.


So in summary, this slide shows the targets we struck last night within
Kosovo. We also destroyed five aircraft in the open. It was 1 MiG 21 and
4 Super Galebs, the MiG 21 at Nis airfield and the other 4 on an airstrip
near Prizren.


Co-ordination of our air assets was once again very effective. To give you
an example on that. One of our unmanned reconnaissance vehicles located a
vehicle refuelling point near Prizren. We quickly redirected a flight of
fighters and destroyed the storage area and several fuel trucks within less
than an hour.


In addition to our air operations in Kosovo, we also attacked strategic
targets in Yugoslavia, including Obrva and Patanica airfields, radio relay
sites at Starapazova and Novi Sad, plus others as shown on the slide.


This information was as complete as possible when the briefing began today.
More detailed mission reports of the attacks are still coming in. I
already explained to you about battle damage assessment. We will up-date
you more completely as that information is analysed and made available.


Air crews report that the air defence activity was relatively low. There
were only 8 surface to air missiles fired. And once again I am very
pleased to report that no Alliance aircraft were lost.


As I have reported to you, we have made great strides in recent days
against Serb forces on the ground, both in Kosovo and against other targets
throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Indications are that the
positive trend continues today, especially in Kosovo.


Coming now to a very short up-date on numbers, however please bear in mind
what I have said over and over again, numbers as such are not a very
precise indication of combat capability of a unit. The shortages of food,
fuel, ammunition, the latter leading to a decrease and reduction of morale
of the soldiers must also be taken into consideration.


Since my presentation last week concerning the Serbian ground forces in
Kosovo, we told you we had destroyed 306 pieces of heavy equipment. We
have now raised this figure up to 432. We have now struck over 20% of his
critical inventory. Additionally we have in the meantime destroyed
two-thirds of the Serbian ammunition production capacity. In fact, this
image shows a post-strike assessment of the Kacak ammunition production
plant. You will notice significant damage as indicated by the circles. In
particular, please note the absolute destruction of the building in the
upper right of the picture. Our bombs hit the building but the massive
destruction you see is a result of the secondary explosion of ammunition
stocks within the building.


This, Ladies and Gentlemen, concludes my portion of today's operational
briefing and I would now like to introduce and hand over to Commander
Fabrizio Maltinti of the Italian Navy.


COMMANDER MALTINTI:
Thank you Major General. Good Afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen.


I am happy to tell you that since last time I was standing on this podium,
a great deal of progress was done in the humanitarian relief effort. As
you already know, Alliance troops have continued to try and improve the
quality of life of the refugees. Besides continuing to support the United
Nations High Commission for Refugees, the international organisations and
non-governmental organisations, NATO troops are heavily involved in other
activity such as road repairing, improving airfield capability and
assisting in refugee registration and transportation.


In Albania, NATO troops are currently building 10 cities for about 50,000
refugees, as was just mentioned. This new centre should be ready by the
next month. Furthermore, the Kukes airstrip is now functioning regularly
and military transport aircraft are bringing supplies and equipment to
operate the airstrip on an around the clock the basis.


At present, as was briefed by General Jertz a few days ago, to support the
humanitarian relief operation there is a sizeable force of just under 7,000
NATO troops in Albania and about 14,000 troops in the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia.


This slide shows the number of refugees and internally displaced persons in
accordance with the UNHCR estimates. In the left corner you can see the
total number of displaced refugees move into the various nations.
Yesterday, 2,586 refugees flew out of third countries and about 1,500
refugees are planned to depart today.


Based on UNHCR refugee reporting it is estimated that approximately 590,000
displaced persons are still hiding inside Kosovo. This slide shows their
concentration. The majority of refugees over the last few days come from
Metrovica. They were among the most traumatised refugees to cross the
border since the crisis began. Virtually all, men, women and children,
were in tears. There were wounded among them, including young children.
The Metrovica refugees had left their homes in a series of villages
anywhere from 4 - 6 weeks ago and they have been wondering on foot ever
since in a mandarin Odyssey (phon). They stayed for several weeks in a
village identified as Zablace in the Eastok area. And the group had walked
the last stretch to the border virtually non-stop for three days. The
refugees said as many as 200 men had been taken out of the column before it
reached the border, including some at the village identified as Landovica
near Prizren.


The next slide will give you a better feeling for the refugee flow across
the Kosovo border in the last 6 weeks. Here is represented the day by day
flow into Montenegro, FYROM and Albania. This second chart shows the total
number of refugees entered in the same six weeks.


The next four slides provide the information about the refugee camps
location and situation in both FYROM and Albania. The first slide shows
the location of refugee camps in FYROM. Although the border was opened in
the last days, only a few refugees crossed into FYROM. There are no signs
of refugees waiting to cross from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia side.
The transit centre of Blace, which normally holds thousands, was deserted.


As you can see yesterday 19 flights landed in Skopje, bringing the total
number of aircraft landed up to 526.


Here is the breakdown of the refugee camp occupancy in FYROM. As you well
know, we have prepared plans to help UNHCR to move up to 6,000 refugees
from FYROM to Albania. Of course this will depend on the willingness of
those refugees to actually leave and to be resettled in this way. At the
same time we are assisting in the temporary evacuation of refugees to other
countries. They are now leaving, as I said, at the rate of about 2,000
each day.


I used on purpose the expression "temporary' evacuation to stress the fact
that NATO is determined, in accordance with the UNHCR policy, to reassure
the displaced refugees that they will ultimately all be able to go back to
their homes under international protection.


This slide presents the location of refugee camps in Albania. In Albania
the situation has been stable and supportable during the last week.
Despite a large number of refugees, food supplies are not a problem and
water is sufficient for now. Food stockpiles allowed sustainment for two
months. The Allied Force and the NATO command are now to meet in their
engineer unit and empower to build as many refugee centres as possible in
both western and south Albania with the aim to have the camps up and
running by next month.


As I already mentioned, the engineers unit are also repairing the road
between Puke and Kukes to enable more evacuations from border areas to take
place by road. As you can see yesterday, 20 flights landed in Tirana,
bringing the total number of aircraft up to 773.


Here is the breakdown of the Albanian refugee camp occupancy. The total
number of refugees, including the refugees living at home with Albanian
families. NATO's major concern is that some of these camps, Koce for
example, are in exposed sites above 3,000 feet. If these sites remain
tented they will be unsuitable during the winter. NATO and UNHCR are
working together to decide how to best solve this problem.


You may recall the great confusion we had in both FYROM and Albania when
the massive refugee exodus started a few weeks ago. I am happy to show you
the next picture to demonstrate how the quality of life, while not perfect,
has improved. This is a picture of the camp of Quatron in Albania.


This is the Grane camp. On this Grane camp picture it is interesting to
note the two expansion areas which once built will bring the camp capacity
up to 40,000 refugees capacity. And talking about Segrane, Segrane was one
of the two camps visited yesterday by the Secretary General. A few moments
ago I was with the Secretary General who told me how impressed he was by
the close relationship among the UNHCR, more than 20 NGO organisations and
NATO, all led by a German General, to help the 30,000 refugees that they
have there now.


This is the camp of Bojana and this is Stenkovac One camp.


This last slide shows the principal humanitarian aid delivered in both
FYROM and Albania. By the way, I obtained this picture from UNHCR. The
total amount of humanitarian aid imported into countries is up to 4,528
tons of food and water, 1,568 tons of medical supplies, 2,302 tons of
tentage and 3,249 tons of other equipment, for a total of 11,447 tons.


As you know, humanitarian aid convoys that alleviate IDP suffering are now
moving into Kosovo, day after day and increasing in number. There were 14
of them yesterday. Two days ago one of you asked about their safety. Let
me explain. In these current hostilities these convoys travel under risky
conditions. However NATO, in co-ordination with the UNHCR and the
Intentional Committee of the Red Cross, has put in place the mechanics to
make every possible effort to minimise this risk to them. This
co-ordination, which will soon be finalised, involves guidance on such
issues as advance notification, the … route and itineraries, number and
type of vehicle and details of overnight location.


This concludes my brief, Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you for your kind
attention.


QUESTIONS & ANSWERS


QUESTION (CNN):
Jamie, you mentioned earlier that Javier Solana had received this account
from an old ethnic Albanian man that he had watched his family die. Do you
think that NATO would have been able to stop the deaths of more Kosovars
had they committed ground troops to Yugoslavia instead of depending on an
air campaign which until now has clearly failed?


JAMIE SHEA:
Matthew, when you get somebody like Milosevic who is determined to do this,
who has got his forces in Kosovo, who has been building them up for a
while, who is without scruple, it is difficult in the short term to stop
this type of thing happening but the most important thing is not to allow
it to happen in the long run and that is what we are doing.


I don't believe that ground forces would have avoided the ethnic cleansing
that we have seen at the moment, it would have taken a long time to get
those ground forces ready, Milosevic would have seen those forces arrive
and would probably have carried on his ethnic cleansing but what is
happening is that now he is paying a price for the ethnic cleansing, his
troops are paying a price which was not the case before and secondly, we
are clear that the refugees, those who have been thrown out, are going to
go home, it is going to be reversed, Milosevic is not going to get away
with it. This situation is purely temporary, it is not the future of
Kosovo what we are seeing at the moment. The future of Kosovo is that the
Kosovars will be able to live in their homeland and I believe that
Milosevic knows that. If he would acknowledge it and agree to the five
conditions, then of course we would be able to settle this crisis
immediately. But we are not going to give up, we are going to keep on
going for these people to go home so their exile, no matter how bitter, is
a temporary exile and that is what the Secretary General made clear to them
yesterday when he visited them in the refugee camps.


MICHAEL:
Jamie, I noticed that in the humanitarian briefing a reference was made to
the plight of refugees during the winter in their camps in Albania. Is
NATO planning on achieving its military and political objectives some time
this year so that the refugees might be returned before the winter or is
NATO contemplating an open-ended operation that could extend into next year
with the refugees possibly being returned next spring or summer?


JAMIE SHEA:
Well Michael, we want to get those refugees back as soon as possible but
the timing is going to depend on Milosevic, he is going to have to decide
at which point he wants to accept the five conditions. Is he going to do
it, as General Jertz has said, with a quarter of his equipment and armed
forces in Kosovo now suffering serious damage? Is he going to wait for it
to be 50 per cent? Does he want it to be 75 per cent or does he want his
whole army to be destroyed? It is up to him really to decide at which
stage he is going to accept the five conditions. What he does know is
that NATO is not going to give up, we are going to keep going.


We have shown already, Michael, that we are perfectly able to deal with the
situation of the refugees. We have built tents, as you could see on the
briefing; we have made them comfortable, we have rebuilt roads, we have
evacuated them to safer areas in conjunction with the UNHCR; we have set
up sanitation facilities and by the way, it is not just winter, the summer
is also a difficult time for refugees if you lack proper sanitation, if you
have an outbreak of disease and therefore a great part of the NATO
operation is the "medivac" type of operation of setting up field hospitals
and medical centres. The idea that winter is a bad time for refugees but
every other time is fine - which of course you are not saying - is not
right. Every time is a bad time if you are a refugee so clearly we want
to get those people back as soon as we possibly can.


No, we are not thinking in terms of a long drawn-out operation. The
pressure is building on Milosevic, I can't say when he's going to give in
but he won't take too long, I'm certain of that.


MARK LAITY (BBC):
General Jertz, you said - I think if I heard you right - 306 heavy vehicles
in your last briefing and now 432. Could you be specific what you mean
by "heavy vehicles" and where, is it just Kosovo or a wider area than that?


Jamie, we have had now several nights without any attacks on Belgrade. Is
there any significance because I know there have been doubts before but
this is a long gap? You have emphasised very heavily President
Milosevic's personal culpability for what is going on and does this raise
the question as to whether you should be going more for leadership targets,
him, where you can? I know it is difficult to find an individual but to be
going for leadership targets which you don't seem to be going for in the
way that you were?


MAJOR GENERAL JERTZ:
Let me re-emphasise again that in the last no more than seven days we
really were very successful in hitting many more assets on the ground in
Kosovo and that is why the numbers did go up the way I already explained.
Out of the 432 pieces of Serb heavy equipment, when I say "heavy equipment"
I am talking artillery and tanks and these are the ones which we really are
planning to attack which we want to destroy because they are the most
important and the most dangerous ones because they give shelter and make
sure that the military police and also the paramilitaries are able to carry
on and that is why we do have to continue to attack those too.


MARK LAITY:
When you say "tanks", you don't mean armoured personnel carriers or other
vehicle, just tanks and armour?


MAJOR GENERAL JERTZ:
Tanks and very heavy stuff. You know, there is also some very heavy stuff
like personnel carriers which look pretty much like tanks and they can
shoot, they do have a cannon unfortunately.


JAMIE SHEA:
Mark, three things to say in reply to your question. The first thing is
that we have not changed the target list in any way, all of the categories
remain on the target list but I repeat that we have not by any means
attacked cities like Belgrade every night of this operation. The decision
on what is the priority of the day or the night is in the hands of the
military commanders and if you have already severely damaged or destroyed
the Ministry of Defence or the MUP headquarters in Belgrade once, you don't
have to do it twice, it is done already that is clear but the targets
remain the same, as I have said, on all of these occasions. Any facility
which is being actively used to plan, conduct the military activities in
Kosovo won't be a sanctuary and is a legitimate target so I would not read
any interpretation into that.


On the other hand, we have also made clear that we want to put the emphasis
on those who are doing the killing. Obviously we want to try to stop that
as soon as we can and of course you have seen therefore a notable
intensification of strikes against the forces on the ground in Kosovo, the
sharp end of the operation because we have already very seriously, through
the strategic targets, disrupted the lines of communication, the fuel
supplies, the communications, the air defence system and all the rest so we
won't neglect those other targets but I think over the coming days you will
see as much emphasis as possible on the forces inside Kosovo itself.


As for the leadership issue, I did notice that the Chief Prosecutor at the
War Crimes Tribunal, Louise Arbour, said the other day that when she starts
her investigations into the war crimes she will not start from the bottom
up, which was a little bit what the International Tribunal did in
investigating Bosnia war crimes, but she will start from the top down this
time round. And of course, as I have said already, we do not target
individuals but we target the leadership complex, the power structure which
is of course responsible for the activities of the armed forces and that
will continue to be the policy.


DOUG:
Jamie, I am told that there will be reports in the German press tomorrow,
reliable reports, that the German government of Chancellor Schroder is not
satisfied with the explanation given by Washington that the Chinese embassy
was purely a map error and that Germany now believes that the maps were
indeed up-to-date and did show the embassy and I think NATO is aware that
Schroder is worried about this. Is it possible that one of the allies is
not sharing full information with the others at this point and is that not
a danger when you may be reaching an end-game in which keeping your nerve
and your unity is everything?


JAMIE SHEA:
Doug, let me make it clear that it is not simply the German government that
shares the concern about the mistake with the Chinese embassy, I can assure
you that Germany is not alone in that respect, all allies felt exactly the
same way about this incident and all allies have listened to SACEUR, who
was here during the week, explain the circumstances of the mistake and also
explain in detail the procedures which have been put in place to revise the
targeting database, to look again at the intelligence-collection cycle, to
ensure that that type of mistake does not happen again so SACEUR has
briefed the ambassadors. Of course, every country has a right to ask for
more information and I can assure you that that information is shared among
all of the allies but the important thing is that we have acknowledged the
mistake, we have identified the mistake and we have taken the necessary
steps to ensure that it doesn't happen again.


NEIL:
To pick up on the winter question, I would like to ask a question of
Commander Maltinti. Could you bring us up to speed a little bit on
strictly the elements at play here? Let's say that there was a settlement
made within the next three weeks, what will it take to get these people
back and from the planning point of view what is the likelihood that a
large number of them will actually still be in Albania or in Macedonia once
the snow starts to fly?


COMMANDER MALTINTI:
First of all, as Dr. Shea says, we hope that when the snow starts to fly
they will be all back in Kosovo and the fact that they would be back in
Kosovo doesn't solve the problem because we know that their houses have
been destroyed so we have to take care of this winterisation in Kosovo too.


The planning has about started with UNHCR and NATO, I do not have the exact
details of this planning but we will come back to you as soon as we have
something concrete on this subject.


JAMIE SHEA:
As the Commander says, a great part of the job is going to be winterisation
in Kosovo. As you know, many of these homes have been destroyed, the
rooves have been blown off, the windows have been damaged as we found in
Bosnia and therefore the UNHCR does have a programme of providing basic
materials to construct temporary rooves and so on so that at least families
can go back and live in their homes even during the difficult winter months
so the problem is not confined to the situation outside.


PATRICIA:
I don't know who can answer this question but one of you maybe. We have
been hearing reports - I don't know if I have read them or heard them -
about specific coloured tents, blue UN tents, if they exist, being used in
Kosovo by the Yugoslav Army to disguise armour and heavy artillery and I
wanted to know has NATO dropped any equipment like that for the refugees
that may have been picked up by the military or have there been any
attempts to fly supplies, tents or anything like that into Kosovo?


JAMIE SHEA:
I can have an initial crack at that and perhaps there will be some other
comments as well. First of all, no, NATO hasn't performed any air drops
thus far. There are plans, as you know Patricia, for various
organisations like the Focus Group - Switzerland, Russia, Greece and some
other organisations - to try air drops but the arrangements have not yet
been specified and none of those flights have yet been carried out.


I haven't heard about this story of the blue UN tents but of course we know
that the Serbs are a clever bunch when it comes to the tactics of disguise
and deception. As General Jertz has been telling you for days now, we
know of them trying to camouflage their tanks or hide them in houses, they
have been mixing their own troop convoys with refugees convoys in another
attempt to throw us of the scent, if I can use that term. They are
clever, they are crafty, they have been involved in wars in their own
country more or less non-stop since 1991 and so they have got a lot of
experience at this game but we can play cat and mouse too and the fact
that, as General Jertz has said, we have hit a number of so-called riveted
positions, in other words when tanks have been disguised and dug-in, means
that we can search them out but I don't know anything about blue tents. I
will comment on that if I see anything on that.


XAVIER :
Deux questions si je peux. D'abord, tu as parle que la decision est a
Milosevic, s'il veut attendre que son armee soit affectee a 50 %, 75 % ou
completement detruite. Est-ce qu'apres 51 jours de frappes aeriennes, on
peut faire une evaluation a quel point, a quel pourcentage est affectee
l'armee de Milosevic.


Deuxiemement, sur les conditions de vie dans les camps de refugies, en
Macedoine, tous les camps, tous les camps sauf celui de "Segrane", ce sont
- disons d'un point de vue technique - plus des camps de concentration que
des camps de refugies. Dans le sens oł le refugie ne peux pas entrer ni
sortir librement des camps. Est-ce que l'OTAN, "l'AGNUR", etc... ont fait
des efforts pour convaincre le gouvernement de FYROM de, disons de finir
avec cette situation qui viole la convention de Geneve de 1951.



JAMIE SHEA:
I think on the question of the effectiveness thus far that is for General
Jertz and Commander Maltinti, do you want to answer the question about the
refugee camps?


MAJOR GENERAL JERTZ:
On the military side, let me re-emphasise again that the numbers we have
already mentioned are more than 25 per cent critical heavy inventory hits
so far, thus they have lost, including the latest update of aircraft today,
almost about 40 per cent of their air assets; they have lost two-thirds of
their munition products and capability; they have lost half of all their
ammunition storage sites and that means that the destruction is really very
heavy on them. Of course, once again you know that we cannot go into
numbers and figures about how many days it will really last until he
finally stops. He can stop the war today if he wants to, Milosevic, by
just grabbing the telephone - and here it is!


JAMIE SHEA:
Commander, do you have anything on the question of the camps?


COMMANDER MALTINTI:
I will just say that we are there to try to make the life of these people
easy, I think a demonstration of this was the Secretary General's visit of
yesterday who talked with FYROM and …… but of course, I don't have details
of political level contacts.


JAMIE SHEA :
Non Xavier, ce que je peux vous dire c'est que les forces de l'ARRC ?
c'est-a-dire du KFOR dans la Republique ex-Yougoslave de Macedoine ont
assure, par le passe, la securite dans certains camps et l'UNHCR, bien sur,
est en discussion avec le gouvernement quant a ameliorer les conditions,
non seulement de securite mais d'acces pour les refugies et que, comme
vous le savez, l'UNHCR insiste sur le volontariat lorsque les refugies
doivent decider de leur avenir et c'est ce principe du volontariat qui
explique pourquoi un nombre peu important de refugies ai decide de, par
exemple, de se faire transferer des camps de l'ex-Republique de Macedoine
vers l'Albanie. C'est sur.


NEIL:
General Jertz, you started the briefing today saying that NATO had no
evidence of Serbs withdrawing troops from Kosovo but APTN this morning
showed pictures of Serbs leaving Kosovo and also a couple of tanks. I
wonder if you can comment on that and also on President Milosevic's claim
that it is very difficult for troops to actually leave if they are regarded
as legitimate targets on the ground?


Also, "The Times" of London today is saying that a MiG was shot down by
NATO over Kosovo, I wonder if you can also comment on that, if that is true.


MAJOR GENERAL JERTZ:
On the last question can you say whether it was today?


NEIL:
No, it was a couple of days ago but in today's paper actually.


MAJOR GENERAL JERTZ:
On this one I already reiterated yesterday that we do know, we have
indications, but we are still investigating that one Serb aircraft went
down, we don't the type of aircraft. All I could say so far, which I
already said yesterday, is that it is not outside Kosovo territory so it is
inside and as we are not inside, we do try to identify which kind of
aircraft and where it was so we are still researching but also the source
of information that we have is something which we think we have to question
so wait until I get some more information and then I can come back to you.


On the movement of troops you mentioned, yes, I too have seen the reports,
I too have seen the tv and I know there are soldiers moving around but that
by no means means that there is a partial withdrawal or a withdrawal
whatsoever. As I already indicated in my briefing, it could very well be a
kind of regrouping and we are talking numbers which are ridiculously low.
If it was a fact, we are not talking about a partial withdrawal of forces.
We have to make sure and we have to make it clear to the public and also to
Milosevic that he has to tell us that he wants to negotiate or if it is not
him, somebody else who is responsible for his country to finally stop it
and work out means and other methods to make sure that we can find a way to
have him withdraw his forces. That is all I can say so far.


JAMIE SHEA:
We are not partial, Neil, to partial withdrawals quite frankly. It is the
easiest thing in the world to put a few tanks on the border, invite a tv
crew and say: "Look! I am withdrawing!" and then as soon as the tv crew
goes back to Belgrade, the tanks just go back over the border and the
numbers are utterly insignificant; 250, which is the figure that I saw,
is less than one-half of one per cent of the Serb forces in Kosovo and
therefore I would not even dignify this term as a partial withdrawal, I
don't think it is any withdrawal at all quite frankly. Only a full
withdrawal will bring stability to Kosovo, only a full withdrawal can be
verified and we have had enough experience, as I pointed out the other day,
with Milosevic's partial withdrawals whereby he takes them out through one
route only to bring them back by another. You can never adequately verify
a small partial withdrawal, it is virtually impossible. The only thing
that makes sense is a full withdrawal and that is the only thing we are
interested in.


QUESTION:
There is going to be a G8 Political Directors meeting tomorrow. Do you
think there is going to be a little bit more precision on the wording, a
little more clarification on the terms of this peace plan? It seems that
there is a bit of disconnect between what was laid out in that plan last
week and then how all the various G8 participants spun it when they left
that meeting. For example, that the Serb forces should leave, how many,
is it a total withdrawal, could there be a token Serb force left, let the
international force come in of course, what the make-up of an international
force is particularly concerning NATO and one point that really disturbed
me, that all the refugees should return but do they all return to their
specific homes, do they all return throughout the entire entity, the
province of Kosovo just return to Kosovo but maybe a portion of it?



JAMIE SHEA:
No Greg, everybody is clear that the refugees go back to their homes. That
is crystal clear. Secondly, the G8 Political Directors when they meet
will be looking, as I have said earlier, at how to translate into specific
action, into a concrete implementation plan, the seven key principles
reflecting the five conditions of NATO that were agreed upon. It is good
that this work is going ahead, it is very necessary, it is to lay the basis
for a UN Security Council resolution. But I didn't actually notice
different interpretations, I thought everybody was basically saying the
same thing after the meeting in Bonn where those principles were laid down
but it is obviously important we get on quickly with the job with Russia of
working out a kind of road map so that - to come back to what Michael was
saying earlier - as soon as the air operation has come to an end, we have
immediately got all of the elements in place to quickly occupy the space in
Kosovo with the Serb forces of course leaving - all the Serb forces leaving
- so that we can quickly put the security presence in, we can quickly set
up the transitional administration, we can quickly have something for the
law and order function, we could take care of essential lines of
communication, essential telephone and other types of communication, look
very much at the food chain and how that is going to work, particularly
with winter perhaps not too far away in that part of the world, a
reconstruction programme, get the economy going, take care of de-mining
which can be in certain areas, as we have seen in Bosnia, an enormous
hazard particularly to restart agriculture. There is going to be an
enormous amount of work to do and we want to be ready for it and we need a
road map from the G8 and then of course that will help our own planning as
far as the sizing and the tasking of the KFOR force is concerned.


CHRISTOPHER:
First of all for the Commander, those numbers compiled for the refugees who
are in the camp are obviously people who are coming out of Kosovo and going
into the camps. Are you keeping a record of how many people are leaving
the camps either to live with Albanian families or to find their own way to
Europe or wherever else they might go?


General Jertz, as you break down these attacks on the forces on the ground,
are you able to differentiate between attacks on the Yugoslav regular army
and attacks on the MUP, the police and paramilitaries and can you give us
any kind of differentiation there? I am presuming that all the heavy
metal that you are talking about being hit is mainly regular army.


COMMANDER MALTINTI:
First of all, to clarify, the numbers I gave you are official UNHCR
numbers. Regarding the second part of your question, yes we record the
number of people who leave the camps especially for third countries.


MAJOR GENERAL JERTZ:
On the military question, the paramilitaries actually don't essentially
have much more than pistols, rifles and small arms so of course we cannot
differentiate and they normally do not wear uniforms so from the air we
cannot really identify them unless they are close to let us say the heavy
forces like the MUP, the special police and the Serb forces. Between the
Serb forces and the special police some artillery pieces or some military
vehicles are pretty much the same, they do have the same purpose so from
the air of course we do shoot as long as it is a real target and as long as
it shoots against civilians we shoot at it and for us it is often not
important whether it is special police or a heavy group from the Serb army.


QUESTION:
General Jertz, first of all, could you characterise the fighting now
between the KLA and the Yugoslav forces? Is this as heavy a fighting as
you have seen since the outbreak of the war? Secondly, you are painting a
picture of a rather effective attack now against Yugoslav forces in Kosovo.
Why is it possible to do that now when it was not possible to do that five
weeks ago? What has changed that makes that tactically possible and the
risk worth taking from your point of view?


MAJOR GENERAL JERTZ:
At present, I am not in a position to comment more on the fighting between
UCK and Serb forces because we had days where the fighting was very heavy
and on another occasion it was very low and it also depended on where it
was so we will see continuous ups and downs and as you know, there are a
lot of UCK obviously coming into the country voluntarily to also fight but
as we are not in contact with them, I could not give you any specific numbers.


On the success we have against the forces on the ground, I tried about a
week or so ago to explain why we were more successful. First of all the
weather has improved which means we could identify the targets much easier
plus the weapons we were using. We are always telling you that we do want
to avoid collateral damage but of course with good weather we had better
success because we used weapons against those forces which we would not
have used if we had had bad weather because we were afraid of collateral
damage.


The next thing is that the mobility of the Serb armed forces in Kosovo
really did go down, they were hiding and they knew that once they were out
in the open during daytime they would be attacked continuously most of the
time and because of the good weather we could continue our 24-hour
operations especially over Kosovo and we are doing it at night with assets
which are in place to make it possible to do with all the military
capabilities we have and that is one of the main reasons why we really
could hit them hard and once again they are running out of ammunition, they
are running out of mobility and that is one of the reasons why I think we
are much more successful than we were at the beginning. As I told you, in
the first two or three weeks there was no more than 13 per cent of the time
when the weather was good enough to really precisely attack those targets
in Kosovo.



Est-ce que le Conseil Atlantique a fait le bilan du voyage de M. Schroder,
ou est-ce qu'il va le faire ? Puisque vous exprimez souvent le desir que la
voie diplomatique ne soit pas cassee depuis samedi, comment en
arrivez-vous. Est-ce que c'est du bavardage les declarations que fait
Monsieur Eltsine en Russie ?


JAMIE SHEA :


Hier comme vous savez, le Chancelier Schroder est alle a Beijing, demain il
y aura la reunion du Conseil et je suis tout a fait certain que
l'Ambassadeur allemand va faire un rapport detaille aux Ambassadeurs sur
les resultats du voyage qui s'est fait dans des conditions difficiles mais
qui a ete quand meme reussi du Chancelier Schroder a Beijing.


En ce qui concerne la Russie, comme vous le savez, nous travaillons tres
intensivement avec la Russie meme dans un contexte domestique difficile
apres le depart, bien sur, de Monsieur Primakov mais nous travaillons
intensivement avec la Russie. Le President Chirac est la aujourd'hui, vous
allez l'ecouter dans quelques instants. Monsieur Talbott a egalement ete la
et demain nous allons avoir, comme je vous l'ai dit hier, Monsieur Talbott
avec nous, au Conseil Atlantique Nord pour faire un rapport non seulement
sur son voyage mais sur les derniers contacts diplomatiques et je suis
certain qu'il va dire que les choses evoluent, que la Russie continue a
travailler etroitement avec nous par le truchement de Monsieur
Tchernomyrdine. Donc tout ceci va de l'avant et continuera a aller de l'avant.


Ladies and Gentlemen, I think that is about as much as we need to today.
Tomorrow is a normal day at NATO with the Council meeting in the morning,
as I mentioned, Strobe Talbott here and there will be the usual briefings
about 11 o'clock in the morning for the first and 3 o'clock in the
afternoon and again, I would like to thank Commander Maltinti for coming up
from SHAPE today and speaking to you and of course General Jertz but he is
here every day.