Peace Negotiations Watch
Monday, June 6, 2005
(Volume IV, Number 20)
Contents:
Burundi/Rwanda
Fighting
breaks out on outskirts of Burundi's capital between government troops and
rebels
UN calls upon
parties to respect May 15 ceasefire agreement.
Burundi begins forced transfer of
fleeing Rwandans
Nearly 8,000
Rwandans have fled into Burundi since March, avoiding trial for 1994 genocide.
War-torn Burundi heads to the polls for
critical municipal elections
Elections
first since successful Arusha peace process.
Chechnya
First official group of Chechen refugees
return to Russia from Georgia
Georgian government says approximately
2,000 Chechens are living in lawless Pankisi Gorge.
Congo
U.N. relief mission arrives at site of
Eastern Congo massacre
Militiamen killed nineteen people
and forced thousands to flee.
U.N. peacekeeper succumbs to wounds after
gunbattle with militia in eastern Congo
Nepalese peacekeeper dies in
hospital in Ituri province.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the DR
Congo Negotiation Simulation.
Georgia/Abkhazia
Saakashvili calls on Georgia's
separatist provinces to end isolation
Saakashvili wants reintegration of South
Ossetia and Abkhazia into Georgia.
Saakashvili hails 'historic' Russian
bases withdrawal decision
Russia to have fully pulled out of
Georgia by end of 2008.
Indonesia
Aceh peace talks reconvene in Finland
between Indonesian government, rebels
Talks begin
with the decision upon an agenda for the talks.
Aceh mediator to draw up draft for peace
deal at Helsinki talks
Documents to
be completed and sent to the parties by next round of talks in July.
Indonesian military may wreck Aceh peace
effort, rebels warn
Indonesian
military spokesman denies claims made by Acehnese rebels.
Aceh
Negotiation Simulation
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here to access the Aceh
Negotiation Simulation.
Ivory
Coast
Ivory Coast pro-government militia begin
dismantling forces in keeping with deal
Militants symbolically hand over rifles
to military chief.
Ivory Coast presidency, rebels trade
accusations over ethnic clashes
Rebels claim that killings benefited Gbagbo.
Kashmir
Kashmir hardline separatist declines
invitation to visit Pakistan via bus
Separatist
leader not pleased with Musharraf position on Kashmir.
Kashmir separatist leaders arrive in
Pakistan on historic visit
Hardline
separatists claim Musharraf is offering too many concessions to India.
Kashmir
Negotiation Simulation
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here to access the Kashmir
Negotiation Simulation
Kosovo
Prince George's County Prosecutor Joins
World of Kosovo Justice
Washington, DC-area prosecutor going to Kosovo to
assist court system.
UN mission in Kosovo a dangerous 'facade':
ICG
Brussels-based International Crisis Group believes
UNMIK a source of instability in Kosovo.
U.N. chief in Kosovo 'committed' to border
deal with Macedonia
Talks to resume June 9; Jessen-Petersen believes deal
can be reached before Kosovo final status.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kosovo
Negotiation Simulation.
Liberia
Wanted for war crimes, Liberia's
ex-president hunkers down in Nigerian exile
U.S. suggests that Taylor be handed over
to UN tribunal.
Macedonia
U.S., EU welcome Macedonian move to
allow minority symbols
Ethnic Albanians to have greater freedom
in displaying symbols.
Moldova
Moldovan
dissident's wife asks Romanian president to help free her husband
Husband has
been held by authorities in Transnistria region.
Morocco
Polisario calls for UN action following
clampdown in Western Sahara
Senior Moroccan official denies claims
of clampdown made by Polisario rebels.
Nepal
U.S. diplomat warns confrontation
between king and political parties will benefit rebels
American
ambassador urges parties to work together or else Maoists may benefit.
Nepalese politicians may meet with
Maoist rebel leaders in India
Potential
meeting would be first between Maoists and senior Nepalese political
officials.
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Nepal
Negotiation Simulation.
Philippines
Muslim separatists meet over call to end
southern Philippines rebellion
Thousands of Muslim separatists meet to
discuss upcoming peace talks.
Philippine Muslim rebels in show of
force ahead of final peace deal
Advisor to Arroyo impressed with MILF
ability to mobilize large group.
Serbia &
Montenegro
Serbian
president speaks to nation after arrests of men reportedly from execution
footage
Amateur video footage shows Serb
troops killing Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica.
Ultranationalist
leader contends video of Srebrenica killings is part of anti-Serb campaign
Radical Party leader claims
individuals are responsible for killings, not Serbia, itself.
Serbian PM re-elected head of his
Democratic Party of Serbia
Kostunica re-elected to chair party
after unsuccessful no-confidence vote bid.
Somalia
Official says exiled government will
return, despite fighting
Various warlords have suggested setting
up government away from dangerous Mogadishu.
Sri Lanka
International
donors cancel aid meeting with Tamil Tigers after top military officer slain
Military officer believed to have
been killed by rebels.
Tamil-majority
northeast shuts down, demanding withdrawal of Sri Lankan troops
Violence follows the construction
of a Buddha statue in multi-religious town in eastern Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Sri
Lanka Negotiation Simulation
Sudan
Red
Cross says growing lawlessness in Darfur makes quick return of 2 million
refugees unlikely
Peace talks
beginning on June 10 in Abuja do not address inter-tribal conflicts.
Darfur
peace talks to resume in Nigeria Friday: official
International
Criminal Court to look into cases of 51 suspected war criminals.
Fighting
breaks out on outskirts of Burundi's capital between government troops and
rebels
Aloys Niyoyita, Associated
Press, 5/27/05
A gun battle between Burundi's last rebel group and
soldiers broke out Friday on the outskirts of the capital, with gunfire echoing
in the city and apparently putting an end to a cease-fire agreement reached
earlier this month. There were no
immediate reports of casualties in what an army spokesman called an attack on
Bujumbura at 11:30 a.m. (0930 GMT) from the southwest. The rebels were turned
back, he added.
"The army tried to stop a group of rebels
coming from the hills," said Adolphe Mairakiza, the army spokesman. He
said the army was also pursuing another group of rebels northeast of the
capital. A rebel spokesman said the
attack was in retaliation for operations by the army. "The army declared war on us, so we are
fighting a war," rebel spokesman Pasteur Habimana said.
On Thursday, the Burundian army said it would launch
attacks against the National Liberation Front following a mortar bombardment of
the capital that left three soldiers and two civilians wounded on Wednesday
night. Known by its French acronym, the
FNL is the only rebel group that has not joined Burundi's power-sharing
government. FNL leader Agathon Rwasa and President Domitien Ndayizeye signed a
cease-fire agreement May 15, which many had hoped would end the Central African
country's civil war.
Burundi's civil war broke out in 1993 when Tutsi
paratroopers killed the country's first democratically held president, a Hutu.
Leaders of the Hutu majority formed several rebel groups and fought the
Tutsi-dominated army, leaving more than 250,000 people, mostly civilians, dead. The United Nations has called for both sides
to respect the May 15 cease-fire.
Burundi begins forced transfer of
fleeing Rwandans
Agence France Presse, 5/29/05
Burundi
authorities have begun to forcibly transfer thousands of Rwandan refugees to a
camp near the border between the two central African nations after refusing
them asylum, Burundian and UN sources said Sunday. The up to 8,000 Rwandans, mostly Hutus who
fled Rwanda in April fearing prosecution for taking part in the 1994 genocide,
were being held in seven camps in Burundi.
As of Saturday, authorities began to direct them to a camp in Songore,
some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Rwandan border.
Colonel
Didace Nkikoruriho, in charge of the refugee issue at the interior ministry,
said 575 were transferred from the Cankuzo camp in eastern Burundi on Saturday. The camps of Mihigo and Gatsinda holding some
1,700 each in northern Burundi "were emptied (Saturday), and the people
were ordered to go to Songore or to return to Rwanda," an official said on
condition of anonymity. The United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed that some of the 3,400
Rwandans headed toward Rwanda.
UNHCR
spokeswoman Catherine-Lune Grayson said the agency was helping the transfer
"against its will." "The
UNHCR considers that Songore is not ready to host all these asylum
seekers," she said. At one site,
"witnesses said Rwandan soldiers destroyed dozens of shelters and beat the
asylum-seekers into attending an awareness session," Grayson said. "The shelters that we were allowed to
build just a week ago were dismantled," in Mihigo and Gatsinda, she added. Nkikoruriho denied that the Rwandans were
being forcefully repatriated.
"This
is not a forced transfer to Rwanda, we are only moving them from one corner of
Burundi to another corner of Burundi," he said. According to UN and other officials, between
7,000 and 8,000 Rwandans have crossed into Burundi since March to avoid trials
at village tribunals set up to judge those suspected of involvement in the 1994
genocide during which some 800,000, mainly minority Tutsis, were slaughtered.
They
say they are also fleeing rumored threats of massacres. Burundi at first said the Rwandans could be
entitled to refugee status but this stance infuriated Rwanda and the two
countries reached an accord last month in which Burundi agreed not to treat the
Rwandans as refugees and assist Kigali in convincing them to voluntarily return
home.
War-torn Burundi heads to the polls for
critical municipal elections
Agence France Presse, 6/1/05
Just
over a decade since Burundi plunged into bloody ethnic turmoil, voters in this
tiny central African nation head to the polls this week for local elections
seen as a key test of stability. In a
country long riven by tribal rivalry between minority Tutsis and majority
Hutus, Friday's election of municipal councillors -- the first in a series of
polls -- will be a bellwether for the prospects of concluding a five-year-old
peace process. "The hour of truth
has come," said Astere Kana, a Catholic priest and spokesman for Burundi's
National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI).
Friday's
voting will mark the first time Burundians elect their own leaders since the
start of the 1993 civil war between the Tutsi-dominated army and Hutu rebels
that has claimed some 300,000 lives. It
will also be the country's first exercise in democracy since the overwhelming
approval in a February referendum of a power-sharing constitution, a hallmark
of the Arusha peace process now signed on to by all but one of Burundi's seven
Hutu rebel groups.
Just
two days before the campaign for Friday's elections began on May 18, the lone
remaining rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), and Bujumbura
signed a truce intended to lead to formal peace talks. But the FNL, which is accused of launching
several post-truce attacks, will sit the polls out. With the ethnic divide particularly pronounced
in the countryside where the vast majority of Burundi's seven million people
live, the choices of the rural peasantry on Friday are perhaps the most
important in a series of five elections to be held by August 19 to end an
extended transition period.
More
than 3.4 million registered voters in 129 constituencies are expected to cast
ballots for candidates from 31 political parties, including six former rebel
armies, and 19 independents. The winners
of Friday's elections will on July 29 choose members of the Senate, who, along
with members of the National Assembly elected in July 4 legislative polls, will
select a new president. But analysts say
the real contest will be between the dominant Hutu parties: President Domitien
Ndayizeye's Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU) and its chief rival, the
ex-rebel Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD).
Since
independence from Belgium in 1962, Burundi's politics have been dominated by
the Tutsis, who account for only 14 percent of the total population, but the
power-sharing constitution has altered the equation. "Right from the start, this looks like a
duel for supremacy among the Hutus," said Charles Ndayiziga, head of
Burundi's Center for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CENAP). "Whoever wins the municipals will be on
the presidential path in August," he told AFP, noting the FDD's antipathy
toward Ndayizeye, whose plans to extend the transition until August it publicly
opposed.
FRODEBU
and the FDD have engaged in a blistering and tense, but largely peaceful
campaign, which began shortly after the two parties ended a bitter dispute over
the appointment of a new interior minister.
Despite the importance of polling day itself, the aftermath of the
election and the atmosphere created for the forthcoming votes will be perhaps
even more critical, given the disastrous fallout from the country's 1993
election. Within four months of those
polls, the country was at war after the winner, Burundi's first democratically
elected president and first Hutu leader, Melchior Ndadaye, was assassinated by
members of the Tutsi-dominated army. "The
greatest stake is peace," one Bujumbura-based diplomat told AFP. "And
it is the post-election management that will determine whether Burundi has
emerged from chaos or not."
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First official group of Chechen refugees
return to Russia from Georgia
Misha
Dzhindzhikashvili, Associated Press,
5/28/05
A
busload of Chechen refugees left Georgia's Pankisi Gorge on Saturday, the first
official group of war refugees to be returned to Chechnya after years of effort
by Russian authorities, officials said. The
19 refugees were among thousands of ethnic Chechens who have camped out in
squalid conditions in the rugged gorge, escaping the persistent fighting in
Chechnya across the border to the north. Russian officials have long insisted
that normalcy is returning to Chechnya and pushed for refugees to return.
Edilbek
Uzuyev, who headed an official Russian delegation seeking to persuade the refugees
to leave, said in a televised interview that more than 300 Chechens were trying
to return home, but re-entry documents for only a small group had been
completed. Another 100 were expected to receive re-entry papers soon, he said.
International
humanitarian groups and the Georgian government say some 2,000 Chechen refugees
are in the gorge; the Russian Embassy in Georgia, however, has counted only
500. Russian officials in Georgia say
more than 250 Chechen refugees have returned to Russia on their own over the
past two years. Human rights groups say
many Chechens are reluctant to return to Russia, due to continued fighting and
rampant kidnappings in Chechnya. Many also say they could be targeted by
regional law enforcement for allegedly having ties to rebel fighters.
"Most
refugees fear that they might be persecuted in Chechnya because of their
relatives who might have been in Maskhadov's army," human rights activist
Aslambek Abdurzakov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. Aslan
Maskhadov was a rebel warlord and former Chechen president who was killed by
Russian security forces in Chechnya on March 8.
Complicating
efforts accurately tally the population are the presence of thousands of
Kistins - close ethnic kin of the Chechens, many of whom have lived in the
gorge in northern Georgia since the outbreak of fighting in 1994. Russia has
refused to allow them to move to Chechnya.
The
gorge has long been known for its lawlessness and violence and separatist
fighters are known to be based there. Russian-Georgian relations have been
strained over Georgia's refusal to let Russia flush out the rebels. Georgia
launched an operation in 2003 to search the gorge for suspected militants, but
Moscow called the operation largely useless.
Chechnya has been at war for most of the past decade, with separatist
fighters based largely in the southern mountainous areas waging hit-and-run
guerrilla attacks on Russian forces.
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U.N. relief mission arrives at site of
Eastern Congo massacre
Bryan Mealer, Associated
Press, 5/27/05
The United Nations sent its first relief mission
into the dense forests of Eastern Congo Friday, four days after militiamen
massacred 19 people and forced thousands to flee, a U.N. spokeswoman said. A U.N. rapid-response team arrived in
mountainous Ninja territory Friday morning to aid the estimated 6,400 people
who fled their homes after militia attacked the area Monday with machetes and
axes, said Rachel Scott-Leflaive, spokeswoman in Congo for the U.N.'s Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid.
Most of the displaced fled to the village of Ihembe,
some 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Bukavu, capital of South Kivu
province. The team will distribute food,
blankets, soap and plastic sheeting, along with establishing a camp for
long-term stay, said Leflaive. "Most of the displaced we're encountering
are women and children," she Leflaive.
Thousands of people currently live in squalid displaced camps all over
eastern Congo, which has been plagued by fighting and massacres, despite an
official end to Congo's 1998-2002 war.
On Monday, groups of militia calling themselves
Rastas swept in from the mountains and began hacking people to death with
machetes and axes, severing the hands and feet of their victims. Congo's government says the attackers
included Rwandan Hutu rebels, who have been living in Congo's forests since
fleeing neighboring Rwanda following its 1994 genocide. The U.N., though, says
the two sides may have been fighting each other and civilians were caught up in
the violence.
In March, the Hutu rebels vowed to disarm and return
to Rwanda, but no date has been set. U.N.
officials say Hutu rebels attacked the Rastas last week, in an attempt to
disassociate themselves from the group and clean up their image. The Rastas
retaliated on Monday, officials say. "As
always, when these groups go at one another, civilians are caught in the
middle," said Leflaive.
Neighboring Rwanda and Uganda have invaded Congo
twice, in 1996 and 1998, under the auspices of driving out the rebels, who they
feared were plotting another slaughter of Tutsi across the Rwandan border. The 1998 invasion sparked a five-year war
that sucked in six African armies and killed nearly 4 million people, mostly
from war-induced sickness and hunger, aid groups say.
U.N. peacekeeper succumbs to wounds after
gunbattle with militia in eastern Congo
Bryan Mealer, Associated
Press, 6/3/05
A U.N. peacekeeper wounded in a gunbattle with
militia in violent northeastern Congo has died, a U.N. spokesman said Friday. The Nepalese peacekeeper died from gunshot
wounds Thursday night in a hospital in Bunia, capital of Ituri province, said
U.N. spokesman Carmine Camerini. The
gunbattle took place Thursday in the village of Rapka - about 100 kilometers
(60 miles) northeast of Bunia - when militiamen ambushed a departing helicopter
carrying a U.N. human rights investigation team.
A unit of 36 Nepalese peacekeepers - who were
present to provide security for the human rights team - returned fire, sparking
a near three-hour gunfight that saw two U.N. helicopter gunships firing rockets
and cannons, U.N. officials said. Four
peacekeepers were wounded in the exchange and evacuated to Bunia. Two later
were airlifted to a hospital in Pretoria, South Africa. U.N. officials said the gunmen belonged to
the ethnic Lendu militia Nationalist and Integrationist Front, who've been
accused of massacring thousands of people in Ituri in recent years. Casualties
among their ranks weren't known.
The human rights team had been investigating alleged
rapes in April by militia in the nearby village of Lugo. Fighting between ethnic Hema and Lendu
militia has killed more than 60,000 people in Ituri since 1999, aid groups say. Neighboring Rwanda and Uganda armed and
trained both militias during and after Congo's 1998-2002 war, mainly as proxy
forces to maintain control of Ituri's vast mineral wealth. The United Nations
has 16,700 peacekeepers in Congo.
Since February, 11 peacekeepers have been killed in
gunbattles with Lendu militia, and peacekeepers have killed at least 75
militia. Peacekeepers have mounted an
aggressive campaign to rid Ituri of rogue gunmen, and have successfully
disarmed over 12,000 militia since last September.
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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Saakashvili calls on Georgia's
separatist provinces to end isolation
Agence France Presse, 5/26/05
Georgian
President Mikhail Saakashvili, attending a major military parade celebrating
independence Thursday, called on two separatist regions in the ex-Soviet
republic to end their isolation and reunite.
Against the backdrop of a march past by 10,000 soldiers through the
centre of the capital Tbilisi, Saakashvili told the people of Abkhazia, on the
Black Sea coast, and South Ossetia, at the foot of the Caucasus mountains, that
their future lay within Georgia.
"Nothing
separates us. All that we have, including this army, is also yours. The time of
isolation is over. We must live together," Saakashvili said. Saakashvili said Georgia would only "be
fully free" when independence day celebrations also took place in Sukhumi,
capital of Abkhazia, which like South Ossetia ousted Georgian authorities in
separatist wars in the early 1990s after the Soviet collapse. "I promise
you that will happen," he said.
Saakashvili,
who came to power in the "rose revolution" of 2003, has made
reuniting Georgia a central theme of his presidency. However, the
Russian-backed rebel leaderships in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are adamant that
they are independent from Tbilisi. Georgia's
army is widely considered too small and poorly trained to retake either region
by force, although units being trained by U.S. military advisors were prominent
in the Tbilisi parade.
Georgian
officials frequently complain about Russian support for the separatist
republics. Saakashvili said in his speech that he wanted "friendly, but
equal relations" with Moscow.
Saakashvili hails 'historic' Russian
bases withdrawal decision
Agence France Presse, 5/31/05
Georgia's
President Mikhail Saakashvili hailed an agreement reached by Moscow and Tbilisi
Monday on the closure of Russian military bases in the country as
"historic," pledging friendship to Russia. “This is a very important political event, it
is a historic moment for our country, as it puts an end to Russia's 200-year
military presence in Georgia," Saakashvili said late Monday following the
signing of the deal in Moscow.
"This
is the first precedent for such serious and hard talks to end fortunately, with
the interests of all sides respected," the Georgian leader said, adding
his assurances that "we want friendly, neighborly relations, we will never
create any problems for Russia." Under
the accord signed by Russian and Georgian foreign ministers, withdrawal of
heavy weapons will begin this year, with September 1 the deadline for removing
40 pieces of armour, including up to 20 tanks.
The
last heavy weaponry must have left Akhalkalaki by the end of next year, and
from all Russian installations by the end of 2007, with the final pullout of
the last men and materiel by the end of the following year. The agreement also says that "part of
the personnel and technical means and infrastructure" from the Batumi base
will be used to set up a Georgian-Russian anti-terrorist centre.
Russia's
refusal to make a speedy withdrawal from the two bases has contributed to tense
relations with its neighbor since the collapse of the Soviet Union, especially
since Georgia's pro-Western president Mikhail Saakashvili came to power in the
"rose revolution" of November 2003.
Russia has hoped to stem an erosion of its influence in the Caucasus,
where the United States has become an increasingly important player.
Georgia
has applied for membership in NATO and hosts a small contingent of US military
trainers. Russian President Vladimir
Putin recently cleared the way for an end to the row over the bases, saying
that Moscow could not drag its feet.
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Aceh peace talks reconvene in Finland
between Indonesian government, rebels
Matti
Huuhtanen, Associated Press, 5/26/05
Peace
talks between the Indonesian government and Aceh rebels resumed in Finland on
Thursday amid reports of new violence in the tsunami-ravaged province. The fourth round of talks, convened by former
Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, began with the parties deciding an agenda
for the six days of closed-door meetings at an isolated mansion outside
Helsinki. Subjects include a possible amnesty for the rebels, ways of
integrating them into the local society and economic issues.
"The
meetings began as planned and will last until this evening when the two parties
will dine together," said Maria-Elena Cowell, a spokeswoman for
Ahtisaari's office. "We will hold a news conference on Tuesday when this
round of talks is scheduled to end."
Just hours before the talks started, a gunbattle in Aceh killed three
suspected separatist rebels and a policeman.
Police raided a house in Aceh's Bireuen District early Thursday, surprising
three rebels and sparking the firefight, witnesses said.
Representatives
of the Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, and the Indonesian government have met three
times in Finland since January to try and bring peace to the oil- and gas-rich
province where 12,000 people have been killed as rebels have struggled 27 years
for a separate homeland. At the end of
the previous round of talks on April 16, Ahtisaari said the parties made a
breakthrough and that substantive issues would next be discussed, including local
administration, security and elections.
Indonesian
Vice President Jusuf Kalla told the Finnish Broadcasting Company, YLE, that the
army - with 35,000 troops in the area - will not leave Aceh before an agreement
is reached at the talks. "It's the
duty of the government to protect the people. The military is there until we
can solve all the problems," Kalla said, adding that the government hoped
for a solution by July or August. "If
we can finalize (an agreement) in July or August, I think it's better because
we cannot spend too long to make negotiations," Kalla told YLE in Jakarta
on Wednesday.
GAM
leaders, who have been based in exile in Sweden - some for more than 20 years -
said they were satisfied with the outcome of the third round of talks, but did
not comment on the new negotiations. Earlier
this week, they talked to businessmen, teachers and students from Aceh to get a
sense of "what people in the area actually want," said Thomas
Hammarberg of the Olof Palme Center, which organized the meetings in Sweden.
Previous
peace talks in Finland have centered on limited self-government for the
province and the integration of the rebel movement into society, but they have
also discussed the collection and allocation of revenues between the central
government and Aceh.
The
head of the Indonesian delegation, Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin, said in
April that his government approved of attempts by Ahtisaari to ask the European
Union for peacekeepers for the region, adding that Jakarta was willing to request
the same from the regional Asian organization, ASEAN.
Indonesian
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said Jakarta would never allow Aceh
province to separate from the rest of Indonesia, but that a government plan to
give the region a greater say in running its affairs must be implemented.
Aceh mediator to draw up draft for peace
deal at Helsinki talks
Agence France Presse, 5/31/05
Finnish
mediators are to draw up an outline of a long-sought peace deal between Aceh
separatists and the Indonesian government after winding up a fresh round of
talks here Tuesday, they said. Former
Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, a career diplomat who mediated the talks,
told reporters that his Crisis Management Initiative had been asked to prepare
"basic documents that could form the basis for the eventual
agreement". The documents would be
sent to both sides for consideration before the next round of negotiations in
the Finnish capital starting July 12.
They
would form a basis of discussion for those talks, which officials hope could
reach a deal to end one of Asia's longest-running conflicts, which has left
more than 12,000 people dead over three decades. Ahtisaari said he was optimistic that an
agreement could be reached between the Jakarta government and representatives
of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). "If
I didn't believe there was a chance to find a negotiated settlement I would
blow the whistle immediately," he said.
"I
think we have reached a stage where we can talk through the most difficult
issues, which is the only way we can reach a deal," he said. Aceh, a province on the northern tip of the
island of Sumatra, has been a battleground since 1976 when GAM began its
campaign for independence, angered by what it said was Jakarta's exploitation
of oil and gas resources. Any peace
agreement would have to include the thorny issues of "decommissioning of
arms of GAM and militias plus the withdrawal of national forces and
police," Ahtisaari said.
Indonesian
officials attending the talks were also upbeat about the possibility of a deal. "Hopefully after one or two more
meetings the settlement of the issue of Aceh within the republic of Indonesia
will be all set up," Communications Minister Sofyan Jalil said. GAM, which has already given up its demand
for full independence in exchange for self-government, agreed that the
discussions had been "positive and constructive". But spokesman Bakhtiar Abdullah stressed that
there were still many outstanding issues.
He
cited the "timing of elections (in Aceh), establishing of political
parties and the withdrawal of the special autonomy law to be replaced by
self-government." The six-day
meeting in Helsinki focused on self-government, political participation,
economic arrangements, amnesty and reintegration into society, human rights and
justice, security arrangements and how to monitor any peace deal that might be
reached. Any agreement would ease
reconstruction in the troubled province after the December 26 Indian Ocean
undersea earthquake off the coast which triggered tsunamis that killed 128,000
people in Aceh alone.
Four
rounds of talks have been held in Helsinki since January. But despite the
positive atmosphere coming out of the talks violence has continued on the
ground. On Monday, Indonesian soldiers
shot dead three more separatist rebels during a raid in the northern Aceh area
of Bireuen, a stronghold for rebels. Ahtisaari
said he had appealed to the two sides "to do their utmost to restrain
their parties in the field during the negotiation process". An EU team of experts was invited to the
latest round of talks in Helsinki to discuss a possible role in monitoring any
peace deal.
Ahtisaari
said there was "no commitment from the EU side" yet, but stressed
that any observers sent to the region would monitor the "undertakings in
the agreement" and not be peacekeeping forces. The Finnish diplomat also underlined that any
peace deal had to include an agreement on political participation in the region
allowing for the creation of new parties. The Aceh separatists are unable to
meet the existing requirement of nationwide representation. "If you cannot solve this issue, you
cannot have an agreement because the existing parties are not an option,"
he said.
Indonesian military may wreck Aceh peace
effort, rebels warn
Slobodan
Lekic, Associated Press, 6/6/05
Separatists
in Indonesia's Aceh province warned on Monday that Indonesia's powerful
military may try to destroy an emerging peace deal to end the bloody, 30-year
rebellion. The army denied it had any
such intention. "If any armed group
is going to stop the agreement from working in the field or at the table, it
will be the Indonesian military," said a statement by the Free Aceh
Movement. The warning comes just days
after a fourth-round of talks between the separatists and the Indonesian
government concluded in Helsinki, Finland. Indonesian officials said that
negotiators had resolved 90 percent of the issues involved in establishing a
lasting peace in the province.
However,
Indonesian army chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto on Saturday warned that combat
operations against the rebels were ongoing and dismissed the importance of a
peace deal. The guerillas proclaimed a unilateral truce in the wake of the Dec.
26 earthquake and tsunami that killed at least 130,000 people in Aceh. The rebel statement said the generals had
"economic, political and psychological" reasons for holding on to
Aceh, a natural gas-rich region on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
"Aceh
is a source of income, a place to loot. The tsunami is a godsend for them, the
foreign aid is a new source of loot. A peace agreement would deny them that
loot," the rebels said. Human
rights groups say the military has extensive legal and illegal business
interests in Aceh, like elsewhere in the archipelago.
In
2003, the army scuttled a previous deal to end the war that started in 1976,
calling off a 6-month cease fire by launching offensive operations and
arresting Acehnese negotiators. At the same time, a militia working closely
with the army attacked foreign observers and forced them to abandon the
province.
The
Indonesian army's "creation of armed militias and the massacre of
thousands in East Timor in 1999 should warn us all of what could happen,"
the statement said. About 2,000 East
Timorese were killed and most of the country was devastated by rampaging
Indonesian troops and their militia proxies after voters overwhelmingly opted
for independence in a U.N. referendum.
Aceh
military spokesman Lt. Col. Eri Soediko said the rebel charges were baseless. "This is only a fabrication," he
said. "We are here to guard the whole of Aceh province from the rebels so
the people can conduct their daily activities without any problems."
Aceh
Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the Aceh
Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law &
Policy Group.
Return to Index
Ivory Coast pro-government militia begin
dismantling forces in keeping with deal
Pauline
Bax, Associated Press, 5/25/05
Four
government-allied Ivory Coast militia groups began dismantling their forces on
Wednesday, with militants symbolically handing firearms to an army officer in
keeping with the latest peace deal meant to calm the civil-war divided nation.
In
a ceremony in the government-held western Ivory Coast town of Guiglo, leaders
from the militia groups each proffered a single Kalashnikov rifle to Ivory
Coast army chief Phillipe Mangou, signifying their intent to disband their
forces, witnesses said.
"We
invite (the militias) to join the new peace process and ask them to do
everything so that peace will return to the region," Army spokesman Jules
Yao Yao told the Associated Press. "These self-defense groups have to hand
in their weapons."
Northern-based
rebels cautiously welcomed the ceremonial gesture. Militia dissolution is
stipulated in a recent South Africa-brokered peace deal to reunite the west
African nation still divided after its 2002-2003 civil war. It's not known how many government-allied
militia exist, or how many are armed.
Rebel
spokesman Amadou Kone cautiously praised Wednesday's ceremony, saying it was a
positive sign that the militias handed in their weapons. "It's a good thing that the militias are
going to be dismantled," Kone said by telephone. "But we don't know
how efficient the dismantling will be, so well have to wait and see."
Ivory
Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer and a regional economic powerhouse, fell
into crisis in Sept. 2002, when a failed coup against President Laurent Gbagbo
spiraled into civil war. A 2003 French-backed peace accord officially ended the
war, but failed to knit the country back together and Ivory Coast remains split
between a government-held south and rebel north. A buffer zone separating warring factions is
patrolled by 6,000 U.N. troops and 4,000 French peacekeepers.
Ivory Coast presidency, rebels trade
accusations over ethnic clashes
Agence France Presse, 6/4/05
Ivory
Coast's presidency and rebels have traded accusations of blame for ethnic
clashes that killed at least 70 in the west of the country earlier this week,
as people in the violence-hit region slowly began resuming their daily lives on
Saturday. Tensions soared in the
cocoa-growing west in the two days of violence, which stirred fears that a
fragile peace will dissolve in the former French colony.
The
killings in the western region of Duekoue on Wednesday and Thursday benefited
President Laurent Gbagbo, a rebel spokesman claimed late Friday. "It's to avoid proceeding to the
dismantling of militias in the west" who support Gbagbo, Sidiki Konate of
the rebel New Forces claimed. But
Ivorian presidency spokesman Desire Tagro hit back, accusing the rebels who
control the north of the country of being behind the violence. These killings
"bear the hallmark of rebels", he said.
Voicing
concern for the consequences, a diplomat in Abidjan on Saturday warned:
"Such accusations are extremely serious and may at any moment lead to a
kindling, bringing a fatal blow to the dismantling of militias and to the
disarmament of combatants." Foes in
the Ivorian crisis agreed an accord on the dismantling of militias and
disarmament of fighters in Pretoria on April 6 but the long-overdue effort, set
to conclude by October 30 elections, suffered new setbacks this week.
Another
diplomat commented that with tensions in the west militias were unlikely to
disarm now. "It's obvious the
machine is now seriously jammed, the militias will not disarm and as a
consequence, the rebels neither," the diplomat commented. Meanwhile, shops and traders reopened for
business on Saturday in Duekoue, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) west of
Abidjan, after three days of virtual paralysis following the clashes. "The lack of incident during the night
has certainly helped defuse in part the situation," one local resident
told AFP.
However,
the resident added that there was still some tension between ethnic Guere
farmers, who for decades had co-existed peacefully with the economic migrants
known as Dioula from northern Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Mali. Butchers had set up their stalls in the
central market, while the Ivorian army and Bangladeshi UN peacekeepers were
patrolling the town. Some service stations had also reopened and at the bus
station, services were almost back to normal.
Trade
in Duekoue, at the heart of the cocoa belt, is mostly in the hands of the
Dioula, originally Muslims from northern Ivory Coast or neighbouring countries,
as well as a small Lebanese community. Over
two days many people, both Dioula and Guere, left Duekoue to flee the violence
but on Saturday the flow of residents leaving the town had reportedly slowed. Some 4,000-5,000 Guere, from nearby villages,
were however still holed up in the Roman Catholic mission guarded by Ivorian
army soldiers.
Meanwhile,
"lookout and defence" committees were set up overnight in districts
that are predominantly inhabited by Dioula who claimed they were needed to
prevent possible Guere attacks, young Dioula members said. "We are afraid of revenge, that's why we
have set up these committees," one said.
About 10 Dioula were killed overnight to Thursday in Duekoue in a
reprisal attack for the killing a day earlier of about 60 Guere in two villages
close to the town, Guitrozon and Petit Duekoue.
The Guere were reportedly themselves victims of a revenge attack for the
deaths of four Dioula several days earlier, according to inhabitants.
Return to Index
Kashmir hardline separatist declines
invitation to visit Pakistan via bus
Agence France Presse, 5/29/05
Indian
Kashmir hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani said Sunday he has declined
an invitation from Pakistan to travel by bus to visit its zone of the divided
Himalayan state along with other separatists later this week. "Pakistan's present leadership is
deviating from that country's basic stance on Kashmir. We have decided not to
go to express our resentment over it," Geelani told reporters after a
six-hour meeting with supporters.
Last
week, Islamabad invited the moderate and hardline factions of the All Parties
Hurriyat Conference, a Kashmiri separatist umbrella group, to make their first
visit to the Pakistani zone of the divided territory using a bus service
launched April 7 as part of a 16-month peace process between the South Asian
rivals. The invitation was for
Thursday's fifth run of the bus service.
Moderate separatists led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq accepted the invitation,
as did Yasin Malik, head of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation
Front.
The
Hurriyat, Kashmir's main separatist alliance, is split between moderates who
seek independence for Kashmir and hardliners such as Geelani who seek a merger
with Pakistan and who had previously opposed the new bus service linking the
two zones. Pakistan President Pervez
Musharraf met with both factions in New Delhi in April during a visit to
discuss Kashmir with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Musharraf urged them
to "use your brains" to become part of the peace process.
Hurriyat
leaders have long expressed their desire to visit Pakistan to discuss the
Kashmir dispute. They have also demanded to be included in talks between India
and Pakistan over the territory which is held in part but claimed in full by
both countries. India has been reluctant
to let separatists travel to Pakistan. In the recent past it has refused to
issue passports for the journey. However,
travel by bus between Srinagar, the Indian summer capital of Kashmir, and Muzaffarabad,
the capital of the Pakistani zone of Kashmir, only requires a state-issued
permit.
The
separatists also wanted to visit cities in Pakistan, but have been warned by
the Indian government the bus travel permit is invalid for travel outside Kashmir. Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej
Sarna was quoted in local media last week as saying New Delhi had no objection
to Hurriyat leaders travelling to Pakistan-administered Kashmir. But he said
they could not visit Pakistani cities, a policy Geelani called unacceptable.
The
bus service is the first link in nearly 60 years between the two sides of
Kashmir, over which nuclear-armed Pakistan and India have fought two of their
three wars. The two initiated peace
talks in January last year to normalise relations, and "the atmosphere
between India and Pakistan is congenial and I am satisfied with the talks so
far even though difficulties still remain," prime minister Singh told
reporters Sunday.
"I
do not rule out increasing the frequency of the bus service if the need
arises." More than 40,000 people
have died since an anti-India insurgency erupted in Kashmir in 1989, according
to an official count. Separatists say the toll is at least double the number.
Kashmir separatist leaders arrive in
Pakistan on historic visit
Agence France Presse, 6/2/05
Muslim
separatist leaders from Indian Kashmir were given a rousing welcome when they
crossed the heavily militarised ceasefire line here Thursday on an historic
visit to the Pakistani zone of the disputed Himalayan region. The prime minister of Pakistan-administered
Kashmir, Sardar Sikandar Hayat, and other senior politicians hugged the leaders
as they arrived in this town near the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto
border between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir.
A
police band played national tunes while a crowd released pigeons and hundreds
of multi-coloured balloons. The Indian
Kashmir leaders walked across the Kaman Bridge on the Jhelum river, which forms
part of the LoC, and then drove to Muzaffarabad, the capital of the
Pakistan-administered zone of Kashmir. The
entire 58-kilometre (36-mile) route from Chakothi to Muzaffarabad was decorated
with welcoming bunting and banners.
The
visit of nine moderate leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC),
the main separatist umbrella group engaged in a 15-year campaign against Indian
rule in Kashmir, is their first to the Pakistani zone. The trip is part of a peace process between
India and Pakistan to end a bitter dispute over divided Kashmir, the Himalayan
region that has sparked two of three wars between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
Delegation member Bilal Gani Lone said
he was happy and excited to be in the Pakistan portion of Kashmir.
"There
is a hope and today's journey is the first step," he said. "Let us hope this first step brings
peace and best hopes for the people of India, Pakistan and especially the
people of Kashmir," he said. "The
visit shows that both India and Pakistan have realised that involvement of
Kashmiris is essential in resolving the dispute between the two
countries," a senior Hurriyat leader, Moulvi Abbas Ansari, said. Another Kashmir leader, Fazlul Haq Qureshi,
said: "We are in our home. We are among our brothers. We wish success to
the peace process".
The
Hurriyat leaders will hold talks with the political leadership in Pakistani
Kashmir on Friday. "The visit is a
major breakthrough in the ongoing efforts to resolve the Kashmir issue,"
said Raja Farooq, political advisor to the state government here. They are also expected to meet President
Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Saturday, a foreign
ministry official said in Islamabad. The
Hurriyat leaders travelled in private cars from Srinagar to the Pakistani zone,
before boarding a fortnightly trans-Kashmir bus near Salamabad town, 10
kilometers (six miles) from the LoC.
The
delegation arrived around 5:00 pm (1200 GMT), more than two hours behind the
schedule. Sources on the Indian side said thousands of people in villages
dotting the winding mountainous route turned out to greet the convoy, at times
forcing it to stop so they could shower the leaders with rose petals and shake
their hands. India gave the green light
to this unprecedented trip after Pakistan last week invited leaders of the
grouping made up of two dozen political groups, as well as other prominent
leaders seeking Kashmir's merger with Pakistan or independence.
The
hardliners declined the invitation. They are angry over what they see as
Pakistan offering too many concessions to India over Kashmir without anything
in return from New Delhi. "Pakistan's
present leadership is deviating from the country's basic stance on Kashmir.
We've decided not to go to show our unhappiness," said hardline faction
leader Syed Ali Geelani. Before leaving,
the head of the moderate faction, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, cautioned against
expecting miracles from the tour.
"Our
efforts will be to meet all and try to reach a consensus on Kashmir. Going to
Pakistan is a big step forward. India and Pakistan have realised that the peace
process is incomplete without the inclusion of Kashmiris," he said.
Kashmir
Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the Kashmir
Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law &
Policy Group.
Return to Index
Prince George's County Prosecutor Joins
World of Kosovo Justice
Avis Thomas-Lester, The Washington Post, 5/25/05
Prince George's County prosecutor Robert L. Dean has
spent almost 30 years on the front lines prosecuting criminals in Maryland. He tried Maryland's first case in which a
defendant was found guilty under the state's hate crime law. He made history in
Montgomery County more than a decade ago when he used DNA to connect a crime
scene to a killing, even though the victim's body was not found. As deputy
state's attorney in Prince George's, he has spent seven years handling the most
egregious cases, including homicides and police corruption.
Now Dean will take his prosecutorial acumen into the
international arena. He is set to join a group of lawyers named by the United
Nations to help establish a criminal justice system in Kosovo. Dean will spend the next six months
prosecuting defendants accused of ethnic killings, war crimes, organized crime
and terrorism. He will also help set up a program that will allow Kosovars to
assume responsibility for such cases, authorities said. "I admire the U.N. for undertaking this
difficult task," Dean said as he packed up his Upper Marlboro office and
prepared to head overseas. "I'm excited about getting an international
perspective on something I've been doing for 28 years. ... I thought this would
be a wonderful experience in my career."
Dean will be one of 10 prosecutors from the United
States, Canada, the Philippines and Europe handling everything from theft to
crimes associated with the war in Yugoslavia. Dean has not been assigned a task
or a territory yet, but it is likely that his responsibilities will revolve
around war crimes, corruption and major financial crimes prosecution, said
Thomas Hickman, a former Carroll County state's attorney who has been an
international prosecutor in Kosovo since 2000.
Hickman recently prosecuted a case in which 12
defendants were accused of killing a police officer and his family to keep the
officer from reporting their alleged involvement in organized crime, he said.
The defendants were found guilty last month and sentenced to 185 years in
prison.
Stefanie Frease - director of programs for the
Coalition of International Justice, a nonprofit organization that provides
advocacy, legal and technical assistance to various international criminal
tribunals - said the international prosecutors work on the toughest cases. "Organized crime cases are very
difficult to try in any environment, but in an environment like that, judges
have been subjected to threats, and even the international prosecutors are
under tremendous pressure," Frease said.
Michael J. Dziedzic, a program officer at the U.S.
Institute of Peace, said the international law enforcement officials working in
Kosovo face a daunting task. The country went practically without law
enforcement for a year after Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic withdrew his
security forces following the NATO bombing in 1999. The international community
came in and established a police force of 4,000 officers. Judges and
prosecutors were also brought in so that Albanians and Serbs charged with
crimes were treated equally.
"Kosovo Albanian judges have not proved to be
able to evaluate evidence in an impartial manner and mete out justice
accordingly," he said. International
law enforcement officials are provided with protection but have not faced the
same threats and violence that Yugoslav jurists and witnesses have, Dziedzic
said. Dean said he realizes that there
will be danger and pressure, but he is excited about the challenge. After 28 years as a prosecutor, he had been
thinking of taking a sabbatical to "reflect and re-energize a bit." Hickman, a longtime friend, contacted him
last fall and told him about his work in Kosovo, Dean said.
"He asked if I would be interested in an
assignment over there, and I asked what it would involve," Dean said.
Later, Dean filled out an application and received a 6 a.m. conference call,
during which he spoke with German, British and American prosecutors. "They said, 'When can you start?' I
don't know if this is a sabbatical, but it certainly fits the bill of what I
had in mind."
Two days before he was to leave, Dean still had no
idea where he would be living or working or what cases he would be assigned. He
has been reviewing the Kosovo criminal code and briefing papers sent by
international prosecutors. His training will include instruction on
"appropriate safety protocol."
"A lot of this is in the dark for me," but that's not been an
issue, he said. "Whatever I'm assigned to do, I'll do it."
UN mission in Kosovo a dangerous 'facade':
ICG
Agence France Presse, 5/27/05
The United Nations democracy-building mission in
Kosovo is a "facade" which is sowing the seeds of renewed instability
in the flashpoint Serbian province, a think-tank said Friday. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group
(ICG) said the UN administration (UNMIK) in the mainly ethnic Albanian province
lacked credibility and was scrambling for an "escape strategy". The report came as the UN Security Council is
expected to hear a debate about Kosovo later Friday, ahead of talks slated for
later this year on the province's final status.
The ICG said that rather than marching towards
multi-ethnic democracy six years after the end of the 1998-1999 war between
Serbian forces and ethnic Albanian separatists, Kosovo was a tinderbox ready to
explode. "Recent weeks have seen an
escalation in tension between (the two main ethnic Albanian political parties)
so bitter that it risks spiralling into killings," the report seen here
said.
Without a "great deal" more effort from
the international community, "Kosovo is likely to return to instability
... and again put at risk all that has been invested in building a European
future for the Western Balkans". It
said UNMIK, which has administered the province since NATO intervened to end
the conflict, had been in a "six-year holding pattern" in which it
had turned a blind eye to major challenges to democracy and the rule of law.
"Rather than state-building, UNMIK is now
mainly working on its own escape strategy, passing on unresolved problems that
will haunt Kosovo for years to come," said ICG Kosovo Project Director
Alex Anderson. "Corruption is being
transferred intact."
The report said: "Problems that will come back
to haunt Kosovo like tolerance of widespread corruption and of powerful,
unaccountable partisan political intelligence agencies are being swept under
the carpet rather than addressed." It
said the UN had been coddling ethnic Albanian politicians to the point of
denying the existence of rival "party intelligence structures" which
threatened to erupt into unrest as soon as the UN washed its hands of the
province.
"UNMIK is devoting most of its energy to
producing a sufficiently convincing facade ... to allow Kosovo to pass the test
that will open the final status process," it said. "That facade does include some genuine
progress and solid work, but it does not represent the comprehensive effort
needed for democratic practices to take root." Kosovo remains technically part of Serbia but
its ethnic Albanian majority demands complete independence.
The ICG said the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague
should consider granting bail to indicted former Kosovo Albanian prime minister
Ramush Haradinaj, accused of rape and other atrocities, in order to calm
mounting tensions in the province. "Kosovo
Albanians' present peace with the international community is highly conditional
... " it warned. "Most areas
are calm, but Haradinaj's home municipality of Decan is a tinderbox, full of
angry armed groups, and isolated from the rest of Kosovo."
U.N. chief in Kosovo 'committed' to border
deal with Macedonia
Associated Press, 6/2/05
The top U.N. official in Kosovo said a border
dispute with Macedonia could be resolved as early as this month, helping clear
the way for talks on Kosovo's final status.
Soeren Jessen-Petersen, who met late Wednesday with Macedonian Prime
Minister Vlado Buckovski and Foreign Minister Ilinka Mitreva, said a deal could
be struck before talks open on whether Kosovo should become independent or
remain part of Serbia.
Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations
since June 1999, following a NATO air war that halted a Serb crackdown on
independence-seeking ethnic Albanians. Kosovo
officials argue that a 2001 border agreement between Macedonia and the former
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia deprived the province of some 2,000 hectares
(4,950 acres) of land. "(We) are
committed to resolving the border issue, so we can move on to status talks as
soon as possible," Jessen-Petersen said Wednesday. "We will meet on
June 9 in (Kosovo's capital) Pristina and I hope we will discuss this technical
matter."
The U.N. official also sought to allay Macedonian
fears that Kosovo could impose travel or customs restrictions on visiting
Macedonian nationals. Skopje was angered after the U.N. Mission in Kosovo
hinted it might tighten border controls to fight organized crime. "Macedonians who want to travel to
Kosovo will not require visas," Jessen-Petersen said. Prime Minister Buckovski said Macedonian and
Kosovo officials will meet next week to prepare a free trade agreement.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kosovo
Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law &
Policy Group.