Peace Negotiations Watch
Monday, June 13, 2005
(Volume IV, Number 21)
Contents:
Armenia/Azerbaijan
Trial for Armenian man accused of spying
for neighboring Azerbaijan continues
Man supposedly paid by Azerbaijan to
report on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Burundi/Rwanda
Burundi
re-votes after overnight rebel attacks cause delay
Voting halted
and later restarted near Bujumbura because of violence.
New political force in Burundi clinches
local polls
Former Hutu
rebel group emerges strong in elections.
Chechnya
Officials in Dagestan deny forces from
other Russian regions sent to keep order
Tensions exist along the border between
Dagestan and Chechnya.
Congo
War often fuels hunger in Africa; aid only
part of the solution
Industrialized nations are
restructuring their aid to Africa.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the DR
Congo Negotiation Simulation.
Georgia/Abkhazia
Belarus imposes visa requirements for
Georgians as bilateral relations worsen
Lukashenko possibly concerned that Rose
Revolution will be exported to his country.
Indonesia
Indonesian army says it killed more than
3,300 rebels in Aceh in two years
Indonesian
security official calls Acehnese call for political representation
unacceptable.
Rebel fury deals new blow to peace hopes
in Indonesia's Aceh province
Jakarta being
firm in not allowing Acehnese rebel political representation.
Aceh
Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the Aceh
Negotiation Simulation.
Ivory
Coast
Ivory Coast president says UN treats
African states like 'colonies'
Gbagbo says Ivorian relations with
France are bad.
Ivory Coast opposition says it may
boycott election
Political ally of Gbagbo in charge of
drafting ballot for election.
Kashmir
Pakistan's Musharraf meets separatist
leaders from Indian Kashmir
Media report
that Musharraf is set on achieving an agreement over Kashmir.
Separatist leader says U.N. has failed
to resolve Pakistan-India dispute over Kashmir
Leader
complains that UN has not fully implemented past resolutions.
Kashmir
Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the Kashmir
Negotiation Simulation
Kosovo
U.S. Undersecretary of State urges
compromise for Kosovo's future
Kai Eide appointed by Kofi Annan to oversee evaluation
of Kosovo standards implementation.
Kosovo's U.N. administrator meets Serbian
officials
Belgrade not happy with democratic standards in
Kosovo.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kosovo
Negotiation Simulation.
Macedonia
Leaders of Serbia, Macedonia seek to
bypass church dispute
Serbian Orthodox Church recognizes
Archbishopric of Ohrid, angering Macedonian church.
Moldova
Moldova asks
for E.U. observers in disputed Trans-Dniestr province
Plan would
limit smuggling between Transnistrian and Ukrainian businessmen.
Moldova
calls for Russia to pull troops out of Trans-Dniestr
Russia
maintains 1,500 troops in renegade Moldovan region.
Morocco
Spanish politicians turned away from
Western Sahara by Morocco
Politicians thought to be sympathizers
with Western Sahara and the Polisario Front.
Nepal
New Delhi concerned by large numbers of
Nepalese entering India
Nepalese
are fleeing Maoist insurgency.
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Nepal
Negotiation Simulation.
Philippines
Official says top Jemaah Islamiyah
bombers monitored in the Philippines
Terrorists believed responsible for Bali
bombings are planning attacks in southern Philippines.
Serbia &
Montenegro
U.S. official: Mladic's days as war
crimes fugitive may be numbered
American aid released to Serbia
& Montenegro to recognize that some war criminals have been turned over to
The Hague.
Where is Ratko Mladic? In search of top Bosnian Serb war crimes
fugitive
Mladic still loose nearly ten years
after Srebrenica massacre.
Somalia
Somali warlords start pulling down
checkpoints in Mogadishu
Checkpoints pulled down as part of plan
to pacify Somali capital.
Sri Lanka
European
peace monitors meet Sri Lankan government amid soaring tensions with Tamil
rebels
Sri Lankan government refuses to
provide air support for Tamil rebels.
Monks,
high priests warn Sri Lanka president against making aid deal with Tamil rebels
Buddhist monks claim tsunami aid
will help Tamil Tigers to secede from Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Sri
Lanka Negotiation Simulation
Sudan
Darfur's
rebels prepare for talks with government, call for more peacekeepers
Rebel groups
are criticized by African Union and UN for breaking truce.
Sudan government and Darfur rebel groups
resume peace talks
Talks resumed
in Abuja, Nigeria.
Armenia/Azerbaijan
Trial for Armenian man accused of spying
for neighboring Azerbaijan continues
Associated Press, 6/10/05
The
trial of an Armenian man accused of spying for Azerbaijan entered its second
day Friday, with witnesses describing how he took photographs of important
buildings in Yerevan. Prosecutors say
Andrei Maziyev, 44, allegedly took photographs of Yerevan's airport, foreign
embassies and hotels in Armenia and reported on the political and economic
situation in the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan allegedly
paid him US$2,500 (€2,060), prosecutors said.
Maziyev,
who was arrested in January, pleaded guilty to espionage on Thursday. He could
get up to life in prison. Under Armenian
law, trials can continue following a guilty plea. Azerbaijan has made no comment on the trial. Relations between the two former Soviet
republics are tense, due to the unresolved conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, an
enclave located within Azerbaijan's borders that saw a six-year war in which
ethnic Armenian troops drove Azerbaijan forces out.
Despite
a 1994 cease-fire, a political solution remains elusive and fighting breaks out
sporadically in the no man's land around the enclave. More than 1 million
people were left homeless and 30,000 killed as a result of the war. Last fall, a Yerevan court sentenced four
Armenians to prison sentences ranging from six to 14 years after convicting
them of espionage.
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Burundi
re-votes after overnight rebel attacks cause delay
Agence France
Presse,
6/7/05
Local election voting in six violence-hit districts
of Burundi, which is attempting to emerge from 12 years of civil war, was
successfully completed Tuesday after delays forced by overnight attacks blamed
on the country's lone remaining rebel group.
Under tight security, 133 stations opened between 90 minutes and five
hours behind schedule in Bujumbura Rural and Buganza provinces outside the
capital, where voting in Friday's election was halted due to violence,
officials said.
The delays were caused largely by attacks in and
around Bujumbura blamed on the rebel National Liberation Forces (FNL) which
included the shelling of several neighborhoods and attacks on government
positions on the outskirts of the capital, the army said. Army spokesman Adolphe Manirakiza said a
child had been wounded when the FNL lobbed about a dozen shells into the
capital but no one was believed to have been killed in the attacks which
appeared aimed at scaring voters away from the polling stations.
"We think that they are shootings of
intimidation to prevent the population from going to vote," he told AFP. By midday, the situation was calm in all but
one of the six districts where re-votes had been scheduled, Manirakiza said. In that district, Mpanda, about 12 kilometers
(7.5 miles) north of Bujumbura several thousand people had fled morning gunfire
in the area which witnesses said followed death threats against voters by the
FNL. Burundian police, military and UN
peacekeepers were deployed throughout the six districts in a bid to stabilize
the situation, officials said.
Bujumbura Rural is the stronghold of the FNL, which
signed a tentative truce with the government last month and had pledged not to
disrupt the election, but said it would retaliate if attacked. "Overall, the vote went very well
despite several incidents at the beginning," said UN Burundi electoral
mission spokesman Ahmadou Seck. The
participation rate was between 35 to 55 percent depending on the localities, he
said.
"The international community must know that
things have gone well in Burundi (...) the page of the local elections has been
turned, now it's the legislative elections which are the target," said
Seck. Inn adjacent Bubanza province and
in the capital on Friday one person was killed by a grenade blast and 17
others, including a UN peacekeeper, were wounded during the voting. The perpetrators of those attacks have yet to
be identified. Friday's elections were
the first for elected office in Burundi since ethnic conflict that has claimed
some 300,000 lives engulfed the tiny central African nation in 1993.
Partial results from the elections, the first in a
complex series of polls aimed at finally ending 12 years of war, show the main
ex-rebel Hutu group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), winning
control of most local councils.
Its chief rival, transitional President Domitien
Ndayizeye's Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU), another Hutu group,
complained Monday that the polls had not been free or fair and called for the
results to be annulled. The national
electoral commission is expected to announced final results of the local
elections on Wednesday or Thursday. The
FDD's majority in more than half of Burundi's municipal councils will give it
an advantage in the planned August election of a new president by national
legislators.
Local councillors will next month elect members of
the upper house of parliament, who along with lower house deputies chosen in
polls on July 4, will choose the next president on August 19. Burundi's war was
driven by long-standing rifts between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority,
who had monopolized the army and other centres of power since independence from
Belgium in 1962 but who are expected to be marginalized under the new political
system.
New political force in Burundi clinches
local polls
Esdras
Ndikumana, Agence France Presse,
6/10/05
Burundi's
former main Hutu rebel group savoured Friday a sweeping victory in
ground-breaking local elections which point the way to similar success in
parliamentary and presidential votes to come.
The Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) have emerged as the
country's new political power after results announced late Thursday from the
June 3 key local elections gave it an overwhelming majority. The polls were the first of a series of
democratic exercises to bring the tiny central African nation firmly out of the
chaos into which it plunged more than a decade ago when majority Hutu rebels
challenged the Tutsi minority's grip on power.
"On
the national level the CNDD-FDD is leading with 1,781 seats of the 3,225 which
were vacant," said Paul Ngarambe, chief of the National Independent
Electoral Commission (CENI), referring to the FDD's political wing. "It is trailed by the Front for Democracy
in Burundi (FRODEBU) -- another Hutu group -- with 820 seats and UPRONA with
259 seats," he said, referring to the Tutsi Union for National Progress. The result was a huge setback for President
Domitien Ndayizeye's FRODEBU, hitherto the main Hutu party.
"It
is undeniable, the CNDD-FDD has taken the place of FRODEBU, Burundi's main
party, which has been annihilated," a Burundi-based diplomat told AFP on
condition of anonymity. FRODEBU won the
last elections to be held in Burundi, in 1993, before the assassination of Hutu
Melchior Ndadaye, the country's first democratically elected president, tipped
the country over the edge. "To have
an idea of FRODEBU's flop, you only need to look at the returns from the party
stalwarts' home turfs," said the diplomat.
FRODEBU
won just nine percent of the vote in Ndayizeye's municipality against more than
65 percent for the CNDD-FDD. In
Gishimbi, stronghold of another former Hutu president and member of FRODEBU,
Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, CNDD secured a 91 percent majority. "The ex-rebels have made a big step
toward clinching power through the ballot because they are assured of a
majority in the Senate," said a Burundi analyst. According to the provisional results, the
former rebels won 14 of the country's 17 provinces and with an absolute
majority in 11 provinces.
Winners
of the local elections will form a council will elect a senate on July 19 along
with representatives of the lower house to be chosen in general elections on
July 4. Both houses will combine to
select the country's next president on August 19. "The game is virtually over, the
CNDD-FDD should win the July 4 legislative elections with an even wider majority
to pave the way for winning the presidency," said Willy Nindorera, another
Burundi analyst.
All
of Burundi's former rebels groups participated in the elections with the
exception of the National Liberation Forces (FNL), which has continued to carry
out armed raids on the outskirts of the capital Bujumbura despite having agreed
a truce with the government. The FDD
joined the Ndayizeye government after signing a peace deal in November 2003
with the aim of conscripting Hutus into the army. "The FDD won mainly because they are
both a political and a military force among the Hutus," said one Burundi
watcher.
It
is "the only party that can earn the community's, the parties' and the
former Tutsi army's respect," he said.
"There are other factors such as the will for a change, pressure
from former rebels on the people, but these are minor," he added. The minority Tutsis, who only account for 14
percent of the population, have dominated the country's politics since it
gained independence from Belgium in 1992, but are now being obliged to accept a
certain sidelining.
Many
political observers contend that the main challenge lies in the post-election
era. "The ex-rebels are set to take
power for the next five years, but what will they do with it?" one said. "The future of Burundi, 'lasting peace
or a new war' will depend on the answer to this question."
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Officials in Dagestan deny forces from
other Russian regions sent to keep order
Arsen
Mollayev, Associated Press, 6/9/05
Officials
in Dagestan on Thursday denied reports that police troops from other Russian
provinces had been dispatched to help keep order in the province after the
reported detention of several Dagestanis in neighboring Chechnya.
Interior
Ministry and security officials said that no additional troops had been sent to
Dagestan and that police in the region were not on special alert. Reports of a
beefed-up police presence in the restive region surfaced after 11 Dagestanis
were reportedly detained, and one person killed, in a raid by Moscow-backed
Chechen security forces on a village near Chechnya's border with Dagestan.
The
reports also followed the latest attacks in a wave of violence, mostly
targeting law enforcement and other government officials, that has frightened
residents of the region in southern Russia. A regional politician was shot and
wounded Tuesday night and a court bailiff was killed early Wednesday.
Persistent
tension between Dagestan and Chechnya rose after Russian media reported a raid
by Chechen security forces Monday on Borodzinskaya, a village about 6
kilometers (3.7 miles) from the border with Dagestan. The Web site gazeta.ru
reported that 11 people were detained in the raid, all from Dagestan, and that
a man's body was found in one of four houses that were burned. Russian news agencies reported that the
villagers were detained on suspicion of collaborating with separatist rebels
who have been fighting Russian and Moscow-backed Chechen forces for more than
five years, in the second war in Chechnya in a decade.
On
Thursday, the Interfax news agency quoted the chief of police in the district
that includes Borodzinskaya as saying that some villagers had acted as
middlemen in operations to bring militants money from outside Russia. Police
chief Shamil Magomedov asserted that couriers bring money to the village under
the pretense that they are visiting Dagestani relatives there, Interfax
reported.
Magomedov
said that "during search and combat operations in Chechnya, there can be
no separate standards for Dagestanis, Chechens and Russians." However, he
said the raid had not been carried out by police. According to gazeta.ru, the raid was carried
out by a unit that is under Russian military control and led by Sulim
Yamadayev, an ally of Chechnya's powerful and widely feared First Deputy Prime
Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, who is in charge of security in the region.
Rights
groups have accused Kadyrov's forces of abductions and other human rights
abuses. Civilians in Dagestan have accused his forces of detaining Dagestanis
in cross-border raids, and Kadyrov has claimed that many militants fighting in
Chechnya have entered the region from Dagestan.
In
Chechnya on Thursday, the regional Interior Ministry said that a Russian
conscript soldier in the capital Grozny fired several shots from his pistol for
no apparent reason late Tuesday, wounding a civilian man. The soldier was
detained.
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War often fuels hunger in Africa; aid only
part of the solution
Bryan Mealer, Associated
Press, 6/10/05
In places like Congo, war and hunger are linked in a
cycle of horror and desperation. In
Congo's capital, legions of ragged street children swarm open car windows,
rubbing their bellies, moaning, "Boss, boss, 100 francs." The
fighting is far away to the east, but it and decades of corruption and neglect
by former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko left the economy in shambles and killed off
most decent jobs.
"I eat once a day," said Selemani Pataule,
45, a civil servant with three kids. "I can't buy one kilogram of fish
from our own river because it's too expensive. If I do this, then in one day my
whole month's salary will be gone." Money and aid - like the US$674 million the
United States pledged to fight hunger in Africa this week - are quick fixes.
For long term solutions, the continent needs peace, development and leadership. Matt Phillips, head of public affairs for the
British aid group Save the Children, notes the comprehensive approach taken by
drafters of a blueprint for turning around Africa's miseries that British Prime
Minister Tony Blair hopes to make the focus of the Group of Eight summit he
will host next month.
The blueprint calls on the Group of Eight and other
rich countries to double aid to Africa, but also to erase trade barriers so
that Africans can develop by doing business with the West, and to fund African
peacekeeping efforts in places like Sudan. The blueprint also calls on African
governments to address the seeds of conflict, including lack of democracy. "We've got concerns that the emphasis on
the money is letting the governments get away with not dealing with" other
important issues, Phillips said.
In Congo - a massive country with over 50 million
people - nearly a decade of war and scattered violence has left nearly 4
million dead, with an additional 2.4 million people displaced and at risk of
starvation and disease, according the United Nations. In Sudan, the Darfur conflict has left at
least 180,000 people dead, many through disease and hunger, and has displaced
more than 2 million people, according to U.N. estimates. Massacres or attacks by militia occur almost
weekly with devastating effect in Congo, sending thousands fleeing into the
forest, where they fall prey to hunger, starvation, or marauding militia.
Some flee to eastern cities like Bukavu, where they
fare little better. Father Jules Okito,
a priest in Bukavu, said women afraid of being raped by militia in their
villages come to Bukavu only to be forced into prostitution because there is no
food or jobs. In the city, he said, they contract AIDS and die. "The war has driven people into Bukavu
where there is no food, and many become weak. If they have nothing, the weak
ones prefer to die in the arms of a priest," said Okito, who says 50-80
people a day come to his church looking for food and shelter.
The rich, fertile soil of eastern Congo could easily
feed much of the continent, experts say. But violence in just the past year in
Ituri and North and South Kivu provinces has forced tens of thousands of
farmers to flee into the region's dense forests, or to sprawling displaced
camps where disease is rife. Fields of
cassava, maize and beans - staple foods in impoverished Congo - turn fallow, or
simply go unplanted. And insecurity on trade routes severs commerce, sending
food prices to unreachable levels for most residents.
"Where you have farmers is usually where you
also have war," said Loms Lombelelo, a doctor working with U.S.-based aid
group Action Against Hunger, in Bukavu. The
verdant lakeside town was a flash point in Congo's 1998-2002 war, and was
attacked again in June 2004 by renegade government troops, which sent nearly
100,000 fleeing from outlying farming villages as the troops pillaged on their
retreat.
On May 31, an afternoon massacre by militia killed
19 people in nearby Nindja territory, forcing another 6,400 people to escape
into the forest. Bukavu is now facing a
food shortage, said Lombelelo, and food prices are too high for many here,
since most jobs disappeared during the war.
War and conflict also force aid agencies into a costly cycle of
emergency relief, when funding could be more effectively spent on getting
people back on their feet, said Rachel Scott-Leflaive, spokeswoman for Congo's
U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
"Seeds, farm tools and supplies would end the
cycle of hunger," said Scott-Leflaive. "But unfortunately, money for
these things keeps getting channeled into emergency response." According to the U.N. World Food Program,
food relief for Congo has increased by eight fold since 1999, one year after
the war began. In 2004, the relief group
distributed 82,000 metric tons of emergency maize, beans, salt and cooking oil
to people affected by fighting, compared to 10,000 metric tons in 1999.
The increase, said WFP's Congo spokeswoman Pam Samu,
is a result of staffing more offices across the country, which cost the
organization a whopping $70 million last year, most it directed at hard-hit
areas in the east.
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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Belarus imposes visa requirements for
Georgians as bilateral relations worsen
Yuras
Karmanau, Associated Press, 6/9/05
Belarus
imposed visa requirements for Georgians on Thursday, as relations between the
two former Soviet republics continued to worsen. A statement from President Alexander
Lukashenko's press office said the decision was taken due to a sharp increase
in "Georgian criminal elements" who were using Belarus "as a
channel to infiltrate Russia." There
was no immediate reaction from Georgia, which has no diplomatic representation
in Belarus.
Opposition
leader Anatoly Lebedko said Lukashenko's authoritarian government feared
democratic activists were trying to spur a popular uprising similar to
Georgia's 2003 Rose Revolution, which brought Western-leading Mikhail
Saakashvili to the presidency.
"Lukashenko
thinks that the revolution is being exported to Belarus in suitcases,"
said Lebedko, who traveled to Georgia in May to meet with government officials
there. "He wishes to control the movements of the leaders and activists of
the Georgian revolution."
Saakashvili
has openly called for change in Belarus, telling a Council of Europe summit in
May: "The world can do much, much more and Europe can do much, much more
... to aid the Belarusian people in their quest for freedom."
Lukashenko
has ruled Belarus for more than a decade with an iron fist, quashing dissent,
intimidating opposition parties and closing down independent media outlets. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union,
many of the newly independent countries kept visa-free regimes. In recent
years, however, states have begun imposing visa requirements as they reassert
their sovereignty, stem illegal immigration and fight crime.
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Indonesian army says it killed more than
3,300 rebels in Aceh in two years
Agence France Presse, 6/8/05
Indonesia's
military on Wednesday said it had killed more than 3,300 separatist rebels in
tsunami-hit Aceh province since it launched a major campaign to crush a
long-running insurgency in May 2003. Announcing
the figures, armed forces chief General Endriartono Sutarto also rejected rebel
demands for a ceasefire, saying offensives would continue against the
insurgents despite ongoing peace talks. Sutarto
said 3,378 members of the Free Aceh Movement, also known as GAM, had been
killed and more than 5,800 arrested, with 2,340 weapons seized. Some 213
government soldiers had been killed and 514 wounded.
The
military's roll-call of dead and Sutarto's rejection of a ceasefire will do
little to inspire hope that ongoing negotiations in Finland between the
Indonesian government and rebel leaders will result in a peace deal. The talks, set to resume in July, were dealt
another blow late Tuesday when Indonesia's top security minister, Widodo
Adisucipto, said a key demand by the rebels for political representation was
unacceptable. Indonesia launched a major
offensive to crush GAM's three-decade independence struggle in May 2003
following the collapse of peace talks.
Aceh
was under martial law for a year, followed by a 12-month state of civil
emergency. At the start of the campaign
the military put the number of GAM rebels at up to 6,000, a figure that rose to
as many as 10,000 equipped with about 3,500 firearms during martial law,
Sutarto told a press conference. "Today
their strength is estimated to be between 1,200 and 1,500 people, with 500
firearms," he said. Ruling out a
ceasefire, Sutarto reiterated earlier demands for the rebels to abandon their
struggle. "If GAM indeed has an
intention not to continue its activity to separate Aceh, they should surrender
their weapons," he said. "In the past they have always used
ceasefires to consolidate themselves."
The
rebels have been pushing for the government to reciprocate a ceasefire offer at
the current peace talks, which were revived following last year's tsunami
disaster, which left 128,000 people dead in Aceh. Jakarta officials and exiled rebel leaders
ended the latest round of talks in Helsinki last week and agreed to meet again
in July. Pouring further cold water on
the peace talks, Sutarto said the dialogue was only "one of many
means" that could be used by the government to "permanently
solve" the Aceh problems. GAM has
waged a guerilla war since 1976, accusing Jakarta of exploiting the
impoverished province's rich resources. More than 12,000 people, mostly
civilians, have been killed since then.
Rebel fury deals new blow to peace hopes
in Indonesia's Aceh province
Barry
Neild, Agence France Presse, 6/9/05
Hopes
that talks between Indonesian leaders and separatists from tsunami-hit Aceh
would end a long-running war were evaporating Thursday as rebels reacted with
anger at Jakarta's refusal to compromise.
Indonesia's senior security minister, Widodo Adisucipto, earlier this
week said Jakarta would not bow to rebel demands for political representation,
even though these were crucial to peace talks currently underway in Finland.
Adisucipto's
comments were followed by a rejection by the Indonesian military of rebel calls
for a post-tsunami ceasefire in Aceh, where more than 14,000 people have been
killed in three decades of struggle. In
a statement issued Thursday, Muzakkir Manaf, the military commander of the Free
Aceh Movement -- also known as GAM -- launched a scathing attack on the
government of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, accusing it of bad faith.
"It
becomes terribly clear that Jakarta has no intention of taking the slightest
step forward," the statement said. "By
rejecting reasonable political measures to help solve the conflict, the
Indonesian government has shown -- despite the tsunami and Yudhoyono's
political posturing -- that it has changed not one bit." Indonesia heightened military operations to
crush the rebels in May 2003 following a breakdown in peace talks. After last
year's tsunami killed 128,000 people in Aceh, both sides agreed to return to
the negotiating table.
Four
rounds of peace talks in Helsinki, mediated by the Crisis Management Initiative
of Finnish former president Martti Ahtisaari, have appeared to make progress,
buoying optimism that a fifth dialogue in July will yield results. The rebels have agreed to drop demands for
independence or even a plebiscite on sovereignty in favour of a government
offer of limited autonomy, provided they were given a political voice in future
elections.
On
Tuesday, Adisucipto rejected the condition point-blank. "There are rules
and regulations that will not allow for those demands to be accommodated,"
he said after an eight-hour cabinet meeting with Yudhoyono. A day later, Indonesia's armed forces chief
General Endriartono Sutarto also scoffed at rebel demands for a ceasefire as he
unveiled the latest statistics of guerrilla fatalities to back military claims
of crushing the insurgents.
"If
GAM indeed has an intention not to continue its activity to separate Aceh, they
should surrender their weapons," he said. "In the past they have
always used ceasefires to consolidate themselves." Pouring further cold water on the peace
talks, Sutarto said the Finland dialogue was only "one of many means"
that could be used by the government to "permanently solve" the Aceh
problems.
In
his statement, Manaf said the rebels were now resigned to Jakarta's
intransigence and the likelihood that the struggle for control of the resource
rich province that began in 1976 would continue unabated.
"The
announcement by Indonesia's chief security minister Widodo that Jakarta will
not allow Aceh to have its own local political parties and hold new local
elections confirms an old saying: The more things change, the more they stay
the same," he said. "That
painful wisdom continues to fit a half-century of Jakarta's deceitful
mistreatment of Aceh."
Aceh
Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the Aceh
Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law &
Policy Group.
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Ivory Coast president says UN treats
African states like 'colonies'
Pedro
Makuto Nkondo, Agence France Presse,
6/7/05
Ivory
Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has accused the United Nations of treating
African nations like "colonies", by systematically siding with their
former colonial rulers in decisions about the continent. "The UN continues to treat us as though
we were still colonies," he said. "As far as Ivory Coast goes, the
Security Council systematically turns to France," Gbagbo told Angolan
state media late Monday, during a two-day state visit to the southern African
state.
"Nowadays
they are speaking of the reform of the Security Council. This does not interest
me. I would like reforms in the heart of the UN," he said, arguing that
the world body was founded in 1945, at a time when most African nations were
still under the colonial yoke. Gbagbo
thanked his Angolan counterpart Jose Eduardo Dos Santos for his support during
the west African country's civil war. "Angola
did the necessary when we were attacked from all sides," he said on state
television. "Within the Security Council, Angola strongly defended
us."
"Angola
extended lots of support to Ivory Coast, things I cannot speak of here,"
he said. "It's time for me to say thank you very much to President Dos
Santos, thanks very much to his government and to the people of Angola." Gbagbo, who has long enjoyed warm ties with
Dos Santos, said he hoped "that Angola will continue to be on our side
until the end of the peace process in Ivory Coast."
Dos
Santos meanwhile hailed the "progress on the political and military fronts
in Ivory Coast," adding that Angola, which emerged from a 27-year civil
war in 2002, supported "crisis resolution through dialogue and
negotiation." Ivory Coast, the
world's top cocoa producer, has been effectively split in two since a rebel
uprising was launched in September 2002 against Gbagbo. In the aftermath of the rebellion, Gbagbo
reportedly accessed arms and mercenaries from Angola to fight the rebels -- a
charge that his government and Luanda have assiduously denied.
The
Ivorian leader said relations with former colonial ruler France were at a low. "Relations with France are bad. But I
don't want to speak of this when I am abroad... I have done all I could to
improve ties. Tensions with France rose
last November when Ivorian government planes violated a ceasefire with strikes
on rebel-held towns, sparking a wave of violence that culminated in anti-French
riots in the main city of Abidjan.
The
15-member UN Security Council on Friday approved an elections monitoring team
for Ivory Coast to ensure that the vote in the west African country is free and
fair. The unanimous decision asks UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan to select a high representative for the elections,
after consultations with the African Union and its mediator in the Ivorian
crisis, South African President Thabo Mbeki.
The resolution says any efforts to interfere with the elections will be
seen as hampering implementation of an April 6 peace accord signed in Pretoria. Under the Pretoria peace pact, Gbagbo agreed
to let his main rival Alassane Ouattara contest this year's presidential
elections -- a key sticking point in the peace process.
The
UN also decided to extend the mandate of the UN peacekeeping operation in Ivory
Coast (UNOCI), and of the French forces that support it, until June 24, with
the possibility of renewing it for an additional seven months. Ethnic tensions in Ivory Coast flared up last
week, claiming more than 70 lives in the west of the country. Ivory Coast's
rebellion was mounted by disgruntled former soldiers in the Muslim-majority
north who accused Gbagbo, a Christian from the south, of marginalising the
region and its people.
The
civil war was also fuelled by the controversial notion of
"Ivorianness", which was used by former president Henri Konan Bedie
to sideline then prime minister Ouattara after the death of Ivory Coast's
founder president Felix Houphouet-Boigny.
Ivory Coast opposition says it may
boycott election
Parfait
Kouassi, Associated Press, 6/9/05
The
main opposition coalition said Thursday it would boycott elections if President
Laurent Gbagbo interferes in the poll's organization. Gbagbo recently instructed the National
Statistics Institution, headed by a member of his party, to draft the voters'
list for the October 30 presidential ballot. The so-called G-7 opposition
coalition, however, says the National Electoral Commission should draft the
list.
"The
G-7 warns that it will not take part in any election organized by President
Gbagbo or any institution selected by him," said Bacongo Cisse, a
spokesman for the coalition which includes the main opposition Rally of
Republicans, the former ruling party, and rebel leaders. "We denounce the
president's maneuvers." Many hope
the long-awaiting October election will end years of conflict in this
war-divided former French colony.
The
opposition statement comes after Gbagbo said late Wednesday those responsible
for massacres the west were trying to sabotage the elections. Gbagbo promised "strong action would be
taken in the next few days as we have information indicating that they are
planning further massacres throughout the county." He offered no details
and did not name those he held responsible.
Last
week, unidentified assailants armed with guns and knives slaughtered 41
villagers from the Guere ethnic group in the western town of Duekoue. A day
later, eight Ivorians and two immigrants from neighboring Burkina Faso were
stabbed and clubbed to death, bringing the total number of casualties to 51.
Immigrants
have cultivated the fertile land for decades, but locals have begun to view
them as sympathizers with rebels who have controlled the northern half of Ivory
Coast since a failed coup bid in September 2002. Despite peace deals aimed at reuniting the
country, Ivory Coast has remained tense. About 10,000 peacekeepers are manning
a buffer zone separating rebels and government troops.
On
Tuesday, rebels cast doubt on a long-delayed disarmament campaign, saying the
recent violence could delay the exercise, due to start on June 27. The United Nations Security Council has
recently threatened to implement a travel ban and an asset freeze it authorized
in a resolution adopted in November against any individuals and groups blocking
peace efforts.
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Pakistan's Musharraf meets separatist
leaders from Indian Kashmir
Agence France Presse, 6/8/05
Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf and Muslim separatist leaders from Indian-controlled
Kashmir have held talks in a bid to solve the longstanding dispute over the
Himalayan state, officials said Wednesday.
Musharraf met with a delegation of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference,
an umbrella group of more than two dozen parties, in Islamabad late Tuesday and
hosted a banquet in their honour. Official
media quoted Musharraf as saying that Pakistan would not accept a status quo in
Kashmir and would continue its efforts to seek a solution in line with the
aspiration of the people of Kashmir.
Musharraf
said a solution which was acceptable to Pakistan, India and the people of
Kashmir would have to be found. The
Himalayan region is divided between Pakistan and India and is claimed by both
in full. It has caused two of the three wars between the nuclear-armed
neighbours since their independence from Britain in 1947. The separatists all want to split from India,
with most seeking to join Pakistan and a minority seeking full independence. The unprecedented visit by Hurriyat leaders is
part of a peace process launched between Pakistan and India since January last
year.
Hurriyat
leader Mirwaiz Omar Farooq told AFP there was a complete unanimity of views
with Musharraf on how to resolve the Kashmir row. "It looks as if we are moving towards a
negotiated settlement. We have to move from our traditional positions," he
told AFP on Wednesday.
The
separatists have always backed a series of UN resolutions adopted from 1948
calling for a plebiscite in the whole of Kashmir, which could lead to the state
either joining Pakistan or India. There is no independence option. India, however, insists the resolutions have
become irrelevant, a view shared by most major powers.
Musharraf
has frequently said both sides would have to show flexibility and courage and
last year he put forth a set of options including the demilitarization of parts
of Kashmir. Indian leaders have ruled
out any redrawing of borders while Pakistan rejects making a permanent border
of the existing ceasefire line in Kashmir, known as the Line of Control.
Separatist leader says U.N. has failed
to resolve Pakistan-India dispute over Kashmir
Zarar
Khan, Associated Press, 6/9/05
A
senior Kashmiri separatist leader said Thursday that attempts by the United
Nations to resolve a decades-old dispute between Pakistan and India over the
divided Himalayan region have failed. During
a visit to Pakistan, Umar Farooq, chief of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference,
an alliance of Muslim separatist groups from India's portion of Kashmir, said
it was time to consider "new ideas and proposals" to settle the
issue.
Pakistan
and India control parts of Kashmir but both claim the region in its entirety.
The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two wars over the region since their
independence from British rule in 1947. The
United Nations passed resolutions in 1948 and 1949 calling for Kashmiris to
vote on whether to join predominantly Hindu India or Islamic Pakistan. Although
Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists have constantly called for implementation of
those resolutions, it has never taken place because of India's objections.
"We
are not deviating from them (the U.N. resolutions) but the practical situation
is the United Nations has badly failed in this regard," Farooq told
reporters during a visit to the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. "The Kashmiris have rendered precious
sacrifices during this time," he said.
Farooq, however, did not elaborate on the what new ideas and proposals
might be considered for resolving the Kashmir dispute.
Farooq
and eight other separatist leaders have been in Pakistan since last week,
holding talks with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and other top officials.
They were greeted by some 800 supporters when they arrived in Karachi on
Thursday, many chanting, "Kashmir will become Pakistan," and
"The movement will continue until Kashmir is independent."
They
are here as part of an ongoing peace process between Pakistan and India and
want a role in settling the Kashmir dispute.
An insurgency in the Indian portion of Kashmir since 1989 has killed
more than 66,000 people, many of them civilians. India accuses Pakistan of
backing the militants, who either seek Kashmir's independence or its merger
with Pakistan. Islamabad denies the charge, saying it only provides moral,
political and diplomatic support. On
Wednesday in Islamabad, Farooq said the Kashmir dispute should be resolved at
the negotiating table, not on the battlefield.
Kashmir
Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the Kashmir
Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law &
Policy Group.
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U.S. Undersecretary of State urges
compromise for Kosovo's future
Garentina Kraja, Associated
Press, 6/8/05
A senior U.S. envoy on Wednesday said that Kosovo
and Serbia need to compromise over the future status of the disputed province
and urged the European Union to stay its course in integrating the troubled
Balkans in its midst. Nicholas Burns, a
U.S. undersecretary of state, pressed Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders to try
to improve life for Serbs and other minorities in the province to help overcome
divisions ahead of talks to determine Kosovo's final status.
Ethnic Albanians insist on independence for Kosovo,
while Serbs want the province to remain part of Serbia-Montenegro, the small
union that replaced the disintegrated Yugoslavia. Kosovo has been administered
by the United Nations since a 1999 NATO air war halted Serb forces' crackdown
on ethnic Albanian separatists.
The U.N. and international mediators have said that
for talks to begin, Kosovo must make progress in eight sectors, including
establishing democratic institutions, protecting minorities, promoting economic
development and ensuring rule of law, freedom of movement and property rights. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has
appointed a senior Norwegian diplomat, Kai Eide, to review Kosovo's progress
this summer. A positive result would pave the way for future status talks soon
after.
Burns said the U.S. was ready to play an active role
in any talks by appointing a senior American diplomat to be part of the
international negotiating team expected to be led by a European. Also Wednesday, as a backdrop to his call for
better rights for Kosovo's Serb minority, Burns visited a small compound of
newly rebuilt Serb houses in the nearby town of Obilic that were damaged by
ethnic Albanian extremists last year.
Kosovo plunged into two days of bloodshed in March
2004 when mobs of ethnic Albanians attacked Serbs and their property. The
violence left 19 people dead, and over 4,000 people - mostly Serbs - were
forced from their homes. Some 600 homes and several Serbian Orthodox churches
were also destroyed.
Coming out of the freshly painted one-story house
next to a smoke churning power plant, he said that a "great crime was
committed here when (Serb) houses were burned." "We believe that Serbs have a right to
live in Kosovo peacefully, securely," Burns said after spending time with
three Serb families and their friends who had returned inside scarcely
furnished homes rebuilt with Kosovo government money.
"They deserve to sleep at night and not to have
to worry about provocations," he said.
However, as a reminder of the communal animosities, black paint had been
splashed on the walls of one of the new homes.
Kosovo's U.N. administrator meets Serbian
officials
Associated Press, 6/10/05
Kosovo's U.N. administrator urged Serbian leaders on
Friday to prod Kosovo Serbs to take part in the troubled province's interim
institutions but was told Belgrade was unhappy with the general conditions the
minority faced there. In a visit to the
Serbian capital, Soren Jessen-Petersen met Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav
Kostunica and other Belgrade officials as part of preparations for eventual
negotiations on Kosovo's final fate, expected to start later this year.
Kostunica's office said in a statement that
"Belgrade remains dissatisfied" with the level of democratic reform
in the U.N.-run Kosovo and lack of progress on returning Kosovo Serb refugees
home. According to a statement from his
Pristina office, Jessen-Petersen "urged Belgrade leaders to send a clear
signal supporting full participation of Kosovo Serbs in the institutions in
Kosovo." The minority has
overwhelmingly boycotted the province's interim parliament and government which
they see as a stepping stone to full independence for the majority ethnic
Albanian province.
Due to bad weather, Jessen-Petersen later canceled a
press conference and returned to Kosovo.
The U. N. is expected next week to begin a probe to assess Kosovo's
progress on a set of human rights and democracy targets that must be met before
talks can begin on the region's final political status. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has named
Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide as his special envoy for Kosovo in that probe.
Kosovo officially remains part of Serbia-Montenegro,
although the province has been an international protectorate since 1999, when
NATO's air war halted Serbia's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians insist on
independence from Serbia, while Belgrade wants to retain formal control over
the province. Kostunica recently offered
a compromise, saying Belgrade may agree to have Kosovo granted "more than
autonomy but less than independence." Details of that proposal are not
known.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kosovo
Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law &
Policy Group.
Return to Index
Leaders of Serbia, Macedonia seek to
bypass church dispute
Konstantin
Testorides, Associated Press, 6/10/05
The
presidents of Macedonia and Serbia promised Friday to improve bilateral
relations despite a church dispute between the two Orthodox Christian
neighbors. The near four-decade quarrel
flared last month when the Serbian Orthodox Church recognized the
"Archbishopric of Ohrid" as an official Orthodox church in Macedonia
- angering the state-supported Macedonian Orthodox Church.
"I
am prepared, as far as I am permitted, to mediate in resolving the dispute
between two churches," Serbian President Boris Tadic told reporters at the
Ohrid Lake resort where he met Macedonia's Branko Crvenkovski. "But interference in religious matters
would in turn allow church to interfere in state affairs. That is impossible
and would be a backward step for Serbia," Tadic said.
The
dispute dates back to 1967, when a group of priests from Macedonia proclaimed
independence from the Serbian church and founded the Macedonian Orthodox
Church. Although it lacked recognition
from other Christian churches - including Serbia's - the Macedonian church
became the official religion when Macedonia became an independent state in 1991
following the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
Orthodox
Christianity is the majority religion in Serbia and Macedonia. Tadic arrived Thursday to discuss a range of
issues, including bilateral initiatives to fight organized crime and efforts by
both countries to forge closer ties with NATO and the European Union. "Our political, security and economic
relations are very strong, and we are prepared to improve them further,"
Tadic said.
Tadic
and Crvenkovski also agreed that a minor border dispute in neighboring Kosovo
be resolved before talks begin this year on the province's final status. Macedonia and Serbia-Montenegro have signed
an agreement recognizing the former administrative boundary as state border. But interim authorities in Kosovo have
challenged that agreement, arguing that it deprives the province of some 2,000
hectares (4,950 acres) of land.
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Moldova
Moldova asks
for E.U. observers in disputed Trans-Dniestr province
Deutsche
Presse-Agentur, 6/8/05
Moldova's government has formally requested that the
European Union send observers to the disputed Trans-Dniestr province, according
to an Infotag news agency report on Wednesday.
Russian-speaking Trans-Dniestr seceded from Romanian-speaking Moldova
after a civil war ending in 1992. Since then Russian peacekeepers and a few
observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
have been stationed in the region.
Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin in a letter to
Javier Solana, secretary-general of the council of the European Union, asked
the E.U. to deploy observers to the border crossings between Trans- Dniestr and
neighbouring Ukraine. The idea if put
into effect would dramatically curtail smuggling between Trans-Dniestrian and
Ukrainian businessmen. Trans-Dniestr's
unofficial government derives almost all of its income from the illicit trade
including oil, metals, cigarettes, weapons, narcotics, and human trafficking,
Interpol officials have said.
Russia has resisted past efforts to expand the
international presence in Trans-Dniestr on the grounds that its peacekeepers
are sufficient to keep the region stable. Moscow maintains some 1,500 troops in
the province. Voronin has accused Moscow
of supporting Trans-Dniestr's unrecognized government as part of a Kremlin
policy of undermining Moldovan sovereignty, and because Russian businessmen
benefit from smuggling through Trans-Dniestr. Russia's Foreign Ministry has
denied both charges.
Voronin's proposal came one day before Moldova's
parliament was scheduled to debate a "roadmap" programme for
resolving the Trans-Dniestr conflict, put forward earlier this year by
Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko. The
programmes calls for a step-by-step democratization of Trans- Dniestr's
authoritarian government, which supports central planning and Marxist-Leninist
political principles. The E.U. would
participate in the process, Yuschenko suggested, by acting as an intermediary
between Chisinau and the Trans-Dniestrian capital Tiraspol, and by helping both
develop modern European societies.
Moldova
calls for Russia to pull troops out of Trans-Dniestr
Deutsche
Presse-Agentur, 6/10/05
Moldova's parliament on Friday called on Russia to
pull its troops out of the disputed province Trans-Dniestr, according to an
Infotag news agency report. Russian-speaking
Trans-Dniestr seceded from Romanian-speaking Moldova after a civil war ending
in 1992. Russia maintains some 1,500 troops in the region. The Moldovan resolution formally requested
Russia remove its troops from the province by the end of 2005.
Russia promised at a 1999 conference in Istanbul to
demilatarise Trans-Dniestr by the end of 2003, but in recent years has declared
Moscow's soldiers are still needed in the region as peacekeepers, and to secure
Soviet-era munitions depots in the region.
The unanimous vote marked the first time Moldova's legislature called
directly on Russia to live up to the terms of the Istanbul agreement.
The Moldovan parliament in the same resolution
requested the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to
replace the Russian soldiers with European security forces. The Moldovan declaration came after is months
of increasingly acrimonious relations between Chisinau and Moscow.
Moldova's ruling Communist party earlier this year
obtained an absolute majority in parliament by running on a pro-Europe ticket.
The position angered the Kremlin, which sees Moldova as in the Russian sphere
of influence.
Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin exacerbated
tensions by accusing Moscow of supporting Trans-Dniester's authoritarian
government to undermine Moldovan sovereignty. Russia's Foreign Ministry has
denied the claim.
Return to Index
Spanish politicians turned away from
Western Sahara by Morocco
Harold
Heckle, Associated Press, 6/8/05
A
delegation of Spanish politicians was refused entry to Western Sahara on
Wednesday, the second planeload of Spaniards that Morocco has stopped from
visiting the territory in a week. The
Spanish politicians, most of them regional Catalan parliamentarians, had gone
to the former Spanish colony to check on human rights conditions after riots
there last month.
Moroccan
officials offered no explanation for why the Spaniards weren't allowed off the
plane in Laayounde, Western Sahara's capital. But Spanish national news agency
Efe quoted a Moroccan official as saying the politicians were kept on the plane
because they sympathized with the rebel Polisario Front, which once fought for
Western Sahara's independence.
"We
were not even allowed to get off the plane when it landed," Albert Batalla
of the Catalonia's Convergence and Unity party told The Associated Press.
"The pilot made an announcement saying, 'The following people - the
delegation members - are banned from leaving the aircraft." The Spaniards returned to Spain later
Wednesday. Morocco annexed the vast
mineral-rich territory after Spain abandoned the colony in 1975. Polisario
Front rebels, who began battling Morocco after the annexation, have stopped
fighting and are now based in camps in southern Algeria.
But
years of U.N. efforts to organize a referendum on self-determination have so
far been fruitless, largely because Morocco and the Polisario have failed to
agree on who could vote, and the rebels have recently threatened to resume
fighting. On Sunday, an 11-member
delegation of observers from Madrid was stopped on the runway of Laayounde.
After hours of failed negotiations to allow the visit to go ahead the plane was
also forced to fly back.
Spanish
Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, had said on Monday that he understood
Morocco would allow a Spanish delegation different to the first one expelled to
travel there freely. But when the
delegation arrived Wednesday they weren't allowed off the plane and eventually
flew back to Spain.
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