PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH

Armenia/Azerbaijan Former prisoner of war found guilty of treason in Azerbaijan

Burundi Peace efforts in Burundi discussed by presidents of Mozambique and Burundi

Politics-hating tycoon challenges pro-Kremlin chief in Chechnya poll

Congo French troops in helicopters foil massacre in village in northeastern Congo

Indonesia Civilians bear brunt of Indonesia military crackdown on Aceh: report

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast parliament grants rebels amnesty from certain crimes

Indian federal police to phase out Kashmir border guards in November

Liberia Shuttling into battered Liberia, helicopters build to 3,250-strong peace deployment

Liberia's leader cancels plans to personally notify lawmakers of his intent to resign

Morocco Annan names special adviser on Cyprus to U.N. post in disputed Western Sahara

Philippines Philippine rebel leader's death won't stall peace talks: officials

Philippines, rebels ask Muslim countries to send peace monitors swiftly

Serbia & Montenegro Serbia and Montenegro at pains to move closer to EU, foreign minister says

Suspected ETA members arrested in Mexico present appeals to block their extradition to Spain

Sudanese president says Sudan and Chad will work together to end rebellion in western Sudan

Peace Negotiations Watch is prepared by the Public International Law and Policy Group in cooperation with American University and is made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

A former Azerbaijani prisoner of war was convicted of treason Tuesday and sentenced to seven years in a hard-labor camp after prosecutors said he collaborated with his ethnic Armenian captors and tortured his fellow inmates. Nadir Mahmudov was taken prisoner by ethnic Armenian separatists in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave in October 1993, and was held for more than two years in a makeshift prison in a pediatric hospital in the village of Khankendi.

Prosecutors claimed that Armenian prison guards appointed Mahmudov a supervisor of his fellow Azerbaijani prisoners and that he tortured and humiliated them. Mahmudov allegedly confiscated their food and clothing - supplied by the Red Cross - and gave it to the guards. Azerbaijan's court for serious crimes found Mahmudov guilty of treason and sentenced him to seven years imprisonment in a hard labor camp. Mahmudov denied his guilt, saying he had beaten two Azerbaijani prisoners who refused to obey sanitary rules because they caused other inmates to be punished as well. He also added that the Azerbaijani prisoners voluntarily gave up their food and clothing to avoid torture and beatings from the guards.

Azerbaijan and forces backed by Armenia fought a 1988-94 war over Nagorno-Karabakh, a largely ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan. More than 30,000 people were killed and a million driven from their homes during the conflict. The Armenian-backed forces won control of Nagorno-Karabakh. Despite a cease-fire, the two sides continue to face off across a heavily fortified no man's land, and shooting occasionally erupts.

Azerbaijan's defence ministry said Wednesday that five of its soldiers had died after accidentally setting off a mine left over from the former Soviet republic's war with neighbouring Armenia. "Five servicemen in Azerbaijan's armed forces were blown up and killed by a mine while carrying out a military mission on August 5," the defence ministry said in a statement released to the media. It said the victims were a 29-year-old lieutenant, a 19-year-old sergeant and three privates. The defence ministry refused to say where the incident took place.

Humanitarian organisations say that soldiers and civilians are frequently killed or maimed by mines left over from Azerbaijan's war with Armenia over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. A cease-fire was signed in 1994 but mine clearance efforts have been slow and hampered by the tense stand-off which still exists to this day between Armenian and Azeri armed forces.

The two former Soviet republics went to war in the early 1990s after ethnic Armenians took control of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but populated mainly by Armenians. Armenian forces got the upper hand and by the time the fighting stopped, Armenia was in de facto control of the enclave. Peace talks are deadlocked and Azerbaijan has not ruled out a resumption of military action.

Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, the current head of the African Union, hosted Burundi President Domities Ndayizeye to discuss peace efforts in the war-torn central African country, state radio reported Thursday. Talks between Chissano and Ndayizeye focused on encouraging the peace process in Burundi and strengthening cooperation between the two countries.

The 10-year civil war in Burundi has killed more than 200,000 people, mostly civilians. The conflict erupted after Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the country's first democratically elected president, a Hutu. The African Union has begun deploying a 3,500-strong force in Burundi to help implement cease-fire agreements.The Tutsi minority have effectively controlled the nation for all but a few months since independence in 1962. Hutu rebels signed cease-fire agreements in October and December last year, but fighting continued. Ndayizeye said his people were tired of war. "The people of Burundi decided to bury the axe of war and live in peace," Ndayizeye said.

MAPUTO, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano appealed here Thursday to all rebel factions in Burundi to join the ceasefire agreement in order to consolidate peace in that country. The ceasefire agreement was signed between the Burundian government and some of the rebel factions in Arusha in Tanzania in December 2002. Addressing a press conference after talks with Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeze, Chissano, who is also the incumbent chairperson of the African Union (AU), encouraged his Burundian counterpart to continue negotiations to bring those rebel factions that did not yet adhere to the ceasefire agreement to do so, and those who have signed to stick to it. Giving the example of the Mozambican peace process, Chissano said, "We are proud to be able to demonstrate that tolerance and reconciliation are beneficial to the people. With them we are all winners."

For his part, Ndayizeze said his government is prepared to forget the past and embark on the building of a new future of peace and democracy in the country. "We should bury the past and seek to build the future by consolidating the ceasefire reached between the government and the rebel factions and head for elections," Ndayizeze said. He explained that this second stage of the transitional period is mainly characterized by a change of president because the program remains the same and is based on the search for peace and stability by putting all the efforts into the implementation of the ceasefire.

As for the financial support to the peacekeeping forces deployed to Burundi, including Mozambicans, South Africans and Ethiopians, Chissano said African countries should provide it, but the AU has also been negotiating with organs of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP Group) organization for an added support. The cost of the mission is estimated at 14 million US dollars, for which some international donors, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, have also pledged some contribution. On the possibility of Burundi joining the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Chissano said the organization has not yet received any formal request. He said that so far the only new request to join the SADC has come from Rwanda.

Peace must return to war-torn Burundi before an international conference on the region's future can be held, the EU's special representative to the Great Lakes region said Friday. "The preliminary condition for the international conference on the Great Lakes to be held as planned is for there to be peace in Burundi," Aldo Ajello told journalists in the Burundian capital. More than 300,000 people have so far been killed in Burundi's 10-year civil war which pits Hutu rebels against their Tutsi rivals. A ceasefire established late last year is all but in tatters following repeated rebel attacks in the last two months in Burundi.

According to Ajello, the conference on peace, security, cooperation and democracy in the Great Lakes region will hopefully be held somewhere in east Africa towards the end of 2003, to wind up at the end of 2004. "All countries in the region have given the green light, the UN secretary general has named a special representative for the region... and preliminary meetings have been held," Ajello said at the end of a three-day visit to Bujumbura. "Today the time is ripe for such a conference, and having resolved the problem in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we need to convene this conference."

Visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin won endorsement for his Chechnya policies Tuesday from mainly Muslim Malaysia. The statement of support came as Russian media claimed that Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov's wife Kusama and son and daughter live in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. The son has reportedly developed a business and is suspected of using the profits to help guerillas in predominantly Muslim Chechnya, leading the Russian press to speculate that Putin might discreetly ask Malaysia to restrain his activities.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, briefing reporters on a 90 minute meeting between Putin and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, said the two men had discussed Chechnya. The alleged presence of Maskhadov's family was not raised at the news conference. "We consider Chechnya an internal matter of Russia. We are very happy they have conducted the referendum and they are going to hold presidential elections in October," he said.

A constitutional referendum aimed at setting up political institutions in Chechnya, which has been granted limited autonomy within the Russian Federation, was held in March and presidential elections are due on October 5. "We recognise Chechnya as part of the Federation of Russia," Syed Hamid said. "We are glad they have given a lot of autonomy to Chechnya, we want to see a peaceful solution to issues affecting Chechnya." He said Malaysia recognised Russia's efforts to bring peace and stability to the area. "They have done everything possible," he said. During his visit, Putin wrapped up a 900-million-dollar deal to supply 18 advanced Sukhoi warplanes to Malaysia, one of the world's most developed Muslim countries.

GROZNY, August 6 - Chechen Prime Minister Anatoly Popov was officially presented to the members of the government and the heads of district administrations on Wednesday as the republic's new acting president. Acting President Akhmat Kadyrov has been on a vacation since Tuesday in connection with his election campaign. Popov will hold this office through the entire campaign.

Popov told journalists he considers his appointment "a sign great trust and huge responsibility before the Chechen people." In his words, this post assumes special importance during the election campaign. "The president of the Russian Federation has tasked us with conducting democratic elections in Chechnya and electing a worthy, courageous, bold and authoritative leaders capable of running the republic at this difficult time," Popov said. "We will fulfil this task," he said. There are currently 11 candidates for Chechen presidency. The latest to have joined the race was a 60-year-old resident of Grozny, Khasan Dadayev.

Earlier, applications were submitted to the republic's election commission by a builder from Astrakhan, Said-Khamzat Gairbekov, military pensioner from Grozny, Zaindi Mavlatov, a senior lecturer from the Grozny State University, Avkhat Khanchukayev, businessman Malik Saidullayev, an official from the Chechen president's press service, Nikolai Paizulayev, deputy military commandant of Chechnya Said-Selim Tsuyev, deputy general director of the company Grozneftegaz Kuduz Saduyev, deputy editor-in-chief of the local newspaper Marsho (Freedom) Ruslan Zakriyev, an adviser to the president of the Elektrogorsk Research Centre for the Safety of Nuclear Power Plants, Khusein Biibulatov, and acting head of Chechnya Akhmat Kadyrov.

The latter has said his main task if he is elected would be to restore peace in Chechnya. He told journalists in Grozny on Monday after submitting initial registration documents to the election commission that he had not made up his mind to run "up till Saturday". "It's a great responsibility even to call oneself a candidate for the president of Chechnya," he added. Kadyrov said his decision had been supported by people from different parts of Chechnya who had gathered in his native village of Tsentoroi a day before. "I felt that people were pinning their hopes on me," Kadyrov said, adding that he had his arguments to back up his election promises because "the republic is slowly gaining condition for its revival."

Kadyrov's election team will shortly start collecting signatures in his support. He believes "there will be no problems with the collection of signatures." He thanked political parties for supporting his candidature and even for nominating him as their candidate.

Presidential elections in Chechnya are scheduled for October 5, 2003. Speaking of the situation in the republic, Popov said it remains calm and is fully controlled by law enforcement agencies. He said rumours about possible provocations on August 6 and subsequent days due in connection with an anniversary of the taking of Grozny by militants is nothing more than a form of psychological pressure on people. Popov said law enforcers are reporting to him that life in the republic goes as usual. "I drove around Grozny and saw people going to shops and markets, and going about their business," he said.

He said the payment of compensations for the lost housing and property will most likely begin a month later than was planned initially - in the middle of October. Popov explained the delay by "a number of conditions that cannot be met technically in the remaining time." These include property questions concerning the buildings of banks. But "on the whole work is going at full speed," he added.

The first version of the list of people entitled to compensations is ready, and organisational questions pertaining to the work of banks have been resolved. In the initial stage, compensations will be paid through Sberbank's branches in Grozny and Gudermes. However other Russian banks may also take part in this work. Speaking of the transfer of refugees from tent cities in Ingushetia to their homes in Chechnya, Popov said all organisational and financial aspects of this process have been resolved, and now everything depends on the quality of work to be done by concrete officials.

In his words, three more buildings have been selected in Grozny for temporary accommodation centres for refugees. Repairs in two of them are drawing to an end. Popov said the resettlement of people will be completed by the beginning of October as planned, adding that people will not be forced to come back. Popov said his major task is to finish the harvest as soon as possible, complete the return of forced migrants from Ingushetia, and pay compensations for lost housing and property. "My major task is to create conditions for ensuring free and democratic elections on October 5," he added.

Chechen rebels have shot down a Russian chopper and killed seven soldiers in separate strikes as a rights group reported Friday that 12,000 troops have died in the brutal guerrilla war -- three times the official figure. In the helicopter attack, one crew mate was killed when the Mi-8 military chopper was struck down late Thursday by a single surface-to-air missile in the southeast of the Russia's predominantly Muslim breakaway republic.

The mountainous region has been controlled by an estimated 2,000 guerrillas who been fighting some 80,000 Russian soldiers since Moscow stormed into Chechnya in October 1999 in a self-declared "anti-terror" campaign. The guerrillas regularly target Russian military helicopters. ITAR-TASS reported that six Russian soldiers died and seven others were injured when unknown assailants opened fire Friday on an armored vehicle in Ingushetia, near the border with Chechnya.

It was the second major attack in Ingushetia -- where Chechens enjoy widespread public support -- in 10 days and is prompting some fears here that the rebels are trying to expand their campaign. Meanwhile the respected Soldiers' Mothers Committee rights group reported that 12,000 Russian troops have been killed in the war -- a figure suggesting that on an average nearly nine Russian soldiers have died daily since the war began in 1999.

The group's representative Valentina Malnikova told Moscow Echo radio that the figures included soldiers who died on their way to a hospital or from injuries at a later date -- deaths that are not officially registered by the authorities. "Unfortunately, our way of counting the dead soldiers more closely corresponds to reality," Malnikova told the private radio station.

Russia rarely issues official toll statistics concerning the conflict, and when it does, the figures often contradict each other. The latest official estimate puts the Russian toll at more than 4,500 dead and the Chechen rebel toll at about 15,000. The civilian casualties have never been officially disclosed and rights groups fear the figure could stand in the thousands. Russian President Vladimir Putin has scheduled presidential elections in Chechnya for October 5 as part of a political peace process that has been rejected by more radical guerrillas.

But daily guerrilla fighting rages in Chechnya despite Putin's declaration that the war has been won and that troops in the republic are there only to perform policing functions. "I fear that an element of terror will remain in Chechnya even after the elections," Putin's rights representative to the region Abdul-Khakim Sultygov conceded to Moscow Echo radio Friday. But after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Putin won international sympathy for a military campaign that the West first attacked as misconceived and unnecessary.

In the latest move boosting Putin's image, the United States on Friday designated feared Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev a "specially designated global terrorist" and froze his assets. Basayev has taken responsibility for a series of suicide attacks in May that killed nearly 100 people as well as the deadly October 2002 hostage-taking at a Moscow theater. US officials also accuse Basayev of having received millions of dollars from Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network.

The Kremlin welcomed the news late Friday. "This is very good news and absolutely a step in the right direction," Sergei Yastrzhembsky, chief Kremlin spokesman on Chechnya, told the Interfax news agency. "It is yet more proof that within the anti-terror coalition, there is an understanding that what is happening in Chechnya is part of the global fight against terrorism," he said.

Politics-hating tycoon challenges pro-Kremlin chief in Chechnya poll

Chechen millionaire Malik Saidullayev may claim to have "never liked politics" but he still intends to run in Chechnya's presidential poll against pro-Russian chief administrator Akhmad Kadyrov. "Politics is lies and dirt," Chechnya's former prime minister says flatly. However he is prepared to overcome his personal distaste for the sake of his homeland. "Chechnya's situation and my role as a businessman have forced me to take a stand, to defend our rights as an ethnic minority," he told AFP.

In Saidullayev's office, the flag of Chechen separatists shares wall-space with Russia's federal standard and the flag of Chechnya as Russia would have it -- an integral part of the federation of 89 regions and republics. The conflicting image is meant to reflect Saidullayev's ambition to reconcile Chechen hopes of maintaining their national identity while remaining within Russia's bounds. "I will win, but it will be difficult," the candidate said, looking the very image of a successful Caucasian businessman -- carefully combed dark hair, shoes shined so bright you cold see your reflection in them, and a sharply cut navy suit complete with silver buttons.

He also wears a daring gold-and-red tie, the only hint that this tycoon, whose company -- which includes a television lottery as well as major piezoelectric factories -- churns out a yearly 500-million-dollar turnout, once hoped to become a painter, a hobby he has not fully abandoned. As for his brief term as Chechnya's prime minister at the start of the war in October 1999, he cheerfully admits that he was no more than a "self-proclaimed chief -- Russia acknowledged the government but Chechens did not."

But he used that ephemeral status to come to aid of his suffering people, he said, claiming to have spent "between four and five million dollars" from his own pocket to his country's welfare between 1999 and 2001. Former comrades from his old government team could help organise support for him ahead of the vote, he said. The same goes for the humanitarian fund set up in his father's name, devoted to providing financial and medical aid for the victims of landmines littering Chechnya's soil.

Analysts believe that Saidullayev's personal fortune could give his campaign a much-needed edge in Chechnya, where the impoverished population hopes he could use his business acumen and funds to jump-start the shattered economy. Meanwhile, Saidullayev's arch-rival Akhmad Kadyrov, a former religious leader, "is supported by only three percent of the population, while 97 percent hate him," or so the businessman believes.

"Kadyrov has armed gangs who run the show. But that is not true power, true power lies in the people," Saidullayev said. However the Kremlin must display its own good will if the elections are to work in the republic where bombs, landmines and guerrilla attacks take a daily toll, he warned. "The elections will be free if the federal center guarantees it so. If it wants peace, it will make peace. Chechens would like federal troops to guard polling stations -- but not Kadyrov's armed men," he said.

Having met President Vladimir Putin in April, Saidullayev says he is convinced the Russian leader "wants peace." Officially the Kremlin does not back any of the 13 candidates so far declared, although there are powerful factions within the Russian administration who favour Kadyrov and the pro-Kremlin "United Russia" party has offered its support. Kadyrov rejected the offer because, Saidullayev believes, it was not guaranteed and could be withdrawn, with disastrous consequences for the Chechen leader's campaign.

French troops in helicopters foil massacre in village in northeastern Congo

French troops on helicopter patrol over the lush green savannah of troubled northeastern Congo stopped a massacre in progress Tuesday in a remote village, although nine villagers died, residents said. The attack began before dawn when Lendu tribal fighters armed with automatic weapons and machetes raided this tiny village of the Hema tribe from two directions, chief Nguna Manasse said.

The attackers came in two waves, Manasse said. The first, dressed in military uniforms, fired on fleeing villagers; the second in civilian clothes hacked the wounded with machetes. "There were so many of them, I could not count because we were running," Manasse said after he and other residents ventured back to the village 12 miles south of Bunia, the capital of troubled Ituri province. The sound of the helicopters drove off the attackers, he said. Manasse said it wasn't clear who the uniformed attackers were - although Lendu tribal fighters often don uniforms taken from rivals. But there was no doubt that the men in civilian clothes armed with machetes were Lendus.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in tribal fighting in resource-rich northeastern Congo since a rebellion backed by neighboring Rwanda and Uganda broke out in August 1998. Although the main rebel groups have reached peace deals with the government in Kinshasa, 1,000 miles to the west, and have joined the administration, violence over land and cattle and gold and power continues in Ituri. The disputes go back generations, but they turned lethal when the encroaching foreign armies and their rebel allies armed tribal fighters.

Col. Gerard Dubois, spokesman for the French-led 1,100-strong international force based in Bunia, said after the helicopters frightened the attackers off, 150 more French troops went to the village in armored personnel carriers and secured the area. Helicopters buzzed overhead as huts still smoldered in the late afternoon haze, and villagers led the way through cornfields to the fresh graves of the dead. Manasse said the raiders also made off with 250 head of cattle. "When the French go," he said. "We will leave the village." The French-led force, which now includes some Swedish, Belgian and British troops as well, arrived in June with a mandate to secure Bunia; it is scheduled to depart by Sept. 1.

The international force went in after 750 U.N. troops with a weak mandate were unable to halt fighting for control of the town after the Ugandan occupiers withdrew, and more than 500 people were killed. Critics said the international emergency force would be ineffectual unless it moved out of town and into the province. The U.N. Security Council has since beefed up the mandate of its force in Bunia, which is being bolstered by troops from Bangladesh, who are to number 1,200 by the time the French depart.

The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Wednesday condemned the attack that left nine people dead near Bunia, the main town in the troubled northeastern province of Ituri, a UN spokesman said Wednesday. The killings at Nyanda, 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Bunia, were "a serious setback for the ongoing peace process in the DRC" in the eyes of head of the UN mission (MONUC), William Sting, UN spokesman Hamadoun Toure told reporters in the capital Kinshasa. Sting called on all armed groups operating in Ituri to "put an end to attacks."

An armed group of 150 launched an attack on the village early Tuesday. The dead were mainly women and children, according to a UN report. Several houses were burned and some cattle taken away. According to witnesses, the attackers belonged to the Lendu ethnic group and were controlled by the National Integration Front (FNI). So far some 1,200 troops from Uruguay and Bangladesh are stationed in the area, and a further 2,400 are expected. Under the new mandate awarded by the UN Security Council, MONUC troops will be allowed to resort to force as they carry out their peace-keeping duties.

A body monitoring a peace deal in the Democratic Republic of Congo announced late Wednesday an agreement on the sharing out of the country's 10 military regions among the former warring factions. Disputes over the issue have held up efforts to complete the peace process in the country for several weeks. After two days of non-stop meetings, the commission set up to supervise the peace process announced that the ex-government would be allocated three regions, while the main former rebel groups, Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) and the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC), would get two each. Three smaller former factions, the Congolese Rally for Democracy-National (RCD-N), the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement (RCD-ML) and the Mai-Mai militia, would each be placed in control of one region. The head of each military region would also be assisted by two deputies from a group other than the one to which he belongs.

The commission was set up to monitor the peace process and transition to democracy after an agreement reached between warring Congolese factions in South Africa last December. In June, the RCD, which is backed by Rwanda, unilaterally set up three military regions of its own - in the east, the north and the south of the country. But the decision was judged void by the International Committee Accompanying the Transition (CIAT), which is composed of representatives of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the UN mission in DR Congo (MONUC) plus South Africa and the former colonial power Belgium. It is to hold its last meeting on August 11 and will release its final report three days later to the transition government, said the body's spokesman, Athanase Matenda.

Eleven aid workers believed abducted by Rwandan and Burundian rebels have been killed in a restive eastern province of Congo, a U.N. official said Thursday. The Congolese nationals worked in South Kivu province, bordering Burundi, for the British Christian aid agency Tearfund and were slain July 24 by their captors, William Lacy Swing, U.N. special representative to Congo, said in a statement.

Their abductors are believed to have been Rwandan and Burundian rebels allied with pro-Congo government tribal fighters in the region, Swing said. The statement didn't indicate when the workers were abducted or the circumstances of their slayings, near the town of Baraka. Swing condemned the killings and called for an international inquiry. The northeastern and eastern parts of Congo remain highly unstable despite peace accords signed among Congo's government, four rebel groups and the political opposition - and a power-sharing government formed on June 30th.

Congo's war broke out in August 1998 when rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda sought to overthrow Joseph Kabila's father, Laurent Kabila, then president of Congo. They accused him of supporting rebels from their countries. Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia sent troops to support Congo's government. Nearly all the foreign troops have withdrawn from Congo, but fighting has continued in eastern Congo between the main rebel factions, splinter groups and tribal fighters.

Click here to access the DR Congo Role Play prepared by the Public International Law and Policy Group.

Georgia/Abkhazia

Abkhazian Prime Minister Raul Khadjimba said on Friday that Abkhazia was ready to continue working out guarantees for preserving peace in the area of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. Khadjimba told Representative of the U.N. Secretary General in Georgia Heidi Tagliavini at a meeting in the Abkhaz capital Sukhumi that the Abkhaz side intended to participate in implementing the Sochi agreements and would resume full-scale work in the Georgian-Abkhazian Coordination Council operating under the United Nations aegis. The meeting that dwelt on prospects for the settlement of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict also discussed problems related to the work of the U.N. police instructors who are supposed to arrive in the Gali district of Abkhazia this autumn.

Civilians are bearing the brunt of the Indonesian military operation in Aceh and are being killed in greater numbers than separatist rebels, a US journalist freed from jail in the province said Wednesday. William Nessen was convicted of immigration offences and deported from Indonesia Monday after 40 days in jail in Indonesia's Aceh province for reporting on the separatist war in Aceh. "The ones that they (the military) are capturing and killing are not the fighters," Nessen said told the BBC from Bangkok en route back to the US. Indonesian army soldiers were also being picked off in large numbers during the fighting, he added. "I saw a lot of losses among the Indonesian military, not that many guerrillas being killed.

"I saw still a great optimism and determination among the guerillas, and the people in the villages that one day they would have their own country" he said. However, the Indonesian army had placed a stranglehold on ordinary Acehnese in their bid to snuff out the rebel uprising, which was resulting in food shortages and a widespread climate of fear, Nessen said. "They are restricting the amount of food that (villagers) can have. People are terrified. "People can't buy even enough food to feed their families because the Indonesian military is concerned that people will give some of their rice or their cigarettes to the guerillas," he added. The Indonesian military had also curtailed freedom of movement between villages in order to restrict rebel fighters mobility.

"You can't go from village to village without a permit from the head of the village and the head of the village has to give copies of those to the Indonesian military: who went, who travelled, two kilometers or three kilometers away," Nessen said. Nessen also said large populations of villagers were being forcibly relocated to camps and dozens of villages were being incorporated into large villages which were more open to Indonesian military scrutiny.

"The Indonesian strategy now is to occupy every village in Aceh if they can," he said. Some military officers have said they suspected Nessen, who first reported from Aceh in 2001, was spying for GAM. The rebels have been fighting for independence on the tip of Sumatra island since 1976. Jakarta launched its massive operation against the rebels after a series of brief truces and failed peace talks.

The military said Monday at least 612 rebels have been killed with the loss of 53 troops and police since the military operation began. As of late last week, 274 rebel weapons have been seized, the military said. In a recent report, The International Crisis Group think-tank questioned official figures for the rebel dead, saying there was no way to verify whether those killed were really guerrillas. Martial law authorities in Aceh have restricted the movement of foreign journalists and non-governmental organizations.

Indonesian troops gunned down eight separatist rebels in restive Aceh province, an army spokesman said Thursday. The rebels were shot in four separate firefights on Wednesday, said Aceh military operations spokesman Ahmad Yani Basuki. He said one civilian died from a stray bullet while another was killed by rebels. The clashes are part a government military offensive that began in May after a peace accord broke down with the rebel Free Aceh Movement.

Basuki said five of the rebels were killed in a firefight in South Aceh district, in which one soldier was also injured. The other three rebels died in different clashes. Since the offensive began, military has killed at least 600 people it claims were rebels, but rights groups believe many of the casualties have been civilians. More than 40 troops and policemen have also died. The rebels have been fighting since 1976 for an independent state in Aceh, an oil- and gas-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra island. About 12,000 people have died in the conflict in the past decade.

Indonesian police claimed Friday they uncovered a cache of explosives after arresting two suspected separatist rebels earlier in the week. But this was immediately denied by the insurgents. Da'i Bachtiar, Indonesia's police chief, said two members of the Free Aceh Movement were arrested Wednesday in East Bekasi, a town just outside of Jakarta, and said authorities found several homemade pipe bombs and other explosives in the raid.

"I cannot show you the evidence because it is too dangerous to bring it here," said Bachtiar. He said the two men, identified as Adityawarna and Fadli, were responsible for a number of unexplained bombings at Jakarta's international airport, parliament and the U.N. building earlier this year. Another suspect escaped and has returned to Aceh, Bachtiar said.

Indonesian authorities have repeatedly tried to link separatists from the province on the tip of Sumatra island with unexplained bombings in the capital and elsewhere. But their claims have never been substantiated, and the guerrillas deny carrying out attacks outside Aceh. They say the authorities are trying to justify Indonesia's current offensive in Aceh - in which about 600 people have died - by depicting them as terrorists.

"These are made up accusations," said Baktiar Abdullah, a spokesman for the Free Aceh Movement in Stockholm, Sweden, where the group's leadership is based. "We strongly condemn such acts," he said. At least 13 bombs have gone off in Indonesia's capital in the past four years, with the latest - Tuesday's bombing of the Marriott Hotel - claiming 10 lives and injuring almost 150.

In Aceh on Friday, gunmen killed two police officers guarding a bank in a northern district. Maj. Laksa Widiyana, the local police chief, said it was not clear whether the attackers were rebels or bandits trying to rob the bank. The rebels have been fighting since 1976 for an independent state in Aceh, an oil- and gas-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra island. About 12,000 people have died in the conflict in the past decade. The military recently declared martial law in the province after peace talks broke down in May.

A fresh round of violence involving Indonesian government forces and separatist rebels in restive Aceh province has left 24 people dead, including 18 guerillas, police and the military said Sunday. Troops shot dead four rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) during a clash in Kuta Binjee, East Aceh on Sunday, Aceh Military Spokesman Ahmad Yani Basuki said. One soldier was wounded, he added. Another military spokesman Ditya Sudarsono said that four men were found dead with gunshot wounds at two separate locations in North Aceh and East Aceh on Sunday.

Police raided a suspected hideout of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and shot dead two alleged local rebel commanders in Cot Krueng in the district of Aceh Besar Saturday, Banda Aceh city police chief Alfons Toluhula said. The two local commanders were identified as Sanusi alias Cut Teng, 39, who is responsible for the Darussalam area and Sabirin, responsible for the Ulee Kareng area, he said.

Toluhula said that Cut Teng was the mastermind behind the gunning down of Safwan Idris, the chancellor of the Ar-Raniry Institute of Islamic Religion in Banda Aceh in 2001. Idris was shot dead in his car. The raid followed information about Cut Teng's whereabouts obtained from one of his captured subordinates, Junaidi, 35. Juanidi was captured just hours before the raid.

Meanwhile, a 48-man strong joint police and army troop raided a house in Paloh Gadeng, North Aceh district on Saturday and shot dead another two suspected GAM guerrillas, the North Aceh district police chief, Eko Daniyanto said. The two guerrillas were shot after resisting arrest.

Basuki said that on Saturday, a total of 10 more rebels where shot dead in separate clashes across Aceh on Saturday. The clashes took place in East Aceh, North Aceh, Aceh Tamiang and Aceh Besar districts, he said. Basuki also accused guerillas of killing a 60-year-old retired army soldier who is the village chief in Cot Baye in Aceh Besar late on Saturday evening and a teenager at his home in Kuta Makmur, North Aceh.

Rebel gunmen also shot and wounded a housewife in Tanjung Jawa, in North Aceh on Saturday, he said. The military's latest figures released on Sunday show a total of 653 rebels killed since the armed forces on May 19 launched a massive operation to crush GAM. The rebels say many of those killed are civilians. The military says more than 1,400 rebels have been arrested or surrendered during the same period while the army and police lost a total of 55 men. GAM has been fighting for independence since 1976. More than 10,000 people have been killed in the resource-rich province on Sumatra island since then.

Click here to access the Aceh Role Play prepared by the Public International Law and Policy Group.

Click here to access the Aceh Peace Module prepared by the Public International Law and Policy Group.

Legislators on Wednesday granted Ivory Coast's insurgents amnesty from prosecution for certain crimes committed during a bloody 9-month civil war in the world's largest cocoa producer. The amnesty won't exempt rebels from violations of human rights or grave economic crimes, which could still be tried by an international tribunal, according to the new law, approved by a majority of parliament's 212 members. The new law didn't detail which crimes can no longer be prosecuted. The amnesty is "a major step toward the final resolution of the conflict," said a rebel representative, Louis-Andre Dacoury Tabley, reached by telephone in Bouake, an insurgent stronghold. The legislation earmarked US$40 million to reimburse victims of war-related crimes.

The amnesty law is part of a French-brokered January peace deal between the west African nation's government and rebels who sparked the conflict with a failed September coup attempt against President Laurent Gbagbo. A transitional government involving both sides has met numerous times and the war was declared formally finished on July 4, but rebels still control much of Ivory Coast's north and west and the former French colony remains tense. About 4,000 French troops and 1,200 West African peacekeepers still monitor cease-fire lines between rebels and Gbagbo's loyalists. The peace plan envisions a full rebel disarmament and demobilization in the coming months. The government estimates that more than 3,000 people have been killed in fighting since September. About 1 million have been driven from their homes in the country, which gained independence from France in 1960.

A delegation from Kashmir's main separatist alliance met Pakistan's new envoy to India, Aziz Ahmed Khan, and other diplomats Tuesday with the aim of furthering an India-Pakistan peace initiative. Members of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and the diplomats discussed developments in Kashmir and the impact of recent peace moves between the two countries, Press Trust of India news agency reported. Details of the talks were not available.

Hurriyat members also met US and Iranian diplomats based in New Delhi. Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed in full by both, has been a major source of friction since the countries gained independence from Britain in 1947. India accuses Pakistan of fomenting a 14-year Islamic insurgency in its sector of Kashmir. Pakistan contends it provides only moral and diplomatic support to an "indigenous" movement.

Relations between India and Pakistan have thawed in recent months as the nuclear-armed neighbours have restored full diplomatic links and a bus service as they inch towards resuming talks after tensions lasting more than 18 months. The Hurriyat has pushed for a role in any peace talks between India and Pakistan as it considers itself the representative of the people of Indian Kashmir.

Indian federal police to phase out Kashmir border guards in November

India's federal police will start phasing out border guards from counter-insurgency operations in Indian Kashmir from November and the process will be completed by the end of 2005, an officer announced Wednesday. "The government as of now has intimated that from November onwards the first phase of taking over from the BSF (Border Security Force) by the CRPF will start," G.M. Srivastava, a senior officer from India's Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), told reporters in Srinagar, the Kashmiri summer capital.

"By the end of 2005 we intend to complete this (phasing out) process," said Srivastava, who heads the CRPF in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley. He said the replacement of the BSF -- the main force battling a 14 year-old anti-Indian rebellion in Kashmir -- with the CRPF will take place in three phases. "We are fully geared up for that (take over). We have the force ready for the first phase," he said, adding that his men would be ready for the second phase early next year, and the recruitment and training of personnel for the final phase in 2005 has already started.

Srivastava said the phasing out of the BSF would start in Srinagar. "As far as weaponry and other equipment is concerned we are fully equipped to do the job," said Srivastava, adding the modernisation of the force was continuing. The process of replacing the BSF was to have started in April but was delayed as the force was needed for other jobs, such as protecting pilgrims to the two Hindu holy sites in Kashmir -- Vaishno Devi and Amarnath.

The CRPF officer said that all other forces battling militants in Kashmir would be redeployed to the jobs for which they have been trained. "Only the Indian army's Rashtriya (National) Rifles will assist the CRPF in counter-insurgency operations," he said referring to the army's counter-insurgency wing, which is operating in Kashmir. New Delhi is planning to redeploy the BSF on India's borders with Pakistan in an attempt to prevent Kashmiri rebels from crossing over to Indian Kashmir from the Pakistan-administered zone.

Srivastava said the handing over of counter-insurgency operations to the CRPF and border management to the BSF would strengthen the security of the country. He said only 13 percent of the total CRPF personnel deployed in Kashmir valley were presently engaged in counter-insurgency operations. "When we are fully deployed for the task we will be in a position to do much better than we have been doing," he said. The federal police were raised by the British rulers of India in 1939 under the name of Crown Representative Police (CRP), which after India's independence in 1947 was rechristened the CRPF.

The force had only few battalions in Kashmir prior to 1989, tasked primarily with assisting the Kashmir government in law and order problems. As the rebellion gathered pace, it was the only para-military unit available to the state authorities. The BSF was inducted in 1991, and took over the major responsibility for counter-insurgency operations in the restive state.

An Islamic guerrilla leader fighting Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir threatened "target-oriented attacks" against India on Friday, raising fears of an upsurge in violence in the troubled Kashmir region. Syed Salahuddin, the chief of Hezb-ul Mujahedeen, issued the warning in a written statement released after a meeting of his group in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's part of Kashmir. Hezb-ul Mujahedeen is one of the main Islamic guerrilla groups fighting in Kashmir, a former princely state that has been divided between Pakistan and India since shortly after the two countries gained independence from Britain in 1947. Both countries claim the Himalayan region in its entirety.

India accuses Pakistan of backing insurgents in its part of Kashmir, a charge Pakistan denies. Salahuddin's comments came just two days before a scheduled meeting between Pakistani and Indian lawmakers in the capital, Islamabad, aimed at discussing ways to resolve differences between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. Salahuddin said that "target-oriented attacks will continue," despite the peace overtures. "The present volcanic situation" in Kashmir will not change because of these visits, Salahuddin said, according to a statement faxed to The Associated Press. Pakistan and India have said they intended to resolve all issues, including the fate of Kashmir, the cause of two of the three wars the nations have fought since becoming separate countries at independence. Pakistan and India almost fought a fourth war last year following a Dec. 13, 2001, attack on the Indian parliament, which New Delhi blamed on two Pakistan-based militant groups and Pakistan's spy agency. Pakistan outlawed the groups but denied involvement.

More than 63,000 people have been killed in the conflict since 1989. Security forces in India's portion of Kashmir on Friday claimed to have killed Manzoor Zahid Chaudhary, an Islamic rebel commander suspected of plotting a terrorist attack on a Hindu temple last year in which 33 people died. He allegedly belonged to the outlawed Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. A spokesman for the group, who spoke on condition his name not be used, denied that Chaudhary was still commander. He said the group had been disbanded.

Indian Premier Atal Behari Vajpayee called Sunday for an end to bloodshed between his country and Pakistan in a message opening a two-day peace conference attended by leading South Asian public figures. "Violence and bloodshed cannot provide any enduring solutions. We can live together only if we let each other live," Vajpayee said in his message to a gathering attended by more than 100 delegates from the rival neighbours.

The first two-day peace gathering sponsored by the South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA), is bringing together both hawks and doves from the nuclear-armed neighbours. "This is the first time that right, left, hardliners and moderate parties from India and Pakistan are participating in the dialogue," the former chief minister of Bihar state Laloo Prasad Yadav said.

"We should make concerted efforts to smash the Berlin Wall of hatred dividing India and Pakistan," he said. The maverick low-caste icon Yadav, whose wife is now chief minister of Bihar, later brushed aside security to visit the popular weekly makeshift Sunday bazaar here. Mixing freely with the shoppers and vendors, he said he "we are all brothers." The conference aims at building confidence between the hostile neighbours, which have fought three wars since their 1947 independence, two of them over disputed Kashmir province which is divided between them and claimed by both.

The 60-member Indian delegation includes some 30 ruling and opposition party legislators in addition to journalists and former diplomats. Pakistani ruling party and opposition leaders, including those who have previously promoted hatred between the rival states, have joined the discussions focussing on ways to promote "understanding, confidence-building and conflict resolution" in South Asia, SAFMA's Pakistan president M. Ziauddin said.

"The meeting and the themes for discussion are a forceful reiteration of the popular desire in both our countries for a normal, peaceful, friendly and cooperative relationship," Vajpayee said. "We must use this common yearning for greater interaction to lessen the misperceptions and mistrust between us. Cooperation rather than confrontation, is the answer to our common problems of development and poverty alleviation." The conference, which went into a closed-door session later, is aimed at spurring the slow pace of the peace process which the two governments initiated in April.

The rebellion in the Indian zone of Kashmir, which has claimed more than 38,000 lives since 1989 and fuelled mistrust between the neighbours, dominated the opening session. "India is sick of terrorist groups, recruited, trained and deployed by a neighbouring country and the accusing finger definitely points at Pakistan," said Anandi Charan Sahu of India's ruling BJP.

"Still we have not lost hopes and wish a new dawn of understanding comes forth," he said in his speech. Former Pakistani president and leader of the Millat Party, Farooq Ahmed Leghari, rejected accusations Islamabad was supporting cross-border terrorism and described the Kashmir struggle as indigenous. He warned that "unless we are brave enough to tackle this we will continue to suffer." Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid called for international mediation, saying that bilateral talks would last "another 50 years" before India and Pakistan resolved the dispute.

Fazlur Rehman, senior leader of the Islamic alliance, called for joint efforts to remove hurdles in the way of peace. "It is high time for both India and Pakistan to sit together and find a solution to their problems." The conference follows a series of unofficial exchanges between Indian and Pakistani delegations since Vajpayee offered "a hand of friendship" to Pakistan during a visit to Kashmir on April 18. His initiative resulted in a thaw in bilateral relations and the two countries restored diplomatic and road links after an 18-month break. But the neighbours have not yet started an official dialogue.

Shuttling into battered Liberia, helicopters build to 3,250-strong peace deployment

Guns at the ready, Nigerian soldiers leapt out of helicopters and raced to positions around Monrovia's airport, the first of a long-awaited force hoping to quell fighting between rebels and government forces in Liberia. President Charles Taylor reportedly assured Nigerian officials that he would leave Liberia as pledged soon after he cedes power on Aug. 11. "He even said the place would no longer be safe for him then," said Nigerian diplomat Folu Ogunbanwo, who was present at a private meeting Monday in Monrovia between the Liberian leader and Nigeria Foreign Minister Oluyemi Adeniji.

Overjoyed crowds greeted Monday's first deployments, surging onto the rain-slicked tarmac at the airport outside Monrovia to hoist one Nigerian army officer to their shoulders. The 198 Nigerian soldiers are the first of what will be a 3,250-strong force. "I think the war is over," said Fayiah Morris, who was in the throng swarming around Nigerian soldiers in camouflage and flak vests as whirring helicopters touched down. But the troops' arrival Monday did not end the fighting - the sound of gunfire echoed from Liberia's ruined capital. For much of the day, Liberian rebels and Taylor's troops battled across the Old Bridge, separating the capital's rebel-held island port and the government's downtown stronghold. At one point, rebels taunted their foes, dancing with brooms, doing back flips and waving at Taylor's men. The government troops fired a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on a pickup truck in reply. Taylor's troops accused rebels of looting before peacekeeping force move in, but arguments over goods among Taylor's AK-47-armed fighters suggested they were doing the same.

The first peacekeepers concentrated on setting up defenses at the airport. Troops won't move into Monrovia until sufficient numbers arrive, the force's Nigerian commander, Brig. Gen. Festus Okonkwo, told reporters. West African peacekeeping troops deployed repeatedly in Liberia in the 1990s, at times coming under attack from forces led by Taylor, then a rebel leader. Nigerian officers at the airport said they will operate under rules of engagement authorizing them to shoot to protect civilians or themselves. "If we want to keep peace and we cannot keep peace, it will amount to enforcing peace," Okonkwo said. "Then we'll get back to the people that sent us. They will give us the mandate." The West African deployment was approved last week by the U.N. Security Council, which also approved a U.S.-proposed resolution to speed a broader U.N. peacekeeping force within months.

The United Nations plans to send "a fairly sizable force" to Liberia, ideally starting on Oct. 1, to replace the Nigerian-led multinational force, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Hedi Annabi said Monday. He said the Liberia mission will likely be modeled on the U.N. peacekeeping mission in neighboring Sierra Leone, which had 17,500 troops at its height and helped end a war that had ravaged the country since 1991.

President Bush's spokesman, Scott McClellan, said U.S. officials were "very encouraged" by Monday's deployment. He pledged U.S. financial and logistical assistance and repeated Bush's demand that Taylor step down. In Washington, D.C., a senior U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said American warships off the coast are ready to help with logistics and communications, and there is "certainly the possibility, maybe even a probability" that some of the U.S. Marines aboard will be sent ashore to cooperate with the West African troops. The official said two U.S. warships now off Liberia may soon move into sight, in what he described as an American show of force for Liberia.

Nigerian Foreign Minister Oluyemi Adeniji flew to Liberia on Monday carrying what aides said was a message for Taylor. Adeniji left without disclosing the message, but Nigerian officials said Taylor assured them he would start preparing to leave Liberia as soon as he quits office. Taylor has promised repeatedly to yield power since June 4, when a joint United Nations and Sierra Leone court revealed the war crimes indictment against him for supporting rebels in that nation. Still, Taylor's government has hedged on his promises to go into exile in Nigeria, saying he would leave only when enough peacekeepers are on the ground and when the war crimes indictment against him is dropped. He is blamed in nearly 14 years of conflict in Liberia that have killed more than 100,000 people, and accused of gun- and diamond-trafficking and other dealings that have fueled conflicts in West Africa.

Liberia's leader cancels plans to personally notify lawmakers of his intent to resign

West African peacekeeping forces drove into Liberia's rebel-besieged, famished capital on Thursday to deafening cheers from the city's people. The triumphant arrival marked a step toward ending two months of bloody warfare in Monrovia that has killed at least 1,000 people, but it came as Liberia's political scene saw a step backward: President Charles Taylor's canceled his announcement of his successor, yet another delay in his much-anticipated resignation. Blowing kisses and waving white handkerchiefs, the more than 100 Nigerian troops traveled 30 miles from their airport base into Monrovia in white armored personnel carriers, trucks and sports utility vehicles. Thousands of Liberians crammed the shoulders of the roads along the way, chanting, "We want peace, no more war." "I'm going with them," said Prince Phillip, one young man running alongside the convoy. "We need to eat, we're tired of this war." The city's desperate people clamored for rescue from peacekeepers, meant to come between the warring parties and open up humanitarian corridors from the rebel-held port, allowing food and aid to flow into Monrovia.

Peacekeepers also are oversee Taylor's departure from the country into exile in Nigeria. Under international pressure, the president has pledged repeatedly to resign only to hedge or renege on his promises. His cancellation Thursday of a speech to Congress raised further questions about whether he would step down on Monday, as he has agreed to. His spokesman, Vaanii Passawe told The Associated Press before the meeting's cancellation that Taylor would stick to the plan, which foresees him going into exile in Nigeria soon after he resigns. "We are on course on the president relinquishing power," he said.

After Taylor's cancellation, Congress called off its own meeting in which it had planned to discuss and formally approve the president's resignation. Without a formal statement from Taylor, lawmakers cannot approve a transition of power, said House Speaker Nyundueh Monkomana, a candidate for replacing the president along with Vice President Moses Blah. Taylor, a Libyan-trained ex-guerrilla fighter blamed for much of the bloody strife that has embroiled Liberia for almost 14 years, has been reduced to a last redoubt in central Monrovia as rebels press their siege of the city.

Fighting has split Monrovia into rebel and government sides, killed well over 1,000 civilians outright and left hunger and epidemics raging among the 1.3 million residents and refugees. The Nigerians who entered the capital are the vanguard of a West African force envisioned in an oft-violated June 17 cease-fire agreement signed between Taylor's government and rebels battling since 1999 to oust him. The force has been repeatedly delayed. West African leaders have promised an eventual 3,250-strong peace force in Liberia. Nearly 500 Nigerian soldiers with five armored vehicles have arrived at the airport outside Monrovia.

The United States is under pressure to take the lead on helping to restore peace in Liberia - a nation founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century - but Washington insists that American involvement will be limited. On Wednesday, helicopters brought the first seven U.S. Marines to support the steadily building West African peace force in Monrovia. The Marines flew from a three-ship U.S. Navy group carrying 2,000 Marines and 2,500 sailors off Liberia to coordinate U.S. logistical support for the West African soldiers. No Marines could be seen among the West African peacekeepers making their initial foray into the capital. President Bush has said no larger American force will go ashore until Taylor leaves the country. "We would like Taylor out," Bush said Wednesday in Crawford, Texas.

Taylor has hedged on when he would take up an offer of asylum in Nigeria - setting new conditions for his departure in recent days. His government has said he would leave only after enough foreign peacekeepers are on the ground and if a war crimes indictment against him is dropped. Nigerian officials told The Associated Press that the Liberian leader had indicated he hoped to leave around Aug. 16 or 17. But South African President Thabo Mbeki said Taylor assured him he would leave within 24 hours of handing over power Monday. Nigerian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they and others were trying to speed Taylor's exit. Nigeria said in a statement from President Olusegun Obasanjo's office that it was "finalizing arrangements" for Taylor's departure.

Jacques Paul Klein, the top U.N. envoy for Liberia, urged Taylor to leave before he is arrested. A U.N.-backed court has indicted Taylor on war crimes charges for allegedly supporting rebels during a brutal decade-long war in neighboring Sierra Leone. "The warrant never goes away, and the court will be there for a number of years," he advised Taylor. "So go while the getting is good." Overnight, a plane carrying an arms shipment landed at the government-held airport 30 miles outside of Monrovia, workers contacted there by telephone said on condition of anonymity. The United Nations in March 2001 imposed an arms embargo on Liberia to punish Taylor for trading weapons for diamonds from rebels in Sierra Leone. The workers said peacekeepers impounded the war materiel after an argument with Liberian military officials. But peace force leaders said they had no knowledge of any arms shipment, as did Paasawe, the Taylor spokesman.

As Nigerian peacekeeping troops trickle into Monrovia and U.N. humanitarian agencies plead for emergency aid for Liberia, non-governmental experts and U.N. officials insist the key to lasting peace in the shattered nation lies with the world body's Security Council. A robust peacekeeping mandate from the body seems to be the only solution to a country ravaged by war for over 14 years, they agree. The Nigerian soldiers are the advance guard of an African force, ECOWAS, sent to bring calm to the capital Monrovia. It is expected to be replaced by a multinational body of troops around the end of August. The Security Council approved that global force earlier this week -- amid opposition to U.S. demands that its peacekeepers be exempt from any prosecution by the International Criminal Court -- but details, including the number of soldiers, are still to be decided.

A U.N. assessment team will go into Monrovia once it is certain that the local peace agreement is being upheld and the area is stabilised, Jacques Klein, the special representative of the Secretary-General for Liberia, told reporters Wednesday. The team of about 30 people, which includes representatives from the U.S. State Department, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, will need at least three weeks to assess the situation and report to the Council, he added. He suggested "between 12 and 15 thousand troops" would be needed to maintain the peace in the west African nation that has lived with war for more than a decade. "The mistake in Sierra Leone was that they went in too light with a not strong enough mandate," said Klein. "This time you want to do it right, because you are going to demilitarise the region basically, demobilise the military and all these paramilitary thugs ... the key thing is security and humanitarian assistance."

An estimated 450,000 people are displaced in Liberia, scattered in some 90 settlements around the capital of Monrovia. They face severe shortages of food, water, medicine, toilets, shelter and other basic needs, while a civil war marked by indiscriminate threats to civilians, rape, forced abduction and killing and conscription of children rages around them. George Kun, McCall-Pierpaoli Fellow with Refugees International (RI), agrees with Klein that the Security Council must give peacekeepers the authority to establish order in such conditions. "Do it right this time, have a clear mandate and put sufficient resources in to finally ending this conflict," he told IPS.

RI says the initial attempt to keep the peace in Sierra Leone failed because peacekeepers lacked a strong mandate. "The British sent only 800 troops and they were successful. This is due in large part to the willingness of the British to do what the U.N. could not do - deal authoritatively with any spoilers to the peace, by arrest if possible, by the use of force if not.." But some groups say the multinational force is already crippled by the Security Council resolution that created it to implement June's cease fire agreement and establish the initial conditions for disarmament and demobilisation in Liberia. "While welcoming an initiative which hopefully will go some way to ending the protracted suffering of the Liberian people, we had hoped for much stronger and more explicit language on protection of civilians. The multi-national force must be instructed to protect civilians and humanitarian workers from physical violence at all times throughout Liberia," said Amnesty International in a statement.

The London-based group called on the Security Council, "to ensure that the United Nations peacekeeping force which is envisaged to follow on from the initial deployment of ECOWAS forces is provided with a much more specific and stronger mandate for the protection of civilians". Klein says creating order in Liberia will be a major undertaking. "There are a lot of good Liberian civil servants willing to form a technocrat government, beginning with a U.N. mandate", but free and fair elections are at least 18 months away, he predicted. It will be essential to "not allow any warring leader to occupy any position, not the presidency, and not the vice presidency," said Kun. "The last time we had a warring leader on a transitional government in 1992, 1993 and 1995, the entire city came apart and there was killing in the street." "Refugees International proposes having the East Timor model: having a U.N.. administrator for a year to pave the way for elections to be held in Liberia. This would be the right path to take; anything short of this, I think Liberia will again plunge into another disaster."

West African officials mediating peace talks for Liberia reported progress Friday on a planned transitional government meant to end 14 years of nearly constant war, saying a signing could come as early as next week. "We are very close to an agreement, I mean very close," said Cheick Diarra, an official from the regional bloc mediating among representatives of President Charles Taylor - who has promised to cede power Monday and leave for exile after that - and rebels pressing home a 3-year battle to oust him. "A consensus comprehensive peace document is likely to be signed on Tuesday after the departure of President Taylor," Diarra said, adding another draft accord will be distributed over the weekend at the talks, held in Ghana's capital, Accra. Mediators have made similar pronouncements in past weeks, only to see the deadlines pass without a signing.

Taylor on Thursday said Vice President Moses Blah will succeed him when he formally hands over power on Monday. Taylor has promised to leave his war-ruined country for exile in Nigeria after that - but has declined to set a specific date. The document under consideration in Ghana is expected to arrange a transitional government that would take over from the Blah's caretaker administration. Taylor has scoffed at the idea of the transitional government, called for under a June 17 cease-fire sworn to - and then repeatedly violated - by both sides. According to a draft recently obtained by The Associated Press, the transitional government could be installed in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, as early as September. It would hold elections in late 2004, giving way to that democratically elected government in the beginning of 2005.

Diarra said the transitional government's leaders would be elected by the delegates - which also include representatives from political parties and civil society - only after the document outlining the government's framework is signed. Taylor, a former warlord, launched Liberia's conflict with a 1989-1996 insurgency before being elected president in 1997. Rebels now besieging Monrovia took up arms against him in 1997 and were joined earlier this year by a smaller insurgency. Aid groups estimate that one third of Liberia's 3 million people have been forced from their homes by fighting.

African leaders flew into war-ravaged Liberia on Monday for warlord President Charles Taylor's long-promised resignation, as rebels besieging the capital threatened to resume fighting if Taylor doesn't leave the country immediately after handing power to his vice president. Taylor, wearing a dark suit, welcomed South African President Thabo Mbeki, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano and Togolese Prime Minister Koffi Sama at Liberia's international airport - now a base for a West African peace force. Downtown, Nigerian and South African forces with automatic weapons and armored vehicles guarded the Executive Mansion where Taylor had promised to transfer the presidency to Vice President Moses Blah at one minute before noon (7:59 a.m. EDT). Many of the undisciplined, often-drugged Taylor fighters who had previously patrolled the area appeared to have slipped away into the city with their weapons. The ceremony was running behind schedule, though Taylor has vowed to quit in the past only to renege on his pledges.

Inside the mansion - without electricity and low on fuel, like the rest of the capital - Blah and other Liberian dignitaries waited past midday in a gilded, velvet-draped room for Taylor to arrive. Steel blinds guarded windows against assassination attempts, like a 1996 try on Taylor's life in the same building that killed two aides. Outside, Monrovia's beleaguered people cheered the Nigerian peacekeepers - part of a vanguard peace force meant to build to 3,250 West African soldiers - but reserved celebrations over the former warlord's resignation until it was official. The South Africans were part of a 100-strong security detail for Mbeki. "I can hardly believe it. He has brought too much suffering on the Liberian people," said Henry Philips, 38, a former security official. "His absence is better than his presence." Rebels have rejected Taylor's choice of successor - a longtime ally and comrade in arms - and demanded that a neutral candidate be chosen to preside over a transition government until elections can be held.

On Monday, pickup trucks full of armed rebels raced toward the front as insurgents threatened to resume fighting if Taylor stays in the country after turning over power. "Unless Taylor leaves the country by one minute past 12 noon, I shall attack," rebel Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Abdulla Seyeah Sheriff said from Monrovia's rebel-held island port area. "If Taylor leaves the country, there'll be peace." Taylor has accepted an offer of asylum in Nigeria but has also hedged on when he will go. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was not attending the resignation, but his aides said Taylor was expected in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, as early as Monday.

Two months of intermittent rebel sieges have left over 1,000 civilians dead in Monrovia, as government and insurgent forces fought over the city of 1.3 million. The war left Taylor controlling little but downtown, referred to derisively by rebels as Taylor's "Federal Republic of Central Monrovia." Under pressure to resign from the United States and West African leaders, Taylor remained defiant in a Sunday farewell address to the nation - declaring himself "the sacrificial lamb" to end what he said was a U.S.-backed rebel war against his besieged regime. He called the uprising an "American war" and suggested it was motivated by U.S. eagerness for Liberia's gold, diamonds and other reserves. "They can call off their dogs now," Taylor said of Washington's alleged support of the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, or LURD. "We can have peace." U.S. Ambassador John Blaney dismissed the charge as he waited for Taylor's resignation ceremony to begin. "We haven't supported LURD," he said.

Taylor launched Liberia's 14 years of near-constant conflict with a 1989-96 insurgency. Aid agencies estimate virtually all of Liberia's roughly 3 million people have been chased from their home by war, at one time or another. Taylor was elected president in 1997 on threats of plunging the country into renewed bloodshed. Rebels - including some of Taylor's rivals from the previous war - took up arms against him two years later. His ragtag forces, paid by looting, are accused by rights groups and Liberia's people of routine raping, robbing, torture, forced labor and summary killings. Rebels, to a lesser extent so far, are also accused of abuse. Perhaps crucially, Taylor made no direct mention in his Sunday address of his promise to leave Liberia. Closing his speech, he declared: "I will always remember you wherever I am, and I say, God willing, I will be back."

Authorities have detained a Macedonian nationalist caught with a hand grenade and a gun while at a holiday celebration attended by this Balkan country's president, police said Tuesday. Mirko Hristov, the leader of the Macedonian National Movement, was charged with illegal possession of weapons after he was arrested in the town of Krusevo, about 120 kilometers (70 miles) southwest of the capital Skopje, said a police spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Hristov's allies claimed he was deeply disappointed with President Boris Trajkovski because the Macedonian president agreed to grant more rights to the country's ethnic Albanian minority following their insurgency in 2001. "Mirko Hristov wanted to sacrifice himself and president Boris Trajkovski," the spokesman for Hristov's movement, Zarko Jordanovski, told reporters at a news conference on Monday. Hristov was arrested and jailed for several months last year after he fired shots at the Macedonian parliament building, where Trajkovski has his offices.

Macedonia is still recovering from an ethnic Albanian uprising two years ago. The conflict ended in a Western-brokered peace plan giving more rights to the ethnic Albanian community, which accounts for about one third of Macedonia's 2 million people. Trajkovski, a moderate, is considered a key official in internationally brokered efforts to achieve reconciliation in Macedonia. Trajkovski has called for the formation of a multiethnic government and has approved some key reforms envisaged in the peace plan.

Annan names special adviser on Cyprus to U.N. post in disputed Western Sahara

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed his special adviser on Cyprus, Alvaro de Soto, to a new post as special representative for the disputed Western Sahara, the U.N. spokesman announced Thursday. The U.N. Security Council was expected to quickly approve the appointment. De Soto, who has held the Cyprus job since 1999, will replace American diplomat William Lacy Swing, who became head of the U.N. mission in Congo on July 1, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said. De Soto played a key role in Annan's ultimately unsuccessful effort to get Turkish and Greek Cypriots to agree on a peace plan to reunite the divided island nation. Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash rejected the proposal in April. De Soto, a Peruvian diplomat, takes on another difficult job in Western Sahara.

The Security Council voted unanimously on July 31 to urge Morocco and the Polisario Front rebel movement to work together toward acceptance of a U.N. peace plan which would give the Western Sahara immediate self-government and provide for a referendum within five years. The Polisario, which seeks independence and has been pressing for a referendum, dropped its opposition to the U.N. plan drafted by former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III in July. But Morocco remains opposed on grounds that it could end the country's sovereignty over the territory. The dispute over the mineral-rich desert region on Africa's Atlantic coast dates to 1975, when Spain abandoned the territory and Morocco annexed it, moving in settlers. Some 200,000 local Saharawi people fled into exile and still live in refugee camps in Algeria. The fighting ended in 1991 with a U.N.-negotiated cease-fire that called for a referendum on whether the territory would become independent or part of Morocco. But U.N. efforts to identify voters have been frustrated by disputes over who is eligible.

Regarding the Cyprus job, Eckhard said Annan "the secretary-general will make arrangements as appropriate ... when Mr. De Soto takes on his new duties." He noted that Annan said in a May report to the Security Council that his peace plan remains the best basis to reunify the divided Mediterranean island. "As the secretary-general said once again last week, he's ready to exercise good offices to help the parties achieve a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem when both parties and both motherlands show a genuine commitment to come to terms," Eckhard said. Annan "believes it is possible to achieve this if the political will is there" and he awaits "a firm commitment by all concerned to finalize negotiations with U.N. assistance on the basis of the plan he put to the parties on Feb. 26," Eckhard said.

BBC Monitoring International Reports (Source: MAP news agency web site, Rabat, in English), 08/07/03

Rabat, 7 August: Deputy first secretary of the Socialist Union for Popular Forces (USFP), Mohamed El Yazghi, called political parties to double efforts to defend Morocco's territorial integrity. Interviewed by "Aujourd'hui le Maroc" independent daily about the latest meeting of political parties and government ministers, held Monday (4 August) at the Royal Office, El Yazghi said the encounter meant to analyze and assess the latest developments in the (Western) Sahara question, underlining that the political parties have always been unanimous as regards defending the territorial integrity.

He added that the problems that Morocco faced have never influenced the position of the nation's forces over this question. About the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1945 on the Moroccan Sahara, he said there is no way a decision can be imposed on Morocco, insisting that the UN urged the concerned parties to cooperate and negotiate to reach a political solution on the basis of an agreement between parties. As far as the US position over the Sahara issue is concerned, El Yazghi explained that Washington backed the two plans tabled by James Baker, probably because they deem that a solution to this issue has greatly delayed, especially if the costs of the UN mission to the Sahara (MINURSO (UN Mission for the Organisation of a Referendum in the Western Sahara)) are taken into account. "The most important thing is that Morocco rejected Baker's plan and the UN Secretary- General has publicly announced it," he underscored.

Last week, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1495 on the Sahara, whereby the Council continues to support the efforts of the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, and his personal envoy, James Baker, on the basis of agreement between the two parties. Earlier, Morocco had rejected the draft peace plan proposed by James Baker, deeming it contradictory with the kingdom's national interests and peace and security in the Maghreb.

MANILA, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Peace talks between the government and the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) would push through despite the death of MILF chairman Hashim Salamat, government and rebel officials said Tuesday. "It is unfortunate for the peace process since Salamat is supposed to lead the MILF panel in the GRP (Philippine government)- MILF peace negotiations. Nevertheless, this does not affect the basic policy of the government to pursue a just, comprehensive and durable solution to the conflict in Mindanao," Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said in a statement. Bunye said the government is prepared for the opening of the talks as scheduled.

"We are determined to pursue the peace process until lasting peace is achieved," the Philippine Daily Inquirer on-line news quoted MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu as saying. "We are saddened by Hashim's death but this won't affect the peace process," Kabalu said in Filipino. Kabalu confirmed that Salamat died from cardiac arrest on July 13. Kabalu said Alhaj Murad Ebrahim, vice chairman for military affairs of the MILF, was named to the top MILF post to replace the late chairman Hashim Salamat. "I think the flow of the peace talks is picking up," said Eduardo Ermita, presidential adviser on the peace process and the government's chief negotiator with the MILF. Ermita, meanwhile, welcomed Murad's appointment as the MILF's new leader, "He knows the issues (surrounding the peace talks)," Ermita said.

On Monday, Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople said peace talks between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), had been delayed anew because the composition of the local ceasefire monitoring team had not been completed. Preliminary talks between the government and the secessionist rebels were supposed to resume in Kuala Lumpur on Monday. The Philippine government and the MILF recently signed a ceasefire agreement in a prelude to resuming talks, with Malaysia as mediator. The 12,000-strong MILF has been waging a campaign to establish an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines since its establishment in 1978.

Peace in southern Philippines "within grasp": Presidential Palace

MANILA, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- The peace process is moving and peace in Mindanao in the southern Philippines is within grasp, the presidential palace said in a statement released on Wednesday. The Coordinating Committees on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCHs) of the national government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the biggest rebel group here, have restored an " atmosphere conducive to the resumption" of peace talks between the two parties, the statement added. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo earlier said preparations are being made for the resumption of the government-MILF peace negotiations in Kuala Lumpur, hosted by the Malaysian government.

During their 10th joint meeting on Monday in Cotabato city in Mindanao, the two CCCHs called for "an effective ceasefire mechanism," both agreeable to strengthening local monitoring teams, as they also asked the peace panels of the two parties to initiate action on the immediate deployment of third party monitoring/ observers team. Lieutenant General Rodolfo Garcia, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Vice Chief of Staff and the government CCCH acting chairman, said AFP Chief of Staff General Narciso Abaya has directed all AFP ground commanders to fully support and cooperate with the CCCHs. The MILF CCCH welcomed the initiative, saying this would ensure the effective implementation of the mutual ceasefire agreement. MILF Peace Panel member Lanang Ali also conveyed the MILF Central Committee's satisfaction on the reconvening of the CCCHs. In the same executive session, both parties submitted proposals to enhance the Implementing Guidelines on the Security Aspect of the Agreement on Peace of 2001. The national government and MILF CCCHs agreed to meet again on Aug. 9.

Philippines, rebels ask Muslim countries to send peace monitors swiftly

Philippine officials and Muslim separatist rebels have asked Malaysia and several other countries to speed up the dispatch of monitors to observe a ceasefire in the south, officials said Wednesday. A joint ceasefire committee made up of military officials and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) members issued a statement asking the peace negotiating teams of both sides "to initiate or take action in order that the third party monitoring observer teams may be deployed as soon as possible." Malaysia, which is hosting the planned peace talks between the Philippines and the MILF, has been asked to provide the bulk of third-party monitors, with Bangladesh, Bahrain, Brunei and Libya among others also asked to pitch in.

The 12,500-member MILF agreed Tuesday to pursue the peace talks despite the death of its leader Salamat Hashim. The joint ceasefire coordinating team met on Monday, President Gloria Arroyo's spokesman Ignacio Bunye said. However Bunye said it was now "unlikely" that these would start this week as previously announced. "But I believe there are no major obstacles to the formal meeting in Kuala Lumpur since all the major issues have already been resolved." The joint ceasefire committee said in their statement that Philippine military chief General Narciso Abaya had ordered all his commanders to give "full support and utmost cooperation" to the committee, in a bid to ensure the ceasefire agreement would be observed. The two sides signed a ceasefire on July 18. The MILF has been waging a bloody 25-year struggle for an Islamic state in the southern third of the predominantly Christian Philippines. Tens of thousands of people have died in the separatist campaign since the 1970s.

MANILA, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- Philippine rebel group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said on Friday that the peace process in the south needs more time and a final peace pact between the group and the national government may not be possible in October. A period as short as 90 days from now is far from being enough to solve all the problems and put an end to the 25-year-old insurgency in the southern third of the Philippines, the ABS-CBN on-line news quoted MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu as saying. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said earlier that she would like US President George W. Bush to witness the signing of the final peace agreement when he visits the country in the second half of October.

The 12,000-strong MILF is the biggest rebel group in the country, and has been fighting for an independent Islamic state in the south. Previous talks between the national government and the MILF turned out futile as the two parties were far apart in issues such as who should lead in the post-war rehabilitation and development in the war-torn area. Arroyo has approved a draft agreement with the rebel group, granting a limited form of autonomy, but the draft has yet to be presented to the MILF. Government officials said earlier that the peace talks, stalled since late 2001, will resume soon in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia which has been brokering for the peace process. The formal talks, however, has been supposedly delayed by the death of Hashim Salamat, the founding chairman of the MILF on July 13, which was not announced until early this week.

Serbia & Montenegro

Serbia and Montenegro at pains to move closer to EU, foreign minister says

EU insistence that Serbia and Montenegro act as one country as a condition of joining the European Union could backfire and lead to their separation, Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic said Tuesday. Svilanovic spoke of months of futile efforts to comply with an EU requirement that Serbia and Montenegro must harmonize their economies, notably their tax and customs systems, before being considered for EU membership. Any split-up of Serbia and Montenegro would stymie EU efforts to keep them together.

Under the EU guidelines meant to defuse a separatist movement in tiny Montenegro, Yugoslavia ceased existing earlier this year and was replaced by the country called Serbia and Montenegro. In their new union, the two former Yugoslav republics became nearly sovereign states, but EU expects them to act as one country, Svilanovic told B-92 radio. "Misunderstandings occur between Belgrade and Brussels," Svilanovic said. He complained that the EU "does not want to acknowledge the peculiarities," of the loose union and "insists that we function like any other state and that we must have a single market."

Loosely joined by a minimal central administration running only defense and foreign affairs, the two republics have their own governments, budgets, currencies and central banks. The EU-brokered deal allows a complete separation, but only after a three-year test period. Svilanovic acknowledged that the frustration in trying to make Serbia and Montenegro function like one state may indeed lead to the breakup, after which each republic would independently pursue membership in the EU. "The EU may keep insisting on complete harmonization of our economies," Svilanovic said "or accept our demand that the process of association (with the EU) be adjusted to our specific circumstances." "The third option is full separation."

Former President Slobodan Milosevic is demanding that questioning about his alleged role in the slaying of a predecessor and an assassination attempt against an opposition leader be public, his allies said Tuesday. Milosevic was president of Serbia before becoming president of Yugoslavia, which was replaced by the two-republic union of Serbia and Montenegro. He is on trial for alleged war crimes at the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. Milosevic is accused by Serbian authorities of ordering the slaying of former Serbian President Ivan Stambolic in 2000, and of organizing a failed assassination attempt against opposition leader Vuk Draskovic the same year.

Serbian investigators were expected to arrive at The Hague on Wednesday to interrogate Milosevic about the allegations, said tribunal spokesman Jim Landale. In Belgrade, Zoran Andjelkovic, a top official in Milosevic's Socialist party, said, the former president demands his statement be recorded on camera and aired for the Serbian people without omissions. The demand, the official said, is in accordance with the law. There was no immediate comment from the Serbian investigators or The Hague tribunal. The former president's war crimes trial has been carried live on Serbian television since it started last year. Milosevic has often seemed to be trying to exploit the coverage to improve his image.

Police accused Milosevic of ordering the Stambolic killing after the remains of the former Serbian president were unearthed earlier this year during a crackdown against organized crime and Milosevic allies in the police. The police sweep followed the assassination of Serbia's reformist prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, believed shot by Milosevic loyalists and crime bosses. Shortly before he disappeared in September 2000, Stambolic had indicated that he might challenge Milosevic at an upcoming presidential election.

Police draped black ribbons across their badges and cars while flags flew at half-staff Wednesday as the United Nations grieved for the first international policeman killed in Kosovo. Mourners laid his U.N. blue beret and badge on his wooden coffin as hundreds gathered to honor Satish Menon, who was slain in an ambush late Sunday. Laying wreaths before the casket draped in flags from his native India and the United Nations, the police held a simple memorial while promising that those responsible would face the consequences. "Officer Menon was murdered in a cold-blooded, terrorist attack," said Jean-Christian Cady, the U.N. official in charge of police and justice in Kosovo. "Every effort will be made ... to bring the guilty to justice."

The 43-year-old father of two was on patrol near a northern village in a U.N. police car when it came upon rocks piled on the roadway. Authorities say gunmen set a trap to force the car to slow down long enough to get off as many as 14 sniper rounds. "He died because he was a police officer," U.N. police chief Stefan Feller said. "He was a target to people opposed to freedom, opposed to peace." A British officer with him escaped unhurt.

NATO-led peacekeepers and U.N. police patrolled the area near the village of Slatina, 45 kilometers (30 miles) north of the capital, Pristina, searching for clues to the attack. Police have offered a reward of [euro]50,000 (US$ 56,920) for information leading to the arrest of the gunmen. Top U.N. officials and other diplomats have blamed underworld gangs for the slaying. The attack also follows a series of grenade attacks on U.N.-run courthouses and police buildings in Kosovo that began after a court found four ethnic Albanian rebels guilty of war crimes.

Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations and NATO-led peacekeepers since June 1999, after a 78-day NATO bombing campaign forced an end to a crackdown on ethnic Albanian militants ordered by former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. About 4,000 U.N. police officers now patrol in Kosovo alongside 5,000 local officers. Feller promised to press on with efforts to bring peace to Kosovo's people and to remember the risks Menon took on this, his first mission abroad. "He did not die in vain - we will not forget him," he said. "He will remind us why we are here."

Serb troops who gained notoriety during the Balkan wars for alleged crimes against non-Serbs should use the opportunity to join U.N. peacekeeping operations as a way to clear their name, the prime minister said Thursday. Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic told reporters that serving in U.N. missions throughout the world would also help the army of Serbia and Montenegro - or what used to be Yugoslavia - re-establish international ties that were severed under the leadership of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. "We are talking about the army that until recently was accused of committing war crimes, and now it could become a guarantor of peace," he said. "That, to me, is a clear political goal."

The Serb-led military has faced accusations of committing some of the worst atrocities of the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and in Kosovo in the 1990s. Milosevic, who was formally the troops' supreme commander during the Balkan wars, now is being tried by the U.N. tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands, for his alleged part in war crimes attributed to his forces. NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days in 1999, forcing Milosevic to end a Serb crackdown on Kosovo Albanians and cede control of the province to the United Nations and NATO. But since Milosevic was ousted in 2000 and extradited to the U.N. tribunal, the pro-Western coalition now led by Zivkovic has sought to improve relations - including military ties - with Washington and its allies.

Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic last week said that the U.N. envoy to Liberia, Jacques Klein, had asked Belgrade to contribute to the U.N. mission being set up in the war-ravaged African country. Serbia and Montenegro was founded earlier this year, after what was left of Yugoslavia was reformed and renamed.

Click here to access the Kosovo Role Play prepared by the Public International Law and Policy Group.

NAIROBI, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan government is committed to the on-going peace initiatives in Somalia and the Sudan, Foreign Affairs Minister Kalonzo Musyoka reaffirmed Tuesday. During a meeting with South African Foreign Minister Dlamini Zuma in Pretoria, South Africa, Musyoka said that all efforts would be made to ensure peace is attained in the region for the sake of development. A press release reaching here said the visiting Kenyan minister particularly expressed optimism over the on-going Somalia national reconciliation process in Nairobi, saying a new Somali parliament might soon be in place.

He congratulated the South African government for the vital role it has played in peace initiatives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi. Musyoka also appealed to South Africa to import more coffee, tea and other commodities from Kenya in a bid to close the existing trade imbalance between the two countries. In response, his South African counterpart Dlamini Zuma hailed the role played by Kenya in the Sudan and Somalia peace initiatives. She expressed optimism that the trade committee between South Africa and Kenya already in place would address the trade issues. Both Somalia and the Sudan peace processes have entered their critical phases where both parties are expected to express their commitment to bringing lasting peace in their countries. The Sudan peace talks are expected to resume on Aug. 10 while the Somali talks are currently in their third and final phase.

One of Somalia's main warlords, Musa Sudi Yalahow, on Friday withdrew his faction from peace talks under way here, denouncing what he described as the dictatorial tendencies of the mediators. "The conference is dictated to by mediators who have no regard for the concerns and views of the Somalis," Yalahow, the leader of the United Somali Congress/Somali Salvation Alliance, faction told AFP. "The (peace) conference will bear no fruits because it has been misguided by the technical committee paid by donors to mediate," he added. Yalahow's decision to quit comes 10 days after the president of Somalia's interim powerless administration, Abdulkassim Salat Hassan, also walked out of the peace talks accusing mediators and other delegates of sanctioning the "dismemberment" of Somalia.

The mediation committee, created under the aegis of the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development, is made up of diplomats from Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya. "The mediators are unrealistic, they gave a signed piece of paper (agreement) to unsuspecting donors in order to milk the international community of funds," said Yalahow, who controls part of Mogadishu. He was referring to a partial accord reached by factions participating in the talks on July 5 under which they agreed to form an interim federal government for Somalia, which has been ruled by rival warlords and has not had a recognised government since the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in January 1991. The mediators for their part have said they did not favour any particular point of view. "We are impartial and support no particular faction in the peace talks and only want to see a peaceful Somalia," said a diplomat, who asked not to be named.

At least six people were killed and nine were wounded on Friday in clashes between two rival armed groups in Somalia's southern Bay region, militia sources and local elders said. The fighting in the village of Habarre, 175 kilometres (105 miles) south of Mogadishu, was between two militia groups loyal to rival leaders of the split Rahanwein Resistance Army (RRA) faction, according to Aden Nur "Saransor" a member of one of the groups. The Bay and Bakol regions, previously controlled by a united Rahanwein Resistance Army, have seen intermittent bouts of violence triggered in 2000 by a power struggle between warlord Hassan Mohamed Nur "Shatigudud" and his two former allies Sheikh Aden Mohamed "Modobe" and Mohamed Ibrahim Habsade.

Somalia last had a functioning government in 1991 when the regime of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown. The country has since then been ripped apart by interclan warfare. Peace talks aimed at ending more than a decade of anarchic bloodletting in the Horn of African country are under way in Nairobi, Kenya.

Somalia's transitional parliament Saturday passed a motion sacking the country's interim prime minister and the speaker of the national assembly, the deputy speaker said, accusing the two men of neglecting their duties. "The two men were sacked for not fulfiling their duties," the deputy speaker Mohamed Abdi Yusuf said of the Prime Minister Hassan Abshir Farah and the speaker Abdulla Derrow Issak. Both Farah and Issak, key figures in Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG), which controls only tiny pockets in Mogadishu and several small areas in the south, are currently attending peace talks in Nairobi. "Derrow and Farah were away for 10 months outside Somalia without the permission of the parliament and have therefore failed in their duties to the Somali nation," said Yusuf.

Both Somalia's prime minister and the speaker have been at loggerheads with the TNG over their July 5 signing of as a controversial partial peace accord with other Somali factions taking part in a national peace conference in the Kenyan capital. Under the accord the factions are to form an interim federal government for Somalia, which has been ruled by rival warlords and has not had a recognised government since the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in January 1991.

The TNG president, Abdulkassim Salat Hassan, on July 29 withdrew the interim administration from the ongoing peace talks, accusing mediators and other Somali factions of sanctioning the division of the country. Salat accused Farah, who was the TNG's chief negotiator in the Nairobi talks, of signing the accord without the authority of the government, which was formed during another peace conference in Djbouti in 2000. On the vote to sack the prime minister, 117 members of parliament voted in favour, one member voted against and nine abstained. Some 119 members of the 127 members of parliament present in the house voted in favour of the motion to dismiss the speaker. One member voted against and seven abstained. The transitional parliament has a total of 245 members.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar on Tuesday accused moderate Basque nationalists of seeking to secede from Spain. Speaking from his holiday base at Palma de Mallorca Aznar said the Basque parliament's draft proposal for a free association with Spain amounted to "a project of secession, of confrontation to eliminate much of Basque society." A draft of the project was published in the media on July 23, and is due to be considered by the Basque autonomous parliament before the end of the year.

Aznar was speaking following his traditional early August meeting with King Juan Carlos I, who also spends much of August on Mallorca. Aznar further accused Basque moderates of "submitting to terrorism" by, in his view, failing to denounce violence by the armed separatist group ETA. The group last weekend claimed responsibility for five recent bomb attacks, including two against hotels in the tourist resorts of Alicante and Benidorm on July 22. Aznar said his government supported the status quo on relations between the Madrid national government and the Basque regional administration, and vowed to maintain the Basque country's autonomous status as approved in a 1979 referendum.

Suspected ETA members arrested in Mexico present appeals to block their extradition to Spain

Six Spanish nationals arrested in Mexico and charged with being members of the Basque separatist group ETA have presented appeals attempting to block their extradition to their homeland, one of the lawyers in the case said Tuesday. Attorney Santos Garcia said the motions, which were filed Friday and Tuesday, were designed to keep Mexican authorities from "arbitrarily kicking (the suspects) out of the country." The men were arrested along with three Mexicans in five states on July 18. Authorities froze seven bank accounts and also seized manuals on how to make chemical weapons during the operation.

The suspects are believed to be part of an active ETA cell that had been operating in Mexico for 10 years. The six Spanish nationals face terrorism-related charges in Spain and Spanish authorities have made it clear they will seek their extradition. Mexico arrested the suspects after receiving a preliminary extradition order against them from Spanish authorities. Spain now has between up to 60 days from the date of the arrest to formally petition Mexico for the suspects' extradition. Castro said Mexican authorities have assured him the formal extradition request shouldn't arrive from Spain until at least the end of August. Last week, a spokesman for Mexico's Foreign Relations Secretary, said the extradition process could take as long as two years. All nine suspects are being held in a federal prison in Mexico City, though lawyers for one of the Mexicans arrested in the case, Pedro Ulises Castro, presented an appeal asking that their client be freed because of a lack of evidence against him.

MADRID, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- France handed over Jose Turrillas, the presumed chief of logistics of the separatist group Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA), alias Peputo, to Spain on Wednesday to enable him to appear before the court. Turrillas, captured in 2000, arrived at the Barajas Airport here, guarded by agents of the National Police of Spain on an Iberia flight and will have to stay in the country for five months to face trial. Peputo will stand trial in Spain over his alleged participation in the murder attempt of businessman Jose Osinaldo Penagaricano in 1992 in San Sebastian, Spain.

Deemed as the ETA logistics chief, Peputo is the seventh member of the separatist group handed over by France for temporary custody in Spain since 2001 when the two countries decided to launch such a judicial cooperation mechanism. The ETA was founded in 1959 with the aim of establishing an independent homeland in northern Spain's Basque region and southwestern France. The group, branded as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, has killed more than 800 people in its three-decade-long campaign. The Spanish government has arrested more than 600 ETA members in the past two decades in an effort to crush the separatist guerrilla group.

Hooded young men set a Spanish national flag ablaze and protesters shouted slogans in favor of the Basque separatist group ETA at a pro-independence rally in the northern city of San Sebastian Sunday. Some 5,000 people gathered in the town after the Basque High Court lifted a ban on the rally. The regional government had argued that the march was organized by the outlawed Batasuna party linked to ETA. The court said it found nothing to back the allegation and allowed the march, a decision criticized by mainstream Spanish political parties.

The demonstration, led with a banner reading "No to Apartheid. Self Determination," was held to protest what some view as the exclusion of pro-Basque independence supporters from politics in the region. "We have our fists clenched. Let no one think that politics can be carried out in this country without the pro-independence left," Arnaldo Otegi, former leader of the Batasuna, said in a speech. When three youths jumped to the stage and set the flag on fire, Otegi said, "How the Spanish flag stinks!" Besides the flag burning, the demonstration passed off without incident.

ETA, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union, has claimed more than 800 killings in its 35-year-old battle for an independent Basque homeland straddling northern Spain and southwest France. Batasuna, considered to be ETA's political wing, was outlawed by Spanish courts earlier this year and is also considered a terrorist group by the EU.

TOKYO, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- Japan will soon send an envoy to Sri Lanka in a bid to help kick-start stalled peace talks amid growing hopes that the Tamil Tiger rebels may return to the negotiating table, a Foreign Minister official said Thursday. Senior Vice Foreign Minister Tetsuro Yano told a news conference Yasushi Akashi, Japan's envoy in charge of Sri Lankan issues and a former UN undersecretary general, will go to Sri Lanka. Yano said representatives of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) will meet with advisers in Paris late August or September to formulate a response to a Sri Lankan government proposal on power-sharing aimed at resuming peace talks. "I hope the consultation in Paris will lead to the LTTE returning to negotiations," Yano said.

Yano visited Sri Lanka earlier this month and issued a statement calling on the rebels to resume talks following his visit to the war-devastated Jaffna Peninsula in the minority Tamil heartland. The LTTE broke off peace talks in April, claiming the government had failed to fully implement a truce signed in February 2002.

A top Norwegian envoy is expected to visit Sri Lanka Tuesday in a bid to revive the island's faltering peace bid and woo Tamil Tiger rebels back to the negotiating table, officials said. Special envoy Erik Solheim will hold talks with Sri Lankan as well as Tamil Tiger leaders before returning on Friday, officials said Sunday as the rebels were preparing to hold a key internal meet on the future of the peace process. Diplomatic sources said Solheim's visit had been arranged before the Scandinavian-led mission monitoring Sri Lanka's 17-month truce complained to Oslo that the Tigers were disregarding rulings by the independent monitors. However, they said Solheim was expected to take up with the Tigers the issue of compliance with the ceasefire including the rebels' refusal to dismantle a camp in the northeastern district of Trincomalee as asked by the monitors.

Meanwhile, the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is expected to hold a meeting of its constitutional and legal experts in France in the next 10 days, official sources said. They said the LTTE was expected to formulate a response to the government's offer last month of an interim administration for the island's north-east ahead of a final peace deal. The Tigers pulled out of peace talks on April 21 after accusing the government of failing to deliver on promises made at six rounds of talks since September last year. The rebels have called for the establishment of an interim council with them getting a lion's share as a pre-condition for reviving peace talks.

The United States, Japan and European nations have asked the Tigers to end their boycott of peace talks and enter negotiations in a bid to end three decades of ethnic bloodshed that has claimed over 60,000 lives. A month ago, another Norwegian diplomat travelled to rebel-held northern Sri Lanka in a bid to revive the island's stalled peace process. The Tigers were given the proposal of an interim administration on July 17 after the visit to the region by Jon Westborg, who had earlier served here as Oslo's ambassador. The LTTE's London-based chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham, had said peace talks with the Colombo government could be revived based on a proposal to grant them greater political authority.

The faltering peace process has also suffered a double blow from a spate of killings of rival Tamils and intelligence operatives blamed on the Tamil Tigers. However, the government's chief peace negotiator, G.L. Peiris, said last week he was hopeful that negotiations could begin by the end of September. There had been no indication from the Tigers of a possible time frame for starting the talks and a venue too was yet to be decided, official sources said.

Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels have shot dead a second military intelligence officer in Sri Lanka's east despite a truce with government forces, officials said Sunday. A gunman on a motorcycle shot dead the soldier in the town of Akkaraipattu as he visited his mother on Saturday, officials said. The latest killing came despite intensified investigations into Tamil Tiger hit-squads after the rebels were accused of killing a top police intelligence officer near the capital Colombo in June.

The government as well as rival Tamil politicians have accused the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of using a truce with government forces to carry out attacks against opponents as well as military informants. Last week the United States asked the LTTE guerrillas to renounce "terrorism," stop political killings and resume peace talks with the Colombo government. A US embassy statement quoting State Department spokesman Philip T. Reeker said the United States was concerned that the LTTE was undermining peace prospects in the island, through among other things, a spate of killings. The embassy statement noted with concern the activities of the LTTE were "undermining confidence in the peace process at this critical juncture." "More than three dozen persons -- all of whom were alleged to be political opponents of the Tamil Tigers or anti-Tiger informants -- have been assassinated in Sri Lanka so far this year," it said.

COLOMBO, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Organization of Professional Associations (OPA) has urged both President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to cooperate to make the Norwegian-brokered peace process in the country a success, The Sunday Island said. "The OPA requests the president and the prime minister to unite to tackle the Tamil demands without one party resorting to subterfuge the other party," OPA President V.N.C. Gunasekera was quoted as saying in a statement issued on Saturday.

He said that they were perturbed by the continuing and escalating violations of the ceasefire agreement by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel which they signed with the government in February last year, particularly in the setting up a camp in a government controlled area in the eastern port district of Trincomalee. Despite the ruling by the international truce monitors that the camp was built in a government controlled area and should be removed by the LTTE, the rebels have so far remained defiant against the ruling.

The OPA also urged the government to explore the possibility of deploying international peace-keeping forces in the country to consolidate the ceasefire between the government and the LTTE rebels. The LTTE rebels have also been accused of killing their political opponents since the signing of the ceasefire agreement last year. President Kumaratunga is critic of the government of her arch political rival Prime Minister Wickremesinghe in handling the Norwegian-brokered peace process. She has complained that the government has given too much concession to the LTTE rebels. The president was in an uneasy cohabitation with the government after her People's Alliance lost the December 2001 parliamentary elections to prime minister's United National Party.

ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has expressed that his government will enhance its support in the efforts to bring about sustainable peace in the Sudan. Meles made the remark here on Monday while holding talks with a delegation of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development's ( IGAD) Secretariat on Peace in the Sudan, the Ethiopian Herald newspaper reported on Tuesday. Meles told the delegation that the government of the Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Army need to carry on with peace talks. The two sides should exert efforts for the prevalence of sustainable peace by furthering the peace process under the auspices of IGAD, Meles said.

The two sides have already gone considerable distance in their peace talks and it was the consummation of this process, not war, which would bring about resolution, one of the negotiators who comprise the delegation, Ethiopian ambassador to Kenya Murad Mussa quoted Meles as saying. Negotiators of the Secretariat are drawn from Ethiopia, Uganda, Eritrea, Kenya and Djibouti. Kenya holds the chairmanship. The delegation told Meles that they have been exerting efforts since last October to bring about sustainable peace in the Sudan.

The delegation was now soliciting support from IGAD member countries to resolve the difficulty created concerning a draft negotiation document for the peace process, the negotiators said. The delegation secured the required support from Meles and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, they said, adding they would head to Eritrea and Kenya on the same mission. It was reported that the peace process launched with the aim of bringing about sustainable peaceful resolution to the 20-year-old conflict would resume as of Aug. 11.

The southern Sudan rebel movement said Friday it will not accept a government demand that a draft peace accord be modified before talks resume in Kenya, and accused Khartoum of stalling negotiations. Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail told the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram on Thursday that peace talks with the rebels will not resume as expected on Sunday unless the mediating African body modifies the draft accord. But a spokesman for the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), Samson Kwaje, told AFP that any changes to the document must be discussed between the two parties. "Our position is still that we adopt the Nakuru draft framework as the basis for negotiations," said Kwaje. "If there are any changes they have to be made as a result of negotiations between the SPLM and GoS (Government of Sudan)," he said, adding that the rebel movement will attend the talks expected to open in the central Kenyan town of Nanyuki on Sunday.

In the last round of talks with the SPLM/A in Nakuru, Kenya last month, the government rejected a draft accord prepared by mediators of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) on outstanding issues such as power- and wealth-sharing and security arrangements during a six-year transition period agreed last year. Khartoum said the draft was a prelude to a secession of southern Sudan with a separate army and independent central bank during interim phase. "Peace talks will resume if IGAD takes a new initiative providing for reasonable arrangements in the interim period," said Ismail told Al-Ahram. Kwaje said Khartoum was "putting obstacles to the peace process by giving preconditions." "This is unacceptable," he added. In the Kenyan town of Machakos in July last year, Khartoum and the SPLA struck a breakthrough accord granting the south the right to self-determination after a six-year transition period and exempting the south from Islamic laws. IGAD comprises the east African states of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and, nominally, Somalia. The SPLA has been fighting since 1983 to end domination of the mainly Christian and animist south by the Arab Muslim government in Khartoum.

Sudanese president says Sudan and Chad will work together to end rebellion in western Sudan

Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir said Sunday that Sudan and Chad will work together to end a six-month rebellion in a western Sudanese province that borders Chad. El-Bashir was in Chad for one day to meet with his Chadian counterpart, Idriss Deby. The talks between the two men centered on how to quell the rebellion in the western Darfur province, El-Bashir said. Following the meeting, El-Bashir said they had agreed to devote "all efforts" to end the rebellion but did not specify if the two countries were seeking a military or a diplomatic solution to the conflict. Sunday's meeting was the second time Deby, who came to power in a December 1990 coup, and el-Bashir held talks about the rebellion - their first meeting came in April in al-Fasher, the capital of Darfur.

Deby's Zaghawa tribe live on both sides of the border, and Deby launched his rebellion from al-Fasher in the late 1980s. In February, a group calling itself the Darfur Liberation Front attacked Sudanese government troops in the Jabal Mara mountains and asked the government for the right of self-determination. Tribes have been fighting each other for years in Darfur, a province that is home to a fifth of Sudan's 30 million people and one of the least developed. El-Bashir's visit to Chad comes as the Sudanese government and southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement rebels prepared to resume peace talks aimed at ending a 20-year civil war that has ravaged the southern part of the vast country.

Peace talks between the Sudanese government and southern rebels to end Africa's oldest civil war were due to resume in Kenya on Monday, one day late and despite President Omar al-Beshir having blasted the proposed peace deal as "unfair". The talks were due to have resumed on Sunday at Nanyuki, near Mount Kenya, but were delayed for one day as the chief mediator, retired Kenyan army general Lazaro Sumbeiywo, needed to tend to a family member injured in road accident. Sumebiywo is the chairman of a team of mediators from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which groups Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and, nominally, Somalia.

The talks between a delegation from Khartoum and representatives from the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) are to restart despite acrimonious exchanges between the Khartoum government and the SPLA over a draft final accord. President Beshir told an Egyption government daily in comments published Sunday that he would not sign an "unfair" peace agreement with the rebels and voiced "doubts" about the intentions of their leader, John Garang. In an interview with Al-Ahram newspaper, Beshir said Khartoum would resort to other "options", without specifying what those would be, should "deadlock" persist. "We are not going to sign any peace agreement that does not implement justice," Beshir was quoted as saying.

On Saturday, the president slammed the draft accord, put forward by IGAD, as "aimed at dismantling not only the present regime but the whole of Sudan." The last round of talks in Nakuru, Kenya broke down in July when the government rejected a draft accord on outstanding issues such as power- and wealth-sharing and security arrangements during a six-year transition period, which would grant southern Sudan a separate army and independent central bank. On Friday, the SPLA, which has been fighting since 1983 to end domination of Sudan's mainly Christian and animist south by the Arab Muslim government in Khartoum, rejected a government demand that the draft accord be modified. Khartoum said the draft was a prelude to a secession of southern Sudan.

In the Kenyan town of Machakos in July last year, Khartoum and the SPLA struck a breakthrough accord granting the south the right to self-determination after a six-year transition period and exempting the south from Islamic laws. But Khartoum and the rebels are wrangling on how power will be shared during the interim period between the country's president and a vice president expected to come from the rebel-controlled south, according to a source close to the negotiations. The government is also reluctant to suspend Islamic law in the capital Khartoum during the transition period, when mediators had proposed that the city serve as the joint capital. On wealth-sharing, the bone of contention is mainly on how to apportion oil revenues and the ownership of land and other natural resources, according to the source, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.

Khartoum has also rejected a proposal that both the government and the SPLA maintain separate armies during the transition period. The government has also refused to discuss the issue of the three disputed areas of southern Blue Nile State, Abyei, and the Nuba Mountains in the centre of the country, where rebels are active although the areas are not geographically part of the south, according to the source. The SPLA claims that it has the mandate from the three territories to represent them at the talks, but Khartoum, for its part, says that it controls 90 percent of those areas. The Sudanese civil war, the oldest in Africa, has claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced four million people.