UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo / 3 September 1999DEPLOYMENT
International Staff
• About 750 personnel total of UN and partner organizations on the ground, including about 300 UN civilian staff
• Of total deployed, humanitarian personnel number over 100; 272 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) personnel in place as of 1 SeptemberUN Civilian Police
• UNMIK has about 900 civilian police deployed in all five regions of the province and at four border crossings. They are patrolling in high-risk areas on behalf of UNMIK as well as jointly with KFOR
• UNMIK police, numbering some 200 officers, took over "jurisdiction for enforcing criminal codes, conducting, investigations, making arrests for criminal offences and interfacing with the community" in Pristina. First arrest made by UNMIK police on 23 August
• Between 150-200 additional officers are expected to be deployed each week
• Total of 3,110 to be in Kosovo by November or December
CORE ACTIVITIES
Civilian Administration
• As of 28 August, total staffing level of Civil Administration component is 70
• Regular meetings of Kosovo Transitional Council, presided over by UN, to take place every Wednesday. Meeting of 1 September agreed on new security measures and began discussions on how to transform the KTC into an "Interim Governing Council". Meeting of 1 September not attended by Serb representatives due to technical reasons
• UNMIK Regional Administrators working with local leaders in five regions to maintain basic services and reduce tensions
• Regulation No. 1 of UNMIK was issued by the Special Representative on 25 July. According to the regulation, all legislative and executive authority with respect to Kosovo is vested in UNMIK. It is exercised by the Special Representative for the Secretary-General, who has the power to appoint any person to perform functions in the civil administration in Kosovo. All persons undertaking public duties or holding public office in Kosovo shall observe internationally recognized human rights
• Regulation No. 2 on the "Prevention of Access by Individuals and their Removal to Secure Public Peace and Order" issued on 12 August. KFOR and UNMIK police to have a preventive tool to deter violence and public unrest, rather than a mechanism of criminal law enforcement
• Regulation No.3 on the "establishment of the Customs and Other Related Services in Kosovo" was issued on 31 August. UNMIK Customs Service has begun collecting duties on goods imported into Kosovo from 3 September at three order crossings between Kosovo and The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Albania. The revenues raised will be allocated to Kosovo's budget
• UNMIK is pushing to restore rail service before winter and to bring back some 1,000 employees into active service. Minimal rail service has already been restored between Kosovo and The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
• At UNMIK's request, legal experts from the Council of Europe have begun reviewing four major bodies of law that exist in Kosovo - the criminal code, the criminal procedure code, the law on international peace and security and the penal law of Serbia - to establish whether they are in conformity with internationally recognized human rights standards
• Almost 40 justice officials have been appointed in the new independent and multi-ethnic judiciary system created by the United Nations Mission
• There are courts serving the two districts of Pristina and Prizren and two mobile courts to hear emergency cases; they have dealt with several hundred KFOR detainees
• Stipend payments for local civil servants have begun and should be broadened quickly to cover all public workers. Payments are being made from the UN Trust Fund to judges and prosecutors and will soon be extended to other public employees such as firefighters, teachers and others
• Main post office in Pristina opened on 1 August; several hundred staff have returned and an inventory of their skills is being conducted
• Five post offices opened in the Pristina area on 9 August to manage payment of pensions to some 25,000 pensioners who have not been paid since February-March this year. A Task Force on Pensions was established jointly by the Civil Administration and the Reconstruction components with the participation of local experts and members of the Kosovo Pension Association
• Waste collection and disposal project began on 16 August in Pristina with a public information campaign on sanitation and environmental measures to be launched by UNMIK and UNICEF. A project to clean the Bistrica River, funded by the UN Development Programme, began on 18 August
• Under a special arrangement that began on 17 August, UNMIK is making ad hoc payments from a UN trust fund to more than 2,000 health professionals
• Payment of stipends in Prizren began on 20 August in Prizren Regional Administration
• Electricity transmission between Kosovo and The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has been resumed. On 26 August, UNMIK began chairing the Joint Civil Commission on Energy and Public Utilities -- taking that position over from KFOR, which did much of the emergency repair work on utilities in the immediate aftermath of the war
• UNMIK has prepared a draft regulation on petroleum products which stipulates that only persons or enterprises licensed by UNMIK will have the right to import, transport or sell fuel in Kosovo
• UNMIK is preparing a draft employment policy for the public service, government and public enterpriseHumanitarian Activities
• The latest figures show that more than 770,000 refugees have returned to Kosovo - over 430,000 from Albania, more than 217,000 from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, 11,000 from Bosnia-Herzegovina and over 54,000 from third countries outside the region
• The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates about 43,000 refugees in the region awaiting repatriation
• 500,000 Kosovars need proper accommodation before the onset of winter. UNHCR says it can only extend very basic, emergency shelter assistance
• UNHCR reports that an estimated 180,000 displaced Serb and Roma people from Kosovo have moved into Serbia and Montenegro. Around 130,000 of these internally displaced persons are believed to have arrived in Serbia and Montenegro since the end of NATO air strikes and the deployment of KFOR in Kosovo in June 1999
• UNHCR had to evacuate 28 elderly Serbs on 19 August from Prizren
• Reports of attacks on Serbs in Kosovo decreased for the first time last week, according to KFOR sources
• In a revised Consolidated Inter-Agency Humanitarian Appeal issued on 27 July, the funding requirements for 1999 are now set at over $900 million
• 12 United Nations humanitarian agencies and the International Organization for Migration appealed for more than $400 million to continue to fund work in the Balkans this year. United Nations agencies have already received more than $500 million for the region
• From 10 to 12 humanitarian supply flights are arriving in Pristina daily, soon to increase to 20 flights per day
• World Food Programme is providing food aid to 650,000 people in Kosovo
• On 26 July UNHCR released the "second cut" of its Rapid Village Assessment. This report uses data collected from 456 war-affected villages, and indicates that 54 per cent of the houses in those villages suffered severe damage or complete destruction
• Programmes of UNHCR and its partner, the NGO, Media Action International,were broadcast for the first time last week on Radio-Television Pristina. The topics included a human rights seminar, garbage collection, land mine clearance and the work of the NGO, Balkan Sunflowers, with traumatized children
• "Catch-up" classes begin as more than 50 per cent of 1,000 schools opened on 1 September • UNICEF's back-to-school programme hopes to have most of 300,000 Kosovo children back in school by November for which about $3 million worth of desks, chairs, blackboards and other supplies will be needed
• A damage assessment of schools in Kosovo has examined 649 schools and found that 25 per cent are damaged, 21 per cent severely damaged and 60 per cent were destroyed beyond repair
• UNMIK is discussing production of textbooks for 300,000 students with international agencies
• About 260 schools have been confirmed to be mine-free
• UNICEF is distributing Superman comics to warn children about the danger of landminesInstitution-building
• A study on the situation of ethnic minorities in Kosovo is being compiled by the OSCE and UNHCR
• An Independent Media Board composed of five local journalists (four albanians and one Serb) has been constituted to provide advice on media issues. UNMIK-OSCE and KFOR has set up an informal Joint Consultative Council to coordinate work on media matters
• Radio Television Pristina resumed radio broadcasts on 28 July. Radio Pristina is airing a 90-minute program in three languages produced by the OSCE administered staff. UNMIK Radio produces 30 minutes of the programming. The staff of Albanian, Serb, and Turkish journalists is growing as the station develops. The editorial staff of the three ethnic teams co-operate by exchanging information
• UNMIK has started broadcasting on Radio Prizren a one-hour programme called the "UN Hour". This programme will be broadcast in cooperation with KFOR, OSCE and other international organizations
• Radio agreement signed on 19 August between UN and Government of Switzerland by which the Swiss have agreed to give the UNMIK radio operation a complete and functioning radio studio. The studio will be operated under the authority of UNMIK, which will have full editorial responsibility for the programming produced
• Local individuals being actively recruited for the new Kosovo police service. UNMIK reported that over 40,000 applications have been distributed in the UN's efforts to recruit for the service and over 19,000 were returned. More than 400 were interviewed and underwent a background check
• Training of first batch of 200 local recruits in Kosovo Police Service School in Vacitrin to begin on 7 September. First class of trainees range in age from 20 to 45; 20 per cent are female and over half have a university education; 83 per cent are Albanian; 13 per cent are Serb and 4 per cent are from other minorities. Basic course curriculum and materials are in final stages of translation; OSCE trainers to conduct courses
• The Judicial Training Unit is stepping up its efforts on the development of a judicial training institute in Kosovo. Intensive training will be provided in areas such as international human rights law. The Judicial Support Unit is continuing interviews of potential judges
• OSCE is proceeding with plans to set up a Kosovo Law Centre; a Legal Monitoring Unit has begun work
• Efforts have begun to establish Political Party Service Centres in major Kosovar cities. These centres are to ensure fair competition for emerging parties by providing equal facilitiesReconstruction
• In close cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, UNMIK has further advanced its work on the preparation of a Central Fiscal Authority
• World Bank and European Union chaired a Kosovo donors meeting for reconstruction and development in Brussels on 28 July at which more than $2 billion were pledged including funding already provided in 1999
• Draft regulations are in preparation to institute a fully functioning payment system in Kosovo; the central system will be based on the Deutsche Mark. One such regulation on the use of foreign currency for payments an dcontracts in Kosovo was signed today
• UNHCR and other agencies are providing more than 75,000 shelter kits. These kits are aimed at allowing the repair and weatherproofing of at least one room in a house. In all, the kits will benefit an estimated 387,000 people. UNHCR reports that about 6,000 kits have already been distributed. UNHCR is also bringing in at least 1.5 million pieces of timber for reconstruction but plans are under foot to develop a host family programme for those Kosovars who will not be able to weatherproof one room in a home before winter sets in
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
Criminal Tribunal
• Teams of investigators from 13 countries have been made available to conduct forensic analyses of more than 200 reported mass burial sites. They are Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. These teams have commenced work and will continue their investigations until the end of October
Human Rights
• The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has 11 monitors in Kosovo who are gathering information to be included in the next report of High Commissioner Mary Robinson
• The OSCE has 25 human rights personnel in Kosovo attempting to prevent abuse and following up on incidents. They are recording kidnappings and documenting mass grave sites as well as receiving complaints from civilians about a variety of issues. OSCE has also started a project to assess the situation of Serbs in Pristina, in cooperation with UNHCR and the International Committee of the red CrossEnvironment
•A team of international experts from the joint United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/UN Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) Balkans Task Force (BTF) left the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on 26 July after visiting the worst-damaged industrial sites resulting from the Balkans conflict. The team leader has suggested immediate international action to redress environmental consequences and health risks posed by groundwater and soil contamination.
• At the end of August, a second team was to assess the condition of the River Danube and the impact on biodoversity. The findings and recommendations of the BTF will be submitted in a report to the Secretary-General in September or October
• BTF working with UNMIK on issues of urban management and rehabilitation, housing law, property registration and environmental managementUNMIK Budget
• UN has allocated $50 million to fund UNMIK initial operations
• The General Assembly authorized the Secretary-General to spend up to $200 million for the Mission's operations, which includes the $50 million already allocatedInformation correct as of 3 September 1999; to be updated as required
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