PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH

Monday, April 14, 2003

(Volume II, Number 15)

Contents:

Armenia/Azerbaijan      Azeri president meets US envoys to Caucasus countries

President reiterates close ties between Azerbaijan and United States.

Burundi                        Burundi struggles to halt violence; Cease-fire does little to ease decade of civil strife

In 11^th year of civil war, fighting continues, despite multiple agreements.

Chechnya                     Developments in Chechnya –roundup

Chechen budget for this year includes higher allocations for social sectors.

Congo                          Tensions rise in Congo as Uganda denies taking part in massacre

Nearly 1,000 civilians were killed in Congolese province of Ituri last week.

African Leaders Hold Rwanda and Uganda to Peace Agreement

Leaders trying to avert another flare-up of ethnic violence in eastern Congo.

Georgia/Abkhazia         Georgia: Abkhaz separatist president accepts premier's resignation

Move may encourage opposition’s attempt to achieve an “associate status” with the Russian Federation.

Four prisoners who escaped Abkhaz jail hiding in west Georgia: official

Prisoners considered highly dangerous terrorists.

Abkhaz prisoners subjected to sadistic torture, Chechen web site says

Chechen website claims that escaped prisoners were subjected to forms of torture in Abkhaz prison.

Indonesia                      Peace monitors stop work in Indonesia's Aceh after threats

Joint Security Commission temporarily relocates international peace monitors to Acehnese capital.

Analysis: Aceh peace pact unravelling after four months

Analyst identifies indications that peace agreement was fatally flawed from the beginning.

Macedonia                   Macedonian Premier Says President’s Name Proposal Lacks Seriousness

Leader suggests that name be changed from Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

Morocco                      UN special envoy for Western Sahara visits Algeria

Talks between envoy and Algerian leaders in reference to Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara on Algerian border.

Serbia & Montenegro   Serb PM attacks central bank

Premier notes wrong name on bills; calls them counterfeit; threatens to “sack” head of central bank.

Serbia-Montenegro, NATO agree on steps needed before country joins PfP

Serbia & Montenegro must reform army, reassess its role in society.

Somalia                        Residents of breakaway Somali region vote Monday in first multiparty presidential election

Somaliland holds election; candidates vow to maintain stability.

Spain                            Acting on separatist tip, Spanish police find bomb remains at farm

Previously unclaimed explosion identified as work of ETA because of farm owners failure to pay “revolutionary tax.”

Sri Lanka                     LTTE Threatens to Keep Off Tokyo Meet

Tamil Tigers upset about exclusion from preparatory conference in Washington.

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.

Azeri president meets US envoys to Caucasus countries

Azerbaijani TV Channel One (Baku), via BBC, 4/11/03

Presenter: Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev today received a delegation of participants in an annual conference of US envoys in the Caucasus region.

Correspondent over video of meeting: Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev said that he knew personally many participants in the annual conference of US envoys in the Caucasus region. Saying that the anti-Iraq operation had been held successfully, he noted that Azerbaijan and the USA were in one coalition and that our country had close ties with Washington. President Heydar Aliyev highlighted that Azerbaijan had joined the anti-Iraq coalition without hesitation and said that despite many questions and disagreements, time had once again confirmed that Azerbaijan had made the correct decision. President Heydar Aliyev recalled that Azerbaijan had joined the anti-terror coalition after the known 11 September events and said that the Iraq issue would also be the centre of attention at the annual conference of US envoys in the Caucasus region.

Aliyev: I suppose that you will be discussing very important issues here. Naturally, Iraq is at the top of the list, but South Caucasus issues are, I believe, more important for us. I am very pleased to know that you will discuss these issues, will coordinate your work among yourselves and will make more efforts towards the establishment of peace and tranquility in the South Caucasus.

Correspondent: The US ambassador to Azerbaijan, Ross Wilson, introduced participants in the conference to the Azerbaijani president and said that although some could not come, a number of Washington's high-ranking officials participated in the conference. He said that another meeting of the annual conference of US envoys in the Caucasus region was being held and that Baku last hosted such a meeting in 2000. Ross Wilson spoke of the importance of the conference and recalled that they gathered at such meetings in order to coordinate work of US diplomats in the region among themselves and with Washington.

Wilson, in English: You are very right to note that Iraq will be at the top of our agenda in these discussions that we will have today and tomorrow. We will also be discussing other security issues, cooperation on terrorism, assistance issues with our friend who has the money pointing to a member of delegation , regional cooperation and conflicts, in particular, discuss how we might move forward on Nagornyy Karabakh and also on Abkhazia.

Burundi struggles to halt violence; Cease-fire does little to ease decade of civil strife

Carter Dougherty, The Washington Times, 4/10/03

The country is entering its 11th year of civil war, and despite peace accords and cease-fires, guns are still blazing and people are still dying. According to U.N. sources, 440 persons have been killed in the eastern province of Ruyigi since January.  This tiny, impoverished East African country of 8 million people has had 300,000 people killed since violence erupted in 1993, and at least that many have fled their homes amid constant armed clashes. President Pierre Buyoya agreed last week to step down May 1 as part of an agreement that includes elections late next year. But the country's war grinds on, and "Burundi is as fragmented now as I've ever seen it," said Jan van Eck, a professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa who has studied this country extensively.

For most of Burundi's history since independence in 1962, parties dominated by the minority Tutsi people have used their control of the army to subjugate the Hutu majority. In 1993, under international pressure, Burundi elected a Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, in what turned out to be a brief respite from violence. Renegade army officers assassinated Mr. Ndadaye a few months later, and Hutu militias went on a rampage against Tutsis before heading into the hills to start an insurgency, a situation that remains unchanged today.  What makes the past few months notable, diplomats and Burundian officials say, is that all the elements of peace are in place a formal agreement, cease-fires, neutral troops from the African Union and fresh injections of aid. Yet the violence continues.

"Everything is in place," said one Western diplomat who asked not to be identified. "The ball is in the court of the Burundians to show some political will." In August 2000, the government of Mr. Buyoya, a Tutsi, signed a power-sharing accord in Arusha, Tanzania, mediated by South African elder statesman Nelson Mandela, with a group of Hutu political parties, but not with armed rebels. The agreement forsaw Mr. Buyoya stepping down May 1 in favor of his Hutu vice president, Domitien Ndayizeye.  Signatories of the deal expected that cease-fires with the rebels would quickly follow. But the last such agreement came into place in December, and one rebel group the Forces of National Liberation fights on, regularly shelling Bujumbura, the capital.

Most observers predicted that Mr. Buyoya would point to the shaky cease-fires as a reason why he could not leave May 1, and he appealed to the parliament to hold a debate on his continued tenure. But last week, facing solid opposition from his Hutu partners in the peace process, he agreed to step down. Though this decision bodes well for the Arusha accord, Burundian politicians have still not tackled its core provision a plan to integrate the army's Tutsi-dominated officer corps. Nor have they begun to demobilize some of its 60,000 soldiers, far more than a tiny country like Burundi might need in peacetime.

"In this country, the army is playing the major role in whether or not there's peace," said Alexis Sinduhije, director of African Public Radio, an independent station in Bujumbura.  The most powerful Hutu rebel group the Forces for the Defense of Democracy, led by Pierre Nkurunziza still fights pitched battles with government troops in the countryside, despite the December cease-fire.  It also keeps up a steady stream of angry rhetoric that hardly suggests it is ready to talk instead of fight.

"Buyoya and his army do not respect any agreement aimed at restoring peace in Burundi," Mr. Nkurunziza said in a recent statement.  During the past week, the country saw "an upsurge in violence throughout Burundi's eastern and central provinces," said a U.N. report. In separate incidents, the army reported a battle involving 68 rebels, and other, smaller clashes. Civilians reported that armed men stole 50 cows from a village and looted dozens of other settlements.

Burundi's civilian population, most of which engages in subsistence agriculture in the hills and mountains outside Bujumbura, has been caught in the vise of clashes between rebels and the army. In a typical engagement, rebels ambush army patrols, especially at night, and the army responds by lobbing heavy artillery into the nearest hillside, killing mostly peasants.  In other incidents, hungry rebels loot villages in search of food and blame it on army provocation. An estimated 260,000 civilians have been displaced from their homes, and many of them have fallen into regular habits in which they tend their fields during the day, but sleep in the bush at night for fear of getting caught in the cross fire, according to U.N. officials. "It is sad to say, but the population has gotten used to war," said Antoine Gerard, head of U.N. humanitarian relief operations in Burundi.

Nevertheless, the African Union will soon send up to 5,000 troops to Burundi, in the hope that it can help turn the promises of the Arusha accord, and the cease-fires, into reality.  Already, there are 43 African military observers mapping out deployment routes, and the troops will have what one African official described as a "tough mandate" to intervene and stop conflicts, rather than simply observe the fictitious peace. "It is going to make the role [of South Africa and other countries] much more risky and much more suspect as far as many Burundians are concerned," Mr. van Eck said.

Burundi's donors, especially the World Bank, hope to follow on with a share of $500 million that the bank and several countries have earmarked for demobilization of soldiers in eight African countries.  But as Burundi strives for a shaky peace, extremist Tutsis who oppose the Arusha agreement serve as a reminder that for every person committed to peace, there is another bent on war.

Amasekanya a group whose name means "hard like a rock" in Kirundi, the language of Burundi argues that the peace agreement protects Hutu rebel leaders who may have been complicit in the killing of roughly 20,000 Tutsis in 1993. The group, many of whose members are in prison, is a thorn in the side of Mr. Buyoya or any other Tutsi who tries to make peace. "These [Hutus] are the people who tried to exterminate us," said Diomede Rutamucero, Amasekanya's president. "Buyoya must leave Burundi, and the army must pursue these terrorists."

Developments in Chechnya –roundup

ITAR-TASS News Agency, 4/11/03

There will be no delays with the payment of budget-financed wages in Chechnya this year, in contrast to last year, Chechen Finance Minister Eli Isayev told Tass Friday. Chechnya's budget was adopted late last month.  Chechnya's 2003 budget is a socially-oriented one. Its income section is set at 8.4 billion rubles, spending, at 8.55 billion rubles, and the deficit, at 150 million rubles. The Finance Ministry expects there will be additional sources of incomes making it possible to finance all declared spending articles.

Chechnya's education will receive 1.7 billion rubles, and health service, 1.12 billion rubles.  Social infrastructures will be financed in full. This year's spending for this purpose will be up 40 percent on the year to 650 million rubles.  Higher pensions have begun to pay in Chechnya. The Pension Fund's department for Chechnya has said pension recalculation was completed last Thursday and pension payments have begun through local post offices. Military helicopters deliver pensions to remote mountain districts.

Over the past three years Chechen retirees have been receiving pensions on time. Chechnya's pension fund has a unified computer data base. The fund underwent reorganization lately. Its first deputy manager, Bogdan Istamulov said redundant staff would be reduced and managerial costs slashed.   Ways to intensify the activity of public organizations in stabilizing the situation in the North Caucasus are to be discussed at a conference of the public Peace-Making Mission in the North Caucasus, which opened in Pyatigorsk on Friday.

Representatives of the federal and regional bodies of power, public amalgamations, political parties, religious confessions, as well as foreign members of the mission's trusteeship council take part in its work.  Among the participants in the conference are also parents and relatives of former governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Alexander Lebed who died in the air crash about a year ago. Four years ago Alexander Lebed initiated the creation of the Peace-Making Mission in Pyatigorsk.

Over these years, about 190 hostages were released thanks to efforts of the mission and assistance of the population of Chechnya, Ingushetia and other North-Caucasian republics. Besides, the mission launched the action of collecting arms voluntarily returned by the population of the North Caucasus. This action was supported by regional departments of the Russian Federal Security Service.  The March 23 constitutional referendum in Chechnya has noticeably stabilized the situation in the republic, Chechnya's Prime Minister Anatoly Popov told a conference in Nalchik on Friday. "Grozny streets remain very busy in the evenings, in contrast to a situation of several months ago. Extensive construction work is in progress and farms are being restored with assistance from the federal authorities. The sowing season is at its peak. This year's grain crop will be better than last year's," Popov said.

Industrial enterprises are being commissioned and jobs created under a targeted federal program.   As a new live is breathed into local industries, incentives are created for skilled specialists to return to Chechnya.  Government grants are paid to 400,000 children under age and to 150,000 jobless. Another 200,000 receive pensions. The residents of Chechnya are entitled to the same benefits as all other Russian citizens.

"The referendum has started a new chapter in Chechnya's recent, peaceful history," Popov said.   Meanwhile federal troops operating in Chechnya have found and destroyed a home-made explosive device in the capital Grozny, an army spokesman told Itar-Tass on Friday. He said the device was spotted on Zagradino outskirt on Thursday.  It as was remote-controlled and consisted of a metal box filled with TNT and cut metal.  The deadly shrapnel would have killed many if the bomb went off, the spokesman said.

Seven rebels died during a Russian army special operation carried out near the village of Zony in the Shatoi district on the night of April 10-11, army spokesman Colonel Yuri Kostrovets told Tass.  He reported that the military seized a large-calibre "Utyos" machine-gun, 11 grenade-launchers and other small arms at the scene of the operation. "There are foreigners admittedly Arabs among the killed rebels", Kostrovets said. Meanwhile federal troops found and dismantled an illegal printing press used by the rebels, in one of the villages of the Achkhoi-Martan district.  And in the Staropromyslovsky district, a reconnaissance group destroyed two caches with explosives and other equipment for planting landmines.

Tensions rise in Congo as Uganda denies taking part in massacre

William Wallis, Financial Times (London), 4/8/03

Ugandan army commanders were quick to deny yesterday any involvement of their troops in the massacre of nearly 1,000 civilians in the Congolese province of Ituri last week.  But those denials are unlikely to quell rising tension over Uganda's continued presence in Congo months after the other countries involved in its protracted war have formally withdrawn. According to initial investigations by the United Nations force in Congo (Monuc), the mass killings of ethnic Hema villagers took place shortly after the main factions in Congo's war signed a peace deal in South Africa last week. The deal is aimed at reunifying the country and restoring stability under a transitional government.

The killings also follow weeks of tension between Uganda and Rwanda over their roles in eastern Congo, which has brought the two former allies close to blows.  The war in Congo, which began in 1998, had its origins in the lawless eastern regions bordering the two countries. The latest killings underline just how difficult it is going to be for a "national unity government" to prepare for elections and stamp its authority on areas that have long been beyond the reach of the far-off capital, Kinshasa.

The UN has recently increased its presence in Congo. But with under 4,000 troops in a country twice the size of western Europe, sceptics doubt Monuc's ability to play an effective role.  In 1998, Uganda and Rwanda justified their involvement in attempting to overthrow the Congo government through direct military intervention and proxy rebel groups as an operation aimed at securing their own borders. The rebel groups they have funded and armed have multiplied since, with the Congolese government also fostering new groups. In the process, Congo's east has become the main battlefield.  As many as 50,000 people have been killed and more than 500,000 displaced by fighting in Ituri alone.

Eyewitnesses from the cattle-rearing Hema group said the attackers in last week's massacre were from rival farmers of the Lendu group. Affiliated rebels accused Ugandan soldiers of taking part in the killings.  Some commentators believe recent discoveries by Canada's Heritage Oil in the Semiliki basin in Uganda and its likely extension into Congo's east have raised the stakes. The Ugandan army said yesterday that troops had been sent to the village where last week's massacre took place amid threats of retaliation. Regardless of the veracity, this will be fuel for those who accuse the Ugandan army of acting both as fireman and arsonist, exploiting violence in the area to safeguard control over resources. Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's president, is due to mediate tomorrow in talks between presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda in a move to quell the tensions.

African Leaders Hold Rwanda and Uganda to Peace Agreement

The New York Times, 4/10/03

African leaders held Rwanda and Uganda to their agreed peace deals at a summit meeting today, trying to avert another flare-up of ethnic violence in eastern Congo and stave off conflict between the two countries. The summit meeting, here in Cape Town, was the latest effort by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa to bring peace to Congo, the former Zaire, which has been devastated by 4 1/2 years of war involving six foreign armies.

As leaders met in Cape Town, Uganda's army said Rwandan troops had returned to Congo and were advancing toward Ugandan positions in Ituri Province, which Uganda is due to vacate by April 24 as the last outside power to officially have troops in Congo. Rwanda's army denied the reports, saying Uganda was playing for time and trying to delay its withdrawal from Congo.  After hours of talks, the Ugandan, Rwandan and Congolese leaders said they had agreed that the United Nations mission in Congo, known as Monuc, should take over positions as Uganda's army withdrew.  They also said the reports of Rwandan troop movements would be investigated by a "Third Party Verification Mission," which includes South African and United Nations officials. "The third parties must give a response, whether it is 'Yes, Rwandan troops are present,' " as people in eastern Congo are saying, "or 'No,' as as the Rwandan president says," President Joseph Kabila of Congo told reporters at a joint news conference.

Yoweri Museveni of Uganda said his troops would leave Congo before the delayed April 24 deadline he agreed on along with Mr. Kabila. "We have spoken to the secretary general of the U.N. to request that some of Monuc forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo should then be deployed in the Ituri region to replace the Ugandan forces. The secretary-general is attending to that issue as a matter of urgency," Mr. Mbeki said.  Uganda's withdrawal would calm rising tensions between the two countries, whose saber-rattling has kindled fears of an open battle between their two armies on Congolese soil. When that happened in May 2000, the two armies destroyed much of Congo's biggest eastern city, Kisangani, in a battle for control.

Fears of yet another cycle of violence have risen on accusations that an ethnic Lendu militia allied to Uganda killed nearly 1,000 Hema linked to Rwandan-backed rebels last week in a three-hour massacre in the town of Drodro in Ituri. Ugandan officials acknowledged that hundreds had been killed but said the toll was much lower than 1,000, and the United Nations revised its estimate to between 150 and 350 dead. Mr. Kabila's government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights have called for the perpetrators to be put on trial. "We want Monuc to investigate this, and if they find out that people committed genocide, they should be charged for genocide," said Congo's minister for peace, Vital Kemerhe.  Congo's war, estimated to have killed more than three million people, is intertwined with other conflicts in the region, including those in Burundi and Rwanda, where 800,000 people were killed in 1994. The massacre "raises all the old demons of the past, where people kill each other with machetes on an ethnic basis," one Western diplomat said.

Georgia: Abkhaz separatist president accepts premier's resignation

Rustavi-2 TV (Tbilisi), via BBC, 4/8/03

The president of Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia, Vladislav Ardzinba, has accepted the resignation of prime minister Gennadiy Gagulia and his government. Ardzinba is said to have taken this decision under pressure from the opposition led by former prime minister Anri Jergenia. After his dismissal last November, Jergenia, who wants Abkhazia to join the Russian Federation as "an associate member", spent two months in Russia. He then returned to Abkhazia and set up the Amtsakhara organization, opposed to Ardzinba. Amtsakhara is planning to stage a rally in Sukhumi on 10 April, which, according to Georgian-backed Abkhaz leader Tamaz Nadareishvili, may lead to armed clashes. The following is the text of a report by the Georgian TV station Rustavi-2 on 8 April:

Presenter: Forces opposed to Abkhaz separatist president Vladislav Ardzinba have stepped up their activities. Fearing imminent destabilization, the de-facto president had to accept an offer of resignation from the de-facto prime minister and government. Despite this, the opposition is planning to stage protests on 10 April. The Amtsakhara movement, led by former prime minister Anri Jergenia, has expressed no confidence in the Ardzinba clan and accused it of loss of self-proclaimed independence.

Correspondent: The de-facto government of Abkhazia has resigned. Government members tendered their resignations yesterday. Two hours ago it emerged that Vladislav Ardzinba had accepted their offer. All government members stepped down, including prime minister Gennadiy Gagulia. The source of this information is Apsnypress news agency, which has also provided the reasons behind the decision.

Unidentified speaker, interviewed by telephone in Russian: The president has just announced that he has accepted the government's resignation and that a new prime minister will be appointed in the near future. The opposition was demanding the resignation of the government. In order to stop the situation deteriorating, they tendered their resignations.

Correspondent: Earlier today, Vladislav Ardzinba was resisting the demands for his government's resignation. There are reports that he finally changed his mind under pressure from the opposition. Tension in the Abkhaz capital has been rising all day today.

Tamaz Nadareishvili, chairman of the Georgian-backed Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia in exile: One could say that the situation there is so tense that armed clashes are possible between the two sides.

Correspondent: The cause of this tension is the conflict between Anri Jergenia and Gennadiy Gagulia. It was thanks to Gagulia's efforts that prime minister Jergenia was sacked last year. Jergenia was unacceptable because his relations with Russia became too close. He is the author of the initiative calling for Abkhazia to join the Russian Federation as an associate member. These were the factors that led to his dismissal. Later, the former prime minister went to Russia where he spent two months. After returning from Russia, he became leader of the opposition to the Ardzinba clan and Gennadiy Gagulia.

Valeri Khaburdzania, Georgian security minister: Very complex processes are under way there. Unfortunately, I cannot go into the detail now.

Correspondent, to Khaburdzania: Is there a conflict in the Abkhaz authorities?

Khaburdzania: Naturally, there is a certain conflict. Jergenia's return and reappearance point to the existence of this conflict.

Correspondent: Anri Jergenia has gained an advantage at this stage in the power struggle. Gennadiy Gagulia's government has resigned in fear of the forces behind Jergenia. The former prime minister has the support of former fighters. Another indication of Anri Jergenia's strong position is that three days ago Zurab Agumaa, a member of the Gagulia clan, was replaced in the post of security minister by Jergenia loyalist Givi Agrba.

It is Agumaa that is being blamed for the escape from Sukhumi prison of nine inmates, including one ethnic Georgian. This issue has been discussed by the Georgian Security Council. Georgian law-enforcement officials are denying reports that the prisoners have fled to Kodori partly Georgian-controlled part of Abkhazia.

Koba Narchemashvili, Georgian interior minister: I can confirm that these individuals are not on the territory of Kodori. We will certainly take active steps if they enter areas under our control.

Valeri Chkheidze, chairman of the Georgian State Border Guard Department: Extra measures have been taken. Now, together with the General Staff, we have almost completed preparations for the summer as far as reinforcement of the border is concerned.

Correspondent: Vladislav Ardzinba has not yet nominated a new prime minister. The resignation of the government does not mean at all that tension will ease. In two days' time, the opposition is planning to stage a rally outside the former Council of Ministers building. Anri Jergenia and his supporters have grievances against Vladislav Ardzinba's clan. They accuse it of loss of self-proclaimed independence.

Four prisoners who escaped Abkhaz jail hiding in west Georgia: official

Agence Presse France, 4/9/03

Four of nine prisoners who escaped from a jail in Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia earlier this week are hiding in western Georgia, Abkhazia's deputy interior minister said Wednesday. "Four of the criminals succeeded in stealing a car and escaping the following night to western Georgia," Leonid Gabliya told Georgian television, without providing details on where the other five prisoners could be. Local Georgian prosecutor Mebrdzoli Chkadua denied the claim, telling AFP that "we have no information that the escaped prisoners are on territory that we control."

Nine prisoners -- considered Abkhazia's most dangerous -- escaped Monday from a temporary detention center in Sukhumi, capital of the breakaway republic. Five of the escapees had been sentenced to death -- four Chechen rebels and the head of a Georgian guerilla group fighting against Abkhaz separatists -- after being found guilty of terrorism, kidnappings and possession of illegal arms. Georgian officials fear that the group may have run to Abkhazia's lawless Kodor Gorge, and have boosted police and border guard presence in the region. "So far we have no information that the criminals are in the region of Korod Gorge," a border guard spokesman said.

Abkhazia declared independence from Georgia in 1992, setting off a separatist war that ended in 1994 with a ceasefire that left the republic with de-facto independence.

Abkhaz prisoners subjected to sadistic torture, Chechen web site says

Kavkaz-Tsentr news agency web site, via BBC, 4/11/03

"We are being tortured with special medicines..." These are lines from a letter from former prisoners in Sukhumi prison, who have escaped to freedom. As before, nothing is known about their fate. It looks as though the Abkhaz police and Russian special services have not yet been able to find the trail of the escapees. The Chechens, who were imprisoned in Sukhumi prison, managed twice to send letters to the outside world and to report the monstrous and sadistic practices which the Abkhaz warders inflicted on the prisoners. The sadistic warders paid special attention to the Chechens and Georgians.

Kavkaz-Tsentr has in its possession letters from Sukhumi prison victims which give further information about those who escaped and about conditions in the prison. Three should presumably be "two" Chechens imprisoned in Sukhumi had been sentenced to 12 and 15 years' imprisonment and a third to death by firing squad. Makhsud (we are deliberately not giving his surname) is a native of Vedenskiy District, Magomed of Naurskiy District and Sayd-Akhmad sentence as published.

Other fighters from Ruslan Gelayev's detachment were also imprisoned in Sukhumi - Arsen (from Kabarda-Balkaria) and two Georgians. It is also clear from the prisoners' letter that another two Chechens are in the prison, one of whom has been sentenced to death by firing squad, and the other to 14 years' imprisonment. Attempts to establish their identity have so far been futile. The Abkhaz side is carefully concealing information about these people.

CRI Chechen Republic of Ichkeria citizen Sayd-Akhmad has had a tragic fate - he has been subjected to unprecedented torture and the use of psychotropic substances and some unidentified medicines. The Abkhaz warders and Russian special services have brought him to a state of nervous exhaustion which has led to derangement. For weeks Sayd-Akhmad would fall into an incomprehensible depression or on the contrary show extraordinary emotion. Moreover, his illness worsened after every dose of "therapy". And Sayd-Akhmad was a healthy man when he came to the Abkhaz prison.

Despite his condition, the Chechens did not leave Sayd-Akhmad in prison, but took him with them, in an attempt to save him from further monstrous torture and experiments that the Abkhaz and Russian special services were trying out on him. Prisoners say in their letters that the Abkhaz side refused to give the Chechens basic medical care, not to mention that a psychologically sick person should be released quickly and treated in a special hospital. Sayd-Akhmad was the only CRI citizen to have ended up in Sukhumi prison, but not as a prisoner, several years ago.

Peace monitors stop work in Indonesia's Aceh after threats

Deutsche Presse Agentur, 4/8/03

International peace monitors in Indonesia's troubled Aceh were called off the job on Tuesday in the face of mounting opposition to their presence in province, plagued by violence for the past 26 years. "The Joint Security Committe is temporarily relocating its monitors to Banda Aceh (the capital) until such a time that they are satisfied that their safety and security can be maintained in the field," said Steve Daly, spokesman for the Henry Dunant Centre (HDC), which helped broker a peace agreement between the Indonesian government and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) on December 9, 2002.

The Geneva-based HDC, along with representatives of the Indonesian government and GAM, last January set up a Joint Security Committee to monitor the demilitarization process in Aceh, where an independence struggle has been going on since December, 1976. The peace process started to run into serious trouble on March 3, when a JSC office in Takengon, central Aceh, was attacked by a mob comprised mainly of pro-Jakarta militiamen. Similar mobs have attacked or harassed JSC offices in southern and northern Aceh and in Langsa, Bireuen and Lhokseumawe districts, calling on peace monitors to leave since they have allegedly failed to curb GAM activities and restore security to the province, said Daly.

Henry Dunant Centre (HDC) officials said the pressure on the JSC teams has come entirely from groups that are anti-GAM, contradicting past government claims that the disturbances were caused by the separatists. They noted that Indonesian police have yet to arrest any perpetrators for the destruction of the two JSC offices in Takengon and Langsa, and attacks on two JSC members in Takengon.   "A good start would be to see that investigations are undertaken on whoever has been harassing or threatening the monitors to find and arrest those people," said Daly.

The JSC has a total of 140 peace monitors in Aceh, all of whom will now be moved to the provincial capital in Banda Aceh, 1,700 kilometres northwest of Jakarta.  The Indonesian government announced on Monday its commitment to the internationally-backed peace process in Aceh, but warned that military operations would be relaunched if the peace process falls apart in coming weeks. HDC officials admitted that both sides have so far failed to deliver on the plan, with GAM refusing to hand over its weapons, and the Indonesian military refusing to demobilize its troops in the province.   The Aceh struggle, started by GAM in 1976, killed about 215 victims each month prior to the December 9 peace pact. Following the signing of the peace agreement, monthly casualties of the conflict fell to less than 15.

Analysis: Aceh peace pact unravelling after four months

Deutsche Presse Agentur, 4/14/03

Four months after the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) signed a peace pact ending their 26-year-old conflict, evidence is tumbling in from the troubled province that the agreement is falling apart. Indonesia's coordinating minister for political and security affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has given GAM's leadership until Tuesday to decide whether or not they will attend a Joint Council in Jakarta to salvage the quickly unravelling peace process in Aceh, failing which the government will resort to its old method of dealing with Aceh's troubles - military might.  Yudhoyono has claimed the GAM's leadership already refused to attend the planned Joint Council, a claim refuted by sources in Banda Aceh - 1,750 kilometres northwest of Jakarta - the province's capital.

The Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (JHC), which brokered the peace deal last December 9, this week called in its monitors from Aceh's districts after receiving numerous threats. "We all knew there were going to be problems," said HDC spokesman Steve Daly. "Now it's really up to both sides to salvage it."

While GAM leaders such as Hassan Tiro, living in exile in Stockholm for the past two decades, may agree to meet with Indonesian representatives outside the country, they would never agree to come to Jakarta "in a million years", sources said. Tiro and his close associates fled to Sweden in the late 1970s shortly after setting up GAM to fight for Aceh's independence in December, 1976. They risk arrest if they return to Indonesia on charges of treason.  The December 9, 2002, peace agreement was signed in Geneva, not Jakarta.

While the agreement was then welcomed by the international community and most Acehnese, the majority of whom are tired of war, it was fatally flawed from the start.   "The problem is the December 9th agreement papers over a whole range of disagreements," said Sydney Jones, head of the Jakarta office of the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think tank. One of the main disagreements was that GAM had no intention to give up its struggle for independence, while the government made clear that independence was not in the cards, only special autonomy status. "I think the root of the problem is that it's very clear that GAM used the first two months of the accord to tell people that this was the first step towards independence," said Jones.

The Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) has no intention of allowing Aceh to go the way of East Timor, which opted out of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia in 1999. The TNI has been livid with GAM's efforts to consolidate power.  General Ryamizard Ryacudu, TNI army chief of staff, has accused the GAM of boosting troops from 3,000 to 5,000 over the past four months, and of expanding arsenals from 1,500 weapons to 2,100. "Any army in the world would give them an ultimatum: surrender or we will strike. America is doing the same thing in Iraq," he told Tempo magazine, a popular Indonesian weekly, in a recent interview.

Indeed the U.S.-led war on Iraq has given the TNI a much more acceptable world environment in which to get tough with GAM. "I've heard that there were elements within the TNI who were waiting for the war in Iraq to break out, because if they resume military operation now there would be less pressure from the international community," said one international agency worker, who asked for anonymity.  There is little doubt the TNI has been behind the mounting pressure on the international peace monitors in Aceh to shut down their operations over the past two months.

After two of the Joint Security Committee (JSC) peace monitors offices were burned down by mobs shouting anti-GAM slogans, the HDC on Tuesday temporarily stopped their field activities in Aceh. HDC officials acknowledge the peace process has come to a standstill.  "The demilitarization process has been designed to be simultaneous, and that's the only way its going to work," said Daly. He said while the GAM stalled in handing over weapons to international observers, the TNI has also refused to relocate or reformulate its troops in the province.  Many now believe the peace process was doomed from the start since it failed to address Aceh's root problem - a corrupt civilian government that failed to address the needs of the Acehnese people for the past five decades since independence.

"They focused on the cessation of violence and getting some security arrangements in place, whereas in fact the civilian government in place is so awful that many people in Aceh see GAM as the only alternative," said Jones. "The focus should be on improving the civilian government, and I don't think anyone in Jakarta is interested in this."

Macedonian Premier Says President’s Name Proposal Lacks Seriousness

MIA News Agency (Skopje), via BBC, 4/10/03

The statement of the Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski at Tuesday's 8 April press conference in Strasbourg in regard to the name of the Republic of Macedonia is not an official proposal, Macedonian President spokesperson Borjan Jovanovski stated Wednesday in Belgrade.

"It is an absurd the reference the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia still to exist and if someone considers that there should be no reference before the name of Macedonia, it should be connected with the future of the country and to be European Republic of Macedonia," Jovanovski stated. President Trajkovski's position is not changed in regard to the maintenance of the constitutional name and he considers that the recognition of the country under its constitutional name is of a priority national interest. In this context, the statement for the reference European Republic of Macedonia is not a proposal, Macedonian president spokesperson stated.

Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski Tuesday assessed the proposal of Trajkovski as "unserious" who demanded Macedonia to be named "European Macedonia" in the European Parliament and not the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. "Sometimes it is not good to be very initiative and creative. I do not want to give serious comment to unserious proposal," Crvenkovski stated.

UN special envoy for Western Sahara visits Algeria

Agence Presse France, 4/12/03

UN special representative for the Western Sahara William L. Swing arrived Saturday in Algeria for talks ahead of the end of the mandate of a UN mission in the disputed desert territory, occupied by Morocco.  Algerian state television reported that Swing had talks with Algeria's junior minister for Maghreb (north African) and African affairs Abdelkader Messahel. The Polisario Front separatist movement began fighting for the independence of the Western Sahara, which lies across Algeria's southwestern border, when Morocco occupied it after Spanish colonists pulled out in 1975. Swing told the television channel he was in Algeria to "pursue contacts and review the latest developments in the Western Sahara".

A ceasefire has been observed for 12 years, but there has been little progress in all efforts by the United Nations to bring about a referendum on self-determination for the territory because of major differences over who should be allowed to participate.  More than 150,000 Sahrawis live in refugee camps around Tindouf in the Algerian Sahara, across the border from the mineral-rich territory, where Polisario has proclaimed a Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. This is a member of the African Union but not recognised by the United Nations.  Swing said he and Messahel "discussed the expiry of the MINURSO (UN Mission for the Referendum Western Sahara) mandate at the end of May, and we're going to work over this period to improve the conditions for refugees in Tindouf."

On March 25, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to extend the MINURSO mandate for two months, until May 31. It had been due to expire on March 31.  Most UN operations are renewed for 12-month periods, but MINURSO extensions have been far shorter, as the UN tried to persuade Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario Front to accept its compromise proposals. In a letter to the Security Council on Friday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he hoped to submit his next report on Western Sahara on May 19, two months later than originally planned.  The report was to include reaction to proposals from Annan's special envoy, James Baker, for ending the 27-year conflict from Morocco, Polisario, Algeria and Mauritania.  Baker toured the region with proposals from January 14 to 16. He refused to disclose their content, but asked the parties concerned to respond by March 1.

Serb PM attacks central bank

Eric Jansson, Financial Times (London), 4/8/03

Zoran Zivkovic, the Serbian premier, yesterday lashed out at the former Yugoslav republic's central bank, questioning its legal mandate for minting banknotes and hinting Mladjan Dinkic, the central bank governor, could be sacked. "The National Bank of Serbia does not exist," Mr Zivkovic told a Belgrade radio station. "All those who present themselves as the National Bank of Serbia present themselves falsely. All those who mint banknotes bearing the name 'National Bank of Serbia' are minting counterfeit banknotes."

Mr Zivkovic then appeared to hint that a replacement would be found for Mr Dinkic, saying that new candidates are to be considered soon but that "no member of a political party" would pass muster. By this standard, Mr Dinkic is ruled out. A prominent reformer and long-time member of Serbia's market-oriented G17 think-tank, he became a party member when the group re-registered as a political party. Mr Dinkic said he was "shocked" by Mr Zivkovic's comments, according to Tanjug, the state news agency. "To say that a banknote is false is tantamount to accusing somebody of committing a serious crime. In that case, police should arrest me immediately," he said.

Foreign bankers in Belgrade said they would wait for clarification of Mr Zivkovic's stance regarding the central bank before commenting publicly. But some said privately that they are distressed by the apparent re-ignition of a political feud between Serbia's government and central bank.  Mr Zivkovic's comments threw government spin-doctors into high gear.

"The prime minister wanted to say that legally we don't have a National Bank of Serbia. He was not commenting on Mr Dinkic personally," a government spokesman said. "Technically, the National Bank of Yugoslavia exists until we pass a new law establishing the National Bank of Serbia. Until then, no such institution exists," he said. Yugoslavia ceased to exist in February, when Serbia and Montenegro voted to scrap their federation in favour of a loose union.

This change has so far caused headaches for bankers and international financial institutions. The International Monetary Fund has balked at working separately with central banks in Belgrade and Podgorica.  Mr Dinkic said that under the new constitution of Serbia and Montenegro, the National Bank of Serbia had been established "clearly and unambiguously" since February 3. He and other central bankers recently unveiled mock-ups for new banknotes bearing the new institution's name.

Serbia-Montenegro, NATO agree on steps needed before country joins PfP

Radio B92, via BBC, 4/9/03

Announcer Concrete cooperation between Serbia-Montenegro and NATO has been agreed at today's summit, which regards Serbia-Montenegro joining the NATO-led Partnership for Peace. As Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic told journalists after a meeting with NATO Assistant Secretary General Guenther Altenburg, the alliance's delegation arrived with a concrete package of measures, first of which would be a visit by Serbia-Montenegro Defence Minister Boris Tadic to Brussels on 7 May for talks with NATO Secretary General George Robertson and NATO ambassadors.

Svilanovic said that a NATO delegation should arrive in Belgrade in the second half of May. Belgrade was made an offer for some Serbia-Montenegro Army officers to take part in certain NATO programmes, as well as to enjoy the status of observer in certain Partnership for Peace programmes. As NATO Assistant Secretary General Guenther Altenburg told B92, the alliance plans very intensive contacts with the Serbia-Montenegro government over the next several months in order to set further directions for joining Partnership for Peace.

An estimate will be made at the end of that process, Altenburg said, on whether the country is ready to be invited to join Partnership for Peace. In order for that estimate to be a positive one, he added, it is necessary that Serbia-Montenegro fully cooperates with the Hague tribunal and carries out a reform of the army and its role in society.

Residents of breakaway Somali region vote Monday in first multiparty presidential election

Osman Hassan, Associated Press, 4/13/03

Residents in this northwestern corner of Somalia will vote Monday in the region's first multiparty presidential election since it broke away from the rest of Somalia to avoid the violence and chaos that has beset the Horn of Africa nation for more than a decade. Voters in Somaliland's election will choose between incumbent President Dahir Riyaleh Kahin and veteran politicians Faysal Ali Warabeh and Ahmed Mohamud Mohamed Silanyo.

Somaliland declared its independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991 as civil war raged across much of the southern part of the country following the ouster of longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.  Somalia has not had an effective central government since Barre's ouster. In contrast to much of southern Somalia, which is ruled by heavily armed, clan-based factions that have carved the country into a patchwork of fiefdoms, Somaliland has enjoyed relative peace pursuing its own path.  The three candidates' main pledges are to ensure the region remains stable, create more jobs and try to gain Somaliland the international recognition many Somalilanders crave.

Clan loyalties are incredibly strong in Somalia, but some voters said Sunday they were willing to vote for candidates who were not from their clan or sub-clan. "I'm going to vote for Ahmed Silanyo of the Kulmiye party," said Fawzi Hassa Muse, a driver in Hargeisa, the capital of the region. "He is not from my clan, but I just like his principles of trying to create jobs and education for the poor."

Warabeh and Silanyo are from different sub-clans of the Issak clan, which dominates Somaliland, while Kahin is a member of the Gudabirsi.  Hawa Hassan Hamad said she would vote for Warabeh, who leads the Justice and Welfare party, because she believes he will make the country more "prosperous and peaceful." "I think it's the development of the country that matters," she said as she washed clothes in this dusty town of stone houses with corrugated iron roofs intermingled with thorn bushes.

Somaliland's administration relies on revenue generated at its main port, Berbera, for its finances and depends heavily on aid agencies for development and rehabilitation programs. Many people in Hargeisa are unemployed. Others survive by trading in khat, a semi-narcotic leaf chewed as a stimulant. The struggling economy has been seriously effected by a livestock ban imposed on Somalia because of Rift Valley Fever.  Somaliland was a British protectorate that united with Italian Somaliland in 1960 to form Somalia, and its borders are based on colonial maps. It has had disputes with the administration of the northeastern region of Somalia, known as Puntland, over areas on the two regions' border which both claim, and voting will not take place in parts of Sanag, Sol and Buhole districts where most residents support the Puntland administration.

Kahin, who is head of the Democratic United National party, became Somaliland's third president last May following the death of Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, who had led the region since May 1993. Egal took over from the first president, Abdulrahman Ahmed Ali, following a meeting of elders. The region has two legislative bodies - the House of Representatives and the House of Clans - members of which are appointed by clans.  Voting is scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. (04:00 GMT) and end at 6 p.m. (15:00 GMT).

Acting on separatist tip, Spanish police find bomb remains at farm

Associated Press, 4/11/03

The armed Basque separatist group ETA led police on Friday to a pig and chicken farm where it had detonated a bomb in November, but never claimed responsibility, officials said. Acting on an ETA statement published in the Basque newspaper Gara, Civil Guard bomb disposal experts searched the farm in the town of Arguedas in northern Navarra province and found the remains of an explosive device, the Interior Ministry said.

The bomb exploded on Nov. 29, but at the time the blast was blamed on an accumulation of gas in a grain silo. No one was injured.  In the statement, ETA said it was revealing the existence of the bomb because "so much time has gone by" with no news about the bomb. The statement was a way of finally claiming responsibility, a ministry official said. "The explosion's terrorist nature has been confirmed," the official said on condition he not be named.  ETA said it targeted the farm because the owner - a company called Uvesa - had refused to pay what ETA calls a "revolutionary tax." Extortion is a traditional ETA fund-raising tool.

On the same day, a small bomb exploded in the neighboring town of Azagra at a company that produces frozen foods. ETA claimed responsibility, and said this firm also had refused to pay up.  ETA has been blamed for more than 800 deaths in a three-decade-old campaign of shootings and bombings aimed at carving out an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwest France.

LTTE Threatens to Keep Off Tokyo Meet

V.S. Sambandan, The Hindu, 4/13/03

In its strongest criticism of the Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) today charged his administration with "impotence" and threatened to "review" its decision to participate in the Tokyo donors' conference. The criticism came in the form of a statement from the LTTE's political headquarters in Kilinochchi to "protest against the exclusion" of the outfit's "accredited representatives" from the Washington conference to be held on April 14 in preparation for the donors' conference in June. The meetings are seen as crucial events since talks started last September. Sri Lanka's fragile peace process is bound to get more difficult after today's statement by the Tigers on the twin issues of exclusion from the Washington conference and the efficacy of the administration it is talking with.

The Tigers accused Colombo of "gross violation of the pledges" that the Government and the LTTE "should work together and approach the international community in partnership" by opting to "marginalise our organisation", the statement, published in the TamilNet website said. Terming the "deliberate exclusion" a "grave breach of good faith", the rebels said they were "deeply disappointed" with the Government and facilitators, Norway, who "failed to ensure the LTTE's participation in this crucial preparatory aid conference by not selecting an appropriate venue". The LTTE has been kept out of the Washington conference, convened by the U.S, as it is listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation. As the Tigers were kept out, India decided to send a two-member team to the meeting. The exclusion from Washington, the Tigers said, severely undermined their "trust and confidence in the Government's intentions".

The LTTE reserved its strongest words for issues with military implications. The Tigers, who lost military control over the Jaffna peninsula in 1996, have demanded de-escalation of the Sri Lankan military in the north. This resulted in a stalemate, with the crucial sub-committee on de-escalation and normalisation (SDN) now defunct. The LTTE said: "The irreconcilable attitude of the Sri Lanka military hierarchy and the impotence of Ranil Wickremesinghe's administration have made all programmes of resettling and rehabilitating hundreds of thousands of Tamil refugees and IDPs unrealisable."

This January, after it unilaterally pulled out of the SDN, the LTTE accused the military of adopting an "intransigent and paranoid" approach, but refrained from accusing the Wickremesinghe administration. If at all, it was soft on Mr. Wickremesinghe and reserved its condemnation for the President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, who also heads the armed forces. However, the LTTE today questioned the "very efficacy" of the negotiating process, as "decisions and agreements" reached at the peace talks were "not being implemented, eroding the confidence of the Tamil people".

What has hurt the Tigers the most is that their exclusion from the Washington meeting directly challenges their claim as the sole representatives of the island's Tamils - a claim not accepted by other Tamil political parties. This was reflected in the LTTE's statement: "It is only fair and just that the authentic representatives of the Tamil people should have been invited to this major international conference to articulate the interests and aspirations of our people." Leaving the door ajar, while pushing its brinkmanship approach further, the LTTE wanted the "full implementation of the normalisation aspects" of last year's ceasefire agreement as well as implementation of agreements pertaining to resettlement of refugees and IDPs reached in the six rounds of talks held by both parties".