PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH

Burundi Main Burundi Hutu rebel faction said to split over post-war strategy discord

Georgia/Abkhazia Abkhaz minister says talks with Georgia to resume in early October

UN study finds illegal firearms among Kosovar civilians to be a major problem.

Liberia Taylor's Asylum Obasanjo's Greatest Mistake Says Former Peacekeeping Commander Malu

ECOMOG commander criticizes Nigerian government for offering Charles Taylor asylum.

Traditional justice method believed to be Rwanda’s best hope for reconciliation.

Serbia & Montenegro Milosevic charged with ordering murder of former Serbian president

Main Burundi Hutu rebel faction said to split over post-war strategy discord

The CNDD-FDD pro-Hutu rebel National Forces for the Defence of Democracy- Forces for the Defence of Democracy could split in next few days. This is what we have learnt from a well-informed source close to the Pierre Nkurunziza movement. The CNDD-FDD faction led by Nkurunziza has from the onset grappled with persistent internal problems related to the upcoming entry of the movement into government institutions and defence and security bodies, with some officials like Adolphe Nshimirimana, the "chief of staff" of the armed wing of the Nkurunziza-led CNDD-FDD faction and others criticizing their leader of not having sufficient education credentials to merit any given position in the new government institutions.

There is also disagreement among the movement's leadership over what strategy to adopt given the new emerging situation which requires them to lay down their arms, come out of the bush and gradually transform themselves into an ordinary political party. Our sources believe that "Maj-Gen" Adolphe Nshimirimana and his supporters have not warmed up to the idea of recruiting massively from the Tutsi community, while other leaders of the movement feel this is the right thing to do.

It is for all these reasons that, according to the same sources, Adolphe Nshimirimana and his friends plan to break up from the rest of the movement and create a dissident wing that will be militarily active or one that will rally behind Agathon Rwasa's pro-Hutu rebel National Liberation Forces-Party for Liberation of Hutu People faction which does not have a single Tutsi among its ranks and thus continue the anti-Tutsi genocide war to its conclusions, or at least until the "Tutsi brothers" understand that it is time they had direct negotiations with their "Hutu brothers".

Nevertheless, a source close to Adolphe Nshimirimana that we contacted by telephone naturally denied these allegations saying Nshimirimana was actually planning to travel to the capital Bujumbura to implement an "all-inclusive" agreement that his movement plans to sign soon with the transitional government. Passage omitted .

It is to be noted that if this allegations of an imminent split in the faction turn out to be true, it will confirm what many observers have been saying, namely that the Hutu rebel groups will never cease to multiply in their bid to prolong their genocidal war. Finally, clashes yesterday night in the Kinama neighbourhood of Bujumbura between the two rival Hutu rebel groups killed a government solder and three civilians, who were caught in a cross fire between two gangs claiming to be representing the Nkurunziza and Rwasa factions.

The acting president of Chechnya is seriously ill in hospital from an unidentified poison in what appears to have been an attack on his life -- just a week before elections crucial to Russia's peace plan for the region. Anatoly Popov, who was appointed prime minister of Chechnya earlier this year, was taken to hospital on Saturday evening after a dinner to celebrate a gas pipeline opening. His doctors described his illness as "poisoning by a poison of unidentified origin." Popov served under the head of the region's pro-Moscow local administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, and took over as acting president during the campaign for next Sunday's presidential poll. Kadyrov is the strong favourite after his main rivals in the contest either withdrew or were disqualified. Popov is not running in the election.

"He is currently in one of Chechnya's hospitals and will soon be taken to Moscow. He is in serious condition," said Russia's Itar-Tass news agency, quoting military sources. It said his condition was so serious that he had been taken by helicopter to Russia's biggest military base in Chechnya, where he was to undergo an operation. The Kremlin is already citing next week's elections as proof that democracy and normalcy have returned to the tiny, mainly-Muslim republic after over a decade of secessionist rebellion. But experts allege that Kremlin-backed machinations aimed at ensuring the election of its own placeman, Kadyrov, have reduced the polls to a play with only one actor.

"It is not an election, but a farce," says Lyudmilla Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Russia's oldest human rights watchdog, which last month cancelled plans to send 300 observers to monitor the voting. In recent weeks four of the top candidates have mysteriously withdrawn or been ejected from the ballot. And in early September armed members of Kadyrov's 2,000-man security force, headed by the leader's son, Ramzan, occupied the offices of Chechnya's only TV station and all eight of the republic's newspapers.

"Chechnya is under Kadyrov's full control, and he has demonstrated that he can do whatever he wants," says Nikolai Petrov, an expert with the Carnegie Endowment in Moscow. "No elections are going to change that fact." The republic's presidential elections were supposed to be the crowning moment in a one-sided peace process launched by the Kremlin a year ago, aimed at convincing the world that the bitter four-year-old war is finished and that Chechens are freely deciding their own fate, with full rights guaranteed by Moscow.

Last March a suspiciously high 96 per cent of Chechen voters turned out and gave 80 per cent endorsement to a new constitution, which grants Chechnya limited autonomy but cements it forever as Russian territory. While many experts were skeptical of the voting figures at the time, few doubted that many of Chechnya's exhausted and war-ravaged people yearned for peace -- even on Moscow's terms. Moscow's key objective was to sideline Chechnya's secessionist rebel movement and its leader, Aslan Maskhadov, who was elected in Chechnya's only free presidential polls in 1997. The Kremlin has consistently refused to negotiate with Maskhadov, whom it accuses of backing terrorism, or to let his representatives take part in the republic's tightly-controlled political process.

Rebels continue to strike back, killing about a dozen Russian troops weekly inside Chechnya, and are probably behind a wave of destructive suicide bombings over the past summer, which killed almost 300 people in Chechnya, nearby republics and in Moscow. Critics say the Kremlin's failure to rein-in the depredations of its anointed leader and ensure some semblance of free choice to Chechens has placed even the limited gains of its carefully-orchestrated peace process in jeopardy. Kadyrov, a former rebel leader appointed by Moscow three years ago to head Chechnya's provisional government, has stacked official bodies with his own cronies and, human rights monitors say, launched a wave of violent intimidation against his rivals.

"The (Chechen population) is more scared of Kadyrov than of the military or terrorists," says Svetlana Gannushkina, a member of President Vladimir Putin's human rights advisory commission -- which sometimes contradicts the Kremlin -- who recently visited Chechnya. Gannushkina cites examples of campaign workers for rival presidential candidates who were beaten and detained by Kadyrov's security men. "There is a reign of terror in Chechnya," she says.

The only publicly released independent opinion survey about the election was conducted by the Moscow-based Validata polling agency last June in all of Chechnya's 15 districts. It found Kadyrov running a distant fourth in popularity. But since then, all the leading candidates have been removed from the ballot. First to go was Ruslan Khasbulatov, former Russian speaker of parliament, who led the June Validata poll with the support of 25.7 per cent of Chechens. He dropped out of the race in July, saying only that "there are no conditions for honest elections in Chechnya".

Instability in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo will not be allowed to upset the country's internationally sponsored peace process, President Joseph Kabila has insisted. He told the Financial Times in an interview there was no going back on the peace plan, which saw a power-sharing government installed in July following five years of war. However, General Kabila warned of "shadows still lurking behind us" and suggested that "foreign hands" continued to play a destabilising role promoting militias in the mineral-rich east of the country.

It was now time, he said, to turn the page on the "very dark chapter" in relations between Congo and Rwanda, and reach a common understanding on their security concerns. The involvement of Rwanda and Uganda in an attempt to topple the government in Kinshasa in 1998 sparked a war that at one stage sucked in seven African countries and has claimed more than 3m lives.

Most foreign troops formally withdrew from Congo last year. The main rebel factions they backed are now included in a 60-member transitional government, due to steer the country towards elections in two years. Exiles have been flooding back to Kinshasa. But the government faces a challenge re-establishing authority across a territory four times the size of France, with infrastructure and institutions in ruins and population mired in poverty. If necessary, Gen Kabila said, peace would have to be imposed on those still working against South African and UN-brokered agreements to end the war.

"We have come so far. We have achieved so much. Is it really true that one, two, three, four, five individuals are going to pitch the whole nation back into crisis? I say no. There is no way back and we will have to make these people understand this the hard way, maybe." Gen Kabila said the government was addressing the political weaknesses that had allowed neighbouring countries to exploit Congo. It was now of "capital" importance to form an army combining former government and rebel forces.

"The success of the transition lies in the government putting in place a national army capable of defending its borders, taking care of the security of the people of the Congo and their institutions," he said. "People should not come and politicise the army. That could be the most dangerous thing because in one day the whole process can go up in flames." Still only 32, Gen Kabila has learnt to speak with calm authority since he was pitched nervously into the centre of Congo's maelstrom after the assassination in January 2000 of his father, Laurent Kabila.

Joseph Kabila's role in negotiating an end to formal foreign involvement in the war and bringing Congolese players together in talks has contrasted starkly with his father, who antagonised much of the region in his three years of rule. In return, the government is now winning widespread backing from abroad. This has resulted in Congo qualifying for "highly indebted poor country" terms of debt relief - which would reduce its Dollars 12bn (Euros 10.5bn, Pounds 7.3bn) external debt by some 80 per cent - and potentially Dollars 2.5bn of aid, part of it towards reconstructing the state.

Gen Kabila said mining deals from the war years, many of which were designed to fund the fighting, were being reviewed to rehabilitate the sector and bring back investors. But fears remain among diplomats and UN officials that hardliners associated with abuses under Gen Kabila's father retain influence. Gen Kabila said he shared concern about the potential for corruption "considering the past activities of quite a lot of the pople constituting the government itself".

He added: "Our defence should be: 'let's get the people involved, let's get the population asking questions each and every time there is a problem, and let's take people to court, let's take people to jail'." Some of the key players now are the sons of men who played leading roles in Congo's disastrous post independence years. "You have got generations that grew up within the system," Gen Kabila said. "They didn't know anything except the system. The question is, will they change their ways?"

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

The Georgian-Abkhaz talks on working out guarantees of security and war non-resumption have been rescheduled for early October this year, Abkhaz separatist foreign minister Sergey Shamba said on Tuesday 23 September. "The talks that were supposed to take place in Tbilisi today, 23 September, have been rescheduled for the first 10 days of October," Shamba, who leads the Abkhaz delegation, told Interfax-Military News Agency.

There are several reasons behind the postponement of the talks, he said. Among them is "the Abkhaz party's request to hold the meeting after 30 September, when the self-proclaimed republic celebrates the 10th anniversary of its independence", the minister noted. According to Shamba, the parties were not supposed to sign any documents at the meeting. "The documents on security guarantees are still being elaborated, experts are studying them," he said.

Minister without portfolio Malkhaz Kakabadze, who heads the Georgian delegation, told Interfax-AVN, "it is a priority for the Georgian party to the talks in such a format involving international mediators to determine the status of Abkhazia within Georgia and promote the return of refugees and economic rehabilitation of the conflict zone". The talks will involve Heidi Tagliavini, special representative of the UN secretary general, and officials of the nations constituting the Group of Friends of the UN Secretary General on Georgia, namely the USA, Great Britain, France, Russia and Germany. The UN mission told Interfax-AVN that the talks have been "postponed due to technical reasons".

An Australian national and a Canadian citizen are being held for questioning in Indonesia's Aceh province where the military is continuing an all-out offensive against separatist rebels, the army said Friday. Canadian Claire Susan and Australian John Humphrey were taken to the Aceh Besar district military post after being spotted "walking around" Lamtieng beach on Aceh Island Thursday, Aceh military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ahmad Yani Basuki told AFP.

Foreign tourists are banned from Aceh and the operations of foreign aid workers and local and foreign journalists are severely restricted under martial law regulations in the province. Since May 19 Indonesia has mounted its largest military offensive in almost three decades to wipe out separatists from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). Basuki gave no details of how the couple entered Aceh or their activities before their arrest. "They are currently being questioned. If we deem them to be harmless, we will release them," Basuki said.

Another military spokesman, Firdaus Komarno, quoted by the state Antara news agency, said in the Aceh capital, Banda Aceh, that the married couple had told the military their boat became stranded in the area Thursday after being battered by huge waves. "Testimony from the husband and wife suggests that they were stranded. Their initial destination was Malaysia but once they entered the Malacca Strait, their boat was battered by strong waves which forced them to dock at Lamtieng pier," Komarno said.

Canadian and Australian embassy officials could not be immediately contacted. In June soldiers shot dead a German man and wounded his wife while they camped on a West Aceh beach. The military said its troops were investigating possible rebel activity at the time. The European Commission in July complained about a "disturbing" lack of access to Aceh after one of its aid workers was detained there overnight, even though she had authorization to visit. In August, American freelance journalist William Nessen was convicted of immigration offences and freed after 40 days in an Aceh jail. He had surrendered himself to the military after covering the war from GAM's perspective.

Indonesian authorities are sensitive about the presence of foreigners not just in Aceh but in other troubled areas such as Papua. Meanwhile, the military said Friday it had shot dead nine rebels and arrested seven others during clashes in five districts since Thursday. It said residents had also found three bodies bearing gunshot wounds in three districts on Thursday and Friday. The military says more than 900 GAM rebels have been killed since the start of the operation. Sixty-six members of the security forces have died. More than 1,800 other rebels have been arrested or have surrendered in the operation. The military said last week that 304 civilians had died but did not say who was responsible for the deaths.

Prosecutors in Indonesia's Aceh province on Saturday requested 16 years in jail for a separatist rebel negotiator accused of terrorism and treason. Teuku Kamaruzzaman, 42, should face a similar term to that of his fellow four negotiators from the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) who are charged with the same offences, prosecutor Ohara Pudjo told a court in the Aceh provincial capital, Banda Aceh. The maximum penalty for terrorism is death. Prosecutors at separate trials last week already recommended a 16-year term for Tengku Muhammad Usman, a negotiator who is also GAM's "finance minister", and 15 years for Amni bin Ahmad Marzuki. They said that two other negotiators, Sofyan Ibrahim Tiba and Nashiruddin bin Ahmed, should be sentenced to 18 and 16-year terms. Kamaruzzaman's trial is to resume on October 7 when he presents his defence.

Government and rebel negotiators last December struck an internationally mediated ceasefire that led to a brief but shaky truce in GAM's 26-year-old battle for independence of the oil-rich province. When the deal faltered the Indonesian military launched on May 19 an all-out attempt to crush GAM after final crisis talks in Tokyo collapsed. The indictments for all five men have cited several bombings, murders, kidnappings and arson acts carried out by the rebels since December, when they signed the short-lived ceasefire agreement.

Police arrested the negotiators on their way to the airport to join GAM's team in Tokyo. Aceh police freed them as the Tokyo talks began but rearrested them when negotiations broke down. Usman said in his trial that if rebel negotiators are considered terrorists then the other negotiators, including top Indonesian officials and military officers, should face the same charges.

Before the last failed round of talks the five rebels had been sequestered for more than two years in a Banda Aceh hotel to take part in earlier peace negotiations. In the latest violence, the military said Saturday that four GAM rebels were killed and two government soldiers wounded in the arm during a battle Friday in East Aceh, the state Antara news agency reported.

Also Saturday, Canadian Claire Susan and Australian John Humphrey were still undergoing questioning by immigration authorities in Aceh, Colonel Ditya Sudarsono, an Aceh military spokesman, told AFP in Jakarta. He said that after receiving the report from immigration investigators the military would decided whether the couple can be released. On Friday Antara quoted the military as saying the couple said they became stranded on a small island off Banda Aceh when their boat ran into trouble on its way to Malaysia.

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.

Cote d'Ivoire rebels have turned down an invitation to meet with a United Nations special envoy to discuss their withdrawal from the national reconciliation government, according to reports reaching here from Abidjan on Saturday. The move was reportedly in protest against President Laurent Gbagbo's refusal to give adequate powers to the rebels' representatives in the government.

There are also signs of a split in the rebel camp as Roger Banchi, one of the nine ministers from their ranks in the coalition government, disobeyed the movement's orders by attending a cabinet meeting chaired by Gbagbo. Banchi, who represents the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Great West (MPIGO), one of three partners in the rebel alliance, however, refused to answer questions from newsmen after the cabinet meeting held in the presidential palace. The other eight ministers have all returned to their headquarters in Bouake, some 380 km north of Abidjan, following the decision of the movement on Tuesday to suspend its participation in the government.

The rebel forces have occupied the northern half of Cote d' Ivoire since their failed coup 12 months ago plunged the country into a civil war that ended after a French-brokered peace accord in January. Although the rebels joined the government headed by Seydou Diarra as prime minister since April, mistrust between them and Gbagbo has continued to run deep, while their decision to suspend their participation both in the government and in the disarmament process has dashed the government's hopes of bringing the entire country under its authority. Most schools and hospitals as well as banks have remained closed for the past year in the areas under the control of the rebel forces, while civil servants who stayed at their posts have not been paid.

Diplomats fear that if the country remains divided for a much long period, it could suffer permanent partition, although the rebels have consistently denied plans to secede from the country. The UN secretary general's special representative to Cote d' Ivoire Albert Tevoedjre, who chaired a crisis meeting of the committee set up to monitor the implementation of the peace agreement on Wednesday, had requested an urgent meeting with the rebel leaders. But their spokesman, Siriki Konate, said in Bouake that they rejected the proposal. Meanwhile, Guilaume Soro, secretary general of the Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire (MPCI), the largest and most influential of the three rebel groups, accused French Ambassador to Cote d' Ivoire Gildas de Lidec of "giving in" to Gbagbo and failing to demand strict implementation of the January peace agreement.

The lush nature and breathtaking land-scapes of Jammu and Kashmir are safe holiday destinations for Malaysians, said Minister of State for Tourism from the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, Gulam Mohammed Mir. "Kashmir is a safe and beautiful place to visit and what people know of it is an unfortunate portrayal by the media," he said at the Indian High Commission here yesterday.

Gulam, who was here in conjunction with the three-day 52nd annual convention of the Travel Agents Association of India in Genting Highlands recently, hoped that ties between Malaysia and India would be strengthened further through tourism. The number of Malaysian tourists to Jammu and Kashmir is expected to increase during the coming Chinese New Year break, through greater interaction with the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta). The Govenment of Jammu and Kashmir also hoped to market Kashmir as an ideal destination for golfers.

"We have received positive response from Matta and aim to offer various special tour packages to encourage Malaysians to visit Jammu and Kashmir," Gulam said. Also present were chairman of J&K Chapter Nazir A. Bakshi, Secretary of Tourism of the Government of Kashmir Najamus Saqib, Director of Information K.B. Jandial, and Indian High Commisioner Veena Sikri.

Kosovo

Gun culture stymies the UN in Kosovo

Arie Farnam, The Christian Science Monitor, 9/26/03

The victim was a schoolteacher, killed by a grenade as he sat in a grocery store in the village of Cernica in eastern Kosovo. "He was drawing up lesson plans for the beginning of the school year," says Radusha Brankica a fellow teacher. Crying, she then pleads, "I can't take any more of this violence. With grenades and guns everywhere, how can we stop the killing?"

The blast this month was part of a recent rash of weekly shootings and explosions that are raising international concern over uncontrolled weapons in this UN protectorate. A recent United Nations study estimates there are about half a million small arms in Kosovo, primarily illegal weapons held by civilians. In a province of 2 million people, almost every family is armed - a legacy of ethnic strife here and a threat to efforts to stabilize the province.

Kosovo was flooded with weapons in 1997 after rioters looted military armories in neighboring Albania. Many of the pilfered arms went to the Kosovo Liberation Army, which was waging a guerrilla war against Serb rule over this primarily ethnic- Albanian province. In return, Serbian security forces issued machine guns to Serb paramilitaries and ordinary farmers alike. The conflict culminated in a NATO bombing campaign in 1999 that forced Serb soldiers to leave and put the province under UN administration.

The proliferation of arms has the rest of Europe worried. For the first time, Kosovo is now a net exporter of weapons, primarily those smuggled to Albanian gangs and organized crime in Italy, Greece, Germany, and the Czech Republic. "Some countries have a mafia, but in Kosovo, the mafia has a country," says one American security official in Kosovo, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Especially with the increased activity of Islamic extremists and Al Qaeda groups in and around Kosovo, this situation could pose a real security threat to Europe."

The UN administration of Kosovo has mounted a massive antiarms campaign, and declared an amnesty this month for civilians to turn in illegal and unregistered weapons without penalty. Billboards and posters depicting a child holding out a rose toward the shadowy figure of a man with a machine gun have multiplied across the countryside, along with UN information stands and weapons-collection teams provided by KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force here. In a place where no wedding is complete without celebratory gunfire, anyone caught with an illegal weapon after Sept. 30 could face eight years in prison.

"The campaign is focusing on the ordinary citizen who has a Kalashnikov stashed under their bed," says Barry Fletcher, spokesman for the multinational police force in Kosovo. "Having AK47s and rocket-propelled grenade launchers in private homes makes every minor neighborly dispute potentially lethal."

NATO-led forces imposed an uneasy peace in Kosovo four years ago, and KLA leaders have become Kosovo's new political class. There have been several attempts to collect unregistered arms, but they have yielded only several hundred weapons. Despite promises of UN development aid to communities that give up weapons, many officials admit privately that they expect little better from the current amnesty. Halfway through the operation, US soldiers stationed at a collection point in eastern Kosovo say not one civilian had come to turn in a weapon.

Cernica residents say they need to have weapons. "You can't depend on KFOR to protect you," says one. "There were KFOR troops just up the street when the [grocery] store was grenaded, and they didn't stop it from happening. The only protection is to have your own gun and shoot back." The teacher's murder appears to have been an ethnic attack. The victim was a Serb; the attackers escaped to the Albanian part of the village. Villagers on both sides say it is only a matter of time before armed Serbs take revenge. But the easy availability of weapons in Kosovo means that not just ethnic tensions, but everything from bar fights to business disputes is solved with a gun.

"You think twice before getting in an argument in Kosovo because someone always ends up dead, " says Dukajin Gorani, director of the Human Rights Center at Pristina University. Mr. Gorani and many others blame the violence on a "gun culture" that has resulted from decades of conflict and lawlessness. "In this part of the world, there is a strong belief in customary law which means an eye for an eye," Gorani says. "It is commendable that KFOR is trying to collect weapons, but it is an impossible task. Kosovars have learned from the KLA that you get international attention if you have a gun. In our lifetime the rule of law has never achieved anything, only guns have provided a measure of justice. So you stick to your gun."

This summer has seen the rise of another shadowy paramilitary force called the Albanian National Army (with the Albanian initials AKSh) in Kosovo and border areas in Macedonia and Serbia proper. That group, along with scattered Serb militias and organized crime on both sides of the ethnic divide, has created an atmosphere of fear and instability in Kosovo that makes disarmament extremely difficult.

"From the perspective of a peasant in Kosovo, the prospect of another war in southeastern Europe is not far fetched at all," says Aaron Presnall, director of the East-West Institute's Southeastern Europe office. "In the past few centuries, anyone who wasn't armed in this region has quickly found themselves at the end of someone else's barrel. In that context, keeping a gun is simply good common sense."

Ethnic-Albanian villagers in Zhegra, just three miles from Cernica, remember all too well what it is like to be outgunned by Serb paramilitaries who forced them to flee their homes in 1999. "As long as the Serbs are just over the hill, we will keep our guns," says Fatlum, a young man who did not give his last name.

Kosovo's government said Saturday it will seek approval from the province's parliament before it participates in U.N.-planned talks bringing Belgrade authorities and Kosovo leaders together. Kosovo's prime minister, Bajram Rexhepi, said the government would request that the 120-member parliament decide on participation in the talks, which would be the first face-to-face meeting of representatives from Kosovo and Serbia since the 1999 war, in which Serb forces cracked down on separatist ethnic Albanians. The war ended after a NATO bombing campaign, and the province has since been run by the United Nations. Its final status was left open in the U.N. resolution that removed Belgrade's authority over the area.

"The government won't start (the talks) without a decision from parliament," Rexhepi told reporters after a two-hour government session. Rexhepi and Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova in June said they would back the talks. But the ethnic Albanian leaders have since appeared hesitant, fearing a backlash and internal political fights if they agree to meet with Serb leaders, something that's unpopular with most ethnic Albanians here. The talks would tackle everyday issues and would not touch on the contentious issue of Kosovo's final status. Ethnic Albanians want independence, while Serbs living here and Belgrade authorities want it to remain part of Serbia.

U.N. officials have earlier announced the talks would be held in mid-October in Vienna, Austria. The Belgrade-based news agency Beta, citing sources close to Kosovo institutions, reported Saturday that the talks would be held Oct. 14. A U.N. official in Pristina, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press no exact date had been announced, but confirmed that NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson and EU foreign affairs officials Javier Solana and Chris Patten would participate.

The talks would be an important step forward in international efforts to establish peace and stability in the Balkans following a series of wars, including the one in Kosovo. Meanwhile, the commander of Serbia and Montenegro's army, Gen. Branko Krga, warned that security in the region could deteriorate ahead of the talks, saying ethnic Albanian militants in volatile southern Serbia and neighboring Macedonia might launch attacks to undermine the talks, the state-run news agency Tanjug reported. "As far as security is concerned, the start of the dialogue is a critical period, because extremists have always used provocations to make political gains," Krga said.

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

Taylor's Asylum Obasanjo's Greatest Mistake Says Former Peacekeeping Commander Malu

Former ECOMOG field commander during Liberian civil war, General Victor Malu (rtd), has criticised President Olusegun Obasanjo for granting asylum to former Liberian leader, Mr. Charles Taylor, saying, "it is the greatest mistake he has made" and an insult to Nigerians since his assumption of office in 1999. "That is the biggest mistake any head of state could have made because Charles Taylor targeted Nigerians, not just those in uniform. Charles Taylor's hatred for Nigerians still exists till today. So for any head of state to have conceded to granting Charles Taylor asylum in Nigeria is the biggest insult to Nigerians," said General Malu while answering reporters questions at Makurdi airport on arrival from abroad in a United Nation's aircraft. The former Chief of Army Staff, who said that Charles Taylor's anger against Nigerians arose from the active performance of Nigerian peacekeeping troops to stop him from rising from rebel leader to president, therefore subscribed to the call that Charles Taylor be handed over to the UN war crime tribunal in Sierra Leone.

General Malu said that the chances of lasting peace in Liberia were slim if ECOWAS did not implement the recommendation of ECOMOG under his command that the country's armed forces be restructured through a neutral body (such a ECOMOG), before finally withdrawing the troops. He lamented that ECOWAS "sat on it and didn't act on it," the aftermath of which was that Liberia was in crisis two years later. "I kept writing to ECOWAS that for all the lives we lost in Liberia, if you don't address this issue of restructuring the armed force, you are wasting your time. We will be back here in the next 18 months to start peace processes again. And it took us just two years before crisis returned.

"So it didn't come as a surprise," he said, adding that he was sure Charles Taylor's government was not going to survive but warned Taylor leaving Liberia could only bring temporary peace. "As long as ECOWAS refuses to do what we recommended, it is going to be a temporary measure. (The war) will come back again." General Malu who is now a UN consultant on security matters said that by August of 1997 when he brought the Liberian crisis to a stop, there were eight warring parties fighting for control of government, and "without any security analysis you know that if you are to form a government, such a government will not survive."

Moldova

Moldova orientates self towards European Union

Infotag News Agency (Chisinau), via BBC, 9/25/03

"European integration is the strategic vector of Moldova's foreign policy", President Vladimir Voronin said at a news conference today. "In a few days, I will send a letter to the European Union leadership. Shortly after it, we will send a concept plan for Moldova's integration into Europe", he said. "Integration is in no way a hindrance to our developing ties in the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States of which Moldova is a member. The example of Moldova and Kazakhstan proves that CIS member countries can dynamically develop economic relations on the basis of bilateral relations".

He avoided directly answering questions about Moldova's possible membership of the Single Economic Space (SES) being created by Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. "We should first scrutinize all SES documents which are, so far, available only to the four founders. Other CIS member states have no clarity about what kind of an organization the SES is going to be - open or closed", Voronin said. In New York, the President met the OSCE chairman and Dutch foreign minister, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. The two agreed that Voronin would pay a short visit to the Netherlands on 11 October.

"We will watch a qualifying football match for the 2004 European Championship between Moldova and the Netherlands. We could not see the teams' first game, which was held in Moldova", the President recalled. Voronin and Hoop Scheffer were planning to visit the national teams' first game, which was to have been played at the Sherif Stadium in Tiraspol. However, the Dniester authorities then demanded from the Moldovan government additional arrangements for Voronin's visit to Tiraspol, such as an official written request and agreement on security provisions etc. The Moldovan government preferred to stay out of all this. In protest against such behaviour by Tiraspol the separatist Dniester government , the Dutch foreign minister refused to attend the match too.

Concerning the (Infotag - OSCE chairman's) idea of including EU peacekeepers in the settlement to the Dniester conflict, Voronin said this idea has to be considered thoroughly and "I think this question can shift to the practical plane only after the Dniester problem has been solved politically". The president confirmed that Moldova is interested in the departure of Russian troops and weapons from Dniester. He said the possible extension of the deadline for Russia's withdrawal lies in the competence of the 45 OSCE member states, which will possibly state their position on the topic at the Organization's Annual Meeting in Maastricht.

Voronin said Russian President Vladimir Putin would pay an official visit to Moldova before the end of this year. "We are now establishing a special team that will make arrangements for the visit of such a high-ranking guest. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma will also pay Moldova an official visit this year", said the Moldovan leader.

Gacaca is an affront to human rights. It is also Rwanda's most hopeful option for reconciliation. Gacaca is a traditional justice ritual that has been reinvented by the Rwandan government for perpetrators of the genocidal campaign against the Tutsi people. A panel of 19 lay judges coordinate a process in which survivors and arrested suspects confront each other without lawyers, and the community gives testimony. If the accused confess and apologize, the community has the power to reduce their penalties, often effecting their release from jail. This summer, Busanza village convened under torn, sun-bleached plastic sheeting bearing the faded emblem of the United Nations Development Program. Before the community were 19 judges elected for their integrity, not their learning. Everyone's attention was focused on an elder who had witnessed the murder of the family next door, but claimed to have forgotten the names of the killers.

"Help us out," pleaded one of the judges. "We just want reconciliation." After one more rejection, the judges convened for five minutes and then announced their decision: "An elder is supposed to tell the truth at gacaca, but you are clearly lying. We sentence you to a year in prison." Amnesty International and other human rights watchdogs criticize gacaca for violating international standards of fair trial. They question whether judges who witnessed the murder of loved ones, or have relatives accused of genocide, can conduct a fair trial. They warn that nothing in gacaca guarantees a presumption of innocence. Defendants are denied legal representation, and gacaca's confession procedure creates strong incentives for self-incrimination.

There is no doubt that gacaca justice is fast and loose. But with 100,000 pre-trial detainees languishing in Rwandan prisons and the judicial system eviscerated by the genocide, gacaca is really a pragmatic alternative to amnesty. In a region where decades of impunity fueled ethnic crimes, ultimately culminating in a Tutsi genocide, amnesty could perpetuate the cycle of violence. Even with robust international funding, it is not clear that western-style criminal trials are the best way to reconcile the Hutu and Tutsi. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, with its annual budget of over $100 million, is expensive, inefficient, and distant. It's adversarial process, pitting Hutu defendants against Tutsi witnesses, perpetuates ethnic divisions.

Meanwhile, glimpses of authenticity at gacaca hint enticingly at the potential for lasting peace in Rwanda. Pockmarked Kayitare is guided under the tarp where the obfuscating elder just received his punishment. He is accused of killing Tutsi at a roadblock. Kayitare admits to beating a man for not producing his identity card, and to stealing metal roofing, but denies having killed Tutsi. A young woman with a vicious facial scar stands and tells how she was bitten on the face and assaulted at the roadblock. Kayitare says that he prevented the assailant from raping her. A Tutsi judge testifies that Kayitare let her pass through the roadblock numerous times unmolested. "Kayitare never hurt anybody," an old woman testifies. The community, Hutu and Tutsi alike, rumble his innocence, and the judges agree to contact the trial court for his release.

But gacaca does not always result in justice or reconciliation of the community. In regions with few genocide survivors, some villages are lackadaisical in prosecution. A community near Burundi spent hours discussing stolen vegetables, deftly avoiding the subject of murdered Tutsi. Other communities don't even show up. There is no question that gacaca is imperfect, but between imperfect options, gacaca is the better model.

In the end, the success or failure of gacaca and the fate of Rwanda depend upon the honesty of participating Hutu. Each Hutu, innocent and guilty, is faced with a dilemma: loyalty to the group, or loyalty to the truth. Those who tell the truth help rebuild the rule of law and reconcile Rwanda. Those who lie tempt retaliation from a Tutsi-dominated government terrified of another genocide. Essential to their choice is the devotion of all involved, domestic and international, to the pursuit of truth, accountability and reconciliation. Consensus about these values, not western standards of fair trial, is the most solid basis for lasting peace in Rwanda.

A Serbian prosecutor has charged former strongman Slobodan Milosevic with ordering the murder of Serbian ex-president Ivan Stambolic and an attempt on the life of his veteran opponent Vuk Draskovic, the Beta news agency reported Tuesday. Serbia's special prosecutor Jovan Prijic has brought charges against Milosevic and four others for "the murder of Ivan Stambolic and the attempted murder of Vuk Draskovic," the report said.

Milosevic, currently on trial before a United Nations war crimes court in The Hague, is accused of ordering both acts, Prijic said. Stambolic disappeared while out jogging in August 2000, while Draskovic was shot at in the Montenegrin resort of Budva in June the same year.The other men facing charges are former special police commander Milorad Lukovic Legija, Milosevic-era secret police chief Radomir Markovic -- currently imprisoned in Belgrade -- his deputy Milorad Bracanovic, and former armed forces chief of staff Nebojsa Pavkovic.

The prosecutor said he would pass the indictment to the Belgrade district court on Wednesday. The judicial procedure could start thereafter. Stambolic's body was found in a ditch earlier this year. He was president of Serbia from 1986-87 and had been a strong patron of Milosevic's political career until his protege broke ranks and helped oust him from office. Investigators have said Stambolic was kidnapped and executed by members of a paramilitary police unit set up under Milosevic and led by the police commander Legija -- who is still at large.

Milosevic became president of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, presiding over a period of bloody conflict in the Balkans. He was ousted from power in October 2000, shortly after Stambolic's disappearance, and was sent to the UN war crimes tribunal eight months later to face trial on more than 60 counts of war crimes. Serbian investigators have previously tried to question him over Stambolic's murder but he has refused to cooperate unless his statements were televised to the Serbian public. In a letter sent from his prison cell in The Hague last month, Milosevic denied allegations that he had ordered the assassination. "Ivan Stambolic was no longer a person of interest... He was a completely forgotten politician," Milosevic wrote, adding that it was ridiculous to think he would murder someone who posed no political threat.

The rusting hulls of tanks and personnel carriers litter a cactus patch on a hill overlooking Hargeisa, Somalia's second-largest city. They are remnants of wars that for decades battered this stretch of arid rangeland. Mohammed Ali Ismail doesn't even notice the tanks anymore. They almost blend with the landscape. "A businessman from Yemen wants to buy those tanks for scrap iron," said Ismail, a former government soldier who later fought for the rebels in this part of the country. As he talked, Ismail walked a narrow path deemed safe by white-painted stones.

Outside the white stones is a mine field that needs to be cleared before this former Somalian army maintenance facility can be converted into a repair depot for public buses, police cars and government trucks. Clearing a mine field is dangerous and tedious, but it's a necessary aspect of this region's return to peace.

The clans in this stretch of desert in the country's north -- a region known as Somaliland -- declared their independence from Somalia after the collapse of Siad Barre's government in 1991. They have since maintained a degree of stability that is lacking in most other parts of the country. They have a functioning multiparty democracy, their own currency and license plates, potentially lucrative export income from livestock, oil and frankincense, and a deepwater port in Berbera.

The Somaliland region is about the size of Tennessee and has a predominately Muslim population of 3.5 million people, 90 percent of whom are supported by the more than $500 million sent every year from its emigrants living in places such as Britain, Saudi Arabia, Canada and the United States, according to Fatima Ibrahim, a human rights specialist for the United Nations Development Program in Somalia. But the budding Republic of Somaliland has yet to be recognized by the international community, a refusal that puts the region in a diplomatic limbo that threatens to stunt its growth. Without international recognition as a sovereign nation, Somaliland is not eligible for help from international lenders, and many foreign donors wary of the region's in-between status are reluctant to provide aid.

Many analysts think that with the Somali peace talks in Nairobi on the brink of yet another failure -- after a decade of failed peace talks -- Somaliland's case for recognition is strengthened. "Most people don't like the idea of balkanizing Somalia, but there might not be a better solution," said Ross Herbert, a senior Africa researcher for South Africa's Institute for International Affairs. "There's a strong moral case to be made for recognizing them. For one, it might help break the logjam in Mogadishu, where rival clans keep hoping that they'll pull together into a unified Somalia."

With presidential elections last year deemed fair by international observers, many Somalilanders are now wondering what other credentials are needed for the world to recognize their nationhood. "We've shown that we can be democratic and that we can respect human rights. We are setting an example for the rest of Africa," said Somaliland's foreign affairs minister Edna Adan Ismail. "Where is our peace dividend?"

Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner told Congress earlier this year that the United States should try to build on Somaliland's successes, but he stopped short of suggesting official recognition of the region. The biggest hurdle in Somaliland's struggle for recognition is the African Union, a coalition of leaders from 53 member nations who generally vote in favor of protecting colonial boundaries. Western governments have expressed their willingness to follow African leaders on issues of territorial integrity. "We cannot stand for dismembering one of our countries. We cannot talk about African unity and then accept Somaliland," said Desmond Orjiako, a spokesman for the African Union.

Some analysts agree that supporting Somaliland's independence from Somalia, with a total population of about 8 million, sets a bad precedent, especially on a continent where rebel forces in the Ivory Coast, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo have split those countries in two. In Liberia, rebel groups control a majority of the country despite a shaky cease-fire and a power-sharing agreement.

Although Somaliland gained its independence from Britain in 1960, it opted days later to join its southern neighbor Somalia, a former Italian colony. The two countries shared a vision of a Greater Somalia that included parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. Their partnership soured in the late 1970s when Somali forces failed to gain control of Ethiopia's Ogaden region, important grazing lands for Somaliland's goat, camel and cattle herders and a region with strong Somali clan ties.

The lasting resentment from the Ogaden war ended Mogadishu's dreams of expansion and prompted a rebel movement in Somaliland that -- joined by other rebel clans in central and southern Somalia -- eventually toppled Barre's dictatorial regime. The rebellion cost Somaliland more than 50,000 lives, according to U.N. estimates. Government forces flattened the region's major cities: Berbera, Sheikh, Burao and Hargeisa, the regional capital. A dangerous legacy of the fight endures. About 100 people are maimed every year from unexploded mortars, grenades and landmines. The mines are mainly U.S.-made M14s, used by the Somali army in their fight to keep Somaliland from seceding.

Mass graves near Hargeisa -- uncovered by heavy rains two years ago -- attest to the atrocities carried out by government soldiers led by Barre. Somaliland authorities say that, with the help of international forensic teams, they have found the skeletal remains of more than 9,000 Somalilanders in 116 mass graves. "Our union with Somalia was like a partnership that didn't work out, and when we tried to leave they held guns to our heads," said Mohamed Hashi Elmi, Somaliland's commerce minister. "No one is paying attention to the atrocities committed against us by the Somali government. They just expect us to stay with Somalia."

A controversial plan by the Basque regional government to wrest more sovereignty from Madrid ran into heavy criticism at the weekend from Spanish politicians across the spectrum and a large part of the region's population. Without their support, the Basque goal of greater independence is no closer to becoming reality, though the claim is sparking a debate about reforming the national constitution on its 25th anniversary, as other regions, particularly Catalonia, also seek a more federalist Spain.

In the 12 months since Juan Jose Ibarretxe, the Basque premier, first unveiled the outline of his plan for a "free association" with the rest of Spain, he has gained few political supporters. Only two parties, both in coalition with the PNV, his moderate nationalist party, in the Basque capital Vitoria have said they will help develop the plan. Mr Ibarretxe is demanding that Madrid recognise a separate Basque nation - linking three regions in Spain with four French departments - with its own voice in the European Union. As well as control over matters still managed by the central government, such as social security and healthcare, the plan calls for a Basque judiciary independent of Spain's Supreme Court. Only defence, customs and parts of foreign affairs would be run by Madrid.

Jose Maria Aznar, Spain's conservative prime minister, has refused to discuss the plan on the grounds that it would mean modifying the statutes in the constitution that bind the 17 autonomous regions to Madrid. Eta, the armed Basque separatist group, remains the biggest stumbling block for any real discussion of Basque demands.