PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Monday, August 1, 2005
(Volume IV, Number 28)
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Monday, August 1, 2005
(Volume IV, Number 28)
Contents:
Military spending increase could finance new Karabakh war: Azeri President
Aliyev issues possible threat on retaking Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan has increased defense spending.
Candidates given ten minutes of campaign time before elections.
Former Hutu rebel group wins overwhelming majority in Burundi senate elections
Nkurunziza nominated as presidential candidate.
Rights activists, authorities gather for conference on Chechnya
Council of Europe human rights commission in attendance at Chechnya conference.
Security Council votes unanimously to keep arms embargo in Congo
Security Council concerned about militia groups in eastern Congo.
Georgia president cautions citizens against stoking ethnic tensions
Georgian of ethnic Armenian descent accused of throwing grenade at President Bush.
Indonesia says up to 300 peace monitors may be deployed in Aceh
Peace deal to be signed August 15 in Helsinki.
EU team visits Indonesia's Aceh ahead of key peace monitoring meeting
Meeting to start Monday in Jakarta to discuss monitoring mission.
U.N. rights chief: law, order declining in Ivory Coast ahead of October elections
Human rights official notes lack of rule of law in northern Ivory Coast.
Ivory Coast disarmament process faces new delay
Loyalists and rebels unable to agree on disarmament sites.
After 16 years of conflict, Kashmir sees a chance for peace
Tourism in Kashmir at possible new high this year.
Kosovo
Seeing Past the Hate: Kosovo's Factions Imagine a Future
Progress toward reducing tensions between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians has gone slowly.
Backed by neighbors, Liberia requests Taylor handover to Sierra Leone war court
Three Mano River Union countries hold joint summit.
OSCE urges Moldova and breakaway region to resume settlement talks
Voronin ready to offer Transnistria autonomy.
Moldova's government lifts economic sanctions against breakaway region
Ukraine has improved control of its border with Transnistria.
Van Walsum to try to break deadlock between Morocco and Polisario Front.
Daschle urges Nepal king to restore democracy, calls for ex-PM's release
Daschle calls for corruption control commission to be dissolved.
Tiny mountain church triggers tensions between Serbia and Montenegro
Possible tensions on rise between Serbs and Montenegrins.
Somali president vows to defend government in temporary capital
President headquartered in town of Jowhar.
Rebel-backed organizations hold "Tamil resurgence" rally in northern Sri Lanka
Thousands of ethnic Tamils hold rally in northern Sri Lanka.
Sudanese state TV says a plane carrying Vice President John Garang is missing
Reports conflicting over location of newly inaugurated Vice President Garang.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis Click here to access the PILPG Report.
Military spending increase could finance new Karabakh war: Azeri President
Agence France Presse, 7/25/05
Former Soviet Azerbaijan can reconquer the contested Nagorno Karabakh region at any time because of its expanded military budget, Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev said on Monday.
"This year defense spending has grown by 76 percent, we will create a powerful army and will be able to liberate our lands at any time," Aliyev said during a visit to Quba, a city in northern Azerbaijan.
Aliyev acknowledged that negotiations with Armenia over Nagorno Karabakh chaired by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were important, but complained that they have "not brought results."
Azerbaijan will spend 300 million dollars (248 million euros) on its armed forces in 2005, Aliyev said earlier.
The oil-producing nation increased defense spending earlier this year after a windfall in the national budget due to higher-than-expected oil prices.
Oil revenues are expected to further increase after a massive US-backed oil pipeline starts pumping later this year.
The four-billion-dollar Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline could generate as much as 160 billion dollars (133 billion euro) in oil revenues to Azerbaijan over the next 30 years, according to Britain's BP which heads the consortium running the pipeline.
Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war for control over the mainly ethnic-Armenian Nagorno Karabakh enclave in the early 1990s.
Armenian forces took control of the region and seven others by the war's end in 1994, but its status has yet to be settled and it is still internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.
Some 25,000 people were killed and a further one million displaced as a result of the Karabakh war.
Burundian local government representatives set to elect senators
Aloys Niyoyita, Associated Press, 7/28/05
Burundi is set to move closer to getting a new president and farther away from 11 years of ethnic conflict when local government representatives elect the country's upper house of parliament on Friday.
The next president was expected to emerge from a former Hutu rebel group, the Forces for the Defense of Democracy, which controls most of the local elected bodies as well as the lower house of parliament.
Friday's election of Burundi's 41-member Senate is a requirement in a peace deal cobbled together in 2000 in Arusha, Tanzania in an effort to end a war between the army dominated by the Tutsi ethnic minority and rebels from the Hutu majority that killed 250,000 people, mostly civilians.
About 3,225 councilors will elect 34 members of the Senate from 120 candidates representing seven political parties. The only campaign time candidates have been allowed is the 10 minutes each they will be given before polling Friday.
Voting, which will be at 17 polling stations - one in the capital Bujumbura and its 16 provincial capitals - is set to start at 8 a.m. (0600GMT). The candidates' campaign time has been set for between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. Polls will close at 4 p.m. (1400GMT), but voting time can be extended by another two hours if there are delays.
First preliminary results are expected to be released within hours of polls closing, but final results will take longer.
Once chosen, senators will join members of Burundi's National Assembly, the lower house, who were elected on July 4, to chose the country's president before Aug. 19.
Four former presidents automatically have seats in the senate.
Groups working to protect the interests of the minority Batwa will nominate representatives of the community and the Independent National Electoral Commission will choose the remaining three senators from them, to make up the 41-member upper house of parliament.
Burundi's electoral process began this year after months of delays caused by disagreements within the transitional government on sections of the peace deal. A new Burundian government with all elected institutions in place was originally supposed to start work in November 2004.
In June, the former rebel Forces for the Defense of Democracy won 1,781 of the 3,225 local government positions that were up for election. The mainstream Hutu-led Front for Democracy in Burundi, or Frodebu party won 820 seats, while three Tutsi parties split 479 seats.
Parliamentary elections on July 4 saw the Forces for the Defense of Democracy again take the lead, winning 58 percent of the vote, according to provisional results. Frodebu came in second with 22 percent of votes for the 101-seat National Assembly and a former ruling party from the Tutsi minority, the Union for National Progress, came in third with seven percent.
Burundi's war began in October 1993 after Burundi's first democratically elected president, a Hutu, was assassinated by Tutsi paratroopers.
A series of peace deals led to the creation of a transitional government in 2001, which most rebels joined. Only one rebel groups remains outside the peace process. It has agreed to a cease-fire, which it has repeatedly violated.
Former Hutu rebel group wins overwhelming majority in Burundi senate elections
Aloys Niyoyita, Associated Press, 7/30/05
Burundi moved closer Saturday to getting a new government following years of ethnic conflict after a former Hutu rebel group won an overwhelming majority in Senate elections.
The former Hutu rebel Forces for the Defense of Democracy took all but four of the 34 seats being contested in Friday's senate elections, provisional results released by the independent election commission said. Its closest rival, the mainstream Hutu-led Front for Democracy in Burundi, won three seats. A third Hutu-led party won one seat.
The victory means that the Forces for the Defense of Democracy, which controls most of the lower house of parliament and local elected bodies, will have majority in all bodies responsible for electing the president. The senators-elect will join members of Burundi's National Assembly, the lower house, to choose the country's president before Aug. 19.
The Forces for the Defense of Democracy has nominated Pierre Nkurunziza as its presidential candidate.
The U.N. secretary-general's representative in the country, Carolyn McAskie, said the country's soon-to-be-formed government would need the support of the international community to help it overcome 11 years of conflict. "Burundi starts a new era today, we (the United Nations) are now going to work to encourage the international community to come support Burundi," McAskie told reporters after the provisional results were announced.
Late Friday, Independent Electoral Commission Chairman Paul Ngarambe said the commission will give the provisional results to Burundi's Constitutional Court on Monday so that the court can verify them and declare the final results.
Four former presidents automatically have seats in the Senate. Groups working to protect the interests of the minority Batwa will nominate representatives of that community and the Independent National Electoral Commission will choose the remaining three senators from them, to make up the 41-member upper house of parliament.
Friday's election was a requirement in a peace deal cobbled together in 2000 in Arusha, Tanzania in an effort to end a war between the army dominated by the Tutsi ethnic minority and rebels from the Hutu majority. The war killed 250,000 people, mostly civilians.
Burundi's electoral process began this year after months of delays caused by disagreements within the transitional government over the peace deal. A new Burundian government with all elected institutions in place was originally supposed to start work last November.
Burundi's war began in October 1993 after Burundi's first democratically elected president, a Hutu, was assassinated by Tutsi paratroopers.
A series of peace deals led to the creation of a transitional government in 2001, which most rebels joined. Only one rebel group remains outside the peace process. It has agreed to a cease-fire, which it has repeatedly violated.
Rights activists, authorities gather for conference on Chechnya
Fatima Tlisova, Associated Press, 7/28/05
Human rights activists voiced concern Thursday about rampant abductions of civilians in Russia's war-torn Chechnya province and accused authorities of failing to properly investigate them.
Activists made the claims during a conference on human rights in Chechnya in Kislovodsk, a city in the Caucasus Mountains some 1,800 kilometers (1,120 miles) south of Moscow. The meeting was also attended by government officials and the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, Alvaro Gil-Robles.
Natalia Estemirova, a coordinator for the Russian human rights group Memorial, said that federal troops and local security forces fighting Chechen separatists were responsible for most of the kidnappings. "Everyone knows who is behind the abductions in Chechnya," she said. "The abductors are federal structures and security forces subordinate to the local administration."
Ella Pamfilova, the head of a human rights commission that reports to Russian President Vladimir Putin, acknowledged that abductions remain "the most acute problem" in Chechnya.
She said that authorities had opened criminal investigations into the disappearance of 2,547 people in Chechnya since 2000. She didn't say how many people remained missing.
Officials blamed rebels for the abductions.
Russia's Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel insisted that the abductions were being properly investigated. He said that probes were hampered by local residents' reluctance to provide testimony because of fears for their safety.
But rights campaigners said authorities ignore the problem. "As long as the Kremlin turns a blind eye to this terrible problem, it will remain unresolved," said Sergei Kovalyov, a prominent Russian rights activist.
He and other activists urged authorities to let rights groups oversee official probes into abductions. Ruslan Alkhanov, interior minister for the Moscow-backed Chechen administration, bristled at the demand, saying it would contradict the Russian law.
Russian and Chechen authorities have accused human rights groups of exaggerating the number of abductions.
Gil-Robles urged authorities to make stronger efforts to end abductions, saying that they can't be regarded as an "internal problem." "It's a problem that we in Europe take as our own," he said.
Russian forces left Chechnya in 1996 after a disastrous, 20-month war with separatists. Fighting resumed in 1999, when Chechnya-based insurgents made raids into a neighboring region and after a series of deadly apartment-house bombings in Russian cities that officials blamed on the rebels.
Nearly three-quarters of the Chechen population is out of work and electricity and telephone services are largely nonexistent. Tens of thousands of people have fled, mostly to neighboring regions and violence has spread to other Caucasus regions.
Security Council votes unanimously to keep arms embargo in Congo
Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press, 7/29/05
The U.N. Security Council condemned the continuing flow of illegal weapons in Congo on Friday and voted unanimously to extend an arms embargo and other sanctions in the central African nation for another year.
A resolution adopted by the council reiterated its serious concern at the presence of armed groups and militias in eastern Congo, especially in the provinces of North and South Kivu and the Ituri district. They "perpetuate a climate of insecurity in the whole region," it said.
In July 2003, the council authorized an arms embargo for a year on foreign and Congolese armed groups and militias in those three areas, as well as to groups throughout the country that have not accepted a cease-fire in the country's long-running war. Because fighting in eastern Congo continued, the arms embargo was extended for another year in July 2004.
As part of stepped-up efforts to bring peace to the volatile east, the Security Council in April widened the arms embargo "to any recipient" of weapons in the country. It also authorized a travel ban and asset freeze on anyone deemed to be violating the arms embargo.
The resolution approved Friday extends the arms embargo, travel ban, and asset freeze until July 31, 2006 "in light of the failure by the parties to comply with the demands of the council."
The council stressed that the link between the illegal exploitation and trade in natural resources and the proliferation and trafficking of arms is one of the factors fueling and exacerbating conflicts in Congo and other countries in Africa's Great Lakes region.
The resolution re-establishes a group of experts to report on implementation of sanctions, sources of funding for the illicit arms trade. The experts were also asked to provide lists of people violating sanctions - and those supporting them - for possible future action by the Congo.
Congo's five-year war officially ended in 2002 and under a 2003 agreement elections were due on June 30. But they have been delayed until next March because of unrest in the east, widespread homelessness caused by the war and legislative foot-dragging.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Georgia president cautions citizens against stoking ethnic tensions
Misha Dzhindzhikashvili, Associated Press, 7/27/05
President Mikhail Saakashvili warned Georgians against stoking ethnic tensions as authorities continue investigating the man who confessed to throwing a live grenade during a rally where U.S. President George W. Bush spoke.
Speaking in a meeting with law enforcement officials Tuesday evening, Saakashvili scolded Georgian media for focusing on the ethnicity of Vladimir Arutyunian, a Georgian citizen of Armenian ancestry who has admitted throwing the grenade during the May rally in Tbilisi where Bush and Saakashvili spoke.
Saakashvili said media and politicians were overemphasizing Arutyunian's Armenian background. "For me, it makes no difference what nationality the children of our homeland are," he said. "If someone doesn't love Armenians, then I am an Armenian. And if it's Ossetians, then I am an Ossetian," he said, "because Georgian patriotism is valued not by blood, but by the deeds of such people."
Arutyunian's lawyer said Tuesday that the man had intended to kill Bush, but not other Georgians.
Georgian authorities, working with the FBI, were still trying to figure out Arutyunian's exact motives. The Interior Ministry said that Arutyunian, who was formally charged with terrorism on Tuesday, was believed to have been a member of a political party that supports the former leader of a region largely outside central government control.
Last week, Arutyunian was shown on local television admitting to throwing the grenade, which landed about 100 feet (30 meters) away from the stage where Saakashvili and Bush were standing behind a bulletproof barrier. It did not explode, and investigators later said it apparently had malfunctioned. No one was harmed in the incident.
Saakashvili also warned against overemphasizing the fact that three men detained on suspicion of carrying out a Feb. 1 car bombing that killed three policemen and wounded 26 in the town of Gori were Ossetians. "Yesterday, all I heard all day on television was 'Ossetians, Ossetians,"' he said.
He said Ossetians had served with honor in Georgia's air force and its police agencies.
Relations between Georgians and Ossetians have long been tense; South Ossetia broke away from central government control during a war in the 1990s.
Tensions spiked earlier this month in a mostly ethnic Armenian region when a Georgian-language school was vandalized and a group of Georgian university students were beaten up.
Residents of the region are angered over the planned withdrawal of a Russian military base, which is a mainstay of the local economy. Ethnic Armenians make up more than 5 percent of Georgia's 4.7 million people.
Indonesia says up to 300 peace monitors may be deployed in Aceh
Agence France Presse, 7/28/05
Indonesia said Thursday up to 300 personnel from Southeast Asia and the European Union may be deployed in Aceh for up to a year to monitor a deal due to be signed next month to end a long-running insurgency.
A large batch of the monitors would be dispatched to Aceh a day after Indonesia inks the deal with the Free Aceh Movement rebels on August 15 in Helsinki, Communications Minister Sofyan Jalil said.
"It has not yet been decided but it is possible that there will be up to 300 personnel. They will stay in Aceh for up to one year," he told reporters.
Jalil, a member of the Indonesian team that signed a preliminary peace agreement with the rebels in Helsinki earlier this month, was confident that the August 15 agreement would "permanently" end almost three decades of conflict in Aceh. "I can feel that the results that we have achieved were based on acceptance and honesty... I am confident that this agreement will produce a sustainable and long-lasting peace in Aceh," he said.
Indonesia's foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said in Vientiane, Laos, on Thursday that rules of engagement and the number of monitors still need to be worked out with contributors. "Any number that I mention would be speculative in nature," he told reporters at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers' meeting.
Jalil said some of the monitors would be military personnel but all would be unarmed.
Thailand's foreign minister said Wednesday his country was prepared to commit 20-40 monitors, "depending on requests."
Foreign monitors were first deployed to Aceh under a short-lived ceasefire agreed in December 2002. But a few dozen unarmed monitors from Thailand and the Philippines were forced to withdraw amid escalating violence.
About 15,000 people have been killed in fighting in resource-rich Aceh since the rebels began their struggle in 1976. A renewed bid for peace was started in the wake of last December's tsunami, which killed 131,000 people in the province.
Although both sides have agreed to end the fighting, there are fears that both diehard rebels and troops on the ground will be reluctant to accept the deal, which involves compromises on both sides.
A top rebel spokesman in Aceh has said soldiers were still hunting down and killing guerrillas despite orders from Indonesia's president and armed forces chief banning new offensives.
Jalil said any violation of the peace agreement by either side would be resolved through a "dispute settlement" mechanism to be overseen by the monitoring mission.
The minister earlier held talks with diplomats from Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines. All five are ASEAN member states.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda on Wednesday made a formal request to his ASEAN colleagues to supply monitors.
Jalil said Indonesia would brief its ASEAN and EU partners on the mechanism of the Aceh monitoring mission on a two-day meeting on August 1 and 2.
EU team visits Indonesia's Aceh ahead of key peace monitoring meeting
Agence France Presse, 7/30/05
A European Union team on Saturday visited Indonesia's tsunami-hit Aceh to prepare for the monitoring of a crucial peace deal between Jakarta and separatist rebels to be signed in August.
The three-man team arrived in the provincial capital Banda Aceh Saturday afternoon but did not speak to reporters and left the airport in a United Nations vehicle. Details of their schedule were not immediately known.
Their visit, the second time in almost one month, came ahead of a two-day meeting starting Monday in Jakarta to discuss the mechanism of the monitoring mission.
Indonesia and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) tentatively reached a deal on July 17 to end 29 years of hostilities and asked the EU and its Southeast Asian neighbors to play a monitoring role once the pact is signed on August 15 in Helsinki.
The Indonesian foreign ministry said Friday the key tasks of the peace monitors would be to oversee the disarmament of separatist rebels and troop withdrawal
Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said the Jakarta meeting would discuss the technical arrangements for the monitoring mission, its composition and the total number of personnel needed -- military and civilian.
He said he expected the number of monitors to be around 220 people.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has said the European Union would likely provide the majority of about 200 peace monitors but Wirayuda said the EU's contribution would be "almost equal" to that of Southeast Asian countries.
Complicating the peace monitors' task is the massive damage caused to Aceh by the Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 131,000 people in the province in December last year before it led to a reopening of dialogue between the government and the rebels.
Although both sides have agreed to end the fighting, there are fears that diehard rebels and troops on the ground will be reluctant to accept the deal.
A top rebel spokesman in Aceh has said soldiers were still hunting down and killing guerrillas despite orders from Indonesia's president and armed forces chief banning new offensives.
GAM has fought for an independence Aceh since 1976. The war has left 15,000 people dead.
Aceh Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
U.N. rights chief: law, order declining in Ivory Coast ahead of October elections
Bradley S. Klapper, Associated Press, 7/26/05
The U.N. human rights chief said Tuesday she is concerned about the deterioration of law and order in Ivory Coast ahead of the west African country's planned October elections.
Civilians feel "terrorized" as conditions worsen in the country, which has been divided since the 2002-2003 civil war, said Louise Arbour, high commissioner for human rights.
Arbour, speaking upon her return from a 10-day mission to the region, said the human rights situation in Ivory Coast "continues to seriously deteriorate."
In the rebel-controlled north, "there is virtually no rule of law, it's essentially a lawless environment," she told reporters at U.N. offices in Geneva. "And in the government-controlled part of the territory, there is a serious concern over the militarization of governance," Arbour added.
Ivory Coast has been split since a failed September 2002 coup attempt plunged the nation into months of civil war. A series of peace deals followed, but the country has remained divided and tense ever since.
Nearly 10,000 U.N. and French peacekeepers patrol a buffer zone that stretches east to west across the country.
Arbour said she was "particularly preoccupied" with the slow progress of the Ivory Coast government's investigation into last month's massacres in the cocoa-rich western town of Duekoue.
Rebels and government officials accused each other of being behind the killings, during which up to 100 people were hacked up and shot by unidentified attackers. "I visited that particular region, and I found the people not very forthcoming," Arbour said. They were "terrorized about what happened in their community."
Duekoue is now patrolled by a small contingent of U.N. peacekeepers.
Arbour said she was similarly concerned about developments in Ivory Coast's neighboring countries. The governments of Liberia and Sierra Leone also are failing to restore law and order following their civil wars, she said.
In Liberia the justice system "is profoundly inadequate" and law enforcement machinery is "corrupt and very inefficient," she said. It would be helpful if the government in Monrovia allowed judges from other African countries to come in to add more muscle to Liberia's judiciary, she said.
Liberia is scheduled to hold presidential elections Oct. 11, the first since warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor was forced to step down as rebels shelled the capital in August 2003. Taylor fled into exile in Nigeria, paving the way for the transitional government.
Arbour reiterated a call for Taylor to be handed over to a U.N. tribunal for trial on war crimes charges related to the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. Taylor is charged with supporting notoriously brutal rebels in Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 fighting over the country's rich diamond fields.
"The time has come for him to stand trial," Arbour said. "Justice screams to be done both in Liberia and Sierra Leone."
Arbour also said she was "very taken aback" by Sierre Leone's ambivalence toward female genital mutilation. "There seems to be no willingness to take on with a real sense of leadership this very serious violation of the rights of women and children," Arbour said.
Ivory Coast disarmament process faces new delay
Agence France Presse, 7/31/05
Ivory Coast loyalist and rebel military commanders were deadlocked Sunday over the number of sites to be used for a disarmament operation in the divided west African state, putting the long-overdue program at risk of yet another delay.
Military commanders met for a second day to iron out final details for the first stage of the disarmament and rehabilitation process after failing to reach agreement on Saturday, national disarmament commission chairman Alain Donwahi said.
The talks are the latest to map out the disarmament operation, at the heart of the peace process to reconcile the country, the world's top cocoa producer, after nearly three years of conflict.
But by late afternoon there had been no instructions handed down for the loyalist troops to begin moving towards the cantonment sites, although the process was scheduled to start on Sunday, a senior military official said in Abidjan. "This exercise concerns those troops on the ground, but from what I know, there has been no order sent to the men," he told AFP on condition of anonymity. "If it hasn't started on the other side (in rebel territory), it's not going to start on this side."
Holding up the orders is an apparent dispute over the number of sites at which an estimated 40,000 rebel and 5,500 loyalist fighters will be demobilizing and then disarming.
The national commission wants no more than 100 in total but the current tally stands at 140, including 100 in the rebel-held north.
Rebel military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Karim Ouattara told AFP that there would be no movement in the north until Sunday's meeting had concluded. "Once the meeting is over, we'll be all set," Ouattara said by telephone from Bouake, the rebel stronghold and once Ivory Coast's second city.
"Until then, there's not much going on."
Donwahi had said on Saturday that orders for troops to begin moving towards the cantonment sites were likely to be handed down in a timely manner, but for the actual movement to begin "it could take a little while... maybe a couple of days."
The state-run disarmament commission has come under fire from international partners including the World Bank for "insufficient preparation" for the exercise.
Many sites, particularly in the north, are little more than roped-off fields with concrete slabs for tent bases and outdoor pumps where there are supposed to be latrines.
Beyond the logistics of the operation, however, is a marked lack of confidence in the process, even with the spectre of presidential elections set for October 30 hanging overhead.
Another layer of suspicion and mistrust was added with the attack last weekend on a loyalist town outside of Abidjan by unknown assailants.
The weekend incursion, and a subsequent offensive by the national military, claimed 24 lives and sent some 30 people -- many of them Malian and Burkinabe nationals, suspected of alliances with the northern rebels -- into police custody.
Partisans of President Laurent Gbagbo seized on the attack to call militants into the streets to "mobilize" against the rebels, further polarizing the protagonists in the crisis that has ripped apart what was once west Africa's most prosperous and stable country.
After 16 years of conflict, Kashmir sees a chance for peace
Agence France Presse, 7/29/05
The garden bar is full and the chatter grows louder as far down the hill the waters of Kashmir's fabled Dal Lake shimmer under the setting sun.
Indian tourists are returning in large numbers to this verdant Himalayan valley this summer as their government gropes forward in a stuttering peace process with Pakistan.
The tide of separatist violence is ebbing and the army has promised to extend a "velvet glove" to long-suffering civilians.
Sitting under the broad boughs of a centuries-old chinar maple tree, it is easy to forget that Sunday marks 16 years since the bloody rebellion broke out against Indian rule of Kashmir.
The watering hole at one of Srinagar's top hotels -- the former maharaja's residence -- boasts one of the best views over the lake at dusk, shadowed by high forested ridges.
For a reality check, the authorities count 44,000 people dead since 1989 -- separatists put the toll twice as high.
But Kashmir state tourism minister Ghulam Hassan Mir told AFP more than 350,000 tourists had already visited Kashmir by mid-July this year.
And he expected that by the end of the month, arrivals would surpass the 375,000 who came for the whole of 2004. Foreigners however remain few.
In 1989, tourists numbered 722,000. Only 6,000 visited the following year as blood flowed, and just 27,000 in 2002.
The minister predicted one million arrivals in 2006. "Kashmir is as safe as any part of the world for tourists," he says, blaming the media for exaggerating the risks. "There are many reasons militants would not attack tourists," Mir assures, citing the guarantee of worldwide condemnation and loss of support from a population which desperately needs tourist income after so many bleak years.
Leading moderate separatist Mirwaiz Umar Farooq barely shares the minister's optimism, but he does believe that "a window of opportunity" is open today for a negotiated settlement on Kashmir. "The government of India has to realise ... this is an opportunity. They have to take the opportunity," he told AFP.
Lieutenant General S.S. Dhillon, the army commander in the Kashmir valley, agreed that a window is open for a political solution. "All our actions are centred around this aspect (a political settlement), of improving the situation, containing the situation in a manner to permit normal functioning of government and movement forward," he said in an interview.
"Keeping in view the present situation ... and the moves between the two countries, this definitely should be a time for taking the peace process forward."
However he cautioned that while violence levels have recently fallen 25-30 percent: "The terrorists still retain the potential and the ability for high profile, sensational strikes... and the potential to vitiate the general atmosphere."
Farooq, chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference -- the main separatist grouping -- also warned that the window of opportunity could quickly close if incidents such as the killing by soldiers of three teenagers on July 24 are repeated, or if President Pervez Musharraf loses power in Pakistan.
The army apologised profusely for the boys' deaths, but tension ran high and violent protests followed.
"Within the next year or so, two years, if we don't have any movement forward (in the peace process) it's very difficult to predict what kind of a situation we are going to be (in)" in Kashmir. "After that, will we have a lot of militancy, have extremists forces again taking over?" he asked.
All sides agree the armed extremists are far from finished. Occasional car bombs, grenade attacks and infiltrations from the Pakistan-controlled sector of Kashmir still produce a grisly daily death toll.
India's junior Home Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal last week said that New Delhi would arrange for talks with moderate Hurriyat leaders "soon".
But he gave no date and mistrust of New Delhi remains very high in Kashmir where Musharraf is seen as the main driving force for a solution.
To underline the warnings, hardline separatist politicians, who have the backing of the armed rebels, brand talks with New Delhi "meaningless".
They want tripartite talks involving India, Pakistan and the "true representatives" of Kashmiris, that is to say those advocating violence -- something Delhi has refused to countenance.
For Syed Ali Geelani, who heads the hardline Movement for Freedom (Tehreek-e-Hurriyat), the issues remain simple: India must grant Kashmiris a free vote on their future.
If not, "We will fight until the last drop of blood, until the last bullet."
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Seeing Past the Hate: Kosovo's Factions Imagine a Future
Nicholas Wood, The New York Times, 7/25/05
In the six years since NATO bombers forced Yugoslav troops out of this troubled province, progress toward resolving the entrenched enmity here between Serbs and ethnic Albanians has been slow. The United Nations, which has been administering Kosovo, now wants to broker a deal and step aside.
The negotiations are bound to be painful. Serbs are determined to keep Kosovo, their religious heartland, while ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the population, demand independence after suffering years of ethnic violence that culminated in the war of 1998 to 1999.
In one unusual peacemaking effort, a group backed by the British government has brought together eight politicians from two opposing camps -- former Albanian guerrilla leaders on one side, and minority Kosovar Serbs on the other -- for some exercises in getting along.
The group was divided into pairs, an Albanian and a Serb in each. Every day began with 15 minutes of staring into each other's eyes. Then they performed exercises -- including climbing trees together and falling backward into each other's arms.
''We were trying to break their barriers down,'' said Scarlett MccGwire of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, the group that organized the meeting.
They wanted to challenge the participants to see one another not as ''terrorist'' or ''oppressor,'' but as human beings, Ms. MccGwire said.
To a surprising degree, the effort worked.
Xhavit Haliti, a founding member of the Kosovo Liberation Army, attended the encounter and found himself won over. ''I would recommend it for all the party leaders,'' he said. By the end of the week, he said, he and his Serbian counterparts were going out to restaurants together and even shared a sauna.
But as successful as these exercises were, they also point to the tough road ahead in Kosovo, where the majority of each community still barely acknowledges the other.
Serbs face the possibility of living in an independent Albanian-dominated state. Diplomats say that if Albanians want to achieve anything like independence they will have to give the Serbs basic rights, like freedom of movement, as well as the right of those refugees who fled the region to return from Serbia.
The framework for the negotiations is still far from clear. The United Nations has commissioned a report to study if and when talks can start. Most diplomats expect the negotiations to begin by early October. The talks would involve local Albanian and Serb leaders, the Serbian government and representatives of leading industrial democracies.
While many Western officials privately acknowledge that independence is perhaps the only solution the Albanian population will accept, the Serbian government is hoping Kosovo will remain within Serbia, but be granted substantial autonomy.
Any resolution has to grapple with Kosovo's nearly complete division along ethnic lines, a rupture that goes back to June 1999, the month the Serb-dominated Yugoslav forces who were accused of committing atrocities against Albanians were forced by NATO troops to withdraw. As the soldiers left, the returning ethnic Albanian refugees sought revenge on their Serb neighbors, and forced up to 200,000 to flee.
Those Serbs that stayed in Kosovo -- their numbers are seasonal and fluctuate between 70,000 and 130,000 according to local aid agencies -- have led volatile lives.
Ethnic violence, which can dissipate for months on end, often reappears without warning. In March last year, 50,000 Albanians rioted across the province, attacking Serbs and other minorities and forcing 4,000 from their homes. Few Serbs remain in Kosovo's cities, with the exception of Mitrovica, which is divided down the middle along ethnic lines. Instead, most Serbs live in rural enclaves like Gracanica, the largest such enclave with a population of 5,000, just two miles south of Pristina.
Gracanica, like most Serbian villages across Kosovo, retains links with the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Serbia provides such basic services as health and education, and some documentation, like passports and birth and marriage certificates, services that rankle Albanians who regard the United Nations and their regional government as the only rightful authorities in the province.
''We live in two separate worlds,'' said Sasa Sekulic, a Serbian business owner in Gracanica. Forced to leave his home in Pristina by ethnic Albanian looters, Mr. Sekulic set up a small business making candy. He planned to sell it in Kosovo, but while Albanians are happy to sell him the ingredients, Albanian shops refused to stock his products after a television news show disclosed they were made in Gracanica.
Without the international community there to protect them, he said, most Serbs do not see a future in a Kosovo dominated by Albanians.
''You won't find us here,'' he said. ''We don't want to live in an independent Kosovo.''
Talks on Kosovo's final status are seen as inevitable, though. United Nations and NATO officials have concluded that the longer negotiations are put off, the higher the risk for more unrest.
The report on whether talks go ahead was commissioned by Secretary General Kofi Annan, and is being undertaken by the Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide. Mr. Annan is expected to make a recommendation to the Security Council next month.
Many Albanians see Kosovo's independence as a foregone conclusion, and one in which the Serbian government in Belgrade should have no say. Graffiti sprayed on the walls of the United Nations administrative headquarters in Pristina and elsewhere across the capital reflect that view. The slogan reads simply, ''No negotiation, self-determination.''
While the Albanian-dominated government is aware of the necessity of reassuring the Serbs, critics outside of Serbia and even some local politicians say government officials have been reluctant to turn their words into deeds.
''I think Kosovo's institutions are obliged to guarantee a good life the for the Serbs of Kosovo, to create the space for them to lead a better life,'' said Xhavit Haliti, the former guerrilla fighter, now a politician. ''That is not happening.''
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Backed by neighbors, Liberia requests Taylor handover to Sierra Leone war court
Agence France Presse, 7/29/05
Liberia on Friday made its first formal request for former president Charles Taylor to be extradited from Nigeria and stand trial for war crimes at a UN-backed court in neighboring Sierra Leone.
The request followed a day-long summit of the Mano River Union of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, and comes as pressure mounts from international and African rights watchdogs for Taylor to face justice.
"We will ask Nigeria to lift the immunity that is keeping Charles Taylor under Nigerian government protection," said a statement from the government of Liberia on behalf of the west African neighbors.
"We agreed to ask Nigeria to cancel all understandings protecting Taylor, as he continues to threaten peace in the region," the statement said. "We cannot favor the culture of impunity in the MRU states."
But in a sign of the thorny politics surrounding Taylor almost two years since he fled into exile to end Liberia's second civil war since 1989, Information Minister William Allen denied that the government had made such demands.
"We support only the communique that emerged from the Mano River Union meeting," he told AFP. "Obviously there are people trying to profit politically from the Taylor issue."
In the official MRU communique, also released Friday, Sierra Leone President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, Liberian transitional chairman Gyude Bryant and Guinean Prime Minister Cellou Diallo agreed to "suggest to suggest to the Nigerian government that there may be a need to review" Taylor's terms of exile.
"We appreciate the decision... to grant a temporary stay to Charles Taylor but we believe that some of his alleged activities may be in breach of his terms of stay in Nigeria," the communique said.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has thus far faced down strong international pressure to hand Taylor over, complaining on July 4 of "harassment and blackmail" being brought against Nigeria in an effort to pry the US-educated lay preacher away.
His spokeswoman Remi Oyo on Friday reiterated the long-held Nigerian position that Taylor would only be surrendered to an elected Liberian government. "There appears to be a trend towards amnesia because the international community literally begged Nigeria to give refuge to Mr Taylor after his exit so that the people of Liberia could be spared continued bloodshed," she told AFP in Abuja.
"The president has said that the Federal Republic of Nigeria will not be harassed. It certainly will not be intimidated for this decision that it has taken on behalf of the international community, west Africa and Africa."
Taylor faces 17 charges of war crimes for having mounted a rebel army in Sierra Leone, recruiting and drugging child soldiers to wage a brutal decade of war marked by the rape and hacking off of civilians' limbs in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in blood diamonds.
War court prosecutors have accused Taylor of repeatedly violating the terms of his exile with continued meddling in Liberia's political affairs.
They have linked him to the Al-Qaeda terror network and accused him of a role in a purported assassination attempt against Guinea President Lansana Conte in January, in a bid to dislodge him from Nigeria.
International rights watchdog Global Witness has also accused the former president of backing at least nine of the political parties presenting candidates in the October 11 polls.
OSCE urges Moldova and breakaway region to resume settlement talks
Associated Press, 7/28/05
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Thursday called on Moldovan authorities and Russian-speaking separatists in Trans-Dniester to resume settlement talks. "We now have the law and we need negotiations based on this law," said William Hill, who heads the OSCE's mission in Moldova.
Last week, Moldova's parliament approved a law setting out principles for resolving the crisis that has plagued the country since it became independent in 1991.
These include offering broad autonomy to Trans-Dniester and holding parliamentary elections in the region.
Moldova pulled out of the talks with separatists a year ago after Trans-Dniester authorities closed several Moldovan-language schools operating in their region. Moldova's president Vladimir Voronin, however, said last week that he was ready to negotiate with Trans-Dniester's leaders "to demilitarize and bring democracy to the region."
Trans-Dniester broke away from Moldova in 1992 after a short war that left over 1,500 people dead.
Moldova's government also called for the withdrawal of some 1,500 Russian troops that are stationed in the region.
Trans-Dniester, which is not recognized internationally but is backed by Russia, wants Russian troops to remain in the region.
The region's authoritarian leader Igor Smirnov has not commented on the Moldovan parliament's proposal, which largely echoes a settlement plan by neighboring Ukraine's president Viktor Yushchenko.
Moldova's government lifts economic sanctions against breakaway region
Associated Press, 7/31/05
Moldova's government has lifted trade sanctions it imposed last year on the rebel province of Trans-Dniester, the president said in comments aired on Sunday.
Moldova stopped issuing export certificates to Trans-Dniester-based companies in 2004 after separatist authorities forcibly closed two Moldovan-language schools operating in their region. The schools have since been reopened.
Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin said the trade sanctions were also because of a lack of controls on the border between Trans-Dniester and Ukraine, but that the new administration in Ukraine has made progress on controlling its border.
"The situation has changed for the better since last year," Voronin told national radio.
Trans-Dniester authorities have said the sanctions caused the region losses of about US$65 million (€54 million). The leaders of the breakaway province did not comment on the decision to lift the sanctions.
The lifting of sanctions comes a week after Moldova's parliament passed legislation offering broad autonomy to Trans-Dniester in exchange for dropping independence ambitions and agreeing to disarm.
According to the new law setting guidelines for negotiations with the separatists, Trans-Dniester would have its own legislative body. The mostly Russian-speaking region would also have three official languages: Romanian - as in Moldova - as well as Russian and Ukrainian.
It also calls for demilitarizing Trans-Dniester, where some 1,500 Russian troops are based.
The plan was criticized as too unilateral by Russia, which has refused to withdraw its troops, citing the need to guard large stockpiles of Soviet-era weapons and ammunition stored in the region.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the plan was an attempt to impose Moldova's authority on Trans-Dniester. The region declared independence from Moldova in 1992 after a short war that left more than 1,500 people dead. No country recognizes Trans-Dniester, but the region receives strong support from Russia.
UN chief appoints Dutch diplomat as personal envoy to Western Sahara
Agence France Presse, 7/26/05
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has decided to appoint former Dutch ambassador to the UN Peter van Walsum as his personal envoy for the Western Sahara, Annan's spokesman said Tuesday.
Walsum will be tasked to explore how best to break the current political deadlock between Morocco and the Polisario Front.
"As a first step, the Secretary-General has requested the ambassador to establish contacts with the parties and neighboring states to ascertain their views on the best way forward," spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Morocco annexed the Western Sahara -- formerly ruled by Spain -- in 1975 but its claim is contested by the Polisario Front, an Algerian-backed independence movement.
Rabat has dismissed the last UN scheme for a five-year period of autonomy followed by a self-determination referendum, the Baker Plan named after US former secretary of state James Baker, who threw in the towel in June 2004 expressing his frustration over lack of progress.
During years of on-off talks and the deployment of a UN observer mission in the territory, the Polisario Front has implemented a ceasefire, but every time the prospect of a referendum came close it has stalled on the issue of who should be allowed the vote.
Rabat has now declared a referendum "obsolete" and inapplicable, instead offering broad autonomy but declaring Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara non-negotiable.
Daschle urges Nepal king to restore democracy, calls for ex-PM's release
Shusham Shrestha, Agence France Presse, 7/27/05
Former US senator Tom Daschle Wednesday called on Nepal's King Gyanendra to reverse his February power grab and urged the release of sacked former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.
Speaking to reporters after talks with Gyanendra here, Daschle said all political prisoners should be freed and called for the scrapping of the anti-graft body which on Tuesday jailed Deuba and former public works minister Prakash Man Singh.
"All political prisoners including Deuba and Singh should be released and the Royal Commission for Corruption Control (RCCC) dissolved," he said, referring to the powerful body set up by the monarch which critics say is being used to target opponents of his seizure of power.
"After the disolution of the RCCC the corruption cases should be referred to the constitutionally-created Commission for Investigation of the Abuse of Authority (CIAA)," said Daschle, who arrived here last week at the invitation of the National Democratic Institute Nepal to assess the political situation.
Deuba and Singh, the former Democrat senator said, were sentenced "by framing false charges".
The two politicians, who were sacked February 1 when Gynanendra assumed full executive powers, were found guilty by the RCCC of corruption linked to the granting of a contract in a 464-million dollar water project.
Students and supporters of Deuba staged protests soon after Tuesday's sentencing and six student leaders were arrested, the Nepal Students Union (NSU) said.
It said NSU leader and high-profile activist Gagan Thapa was arrested Wednesday when trying to visit the detained students.
Thapa was among hundreds of activists rounded up after the king, claiming the elected government was unable to deal with a Maoist insurgency which has claimed 12,000 lives since 1996, took centre stage in the Himalayan kingdom on February 1. He was later freed. Students protesting the jailing of Deuba, meanwhile, clashed with riot police at three campuses in Kathmandu Wednesday and closed several campuses affiliated to the capital's main Tribhuvan university, the NSU said.
Daschle, who stressed he was not speaking for the US administration, called on Gyanendra to restore all political and civil rights and hold talks on the restoration of democracy in the Hindu kingdom with the political parties he has sidelined. "It is incumbent upon the king, given his stature, to call upon the political parties to become partners in a dialogue to restore democracy and peace and make this a priority of his government," he said. "It is clear that the Maoist conflict must be resolved through a political solution and this will be most effectively undertaken after reconciliation is achieved between the political parties and the palace," said Daschle.
He warned of growing civil unrest and discontent in Nepal unless the king reversed his power grab. "The Maoist threat is serious and ongoing and it must be resolved," he said. "A military victory by either side in this conflict is very unlikely. The only real solution is political. Besides the terrible human suffering caused by this violent insurgency, it is undermining economic progress in Nepal as well as the institutions of democracy."
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Nepal Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Tiny mountain church triggers tensions between Serbia and Montenegro
Dusan Stojanovic, Associated Press, 7/28/05
A tiny makeshift Serbian Orthodox church on a pristine mountaintop in independence-seeking Montenegro has triggered unprecedented ethnic tensions in this shaky Balkan union.
The "Saint Trinity Church" - a metal four-by-three meter (13-by-10 feet) construction - was earlier this month placed with the help of an army helicopter on the top of Mount Rumija in southern Montenegro at a religious site frequented by Christian Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Muslim worshippers.
Montenegro's pro-independence authorities last week ordered the Serbian church authorities to remove the makeshift construction overlooking the Adriatic Sea, saying it was illegally built "with an aim to provoke" non-Orthodox believers.
They said that the obvious aim of erecting the church was to mark out Serb territory in case Montenegro becomes independent after a referendum tentatively scheduled in the small Adriatic republic for early next year.
The Serbian Orthodox church leaders refused to obey the order to remove the church, even warning that its destruction could trigger ethnic clashes in Montenegro, the republic of some 630,000 people.
The head of Serbia's Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pavle, said in a letter to Serbia-Montenegro President Svetozar Marovic published Thursday that he was "deeply disturbed by the news that the Montenegrin authorities want to destroy the church."
"Such malicious destruction was performed in Montenegro and Serbia only by our conquerors and enemies," Patriarch Pavle said, referring to the destruction of another Orthodox church at the same site by Turkish occupiers of the Balkans in 1571.
Archbishop Amfilohije, a hard-line Serbian Orthodox church leader in Montenegro, said that instead of removing the church, he will on Sunday hold ceremonies to dedicate and bless it.
His followers said they would come in thousands to "defend" the construction with their bodies to prevent its demolition. "Archbishop Amfilohije is an important advocate of Serbian attempts to prevent Montenegro from making its own decisions and becoming independent," said Montenegro's President Filip Vujanovic.
He and other Montenegrin leaders said the church would be removed "once all technical conditions are set."
Montenegro itself is deeply split between those seeking independence and those who demand that it stays in the union with Serbia. In the 1990s, those seeking independence formed an independent Montenegrin Orthodox church which is not recognized by Serbia.
The European Union opposes the abolition of the Serbia-Montenegro union which was formed in 2002 under its auspices on the ruins of former Yugoslavia. The West fears that Montenegro's split from Serbia could trigger more Balkan ethnic clashes like those during the violent split-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
A group of pro-Serb Montenegrins - "Serbs in the 21st Century" -- said in a statement that if the mountaintop church is destroyed and Montenegro becomes independent, Serbs in Montenegro should organize a referendum to split their territories and join Serbia.
The same formula was used by former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to trigger wars in former Yugoslavia in 1991 by attempting to create "Greater Serbia" from the territories where Serbs once lived in Croatia and Bosnia.
Somali president vows to defend government in temporary capital
Mohamed Olad Hassan, Associated Press, 7/27/05
Somalia's president has vowed to defend his new headquarters in the town of Jowhar, hardening a rift with lawmakers and Cabinet members who want the seat of government to be Mogadishu, the country's capital.
President Abdullahi Yusuf said he will only move to Mogadishu when it is safe and the government is ready. It was his first official visit to Jowhar, 90 kilometers (56 miles) northwest of Mogadishu. "We have already begun to collect militias from different parts of the country so that we can defend the existence of the government," Yusuf said at a welcoming ceremony late Tuesday.
Somalia has been without a stable government since clan-based warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. The warlords then turned on each other, plunging the country of 7 million into chaos.
Last year Somalia's parliament and government were formed after two years of peace talks, but they were based in Kenya because Somalia was considered too dangerous.
Yusuf returned to Somalia on July 1, but has been in the northeastern region of Puntland he used to control before becoming president.
Even as his prime minister prepared the headquarters in Jowhar, parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden has set up operations in Mogadishu, together with more than 100 legislators and some Cabinet members.
On Friday, Yusuf and Sheikh Aden ended talks in Yemen without resolving differences that have split the transitional government.
National Security Minister Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, one of Mogadishu's key warlords-turned-ministers, said in a local radio interview late Tuesday that the president's arrival in Jowhar was illegal because the government's transitional charter specifies Mogadishu as the seat of government.
"I came here in Jowhar to set up the government and to ensure that the town is the undisputed seat for the transitional government," Yusuf told hundreds of Jowhar residents who turned out for Tuesday's welcome.
Rebel-backed organizations hold "Tamil resurgence" rally in northern Sri Lanka
Vincent Jeyan, Associated Press, 7/27/05
Thousands of ethnic Tamils, backed by rebels, rallied in northern Sri Lanka on Wednesday to demand self-rule and protest what they claim is the government's stonewalling of peace talks aimed at a permanent end to the island nation's two-decade-old civil war.
About 2,000 civilians from various parts of Sri Lanka's Tamil-majority north and east participated in the rally in the city of Vavuniya, 210 kilometers (130 miles) north of capital, Colombo.
Tamil Tiger rebels backed the "Tamil Resurgence Convention," which was held at a soccer stadium decorated with rebel colors - red and yellow.
Speakers at the rally said the majority Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan state has denied minority Tamils self-rule and their share of jobs and educational opportunities.
The Sri Lankan government and the rebels are observing a cease-fire that has halted their long-running civil war.
"We know the implications of war but we will not hesitate to fight if we are pushed in that direction," said V. Vigneshwaran, a civilian group leader and a chief organizer.
The rebels claim the government is insincere in efforts to find a permanent solution to the conflict and have walked out of peace talks over differences in postwar power-sharing.
"The Tamil expectations for the return to normalcy for the past three years have failed to materialize," the organizers read from a proclamation. "Our lush and fertile fields and rich seas have been seized by the Sinhala forces and controlled as high security zones depriving us our livelihoods."
"We proclaim that an environment must be created to enable us to decide our destiny," the statement read.
The government has also accused the rebels of breaching the cease-fire by killing state intelligence operatives, rival politicians and recruiting child soldiers.
More than 65,000 people have been killed since the rebels began a campaign to carve out a separate state for minority Tamils in the island's northeast.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Sudanese state TV says a plane carrying Vice President John Garang is missing
Mohamed Osman, Associated Press, 7/31/05
A plane carrying the former rebel who ascended to Sudan's No. 2 leadership post after a recent peace agreement went missing Sunday in bad weather on its way back from Uganda, Sudanese state TV reported.
President Omar el-Bashir had received a call saying that Vice President John Garang was flying from Uganda to a place in southern Sudan when contact with the plane was lost on Sunday.
Sudan was looking for the plane, the television reported.
"Contact with his plane has been lost since 6:30 p.m. because of bad weather," the TV presenter said.
Earlier Sunday, Ugandan army spokesman 2nd Capt. Dennis Musitwa said the helicopter apparently went down Saturday. The discrepancy could not immediately be explained. "They left yesterday in a Ugandan chopper," Musitwa told The Associated Press on Sunday. "What we know is that the aircraft had weather problems and crash-landed."
"We have not established where they landed. They have not reached where they are supposed to reach, and we are trying to locate them," he said.
Garang had been on a private visit in Uganda, which has pledged to repair relations with Sudan now that peace has been declared in the southern war, Musitwa said.
Garang led the Sudan People's Liberation Army in the war between the Muslim north and mainly Christian and animist south that ended in January with the signing of the peace pact, which provided a power sharing between the Khartoum government and Garang's movement.
The settlement made Garang first vice president - second only to President Omar el-Bashir - as well as president of southern Sudan, letting him set up an interim administration there until a referendum in six years on secession.
The television said Garang was heading to a former SPLA base in southern Sudan when contact was lost with his aircraft.
Earlier in Nairobi, Kenya, an SPLA spokesman Yasir Arman said that Garang was "safe and sound" in southern Sudan. Arman declined to give further details, and there was no immediate reason for the apparently conflicting reports.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis
Click here to access the Report prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.