PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Monday, March 28, 2005
(Volume IV, Number 11)
Contents:
Security Council extends U.N. mission in Afghanistan for a year in show of support
The parliamentary elections are supposed to complete a political process agreed to in Bonn
Afghan parliamentary polls to be held on September 18
The parliamentary vote was originally scheduled for June 2004
Tensions mount over disputed Karabakh region
In the past month alone there have been reports of numerous exchanges of fire
Burundi constitution becomes law as country continues to heal wounds
Diplomats say plans for talks are well advanced
Talks on Chechnya bring no result
Many of the participants complained the meeting was one-sided
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation.
Georgian president prepared to meet with Abkhazian separatist leader
Saakashvili has vowed to bring Abkhazia and another separatist region, South Ossetia, back into the fold
Aceh Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation.
South Africa invites Ivory Coast opponents for talks
Tensions have mounted recently, with reports of a buildup of armed men and munitions along a buffer zone
Musharraf says peace moves could stall without progress on Kashmir
The president said at the time that the country would maintain its nuclear deterrent at all costs
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
OSCE Chairman: All-inclusive process towards final status of Kosovo
Cooperation between Belgrade and Pristina is a major precondition for a democratic solution of Kosovo's final status
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation.
Popular Uprising in Strategic Kyrgyzstan Topples Regime
Kyrgyz opposition leaders joined those in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine in sweeping away unpopular regimes
Revolt Peaceful, But Aftermath Feared
The outcome in multiethnic Kyrgyzstan could be far more violent and unstable than in Georgia and Ukraine
Kyrgyzstan Sets June Vote for President
Akayev left the country Thursday
UN warns Liberia at risk of sliding backwards
The restructuring of the Liberian army has fallen behind schedule
Moroccan monarch has unusual two-hour meeting with Algerian president
Details of the talks were not made public
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Nepal Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
'Mini-Marshall Plan' still to be implemented – MNLF
Arroyovowed to look into the 1996 peace agreement
Islamic leader in Somalia threatens holy war against peacekeepers
Regional leader have pledged to send 6,800 troops to back up the new government
Sri Lanka peace talks on 'backburner'
Peace talks have been stalled since April 2003
Sri Lanka close to sealing tsunami relief deal with Tamil rebels, says foreign minister
The rebels have repeatedly demanded that they be given access to some of the foreign aid
Fresh fighting in Sri Lanka as Norway tries to move aid deal
Diplomatic sources said the internecine clashes cast a shadow over Norway's peace efforts.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
U.N. Votes to Send Peacekeepers to Sudan
The document does not address two issues: how to hold war crimes suspects from Darfur accountable, and whether to impose new sanctions on the country
British envoy vows to help implement Sudan peace deal
The Abuja talks have yet to resume
Peace Negotiations Watch is prepared by the Public International Law and Policy Group in cooperation with American University and is made possible by grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Ploughshares Fund.
Security Council extends U.N. mission in Afghanistan for a year in show of support
Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press, 3/24/2005
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Thursday to extend the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, a show of support for the country's fledgling democratic government and its first post-Taliban parliamentary elections on Sept. 18. The council called on the U.N. mission to continue to provide electoral support for the elections and urged donors to help finance the ballot quickly. Afghanistan has only $40 million of the total $148 million needed to hold the election, the top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, Jean Arnault, told the council Tuesday.
The parliamentary elections are supposed to complete a political process agreed to in Bonn, Germany, after U.S. and allied Afghan forces drove out the Taliban in late 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden. The council stressed the importance of security for "credible" elections and called on member states to contribute troops and equipment to expand NATO's 8,500-strong International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and establish more Provincial Reconstruction Teams in new areas.
U.S. and NATO forces now run about 20 teams, up from just a handful last year, using them to channel millions of dollars in aid. American generals say that help has persuaded many Afghans to reject the Taliban. The council welcomed the development of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police and the continuing efforts to increase their capabilities "as important steps toward the goal of Afghan security forces providing security and ensuring the rule of law throughout the country."
It called on the Afghan government and U.S. and NATO forces "to continue to address the threat to the security and stability of Afghanistan posed by Al-Qaida operatives, the Taliban and other extremist groups, factional violence among militia forces and criminal activities, in particular violence involving the drug trade."
The council welcomed international efforts to assist in setting up the new Afghan Parliament "and ensure its efficient functioning, which will be critical to the political future of Afghanistan and the steps towards a free and democratic Afghanistan." Arnault told the council that over 100 Afghan staffers with expertise in different aspects of the legislative process are currently being trained, led by France with support from the U.N. Development Program.
Arnault told the council that delaying the parliamentary elections could have the unintended advantage of diminishing the influence of drug money on the electoral process. The delay will also allow for more education of voters, candidates and parties, as well as better-trained police and army units. It will give the Afghan government more time "to complete the process of demilitarization that has gained much momentum in recent months," he said.
The resolution recognized "the urgent need" to tackle the illicit drug trade in Afghanistan, the lack of security in some areas, terrorist threats and to disarm and reintegrate Afghan militia forces.
Afghan parliamentary polls to be held on September 18
Agence France Presse, 3/20/2005
Afghanistan's long-delayed parliamentary elections will be held September 18, election officials said, but district council polls will be pushed back until 2006, highlighting the massive challenges ahead on the war-torn country's road to democracy. "The Joint Electoral Management Body is pleased to announce that elections for the Wolesi Jirga and provincial councils will be held on Sunday, September 18, 2005," head of Afghanistan's electoral commission Bismillah Bismil told reporters at a press conference in Kabul.
The parliamentary vote was originally scheduled for June 2004 alongside Afghanistan's first presidential election. Both ballots were delayed because of security and logistical problems before President Hamid Karzai was finally elected with a landslide on October 9. Some 10.5 million voters will be able to elect the 249-seat parliament, or Wolesi Jirga, and provincial councils on September 18 and more will have a chance to add their names to electoral rolls in coming months, Bismil said.
District council elections will be further delayed due to "technical reasons", he added. Bismil said there were arguments over how to draw up boundaries for at least 40 districts and said the logistics of holding simultaneous elections for the parliament and provincial councils were already a big enough challenge. He did not give a date for district council polls but said they could not be held after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan which begins in early October and the onset of winter when many areas of Afghanistan are cut off by heavy snows.
Holding the first two elections in September is a compromise which will give President Karzai legitimacy for his government. US-backed Karzai, who was installed as transitional leader after US-led forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001, will need the approval of the new parliament for his cabinet to keep their jobs.
The delay in the district polls would mean it would not be possible to create a full-sized upper house, or Senate, since district councils are supposed to send representatives to the chamber. Afghanistan will create a stop-gap Senate of 51 members with 34 members drawn from elected provincial councils and 17 appointed by Karzai, instead of the 102 member upper house originally slated by the Afghan constitution.
"There were conflicting views among those we consulted. Some of them were suggesting an early date for the elections, while others were calling for its postponement to a much later date," Bismil said. Bismil said that many political parties were worried about the number of guns in the hands of private militias which would need to be disarmed ahead of parliamentary polls.
"We strongly request the government to find a solution to these problems," he said. There is also a heated debate over Afghanistan's Single Non-Transferable Vote system which favours individual candidates rather than political parties, many of which are run by former anti-Soviet Mujahedin groups. Bismil said that Afghanistan's electoral commission had set up a panel to look into the voting system.
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Armenia/Azerbaijan
Tensions mount over disputed Karabakh region
Agence France Presse, 3/20/2005
Long-simmering tensions over the disputed enclave of Karabakh in the volatile Caucasus have flared recently, sparking fears that the escalation of hostilities along a ceasefire line between Armenian and Azeri forces could lead to a new war. "In the eleven years since the ceasefire was signed there have only been two or three occasions when tensions were at this level, and each time the situation could have deteriorated into war," Azad Isazade, a prominent military analyst in Azerbaijan and a former information official in the 1988-1994 war for Karabakh told AFP.
Armenia has controlled Karabakh and seven surrounding regions which make up 14 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory since the two former Soviet republics ended large-scale hostilities with a ceasefire in 1994. But an escalation of ceasefire breaches and a mounting death toll reported in recent weeks by the Azeri media have given observers pause and caused concern in Washington, as efforts to resolve the territorial dispute diplomatically have disintegrated.
In the past month alone there have been reports of numerous exchanges of fire between Azeri and Armenian forces resulting in the deaths of at least four Azeris and the capture of another three. During 2004, six Azeri soldiers were killed. Officials in Armenian-controlled Karabakh have also confirmed the casualties, but did not provide figures.
"This shows that the conflict is not frozen and it is necessary to work to resolve it," the United States' ambassador to Azerbaijan Reno Harnish was quoted by Azeri media as saying last week amidst calls by the radical Karabakh Liberation Organization (KLO) in Azerbaijan to prepare for war. "We can only free our lands using force, we can only get results by following the principles of force against force, blood for blood and death to the enemy," the KLO said in a statement.
Meanwhile the foreign ministers of the two Caucasus countries have cancelled talks that were scheduled for this month in Prague, and Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev said there could be no compromises over Karabakh and last week threatened to resolve the issue "by other means" if negotiations fail. Raising the stakes is a four-billion-dollar oil pipeline being built by Anglo-American BP that will represent one of the West's main non-OPEC sources of oil when completed later this year, and portions of which lie dangerously close to the ceasefire line.
War over Nagorno-Karabakh ended with some 35,000 casualties and displaced one million people. Analysts warn that today, Armenian and Azeri armies could inflict significantly more damage onto each other, compared with the poorly-equipped rag-tag battalions that formed after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
According to Isazade, today's escalation is the result of a geopolitical tug-of-war for dominance in the Caucasus between the United States, backing Azerbaijan and Georgia, and Russia, which backs Armenia.
"There have been rumors that America wants to use Azerbaijan as a platform to attack Iran, in exchange Azerbaijan expects help getting Karabakh back. Armenia understands this so they have been shooting as if to say 'we're still here,' probably goaded on by Russia," Isazade said.
But separatist officials in the self-proclaimed Nagorno Karabakh Republic blamed the escalation on Azeri forces which they said have been making dangerous attempts to capture new positions closer to Armenian lines. They are purposefully "moving their firing positions closer to the Nagorno Karabakh defense army's forward lines, thereby thinning the so-called 'no man's land,' which has resulted in the escalation of tensions along the front line," the republic's self-styled deputy foreign minister Masis Mailyan told AFP.
An analyst in Yerevan said the frequent shootouts were Azerbaijan's way of destabilizing the situation to show that negotiations headed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were failing so that discussions could be moved to a new arena such as the United Nations. "They want to show that the OSCE can't control the situation ... In the UN they hope to find the support of other Muslim nations," said the Stepan Safaryan, an analyst with the Armenian Center for Strategic and National Research.
Burundi constitution becomes law as country continues to heal wounds
Esdras Ndikumana, Agence France Presse, 3/19/2005
Burundi's President Domitien Ndayizeye has ratified the country's new power-sharing constitution as the country slowly progresses towards putting behind it an 11-year civil war. Ndayizeze said the constitution, which evens the balance between the majority Hutus and the minority Tutsis who dominated the country since independence from Belgium in 1962, was "a victory for all Burundians."
He signed the constitution into law after the constitutional court confirmed the result of a February 28 referendum which gave 90.4 percent approval to the new basic law. "The adoption of the constitution is a primordial step for Burundi, the best way to ensure peace and security because it is a fundamental element for stability in our country which blocks the way to regimes created by coups," Ndayizeze said.
The president was speaking at a late-night ceremony Friday in his offices attended by members of the independent national elections commission and journalists. The constitution provides for fairer power-sharing between Hutus and Tutsis, who despite only making up 14 percent of the country's population have held all the levers of power, notably in the armed forces.
The civil war, triggered by the assassination in 1993 of the first popularly elected Hutu president, pitted seven Hutu rebel groups against the army and claimed the lives of some 300,000 people out of a population of 7.1 million. Only one rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), has not signed a peace deal with the government, and has stepped up attacks around the capital in recent weeks.
Although the government has denied reports of upcoming negotiations with the FNL, diplomats say plans for talks are well advanced. Under the peace deal Burundi is expected to hold half-a-dozen elections in the next six months for local councils and a new parliament, which will choose the country's new president. Electoral officials last year said they wanted the series of polls completed by April 22, with the chance a president would be selected by a new legislature on August 11.
But the authorities in Bujumbura have released no official dates and domestic and international pressure is growing for them to announce a timetable. Under the constitution, Burundi's president will have a deputy from each of the ethnic groups while 60 percent of the cabinet will be Hutu and 40 percent Tutsi. Representation in the parliament, made up of a National Assembly and Senate, will be apportioned on a 50-50 basis with Hutu and Tutsi parties required to field candidates from both ethnicities to reach the mix.
The constitution also calls for the army and the police force to be equally split along ethnic lines.
Hours after the ceremony Ndayizeye left for a European tour to plead for aid to revive Burundi's economy shattered by the war. He was due to visit former colonial power Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. "We are going to ask them to help more intensively to relaunch our economy and resolve certain social problems we are experiencing because of our large budget deficit," he said before leaving Bujumbura.
Government employees, including civil servants and hospital nurses, are on strike demanding pay rises, but Ndayizeye, who has the backing of the International Monetary Fund, said Friday the country cannot afford them. The president also said he would be asking the Benelux countries for help in restructuring the army and police force in line with the new constitution.
Talks on Chechnya bring no result
Jan Sliva, Associated Press, 3/21/2005
In the beginning, some hoped Monday's informal talks on the future of Chechnya would be a first step toward peace negotiations between Russia and its restive province. But in the end, even relative moderates among the separatists did not show up - driven away by a condition that they recognize Russia's territorial integrity - and Chechnya's Moscow-backed president in any case ruled out negotiations with them on independence or autonomy.
Speaking after the meeting organized by the Council of Europe, Chechen President Alu Alkhanov told the AP the country's territorial integrity was sacred for him and that in the future, "there may be discussions on a peaceful solution to the conflict. There may be discussions on humanitarian aid, but not in a round-table format like today, and not with separatists."
The Council of Europe, the continent's top human rights body, organized the meeting in the hope of kindling a broader dialogue. But none of the invited representatives of the separatist movement took part. Several people allegedly close to Chechen rebel envoy Ahkmed Zakayev, who lives in Britain, were to have attended, said chief organizer Andreas Gross, but three of them said in an open letter Monday they would not come because the Chechen opposition was underepresented. The rest simply didn't show up.
Alkhanov's staunch refusal to include separatist rebels, whom he calls terrorists, dealt a blow to organizers, who had hoped to include Chechen opposition could be included in future meetings. Gross, a Swiss legislator, said it was "never possible" for direct representatives of rebel leaders to come. "We didn't find consensus with the Russians on their participation."
Many of the participants complained the meeting was one-sided. French historian Yves Cohen left early, and others said a pre-condition requiring those taking part to recognize Russia's territorial integrity meant only Kremlin-backed politicians could take part. "To insist on that is to close the argument before you've had it," British human rights activist Lord Judd said. "Does it have to be total independence? Lots of possibilities might emerge ... This gathering is not the gathering that will bring peace to Chechnya."
Alkhanov earlier said the talks were mainly a chance to inform the Council of Europe about what Russia was doing in Chechnya, and that his administration was working to improve the human rights situation. "We do admit that human rights and legal abuse is still a reality in Chechnya, and that the state of affairs in the social and political sphere is not as good as it should be," he said. "The republican leadership has been working really hard to improve the situation. And the situation has been improving."
Human Rights Watch said kidnappings of civilians, mostly by government forces, had reached the level of a crime against humanity in Chechnya. The New York-based rights organization said thousands of people have disappeared in Chechnya since 1999, the start of the latest conflict between Russian forces and separatists. Alkhanov said the reports were overblown. "If we say that 213 people have been kidnapped in Chechnya this year, this means that it is really so, and not 400, contrary to what some participants in this (discussion) have been alleging," he said.
Alkhanov said his administration would only cooperate with those who recognized Russia's territorial integrity. Asked if his administration would have negotiated with rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov if Russian forces had not killed him earlier this month, Alkhanov said Maskhadov was no different from "other terrorists."
Rebels seeking Chechen independence fought Russian troops to a standstill in a 20-month war that ended in 1996. Russian forces swept back in September 1999, overtaking the tiny region, but rebels holed up in southern mountains continue to mount regular raids. A Swedish news agency reported Monday that Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who claimed responsibility for last year's deadly Beslan school hostage-taking, warned of new attacks in the aftermath of Maskhadov's death.
"We fight only against Russia, and so far only on its territory. You can expect acts of sabotage, not acts of terror," Basayev reportedly said in an interview conducted last week by e-mail with Swedish news agency TT.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Georgian president prepared to meet with Abkhazian separatist leader
Associated Press, 3/23/2003
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili is prepared to hold talks with the leader of the breakaway province of Abkhazia, officials said Wednesday. Georgia's foreign minister, Salome Zurabishvili, told reporters that time and venue for the meeting had not been set, but added that it must take place in western Georgia. Abkhazia's newly elected president, Sergei Bagapsh, also said Wednesday he was ready to meet with Saakashvili, but added that the talks should be held in a third country.
Bagapsh emphasized that Abkhazia's self-proclaimed independence wouldn't be subject to talks. "Abkhazia's political status will never be discussed," he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. Abkhazia has run its own affairs since 1993, when separatists drove Georgian government troops out. No government recognizes it as independent, but many of its residents - including Bagapsh - have Russian citizenship, and Georgian authorities accuse Russia of supporting its separatist leadership.
Saakashvili has vowed to bring Abkhazia and another separatist region, South Ossetia, back into the fold. He has recently said he is prepared to give both regions broad autonomy within Georgia.
Aceh Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
South Africa invites Ivory Coast opponents for talks
Associated Press, 3/25/2005
President Thabo Mbeki has invited the opposing factions in the Ivory Coast to South Africa for more talks in a bid to prop up the flagging peace process. Bheki Khumalo, Mbeki's spokesman, said Friday that the meeting was scheduled April 3, a day before the expiration of the mandate of a 6,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in Ivory Coast. The mandate is expected to be extended.
"All the main protagonists have been invited," he said. He said it was too early to confirm who had accepted the invitation. Mbeki has been trying to mediate on behalf of the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States. He has repeatedly insisted that preparations to disarm the warring factions and prepare for October presidential elections are on schedule.
However, a report by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week said the Ivory Coast - the world's biggest cocoa grower and once a bastion of stability - was at risk of spiraling out of control unless the armed militias were reined in. Ivory Coast has been split into a rebel-held north and loyalist south since a September 2002 coup attempt propelled the country into civil war. A May 2003 cease-fire agreement that ended the fighting has been repeatedly violated.
Tensions have mounted recently, with reports of a buildup of armed men and munitions along a buffer zone which is patrolled by U.N. and French troops. Annan has recommended the renewal of the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping force and called for an additional 1,226 new troops. In his report, Annan urged Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and the New Forces rebels to implement Mbeki's peace plan.
Musharraf says peace moves could stall without progress on Kashmir
Agence France Presse, 3/23/2005
Peace moves by India and Pakistan could stall unless the two sides make progress on the key issue of Kashmir, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Wednesday. "If progress is not made on the resolution of the real problems, the confidence-building measures will lose their impact," Musharraf said as he addressed a military parade marking national day.
"We want peace and we want to resolve problems through negotiations but we will never accept any pressure," he told the elite gathering at the parade near parliament. Musharraf said Pakistan and India must show sincerity, courage and flexibility to settle issues including Kashmir, which caused two of their three wars and brought them close to a fourth war in 2002.
"We have to find options for a Kashmir solution which are acceptable to India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir," he said. The nuclear-armed neighbours have been holding talks since January last year on resolving disputes, including the thorny problem of divided Kashmir. Musharraf is due to visit India on April 17 to meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and watch a cricket match.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai was chief guest, watching the parade along with Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. US-built F-16 fighter jets, French Mirages and F-7 jets bought from China roared overhead in formations of four to start the ceremony. The military displayed its arsenal of short, medium and long-range missiles capable of delivering nuclear and other warheads.
Three days before national day Islamabad conducted a test of its Shaheen II missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles). The president said at the time that the country would maintain its nuclear deterrent at all costs. Other hardware on display included artillery and indigenously built battle tanks. Special Services Group commandos performed free-fall parachute jumps, landing near the dais to cheers from the crowd.
Musharraf told the gathering Pakistan faces "no external threat" in a changing regional environment but it does confront internal challenges from extremism, terrorism and sectarianism. "The vast majority of the people are moderate. I appeal to the nation to help the government combat the forces of obscurantism who are opposed to progress and development," he said.
He reiterated his call to follow his concept of "enlightened moderation" and "true values of Islam which teach peace, brotherhood and moderation". Prime Minister Aziz, in a message to the nation, said the country should keep moving on the path of a moderate progressive Islamic welfare state. He called on people to discourage "hatred, extremism and exploitation in all forms and manifestations."
Musharraf, a key US ally in the war on terror, faces pressure in this overwhelmingly Islamic nation of 150 million people from radical parties which accuse him of pushing a secular agenda. He survived two attempts on his life from Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic extremists in December 2003 and has lived under unprecedentedly tight security since then.
Pakistan's compliance was crucial to the US-led attacks which toppled the fundamentalist Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan in late 2001. Karzai and Musharraf called for greater coordination to combat terrorism during talks late Tuesday.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
OSCE Chairman: All-inclusive process towards final status of Kosovo
Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 3/25/2005
The Chairman-in-Office of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, said Friday that cooperation between Belgrade and Pristina is a major precondition for a democratic solution of Kosovo's final status. "The all-inclusive political process, which must include Kosovo Serbs, will present a united front for important key events, including dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade and the start of future status talks", Rupel told a press conference in Pristina.
The OSCE Chairman held a series of meetings with high-ranking international and ethnic Albanian politicians in Pristina, including UNMIK chief Soren Jessen-Petersen, President Ibrahim Rugova and newly appointed Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi. The issue of the final status of the internationally administrated province is scheduled to enter its closing phase in late summer, following the "comprehensive evaluation of the implementation of democratic standards".
"The next 100 days will present a huge challenge for Kosovo", the UNMIK chief said, referring to the ongoing process of implementation of minority rights. Kosovo has been administered by the U.N. since 1999 following a NATO war aimed at stopping the crackdown of Serb forces on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Popular Uprising in Strategic Kyrgyzstan Topples Regime
Kim Murphy and David Holley, LA Times, 3/25/2005
In the third largely nonviolent popular revolution to topple post-Soviet leaders in a little more than a year, opposition protesters seized control of Kyrgyzstan's main government buildings Thursday and reports spread that President Askar A. Akayev had fled the country. With thousands of cheering demonstrators swarming into the presidential headquarters, Kyrgyz opposition leaders joined those in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine in sweeping away unpopular regimes that had stubbornly clung to power after their nations' independence in 1991.
Early today, parliament approved opposition leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev as prime minister. State television Thursday broadcast video of documents strewn across floors of the main government building. Windows were shattered, and a succession of grinning youths plopped into the president's chair, as Akayev's car was reportedly set on fire outside. Looters struck downtown department stores, but by early this morning Bishkek appeared largely calm, with many people heading to work.
"The revolution found its logical end. Literally, the people took it on themselves. The power of the youth basically overcame everything," said Edil Baisalov, a pro-democracy activist and head of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society. Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous republic of 5 million, is strategically situated in the heart of turbulent Central Asia, near China, Afghanistan and some of the key oil-producing nations of the Caspian Sea region. The U.S. and Russia maintain military bases in Bishkek, the capital, and both appealed for calm Thursday while taking pains to stay out of the fray.
Kyrgyzstan has seen ethnic violence and Islamic extremist militancy in the 13 years since the breakup of the Soviet Union, and those forces could be unleashed again if Kyrgyzstan is plunged into instability, analysts said. Amid reports of looting and other lawlessness Thursday, opposition political leaders moved to form an interim governing council of the kind set up by triumphant opposition forces a week ago in the southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad.
Within hours of the takeover, popular former Vice President Felix Kulov was released from prison and named by the council as security minister in the new Cabinet. He had been serving a 10-year sentence on what his supporters said were trumped-up embezzlement charges, filed after it became clear that he represented the biggest political threat to Akayev's continued political domination.
"Mr. Bakiyev is the head of the new government," Talai Okenov, a former opposition candidate for parliament, said today. "At this time, he is like the president of Kyrgyzstan." Okenov said parliament had approved Kulov's appointment and he was confident that high police and army officials would follow Kulov's orders.
Former opposition lawmaker Ishenbai Kadyrbekov, meanwhile, was selected by the nation's parliament as its speaker. As the heady afternoon gave way to nightfall, opposition leaders grew increasingly concerned by reports of looting in several stores and plundering of government offices and some of the luxurious residences of Akayev and his family.
Several shops went up in flames, and response was slow amid what appeared to be the near-paralysis of emergency and law enforcement services. Many witnesses said police were nowhere in evidence on Bishkek's streets. "The situation in Bishkek ... has gotten much hotter since daytime, and we now have to do something to calm the people down as quickly as possible," Roza Otunbayeva, a former Kyrgyz diplomat and opposition leader, said in a telephone interview Thursday night. "So wide is the abyss between the rich and the poor in Kyrgyzstan that ordinary people simply cannot control their rage anymore."
Akayev supporters described the situation as a criminal takeover and expressed fear of worsening instability. "The world thinks that the opposition which has come to power is a civilized and democratic force. But what we are seeing now in the streets of Bishkek does not conform to any democratic standards," Amanbay Satybaev, head of the pro-Akayev organization For the People and With the People, said in a telephone interview.
On the downtown shopping streets that were hit by the looting, broken glass littered the sidewalks in front of major department stores and supermarkets this morning. "They all belong to the Akayev clan," said Orolbay Omorbekov, a taxi driver. About two dozen special police stood near an undamaged department store, but in general there were virtually no police or other security personnel on the streets. A few protesters could be seen in some windows of the government building.
In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that the U.S. was "watching the events in Kyrgyzstan, and we are trying to help to promote a process there that will turn the developments on the ground into a democratic process that can get for the Kyrgyz people a stable government and a move towards a better democratic future."
Akayev, a 60-year-old former physicist who was elected president in 1990, the year before Kyrgyzstan's independence, was believed to have flown to nearby Kazakhstan with his family. There were some reports that he had initially set off for Russia and diverted en route. Later, doubts were raised about whether Akayev had left at all or had merely gone into hiding in Kyrgyzstan.
Turar Sulaymanov, Akayev's representative in southern Kyrgyzstan, told the Los Angeles Times that "101%, he's not in Kyrgyzstan anymore." In Washington, the Kyrgyz ambassador said Akayev was in "a safe place" and hadn't officially resigned. The swift and dramatic events Thursday unfolded as police looked silently on, apparently under orders not to fire on demonstrators despite an ominous warning from the interior minister a day earlier that authorities were prepared to use weapons to guarantee stability.
Attempts by the unarmed police to halt the crowd resulted in about 200 injuries, some of them among the police.
"Cracking down on the opposition and dispersing the crowd which gathered in front of the government building this morning would have meant that human blood would have had to be shed. And this was something that we could not agree to under any circumstances," Boris Poluektov, first vice chairman of the National Security Service, said in a telephone interview.
Poluektov said the resignation of the Akayev government was "a done deal." Almost immediately, the nation's Supreme Court annulled the results of March 13 parliamentary elections, whose alleged violations sparked the popular uprisings that culminated in the fall of the government. Opposition leaders appeared to be caught by surprise by the speed and extent of their sweep to power. In a series of telephone interviews, they said their original plan had called only for nonviolent street demonstrations in Bishkek. But those plans were upturned when Akayev supporters, reportedly mobilized from an athletic organization controlled by a member of the president's family, began hurling stones at the protesters, and the crowd became enraged.
Its numbers quickly grew from several hundred to more than 40,000, witnesses said. "The athletes dashed into the crowd of protesters, delivering blows left and right, beating the protesters up. This was way more than our people were prepared to take from the regime," said Emil Aliev, vice chairman of the Ar-Namys Party.
"The people got infuriated and charged forward in large numbers, crushing police lines and taking the White House [the seat of government] by storm," he said. "It was an unforgettable sight -- a human wave carrying the flags of the opposition, pouring into the stronghold of tyranny and oppression!"
Once inside the building, he said, protesters began hugging one another, laughing and exchanging congratulations, and chanting anti-Akayev slogans. A youthful protester climbed into a top-floor window and danced; another rode a horse through the chanting crowd at a gallop, trailing the yellow banner of pro-democracy forces.
"It took us five years, and this victory is finally ours," Aliev said. "It is an inexplicable feeling to see all this happen in just one day." Baisalov said the protesters never would've seized power had the athletes, whom he described as government provocateurs and thugs, not turned to violence. "The whole blame is on Akayev. There was room for negotiations, there was time for negotiations.... A day earlier, a week, he could have prevented everything. Just last night, the opposition leaders wanted to see him, but Akayev refused to see them. He could have stayed on. The blame rests on him."
This morning, as many as 2,000 people were still outside the White House, some having pitched tents, but the demonstrators inside had left and an ad hoc security force was preventing others from entering. Most of the crowd behaved calmly, though some rock throwing was reported. Kubanychbek Abdyldaev, 47, a businessman and organizer of the ad hoc force, said, "Everything is being cleaned now. Our task is to pass all this equipment to the new power. Our final goal is to make everything clean, orderly and peaceful after Akayev has resigned."
On Wednesday, opposition leaders had discussed a compromise under which Akayev would have been allowed to serve out his term, which ends in October, provided that he promised to step down and hold new presidential and parliamentary elections at that time. Now it will be crucial for Kyrgyzstan's various political factions to finish putting together an interim government and restore order.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov urged the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which dispatched a delegation to the Kyrgyz capital even before Thursday's dramatic events, to "take a more responsible position" for assuring a peaceful resolution. But Russian Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov emphasized that it would be wrong for Russia to interfere.
"It is an internal affair," he said. "People have come off the street and sat down. What now? There is the state and the army, salaries and pensions have to be paid and elections held. Who is going to do this? People have to sit down at the table and come to a consensus." Until the opposition comes up with a plan, analysts said, that could be difficult.
"They won, but they don't know what to do with their victory," Bishkek political analyst Orozbek Moldaliyev said. "They are saying that they just wanted Akayev to acknowledge that the elections were illegitimate, to hold new elections, and to resign. They were expecting it to happen legally, according to the law. But it went the other way, and now they have to deal with the problem."
Revolt Peaceful, But Aftermath Feared
Anna Dolgov, Boston Globe, 3/25/2005
MOSCOW The street protests that yesterday helped push the government from power in Kyrgyzstan may echo peaceful revolts that led to victories of democratic forces in two other former Soviet republics. But unlike in Georgia and Ukraine, the outcome in multiethnic Kyrgyzstan could be far more violent and unstable because of the fierce poverty, heavy drug trafficking, and presence of radical Islamic cells in the Central Asian nation.
In Georgia and Ukraine, protesters rallied around their leaders Mikhail Saakashvili and Viktor Yushchenko, and then elected them presidents of their countries. But in Kyrgyzstan there is no one opposition leader with broad support. Last night, a former opposition lawmaker, Ishenbai Kadyrbekov, was named interim president and others were given posts in the new administration.
"We don't have just one Yushchenko! We have dozens of Yushchenkos, hundreds of Saakashvilis," a leader of the opposition coalition, Aziza Abdurasulova, was quoted as saying by the Gazeta news agency. Kyrgyzstan sits in a commanding strategic position. It borders China and lies close to Afghanistan; since soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has operated an air base outside the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. Russia has a military base less than 20 miles away.
Yesterday, opposition control over Kyrgyzstan's southeastern provinces that had been expanding northward engulfed Bishkek. Protesters seized the main government building, then marched to a prison outside the city to free jailed opposition activists. President Askar Akayev was reported to have fled the country, but his location last night could not be confirmed.
Kyrgyzstan's political opposition includes various factions that lost to Akayev's allies in the February parliamentary election and a second-round vote in March. They seemed united primarily by their demand for the president's resignation. Kyrgyz officials insisted that the opposition had been joined by traffickers in Afghan opiates vying for power.
In the past few days, Akayev had alleged that the opposition was financed from abroad, and accused it of ties to Islamic extremists and drug smugglers. He has warned about the possibility of interethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan, which, in addition to the Kyrgyz, is home to ethnic Uzbeks, Russians, Ukrainians, Tajiks, Germans, and others, and has a history of ethnic and religious conflicts.
Higlighting concerns over Kyrgyzstan's stability, there were reports of volunteer militias forming to prevent a slide into anarchy in the southern towns of Osh and Jalal-Abad, where stores and restaurants had been locked for fear of looting and the price of bread had doubled. Russia's Izvestia daily reported widespread bank robberies in the Osh district by mobs earlier this week, but opposition leader Anvar Artykov, an ethnic Uzbek who is acting chief of the Osh district, denied the reports.
The Fergana valley, which Kyrgyzstan shares with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, has seen repeated insurgencies by Muslim extremists seeking to carve out an Islamic state in the region, and was a site of battles between Islamic radicals and government troops in the 1990s. Islamic fundamentalists remain entrenched in the valley.
Saakashvili, the Georgian president elected following his country's peaceful "Rose Revolution" a year ago, appeared to recognize that the developments in Kyrgyzstan may be fraught with many more dangers than the Georgian revolt. In a letter to the Kyrgyz president earlier this week, he offered to act as mediator between Akayev's government and the opposition. "It is in our common interest to preserve Kyrgyzstan as a democratic leader in the region," Saakashvili wrote.
Though Akayev tightened government control over Kyrgyz political life in the past few years, he pushed through overhauls in the 1990s that made Kyrgyzstan one of the more democratic states among the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia. None of them enjoys Western-style freedoms, and most have much less.
Tajikistan has yet to recover from a 1992-97 civil war, and its president keeps a tight hold on power. Turkmenistan is gripped by a North Korea-type dictatorship and dominated by a personality cult of its leader. In neighboring Uzbekistan, authorities have suppressed dissent, citing worries about a spread of radical Islam, and have been accused by a UN report of torturing opposition activists.
Yesterday Uzbekistan said it would seal the border with Kyrgyzstan, fearing a spillover of unrest. Kazakhstan, with vast mineral resources, is the most prosperous and has seen no major conflicts among ethnic groups, but the president's powers are vast and opposition activity limited. Kyrgyzstan also lies on a heroin smuggling route from Afghanistan, across Central Asia to Russia, and on to Western Europe.
A presidential spokesman, Abdil Segizbayev, said earlier this week that the southern provinces have been fully taken over "by a third party, by criminals linked to the drug mafia, who are striving for power."
Kyrgyzstan Sets June Vote for President
David Holley, LA Times, 3/27/2005
Parliament approved plans for a June presidential election as Kyrgyzstan's new authorities struggled Saturday to solidify the legal basis for their takeover of power from ousted President Askar A. Akayev. Acting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, a former opposition leader, said he expected to run. Up to 3,000 Akayev supporters rallied Saturday in his home region of Chym Korgon, 55 miles from Bishkek, declaring that they would march on the capital.
In Moscow, the Kremlin issued a statement Saturday implying that Akayev was in Russia. "Askar Akayev asked to come to Russia, and this opportunity has been granted to him," the statement said. Akayev, 60, had been president since 1990, when Kyrgyzstan was still part of the Soviet Union. Kyrgyzstan is a poor, mountainous country of 5 million strategically located near Afghanistan, China and key oil- producing nations of the Caspian Sea region. Both the United States and Russia maintain military bases near Bishkek.
Akayev left the country Thursday in the wake of massive protests and the takeover of government buildings by demonstrators angry over alleged electoral fraud. In the elections of late February and mid-March, a more strongly pro-Akayev parliament was chosen, but Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the legitimacy of the disputed elections, thereby transferring power back to the outgoing parliament.
The old parliament approved the June 26 presidential balloting Saturday. But in a reflection of the legal chaos and political infighting that now besets Kyrgyzstan, lawmakers from the old parliament's upper and lower houses and the new unicameral parliament gathered in three different meeting rooms of the parliament building.
Despite fierce political jockeying, their presence in the same building reflected movement toward compromise. The new parliament did not hold a formal session, but its members occupied the main meeting hall. At an afternoon news conference, Bakiyev described the issue of the new parliament's status as "very tricky and complicated." But he implied that once disputes over 14 contested seats in the new parliament were resolved, it might be possible for authority to be shifted to that body. Some former opposition leaders have suggested that a new legislative vote would be held after the June presidential balloting.
Bakiyev said the new authorities aim to build "a democratic country, economically developing, with freedom of speech, human rights and the rule of law." Bakiyev also defended Thursday's chaotic overthrow of Akayev by a few thousand protesters who stormed the main government building. The incident, he said, was not an organized coup but rather the unplanned result of a demonstration that spun out of control after backers of Akayev got into fights with demonstrators.
"I'm not in favor of this way of taking power, but since it's happened, what can we do?" he said. "Nobody expected this event to take place. They had no idea this kind of protest could trigger this. As a result of some cases of fighting, they got in the White House." Bakiyev's news conference was scheduled to be held in the White House, the main government building. But after assembling there, journalists were told it was being moved to the security services headquarters because of an assassination threat against Bakiyev.
Asked about the threat, Bakiyev replied, "The question of my security exists." Bakiyev described the pro-Akayev protesters in Chym Korgon as "provocateurs who do not want to see stability in Bishkek." "Our security agents are working on this," he added. "We will soon deal with the agitators." Felix Kulov, an opposition leader released from prison Thursday and named the country's security chief, appeared on state-run television to thank police, security officers and citizen volunteers whom he credited with restoring order in Bishkek after extensive looting Thursday night and some attempted thefts Friday night. "With your help, the situation changed sharply, and there will be no repeat" of the disorder, he said.
Kulov said during a news conference Saturday that he did not expect the Chym Korgon protesters to come to Bishkek. "They went a few kilometers ... but the other villages did not join them," he said. "They are not moving anymore." The Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported that the pro-Akayev protesters carried posters saying: "No to coup d'etat."
Bakiyev said at his news conference that Kyrgyzstan's close economic and cultural ties with Russia would remain strong. The new authorities will not attempt to extradite or prosecute Akayev, he said. Bakiyev also acknowledged Akayev's role in establishing Kyrgyzstan as an independent nation after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
"He is the first president of the republic, who did very much for the development of our state, for its sovereignty," he said. "I must admit Akayev should be credited for that."
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Liberia
UN warns Liberia at risk of sliding backwards
Agence France Presse, 3/24/2005
The international community must to do more for Liberia to keep the struggling west African state from slipping back into chaos, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned on Wednesday. In a report to the Security Council, Annan said progress had been made with a peace deal and transitional government as Liberia readies for elections in October, but that more international support was needed.
"Liberia faces the risk of repeating the pattern of abuse of power, institutional breakdown and violence that has plagued the country for the past 25 years," he said. He called on donors to provide the 40 million dollars needed for the disarmament and demobilisation of former fighters in Liberia, which is trying to rebuild from years of civil war.
In addition, the restructuring of the Liberian army has fallen behind schedule, due in part to a lack of funds for the severance pay and pensions of existing military personnel, he said. Annan stressed there was a "critical" need for the power-sharing, transitional government of Gyude Bryant to "put an end to corrupt practices and to institute transparent arrangements for the management of public funds."
In December 2004, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to renew sanctions on Liberia that had been in place since the reign of former president Charles Taylor, who fled into exile the previous year. The Bryant government had hoped the council would lift the ban on timber and diamond exports to help boost revenues.
But the council upheld the ban shortly after a UN report found there was "no semblance of budgetary control" by the government. Annan said the government may not be able to take the needed steps and suggested that the Security Council back a proposal in the country's peace accord for international oversight assistance in key ministries.
He also offered UN help in organising a national forum before the planned election in October in order to discuss thorny reform issues including land use and property rights. "While all Liberians appear to agree on the need for such a forum, opinions are divided concerning its timing. Some believe that it could lead to a stalemate on delicate issues and result in (election) postponement," he said.
He urged Liberians to come to agreement on when to hold the forum. Liberia, founded by freed US slaves, is rich in natural resources but remains hobbled by both its long years of war and the corruption that was rampant under Taylor's chaotic rule. Taylor is under indictment by a UN court for alleged war crimes in connection with the brutal civil war in western neighbour Sierra Leone, which he is said to have funded in part from timber and diamond sales.
There is also concern about developments in the country's eastern neighbour, Ivory Coast, which is currently divided into government and rebel-held areas. "There is a grave risk of undesirable cross-border movement of combatants and weapons," Annan said.
Morocco
Moroccan monarch has unusual two-hour meeting with Algerian president
Associated Press, 3/24/2005
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika held a private two-hour meeting Thursday with the king of Morocco, Mohammed VI, officials said. The first lengthy encounter since the Moroccan monarch took the throne in 1999 was seen as a warming of ties between the neighboring North African nations after years of tension.
The unusual meeting followed the close Wednesday of a two-day Arab summit in Algiers. Details of the talks were not made public. The meeting was seen by some as a step toward calming long-standing tensions. Algeria and Morocco have been at odds for decades over the Western Sahara territory that Morocco annexed in 1975 and claims as its own. Polisario Front rebels, based in southern Algeria, have named it as an independent state.
The United Nations has worked for years to resolve the Western Sahara dispute, which has poisoned relations among neighboring countries and hindered the emergence of a political and economic space across North Africa.
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Nepal Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group
'Mini-Marshall Plan' still to be implemented – MNLF
BusinessWorld, 3/21/2005
DAVAO CITY - The government should deliver on a promised "mini-Marshall plan" for Moro areas affected by the war in Mindanao waged by the Marcos government in the '70s and '80s, leaders of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) said over the weekend. On Saturday, the MNLF observed "Bangsamoro Freedom Day" in Cotabato City, which was highlighted by the passage of Resolution 9 asking the Philippine government to fully comply with the 1976 Tripoli Agreement and the 1996 Final Peace Agreement.
In a related development, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, during a visit to western Mindanao last Friday, vowed to look into the 1996 peace agreement. She said her administration would implement promises unfulfilled by the government. The MNLF said that eight years after the signing of the peace agreement, the government has failed to implement its provisions.
"Adding injury to it, the government unilaterally passed into law Republic Act 9054 which jeopardized the essence of the Peace Accord into uselessness," the resolution states. RA 9054, dated February 2001, strengthens and expands the Organic Act for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. It was opposed, however, by MNLF leaders including its former chairman Nur Misuari.
That law, the MNLF resolution said, is "unacceptable... because various provisions provided therein omitted, weakened and manipulated important provisions of the peace accord." Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, acting as MNLF secretary-general, said the government and the Organization of Islamic Conference should convene a tripartite body to thresh out the issue.
Islamic leader in Somalia threatens holy war against peacekeepers
Osman Hassan, Associated Press, 3/25/2005
An Islamic leader on a U.S. terrorist list threatened holy war if the African Union sends peacekeepers to Somalia in an attempt to install a government currently in exile in neighboring Kenya. Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, a former Somali army colonel suspected of having ties with the al-Qaida terror group, told reporters Friday that allowing foreign troops into Somalia was contrary to Islamic teachings. He said it would be the religious duty of all Somalis to fight any peacekeeping force.
Clan fighters might find God's forgiveness for helping plunge Somalia into chaos if they cleansed "themselves with the blood of the foreign invaders," Aweys said. Somalia's new government, which so far has been unable to establish itself in the Horn of Africa country because of security concerns, has asked the African Union to send a peacekeeping force to secure the capital, Mogadishu.
Regional leader have pledged to send 6,800 troops to back up the new government, which is made up of warlords and clan leaders. But Islamic fundamentalists, who make up a very small percentage of Somalia society, refused to participate in the peace process. The interim Somali parliament, during a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, dissolved into a brawl on March 17 over whether neighboring countries would be allowed to contribute troops to a peacekeeping force. The interim president is a close ally of Ethiopia and has suggested Ethiopian troops might be used to help secure Somalia, despite objections from most of the lawmakers.
The new, internationally backed government would be the first in Somalia since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Since then, the warlords have divided the country into warring fiefdoms. The normally reclusive Aweys said at a news conference in Mogadishu that he did not reject the new government, led by his longtime rival President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, but said if it was truly legitimate, it would not need foreign troops' protection.
"Somalia needs a government, an administration for the restoration of the rule of law," he said. "But that does not mean Somalia needs foreigners to restore them their dignity." Aweys led Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, a Somali group that the United States says has ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror group. Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya and Aweys are on a list of terror groups and suspected terrorists that are under U.S. and U.N. sanctions.
Aweys has denied having any ties to al-Qaida or being involved in terrorism. While many Somalis, including Aweys, insist al-Itihaad no longer exists after Ethiopian troops attacked the group in 1993, a U.N. investigative team reported on March 14 that Aweys was still leading the group and that he had established 17 training camps to prepare militiamen to fight the new government and the AU peacekeepers.
Aweys spoke cryptically about his own militia and the Islamic courts he has established to bring order to the central Galgudud region, north of Mogadishu. "We can disarm our militias, if we're serious, it wouldn't take us six months to pacify the Somali capital for the new government to work peacefully," he said. "While in the central region, I discovered that the Somalis really need a real leadership whom they can trust with their destiny."
Clan fighting broke out in the western Baikol region late Thursday and left at least 20 people dead, witnesses reached by two-way radio said. "Most of the dead were combatants from both sides, though several civilians were killed," Sheik Omar Gaab said. The fighting appeared to be related to a months-long dispute over grazing land and water wells, he said.
Sri Lanka peace talks on 'backburner'
Agence France Presse3/25/2005
Sri Lanka's foreign minister ruled out an early resumption of peace talks to end a three-decade conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels but said a deal on disbursing tsunami relief was possible. "A formal resumption of the peace process is very much on the backburner," Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar told a meeting of the Foreign Correspondents' Association of Sri Lanka here late Thursday.
Kadirgamar however said the government could sign a deal brokered by Norway with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to provide a formula for distributing tsunami relief as long as it was not seen giving the rebels de facto recognition as a government. The remarks came as President Chandrika Kumaratunga's administration faced pressure from its Marxist coalition partner, the JVP or People's Liberation Front, which is opposed to any involvement of rebels in relief operations that could give them political recognition.
The Marxists initially warned they would pull out of the government if the rebels were given any official role in tsunami relief operations. "What the JVP will do when it (the joint mechanism,) is signed and sealed, I do not know," Kadirgamar said. "Indications are that that they will voice opposition. If that opposition remains the same after they have seen the fine print, we do not know."
Peace talks have been stalled since April 2003. In April 2004, Kumaratunga won a general election with the support of the Marxists who oppose any moves to divide the country along religious or ethnic lines. The previous government had broadly agreed to establish a federal state in Sri Lanka to resolve a long-running separatist conflict which claimed more than 60,000 lives between 1972 and 2002.
Despite the suspension of face-to-face discussions, the two parties are abiding by a ceasefire arranged by Norway and in place from February 23, 2002. The foreign minister said Colombo's main objective now was to enter into a "joint mechanism" with the Tigers to distribute foreign aid for tsunami victims in the island's northeast, much of which was held by the rebels.
"I am told that process (of a joint mechanism) is moving. It is not standing still. It is not going backwards," Kadirgamar said. Nearly 31,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka by the December 26 tsunamis and two thirds of the victims were in the troubled northern and eastern regions, parts of which are held by the Tigers.
The guerrillas earlier this month said they agreed to the joint mechanism proposed by Norway, but there has been no formal announcement from Colombo on the exact contents of the proposed deal. The Tigers had seen the joint tsunami relief mechanism as a spring board for setting up an interim political administration.
Norway had expected a deal on tsunami aid to be concluded late February or early March, but the two sides had failed to agree on the wording of an agreement, diplomatic sources said. Former air force chief Harry Gunatillake said the government was trying to put off resuming peace talks in a bid to placate the JVP. "By saying there won't be early peace talks, the government is trying to appease the JVP," Gunatillake said. "What the government will do is start a joint mechanism on tsunami aid and then from there move towards peace talks."
An agreement on distributing tsunami aid is needed because international donors and several governments do not want to give aid directly to the Tigers who are designated a terrorist organisation by countries such as the United States, Britain, India.
Sri Lanka close to sealing tsunami relief deal with Tamil rebels, says foreign minister
Associated Press, 3/25/2005
Sri Lanka's foreign minister believes a deal with Tamil Tiger rebels to coordinate tsunami relief in guerrilla-held territory could be signed soon, despite opposition to the plan. "There seems to be a fair prospect that there will be an agreement. What I am being told is that there is movement," Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar told the Foreign Correspondents' Association.
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam rebels have repeatedly demanded that they be given access to some of the foreign aid that poured into Sri Lanka after the Dec. 26 tsunami killed more than 31,000 people there. However, Marxist People's Liberation Front, a key partner of President Chandrika Kumaratunga's government has opposed the rebels being given any part in the rebuilding efforts claiming the move could give international legitimacy to the rebels.
"Whether the (Marxists') opposition would still remain the same once they've seen in fine print I don't know," Kadirgamar said late Thursday. The Marxists' support is crucial for the government to maintain a majority in the country's 225-member Parliament. Tamil Tigers are currently observing a three-year-old cease-fire brokered by Norway, which halted two decades of civil war that killed 65,000 people.
The rebels fought the government since 1983 to carve out a separate state for ethnic minority Tamils accusing the Sinhalese-dominated government of discrimination. For weeks after the tsunami, both sides bickered over who should handle relief work in the rebel areas but later agreed to a Norwegian proposal to form a joint mechanism for the job.
Fresh fighting in Sri Lanka as Norway tries to move aid deal
Agence France Presse 3/21/2005
Two Tamil Tigers were killed in a clash between rebel factions in eastern Sri Lanka Monday as peace broker Norway scrambled to arrange a confidence-building tsunami aid deal, officials said. Sri Lankan military officials said the main Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) mounted an attack on a breakaway faction in the east of the island early Monday.
"At least two people from the main LTTE group were killed and about three injured from the other side," government military spokesman Daya Ratnayake said. Diplomatic sources said the internecine clashes between the Tigers and a breakaway faction led by V. Muralitharan, better known as Karuna, cast a shadow over Norway's peace efforts.
Karuna, the de facto number two in the LTTE, led a split in the Tigers in March last year and since then the main rebel outfit has been trying to retake control over the east where the renegades are active. The LTTE has accused the security forces of colluding with the breakaway group, an allegation rejected by the government.
Scandinavian truce monitors have said the violence was a "direct threat" to the ceasefire in place since February 23, 2002. The fresh fighting came as the island's peace broker Norway tried to finalise a joint mechanism between Colombo and the main Tiger outfit to handle tsunami aid. The LTTE last week accepted the Norwegian draft on setting up a joint mechanism to handle millions of dollars in tsunami relief. The government has not yet formally responded to the LTTE acceptance.
But a state-run weekly newspaper, the Observer, reported Sunday that the government had sent a response to Norway about the draft proposal and said that while it accepted some of it, "differences" remained. Nearly 31,000 people were killed and a million left homeless on the island in the tsunamis. Two thirds of the victims were in the embattled northern and eastern regions, much of which is held by the Tigers.
The island's ethnic conflict claimed more than 60,000 lives between 1972 and 2002 when the truce went into effect.
Sri Lanka Negotiatio