TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL LOUISE FR+CHETTE AT HEADQUARTERS, 14 JUNE

Press Release
DSG/SM/58

TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL LOUISE FRÉCHETTE AT HEADQUARTERS, 14 JUNE

- 1 - Press Release DSG/SM/58 14 June 1999

Moderator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, the Secretary-General's report came out this morning. The Deputy Secretary-General would like to discuss that briefly with you and take your questions. She must be out of here in 15 minutes; I apologize.

The Deputy Secretary-General: First of all, let me report on the beginnings of the deployment of the United Nations mission. As you will have seen or heard from other sources, Sergio Vieira de Mello was appointed as Special Representative of the Secretary-General on an interim basis. He arrived in Pristina yesterday. He is there with a team of about 40 people representing various parts of the United Nations system. These people have two tasks: one is to do a detailed evaluation and an assessment of how we will organize ourselves and how we will deploy the full mission so as to be able to come back to the Security Council within 30 days with a detailed report and a budget for this mission.

But some of the people with Sergio are already establishing the United Nations presence. Sergio had a first meeting with the Commander of KFOR, and they have established a system to meet every day from now on. And Sergio is busy now establishing contact and establishing a presence.

Equally important to note is the fact that the United Nations humanitarian agencies were very quick to deploy as well. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had two representatives with the very first military contingent that deployed on Saturday. Yesterday, a convoy of 50 vehicles with 250 tons of relief aid arrived in Kosovo. There are now about 50 representatives from various United Nations relief agencies -— UNHCR, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP). A second convoy arrived today, and I think we're going to see a ramp-up of the humanitarian operation very quickly. This is for the ongoing activities on the ground.

Secondly, you will have seen the report of the Secretary- General. Two things I would want to say by way of introduction: first, this is a preliminary report of the Secretary-General to the Council, where he is presenting his preliminary views on how this mission should be organized. He will come back with firmer views within the 30-day time frame.

As you will have recognized, this is a new type of mission for the United Nations. First of all, the military contingent has its own reporting chain of command, which distinguishes it from other types of missions we've had in the past. And secondly -— and I guess this is the really quite innovative feature of this mission -— is that the delivery of the civilian mandates given to the Secretary-General by the Security Council will be done through both United Nations agencies and non-United Nations agencies. You will have seen that the structure that is proposed by the Secretary-General envisages a division of labour along four components. The main component of interim civil administration will be carried out by the United Nations itself, as well as the humanitarian component, which will be under the leadership of the UNHCR.

But there is also a very significant component of the mandate that will be delivered, with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) acting as the lead agency. These activities have a lot to do with institution- building, and you will see in the document that there is a list of functions that will be performed by the OSCE. And the last bloc has to do with reconstruction, and the Secretary-General has proposed that the European Union be the lead organization under the leadership of the Special Representative of the Secretary- General.

I will be travelling to Geneva tonight to hold consultations tomorrow afternoon and Wednesday morning with the various agencies concerned. We have had preliminary discussions with them, but clearly there are a number of substantive points that have to be clarified as to the division of responsibility, as well as a number of administrative questions: Who pays for what? How do we organize ourselves? Who supports what? So that's what I intend to do over the next 48 hours.

Question: On behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association, welcome.

My first question is: Can you shed some more light on the international border police unit? What kind of frontiers and borders are they going to control and how soon will the unit be deployed?

The Deputy Secretary-General: On the question of the border police, precisely one of the things that the advance team will have to do is to assess exactly what is the situation on the ground and how that will work. We don't pretend to have all the answers at the moment. What we know is that the issue has to be addressed and figured out on the basis of what we observe on the ground and in consultations with the other players.

How long will the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) take to deploy? Again, until we have a clearer notion of how many people will be required to deliver on all these functions, and I think we won't have a clear picture of that until we have the final report of the Secretary-General, I should think that we will be looking at a deployment that will happen over the course of several months.

Question: What will happen with those refugees who are not going to be prevented, as has been said, from crossing the border? Who is going to control them? The Serbian units or the units of the special border police established by the United Nations?

The Deputy Secretary-General: I would refer you back to the resolution of the Security Council, which gives overall authority to the United Nations and the Secretary-General to determine how these things will happen.

Question: Do you have any comments on the sniper fire that occurred over the weekend? Were there any security concerns raised at senior United Nations levels?

The Deputy Secretary-General: No, I don't have any comment on that front. Clearly, given the number of people that we have deployed and we continue to deploy, we feel that we can operate in reasonable conditions of security. We are, of course, in contact with KFOR on these matters.

Question: Sergio Vieira de Mello has been appointed on an interim basis. Why? Is there another candidate? Also, in the future, if it is necessary to take any hypothetical military action, who will take the decision? Just the military component, or will they consult with the United Nations?

The Deputy Secretary-General: Why Sergio Vieira de Mello on an interim basis? The Secretary-General felt very strongly that he had to be on the ground very, very quickly. Clearly, the appointment of a permanent Special Representative will take a little time, since the Secretary-General has to carry out his consultations with the Security Council. Therefore, his decision to appoint Sergio on an interim basis allowed us to just go and be there on day two of the deployment, which I think is really very important to start preparing for the implementation of the civilian part.

As to your second question, I think the resolution of the Security Council makes it clear that there has to be very close coordination between the Special Representative and the military contingent.

Question: Do you have any figures as to, for example, how many civilian police you are considering or how many border guards? I imagine the United Nations will be supplying civilian police and organizing border guards like civilian police. Are there any ballpark numbers? Secondly, if you have to consult with the Security Council on the Special Representative, and given the politics there, would someone from a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) country be at all considered, or is that excluded?

The Deputy Secretary-General: On the number of civilian police and border guards and all these issues, clearly it's difficult to address any number, but I should think that, in the case of the civilian police, you are looking probably in the thousands. One, two -— I don't know whether it would go that far, but it's hard to really give any credence to these numbers until we've actually gone on the ground, looked at the local structure, where they would have to be deployed, and so on. On the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, I would leave it to the Secretary-General, who is carrying out his consultations with the Security Council. Clearly, as in the appointment of any other Special Representative of the Secretary- General, he wants to pick the person who has the best qualifications to carry out what is going to be a very, very complex job.

Question: Could you talk a little bit more about what you mentioned earlier -— the new type of mission -— for viewers and people who may not be familiar with the old missions. Why is this? You've got a bit of a maze here -— is this going to be nation-building, almost? So many agencies -— will they be tripping over each other? Why is this a new type of mission?

The Deputy Secretary-General: I think it is a new type of mission because, in the past, every aspect of a mission was carried out by the United Nations and by United Nations personnel. This time around, we have been asked by the Security Council to work out the implementation of the civilian part of the mandate with the assistance of other organizations. Therefore, we will have to have systems on the ground, and between and among headquarters, that will ensure that, indeed, we don't trip over one another. I must say that our first contacts, particularly with the OSCE, where the division of labour has to be worked out pretty clearly, have been excellent. I have no doubt that this can be worked out very well in a cooperative fashion, provided that we sit down and take the time to go through the issues. That is one of the reasons that I am going to Geneva.

You will also find in the document of the Secretary-General that it is envisioned that the Special Representative of the Secretary-General would form an executive committee, or call it what you want. He would work very closely with the four deputies, including the two who would come from non-United Nations organizations, to ensure that we have total cohesion. Frankly, I think it is in the interests of all the organizations that will be involved in this operation to ensure that we work with maximum cohesion, but I think it is incumbent upon us, the United Nations -— which has been given the ultimate responsibility, and therefore accountability, for the success of this mission -— to take the initiative, bring people together and make sure we address all these issues, big and small, right from the start.

Question: When will the United Nations begin the work to set up an interim civilian administration for Kosovo, and how? Is there a place for the Yugoslav Government to play a role in this process?

The Deputy Secretary-General: When will the interim civilian administration be in place? Well, I would argue that Sergio Vieira de Mello is the embryo of the interim administration. He's there already on day two. Clearly, we cannot, at the moment, assume the responsibility for all the functions that will have to be performed and will have to build up over time, but the embryo is there as of yesterday. As for the role of the civilian Government, again I would refer you back to the resolution, which gives clear authority to the Secretary-General to perform a number of executive functions. Now, there are a number of local authorities and other government authorities in Kosovo. We will have to see how we can work with them.

Question: Back on the police question -— not particularly the border police, but the police overall -— over what sort of time scale would you envisage the civil presence taking on those law and order functions? It is clearly a very volatile situation on the ground at the moment. Are there any general principles that you would apply as to who should be eligible for this police? Obviously, the former Serb police will not be acceptable to the Albanian populace and some of the KLA members will not be acceptable to the Serb populace.

The Deputy Secretary-General: Regarding the police, you have two dimensions. One is the deployment of an international police force; we are busy recruiting. We have approached a number of countries to see if they were ready to make available policemen to perform some of these functions.

But, at the same time, one of the duties will be to recreate a local police force. And there, the question of selection and training will come up. I cannot tell you right now how long it will take for the United Nations to actually consider that there is a local police force ready to take over, because it depends very much on a lot of information that we do not have, but that we are there to gather at the moment.

Question: Regarding general principles about who should be eligible to be in that police force, would the current paramilitaries be ineligible?

The Deputy Secretary-General: This is getting into levels of detail that I really cannot answer, so I would rather refer that to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, which has been quite busy trying to work out some of these questions in advance.

Question: You mentioned that the military component has a different reporting and chain of command. I was wondering, since the two sides are supposed to be in very close consultations with each other, whether you have worked out what that means: whether either the Secretary-General's special envoy will support directly to the KFOR Commander or vice versa.

The Deputy Secretary-General: I do not think they will report to one another. I think they will consult regularly with one another. I do not think the Special Representative will report in an accountability sense to the head of KFOR. But I think that the resolution says that there should be close coordination and consultation between the two elements: the civilian and the military. And indeed, it started yesterday, because Sergio had his first meeting with General Jackson yesterday, and they have agreed that they will meet every day. Part of the mission will focus on liaising with the military component to make sure that there is good flow of information and understanding, and the necessary coordination between the two sides.

Question: About refugee repatriation: A couple of years after Dayton, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees still reports that there are so many refugees reluctant to go back to Bosnia. This time, the same types of contingents from similar countries are enforcing peace in Kosovo. What is the lesson from Bosnia for willing or reluctant repatriation of refugees, now that we know that the air campaign has made the ethnic relations more complicated?

The Deputy Secretary-General: I think the bottom line for refugees contemplating going home is the reasonable certainty that they will be safe and can live in peace and attend to their own affairs. I think there are similarities between Bosnia and Kosovo, but also very important distinctions and differences, including the numbers of Albanian Kosovars relative to the Serbian population. It is hard to tell at the moment what proportion of refugees will choose to return in the coming days. It is a little early to tell. But while there may be similarities, I think each situation has its own dynamics, and I would not try to apply too quickly to the situation in Kosovo the analysis that is applicable to Bosnia.

Question: Two very quick questions: Is there a budget figure for how much this is going to cost for any period of time? And just a clarification on your trip to Geneva: Are you also going to be meeting with the European Union and the OSCE representatives, as well as the United Nations people who are involved?

The Deputy Secretary-General: The budget figure is impossible to advance at the moment until we have done the full survey; and that is part of what Sergio Vieira de Mello's team is there to do: this full operational plan with numbers and dollar figures in order to present a budget to the Security Council.

On my trip to Geneva, in fact, the primary purpose is to meet with the European Union and the European Commission and to meet with the OSCE, as well as NATO. In fact, meeting with United Nations agencies is now happening every day, through our daily task force and our teleconference and video-conference facilities. I think the United Nations part of the operation is now working very much as a team, so I would not need to go to Geneva if I needed just to consult with United Nations agencies: I do that every morning -— including those that are located in Geneva and Rome and elsewhere.

Question: Is the Secretary-General playing any role at all in the difficulties with the Russian troops in Pristina? And I must ask a second question because of the differences in reports in the press: Some press are saying over a million refugees; the UNHCR is saying 900,000. Which is correct?

The Deputy Secretary-General: I cannot answer either question. You are the spokesman, Fred.

Fred Eckhard (Spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan): The matter of the Russian troops is to be sorted out between KFOR and the Russian Federation. And on the numbers: we rely on the UNHCR to give us authoritative figures, so if you ask me what the number is I would have to give you the UNHCR number. I will give you the precise number afterwards.

Thank you very much.

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