PRESS BRIEFING ON UN OPERATIONS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING ON UN OPERATIONS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

The biggest lesson of Bosnia and Herzegovina to be applied in Kosovo was the recognition that there should be one international leadership giving more responsibility to local political leaders in solving problems, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Coordinator of the United Nations Operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Elizabeth Rehn, said this afternoon.

Summing up her tenure of office during a Headquarters news briefing, she said, "In Bosnia and Herzegovina, we had too many actors at the same level of power. We also made it too easy for politicians. Now, the area has become an eldorado for organized crime." She added that both those situations were now clearing up.

The recent appointment of a High Representative, she went on, was bringing all the United Nations actors under one coordinated umbrella, and a badly corrupted judiciary was being remedied. In Kosovo, those conditions could be avoided from the start due to the coordination between the Security Force, SFOR and the civilian component of the operation. The coordination would also help avoid the unfair criticism that had been levelled at the United Nations for its slowness in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"We are achieving something", Ms. Rehn continued. "Nothing can be made in a short term. You have to give time to the parties. And when you are negotiating with respect to the opinions of the counterpart, you are achieving more sustainable results."

The mandate in Bosnia and Herzegovina had been a rule of law mission, she continued. The aim had been not only to create a democratic system of policing with western standards, but also to identify the sicknesses in the judicial system, particularly with regard to human rights and the investigation of violence committed by authorities. That was a difficult, slow road. An ethnic-based policing system had been set up, which was important for the return of refugees and internally displaced persons. "Of course, the police should be professional enough so that ethnicity doesn't matter, but it will be a while before we are there."

Two police academies had been opened, one in the Federation and one in Republica Srpska, she said. About 70 per cent of the students were representatives of the minorities. A considerable number were women. This was an important element in a situation of domestic violence and organized crime that strongly included prostitution and a new phenomenon exploding in the last six months, the trafficking of women. In addition, a joint border service had been devised and was accepted by all three presidencies. It was truly multi-ethnic, comprising Croat, Bosnian and Serb guards around all the borders and not segregated into ethnic segments. It was one of the conditions

Bosnia and Herzegovina had to meet for membership in the Council of Europe, which it wanted very much. The border service was set to start in October.

Most of the multi-ethnicity problems in the police had arisen in the Croat-dominated cantons, Ms. Rehn said. Agreements had been made, but it appeared that agreements were considered fulfilled when the signature was placed on the paper. "For me, an agreement is not fulfilled before it's implemented", she added. For all the police work, a new approach had been begun. The situation was being monitored, of course, but rather than patrolling in the old way, the emphasis now was on "core location". Every minister of interior and every police chief had an International Police Task Force (IPTF) adviser with him at all times. Also emphasized were specialties, such as crowd control, canine patrol and, of course, the fight against drugs, organized crime and smuggling.

The trafficking in women was the most disturbing, Ms. Rehn said, not only because women should not be treated in that way, but because of the other hard crimes associated with it as part of the organized crime package. It was impossible to keep count, but certainly more than a thousand women from Moldova, Ukraine, Serbia, Russia and, now most recently, Kazakhstan, had been brought into the country and sold like slaves on the markets. And since the institutions, the judiciary and the rule of law were not yet in place, Bosnia and Herzegovina was good for criminal work and very attractive to criminals.

The judicial system in Bosnia and Herzegovina had been examined by a system assessment programme, Ms. Rehn said, and the nature of the diseases were found to be enormous, "much closer to cholera or smallpox than to measles". Most of the judges had been found to be corrupt, the prosecutors afraid to do their jobs and witnesses unwilling to testify because they were unprotected. Criminals had walked the streets freely and a "wild west" market atmosphere had prevailed. Great efforts had helped to stem this by now, but there were still too many unsolved crimes, such as the car bomb murder of a deputy minister of the interior in central Sarajevo. For the investigation of human rights abuses, audits were being carried out, man by man, woman by woman, to find out who were police officers and who were not.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there had been too many actors at the same level or capacity, sometimes overlapping. The new High Representative in Kosovo should have real "bossing" possibilities, with the power to oversee the other actors so that time, manpower and money would not be lost. Also, in Bosnia and Herzegovina the international community had taken all the "nasty" decisions and made it easy for the politicians. Pushing the politicians to solve the problems was the only road that would lead to being able to leave. If the SFOR intended to cut back its presence in Kosovo next winter, many, many steps had to be taken now so that the Kosovars would be ready to take over.

Rehn Briefing - 3 - 23 July 1999

Asked to characterize the nature of human rights violations in Bosnia and Herzegovina now that the infamous brutality had all but disappeared from the news, Ms. Rehn said it was no longer so much a matter of torture, but that "you can't get your case into court and the courts are not impartial nor independent. The judges are financed, appointed and ruled by political parties. The biggest human rights abuse, of course, is that we still have 20,000 people missing". Human rights would continue to be violated until the indicted war criminals were arrested, she said. That was very important for reconciliation and the human rights of those who had been victims of the war.

What had been the impact of events in Kosovo on Bosnia and Herzegovina? a correspondent asked. Ms. Rehn said those in the Republica Srpska had been concerned about their relatives in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and there had been some harassment of United Nations staff and destruction of property. That was "business as usual", however, and both the Minister of the Interior and the police had done their jobs in protecting the international personnel. In addition, about 100,000 refugees had arrived. They had been well assimilated into the community, since those in Bosnia and Herzegovina "had big hearts", leaving only a few thousand to be sheltered in collective centres. Most of those refugees had returned home. Other than that, a few editorials at the beginning had said the Serbs were getting what they deserved. This was an unacceptable opinion that had quickly calmed down. The economy had also crashed because of dependence on trade with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Overall, the impact could have been much worse than it was. "People are really tired of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina."

How did the women being trafficked enter the country? Would the new High Representative be able to do anything about the problems in the judiciary? a correspondent asked. Ms. Rehn said her office had talked with the women through the IPTF, which was the first contact for women who sought protection and shelter. Perhaps 20 or 30 had been sent back to their homes. Talks with the women indicated that police were involved, as the women were never asked for passports or documents before their identifications were taken from them, and they were financially entrapped.

The Office of the High Representative would have the powers that the Special Representative's office had not, Ms. Rehn continued. The system assessment had produced an analysis of the "judicial diseases" that the High Representative would be able to cure, since it was not so much a matter of laws but of implementing them, especially in the appointment of judges. A proposal to appoint judges by the method of an independent board of professionals was presently under consideration. But the most critical factor was that salaries were "totally lousy", which was also true for police. Being paid a pittance made one inclined to take bribes. In addition, Bosnia and Herzegovina had recently made the transition from communism to market economy and a democratic system. All those changes were still in the process of occurring, and perhaps under the old system it had been more popular for politicians to have judges working for them.

Rehn Briefing - 4 - 23 July 1999

Asked what she regretted leaving unfulfilled, and how she would respond to criticisms, particularly from Washington, D.C., that the United Nations had been very slow in Bosnia, Ms. Rehn said it was natural to point to things that had not been done. Perhaps, she could have been more efficient, but in the political climate, it was difficult to get results. The parties could be pressed to take steps, but they would revert to the old way when the back was turned. The benchmarks achieved were sustainable. The judicial reform should have started two years ago alongside the police work, but Security Council approval had not arrived earlier. Everyone had been slow in the beginning, not just the United Nations. With every new Special Representative, more credibility had been gained. The United Nations had been in a bad situation when implementation of the Dayton agreement had begun. It had been much criticized. But the United Nations had now taken on a human face, in part because the United Nations family had been coordinated, and the totality of the impact had made the United Nations an important actor. That was a big achievement. "It's a long distance between the agreements and the implementation on the ground."

"Can you point to the three biggest mistakes of the United Nations in Bosnia?" a correspondent asked.

"No, it's impossible for me", Ms. Rehn answered. She said her staff had been highly experienced and they would not have allowed her to rush ahead and make mistakes. That issue of "big mistakes" presented difficulties because even the slowness was perhaps not a mistake, which is not to say that everything had been done perfectly.

Asked about her views on why response in Kosovo had been so slow, Ms. Rehn said that early warnings were not taken seriously, whether in Kosovo or other parts of the world. It was difficult to understand how the big decision makers of the world's fate and destiny could not sit down and devise a mechanism that would prevent dictators from pursuing their course as happened in Kosovo. It was very confusing to sit in Sarajevo with the beautiful mountains around and then to have the warplanes overhead and think about the million dollars it cost, and then think about all that it would cost afterwards. Without taking an opinion on whether it was right or wrong to bomb, she said "in one way the world seemed mad".

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