UNMIK/PR/502
SRSG Hans Haekkerup opened today’s meeting of the Interim Administrative Council by repeating his outrage at the terrorist attack on the bus convoy last Friday, which claimed the lives of at least 10 Kosovo Serbs.
Mr. Haekkerup thanked IAC members for their individual public statements decrying the attack. The IAC then issued a statement of strong condemnation. (Statement issued as Press Release 501.)
Mr. Haekkerup described his visit to a hospital where several victims of the attack were recovering:
“What was striking was that these people who were severely wounded talked about Kosovo Albanians and Kosovo Serbs living together in peace,” Mr. Haekkerup said. “Bitterness would have been understandable. But it made a strong impression on me how they really saw things and wanted an integrated future in Kosovo. If people come out that way it bodes well for the future of Kosovo.”
The SRSG also announced his decision to appoint a representative of the AAK (the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo) to the fourth IAC seat reserved by regulation for a Kosovo member and vacant since the resignation of the LBD’s Rexhep Qosja. Mr. Haekkerup said that after consultation with the IAC membership, he decided to invite the AAK due to the results of the October municipal elections in which it ranked third in terms of votes collected.
The draft regulation which would increase the penalties for possession of illegal weapons and which the SRSG introduced last week was also discussed. Mr. Haekkerup said the comments received from the PDK would be reviewed, and he planned to sign the regulation later this week, when a public information campaign will be launched to explain the measures and the weapons amnesty program.
Mr. Andy Bearpark, the Deputy SRSG heading the Economic Reconstruction and Development Pillar, briefed the IAC on developments at the Trepca complex in northern Kosovo and distributed a report on the current situation.
The international consortium hired six months ago to manage the complex and to advise UNMIK on the financial, technical and environmental prospects for reviving all or part of Trepca is to finish its work by the end of the month, Mr. Bearpark said.
In the minds of people concerned with Trepca, two contradictory theories have dominated, he said: One that Trepca’s potential wealth is so vast it could solve all Kosovo’s economic problems and the other that the mining and metallurgy complex was simply a hopeless environmental disaster. The truth, Bearpark said, lies somewhere in between.
The key areas that must be addressed in the near future are how to resolve claims of ownership and debts; how to acquire the substantial investment needed to create jobs and production; and how to raise money to deal with the substantial environmental degradation.
Mr. Bearpark will host a donors’ conference on Sunday and Monday in Pristina where he will attempt to raise some of the money needed, but he warned the IAC that the bus attack had outraged donors whom he met last week in Brussels, and that they had proposed canceling the meeting.
Asked about claims of foreign investment in the complex, Bearpark said that Greek, Italian and French claims existed, which would have to be clarified in the appropriate courts. Meanwhile, the existence of such claims remains a deterrent to investors. At the same time, there is a ‘moral debt’ to the people of Kosovo which cannot be ignored, he said, as Trepca is considered a public enterprise, currently under UNMIK management.