Peace Negotiations Watch

Monday, June 27, 2005

(Volume IV, Number 23)

 

Contents:

 

Armenia/Azerbaijan   

Voters go to polls in disputed Nagorno Karabakh enclave

Turnout in controversial elections reported to be over sixty percent.

Russia says elections do not change status of Nagorno Karabakh

Azerbaijan considers elections to be illegal.

 

Burundi/Rwanda       

Security Council asks Annan to negotiate Burundi truth commission and war crimes chamber

Security Council resolution on justice in Burundi adopted unanimously.

European Union deploys election observers ahead of Burundi parliamentary poll next month

Burundian parliamentary poll scheduled to be held July 4.

 

Chechnya       

Kremlin seeks to defuse anger over accusations of brutal raid in Chechnya

Russian security forces accused of abducting eleven people.

 

Congo

U.N.: Rape As Weapon of War High in Congo

Sexual violence high in eastern Congo and Darfur region of Sudan.

African Union say 45,000 troops may be needed to forcibly disarm Rwandan rebels in Congo

Envoy states EU would support the forcible disarmament and relocation of Rwandan rebels.

Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation.

 

Georgia/Abkhazia

Georgian prosecutors soon to reveal identity of person suspected of Bush grenade throwing

Defective hand grenade landed within 100 feet of President Bush.      

 

Indonesia       

Jakarta hopes conflict in tsumai-hit Aceh will be resolved in August

Both sides reportedly closing in on a finalized agreement.

Red Cross worker shot and wounded in Indonesia's Aceh province

Incident first time since tsunami that an aid worker has been injured in Aceh.

Indonesia's Aceh to hold its first public caning under Islamic sharia laws

Islamic tribunal established in Aceh in 2003.

Aceh Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation.

 

Ivory Coast    

Ivory Coast warring parties won't begin disarming on June 27 as planned

Further negotiations scheduled to take place in Pretoria.

New round of Ivory Coast peace talks to be held in South Africa on June 28

Military governor appointed for western Ivory Coast.

 

Kashmir          

Pakistan submits request for minister to travel on cross-Kashmir bus

Information minister’s request tarnished by accusations he previously ran militant training camp.

Kashmir separatists ready for talks with India, hardliners opposed

Hardliners want India to recognize human rights abuses.

Kashmir Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation

 

Kosovo                                   

Kosovo Serbs block bridge in ethnically-divided town

Fighting on bridge in Mitrovica leads to arrests.

Romania wants Kosovo to remain part of Serbia

Romania weighs in on Kosovo final status debate.

Kosovo Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation.

 

Liberia

Liberia's Taylor must face justice, US warns Nigeria

American ambassador encourages Nigeria to hand-over Charles Taylor.

 

Moldova

Russia worried about economy of separatist region in Moldova after customs dispute

Voronin rejects statehood for Transnistria plan considered by Moscow.

Moldovan foreign minister calls on Russia to withdraw troops from Trans-Dniester

Russia has failed to fulfill 1999 agreement with OSCE to withdraw troops and weapons.

 

Morocco         

Western Sahara issue tests ties between Morocco and Spain

Nine Spanish visitors denied entry into Western Sahara for allegedly supporting separatists.

 

Nepal

First joint attack by Maoist rebels from India and Nepal; 21 dead in India's Bihar state

Maoist insurgents attack town near Nepali border in India.

More than half a dozen killed in Maoist attack in west Nepal

Maoist insurgents denied entry into security base.

Nepal Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the Nepal Negotiation Simulation.

 

Philippines      

Philippine forces capture Abu Sayyaf guerrilla

Abu Sayyaf included on State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations.

 

Serbia & Montenegro 

Serbian president to attend 10th anniversary of Bosnian massacre

Tadic visit to Srebrenica draws criticism from families of victims.

Serbia's war crimes prosecutor to file charges next month in connection with Srebrenica killings

Prosecutor notes Serbia has not addressed Srebrenica massacre as of yet.

Prison Changes Milosevic, but Not His Version of Events

Milosevic trial has set a record for longevity in international law cases.

 

Somalia          

Somali reconcilation talks fail, homeless government faces new crisis

Negotiations held in Yemen break down and end in no decision.

 

Sri Lanka        

Sri Lanka's Muslims accuse government of discrimination in tsunami aid deal

Second largest minority group in Sri Lanka alleges discrimination in aid distribution.

Sri Lanka signs tsunami aid deal with Tamil Tiger rebels

Marxists oppose aid deal, as well.

Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation

Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation

 

Sudan 

AU mediators to restart Sudan peace talks despite Chad hitch

Debate over whether to allow Chad as a party to talks stalls proceedings.

Darfur rebels threaten to suspend Sudan peace talks in Nigeria

SLM accuses Sudanese government of attacking its forces in eastern Sudan.

 

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.

 

Armenia/Azerbaijan

 

Voters go to polls in disputed Nagorno Karabakh enclave

Agence France Presse, 6/19/05

 

Voters cast their ballots Sunday in parliamentary polls in the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno Karabakh, a mostly ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan, amid strong opposition from Azeri authorities.  Seven parties and 185 candidates were vying for places in Nagorno Karabakh's fourth parliament, with two thirds of the parliament's 33 seats to be elected directly and one third under a proportional system.  No major violations had been reported by the time polling stations closed at 8:00 pm (1500 GMT) with preliminary results expected Monday morning.

 

Voting was brisk, with lines forming outside polling stations and officials reporting turnout at 60.5 percent by 5:00 pm, exceeding the 25 percent minimum needed for the vote to be declared legitimate.  The central market in Stepanakert, the enclave's main city, was unusually empty as traders deserted their stalls to vote.  "Everyone's gone to vote," said one trader, gleeful at her temporary monopoly.  Nagorno Karabakh's authorities have said the vote is a chance to prove to the world the territory's independence.

 

"I voted for stability, independence and prosperity," Nagorno Karabakh's leader, Arkady Gukasyan, said after casting his ballot.  It was essential, Gukasyan said earlier, that the vote meet European standards in order to avoid harming Nagorno Karabakh's image and "the process of peaceful settlement with Azerbaijan".  But Azerbaijan, which claims the territory, said any vote in the region would remain illegal until hundreds of thousands of Azeris banished from Nagorno Karabakh and seven surrounding regions were allowed to return.

 

"Armenia is zealous to legalize the occupation... elections and referendums on the occupied territories must be conducted only after the territory's restoration to Azerbaijan," Azerbaijan's election commission said in a written statement on Saturday.  Nagorno Karabakh is widely seen as propped up by Armenia, which fought a war with Azerbaijan over the territory in 1993 and 1994 that left an estimated 25,000 people dead and forced a million people from their homes, three quarters of them Azeri.  On Friday, Turkey, long at odds with Armenia and a staunch supporter of Azerbaijan, joined its ally in criticizing the poll.

 

"Turkey believes that such unilateral initiatives... will not help efforts for a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh problem and considers those elections as illegitimate," foreign ministry spokesman Namik Tan said in a statement.  No foreign governments have sent observer missions, reflecting the territory's unresolved status.  But as voting got under way Sunday, monitors from non-governmental organizations reported a number of minor violations.

 

Supporters of Araig Horutyunyan, a candidate closely linked to Nagorno Karabakh's leader, "were actively proselytizing" near polling stations, said Antranig Kasabaryan, local representative of the Tufenkyan foundation, a New York-based aid group.  Earlier, Gukasyan had rounded on opposition parties, accusing them of "insinuations" and "libel" after they accused senior Karabakh officials of abusing their positions in order to win support.

 

"False rumors were circulated that the authorities sanctioned pressure on the electorate, threatened people... this didn't and couldn't happen," Gukasyan said.  The unrecognized Nagorno Karabakh Republic has a population of 145,000. It is spread over eight regions of Azerbaijan including Karabakh itself and comprises 14 percent of Azerbaijan's overall territory.  The parliament is elected for a five-year term.

 

Russia says elections do not change status of Nagorno Karabakh

Agence France Presse, 6/22/05

 

Russia said Wednesday a solution to the dispute over the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno Karabakh should not depend on elections held there, and that the presence of Russian observers at the vote did not imply recognition.  "Moscow considers that the resolution of the conflict should not depend on the organization of such and such elections in Nagorno Karabakh," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

 

Officials of the breakaway state have argued that Sunday's vote, from which the ruling party emerged victorious, was a step toward international recognition.  "The Russian citizens who traveled there as observers are in Karabakh on their own accord and exclusively in a personal role," the statement said.  The ministry reiterated that Russia "has never recognized Nagorno Karabakh as an independent state," and "always supported the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan."

 

Azerbaijan considers any vote in the region illegal until hundreds of thousands of Azeris banished from Karabakh and seven surrounding regions are allowed to return.  The enclave is widely seen as being propped up by Armenia, which fought Baku in a war for control over Nagorno Karabakh between 1993 and 1994 that claimed some 25,000 lives and forced another million residents -- mostly Azeris -- from their homes.  Armenia is the only country to recognize Nagorno Karabakh as an independent state.

 

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Burundi

 

Security Council asks Annan to negotiate Burundi truth commission and war crimes chamber

Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press, 6/20/05

 

The U.N. Security Council asked Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday to start negotiations with the key parties in Burundi on creating a truth and reconciliation commission and a special chamber to prosecute alleged war crimes in the central African country.

 

In a resolution adopted unanimously, the council said it was convinced of the need to bring to justice those with the greatest responsibility for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity since Burundi became independent in 1962 to deter future crimes and end "the climate of impunity" in the country and in the Great Lakes region.  The council also acknowledged "the crucial importance of reconciliation for peace and national unity in Burundi" and said a truth commission would contribute to achieving that goal.

 

Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs Ralph Zacklin told the council last week that because of Burundi's deeply divided society and history of violence, a U.N. mission had recommended a dual effort "to clarify the historical truth, investigate the crimes and bring to justice those responsible."

 

The Security Council asked Annan to start negotiations with the government and all concerned Burundian parties on how to establish a truth commission and a special war crimes chamber in the country's court system. It called for a report by Sept. 30 including costs, structures and a time frame for the commission and chamber to start operating.

 

Burundi has been embroiled in repeated ethnic violence since independence in 1962. After a 12-year civil war that began in 1993 and killed 250,000 people, most of them civilians, the country is in the throes of a peace process meant to return democracy to the central African nation.  The civil war began after Burundi's first democratically elected president, a Hutu, was assassinated by Tutsi paratroopers and pitted the Tutsi-dominated army against rebels from the Hutu majority.

 

Despite being in the minority, Tutsis have effectively controlled Burundi for all but a few months since independence from Belgium in 1962 - and there have been inter-ethnic killings in 1965, 1972, 1988 and 1991 as well as 1993.

 

A series of peace deals led to the creation of a transitional government in 2001 and only one rebel group now remains outside the peace process, although it has agreed to a cease-fire. Local government elections were held earlier this month, members of the lower house of parliament will be elected July 4, and the new legislature will then elect a new president on Aug. 19.

 

The truth and reconciliation commission the U.N. mission proposed would be established under Burundian law and have five members - three international and two national, Zacklin said last week. Its mandate would be "to establish the historical facts and determine the causes and nature of the conflict in Burundi, classify the crimes committed since independence in 1962, and identify those responsible," he said.

 

If the commission was established quickly, the results of its investigation could be shared with the prosecutor of the special chamber, who would prosecute those with the greatest responsibility for genocide and war crimes, he said.  The mission called for a majority of international judges and an international prosecutor, but Zacklin stressed that the Burundian people must feel a "deep and genuine" sense of national ownership of both bodies.

 

He said both operations would have to rely almost entirely on international funding.  Burundi's Justice Minister Didace Kiganahe told the council last week that his government supported the recommendations, but was concerned about the risk of overlap. It also believes that reconciliation should be at the heart of peace and national unity, he said.

 

European Union deploys election observers ahead of Burundi parliamentary poll next month

Agence France Presse, 6/22/05

 

The European Union has deployed 12 election observers to monitor campaigns and other election-related issues in the leadup to parliamentary elections next month, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.  Burundi's parliamentary poll is scheduled to be held July 4 and is part of a process to establish an elected and democratic government in the central African country in a bid to end an 11-year conflict.  Another 64 observers will arrive in Burundi later this month but will only stay a few days after the elections, Manuela Melchioli, a spokeswoman for the observers, told The Associated Press.  The 12 observers who are already in the country will stay until Burundi's electoral process ends with the election of a president in August, Melchioli said.

 

Burundi's war began in October 1993 after its first democratically elected president, a Hutu, was assassinated by Tutsi paratroopers. Some 250,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the war.  A series of peace deals led to the creation of a transitional government in 2001, which most of the rebels have joined. Only one rebel group remains outside the peace process, but it has agreed to a cease-fire.  An upper house of parliament will be elected on July 25, which, together with members to the lower house, will elect a new president on Aug. 19.

 

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Chechnya

 

Kremlin seeks to defuse anger over accusations of brutal raid in Chechnya

Steve Gutterman, Associated Press, 6/22/05

 

The Kremlin tried to resolve a potentially explosive situation in Chechnya Wednesday, where residents of a village say 11 people were abducted and one killed in a brutal raid by Russian-backed security forces earlier this month.  President Vladimir Putin's envoy to southern Russia met with residents of Borozdinovskaya, a village near the border with the Dagestan region, and federal prosecutors launched an investigation into the June 4 violence there.

 

"If what Borozdinovskaya residents are saying is true, then what was done in the village is an act of direct sabotage against Russia, Dagestan and Chechnya," Russian news agencies quoted Putin's envoy, Dmitry Kozak, as saying.  Russian media also reported that the federal prosecutors for the region are investigating the raid, which has drawn the attention of human rights groups and heightened tension between Chechnya and Dagestan.  The involvement of Kozak and federal prosecutors suggests the Kremlin is concerned that anger over the raid could lead to a spread of violence in the volatile North Caucasus region beyond Chechnya.

 

Most residents of Borozdinovskaya are of Dagestani descent and hundreds have fled to Dagestan since the raid, which they say was carried out by members of Vostok, a mostly ethnic Chechen force subordinate to the Russian Defense Ministry.  "If we start having massive migrations of people for these reasons, the North Caucasus will burn," Kozak said in a televised comment. "If anyone thinks banditry and lawlessness can be fought with bandit methods, he is sorely mistaken."

 

Chechnya's Moscow-backed president Alu Alkhanov said he had fired Khusein Nutayev, the chief of the district that includes Borozdinovskaya, for failing to avert the violence. Kozak threatened other dismissals.  After a meeting with Kozak and a delegation of Borozdinovskaya residents, Alkhanov set a deadline of 10 days for authorities to find out what has happened to the abductees, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.  The top federal prosecutor for southern Russia, Nikolai Shepel, said on state-run television that authorities had identified some of the participants in the raid. He confirmed that members of Vostok had entered the village that day.

 

Chechnya, ravaged by two separatist wars in the past decade, has been plagued by abductions. Rights groups have accused Russian troops and Moscow-backed Chechen security forces of widespread abuses of civilians during raids ostensibly conducted to detain rebels or their accomplices.  Residents and officials in Dagestan have accused Chechen security forces of abducting Dagestanis in cross-border operations.

 

The secretary of Dagestan's Security Council, Akhmednabi Magdigadzhiyev, told a news conference Wednesday that Dagestani authorities want the people who have fled the Borozdinovskaya area for Dagestan to return to their homes, but said Chechen authorities have done little to persuade them to come back.

 

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Congo

 

U.N.: Rape As Weapon of War High in Congo

Bryan Mealer, Associated Press, 6/22/05

 

The teenager with flowers in her hair crossed her hands to keep them from trembling and described how she was raped by 10 militiamen.  Abducted two years ago when she was 16, Ombeni was kept as a concubine in the forests of eastern Congo. She became pregnant and at nearly nine months gestation, her captors cut her vagina with a machete, leaving the baby dead and abandoning the teenager in the forest.  "I laid there for one week," Ombeni said. "Until insects came out of my body." Ombeni was eventually rescued by a woman who was foraging for food and made her way to a clinic for rape victims.

 

She is one of thousands of women who are brutally raped each year in Congo, another layer of degradation in a war that never seems to end.  In a briefing before the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said rape as a weapon of war was at its worst in eastern Congo and the Darfur region of Sudan.  Egeland said the scale, prevalence and profound impact of sexual violence made it one of the most serious challenges facing those trying to protect civilians caught up in war. Ensuring rapists were punished and restoring local justice systems were key to addressing the problem, he said.

 

In Congo, for those who manage to survive kidnappings and gang rapes, there is the clinic at Panzi General Hospital. Located on the outskirts of the provincial capital Bukavu, it treats more than 300 rape victims each month.  Ombeni has spent months at the clinic, undergoing three operations to repair her bladder and awaiting a fourth. She says her captors were not trying to "deliver my baby, but to kill me and the baby."

 

With funding from the European Commission, the clinic provides medical and psychiatric care, as well as counseling to help women re-enter society. Rape victims are often ostracized in Africa, where husbands and families routinely kick out their wives and mothers if they have been raped.  The United States government also provides funding to over a dozen organizations in the region offering counseling, family mediation, medical care and legal representation to victims and their families. Since 2003, the combined programs have helped over 16,000 women.

 

Most rapes in the area are committed by Rwandan Hutu rebels, who fled into eastern Congo after Rwanda's 1994 genocide, said Panzi's medical director Denis Mukwege.  Generally, militiamen will circle a village and rape all the women, he said. Then they'll choose the young ones and take them as slaves into the forest-covered mountains.  "I had a 60-year-old woman who was raped with bamboo. Can you imagine?" Mukwege asked. "Yesterday she died."

 

"This is not an issue of sexual desire," he added. "The aim is to destroy."  The number of rape cases is increasing, he said. Since January, 1,700 women have been admitted to the clinic. The clinic expects to treat about 3,600 women by year's end - up from 2,700 last year.  Mukwege said this number is only a fraction of the women who are raped in outlying villages. Most choose to keep silent, fearing reprisals by militia or banishment.

 

When victims arrive at Panzi clinic, they're put in touch with Cecile Mulolo, a psychologist who counsels the women, who often turn up alone and terrified.  Mulolo, a preacher's wife with a broad smile, visits a recovery ward where a dozen patients have undergone surgery to treat injuries from brutal rapes. The room is dim, and catheters dangle from each bed.  "I praise God that I'm alive, that I made it here," said one girl, who's school books lay wrapped in her bed sheets.

 

At a halfway house down a dusty road from the clinic, 22 recovering rape victims learn to weave handbags and how to make bread and soap, in the likelihood their families will reject them and they will have to make their own way in the world.  "This way they feel useful, and maybe can recover some respect from their families," said Mulolo. "Even though they were raped, they must know they're still important."

 

Every woman in the home says she was raped by Hutu rebels, who continue to wreak havoc on Congo as it tries to recover from years of war. Rwanda invaded Congo twice, in 1996 and 1998, under the auspices of driving the rebels out, but never seemed to catch them.  Many argue there will never be peace in eastern Congo until the rebels are gone.

 

Back in her office, Mulolo chats with Nabintu, a 41-year-old woman who was raped by militiamen two years ago and contracted AIDS. Her husband banished her to a spare bedroom after the rape, but doesn't know about her sickness.

 

"He'll chase her off if he finds out," said Mulolo. "These are the consequences of rape."  Hearing this, Nabintu buries her face in a scarf and cries. Mulolo reaches across the desk and takes the woman's hands.  "Courage, mama," she says. "Courage."

 

African Union say 45,000 troops may be needed to forcibly disarm Rwandan rebels in Congo

Anthony Mitchell, Associated Press, 6/24/05

 

Disarming Rwandan rebels who continue to rape, kill and kidnap civilians in lawless eastern Congo could take some 45,000 soldiers, the African Union said Friday.  The 53-nation bloc plans to send experts to Congo next month to explore the possibility of deploying African troops to the region to disarm the insurgents, AU Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit said.

 

A report released Friday by the AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare said "forcible disarmament" of the rebels would entail a mission of between 30-45,000 soldiers, "assuming an anticipated degree of resistance."  Thousands of Rwandan Hutus, the country's ethnic majority, fled to eastern Congo after taking part in the 1994 genocide of more than 500,000 people, most of them minority Tutsis. They then took up arms against the Tutsi-dominated government that took over after the genocide and began fighting from bases in eastern Congo.

 

Rwanda has twice invaded Congo to hunt down the rebels, and in 1998 sparked a five-year war in Congo that sucked in six African nations and killed nearly 4 million people, aid groups say.  Some of the rebels have returned to Rwanda in recent years under a program sponsored by the Rwandan government.  But hundreds or thousands are thought to remain in Congo, and Rwanda threatened in December to invade a third time, prompting Congo to send thousands of soldiers to the border in a tense face-off.

 

The European Union said Friday it would support the use of force to disarm and remove Rwandan rebels from Congo.  "Political means are not producing any result ... so we keep preparing the military option, if they don't want to come we implement the military option," said Aldo Ajello, the EU special envoy for the African Great Lakes region.  Speaking in Kigali, Rwanda, he said the EU was helping train the Congolese army to go after the rebels.

 

He said the U.N. mission in Congo could aid with such a mission, "and if this will not be enough, we still have the option of inter-African force."  The African Union pledged in January to send some 7,000 troops to help restore order in eastern Congo, the scene of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.  But no African country has committed forces for the operation and no date has been set for their arrival in Congo, Djinnit said.

 

"These rebel forces intend to complete the genocide they didn't complete in 1994," Rwanda's presidential envoy Richard Sezibera told reporters on the sidelines of the AU peace and security council meeting.  "It is up to the international community to answer that. They need to deal with these forces as expeditiously as possible," Sezibera said.

 

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

 

Georgian prosecutors soon to reveal identity of person suspected of Bush grenade throwing

Associated Press, 6/24/05

 

Georgia's Prosecutor-General Zurab Adeishvili said on Friday that authorities will soon be in a position to say who allegedly threw a hand grenade that landed within 100 feet (31 meters) of U.S President George W. Bush during his visit last month to the former Soviet republic.

 

"In the interests of the investigation I cannot yet give any details, but in the nearest future, the public will be informed who carried out this crime," he told reporters. The FBI has said that the grenade, which was live but did not explode, was a threat to the U.S president's life.

 

Bush on May 10 spoke to tens of thousands of people in Freedom Square, a main plaza in Tbilisi, as part of a visit aimed at cementing relations between the United States and Georgia's new pro-Western leadership. He offered strong support for Georgia's democratic developments, and the crowd response was overwhelmingly favorable.

 

President Mikhail Saakashvili also was on the podium when Bush spoke, raising the prospect that the grenade could have been directed at him. Saakashvili, who came to power after the 2003 Rose Revolution that ousted Eduard Shevardnadze, has provoked enmity with anti-corruption initiatives and insistence on restoring control over two de-facto independent separatist regions.

 

Bush spoke from behind bulletproof glass and the White House initially said Bush never was in danger in the incident.  A reward of about $11,000 (€9,120) was offered for information about those responsible.  According to the FBI's initial investigation, the grenade failed to explode only because of a malfunction.

 

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Indonesia

 

Jakarta hopes conflict in tsumai-hit Aceh will be resolved in August

Agence France Presse, 6/20/05

 

The Indonesian government said Monday it hoped a long-running separatist conflict in its tsunami-hammered western province of Aceh could be resolved by August through peace talks in Finland.  Information Minister Sofyan Djalil said that several rounds of talks between Jakarta and the rebels in Helsinki had resolved almost all of their differences and both sides were closing in on a finalised agreement.

 

"We expect the whole issue will be solved by August," Djalil, who is part of the government's negotiation team, told reporters. "About 90 percent of the issues have been actually settled."  His comments contradicted earlier signals from the government that it was losing faith in the talks as a medium through which to resolve the three-decade conflict, in which more than 14,000 people have lost their lives.

 

A fragile peace deal between the government and the Free Aceh Movement guerrillas -- who accuse Jakarta of exploiting the province's rich resources -- collapsed in 2003 prior to the launch of a major military offensive.  Both parties agreed to reopen the dialogue in the wake of the December 26 tsunami, which killed more than 126,000 people in Aceh, in order to safeguard the relief and reconstruction effort.

 

But fighting has continued with almost daily loss of life.  The peace process has been undermined by a growing chorus of dissent, with Indonesian lawmakers and military officials denouncing efforts to negotiate with the rebels.

 

Indonesia's senior security minister Widodo Adisucipto said last week that Jakarta would not bow to rebel demands for political representation, a key point in the peace talks.  The military has meanwhile repeated its rejection of rebel calls for a post-tsunami ceasefire in the province.

 

Red Cross worker shot and wounded in Indonesia's Aceh province

Irwan Firdaus, Associated Press, 6/23/05

 

Shots were fired at a Red Cross vehicle in Indonesia's tsunami-ravaged Aceh province, wounding a female Chinese delegate in the neck, a spokesman for the federation said Thursday.  The circumstances of the shooting were not immediately clear, but the incident is the first time since the tsunami that a foreign aid worker has been the victim of serious violence in the province, which is home to a longrunning separatist war.

 

Two shots were fired at the vehicle close to the west coast town of Lamno on Wednesday evening, said Virgil Grandfield, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.  Eva Yeung, a 28-year-old resident of Hong Kong, was shot in the neck and is in a stable condition. She was flown to the city of Medan by a U.N. helicopter on Thursday. Three other people in the car were unharmed, he said.

 

Aceh province is home to a longrunning separatist conflict that has killed some 12,000 people since 1976. Clashes between the rebels and government troops have continued since the Dec. 26 tsunami, but have been less frequent than before the disaster.  "We don't know if she was shot in a cross fire incident, or by the military, guerrillas or bandits," said Grandfield. "It is not clear."  A Red Cross security delegate was investigating the incident.  Rebel spokesman Sofyan Dawood said he had no reports of any clashes between insurgents and army troops in Lamno district on Wednesday night.

 

"We have heard of this shooting, but if anyone accuses GAM of carrying it out we deny it because GAM fighters only shoot in self-defense," he said by cell phone from an undisclosed location in the province. GAM is the Indonesian acronym of the Free Aceh Movement.  A military spokesman said he had yet to hear of the incident.  Both sides have pledged to avoid targeting the thousands of international aid workers that have flocked to the region since the tsunami, which killed more than 130,000 people in Aceh.

 

Relief agencies have said that the ongoing conflict has not affected their work there.  Since the tsunami, government and rebel negotiators have met three times in Finland to seek a peace deal in the province. The government has said it hopes to sign a deal by August.

 

Indonesia's Aceh to hold its first public caning under Islamic sharia laws

Agence France Presse, 6/23/05

 

Indonesia's province of Aceh, where partial Islamic law is in force, is to hold its first public caning on Friday, an official said Thursday.  Twenty-six Acehnese Muslims found guilty of gambling will be caned after Friday's prayers outside the main mosque in Bireuen district, some 165 kilometers (102 miles) southeast of the provincial capital Banda Aceh, the district chief said.  "The flogging will be performed on a stage using a rattan cane," Bireuen district chief Mustafa Abdullah Geulanggang said.

 

The government allowed Aceh to implement sharia, or Islamic law, in 2001 as part of limited self-rule to pacify clamor for independence, but an Islamic tribunal was only established in late 2003 in the province.  Geulanggang said officials covering their head and face would cane each of the convicted gamblers between six and eight times depending on the severity of their crime, he said.

 

"The caning should not shed blood," Geulanggang said. "If blood flows, the flogging should be halted and the convicted be treated until the wound heals before he can again face the rest of his canning sentence.  "The aim of the caning is to make violators of sharia deterred and embarrassed so that they will not repeat the deed in the future."  Another man convicted of gambling has been exempted after he paid a hefty fine of 25 million rupiah (about 2,600 dollars), said the local chief prosecutor, Adnan.

 

Most of the convicted men were arrested in February, before authorities in Bireun agreed on the use of caning as punishment for drinking, gambling and sexual offences.  They were sentenced by the Bireuen district sharia court in April and May.  The caning would be the first in staunchly Muslim Aceh since the government allowed the province to implement sharia as part of an autonomy package four years ago.

 

Aceh, where armed separatists have been fighting since 1976, has so far only partially implemented sharia, enforcing Muslim dress codes and obligations such as daily five-time prayers, fasting and alms.  Gambling is illegal throughout Indonesia.

 

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

 

Ivory Coast warring parties won't begin disarming on June 27 as planned

Serme Lassina, Associated Press, 6/22/05

 

Warring parties won't begin laying down weapons next week as planned, further delaying a campaign seen as crucial for lasting peace in Ivory Coast, the top disarmament official said Wednesday.  Rebel troops and government-allied militia fighters were to begin giving up arms on June 27 under a peace pact meant to knit Ivory Coast together after its 2002-2003 civil war.

 

But the official overseeing the disarmament campaign, Alain Richard Donwahi, said Wednesday that another peace conference was scheduled in South Africa's capital of Pretoria next week and a new disarmament launch date wasn't likely to be known until after the meeting's conclusion.  "I believe that as we leave the Pretoria summit, only then could we exactly say what will happen," he told reporters in the northern rebel stronghold of Bouake.

 

A further delay was widely expected in the long-stalled drive to get fighters to disarm.  South African President Thabo Mbeki brokered the latest Ivory Coast peace deal in April to end the civil war sparked by a failed coup in September 2002 that left the northern half of the world's largest cocoa grower in rebel hands.

 

A French-backed 2003 peace deal ended major fighting but left the country divided and tense.  Mbeki, as the African Union mediator in the conflict, had called for a nationwide disarmament campaign to begin mid-May. Earlier attempts to begin disarmament had also met with repeated failure.

 

In late April, both sides pulled back heavy weapons from front lines that divide the nation, where about 10,000 U.N. and French troops have been deployed to bolster security and help prevent all-out war.  President Laurent Gbagbo's government said long-awaited presidential elections would be held Oct. 30.

 

New round of Ivory Coast peace talks to be held in South Africa on June 28

Pauline Bax, Associated Press, 6/23/05

 

New talks to jump-start Ivory Coast's stalled peace process will be held in South Africa on June 28, officials said Thursday.  President Laurent Gbagbo will attend the meeting in Pretoria along with opposition rivals Henri Konan Bedie and Alassane Dramane Ouattara, presidential spokesman Desire Tagro told The Associated Press.

 

South African President Thabo Mbeki brokered the latest Ivory Coast peace deal in April, but a nationwide disarmament campaign that was due to begin June 27 has been delayed amid rising tension and new violence in the war-divided West African country.  Rebels have also accused the government of preparing to launch new attacks, charges Gbagbo's government has denied.

 

Rebels, who have held the northern half of Ivory Coast since a failed 2002 coup attempt, were also expected in Pretoria, officials said.  Earlier this week, a top disarmament official said warring parties won't begin laying down weapons next week as planned and a new date wasn't likely to be known until after the latest South African talks end.

 

On Saturday, Gbagbo announced he had appointed a military governor for volatile western Ivory Coast, where up to 70 people were hacked or shot to death in recent violence. Both sides have accused each other of being behind the violence in Duekoue, a western town nominally controlled by the government where pro-government militias are active.

 

Mbeki, as the African Union mediator in the conflict, had called for a nationwide disarmament campaign to begin mid-May. Earlier attempts had also met with repeated failure.  In late April, both sides pulled back heavy weapons from front lines that divide the nation, where about 10,000 U.N. and French troops have been deployed to bolster security and help prevent all-out war.  President Laurent Gbagbo's government has said long-awaited presidential elections would be held Oct. 30.

 

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Kashmir

 

Pakistan submits request for minister to travel on cross-Kashmir bus

Roshan Mughal, Associated Press, 6/23/05

 

Pakistan on Thursday submitted a request for its chief government spokesman to travel on a cross-Kashmir bus later this month for a private visit to the Indian-administered portion of the divided Himalayan region, officials said.  Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed's planned visit has been surrounded by controversy over allegations - denied by the minister - that he once ran a camp to train militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.

 

On Thursday, Pakistani and Indian officials met at the militarized border in Kashmir to exchange a list of passengers to travel on the June 30 run of the fortnightly service, which links the capitals of the Pakistani- and Indian-administered portions of Kashmir, said Liaquat Hussain, deputy commissioner of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.  Authorities in each country approve the other's list before the passengers travel.

 

Ahmed - who has relatives in the Indian part of Kashmir and says he wants to travel as a private citizen rather than in an official capacity - said Pakistan's Foreign Ministry told him that India would make a decision on June 27.  "The ball is now in India's court, and let us see what they do and how they move," he told The Associated Press.

 

In a statement, the Indian External Affairs Ministry said: "We have received the application of Sheikh Rashid, which will be processed in due course."  Opposition in India to the Pakistani minister's planned visit has grown since Yasin Malik, a former Kashmiri militant leader-turned politician, reportedly told a gathering in Islamabad earlier this month that Ahmed had once helped train 3,500 militants at a camp near the capital.

 

Malik, who was visiting Pakistan as part of a delegation of moderate Kashmiri separatist leaders, later claimed that he had been misquoted.  A retired former Pakistan army chief, however, acknowledged the camp existed and was shut down in 1991. Ahmed says the camp only provided shelter for Kashmiri refugees.  Kashmir is divided between Pakistan and India, which have fought two of their three wars over the region after gaining independence from Britain in 1947.

 

New Delhi has long accused Islamabad of backing militants fighting Indian troops in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir. Pakistan says it only gives Kashmiris political, moral and diplomatic support.  More than 66,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in insurgency since 1989.  In April, Pakistan and India initiated the cross-Kashmir bus to boost to a year-and-a-half-long peace process aimed at ending hostilities.

 

Meanwhile on Thursday, members of a Pakistani committee on Kashmir, meeting in Islamabad, demanded that Kashmiri leaders be involved in India-Paksitan talks over the territory.  "Kashmiris are the affected party and without their involvement there could be no lasting peace in the region," a government statement said.

 

Kashmir separatists ready for talks with India, hardliners opposed

Agence France Presse, 6/25/05

 

Moderate members of Indian Kashmir's separatist alliance said Saturday they were ready to reopen a stalled dialogue with India on the disputed region's future as hardliners branded such an exercise as "meaningless."  "We have held meaningful talks with Pakistan. We are ready to reopen talks with New Delhi," said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, head of the moderate faction of the alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.  The call to renew the dialogue aimed at helping resolve the future of Kashmir follows the return of Kashmiri separatist leaders from groundbreaking talks in Pakistan earlier this month.

 

The trip was part of a wider peace process between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan which have fought two of their three wars over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, which each holds in part but claims in full.  The moderates held two rounds of talks with New Delhi early last year but sought to travel to Pakistan before resuming discussions.  Farooq and eight other moderate separatists travelled to Pakistan for the first-ever talks with the Pakistani government and politicians in the Pakistani zone of Kashmir.

 

"We have already conveyed to New Delhi through informal channels that we are ready to take the peace process forward," said Farooq.  "It's now up to New Delhi to decide," said Farooq, who is also head of the region's main mosque, the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir where rebels took up arms 16 years ago against New Delhi's rule.  But hardliners said they opposed talks with the Indian government.  "Those who are begging for a dialogue with India are doing a disservice to the cause and dignity of Kashmiris," Syed Ali Geelani, who heads the hardline faction of Hurriyat, said.

 

All the rebel groups back Geelani's stand on Kashmir, where the Islamic insurgency against Indian rule has since 1989 left more than 40,000 people dead by official count. Separatists say the toll is twice as high.  "Our people are giving large sacrifices. They (moderates) are insulting those sacrifices by knocking at the doors of New Delhi," said the firebrand leader.  He said the holding of talks would be "meaningless until India declares Kashmir a disputed territory, stops human rights violations and frees political prisoners."

 

New Delhi says Kashmir is an integral part of India and that there can be no redrawing of boundaries.  Geelani wants tripartite talks involving India, Pakistan and the "true representatives" of Kashmiris or implementation of decades-old UN Security Council resolutions calling for a plebescite in the region on its future.  India calls the UN resolutions obsolete and says the dispute over Kashmir must be resolved bilaterally with Pakistan.

 

Kashmir Negotiation Simulation

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

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Kosovo

 

Kosovo Serbs block bridge in ethnically-divided town

Agence France Presse, 6/19/05

 

Kosovo Serbs blocked on Sunday a bridge separating districts of the ethnically-divided flashpoint town of Kosovska Mitrovica in northern Kosovo, an official said.  The blockade came days after the UN mission to Kosovo temporarily reopened the bridge separating ethnic Serb and ethnic Albanian districts of the town, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the provincial capital Pristina.

 

Gyorgy Kakuk, spokesman for the UN Mission in Kosovo, told AFP that three people -- two ethnic Albanians and one Serb -- had been detained after "the incident which happened when one car with Kosovo license plates tried to cross the bridge from south to north of Mitrovica."  A group of Serbs gathered on the bridge dividing the town, throwing stones at the car approaching from the district populated by ethnic Albanians, breaking its windows and forcing the vehicle back, witnesses said.

 

A group of ethnic Albanians retaliated by stoning two Serb cars nearby, reportedly injuring one man, they added.  The bridge over the Ibar River has been the scene of constant ethnic tension and occasional violence and Serbs living in the northern district have been constantly blocking the bridge since it was re-opened.

 

The United Nations, which has run Kosovo as a protectorate since the end of the 1998-99 war, plans to open the bridge to civilian traffic for just two hours a day at first.  If no serious incident is registered, the bridge would be completely re-opened by July 18.

 

In mid-May, NATO-led international peacekeepers handed over control of the bridge to local police, after patrolling it for more than five years.  Kosovo came under UN administration after NATO intervened militarily to end a war between Serbian forces and ethnic Albanian separatist guerrillas.

 

Romania wants Kosovo to remain part of Serbia

Associated Press, 6/23/05

 

Romania wants the disputed Kosovo province to remain within the borders of Serbia, Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu said Thursday.  Ungureanu pledged to help find a solution for Kosovo after meeting with Serbia's president, Boris Tadic, who is on a two-day visit to the neighboring country.

 

Tadic also met with Romania's president, Traian Basescu, with whom he discussed bilateral ties. During the meeting, Tadic reaffirmed his plans to participate in the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the massacre of about 8,000 boys and men by Serb forces in the Bosnian province of Srebrenica.

 

"This crime has its regional importance because there were also many crimes against my people, too," he said, adding that he hoped the Balkans would end "this vicious circle" and become a truly European region.  Romania's President Traian Basescu hailed Tadic's decision to go to Srebrenica as "extraordinary."

 

The Srebrenica massacre is considered to be Europe's single worst war crime since World War II. The U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, has indicted former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic as well as several wartime Bosnian Serb political leaders and army commanders in connection with the massacre.

 

The commemoration is scheduled for July 11.  Tadic also met with Senate Chairman Nicolae Vacaroiu, who called for more rights for the Romanian minority in Serbia.  He will travel Friday to the western city of Timisoara where he will attend a business forum. Many Serbs live in the region, which is close to the border with Serbia.

 

Kosovo Negotiation Simulation

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

 

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_____________________________________________________________

Liberia

 

Liberia's Taylor must face justice, US warns Nigeria

Agence France Presse, 6/23/05

 

Nigeria should surrender the former Liberian leader Charles Taylor to face war crimes charges, the US ambassador to Abuja told reporters on Thursday as pressure mounted on President Olusegun Obasanjo.  Taylor has lived in exile in Nigeria since August 2003, when Obasanjo granted him asylum in exchange for his stepping down from power in Liberia and allowing a UN-led peacemaking effort to begin in his wartorn country.

 

Nigeria initially won international praise for its intervention but has since come under increasing pressure to arrest Taylor and hand him over to a UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Liberia's neighbour Sierra Leone.  Obasanjo insists that he cannot go back on his word and will only surrender his guest to an elected Liberian government, despite allegations that Taylor has breached the terms of his asylum by interfering in Liberian affairs.  "Nigeria played an exemplary role in ending the bloodshed in Liberia and that included the acceptance of Taylor at the request of the Economic Community of West African States," US ambassador John Campbell told reporters here.

 

But he added: "The United States believes that Taylor must be brought to justice for the crimes which he has been accused of."  International prosecutors at Sierra Leone's war crimes tribunal allege that as leader of Liberia in the 1990s Taylor sponsored a brutal rebel movement in his neighbour which regularly tortured and murdered civilians.  In addition, they allege, Taylor has continued to stir trouble in west Africa from exile, sending funds to Liberian militias and political parties and attempting to organise the assassination of Guinea's President Lansana Conte.

 

Nigeria says it has seen no evidence to support these later claims.  Campbell said that the United States was in a "discussion" with Nigeria about Taylor's case.  "It's not a question of the US punishing Nigeria," he said. "The crucial issue of the conversation is to bring Taylor to justice."

 

Since accepting asylum in Nigeria, Taylor has lived with family members and several aides in a luxury riverfront villa in the southeastern city of Calabar.  Liberia is due to go to the polls in October to elect a government to replace a UN-backed interim regime which was put in place in 2003 to bring an end to the country's latest 14-year-old period of civil war.

 

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Moldova

 

Russia worried about economy of separatist region in Moldova after customs dispute

Associated Press, 6/21/05

 

Russia is concerned about a customs dispute affecting the economy of a Moscow-backed separatist province in eastern Moldova, the Russian ambassador said Monday.  The Moldovan government tried to reassert control of its borders, and ended permission for Trans-Dniester to issue customs documents after separatist leaders there closed Moldovan-language schools.  Russia, which has backed the Russian-speaking eastern enclave since it broke away from Moldova in 1992, urged Moldova to remove trade barriers for Trans-Dniester.

 

"Russia will make supplementary efforts to diffuse the situation," Ambassador Nikolai Reabov said meeting with Trans-Dniester's leader, Igor Smirnov.  Moldovan authorities did not comment on Reabov's statements.  Moldova's move did not have an immediate impact, as national authorities have no effective control over the eastern border, and neighboring Ukraine continued to allow transit for Trans-Dniester goods.

 

Earlier this month, however, Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko agreed to a Moldovan request for joint monitoring of the Trans-Dniester border and asked for European observers to be stationed at the border.  Moldova's relations with Russia have been tense since 2003, when Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin rejected a Russian-backed plan to give Trans-Dniester statehood status and renew a deal to keep Russian troops in the region.  Moldova's government has asked Russia to pull its 1,800 troops from Trans-Dniester, calling them an "illegal occupation force," as current agreements say the troops should have been withdrawn by 2003.

 

Resolving Moldova's dispute with separatists crucial for regional security, officials say

Associated Press, 6/21/05

 

Resolving Moldova's dispute with separatists in the breakaway region of Trans-Dniester is crucial for regional security, officials said Wednesday.  The dispute over the enclave is disrupting the security situation in Moldova, Ukraine, Romania and Russia, said William Hill, the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's mission in Moldova.

 

The Russian-speaking region broke away from Moldova in 1992 following a short war that killed about 1,500. Russia maintains almost 1,500 troops in the region, which during Soviet times was an important base for Soviet troops.  Russia has argued that the remaining troops are crucial to keeping the peace in the region and to protect large amounts of ammunition still stored there. The country has failed to fulfill an agreement with the OSCE that said the troops and the military material should leave Trans-Dniester by the end of 2002.

 

Hill told a news conference the withdrawal, which has been stalled since 2004, could be "completed in six months or less if it could be recommenced. The obstacles are political and not technical. The ostensible reason is local resistance."  Russia argues it cannot withdraw unless the enclave's leadership agrees that the troops be removed.

 

International leaders also are concerned about weapons and other military material that could be produced in factories in Trans-Dniester. Production started in Soviet times continues to an unknown extent, Hill said, adding it also was unknown who the potential customers for any production were.

 

Ukraine last month proposed a peace plan for Trans-Dniester that envisions local elections in the region. Nicolae Stratan, Moldova's foreign minister, said the plan was the first effort in years that had a chance of resolving the issue.  He also argued that several preconditions, such as the withdrawal of the Russian troops and the creation of a free media, had to be met before an election date could be set.

 

Moldovan foreign minister calls on Russia to withdraw troops from Trans-Dniester

Associated Press, 6/21/05

 

Moldova's foreign minister on Tuesday demanded Russia withdraw its troops from the separatist region of Trans-Dniester and argued that no election date can be set for the enclave until the troops have left.  Russia has 1,800 troops stationed in Trans-Dniester, a largely Russian-speaking region that broke away from Moldovan government control in 1992 following a short war that killed about 1,500 people.  Nikolai Stratan, speaking at an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe conference, said the military presence "represents the main obstacle for the country's reintegration."

 

A peace plan for the region, proposed in May by Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko, envisions that elections be held in the enclave. Stratan welcomed those plans, but said a date for such polls could only be set after the troops had been withdrawn, the region had been demilitarized and its mass media assured freedom.  Russia has failed to complete a 1999 agreement with the OSCE to withdraw troops and weapons stockpiles from the region.

 

Stratan called on the OSCE to send a stabilization mission to the region "to ensure peace and stability in the region."  "I believe that not only the future of Moldova, but the credibility and prestige of our organization are jeopardized," he said.

 

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Morocco

 

Western Sahara issue tests ties between Morocco and Spain

Dominique Pettit, Agence France Presse, 6/20/05

 

Moroccan authorities at the weekend denied entry to nine Spanish visitors to the disputed Western Sahara, accusing them of backing separatists, in a move that put improving relations with Spain to the test.  Madrid issued no immediate reaction to the expulsion at Laayoune airport on Sunday of the Spanish delegation, which included eight members of left-wing political parties who wished to assess the situation in the desert territory.

 

Rabat's official MAP news agency said they had no authorisation "to visit the southern provinces of Morocco" and "supported the separatist view" after the foreign ministry announced access to the region would be denied to those who "show bias".

 

Morocco annexed the Western Sahara in 1975 and declared it an integral part of the country after Madrid abandoned control of the territory, triggering an armed separatist resistance from the Polisario Front, which proclaimed an independent Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

 

MAP said the nine people in the delegation had already been told they would be refused access. When they tried to get in, "citizens representing various Sahrawi interests and civic organisations staged a sit-in to protest against the visit by members of this undesirable group," it said.

 

For decades the United Nations has sought to bring about a referendum on self-determination in the Western Sahara, which has seen an increasing number of visits by exiled Sahrawi activists, foreign journalists and representatives of non-governmental organisations since tensions soared and spilled into violence in May.

 

Security forces made dozens of arrests during a wave of pro-independence demonstrations between May 24 and 29 and stepped up a military presence in Layoune after the protests, according to the Polisario Front and residents who showed an AFP correspondent their raided homes afterwards.  Sahrawi sources said 50 people were injured in the unrest. Moroccan authorities denied there had been a crackdown but said 32 people had been arrested for vandalism.

 

Relations between Spain and the northwest African kingdom were long soured by differences over the future of the territory, but significantly began to improve when a socialist government was elected in Madrid in March last year.

 

Nevertheless, twice in early June delegations from Spain, including members of parliament and NGO staff, were sent home when their planes landed at Laayoune, the chief town in the Western Sahara, also known as El Ayoun, as Moroccan officials claimed they had come to "spread trouble".

 

The foreign ministry in Rabat on Saturday called on "Spanish authorities fully to assume their responsibilities regarding these manifestly ill-intended initiatives, which bear the risk of disturbing public order".

 

The Spanish government has simply declared itself "very concerned" at the developments in the Western Sahara in a letter sent by Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos to his counterparts in Morocco, Mauritania (which briefly held a part of the territory when colonists left), and Algeria, which backs the Polisario Front.

 

"The political process in the United Nations framework is currently blocked by a lack of initiatives," Moratinos said, adding that "the status quo is unacceptable" and urging UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to name "a special envoy possessing the right political profile to begin a mission as swiftly as possible".

 

Rabat has dismissed the last UN scheme for a five-year period of autonomy followed by a self-determination referendum, the Baker Plan named for US former secretary of state James Baker, who threw in the towel in June 2004 expressing his frustration over lack of progress.

 

During years of on-off talks and the deployment of a UN observer mission in the territory, the Polisario Front has implemented a ceasefire, but every time the prospect of a referendum came close it has stalled on the issue of who should be allowed the vote.

 

Rabat has now declared a referendum "obsolete" and inapplicable, instead offering broad autonomy but declaring Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara non-negotiable.  After occupying the phosphate-rich area, Morocco sent in settlers from the north, while tens of thousands of Sahrawis live in exile with their political leadership in camps across the border in southern Algeria.

 

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Nepal

First joint attack by Maoist rebels from India and Nepal; 21 dead in India's Bihar state

Ajai Singh, Associated Press, 6/24/05

 

Security forces fought rebels in a fierce, all-night gunbattle ending Friday near India's border with Nepal, leaving 21 dead in the first coordinated attack involving both Indian and Nepalese communist militants, police said.  The gunbattle was triggered when some 400 suspected Maoist rebels attacked a police station and two state-run banks in Bihar state's Madhuban village on Thursday, said Director-General of Police Ashish Ranjan Sinha, the state police chief.

 

Citing officers' accounts and local intelligence, he said almost 100 Nepalese Maoists, who are fighting in the neighboring country to topple the constitutional monarchy, were involved in the attack. Nepal and India have an open border that straddles hundreds of miles of lower Himalayan terrain.

 

Surprise assaults are a favorite mode of attack of Nepal's Maoist rebels, who frequently use villagers as human shields. The Nepalese rebel chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal has previously said that communist rebels from Nepal and India were in close contact, but no joint attack had been reported until Thursday.

 

The battle in Madhuban - 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Patna, the capital of Bihar - killed 17 militants, two police officers, one paramilitary soldier and a security guard at a government bank, said Sinha. The identity of the dead rebels could not be independently verified.

 

"The bodies of seven Maoists have been recovered, and a search is on for the rest," said Sinha. "The participation of Nepalese Maoists has been proved. This is the first time" they were involved, he said.  However, police in Nepal's border town of Birgunj said they did not think Nepalese Maoists were involved in the clash, but they have tightened security at border check points, a senior police official said on condition of anonymity.

 

Nepal's police have received a request from their Indian counterparts to beef up security at the border and stop rebels from entering Nepalese territories, he said.  The federal home ministry has sought a report on the attack from the government in Bihar - considered India's most lawless state.  Communist literature in the Hindi language was found at the site of the gunbattle, Sinha said.  "Seize the property of the government and hasten the people's war," said a flyer, a copy of which was shown to journalists. It was signed by the Communist Party of India Maoist.

 

The rebels looted four rifles from the police station, and the gunfight began after police reinforcements opened fire on the rebels as they tried to flee to Nepal.  Maoist rebels are active in five southern and eastern Indian states. They attack police, landlords and politicians in what they claim is a fight for the rights of the poor. The fighting is far removed from the main security theater - the Kashmir Valley where separatist Islamic militants have been fighting Indian forces since 1989.

 

On Thursday, S.K. Bhardwaj, a senior local police officer, said the suspected rebels were also looking for a lawmaker, Sita Ram Yadav, in Madhuban. They abducted his brother, Hemandra Yadav, when they couldn't find the lawmaker in the village, but later released him. The motive for Yadav's abduction was not immediately known.  Sita Ram Yadav represents a powerful regional group, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, a coalition partner of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government in New Delhi.

 

More than half a dozen killed in Maoist attack in west Nepal

Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 6/25/05

 

At least half a dozen Maoists and a security man were killed and several others injured when Maoists attacked a security camp in west Nepal late Friday, security sources said Saturday.  According to security sources, Maoists attacked a check point near the Royal Bardia National Park, about 450 kilometres west of Kathmandu, late Friday.  Security forces foiled the Maoist attempt to enter a security base camp, sources said. They said the gunbattle with the Maoists lasted until early Saturday.

 

Full details of the incidents were not available, but security sources said the bodies of half a dozen Maoists killed in the clash had been recovered.  Sources said the Maoist death toll could be much higher as the search operation was still continuing.  Helicopters with "night vision" equipment departed Kathmandu late Friday night to help security personnel, Nepalese newspapers reported Saturday morning.

 

According to security sources, the Maoists fled the scene of the clashes after failing to enter the security base camp.  The clash was the third Maoist attack on a security forces in a week.

 

On Monday, the Maoists attacked the headquarters of Khotang district in east Nepal, about 180 kilometres east of the capital, killing at least five security personnel and setting free 66 inmates, including eight Maoists, from the district prison. They also destroyed at least 14 government buildings.

 

On Thursday, the Maoists ambushed security personnel in Pancdhare in Bhojpur district, about 200 kilometres east of the capital, killing nine security personnel.  The Maoists resorted to armed insurgency in February 1996 to set up a communist republic in Nepal. About 12,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the armed insurgency.

 

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Philippines

 

Philippine forces capture Abu Sayyaf guerrilla

Agence France Presse, 6/25/05

 

Philippine security forces on Saturday captured another member of the Abu Sayyaf Muslim extremist group on insurgency-wracked southern Mindanao island, the military said.  Hajan Maldam was arrested during a raid on his hideout near Zamboanga city, on the island's southwestern tip, the military said.  He was positively identified by two ex-hostages who were among 16 teachers the Abu Sayyaf seized in the nearby island of Basilan along with Catholic priest Cirilio Nacorda in 1994, the military said.

 

"The Abu Sayyaf man is now undergoing military interrogation," military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Buenaventura Pascual said.  "He is one of those behind the kidnapping of the priest and the teachers more than 11 years ago in Basilan."  Several Abu Sayyaf gunmen have been killed or captured in recent weeks in the military's continuing crackdown in the southern Philippines. On Thursday, an Abu Sayyaf guerrilla was killed in the clash on southern Jolo island.

 

In 2001, Abu Sayyaf rebels with three US hostages and 17 Filipino captives again took over Nacorda's parish in Basilan's Lamitan town in a hostage crisis that lasted months.  Two of the American hostages were later killed, one of them brutally beheaded. The rest of the hostages were rescued or freed in exchange for ransom.

 

The US State Department has included the Abu Sayyaf in its list of foreign terrorist organizations.  Security analysts in the region have recently cited growing links between the group and the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the Southeast Asian arm of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.  The group is currently on the run from continuing military offensives in the southern Philippines, where small numbers of US troops are assisting them in intelligence gathering and equipment.

 

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Serbia & Montenegro

 

Serbian president to attend 10th anniversary of Bosnian massacre

Dusan Stojanovic, Associated Press, 6/20/05

 

Serbia's President Boris Tadic will attend the 10th anniversary of the massacre of Bosnian Muslims by Serb troops in Srebrenica, despite protests by victims' relatives, his office said Monday.  The official commemorations of the death of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys - Europe's worst massacre of civilians since World War II - will be held July 11 in the eastern Bosnian town of Potocari, near Srebrenica.

 

Tadic "will pay tribute to the innocent Srebrenica victims," his office said.  However, a group of women whose sons and husbands were killed in the 1995 massacre have said Tadic and other Serbian officials were not welcome as long as the two fugitives who allegedly masterminded the killings were brought to justice.  "Let no Serb or Bosnian Serb official come here until they arrest Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic," said Munira Subasic, a member of "The Srebrenica Mothers."

 

Wartime Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic, believed to be hiding in the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia, and former military commander Mladic, suspected to be in Serbia, have both been indicted for genocide by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.  The group also warned that Tadic's security could be at risk, saying they had called on victims' relatives to block Tadic and other "unwanted guests" from arriving in Potocari on July 11. The group did not elaborate.

 

"We don't want dishonest guests," Subasic said. "If they were honest, both Mladic and Karadzic would be behind bars by now."  Pro-democracy Tadic recently denounced the Serb perpetrators of the Srebrenica slaughter, and pledged to "kneel down and apologize for the awful Srebrenica crime."  The nationalist-dominated Serbian parliament, however, failed to adopt a resolution last week that would have condemned the massacre in Srebrenica, which at the time was a U.N. "protected zone."

 

Tadic's office said he had been invited to the commemorations in Potocari, just outside Srebrenica, by Bosnia's three-member presidency that represents Bosnia's Muslim, Croat and Serb communities.  Meanwhile, Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus said that the government "has organized all its services" to get information on whether Mladic and other war crimes suspects are hiding in Serbia.

 

"Anyone who has been indicted for war crimes will be arrested, because the deadline for their surrender has long expired," Labus said.  U.N. war crimes prosecutors have said that, besides Mladic, another six indicted war crimes fugitives are in Serbia.

 

Serbia's war crimes prosecutor to file charges next month in connection with Srebrenica killings

Jovana Gec, Associated Press, 6/23/05

 

Serbia's war crimes prosecutor said Thursday he will file charges next month against a group of Serb paramilitaries identified in a 1995 execution video of six Muslims from Srebrenica.  Vojislav Vukcevic told the official Tanjug news agency that the indictment against the group will be the first in Serbia in connection with the slaughter of nearly 8,000 Muslim boys and men by the Serb troops in the eastern Bosnian enclave in July 1995.

 

"I expect the end of the investigation and the filing of charges in July," Vukcevic said. "Serbia's judiciary hasn't dealt with the Srebrenica crime so far."  The gruesome video showing several Serb paramilitary fighters shooting the Muslim men in the back after kicking and harassing them, was aired unedited on local television stations here in early June, triggering public outrage and the arrest of five of the alleged executioners.

 

Another suspect, also a member of the notorious Scorpions unit, was arrested in Croatia and will be tried there, Vukcevic said.  The Srebrenica slaughter is considered to be Europe's single worst war crime since World War II. The U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, has indicted former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic as well as several wartime Bosnian Serb political leaders and army commanders in connection with the massacre.

 

However, the top suspects, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, remain at large ten years after their indictments.  Vukcevic said the Hague tribunal has dealt with the Srebrenica killings so far, and that Serbia can only prosecute those cases which are not processed by the U.N. court.

 

The prosecutor also said his office soon will file indictments in connection with war crimes against Muslims in the border town of Zvornik and the northern Bosnian town of Brcko, but also against an ethnic Albanian suspected of crimes against non-Albanians in Kosovo during the 1998-99 war.  Prosecution of war crimes in Serbia became possible after the ouster of Milosevic in 2000 and his extradition to The Hague a year later.

 

Prison Changes Milosevic, but Not His Version of Events

Marlise Simons, The New York Times, 6/24/05

 

Four years behind bars have inevitably changed Slobodan Milosevic. His white hair has receded, his stomach is bulkier, his English has improved. Since he arrived, handcuffed, at the United Nations jail in The Hague on June 28, 2001, he has also become less blustery, perhaps the result of blood-pressure medication or the sheer drudgery of his long trial on an array of war crimes charges.

 

Once given to bursting into tirades and dismissing his indictment as a fake and his trial as a farce, Mr. Milosevic, the former Serbian president, has now become steeped in the case's 200,000 pages. These days, he sits in the dock flanked by carts full of binders, which he frequently consults. He addresses his three judges sitting high on the dais, rather than turning to the public gallery, which has been mostly empty.

 

But Mr. Milosevic's old mind-set remains intact.  Day after day, he has tenaciously stuck to his own version of what happened during his 13 years in power, which led to three wars and killed more than 250,000. Serbs were not responsible for the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, he contends, but were forced to defend themselves from aggression.

 

Contrary to charges in his indictment, Mr. Milosevic says there was no plan to create a larger country for all Serbs and no atrocities were committed. Yes, people died, but they were fighting, or were bombed by NATO. This view of history has been much on display in the months since Mr. Milosevic began calling his own witnesses to defend not just himself, but also the Serbian national cause. The prosecution rested its case last year after bringing 114 witnesses to the court and presenting written testimony from 240 additional witnesses to buttress its lengthy charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

 

The trial, which began in February 2002, has already set a record for longevity in international law and the end is not in sight.

 

So far, Mr. Milosevic, who acts as his own lawyer, has presented close to 30 witnesses, among them former aides, old Communist Party friends, historians and a forensic specialist, as well as outsiders including a French Army colonel and several senior Russian politicians. He has used almost 40 percent of the 150 days allotted to him, but his lawyers say he plans to call dozens more witnesses. ''You can expect I will be asking for a prolongation,'' Mr. Milosevic told the judges at a recent hearing. ''My aim is to present the truth, and that takes time.''

 

The judges apparently believe he is stalling. They often instruct Mr. Milosevic to stop asking leading questions, and not to waste time with repetitive and irrelevant evidence. ''I'm disgusted with your performance,'' Patrick Robinson, the presiding judge, said at one point, abruptly cutting off the microphone.

 

Fearing that it will take months before Mr. Milosevic addresses the war in Bosnia, a crucial part of the case, judges have also suggested sitting for longer hours or four times a week, rather than the current three. But that drew quick objections from Mr. Milosevic, who argued that his chronic heart disease would not allow it. If his condition improved, he said, ''then this place should be advertised as a kind of spa for treating health problems.''

 

The trial's current focus is the 1999 war in the Serbian province Kosovo. Mr. Milosevic has devoted much time and effort to that conflict because, as president of Serbia at the time, he can be held directly accountable for any proven atrocities by its security forces.  ''We want to show that yes, there were crimes, but it was not our policy and the authorities reacted and punished them,'' said Branko Rakic, a legal adviser to Mr. Milosevic.

 

Gen. Obrad Stevanovic, the deputy interior minister in charge of the police and the highest ranking Serb official to appear, has testified for the past month without shedding much light except on his loyalty to his former boss. He gave lengthy accounts of police rules, weaponry and ammunition, and said repeatedly that the police could not have committed any crimes because their role was to uphold the law.

 

His constant denials that the police killed civilians in Kosovo infuriated the lead prosecutor, Geoffrey Nice. Explain to this court, Mr. Nice said, how bodies of Kosovar families came to be buried in a police compound and were then moved to another police compound. The general said he had no knowledge of that.

 

Mr. Nice quoted from a letter from a Serbian Army general, Nebojsa Pavkovic, complaining that the Serbian police were committing ''murder, rape, plunder, robbery,'' while attributing the crimes to the army. General Stevanovic: ''These are serious allegations by the army against the police which I was not aware of.''

 

The routine of examination and cross-examination was suddenly upset on June 1 after General Stevanovic acknowledged that the Serbian police had been on duty in Bosnia and Croatia, but performed only common tasks, such as ''traffic control and crime prevention.'' Mr. Nice then showed a videotape depicting the execution of six Muslim men by a Serbian paramilitary police unit as part of the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. He asked General Stevanovic if he recognized anyone in the unit, known as the Scorpions. No, the general said, they were not part of the regular Serbian police force. Prosecutors say that in 1995, the Scorpions were part of the secret police.

 

Since the videotape was shown, the Serbian authorities say, six men appearing in it have been arrested.  Many commentators have called the videotaped executions ''the smoking gun,'' but any link to Mr. Milosevic, as head of the police forces, has yet to be established. Prosecutors obtained the videotape only recently and they cannot enter it into evidence until they reopen their case and show the provenance and authenticity of the images. Mr. Milosevic said the film had been tampered with.

 

The day the film of the executions was shown in court, Mr. Milosevic returned to the jail looking dejected. Rather than socializing with fellow inmates, as he usually did, he withdrew into his cell and did not reappear that night, lawyers visiting the jail said.  Asked why Mr. Milosevic was disturbed, Mr. Rakic, his lawyer, offered this explanation: ''This is clearly part of a media campaign. We think this film was designed to shock the public, not to prove something.''

 

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Somalia

 

Somali reconcilation talks fail, homeless government faces new crisis

Agence France Presse, 6/24/05

 

Talks to end a bitter dispute over the new home for Somalia's transitional government broke down in rancor on Friday with top officials leaving the Yemen-hosted negotiations to go their separate ways.  After four days of discussions in Sanaa, the two rival factions were unable to reach any compromise over where the administration should set up shop and were still divided over the presence of foreign peacekeepers, officials said.

 

Sources close to both sides said embattled Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden had made no progress at all in bridging the gaps between them and that the two men would leave Yemen on Friday for different locations in Somalia.

 

"The president and parliament speaker could not come to any terms in overcoming the divisions within the transitional federal government," said Mohammed Omar, a Mogadishu-based politician with ties to the two camps.  "The government of Yemen, especially the president and lawmakers, attempted vigorously to reconcile the two men, but unfortunately the talks collapsed," he told AFP. "Both sides are leaving Yemen to arrive in Somalia."

 

Yusuf was expected to fly from Yemen to his home in the northeastern Puntland region where he was a powerful warlord until being elected president last year while Aden was to travel first to Djibouti and then to Mogadishu.  Aden told AFP that the discussions had yielded no fruit but declined to discuss the specific contentious issues.  "I don't want to go into detail about the peace process, but I can tell you that the negotiations were deadlocked," he said by phone from the Yemeni capital.

 

Aden represents a powerful faction in the Somali administration, including Mogadishu warlords, that insists the government move to the capital and is fiercely opposed to Yusuf's plan to relocate to the towns of Baidoa and Jowhar.  Yusuf is opposed for security reasons to moving the government to bullet-scarred Mogadishu, the epicenter of the bloody anarchic fighting that has engulfed the lawless nation for the past 14 years.

 

He is backed by Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi who is now in Jowhar, north of Mogadishu, waiting for the president and attempting to ease the government's set-up in Somalia after the leadership left exile in Kenya earlier this month with great fanfare but no final destination.

 

Somali sources said that after stopping in Puntland, Yusuf might join Gedi in Jowhar as early as late Friday or Saturday, but it was not immediately clear what the two men would do there given that much of the rest of the government is scattered between Kenya and other parts of Somalia.

 

As word began to filter out on Thursday that the talks were on the verge of collapse, Yusuf's spokesman, Mohamed Ismail Baribari, insisted the negotiations were still underway and that the relocation issue was nearly settled.

 

"The talks are still ongoing," he told reporters in Nairobi. "This is another example on how his excellency President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed is fully committed to the utmost benefit and interest of the Somalia people."

 

But even as those comments were made, deputy parliament speaker Osman Bokore was making plans to hold the first-ever session of the assembly in Somalia, defying Yusuf's declaration that the legislature was in recess until late July.

 

The session has been postponed from Saturday to July 2 but will still go ahead, Bokore said, repeating assertions that the president's dismissal of the lawmakers had been illegal and unconstitutional.  Ever since Yusuf was elected last year, his government has been beset by internal squabbles, which Somali watchers fear will stymie efforts to restore a functional central authority in the country.

 

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka's Muslims accuse government of discrimination in tsunami aid deal

Shimali Senanayake, Associated Press, 6/23/05

 

Sri Lanka's minority Muslims are accusing the government of discriminating against them in a tsunami aid-sharing deal with Tamil Tiger rebels that is on the verge of being concluded.  The pact will make the rebels partners with the government in distributing billions of dollars' worth of foreign tsunami aid.  Sri Lanka's economically powerful Muslims comprise 1.3 million of the island's 18.6 million people and are the second largest ethnic minority after the 3.2 million Tamils. They have demanded equal status in the proposed deal, which they say should be a tripartite agreement.

 

"Not to be treated equally is very disappointing," said Fariel Ashraff, the minister of housing and reconstruction. "Especially if the document is for those affected by the tsunami, why have the people most affected been left out?"  Ashraff says 54 percent of those affected by the Dec. 26 tsunami were Muslims who live mostly in eastern Sri Lanka.

 

The Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam want a say in how aid is distributed in the Tamil-majority north and east - parts of which are under their control. They claim assistance has not reached Tamil areas fast enough since the disaster, which killed at least 31,000 people in Sri Lanka.  "The whole problem relates to discrimination" from the government, she said.

 

But Vidar Helgesen, the deputy foreign minister of Norway, which facilitated the aid deal, said there was no possibility now of renegotiating the document and the Tigers were averse to a tripartite agreement.  President Chandrika Kumaratunga says the plan to share aid with the Tamil Tigers marks a golden opportunity to forge peace with the guerrillas following a two-decade separatist civil war that killed nearly 65,000 people before a 2002 cease-fire.

 

Critics say the deal will give the rebels international recognition and help them in their quest to create a separate Tamil state.

 

The Muslims generally do not trust the rebels, who are mostly Hindus. During the two decades of war, the rebels carried out systematic killings of Muslims, including an August 1990 massacre of 130 Muslims at two mosques on the same day, as they tried to assert control over the east.

 

"Our fears are based on our experiences," Ashraff said. "The mere fact of working with the LTT is frightening. Suddenly to work together with the LTT but not as an equal partner is of great concern."  The cease-fire three years ago left the east a patchwork of territories under the control of the military and the rebels, unlike in the north, where a border-like cease-fire line exists.

 

The aid-sharing agreement is "a great disappointment and a great injustice to the Muslim people," said Rauf Hakeem, leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, a powerful opposition party. "The rights of the Muslims ... have been cast aside despite the earlier indication that it could be turned into a tripartite agreement."

 

Kumaratunga has promised that Muslim interests will be safeguarded. The aid deal does provide for Muslim representation but doesn't give equal status to them.  "We don't believe there would ever be peace unless the grievances of the Muslims are addressed," Ashraff said.

 

Sri Lanka signs tsunami aid deal with Tamil Tiger rebels

Agence France Presse, 6/24/05

 

Sri Lanka Friday signed a controversial tsunami aid sharing deal with Tamil Tiger rebels despite opposition from the island's main Marxist party, government minister Maithripala Sirisena said.  "The secretary to the ministry of rehabilitation, M. S. Jayasinghe, signed on behalf of the government and we are awaiting a signed copy from the Tigers," Sirisena told reporters in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo.

 

The document after being signed by Jayasinghe was taken by Norwegian diplomats to the rebel-held town of Kilinochchi for signing by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), sources said.  Details of the proposed Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure (P-TOMS) were unveiled in parliament Friday for the first time after months of secret talks with the help of peace broker Norway.  It will have an international lender as the custodian of foreign aid.

 

The Marxist JVP, or People's Liberation Front, disrupted parliamentary debate on the controversial issue when the document was released ahead of debate in the Assembly, and the sitting ended in chaos when JVP MPs prevented ministers from speaking on the deal.  The JVP quit the ruling coalition last week protesting the deal to handle tsunami aid and vowed to launch nationwide protests from Friday.  The deal is seen as a prelude to saving Sri Lanka's Norwegian-led peace bid.

 

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

 

AU mediators to restart Sudan peace talks despite Chad hitch

Ade Obisesan, Agence France Presse, 6/21/05

 

African Union (AU) mediators trying to bring peace to Sudan's Darfur region, wracked by conflict and humanitarian crisis, said they would get talks going again Tuesday despite a stalemate over the participation of Chad.

 

"We partners, Sudanese government and observers, have unanimously adopted a work program drafted by the AU and the talks are scheduled to begin Tuesday" in a plenary session, the head of Sudan's delegation, Magzoub Al-Khalifa, confirmed to AFP.  "The plenary session will definitely resume on Tuesday," an AU official said.

 

Fighting has raged in Darfur since February 2003, when local armed groups launched a rebellion in the name of the region's black African tribes, alleging discrimination and persecution by Khartoum's Arab-dominated government. Millions of people have fled their homes.

 

The talks have been stalled for more than 10 days over opposition from Darfur rebels to bringing neighbouring Chad, which has become home to tens of thousands of refugees, into the talks as co-mediators on the grounds of bias.

 

After lengthy negotiations, the most resistant of the two Darfur rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), dropped its opposition to Chad's participation.  "It is the considered view of the SLM negociating delegation that it has come to Abuja not to wade into the controversy or argument of whether Chad should be mediator or not, but to help negotiate and achieve peace," the group said late Monday.

 

"Any attempts at this stage to remove Chad from the process is not in the overall interest of peace in Darfur," said an SLM statement signed by the group spokesman, Mahjoub Hussein.  "AU special envoy for the Darfur peace talks, Tanzanian Salim Ahmed Salim, has consulted with the mediators, the partners, the observers and the SLM and they have agreed to move the talks forward", AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni told AFP.

 

"On Tuesday we are going to finalise discussion on the declaration of principles (DoP), a key element in the talks", he said adding that "AU is very interested in advancing the talks".  The declaration of principle, the basis for a future accord, reaffirms Sudan's unity and territorial integrity, respect for its ethnic and religious diversity and calls for an end to impunity for human rights violators.  AU mediators want these points agreed on before tackling the sensitive issues of power sharing, distribution of wealth and security.

 

The other rebel force, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said it would only comment on whether it would participate in further talks after its position paper on the DoP which was submitted to AU late Monday, has been debated.  The parties were to discuss the JEM document at a meeting scheduled at 10:00 am (1000 GMT) on Tuesday after which the plenary session is expected to resume, delegates said.

 

"We are happy over AU mediation in the talks", Magzoub told AFP.  The stand-off over the involvement of Chad -- whose long border with Sudan runs along the western limit of Darfur -- is the latest in a series of disputes to have bedevilled the AU's stop-start dialogue.  Since the war began, between 180,000 and 300,000 people are thought to have been killed and 2.4 million displaced from their homes. Some 200,000 have fled into Chad.  Last year, the African Union deployed a small military observer force to Darfur and began a series of meetings in Abuja between the government and two rebel groups in order to seek a ceasefire and a political settlement.

 

Darfur rebels threaten to suspend Sudan peace talks in Nigeria

Agence France Presse, 6/22/05

 

A main rebel group in the war-torn Darfur region of western Sudan threatened Wednesday to suspend African Union-mediated peace negotiations in the Nigeria capital Abuja.  The Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) accused the government of attacking its forces in eastern Darfur and charged that it was preparing another offensive against SLM positions in the region.  The SLM "officially warns the government against committing another crime," the group said in a statement.

 

It added that if the government "tries to carry out its plans," the SLM will "demand that the negotiations be suspended until the government abides by its international pledges and (UN) Security Council resolutions."  The SLM threat came as AU mediators battled to get the parties to the Darfur conflict to start direct talks in spite of a longstanding dispute over the presence of Chad and the cancellation of a planned plenary session.

 

The parties still have to agree on the Declaration of Principle (DoP), which will set the tone for the discussions. The SLM said it had proposed that the DoP recognize the right of self-determination for the people of Darfur.  Fighting has raged in Darfur since February 2003, when local groups launched a rebellion in the name of the region's black African tribes, alleging marginalisation by Khartoum's Arab-dominated government.  Since the war began, between 180,000 and 300,000 people are thought to have been killed and 2.4 million displaced from their homes. Some 200,000 have fled into neighbouring Chad.

 

 

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