Peace Negotiations Watch

Monday, May 23, 2005

(Volume IV, Number 19)

Contents:

Afghanistan

U.S., Afghan presidents meet amid instability, protests

Bush meets with Karzai in Washington at White House; Karzai denies reports he has done little to end poppy production.

Armenia/Azerbaijan

Armenia denies offer to hand over territory to Azerbaijan

Talks between Armenian and Azeri presidents takes place at Council of Europe summit in Warsaw.

Burundi/Rwanda

Burundi army accuses FNL rebels of attacks despite ceasefire pact

Army commander says two civilians were killed overnight.

Tutsi political groups urge Burundians to boycott elections

Tutsi politicians accuse Hutu candidates of being responsible for genocide.

Chechnya

Russian officials say Kuwaiti militant linked to al-Qaeda killed near Chechnya

Militant may have been al-Qaeda emissary to Chechen rebels.

Congo

Eight years after fall of Mobutu, Congo residents say life is worse

Money has been overspent on war and not enough on infrastructure.

Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation.

Georgia/Abkhazia

Three Georgians kidnapped in breakaway Abkhazia region, one later released

Georgia hosted Belarusian opposition leader during recent Bush visit.

Georgia, Russia resume talks on withdrawing Russian bases

Two countries unable to agree on timetable for the withdrawal of the bases.

Indonesia

Indonesia lifts emergency in Aceh; rebels demand full withdrawal

New round of talks between government and rebels to begin this week after successful first-round in Finland.

Aceh Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation.

Ivory Coast

Pro-government militia in Ivory Coast ready to disarm without force

Militia leader vows to fight back if his group is disarmed by force.

Fear and loathing in the heart of Ivory Coast's confidence zone

Government accused of dereliction in buffer zone.

Kashmir

Pakistani president calls for early solution of Kashmir issue

Musharraf suggests resolution of Kashmir dispute before his term ends in 2007.

Pakistan invites separatist leaders in Indian Kashmir to visit

Hurriyat leaders expected to visit Pakistan on June 2.

Kashmir Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation

Kosovo

Serbia welcomes U.S. Kosovo initiative, but rules out province's independence

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns calls 2005 the year of decision for Kosovo.

U.S. Is Seeking to Speed Up Talks on Kosovo's Status

Burns emphasizes need for talks to help stabilize Balkans region.

OSCE chairman urges dialogue between Kosovo Albanian leaders, Belgrade

Jan Kubis met with Boris Tadic, stating that Kosovo talks should begin as soon as possible.

Kosovo Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation.

Liberia

Report: Send Liberia's Taylor to Tribunal

Watchdog group says Taylor is violating terms of his exile from Nigeria.

Macedonia

Macedonia offers compromise in name dispute with neighbor Greece

Macedonia rejected UN name proposal, Republika-Makedonija-Skopje, last month.

Moldova

Ukraine proposes autonomy for Trans-Dniester within Moldova's boundaries

Autonomy plan would include internationally-monitored elections in Trans-Dniester region.

Morocco

Former prisoners of war seek release of fellow soldiers

Senator John McCain encourages Polisario Front to release Moroccan prisoners.

Nepal

Nepal parties demand king scraps his anti-corruption commission

Former prime minister faces two separate graft cases.

Nepal Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the Nepal Negotiation Simulation.

Philippines

U.S. reaffirms backing for Philippine peace talks with Muslim rebels

Secretary of State Rice encouraged by progress in talks.

Serbia & Montenegro

Nationalist gathering on Srebrenica massacre leads to confrontation

Discussion at Belgrade Law Faculty challenges whether Srebrenica massacre ever took place.

Spain Backs Serbia-Montenegro for EU

Spanish Foreign Minister supports EU bid, while encouraging Serbia & Montenegro to remain united.

Serbia searching for top war crimes suspects, official says

Deputy Prime Minister Labus speaks before European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Sri Lanka

Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels kill anti-guerrilla activist amid escalating tension in eastern Sri Lanka

Violence has increased since last year, when a split occurred among the Tamil Tigers.

Tamil Tiger rebels push for tsunami aid deal with Sri Lanka government

Marxist party opposed to making Tamil Tigers a partner in aid distribution efforts.

Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation

Sudan

Darfur Peace Talks to Resume May 30

Mini-summit in Tripoli leads to agreement that talks will resume later this month.

Sudan keen on refugee return amid reconstruction of ruined region

500,000 Sudanese fled southern part of the country.

Africa Union lists military hardware it needs from EU, NATO and UN for Darfur peacekeeping

AU peacekeeping operation has been bogged down by logistical problems and lack of air support.

Peace Negotiations Watch is prepared by the Public International Law and Policy Group in cooperation with American University and is made possible by grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Ploughshares Fund.

Afghanistan

U.S., Afghan presidents meet amid instability, protests

Jennifer Loven, Associated Press, 5/23/05

President Bush held up Afghanistan as a model of emerging democracy and anti-terror partner, but President Hamid Karzai came to their meeting Monday waving a long list of grievances associated with U.S. involvement in his country's struggle to recover from decades of instability.

At Karzai's Oval Office session with Bush, the centerpiece of a four-day U.S. visit and the two leaders' first such get-together since September, the Afghan leader hoped to win a commitment for a long-term - perhaps permanent - U.S. military presence in his country. But Karzai also said in advance of the meeting at the White House that he wants greater control over American military operations there.

Approximately 20,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan, and there is no end in sight to their mission - including the still unfruitful search for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. That is in addition to about 8,200 troops from NATO countries in Kabul and elsewhere. But there has been little U.S. receptiveness to the idea of a rigid, permanent arrangement there. Karzai also said that he wants to take over custody of the hundreds of Afghans detained in military jails in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during and after the 2001 U.S. invasion that ousted the repressive Taliban regime.

And, citing reports of prisoner abuse by American forces at the U.S. military's main base at Bagram, Karzai said over the weekend that he wants promises of punishment for any U.S. troops guilty of mistreatment. The White House gave little hope there would be announcements Monday on any of Karzai's requests. "I don't know that I'd expect that," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "This is an opportunity for the two leaders to discuss a range of issues, and particularly to talk about Afghanistan's democratic progress that they're making."

Bush has promised that advancing freedom's march across the globe is the top foreign policy goal of his second term. So the meeting with Karzai was a chance to showcase his administration's successes in the war on terror and support for young democracies. In his weekly radio address Saturday, Bush said Afghanistan's new constitution, elected president and upcoming parliamentary elections in September represent "remarkable progress." "A nation that once knew only the terror of the Taliban is now seeing a rebirth of freedom, and we will help them succeed," the president added.

But the protests and other difficulties in Afghanistan show the complexities involved in turning chaotic, poor countries with long histories of violence into stable, thriving democracies.

Karzai began his U.S. stay by sharply denying a reported State Department cable that said he has not worked strongly enough to curtail production of opium, the raw material for heroin. The cable, from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said the U.S. crackdown there has not been very effective, in part because Karzai "has been unwilling to assert strong leadership," The New York Times reported Sunday.

"The Afghan people have done our job," Karzai said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition." "Now the international community must come and provide alternative livelihood to the Afghan people, which they have not done so far. Let us stop this blame." Production of opium has soared to record levels since the fall of the Taliban, leading to warnings that the former al-Qaida haven is fast turning into a "narco-state." Last year, cultivation yielded nearly 90 percent of the world's supply. Recent anti-American protests across Afghanistan killed at least 15 people and threatened a security crisis for Karzai's feeble central government.

The White House blamed a Newsweek report - later retracted by the magazine - for igniting the violence. The May 9 story said Pentagon investigators had found evidence that interrogators at Guantanamo placed copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, in washrooms to unsettle suspects and flushed one down a toilet. But Karzai has blamed opponents of his ties with the United States and of his reconciliation efforts with the Taliban.

Also last week, there were two fatal attacks in two days on employees of a U.S.-funded anti-drugs project in southern Afghanistan, a region prey to drug traffickers and insurgents. An Italian aid worker also was kidnapped in Kabul last week. Karzai was also meeting with Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, congressional lawmakers and the new head of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz. Karzai received an honorary degree Sunday from Boston University and will pick up another at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

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Armenia/Azerbaijan

Armenia denies offer to hand over territory to Azerbaijan

Associated Press, 5/18/05

Armenia on Wednesday denied a claim by neighboring Azerbaijan that it offered at recent talks to return occupied territory adjacent to the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Foreign Ministry spokesman Gamlet Gasparyan said the statement by Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Elmar Mamdyarov that Armenia had agreed in principle to withdraw from seven occupied regions "does not correspond to reality."

The talks between the presidents of both countries took place Monday ahead of the two-day Council of Europe summit in the Polish capital, Warsaw. They focused on the presence of Armenian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region inside Azerbaijan that has been under the control of ethnic Armenians since the early 1990s, following fighting that killed an estimated 30,000 people.

Despite the denial of the territorial concession, the Armenian official stressed that the Warsaw talks - which also included a meeting between the leaders of Azerbaijan and its main ally Turkey - had achieved progress in securing a settlement. "It was another step on the road to a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem," he said.

A cease-fire was signed in 1994, but the enclave's final political status has not been determined and shooting breaks out frequently between the two sides, which face off across a demilitarized buffer zone. France, Russia and the United States lead the Minsk Group under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is seeking to assist a diplomatic solution.

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Burundi

Burundi army accuses FNL rebels of attacks despite ceasefire pact

Agence France Presse, 5/19/05

Burundi's army Thursday accused the National Liberation Forces (FNL), the country's lone remaining insurgency group, of attacks despite the weekend signing of a ceasefire deal with the government. A rebel spokesman responded angrily, saying the army's allegation was "a declaration of war" despite the truce deal, while representatives of the United Nations and African Union urged rival sides to calm down and pursue a slow transition to peace and democracy. On an upbeat note, top police officials said the integration of former rebels into a new police force was completed, bringing the total strength to around 17,000.

Army commander General Juvenal Niyoyunguruza said two civilians were killed overnight Wednesday, only three days after the rebels penned a cessation of hostilities agreement with the government. "How can you say that the FNL stopped fighting when they continue with the killings and looting from the people?" the privately owned Radio Publique Africaine (RPA) quoted General Juvenal Niyoyunguruza, the country's first region military commander, as saying. "Last night (overnight Wednesday), the FNL killed two civilians in Mumbini locality and looted money. They have not stopped killing," Niyoyunguruza said.

The first military region covers Bujumbura's western rural outskirts, the FNL's zone of operations. "The army's declarations show that President (Domitien) Ndayizeye has no real power," FNL spokesman Pasteur Habimana told AFP. "It's just made a declaration of war on us despite of the signing of an accord in Dar es Salaam." On May 15, FNL leader Agathon Rwasa and Ndayizeye, meeting in the Tanzanian port city of Dar es Salaam, signed an agreement calling for an immediate cessation of hostilies in the country and are expected to hold talks on the modalities of a permanent ceasefire.

"We realise that there is still fighting on the ground," Niyoyunguruza said. "We heard about the agreement over the radio, but the leaders have not given us instructions about it." Habimana said the army itself had failed to stop attacks and announced that Rwasa "urges all FNL fighters everywhere to defend themselves from now on. The FNL, up to now, has been aggressive neither militarily nor verbally."

The small central African nation is emerging with difficulty from 12 years of civil war that killed some 300,000 people. Up to Sunday, the FNL was the country's sole rebel group not to have signed a ceasefire agreement with the government. The head of the civilian police team in a UN mission in Burundi, Ibrahim Diallo, said "the integration of former rebel fighters into the Burundi National Police (PNB) has been complete since Monday."

"This concerns 6,132 people now deployed at 20 centres all around the country, where they have joined their new companions in the former gendarmerie and police," Diallo told a weekly press briefing. A senior PNB officer who asked not to be named told AFP that the overall number, under a scheme to give ethnic Hutus and Tutsis parity in the security forces, was "around 17,000 men, which is fewer than the planned 20,000." While the fighters traded accusations, the United Nations and the African Union urged Burundi's rival political parties to pledge to respect the results of an upcoming series of elections.

"We, representatives of the AU and the UN, appeal to you, heads of parties, to publicly pledge now to respect the code of conduct and to reject any act of intimidation and incitement to violence, to pledge to accept poll results once they are proclaimed and endorsed by the electoral commission," said Carolyn McAskie, UN chief Kofi Annan's special representative for Burundi.

"We want from you a firm and solemn pledge before the Burundian people and the international community," said McAskie, who was flanked by Mamadou Bah, her counterpart from the AU. Campaigning for the June 3 communal elections opened Wednesday, the first in a series of five polls that will culminated with legislative elections on July 4 and a presidential ballot on August 19.

Tutsi political groups urge Burundians to boycott elections

Agence France Presse, 5/21/05

Six minority Tutsi political groups on Saturday called on Burundians to boycott upcoming elections, saying the polls will "impose the worst criminals" as leaders in the country. "The worst criminals against humanity and those responsible for genocide will be imposed through a parody of electoral consultations," said Serges Kananiye, vice-president of a group calling itself the Association for the Fight Against Genocide.

He, along with leaders of five other groups, said elections to be held in the coming months to replace the war-torn nation's transitional government with the endorsement of regional leaders would be nothing but a farce. "Whether you are Hutu or Tutsi, we urge you not to vote and to urge others not to vote either because nothing good will come from these elections," said Charles Mukasi, president of a radical wing of the main Tutsi party UPRONA.

"It is the unpunished criminals who are on the electoral lists, they will commit genocide against the Tutsis," he told thousands of Burundians at a rally here. The crowd had gathered in Bujumbura to commemorate what they refer to as "the Tutsi genocide by the FRODEBU party in 1993" observed on the 21st of every month.

The Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU), a Hutu group led by the President Domitien Ndayizeye, is currently at the top of Burundi's transitional government and considers the association's members to be extremists. The tiny central African state, still struggling to recover from more than a decade of civil war, is scheduled to hold a series of elections between June 3 to August 19 after which a new government will be sworn in.

Some 300,000 people have been killed in the war which was sparked in 1993 by the assassination by Tutsi military officers of President Melchior Ndadaye, the country's first Hutu president, just months after his democratic election.

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Chechnya

Russian officials say Kuwaiti militant linked to al-Qaida killed near Chechnya

Steve Gutterman, Associated Press, 5/18/05

Russian authorities said Wednesday that a Kuwaiti militant who was an al-Qaida emissary to Chechnya has been killed by security forces in a neighboring region, the second statement in as many days linking foreigners to Chechen rebels.

The alleged militant, who went by the single name Jarah, was killed Tuesday evening along with another suspect during an operation near the Chechen border in Dagestan, said Maj.-Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, the spokesman for the Russian campaign against rebels in Chechnya and surrounding areas.

In a statement, Shabalkin said Jarah was an al-Qaida emissary in Chechnya and has close connections with members of the Muslim Brotherhood, an outlawed Egyptian Islamic movement, and of Al-Haramain, a Saudi Charity that the kingdom's government dissolved last year amid U.S. suspicion that it was bankrolling al-Qaida.

He said Jarah had been a middleman for the funding of Chechen rebels by foreign terror groups and had helped top rebel leaders - Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov, who was killed earlier this year - to organize "many large terrorist acts." He did not name any specific attacks Jarah allegedly helped plan.

Russia authorities say Chechen rebels, fighting their second separatist war in a decade, have been financed by Islamic terrorist groups abroad and that many Arab mercenaries have fought alongside the rebels in the mountainous southern region, in some cases leading groups of militants.

According to Shabalkin, whose claims could not be independently confirmed, Jarah received training in Taliban terror camps and was adept at preparing bombs and poisons. He said that Jarah had spent "a long period of time" in the Pankisi Gorge, a region near Chechnya in neighboring Georgia, and in Azerbaijan.

While in Georgia and Azerbaijan, he said the Kuwaiti citizen and unidentified associates received large amounts of money from "foreign terrorist centers" and sent it along to Russia's North Caucasus region, which includes Chechnya.

Jarah also frequently entered Chechnya, where he moved with rebel groups under Basayev and took part in terror and other attacks, trained militants in explosives and taught them extremist Muslim ideology, Shabalkin said. He was also involved in training female suicide bombers, Shabalkin's statement said.

On Tuesday, Shabalkin had announced that Russian security forces killed a prominent Chechen rebel he accused of planning chemical attacks. He said the rebel was supposed to carry out the attacks under orders from a Jordanian militant, Abu Mudjaid, who allegedly organized a shipment of toxic substances to Chechnya from abroad. Authorities in Chechnya say many attacks there have been carried out by militants entering from Dagestan, the restive region where Shabalkin said Jarah was killed.

Russian and regional officials met Wednesday to discuss plans to base a Russian military unit in Dagestan's Botlikh district, an area near the Chechen border where rebels seized villages in 1999 fighting that was one of the catalysts for the Kremlin's decision to send troops into Chechnya that year, starting the second war.

Russian forces had withdrawn from Chechnya following a devastating 1994-1996 war that left the region with de-facto independence.

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Congo

Eight years after fall of Mobutu, Congo residents say life is worse

Bryan Mealer, Associated Press, 5/17/05

Eight years ago, the flamboyant, cruel and rapacious Mobutu Sese Seko fled the country he had named Zaire as rebels marched into his capital. Now, President Joseph Kabila - son of the rebel leader who ousted the dictator - has ended a war, pushed through a constitution and promised elections. But as Congolese marked the anniversary of Mobutu's fall Tuesday, many say life has grown worse. A few hundred people attended anniversary church services Tuesday, and others trickled to the capital's Laurent Kabila memorial. Congolese posed for pictures near a copper-plated bust of the rebel leader, who was assassinated by a disgruntled bodyguard in 2001, and stood next to his coffin, which is draped with a Congolese flag and encased under glass. Armed soldiers stood guard.

The memorial contrasts sharply with the landscape elsewhere in Congo's hardscrabble capital streets are cratered with potholes filled with neon-green sewage. Begging children swarm around open car windows. Jobs are a distant memory, much like electricity and water and a life once led with dignity.

The rebel victory was heralded as a new beginning for Congo, whose economy had been gutted by Mobutu and his coffer-robbing associates. Laurent Kabila, who changed the country's name back to Congo from Zaire, appointed himself president and promised a massive turnaround. Instead, he squandered what little Mobutu had left, then fought invading armies from Rwanda and Uganda in a war that killed nearly 4 million people. Kinshasa residents say their day-to-day survival is more threatened now than under the dog days of "Papa" Mobutu. Their children are dying faster, their husbands are unemployed and to eat one meal a day is a stroke of good fortune.

"When Papa was president, we had money for dresses and we ate breakfast everyday," said Emma Matimba, who sells scrawny piles of peanuts near Kinshasa's soccer stadium, where Kabila was sworn in to great aplomb two weeks after his army's May 17 arrival. "Now we don't have water or power to cook," she said. "I can't afford to send my kids to school. Kabila made life insufferable."

When the portly, Marxist-leaning rebel leader arrived in Kinshasa, after a legendary eight-month march across Congo, the country's national debt was a whopping US$9.6 billion (€7.6 billion). International donors, who'd given up on Congo after Mobutu used aid money to buy yachts and French villas, slowly came back. But donors were soon accusing Kabila of pocketing aid money. Hopes of promised elections were shattered when Kabila banned all political activity. He even forbade wearing miniskirts.

Neighboring Rwanda and Uganda had backed Kabila's September 1996 invasion to oust Hutu rebels who'd fled to Congo after Rwanda's 1994 genocide. Rwanda believed the Hutus were planning another slaughter and felt Mobutu was not doing enough to stop them. Once in office, Kabila fired many of the Rwandan advisers who'd aided his advance. In 1998, Rwanda and Uganda invaded Congo again, sparking a five-year war that sucked in six African armies. Thrust into power after his father's 2001 assassination, Joseph Kabila helped bring all warring sides together in 2003 to form a transitional, power-sharing government.

On Monday, Congo's parliament adopted a new constitution that paves way for the end of the transition government and promises elections by June 2006. International donors seem to have faith in Joseph Kabila, and have poured millions into the country's election preparations. But still, even after nearly three years of peace, Congo's people have seen little improvement. According Congo's finance ministry, the country's national debt has sank to US$14 billion (€11.08 billion).

A parliamentary report in March found massive overspending by the president and his Cabinet. Spending on elections, new roads and education was 50 percent under budget; money was spent instead on continued fighting in the east and travel by the president and vice presidents. The local currency dips weekly against the dollar. Poorly paid soldiers loot and steal from residents, and health care is so out of reach most people don't even bother going to a doctor.

"The government only makes themselves and their families rich," said Farine Apoa, a bread seller in Kinshasa's Victoire slum. Apoa said two of her seven children died recently of malaria, and could've been saved if she could afford a doctor. "Mobutu was bad, but at least we had more food, and our husbands had jobs," she said, pointing at rotting garbage floating in a nearby pothole. "Look at how we live. This place is a nasty dump."

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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Georgia/Abkhazia

Three Georgians kidnapped in breakaway Abkhazia region, one later released

Associated Press, 5/19/05

Three Georgians were kidnapped Thursday in the breakaway region of Abkhazia, and one was later released with a note from the abductors demanding a ransom, officials said. The kidnapping stoked tensions between Tbilisi and the separatist province, which the federal government hopes to bring back into the fold. The three men were kidnapped Thursday morning in the province's Gali district, when the car they were driving was stopped by unknown people, regional security official Temur Gabunia said.

One man, Spartak Dzhegeria, was later released with a message from the kidnappers demanding a ransom of US$5,000 (€3,900) for the safe return of the other two, Zvid Partsvania and Arkady Tabagua, the official said. Gabunia gave no further details about the case, which both Georgian and Abkhazian officials are investigating. Dzhegeria recently had returned from the Serb province of Kosovo, where he served with Georgia's peacekeeping troops.

Abkhazia has run its own affairs since 1993, when separatists drove out Georgian government troops. The Black Sea region is not recognized internationally, but has cultivated closer ties with Russia, which has peacekeepers there. In a separate development, Georgia on Thursday criticized the visit of officials from the former Soviet republic of Belarus to the Abkhazian capital Sukhumi.

Georgian Parliament Speaker Nino Burdzhanadze said the visit demonstrated that Belarus was "violating elementary norms of civilization by dealing with issues of sovereignty of another country, of its territorial integrity."

Observers in Tbilisi believe the move to send a delegation to Abkhazia was Belarus' retaliation for Georgia's hosting a Belarusian opposition leader during the recent visit to Georgia of the U.S. President George W. Bush. Belarusian authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has vowed that a popular uprising - such as those that recently toppled longtime governments in three ex-Soviet republics, including Georgia - would not take place in Belarus.

Georgia, Russia resume talks on withdrawing Russian bases

Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili, Associated Press, 5/23/05

Georgia and Russia resumed negotiations Monday on withdrawing Soviet-era Russian bases from the Caucasus Mountains country, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would not tolerate being pressured in the talks. The two countries have been unable to agree on a timetable for the withdrawal of the bases - a source of growing tension as Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and his Western-oriented government seek to shake off Russian influence.

As a Russian delegation arrived in Tbilisi, Putin warned Georgian officials against putting pressure on Moscow in the talks, saying in televised remarks from Moscow that "there is nothing that would require an instantaneous withdrawal of the troops." Georgia last week imposed sanctions against the bases in a bid to have Moscow speed up the withdrawal, limiting visas to Russian soldiers and placing additional controls on the shipment of equipment and cargo to and from the bases.

"Such a pressured way of conducting negotiations seems ungrounded to me," Putin said in Moscow. Putin hinted that Russia had its own means for pressuring its former satellite states, by urging Russian energy companies to charge world market prices for supplies instead of the discounted rates offered to former Soviet republics. "We need to build relations with foreign partners in the sphere of energy supplies on market conditions," Putin said, but added that "economic sanctions do not always prove effective in achieving political goals." Georgia has insisted the bases be out by January 2008, but Russia wants more time to prepare infrastructure to house the returning troops and equipment.

Georgian officials appeared ready for a compromise, however. Parliament speaker Nino Burdzhanadze told Kviris Palitra newspaper that Georgia may accept having the bases withdrawn in the course of 2008, as Moscow has suggested. "It is not crucial whether the bases will leave before Jan. 1, 2008, or in May of that year," she was quoted as saying in Monday's edition.

Russia's special envoy leading the delegation, Igor Savolsky, denied speculation that the two sides would be discussing the issue of compensation for the bases' withdrawal. Moscow previously insisted on several hundred million dollars (euros) in payment.

"There has not been and there will be no talk on compensation," Savolsky told reporters upon arriving at the Tbilisi airport. "The sides have agreed that they will seek additional external financial resources." Savolsky also said that some of the troops would be relocated to Armenia, an ex-Soviet republic that is a close regional ally to Russia and where Moscow has a military presence. Most of the troops in Georgia, however, will be moved to Russia, he said.

Separately on Monday, Saakashvili opened a new customs checkpoint on the Georgia-Azerbaijani border. The checkpoint was built under a U.S.-financed program, which envisages building several others. Saakashvili voiced hope that similar checkpoints would soon operate on the borders with Abkhazia and South-Ossetia, two breakaway provinces that Tbilisi hopes to bring into the fold.

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Indonesia

Indonesia lifts emergency in Aceh; rebels demand full withdrawal

Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press, 5/19/05

Indonesia lifted emergency rule in insurgency-hit Aceh on Thursday but kept soldiers there for post-tsunami reconstruction, as rebels demanded a full withdrawal, accusing troops of keeping up attacks despite efforts to rebuild the province and negotiate peace.

Jakarta imposed martial law in Aceh two years ago when it abandoned peace talks and launched a full-scale offensive against rebels in the Free Aceh Movement. It was downgraded to an emergency a year later, though fighting continued. More than 3,000 people have died in the violence.

After the Dec. 26 tsunami killed more than 128,000 people in Aceh, the rebels proclaimed a unilateral truce, saying they wanted to help rescue efforts, and the government reopened peace talks. Both sides describe the talks in Finland as a success and the next round opens next Thursday. However, a key demand for the rebels remains the full withdrawal of the 39,000 government troops in province.

"Even after the tsunami - while foreign troops, the international press and well-meaning NGOs gathered in the capital and brought attention to Aceh's plight - the people of Aceh continue to suffer under the Indonesian gun," rebel spokesman Sofyan Dawood said in a statement Thursday. "Abduction and murder of civilians, and the torture and summary execution of our captured fighters has continued without an hour's pause."

In Aceh, residents said the presence of the security forces remained pervasive despite the formal end of the emergency. "I think today is no different to any other previous day," said Zulfikar, a 42 year-old street vendor in the provincial capital Banda Aceh. "We do not see any change." Under the emergency, the military had broad authority to impose curfews, detain suspects indefinitely and censor the press.

The lifting of the emergency Thursday means that the military no longer can infringe on civil liberties in Aceh and that the local administration is being handed back to civilians, Minister of Justice and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin said.

But the government has refused demands for a military pullout. Cabinet Secretary Sudi Silahahi said the troops would stay "to restore peace and order" and help local governments "safeguard the process of rehabilitation and reconstruction of Aceh." Human rights groups say soldiers have been responsible for numerous abuses, including extrajudicial killings of unarmed villagers, torture and rape in Aceh. "Indonesia's negotiators serve up warm words across the table in Helsinki, but the military continues to round up entire Achehnese villages," Dawood said.

"Why would a peaceful Aceh need Indonesian troops? Is Thailand or Malaysia planning to invade us? Or does Indonesia have some other, darker reason?" Dawood said. Rebels of the Free Aceh Movement have been fighting for independence for the oil and gas-rich province since 1976. Nearly a fifth of the country's armed forces are currently engaged in Aceh. About 15,000 policemen, including heavily armed paramilitary units, also are deployed to the province on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

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

Pro-government militia in Ivory Coast ready to disarm without force

Agence France Presse, 5/19/05

A pro-government militia in western Ivory Coast said Thursday its fighters are ready to surrender their weapons provided that the disarmament program backed by the international community is not conducted by force. "We are in favor of disarmament," said Denis Glofiei Maho, the leader of the militia known as the Front to Liberate the Great West (FLGO) in Guiglo, the main city in the loyalist zone of the west African state's cocoa belt.

But Maho, considered one of the most powerful and well-organized militia leaders in Ivory Coast warned that his troops will fight back if they are disarmed by force. "We will die before we surrender our arms by force," he told AFP. After years of delay, the Ivorian military and rebel New Forces reached agreement Saturday setting June 27 as the date to begin the disarmament operation, a key obstacle in reconciling the country divided since September 2002 between rebel north and loyalist south.

Tens of thousands of rebel fighters are to be demobilized around the northern zone, while FLGO and other militias loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo will be cantoned in government-built camps in the south. There was, however, no agreement as to how the militias will be disarmed and dismantled, which the rebel military has said was a key obstacle to any weapons handover on their side.

Unlike in neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia, the Ivorians themselves and not the United Nations will run the disarmament program, which has been plagued with poor organization and a lack of funds since its inception. The 6,200 UN and 4,000 French peacekeepers keeping the protagonists apart will assist in the coordination and monitoring of the process but will otherwise limit their involvement.

A stipend of some 500,000 CFA francs (770 euros, 1,000 dollars) will be issued to each disarmed combatant, which is one of the major incentives, Maho said, for his 7,000-strong force to surrender their arms. "The western-based rebels we fought against will benefit from disarmament, so why shouldn't we?" he said. "There is no reason why we should not benefit, and the national disarmament commission is very much in agreement with us on this point."

The World Bank, the major partner of the Ivorian government in the funding of the disarmament operation, released a report last week chock-full of concerns about the way the national disarmament commission was handling the operation, saying it suffered from a "certain number of inadequacies".

Fear and loathing in the heart of Ivory Coast's confidence zone

Agence France Presse, 5/23/05

Scrawled in a wobbly hand, the appeal "we want peace in Ivory Coast" was bittersweet, written as it was on a piece of splintered wood inside a ransacked house piled high with garbage. Such are the contradictions that exist in Ivory Coast's confidence zone, a 400 kilometer (250 mile) strip of no-man's-land dividing rebel north from loyalist south under the watchful eyes of UN and French peacekeepers since September 2002 when a rebel uprising triggered divisive civil war.

"There is no security here," said Felix Doue, village chief of Guinglo-Zia, tucked under the southern boundary on the government side. "This notion of confidence zone is so tiring, when the truth is that any provocation could make everything explode." The town of Blody, proves no exception. House after house on its dusty streets bears the scars of the ethnic antagonism that pits indigenous farmers against economic migrants, animist and Christian against Muslim.

Nor has Blody been spared the violence that has punctuated the years of antagonism, stoked higher by xenophobic militias and municipal officials reaping the material benefits of the war economy in this lush cocoa-growing belt in the southwest. At least seven people were killed, including the village chief, and three are still missing after clashes in early May that erupted in nearby Duekoue and radiated out into the villages linked together by red laterite trails.

Neither the indigenous nor migrant community will take responsibility for unleashing the violence, though both sides recognize that it is fear that drives the fighting. An exodus from Blody of the indigenous farmers has only made the migrants more vulnerable, they say, likely to be confronted by the pro-government militias based in Duekoue who slip into the confidence zone with ease, undetected by the Bangladeshis ostensibly in charge of security in the zone.

But slip through they do, due to the shortage of troops, material and funds that has dogged the UN operation at every step in the 13 months since it was deployed in Ivory Coast. "The confidence zone has unfortunately become a zone without confidence," said one UN official, based in the restive west where rolling ethnic clashes have claimed dozens of lives in the last several months. "The zone is too vast and outstrips the resources of the UN peacekeepers, who cannot be everywhere, all the time."

Such problems have been catalogued repeatedly, by independent and United Nations teams alike, and have become even more critical with a planned disarmament campaign due to start next month and elections slated for October.

A report in March to the UN Security Council from Secretary General Kofi Annan said the state was derelict in providing legal, police or juridical protection to the zone's residents, while Human Rights Watch also deplored the instability and insecurity in the zone. "Weapons are moving around and people are being killed," said Blody resident Andre Doh. "In all actuality, the confidence zone does not exist, but nobody will admit it."

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Kashmir

Pakistani president calls for early solution of Kashmir issue

Associated Press, 5/20/05

Pakistan's leader called for early resolution of the Kashmir territorial issue, saying he was ready to discuss any reasonable option to resolve the lingering dispute between nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and India. "We must grasp a fleeting moment" to solve this problem, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Friday night. "I personally feel it should be done within the tenures of (Indian) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and myself."

Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999 and later held parliamentary elections, is due to complete his term as president in 2007, although the ruling party has said it wants him to remain in power beyond that. Singh's term as prime minister ends in 2009. Musharraf, who was addressing a gathering of journalists in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, said resolving the Kashmir issue would help ensure durable peace in South Asia.

Kashmir, a former princely state in the Himalayas, was divided between India and Pakistan shortly after they gained independence from Britain in 1947. Both neighbor countries claim the entire territory, and have fought two of their three wars over it. Pakistan and India have recently held talks aimed at resolving all issues between them, including Kashmir. After more than five decades of bitter hostility, they recently started a bus service between the capitals of their respective portions of Kashmir so that divided families can meet with relatives and friends.

Pakistan invites separatist leaders in Indian Kashmir to visit

Sadaqat Jan, Associated Press, 5/23/05

Pakistan has invited Muslim separatist leaders from India's portion of Kashmir for a visit early next month, a government spokesman said Monday. Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said Pakistan expected the leaders from the All Parties Hurriyat Conference - a separatist coalition - to arrive on June 2 by a bus that links the two parts of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan and India. "A very warm welcome awaits the Hurriyat leaders when they visit Pakistan," Jilani said.

Pakistan and India both claim Kashmir in its entirety. They have fought two wars over Kashmir since their independence from British rule in 1947. India has denied permission to APHC leaders to travel to Pakistan in the past and their passports are "impounded," said Farooq Rahmani, a leader of Pakistan's chapter of APHC, a conglomerate of separatist political and religious groups in Kashmir.

"Pakistan has displayed large-heartedness by inviting the APHC leaders. But let's see whether India will allow them to travel here," he said. In Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, leaders of the APHC, which has two factions, said they will take a decision about Pakistan's invitation soon. "Only when we receive the formal invitation, will we be able to decide the future course. We will be meeting on Wednesday to discuss the matter and decide," said one faction leader, Molvi Abbas Ansari.

The other faction leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, also said they hadn't received a formal invite but would "take a decision very soon." Mehbooba Mufti, a lawmaker whose People's Democratic Party leads the governing coalition in Indian-adminstered Kashmir, said the Pakistani move will "greatly help the ongoing peace process." More than 66,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in a Muslim-led insurgency in India's portion of Kashmir since 1989. The dozen or so rebel groups are either seeking Kashmir's independence or its merger with Pakistan.

More than a year ago, Pakistan and India began efforts to normalize relations and try to resolve the Kashmir issue. The thaw in relations has seen restoration of severed transportation links, diplomatic ties and a series of negotiations to resolve the Kashmir issue and other minor disputes between the two countries.

Pakistani and Indian defense officials are scheduled to hold talks later this week on a possible pullback of troops from Siachen, the world's highest battle field between the nuclear-armed neighbors. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said at a meeting of a council supervising Pakistan's part of Kashmir that the process for peace with India is "irreversible." "We remain committed to the dialogue process, which we believe is irreversible," Aziz said.

Kashmir Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.

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Kosovo

Serbia welcomes U.S. Kosovo initiative, but rules out province's independence

Dusan Stojanovic, Associated Press, 5/19/05

Serbia-Montenegro on Thursday welcomed the latest U.S. initiative to resolve the future status of Kosovo, but ruled out independence for the volatile province. Calling 2005 the "year of decision for Kosovo," U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns called Wednesday for increased efforts to resolve the political status of the ethnic Albanian-dominated region. Burns said Kosovo's final status must be based on multi-ethnicity with full respect for human rights, including the right of all refugees and displaced persons to return home in safety. He ruled out any solution based on unilateral decisions by either side or through the use of force.

The province's ethnic Albanian majority, which fought a war against Yugoslav government troops in 1998-99, insists on full independence, but Serbs sees the province as an integral part of Serbia. "We have no single reason to be unhappy" with the U.S. plan, Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic told the independent B-92 radio. But the American stand on Serbia's borders "remains unclear," he added.

Kosovo formally remains part of Serbia-Montenegro, Yugoslavia's successor state, but has been an international protectorate since the 1999 NATO bombing halted Serbia's crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians and forced Belgrade to relinquish control over Kosovo to the United Nations and NATO.

Tens of thousands of Serbs and Roma fled the province after the war due to reprisals by ethnic Albanians. In March 2004, two days of ethnic violence in which mobs of ethnic Albanians targeted the Serb minority and their property left 19 people dead and more than 900 injured. Burns said Belgrade's suggestion of "more than autonomy but less than independence" for Kosovo is unclear.

"Our stand is that Serbia's borders cannot be changed. We are ready to sign that those borders be symbolic, transparent and completely open," Draskovic said. "We won't say that we have sovereignty over Kosovo, but the Albanians should not say they have independence."

Serbian President Boris Tadic, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and Tomislav Nikolic, a leader of the ultranationalist Radical Party, met late Wednesday in Belgrade, issuing a statement that "international borders in the region must remain unchanged to preserve and strengthen regional stability."

U.S. Is Seeking to Speed Up Talks on Kosovo's Status

Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times, 5/20/05

The Bush administration, opening an initiative to stabilize the troubled Balkan states, is seeking to speed up talks to grant greater independence for Kosovo in return for strides by the Kosovo government to protect the rights of Serbs and other minorities, State Department officials have announced. As part of the effort, R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, will travel in the coming week to Europe and to the Balkan region to meet with officials about Kosovo and various steps that the United States wants the leaders of Serbia and Bosnia to take.

Mr. Burns said Wednesday that the eventual goal was to heal one of the largest remaining wounds from the cold war in Europe. Kosovo has remained a United Nations protectorate as part of the deal ending the ethnic wars in the mid-1990's that followed the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. ''We and our allies are entering a new stage in our policy toward the Balkans, one that will accelerate the region's integration into the European family and Euro-Atlantic institutions,'' Mr. Burns told the House Committee on International Relations, adding that ''2005 is a year of decision for Kosovo.''

The official United States position has not moved to an outright endorsement of Kosovo as an independent nation, but it has not ruled that out. Some State Department officials acknowledged that the nearly intractable ethnic hatreds in the Balkans have been a side issue for the Bush administration, in part because of its concern about global terrorism. Clinton administration officials, particularly the former United Nations ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, have suggested that the Bush administration was averse to trying to build on an achievement of the Clinton years, namely the bombing of Serbia and the setting up of Kosovo as a semi-independent protectorate.

A senior State Department official gave credit to Mr. Holbrooke for pressing the need for greater involvement in the Balkans and also to Senator George V. Voinovich, an Ohio Republican who is of Serbian and Slovenian descent. In his testimony, Mr. Burns described three main areas for the initiative. First, he said, is the need to begin immediately discussing the future status of Kosovo.

Kosovo, a Muslim-dominated province of the former Yugoslavia, revolted after suffering a crackdown by Serbia under Mr. Milosevic. But after evidence of abuses against Kosovo's own Serbian minority, the region was put under a United Nations protectorate with its future undefined.

The new country of Serbia and Montenegro insists that Kosovo should remain part of its territory, but Kosovo's Muslim majority wants independence. Until now, the European and American approach has been that Kosovo must improve its democratic institutions and treatment of ethnic minority groups before independence can be discussed.

Mr. Burns said the United States now favored discussing the future status of Kosovo simultaneously with improvements in its democratic standards, with the hope that the improvement can become an incentive for achieving independence. Mr. Burns said the aim was to settle Kosovo's status by the end of 2005.

The second goal, Mr. Burns said, is to get the government of Serbia and Montenegro to hand over people charged with war crimes dating from the outset of the Balkan wars, particularly the Serbian leaders Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, who were associated with the massacre at Srebrenica in Bosnia.

Finally, Mr. Burns said, steps must be taken by Bosnia to establish a unification government that integrates the ethnic divisions in its country. He suggested that a future special envoy from Europe, assisted by a deputy from the United States, might assist in negotiating these arrangements. Since 1999, a United Nations peacekeeping force has been stationed in Kosovo. From a peak of 40,000 troops six years ago, there are now 18,000 troops from 34 countries, including about 1,800 Americans.

''President Bush has made clear that having gone in to Kosovo with our allies, we will stay there with them until the job is done,'' Mr. Burns told the House committee. ''We seek, of course, to hasten the day when peace is self-sustaining and our troops can come home.''

But the larger goal, Mr. Burns said, is to stabilize the Balkan region so that it can take advantage of benefits achieved by other parts of Europe that lived in the Soviet sphere of influence during the cold war, but which have now established new ties and membership in NATO and the European Union.

OSCE chairman urges dialogue between Kosovo Albanian leaders, Belgrade

Katarina Kratovac, Associated Press, 5/22/05

The chairman of Europe's leading security organization said after meeting Serbia's pro-Western president Boris Tadic on Sunday that talks between Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders and Belgrade should begin as soon as possible. "It is indeed extremely important to start this direct dialogue," said Jan Kubis, Secretary-General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Kubis said his meeting with Tadic provided an opportunity to "hear opinions" on Kosovo ahead of negotiations later this year on the troubled U.N.-run province's future status.

Efforts to open dialogue between the two sides have intensified lately. Talks between Tadic and Kosovo leader Ibrahim Rugova would be the first direct meeting of top Serbian and Kosovo leaders since the 1998-99 war. Kosovo formally remains part of Serbia, but has been run by the United Nations since the 1999 NATO air war halted Serbia's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists and forced it to relinquish control of Kosovo to a U.N. mission and NATO peacekeepers.

Tadic earlier this week refused an offer to meet Rugova on the sidelines of an international conference next month in Switzerland. The Serbian president had originally extended the invitation for the talks to Rugova last month, suggesting they take place either in Belgrade, the Serbian capital, or the Kosovo provincial capital of Pristina. Rugova initially refused the offer but later proposed a neutral venue - the gathering of Balkan presidents in Geneva in June. Tadic said on Sunday that "international conferences are for independent countries, while Serbia cannot accept Kosovo as an independent country."

"But from my side, the door is always open for a dialogue without prejudice," Tadic told reporters. "I see no reason to avoid such a dialogue." Tadic said he had discussed with Kubis in detail the opportunities for top level meetings, both between himself and Rugova, and between the prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo, Vojislav Kostunica and Bajram Kosumi.

"We should be able to talk as representatives of two peoples, the Serbian and the (ethnic) Albanian people, not two states, about the many daily problems and concrete issues in Kosovo," Tadic said. Tadic stressed that the OSCE plays a paramount role in safeguarding the security of the entire Balkan region. Kosovo's Albanian leaders insist on full independence for the province while Belgrade wants to retain at least formal authority over its territory and adamantly opposes any change to Serbia's borders.

Also Sunday, Kostunica said that "Belgrade was fully prepared to resolve the question of Kosovo based on compromise and internationally accepted democratic principles." "Those principles safeguard the territorial integrity and sovereignty of any state," Kostunica said. "We must find a solution acceptable to all, a compromise that will have no winners and no losers."

Kosovo Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.

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_____________________________________________________________

Liberia

Report: Send Liberia's Taylor to Tribunal

Nick Wadhams, Associated Press, 5/18/05

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is funding a small army and meddling with his country's politics ahead of upcoming elections, a clear violation of the terms of his exile in Nigeria, an independent watchdog group said Wednesday. There is evidence to suggest that Taylor's confidantes and sometimes their wives are smuggling him money that he illicitly stashed away during the years he plundered Liberia's diamond and timber industries, as well as its national treasury, the Coalition for International Justice said in a report.

Taylor has used that cash to arm a "small but potent" military force that threatens to destabilize all of West Africa, according to the report by the Washington-based group that supports war crimes tribunals. The report recommended he be sent to a U.N.-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone, where he has been indicted on 17 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and violations of international humanitarian law.

"Instead of facing a judge, or life in a cell, he lives in luxury, continues to poison regional politics and contrives still to invest his money and to arm his men," the report said. Nigeria gave Taylor asylum in 2003 to induce him to step down as president of Liberia amid a deadly siege of his capital, Monrovia, by Liberian rebels. He helped tip Liberia into war in 1989 and is accused of playing a central role in West Africa's interconnected conflicts.

Taylor's exile agreement states that he won't be handed to the Sierra Leone court provided he refrains from meddling in Liberian affairs. Prosecutors with the Sierra Leone court have repeatedly demanded Taylor face the charges against him, and earlier this month the U.S. House of Representatives approved a resolution 421-1 demanding that Taylor be turned over to the court.

But Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, in a visit with President Bush soon after, defended Taylor's continued exile and suggested Nigeria's credibility would be weakened if it handed him over to the court. At a briefing where Wednesday's report was introduced, an official from Nigeria's U.N. mission didn't rule out turning Taylor over to the court.

"The world community can be sure that Mr. Taylor cannot take cover in Nigeria having violated in a very proven way the terms of his asylum," said Ndekhedehe Efiong, a minister at the Nigerian mission. For some time, the U.N. Security Council had considered drafting a resolution that would have demanded Nigeria send Taylor to the Sierra Leone court, but the idea has stalled. Diplomats say they are still working on other solutions. "There is growing impatience and a recognition that justice will not be complete until Charles Taylor appears before a court to answer the charges against him," U.S. Mission spokesman Richard Grenell said.

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Macedonia

Macedonia offers compromise in name dispute with neighbor Greece

Associated Press, 5/19/05

A U.N. envoy visiting Macedonia said Thursday the country's government had suggested a compromise aimed at ending a 15-year name dispute with neighbor Greece. "The goal is to have the name resolved in the way that is satisfactory and honorable ... and not have a solution that makes life difficult," envoy Matthew Nimitz said. "It's the tough task and we will see what we'll try in a few weeks," Nimitz said.

Greece has opposed its northern neighbor's use of the name Macedonia since the tiny Balkan state gained independence in 1991 - claiming it implies territorial aspirations over Greece's northern region named Macedonia. The republic is currently listed at the United Nations under the provisional name, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Nimitz met with Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski and Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski. He said the Macedonian proposal comprised of a "double name," but did not elaborate. Last month Macedonia rejected a U.N. suggestion that the republic be renamed as "Republika Makedonija-Skopje" - to include the nation's capital - while Greece said it was willing to discuss the idea.

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Moldova

Ukraine proposes autonomy for Trans-Dniester within Moldova's boundaries

Aleksandar Vasovic, Associated Press, 5/20/05

Ukraine proposed a plan Friday aimed at settling the longstanding dispute between neighboring Moldova and its breakaway Trans-Dniester region. The proposal, posted on the Foreign Ministry's Web site, outlines a six-month plan that would grant autonomy to Trans-Dniester, but keep it within Moldova's borders and under its legal system. It calls for "respecting Moldova's territorial integrity and respect for human rights and democratic values." The largely Russian-speaking region broke away from central government control in 1992, after a short war that left about 1,500 people dead. The conflict ended with the deployment of Russian troops in the region, while Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe sent peacekeepers and observers there.

Ukraine's plan suggests that in the first phase, Moldovan and Trans-Dniester negotiators would determine the region's status. The second phase would include the division of responsibilities and authority and the creation of "a single legal, economic, defense, customs and humanitarian system." The final phase would include internationally monitored elections to Trans-Dniester's parliament. The plan was drafted ahead of a closed-door meeting among Moldovan and separatist Trans-Dniester authorities and Ukrainian and international mediators in Ukraine last week.

Moldova's Reintegration Minister Vasili Sova welcomed the Ukrainian plan Friday and said there was a real chance to resolve the dispute. But Sova said Ukraine's proposal for free elections in Trans-Dniester could work only if the region, ruled by authoritarian Moscow-backed leader Igor Smirnov for more than a decade, makes radical democratic changes. "We've been negotiating with the leadership of Trans-Dniester for the last 13 years and unfortunately we found no solution," he said.

Moldova's government halted negotiations with the region's leaders last year after separatists forcibly closed two Moldovan-language schools there. The schools have reopened, but tensions remained high. In a statement, separatist authorities in Trans-Dniester said they were carefully considering Ukraine's call for an internationally organized and monitored parliamentary vote. Moldovan authorities fear that the vote could serve as a step toward the legitimization of the separatist Trans-Dniester regime.

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Morocco

Former prisoners of war seek release of fellow soldiers

George Gedda, Associated Press, 5/22/05

Their years of torture and deprivation as prisoners of war may be over, but peace of mind has eluded them. Former POWs, veterans of the conflict in the disputed Western Sahara region on Africa's Atlantic coast, are demanding the release of fellow soldiers who remain in rebel hands 14 years after the fighting stopped. "We are released but not completely released because we have 408 of our own men suffering the same thing," said Ali Najab, a Moroccan Air Force captain who spent 25 years as a rebel prisoner.

Those left behind are believed to be world's longest held POWs. During a U.S. visit, Najab and six colleagues recounted in an interview with The Associated Press horrific tales of abuse during detention, including torture, forced labor, confinement to tiny cells and near-starvation diets. The seven spent an average of 20 years as POWs.

Scant international attention has been paid to the conflict between Morocco and the rebels, who contest the kingdom's claim to sovereignty over the hot, virtually rainless but phosphate-rich region that is about three times the size of Austria. After more than a decade of fighting, a cease-fire between Morocco and the Polisario Front insurgents was reached in 1991. But diplomatic efforts for a final settlement have fallen short. The State Department says it is actively engaged in seeking a political solution and supports U.N. efforts toward this end.

Morocco annexed the Western Sahara in 1975. The Polisario considers the territory, formerly the Spanish Sahara, to be independent. The 408 Moroccans, detained by the Polisario in the western Algerian town of Tindouf, are a grim reminder of the pain that the conflict continues to impose. In a gesture of soldierly solidarity, Najab and his colleagues have campaigned in U.S. government offices, on Capitol Hill and in New York and Miami on behalf of the detainees. "We are here now to put an end to this horrible hell because our friends are there," said Ali El Jaouhar, an Army veteran who sobbed as he recounted his suffering.

Najab said that, for an act of insubordination in 1984, he and a second POW were incarcerated and beaten for 14 days with their arms and legs tied behind them. Others said their isolation was such that their families did not know for years whether they were dead or alive. Mohammed Hadri said he was once confined, his hands tied, inside a shipping container for 33 days in the scorching Saharan summer heat. Moulud Said, the Polisario representative in Washington, said his group's refusal to release the POWs was linked to Morocco's reneging on a promise to hold a sovereignty referendum on the territory.

He said Morocco has been holding 151 Polisario combatants and refuses to give out any information on them. As for the allegations of torture of the former POWs, Said said, "If there is any torture, we were never told by the Red Cross that there was torture there." The International Committee for the Red Cross has made visits to Tindouf since 1994, interviewing the Moroccan prisoners and bringing them letters and packages from home, Said said.

The International Court of Justice and the African Union have supported the Polisario sovereignty claim. The United Nations does not. The U.S., along with other countries, says the Polisario is required under international humanitarian law to free the prisoners. After meeting with the former POWs last week, Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, demanded their release, saying the detention is "a travesty of human rights."

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Nepal

Nepal parties demand king scraps his anti-corruption commission

Binaj Gurubacharya, Associated Press, 5/18/05

Nepal's political parties on Wednesday demanded that King Gyanendra scrap his royal anti-corruption agency, calling it a tool for political vendettas. Meanwhile, communist rebels bombed a television transmission center, halting broadcasts by state-run Nepal Television to guerrilla-dominated areas. The country's seven political parties said in a joint statement that the commission was targeting potential rivals of the king for political reasons, rather than rooting out corruption.

"We are demanding that all those detained by this illegally established commission be freed and that it immediately be scrapped," the statement said. King Gyanendra set up the Royal Commission for Corruption Control after sacking the government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and seizing control of the country on Feb. 1. The former prime minister is now the commission's highest-profile target, facing two separate graft cases.

Prosecutors have sought a 10-year prison term for Deuba and five others, including his former Cabinet minister, Prakash Man Singh, on charges of embezzling 370 million rupees (US$53.3 million; €42.18 million) in connection with a road construction project. In a separate case, the commission has charged Deuba and members of his cabinet with illegally distributing state money to party workers while he was in office.

Gopalman Shrestha of the Nepali Congress Democratic said protests against the commission - which is empowered to investigate, prosecute and sentence former politicians and government officials - would continue. "As part of our campaign to restore democracy we are demanding scrapping the commission," he said, adding that it was created "to quash politicians who are against the king."

Separately, the government on Wednesday released two mid-level politicians from the Communist Party of Nepal who had been detained since February. The Supreme Court ordered the release of Bamdev Gautam and Krishna Gopal Shrestha, calling their detention illegal and unjustified. "We will join the movement to restore democracy," Gautam told reporters after his release. King Gyanendra, formerly a constitutional monarch, seized absolute power on Feb. 1, suspended civil liberties and imposed a three-month emergency. Deuba was among hundreds of politicians and activists arrested after the takeover.

The king said he had to take power to curb rampant corruption and control a communist insurgency that has taken over much of the Himalayan kingdom's countryside since 1996. In the past three months, the rebels have ramped up their fight. On Wednesday, guerrillas attacked a television transmission center in Tansen, a town about 300 kilometers (190 miles) west of Katmandu, severing Nepal Television's broadcasts in the region, said Gopal Timilsina, a local government official. No one was hurt in the attack.

The government had been broadcasting programs from the center which condemned the rebels, calling them terrorists. The Royal Nepalese Army, in a statement issued Wednesday, said they recovered 11 of the rebels' bodies near Chisapani, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) southwest of Katmandu. There have been several clashes reported in the area in recent days.

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Philippines

U.S. reaffirms backing for Philippine peace talks with Muslim rebels

P. Parameswaran, Agence France Presse, 5/17/05

The United States reaffirmed support Tuesday for peace talks between the Philippine government and the country's main Muslim rebel group widely expected to be concluded this year, Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo said. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice indicated that Washington was "encouraged by the progress being made" in talks between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Romulo told reporters after talks with the chief American diplomat here.

He "welcomed her commitment of continued support for peace and development" in southern Mindanao island, where the MILF has been fighting for a separate state for nearly three decades. "We are hopeful that the peace process will come to a successfull conclusion sometime this year," Romula said. Predominantly Muslim Malaysia has been hosting peace talks between the Philippine government and the MILF, with both sides having predicted a positive outcome. Romulo said he told Rice "that it's important that we get through with this peace process with the MILF," emphasizing that a ceasefire between Philippine troops and MILF had been holding well for nearly two years.

"Not only that, the MILF has been helping us run after those terrorists who are in their midst," he added. Manila is bidding to sign a peace treaty with the MILF to deny Mindanao sanctuaries to foreign Islamic militant groups. The United States has stationed troops in southern Philippines to help train Philippine soldiers to go after suspected terrorists. US ambassador to Manila Francis Ricciardone had alleged recently that there were sections in the MILF that provided sanctuary for foreign militants, including suspects in the 2002 Bali, Indonesia bombings that killed more than 200 people.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) suspended grant funding for a planned road project on Mindanao amid fears the project might give militants logistical gains. Washington wants to single out leading Filipino Muslim rebels in Mindanao as "terrorists" if they are found to have ties with global terror groups, Ricciardone said. Romulo said the issue over alleged links between some rebels and terror groups did not crop up at the meeting with Rice. But he added that the Philippines wanted to work together with the United States in intelligence gathering to pin down suspected terrorists.

Romulo said he held talks with John Negroponte, the director of the new national central authority for all US espionage operations, adding that "in the fight against terrorism, we are of course interested in good, hard intelligence."

He also said that the United States Institute of Peace, a think tank with expertise in conflict resolution, would organise a forum in the Philippines on the concept of Muslim "ancestral domain," a key issue in peace talks with the MILF. The MILF claims Mindanao as its traditional "ancestral domain" where Muslims, a minority in largely Roman Catholic Philippines, should be granted self-governance.

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Serbia & Montenegro

Nationalist gathering on Srebrenica massacre leads to confrontation

Associated Press, 5/17/05

A panel discussion on the Srebrenica massacre, organized by a nationalist student group, nearly led to clashes Tuesday between the organizers and human rights activists protesting the gathering. The "Truth about Srebrenica" discussion at the Belgrade Law Faculty disputed the fact that Bosnian Serbs massacred nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys after they captured the eastern enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995.

The discussion, organized by little-known "Nomokanon" group, sparked outrage among human rights and pro-Western activists, dozens of whom marched into the Law Faculty building in downtown Belgrade to break up the gathering. The move led to tensions as the two groups exchanged insults and threats, prompting several policemen to intervene to calm the situation. The participants at the panel discussion included well-known Serbian nationalist figures as well as dozens of young men wearing T-shirts with images of U.N. war crimes fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic emblazoned on them.

Karadzic and Mladic, former Bosnian Serb political and military leaders, are charged with genocide by U.N. war crimes tribunal for ordering the Srebrenica massacre, as well as for other atrocities committed during Bosnia's 1992-95 war. The two war crimes suspects remain at large ten years after they were indicted, despite huge international pressure for their arrest and extradition to the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

In Serbia, many still consider Karadzic and Mladic as Serb heroes, depicting the Hague tribunal as anti-Serb. Support for the two, as well as for former nationalist president Slobodan Milosevic has been on the rise here recently, more than five years after the autocratic leader's ouster from power.

Milosevic is currently being tried by the Hague tribunal for fomenting the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. In Belgrade, the opponents of the Srebrenica discussion said it was shameful that such a gathering was being held in the Serbian capital. Stevan Lilic, one of the professors at the Law Faculty called for the student group which organized the panel discussion to be banned.

Lilic said it was "damaging for Serbia, as are Karadzic and Mladic and Milosevic." There was no immediate comment from the authorities. Earlier, the dean of the Law Faculty said there was no reason to ban the panel discussion.

Spain Backs Serbia-Montenegro for EU

Agence France Presse, 5/17/05

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos backed Serbia and Montenegro's bid for EU membership during a visit here Tuesday, but urged the Balkan republics to stay united. Moratinos said Serbia and Montenegro, the loose union which replaced the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 2003, would have an easier path into the European Union if they remained together.

"Serbia and Montenegro will start their negotiations on the integration at the EU together; together they will be able to achieve all the conditions to join the union," he told reporters after meeting Serbian President Boris Tadic.

"In this sense we invite the two parties to continue their talks and their dialogue in order to realise their common goals." The Montenegrin government backs full independence for the tiny country of 650,000 people and has promised to put it to a referendum in 2006.

Moratinos also welcomed Belgrade's recent calls for dialogue with the ethnic Albanian leadership in the UN-run province of Kosovo, the scene of a 1998-1999 uprising by separatist guerrillas seeking to break from Serbia. The minister is due to visit Kosovo after he leaves Belgrade.

Serbia searching for top war crimes suspects, official says

Dusan Stojanovic, Associated Press, 5/23/05

Serbia will hunt down top war crimes suspects, eliminating the last hurdle in its economic and political relations with the United States, a government official said Monday. The United States has had strained relations with Serbia for years because two of the most wanted Bosnian Serbs - wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic and military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic - remain at large.

They were indicted almost a decade ago by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, for genocide and other acts of brutality committed during the 1992-1995 war. "Serbia's government has undertaken all measures to complete its cooperation with The Hague tribunal," Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus said. Labus refused to elaborate on details of the hunt for Mladic and Karadzic, saying "some things first have to be finished before they are revealed."

Serbia's officials have repeatedly said that both Mladic and Karadzic are no longer in Serbia, but have recently added that they will launch another search to verify U.N. war crimes prosecutors' claims that the two have frequently visited the Balkan state.

Labus was speaking at the sidelines of the 14th annual meeting in Belgrade of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) where foreign officials stressed that Serbia's economic ties with the world largely hinge on its cooperation with the U.N. tribunal.

The U.S. in January withheld US$10 million (€7.9 million) in economic aid to Serbia-Montenegro because of failure to cooperate with The Hague court. Another US$16 million (€12.7 million) was also withheld by the U.S. Congress nearly a year ago for the same reason.

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Sri Lanka

Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels kill anti-guerrilla activist amid escalating tension in eastern Sri Lanka

Shimali Senanayake, Associated Press, 5/18/05

Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels on Wednesday fatally shot a member of a pro-government Tamil group in fresh violence in Sri Lanka's volatile east, as security forces went on alert elsewhere in the east in an attempt to quell escalating ethnic tensions, the military said.

The victim, who was a member of the Eelam People's Democratic Party, or EPDP, was shot in the chest and neck at a crowded market in Batticaloa, 220 kilometers (135 miles) east of the capital, Colombo, military spokesman Brig. Daya Ratnayake said. At least one civilian was seriously wounded, he said. The EPDP blamed the Tiger rebels for killing 25-year-old Arumugam Murugapillai and accused the guerrillas of slaying at least 40 other party activists since the government and the rebels signed a cease-fire in 2002.

Violence in Sri Lanka's east has escalated since an unprecedented split in the Tigers' ranks a year ago, leading to scores of deaths. The fighting has threatened the fragile cease-fire. The mainstream rebel group accuses the EPDP - a Tamil group that has joined the federal government in Colombo and bitterly opposes the rebels - of backing the renegade faction.

The Tigers had been fighting since 1983 to carve out an independent homeland for the island's ethnic Tamil minority, who claim discrimination by the majority Sinhalese. Nearly 65,000 people were killed before the truce. Peace talks have been stalled since April 2003. Wednesday's violence came as international donors wrapped up a meeting to discuss aid to the island nation, urging the government to take steps toward reviving negotiations with the Tamil rebels.

Meanwhile, security forces were on alert Wednesday north of Batticaloa, Ratnayake said, a day after Tamil protesters lobbed a grenade at a shop, killing a man and wounded five others. All the casualties were Sinhalese. Most shops, offices and schools closed and transport halted for a second day in Trincomalee, 230 kilometers (140 miles) northeast of Colombo. Few people ventured outdoors and the streets were deserted, according to residents contacted by telephone. The Sinhalese are predominantly Buddhist while ethnic Tamils are Hindu. Trincomalee is home to an equal number of Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims.

Tamil Tiger rebels push for tsunami aid deal with Sri Lanka government

Associated Press, 5/19/05

The Tamil Tiger rebels' top negotiator is urging the Sri Lankan government to finalize a long-delayed deal to distribute foreign aid to rebuild tsunami-devastated areas under guerrilla control, a report said Thursday. "President Chandrika Kumaratunga must engage seriously with the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam in finalizing the terms of the joint mechanism and sign the agreement," said Anton Balasingham, the rebels' chief peace negotiator, was quoted on the pro-rebel TamilNet Web site as saying.

Balasingham said the "Tamil people desperately need the international donors' assistance," in the northeast areas, which were also devastated by a two-decade civil war between the rebels and government troops. The comments were made during talks with Norway's peace envoy Erik Solheim on Wednesday at Balasingham's London home, and came a day after international donors pledged US$3 billion (€2.37 billion) in aid to rebuild the nation after the Dec. 26 waves.

At a meeting in Sri Lanka the donors also expressed strong support for a proposed joint deal that would make the rebels a partner in distributing aid to the Tamil-dominated north and east - the worst affected areas. Despite delays and mounting opposition, Kumaratunga has vowed to press ahead with the plan even while suggesting it might put her life in danger. However, one of the parties in her ruling coalition, the Marxist People's Liberation Front, is strongly opposed.

The rebels began fighting in 1983 to carve out a separate state for the 3.2 million Tamil minority, claiming discrimination by the 14 million Sinhalese majority. Nearly 65,000 people died before Norway brokered a cease-fire in 2002. Talks to forge a permanent peace deal broke down two years ago and efforts to restart negotiations have so far failed. Kumaratunga says the joint body would encourage the rebels to resume peace talks, but the Marxists say the agreement would help them achieve their goal of establishing a separate state and has threatened to withdraw from the coalition.

Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.

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Sudan

Darfur Peace Talks to Resume May 30

Agence France Presse, 5/17/05

An African mini-summit in Tripoli on peace efforts for Sudan's war-torn Darfur region ended Tuesday with an agreement to resume talks between rebels and Khartoum on May 30. African leaders at the seven-way summit also offered strong political support to Sudan's government, ignoring calls by Darfur's ethnic minority rebels to try the presumed perpetrators of war crimes in international courts. They also insisted that Africa should take the lead in trying to restore peace in Darfur and rejected calls for suspected war criminals should be tried by international justice.

An estimated 300,000 people have been killed and 2.4 million displaced since Khartoum launched a crackdown on an uprising by ethnic rebels in February 2003. "It has been decided that the Abuja round of peace talks should commence May 30, 2005," Nigerian Minister of State for Integration Lawan Gana said at a news conference at the end of the summit. African Union-sponsored negotiations in the Nigerian capital have been suspended since December because of repeated violations of a ceasefire signed in April 2004.

The Tripoli summit brought together Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Chad's President Idriss Deby, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Eritrea's Isaias Afeworki and Gabon vice president Didjob Divungi di Ndinge. Darfur's two main rebels, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), did not attend, although their representatives were in town.

Ali al-Tiriki, the Libyan official in charge of African affairs, admitted there were no prior consultations with rebels on the date for the resumption of talks, but said: "I do not believe that there will be a problem." The SLM reiterated on Monday its "readiness for serious and responsible negotiations in Abuja under the auspices of the African Union". It also underscored a "commitment to implement all agreements with Khartoum, including the ceasefire". The summit's final statement urged the parties to take part in the talks "with representatives who are mandated at the highest possible level."

"All the countries represented at the summit agreed to send delegations to attend the Abuja talks and contribute in narrowing the views between the negotiators," Beshir said. The SLM had urged summit participants to pressure Khartoum to implement all UN resolutions so "Sudan does not become a safe haven for criminals". The UN Security Council demanded last March the prosecution in the International Court of Justice in The Hague of presumed Darfur war criminals.

But the African leaders sympathized with Sudan's refusal to hand over any of the 51 suspects implicated by a UN commission in human rights violations including mass killings, torture, rape and pillage. The final statement supported "bringing all crime perpetrators in Darfur within the framework of national legal and judicial systems." Al-Tiriki said: "This issue should be handled by the Africans themselves." Earlier, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters that "Sudan will do its best to carry out justice in Sudan through the Sudanese system with the help of the Africans.

"The decision now is that the trial will take place inside Sudan with the help of African legal advisors... non-Africans can help logistically." Egypt has already offered to send legal experts to Sudan to help set up special tribunals for Darfur war crimes and al-Tiriki announced that Kadhafi had also sent an expert. In his opening address Monday, Nigeria's Obasanjo said Africa and not the wider international community should take the lead in efforts to stabilize the situation in Darfur, especially militarily. The final statement expressed "rejection of any foreign intervention in the Darfur problem, restricting its tackling to its African framework."

It further pledged to confront "any negative factors or wrong signals made by any external party, which hinder finding a sound solution." The gathering also witnessed a thaw in strained relations between Sudan and Eritrea when Beshir and Afeworki held face-to-face talks for the first time in several years. The two are bitter enemies who have long accused each other of providing sanctuary and support to opposition groups.

Sudan keen on refugee return amid reconstruction of ruined region

Agence France Presse, 5/18/05

Sudan's government on Wednesday said it was ready to welcome home about half a million refugees who fled more than two decades of war amid a mammoth task of reconstructing the war-devastated southern Sudan.

"We are ready to welcome the voluntary repatriation of about 500,000 Sudanese people who took refugee in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and other neighbouring countries," Humanitarian Affairs Linister Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid told reporters here.

Hamid explained that Khartoum was working on a policy framework to ease the flow of relief supplies to hundreds of thousands of people affected by the war as well as build infrastructure, some which has been ruined and some yet to exist at all. The framework "is for the whole Sudan to ease the movement of all humanitarian efforts," Hamid said after chairing a two-day humanitarian meeting in the Kenyan capital.

Hamid said that officials from the aid agencies, the government and former southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) would gather in the southern Sudan's provisional capital Rumbek and Khartoum in June and July to discuss the coordination of humanitarian affairs in the vast African nation.

In January this year, the government and SPLM/A signed a peace accord that ended 21 years of conflict that was sparked in 1983 when southern rebels took up arms to end years of marginalisation by successive Islamic governments in Khartoum. The war claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced more than four million others, some of them fleeing to neighbouring nations. "It is now time for peace in Sudan," Hamid said.

Buoyed by peace in south Sudan, western lenders in April pledged 4.5 billion dollars (3.5 billion euros) for the next three years, far more than what they were asked for, to rebuild Sudan's pacified southern and northern areas. But the United States tied its aid to improvements in strife-torn Darfur, a region in western Sudan that has been the theatre of fighting between Khartoum-backed militia and rebels from local tribes of black African origin since February 2003.

An estimated 300,000 people have been killed and 2.4 million displaced since Khartoum launched a crackdown on the insurgents in a deadly campaign that has been marked by mass killings, torture, rape and pillage.

Africa Union lists military hardware it needs from EU, NATO and UN for Darfur peacekeeping

Anthony Mitchell, Associated Press, 5/23/05

The Africa Union will press donors for six helicopter gunships, 116 armored personnel carriers and other equipment for its peacekeepers struggling to end the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's western Darfur region. The logistical and material support will help the AU raise the number of its peacekeepers and step up operations to stabilize Darfur, the scene of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. "The international community has asked us to increase our strength which we are doing and so I think they will support us both logistically and financially," AU spokesman Assane Ba said.

An estimated 180,000 people have died - many from hunger and disease - and about 2 million others have fled their homes in Darfur to escape the conflict between rebels on one side and government forces pro-government militia on the other. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and European Union's Security Affairs Chief Javier Solana are expected in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa this week for a conference intended to raise funds for the AU's Darfur operation.

NATO allies had agreed late last month to consider offering logistical help to the Africa Union in Darfur following a written request from the AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare. While the initiative does not involve sending troops, officials have described it as the most significant NATO focus on an African security problem. The AU is also seeking dozens of ambulances, operational helicopters, passenger and cargo aircraft as well as trucks for African troops operating in Darfur, a region the size of France.

The AU is trying to beef up its 2,270-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur to more than 7,700 troops by September, and 12,000 by next year. It has been bogged down by logistical problems and a lack of air support in the vast region. Konare said last month that peacekeepers were now being targeted as part of a "new phenomenon" in the troubled region. More sophisticated equipment, including forward-looking infrared technology, will help end that problem and enable peacekeepers conduct 24-hour operations.

"Our forces go on missions and when night falls it disrupts our mission. Armed groups will take advantage of that. So this equipment is vital," Ba said. The crisis in Darfur erupted when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. The government is accused of responding with a counterinsurgency campaign in which the ethnic Arab militia known as Janjaweed committed wide-scale abuses against ethnic Africans.

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