Kosovo Home Head of UN Mission to Kosovo

Special Representative Bernard Kouchner:

UNMIK Marks Six Months in Kosovo

Press Briefing, 13 December 1999

Achievements

Six months in Kosovo. Many people say we've been slow, but slow to do what? Does anyone remember what we found here six months ago? Empty streets. Shuttered shops. No water. No work. Smoking ruins. Murders in the open streets. Dead bodies and piles of garbage. Not a newspaper to buy. Not even a loaf of bread. Not a child in school. No fields safe to plow. Most of the livestock lost. No one in charge.

With a small team we had to assess what we had and what was lost: essential parts for the water supply system, crucial power lines, records, cash, the telephone system, the post office, printing presses and radio stations, one third of the houses, several key bridges, the railroad--and the entire management structure of the territory--all were destroyed, damaged, or gone.

We also came face to face with the trauma of an entire population who had been terrified and hounded out of their homes or into hiding. And then we faced the hatred which this experience unleashed. There was little acknowledgment of what these people had just endured, and true justice still has not been done. Some took justice into their own hands, and this we have condemned.

Please remember all of this when you measure how far we have come…when you ask, what does it take to create an autonomous, democratic administration.

  • So, what does it take?
  • It takes education: 86 percent of Kosovo's children are in schools, 250 of which have been repaired. We furnished them with tens of thousands of desks, chairs and schoolbags. New textbooks were published in Albanian, Serbian, Bosnian and Turkish.
  • It takes a health system: All hospitals and basic health services are now functioning in Kosovo, and nearly all children have been inoculated against childhood diseases. Drugs, blankets, laboratory supplies, generators and soap are being purchased. By next month, every health institution will have a Kosovar director and co-director.
  • It takes money: donors in Brussels last month committed more than $1 billion to reconstruction projects for the year 2000and $88 million towards a Kosovo budget estimated at $515 million for 1999/2000.
  • But an administration must have its own revenues: Our Customs Service, begun in August, has raised more than 25 million Deutsche marks and is being expanded with more Customs officers working 24 hours a day on the borders. Taxes are about to be collected. 50,000 public workers have been paid stipends twice and will start receiving salaries next year.
  • It takes a banking system and financial policy to use the money wisely: In the Central Fiscal Authority we have a finance ministry. In the Banking and Payments Bureau, the equivalent of a Central Bank. The first commercial bank should open before the end of the year. A micro-credit institution is to make loans to individuals and small businesses. By legalizing the Deutsche Mark, we have laid a sound basis for the economy.
  • It takes a functioning physical infrastructure: We have electricity and heat for the winter, thanks to our repairs to the power system. Power lines are also being repaired and roads repaved. Bridges are being reconstructed and garbage collected.
  • It takes housing: 120,000 houses were damaged or destroyed by war, however everyone will be sheltered for the winter.
  • It takes communications: a mobile telephone system has been contracted to supply low-cost and widespread communications while the land-line system is being repaired. Soon we'll have Kosovo postage stamps and a functioning post system. Public service television and radio are on the air.
  • It takes the organization of a democratic civil society: Marriage, birth and death certificates are issued, as well as licenses for small businesses and construction projects. The travel documents will soon be formalized, so that Kosovars can travel, and thousands of vehicles have been registered and bear our new license plates. Civil registration of the entire population will begin in the next two weeks.
  • It takes the participation of local community leaders. UNMIK administrators in all five regions and 29 municipalities work closely with their Kosovar counterparts and multi-party municipal councils are being formerd. Women are being asked to participate: A Kosovo Women's Initiative has begun with a $10 million budget.
  • It takes Security and a System of Law: 24 regulations have been passed (list attached). Kosovo has been demilitarized and the KPC is about to be constituted as a civilian emergency response agency. The second class of cadets are attending the Kosovo Police Service School in Vucitrn. The first class are on the streets, patrolling with UNMIK Police.
  • However, today, on the occasion marking UNMIK's six months in Kosovo, we are facing an increase in criminality while we lack a functioning legal system. To turn around this unfortunate intersection of trends, I am announcing today several new initiatives, in the police and in the judiciary.

Judiciary
  • In five months, only 35 trials--and only in Prizren--have been completed while more than 400 murders have been committed. Why? Because of a culture of silence keeping witnesses from testifying and because our 48 emergency judges and prosecutors have refused to adjudicate on the basis of Serbian law.
  • Now, I am issuing a regulation unblocking the question of what law to apply in Kosovo courts.
  • The primary law of the land will be the UNMIK regulations.
  • These regulations will soon include a new penal code for Kosovo, now being drafted by Kosovar legal experts with the assistance of the Council of Europe.
  • The second applicable law will be the law in force in Kosovo on 22 March 1989.
  • All laws must conform with international human rights standards.
  • In the next few days, I will appoint 400 new judges and prosecutors, recommended by the Judicial Advisory Commission, to the municipal, district, appellate and supreme courts. I will also appoint lay judges - respected members of the community - to lend objectivity to the decisions of the courts.
  • The Emergency Judiciary has suffered from a lack of basic office equipment and facilities. By early next year, all courts will have the means to work. Courthouses in every municipality will be refurbished. Each courthouse will be secured by guards. Every member of the judiciary will receive a proper salary.
  • One other important announcement: The Technical Advisory Commission on the Judiciary, a group of 10 Kosovar and five international legal experts, has recommended the establishment of a Kosovo Court for Human Rights, to be set up early next year.
  • This court will handle politically motivated and major human rights cases. The Kosovo Court for Human Rights will fill the gap between the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia and local courts.

    Two-thirds of the judges and prosecutors will be Kosovars, the others, international.

Police

  • We were promised 4,800 international police. We have only 1,800. We are developing a corps of 4,000 Kosovar police. But they are just getting started, with some 170 Kosovo Police Service cadets on the streets and another 175 about to graduate.
  • We have seen the incidence of serious crimes, which had been decreasing, shoot up in the past two weeks. Luckily, this past week has been better.
  • Because of this climate of real and perceived insecurity, UNMIK and KFOR are developing ways to improve and expand joint operations,-- to increase the number and effectiveness of vehicle and foot patrols, vehicle checkpoints, traffic control, surveillance and monitoring.
  • In the meantime, UNMIK Police and the KPS will continue police and investigative work, while the tactical, protective and security work will be handled by combined efforts of the Police and KFOR, with UNMIK Police taking the lead.

Penal System

  • Last week UNMIK took over the prison in Prizren, hiring 60 Kosovar correctional officers. Early next year UNMIK takes over the entire correctional system.
  • A few detainees suspected of extremely serious crimes are approaching six months in jail. I am issuing a regulation allowing courts to extend the pretrial detention of suspects beyond the current six-month limit.

Protection of Minorities

  • The intervention by NATO in Kosovo in the first place was to protect a minority and to ensure the human rights of the oppressed and vulnerable. Our efforts to do the same for the current minorities, particularly the Serbs, have failed.
  • That is why I am launching an Agenda for Co-existence . Its first objective is to establish security, then peaceful co-existence. Unfortunately, reconciliation and the creation of a genuine multi-ethnic society are not possible today, but must wait for tomorrow.
  • The Agenda also provides safe access by minorities to essential public services. Facilities will be established at the community level to guarantee access to public services such as health and education.
  • For example, UNMIK has already approved the establishment of a surgical and a medical unit in Gracanica to serve several minority communities in the Pristina region.
  • With all these steps, Kosovo should enter the new millennium as a more secure place, where crime is not tolerated and where justice is available for all.