Jamie Shea
: Ladies and Gentlemen, good afternoon.
Welcome to the daily briefing. You see General Jertz once again beside me up
here.
I would first of
all like to give you an idea of the events that will be taking place next week
as far as NATO Headquarters is concerned. It will be, as you would expect, a
busy one. Tomorrow morning the Council will meet and will hear Ambassador Eiff.
Ambassador Eiff is a German diplomat who is currently serving as our political
representative in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and he will be
coming to brief on the situation and on his activities.
Tomorrow afternoon
the Secretary General will travel to Bremen to participate in the Ministerial
meeting of the Western European Union. And also towards the middle of the week
the Secretary General is planning to visit Albania and the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia. We are still finalising the details and the timetable of
the trip. I will obviously give them to you as soon as they are ready. But he
will be going to those two countries with three things in mind: firstly of
course to meet the political leaders and to reassure them of NATO's solidarity
and practical assistance in this grave situation which they are currently
facing; secondly he wants, as you would imagine, to visit the NATO troops in
both countries and to see the good work they are doing to assist with the
refugees and to thank them on behalf of the Alliance for those efforts; and
thirdly, he wants to see the situation of the refugees at first hand and to
reassure them of NATO's determination to make sure that they will ultimately
all be able to go back to their homes under international protection.
Let me just say a
few words about the humanitarian situation. In Albania yesterday 5,000 new
refugees arrived at Kukes. Today so far I understand that 4,000 people have
crossed the border from Kosovo and most of these people seem to be coming from
the region of Pec, and many of them tell the usual stories of beatings, of
forced expulsions, little time to leave, not being able to take any of their
possessions with them. So again this does seem to imply that there is a
systematic expulsion campaign going on, targeting particular areas and that
there is nothing random about this at all.
In Albania the
AFOR forces under NATO command are committing now all of their engineering
units and manpower to build as many refugee centres as possible in both western
and southern Albania, with the aim of having ten camps up and running by the
latest by the end of June. The engineers of these forces are also repairing the
road between Puke and Kukes to enable more evacuations from border areas to
take place by road. Indeed on Friday we were able to move 3,500 refugees from
Kukes to safer accommodation elsewhere. This is one of our priorities.
I can tell you
that one of the things that AFOR forces are also looking into is guarding all
of the tractors because many of the refugees have as you know escaped Kosovo
using their tractors, and so there are very large numbers of tractors that are
now parked at the border. We want to make sure that these tractors remain in
safe hands because obviously they will be needed to restart agriculture in
Kosovo once the refugees are able to return home.
I am also pleased
that yesterday, and thanks to a very big effort by the United Arab Emirates,
the airstrip at Kukes has been repaired and up-graded and that a C130 transport
aircraft in a test was able to land there, and this availability of an airstrip
at Kukes will further help on refugee evacuation, take some of the pressure off
the roads, some of the pressure off of the helicopters.
In the Former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, NATO forces have been working to expand the
refugee centre at Segrani and in particular to put up extra tent space so that
all of the refugees there, numbering 31,000 at the moment, can be securely
accommodated under tents of course, very important that all refugees should
have some kind of shelter.
We still have
plans to help to move, on behalf of the UNHCR, up to 6,000 refugees from the
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to Albania, but of course this depends
upon the willingness of those refugees to actually leave and to be resettled in
this way and the transfer has not yet taken place. At the same time, every day
we are assisting in the temporary evacuations of refugees to other countries,
they are now running at the rate of about 2,000 a day and Italy in particular,
along with all of the countries, is making a big effort, accepting about 500 of
these refugees every day for temporary accommodation.
I would like just
to make a few extra points in the way of up-dating your information. The first
is to let you know that the Russian inspection team has arrived in the Former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and under the terms of the Vienna document 1994
on troop inspections, is carrying out an inspection which involves NATO forces
in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, that is going very smoothly, the
Russians have split into two teams: one covering the eastern part of the
country; the other the western part. NATO is co-operating fully with that
inspection and yesterday one Russian team visited the Petrovec airfield and
observed the training activities of the UK Fourth Armoured Brigade, the other
Russian team went to Kuminovo, which is as you know where the barracks are for
many of the NATO forces, and received a briefing on NATO's humanitarian efforts
by Dutch, German and UK Commanders.
Finally, I would
like to draw your attention to an extremely serious event that occurred
yesterday but was overshadowed of course by the other very serious event which
occurred yesterday, and that is of course the fate of Mr Femi Ogani, an adviser
to Ibrahim Rugova, and as you know one of the key members of the Kosovar
Albanian delegation at the Rambouillet talks, and indeed one of the must
illustrious of the Kosovar Albanian leaders in recent years.
We have seen
reports, and you have as well, that he has apparently been killed after having
been detained by the Serb police. And Mr Ogani, who is as you know a man of
dialogue, a champion of a peaceful solution in Kosovo, had been in hiding since
29 March. At a news conference in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
yesterday, Mr Ogani's son, Sheped Ogani, told the press that his father had
been arrested out of a train by Serb police while attempting - and not for the
first time - to be able to leave the country. And according to Mr Ogani's son,
the family members in Pristina have now identified the body. A family member
who had asked the police for further information was apparently beaten.
Now a number of
Allies have already demanded a full investigation of this case by the
government in Belgrade. The persons responsible for the death of Mr Ogani must
be punished, and the information that we have so far clearly points in the
direction of the Serb police forces who detained Mr Ogani, even though Tanjug
has reported that some in Belgrade believe that the UCK may have been
responsible, but that does not seem to be the way in which the evidence is
pointing at the moment. This looks like yet another case for the International
Criminal Tribunal in The Hague.
Having said that,
I now ask General Jertz to give you his daily operational up-date.
General
Jertz : Thank you Jamie. Good Afternoon Ladies
and Gentlemen. Yesterday and last night our operations were affected again by
weather, particularly in Kosovo. Still, over 500 NATO sorties were flown and we
were able to attack many of our planned targets. Within Kosovo we struck
targets, shown here, including Pristina airfield and a Serbian military
assembly area at Suvareka.
Speaking of
operations within Kosovo, if you will recall on Thursday when I gave you a
comprehensive overview on what we achieved against fielded forces in Kosovo so
far, I showed you a couple of slides which showed you the decreases in Serbian
military activity in Kosovo over the past few weeks. I would again like to show
you a comparison of Serbian military and special police activity from 29 March,
and the activity we have noted in the past 24 hours. You will note a very
significant decrease in Serbian operations throughout Kosovo. One trend we have
observed, and you can see this by the circles on the slide, is that as Serbian
military units are destroyed or driven into hiding, there is a resurgence of
UCK activity. Although when we look at where the hundreds of thousands of
internally displaced Kosovar Albanians are taking shelter, these locations very
often coincide with many of the UCK controlled areas. In fact it appears that
some sanctuary is being provided for these unfortunate people within these
areas. It appears that our operations against Serbian military and special
police in Kosovo may be allowing the UCK to provide some protection for their
kinfolk.
Turning now to our
other air operations. This slide shows our fixed targets. As you can see, we
struck air defence and command and control targets, including again the radio
relay sites at Kosovac, at Ivanlica, plus airfields at Sienica and Nis. We also
struck petroleum production facilities, lines of communication and other
military targets as shown.
I have two images
to show you from our attacks the night before last night. First you will
remember one of the targets we struck was the residence of President Milosevic
which actually housed a command and control bunker. Here are both the pre and
post-strike photos showing the significant damage to the site. The second image
shows the Ivanica satellite communications facility which was an important
command and control communications node as you know.
Serbian air
defences were light and all of our aircraft, I am happy to say, returned
safely.
I would like now to
turn to our humanitarian efforts also. This topic is already covered by Jamie,
but as it is a political as well as military issue, including of course
non-governmental organisations, let me give you some more information on that.
In the past 24 hours the refugee relief aid effort continued. There were 19 aid
flights into Albania. Likewise there were 21 aid flights to the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia. In fact we received a report this morning, as has
already been mentioned, that at least the refugees in Segrani are now all in
tents or under shelter.
Just to give you a
better feel for how this airlift is working, let me elaborate a little bit.
These two flights from a couple of days ago are typical for our operations. As
you can see, this German C160 aircraft delivered 8 tons of supplies, including
flour, milk powder, clothing and blankets. Likewise, a Dutch 707 transport
delivered 37 tons of medical supplies, blankets, clothing and other supplies.
You can imagine these are all used to feed, to nourish and to help people
survive. This slide shows you a summary of our total deliveries thus far.
Finally you may be
aware of the excellent work which has been done to build up the Kukes airfield.
This one was also mentioned, but I also wanted to show you a picture on that,
so Jamie I hope you don't dislike it that I am a little better than you this
time by also showing pictures. This is an important example of truly
international efforts which are helping to improve the humanitarian situation
in Albania. This image shows this airstrip. Engineers from the United Arab
Emirates established this landing strip to facilitate the movements of airlift
aircraft up to the size of C130 Hercules or C160 Transal. And we are all sure
that this airfield will significantly improve the situation in the Kukes area
because it will allow for the faster and more efficient delivery of
humanitarian goods to northern Albania.
Thank you, Ladies
and Gentlemen, that concludes my part of the briefing.
Neil: Jamie, we have often heard in this room that time was on NATO's
side, but I am curious whether this weekend hasn't shown, to the extent that
NATO has found itself in an uncomfortable box, in all that it can do is
continue to accelerate and pound away at Serbia, but I am wondering to what
extent you don't fear losing the propaganda war before you win the actual win,
in that the more that one has to accelerate this, the more that one has to go
after increasingly sensitive and delicate targets, especially in the centres of
large cities, and we are not going to see more of this kind of damage that then
does extraordinary damage to NATO's own reputation.
Jamie Shea
: Neil, as you well know, armed conflicts
always bring their fair share of accidents and mishaps, that has been the same
throughout human history and no doubt it will be the same in all future
conflicts as well, no matter how much the technology moves on, and that is one
reason of course why NATO would have greatly preferred to have not been obliged
to have recourse to force. That is why we had a long period of one year in
which we were trying to seek a way out without having to use force, because
clearly it is never an easy option. But Milosevic had different ideas for us,
as you well know. But having started the campaign, despite the obvious problems
that one will have from time to time along the way, we recognise that, we are
determined to push it through because we believe that to stop now would simply
hand Milosevic ethnic cleansing on a plate. In other words, that we are not
going to follow a mistake by the even greater mistake of allowing ourselves to
be intimidated or to stopping before we have achieved our goals. That would
serve no purpose and nobody's interest except those of President Milosevic.
At the same time,
I believe that we have been conducting this campaign in a professional as well
as a deliberate way. We have so far struck at 1,900 aim points, that is the
number of individual targets even if they may sometimes be on the same
building, like an oil refinery, 1,900 aim points. We know that we have dropped
around 9,000 pieces of ordnance, missiles and bombs. Only 12 have gone astray
as a result of either mechanical error, or some other error, or the mistake
that occurred yesterday. If you do a mathematical computation you are talking
about a fraction of 1%, and so we continue to be accurate. Obviously I
understand that sometimes international attention, or TV pictures, prefer to
focus on the 12 that went astray, as opposed to the 8,988 that didn't go
astray. But let's remember that if you look at the big picture, the
overwhelming majority of these weapons are landing every day and every night
accurately against legitimate military targets.
And you have seen
after yesterday, with our apologies, with our regrets to the Chinese
authorities, that we have continued this operation because we know that at the
end of the day it is the only way that we can secure peace with justice for the
people in Kosovo. And do not forget that sometimes again when you have a
dramatic event like what happened yesterday, you tend to forget that other
things in the meantime were going on elsewhere in Yugoslavia, particularly in
Kosovo. I have mentioned the 5,000 refugees that were thrown out of their homes
and forced over the border yesterday, the 4,000 this morning, the death of Mr
Ogani, all of the other accounts which are now all over the newspapers of
individual suffering, of mass executions and so on. I am afraid the tally of destruction
is still overwhelmingly on the side of Milosevic, so let's not lose the wood
for the trees, that would be my main message today.
Mark: General Jertz, do we have any more details on yesterday's bombing
of the Chinese Embassy, notably which aircraft used it, which kinds of weapons
were being used? And secondly, seeing the targets in Kosovo, the overlap of the
KLA activity helping the internally displaced people, does that suggest that
you should be directly trying to assist the KLA in their fighting seeing as
they are protecting refugees in a way that you find difficult, given that it is
an air campaign? And are you in fact deliberately trying to help them with the
attacks on the border where they are trying to put troops and materials across
the border with Albania, are you actually directly trying to aid them and
prevent the Serbians actually getting at the KLA?
General
Jertz : Thank you very much for this question.
Let me for the first part hand over to Jamie, because I think he would be the
one to answer the question on the Chinese part.
Jamie Shea
: I have no further information on the
incident with the Chinese Embassy yesterday. I referred this morning, as you
know, to the statement that was put out in the United States yesterday and
which make it clear that the error started in the intelligence gathering,
obviously went through the system and was not identified. But as for the
operational details I don't have anything to add to what was said yesterday.
General
Jertz : On the UCK, let me state the first
sentence. We are not the Air Force of the KLA, this is very important and we
should all bear that in mind. And we are not supporting the UCK either directly
or indirectly. Our goal in Kosovo is to attack FRY forces, Serb forces and keep
down their fighting capability, and by doing that UCK might take advantage of
what we are doing but there are no direct links between them and us.
Question
(Cnn): A follow-up to the first question, how
do you account for the fact that there are still such widely-held views by
people in the NATO countries and especially beyond, that what has happened here
is that NATO has taken a disaster - and I don't underestimate the disaster that
confronted you - but NATO has taken a disaster and turned it into a
catastrophe?
Jamie Shea
: Your words, not mine. I think we have done
what anybody would do in these circumstances, first of all we have acknowledged
responsibility clearly, unambiguously, quickly; we have expressed our regrets
to the Chinese authorities; we have acknowledged where the error occurred
quickly, honestly, in the intelligence-gathering process; we have also stated
just as quickly, just as clearly, that the procedures have been reviewed to
make it very unlikely that such an error would occur again; finally, we have
also done the responsible thing which is not allowing one mistake, no matter
how tragic, to divert us from the fundamental purpose of why we are doing this
which is to save hundreds of thousands of lives in Kosovo, to repair one of the
worst crimes in Europe in the 20th century - a century by the way which has not
been short of major crimes - and to allow those refugees to go home.
Nobody in the
international community would thank us if we were blown off course because of
one mistake. We are not going to be blown off course and I think that is the
clear message that came out of the meeting of the North Atlantic Council
yesterday. We have acknowledged this but we are moving on and we will move on,
we will move on not only on the military front, as we demonstrated yesterday,
but we are going to move ahead on the diplomatic front and when you speak of
"catastrophe", I don't see anything either in terms of the military
campaign or in terms of the way in which the diplomatic activities are ongoing
today which suggests that this was a catastrophe. It was not, it was a mistake
but no more than that.
Same
Questioner: A follow-up please, Jamie. I
wasn't referring specifically and only to the hit on the Chinese embassy and
the question was your thoughts on why then so many people in the world do not
get your message and prefer to see this differently to the way you insist it
is.
Jamie Shea
: There are always going to be people in
democracies who will see things differently, that is why of course we are
fighting this particular conflict, to uphold the standards of people being able
to dissent and have their view, even against our own air campaign, without
being put in prison or without being murdered as a result. There, I believe, is
where the fundamental difference is in this whole operation and accidents,
mistakes or no mistakes, will continue to occur until the very end.
Doug: I have two questions about the Chinese embassy for you. One is to
clarify a slight difference in statements. The one that came from SHAPE during
the night appeared to say that the intended target was the weapons warehouse of
the Federal Directorate of Supply & Procurement, a later statement said it
was the Federal Directorate itself. Which was the target and is the weapons
warehouse in a different place and if so, where is it?
Secondly, does
NATO have any information that there was in fact secret collaboration between
China and Belgrade, that China was giving intelligence on the conflict to
Belgrade and that Serbia had moved equipment and people into the Chinese
embassy making at least one part of that embassy a legitimate target?
General
Jertz : I don't see too much of a difference
in the wording of what we were attacking, headquarters or warehouse, because
they both serve the same purpose and it is a kind of procurement installation
and as we already indicated, we thought it was there where we attacked so I
don't see a difference between what we said in the morning message and later
on.
On the second
question, this is an intelligence matter. We still and will continue to degrade
Milosevic's command-and-control facilities wherever they are and wherever we
can find them and we are in the process of finding and defining those targets.
On collaboration,
I could only speculate as I already indicated yesterday but I'm not going to do
that.
Question: A question for both of you. Jamie, there is less and less
information about the internally-displaced persons and about your plans for
air-dropped food for Albanians inside Kosovo. Does that mean that you have
abandoned all these plans or that there will be something to air-drop soon?
Jamie Shea
: No, we haven't abandoned those plans, we've
never said we were going to do this but we did say that we would do some
planning. We've done some planning and that planning is there.
I think the focus
internationally in the last few days is where it should be, quite frankly,
which is try to get humanitarian relief organisations into Kosovo; they are in
the best position, both professionally and being on the ground, to identify the
problem and obviously to bring food in in large quantities, much more than you
can do using aircraft and more reliably, making sure that the food actually
gets to the people to whom it should be given.
As you know, there
is a mission under way of the UN Secretary General to see first of all if the
UN can have access and then to try to assess the needs particularly in terms of
seeing in what actual physical and mental condition these people are. NATO
totally supports that, we will co-operate with it in every way and Secretary
General Annan of the UN has written to the Secretary General of NATO, Mr.
Solana, to ask for that co-operation and the UN will have it.
Secondly, there
are other initiatives under way by various private, non-governmental
organisations, the Greeks in particular and Medicines du Monde have had some
success at least in transporting medical supplies in. Milosevic should allow
these humanitarian organisations to operate under the terms of their charter
and we will co-operate with those types of missions.
Craig
Whitney (New York Times) I have a question for
both of you which is whether the statement that was issued late last night by
the Defence Department and the CIA constitutes the last word that we're going
to hear about the investigation which I assume you are saying is complete
because the statement says: "a review of our procedures has convinced us
that this anomaly is unlikely to occur again". Does this mean that SHAPE
and whoever else was involved in the targeting have completed the review and
that we won't hear any more results than this because it leaves a lot of things
vague, it says "those involved in targeting". If you read between the
lines, you could say that's the CIA and by implication also the Defence Department,
including SHAPE, but it doesn't say, that is hanging in the air.
Another thing
hanging in the air, General Jertz, is did you really mean to say that if you
discovered collaboration between the Chinese embassy and the Serb athorities,
that the Chinese embassy or places like that could become targets because that
was the implication in the answer you just gave?
General
Jertz : I hope it was not just because my
English is not as good as yours. No, we will never target anybody except
military targets directly related to Milosevic so I'm really thankful for the
question just to clarify it. We will continue to use the targeting process
which is very robust, which is very systematic, to identify targets which are
valid, to downgrade, to degrade all the capabilities Milosevic has and these
will be the only targets which are going to be attacked also in the future. I
thank you once again for the question so that I had a chance to clarify that.
Jamie Shea
: Yes, Craig, we don't consider embassies to be
targets, as you well know, we made that abundantly clear yesterday.
As for the
question you addressed to me, we ascertained quickly that the error was in the
intelligence process unlike when you have a pilot error or some technological
or mechanical error and as intelligence, particularly with targeting policy,
Craig, is something that obviously has to be carefully guarded for strict
operational reasons, I am certainly not going to give you any promise that we
will have further information. The North Atlantic Council will be briefed on
the circumstances as ambassadors asked yesterday but I am not going to promise
any more information at the present time.
Nick
(Deutsche Welle): General, with the Apaches,
OK, they are deployed there at the moment, there are a lot of training missions
going on but has the military got the go-ahead, the authority, to actually use
these Apaches in a combat situation as opposed to training, has it actually got
the authority to use them?
Regarding the
Chinese embassy, coming back to this again, with the investigations what
happens in military intelligence circles? Is someone held responsible or are
people held responsible, does the commander walk, what actually happens here
because this is actually by most people considered to be gross incompetence,
knocking out someone's embassy, it's not just a mistake, it's just incompetence
and surely someone is going to walk for this?
Jamie Shea
: Nick, I think the most important thing is to
try to find out why you made a mistake - and this is what has been happening -
identify where it came from to see if it was because of some problem in the
system as it were and then to take steps to make sure by tracking back to first
origins that you ensure that that sort of mistake is not going to happen again
and that is clearly what has happened and that is of course the priority. We
don't want this thing to happen again and therefore we need a system that
almost guarantees that it doesn't happen again so that is the focus. I am not
going to comment on the question of any individual responsibility.
General
Jertz : On the Apache side of course, you all
know that just one-and-a-half weeks ago - I don't know the exact number because
at that time I wasn't here - plans had been set up to have the Apaches stationed
in Albania and these plans are well under way and the Apaches are still
training and bear in mind as I think I already indicated two or three days ago,
that of course it takes a little while until the Apaches finally can be
employed because it is a completely different terrain and they have to be
trained according to the geographic area they will be working in. You also have
to bear in mind that we have to make sure on the military side of the house
that once we employ them every precaution has been taken to really make sure
that they will be employed so that on the one hand they can attack with success
and on the other hand not be shot down by anybody who is trying to shoot them
down so the plans are under way and as I already indicated several times, in
the near future the Apaches will be also in the fight.
Jamie Shea
: If I could just trespass on General Jertz's
domain, I also would like to point out that you should not have the impression
that because the Apaches haven't been used that we are not hitting Serb tanks
and artillery. With the assets we have at the moment, every night we hit a
number of Serb tanks, artillery, vehicles and everything else. The Apaches are
a useful addition to this capability but it is not the 7th Cavalry, it's not in
other words that we cannot get on with the job perfectly adequately with the
tools that we have at the moment, we have them and we are doing the job.
Alexander: This is a follow-up on the question about aid to the
internally-displaced persons in Yugoslavia, about this Greek/Russian/Swiss
initiative to move the aid directly into the Yugoslavian hospitals etc. What
security guarantees can the convoys of Russian, Greek or Swiss trucks have
coming into these areas?
Jamie Shea
: Alexander, first of all, we will co-operate
to the extent we can, for example the other day we knew in advance through
co-operation with the Greek authorities about the Medicines du Monde convoy and
having that information is very valuable to our military commanders and that
convoy arrived perfectly safely intact in Pristina which is of course what
counts so we obviously need to have the information and that is what we would
like but the air campaign is going to go on, let us make that clear, for the
simple reason that we are not going to allow President Milosevic to divert us
away from our aim so that he can continue to expel large numbers of people.
The problem, as I
pointed out, for the Kosovars is not simply a question of supplies, it is also
a question of bullets, it is a question of physical violence, not simply
shortages of supplies no matter how serious they are and therefore we can only
stop the humanitarian crisis when we stop the war, the war is producing all of
this and so we have to get to the problem at source and therefore the air
campaign is going to go on until those Serb forces leave, then we can really
tackle - and not simply in a short-term way but in a durable way - the
humanitarian crisis both by making sure that those internally-displaced persons
inside Kosovo are adequately cared for, sheltered, provided with food, provided
with protection, that we give them assistance to rebuild their homes, to
reconstitute their livestock, their farms and get the economy going again and
in terms of settling the refugees. The answer is that we will co-operate to the
extent we can with all of these initiatives, which we welcome, but we will
continue at the same time the air operations because unless we stop the war, we
cannot stop the suffering.
Question: I have a two-tier question for General Jertz. Some unconfirmed
rumours coming from Belgrade are saying that the radio station belonging to the
daughter of Milosevic which was bombed a few days ago started broadcasting
again and most of the broadcasts, as it was tv station, were Chinese
programmes. Is there a possibility that these programmes would have been
broadcast from the Chinese embassy and that the missile would have been
homing-in on the broadcast?
Secondly, in
Washington the sources commenting on the Chinese embassy bombing said they had
a problem with the local intelligence source. Is there any possibility that a
manipulation could have taken place to push the Americans towards bombing the
Chinese embassy?
General
Jertz : On the first question, I do have to
elaborate it because I am not aware that this radio relay station is used to
broadcast Chinese-made programmes so I would have to go into the military
details if this relay station is really already working again. I am not in a
position at the present time to give you an answer on that but I will come to
you later on once I have found it out.
On the other
question, I already mentioned that we cannot go into speculations. We really do
not know so far if there were any tricks or traps or collaboration as I already
indicated so I also cannot elaborate on that because that would be speculation
and as I already promised you when I started my job here I am not going to do
that when I don't have evidence.
Question: Today, the Chinese Vice-Premier made a speech televised nation-wide
in China concerning the NATO attack on the Chinese embassy and the violation of
international law and saying NATO must take full responsibility for that. How
do you comment on the violation of international law and what would be the
result of Chinese doubts expressed for only an apology and regrets?
Jamie Shea
: Thank you very much for that question and
let me again, particularly to you here in the audience, express the regret of
NATO for the attack upon the embassy of your country. Obviously, I listened to
the Vice-Premier today, I watched him on television and we have taken the
responsibility already for the mistaken attack on the embassy so there is no
ambiguity about that.
Secondly, I was
encouraged by the fact that he called for restraint and calm by the Chinese
people particularly in terms of the demonstrations around various US and other
NATO embassies. As you know, it is the responsibility of governments to ensure
that embassies and diplomatic personnel are protected and that all
demonstrations remain peaceful. Those demonstrations are totally legitimate but
obviously we would hope that they would remain peaceful and I was encouraged
that the government clearly shares that view and intends to keep those
demonstrations calm and peaceful.
Third, Chancellor
Schröder of Germany will be visiting Beijing this week, I know that he will
convey on behalf of the Alliance again the expression of our regrets but he
will also be making the point that this was a mistake and no more than a
mistake, it has no political significance and the Chinese government, as a
member of the Security Council, hopefully will work with us, with Russia, with
the Allies, towards the elaboration of a Security Council resolution which will
stop the war. What I believe the Chinese government wants to do is exactly what
the NATO governments want to do which is to be able to resolve the crisis and
stop the fighting but we can only do that if we manage to secure, with the help
of the UN, compliance with the essential five conditions of the Allies.
The idea that we
can have peace with something less than those five conditions is an illusion,
it is simply buying a breathing space before the next bout of killing and
mayhem begins; we know that, we have had that experience since 1991 and therefore
I hope that the Chinese, despite the anger that clearly they feel at the moment
and which I wholly understand, will put the long-term interests of all of the
international community in stopping the fighting in Kosovo on the basis of the
five conditions ahead of other considerations and will accept our apologies for
what is a bad mistake but nonetheless nothing more than a mistake.
Same
Questioner (Inaudible)
Jamie Shea
: I think that the violation of international
law in Kosovo is on one side which is in the hands of Belgrade. NATO would
never be there in the first place, there would never have been any strikes at
all, we would not have had six weeks of NATO air operations if President
Milosevic had first and foremost obeyed international law, if he had listened
to three UN Security Council resolutions which your country, China, along with
the other members helped to pass and which called on him to stop this fighting
and to pull his forces back and take immediate steps to assist the Kosovar
people and so I believe that if we are talking about international law, we have
a good case for doing what we are doing.
Luc
Rozenzweig, Le Monde: L'erreur que vous avez
signalée pour laquelle vous vous êtes à plusieurs reprises excusé n'est pas une
erreur mineure, c'est une erreur majeure. Donc, ce que j' aimerais savoir c'est
si le niveau de responsabilité de cette erreur a d'ors et déjà été établi et
deuxièmement s'il va y avoir des sanctions publiques contre les responsables de
cette erreur.
Jamie Shea
:Quelqu'un d'autre a déjà posé cette question
et donc je pense avoir déjà répondu. Nous avons établi que l'erreur provient
d'une défaillance dans le système d'intelligence et que les mesures ont été
prises biensûr pour encore minimiser la possibilité d'un renouvellement d'une
telle erreur. Et quant à la responsabilité individuelle, je n'ai aucun
commentaire à faire.
Augustine:Jamie, you mentioned the fate of Mr. Fehmi Agani. Do you have any
information about the other Albanians who disappeared, who are missing knowing
that Agani was a key member of the Kosovar delegation in Rambouillet which
helped to build a common front of Albanians, to get together the KLA and the
LVK? What is your comment now on the position of Ibrahim Rugova whose best
friend is killed and is giving no statement about that?
Jamie Shea
: I can imagine that Mr. Rugova is very deeply
affected by the death of Mr. Agani so I don't have any comment on what
statement he would make. The position of the Allies is very clear.
I have no other
information as to the fate of those Kosovar Albanian leaders that are still in
hiding in Kosovo but the fate of Mr. Agani suggests that they have every reason
to be in hiding and I hope that they will be able to remain in hiding until the
international community can liberate them from their Calvary and obviously
ensure that they are able to go about their normal political activities as any
of us in a democratic society would believe to be necessary so obviously I
don't have any information but the fate of Mr. Agani suggests that we have
every reason to be very deeply preoccupied with their fate.
Ladies and
Gentlemen, thank you! Normal update tomorrow at 10.30, briefing in the
afternoon at 3 p.m.
http://www.nato.int/kosovo/press/p990509b.htm