June 5, 2000
The United Nations Mission in Kosovo sees the need to engage Serbia in discussions on the situation in the province and the future of the U.N. administration there, a spokeswoman for the UNMIK said Monday.
"We have said publicly that there is a need to engage Serbia in a discussion on where we are going and what is happening in Kosovo. But there are certain people we cannot talk to in Serbia," said Nadia Younes at a press conference in Pristina. "We have certainly spoken to the Serb opposition, Serb human rights groups who have come here. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is in touch with the Yugoslav government, but not at the level of those who are indicted (for war crimes)," she added.
Younes said that communications with the Yugoslav government could not be blocked by a closed door. "There has to be a way in which some form of communication can be carried out with the Serbs at some level," she said. Younes said that the U.N. mission communicated with the representative of the Yugoslav government at the UNMIK "on issues of mutual concern" and at U.N. headquarters in New York.
Her comments came one day after the Kosovo-based Serb National Council (SNC) issued an appeal asking for the assistance of the Serb president on security issues involving Kosovo Serbs. "I cannot comment on why the SNC would want to engage the Serbs. They must have had their own reasons for it, which I'm sure they can explain," said Younes.
Referring to the temporary closure of an Albanian newspaper, Younes said that the UNMIK planned further restrictions on the media to reduce tension in the province. Stressing that censorship was not involved, she said that the UNMIK was drawing up emergency regulations aimed at forcing the print media to desist from dangerous actions.
Over the weekend, UNMIK chief Bernard Kouchner had closed down the Kosovo Albanian daily newspaper Dita for eight days, following the murder of a Serb U.N. staffer who had been described by the paper as a member of a paramilitary group. Louchner cited the security situation in Kosovo as the reason for his decision.
Younes said that one example of activities which the UNMIK would like to curb was the publication of personal details of people suspected of war crimes, should this endanger their lives. U.N. headquarters in New York were currently studying the proposed regulations.
The Kosovo Association of Journalists has protested against the closure and urged Kouchner to rescind the decision. The closure represented a threat to freedom of expression and of the press, a statement published Monday by Albanian language newspapers said.
In Sofia on Monday, a Yugoslav foreign ministry representative said that approximately 2,000 people had been murdered or abducted in Kosovo since the end of the war there, the official Yugoslav news agency Beta reported.
The Yugoslav representative, Ivan Cukalovic, was taking part in an international conference in the Bulgarian capital also attended by delegates from Russia, Greece and Bulgaria. Cukalovic, who is also a law professor at the Kragujevac University, said that since the stationing of 40,000 U.N. peacekeepers of the KFOR force and the establishment of the UNMIK administration in the province, a total of 911 people had been killed and 860 abducted up to March of this year. Most of the victims, he said, were Serbs. He added that over 5,000 terror attacks had been carried out in Kosovo over the past year, with 40,000 houses set ablaze and over 80 monasteries and churches burned to the ground.
A total of 350 refugees from Kosovo - Serbs and members of other ethnic groups - had failed to return to their homes. In addition, 200 Serbs were being held in Kosovo prisons although no trials were planned for them. Cukalovic charged that drug smuggling and illegal trading in weapons and women were flourishing in Kosovo.
