Azerbaijan's president speaks toughly on Nagorno-Karabakh
Associated Press, 3/16/06

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliev on Thursday warned rival Armenia that his nation could boycott talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict unless the Armenian authorities soften their stance.

Aliev said Azerbaijan would continue to participate in peace talks, but warned "this process can't continue endlessly, and the patience of the Azerbaijani people and authorities is running out." Nagorno-Karabakh is inside Azerbaijan but populated mostly by ethnic Armenians, who have run it since an uneasy 1994 cease-fire ended six years of full-scale war. Sporadic border clashes continue to claim victims, while peace talks have stalled.

Aliev and Armenia's President Robert Kocharian last month failed to reach agreement after two days of talks in France on how to end the conflict. Since then, violence has risen sharply, and the two countries' presidents have traded increasingly bellicose statements.

Speaking Thursday to a public congress, Aliev accused Armenia of "failing to take a constructive stance in talks, being dishonest and trying to cheat the world public." The conflict has held up development of the entire Caucasus region and badly hurt the Armenian economy which has suffered from blockade imposed by neighboring Azerbaijan and Turkey. Aliev on Thursday vowed to maintain the blockade. "We will never allow the country which seized our lands to participate in the regional cooperation," Aliev said. "We have isolated Armenia from all regional projects." He said that the oil-rich Azerbaijan would soon be able to bolster its military budget to a level comparable to the entire government budget of Armenia. "Armenia will never be able to compete with us," he said.

Senior U.S. diplomats, who visited Azerbaijan and Armenia this week for talks on Nagorno-Karabakh settlement and regional security, prodded Armenia and Azerbaijan to reach agreement. "Both sides are strong defenders of their national positions; our discussions in both capitals were serious," Daniel Fried, assistant U.S. secretary of state for European Affairs and Eurasian Affairs, said Thursday in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

At his meeting with the U.S envoys, Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian said that the conflict could not be resolved through military means, his office said. He suggested stepping up international monitoring of the frontline where clashes are taking place.

Fried and Steven Mann, the U.S. envoy to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's so-called Minsk Group of mediators, visited Baku earlier this week. Mann said Thursday in Yerevan that they "felt from each president that there is interest in moving forward and trying to see what the sides can negotiate, and the United States is going to support this in the best way we can."

Burundi frees last group of prisoners in reconciliation drive
Agence France Presse, 3/14/06

Burundi on Tuesday freed the last group of political detainees as part of a national reconciliation scheme launched in January to pacify the tiny central African state emerging from nearly 13 years of civil strife, officials said.

"In the pursuit of our national reconciliation policy, we have today signed two release orders for 1,846 political prisoners," Justice Minister Clotilde Niragira told reporters here. "The commission tasked with identifying political prisoners has finished its work. This is the last group to benefit from the scheme," she added.

All but 36 of those released are members of the majority Hutu tribe who were accused of killing Tutsis when the country plunged into war after the assasination of Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, and Burundi's first democratically elected president. Tuesday's release brings to 3,299 the number of detainees to benefit from the provisional parole since January. The parole was instituted to ease the work of a truth and reconciliation commission that is to be set up in the near future in collaboration of the United Nations. Those released will be required to appear before the commission that has yet to be created and will be tasked with investigating massacres in the country since 1972, and may later be tried by a new court.

However, Tutsi parties and civil groups have denounced the move, saying it is against national reconciliation and risked sparking ethnic tension. Burundi is still struggling to overcome the ravages of the war and after a series of elections last year, installed a new power-sharing government headed by President Pierre Nkurunziza, a former Hutu rebel leader, that includes all but one of the country's seven Hutu guerrilla groups.

First detainee appears before International Criminal Court
Agence France Presse, 3/20/06

Thomas Lubanga, a militia warlord accused of using child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on Monday appeared before the International Criminal Court as its first defendant facing trial for war crimes.

Lubanga, head of an armed militia that rampaged through northeast DRC, had been wanted by The Hague-based ICC for trial on three counts, accused of having recruited and conscripted as soldiers youngsters under the age of 15 and forced them into active combat. His appearance on Monday before the world's only permanent war crimes court was a formality, in which the ICC ensured Lubanga was informed of the charges against him and made aware of his right to request bail before trial.

"I am Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. I was born on December 29, 1960... and I'm a professional politician," the tall Congolese in a dark suit with a blue shirt and yellow-gold tie told the court. "We have been informed of our rights," he said to the judge, Claude Jorda of France, adding that he was using the "royal we".

The ICC was born in 1998, when 120 states adopted the Rome Statute, which led in July 2002 to the creation of the first independent and international court to try cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Lubanga was transferred to the ICC's remand centre near The Hague last Friday, after being flown there on Friday from custody in the DRC capital Kinshasa. He was arrested in March last year after DRC President Joseph Kabila asked the ICC to investigate war crimes committed in the vast central African state, which emerged from a five-year conflict in 2003.

The defence lawyer temporarily assigned to Lubanga, Jean Flamme of Belgium, asked to be given a copy of the arrest warrant issued in Kinshasa against his client, whom he said was held there for more than a year without knowing the charges against him. Flamme also asked the court for an extension of the period of appeal against arrest to study the documents issued by the court prosecutor.

Jorda set down June 27 as the date for the next public hearing, when the two sides will debate the contents of the charge sheet. Under its statutes, the court has to decide on the final charges within 60 days and Jorda said "it will take three months to become acquainted with the mass of documents... in order to proceed on a fair basis."

Lubanga headed the ethnic Hema Union of Congolese Patriots and its military wing the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, one of several armed groups active in the northeastern Ituri region of DRC.

Ituri has for years been the scene of devastating clashes between rival militias and inter-ethnic violence, often fuelled by competition for control over the region's gold and other mineral resources. Since 1999, fighting between the militias and violence between the Hema and Lendu tribes have caused more than 60,000 deaths in the region, according to humanitarian groups. The UN Children's Fund UNICEF has said Lubanga's transfer to the ICC sent an important message that the international community would not tolerate use of children in armed conflict. "It is important to protect children from being recruited and used in armed conflict," said UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, whose staff probed the Ituri violence in 2004, said Saturday his office is "ready to proceed. The investigations continue and we hope to enlarge the indictment."

The DRC, backed by the UN peacekeeping force known as MONUC, is currently engaged in a transition towards its first democratic election in 40 years by June of this year, after years of war that have ravaged the resource-rich but poverty-stricken country. But the eastern DRC, including Ituri province where Lubanga was located and Sud-Kivu and Nord-Kivu, remain wracked by chronic instability.

EU edges toward agreement on Congo force, Germany to take lead
Associated Press, 3/20/06

European Union nations appeared close Monday to agreeing plans to provide up to 1,500 troops in support of U.N. peacekeepers in Congo when the African nation holds a series of landmark elections starting in June.

After weeks of hesitation, German Defense Minister Franz-Josef Jung said his country had agreed to lead the EU mission, backed by troops from France, Spain, Poland and several other nations. "We have together agreed that the command headquarters in Potsdam will take overall responsibility for the mission," Jung told Germany's Hessiche Rundfunk radio. He spoke as the EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana briefed European foreign ministers on his talks Sunday in the Congolese capital with President Joseph Kabila and other political leaders. Germany had insisted Solana hold face-to-face talks in Kinshasa to agree with the Congolese authorities on details of the mission. Solana's trip to Congo was meant to nudge the EU nations to make a formal decision to contribute soldiers to the U.N. force.

Germany and France have been insisting on a wide participation from the 25 EU nations, but governments have been reluctant to provide troops without guarantees about the nature and duration of the potentially dangerous mission. Jung said the plans foresaw French troops running a base in Kinshasa. Spain and Poland each have offered 100 soldiers, and Sweden and Belgium would each send 50, Jung said. Italy, Greece, Austria, Ireland, Britain and Portugal were also willing, he said. "One can really talk of a European mission here," Jung said.

The U.N. has most of its 16,000 peacekeepers in Congo's unruly east and is seeking European troops to deter unrest in the capital during the elections and provide rapid back up to its blue-helmeted soldiers if they run into trouble. Apart from up to 450 in Kinshasa, most of the European troops are expected to be based outside of Congo either in a neighboring nation or in Europe ready to intervene if violence erupts.

Nevertheless, governments have been wary about committing soldiers, largely because of concerns that their forces could get dragged into a renewed civil war in Congo if the elections go badly. EU governments are expected to impose a four-month time-limit on their deployment. The U.N. peacekeepers in Congo frequently come under fire in the country's east. European troops would be used to provide emergency backup and evacuation for the U.N. troops and civilian election observers. Congo's transitional government was established in 2003 after a devastating five-year war.

Aceh foreign peace monitors begin extended mandate
Agence France Presse, 3/15/06

Foreign monitors overseeing an historic peace pact between the Indonesian government and separatist rebels in Aceh began Wednesday the extension of their mission.

"Wednesday marks the first day of our three-month mandate extension," said Juri Laas, a spokesman for the monitoring mission. Around 85 monitors from the European Union, the Association of Southeast Nations, as well as Norway and Switzerland are to stay in Aceh until June 15 after the mission was extended last week. Some 135 foreign monitors have already ended their mission in Aceh, Laas told AFP. The team was reduced as some of the monitors' duties such as decommissioning the separatists' weapons and the relocation of non-local military and police officials had already been completed.

Offically beginning operations on 15 September 2005, the Aceh Monitoring Mission is mandated by both Jakarta and the rebel Free Aceh Movement to ensure that their peace pact, signed in August last year, is implemented. The pact, spurred along by the deadly December 2004 tsunami, brought nearly three decades of conflict to an end.

Largest Kashmiri rebel group says peace talks incomplete without militants
Associated Press, 3/15/06

A top Kashmiri rebel commander said an Islamic insurgency in the disputed Himalayan region won't end until India and Pakistan include the militants in peace talks, a news agency reported Wednesday.

The comments by Misbah-ud-Din Ghazi of the Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen are the first by a rebel leader suggesting the insurgents who have been fighting to wrest Kashmir from India since 1989 would consider playing a role in the peace process that was launched in January 2004 to end decades of enmity over the region between India and Pakistan. "India and Pakistan are engaged in talks to promote bilateral trade and ties," Ghazi was quoted as saying by Kashmir's Current News Service. "The talks to resolve Kashmir cannot begin without (Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen) being at the forefront," Ghazi said, adding that until the militants are brought into the negotiations, "the armed rebellion is the only way to take the Kashmir struggle to a logical conclusion."

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the bloody partition of the subcontinent at independence from Britain in 1947, including two over Kashmir, which is divided between them but claimed by both. Tensions have eased considerably since the neighbors launched the peace process in 2004. The nuclear-armed rivals have opened several transport routes and introduced alerts to warn the other of impending missile tests. More than 67,000 people have died in Kashmir's Islamic insurgency. New Delhi claims that most of the militants are based in Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies.

Kashmiri groups have been excluded from peace talks involving both India and Pakistan, although Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has held preliminary talks with nonviolent Kashmiri separatists, and Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen briefly opened negotiations with New Delhi in 2000.

Indian security forces, meanwhile, killed two suspected Islamic guerrillas in a gunbattle Tuesday after raiding an alleged rebel hideout north of Srinagar, the region's summer capital, said police officer Manzoor Ahmad. The slain guerrillas belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammad, one of the nearly dozen Islamic rebel groups fighting in India's part of Kashmir, Ahmad said. His claim could not be independently verified.

Talks between Kosovo and Serbia end without deal, new date set for next round
Associated Press, 3/18/06

The U.N.-mediated talks between officials from Serbia and Kosovo ended without a clear deal, but the two former foes pledged to meet again next month in their attempts to find a lasting solution for the province.

Ethnic Albanian and Serbian officials had "extremely constructive discussions" as the U.N.-mediators tried to find a common ground, said Albert Rohan, the U.N. mediator chairing Friday's session. Rohan, who is the deputy to the chief U.N. Kosovo talks mediator, acknowledged that there were profound differences between the two sides, but he characterized Friday's encounter as "issue-oriented and without polemics." The next round was set for April, 3, Rohan said.

The two delegations sat across from each other for the second round of talks in their attempts to find a lasting solution to one of the most intractable issues left since the disintegration of Yugoslavia whether Kosovo becomes independent. Ethnic Albanians, who comprise about 90 percent of the province's population of 2 million, insist on full independence. But Serbia, and Kosovo's Serb minority, insist Belgrade must retain some control over the province.

"There's not any formal agreement of any sort," Rohan said, but added that mediators "feel that there's common ground on some of the subjects" on the local government reform.

The talks have opened nearly seven years after the province became a U.N. protectorate when NATO halted the crackdown by forces of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on ethnic Albanian separatists. The process is being mediated by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, appointed by the United Nations to steer the talks toward an agreement by the end of the year. The one-day round of talks at Vienna's Auersperg Palace did not deal directly with the question of the province's status. Instead, the discussions focused on the details of local government reform to give Serbs more of a say in areas where they live, the financing of municipalities and the links between the beleaguered Serb minority and Belgrade.

"I would be probably naive to say that there was agreement on all these matters," Rohan said. "There are, of course, profound differences in the approach of the two sides." However, Rohan noted some progress, with the sides agreeing to allowing some links between Belgrade and the municipalities where Serbs form a majority in Kosovo. The mechanisms for doing that remained contentious.

The opposing views were also made clear by both delegations. Hashim Thaci, the leader of ethnic Albanian delegation at the talks, said, "Kosovo made one step forward to a free and democratic, independent and sovereign state."

His Serb counterpart, Leon Kojen, said the discussions were useful, but also difficult, because the two points of view on the future status of Kosovo are "very sharply opposed."

The start of talks was overshadowed by the Serbian delegation lodging a protest with U.N. mediators about Thaci, the former rebel leader whom Belgrade accuses of war crimes, heading the Kosovo team. The letter said Thaci's active participation in the talks "will make it much harder to build mutual confidence and made genuine progress in the negotiations." Thaci did not comment on the Serb protest and instead insisted the province must gain independence, but also said his negotiating team will try to find common ground with the Serb delegation.

Thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands were displaced during the war, and the end of hostilities did not bring the two sides any closer to a resolution. The two sides disagree over how much power should be held locally, with Serbian officials insisting the province's Serbs be allowed to run affairs in their communities, link up with other Serb areas and have special ties to Belgrade. Ethnic Albanians have rejected ideas of Serb municipal clusters, which would provide direct control of the police forces and justice systems, saying that would lead to the ethnic partition of the province. As talks developed, in Kosovo, thousands of Serbs protested at the anniversary of anti-Serb riots in 2004, when mobs of ethnic Albanians attacked them and their property in the worst outbreak of violence since the end of the province's war.

Liberian Seeks Extradition of Predecessor for Atrocities Trial
The New York Times, 3/18/06

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of Liberia, said Friday that she had asked Nigeria to extradite Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president and guerrilla leader, to face war crimes charges in Sierra Leone. Ms. Johnson Sirleaf told the Security Council that she had made a formal request to President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, where Mr. Taylor lives in exile.

Mr. Taylor claimed asylum in Nigeria in August 2003 as part of an internationally brokered peace settlement ending 14 years of civil war in Liberia. He was later indicted on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity by a United Nations-backed court in Sierra Leone. Mr. Taylor, 58, a warlord-turned-president, rampaged through his own country and much of West Africa during the 1990's, unleashing ruthless campaigns of torture, rape and dismemberment. Even from exile, he has maintained influence in Liberia, with thousands of young combatants still loyal to him, Ms. Johnson Sirleaf said, making her plea ''courageous but risky.''

''Please bear in mind that time is of the essence in this regard,'' she said at a news conference. ''Liberia's peace is fragile. There are many loyalists in our country to Mr. Taylor, there are many business interests he has. Whatever decision is taken by the African leadership must ensure that the safety of the Liberian people and the stability of our nation is not undermined.'' She said Mr. Obasanjo would consult African leaders because they had been signatories to the deal that sent Mr. Taylor into exile. She said she also wanted to ''ensure that in any proceedings, there is an environment that protects all, including the accused's, fundamental human rights.''

She was not seeking Mr. Taylor's extradition to Liberia, she said, because he was not under indictment there. If he is sent to Liberia, peacekeepers there have been authorized by the Security Council to transfer him to Sierra Leone.

Mr. Obasanjo has been under pressure to act on Mr. Taylor but had said he would await a request from a democratically elected Liberian president. Ms. Johnson Sirleaf was elected in November and inaugurated on Jan. 16. She complained that the international community should have acted sooner to help Liberia free itself from Mr. Taylor's influence. ''We inherited a problem, we are faced with serious pressure, we are a small country, we have no powers that others have, we have no security forces to protect our people and the safety of our nation, so we are caught in a situation that we have to take a major decision that should have been taken long before, giving us an opportunity to pursue our development agenda,'' she said.

Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch in Dakar, Senegal, who has followed the Taylor case closely, hailed the move as an ''enormous step toward advancing justice in West Africa,'' but she said she was troubled by Mr. Obasanjo's decision to seek the approval of other African leaders. ''Obasanjo must now play his own part in the fight against impunity in West Africa,'' she said.

Ms. Johnson Sirleaf, who served five years as an assistant secretary general with the United Nations Development Program, addressed a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday and will see President Bush in the White House on Tuesday. She used her appearance before the Council on Friday to thank the United Nations for helping Liberia end its debilitating conflicts and hold the election that put her in office. The United Nations has a peacekeeping force in Liberia of 16,000 soldiers and police officers, and Ms. Johnson Sirleaf asked the Council to guarantee its continuance. She was praised in speeches by many of the ambassadors, and her speech was greeted with applause, a rare occurrence in the chamber.

Russian foreign minister criticizes Ukraine, Moldova over customs rules for Trans-Dniester
Associated Press, 3/14/06

Russia's top diplomat on Tuesday harshly criticized new customs rules imposed by Ukraine to as part of a crackdown on smugglers crossing its border with a Russian-allied breakaway region in Moldova.

Since Ukraine imposed the new rules earlier this month, officials in the separatist Trans-Dniester region and their backers in Russia have protested, accusing Kiev of mounting an economic blockade of the tiny region. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the customs rules violated earlier agreements and were exacerbating an already bad humanitarian situation in Trans-Dniester. He also criticized the West for endorsing the new rules. "We aren't going to leave it unattended," Lavrov told reporters. "We will demand the fulfillment of the existing agreements. We must collectively search for a solution."

Under pressure from the European Union and Moldova, Ukraine instituted new regulations aimed at curbing smuggling from Trans-Dniester, which has run its own affairs without international recognition since breaking away from Moldova in a 1992 war.

Lavrov said the new rules, which required all cargo to be cleared by Moldovan customs officers, violated earlier agreements that allowed Trans-Dniester to freely conduct economic activities. The Moldovan government and Trans-Dniester have held on-again, off-again talks on the region's status, and a Moscow-mediated settlement collapsed several years ago. Moldova has looked increasingly Westward, and its ties with Moscow have soured. Russia has maintained a 1,800-strong military presence in Trans-Dniester despite what Moldova and NATO say were pledges of a pullout by 2003.

In the Ukrainian capital, meanwhile, Moldovan Transport Minister Miron Gagauz, accused Trans-Dniester's leader, Igor Smirnov, of plunging the enclave into "self-isolation." Ukraine's transport minister, Viktor Bondar, said Kiev was meeting international obligations by imposing the new border rules and denied any attempt to economically isolate Trans-Dniester.

Also Tuesday, Britain's ambassador to Moldova told President Vladimir Voronin that Britain and the EU approved of Ukraine's enforcing of customs rules. According to a statement by the Moldovan president's office, John Beyer said that Britain supported finding a solution to the dispute that would respect Moldova's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Nepal parties join with Maoists for massive protest against king
Agence France Presse, 3/19/06

Nepal's leading parties Sunday reached an agreement with Maoist rebels to hold a mass pro-democracy protest next month as the rebels called off a transport blockade which they had ordered as part of an attempt to topple the royal government.

The agreement calls for a "huge peaceful demonstration" in the capital on April 8 against King Gyanendra, who seized power a year ago, as well as a general strike April 6 to 9. "We have reached an understanding that the mass movement is the only alternative to end the ongoing conflict and restore full democracy in Nepal," a statement signed by the top leaders of a seven-party alliance said. The statement came at the end of a meeting held at the residence of Nepali Congress president Girija Prasad Koirala in Kathmandu. It was the second agreement the sidelined political parties have reached with the rebels. In November, the two sides formed a loose alliance aimed at calling for the restoration of democracy and minimizing violence.

The Maoists have waged a decade-long campaign to install a communist republic in a conflict that has claimed more than 12,500 lives. The political parties however have rejected violence as a solution to the political impasse and on Sunday said a blockade of highways and roads organized by the rebels was causing shortages of fuel and food and should be called off on account of the hardship it was causing to ordinary people.

The rebels later said the six-day blockade, which has sent prices soaring and caused fuel shortages, would end Monday. "We have decided to lift the blockade and other programmes of strikes, keeping in view the developing and intensifying of the joint movement for democracy, after reaching a new understanding with the seven-party alliance," said a statement.

The statement, signed by Maoist chief Prachanda and Maoist politburo member Baburam Bhattari, said they made their decision following appeals from various quarters. The Maoists also announced that they fully supported the protest programmes of the seven parties scheduled to be organized next month. The blockade ordered in major towns had brought transport to a near-halt, with highways near-deserted earlier Sunday. The political leaders also called upon the international community to express solidarity with the alliance's programmes aimed at finding a political solution.

Britain, the United States and India cut military supplies to Nepal following the takeover by Gyanendra and have called on him to move to restore democracy. Gyanendra sacked the government in February 2005 and took direct control, claiming it had failed to stem the Maoist revolt and was corrupt.

Deputy premier: Serbia must bury its bloody past with Milosevic, choose Europe
Associated Press, 3/18/06

Serbia's pro-Western deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus warned in comments published Saturday that the Balkan republic must bury its bloody past together with the late autocratic ruler Slobodan Milosevic, and choose a brighter path that would enable it to join mainstream Europe.

"It is difficult to watch Serbian television images today, they take us back into the 1990s and bring up the obvious question of whether Serbia is able to finally break off from its past legacy," Labus said in an interview in the state-run Politika daily, referring to TV coverage of resurgent support for Milosevic, whose body was brought back from the Netherlands this week.

Tens of thousands of Milosevic's supporters packed a square in front of Belgrade's federal parliament Saturday to bid the final farewell to their leader, who died a week ago at the U.N. war crimes tribunal detention center in The Hague. Milosevic was to be buried later in the day in his eastern Serbian hometown of Pozarevac. The turmoil following his death and outpouring of support by his followers increased concerns of a looming crisis in Serbia.

"I sincerely hope Milosevic's vision for Serbia will be laid to rest together with him," Labus was quoted as saying, urging Serbs to "think to tomorrow's generation" and fulfill the responsibility of handing over remaining top war crimes fugitives to the U.N. court Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his top commander Ratko Mladic. "The price of Milosevic's destructive policies has been enormous, we are still paying for them today," Labus said of Milosevic's autocratic reign that wreaked havoc and led to economic decline in Serbia.

The controversy surrounding Milosevic's sudden death the U.N. court declared it was the result of a massive heart attack but his family and the Socialists accused The Hague tribunal of murder has damaged the court's reputation among many in Serbia, where it was already considered as anti-Serb. The European Union has given Serbia until end of March to hand over Mladic and Karadzic to the U.N. court or face suspension of critical talks to establish closer ties with the EU by signing a pre-membership agreement later this year.

"Regardless of the damaged credibility of The Hague court, our cooperation with it must continue," Labus also said. "There is only a couple of weeks we have left. Serbia must sign this agreement with the European Union. "

Montenegro opposition unites against independence
Agence France Presse, 3/21/06

Montenegro's opposition has agreed to form a united front to campaign against a referendum in two months on breaking away from its federation with Serbia, reports said Tuesday.

The Socialist People's Party, the Serb Popular Party and the Serb Democratic Party agreed late Monday to fight to maintain the union formed from the ruins of former communist Yugoslavia in 2003, the daily Dan said.

"We are starting a common campaign for this referendum," the Popular Party's president, Predrag Popovic, was quoted as saying in the newspaper. "We are united on this question and we have the support of all political groups who want to maintain the common state," said Popovic.

Earlier this month, Montenegro's parliament unanimously backed a proposal to hold a historic referendum on the Balkan state's independence from Serbia on May 21. Deputies also agreed on a referendum law and the question on the referendum: "Do you want Montenegro to be an independent state with full international and legal legitimacy?"

Despite initial objections, both the pro-independence government and pro-union opposition accepted a proposal by the European Union that the vote must pass a 55-percent threshold in a turnout of at least 50 percent. According to the latest independent polling, 43 percent of Montenegrins favour independence, 31 percent oppose it, and the remaining 24 percent are undecided. Montenegro is the only state of former communist Yugoslavia that remains federated with Serbia after the six-republic federation was shattered in a series of wars in the 1990s.

Norway appoints special envoy for Sri Lanka peace process
Associated Press, 3/17/06

Middle East expert Jon Hanssen-Bauer has been appointed Norway's new special envoy for the Sri Lankan peace process, the Foreign Ministry announced Friday. Hanssen-Bauer, 53, will be responsible for day-to-day contact with the Sri Lanka government and Tamil Tiger rebels in seeking an end to their 22-year civil war.

Norwegian Minister of International Development Erik Solheim, who secretly began the peace effort that led to a 2002 cease-fire, will retain overall responsibility for the effort, a the ministry said in a statement. "Hanssen-Bauer's academic and practical experience mean he is highly qualified. He has engaged in peace and reconciliation work in many countries," said Solheim. The announcement came a day after Solheim said he needed to reduce his daily role in the peace process because of the workload from the government post he accepted in October.

Hanssen-Bauer, who has a master's degree in social anthropology from the University of Oslo, has frequently advised the foreign ministry during its Middle East peace efforts. Most recently, he was director of the Norwegian labor movement's FAFO Institute for Applied International Studies, which played a key role on opening secret talks that led to the now-tattered 1993 Oslo Agreement peace accord between Israel and Palestinians. He joined the Foreign Ministry in August as an adviser on the Nordic country's peace efforts.

The Tamil Tigers have fought the government over a demand for a separate state for ethnic minority Tamils, claiming discrimination the country's Sinhalese majority. The conflict has cost an estimated 65,000 lives.

Sudan says it is optimistic of reaching Darfur peace deal by April
Associated Press, 3/17/06

Sudan's foreign minister said Friday he was optimistic a peace deal with rebels can be reached by next month to end the three-year conflict in the Darfur region.

Sudanese Foreign Affairs Minister Lam Akol spoke on the sidelines of an eastern Africa regional group meeting in Nairobi, where leaders are scheduled to discuss Darfur on Monday. "We are optimistic that in the next weeks we expect a breakthrough in the peace talks in Abuja," Akol said, referring to ongoing African Union-mediated talks in the Nigerian capital.

African Union Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit told foreign ministers at the meeting of the seven-nation Intergovernmental Authority on Development that a peace deal was within grasp by the end of April. "All efforts should be geared toward achieving that goal," Djinnit said.

Talks in Abuja, between Sudanese government and Darfur rebel officials slowed last year because of differences within a key Darfur rebel group. Negotiations to resolve the Darfur conflict, which has forced more than two million from their homes and killed tens of thousands, revolve around how to share political power, economic resources and deal with the region's militias.

"Now it is a matter of mastering the political will to decide what compromises to make," Akol said. Despite a cease-fire deal signed in Chad in April 2004 and the Abuja negotiations, fighting has continued. The cash-strapped African Union currently has around 7,000 peacekeepers in Darfur, a desert-like region the size of France, but expects to hand over to the U.N. by September because of its financial and logistical limitations. Sudan opposes U.N. peacekeepers.

The ministers and other officials from Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan and Somalia the countries that make up the Intergovernmental Authority on Development were preparing the agenda and other details on Friday for the heads of state meeting. The peace deal that ended the conflict in southern Sudan and the troubles facing Somalia's transitional government are some of the other issues the leaders will discuss.

Akol urged the international community not to link funds aimed at reconstruction in war-shattered southern Sudan to the resolution of the Darfur conflict. He also called on donors to waive the US$27 billion (euro22.4 billion) in debts the country owes to help its economic recovery.

Decades of low-level tribal clashes over land and water in the Darfur region erupted into large-scale violence in early 2003 when ethnic African tribes took up arms, accusing the Arab-dominated central government of neglect. The central government is accused of responding by unleashing Arab tribal militias known as Janjaweed to murder and rape civilians and lay waste to villages. The central government denies backing the Janjaweed.