Peace Negotiations Watch
Monday, May 16, 2005
(Volume IV, Number 18)
Contents:
Afghanistan
Top Suspects In Afghanistan Are Included In Amnesty
American military leader suggests two top suspects could not be in amnesty program.
More than 1,000 register for Afghan parliamentary election, but few women
Women have not registered to run for office in various provinces.
Armenia/Azerbaijan
Leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey hold separate talks on disputed region
Talks occur ahead of two-day Council of Europe summit.
Burundi/Rwanda
U.N. official presses Burundi to move refugees from border with Rwanda
5,000 Rwandan refugees fearful of gacaca reprisals.
U.N. report accuses Burundi's new army, holdout rebels of rights abuses
Troops accused of rape and looting civilian homes.
Prospects of lasting peace strengthen as Burundi, rebels sign truce
Analyst says truce is the last step in a Burundian peace process.
Chechnya
Putin Should Defuse the Chechnya Time-Bomb
Op-ed states Bush and other western leaders failed to address issue of Chechnya with Putin.
Former Chechen separatist vice president reported killed by Russian forces
Former vice president reportedly an advocate of Shariah law.
Congo
Congo chooses Belgian company Zetes Pass to register voters for historic elections
Company to register and document nearly 55 million prospective voters.
Congo's legislature holds ceremony for country's new constitution
Elections must be held by June 2006.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation.
Georgia/Abkhazia
Bush wins enthusiastic welcome in former Soviet republic of Georgia
Bush visit to Tbilisi a high-point in U.S./Georgia relations.
Bush treads sensitive ground with offer to help Georgia's separatist conflicts
Analyst at think-tank in Moscow believes U.S. position will not really change.
U.N. representative meeting Georgian, Abkhazian officials in Abkhazia on security issues
Meeting scheduled to take place in Gali district, area controlled by UN observers.
Indonesia
Indonesia to end Aceh state of emergency, but anti-rebel operations to stay
Indonesian general says rebellion has increased since tsunami.
Tsunami rebuilding stalls survivors confront government delays, political squabbling
Only now are reconstruction agreements finally being signed.
Aceh Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation.
Ivory Coast
Warring sides in Ivory Coast reach disarmament deal
June 27 set as date for disarmament process to begin.
Kashmir
Work on power project continues in Kashmir despite World Bank intervention
Power project opposed by Pakistan, saying it violates pact.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Kosovo
U.N. court in Kosovo sentences three former ethnic Albanian rebels for war crimes
The three were low-ranking members of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
NATO's Secretary General calls for political talks between Kosovo and Serbia
De Hoop Scheffer calls for political maturity.
Kosovo's draft constitution widens Serbia gulf
Rugova announces Kosovo is working on creating a constitution.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation.
Liberia
Ex-child soldiers rampage through northern Liberia town to protest unpaid school fees
Authorities had promised to pay school fees under disarmament campaign.
Macedonia
Foreign ministers in southeast Europe discuss regional cooperation
Romanian foreign minister reminds other southeast European states that EU membership is available.
Moldova
Moldovan prosecutors investigate arms smuggling in Russian-backed separatist region
Undercover reporter able to purchase rockets in Trans-Dniester region.
Nepal
Nepal's political parties demand release of all political detainees
American diplomat expresses concern over repression of civil liberties in Nepal.
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Nepal Negotiation Simulation.
Philippines
US wants to single out Philippine rebels tied to terror groups: ambassador
Washington does not want to disrupt peace talks.
Serbia & Montenegro
Is Serbia ready to host war crimes trials, experts ask
Discussion held at Belgrade Faculty of Law and organized by OSCE.
Serbian prime minister steps up campaign against independent Kosovo
Kostunica believes independence for Kosovo would destabilize region.
Somalia
Somalia's parliament approves government request for peacekeepers and relocation plan
IGAD to deploy unspecified number of peacekeepers from Uganda and Sudan.
Sri Lanka
Foreign aid is no problem in Sri Lanka for post-tsunami reconstruction but domestic politics could be
Funding for reconstruction apparently plentiful.
Sri Lanka says coordinating tsunami aid with rebels could bridge country's ethnic divide
Tamil rebels have complained that aid has been slow to reach them.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
Sudan
U.N. resolutions authorizing sanctions and prosecutions in Darfur have increased tension
Protests have occurred in Darfur and in Khartoum.
Afghanistan
Top Suspects In Afghanistan Are Included In Amnesty
Carlotta Gall, The New York Times, 5/9/05
The head of Afghanistan's peace and reconciliation commission offered an amnesty on Monday for all rebels fighting American and government forces, and even extended the offer to two of the most wanted Afghan terrorism suspects: the Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar and the renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. However, an American military spokesman seemed to suggest that the two suspects could not be included in the program.
The Afghan official, Sebaghatullah Mojadeddi, said that even though government policy had formerly excluded people like Mullah Omar and Mr. Hekmatyar, he had been granted complete independence to act as he saw fit on the matter. ''This peace that we want is for all, there is no exception,'' Mr. Mojadeddi said. ''Those who are armed, they should lay down their weapons when they come, accept the Constitution, and obey the government. We will accept them with an open heart.''
Mr. Mojadeddi said that while he did not know how or where to contact Mullah Omar or Mr. Hekmatyar, the offer stood for them as well. ''We are announcing it today. Let us give them time to discuss and think about it, and let's see what is God's favor.'' He said the program was also open to inmates of the American prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and for detainees at military bases at Bagram and Kandahar, and had the agreement of American officials.
However, a United States military spokesman in Kabul, Col. James Yonts, seemed to cast doubt on Mr. Mojadeddi's offer to Mullah Omar and Mr. Hekmatyar, though he did not mention the two specifically. He said that while the military supported the reconciliation program and would offer assistance, all those guilty of terrorism or other serious crimes would not be allowed to join. All candidates would be screened by the National Security Council and intelligence officers, he said.
The announcement came as the American military reported further high casualties in fighting with suspected Taliban members in eastern Afghanistan. Two marines were killed when they searched a cave where militants had hidden Sunday evening after a fierce battle. Other marines called in air support, and the military said 23 insurgents were killed in the subsequent fighting.
American forces have fought heavy battles in two areas in southern Afghanistan in the past few days. Afghan officials and American commanders have said that they see the reconciliation process as an important step in getting Taliban supporters and other militants to give up fighting, especially in remote parts of southern and eastern Afghanistan.
Mr. Mojadeddi said 50 to 60 people had already approached the government and joined the reconciliation program, including the former Taliban foreign minister, Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, who has been under house arrest in Kabul for more than a year after American forces released him from custody. Another Taliban commander, Abdul Waheed Baghrani, gave himself up and joined the program recently, he said. He said 40 to 50 commanders and council members of Mr. Hekmatyar's party, the Islamic Party, had also pledged allegiance to the government of President Hamid Karzai and had come home in the past year and a half.
Mr. Karzai's government has always insisted that 100 to 150 members of the Taliban government and other antigovernment rebels who have committed crimes would be excluded from the reconciliation program. American military officials have also talked of a ''blacklist'' of the most wanted members of the former government that harbored Osama bin Laden and operatives of Al Qaeda for five years until October 2001. Mr. Hekmatyar is also wanted in connection with terrorist attacks against United States forces, American commanders have said.
But Mr. Mojadeddi, an influential religious and jihadi leader who led the first post-communist government in 1992, expressed a readiness to overlook accusations of war crimes against returning Taliban. When a journalist raised the issue, he answered: ''Brother, don't discuss war criminals, because there are lots of other war criminals. Which one of them should we put on trial first?''
More than 1,000 register for Afghan parliamentary election, but few women
Associated Press, 5/15/05
More than 1,000 people have stepped forward so far to contest Afghan parliamentary elections in September, although organizers said Sunday there was a shortage of female candidates. By Saturday, 1,035 Afghans had registered to run for the 249-seat lower house, said Sultan Baheen, a spokesman for the joint Afghan-U.N. electoral board. Another 596 registered as candidates in provincial council elections the same day.
However, they include only 125 women for the parliamentary vote and 16 for the provincial contest, and in some provinces no women have come forward at all - offsetting optimistic statements by Afghan and U.S. officials on improvements in women's rights. Baheen declined to comment on how authorities would fill seats reserved for women if not enough register to compete. He said organizers expected a surge in registrations before the deadline Thursday.
Election officials planned for up to 10,000 candidates for the elections, which are supposed to complete the country's transition to democracy after the ouster of the Taliban in 2001. Last year, the country adopted a new constitution and held a presidential election, which was easily won by U.S.-backed former interim leader Hamid Karzai.
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Armenia/Azerbaijan
Leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey hold separate talks on disputed region
David McHugh, Associated Press, 5/16/05
Azeri President Ilham Aliev has met with Armenian and Turkish leaders at separate talks on the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, an official said Monday. Aliev met first with Armenian President Robert Kocharian, followed by a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Council of Europe official Seyfi Tashan.
The meetings, which took place late Sunday and early Monday ahead of the two-day Council of Europe summit, focused on the presence of Armenian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region inside Azerbaijan that has been under the control of ethnic Armenians since the early 1990s, following fighting that killed an estimated 30,000 people.
"I hope that negotiations will bring results," Aliyev was quoted as saying by the Interfax-Azerbaijan news agency. "The positions are well known. The issue has been discussed for years, and each side has its own position. These positions have been discussed again." A cease-fire was signed in 1994, but the enclave's final political status has not been determined and shooting breaks out frequently between the two sides, which face off across a demilitarized buffer zone.
Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Elmar Mamdyarov said on private ATV television Monday that one focus of the talks was possible Armenian withdrawal from seven occupied regions adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh. "They agree to return all the regions but they're thinking about when," he said.
Speaking at the summit, Armenian President Kocharian said his country was looking "to find ways of including the de-facto established Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh into the European process of integration." Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said in his speech that "Armenia is not only occupying parts of Azerbaijan, it also refuses to recognize its border with Turkey and has historic claims on some parts of eastern Turkey."
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also took part in the talks, officials said. France, Russia and the United States lead the Minsk Group under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is seeking to assist a diplomatic solution.
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U.N. official presses Burundi to move refugees from border with Rwanda
Aloys Niyoyita, Associated Press, 5/10/05
Burundi should move hundreds of Rwandan asylum seekers from the border after they fled into the country because of fears of traditional community courts that are trying people accused of participating in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, a U.N. official said Tuesday. Some 5,000 Rwandan asylum seekers are living along the border with Rwanda, said Catherine Lune Grayson, a spokeswoman for the United Nations' refugee agency in Burundi.
Most of the asylum seekers are from Rwanda's Hutu ethnic majority, officials said. More than 500,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed in the 100-day genocide in 1994 in Rwanda. At least 760,000 Rwandans accused of crimes during the genocide are to be tried by the newly established community courts, known as Gacaca. United Nations officials transferred some 1,800 of the asylum seekers to two transit centers further inland in Burundi in mid-April, Grayson said.
The operation, however, was halted on April 23 by Burundian authorities to enable them and their Rwandan counterparts to meet the asylum seekers in an effort to ease their fears and encourage them to voluntarily return home, she said. Several hundred have returned to Rwanda as a result of the campaign, which is set to end on May 12. "We wish to continue helping these people. But we want to assist them far from the boarder for security reasons, in line with international conventions," Grayson said.
U.N. report accuses Burundi's new army, holdout rebels of rights abuses
Aloys Niyoyita, Associated Press, 5/12/05
Members of Burundi's new army troops execute suspected supporters of the country's last active rebel group, and their adversaries continue to rape and loot civilian homes even as they prepare for peace talks, a United Nations official said Thursday. Security has not improved since the government and main rebel groups signed a series of cease-fires, formed a transitional government and agreed to integrate their troops into the new National Defense Force, Gillian Kitley said.
The arrangements were part of a power-sharing deal intended to end a 12-year civil war between rebels from the Hutu ethnic majority and the former government that was dominated by the Tutsi minority. Abuses, however, continue, said Kitley, head of the human rights section of the U.N. Mission in Burundi.
"An international non-governmental organization receives 120-140 cases of rape each month," but many more incidents are never reported, according to the report. "We are hopping that training on human rights that we are carrying out with army and police will help improve the human rights situation," Kitley said. Burundi's Army Chief of Staff Brig. Gen. Germain Niyoyankana rejected charges that the army has failed to punish troops accused of taking part in the abuses.
"There were no reports of looting or killing of civilians that have not been punished according to army rules and regulations," Niyoyankana said. "Our big problem, however, is that the victims prefer to keep silent or refuse to report abuses to commanders of nearby army check points."
The most recent fighting in Burundi began in 1993 when the country's first democratically elected president, a Hutu, was assassinated by paratroopers from the Tutsi-dominated former army. More than 250,000 people have died, most of them civilians, in the violence that followed.
A new transitional government was formed in 2003 after a power-sharing deal was struck with the largest Hutu rebel group. On April 13, the last holdout rebel group, the National Liberation Force, agreed to stop fighting once peace talks begin with the government. The talks are expected to open Sunday in neighboring Tanzania.
Prospects of lasting peace strengthen as Burundi, rebels sign truce
Agence France Presse, 5/16/05
Hopes of a lasting peace in Burundi have risen following the weekend signing of a truce between the government and the country's recalcitrant National Liberation Forces (FNL), the sole rebel group yet to disarm. Analysts have lauded the weekend signature between President Domitien Ndayizeye and the FNL leader Agathon Rwasa in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam in what they consider as the home stretch in the hunt for a lasting peace in Burundi.
"The event that we have witnessed is historic ... It is the last step in the Burundi peace process," Jan Van Eck, a Burundi analyst told AFP. "The FNL have proved their will to find peace, they did not impose conditions and the chances of a lasting real peace are high," said another diplomat who preferred not to be named.
On Sunday, the two leaders signed an agreement to immediately end all hostilities and to engage in modalities of a permanent ceasefire within the "shortest time possible," without compromising the election timetable, effectively paving way to an end to a 12-year civil war in Burundi. The tiny central African nation is still struggling from the devastation of a 12-year civil war that pitted the country's Tutsi dominated army and Hutu rebels and claimed the lives of some 300,000 people.
Six of its seven rebel groups have signed ceasfire agreements with the government, including the main rebel movement, Forces for the defence of Democracy (FDD), leaving out the FNL, which has continued engaging the army in deadly combats in the outskirts of the capital Bujumbura. The ceasefire deal announcement comes just months ahead of Burundi's marathon elections to culminate with the election of the country's new president. Between June 3 and August 19, a series of municipal and legislative elections are set to take place and will mark the first of such since the country plunged into chaos slightly more than a decade ago.
"The FNL should take the train before it gets to the (next) station, they shall not have missed the occasion," said Carolyn McAskie, chief of the UN Operation in Burundi (ONUB). "The FNL did not have any other choice," said another diplomat on conditions of anonymity. "They were either to join the process now or be totally out after the elections." Analysts say that Ndayizeye's Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU) stands to benefit if the FNL gave up arms.
For on the one hand, the FNL cannot field candidates in the coming general elections owing to time constrains and hence could call on its supporters to vote for FRODEBU. Such a move, they say, would be beneficial to FRODEBU because of FNL's popularity in the country's northwestern region, especially in rural Bujumbura. While on the other hand, because the FRODEBU feels threatened by the FDD in the wake of recent acrimony between them over the appointment of a new interior minister, the FNL would come handy in boosting FRODEBU's political clout.
But the FNL might, however, have their own political interests to guard and it would be difficult to integrate them in the government ahead of the elections. And under the 2000 Arusha peace process signed in Tanzania, any rebel group joining the government must have their troops in the country's army. However, no date has been fixed for the next round of talks between the government and the FNL rebels.
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Putin Should Defuse the Chechnya Time-Bomb
Rajan Menon and Peter Reddaway, Financial Times (London), 5/12/05
In their talks in Moscow with Vladimir Putin during Monday's 60th anniversary celebration of the Nazi defeat, George W. Bush, the US president, and his western colleagues avoided an issue Mr Putin is disturbingly loath to address - Russia's war in Chechnya. Chechnya is a small place far from Moscow, and the visitors presumably had other matters on their minds, particularly Russia's creeping authoritarianism and its harassment of its neighbours.
Yet the Chechnya war has contributed much to the erosion of Russia's democracy and Mr Putin is nowhere near either a military victory or a political solution. The Kremlin would have us believe otherwise. On March 8 Russian troops killed Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov, and Mr Putin hailed the event as a milestone on the road to victory. In fact, Maskhadov's death will make ending the war much harder. Many Russians believe that Kremlin hardliners disposed of Maskhadov to torpedo a chance for negotiations. His killing came soon after his London representative met with the committee of soldiers' mothers, a Russian civic group dedicated to peace in Chechnya. Shortly before his death, Maskhadov reiterated his call for a ceasefire and talks with Mr Putin aimed at achieving autonomy for Chechnya within the Russian Federation. This challenged Moscow's refrain that the Chechen resistance lacks voices of reason and contains only terrorists intent on complete independence.
With Maskhadov gone, this claim could prove a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maskhadov was the leading voice for compromise. With his killing, the balance of power may shift to Chechen Islamists committed to continued war, foremost among them Shamil Basayev.
Moscow needs to change course. Western experts have claimed that the Kremlin's plan for parliamentary elections in Chechnya is the best hope for progress. But these commentators usually ignore the increasingly chaotic north Caucasian context, of which the war is only a part, and the radical makeover of Kremlin policy that is required if a political settlement is to be attained. Mr Putin portrays the war as a fight against Islamic fundamentalism and international terrorism. In reality it stems from Chechen nationalism, a force with deep historical roots.
Ever since Chechnya's growing chaos prompted the Kremlin in 1999 to relaunch the war that it began in 1994, Chechnya has again been a scene of destruction, "disappearances", hostage takings and "cleansing operations". These frequently target Chechens who are not involved in the fighting and are often conducted by Moscow's vicious Chechen puppets. Unsurprisingly, vows of vengeance abound in Chechnya. Terrorists do not lack recruits.
In such circumstances, Maskhadov's killing has made it harder than ever to draw moderate oppositionists into the peace process. Moreover, Chechnya remains an economic wasteland from which over 100,000 Chechen refugees have fled to live in squalor elsewhere. Meaningful elections are impossible unless their demolished or damaged homes are rebuilt, and until they can eke out a living - preconditions impossible amid a war which, as a leading Moscow newspaper noted recently, has turned Grozny, Chechnya's capital, into "the Stalingrad of our times". Nor will Chechen resistance groups participate in a vote without guarantees of their leaders' safety.
Russia is not winning the war; nor can it transfer power to a local, pro-Moscow government capable of surviving without Russian bayonets. Only a peace process including Chechen resistance groups can end the fighting.
The violence of Chechnya is spreading across the north Caucasus, where extremists of other ethnic groups are using terrorist tactics to pursue their own agendas. The problems of new terrorist networks and threats to Caspian oil pipelines are set to intensify. Globalisation will ensure that Russia's turmoil travels.
Thus, the Kremlin must launch bold, difficult, long-term initiatives before it can hold fair elections in Chechnya and stabilise its increasingly shaky south. Mr Putin needs to rebuild Chechnya's society and economy; restore effective government in the north Caucasus; counter the xenophobic trends in Russia's society and state; and seek the assistance of other governments and international organisations for rebuilding Chechnya. Moscow must rethink its entire strategy. World leaders should impress this fact on Mr Putin without delay. It is in the west's interest as well as Russia's.
Rajan Menon is a professor of international relations at Lehigh University and a fellow at the New America Foundation. Peter Reddaway is professor emeritus of political science at George Washington University and former director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies.
Former Chechen separatist vice president reported killed by Russian forces
Jim Heintz, Associated Press, 5/15/05
Russian forces in Chechnya killed four rebels, including a man believed to be the republic's former separatist vice president Vakha Arsanov, reports said Sunday. The four were killed in a village outside the Chechen capital Grozny after Interior Ministry forces surrounded a house and demanded that fighters holed up inside surrender, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing Chechen deputy Interior Minister Sultan Satuyev.
The report quoted him as saying that Arsanov's body was identified by local residents who knew him well. However, other news reports suggested the bodies were badly disfigured by fire that broke out in the house. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Ruslan Atzayev, told The Associated Press that the identity of those killed could be confirmed only after examination by experts. Arsanov was a leading rebel commander in the 1994-96 war with Russian forces that ended with the Russian army's withdrawal and Chechnya becoming de-facto independent. In 1997 elections, he became vice president under Aslan Maskhadov.
Arsanov also was a strong advocate of the implementation of Islamic Sharia law in Chechnya, a move that Maskhadov made with apparent reluctance as a concession to the growing influence of Muslim fundamentalists in the republic. He also was regarded as a key figure behind the kidnappings of foreigners and journalists that plagued the republic during its years outside Russian control.
ITAR-Tass said Arsanov was fired by Maskhadov in early 1999, about six months before Russian forces renewed fighting in Chechnya, and that he commanded resistance fighters in Grozny. However, a rebel-linked web site said he was fired in 2001, apparently for refusing to fight Russian forces.
His recent activities were unclear. Some reports said had moved to Tsenteroi, the home village of the clan of Akhmad Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen president who was assassinated in a bomb blast in May 2004, and that he developed close relations with Kadyrov. Other reports said he was believed to have been seized this year by security forces led by Kadyrov's son Ramzan. Maskhadov was killed in a Russian operation in early March.
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Congo chooses Belgian company Zetes Pass to register voters for historic elections
Eddy Isango, Associated Press, 5/12/05
A Belgian company will handle the identification and registration of about 55 million prospective voters as Congo lays the groundwork for landmark postwar elections, officials said Thursday. The Brussels-based company Zetes Pass will arrive soon in Congo with 10,000 mobile phones, 10,000 digital cameras, 10,000 digital fingerprinting machines and 10,000 generators to begin registering voters in the vast country, Election Commission Chairman Apollinaire Malumalu said.
Malumalu said the materials and the logistics to distribute them would cost about US$44 million (€35 million). A transitional government arranged under peace deals to end Congo's 1998-2002 war is charged with arranging elections before June 30, although a delay was expected. Congo, a former Belgian colony the size of western Europe, was thrown into turmoil in 1996 after Rwandan-backed rebels invaded the country to overthrow longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
In 1998, Uganda and Rwanda invaded again, sparking a devastating five-year, six-country war that aid groups estimate killed nearly 4 million people, mostly through hunger and disease. Myriad obstacles now stand in the way of holding elections in the Central African country, where roads often turn wild and melt into the thick jungle. About 1 million people are displaced from their homes at any given time by continued strife. Elections haven't been held in Congo during the past four decades of strife and corrupt, autocratic rule.
Congo's legislature holds ceremony for country's new constitution
Bryan Mealer, Associated Press, 5/16/05
The legislature officially ratified Congo's new constitution Monday, moving the nation a step closer to elections and reconciliation after nearly four decades of dictatorship and war. The central African giant made the charter adopted Friday official Monday in a ceremony attended by Congolese leaders and international figures, including South African President Thabo Mbeki - who helped broker peace deals that ended Congo's 1998-2003 war.
Under the new constitution, presidential and parliamentary elections must now be held by June 2006 - Congo's first balloting in nearly 40 years. President Laurent Kabila promised in an address that the vote would go ahead, but didn't make the anxiously awaited announcement of a firm date. "The irreversible step toward elections has been taken," said Kabila. "This train is moving. Elections will really take place." During Kabila's speech, the house frequently erupted with applause and raucous rumbling from attendees pounding on their wooden tables.
Monday's ceremony came on the eve of the anniversary of former rebel leader Laurent Kabila's 1997 march into Congo's capital, Kinshasa - a thrust that officially ended Cold War-era dictator Mobutu Sese Seko's deeply corrupt and ruinous three-decade rule. Laurent Kabila, who became president, was assassinated by his own bodyguard in 2001, thrusting his son Joseph Kabila into power. The new constitution replaces a transitional constitution adopted in South Africa in 2002 under Mbeki's tutelage that ended a years-long war against the younger Kabila's government that began in 1998. Kabila now leads a power-sharing administration that includes former warring parties.
Congo's transitional government is attempting to piece the country back together after the latest war - a conflict that aid groups say killed nearly 4 million people, mostly through hunger and sickness. After Monday's parliamentary approval of the new charter, it must be put to a national referendum within six months for popular certification. The constitution mandates presidential elections by June 2006, and lowers the minimum age for candidates from 35 to 30 - allowing Kabila, 33, to seek re-election.
The new, 226-article constitution also gives a president up to two five-year terms in office, and promises free primary education to all children. It sets up a system of checks and balances between the president, prime minister and parliament, and recognizes all ethnic groups living in Congo at the time of independence in June 1960.
The article on ethnicity is intended primarily for residents of ethnic Tutsi origin, who were brought mainly from neighboring Rwanda when Congo was a colony of Belgium. Tutsis are a minority in both Congo and Rwanda, and have been the target of attacks for years.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
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Bush wins enthusiastic welcome in former Soviet republic of Georgia
Jennifer Loven, Associated Press, 5/10/05
President Bush, greeted with a huge outpouring of affection in this former Soviet republic, expressed strong support for the fledging democracy here Tuesday and said, "You've got a solid friend in America." Bush encouraged Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to use peaceful means to settle disputes with two separatist regions - Abkhazia and South Ossetia - which are aligned with Moscow.
Bush offered to help resolve the disputes if his assistance is requested. "I'm confident that the government of Georgia has got a good strategy to move forward to resolve the disputes. Obviously if the president were to call and want me to make a phone call or two, I'd be more than happy to do so. ... The United States cannot impose a solution nor would you want us to."
Bush and Saakashvili met in the Parliament House about two blocks from Freedom Square where tens of thousands of people were gathering for a speech by the president. Saakashvili said more 150,000 people had assembled - an estimate that seemed overstated. "No event in the history of this country has ever assembled anything close to these number," the Georgian leader said. "It shows the importance of this visit." Bush said he talked in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin about Georgia' demand for the closure of two Russian bases in this country.
"He (Putin) reminded me that there is an agreement in place - a 1999 agreement," Bush said. "He said that the Russians want to work with the government to fulfill their obligations in terms of that agreement. I think that's a commitment that's important for the people of Georgia to hear. It shows there's grounds to work to get this issue resolved." The long-simmering dispute over the bases has strained relations between the ex-Soviet republic, relations that soured further since Saakashvili and his pro-Western administration came to power in Georgia in 2004.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said it could take up to four years to build the barracks, garages and other infrastructure in Russia to handle the servicemen and materiel that would be withdrawn from Georgia. Georgia's Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili has said the withdrawal must be completed before January 2008 because of parliamentary and presidential elections. Saakashvili did not attend Monday's victory in Europe Day celebration in Moscow to protest Russia's slowness in withdrawing the two bases. The excitement over Bush's visit to this ancient hilly capital was evident at every turn.
Freedom Square began filling with people hours before Bush was to deliver a speech meant to inspire democratic change elsewhere and encourage countries not to give up on the difficult work of establishing truly free, representative governments.
Before a private meeting with Saakashvili, Bush received a red-carpet welcome in the courtyard of a light stone, imposing Parliament building where the leaders reviewed a large honor guard as the anthems of both nations played. Enormous U.S. and Georgian flags covered the facade of the building and smaller ones fluttered all around.
And reminders of last year's Rose Revolution that toppled a longtime, corrupt government and placed Saakashvili in office were everywhere. Red roses were tucked into evergreen garlands in the courtyard and there were red rose topiaries in the room inside where Bush and Saakashvili met.
On Monday night, Bush's motorcade route was lined with an extraordinary turnout of locals cheering and waving in excitement at his visit to this impoverished nation. He and his wife, Laura, were treated to a lively scene in the city's Old Town. Georgian dancers costumed in red, black and white and colorful headscarves performed dozens of traditional routines for the smiling, clapping - even hip-shaking - president.
Bush, who only planned to stay 20 minutes, was caught up in the revelry - the leaping and whirling and stomping - and remained for nearly two hours, including sitting down for a meal in a restaurant along the street. As he emerged in the doorway of the restaurant to leave, the dancing and singing resumed and a huge fireworks show sent him off with explosions that filled the sky above an ancient church on a nearby hillside. "I learned first hand what it means to be fed by a Georgian," Bush said at the news conference. "I'm really full. And the food was great. I should have eaten my meal first and then danced."
Bush treads sensitive ground with offer to help Georgia's separatist conflicts
Simon Ostrovsky, Agence France Presse, 5/10/05
US President George W. Bush trod on sensitive political ground Tuesday with an offer made during his visit to Georgia to help resolve the ex-Soviet republic's conflicts with Russian-backed separatists. In what appeared to be a thinly veiled reference to Russia, Bush said: "all nations must respect the territory and sovereignty of Georgia." Bush's remark, made in a speech to tens of thousands of people in the capital Tbilisi's Freedom Square, provoked cheers from the Georgians, who accuse Moscow of stirring up the separatist conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The Georgian authorities have been powerless in both regions, which are on the Russian border, since losing wars in the early 1990s against the Abkhaz and Ossetian ethnic minorities. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili -- who swept to power in the "rose revolution" of late 2003 -- has made recovering control of the two strategically placed territories the top priority of his presidency. However, so far Saakashvili has seen little progress and Western leaders have put him under pressure not to resort to force.
Bush repeated his support for Saakashvili's dream of bringing Georgia into NATO and the European Union but cautioned progress toward those goals would depend in part on the Georgian leader's ability to find peaceful resolutions to these separatist disputes. "Georgia's leaders know that the peaceful resolution of conflict is essential to your integration into the transatlantic community," Bush said. "At the same time, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia must be respected." But Bush also made an offer of US help in what has for two-centuries been a Russian-dominated area.
Georgia "can solve them peacefully with our help," Bush told journalists. "The United States cannot impose a solution, nor would you want us to, but what we can do is work with international bodies, work with the UN for example." If Saakashvili made "a phone call or two," he could expect Washington's help, he said. However, it was unclear how much difference the United States might make. Vladimir Pribylovsky, an analyst at the Panorama think tank in Moscow, said Washington's support for the Georgian position "will not change much." "It is possible that these are not much more than polite, diplomatic words."
Certainly, Russia's position in the separatist republics is unlikely to be shaken soon. Tense ceasefires hold in both areas, partially due to the presence of Russian-led peacekeepers -- a force that the Georgian government accuses of siding with the separatists. And in addition to providing both regions with an economic lifeline, Russia gives diplomatic support by inviting their leaders to Moscow for frequent consultations and issues Russian passports to residents there, despite them technically still being Georgian citizens. The Russian currency also circulates in both regions.
Georgia regularly accuses Moscow, which has been fighting separatists of its own in Chechnya, of supplying weapons and expertise to the rebels' small, but dedicated armed forces. Moscow denies this. Despite Bush's foray into the issue of the separatist conflicts, he was cautious when asked about Georgia's demands for a rapid withdrawal of two Russian military bases from Georgia -- the other main hot-button issue between Tbilisi and Moscow.
"There are grounds for work to get this issue resolved," he said in what appeared to be deliberately vague comments so as not to upset Moscow. The United States has its own military presence in Georgia to train the impoverished republic's small army. It also has financed construction of a training facility for the Georgians near South Ossetia, raising suspicions among the separatists there about Washington's intentions.
U.N. representative meeting Georgian, Abkhazian officials in Abkhazia on security issues
Associated Press, 5/12/05
High-ranking officials from Georgia and the separatist region of Abkhazia were to meet a United Nations envoy Thursday to discuss security issues in the tense region. The meeting between Georgian Minister for Conflict Resolution Georgy Khaindrava and Abkhazia's foreign minister, Sergei Shamba, was scheduled to take place in the Gali district, which is patrolled by U.N. monitors.
It was to focus on such themes as cooperation between law enforcement authorities, minimizing bellicose propaganda and providing maps pinpointing the location of minefields to a British de-mining organization, the Interfax news agency reported. Abkhazia has run its own affairs since 1993, when separatists drove out Georgian government troops. The Black Sea region is not recognized internationally, but has cultivated closer ties with Russia.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has vowed to bring Abkhazia and another separatist region, South Ossetia, back under Tbilisi's rule. U.S. President George W. Bush expressed support for Saakashvili's policy on the regions during his visit to Tbilisi earlier this week, saying Georgia's territorial integrity must be respected.
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Indonesia to end Aceh state of emergency, but anti-rebel operations to stay
Agence France Presse, 5/12/05
Indonesia said Thursday it plans to lift Aceh's one-year-old state of civil emergency but will continue its military operations to rid the tsunami-ravaged province of separatist rebels. The state of civil emergency giving authorities wider powers to resolve security problems would come to an end on May 18, said the country's top security minister, Adisucipto Widodo. "From our evaluation, the government wishes to later end the state of civilian emergency and return to normal civilian order so that this situation can support (tsunami) rehabilitation and reconstruction," said Widodo.
"Even though this status is reverted to civilian order, there should be efforts to guarantee that the implementation of the rehabilitation and reconstruction can proceed in security," he said without elaborating. Widodo said the lifting of the state of emergency was also needed to allow a transparency and a conducive atmosphere for Aceh's recovery from the December 26 tsunami catastrophe to proceed well. He said it was a "reality" that the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) continued to exist in the province and could pose a security threat to its recovery from the disaster.
The December 26 earthquake and the giant waves that it triggered claimed nearly 129,000 lives in Indonesia, most of them in the westernmost province of Aceh. Almost 38,000 Indonesians remain missing. Widodo echoed Indonesian armed forces chief General Endriartono Sutarto who said earlier Thursday that the separatists remained a real threat to security in Aceh. "We are only looking at the reality on the field, that the GAM is still there and continues to create disturbances that are affecting people," Sutarto said.
The general added the strength and numbers of the rebels had risen since December 26. "Now, their numbers are increasing, because during the tsunami, there were detainees who ran away and joined them again," Sutarto told journalists. Sutarto gave no figure but added rebels got new firearms from military and police facilities damaged during the disaster. Aceh has been a battleground for government and armed rebels since 1976 when the Free Aceh Movement launched its campaign for independence, angered by what it said was Jakarta's exploitation of the province's resources.
More than 12,000 have been killed since the GAM began waging a guerilla war against Jakarta for independence for the resource-rich province in 1976. The civil emergency, which according to Sutarto gives wider authority to the local government to help resolve security problems, was imposed in May last year. It replaced martial law which was declared in Aceh in May 2003 after the collapse of peace talks between the government and the GAM. But the tsunami disaster prompted Jakarta and the rebels to reopen dialogue in January.
"What is clear is the GAM continues to represent a security disturbance," he Sutarto said. Late last year before the tsunamis struck, Aceh military chief Major General Endang Suwarya put the number of guerrilla forces at about 2,500 people armed with almost 850 various firearms. Despite the continued tensions on the ground, the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement have agreed to hold a fourth round of peace talks since January later this month.
Tsunami rebuilding stalls survivors confront government delays, political squabbling
Michael Casey, Associated Press, 5/15/05
Political squabbling, donor demands and government indecision have stalled the building of roads, water treatment plants and nearly 180,000 homes for survivors of last December's tsunami. Aid agencies, which plan to spend more than US$7 billion (€5.4 billion) on tsunami relief across the Indian Ocean basin, have put massive building projects on hold while waiting for Indonesian authorities to come up with a solid plan. Only now, nearly five months later, are concrete reconstruction agreements being signed.
Meanwhile, survivors along the battered coasts of Aceh province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra have largely been left to fend for themselves while wondering whether they will rebuild their old homes and revive the fishing industry, their main livelihood. "People are coming back here to nothing," said Herman Hasbalah, a 33-year-old village leader from Deah Geulumpang, where returning survivors sleep in a damaged coffee house and crowded tents. "The government hasn't done anything and people are getting frustrated and angry," he said.
The earthquake and tsunami killed more than 180,000 people in 11 countries, and left about 50,000 missing and hundreds of thousands homeless. But the massive international relief effort that followed was credited with averting a health and food disaster. Now the aid groups that were at the front lines of the relief effort are waiting for the government to provide guidelines for building clinics, schools, homes and roads in Aceh. "We have not done any reconstruction. We cannot do it without a plan," Holger Leipe, head of International Red Cross operations in Aceh, said in an interview.
"If we put up a building and later it's pulled down, it would be a waste of donors' money," Leipe said. "To get it right, we have to have everyone on board." The first sign of trouble was the government's master plan, released in February to criticism from Acehnese leaders for ignoring their input and barring reconstruction along the coast. An amended draft released a month later was largely without specifics. The government also set out to establish an agency to oversee the four-year, US$4.8 billion (€3.7 billion) reconstruction project. But with at least three ministries fighting for a say in the new body, it was not until April 30 that former Energy Minister Kuntoro Mangkusubroto was appointed to run it.
"It's shocking," Kuntoro told a news conference Monday. "There are no roads being built, there are no bridges being built, there are no harbors being built. When it comes to reconstruction - zero." The government says the delay is due partly to the magnitude of the task - rebuilding 179,000 houses and dozens of bridges and major roads that crisscross the province - and the need to involve the local community in planning.
It also accuses some donors of setting overly strict conditions. It says donors have refused to release any aid until the government provides a detailed reconstruction blueprint and anti-corruption mechanism. "Donors want to help but then they say they don't want this help to be corrupted," Planning Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati told The Associated Press. "The president assured them a system that includes monitoring and oversight would be established but it has taken time to design."
Along Aceh's coast, life is slowly returning to the desolate landscape. Aid agencies have started building temporary homes and small shops sell fresh vegetables, packaged noodles and water. The reopened coastal highway is crowded with army vehicles, families on motorbikes and trucks delivering supplies.
This month, the government signed the first of a series of agreements paving the way for agencies to start more permanent rebuilding. The Red Cross has agreed to spend US$600 million (€468 million) to build 22,500 homes, 110 clinics and 110 schools. The U.S. Agency for International Development will spend US$245 million (€190 million) to rebuild a major road starting in July.
Indonesia and foreign donors agreed Tuesday to spend US$250 million (€195 million) to build 20,000 homes, repair roads and bridges, and set up a system to recover lost land records. Still, many of these projects are weeks away from starting. Meanwhile the landscape - vast stretches of emptiness broken only by the occasional standing wall or coconut tree - has changed little.
Aceh Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
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Warring sides in Ivory Coast reach disarmament deal
Agence France Presse, 5/14/05
Army and rebel forces in Ivory Coast signed an agreement Saturday setting June 27 as the date to begin disarmament of their fighters, officials in the west African capital said. After several failed attempts during the past several months the chief of the general staff of the Ivory Coast military and his opposite number in the rebel New Forces signed the accord fixing the rules and schedule of disarmament. The New Forces have held the north of the country since an unsuccessful attempt to oust President Laurent Gbagbo in September 2002, cutting the west African country and the world's number one producer of cocoa in two. Both sides are kept apart by French and UN peacekeepers.
Saturday's accord follows a series of meetings over nearly two weeks, after South African mediation on behalf of the African Union in April defused an explosive situation in the country. The new agreement will, if successful, result in the disarmament of the 42,500 strong rebel forces and 5,500 fighters loyal to the government. "Peace is on an irreversible path," Prime Minister Seydou Diarra, who heads up a national reconciliation government, said in hailing the deal.
The head of the national disarmament commission, Alain Donwahi, who also signed the pact, said the process would start from Saturday by informing the troops on both sides of what was happening. Donwahi said that mustering sites for the forces would be prepared between May 24 and June 14, while regrouping and registration would start on June 5 and last until June 27. Actual disarmament is due to start on June 27 and finish on August 10, Donwahi said, who said the negotiations on disarmament had been "difficult but brotherly."
The agreement also foreshadows the reformation of the army by late September with an audit of the both government and rebel forces and a special commission to deliver recommendations on how this should be achieved by August 30. Stalled disarmament has been one of the key issues that have dogged the peace process in Ivory Coast since the signing of a French-brokered peace pact in early 2003.
An accord signed by Gbagbo, rebel and opposition leaders in Pretoria under the mediation of South African President Thabo Mbeki on April 6 set out to resolve the major problems: disarmament, resolving a dispute over the eligibility of presidential candidates and providing for the rebels to return to the transitional government they quit over fears for their safety.
Mbeki ruled that all the signatories of the peace deal can run in the October presidential election, opening the way for the popular main opposition leader Alassane Ouattara. Gbagbo has yet to publicly acknowledge if he agrees to Mbeki's ruling, but has said the government was working on implementation of the Pretoria accord, without giving details.
A contentious article in the constitution stipulates that both the parents of a presidential candidate must be Ivorian, thereby eliminating Ouattara whose father is from neighboring Burkina Faso. Gbagbo has repeatedly said he cannot allow the constitution to be changed without a referendum, something his opponents say is impossible to carry out under current circumstances.
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Work on power project continues in Kashmir despite World Bank intervention
Agence France Presse, 5/12/05
Building of a controversial power project in Indian Kashmir will continue despite opposition by Pakistan and the appointment of a neutral expert by the World Bank to sort things out, officials say. Pakistan, which fears the one-billion-dollar project could deprive its wheat-bowl state of Punjab of vital irrigation water, charges that the plant violates a 44-year-old water sharing treaty. But Indian Kashmir officials say the 450-megawatt Baglihar project on the Chenab River in south Kashmir does not contravene the pact and could go a long way to ending routine 12-hour blackouts plaguing the Himalayan state.
"The work on the project is continuing as we are not doing anything outside the parameters of the treaty," a senior state official told AFP. The row over the Baglihar Dam has been an irritant in the ongoing peace process between the South Asian nuclear rivals who have fought three wars, two over the disputed region of Kashmir which both hold in part but claim in full. The announcement by the World Bank came Tuesday after the two countries ended three days of talks in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore with no accord on the Baglihar dam.
But Jamaat Ali Shah, head of the Pakistani team, said the dam's design would be "further discussed in New Delhi" at the end of May. Pakistan says it never approved the project's design as stipulated under the Indus Water Treaty and raised the issue with the World Bank which brokered the agreement. The World Bank named a Swiss national, Raymond Lafitee, as a neutral expert to "address differences" over the project between India and Pakistan, the Bank's website said Tuesday. Lafitte is a civil engineer and professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
"(Lafitte) will be asked to make a finding on a 'difference' between the two governments concerning the construction of the Baglihar project," it said. "Both India and Pakistan have found Professor Lafitte suitably qualified as a Neutral Expert. His findings will be made known in time. Under the terms of the Indus Waters Treaty, his determination will be final and binding." The treaty bars India from interfering with the flow of the three rivers feeding Pakistan -- the Indus, the Chenab and the Jhelum -- but allows it to generate electricity from them.
The treaty is one of the South Asian neighbors' most enduring agreements and has survived the wars between them. Kashmiri power authorities insist the project, on which work began in April 1999 and is due to be completed next year, will not store water and thereby cut off the flow to Pakistan. "We have not violated the treaty. We are following it religiously," says Kashmir's power minister Mohammed Sharief Niaz.
Kashmir has the potential to generate 20,000 megawatts of power, but less than 10 percent of it has been exploited. Massive power theft has compounded the state's electricity woes with people refusing to pay power bills. The two countries are also at odds over design of the three-phase 300-megawatt Kishanganga dam in north Kashmir which still is at the drawing board stage.
Pakistan says the design does not conform to the Indus Water Treaty but so far has not taken the disagreement to the World Bank. Media reports have quoted Indian officials as saying they may compromise on the dam's design if New Delhi cannot overcome Pakistan's objections. Locals in Indian Kashmir have also opposed the construction of the dam, saying it will displace thousands of residents.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
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U.N. court in Kosovo sentences three former ethnic Albanian rebels for war crimes
Fisnik Abrashi, Associated Press, 5/12/05
A U.N.-run court in Kosovo convicted three former ethnic Albanian rebels Thursday for war crimes committed during the province's 1998-99 war, an official said. The three were low-ranking members of the disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army, and were found guilty of being involved in the illegal arrest, beating, inhumane treatment and forced transfer of civilians in southern Kosovo, U.N. spokesman Neeraj Singh said. Defendant Ejup Runjeva was sentenced to eight years, while Enver Axhami and Rrustem Dema each received six-year sentences, Singh said.
The victims, all ethnic Albanians, were thought by the rebels to have collaborated with Serbian authorities during Belgrade's 1998-99 crackdown on Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, according to authorities. The court acquitted two other former rebels being tried for the same crimes, Singh said.
The case was the second in which the U.N.-run court convicted former ethnic Albanian rebels for war crimes committed in the province, which has been administered by the United Nations and NATO since June 1999.
Two years ago, a court in Pristina sentenced four former rebels _ including a commander of the guerrilla group _ to prison terms ranging from five to 17 years for ordering the illegal arrest, torture and killing of fellow ethnic Albanians suspected of collaborating with former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's regime.
NATO's Secretary General calls for political talks between Kosovo and Serbia
Fisnik Abrashi, Associated Press, 5/13/05
NATO's Secretary General called Friday on authorities in Kosovo and Serbia to start political talks on the future of the disputed U.N.-run province of Kosovo. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that six years since the end of the war in Serbia, the former foes should be talking about more than just about technical matters. He also called on Kosovo to improve the protection of Serb and other minorities, who live primarily in enclaves out of fear of attacks by the ethnic Albanian majority.
His remarks came following meetings of NATO's policy-setting North Atlantic Council with the province's President Ibrahim Rugova and Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi. The council also met with top NATO and other officials as the U.N.-run province enters a delicate phase of possible talks on the resolution of its disputed status later this year. "Kosovo must demonstrate political maturity that can and will endure into the future and that is what the international community will be assessing in the coming months," he said.
Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations and patrolled by NATO since 1999. Its status remains unresolved, with ethnic Albanians demanding outright independence while Serbs prefer it remains part of Serbia. Talks aimed at resolving the status are expected later this year, if Kosovo meets internationally set benchmarks on democracy, human rights and rights of minorities.
De Hoop Scheffer traveled to the northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica in the afternoon which remains ethnically divided and bisected by a river with Serbs living north of it and ethnic Albanians in the south. The town epitomizes Kosovo's deep ethnic divide and has been the site of clashes in the past.
There are some 17,000 NATO-led peacekeepers patrolling Kosovo. They moved into the province following the alliance's 1999 war aimed at stopping Serb forces' crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians. NATO's military planners are seeking to streamline the 17,000-strong mission in Kosovo, known as KFOR, as they try to put greater emphasis on front-line peacekeeping troops and reduce the number of backup and logistics support. "KFOR will retains its operational effectiveness," de Hoop Scheffer said adding that the force will be in Kosovo for a long time to "ensure security and stability."
Kosovo's draft constitution widens Serbia gulf
Eric Jansson, Financial Times (London), 5/16/05
Leaders in Kosovo are considering a unilateral split from Serbia, in case the United Nations, US and Europe fail to achieve a diplomatic settlement this year over the breakaway province's political status. Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo's president, has told the Financial Times that he is drafting a constitution envisaging the province of 2m people as a newly independent state in the Balkans.
"We are drafting our own constitution, as is our right, and in due time it will be presented to the parliament, which will either vote on it or send it for a referendum," Mr Rugova said, describing the document as "a constitution for a democratic state drawing on Kosovo's historical traditions, Jefferson, the unifying principle of independence and other European constitutions".
By announcing such plans Mr Rugova can only succeed in widening the political gulf between Belgrade and Pristina, the provincial capital. Both sides' positions already are hardening as they jockey for position before high level talks, possibly this year, to determine Kosovo's future.
Kosovo's current status is defined by UN resolution 1244, signed after a 1999 war, allowing for the presence of Nato troops and providing a legal foundation for Unmik, Kosovo's UN-led administration. The resolution states that Kosovo remains part of Yugoslavia, the federation replaced in 2003 by the union of Serbia and Montenegro.
Serb leaders in Belgrade say Kosovo must remain a Serbian province with "maximal autonomy", but most of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who constitute more than 90 per cent of the population, want full independence. Mr Rugova argues that Yugoslavia's dissolution two years ago should trigger de facto independence for Kosovo. But his effort to reinforce this claim by drafting a constitution could exacerbate diplomatic headaches for the UN, US and Europe.
Refusal by leaders in Belgrade and Pristina to strike a compromise already poses difficulties. UN officials acknowledge that disputes in the province are festering rather than healing. After wide scale ethnic Albanian violence against Serb communities last year, Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, urged a new approach and an exit from Kosovo as soon as possible. But while Russia and China oppose Kosovo independence, the UN Security Council cannot agree on a successful exit strategy.
Mr Rugova said opposition from Moscow and Beijing might soften. "If the US and European Union recognise Kosovo's independence, the Security Council will, too, perhaps with Russia and China abstaining," he said.
Bajram Kosumi, Kosovo's prime minister, told the Financial Times he backed Mr Rugova's moves. "I do not know if the constitution will be dealt with this year or early next year, but I know that by June 2006 Kosovo will not be what it is today," he said.
Both men said they would reject any plan for a gradual transition to independence. "The transitional phase, if it goes longer, is a danger to the transition of the entire region," Mr Kosumi warned. The prime minister also directly accused Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia's prime minister, and other Serbian leaders of lying about Kosovo's future.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
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Liberia
Ex-child soldiers rampage through northern Liberia town to protest unpaid school fees
Jonathan Paye-Layleh, Associated Press, 5/11/05
U.N. troops fired warning shots in the air to quell mobs of former child soldiers who rampaged through a town in northern Liberia on Wednesday, protesting the failure of authorities to pay school fees promised under a disarmament campaign, officials said. The mob, made up mostly of former child soldiers who served in the army of ex-President Charles Taylor, hurled stones at shops and a voter registration center in the northern town of Ganta, forcing hundreds of people to flee, said Cooper Kwanue, a local journalist.
U.N. spokesman Paul Risley said a contingent of Bangladeshi troops fired in the air, dispersed demonstrators and restored order in the town near the border with Guinea. "The protest is over," Risley said. A nationwide program to disarm ex-combatants in this war-ravaged West African nation officially ended in October with about 100,000 fighters laying down their arms after 14 years of conflict. More than 11,000 fighters have since enrolled in primary and secondary schools and universities as part a campaign to reintegrate them into civilian life and bolster security in the country. Tens of thousands of others have enrolled in skills training courses.
As part of the disarmament plan, the United Nations was supposed to help pay the fees. Risley said donor money had been slow in coming. "There is still a lot of money needed to be able to pay the tuition fees for these people. We need a lot more," Risley said. The majority of those rioting in Ganta were in their late teens, and needed money to attend middle schools and high schools, Kwanue said, adding that authorities had threatened to expel those who failed to pay up.
Gyude Bryant, the transitional head of state, visited Ganta earlier Wednesday, addressing the ex-fighters at a Methodist Church-owned basketball gymnasium, promising them they would not be kicked out of school. Troubles began not long after Bryant left the town. Rioters hurled stones at a center registering voters for October elections and tore down a camera that had been set up to photograph citizens for the ballot, Kwanue said. They also threw stones at shops. Kwanue said one elderly woman was seriously injured.
Bangladeshi troops could be seen patrolling in armored personnel carriers. Thousands of U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed in Liberia since a 2003 peace deal ended years of war and saw Taylor exiled to Nigeria.
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Foreign ministers in southeast Europe discuss regional cooperation
Alexandru Alexe, Associated Press, 5/10/05
Foreign ministers from 10 southeast European countries met Tuesday in the Romanian capital to discuss regional cooperation and prospects for further European Union and NATO expansion in the Balkans. The countries, grouped in an organization called the Southeast European Cooperation Process, pledged to strengthen economic ties and develop major regional initiatives such as the creation of a free trade pact and an integrated energy market.
"It is time to say that as Romania and Bulgaria are becoming members of the EU and NATO, the opportunity to join these groups is opening to every state in the region," said Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu. Romania and Bulgaria joined NATO in 2004 and are scheduled to become members of the EU in 2007. Greece is the only member of the organization that is currently also a member of the EU. Croatia, Serbia-Montenegro and Turkey are also seeking to join the bloc.
Foreign ministers from Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Republic of Moldova also took part in the meeting in Bucharest. Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu said countries must cooperate to increase security and stability in the region, which in turn will attract more foreign investment.
Romania is currently the chair of the organization, with Greece expected to take over the chairmanship this week. Ungureanu said the Romanian chairmanship during the last year focused on improving cooperation between member countries in fighting organized crime, illegal migration and corruption.
Ungureanu and the foreign minister of Serbia-Montenegro, Vuk Draskovic, signed a memorandum pledging to cooperate in EU and NATO business. Romania promised to help its neighbor implement reforms necessary to join the two organizations. The 10 foreign ministers also expressed support for resolving tensions between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo.
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Moldova
Moldovan prosecutors investigate arms smuggling in Russian-backed separatist region
Associated Press, 5/12/05
Moldovan prosecutors have launched an investigation into suspected weapons smuggling in the eastern breakaway province of Trans-Dniester, officials said Thursday. The investigation comes after the British weekly Sunday Times said an undercover reporter working for the newspaper arranged to buy three radioactive rockets from Trans-Dniester. Moldova's deputy chief prosecutor, Vasile Gorbulea, said that while Moldovan authorities do not control the region, "prosecutors have ways to bring the suspects to justice."
The newspaper reported that three Alazan rockets were offered to the reporter for US$500,000 (€385,000) after he approached a senior officer in Trans-Dniester's secret police, claiming to represent a militant group in Algeria. The rockets, which have a range of 12 kilometers (8 miles), came from weapons storage facilities in the region that are leftover from the Soviet army, the newspaper reported. Those weapons depots now belong to Russia, which has 1,800 troops in the region to guard the weapons.
Moldova has demanded that Russia honor a 1999 agreement to withdraw its troops and weapons from the region, and that Moscow stop supporting the Trans-Dniester separatists. But the Russian government considers the region a strategic location and has refused to withdraw, claiming that its troops are peacekeepers and their presence is needed to prevent a new war between Moldova and the separatists.
Also Thursday, William Hill, head of the Moldovan office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said that separatists stopped OSCE experts from visiting a weapons depot. For several years, they have been visiting depots to supervise Russia's removal of Soviet-era weapons and ammunition and to keep track of weapons stocks. Hill said their refusal to allow inspectors access to the site contradicts statements from separatist leaders "about transparency and cooperation."
Russian-speaking separatists in Trans-Dniester split from Moldova in 1992 after a brief war that left over 1,500 people dead. The province broke away over fears that Moldova would reunite with Romania. Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin recently called for international help in resolving the crisis.
Moldova's government claims the region is a heaven for weapons smuggling and international criminals, but Trans-Dniester officials have denied the charges. Last month, Ukraine's president, Viktor Yushchenko, proposed international monitoring of his country's border with Trans-Dniester. The plan also calls for inspections at arms factories located in Trans-Dniester.
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Nepal's political parties demand release of all political detainees
Binaj Gurubacharya, Associated Press, 5/11/05
Nepal's political parties on Wednesday demanded that King Gyanendra release all political prisoners after a senior U.S. diplomat expressed concern about continuing repression of civil liberties in the Himalayan nation. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christine Rocca met King Gyanendra on the 100th day since he seized power in Nepal and urged the monarch to reconcile with political adversaries in order to halt the Himalayan nation's bloody communist insurgency.
"I have expressed my government's firm belief that reconciliation between the Nepali government and the political parties is crucial if Nepal is to move toward functional democracy and to address the brutal Maoist insurgency," Rocca told a news conference before leaving the capital Katmandu. She refused to give details of Wednesday's meeting with the king, but said she expressed U.S. concerns about political prisoners being held and the suspension of civil liberties.
Four senior politicians were freed late Tuesday after pressure from visiting U.S. diplomat over the detentions, but hundreds remain in custody in a crackdown on dissidents following the king's seizure of power Feb. 1. The king lifted the emergency April 30, apparently under international pressure.
"The government was trying to save itself from being humiliated so they let us go," said Subash Nemwang of the Communist Party of Nepal, who was one of the four released. "If it really wants to comply then the hundreds of detainees should be freed."
Mahesh Acharya of the Nepali Congress party, the largest party in Nepal, said the release of only four prisoners was just a symbolic gesture "to show the foreign nations that Nepal is complying with international concerns." "The government needs to release all the political activists who have been detained to prove that it really is easing restrictions," he said.
Gyanendra said he declared a state of emergency and suspended most civil liberties because successive governments had failed to quell a nine-year anti-monarchist communist insurgency that has killed more than 11,500 in the Himalayan nation. Rocca, the most senior U.S. official to visit Nepal since the king's takeover, said Gyanendra and the political opposition need to find "some kind of way to face the threat of the Maoists."
"The threat is large and it is time for the king and the political parties to pull together to find a way forward," she said. The United States is a key ally of Nepal, providing the country with millions of dollars in development and military aid. The king lifted a state of emergency on April 30 that was imposed after his power grab, but hundreds of activists remain in jail and the royal government continues to arrest politicians.
"Lifting the emergency is a good first step, but clearly a lot of things are there to be done," said Rocca. India and Britain, other key Nepal allies, formally suspended military aid after the king's power grab. But New Delhi said Tuesday it agreed to resume partial aid after the king lifted the state of emergency. The Indian government urged the king to work to "bring the political parties and the institution of the monarchy together" as it deals "with the economic and political challenges facing Nepal."
Meanwhile, the Royal Commission for Corruption Control ordered former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to be held for five more days for failing to cooperate with anti-corruption investigators probing allegations of financial irregularities while he was in office. The commission ordered Deuba to undergo further interrogation into allegations that his administration illegally awarded a road construction project, commission official Sambhu Khanal said.
Deuba was sacked by King Gyanendra on Feb. 1 when the constitutional monarch grabbed absolute power and imposed a state of emergency. He was arrested last month, but denied the graft accusations and called the commission illegal. Deuba was charged last week in a separate case, with the commission accusing his government of distributing state money to party workers while he was in office.
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US wants to single out Philippine rebels tied to terror groups: ambassador
Agence France Presse, 5/11/05
Washington wants to single out leading Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines as "terrorists" if they are found to have ties with global terror groups, the US ambassador in Manila said Wednesday. If there were a way "to identify these people" as well as to restrict their ability to travel, "then I think we'd like to do that," US ambassador Francis Ricciardone told the Foreign Correspondents Association in Manila.
He also urged officials in the troubled southern Philippine island of Mindanao to do more to stop foreign Muslim militants from traveling to the island, where they are believed to train rebels. The envoy stressed that Washington did not wish to disrupt peace talks between President Gloria Arroyo's government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), but expressed concern about its links to other militant groups.
Ricciardone said Washington was in talks with Manila on the proposed tagging of MILF members who it believed were collaborating with "terrorist" groups. Mindanao is also home to the smaller Abu Sayyaf, a gang of self-styled Islamic militants with links to the Al-Qaeda. The Abu Sayyaf, linked by the Philippines and US governments to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda terror network, has kidnapped dozens of foreigners in the past several years, including three Americans, two of whom were killed while in captivity.
Splinter groups from the MILF are believed to be forging links with the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) group blamed for a string of deadly attacks in the region, including the 2002 Bali bombing that killed more than 200 people. The Philippine government has said that some 40 foreign JI members were training with MILF splinter groups in Mindanao. The MILF is also believed to have links with the Abu Sayyaf.
The 12,000-strong MILF has been waging a separatist rebellion since 1978, when it split from the larger Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). The MNLF signed a peace deal with Manila in 1996 and settled for limited autonomy. Manila is observing a 2003 ceasefire with the MILF, with Malaysia and several other Organization of the Islamic Conference states providing a small group of ceasefire monitors in the south.
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Is Serbia ready to host war crimes trials, experts ask
Misha Savic, Associated Press, 5/12/05
International and Serbian law experts gathered Thursday to discuss the possibility of holding war crimes trials in Serbia when the Hague tribunal closes its doors in 2010. Some participants at the OSCE-backed conference expressed doubts that the political climate in Serbia is favorable enough for Serbs accused by the West of committing the worst atrocities during the Balkan wars to face up to war crimes committed by their compatriots during the wars in the 1990s.
"There really were many, many perpetrators," in the Balkan bloodshed that killed hundreds of thousands, said Antun Nikiforov of the U.N. prosecutor's office. The U.N. court would continue trying political and military leaders blamed for ordering or instigating the crimes, but local courts should deal with lower-level suspects who personally killed or tortured victims, Nikiforov said.
Roderick W. Moore, a senior U.S. diplomat in Belgrade, cited recent public opinion surveys that showed a large majority in Serbia does not believe that Serb forces in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo committed war crimes during the violent breakup of former Yugoslavia. "I don't believe that the political climate in Serbia is favorable" for holding war crimes trials, said Moore.
Moore also mentioned two recent cases where guilty verdicts against Serb before Serbian courts were overturned by the republic's Supreme Court, which ordered retrial because of procedural irregularities. With memories still vivid from the 1990s wars, former fighters are often regarded at home as heroes, even when indicted for war crimes.
Moore expressed confidence, however, that "the democratic potential of this country" will allow crimes trials to be held here in the future. He pledged further U.S. assistance to Serbia's judiciary "to bolster the capacity of the local courts to fully prosecute war crimes trials."
The Hague tribunal plans to close its doors by 2010, but not before top war crimes suspects, such as Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, their military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic and Croatian Gen. Ante Gotovina face justice, the law experts said. Only a handful of war crimes trials have been held in Serbia since the wars ended in 1999.
One such trial in Belgrade, of 18 Serbs suspected of participating in the slaying of nearly 200 Croat prisoners of war near the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar in November 1991, is seen as a key test of the ability of Serbia's judiciary to deal with war crimes cases committed by the Serb. The trial started a year ago. The discussion at the Belgrade Faculty of Law was organized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe mission in Serbia-Montenegro, Belgrade university and the U.S. Embassy.
The meeting focused on how to transfer evidence and documentation from the U.N. war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands to domestic courts; the tribunal's practices; the criteria for referrals of cases and the challenges and obstacles that local prosecutors and judges face when dealing with war crime cases, OSCE said in a statement.
Omer Hadziomerovic of the Association of Judges in Serbia, stressed the need for cooperation between all former foes in the region. Courts in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina "must cooperate between them, and with the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, or there could be very disappointing results" if a lack of evidence results with acquittal of someone who committed major war crimes, Hadziomerovic said.
Serbian prime minister steps up campaign against independent Kosovo
Associated Press, 5/14/05
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said Saturday that Kosovo's independence would be "unacceptable" and urged all in Serbia to back his stand. "Any sort of independence for Kosovo is completely unacceptable for Serbia," Kostunica said at the gathering of the main board of his Democratic Party of Serbia. "It would destabilize Serbia's fragile stability and that of the region," he said. "Serbia's entire leadership agrees on this."
Kostunica lately uses every opportunity to reiterate his opposition to Kosovo's independence. The comments appear to be a stepped-up campaign by Belgrade ahead of key negotiations on Kosovo's future which are expected later this year.
Kosovo formally remains part of Serbia, although the Balkan republic has had no authority over it since 1999, when NATO bombing halted a brutal Serb crackdown on the province's independence-seeking ethnic Albanian majority and forced Belgrade to relinquish control to the United Nations and NATO.
The negotiations on Kosovo's final status can only start once the United Nations deems the province has fulfilled a set of U.N. standards for democracy, human rights and protection of minorities. Belgrade insists on keeping Kosovo at least formally within its borders while Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians are determined to gain full independence. At the gathering Saturday, Kostunica said his proposal from earlier this year that Kosovo attain a "broader degree of autonomy falling short of independence" was the best solution.
He also appealed on all political parties in Serbia to "take an active role in efforts to resolve" burning issues for Kosovo, such as return of Serb refugees - over 200,000 people, mostly Serbs, have fled Kosovo since NATO peacekeepers took over. "Return of the displaced is of paramount importance for talks on Kosovo's future," Kostunica said. "Nothing can happen without progress on this issue."
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Somalia's parliament approves government request for peacekeepers and relocation plan
Tom Maliti, Associated Press, 5/11/05
Somalia's parliament in exile on Wednesday approved the deployment of Ugandan and Sudanese peacekeepers to the troubled Horn of Africa nation, and also authorized the government's relocation plans, officials said.
Parliament's vote paves the way for the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a regional group, to implement its March 18 decision to deploy an unspecified number of troops from Uganda and Sudan to Somalia to help the government relocate from neighboring Kenya. The legislature has been based in Nairobi because it considers Somalia unsafe.
Under Somalia's transitional constitution, all major government decisions have to be ratified by parliament before they can be acted on. Out of 152 members present, 145 lawmakers voted to ratify the Cabinet's decision Monday to accept the peacekeepers, government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari told The Associated Press. Seven lawmakers abstained, he said.
About 50 lawmakers from the 275-member parliament are in the Somali capital, Mogadishu and the others did not attend Wednesday's session in Nairobi, said Mohamed Ali Americo, the personal assistant to Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi. The lawmakers also approved the government's relocation plan with 141 votes in favor; there was one abstention and 10 other lawmakers did not vote, Dinari said.
He said that the lawmakers approved the plan to first relocate to the western town of Baidoa and the southern town of Jowhar by May 31, before eventually moving to Mogadishu, which is still dangerous. The government will open an office in Mogadishu, at the same time it moves to Baidoa and Jowhar, Dinari said. On Tuesday, warlords controlling thousands of militia fighters in Mogadishu said that over the weekend they will begin pulling their troops out of the capital in an effort to restore order there.
Since February, the government has set dates to relocate to Somalia, only to postpone its plans without explanation.
"Tomorrow the prime minister is going to the African Union's Peace and Security Council meeting and then that's when he will tell them that troops have been approved to go to Somalia, by first the Cabinet, then the parliament," Americo said.
African Union spokesman Desmond Orjiako confirmed in a telephone interview from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, that the organization's Peace and Security Council will meet Thursday with only one country on its agenda: Somalia. Orjiako said that the council will discuss the Somali government's relocation plans, a report of the African Union's fact-finding mission that was in Somalia in April and other related issues.
Somalia has been without a central government since clan-based warlords overthrew the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Warlords then turned on each other, plunging the Horn of Africa nation of 7 million into anarchy. Its government, which was formed in 2004, is opposed by Islamic extremists and some of the dozens of warlords in the country.
Efforts to relocate to Mogadishu have been undermined by government divisions over the plans to deploy peacekeepers, including from neighboring Ethiopia. Ethiopia supported Somali factions with money and weapons in the civil war, and some Somali lawmakers fear its troops could seek to advance Ethiopian interests. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development has since modified its decision to only deploy troops from Uganda and Sudan, which do not share a border with Somalia.
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Foreign aid is no problem in Sri Lanka for post-tsunami reconstruction but domestic politics could be
Dilip Ganguly, Associated Press, 5/14/05
Going by official statistics, there is no dearth of foreign funding for post-tsunami reconstruction in Sri Lanka, but analysts warn that domestic political divisions are threatening to delay or frustrate rebuilding. The finance ministry says it has received commitments from foreign donors for US$1.5 billion (€1.15 billion) out of an estimated US$2 billion (€1.53 billion) needed for rebuilding projects over the next three to four years.
That amount is enough to rebuild coasts devastated by the December tsunami, which killed more than 31,000 people across Sri Lanka and affected 1 million others, the ministry says. But politically, the issue at center stage is whether the Tamil Tiger rebels should have the right to control some of the aid in the areas they rule. It's a powerful issue on this tropical island, which has seen two decades of war driven by the ethnic divide between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. The war has left 65,000 people dead, and put the Tiger rebels firmly in control of much of the island's north and east.
International donors are meeting in this central Sri Lankan town starting Monday to review Sri Lanka's needs and discuss development issues. By now, many thought, a long-planned joint agency between the government and the Tigers would have been created - a mechanism to oversee the distribution of foreign aid in guerrilla-controlled areas.
Residents in those regions have long complained of a lack of assistance, but international donors are reluctant to give aid funds directly to the guerrillas, who are listed as terrorists by the United States and two other nations. The joint body, though, remains mired in politics.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga had proposed the joint body, but the Marxist People's Liberation Front, her main ally in the coalition government, has threatened to withdraw if the plan goes ahead, saying it would help the rebels attain their goal of a separate Tamil state. The front controls 39 seats in the country's 225-member Parliament, and Kumaratunga's government could collapse without its support.
"The prime concern for all political parties has been to keep their vote bank intact. Therefore, no national party is willing to be seen to supporting a joint mechanism for Tamil areas," said Ilayathamby Dayananda, a Tamil analyst. "The country is going nowhere with these politics," he said. Rebel supporters see an even more ominous situation.
"As the proposed joint mechanism ... remains mired in Sinhala political maneuvering, deep skepticism has replaced early optimism among the Tamils," said the pro-rebel TamilNet Web site, in an analysis of the situation. "More ominously, a belief is rapidly taking root that Colombo is playing for time and keeping the northeast in the economic and social doldrums while developing the Sri Lankan military for a new war."
As the extent of tsunami's devastation unfolded in both government and rebel-held areas, many Sri Lankans hoped the tragedy would help the two sides work together. "When the tsunami struck, help came spontaneously from people irrespective of ethnic, religious or political differences," said Kanagalingam Sivajilingam, a lawmaker from the Tamil political party, the Tamil National Alliance. "But from the moment politics came into play, there has come a situation where people are not getting any relief whatsoever. This is a serious humanitarian issue, where petty politics should not come in," he said.
Sri Lanka says coordinating tsunami aid with rebels could bridge country's ethnic divide
Dilip Ganguly, Associated Press, 5/16/05
Sri Lanka's plan to jointly coordinate tsunami aid with Tamil Tiger rebels in Tamil-majority areas could be a golden opportunity to resolve the country's two-decade ethnic conflict, the president told the opening of a donors conference Monday.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga said she would go forward with the plan within weeks despite opposition within her own ruling coalition, in comments aimed as much at domestic politics as the delegates of 125 governments and aid agencies gathered to address post-tsunami reconstruction.
"The government, at least the major part of it, believes that this is a good opportunity" to bridge gaps between the Tigers and the government, Kumaratunga said. "It will open many doors for a final solution to the ethnic problem of Sri Lanka." Residents in Tamil-majority areas controlled by the Tigers have complained that aid has been slow to reach them since the devastating earthquake and tsunami of Dec. 26 killed more than 31,000 people in the country and affected 1 million others.
International donors have been reluctant to give any funds directly to the guerrillas, listed as terrorists by the United States, but most of them are willing to give to a joint body comprised of representatives of both the government and the rebels. Kumaratunga has backed a joint body, but the Marxist People's Liberation Front, her main ally in the coalition government, has threatened to withdraw if the plan goes ahead, saying it would help the rebels attain their goal of a separate Tamil state.
The front controls 39 seats in the country's 225-member Parliament, and Kumaratunga's government could collapse without its support. Kumaratunga indicated that the cooperation with the rebels would go forward within weeks, saying it could be "one ray of hope" from the tsunami disaster, helping to resolve a civil war that's killed 65,000 people since 1983.
Meanwhile, the World Bank said there would be no shortage of funds to carry out reconstruction and rehabilitation. "It now appears to be the case that funding the recovery will not be difficult," the bank's Vice President Praful Patel said. The Finance Ministry says it has received commitments from foreign donors for $1.5 billion over the next three to four years - enough to rebuild coasts devastated by the tsunami.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
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U.N. resolutions authorizing sanctions and prosecutions in Darfur have increased tension
Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press, 5/12/05
U.N. resolutions authorizing sanctions and international prosecutions against perpetrators of violence in Sudan's conflict-wracked Darfur region have led to protests and increased tensions among those who see themselves as possible targets, a U.N. official said Thursday.
Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Hedi Annabi said the two resolutions adopted by the Security Council in late March could also provoke violence against U.N. staff and facilities, noting an increase in rapes, kidnappings and attacks on civilians in Darfur last month.
"We believe that the government of Sudan must give its unequivocal support to both resolutions to minimize any risk of hostile action by these individuals and their followers against the United Nations in Sudan," he told the council.
One resolution authorizes the referral of cases of alleged rape, murder, village burnings and other atrocities in Darfur since July 1, 2002 to the International Criminal Court, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal. The other strengthens the arms embargo and imposes an asset freeze and travel ban on those who defy peace efforts.
"In addition to protests in Khartoum," Annabi said, "the two resolutions resulted in increased tensions in the Darfur region among those who perceive themselves to be implicated by the council's action."
He didn't elaborate but soon after the resolutions were adopted the United Nations gave the court a list of 51 people that a special U.N. commission that investigated mass killings and atrocities in Darfur recommended should stand trial. U.N. officials have said the list includes Sudanese government officials, rebels, and government-backed Arab militiamen known as Janjaweed.
Musa Hilal, who has been identified by the State Department and human rights groups as a Janjaweed leader and is believed to be on the list, recently told Human Rights Watch: "All the people in the field are led by top army commanders." The government insists it is not backing the Janjaweed.
The vast western Sudanese region of Darfur is the scene of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. An estimated 180,000 people have died in the upheaval many from hunger and disease and about 2 million others have been displaced since the conflict began in February 2003.
The conflict erupted when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. The government is accused of responding with a counterinsurgency campaign in which the Janjaweed committed wide-scale abuses against the African population.
The African Union, which has deployed about 2,400 troops and 244 civilian police in Darfur to try to restore peace, agreed on April 28 to more than double the force to 6,171 military personnel and 1,560 police by the end of September. Annabi said all possible steps should be taken to ensure that the AU mission "receives the donor support required to expand expeditiously and effectively."
"At the same time, we must not lose sight of the fact that a lasting solution to the Darfur crisis will come through a negotiated settlement," he said. Annabi told the Security Council that while violence continued in Darfur throughout April, there was no progress in peace talks which Nigeria has brokered. The last round took place in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, in December. The African Union is trying to reconvene the talks next week but Annabi said "it is not yet clear whether the parties are committed to meaningful negotiations."
"This is a matter of very serious concern," he said. "Clearly, lasting peace in Darfur will only come through a negotiated settlement. All efforts should be made to bring the parties together for the next round of talks in Abuja," Annabi said.
The Security Council applauded the African Union's leadership in Darfur and its decision to expand the force. It emphasized the importance of increased coordinated international assistance for the AU's effort in Darfur and the U.N.'s readiness to continue to play a key role.
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