16.07.2013 Views

Fra Kosovo til Kosova - BA Forlag

Fra Kosovo til Kosova - BA Forlag

Fra Kosovo til Kosova - BA Forlag

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

forces of some of the refugee camps has been postponed by a few days while we continue to<br />

address the situation, particularly improving some of the sanitation facilities in those camps, and<br />

the NATO forces in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia continue to unload about 35<br />

relief flights into Skopje every day.<br />

So we are continuing to act on both fronts, which are essential for the final resolution of this crisis:<br />

on the military front we go on; and on the humanitarian front we go on as well, and that will be<br />

ultimately the recipe for success.<br />

STEPHEN DIERX: Jamie, can you clear up the confusion with respect to the convoy incident,<br />

namely whether it took place south or north of Djakovica, and can you confirm that NATO has a<br />

picture taken by an unmanned plane indicating that indeed a tractor or the trailer was hit and there<br />

may be several victims because of scattered bodies that can be seen?<br />

JAMIE SHEA: Steve, I am going to obviously defer to the General on this one, but what I<br />

can tell you is that we have confirmed that the incident took place north of Djakovica, I think the<br />

General will bear me out on that one, we have no information whatever on the extent of civilian<br />

casualties, it is very difficult to do that when you are trying to find out what is going on in a very<br />

unfree place, without international observes on the scene, and we have no other information really<br />

on that incident to share with you at the present time. We have told you what we know and we<br />

don't know anything more for the time being. General, do you have anything to add on that?<br />

GENERAL MARANI: No.<br />

CHARLES: I am sorry, Jamie, we are going to have to push with this, we can't let you off with<br />

that. I know you want to put this set-back behind you, as you have said, but the simplest way to<br />

do this is going to be to try and share with us as much information as you have. We need to know<br />

about the four convoys which I understand were hit both north and south of Djakovica. What is<br />

it that NATO knows happened with those four convoys, what is the possible collateral damage,<br />

what are the possible civilian fatalities? The place that some 40 western journalists were taken<br />

to yesterday from Belgrade, is that somewhere that any NATO activity could have caused the sort<br />

of collateral damage that we are hearing from, which includes certainly at least ten dead and<br />

tractors on the road? I am afraid we have just got to push you on this and you have to share with<br />

us what you know.<br />

GENERAL MARANI: Yesterday we told you what we knew about the accident, north of the town,<br />

where we knew we could have hit civilian vehicles. As you can expect, in an air campaign we are<br />

attacking a number of targets. Convoys are military targets and can be attacked. What we know<br />

about our air attack we told you yesterday. For the rest we know nothing more than what I told you<br />

yesterday.<br />

CHARLES: I am sorry, I just can't let that rest there. I find it absolutely impossible to believe that<br />

you know nothing about a six mile stretch of road with for some reason blown up tanks and bodies<br />

on that road. Whatever the cause, and I am not suggesting that it was caused by NATO, but I<br />

cannot believe that you do not know about it and what might have caused that.<br />

GENERAL MARANI: We know what we have done, what kind of activity we have performed and<br />

we are investigating our activity. This is what I can tell you now.<br />

JAMIE SHEA: Charles, look, when we have more information we will share it with you. We<br />

316

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!