Contents:
President also asserts that Azerbaijan is politically
superior to Armenia and will not accept a resolution that is not in the
country's national interests.
Defense minister
says that Azerbaijan not interested in continuing talks to settle the conflict.
Government and FNL trade blame
for the stalled
negotiations.
Security Council
votes unanimously to replace peacekeeping mission with U.N office to promote
development and democracy.
New Chechen rebel
leader appoints wanted terrorist as vice president
Move signals further radicalization of Chechen
rebel movement.
13 killed in
violence on first day of Congo election campaign
Demonstrators attacked and killed one soldier; troops
retaliated by firing on the crowd, killing 12 civilians.
Georgian defense minister says parliament should
demand withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers
Removing troops from Abkhazia and South Ossetia,
Okruashvili says will lead to unity for the country.
Ivory Coast leader
changes position on AU support for polls
Gbagbo now says he does not expect AU summit to get
involved in pressing for scheduled elections.
10 killed in Kashmir violence
Six militants and a soldier died in two separate
incidents.
Kosovo
NATO beefs up security before Serbian PM's Kosovo
visit
Security includes new
checkpoints, secured by tanks and armored vehicles.
U.N. official: Kosovo's potential independence should
not be nightmare for Serbs
During farewell speech, Jessen-Petersen pleads with
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians.
NATO warns Macedonia
that poll violence could harm ties
NATO spokesman says violence not good for the
electoral process.
Macedonia votes in parliamentary elections
Key issues in 4th general
election are economy and EU and NATO membership.
Annan
meets with Moroccan prime minister
Palestinian territories,
Western Sahara and African migration were among key issues during the brief
visit.
Nepal's communist rebel leaders meet Indian,
Swedish diplomats
First such meeting since peace talks
began.
Nepal's
Maoist leader pledges no return to war
However says protests
still possible if talks break down.
US warns of
cutting aid to Nepal if rebels join government without giving up
arms
Rebel leader criticizes American threat.
World Briefing Asia:
The Philippines: Police Pawn Their Guns
Six police may lose
their jobs because of their actions.
Montenegro set to become the 192nd member of the
United Nations
Vote comes just
one month after vote for independence.
Montenegro court issues first ruling in favour of
Muslim refugees
Ruling will
compensate the family one of the refugees, who was illegally deported and later
killed in a prison camp with $57,500 dollars.
Islamists seek to
expand control across lawless Somalia
lslamist union said it would rule the Horn of Africa
nation, as well as the breakaway regions of Somaliland and
Puntland.
Tigers
destroy navy patrol boat: Sri Lanka military
However, no immediate report of
casualties.
Soldier killed in mortar bomb attack in Sri Lanka
Three others also wounded in
predawn attack.
African leaders hope to soften Sudan's stance on
UN force
AU insists that it
will continue with its plan to withdraw from Darfur.
Sudanese leader reiterates opposition to UN force in Darfur
While simultaneously praising good
relations with China.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis
Click here to access the PILPG
Report.
Azerbaijani leader: Economic strength to allow
advantageous resolution of disputed territory
Associated
Press, 6/29/06
Azerbaijan's rapidly growing economy would allow it to resolve the dispute with Armenia over the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh territory to its own advantage, Azerbaijan's president said Thursday. Ilham Aliev's comments were the latest in a series of increasingly aggressive statements on the mountainous territory, whose status remain unresolved more than a decade after a cease-fire ended six years of open conflict. Foreign ministers from the Group of 8 major industrialized nations, meeting in Moscow, called for prompt resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh's status and other lingering conflicts in the former Soviet Union. Nagorno-Karabakh is inside Azerbaijan, but is populated mostly by ethnic Armenians, who have run it and seven contiguous districts since an uneasy 1994 cease-fire ended six years of full-scale war. Sporadic border clashes regularly break out and the unresolved conflict has held up development in the strategic region.
Azerbaijan would not accept any resolution that "doesn't correspond to the country's national interests," Aliev said. "From a political viewpoint, Azerbaijan's superiority is evident, our military potential is also growing," he told a crowd in Ujar, 250 kilometers (155 miles) west of the capital, Baku. "As for the economy, we are five times stronger than Armenia now and in the near future our economic superiority will be increased by 10, 20 fold," he said. "I am fully confident that due to this we'll be able to settle the Karabakh problem to our advantage." "Azerbaijan is willing to solve the problem by peaceful means, but it will never reconcile with the loss of its territories," he said. Pushed by international mediators including France, the United States and Russia, Aliev and his Armenian counterpart, Robert Kocharian, have already met twice this year to try and agree on a resolution. Neither effort has yielded any results, though some observers have said the fact that the two presidents continue to meet was positive. Azerbaijan's economy has grown substantially in recent years as its vast Caspian Sea oil reserves have begun to be tapped. Aliev said last year that the country's military spending was set to double to nearly US$300 million in 2005. In Moscow, meanwhile, G-8 diplomats called for Armenia and Azerbaijan to reach an agreement this year on the territory. "We call on Azerbaijan and Armenia to show political will with the aim to reach an agreement this year and prepare their peoples for peace and not for war," the joint statement said.
Nagorno-Karabakh official accuses Azerbaijan of not
wanting to resolve dispute
Associated Press, 6/30/06
The defense minister of Nagorno-Karabakh on Friday accused Azerbaijan of resisting efforts to resolve the territory's disputed status. "Azerbaijan does not want (to see a) continuation of talks on regulating the conflict," said Seiran Oganian, who is defense minister in Nagorno-Karabakh's internationally unrecognized government. Nagorno-Karabakh is in Azerbaijan, but has been under control of Karabakh and Armenian forces since a shaky cease-fire in 1994 ended a separatist war. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan are under increasing international pressure to reach an agreement on the region this year; international mediators fear that elections in the countries in 2007 and 2008 would make officials leery of undertaking any compromise on the volatile issue. The presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia held talks in Romania in June, but without reaching agreement, and the OSCE "Minsk Group" of mediators later took the unusual step of releasing details about the proposals that were presented at the meeting. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev in recent months has made a series of increasingly aggressive statements on Nagorno-Karabakh. On Thursday, commenting on the region, he noted "our military potential is growing." Oganian said his forces are not seeking a renewal of armed conflict. "Nobody wants war, especially our soldiers because the first attack would be on them," he said.
Burundi peace talks still snagged: officials
Agence
France Presse, 6/27/06
Peace talks aimed at ending Burundi's 13-year civil war remained snagged Tuesday, with the government and country's last active rebel group trading blame for the deadlock. Despite the insistence of the lead South African mediator that negotiations were progressing as planned, and would result in a comprehensive settlement by a Sunday deadline, the two main parties to the talks said they were stalled. Delegates from Bujumbura and the National Liberation Forces (FNL) accused each other for the breakdown, which came to light on Monday when the rebels walked out of talks, complaining of threats from the South African mediators. At the same time, both sides said they did not expect the talks to resume until the lead mediator, South African Police Minister Charles Nqakula, returned to Tanzania.
"We find it difficult to justify our presence here," said Burundian delegation chief Brigidier General Lazare Nduwayo. "We are waiting for a response from the mediators." A senior Burundian negotiator, Melchiade Nzopfabarushe, said the FNL was solely responsible for the impasse because it had raised new and unreasonable demands, including that the army be disbanded and replaced with foreign troops. "That is unacceptable," he told AFP. "We are an elected government with the support of the people. "They are the ones who did not want to continue with the talks," Nzopfabarushe said, accusing the rebels of ignoring their June 18 commitment to forge a final ceasefire agreement within two weeks. "They put in new demands and have forgotten that they signed up to a principle that would lead us to a comprehensive ceasefire agreement within a two-week time frame." FNL spokesman Pasteur Habimana denied the rebels were throwing up hurdles to prevent the deadline from being met and demanded that Nqakula return from South Africa, where he has said for the past two days that the talks are going well. "As long as (he) is not here in person to steer the negotiations, we will not return to the negotiation table," Habimana said. "And, even then, he must explain to us why his colleagues threatened us before the resumption of the talks," he said, repeating a charge the mediators had threatened the rebels with regional military intervention. A western diplomat monitoring the talks in Dar es Salaam said the talks were at a "real deadlock." "The FNL has not done anything concrete thus far," the diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity. "They are forcing talks on disbanding of the army while the government wants only to negotiate a ceasefire."
The FNL, with between 1,500 and 3,000 fighters, is the only one of Burundi's seven Hutu rebel groups not to have signed up to a 2000 peace process that saw the election last year of a power-sharing government headed by a former Hutu guerrilla chief. After reaching a tentative accord on June 18 in which Bujumbura pledged immunity for FNL fighters and recognition of the group as a political party after a final peace pact, the two sides set a July 2 deadline for a permanent truce. But the start of the second round, which had been set to begin in the middle of last week, was postponed twice. The parties opened direct talks on May 29 in a new push to reach a lasting peace in Burundi, which is emerging from the devastation of more than a decade of civil war that has claimed some 300,000 lives. Burundi's war erupted in 1993 with the assassination of the country's first democratically elected president, a member of the Hutu majority, by officers in the then minority Tutsi-dominated army.
U.N. votes to wrap up peacekeeping force in Burundi at year's end
Associated Press, 7/1/06
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to wrap up its peacekeeping mission in Burundi on Dec. 31 and to replace it with a U.N. office to help the African nation promote development and democratic government. The U.N. force has helped put the central African nation on the road to peace after a 12-year civil war which has killed more than 250,000 people, most of them civilians who died of disease and hunger. The council voted Friday to end the mission. The war started in October 1993, when Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the country's first democratically elected president, a Hutu. In March, the outgoing head of the U.N. mission in Burundi, Carolyn McAskie, said the annual US$300 million (euro236 million) cost of the force which has been reduced from 5,650 to 3,500 should be spent to build the country's economy, health services and education. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed McAskie in May as assistant secretary-general to support the new U.N. Peacebuilding Commission which will help countries in the difficult transition from conflict to stability and development.
On June 23, the commission decided that Burundi and Sierra Leone would be the first countries it helps. All of the central African country's main rebel groups from the majority Hutus have signed peace deals, leading to democratic elections last year that established a new government. Only the National Liberation Force opted out of the deals, but on June 18 it signed a tentative agreement to end hostilities and both sides are committed to negotiating a comprehensive cease-fire by July 2. The Security Council on Friday welcomed the ongoing negotiations with the rebel holdouts and said it looks forward "to the early conclusion of a comprehensive ceasefire agreement." It also congratulated the people of Burundi "on the successful conclusion of the transitional period and the peaceful transfer of authority to a representative and democratically elected government and institutions." The resolution extends the mandate of the U.N. force until Dec. 31 and welcomes Annan's intention to then establish "an integrated office of the United Nations in Burundi." It also extended until Sept. 30 the transfer of 50 military observers and a military hospital from the Burundi mission to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo. That will cover the run-up to elections scheduled on July 30 and their aftermath.
New Chechen rebel leader appoints wanted terrorist as vice
president
Associated Press Worldstream, 6/29/06
Chechnya's new separatist leader has named warlord Shamil Basayev, wanted by Russian authorities for a string of shocking terrorist attacks, as his vice president, possibly signaling a further radicalization of the Chechen rebel movement. The move by Doku Umarov announced in a statement dated Tuesday and posted on a Web site linked to the rebel leader comes amid speculation that the two militants might be jockeying for authority over the rebel movement. Umarov took over as Chechnya's new separatist leader earlier this month after police killed Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev during a raid in an eastern Chechen town. In his first statement last week, Umarov vowed to widen attacks to the rest of Russia but also said rebel forces would focus on military and police targets rather than civilians.
That statement appeared to signal an effort to avoid terrorist attacks such as the September 2004 Beslan school hostage-taking, in which 331 people died, more than half of them children. Basayev claimed responsibility for that attack, which shocked Russia and divided the rebel movement, since most of those taken hostage were women and children. As vice president, Basayev's presence could move the rebels toward a more extreme path in their conflict with Moscow. Basayev is the only Chechen rebel commander who has consistently targeted civilians. The new posting is not be the first time that Basayev has held a top position in the rebel government. When Russian troops pulled out of Chechnya in 1996 and Chechnya prepared to elect a president to lead it to de facto independence, Basayev ran for the job. He lost to the late rebel commander Aslan Maskhadov and became his deputy. He and Maskhadov a relative moderate who was Sadulayev's predecessor as Chechen rebel president later became rivals. Chechnya's de facto independence which was marked by lawlessness and rampant abductions ended in 1999 when Russian forces swept back into the province driving Maskhadov and other members of Chechnya's then government into exile or underground or killing them.
The Kremiln has since run a series of disputed elections that have installed Moscow-backed loyalist politicians as the region's leadership. The announcement of Basayev's new post also comes amid rebel claims that Basayev and Umarov have been holding meetings in Ingushetia, which neighbors Chechnya, as well as a southern region close to the troubled North Caucasus. If true, it would bolster Chechen rebel claims that they are able to move throughout the North Caucasus region with impunity and underscore the failure of Russian authorities to capture them. Akhmed Zakayev, a rebel envoy who was Maskhadov's aide and who now lives in exile in London, said the Basayev-Umaraov union indeed signaled more radical policies. "In comparison with their predecessors, the current leadership of (Chechnya), Basayev in particular, are far from being idealists, and they carry no illusions as to intentions of the Russian leadership, because they are prepared for uncompromising war," he was quoted by the newspaper Kommersant as saying. Russian forces and their local Chechen allies have been battling separatist militants for most of the past 12 years. The rebel movement has become increasingly drawn to radical Islam, but insists it is only fighting for independence. Most large-scale fighting has ended in Chechnya, but rebels continue to stage regular hit-and-run raids and detonate land mines and explosives, and the insurgency has spread to other parts of the mainly Muslim North Caucasus region.
13 killed in violence on first day of Congo election
campaign
Associated Press Worldstream,
7/1/06
Thirteen people, including one soldier, were killed in political
violence as campaigning began for Congo's first competitive elections in
decades, a human rights worker said. Demonstrators in the western city of Matadi
attacked and killed the soldier on Friday before troops retaliated firing on the
crowd, killing 12 civilians in the crowd, said Christian Malidini, of Congo's
Association of Human Rights Defenders. Malidini, who spoke by telephone from the
city 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of the capital, Kinshasa, had no
further details.
Officials in the city couldn't immediately be reached for comment. The deaths were the first reported in the campaign ahead of a scheduled July 30 vote. Nearly three dozen candidates are vying for the presidency and thousands for parliament in Congo's first multiparty elections in 40 years, balloting for a government to take over from a transitional administration arranged in the wake of a 1998-2003 civil war that drew armies from neighboring countries into the vast central African nation. Fearing political clashes, the governor of the province that includes Kinshasa announced on state radio late Thursday that all marches and demonstrations were banned in the city. But groups of young men still took to otherwise deserted streets Friday, seeking to assemble to voice support for their candidates. Riot police swinging batons and firing weapons into the sky scattered the crowds. Most shops, banks and schools stayed closed. Logistical and political problems had led to repeated delays in the voting. Congo's elections were meant to be held in 2005, but have now been set for the end of the month even though the mandate expired Friday for the transitional government. Leading opponents to President Joseph Kabila say his national unity government was illegitimate as of Friday, though the international community disagrees. The official Friday launch of campaigning coincided with the day marking Congo's independence from Belgium in 1960 a potentially combustible mix of history and politics in a country without a tradition of peaceful politics.
The country's 62 million people hope a democratically elected leadership can bring long-term peace to Congo after decades of corrupt rule and the war whose aftershocks continue to kill. The presidential race has 33 candidates and 9,000 are running for the 600-plus seats in the National Assembly and Senate. Kabila is a favorite in the presidential field, but few believe he can win an outright majority in the first round. A second round of the two top vote-getters would be held within weeks of the initial ballot's results if the first-round does not yield a clear winner. Some 17,500 U.N. troops who are the rank and file of the United Nations' largest peacekeeping operation are overseeing the vote. Hundreds of European Union troops are expected to arrive in Kinshasa in the coming weeks to beef up security. Eastern Congo, where U.N. peacekeepers and Congolese troops are battling militants, remains restive after the official end of the war. Aid groups estimate violence since 1998 has left some 4 million Congolese dead since 1998, mostly through strife-related disease or hunger. Suffering from extreme privation, an estimated 1,000 Congolese still die needless deaths daily, making Congo site of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation
Simulation
Click
here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
Georgian defense minister says parliament should demand withdrawal of
Russian peacekeepers
Associated Press, 7/3/06
Georgia's defense minister called on the country's parliament to demand the withdrawal of Russian peacekeeping troops from the separatist provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, amid rising tension between Tbilisi and Moscow over the regions. "The parliament of Georgia should make an unambiguous decision about the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers ... We should unify the country," Irakli Okruashvili said Sunday on Rustavi-2 television. Russian peacekeeping forces have been in both Georgian provinces since the mid-1990s after separatist wars took the regions out of the Georgian government's control. Both regions seek independence or to become part of Russia, and Georgian officials accuse Russian forces of supporting the separatists. Meanwhile, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili is preparing for a meeting this week in Washington with U.S. President George W. Bush as Georgian troops continued unprecedentedly large military exercises.
Ivory Coast leader changes position on AU support for
polls
Agence France Presse, 7/2/06
President Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, seeking a settlement for his divided country, shifted his position Sunday and said he did not expect an African Union summit here to get involved in pressing for scheduled elections. The remarks were in marked contrast to his earlier statements ahead of the summit, in which he called on the AU to make a clear statement in favour of elections this year in order to prevent repeated postponements. "It's not up to the AU to adopt a position in favour of elections," he told reporters Sunday on the fringes of the summit in the capital of Gambia. "This is first and foremost a matter for the people of Ivory Coast." The west African country has been divided since a failed coup four years ago and Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny has been tasked under a United Nations plan with leading the country to elections to be held at the latest by the end of October. "Elections are indispensable to Ivory Coast," said Gbagbo, who held talks here Saturday with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on progress towards peace, in particular prospects for keeping to the election timetable.
Nearly 7,000 UN peacekeepers backed by 4,000 French troops are deployed in Ivory Coast. "We cannot remain forever in the current vague state of affairs," Gbagbo told reporters Sunday. "Elections have to take place by (October), we need them. It's not declarations of principle that do the work. It's us." He said he and Annan had on Saturday discussed a visit by Annan to Abidjan on Wednesday. The Abidjan mission was intended as a final evaluation of the Ivory Coast situation before Annan retires as UN Secretary-General next December 31. The UN, supporting proposals by the AU peace and security council, extended Gbagbo's term of office for a further year last October, at the same time providing greater powers to Prime Minister Banny, who is in charge of a "roadmap" for a settlement culminating in the planned elections. Ivory Coast government and rebel commanders held key disarmament talks last Thursday in further steps to resolve four years of division. Military rebels have been holding the north since a failed coup in 2002 and the0 meeting of leading military was part of latest attempts to reach a peaceful settlement.
10 killed in Kashmir violence
Associated
Press,7/3/06
Clashes between Indian government forces and suspected Islamic separatist militants killed 10 people in India's Jammu-Kashmir state, officials said Monday. Six militants and a soldier died in two incidents in the Kashmir area, the army said, while police said they had killed three militants, including a senior leader, in two other encounters in Jammu portion of the state. More than a dozen rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for Muslim-majority Kashmir's independence from predominantly Hindu India or its merger with mostly Muslim Pakistan. The conflict has killed more than 67,000 people. Kashmir is a Himalayan territory claimed by both India and Pakistan and divided between them. Although Jammu territory is not under dispute, India's Jammu-Kashmir state is commonly referred to simply as Kashmir. In the Kashmir part of the state, a large force from the Indian army cordoned off the village of Gambru late Sunday after receiving a tip that several militants had gathered there, said army spokesman Col. Heman Juneja. The troops came under fire as they approached two houses, starting an all-night gunbattle. A soldier and a suspected militant were killed, Juneja said. Later, the army said it had found the body of a second militant. Three soldiers were wounded, one critically, he said. Soldiers were searching the area for other gunmen. Gambru is 60 kilometers (40 miles) north of Srinagar, Jammu-Kashmir's summer capital. Also, Indian troops identified a group of suspected militants crossing the Line of Control, the de facto frontier between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir, late Sunday. The ensuing fight left four infiltrators killed, Juneja said. The incident occurred in the Gulmarg area, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Srinagar. There were no army casualties. Elsewhere, police raided a rebel hide-out in the mountainous Sharekhi district late Sunday, killing a senior militant, identified as Tariq Usman Sheikh, the district commander of the Hizbul Mujahedeen group, said local police chief Manohar Singh. Sharekhi is about 180 kilometers (110 miles) northeast of Jammu, the state's winter capital. In another incident, police surrounded a group of militants in the Tramda Nari area, about 190 kilometers (120 miles) northwest of Jammu. Two militants were killed and police continued to battle others, said area superintendent Farooq Khan. Reinforcements have been called in, he said. India accuses longtime rival Pakistan of training, arming and funding the militants. Islamabad denies the charge, saying it only offers the rebels diplomatic and moral support. The two nuclear-armed neighbor countries have fought two wars over Kashmir since their independence from Britain in 1947.
Kashmir Negotiation
Simulation
Click
here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
NATO beefs up security before Serbian PM's Kosovo
visit
Agence France Presse, 6/27/06
NATO-led peacekeepers (KFOR) and the UN Mission (UNMIK) increased security measures across Kosovo on Tuesday, a day before Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's planned visit to the southern Serbian province. A number of new checkpoints, secured by tanks and armoured vehicles, were seen deployed around the provincial capital Pristina in a clear sign of an attempt to prevent any incident during the visit. Kostunica is due to attend a ceremony on Wednesday in Kosovo marking the 617th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, when on June 28, 1389 -- St Vitus's day -- Serbian troops led by Prince Lazar suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the army of the Ottoman empire. The ceremony is due to be held at the Orthodox monastery of Gracanica, nine kilometers (six miles) south of Pristina.
Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle arrived in Kosovo late Tuesday, in a convoy secured by Italian troops of KFOR. Although lost by the Serbian side, the battle is often glorified in the nation's history and is the subject of medieval epic poetry. St Vitus's day has since been considered as one of the most important dates in Serbia's Orthodox religion, history and tradition. In Pristina, Kosovo Albanian officials strongly opposed Kostunica's visit to the province. "UNMIK allowed the visit... We had no opportunity to allow or to thwart it," said Kosovo's leader Agim Ceku. Ceku said that Kostunica "is coming to Kosovo as a citizen in a private visit." "If he aims to provoke the people of Kosovo, we will not become victims of his provocation but prove that we respect religious freedom," Ceku said.
A youth movement called "Self-determination" that has demanded immediate independence said its activists would block the border between Kosovo and Serbia to prevent Kostunica from entering the province. "We call on all the citizens of Kosovo, institutions, political groups and war associations to prevent by any possible means the arrival of Serbian representatives in Kosovo," the group said in a statement. Kosovo came under UN and NATO control in June 1999 after an 11-week NATO bombing campaign ended a brutal crackdown by Serbian forces against separatist Albanian rebels. Still legally a Serbian province, Kosovo's status is to be determined in UN-backed negotiations by the end of this year. The delicate talks started in February but have yet to produce any concrete results. The ethnic Albanian majority is pushing for independence, a demand Serbia fiercely opposes.
U.N. official: Kosovo's potential independence should not be
nightmare for Serbs
Associated Press, 6/29/06
Kosovo's outgoing U.N. chief said Thursday that ethnic Albanians' dream of independence for the province must not become a nightmare for the Serb minority. Soren Jessen-Petersen's plea came on his last day as the head of the United Nations mission in this province of 2 million, the status of which is being decided in U.N.-sponsored talks between the rival ethnic Albanian and Serbian communities. "Your dream should not be a nightmare for others," Jessen-Petersen told Kosovo's mainly ethnic Albanian lawmakers during his farewell speech. Kosovo, which officially remains part of Serbia, has been administered by the U.N. and patrolled by international peacekeepers since mid-1999, when a NATO air war halted a crackdown by former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's forces on separatist ethnic Albanians. The province's ethnic Albanian majority wants full independence, but Belgrade insists it retains control. An estimated 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed in Kosovo's war. After the end of the war, tens of thousands of Serbs fled the province in the face of reprisal attacks and threats from ethnic Albanians. Those Serbs who remain live mainly in heavily guarded, isolated enclaves.
International officials have suggested some form of independence for the province which Serbs consider the birthplace of their national identity is the most likely outcome of the U.N.-mediated talks taking place in Vienna, Austria. After serving for two years as the chief administrator in the U.N.-run province, Jessen-Petersen conceded that one of his greatest failures was the inability to bring its bitterly divided communities closer. While acknowledging that the life of Serbs and other minorities remains hard, he blamed authorities in Serbia for discouraging the minority Serbs from participating in Kosovo's political life, which they have been boycotting since the worst anti-Serb violence rocked Kosovo in 2004. Jessen-Petersen said that "major challenges" in the fields of rule of law, economy and in trying to ensure the multiethnic character of Kosovo will remain even after the status decision is reached, likely at the end of 2006. Jessen-Petersen, a Danish refugee expert and former European Union representative to Macedonia, was appointed to the post in June 2004 and has been the longest-serving of five U.N. chiefs since the end of the war. A lawyer, he has been assistant high commissioner for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, as then chairman of a European Union initiative to manage population movements in the western Balkans.
Kosovo Negotiation
Simulation
Click
here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
NATO warns Macedonia that poll violence could harm ties
Agence France Presse, 6/27/06
Macedonia risks compromising closer ties with NATO if it fails to bring election-related violence under control, the western military alliance warned Tuesday. "The on-going violence of the past days and weeks in Macedonia is not good for the electoral process. It is tarnishing Macedonia's image internationally," NATO spokesman James Appathurai told reporters. "It is not good for regional security and it is not helping Macedonia's attempts to move closer to NATO," he said. Political tensions have been rising in Macedonian ahead of the general election on July 5. A senior ethnic Albanian leader was shot and wounded in front of his home Friday. "One of the standards of NATO membership is being able to carry out elections that are free and fair and free of violence," Appathurai said. "All parties in Macedonia should take active steps to bring this violence to an end and allow the electoral process to go forward ... 110-percent free and fair," he said. "Clearly that is not the level that is being met now." NATO led a month-long military operation to disarm ethnic Albanian rebels in the Balkan state following the signing of an European Union-brokered peace agreement in August 2001. The deal guarantees the ethnic minority, which makes up around one quarter of Macedonia's population of 2.2 million, more rights and local administrative powers. Macedonia is part of NATO's Membership Action Plan (MAP), a programme aimed at helping aspiring members focus their preparations to join the military alliance but which does not automatically guarantee that they will be invited in. Appathurai said that no plans to suspend that arrangement with Macedonia were "on the table" at NATO.
Macedonia votes in parliamentary elections
Agence
France Presse, 7/3/06
Macedonia is to hold its fourth general elections since independence on
Wednesday, with the key issues in the vote being its struggling economy and bids
to join the European Union and NATO. Here is a fact-file about the Balkan
country: NAME: The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), the name under
which it was admitted to the United Nations to soothe Athens's objections and
distinguish it from the Greek province of Macedonia.
GEOGRAPHY: Macedonia,
which is landlocked, is bounded to the north by Serbia, to the east by Bulgaria,
to the south by Greece and to the west by Albania. The country is mostly on a
plateau about 760 metres (2,500 feet) high. The central Vardar valley is the
only lowland. The climate is continental. Area: 25,713 square kilometres (9,928
square miles).
POPULATION: Out of two million inhabitants, 64.18 percent are
Macedonians, 25.17 Albanians, 3.8 percent are Turks, 2.7 percent are Roma and
2.2 percent are Serbs, according to a 2003 census.
CAPITAL: Skopje.
RELIGION: Macedonian Orthodox 67 percent, Sunni Islam 30 percent.
HISTORY:
Macedonia's past is closely linked to Byzantine and Turkish history until the
Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, after which the geographic region of Macedonia was
divided among Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria. Following World War II, Macedonia
became one of the six republics making up the Yugoslav federation. On September
8, 1991, Macedonia proclaimed its independence. A seven-month ethnic Albanian
insurgency in 2001 ended after a peace accord was brokered by the international
community, giving more civil and political rights to Albanians.
POLITICAL
INSTITUTIONS: Elections to the 120-member national assembly are held at least
every four years. Vlado Buckovski Buckovski took office in December 2004 a
monthy after the resignation of Hari Kostov due to policy differences within the
ruling coalition. He had pledged to improve the economy and speed up its
integration with NATO and the European Union.
ECONOMY: Still largely
agricultural -- sheep, cattle, cereals and tobacco. Rich mineral resources
including iron, zinc, lead, copper and chromium support industrial production in
steel and chemicals. Unemployment: 36.2 percent in March 2006
GDP per capita
: 2,700 dollars in 2005.
ARMED FORCES: 7,000 soldiers
Ukraine urges Russia to make good on Trans-Dniester promise
Associated Press Worldstream, 6//28/06
Russia has waited long enough to make good on its agreement with Ukraine to hand over peacekeeping responsibility in Moldova's breakaway Trans-Dniester region to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a top Ukrainian official said. The comments Tuesday from Ukraine's deputy foreign minister, Andriy Veselovsky, reflected Kiev's increasing impatience with Russia over Trans-Dniester, which broke away from Moldova in 1992 and has been home to 1,500 Russian troops since. Russia and Ukraine, whose relations have soured in recent years, have occasionally sparred over the issue. Russia and Ukraine agreed in December that the OSCE should oversee peacekeeping in Trans-Dniester, but there has been little progress. "It is time to implement these words into deeds," Veselovsky said in an interview. "It is in the interests of all the countries in the region and it will give enormous additional authority to the Russian Federation." Asked to elaborate, he responded: "A benevolent power is much more respected than a non-benevolent power." Trans-Dniester is inhabited largely by ethnic Russians and Ukrainians.
It is not recognized internationally, but receives strong support from Russia. The Moldovan government believes the Russian troops are in Trans-Dniester to support the separatists, and has consistently called for the troops to be withdrawn. The issue has become another point of contention between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko. Putin has accused Western nations of destabilizing Ukraine by supporting the 2004 Orange Revolution that brought Yushchenko to power, and opposes Ukraine's efforts to build closer ties to the European Union. Moldova is also seeking closer ties with the West. Yushchenko, who is seeking a bigger regional role for his country, has proposed granting broad autonomy to Trans-Dniester but keeping it within Moldova's borders. Veselovsky accused Russia of holding onto an outdated way of looking at Europe, and said Moscow needed to move on. "Again and again, we have to say to Russians that look, Europe of 2006 is not Europe of 1906, neither of 1946, when the Cold War started," he said. "No, we can discuss everything and agree on everything if we discuss in good faith. That's the approach." World leaders were expected to discuss the issue during this year's Group of Eight summit in July in St. Petersburg, Russia. The United States has pressed for the leaders to discuss several conflicts, including Trans-Dniester, as well as in Georgia and the Nagorno-Karabakh region between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Annan meets with Moroccan prime minister
Associated
Press, 6/30/06
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan met on Friday with Moroccan Prime Minister Driss Jettou and other officials to discuss a range of issues before an African summit, the official news agency reported. The Palestinian territories, Western Sahara and African migration the focus of a Euro-African conference in Rabat on July 10-11 were on the agenda during the brief visit, officials in the prime minister's office said. Information on the talks was not available. Israeli troops' recent push into the Gaza strip to force the release of an Israeli soldier kidnapped by Palestinian militants has provoked fears of a major escalation in the Middle East crisis. Morocco helped in the past to broker peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel. Closer to home for Jettou is the Western Sahara, a vast desert territory that this North African kingdom has occupied since 1975. The territory is contested by the indigenous Saharawi independence movement Polisario, based in neighboring Algeria, and the United Nations has tried to mediate a solution. Annan met the Moroccan officials at Casablanca's Mohamed V airport during a layover en route to Gambia, where he will attend an African Union summit Saturday and Sunday. Moroccan civil and military officials turned out with a detachment of the municipal guard to give Annan a state welcome. After his visit to Gambia, Annan travels to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast to touch base with U.N. missions in those countries, a U.N. spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told the Moroccan state news agency.
Nepal's communist rebel leaders meet Indian, Swedish diplomats
Associated Press, 6/29/06
Communist rebel leaders have met with Indian and Swedish ambassadors in Nepal's capital, officials said Thursday, the first such meeting since the guerrillas began talks to end a decade-long civil war. Deputy Maoist rebel leader Baburam Bhattarai and spokesman Krishna Mahara met Indian Ambassador Shiv Shankar Mukherjee at the embassy in the capital Katmandu on Wednesday. They also met the Swedish diplomat Lena Sundh, Mahara told the Associated Press on Thursday. During the years of conflict, the rebels were considered an outlaw group by most foreign governments and the meetings Wednesday the first since the guerrillas declared a cease-fire in April could be a first step in ushering them into Nepal's political mainstream. More importantly India, which borders Nepal on three sides, has major influence in the country. Mahara said the meetings were just courtesy calls in which discussions centered on political developments in Nepal and sought "India's help in institutionalizing democracy in Nepal." However, the meeting with Indian officials was one of the first signals that the rebels are being accepted as a force entering the political mainstream away from the armed revolt. Mahara said they have also urged India to release several Nepalese Maoist rebels and leaders who are still in Indian jails. Maoist insurgencies in Nepal and across the border in India are believed to have some connections. The rebels agreed in April to begin peace talks with the government after weeks of pro-democracy protests forced King Gyanendra to give up powers and appoint veteran politician Girija Prasad Koirala as the prime minister. The rebels had supported the protests organized by the alliance of seven main political parties in Nepal which is now running the government. The rebels have pledged to join an interim government that would include members from the seven-party alliance and the rebels. Since the rebels began fighting government troops in 1996, they have been declared an illegal group by most foreign nations. More than 13,000 people were killed in the conflict.
Nepal's Maoist leader pledges no return to war
Agence
France Presse, 6/30/06
Nepal's Maoist leader vowed Friday in an interview with AFP the rebels would not return to war but warned they could call protestors back onto the streets if talks with the government broke down. "We have come here for a third time (to negotiate) and publicly we are saying that we will not go back to war," the rebel leader said during the exclusive interview in a sparsely-furnished flat above a restaurant. Around 12 rebels in an adjoining room watched a Hindi film as two men guarded the entrance to the apartment near the city centre. Prachanda, whose name means the "fierce one," is in the capital with his second in command Baburam Bhatterai for high level peace talks slated to be held in the next few days. The two sides have twice previously been engaged in peace negotiations -- in 2001 and 2003 -- in a bid to end the Maoist insurgency launched in 1996 and aimed at installing a communist republic in Nepal. But on both occasions talks broke down and the country was plunged back into conflict. While a return to war was out of the question even if peace talks broke down, he said the Maoists could appeal for a repeat of the massive people's movement that saw Nepal crippled for 19 days in April and forced King Gyanendra to end his 14 months of direct rule. "We may appeal to the people for a peaceful movement. Not just 19 days but if necessary 29 or 39 will be there but we will not go back to war," said Prachanda, who launched an insurgency in Nepal 10 years ago that has cost more than 12,500 lives.
When the insurgency first began, the rebels aimed to make Nepal a one-party communist state but their thinking had changed, said the school teacher-turned-revolutionary. "We have seen revolution and counter revolution in the 20th century, and Stalin's experiment failed. We do not want to repeat the same phenomenon. We want to go ahead with competition," he said. Nepalis wanted Maoists to run the country after King Gyanendra was forced to step aside after nearly three weeks of often violent pro-democracy protests, he said. "Maoists should lead this country. They (the people) have seen the monarchy and have seen the parliamentary parties and at this time the overwhelming majority of the masses want to have leadership from the Maoists," he said. Relations between the mainstream political parties and the rebels, formerly foes, had been improving, he said. "I am satisfied with the relationship with the political parties. There are ups and downs in relations but basically it is going forward, it is not declining. I think that trust has been increased and favourable conditions have been developed," he said.
Earlier this month the Maoists and new government reached a landmark power sharing agreement that would see the rebels join an interim government after the framing of an interim constitution. Prachanda said he would like to see his cadres and government troops merged into a single force. "I have said that both armies should be commanded by one person after the formation of an interim constitution," he said. The rebels would not give up their weapons but would be willing to allow UN monitoring of the Maoist People's Liberation Army and the 90,000-strong Nepal Army, he said. "If people think that we will surrender our arms that cannot solve the problem. Nobody should ask us to surrender our arms, but everybody should think about how to restructure the army," he said. Prachanda, 52, dressed in a white shirt and grey slacks, animatedly answered questions in English. Nepal, he said, faced massive changes following the end of direct royal rule. He said he was confident rebels could maintain control over their seven army divisions and 100,000 strong militia. The US claims the rebels continue to murder and extort and need to show a clearer commitment to mainstream politics practices. Prachanda denied his cadres were killing and said extortion would stop once the rebels were in the interim government. Nepal and the international community, he added, had nothing to fear from the Maoists. "We are 21st century communists. We are not dogmatic. We are trying to develop our line, policy and programme for the changed situation, Try to understand our flexibility."
US warns of cutting aid to Nepal if rebels join government without
giving up arms
Associated Press, 7/2/06
The United States has warned it will cut off millions of dollars (euros) in annual aid to Nepal if communist rebels join the country's proposed interim government without first giving up their weapons. The warning drew criticism from the rebels' leader in a newspaper interview published Sunday. "If the Maoists continue to use violence after they enter the government, our law says that we can't supply assistance to those who support a terrorist group. We have to consider them a consider a terrorist group until they give up arms," said U.S. Ambassador to Nepal James F. Moriarty. Moriarty's remarks came after he met with Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala on Saturday before leaving for Washington. The U.S. provides Nepal with US$45 million (euro38 million) a year in development, education and health aid.
In the past, the U.S. has given Nepal's government millions of dollars in military aid to fight the Maoists rebels, but suspended it after King Gyanendra seized absolute power last year. The communists' leader criticized Moriarty's stance. "I am not surprised with the comments by the ambassador to Nepal, because he does not want peace in Nepal," said Prachanda, who goes by a single name, in an interview published in the state-owned Rising Nepal newspaper on Sunday. "He seems very unhappy and restless over the political development, and is trying to dismantle the harmony that is about to develop among the political parties," said Prachanda, whose real name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal. The rebels, who have waged a decade-long war to seize control of the Himalayan nation, have announced that they're joining an interim government to be formed along with main political parties. The interim government, which will eventually create a new permanent constitution, is to replace the current national parliament as well as the Maoists' "people's government," which rules territory they control. The rebels had supported weeks of massive street protests and a general strike organized by an alliance of seven major political parties in April that forced King Gyanendra to relinquish the absolute power he'd seized in early 2005. Since then, the rebels have declared a cease-fire and began peace talks to end the conflict that has claimed more than 13,000 lives.
Nepal Negotiation
Simulation
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here to access the Nepal Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
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World Briefing Asia: The Philippines: Police Pawn Their Guns
Reuters, 6/30/06
Six police officers may lose their jobs for pawning their guns in the southern Philippines. The police there are fighting Muslim and communist insurgencies, but are poorly paid. German Doria, the police chief in Mindanao, said the incidents of government-issued guns being pawned came to light when the National Bureau of Investigation raided shops selling stolen goods. He has ordered an inventory of guns issued to all officers in South Cotabato Province. ''How can police officers carry out their missions if they don't have guns?'' he said.
Montenegro set to become the 192nd member of the United
Nations
Associated Press, 6/28/06
Montenegro was set to become the 192nd member of the United Nations just over a month after citizens of the tiny Balkan republic voted for independence from Serbia. The U.N. General Assembly was expected to approve a resolution admitting Montenegro to the world body at a plenary meeting of the 191 U.N. member states on Wednesday morning. Austria's U.N. Ambassador Gerhard Pfanzelter, whose country heads the European Union, will introduce the resolution, which notes that the U.N. Security Council last week unanimously recommended Montenegro's admission. General Assembly President Jan Eliasson is then expected to call for approval of the resolution by consensus, diplomats said. Once approved as a U.N. member, Montenegro's flag will be raised at a ceremony outside U.N. headquarters, joining the flags of the other member states. Montenegro's President Filip Vujanovic, Foreign Minister Miodrag Vlahovic, and new special U.N. envoy Nebojsa Kaludjerovic are expected to join Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Eliasson at the ceremony, the U.N. spokesman's office said.
Montenegro declared independence from Serbia on June 3, after its citizens supported the split by a slim margin in a May 21 referendum. The declaration marked the final breakup of what was once Yugoslavia, a process that began when the federation of six republics disintegrated in violence in the 1990s. Montenegro was an independent kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but it abandoned its statehood to join a new Serb-led Balkan union in 1918. Montenegro, with 620,000 people, was the only republic to stay with Serbia, but it gradually edged toward independence during the autocratic rule of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who died earlier this year while on trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal for his part in the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia.
Since the independence referendum, Montenegro has been recognized by the 25-nation European Union, the United States and scores of other countries, most recently Russia. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters earlier this month week that the United States believes the possibility of eventual Montengrin membership in NATO should remain open. "We're pleased that the General Assembly looks set tomorrow to accept the Security Council recommendation to admit Montenegro," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said Tuesday. The United States looks "forward to their joining the U.N. as a full and independent nation and ... to working with them once that takes place," he said. Serbia supported preserving the union with Montenegro and initially disputed the results of Montenegro's referendum, fueling fears of tension between the two nations. Serbia opposed previous declarations of independence by Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, triggering nearly a decade of wars. But the establishment of diplomatic relations between Serbia and Montenegro earlier this month and Monday's announcement of a new start in relations by the presidents of the two countries were seen as encouraging signs. During a visit to Montenegro, Serbian President Boris Tadic said, "This is a new start. Serbia is a friend of Montenegro and always will be." Since the alliance broke up at Montenegro's initiative, Serbia automatically inherited Serbia-Montenegro's seat in the United Nations. Tadic attended a ceremony on June 15 where Serbia's flag was raised for the first time outside U.N. headquarters.
Montenegro court issues first ruling in favour of Muslim
refugees
Agence France Presse, 6/30/06
A court in Montenegro issued its first ruling in favour of the families of some 150 Bosnian Muslim refugees who had been arrested and illegaly deported in 1992, a lawyer said Friday. The district court in the capital Podgorica ruled to compensate the family of Sanin Krdzalija -- one of the refugees, who was illegaly deported and later killed in a prison camp -- with 45,000 euros (57,500 dollars), lawyer Dragan Prelevic said. "This sentence is of historic importance, since after 14 years of covering the crime, destroying evidence and silencing by the state institutions, the Montenegrin court has finally faced the truth," Prelevic said. Some 150 Muslims fleeing war in neighbouring Bosnia were arrested in Montenegro and deported in early 1992. The refugees were handed over to Bosnian Serb forces and 81 were subsequently killed. However Prelevic said he would appeal the verdict as "the amount of compensation is not enough for the pain these families have suffered." Plaintiffs representing the families of the victims are claiming 40 million euros in compensation.
Islamists seek to expand control across lawless Somalia
Agence France Presse, 6/29/06
The Islamist union in Somalia announced on Thursday it had extended its control over the country, in a move likely to undermine a deal they signed with the powerless transitional government last week that was designed to forestall hostilities. The Islamist union said it would rule the Horn of Africa nation, including both the areas under the control of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, as well as the breakaway regions of Somaliland and Puntland. "SICS will try to restore peace in Somalia and realise the dream of the people to be governed by their own leaders," said Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a top official in the newly renamed union, the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS). The transitional government, based in the southern town of Baidoa, dismissed the Islamists' announcement and urged them to restrain their expansionist ambitions, warning that such action could shatter the lull in fighting in Somalia and spark widespread battles. The SICS, previously called the Council of Islamic Courts (CIC), is headed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys. Aweys is a firebrand cleric who helped establish Islamic tribunals in Somalia in the mid-1990s and who is accused by Washington of links to "terrorism". This effectively makes Aweys the supreme leader of Somalia, which has been without an effective central government since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991.
The Islamists already control a large swathe of southern Somalia, including the capital. But analysts believe Ethiopia, traditionally close to the transitional president, Yusuf, will not sit and wait for the Islamists to sweep across the vast country of 10 million people. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has forcefully protested against the Islamists' rise in power. He accuses them of fomenting insurgency in Ethiopia's southeastern Ogaden region and has vowed to take defensive measures should the new Somali rulers provoke his regime. On Thursday, the Somali government dismissed the Islamists' announcement. "We believe that there will be no national entity in Somalia except the transitional federal government. The (Islamic) courts (union) appointed themselves to pacify Mogadishu, not to represent the nation," Information Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayir told AFP. Hayir said the Islamists must stick to the mutual recognition deal both they and the government signed on June 22 after talks in Sudan mediated by the Arab League. Under the accord, both sides pledged to refrain from fighting and participate in a meeting on July 15. "If they call themselves a national organ, then that is a mistake. We represent the Somalis," he told AFP in Nairobi. "The Islamists were leaders of a rebellion against warlords in Mogadishu and they should stay there. They are not a national institution," he argued. In early June the Islamists routed the US-backed warlords from the capital and several other towns, after four months of fighting in which 360 people died and more than 2,000 were wounded. Last week, a top US diplomat for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, told the Islamists to refrain from expanding their territory and participate seriously in talks aimed at restoring a functional central administration to Somalia. The Islamists' growing influence has alarmed some Western nations and Somalia's neighbours, because of their alleged links to Al Qaeda and the pace at which they have introduced Sharia law to areas of Somalia seized from the warlords. But the Islamists, who are currently struggling to establish structures of governance, have denied the accusations. They say they are only interested in enforcing law and order and protecting the country from foreign interference. The warlords routed by the Islamists have either defected or fled to unknown locations. The latest developments come as African Union leaders prepare to meet in Gambia to discuss ways of ending the Somali conflict. More than 14 attempts to restore a functional government to the shattered nation have failed.
Tigers destroy navy patrol boat: Sri Lanka military
Agence France Presse, 6/28/06
Tamil Tiger guerrillas attacked two navy patrol craft off Sri Lanka's northwestern coast Wednesday and destroyed one of them, the government said. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) boats attacked the navy craft as they patrolled the Kalpitiya lagoon, defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said. "One patrol craft caught fire and the navy has requested the air force to provide them with firepower against the Tiger boats," Rambukwella said. He said there were no immediate reports of casualties. The navy and the Tamil Tigers clashed in the same area earlier this month in a major sea battle that killed more than 50 people.
Soldier killed in mortar bomb attack in Sri Lanka
Agence France Presse, 6/28/06
Tamil Tiger guerrillas fired mortar bombs at an army camp in northeastern Sri Lanka Wednesday, killing one soldier and wounding three others, the defence ministry said. The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) staged a pre-dawn attack on the Kokkuthuduvai camp using mortars, spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said. "We have retaliated and the situation is now under control," Samarasinghe said. There have been sporadic attacks against military bases in the restive northeastern province despite a truce in place since February 2002. At least 820 people have been killed in an upsurge of violence since December and Scandinavians monitoring the ceasefire have said that the truce was now only on paper.
Sri Lanka Negotiation
Simulation
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here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
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African leaders hope to soften Sudan's stance on UN force
Agence France Presse, 6/29/06
African Union leaders meeting at a weekend summit will be in search of fresh solutions to overcome Sudan's resistance to a UN takeover of their impotent peacekeeping mission in the troubled Darfur region. Although the AU has agreed to hand over its 7,000-strong force to the United Nations due to financial shortfalls, Khartoum has steadfastly opposed the move, insisting that it reeks of neocolonialism and would worsen conflict. Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir said Sunday his forces could take over if the AU abandoned or relinquished its current mandate, thereby casting a dark shadow on international efforts to pacify Darfur, a region the size of France undergoing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Beshir's stiffening opposition came amid high tensions with the UN, which Khartoum accused of breaching its mandate by transporting a rebel leader out of Darfur. Although a ban on UN operations in Darfur has been lifted, the Sudanese government made it clear that it was keenly watching. Diplomats agree that the Darfur standoff is set to strain the July 1-2 summit in the Gambian capital Banjul, but were unsure an accord would be found. "The question of Darfur will be very difficult to push forward in the summit," said one AU official who asked to remain unnamed.
The AU has insisted however that it will hold to its plan to withdraw from Darfur. "Our position has not changed: the AU made a decision on the transfer, the UN also made a decision," said another diplomat. "The AU has no means of maintaining the mission and there is need now to find a formula because the UN cannot go to Darfur without Sudan's consent," added the diplomat, highlighting the delicate balance the summit has to make. With AU presidents and ranking officials determined to resolve the dispute at an African level, analysts predict intense diplomatic jostling in Banjul as participants launch no-holds-barred diplomacy to sway Sudan into accepting the UN takeover. One lure which could be used is a pledge that Sudan will be given the next presidency of the bloc's rotating leadership. "The leaders will have to use all arguments to convince Sudan to accept the transfer, inclusing assuring Sudan that it will hold AU's next presidency in 2007, because the AU cannot continue by itself in Darfur," said one African observer at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. Earlier this year, Sudan launched a bid to chair the AU, triggering noise protest from human rights groups that it would be tantamount to rewarding Beshir for alleged war crimes and human rights violations.
African observers said the president feared a UN presence on the ground in Darfur could make Khartoum officials and their allies vulnerable to international justice. "Beshir fears that once the United Nations moves to Darfur, it will be difficult to stop the prosecution of some people before international tribunals," said another diplomat. Recent developments have are also likely to complicate the scenario. The hauling of former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor before an international war crimes court has not warmed the Sudanese to UN peacekeeping efforts. Now similar calls are being made for Chadian ex-dictator Hissene Habre, currently held in Senegal over alleged atrocities, to be extradited to face justice abroad. "Some heads of state think that with what happened to Taylor, there is need to be cautious," according to a Western diplomat based in Ethiopia. Nonetheless, the United States and the UN have relentlessely called for a rapid deployment of the UN peacekeepers to halt human suffering and help end the Darfur conflict that has now spilled into the neighbouring Chad.
As least 300,000 people have been estimated killed and more than two million displaced in three years of conflict in Darfur. In 2003 decades of tribal fighting erupted into all-out violence when indigenous rebels from the region took up arms, accusing the Arab government in Khartoum of neglect and calling for autonomy. In addition to Darfur, a simmering conflict in Sudan's east and strains in implementing the country's historic north-south peace agreement have soured ties between Khartoum and the West in recent months.
Sudanese leader reiterates opposition to UN force in Darfur
Agence France Presse, 6/30/06
Sudan's President Omar al-Bechir Friday reiterated his oppositon to a United Nations force deployment in the troubled region of Darfur and praised his country's good relations with China. In an interview with the French magazine Etudes Geopolitiques, the Sudanese leader was quoted as saying he objected to a UN peacekeeping force because he was "suspicious of the desire of the United States to internationalise the Darfur conflict." "We do not see the interest in an internationalisation, which could only complicate matters," he was quoted as saying. "We have become seriously engaged in negotiations under the aegis of the African Union and we have reached an agreement," said al-Bechir. "Having done all this and shown our goodwill we do not see why the matter should be referred to the UN Security Council applying Chapter Seven of the UN Charter." The AU-mediated Darfur peace agreement aims to end three years of war in Darfur that has killed an estimated 300,000 people and displaced 2.4 million others. The AU mission in Darfur has asked to be replaced by UN forces.
The UN considers its deployment essential to implement a Darfur peace accord signed last month between the Sudanese government and the main Darfur rebel group. A summit of AU leaders in Gambia this weekend was expected to renew calls for Sudan to accept the transfer of the AU Darfur peacekeeping mission to the United Nations. Decades of tribal fighting in Darfur erupted into all-out violence in 2003, when ethnic minority rebels took up arms, accusing the Arab government in Khartoum of neglect and calling for autonomy. Bechir also said in the interview his country had "excellent relations with numerous major powers," citing among them Russia and China. "There exists mutual support between our two countries on many political questions," the French magazine quoted him as saying. China was his country's partner in numerous investment and development projects, he said.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis
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