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Kantor Resumes Brown’s Trade Mission Today
Commerce Secretary feels completely safe
Kantor and executives representing 18 U.S. companies are scheduled to leave Wednesday for a four-day trip to the Balkans to complete the trip Brown was on when his plane crashed as it was trying to land in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The group’s first stop will be for a private memorial service at the crash site on St. John’s Mountain. Brown and 34 others were killed in the crash, which the military has blamed on a combination of faulty decisions made by its commanders, the pilots of the plane and the Croatian civilians who designed the airport’s instrument landing procedures.
"I’m deeply grateful to the Air Force for the amount of time and effort they have spent on this," Kantor told reporters at a White House briefing. He said that he had several meetings with military officials regarding the safety of the trip before asking the business executives to accompany him. Most of the executives will be from corporations that also lost top officials in the Brown crash, Kantor said, but believed so strongly in the need to carry on the mission that they were going again.
Kantor said the trip will include stops to meet with business leaders and government officials in Dubrovnik and Zagreb in Croatia and Sarajevo and Tuzla in Bosnia. "This mission ... is an integral part of the president’s strategy to sustain the peace process and support the rebuilding of the region’s economy," Kantor said. Kantor, who had served as U.S. trade representative, was picked by President Clinton on April 12 to succeed Brown as commerce secretary.
Among the U.S. companies sending executives on the trip with Kantor were Boeing Co., United Technologies Corp., Northrop Grumman, Brown & Root and Bechtel Corp. Kantor said that the firms would be competing for the $2 billion scheduled to be spent on infrastructure projects in Croatia and another $5.1 billion in reconstruction work scheduled to be done in Bosnia.
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WASHINGTON, July 10 (AP) - Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor said he and a group of U.S. business executives are confident in their safety as they head to Bosnia to complete the trade mission that Ron Brown was on when his plane crashed. "I’m totally convinced it’s safe," Kantor told reporters Tuesday. "The fact is we should not be deterred ... in memory of these folks who gave their lives in trying to put a foundation under the peace process."
Berserkistan, June 4 · Kantor to Bosnia on Trade Mission
Berserkistan, Apr 4 · Bodies Recovered from Ron Brown's Plane
Berserkistan, Apr 3 · Passenger List for Brown's Plane
Berserkistan, Apr 3 · Plane Was Military Version of Boeing 737
US COMMERCE DEPARTMENT
Bosnian/Balkan Reconstruction U.S. Department of Commerce
Mickey Kantor Profile
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