PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Thursday, August 17, 2006
(Volume V, Number 20)
Contents:
Jean-Pasteur Rudada accuses Alain Mugabarabona of being behind an alleged
coup plot against the government.
600 Burundians
expelled from Tanzania: officials
Tanzania threw out 600 illegal Burundian refugees, bringing total to more
than 1,700 for the year.
Chechen leader
hails Putin plan for troop withdrawal
Proposal intends to pull out all non-permanent Russian troops from Chechnya
by 2008.
Congo count slips into chaos as monitors depart
The election results show a clear east-west split, with Kabila over-whelmingly
popular in the east.
Fifth election
official arrested on fraud charges in DR Congo
Official allegedly falsified electoral documents in presidential vote.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation.
Called for restraint and a return to negotiations.
Indonesia's Aceh rebels should turn to politics: peace monitor
Head of monitoring mission Feith urges former separatist rebels to organize
as a political movement.
A year of peace
embraced at birthplace of Indonesia's Aceh rebels
Even after a year of peace, residents still fear potential for renewed conflict.
Aceh Negotiation Simulation Click
here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation.
Indian troops kill six rebels in Kashmir
Islamic militants killed in 4 separate incidents, bringing the total
to 39 dead since start of August.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation.
Kosovo
Kosovo Serbs, rejecting minority status, boycott Vienna
talks
Status negotiations hit a snag on the thorny issue of community rights.
Especially praise the progress in overcoming ethnic tension.
Bus blast
in separatist Trans-Dniester kills at least 1, injures 7
Second such incident in two months.
Nepal government, rebels agree to restrict their fighters and resume stalled
peace process
Maoists agree to confine their fighters and weapons to their quarters, while
government troops are restricted to barracks.
U.N. 'strongly
encouraged' by agreement between Nepal's government, rebels
Head of U.N. assessment team also states "everybody wants the U.N. involved…
in assisting the peace process."
President says Prime Minister will name a Cabinet better qualified to counter
Islamic fundamentalist's bid to take over the country.
Officials in
central Somalia say they will fight Islamic militants
Troops in semiautonomous Puntland region said they are ready to fight Islamic
militants seeking to take control of the area.
Sri Lanka faces refugee crisis as fighting erupts
on two new fronts
LTTE also warns of humanitarian crisis, seeks aid after large-scale displacement.
Peace official
murdered as toll in Sri Lanka mounts
President immediately blames the shooting of the Deputy Secretary-General
of the Peace Secretariat on the LTTE.
Sudan's Darfur peace accord sparks rising insecurity, rebel clashes
Renewed fighting displaces 50,000 more people, with July marking the deadliest
month for aid workers since the conflict began.
U.N.: Darfur
peace deal "doomed to failure" without more support from Sudan's government
UNHCR report says government should disarm the militia and creating a credible,
capable police force and judiciary.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis Click here to access the PILPG
Report.
Ex-rebel chief accused of Burundi coup plot involvement
Agence France Presse, 8/9/06
A Burundi army commander on Wednesday accused a former rebel chief of being behind an alleged coup plot against the less than year-old government of the small central Africa nation.
Commander Jean-Pasteur Rudada, who was briefly detained before winning freedom after agreeing to cooperate with police, said that the coup was organised by Alain Mugabarabona, a former rebel chief who is now a leader of a small Hutu party.
Mugabarabona, former vice president Alphonse-Marie Kadege, opposition politician Deo Niyonzima, senior military officer Damien Ndarisigaranye as well as four others were arrested last week and detained for planning to overthrow the government of President Pierre Nkurunziza.
"The putsch was hatched and prepared by Alain Mugabarabona," Rudada told reporters, adding that Kadege, Niyonzima and Ndarisigaranye were not involved in the plan.
"I participated in all the preparatory stages, but I did not see the involvement of Alphonse-Marie Kadege, Deo Niyonzima, Damien Ndarisigaranye and Isidore Rufyikiri," Rudada said.
Rufyikiri, a lawyer, was the last to be detained last Thursday. Rudada said that the press conference was to "deny the different versions of the coup d'etat reported by Burundian media."
But the main Tutsi party, UPRONA, which has accused the government of using the coup plot to divert attention from corruption scandals, denounced Rudada's accusations, saying that it was a government ploy to wiggle out of the situation.
"It is clear that this soldier is being used by the government which is looking for a way out of this bad situation in which it has plunged itself," a official with UPRONA told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The government has come under criticism by local and international rights groups for torture, an accusation it has denied despite confirmation by family members that three of the eight detainees were being mistreated.
Burundi has suffered several coups and attempted coups since it won independence from Belgium in 1962 and is currently struggling to emerge from 13 years of ethnically driven civil war that has claimed some 300,000 lives.
The war began in 1993 with the assassination of the country's first democratically elected president, a member of the Hutu majority, by elements of the then Tutsi-dominated military.
600 Burundians expelled from Tanzania: officials
Agence France Presse, 8/13/06
Tanzania has thrown out around 600 Burundians living in the country illegally, bringing to more than 1,700 the number expelled since the beginning of the year, officials said on Sunday.
"On Friday we received more than 600 Burundis who were sent back, at the border post of Kobero in the province of Muyinga in the northeast of the country," provincial governor Mohamed Feruzi said.
The Burundian branch of the Red Cross confirmed the figures.
Feruzi told AFP by telephone that the Burundians had been living in Tanzania since 1972 and many were married and have their belongings in the neighbouring country.
"Tanzania separates families, we have examples of men and women who are married to Tanzanians who were thrown out, while their husbands, women and children remained in the country," he said.
"The Tanzanian authorities take these people by surprise, put them early in the day in trucks, then they take them to the Burundi border... they refuse to take their belongings," an official for the Burundi Red Cross, Jonathan Nduwayo, told a news conference on Sunday.
The Tanzanian authorities were not immediately available for comment.
Some 194,000 refugees from Burundi are still living in camps run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Tanzania.
Another 198,000 who fled their country after an outbreak of ethnic violence in 1972 are also living in Tanzania, sometimes without the right papers, the UNHCR says.
Chechen leader hails Putin plan for troop withdrawal
Agence France Presse, 8/9/06
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov on Wednesday welcomed a plan by President Vladimir Putin to pull out all non-permanent Russian troops from Chechnya by 2008, the Interfax news agency said.
"The gradual pullout of non-permanent defence department and interior ministry troops ... is possible now that the republic's law enforcement bodies have become a unified whole that works closely with federal forces," Interfax quoted Kadyrov, who is prime minister in Chechnya's Moscow-backed administration, as saying.
Putin ordered the troop withdrawal in a secret order on August 2 that was made public in state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Tuesday.
Russian daily Vedomosti quoted an unnamed defence ministry official as saying that the pullout concerned about 17,000 troops.
The newspaper said that the president's order was a political victory for the 29-year-old Kadyrov. He heads his own security force, known as the Kadyrovtsy, that human rights activists accuse of widespread abuses.
Vedomosti also quoted an unnamed official in the Chechen secret service as saying that most non-permanent troops had already been withdrawn.
The Moscow-backed administration in Grozny has spearheaded the Kremlin's attempts to stabilise Chechnya since Russia's military launched an assault on the territory in 1999 to push out the republic's rebel administration.
"The Chechen people deeply understand and recognise the threat that (Islamic extremism) has posed them and have stood up to that danger virtually united, completely supporting the activity of law enforcement agencies," Kadyrov said.
Kadyrov, whose assassinated father was a previous president of Chechnya, is seen as a likely candidate to succeed the current head of state, Alu Alkhanov, after he turns 30, the youngest legal age for the job.
Kadyrov said the death last month of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who led
a campaign for Chechnya's independence for nearly a decade, was a new era for
the republic.
Congo count slips into chaos as monitors depart
Steve Bloomfield, The Independent, 8/11/06
Vote-counting in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is descending into chaos, nearly two weeks after the country held its first democratic poll in more than 40 years, international observers have warned.
The results trickling in show a clear east-west split, with the current president, Joseph Kabila, over-whelmingly popular in the eastern, polling as high as 90 per cent in some towns.
His main opponent, the former warlord and current vice-president, Jean-Pierre Bemba, is the frontrunner in the capital, Kinshasa, and other regions in the west -although some of the anti-Kabila vote has also gone to the Harvard-educated surgeon, Oscar Kashala.
Election day passed off peacefully, and most observers agreed that the poll had been organised relatively smoothly. But problems appear to have begun once the process of collating the votes from more than 53,000 polling stations spread across a country the size of western Europe.
In Kinshasa, observers reported seeing ballot papers burned and dumped en masse. In other parts of the country, election observers have been barred from counting centres. Although eight international observing missions were in the DRC on election day, most observers have now left, leaving a threadbare team to ensure the process passes off smoothly.
"The problem is we've all buggered off," said one international observer. "A lot of thought and effort went into the roll-out process -getting all the ballot papers and infrastructure out to all the polling stations. But no thought has gone into the 'roll in'. The counting centre in Kinshasa is an absolute nightmare, papers flying all over the place."
Pressure from the UN and donor countries has been put on the independent electoral commission to get results published as soon as possible. The longer the period between voting and results, the more scope there is for suspicion that the results are not accurate.
The lack of infrastructure in a country with only 30 miles of paved roads has also caused problems. The South African government offered to send helicopters to pick up ballot boxes in the hardest to reach places, but the UN, which is spending $1.1bn (pounds 580m) ayear in the DRC, could not afford the fuel costs. The DRC has been ravaged by war over the past 10 years and many of the major political players are former militia leaders. The fear is that complaints over the validity of the election could spill over into renewed violence.
Already Mr Bemba and another current vice-president, Azarias Ruberwa, have questioned the legitimacy of the poll. Mr Ruberwa, whose Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) party is expected to lose a lot of support in the east to Mr Kabila, has said he will challenge the result at the Supreme Court.
"The danger is one candidate starts claiming victory when they haven't won," said the observer. "When the results come out it could be chaos."
Jacqueline Chenard, spokeswoman for the UN in North Kivu in the east, said there had been no trouble so far. "Things are going smoothly," she said. "The interesting thing will be how people react in Kinshasa."
Mr Kabila has very little support in Kinshasa. During the campaign, he was mobbed by supporters in the east, but his rallies in the capital drew far smaller crowds than those for Mr Bemba and Mr Kashala. One Western diplomat said: "Kinshasa simply will not believe Kabila is that popular in the east. There is a huge danger that the country will be split down the middle, between east and west."
Mr Kabila will remain as president if he gains more than 50 per cent of the vote. Otherwise, there will be a run-off between the top two - probably Mr Kabila and Mr Bemba - on 29 October.
Fifth election official arrested on fraud charges in DR Congo
Agence France Presse, 8/12/06
A fifth election official in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been arrested for allegedly falsifying electoral documents in the country's July 30 presidential vote, the electoral commission said Saturday.
On Friday judicial sources told AFP that four election officials in Kinshasa had been arrested for alleged voter fraud.
Apollinaire Malu Malu, head of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI), also said four in Kinshasa faced election fraud allegations along with two others, including an observer for an unidentified political party in Goma.
The arrests "are not a threat to the (electoral) system," Malu Malu told journalists in the DRC capital, saying that investigations were under way.
According to the CEI president, the four officials arrested in a vote-counting office in Kinshasa were allegedly caught red handed while they were trying to falsify the card with the vote tally of a presidential candidate, who was not identified.
Meanwhile 15 minor candidates in the presidential election issued a statement on Friday complaining of the international community's failure to act on what they called "massive irregularities".
They outlined "numerous acts of fraud" including tampering with polling documents and bribing voters, and accused international bodies overseeing the elections of a "complicit silence" in the alleged irregularities.
Among the signatories were two government ministers, Scientific Research Minister Gerard Kamanda, and Catherine Nzuzi wa Mbombo, in charge of solidarity and humanitarian affairs.
Congolese voters went to the polls last month to elect a president and members of parliament in the first democratic and free elections in the former Zaire in more than 40 years.
The relatively small number of results in so far show incumbent President Joseph Kabila on 46.9 percent of the vote, with his nearest rival Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba on 25.4 percent.
The CEI is scheduled to announce the results in the presidential race between
now and August 20, Malu Malu said Saturday.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click here
to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International
Law & Policy Group.
US worried about conflict in Georgia's separatist regions
Agence France Presse, 8/11/06
The United States Friday raised concerns about the renewed tensions in Georgia's separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, calling for restraint and a return to negotiations.
"The United States is concerned about the renewed tensions in the conflict regions of Georgia. We call on all parties to continue showing restraint while refraining from word or actions that could worsen the situation on the ground," the US mission to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said in a statement.
The United States justified a recent police action by the Georgian government in the Kodori valley near Abkhazia as enforcing the law by "eliminating a source of criminality and instability" in the region.
At the same time, Washington urged both sides "to resume discussions of a peaceful end to the conflict".
The United States also condemned the shooting and wounding of three Georgian police officers by bandits operating in Georgia's South Ossetia region.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia are officially part of Georgia, but both declared independence in the early 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union and are not controlled by Tbilisi.
The Georgian government has accused the Russian peacekeepers in the two regions of propping up the separatist regimes. Moscow has granted Russian citizenship to many of the inhabitants.
Pro-Western Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has vowed to bring the province back into the Georgian fold, and also to lead Georgia to NATO membership.
The United States, which has military advisers in Georgia, also called on the OSCE to send more observers to verify developments in the troubled region.
Indonesia's Aceh rebels should turn to politics: peace monitor
Marianne Kearney, Agence France Presse, 8/11/06
Former separatist rebels in Indonesia's Aceh should organise themselves into a political movement, the head of foreign monitors overseeing a peace pact said Friday.
Pieter Feith, head of the European Union-led monitoring mission, also called on members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which signed the pact with the central government a year ago, to ensure the peace held.
"I believe GAM needs to transform itself from an insurgency movement," he told a press briefing.
"Now the time has come where it must seek legitimacy not through the bullet but through the ballot. It must enter into the political system," Feith said.
Feith acknowledged it was often difficult for independence movements to become successful political parties.
"It requires different skills to transform into a political movement. This has been seen throughout history in other parts of the world," he said.
GAM disbanded their military wing after inking the historic pact on August 15 last year in Helsinki, ending 29 years of conflict that killed some 15,000 people.
In exchange for surrendering their weapons, the rebel movement won the right to form local political parties, which are banned elsewhere in the country.
But the former fighters have said they will not field candidates in their local elections slated for December, as they have not yet formed a party. Some ex-members however may run as independents.
Feith also criticised a former senior separatist who warned Thursday that a new generation of rebels could be spawned within a decade due to dismay over the implementation of the peace deal.
The ex-rebel, Mohammad Nur Djuli, said a newly passed law on self-rule for the province meant to cement the pact could encourage youths to take up arms, because it did not give the Acehnese government sufficient power.
"If Mr Djuli says this law is a great injustice, is he really speaking for the Acehnese? Who does he really represent?" asked Feith.
"My sense is that the silent majority in Aceh are of the view that this law gives them what they need in terms of maintaining stability," he added.
The monitors, called the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), have said that the law is broadly in line with the spirit of the Helsinki agreement, but are pushing for some clarifications. GAM officials have said they are seeking several amendments.
Feith however called on the government to speed up the disbursement of compensation funds for former combatants and conflict-affected villages.
"I don't think we have seen an upsurge in criminality because of disillusionment (with the peace deal as had earlier been predicted). But what I feel has not moved vigorously forward is the reintegration of GAM," he said.
The government has said it handed out 600 billion rupiah (66.1 million dollars) in 2006 to help provide the mostly penniless rebels with funds to start up businesses or return to farming.
Critics charge however that many of the ex-guerrillas have yet to receive any assistance.
The European Union is funding and providing monitors to oversee the peace deal, along with five Southeast Asian nations.
A year of peace embraced at birthplace of Indonesia's Aceh rebels
Sophie Boudre, Agence France Presse, 8/13/06
Eyes red with tears, Alamsyah Mahmud recalls how in 2001, Indonesian paramilitaries swooped on his village in Tiro, the birthplace of Aceh's rebel movement, rounding up people and torching homes.
The police were sniffing out members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which inked a peace pact with the Jakarta government one year ago this week to end 29 years of conflict that had left 15,000 people dead.
"Everybody here was considered GAM ... Brimob charged into the village like blind pigs and burnt down our houses. It was a very traumatic experience," says Mahmud, a 37-year-old farmer, referring to the feared Indonesian force.
That was a particularly memorable attack in Labu Adang village. But over three decades, ordinary life too became a distant memory.
"Going to the rice fields, going to the hills, all our movements were limited," Mahmud says.
"If Brimob saw our pick-up loaded with rice, they would arrest us, asking for bribes," chimes in Nyok Aloh, who is just back from the fields.
"It scares me to remember the way our people were killed in the conflict. Now we are all traumatised. Every time a green uniform comes to the village we think of death."
Today the rice paddies are greening in Tiro, a group of villages on the east coast of Aceh on Sumatra island's northern tip. It was here in 1976 that rebel leader Hasan Tiro declared the creation of GAM, ensuring a violent destiny for the villagers: hundreds of killings, abductions, destruction and forced labour.
But instead of harvesting their crops gripped by terror, villagers across Tiro are gratefully reaping a peace dividend this year, with the trauma starting to ebb away as the local economy picks up pace.
Farmer Mahmud says his income has picked up by a quarter since a year ago.
"Before, I would sometimes stay up to one week at home without working in the paddies because of gunfights," he says, gesturing to hills once used as a training ground by GAM fighters and skirted by abandoned betel and cocoa plantations.
-- 'I would fall face down on the road, it was so scary' --
Eleven-year-old Tut Nurfinda, wearing her crisp blue-and-white school uniform, says she now walks to school without being afraid.
"Sometimes we would hear gunshots. I would fall face down on the road, it was so scary," she remembers.
Back then, a 10-kilometre (six-mile) motorbike ride with the risk of being caught in crossfire was often too much for teacher Rohana, who used to frequently skip school, along with many of her students.
"Many students had relatives killed, abducted or tortured," she recalls. "They just could not concentrate."
Tiro today hosts 150 ex-combatants, most of them farmers. Since last year, dialogue with the police has improved, as both sides regularly meet for steaming cups of Aceh's famed coffee, they say.
Tiro police chief Idris Ousmani is providing commentary at a soccer match between police and ex-fighters from a wooden and palm leaf shack at Tiro's main pitch.
Pausing a moment, he tells AFP: "Before, we were like water and oil. Now we're like egg yolk and white ... We are complementary."
Ousmani says that the situation improved when the almost 6,000 police stationed from outside Aceh were pulled out by the central government, as required under the peace pact. Almost 26,000 troops were also redeployed.
"Now they have gone, things are much smoother between us and GAM," he says.
Mirza Ismail, the GAM representative to the foreign monitors' district office, says that both sides have been cooperating to identify people carrying weapons, whether they are ex-rebels or criminals.
"I can reach the district police head at any time, even 2:00 am in the morning," he says.
-- 'I don't want war again' --
Still, worries persist in Tiro over Aceh's political future, exacerbated by a dispute over the government's passage of a new law giving the province greater self-rule, which was passed in July after months of delay.
The law was required under the peace pact, and paves the way for local elections due to be held before December. Under the deal signed in Helsinki, GAM dropped its demand for independence in return for greater autonomy and the right to form local political parties which are banned elsewhere in Indonesia.
But GAM has expressed dismay at some of the law's provisions and wants amendments.
"We're in peace, but we are disappointed," says 40-year-old Abdullah Usman, the head of Tiro's Menassa Pana village.
GAM officials and activists argue the law curtails the power of the local administration in international cooperation and management of its national resources, while potentially strengthening the military's role in Aceh.
"Was it planned so the conflict is perpetuated?" wonders Abdullah.
Tiro's former rebels say they would be prepared to resume fighting.
"If the people of Aceh ask us, we are ready to fight again," warns Tiro's ex-GAM commander Iskandar Daud.
Fakruddin Muhamad, a 26-year-old ex-guerrilla with a bullet permanently lodged in his kidney that prevents him from working too long in the fields, would also pick up arms again.
"If our leaders want it, I am ready," he says.
In Aceh's capital of Banda Aceh, GAM negotiator and deputy spokesperson Munawar Liza Zain says GAM may not have the power to control the emotions of the Acehnese, but "we are committed not to use weapons".
"We are going to use non-violent political channels" to sort out differences with the government, he adds.
Head of the foreign monitors Pieter Feith, who believes "there has been remarkable progress achieved in a very short time", says GAM can seek redress using democratic, parliamentary means provided by the constitution.
"The security situation in Aceh is stable and there is no reason to believe this would change," he says.
In Tiro, despite the anger at the new law, a resumption of the conflict seems out of the question for many.
Irwandi, 27, gave up fighting to sell fish at the Tiro market.
"I just want things to stay as they are now. I don't want war again,"
he says, sitting among the local crowd cheering a soccer match.
Aceh Negotiation Simulation
Click here
to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International
Law & Policy Group.
Ivory Coast
Ultimatum in Ivory Coast
New York Times, 8/9/06
Rebels holding northern Ivory Coast said Tuesday that they would not accept President Laurent Gbagbo's retaining power after an Oct. 31 deadline for elections.
The ultimatum set the rebel New Forces on a collision course with Mr. Gbagbo, who, with the vote expected to be delayed, vowed Sunday to remain in office until it took place.
A United Nations-backed peace plan for Ivory Coast, a West African country
split since a 2002-03 civil war, had already prolonged Mr. Gbagbo's expired
mandate for up to 12 months starting last Oct. 31 after elections did not take
place then.
Indian troops kill six rebels in Kashmir
Agence France Presse, 8/8/06
Indian troops have shot dead six Islamic militants in the latest wave of separatist violence in Kashmir that has left 39 dead since the start of August, police said Tuesday.
Two militants were shot dead during a fierce gunfight in Anantnag district late Monday, a police spokesman said.
The two had held three civilians hostage and demanded safe passage after Indian troops and police had ringed a forested area.
The troops refused to provide safe passage and the hostages were set free, police said, adding that the rebels would not surrender and were shot dead.
Two more militants were shot dead Tuesday on the outskirts of Jammu, Kashmir's southern winter capital, police said, adding they were members of the hardline Jaish-e-Mohammed group.
Police said they were trying to enter Kashmir to disrupt India's Independence Day celebrations on August 15.
Another militant was killed late Monday in a gunfight in northern Kupwara district bordering Pakistani Kashmir, police said, adding a sixth rebel was killed Tuesday in the southern district of Doda.
In the Handwara district 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Srinagar, 12 people were injured Tuesday when a grenade lobbed by suspected militants at a security patrol instead landed among bystanders, police said.
Violence has escalated in Kashmir in the past few months, including unprecedented attacks on Indian tourists since late May which have killed 15 and injured nearly 70.
The Himalayan state, divided between India and Pakistan, is in the grip of
a 17-year-old insurgency against New Delhi's rule that has left more than 44,000
people dead, by official count.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International
Law & Policy Group.
Kosovo Serbs, rejecting minority status, boycott Vienna talks
Jean-Michel Stoullig, Agence France Presse, 8/8/06
Kosovo Serb delegates, in Vienna to discuss the province's future status, boycotted negotiations on the thorny issue of community rights Tuesday, refusing to be branded as a minority and demanding to be treated as equals in the discussions.
The move was not expected to endanger the overall UN-sponsored dialogue on Kosovo but confirmed that talks over technical issues Monday had stalled.
"The Kosovo Serbs are absent for an obvious reason, they don't accept being treated as a minority," Dusan Batakovic, adviser to Serbian President Boris Tadic, told journalists. "They are a constituent nation of Kosovo. ... They feel they cannot be degraded as a minority."
This is the first time in the Vienna negotiations that any party has boycotted a session, but talks between the Serbian and Albanian delegations went ahead Tuesday, with Belgrade showing support for its Pristina counterparts.
"We cannot accept the results of the ethnic cleansing that has happened after June 1999 when more than 60 percent of Kosovo Serbs were expelled" from the province, Batakovic said, adding that his delegation was representing the Kosovo Serbs in their absence.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, which makes up about 90 percent of the province, wants independence but Belgrade and the minority Serb community insist the region is the cradle of Serb nationhood and cannot be given away.
Belgrade is concerned about the fate of ethnic Serbs in the province following any independence agreement and the eventual withdrawal of the United Nations, which has been administering Kosovo a NATO air war drove Serbia's forces from the province in 1999.
Since then some 200,000 Serbs have fled the province fearing attacks from ethnic Albanian hardliners. Those who have remained live in enclaves under heavy protection by NATO.
According to Batakovic, the Kosovo Serb delegation also refused to attend talks Tuesday because it did not wish "to be in the presence of Mr. Fatmir Limaj, who is still accused of war crimes." Limaj, who is part of the delegation from Pristina, was acquitted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) last December.
Before the meeting, chief Albanian negotiator Veton Surroi said he would submit new proposals Tuesday.
"Every citizen is a constituent of the new Kosovo," he said, adding that his delegation was seeking to strike normal "relations between those who are in an ethnic majority and those who are an ethnic minority."
Monday's talks broke down in mutual recrimination with both sides blaming the other, as Serbs and Kosovo Albanians met to discuss technical issues for the first time since frosty high-level talks stalled last month.
Kosovo Serb delegates announced they would shun Tuesday's session, saying "to accept talks on community rights... would mean to accept that we have the status of a minority and it is well known that a people in its own country cannot be a minority."
"The Serbs still insist on two ethnicities," the head of the Albanian delegation, Lufti Haziri, replied, insisting Pristina supported autonomy for minorities.
The West favours independence for Kosovo under certain conditions, but the decision ultimately rests with the United Nations Security Council.
UN Special Envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtissari is expected to publish a new report
in September in New York, his spokeswoman Hua Jiang told AFP.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International
Law & Policy Group.
Macedonia: Western diplomats praise reconciliation progress, 5 years after
key peace deal
Associated Press, 8/11/06
Western diplomats on Friday praised Macedonia's progress in overcoming ethnic tension, five years after a peace deal pulled the tiny Balkan nation back from the brink of civil war.
The Western-brokered agreement signed Aug. 13, 2001, in the lakeside resort of Ohrid ended six months of clashes between ethnic Albanian rebels and government forces that left about 80 people dead.
"All laws mandated by the Ohrid Agreement have been adopted by Parliament," U.S., European Union and NATO diplomats in Skopje said in a joint statement.
"An excellent start has been made on the implementation of crucial processes, ranging from equitable representation ... to the use of flags and symbols."
Ethnic Albanians, who make up about a quarter of the 2.1 million population, took up arms to fight for more community rights in 2001 10 years after Macedonia gained independence from the former Yugoslavia.
This week, supporters of Macedonia's largest ethnic Albanian party blocked roads in minority-dominated areas to protest being excluded from the new conservative-led coalition government.
Prime Minister-designate Nikola Gruevski chose to create a partnership with a smaller ethnic Albanian party after the July 5 general election. Gruevski is expected to form his government next week.
Return to Table of ContentsBus blast in separatist Trans-Dniester kills at least 1, injures 7
Associated Press, 8/13/06
An explosion aboard a bus in the pro-Russian separatist province of Trans-Dniester killed at least one person and injured seven, the province's official news agency Olvia Press reported, citing law enforcement sources.
The blast, which occurred near a busy commercial area in Trans-Dniester's capital, Tiraspol, is the second such incident in as many months.
In July, a similar explosion killed eight people and injured 46, with authorities suspected that a passenger had carried a bomb onboard and it exploded accidentally.
Trans-Dniester broke away from Moldova in 1992 after a short but bloody war which left over 1,500 people dead.
Moldova's government has accused separatist authorities of transforming the
region into a heaven for smugglers and other criminal groups. Trans-Dniester
leaders have denied the accusations.
Nepal government, rebels agree to restrict their fighters and resume stalled
peace process
Binaj Gurubacharya, Associated Press, 8/9/06
Nepal's government and communist rebels agreed Wednesday to restrict their fighters, lock up their weapons and resume a peace process that has been on the verge of collapse, officials said.
Maoist rebels agreed to confine their fighters and weapons to their quarters, while government troops would be restricted to barracks, settling a major dispute between the two sides.
The agreement was reached at a meeting between Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and rebel leader Prachanda and his deputy Baburam Bhattarai.
Immediately after that, the two sides handed over separate letters to United Nations representatives, asking them to be relayed to a high-level delegation that was in Nepal last week to assess the situation.
The U.N. team was expected to deliver a report to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan this week, who would decide on U.N.'s future role in Nepal's peace process.
Both the government and rebels are proposing both sides' fighters be placed under U.N. supervision.
"This is an important move that will move forward the stalled peace process that will restore peace in the country," said Home Minister Krishna Sitaula, who heads the government negotiating team.
Rebel negotiator Krishna Mahara said the agreement has cleared much of the mistrust and differences between the two sides.
"The agreement decreased the mistrust and opened door to move ahead with the peace process," Mahara said.
Earlier this week, the rebels had warned that peace talks were on the verge of collapse because of repeated violations of an earlier, temporary agreement with the government.
The two sides declared a cease-fire and began peace negotiations in April after weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations forced King Gyanendra to give up his authoritarian rule.
U.N. 'strongly encouraged' by agreement between Nepal's government, rebels
Binaj Gurubacharya, Associated Press, 8/10/06
A senior U.N. official said he was encouraged by an agreement between Nepal's government and communist rebels to seek U.N. help in resuming their peace process, including help in monitoring a cease-fire.
Staffan de Mistura, who led a U.N. assessment team to Nepal last week, said he would deliver a report to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan this week so the world body can decide on its involvement in the peace process.
A U.N. Web site quoted de Mistura as saying he was "strongly encouraged" by the agreement between reached between the government and rebels on Wednesday to confine their fighters and weapons to their quarters and resume their peace process.
He said the two sides had sent identical letters requesting U.N. involvement.
"The good news is everybody wants the U.N. involved, everybody wants the U.N. in assisting the peace process which is potentially fragile and should not be allowed to be kept fragile," he said.
De Mistura, who recently was the U.N.'s deputy envoy to Iraq, spent a week in Nepal meeting with government officials, rebel leaders and civilians.
The agreement on Wednesday was reached at a meeting between Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and rebel leader Prachanda and his deputy, Baburam Bhattarai.
Earlier this week, the rebels had warned that the peace process was on the verge of collapse because of repeated violations of an earlier, temporary agreement with the government.
The two sides declared a cease-fire and began peace negotiations in April after weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations forced King Gyanendra to give up his authoritarian rule.
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
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Somali president presents parliament with plan to resolve differences in
government
Salad Duhul, Associated Press, 8/8/06
President Abdullahi Yusuf told parliament that the prime minister will name
a leaner, better qualified Cabinet to resolve differences in the government
and prepare it to counter an armed Islamic fundamentalist group's bid to take
over the country.
The current Cabinet will be dissolved to allow Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi to nominate new members to a 31-member Cabinet, down from the 42 that has been stipulated in Somalia's transitional charter, Yusuf told parliament in a speech broadcast live on Somali radio stations. He said the new Cabinet would be nominated within seven days.
Yusuf made the announcement Monday, following Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin's weekend mediation between the leaders of Somalia's weak, U.N.-backed transitional government.
A rift within the government over how to respond to the growing influence of Islamic militants has seen 40 Cabinet and junior ministers resign since July 27.
"This agreement was suggested by the parliament speaker and I and the prime minister agreed with him to end the differences among us which could paralyze the Somali transitional government," Yusuf said in the central Somali town of Baidoa where the government and parliament are based.
As Islamic militants seized the capital and much of southern Somalia in recent months, the transitional government could only watch helplessly. The Islamists have been imposing strict religious courts, raising fears of an emerging Taliban-style regime.
Yusuf and Gedi have been unable to assert their authority beyond Baidoa, 240 kilometers (150 miles) northwest of the capital, Mogadishu.
"We don't want to just stay in Baidoa. We want to expand our government to other parts of Somalia in the coming few months," Yusuf told legislators.
"Frankly, I want to tell you one thing, the government has failed in its tasks. From now on, I hope the prime minister will appoint a new Cabinet of intellectuals, they should be experienced in running a government and Somali affairs and we should control all of Somalia in the next six months," Yusuf said. "Don't be angry if you will not be a minister because he (Gedi) will only be able to select 31 ministers."
He said that junior ministers will be nominated only for important ministries like defense, foreign affairs and interior affairs.
Yusuf and Gedi had disagreed on how to deal with the rise of Islamic courts. Yusuf has the support of parliament Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden.
On July 30, Gedi survived a no-confidence motion because only 126 lawmakers supported it 13 short of the number required for the motion to pass. Only 88 lawmakers voted to keep Gedi.
Last week, Yusuf said that he wanted a government delegation to go to Khartoum, Sudan on Aug. 1 for Arab League-sponsored talks with the Islamists. But Gedi said that the talks have been postponed to Aug. 17.
The ministers leaving Gedi's government have all cited his lukewarm support for Arab League-sponsored talks as their reason for resigning.
Somalia has not had an effective central government since warlords toppled longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned against each other, plunging the country into anarchy.
The United States accuses the Islamists of harboring al-Qaida leaders responsible for deadly bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Officials in central Somalia say they will fight Islamic militants
Salad Duhul, Associated Press, 8/10/06
Troops in Somalia's semiautonomous Puntland region said Thursday they were ready to fight Islamic militants who are trying to spread their influence to the central part of the country after taking control of much of the south.
"We hear that the militiamen want to expand their authority throughout Somalia, but we will never accept such expansion," Puntland Gen. Yusuf Ahmed Kheyr said in a radio broadcast.
Puntland declared its autonomy in 1998 as much of this Horn of Africa nation was descending into chaos. The region has its own justice system and has been relatively peaceful.
"Puntland is calm and has formed all necessary regional administrations," Kheyr said.
Earlier this week, hundreds of people in the Puntland town of Galkayo demonstrated against Islamic militiamen, who are expected to arrive there in coming days to set up an Islamic court. Galkayo is 570 kilometers (354 miles) northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, which the Islamic group has held since June.
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the Islamic group, has been in central Somalia in a bid to increase the territory the Islamists hold.
Somalia has not had an effective central government since warlords toppled longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, plunging the country into anarchy.
The Islamic militants have stepped into the power vacuum in recent months and imposed strict religious courts, raising fears of an emerging Taliban-style regime. The United States accuses the group of harboring al-Qaida leaders responsible for deadly bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Somalia's official government is virtually powerless and is based in Baidoa, 255 kilometers (150 miles) outside the capital. The Islamic group known as the Supreme Islamic Courts Council has further marginalized the fragile administration, which was formed two years ago to help stabilize the country.
The Arab League has been trying to mediate peace talks between the Islamic militia and government officials, to little avail. The militants have rebuffed an attempt to have the talks Tuesday in Khartoum, Sudan, and want to have the talks next month instead, according to an Arab League official.
Previous talks have not brought any lasting agreements.
Also Thursday, the Islamic group arrested two men who were running for local office in the capital of Mogadishu. The men were seeking positions on the Mogadishu Local Council, which was formed by the warlords who ruled the capital before the militants took over in June.
"The council is a remnant of the warlords so they can't have a say in
the running of the capital," said Sheik Utaiba, who ordered the arrests.
His council later issued a statement on the arrests that reiterated that it
would brook no challenge to its authority.
Sri Lanka faces refugee crisis as fighting erupts on two new fronts
Amal Jayasinghe, Agence France Presse, 8/11/06
Tamil Tigers Friday warned of a humanitarian crisis after 42,000 people were displaced by a surge in violence that has left Sri Lanka's truce in tatters, as fighting erupted on two new fronts.
The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said they had appealed to relief organisations to rush aid to those displaced in rebel-held areas in northeastern Trincomalee district, but the government was blocking them.
"We know the agencies are ready to move in but the government is not allowing them," Tiger spokesman S. Puleedevan told AFP from the rebel-held town of Kilinochchi. "People are angry, people are desperate."
He said the LTTE had also asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to help treat some 200 people wounded in air and artillery attacks carried out by government security forces in Trincomalee on Thursday.
Shelling had subsided there Friday after the army suffered casualties in Thursday's exchanges, Puleedevan said. But the airforce had sent warplanes to bomb a rebel base in neighbouring Batticaloa district.
"They bombed one of our bases. There are heavy casualties, but I don't have the details," Puleedevan said.
"This attack is about 90 kilometres (56 miles) away from where there was fighting yesterday," he added.
"This is a violation of the ceasefire and shows the Sri Lankan government is only interested in war."
Ground troops in the northern peninsula of Jaffna began shelling Tiger positions Friday afternoon, prompting return long-range fire from the rebels, the LTTE's military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiriyan said.
"They are trying to advance into our areas and target civilians," Ilanthiriyan said by telephone.
"We have a responsibility to defend the civilians and we will hit back."
Violence erupted on July 26, six days after the Tigers shut an irrigation canal in Trincomalee district, depriving water to some 15,000 farmer families downstream.
More than 440 people died in heavy fighting over the disputed waterway until a brief lull when rebels on Tuesday re-opened the Maavilaru dam. However, rebels said at least 50 civilians died as fresh clashes erupted on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Action Against Hunger (ACF) vowed to "get to the bottom" of the execution-style killings of 17 locals employed by the French charity in Trincomalee district.
The Tigers and troops have blamed each other for the killings, which came during heavy clashes between the two sides in the town of Muttur last weekend.
Benoit Miribel, ACF director general, said he would assess if it was safe to continue their operations in Sri Lanka and promised to keep a close watch on a government probe into the killings.
In Geneva, three UN human rights experts released a statement urging Colombo to publish the findings of its investigation, saying the targetting of civilians was a "serious violation" of human rights and humanitarian law.
The statement was signed by the Special Representative on human rights defenders, Hina Jilani, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Philip Alston, and the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler.
Aid agencies also stepped up demands for access to areas where the fighting has been raging.
"We are deeply concerned about the grim reality facing civilians and aid workers in the northeast," a spokeswoman for a consortium of relief agencies said. "We are awaiting to access the affected areas."
The British relief agency, Oxfam, said it was providing over 100,000 litres (26,500 gallons) of drinking water to some 12,000 refugees in the government-held town of Kantalai alone but many more towns and villages were inaccessible.
"This is a major humanitarian disaster," Oxfam spokesman Ravi Prasad said. All aid workers in the embattled northeast observed a moment's silence at 1100 GMT Friday for the slaying of the 17 workers.
"About 200 aid workers met in Batticaloa to honour their colleagues killed in Muttur," a spokeswoman for the aid organisations said.
"There were similar gatherings elsewhere too."
The latest fighting has been the worst in Sri Lanka since a truce was agreed in February 2002. An estimated 60,000 people have been killed since the Tamil insurgency began around three decades ago.
Peace official murdered as toll in Sri Lanka mounts
Amal Jayasinghe, Agence France Presse, 8/12/06
A leading official involved in Sri Lanka's troubled peace process was assassinated Saturday as fighting in the island's north and east intensified claiming at least 177 lives.
President Mahinda Rajapakse immediately blamed the shooting of Ketheesh Loganathan, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Peace Secretariat, on the Tamil Tigers although their was no claim of responsibility from the rebels.
"The president condemns the assassination and says this is the work of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and shows how they are targeting members of the Tamil community who are working for peace," presidential spokesman Chandrapala Liyanage told AFP.
Loganathan was shot at his home in Colombo's Dehiwala suburb by two unidentified gunmen and was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital, police said.
His slaying came on the first anniversary of the assassination of foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, another member of the minority Tamil community killed by suspected Tiger gunmen.
Ethnic Tamils are a minority in Sri Lanka where the majority of people are Sinhalese.
War planes bombed Tiger rebel positions Saturday as the fiercest fighting since a 2002 ceasefire raged leaving 177 people dead, according to the military.
The government said the new fighting in the northern peninsula of Jaffna and the northeastern district of Trincomalee was undermining a Norwegian-backed peace initiative and accused the LTTE of seeking to return the island to full-scale war.
"The LTTE has intensified its terrorist activities to such an extent it appears that they want a full-scale confrontation," government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said. "It may appear that we are at war."
Sri Lankan war planes pounded Tamil rebel gun positions at Pooneryn near the Jaffna peninsula in the country's north with heavy shelling reported throughout the night and into Saturday morning, the defence ministry said.
Jaffna remained under a night curfew, officials said as troops conducted mop up operations.
Fighter planes also bombed rebel positions in Trincomalee in the northeast, sending hundreds of civilians fleeing to schools and churches while troops and rebels traded artillery fire for an hour, officials and residents said.
The bombing and the clashes left at least 150 Tigers and 27 security personnel dead and another 310 on both sides wounded, the defence ministry said in a statement.
Sri Lanka's key foreign aid donors expressed serious concern over a growing humanitarian crisis stemming from the worsening ethnic conflict and called for an immediate halt to hostilities.
The United States, Japan, the European Union and Norway said they were "deeply concerned" by the continued violence which they feared was "seriously unraveling" the 2002 ceasefire agreement.
The Tigers and the Sri Lankan government have blamed each other for the upsurge in violence, which has claimed over 1,200 lives by official count since December, despite the February 2002 truce arranged by peacebroker Norway.
The bombings ended a brief lull in fighting between the two sides which have been pounding each other since July 26 with artillery and mortars in a bitter battle for a waterway in Trincomalee district.
The Tigers said 42,000 people have been displaced in areas under their control on top of 30,000 people who in the past two weeks had moved away from troubled areas in the northeast and sought shelter in government-held towns.
The Tiger rebels blamed the military for starting the fighting on Friday and for keeping up the attacks till Saturday.
An estimated 60,000 people have been killed since the Tamil insurgency began
around three decades ago.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
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Sudan's Darfur peace accord sparks rising insecurity, rebel clashes
Todd Pitman, Associated Press, 8/8/06
A peace deal that was supposed to end the conflict in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region has brought anything but peace, with fresh fighting displacing 50,000 more people and July marking the deadliest month for aid workers since the conflict began.
Four aid groups warned Tuesday that conditions for millions of civilians suffering in the area could get much worse quickly if security does not improve. Spiraling violence is already causing a rise in malnutrition and the spread of disease in some displaced persons camps, the groups said.
Eight Sudanese humanitarian workers were killed last month along with countless civilians, part of increasing violence since a May 5 peace deal was signed in Nigeria between the government and the main rebel group.
The deal was supposed to help end the conflict but has instead sparked months of fighting between rival rebel factions. Aid groups, the United Nations and beleaguered African Union peacekeepers say rebel factions are seeking to gain advantage before peace upsets a status quo in a region where more than 200,000 people have been killed since 2003 when ethnic African tribes revolted against the Arab-led Khartoum government.
Fresh clashes have left countless dead in the last two months and displaced nearly 50,000 more people in addition to the more than 2 million who had already fled their homes. One million people also rely on food aid because their fields have been razed or they're too afraid to go out to farm.
"Since the signing of the agreement, Darfur has become increasingly tense and violent, which has led to the tragic deaths of far too many civilians and aid workers," said Paul Smith-Lomas, regional director at the British charity Oxfam. "A full and comprehensive cease-fire must be implemented immediately."
Oxfam and three other aid groups working in Darfur CARE, the International Rescue Committee and World Vision issued a joint statement Tuesday, saying tension within many of the camps housing Darfur's displaced people was rising because of opposition to the peace deal.
The aid groups called July the deadliest month for humanitarian workers after eight were killed in road ambushes, working at water pumps, or, in one case, during a nighttime village attack.
Increasing attacks on vehicles, as well as hijackings and staff abductions have limited many aid workers to main towns, said Alun McDonald, Oxfam's spokesman in Sudan. The result: less humanitarian access to displaced camps and less help amid rising malnutrition, diarrhea and waterborne disease.
"If we cannot access the people who need assistance, then the humanitarian situation is going to rapidly deteriorate," said Kurt Tjossen, a spokesman for the New York-based International Rescue Committee.
The groups said that while aid workers in Darfur had managed to stabilize disastrous health conditions in the early stages of the conflict, their efforts were now under threat.
The aid agencies urged those responsible for protecting civilians, especially the African Union, to maintain a round-the-clock presence and regular patrols in areas around the camps.
But short of resources and support, African Union peacekeepers seem to be scaling back efforts to protect civilians, the groups said.
The grim assessment was echoed by U.N. officials as well as Baba Gana Kingibe, a Nigerian who heads the African Union peacekeeping mission, which has been harshly criticized for failing to protect civilians. Security in Darfur "is plummeting," Kingibe told The Associated Press in Darfur.
Even before the recent deterioration, the African Union had wanted to hand over to a bigger and more robust U.N. mission, a move Sudan President Omar al-Bashir staunchly opposed.
Kingibe said his force needs to be doubled and better equipped not only with vehicles, fuel and forces, but with better arms to compete against rebels' superior firepower.
Funding also is an issue. Peacekeepers have not been paid since June. The mission's $24 million monthly bill is footed largely by the European Union. Handing over the mission to U.N. control would spread costs among U.N. member states.
The main rebel Sudan Liberation Army led by Minni Minnawi signed the Darfur Peace Agreement in May, but a breakaway Sudan Liberation Army faction and the Justice and Equality Movement rejected the deal, arguing it did not sufficiently meet their demands.
Since then, rebel groups have splintered even further, giving birth to new factions with names like the National Redemption Front and G-19.
Kingibe said Minnawi's forces had been pushed out of much of their territory in North Darfur by G-19 and other factions in recent weeks, though Minnawi still controls swaths of South Darfur.
Kingibe said rebels had infiltrated some camps for those displaced by the fighting, arming those inside.
Turid Laegreid, head of the U.N.'s humanitarian coordination office in El Fasher, said insecurity in Darfur had increased since the beginning of the year.
"We are seeing a worsening of the humanitarian situation, with more displacement, more conflict and less access because of increased fighting," she said.
The U.N. World Food Program was unable to deliver supplies to 400,000 people in July, up from 290,000 in June, and Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders, recently evacuated medical teams in two villages.
Some of the worst violence occurred in several villages around Korma, 45 miles northwest of El Fasher, according to Amnesty International, which said 72 people were killed, 103 injured and 29 women raped in July 4-8 attacks there on civilians. The rights group blamed those assaults on Minnawi's faction, which it said was "reportedly supported by Sudan armed forces" and Arab-led Janjaweed militias.
The government initially was accused of backing the Janjaweed, accused of some of the worst atrocities of the war, against the rebels. The Amnesty report raises the possibility the peace accord has created new and volatile alliances.
U.N.: Darfur peace deal "doomed to failure" without more support
from Sudan's government
Bradley S. Klapper, Associated Press, 8/9/06
The United Nations said Wednesday that a peace deal signed three months ago between Sudan's government and the main rebel group in Darfur was "doomed to failure" without more support from Khartoum.
The report by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Sudan's government and all parties of the May 5 peace deal to immediately comply with its cease-fire provisions.
"The government should disarm the militia and protect the physical security of all Darfurians by putting in place a credible, capable, and professional police force and judiciary," the 20-page report said.
The United Nations also called on the international community to support the African Union's peacekeeping force in Sudan until a U.N. operation could be deployed to Darfur.
The global body said the peace deal, signed in Nigeria, has failed to halt violence in the war-ravaged region, citing an increase in rape and continued attacks by militias and rebel factions.
The report said Darfur's population continued to "suffer grave violations of human rights as violence among competing armed groups in Darfur persists."
The report acknowledged that fighting between Sudanese armed forces and the Sudan Liberation Army, the main rebel group, has decreased since the deal, but "attacks by militias and rebel factions continued unabated, mainly in south and north Darfur."
"Civilian populations continued to be targeted by militia and the government and rebel movements are in breach of the new cease-fire," the report said. After the signing of the peace agreement, "violence resulted in numerous civilian deaths and aggravated the already severe humanitarian situation in Darfur."
The peace deal was supposed to help end the conflict, but it has instead triggered months of fighting between rival rebel factions. The United Nations, aid groups and beleaguered African Union peacekeepers say rebel factions are seeking to gain advantage before peace upsets the status quo.
More than 200,000 people have been killed in the region since 2003, when ethnic African tribes revolted against the Arab-led Khartoum government.
Fresh clashes have left countless dead, the conflict has caused more than 2 million to flee their homes, and 1 million people are relying on food aid because their fields were razed or they're too afraid to go out to farm.
The U.N. report said armed militias continued to attack villages, and on at least one occasion they were supported by government forces. It also cited clashes between militias and the SLA, and between rebel factions.
"These attacks also resulted in the torture and killing of civilians and sexual abuse, including rape, as well as in further displacement of the population," the U.N. said.
The report said Khartoum needed to do more to investigate reports of sexual violence and bring those responsible to justice "whether the crime is perpetrated by government agents, armed groups or private individuals."
Violence also affected humanitarian efforts. The U.N. said at least 250,000 people who needed aid at the end of June could not be reached because of the insecurity.
Last month was the deadliest month for aid workers since the conflict began. Eight Sudanese humanitarian workers were killed in road ambushes when they were working at water pumps, or in one case, during a nighttime village attack.
Aid groups warned Tuesday that conditions for millions of civilians could deteriorate quickly if security did not improve. They said spiraling violence was causing a rise in malnutrition and the spread of disease in some camps for displaced persons.
The U.N. also said security in Darfur had worsened over the last month, estimating that 25,000 people were newly displaced.
Genocide
in Darfur: A Legal Analysis
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