Contents:
Talks stalled on
the fate of the national army.
Minister claims remaining rebel groups have no power and do
not deserve serious attention.
Burundi army to
investigate deaths of 13 rebels
Army spokesman did not provide
details about the investigation.
7 Russian Servicemen
Killed in Chechnya
25 others
also die in attack on Russian military convoy.
Putin says war in Chechnya "worth it"
Defended a widely criticized
referendum that solidified Chechnya's status as part of
Russia.
DRCongo: Rights
group calls for arrest of rogue general
Group fears he will disrupt the historic
elections.
Georgian leader vows not to 'give up' on Russia
Statement follows a shift
towards Georgian alliance with the U.S.
Abkhazia urges Russia to back Kosovo
independence
Spokesman argues
that Russia used the status of Kosovo as a bargaining chip it could obtain
proper concessions on breakaway regions.
Georgian separatist official killed in
bomb attack
Top security
official died from bomb planted in his garage.
Assailant in
Indonesia's Aceh province kills rebel, injures 2 others
Motive and details of the firefight were not
immediately clear.
Former rebels: Proposed law for
Indonesia's Aceh province violates peace accord
Former rebels threaten to contest the law with
international monitors because the law violates the spirit of the
accord.
Ivory Coast president
meeting rebel military chiefs called off
Rebels refused to meet after Gbagbo's guard refused
to permit UN United Nations troops to enter presidential palace with their
weapons.
Annan in divided Ivory Coast to push
for elections
Hopes that
elections will help the country's fragile peace process.
Disarmament talks in Ivory Coast
delayed
Delay due to absence
of key participants.
Rebels kill Indian soldier near Kashmir
border
Gunbattle occurred near
ceasefire Line of Control.
Kosovo
UN mediator seeks concessions on
Kosovo
Mediator seeks a speedy
resolution of negotiations.
Mammoth Kosovo trial to start Monday at UN war crimes
court
This case against 6 top
Serbian officials is pivotal for establishing what happened in
Kosovo.
SLeone court frees US ex-soldier accused of
plotting Taylor jailbreak
Magistrate dropped espionage charges against Michael
Chemidlin and two Sierra Leoneans.
Macedonia votes in
poll seen as vital to EU, NATO bids
Poll also seen as crucial test of Ohrid Peace
Agreement.
Macedonia Prime Minister Concedes Defeat
Election seen as a
particularly good one, not marred by polling irregularities.
Eight people killed,
46 injured in bus blast in separatist Trans-Dniester
Cause of the explosion was not immediately clear, but
might be due to accidental detonation of illegal arms.
Nepal seeks U.N. support in peace process with
communist rebels
Details of the letter to Annan were not
released.
Constitution framers in Nepal begin work after
delay
Hope to clarify the position of the king in the interim
constitution.
Philippines to
pursue offensive against communist rebels
Although government
may resume peace talks if certain conditions are met.
Two communist guerrillas slain, three captured in
Philippines
Philippines military launched two separate
Montenegro hopes to sign pre-entry deal with EU by
end of year, PM says
In order
to do so, Montenegro must assure to reform to the judiciary and fight against
corruption and against organized crime.
Montenegro prepares to inaugurate its
independence
Central ceremony
will happen this Thursday.
Somali Islamists
kill World Cup fans, peacekeeping talks start
Action underscores mounting
radicalism.
Somalia's U.N.-backed government struggles in shadow
of Islamic militia
Talks to
between Islamic militia and U.S.-backed government is scheduled to begin on July
15.
Tigers
accuse Sri Lanka of preparing for war
Escalating violence follows the EU ban of the
LTTE.
In Darfur, little has changed since peace deal was
signed
Undermining the
credibility of the peace deal and the AU.
Genocide in
Darfur: A Legal Analysis Click here to
access the PILPG
Report.
The decision was reached after the chief mediator, South African Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula, arrived in Tanzania on Tuesday and held separate consultations with delegates from the government and FNL rebels. The two sides failed to meet the self-imposed Sunday deadline of inking a lasting truce, both unwilling to let go their positions on the fate of the national army. Burundi Home Affairs Minister Evereste Ndayishimiye blamed the rebels for stalling the talks and insisted that the government was not compromise on the military issues. "But we have already created an integrated army in Burundi which comprises members of what were formerly known as rebels. Harmonisation and training is now in its final stages, how do we go back to square one by dissolving the army," he told AFP. "If they are ready to come to Burundi to join us, they should bring their soldiers who are to be integrated into the army, police or be demobilized," added Ndayishimiye, himself a former rebel who now holds the rank of brigadier general. Diplomats monitoring the convoluted peace parley have said the dissolution of the army as demanded by the National Liberation Forces rebels was the main stumbling block and that negotiators were pressing the FNL to drop the demand. But FNL spokesman Pasteur Habimana said the insurgents are committed to the talks "until true peace is restored in all parts of Burundi."
On June 18, the government and the FNL signed a preliminary truce and set a July 2 deadline to reach a permanent accord to pave the way for a comprehensive peace deal that would bring an end to the long-running conflict. In Bujumbura, the army said it had arrested FNL intelligence and training commander Jean Berchmans Ndayishimiye and its chief financial officer, a woman known only as Blandine. The third person arrested was not identified. "This is one of the most serious arrests ever carried out. It is a devastation against the FNL," an army officials told AFP. Habimana, who is currently in Tanzania, confirmed the arrests and said the team would protest to the South African mediators. "We demand urgent talks with (the) chief mediator to vigorously protest these arrests, which are against the rhythm of peace that began with the Dar es Salaam negotiations," Habimana told AFP. Burundi's ethnically-driven civil war has claimed some 300,000 lives since it erupted in 1993 and continued despite a 2000 peace process that six of the country's seven Hutu rebel groups have signed up to. Only the FNL, which has between 1,500 and 3,000 fighters, remains outside the process, which last year saw the election of a new power-sharing government headed by a former Hutu guerrilla chief. Of Burundi's former seven rebel groups, the FNL is the only one left out of a 2000 peace accord, and the sole to stay outside the country's power-sharing government elected last year.
Belgium seeks isolation of Burundi
rebels
Agence France Presse, 7/6/06
A visiting
Belgian minister on Thursday dismissed remaining active rebels in the central
African state of Burundi, saying they lacked a political agenda and did not
deserve serious attention. Cooperation and Development Minister Armand De Decker
was speaking a day after peace talks intended to forge a permanent truce to end
the country's 13-year civil war were adjourned for a week. He urged the European
Union to pay more attention to the Burundi government and less to the fate of
rebels of the National Liberation Forces (FNL). The country is emerging from a
war that has so far claimed some 300,000 lives. "I think that clearly the FNL
does not have any political programme, no political agenda and does not deserve
huge political consideration were it not for their ability to cause nuisance and
destabilisation," De Decker told a press conference in the capital Bujumbura. "I
urge our European Union partners to show more commitment to you (the government)
... and not allow themselves to be halted by some aspects that are given too
much attention," he said. The FNL is the only one of Burundi's former seven Hutu
rebel groups to have refused to sign a 2000 peace process that last year saw the
election of a new power-sharing government headed by a former Hutu guerrilla
chief.
On Wednesday, peace talks between the FNL and the government
aimed at reaching a permanent ceasefire were postponed to next week after both
mediators failed to persuade them to resume direct talks. The talks stumbled
over the issue of the country's national army which the rebels want disbanded, a
demand the government has rejected. The government accused the FNL of
intransigence by insisting on sweeping government and military reforms before
the comprehensive ceasefire was settled, while the rebels blamed Bujumbura for
the impasse. But Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, whose country is hosting
the talks, pressed the FNL to drop its demand for the dissolution of the army.
"You cannot have changes in the government or the army now if you continue to
remain outside the system," Kikwete told FNL officials. "The dissolution of the
national army was not among the issues to be covered during the negotiations,"
Kikwete said in a statement. "I advise you to join the peace process and work
out a lasting peace for Burundi." The rebels have continued to wage
low-intensity insurgency across the country. Late Wednesday, two civilians were
wounded in an attack blamed on the FNL by the army a day after arresting two of
its top commanders in what officials described as the most serious arrests ever
made. "The FNL ambushed three vehicles yesterday at about 18:00 (1600 GMT) near
Gatumba and injured two civilians and looted the cars," army spokesman Adolphe
Manirakiza told AFP Thursday. But the local UN peacekeeping force called on the
government and the rebels to show restraint.
Burundi army to investigate deaths of 13 rebels
Aloys Niyoyita, Associated Press, 7/7/06
Burundi's army will investigate allegations that its troops executed 13 holdout rebels who were training in a village outside the capital, the army spokesman said Friday. Lt. Col. Adolphe Manirakiza did not provide details on the planned investigation, which he announced shortly after a local mayor went on the radio to dispute his report on the killing of members of the rebel National Liberation Force. Earlier, Manirakiza said the army killed 13 rebels who were training in Bujumbura Rural province on Thursday, adding one soldier also was killed in the operation. Mayor Desire Ngendakumana, however, suggested that the suspected rebels were executed in cold blood. He said all had gunshot wounds to the head. "There was not a fighting, but it is clear all of them were executed," Ngendakumana, mayor of the Isare area where the incident occurred, told the independent African Public Radio. "An investigation will be opened very soon to establish exactly what happened and how it happened," Manirakiza told The Associated Press. The killings occurred after peace talks between the rebel group and Burundi's government stalled in neighboring Tanzania. Burundi's 12-year conflict has killed more than 250,000 people, most of them civilians who died of disease and hunger. The war started in October 1993, when Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the country's first democratically elected president, a Hutu. All the main Hutu rebel groups have signed peace deals, leading to democratic elections last year that established a new government. Only the National Liberation Force has opted out of the deals aimed at ending the conflict between the Hutu ethnic majority and the minority Tutsis, who have dominated Burundi's government, economy and military in the 44 years since the country's independence from Belgium.
7 Russian Servicemen Killed in Chechnya
Associated
Press, 7/4/06
Unidentified gunmen attacked a Russian military convoy in war-ravaged Chechnya on Tuesday, killing seven servicemen and wounding 25 others, the Interfax news agency reported. The attack came when the convoy was traveling between two towns southeast of the Chechen capital, Grozny, Interfax reported, citing an unidentified source in the headquarters for the campaign against militants in the region. Chechnya has been torn by two wars pitting Russian forces and local allies against separatist rebels in the region in the past 12 years. A Kremlin-backed government is in power and large-scale battles are rare, but fighting persists. The report came out nearly six hours after it said the afternoon attack occurred.
Putin says war in Chechnya "worth it"
Associated
Press, 7/6/06
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the war his government has waged against separatists in Chechnya has been "worth it," asserting that militants wanted to create a separate state stretching from the Black Sea to the Caspian. Defending a widely criticized referendum that cemented Chechnya's status as part of Russia, Putin suggested similar votes could be held in breakaway provinces in neighboring Georgia and called for unified global standards for determining the status of separatist regions such as Kosovo in the Balkans.
"Of course it was worth it," Putin said of the war that Moscow launched when he was prime minister in 1999, the second Moscow waged against separatist militants in the mostly Muslim southern region since the Soviet breakup. "We understood that the forces there that have nothing in common with the people of Chechnya would not leave us in peace," he said in an Internet conference broadcast on British Broadcasting Corp. Web sites. He said militants have sought to use Chechnya as a foothold to break up Russia and "create a new state from the Black Sea to the Caspian." He added, "We don't need that in Russia ... and Europe doesn't need that either," suggesting Moscow was protecting Europe by fighting the war in Chechnya which is heavily criticized in Europe. Critics say the Kremlin has fomented militant violence in Chechnya and the surrounding North Caucasus by using excessive force during its wars and police operations in the region. Putin reiterated repeated Russian suggestions that independence for the Serbian province of Kosovo could set a precedent for other breakaway regions such as South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two pro-Russian provinces in Georgia. "Kosovo is one thing, but Abkhazia or South Ossetia is another thing?" he said. "That is something we consider not right." "The principles have got to be the same," he said. Putin defended a 2003 constitutional referendum in Chechnya that cemented its status as part of the Russian Federation, and challenged the Georgian government which has sought to bring the regions back into the fold to hold plebiscites in those provinces and allow their inhabitants to choose their future.
DRCongo: Rights group calls for arrest of rogue general
Agence France Presse, 7/9/06
A human rights group in the Democratic Republic of Congo called Sunday for the arrest of a dissident general in the country's east, fearing he could disrupt historic elections slated for July 30. Voice of the Voiceless (VSV) said that rogue general Laurent Nkunda possesses arms and sophisticated communications equipment recently smuggled "across the border with Rwanda." A Congolese Tutsi aligned with Rwanda during a rebellion against the regime of Laurent Kabila in the late 1990s, Nkunda is the object of an international arrest warrant for "war crimes" committed by his forces during their brief occupation of the city of Bukavu in June 2004. Authorities in Kinshasa have failed to execute his arrest, and Nkunda has since lived and operated with impunity in the Masisi mountains in the North Kivu region of eastern DRC with his men "circulating freely," the rights organization said. An officer of the UN mission for the RDC (MONUC), who estimates that Nkunda commands a well-equipped force of 2000 soldiers, also asserted that the dissident general received "a shipment of arms, probably from Uganda." But the same officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that "there is no sign of a large increase in his military capacity nor of an imminent attack." Other UN and diplomatic sources in Kinshasa say that Nkunda might have encouraged, and perhaps logistically supported, recent attacks by rebels in the region against regular army forces. VSV said that brigades of regular army forces should be provided "arms and all the logistics necessary" to counter any attack by Nkunda ahead of July 30 polls, the first democratic elections in the DRC since 1961.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation
Simulation
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here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
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Georgian leader vows not to 'give up' on
Russia
Agence France Presse, 7/7/06
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Thursday he was confident his former Soviet republic will never "give up" on Russia even as it shifts alliances to the United States. One day after winning US support for Georgia's efforts to join the NATO military alliance during a visit with President George W. Bush, Saakashvili said Georgia may mend ties with Russia if it apologized for former bullying tactics. "I'm pretty optimistic in the long run. We'll have short-term problems, that's definite, but we will never give up on Russia," Saakashvili said in a speech delivered at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank. His speech came amid a flurry of meetings with top US officials Thursday that were to include Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and ahead of a June 14 Russia-US summit at which Bush will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Georgia's relations with its much larger neighbor Russia quickly unravelled following the 2004 "Orange Revolution" that swept Saakashvili to power amid street protests and ousted a government that more closely toed Moscow's line. Saakashvili quickly declared his preference for stronger trade and military ties with other Western powers and the United States. Relations with Russia suffered and led to a series of crippling trade and energy disputes. A fluent English speaker with a US education and Dutch wife, Saakashvili said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin could make headway with Georgia if he acknowledges former Soviet mistreatment of his republic. "President Putin made a good thing when he went to the memorial of people killed in 1968, the uprising in Prague, in honor of them and we like it," Saakashvili said. "But the same thing happened in Georgia in the last century. I mean the Bolsheviks came in and took over, and I would be glad when he comes to Georgia and ascends the museum of the Soviet occupation of Georgia, because it was our shared grief," he said.
Abkhazia urges Russia to back Kosovo independence
Agence France Presse, 7/6/06
An official of Georgia's breakaway territory Abkhazia appealed Thursday to Russia to back independence for Serbia's Kosovo province to strengthen the hand of pro-Russian minorities likewise seeking autonomy. Kosovo, whose majority wants independence from Serbia, could be a political bargaining chip for Russia to obtain worthwhile concessions on the status of pro-Russian separatist territories, said Sergei Shamba, Abkhazia's self-styled foreign minister. The former Soviet republic of Georgia has accused Russia of tacitly backing the efforts of both Abkhazia and another Georgian region, South Ossetia, to achieve independence. Russia officially recognises Georgian sovereignty in both territories. Tensions have been high in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which attempted to split from Georgia in bloody clashes following the Soviet Union's 1991 collapse. Shamba told a press conference here he was aware Russia might use its United Nations veto to prevent Kosovo achieving independence from Serbia because of Moscow's traditional friendship with Serbia. "But why do so?" he asked. "To give moral support to a Serbia that is now turning towards the West, towards the European union and to NATO?"
If Russia used the status of Kosovo as a bargaining chip it could obtain proper concessions on the status of Abkhazia, North Ossetia and Transdniestr in Moldova, also a former Soviet republic, said Shamba. In April Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that independence for Kosovo could have dangerous consequences for the Balkan region. Last month the Russian foreign ministry said it considered the future status of Kosovo, now under negotiation between Serbia and Kosovo representatives with UN mediation, could be a precedent to achieve settlements for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Kosovo is still legally a province of Serbia, but has been run by the United Nations and NATO since 1999, when the alliance's air strikes ended a crackdown by forces loyal to then Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic against Albanian separatists. UN-sponsored talks on Kosovo's future status began in February, but have produced no concrete results so far. The leaders of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority are pushing for independence, a demand the Serbian government firmly opposes. Transdniestr is a Slav-majority region of eastern Moldova which proclaimed itself an independent republic in 1990 and remains protected by Russian forces.
Georgian separatist official killed in bomb attack
Agence France Presse, 7/9/06
A top security
official from the separatist Georgian province of South Ossetia was killed
Sunday by a bomb planted in his garage, local authorities contacted by phone
from Tbilisi said. The bomb exploded as Oleg Alborov, head of the unrecognised
state's security council, opened the door of the garage in the courtyard of his
home, a local interior ministry official said. South Ossetia's deputy prime
minister Boris Chochiyev blamed the attack on Georgian secret services, Russia's
RIA-Novosti news agency reported. South Ossetia declared independence from
Georgia in 1992 and fought a short war against Georgian troops in which hundreds
of people were killed and thousands were forced to flee from their homes. The
breakaway province's leadership has called for South Ossetia to become part of
Russia. Since coming to power in 2004, Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil
Saakashvili has vowed to bring the separatist provinces of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia back under Tbilisi's control. Georgian authorities accuse Moscow of
giving covert backing to the separatist leaderships in both provinces.
Assailant in Indonesia's Aceh province kills rebel, injures 2 others
Associated Press, 7/4/06
An assailant opened fire on a car belonging to peace monitors in Indonesia's Aceh province, sparking a firefight that killed a former rebel and wounded a policeman and a civilian, police said Tuesday. The motive and details surrounding Monday's attack one of few violent incidents since the Indonesian government signed a peace agreement with Aceh separatists one year ago were not immediately clear. Pieter Feith, head of the Aceh Monitoring Mission, said none of his employees were hurt, but he was "concerned that monitors were placed in danger in the course of their duties." Police said a former guerrilla who had been riding with peace monitors was killed after shots were apparently fired from a crowd gathered at a military checkpoint in Keude Paya Bakong village, where a man had been detained on drug charges.
Sofyan Dawood, a spokesman for the Aceh Transitional Committee, whose members are former Free Aceh Movement (GAM) fighters, confirmed the man who died had been a GAM rebel. A policeman and a civilian were hurt in the firefight that followed, said police spokesman Col. Jodi Haryadi, adding that investigations into the attack were ongoing. The policeman was hit by a ricocheting bullet, he said. Efforts to end the 29-year war in Aceh picked up pace after the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami crashed into the province's coastlines, killing at least 130,000 people and leaving a half million others homeless. Several earlier attempts to end the fighting that broke out in 1976 and claimed 15,000 lives unraveled amid bitterness and mistrust. The European Union-led team monitoring a peace deal arrived in August and have not yet decided how long their mission will continue.
Former rebels: Proposed law for Indonesia's Aceh province violates
peace accord
Zakki Hakim, Associated Press, 7/9/06
Former rebels in Indonesia's tsunami-ravaged Aceh said a proposed law, aimed at cementing terms of a 2005 peace deal with the government, violates the accord's sprit. They threatened to contest the law with international monitors. Indonesia's parliament was slated Tuesday to pass the law, which should give Aceh greater autonomy and 70 percent of the revenues from its natural resources, including large natural gas and oil reserves. The former rebels called for amendments to the bill, and said if lawmakers fail to implement them they will take their dispute to the EU-led Aceh Monitoring Mission or Crisis Management Initiative, which helped end the decades-long civil war. The process picked up pace after an earthquake and resulting tsunami struck Aceh in December 2004, killing more than 131,000 people in the province and leaving half a million others homeless. Munawarliza Zain, a spokesman for the former rebels, said Saturday they will oppose the bill via all legal means, but will not resume violence. In it's (the bill's) current form it would hamper democratization in Aceh, including the first-ever direct elections for the governor.
It "has the potential to ruin peace," he said. Articles in the proposed law about the extent of the central government's authority and the role of Indonesia's military in Aceh are unclear and could foster distrust, he said. One article of the bill, a draft copy of which was seen by The Associated Press, changes wording from the peace deal, effectively limiting Aceh's say over decisions taken in Jakarta about international cooperation in Aceh. Efforts to end a decades-long civil war in Aceh picked up pace after an earthquake struck off its coast in December 2004, causing a tsunami that killed more than 131,000 people in the province and left a half-million others homeless. The rebels agreed to hand over all of their 840 weapons and gave up their demand for independence. The government agreed to withdraw more than half of its nearly 50,000 troops from Aceh and to give the province limited self-government and control over much of its mineral wealth. So far the deal has stuck, with the help of international peace monitors.
But, despite a March target date, Parliament has been slow to pass agreed upon the legislation. Some lawmakers say the former rebels, who will also be allowed to field candidates in upcoming gubernatorial elections probably postponed until November are getting too much. Legislator Ferry Mursyidan Baldan, head of the special committee preparing the bill, said parliamentarians will on Monday night meet representatives of the people of Aceh, including the governor, mayors, and local councilors, to explain the law. "We want to know what parts of the law are seen as contradictory to the accord," he said, adding that the former rebels' concerns may be based on a misunderstanding.
Aceh Negotiation Simulation
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Law & Policy Group.
Ivory Coast president meeting rebel military chiefs called off
Agence France Presse, 7/4/06
A planned meeting between Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and military leaders of the New Forces (FN) rebel movement here Tuesday failed to take place after a dispute over weapons, rebels said. The meeting had been due to take place at 4:00 pm (1600GMT) but the rebels refused to enter the presidential palace after Gbagbo's republican guard would not "let the United Nations troops (charged with the rebels' security) enter the presidency courtyard with their weapons," a rebel spokesman said. "We found that unimaginable, it is why we left" for their hotel, said FN spokesman "commander" Ferdinand Koffi. The UN mission in Ivory Coast (ONUCI) was unable immediately to confirm the news. Soldiers at the palace said the rebels had wanted to enter the palace with their weapons and insignia which are not recognised by Gbagbo's loyalists. The rebels have been holding the north of the country since a failed coup in 2002. Nearly 7,000 UN peacekeepers backed by 4,000 French troops are deployed to prevent the resumption of hostilities ahead of UN-backed elections planned for October.
Ivory Coast government and rebel commanders held key disarmament talks last Thursday in further steps to resolve the conflict. But a communique issued by government forces after the meeting rebuffed a proposal by the New Forces for an integrated staff headquarters. The loyalist forces had also disagreed with the desire of the rebels to have their wage arrears paid and had rejected a request that the military ranks of the New Forces be recognised. The two sides had agreed to continue the process of regroupment as a first step to disarmament. The process has been completed in the case of the loyalists but it is still going in the case of the rebels. Meanwhile Gbagbo said the visit of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to Abidjan on Wednesday -- his first since the coup -- did not mean the start of a new round of peace negotiations. "We are not meeting to launch new negotiations -- there is nothing more to negotiate, only to see the application of the texts that we have agreed," he said. Annan met African leaders including Gbagbo in Gambia on Saturday to assess progress toward peace in Ivory Coast, in particular the prospects of keeping to the election timetable. Others present included Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Mamadou Tandja, President of Niger, and Blaise Compaore, head of state of Burkina Faso.
Annan in divided Ivory Coast to push for elections
Agence France Presse, 7/5/06
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan arrived in Ivory Coast Wednesday to urge that delayed elections be held to shore up the west African country's fragile peace process. Travelling here for the first time since a foiled coup against President Laurent Gbagbo divided the country in late 2002, Annan was received at the airport by Prime Minister Konan Banny. He was to hold talks with President Laurent Gbagbo before meeting with key political players to the Ivorian crisis with the aim of fast-tracking the peace process toward elections later this year. Backing Annan are African leaders who have been mediating in recent months: Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo and currently chairman of the African Union, and Mamadou Tandja of Niger, the head of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), will all attend the talks.
No new negotiations are expected at the Wednesday parley, only an assessment of whether Banny -- who is charged with ensuring the peace deal is implemented -- is moving "fast enough," Gbagbo said. "We are not meeting to launch new negotiations -- there is nothing more to negotiate, only to see the application of the texts that we have agreed," Gbagbo said. Annan will press for the elections to be held this year. "We would want to maintain that calendar. We want to hold elections by the end of October," the UN chief said in Gambia on the fringes of the African Union summit. "But if for technical reasons there has to be any delay, I hope it will be a very brief one," added Annan. "We must definitely have the elections this year because we can't continue with the situation as it is."
The UN has extended Gbagbo's mandate since it expired last November, and appointed respected banker Banny to steer the country -- once hailed as a regional bastion of peace and stability -- out of the crisis. Since 2002 the country has been split into two, with rebels holding and controlling the north, while Gbagbo is exercising his rule over the southern part of the world's leading cocoa producer. Four months shy of the UN deadline to hold polls, there are tens of thousands of troops and militiamen still to be disarmed and new electoral rolls yet to be compiled. The two main protagonists have bickered throughout the peace process: only last week a planned meeting between Gbagbo and military leaders of the New Forces (FN) rebel movement was cancelled following a dispute over weapons. Ivory Coast will also pay tribute to Annan for his work at the helm of the international organisation over the past decade.
Relations between Abidjan and the UN were reinforced in 2004 when the Ivorian head of state gave permission to the UN to undertake a major peacekeeping operation, with the assistance of France. But relations took a nosedive in January when pro-Gbagbo militias attacked peacekeepers during violent demonstrations against a decision by international power brokers to dissolve parliament when its mandate expired. Fearing for their safety, the UN pulled out some of its staff, including humanitarian agencies, especially in the volatile west near the border with Liberia. Last month the UN Security Council upped the size of the UN force in Ivory Coast from 7,600 to 9,100, including military and police personnel.
Disarmament talks in Ivory Coast delayed
Agence
France Presse, 7/6/06
A meeting to discuss the disarmament of irregular forces loyal to Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and New Force (FN) rebels, set for Thursday, has been delayed due to the absence of key participants, the prime minister's office said. No new date has been set for the meeting, which was to lay the groundwork for the preliminary "regroupment" phase of a long-anticipated disarmament. Notably unavailable for the talks was Defense Minister Rene Aphing Kouassi, a spokesman for the loyalist Force for Security and Defense (FDS). Another meeting at the end of June was also cancelled after the FDS rejected a rebel demand to merge the command structures of the rival military units.
The FN's also wanted their ranks to be carried over into a new army organization, and demanded back pay. The two parties did, agree, however to focus on the preliminary task of regrouping forces, already completed for the loyalists and "under way" for the rebels. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan -- who met Wednesday with the main actors in the Ivory Coast conflict along with African leaders who have sought to mediate -- said that the preliminary phase of the disarmament process must be finished before July 31. Ivory Coast, the world's leading cocoa producer, has been divided into two since a foiled coup bid against Gbagbo in September 2002. Nearly 7,000 UN peacekeepers backed by 4,000 French troops are deployed to prevent the resumption of hostilities ahead of UN-backed elections planned for October.
Rebels kill Indian soldier near Kashmir border
Agence
France Presse, 7/7/06
Suspected Muslim rebels shot dead an Indian soldier Friday during a gunbattle near the ceasefire Line of Control (LoC) that splits Kashmir between India and Pakistan, police said. "The soldier was killed during a gunbattle with militants near the LoC," a police spokesman said. Police said the fighting took place in Kalaroos area of the Kupwara district, bordering the Pakistani-portion of Kashmir. Last week Indian troops shot dead a dozen militants along the heavily-militarised LoC after they infiltrated into Indian Kashmir.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and funding Kashmiri rebels, a charge Islamabad denies. Both claim the region in full and have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over it. But since January 2004 they have been engaged in a peace process to resolve all their pending issues, including Kashmir. Kashmir has been in the grip of the insurgency since 1989 that has left more than 44,000 people dead. Also on Friday suspected rebels killed a former colleague by slitting his throat in southern Pulwama district, police said. The former rebel had previously surrendered to Indian troops.
Kashmir Negotiation
Simulation
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here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
UN mediator seeks concessions on Kosovo
Agence France
Presse, 7/6/06
A UN mediator Thursday urged Serbia and the administration of Kosovo to make concessions in order to speed up negotiations on the future status of the disputed Serbian province. Albert Rohan, UN deputy chief negotiator to the talks, said the time had come for the "negotiations to be successful" and urged both sides to "make compromises and concessions." Rohan was speaking at the end of a two-day visit to the UN-administered Kosovo. Legally still a province of Serbia, Kosovo has been run by the United Nations and NATO since 1999, when the alliance's air strikes ended a crackdown by forces loyal to then Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic against Albanian separatists.
The UN-sponsored talks on Kosovo's future status began in February, but have produced no concrete results so far. The leaders of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority are pushing for independence, a demand the Serbian government firmly opposes. Rohan, who has chaired six rounds of talks between the two delegations focusing mainly on technical and practical issues, appealed to the Kosovo leadership to be "more forthcoming," in an effort to improve the rights situation of the Serb minority living in Kosovo. During his stay, the Austrian diplomat visited six Serbian villages in the province, as well as the Serb Orthodox Decani Monastery in western Kosovo. Rohan said the two delegations would meet two more times in July, before high-level talks, probably between top Serbian and Kosovo leaders, at the end of the month.
Mammoth Kosovo trial to start Monday at UN war crimes court
Stephanie van den Berg, Agence France Presse, 7/8/06
A mammoth war crimes trial starts at the UN warcrimes court in the Hague on Monday of six top Serbian officials, including former president Milan Milutinovic, accused of atrocities committed by Serb troops during the 1998-99 crackdown on Kosovo. Following the death of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in March the case has become pivotal for establishing what happened in Serbia's mainly ethnic-Albanian province of Kosovo from a legal point of view. That is because much of the evidence that will be presented is expected to be similar to the prosecution's Kosovo case in the Milosevic trial. The former Yugoslav president died suddenly on March 11 and his trial, the first to deal with the alleged Serb atrocities committed during the Kosovo war, was closed without the judges ruling on the evidence presented.
The men on trial Monday are accused of forming a joint criminal enterprise with Milosevic aimed at changing Kosovo's ethnic make-up "to ensure continued Serbian control over the province". In the dock alongside ex-Serbian president Milutinovic will be the former Serbian prime minister Nikola Sainovic, two former Yugoslav army chiefs of staff -- generals Dragoljub Ojdanic and Nebojsa Pavkovic -- and generals Vladimir Lazarevic and Sreten Lukic. They face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the forced deportation of some 800,000 Kosovo Albanian civilians, the murder of hundreds of Kosovo Albanians, including women and children, sexual assaults by the Serb troops and the destruction of Kosovo Albanian religious sites.
All six men are accused of having planned and ordered the crimes committed by the Serb troops in Kosovo and also of not acting to stop the atrocities or punish the perpetrators. They have all pleaded not guilty to the charges. Another former Serbian general Vlastimir Djordjevic was initially indicted along with the other six but he is still on the run. Milutinovic, Sainovic, Ojdanic, Pavkovic, Lazarevic and Lukic had been provisionally released awaiting the start of their trial but have all returned to the UN detention centre here this week, the press office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said. The Serb crackdown on Kosovo left hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians internally displaced or fleeing the province to neighbouring countries like Albania and Macedonia. The world was shocked by the images of columns of dishevelled Kosovo Albanians arriving at the borders who told stories of raided villages, burned homes and Serb brutality.
Then Yugoslav president Milosevic and Serb authorities have always maintained they were were taking legitimate action against the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which they branded a terrorist group. In March 1999 after peace talks collapsed, NATO launched airstrikes against targets in Serbia and Kosovo to force the Serb troops to retreat. The prosecutors argue that in the wake of the bombing the Serb troops stepped up their terror campaign against the Kosovo Albanians, and tried to blame the following mass exodus of civilians on NATO. In June 1999 the bombing stopped after an agreement was reached with the Serb and Yugoslav troops in Kosovo to withdraw. Legally Kosovo remains a province of Serbia but it is now run by the United Nations and NATO. In February of this year UN-sponsored talks on Kosovo's future status began, but so far the negotiations have produced no concrete results. The Kosovo Albanians are pushing for independence.
Kosovo Negotiation
Simulation
Click
here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
SLeone court frees US ex-soldier accused of plotting Taylor jailbreak
Agence France Presse, 7/5/06
A Sierra Leone court has freed a retired US marine who was accused of plotting to spring Liberia's ex-leader Charles Taylor from jail, a court official said Wednesday. American Michael Chemidlin -- a retired marine staff sergeant -- and Sierra Leoneans Felix Rogers and Collins Koroma were released Tuesday after a magistrate dropped the espionage charges against them. They were arrested in May after being caught photographing the UN-backed Special Court in Freetown. The prosecution accused them trying to "rescue" Taylor, who was being held there then for war crimes charges. The men were facing charges of "engaging in a purpose prejudicial to the interest of Sierra Leone" by taking pictures without permission of the complex where Taylor along with other war crimes suspects were held.
But magistrate Sam Margai, dropping charges against the trio, said "there is no notice anywhere around the court that forbids photographs being taken." In a ruling seen by AFP Wednesday, the magistrate also said the charges for which the men were on trial "is not in the constitution of Sierra Leone." "The charges are therefore null and void," the magistrate said. The three were first arrested on April 29 trying to take pictures of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone where Taylor was held until two weeks ago, when he was transferred to The Hague. They were freed days later by a different magistrate on similar grounds on which they have been released. The next day they were re-arrested after prosecution altered charges against them. One prosecutor during the proceedings had branded Chemidlin a "terrorist".
Macedonia votes in poll seen as vital to EU, NATO bids
Agence France Presse, 7/5/06
Macedonia votes Wednesday in parliamentary elections seen as vital for the Balkan country's bid for European Union and NATO integration after a campaign marred by violence. The poll is also a key test for the Ohrid peace agreement that averted a civil war five years ago between the majority Macedonian Slavs and ethnic Albanians who represent about a quarter of the country's two million people. Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski is seeking a second term in the vote but has been trailing in opinion polls to an opposition that says his multi-ethnic coalition government has done little for Macedonia's impoverished economy.
Wednesday's vote, in which some 1.7 million voters will cast their ballots for 120 members of parliament, is Macedonia's fourth general election in the decade since the country gained independence from the former Yugoslavia. Polling stations open across Macedonia at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) and voting will end at 7:00 pm, with preliminary results expected 12 hours later, according to the State Electoral Commission. Nearly 7,000 monitors, including almost 500 foreigners, will be on hand to observe the vote which the international community has demanded must be free and fair. Since independence in 1991, most Macedonian elections have been tainted by allegations of intimidation and vote-rigging. In an address to the nation on Monday, President Branko Crvenkovski underlined the "great responsibility" of political parties, calling on them to ensure the elections "are free and fair and that Wednesday is a peaceful day".
The weeks leading up to the election were marred by violence mainly between two rival ethnic Albanian parties, including the shooting of an Albanian leader 12 days ago outside his home in the tense western town of Tetovo. The government of Buckovski, who heads the formerly communist Social Democratic Union (SDSM) party, includes the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) party of former Albanian guerrilla commander Ali Ahmeti. Ahmeti was a founder of the rebel National Liberation Army that fought Skopje forces during a seven-month conflict in 2001 that was ended by European Union and NATO intervention. Under the Ohrid peace accords, Ahmeti and other Albanian guerrilla leaders were granted amnesty on the condition they lay down their arms after capturing large swathes of western Macedonia. Buckovski says his government deserves another mandate for stabilising Macedonia since taking over in 2002 and bringing the country to the doorstep or the European Union. Macedonia was granted EU candidate status in December last year, but Brussels is yet to set a date for the opening of its accession talks. It also hopes to join NATO in 2008. But the leader of the main opposition VMRO-DPMNE, Nikola Gruevski, has a slight lead in recent opinion polls on an economic plaform for Macedonia, where unemployment runs at over 36 percent.
Macedonia Prime Minister Concedes Defeat
Veselin
Toshkov, Associated Press, 7/6/06
Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski conceded defeat Thursday to the nationalist opposition in Macedonia's parliamentary elections, a vote considered crucial for the tiny Balkan nation's aspirations to join the European Union and NATO. Sounding like a winner, Nikola Gruevski thanked his VMRO-DPMNE party supporters and said he would begin efforts to put together a coalition on Friday. "The top priority of the government will be integration into the EU. Our government will focus on improving the economic situation, to fight corruption and crime and raise the standard of living," he said. With 36 percent of the ballots counted, the VMRO-DPMNE party had 33 percent of the vote, while Buckovski's ruling Social Democrats had 24 percent, according to preliminary results released by the State Electoral Commission.
"I called Nikola Gruevski to congratulate him with his election victory," Buckovski told his supporters in a televised speech just after midnight. Gruevski, a former finance minister, was quick to claim victory, with pledges to get to work on repairing the economy. The tense electoral campaign was marred by violence including shoot-outs and a grenade attack between supporters of rival ethnic Albanian parties that left at least three people wounded. But Wednesday's voting passed off peacefully, and the prime minister cheered it as a "victory for Macedonia" despite his apparent loss. "We have said that we will be satisfied if we have a free and peaceful election, if we pass this test.
We had an exceptionally good election and this is victory for Macedonia," Buckovski said. Past polls have been marred by irregularities, and President Branko Crvenkovski had urged a free and fair vote in a country struggling to ease tensions between majority Macedonian Slavs and the ethnic Albanian minority, which makes up about a quarter of the nation's population. Parliament recently tightened voting rules and imposed severe penalties for ballot-rigging. After the VMRO-DPMNE declared victory, hundreds of its supporters poured into the central square of the capital, Skopje, waving party flags, singing and playing traditional Macedonian instruments. Celebratory gunfire rang out across the city. The VMRO-DPMNE, which led Macedonia's government from 1998-2002, has sought to moderate some of its hard-line positions, pledging more cooperation with the nation's ethnic Albanians. Its defeat in the 2002 election threw the party into chaos, resulting in the departure of some of its more radical leaders. Party spokesman Vlatko Gjorcev said its representatives monitoring the vote at polling stations had tallied 51 percent for the party, giving it 55 seats in the 120-member parliament. Without a majority, Gruevski would have to form a governing coalition. During Buckovski's premiership, the European Union accepted Macedonia as a candidate for membership, but the bloc has not set a date for entry negotiations. Macedonia hopes to join NATO in 2008 and the EU in 2012. Buckovski's multiethnic ruling coalition came under fire for failing to provide jobs and improve living standards. Fifteen years after Macedonia split peacefully from Yugoslavia, the economy remains stagnant and unemployment stands at a crippling 36 percent.
Eight people killed, 46 injured in bus blast in separatist
Trans-Dniester
Corneliu Rusnac, Associated Press, 7/6/06
An explosion ripped apart a small civilian bus in the Moldovan separatist republic of Trans-Dniester early Thursday, killing eight people and injuring 46, the republic's official Olvia Pres news agency said. The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. But a separatist official suggested that a passenger linked to criminal groups might have been carrying a bomb that went off accidentally, according to Russian news agency RIA Novosti. The Moldovan government has accused the separatists of trafficking weapons, a charge they have denied.
Trans-Dniester officials do not deny they have small criminal groups, but they reject claims that authorities are involved in smuggling. Thursday's blast, at a traffic light in the Trans-Dniester capital Tiraspol, blew off the roof and sides of the bus, which carried 12 passengers. Eight were killed and four badly injured, the private news agency Lenta PNR said. The roof was blown 100 meters (yards) in the explosion, Lenta PNR said. Most of the injured were passers-by, and 10 were passengers on another bus hit by the impact of the blast, Lenta PNR said, citing Interior Ministry investigators. The windows of that bus were blown out. More than half the injured were seriously hurt, Olvia quoted Tiraspol prosecutor Ivan Lesukov as saying.
Oleg Beleakov, the separatists' deputy interior minister, was quoted as telling RIA Novosti that a passenger might have been carrying a bomb meant for a commando killing between criminal business groups, and it might have exploded accidentally on the bus. Moldovan authorities have offered their help in the investigation, the separatist Interior Ministry spokeswoman Ala Meleca said. Moldova has had tense relations with Trans-Dniester since the separatists broke away in 1992 with Russian support, after a war that left more than 1,500 people dead. An uneasy peace has dominated the region since then, and there have not been outbreaks of violence. The province, which borders Ukraine, is not recognized internationally. Moldova's relations also have soured with Russia, which keeps about 1,500 troops in the region to guard large stockpiles of weapons and ammunition left over from the Soviet Army presence. Among the injured in Thursday's blast were two Russian peacekeepers, one on each bus, Beleakov was quoted as saying.
The European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have said they were concerned that the Trans-Dniester border was a conduit for illegal goods, drugs, stolen cars and illegal immigrants making their way into Ukraine and, in some cases, on to the EU. There have been isolated incidents involving weapons in Trans-Dniester, but nothing as serious as an explosion like the blast in Tiraspol on Thursday. In April, two women were detained for selling Russian grenades at the market in Tiraspol. The following month, a man was detained for transporting grenades and other weapons in a truck. On June 24, a grenade exploded, killing a 28-year-old man. Authorities said it was probably suicide.
Nepal seeks U.N. support in peace process with communist
rebels
Binaj Gurubacharya, Associated Press, 7/6/06
Nepal has sent a letter to the United Nations asking it to support the country's peace process aimed at ending civil war with communist insurgents, the U.N. said in a statement on Thursday. The letter, received earlier this week from Nepal's government, was sent to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, the statement issued in Nepal said. Details of the letter were not released, but both the government and the Maoist rebels agreed last month to allow the army and the guerrilla fighters to be placed under U.N. supervision. The decision was reached during a June 16 meeting between Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koira and rebel leader Prachanda, who goes by only one name. The rebels declared a cease-fire and entered peace talks in April as a new government took office in the wake of weeks of protests that forced King Gyanendra to give up his authoritarian rule. A key demand of the rebels has been the dissolution of Nepal's constitutional monarchy. The next round of peace talks scheduled for this week has been delayed after Koirala was hospitalized with possible pneumonia.
Constitution framers in Nepal begin work after
delay
Agence France Presse, 7/6/06
The committee
drafting Nepal's interim constitution that will pave the way for rebel Maoists
to join a power-sharing government has finally begun its work, an official said
Thursday. The committee was supposed to start drafting the new document two
weeks ago but was awaiting approval from government, which was considering
increasing its size to nine people. In the end, the government decided to keep
the committee at just six members, said Laxman Prasad Aryal, coordinator of the
committee. "We were asked to start our formal work without inducting new
members," he said, adding, "We received terms of reference from the talks team
of the government and the Maoists (who) asked us to begin our work from
Thursday." On June 16, the rebels and the recently reinstated government made a
landmark power-sharing agreement that would see the rebels join an interim
government after the interim constitution had been drafted. "The committee has
been given a mandate to draft the interim constitution in the next 15 days and
we are hopeful that it will be completed within the stipulated time," said
Aryal, a former supreme court justice.
The interim constitution, he said, would clarify the position of the king, recommend an alternative body to parliament, and announce the date for constituent assembly elections. "Once the interim constitution is drafted it will be handed over to the government-Maoists talks team for approval," Aryal said. Since King Gyanendra was forced to end 14 months of direct rule in April, the new government has stripped him of most of his powers, including having any role in parliament and ending his supreme command of the 90,000 strong Nepal Army. Once deadly enemies, the rebels and sidelined political parties made a loose alliance in November last year. They worked in concert to organize mass pro- democracy protests that forced Gyanendra to climb down. The new government has also agreed to a key Maoist demand for elections for a constituent assembly that will redraft Nepal's constitution permanently, and most likely formally remove the king from politics. Since the rebels launched their "people's war" in 1996, at least 12,500 security personnel, rebels and civilians have been killed.
Nepal Negotiation
Simulation
Click
here to access the Nepal Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
Philippines to pursue offensive against communist rebels
Agence France Presse, 7/5/06
The Philippines will pursue a "legal and military offensive" against communist rebels, but the government could resume peace talks under certain conditions, its chief negotiator said Wednesday. "We informed them that we are on a legal and military offensive against the Communist Party of the Philippines and as facilitators, they respect the position we are taking," negotiator Jesus Dureza said after a trip to Norway. Oslo has been brokering inconclusive peace talks with the CPP, which with its armed wing has waged an insurgency since 1969. The talks have been suspended since 2004. Manila has advised Norway that "there is no change" in the status of the peace talks, Dureza said after talks with Norwegian foreign ministry officials. "We still have to discuss this at a policy level," Dureza said, adding Norway was "informed and they know that the talks now are stalled... and they understand the current situation in the Philippines." He said "the doors to peace are open" but formal negotiations can only resume if the rebels agreed to certain conditions. Dureza did not elaborate on those terms. Top rebel leaders flew to Oslo separately from their Netherlands base earlier this week to urge the Norwegians to encourage Manila to return to the negotiating table. Meanwhile President Gloria Arroyo said she would shortly issue an order to improve coordination among the military and police "as we run to the ground the armed core of the terrorist left." "The PNP (police) and AFP (armed forces) will put an end to the so-called revolutionary taxation and see to it that those being forced to yield will be protected against NPA retaliation," Arroyo said, referring to extortion activities by the NPA. Peace talks were suspended in 2004 after the rebels demanded that Manila ask the European Union and the United States to remove them from their lists of foreign terrorist organizations. The military in recent months has launched counter-attacks against NPA positions in the countryside amid claims by the guerrillas that their ranks are swelling. CPP founder Jose Maria Sison then said the rebels would not sit down for talks until Arroyo was either replaced or forced to step down. Arroyo's chief aide Eduardo Ermita on Wednesday said the rebels were using the peace talks as "a gimmick to buy time for whatever is their objective". The government must see sincerity from the rebels if talks are to resume, Ermita said.
Two communist guerrillas slain, three captured in Philippines
Agence France Presse, 7/8/06
Two communist guerrillas were slain while three others were captured in separate operations by the Philippine military, officials said on Saturday. Troops overran a camp of the communist New People's Army (NPA) in the central island of Samar on Thursday, resulting in the deaths of two rebels, an army statement said. Two rifles and a laptop computer were recovered from the scene. On Saturday, another army unit raided a suspected NPA safehouse in the central island of Leyte, capturing three rebels along with three M16 rifles and a revolver, military officials said. The raids came after Philippine President Gloria Arroyo on Friday ruled out renewed peace talks with communist rebels unless they agreed to an immediate nationwide ceasefire. The military in recent months has launched counter-attacks against positions of the 7,400-member NPA in provinces around Manila. The NPA has been waging a 37-year Maoist insurgency in rural areas of this country. The communists have been pushing for a revival of the peace talks, even asking Norway, the former mediator, to help re-start the negotiations. Peace talks between the government and the communists were suspended in 2004 after the rebels demanded that Manila ask the European Union and the United States to remove them from their lists of foreign terrorist organizations.
Montenegro hopes to sign pre-entry deal with EU by end of year, PM
says
Associated Press, 7/7/06
Montenegro's prime minister expressed hope Friday that his Balkan republic will conclude a pre-entry agreement with the European Union by the end of the year, while an EU envoy called for reforms before the deal can be signed. "We hope to continue being a success story in the western Balkans ... and that we can sign the (pre-membership) Stabilization and Association Agreement by the end of 2006," said Milo Djukanovic, who has led his tiny Adriatic state to independence from Serbia. He spoke after talks with EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, who reiterated that Brussels is now handling pre-membership talks separately with Serbia and with Montenegro, following their formal separation in May when the shaky Serbia-Montenegro union was dissolved.
The European Commission is yet to formally clear a mandate for its representatives on forging the Stabilization and Association Agreement with Montenegro a stepping stone to possible membership. "I hope that EU member states will smoothly follow our proposal and be able to adopt this mandate as early as September," after which the pre-entry deal could be concluded, Rehn said. "Montenegro will have to work quickly and effectively to build up its state administration ... which is key for the progress on the road to the European Union," Rehn added. "Independence implies more responsibility." While Serbia's efforts to join the 25-nation bloc remain blocked over its failure to arrest Gen. Ratko Mladic the fugitive Bosnian Serb wartime commander sought by the U.N. war crimes tribunal Montenegro has no such obstacles. "Montenegro's government and the parliament must assure the reforms proceed especially in the critical areas such as judiciary reforms and fight against corruption and against organized crime," Rehn said.
Montenegro prepares to inaugurate its
independence
Agence France Presse, 7/8/06
Montenegro, Europe's newest country, will next week formally inaugurate its independence after voting to split from Serbia, officials said Saturday. President Filip Vujanovic will host the central ceremony in Podgorica on Thursday evening following the May 21 referendum in which a majority of voters decided to split from Serbia. Leaders of neighboring countries, once members of the communist Yugoslav federation, will gather in Podgorica on July 13, an official in Vujanovic's cabinet told AFP. The presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers of all countries that have recognized independent Montenegro have also been invited to attend. Several more ceremonies are planned for July 13, already a public holiday to mark the anniversary of Montenegro's independence 1878 and also the anniversary of the country's uprising against German and Italian occupation during World War II. Montenegro proclaimed its independence on June 3 following a referendum in which more than 55 percent supported separation from Serbia. Until the referendum Serbia and Montenegro were last two former Yugoslav republics to have stayed together since the bloody break up of the federation in early 1990. The European Union, the United States, Russia and China have all recognized Montenegro as a new state and announced that diplomatic ties would be established soon.
Somali Islamists kill World Cup fans, peacekeeping talks start
Agence France Presse, 7/5/06
Islamist gunmen in Somalia killed two people protesting a ban on watching the World Cup, underscoring mounting radicalism as talks on the possible deployment of foreign peacekeepers began Wednesday. Witnesses said the pair were shot and killed late Tuesday when soccer fans barred by Islamists from watching the semi-final match between Germany and Italy complained at the prohibition in the central Galgadud region. Militia loyal to Somalia's increasingly powerful Sharia courts fired first into the air to break up the crowd watching the game on satellite television at the cinema, sparking protests from viewers, they said. "They closed the hall and forced viewers to go home but this angered everybody and prompted a demonstration," one witness told AFP. Witnesses said the gunmen then opened fire on the crowd to quell the protest in Galgadud's Dhusomareb district, killing the cinema owner and a young girl. "They said they will not allow any cinema to operate," said one.
Islamists who seized Mogadishu and several provincial towns last month from US-backed warlords have begun enforcing strict Sharia law in parts of areas under their control, including bans on cinemas and television. World Cup broadcasts, in particular, have drawn their ire with clerics arguing that some elements, notably advertisements for alcoholic beverages, are evil. At least two people were killed in the capital last month during a protest similar to the one in Galgadud, where the Islamists' hardline supreme leader, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, is now setting up new Sharia courts. The incident came as African and Arab officials visited the seat of Somalia's largely powerless government and began assessing the possible deployment of foreign peacekeepers over fierce Islamist opposition.
A team of about 30 military experts and diplomats from the African Union (AU), the Arab League and the east African Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) began talks with the government in Baidoa, officials said. The group met president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, prime minister Ali Mohamed Gedi and parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, all of whom spoke of the need for regional troops to be sent to the lawless nation, the government said. "We made it very clear there is an urgent need to deploy peacekeepers in Somalia to assist this government," spokesman Abdirahman Mohamed Nur Dinari told AFP from Baidoa, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu. The team is expected to visit five regions in Somalia, but it remained unclear Wednesday whether it would visit Mogadishu, the headquarters of the Islamists. Gedi wants peacekeepers in five regions -- Bay, Bakol, Gedo, Hiraan and Puntland -- but Sudan and Uganda, the only two countries who have agreed to send troops, are reluctant to deploy outside Baidoa, officials say.
Potential participants have also been put off by continued violence and instability in Somalia as well as the UN Security Council's refusal thus far to lift a 14-year-old arms embargo to ease the deployment. The government, which has been hamstrung by internal disputes and unable to assert control over much of the country, is based in Baidoa due to insecurity in the capital, which was seized last month by the Islamists. The Islamists want to impose strict Sharia law across the country and have vowed to resist the deployment of any foreign troops on Somali soil, particularly from Ethiopia, which they accuse of hostile meddling. Despite a recognition pact signed in Sudan between the government and the Islamists and new talks expected to begin in Khartoum on July 15, analysts say the Muslim's growing power base poses a serious challenge to the government.
The government, formed in neighboring Kenya in 2004, is the latest in a series of in more than a dozen attempts to restore stability to Somalia, which was plunged into chaos with the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre. The Horn of Africa nation of some 10 million has been in throes of anarchy without a functioning central authority since then and the Islamists have moved to fill the power vacuum by restoring some order in areas they control. But their rise is seen by many as threat, including some in the government and the United States, which accuses them of harboring Al-Qaeda terror suspects and other extremists, and backed an alliance of warlords against them.
Somalia's U.N.-backed government struggles in shadow of Islamic
militia
Chris Tomlinson, Associated Press, 7/7/06
In an old grain warehouse spruced up with posters and vinyl flooring, Somalia's president and prime minister watched the swearing in of a regional governor this week, an event that looked like a small step toward government control of this anarchic country. In reality, though, the U.N.-backed leaders' authority barely extends beyond their makeshift parliament building. An Islamic militia that has vowed to bring a Quran-based government and justice system to Somalia has begun setting up local administrations across most of the country. The militia even has elements here in the home of the official government: Baidoa has a recruiting station for the fighters, who control the capital, Mogadishu, and much of the south. "If you want to join the Islamic courts militia, you can sign up in that office right over there and they will take you for training in Mogadishu," said Adam Nunow Ali, a 40-year-old school teacher, pointing toward a storefront on Baidoa's main street. "They have many agents in Baidoa." The militia's hard-line leader is a longtime bitter rival of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, whose transitional government signed a nonaggression agreement with the Islamic fighters in Khartoum, Sudan last month.
Talks between the two sides are scheduled to begin in Sudan on July 15. Many Somalis worry about what will happen if those talks break down. Because his government has no army, Ahmed has called for foreign peacekeepers to provide him military muscle in a country where every clan has its own militia. He has also called on the Islamic council to disarm and respect the secular transitional constitution. Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, who leads the council and has battled Yusuf in one way or another for the last 15 years, has called for a holy war if foreign troops enter Somalia. He has insisted on an Islamic government for a country that is nearly 100 percent Muslim. "We believe it will tear us apart," Ali, the school teacher, said of the difference in goals for Somalia's future. "Then there will be chaos." A recruitment video obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday showed Arab fighters alongside Somali Islamic militiamen, and encouraged more Arab Islamic extremists to join the fighters loyal to the Islamic courts. And in tapes attributed to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, Somalia is portrayed as a battleground in his global war on the United States. Some Somalis in Baidoa said that they want the Islamic courts to replace the government. "I support those individuals who are trying to impose Islamic law," said Osman Ahmed Osman, speaking in Arabic to avoid being arrested by the president's Somali-speaking militia. The government currently depends mostly on international funding channeled through U.N. agencies. The U.N. Development Program, which has spent more than $7 million to support the government, helped refurbish police stations in Baidoa and the warehouse-turned-parliament, which features vinyl flooring and posters for mobile phone companies. But the government also wants guns and troops to go with them. Somalia remains under a U.N. arms embargo and the international community has so far moved slowly on those requests. The government's top police officer, Brig. Gen. Ali Hassan, confirmed that the government currently cannot defend itself and that his force has yet to take authority from clan-based militias, even in Baidoa. He echoed Yusuf's call for foreign troops to prop up the government, especially since Islamic radicals are active in Baidoa. "They have their elements, they can recruit, they can infiltrate the Baidoa community," Hassan said. Yusuf's personal militia has new Chinese-made assault rifles, which a U.N. report says were supplied by Ethiopia. Ethiopia has also deployed thousands of troops to its border with Somalia, apparently poised to cross over to protect Yusuf from attack. Aweys has accused Ethiopia of sending troops into Somali border towns and uses such reports to rally support in Mogadishu, where hatred for Ethiopia runs high. Islamic fundamentalists have supported separatist groups in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government has supported the Somali Islamists' rivals with guns and money to keep them from taking power.
Tigers accuse Sri Lanka of preparing for war
Agence
France Presse, 7/5/06
Tamil Tiger rebels run a de facto state in this northern town, but face increasing isolation and deadly battles with the Sri Lankan government which they contend is preparing for war. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been stung by a ban slapped on them by the 25-member European Union in May, and fought back by demanding the removal of truce monitors from Nordic nations that supported the move. The ban, which labels the LTTE as a terrorist group, makes it difficult to raise funds from the Tamil diaspora in Europe. After demanding that monitors from Denmark, Finland and Sweden quit by September 1, the LTTE's political wing leader, S.P. Thamilselvan said that it was the Sri Lankan government which was escalating violence. "The government invariably seems to be adamant in not fulfilling its obligations and letting (the ceasefire) rot, and then going to a military solution," Thamilselvan said in an interview with AFP here earlier this week. The Tigers maintain their own police, courts and a civil administration here but civil servants continue to be paid by the Sri Lankan government for delivering services to the Tamil minority living in rebel-held territory.
Since the new Colombo government of President Mahinda Rajapakse came to power in November, the Tigers have been accused of escalating attacks which have led to the deaths of at least 830 people according to an official count. The Sri Lankan government as well as Sri Lanka's main international backers, the US, EU and Japan have asked the Tigers to scale down the attacks and return to the negotiating table they left in April 2003. However, Thamilselvan insists that it is the Sri Lankan government which is to blame. He argues that the international community has been misled by Colombo and added that the security situation was "worsening everyday." The killings and other reported atrocities have occurred despite a 2002 ceasefire brokered between Colombo and the LTTE and put in place by peace broker Norway. "The government of Sri Lanka and its security forces have not demonstrated a will when it comes to the implementation of the ceasefire," Thamilselvan said, speaking through an interpreter. Recent arms purchases, training exercises and small-scale military operations "seriously indicate the government is pushing the situation towards a war," he said. Both the Tigers and government have warned of a return to full-scale war, and blamed the other for provoking it as civilian deaths mount in tit-for-tat killings. The Sri Lankan military has hit back using supersonic bombers and artillery after the Tiger rebels were held responsible for suicide bomb attacks against top military officers and mine attacks against civilians. Thamilselvan put particular blame on "paramilitary" groups he said have been let loose by the army on a terrified public while the government feigns peace moves. "These groups are still active" despite being prohibited under the ceasefire, he said. "They are creating problems -- they come and kill at random, killing women, children, raping." "All of that is still going on while the ceasefire agreement is in operation."
Ceasefire monitors have also cast doubt over the truce, and their role in the peace process remains uncertain The five Nordic nations which provide staff for the 57-member Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) held a meeting in Oslo last week to consider their future engagement, but failed to end the deadlock. The chief negotiator for Northern Ireland's main Roman Catholic party, Sinn Fein, travelled here Monday and was quoted by the Tigers as saying that the EU ban on the guerrillas was a "huge mistake." Martin McGuinness, the first European politician to visit the region after the EU ban, discussed the "present state of" Sri Lanka's faltering peace bid, the LTTE said in a statement as others shunned the group. Sri Lanka has slapped an unofficial ban on foreign dignitaries visiting the Tigers after the group was held responsible for the August 2005 assassination of foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar. The EU put the Tigers on notice after the slaying and in May decided the slap a full-blown ban arguing that it might encourage the Tigers to rethink their use of violence and return the to the table.
Sri Lanka Negotiation
Simulation
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International Law & Policy Group.
In Darfur, little has changed since peace deal was signed
Shashank Bengali, Knight Ridder, 7/6/06
KASSAB, Sudan _ Don't ask Ibrahim Rahma about the peace agreement for Darfur. Where he sits, in this camp where thousands displaced by the war in western Sudan now live in tumbledown wooden shacks, there is no peace. Here, the 38-year-old sheik said, stick-legged children still subsist on rationed food, and the water wells often run dry. Armed men still terrorize people. Two nights earlier, gunshots rang out in the nearby hills. "You cannot just say there is peace. You have to see it," said Rahma, seated under a billowing gum tree surrounded by two dozen other weary-faced sheiks. Across the vast, unforgiving desert of western Sudan, little has changed in the two months since the Sudanese government signed a much-celebrated peace agreement with the biggest Darfur rebel force to end a war that has claimed an estimated 200,000 lives. The violence that has forced 2.4 million people from their homes continues, though the worst fighting now appears to be among rival rebel groups who rose up against Sudan's Arab-led government in 2003 on behalf of Darfur's marginalized African tribes.
The rebels' original enemy, Arab militias known as the janjaweed, which Sudan unleashed to fight the uprising, also are still here, looting and occasionally killing villagers in an ongoing scorched-earth campaign that the Bush administration has labeled genocide. The long, complex process of disarming the janjaweed, the linchpin for peace, has already missed its first deadlines. Overseeing the agreement are 7,000 overwhelmed African Union troops, who don't have the authority to punish violations. The United Nations wants to send its own, stronger mission next year, but Sudan's president, who denies any wrongdoing in Darfur, said last month that would "never, ever happen." At the end of June, the U.N. envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, suggested that the deal might be doomed. "There is a significant risk that the Darfur Peace Agreement will collapse," Pronk wrote on his blog www.janpronk.nl. "On the ground, especially amongst the displaced persons, it meets more and more resistance." That the deal is already on life-support is a major disappointment for international efforts to end what the U.N. has called the world's gravest humanitarian crisis. In May, diplomatic heavyweights led by then-deputy U.S. Secretary of State Robert Zoellick pressed Sudan and the rebels toward agreement in a week of feverish negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria. But at the last minute, with Sudan and rebel leader Minni Minnawi ready to sign, a rival faction led by Abdol Wahid al Nur pulled out. Analysts welcomed Minnawi's endorsement at the time because he had the biggest military force, but support among his field commanders is eroding. Increasingly isolated, Minnawi shuns interviews and spends less time in Darfur, people here say.
Since the agreement, Zoellick has left the State Department, leaving the U.S. without a point man in the peace process. "The U.S. provided important leverage and diplomatic initiative to the process, got one rebel group to sign a deal that (the government) was ecstatic about and then bailed," said John Prendergast, a senior adviser to the International Crisis Group, a Belgium-based think tank that tracks international conflicts. "The aftermath of that premature departure has been disastrous, as the other rebel groups have only grown in support and resources, at the expense of the faction that signed." Nur's refusal to sign is proving especially vexing. He's a member of Darfur's largest tribe, the Fur, and his followers comprise about two-thirds of the people displaced by the war. Nur "is widely regarded as the person who represents the aspirations of so many Darfurians," said Alex de Waal, an Africa expert who advised the African Union on the peace process.
"Simply because he hasn't signed, the people don't like it." Many are also skeptical of government pledges to rehabilitate their long-neglected homeland, where life was pre-modern even before the war began. The agreement promises $700 million from the government over three years for reconstruction and $30 million to compensate "war-affected persons" _ amounts that appear to be dwarfed by the devastation here. Up and down Darfur's sandy moonscape, village after village sits empty. In some, the charred, crumbling shells of mud huts are chilling reminders of janjaweed raids. Other villages, abandoned in fear, appear intact but eerily empty, seemingly frozen in an early morning stillness. Potable water, proper schools and other services are urgent needs, residents said. "There are no medicines in our clinics. We have no education," said Mohammadein Garelnabi, a commander allied with Nur who lives in the rebel-held village of Hashaba, deep in the hills of northern Darfur. "This agreement doesn't do anything for the basic rights of the people here." Analysts say the disarmament provisions are the agreement's weakest link because they rely on total cooperation from Sudan's government _ which has maintained that the conflict is tribal and that the janjaweed aren't under its control _ and on robust monitoring by the undermanned African Union.
"There will be no disarmament of the janjaweed under the existing plan, which is too weak to sustain such a difficult process," Prendergast said. Within days of the signing, numerous new attacks were reported. On May 15, according to local accounts, 11 villagers were killed in janjaweed raids in the area around Kassab. Sheiks here said anyone who ventures outside the camp risks being attacked. Women must go to collect firewood, however, so in recent weeks an African Union convoy has traveled with them. "The janjaweed continue to be a menace," said Col. Richard Lourens, commander of the African Union force in the neighboring town of Kutum. "They tend to pop up anywhere. They hinder and harass. ... They believe they can move with impunity." With the ongoing violence, basic humanitarian aid doesn't reach about a third of people who need it. Much of western Darfur is a no-go zone for aid workers, and throughout the region white SUVs emblazoned with aid agencies' logos are sporadically hijacked by janjaweed and rebels alike. According to the agreement, Sudan was to present a complete disarmament plan by late June, and the African Union was to establish demilitarized zones for aid convoys to travel more freely.
Those deadlines came and went. Without progress on disarmament, the peace deal _ and the African Union _ seem to lose credibility in Darfur with each passing day. In a meeting last week, when the sheiks of Kassab told a visiting journalist that they hadn't read the agreement, an African Union officer volunteered to bring them a copy printed in Arabic. The sheiks waved their hands dismissively. Rahma, among the youngest in the group, spoke up. "We need security," he said. "We don't need to see any papers."
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis
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Group.