PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
(Volume V, Number 4)
Contents:
UN peacekeeping mission in Burundi accused the country's security forces and its last active rebel group of continuing to commit serious human rights abuses in their war
Rule by the gun: A Moscow-backed militia terrorising Chechnya
Georgian president accuses Russia of territorial ambitions
Papuan conflict a hard nut to crack for Indonesia: analysts
Resolving a simmering separatist conflict in remote Papua could prove a more difficult task for Indonesia than negotiating peace in Aceh
International mediation group meets in Ivory Coast for first time since violent protests
Kashmir's top pro-independence leader set for talks with Indian premier
Kashmir's top separatist leader, who was to hold his first official meeting Friday with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said he was bringing with him the signatures of 1.5 million Kashmiris who want their violence-wracked region involved in the peace talks between India and Pakistan.
Kosovo
Serbia suggests 20-year grace period before deciding Kosovo status
Serbia on Tuesday suggested a 20-year grace period before deciding
Kosovo's final status but the prime minister of the breakaway Albanian-majority province rejected the idea.
Kosovo talks to resume on March 17: UN diplomat
Historic face-to-face talks between senior Serbian and Kosovo Albanian officials on the future of the independence-seeking province brought no "earth-shattering" results and will resume on March 17.
Liberia installs truth commission to unearth wartime atrocities
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has appointed a nine-member truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) to lift the lid on atrocities perpetrated in a dark past of more than a decade of conflict
Nepal's political parties brace for big protest rally against king
Nepal's major political parties prepared Saturday for a large weekend protest rally amid growing criticism of the king.
Serbia Rejects EU's Vote Guidelines
Death toll from fighting on Ethiopia-Somalia border climbs to 20
Sri Lankan government, Tamil leaders prepare for two-day peace talks near Geneva
Sri Lankan government officials and leaders of the Tamil Tiger rebels have arrived at a secluded chateau outside Geneva and are preparing for their first direct talks in nearly three years.
Bush: Darfur force should double
US President George W. Bush said Friday that ending violence in Darfur will probably require double the number of peacekeepers there now, led by the United Nations with strong NATO support.
Sudan tells U.S. congressional delegation it opposes proposal for U.N. troops in Darfur
Sudan told a visiting U.S. delegation that it opposed a proposal to deploy international peacekeepers.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis Click here to access the PILPG Report.
Up to 20,000 fleeing Rwandans now in Burundi: UN
Agence France Presse 02/16/06
Up to 20,000 Rwandans who fled their country in fear of appearing before local genocide courts have settled in camps in northern Burundi where many are seeking asylum, officials said Thursday.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and a senior official in Burundi's interior ministry said between 16,000 and 20,000 Rwandans were now in Burundi's northern provinces of Ngozi and Kirundo."There are now 8,260 Rwandan asylum seekers who have been registered by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and we are set to register an equally large number," said Catherine Lune Grayson, UNHCR's spokeswoman here.
The refugees, mainly Rwandan Hutus, have settled in four camps in the two provinces lying on the Rwanda-Burundi border.
Since last year, thousands of Rwandans have fled to Burundi after grassroots courts known as gacaca began hearings in the trials of suspects in the country's 1994 massacre that claimed some 800,000 lives.
"They continue to arrive at a steady rhythm in their hundreds every week," the Burundian official said.
Last month, the UNHCR said that between 7,000 and 8,000 Rwandan refugees had fled to Burundi, an increase of about 2,000 from the previous month.
Burundi's previous government forcefully deported 5,000 of them last June after classifying them as "illegal immigrants" and drawing international condemnation.
An agreement reached between the new government and Kigali in August ended the forceful repatriation but a joint commission set up to vet asylum seekers with the United Nations has thus far handled only a fraction of the cases.
UN accuses Burundi army, rebels of rights violation
Agence France Presse 02/16/06
The UN peacekeeping mission in Burundi on Thursday accused the country's security forces and its last active rebel group of continuing to commit serious human rights abuses in their ongoing war.
In its latest monthly report, the UN Operation in Burundi (ONUB) reported 213 arbitrary and illegal arrests and 15 cases of torture by both the secret service and National Liberation Forces (FNL) rebels.
"These human and international humanitarian rights abuses are acts of the army, police and the presidential police as well as FNL members," ONUB said.
It said 33 people had been killed last month by Burundi security forces and the FNL.
Lawmakers from FNL stronghold areas of western Bujumbura Rural province urged the government to immediately stop the "abusive arrest, inhuman and degrading" treatment of civilians in the province by the security forces.
Last month, ONUB accused the military and the FNL of similar abuses and documented eight cases of extra-judicial executions by the army, adding that many of the perpetrators carried out the killings with "total impunity."
The FNL is the only one of Burundi's seven Hutu rebel groups not to take part in the national unity government of President Pierre Nkurunziza, a former guerrilla chief who came to power last year after a series of elections that restored democratic rule to Burundi.
The small central African state is still struggling to recover from a civil war that claimed some 300,000 lives.
Rule by the gun: A Moscow-backed militia terrorising Chechnya
Agence France Presse 02/20/06
For a month now, Salman Khamyshkanov, a 28-year-old teacher from Grozny, has been too afraid to sleep at home since he was arrested by a Chechen militia that is enforcing an iron rule in the province.
All over war-torn Chechnya, the black-clad "Kadyrovtsy" militias, named after Chechnya's assassinated former leader Akhmad Kadyrov, have become a byword for terror.
Early one morning, Khamyshkanov said, gun-toting Kadyrovtsy came and arrested him and his brother Salaudin, wrapping his T-shirt around his head as a blindfold.
After an hour's drive, he found himself in a cell.
"They started beating me, asking me if I knew rebel leaders and accused me of teaching my brother how to lay mines," he said.
Khamyshkanov teaches awareness classes for children on reporting unexploded landmines and other survival skills in this war-torn region. He denies any involvement with Chechnya's separatist guerrilla.
On the second day of his detention, he was released with no explanation.
He has still not heard from his 20-year-old brother, whose name has joined a growing list of thousands of people missing in Chechnya since Russian troops stormed the rebel province in October 1999.
Unusually, in a place where most family members prefer to do behind-the-scenes deals to secure the release of their loved ones, often with sums of several thousands of dollars changing hands, Khamyshkanov has come out and accused the Kadyrovtsy publicly of being behind the abduction.
He has even appealed through local television to Ramzan Kadyrov, Akhmad's son and the leader of the militia, to let Shalaudin go.
The feared militia was set up in 2000 as a personal guard for Akhmad Kadyrov, a former separatist rebel during the first Chechen war between 1994 and 1996 who later switched sides and headed a pro-Russian administration after the start of the second war in 1999.
Kadyrov was killed in a bomb attack during a memorial parade in a stadium in Grozny in 2004. His son effectively took over the reins of power, even though he is officially only number three in the province.
No official figures are available on how many Kadyrovtsy there are but they are estimated by human rights groups to number several thousand, controlling a network stretching to almost every village and town in Chechnya.
Many of these men are former rebels who fought bitterly against Moscow. Some have short beards like Ramzan Kadyrov, wear black fatigues and profess strong Islamic beliefs.
At Grozny checkpoints they can be seen wearing epaulettes that read "Anti-Terrorism Centre" and standing side by side with Russian troops. They are taking an increasingly active part in military "clean-up operations" aimed at finding separatist fighters.
"Moscow aims to neutralise the population through fear by using this local militia, who have a much better knowledge of the terrain than federal soldiers," said Shamil Tangiyev, who works at the Grozny office of Russia's Memorial, a non-governmental human rights group.
President Vladimir Putin praises their efficiency but human rights campaigners and many Chechen civilians accuse the militia of routinely using torture and carrying out summary executions.
"Kadyrov has taken it upon himself to do the dirty work," said a middle-aged man from the town of Mesker-Yurt who was detained by the Kadyrovtsy for almost a year because of his son, a former separatist fighter who has emigrated to Europe.
Memorial registered more than 300 abductions last year, with 127 abductees still missing, 23 found dead, and just over 150 eventually released. It accuses the Kadyrovtsy of being behind most of the abductions and says many more disappearances go unreported.
The militia has personnel in various security structures in Chechnya, from the Anti-Terrorism Centre based in the city of Gudermes to an "oil regiment," charged with guarding the province's oil fields.
Their headquarters in a fortress-like building in Grozny also serve as an illegal detention centre, they root out suspected rebels by abducting relatives and they demand thousands of dollars in return for releases, Tangiyev said.
Moscow, he continued, is fully aware of all this. The militia units have been incorporated under Russian official branches of power, particularly the country's interior ministry, and "are very efficiently controlled by the federal forces."
Memorial has gathered numerous witness reports on the presence of agents from Russia's FSB intelligence service, formerly the KGB, in Kadyrovtsy detention centres and Moscow's involvement in the secret transfer of detainees, including through the Khankala military base near Grozny.
Georgian president accuses Russia of territorial ambitions,
Associated Press 02/16/06
President Mikhail Saakashvili on Tuesday accused Russia of having imperial ambitions, and in an emotional address before parliament he pledged again that Georgia would restore its territorial integrity.
In a 1 1/2-hour speech before lawmakers, the Georgian leader again said his government would seek a peaceful resolution of the stubborn conflicts with two regions that broke away from central government control in the 1990s Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both regions have cultivated close ties with Russia.
He said the army had increased to between 19,000 and 20,000 troops and he pledged that Georgia would seek candidate membership status for NATO this year.
"This is a disciplined army, like a single fist, which in any conditions will defend the territorial integrity of Georgia," Saakashvili said. "We have the smallest army in the region, but I want warn everyone that we are better equipped, more technologically up-to-date than anyone else.
"We are a peaceful nation, but in this region, in these dangerous conditions, this freedom needs defending," he said.
Parliament was expected to vote Wednesday on a resolution calling on Russian peacekeepers to withdraw from South Ossetia. If it passes, as expected, the resolution will further fuel tensions, not only in the region but with Russia.
"This isn't an ethnic conflict," he said. "It's necessary to stop using the terms 'Georgian-Abkhazian' or 'Georgian-Ossetian' conflicts. These are inappropriate terms. This is a territorial conflict, connected with the dividing up of the post-imperial space and with where the borders of one big empire ends.
"Today, the whole world is with us. Only if you were blind, would you not be able to see that the visit by President George W. Bush was a directly related phenomenon," he said.
The U.S. president visited the Caucasus Mountain nation last May
Saakashvili also accused Moscow of trying to destabilize the nation.
"Right now, they're thinking that with internal provocations, disorder, they can stop the forward movement of Georgia," he said. "They should know that we have business with these provocative forces."
Ties between Moscow and Tbilisi have cooled markedly since Saakashvili swept to power more than two years ago during Georgia's Rose Revolution.
Saakashvili has openly courted the United States and other Western nations, seeking membership in the European Union and NATO. U.S. military instructors have also been helping to train Georgian troops.
Last month, explosions cut a major natural gas pipeline from Russia into Georgia and cut power lines, plunging much of the country into darkness and cold. Saakashvili openly accused Russia of sabotage.
Also Tuesday, Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia accused Georgian police of illegally seizing two vehicles their troops had been using to transport food. Earlier this month, fist fights broke out after Georgian police tried to impound a Russian peacekeepers' truck involved in a traffic accident near South Ossetia.
Papuan conflict a hard nut to crack for Indonesia: analysts
Agence France Presse 02/19/06
Resolving a simmering separatist conflict in remote Papua could prove a more difficult task for Indonesia than negotiating peace in Aceh in the absence of a credible partner for talks, analysts say.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is eager to halt the low-level insurgency in eastern Papua after ending a decades-long separatist conflict in Aceh, at the other extremity of the sprawling archipelago nation.
But analysts say the poorly-armed Free Papua Movement (OPM) is split, disorganised and lacks a leadership with any capacity to represent Papuans in negotiations with the government of the world's largest Muslim nation.
The OPM has waged a sporadic guerrilla offensive against Jakarta's rule ever since Indonesia assumed control of the resource-rich former Dutch territory in the 1960s, as Indonesia's military has been accused of human rights abuses.
Full details of violent incidents in jungle-clad Papua -- which is off-limits to foreign media -- rarely emerge and it can be difficult to confirm who is behind them.
The plight of the Papuans, who unlike most Indonesians are of Melanesian descent and predominantly Christian, hit international headlines last month with the arrival of 43 asylum seekers in Australia by boat.
The group accused the Indonesian military of perpetrating genocide in the province, charges countered by the Indonesian government as "rubbish".
"The problem with Papua is: who has the legitimacy to negotiate on behalf of Papuans with the government?" said Dewi Fortuna Anwar, an analyst with the Habibie Center think tank.
"GAM (the Free Aceh Movement) has a clear leadership hierarchy, but Papuan separatists are fragmented," she told AFP, referring to Aceh's rebels, who inked a peace pact with Jakarta last August after a nearly three-decade-long conflict that killed 15,000.
Anwar also noted that the Aceh peace initiative was spurred on by the devastating December 2004 tsunami, which left some 165,000 Acehnese dead and brought massive international attention to the province.
While not on the scale of the Aceh bloodshed, several prominent incidents in Papua have been blamed on OPM, including a 2002 ambush that killed two US citizens and an Indonesian, dogging relations with the United States since.
The group's leader Anthonius Wamang, who was arrested with seven others last month, admitted they fired on the vehicle, but he also accused the military of being implicated in the attack near a mine owned by US giant Freeport-McMoRan.
While the military has denied a connection, the allegation highlights the often murky nature of the conflict.
Indonesia banned foreign media from entering Papua in 2003, a move again defended by Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono this month.
"We feel that Indonesian unity and cohesion would be threatened by foreign intrusion and concern," he said.
Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group predicted that it would "take a long time" to resolve the conflict in Papua.
Papua is "a much more complex place" than Aceh, with many different tribes and a generally low level of education, she told AFP.
Indonesia won sovereignty over Papua, then called West Irian, in 1969, after the United Nations allowed an integration referendum that involved just 1,000 hand-picked tribal leaders and was widely labelled a sham.
Papua is on the international radar today due to a natural gas project there led by energy giant BP as well as Freeport's gold and copper mine, the world's largest.
Jones noted that the outside interest has not resulted in much action.
"There has been a lot of international concern, but it hasn't led to political support for a referendum," she said.
Jakarta has offered special autonomy for Papua, giving it a greater share of its oil and gas revenues among other concessions, but its clumsy implementation has failed to curb local discontent.
In August, Yudhoyono promised to seek a peaceful end to the Papuan conflict, rejecting international interference after a US congressman called for unfettered access to investigate how Jakarta gained control of Papua.
Not everyone, however, is convinced OPM are a major concern.
"Sometimes they are active but most of the times they are dormant," said Albert Rumbekwan, a Papua-based member of the National Commission on Human Rights which is investigating claims by the Papuans in Australia.
"Outsiders may think Papua is a dangerous place, but it is actually safe here."
Aceh Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
International mediation group meets in Ivory Coast for first time since violent protests
Associated Press 02/17/06
A U.N.-backed international mediation group set up to help resolve Ivory Coast's ongoing crisis met with officials in this war-divided nation Friday for the first time since the group's recommendations sparked days of violence last month.
U.N. Ivory Coast mission chief Pierre Schori said talks Friday would focus on setting up an independent electoral commission ahead of elections due by October 2006.
Schori is jointly heading the so-called International Working Group, which includes top U.N. and African Union officials. The group was established in October during a meeting of the African Union's Peace and Security Council to help ensure Ivory Coast stays on track to hold elections later this year.
The poll, originally slated for October 2005, was canceled because both sides failed to disarm. A new prime minister was appointed after to shepherd the country toward elections within a year.
In January, the mediation group called for parliament, dominated by supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo, to be dissolved because its mandate had expired.
The call enraged Gbagbo loyalists, who attacked U.N. installations in violence that brought the country's main city, Abidjan, to a standstill for four days and drove U.N. troops and aid workers from towns in the government-held south.
"The recommendations that came out of our last session ... were unfortunately misinterpreted," Schori said without elaborating.
Schori heads the mediation group jointly with Republic of Congo's foreign affairs minister, Rodolphe Adada. Officials from Nigeria and South Africa were expected at Friday's meeting along with Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny.
Ivorian police were deployed outside the U.N. headquarters in Abidjan, where the meeting took place. Last month, protesters hurled stones at U.N. peacekeepers inside, trying to knock down walls with sledgehammers.
Despite various peace deals, the world's top cocoa producer remains divided between a government-held south and rebel-controlled north after a 2002-2003 civil war. Some 10,000 U.N. and French peacekeepers patrol front lines and help provide security in the country.
UN aid chief fears renewed conflict in Ivory Coast
Agence France Presse 02/20/06
Conflict is likely to resume in the divided west African state of Ivory Coast unless international pressure is stepped up, the United Nations' top aid official said in an interview published Monday.
"If the United Nations has run short of means, if there is no more international pressure, violence will break out again," warned Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland.
He also said aid workers in the world's top cocoa producer were becoming increasingly fearful for their safety, a development that could provoke a major humanitarian crisis.
"Everyone is afraid that violence will resume," Egeland told the French Liberation newspaper.
"But what is new is that humanitarian personnel are also scared," said Egeland, who arrived in Ivory Coast last week to evaluate the humanitarian situation.
In mid-January, aid workers were targetted by supporters of President Laurent Gbabgo in the western town of Guiglo, which Egeland visited, as well as Bouake, where New Forces rebels who hold much of the north of the country have their headquarters.
"Impunity in Ivory Coast must stop. Those responsible must be punished," Egeland said, adding that he had not met Gbagbo as planned.
"A meeting had been planned for Friday afternoon. It was cancelled. I imagine my remarks about impunity and about responsibility for the violence contributed to the unavailability of the president," he said.
"If UN agencies continue to be threatened, there will soon be a serious humanitarian crisis. Fewer and fewer people have access to clean water, to education," he added.
Kashmir's top pro-independence leader set for talks with Indian premier
Associated Press
02/17/06
Kashmir's top separatist leader, who was to hold his first official meeting Friday with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said he was bringing with him the signatures of 1.5 million Kashmiris who want their violence-wracked region involved in the peace talks between India and Pakistan.
"My only agenda for today's meeting is to urge Mr. Manmohan Singh that Kashmiri representatives should be engaged in the India-Pakistan talks directly. I think it is a legitimate demand and can be only be ignored at the peril of the peace process," Yasin Malik told The Associated Press.
In Srinagar, capital of Jammu-Kashmir state, another prominent separatist leader said he had declined a government offer to attend a meeting later this month with Singh and, for the first time, mainstream and separatist politicians.
"I do not think that there is anything to be gained from such an exercise," said Syed Ali Shah Geelani, head of the hardline faction of the All parties Hurriyet Conference, the main separatist grouping.
Geelani is opposed to Malik, chief of the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front, a militant outfit that gave up violence and became a political party.
Malik was scheduled to meet with Singh Friday evening.
India has been talking separately to Pakistan and Kashmiri separatist leaders since 2004 in its effort to end the Kashmir territorial dispute, the cause of two wars between the nuclear-armed rivals.
But Kashmiri separatist leaders say they should be part of three-way talks.
"I am going to put before him 1.5 million signatures that I have collected from more than 5,000 villages in Jammu and Kashmir that ask for the same right," he said.
Stacks of papers with the signatures, compiled in a door-to-door campaign across the Kashmir Valley, have previously been exhibited in New Delhi by Malik. He said the signatures have been scanned onto compact discs.
Malik was one of the first armed militant leaders to cross the border, receive weapons training in Pakistan and stoke the Kashmir insurgency when it began in 1989.
More than a dozen rebel groups, most based in Pakistan, have since fought Indian security forces for the region's independence from India or its merger with Pakistan. More than 67,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
Malik visited Pakistan last year and met with several leaders including President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
The JKLF gave up arms in 1996 and became a political group. It demands independence for Jammu-Kashmir state from both India and Pakistan.
In the past two years, relations between India and Pakistan have thawed, but the longtime rivals have made little headway in resolving the Kashmir dispute.
"Despite more than two years of the so-called peace process, nothing has changed in Kashmir," Malik said. "Unless India alters its rigid stance, nothing will come out of any number of deliberations."
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Serbia suggests 20-year grace period before deciding Kosovo status
Agence France Presse 02/15/06
Serbia on Tuesday suggested a 20-year grace period before deciding Kosovo's final status but the prime minister of the breakaway Albanian-majority province rejected the idea.
Serbian President Boris Tadic, who along with Kosovo prime minister Bajram Kosumi attended a Security Council session here, said the status of the province should be decided "after an agreed period of time, say 20 years."
But reacting to the idea, Kosumi said: "I believe that this is the appropriate moment where we have to close the Kosovo question."
The council session on Kosovo was held six days before negotiations are due to start in Vienna Monday on the future status of the Albanian-majority province.
Kosovo is legally still a southern Serbian province, but its ethnic Albanian majority demands full independence from Belgrade. The province has been a UN protectorate since a NATO bombing campaign forced Serbian forces to withdraw in 1999 and end a crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanian rebels.
Tadic said he favored a negotiated compromise deal under which Kosovo's Albanian majority would get a "very wide" autonomy, short of independence.
"I am not satisfied with the reality in Kosovo today regarding human rights and freedom of movement for national minorities," he noted. 'But even though I cannot see tremendous progress ...we are going to participate and I hope we are going to achieve realistic solutions which will be compromises for all sides regarding relations between Albanians and Serbs."
Kosumi meanwhile pledged to make all the necessary compromises for the making of a democratic state. But he added: "We need to give the people of Kosovo their chance to create their own lives and live in freedom."
The 15-member Security Council heard a briefing from Soren Jessen-Petersen, the head of the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), who deplored a "noticeable slowdown" in implementation of UN-set democratic standards in the province, particularly in the area of minority rights.
The standards cover targets to foster trust between majority Albanians and minority Serbs in such areas as building democratic institutions, enforcing minority rights, creating a functioning economy and establishing an impartial legal system.
"Standards, as a political priority, cannot be subsumed by status. Symbolic gestures are not sufficient. Actions must be substantive and serious. They must also be sustained," Jessen-Petersen said.
He told reporters that that all council members underlined the need for further progress on standards implementation.
"The message is clear: the sooner and the faster that the institutions in Kosovo implement the standards the sooner we will have a decision on the status of Kosovo," he noted.
He said all council members also urged Belgrade "to allow the Kosovo Serbs to engage in the dialogue in the institutions in Kosovo so they can be a part of shaping the future."
The status talks, shepherded by UN chief mediator in Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari, were postponed after Kosovo's president Ibrahim Rugova died of lung cancer at the age of 61 last month.
Several council speakers paid tribute to Rugova and welcomed the election of moderate Fatmir Sejdiu as his successor last week.
Speaking on behalf of the EU, Austrian Ambassador Gerhard Pfanzelter said, "The European Union strongly urges Kosovo's institutions to renew their efforts to ensure substantive, accelerated and sustainable progress in the implementation of the standards, especially in key areas such as returns, equal access to justice, and the preservation of cultural heritage."
France's UN envoy Jean-Marc de La Sabliere stressed that any final status will have to be acceptable to the people of Kosovo while Britain's UN delegate Adam Thomson insisted that any settlement "should conclude during 2006".
Kosovo talks to resume on March 17: UN diplomat
Agence France Presse 02/21/06
Historic face-to-face talks between senior Serbian and Kosovo Albanian officials on the future of the independence-seeking province brought no "earth-shattering" results and will resume on March 17, a UN official said Tuesday.
The first direct talks between the two delegations did not tackle the sensitive issue of Kosovo's final status, but the discussions on "practical issues (were) conducted in a very cooperative spirit," said Austrian diplomat Albert Rohan, who chaired the meetings.
"It was not expected to reach an agreement ... but to present various opinions and explore different views, and it was quite successful," Rohan told reporters after the end of the two-day meeting.
Rohan, a deputy to the UN special envoy for Kosovo, veteran Finnish diplomat Martti Ahtisaari, said the two sides would meet next on March 17 to discuss other technical issues.
"This method is not earth-shattering in a political sense but it is important for the life of people in Kosovo," Rohan said.
The talks in Vienna focused on technical issues such as reforming Kosovo's local government to ensure greater autonomy for minority communities. These communities fear marginalisation under a central, ethnic Albanian-dominated government.
Talks on Monday centred on the transfer of competencies in the fields of health care, education, welfare and culture, while on Tuesday the delegations were to discuss more important topics including justice, police and administration.
The long-awaited negotiations will ultimately determine whether Kosovo becomes independent of Serbia, as demanded by the ethnic Albanian majority of almost two million, or remains part of the former Yugoslav republic of Serbia, the result backed by Belgrade and the province's tiny Serb minority.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Liberia installs truth commission to unearth wartime atrocities
Agence France Presse 02/21/06
Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has appointed a nine-member truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) to lift the lid on atrocities perpetrated in a dark past of more than a decade of conflict.
Tasked with investigating abuses during successive civil wars, the TRC is expected to hear both the perpetrators and victims of human rights violations during 24 years of conflict to lay the groundwork for reconciliation.
"You have a vital role to play in the reconciliation process of Liberia, a process that is indispensable to genuine peace in our beloved nation," Sirleaf told the commissioners at an inauguration ceremony late Monday.
Modelled on the lines of South Africa's TRC, the commission will investigate rights violations including murders, extra-judicial killings, economic crimes and sexual abuse committed by all parties to the country's conflict.
"The inauguration of the TRC is an unprecedented testament to the courage we have summoned as a nation and people to reckon with our shameful and despicable past - and to establish a consensus on national truth," Sirleaf was quoted as saying in a statement Tuesday released by the UN mission on Liberia (UNMIL).
"This commission is our hope - to define the past on our behalf in terms that are seen and believed to be fair and balanced, and bring forth a unifying narrative on which our nation's rebuilding and renewal processes can be more securely anchored," she said, according to UNMIL.
The commission has been given three years in which to conduct its business, but can seek an extension if need arises.
The TRC was mandated by the 2003 Accra Peace Agreement on Liberia and was formally established by an act of parliament published in June 2005.
"The mandate of the TRC includes the conduct of research and investigations, holding of public and confidential hearings, making final determination of matters before it," according to the act under which the commission was established.
"All matters of the TRC appearing before the Supreme Court of Liberia shall be advanced for hearing and determination to the top of the Supreme Court's docket at all times without the slightest delay as a matter of first priority," stipulates the act.
According to a summary of the key points of the TRC act posted on UNMIL website, the TRC can recommend amnesty, upon application by perpetrators who after full disclosure of their wrongs and remorse, but "shall not apply to violations of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity."
Former strongman Charles Taylor has been indicted at the UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Liberia's unrest started with the food riots in 1979 followed by a coup in 1980 that toppled President William Tolbert.
Ten years later the conflict intensified with a rebellion by the warlord Taylor and the subsequent ouster and assassination of then president Samuel Doe, but all factions involved in the successive insurgencies are accused of abuses.
Taylor, later an elected president, stepped down in 2003 in the face of an insurgency and international pressure to quit. He is in exile in Nigeria, which is under pressure to extradite him to face trial for alleged war crimes in Sierra Leone, Liberia's equally war-ravaged neighbour.
On taking office last month, however, Sirleaf said that bringing Taylor to justice in Liberia was not among her priorities as the new head of state.
The commission's work will be funded by government with the support of foreign governments and UN agencies.
UNMIL gave half a million dollars (420,000 euros) at the Monday inauguration ceremony.
At Monday's ceremony, commissioner Jerome Verdier, a lawyer assured the Liberian people of the TRC's commitment to reconcile the battered nation.
"We are aware of the difficulty of our task," Verdier said.
"We will do the best we can to make reconciliation a reality in Liberia," Verdier promised, adding "we know that this is the key to genuine peace."
Nepal's political parties brace for big protest rally against king
Associated Press 02/18/06
Nepal's major political parties prepared Saturday for a large weekend protest rally amid growing criticism of the king, who has experienced a number of recent setbacks to his authoritarian rule.
Sunday's planned rally follows recent decisions by Nepal's Supreme Court to free dozens of political detainees and scrap an anti-corruption body that was allegedly used by the royalist government to crack down on opponents.
Emboldened by the court's rulings, political parties hope the rally will be the biggest since King Gyanendra seized power a year ago.
More than 10,000 protesters were expected at the rally, said Shobhakar Parajuli, a spokesman for the Nepali Congress party, which is among seven major parties that have formed an alliance to push for democracy.
The protesters plan to march from five locations around the capital, Katmandu, and merge into a single mass rally, Parajuli said. The demonstration marks Democracy Day, which celebrates a popular movement of the 1980s that forced the previous king to establish a multiparty democracy.
On Friday, the court ordered the release of 37 political detainees, including senior party officials. Judges Pramananda Jha and Rajendra Koirala ruled that they did not find any reason for the detentions and ordered the government to immediately free them.
The Supreme Court's rulings over the past week show the king's activities are "nothing but illegal," Parajuli said.
"This is a victory for those who believe in democracy. We will continue our struggle for democracy and immediately return to our movement," said Raghuji Pant of the Communist Party of Nepal, who was detained in a police raid on Feb. 1.
Hundreds have been jailed since King Gyanendra seized power a year ago and declared a state of emergency, some for a few days and others for several months.
Also last week, the court released several other detainees and scrapped the Royal Commission for Corruption Control, which had jailed several political leaders on bribery charges in an apparent bid to prevent them from mobilizing opinion against the king's direct rule.
Gyanendra said he took power to quell a communist insurgency and wipe out corruption in the government that alienated a majority of Nepal's 27 million people.
But the move sparked an alliance between the rebels and the seven political parties to hasten Gyanendra's downfall, and fighting between the guerrillas and security forces has since intensified.
This past week, the Royal Nepalese Army launched a major offensive in southwest Nepal, deploying thousands of troops to the mountainous districts of Palpa and Nawalparasi, 250 kilometers (160 miles) of Katmandu. Army helicopters have also been intermittently bombing to flush out rebels from the area, which has been mired in violence since the guerrillas ended a unilateral cease-fire last month.
Meanwhile, an abducted government official died in rebel custody in eastern Nepal, a news report said Saturday.
Prem Prasad Sapkota, an administrator for Koshi zone, died of an asthma attack on Friday, the Samachar Patra newspaper quoted a local rebel leader as saying. Sapkota was kidnapped along with 14 other government officials and security personnel during a Feb. 7 rebel raid in the region. Eleven were later released, but Sapkota and three others were not.
Elsewhere in southern Nepal, the rebels freed three employees of tobacco company Surya Nepal Ltd. after detaining them for two weeks, said a report posted on the Internet site of the Kantipur group of publications.
The rebels, who say they are inspired by Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, have fought for a decade to replace the constitutional monarchy with a communist state. The insurgency has claimed nearly 13,000 lives.
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Nepal Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Serbia Rejects EU's Vote Guidelines
Associated Press 02/16/06
Serbia on Thursday rejected European Union's guidelines for an independence vote in Montenegro, increasing tensions within the troubled Balkan state.
The EU on Wednesday proposed that tiny Montenegro could gain independence from much larger Serbia if 55 percent of those who take part in a May referendum vote for the split.
Serbian officials said Thursday they would recognize Montenegro's independence only if more than 50 percent of Montenegro's registered voters not only those who participate vote to end the Serbia-Montenegro union.
"It has never happened in history that a state ceases to exist with less than 50 percent of its electorate voting for it in a referendum," said Serbia's minister in charge of local governments, Zoran Loncar.
Montenegro was the only republic that stayed with Serbia after the Yugoslav federation broke up in 1991 in a series of ethnic conflicts. But relations between the two deteriorated as Montenegro's independence drive gained strength.
Western leaders fear that if the referendum is held without a compromise among Montenegro's bickering pro- and anti-independence factions and with Serbia, violence could erupt similar to the Balkan wars in the 1990s.
Montenegro's population of some 660,000 people is deeply split on the independence issue. A poll in January showed 41.4 percent in favor of independence, 32.3 percent opposed and about 25 percent undecided. The margin of error was plus or minus 2 percent.
Miroslav Lajcak, a Slovak diplomat who brought the EU referendum proposal to Montenegro, said it "offers an equal chance to all."
"This is not a take-it-or-leave-it proposal by the EU," Lajcak said in Montenegro's capital of Podgorica, suggesting that the republic's parliament and its bickering leaders approve the final referendum rules.
Montenegro's pro-independence President Filip Vujanovic said a 55-percent vote in favor of independence was an "uncommon practice," and that the EU proposal was "less acceptable" than the suggestion by Montenegrin authorities that the threshold be 41-percent approval by registered voters.
Serb officials have rejected both the EU and the Montenegrin proposals.
"If less than 50 percent of all registered voters decide Montenegro's independence, we would consider this an illegal and illegitimate act," said Serbian prime minister's policy adviser Aleksandar Simic.
Serbian ultranationalist party official Tomislav Nikolic, who leads the largest group in Serbia's parliament, warned Montenegro's pro-independence authorities Thursday that Serbs would form their own autonomous regions within Montenegro if it split from Serbia in "such an illegal referendum."
Death toll from fighting on Ethiopia-Somalia border climbs to 20
Agence France Presse 02/19/06
At least eight people were killed and more than 13 wounded on Sunday in the fifth day of fighting between rival Somali sub-clans over disputed pasture and wells just inside Ethiopia, bringing the death toll to 20, witnesses said.
The clashes in the Ethiopian village of Yamarug began Wednesday between heavily armed militia members from the Marehan and Majereteen factions of the larger Darod clan in a dispute over the precious resources, they said.
"The elders were unable to secure a ceasefire and fighting on Sunday killed at least eight people and left 13 wounded," Mohamoud Omar, a truck-owner who witnessed the clashes told AFP.
"The fighting continued until darkness, but no agreement has been reached up to now to stop it," Omar said, adding that more battlewagons and ammunition arrived from the lawless Somalia.
Villagers said intense fighting took place on Wednesday and Thursday -- when 12 people died -- , but there was sporadic gunfire on Friday and Saturday.
"The fighting might continue until warring sides reach an agreement," said an elder who requested to remain unnamed.
Yamarug is a remote and desolate outpost in southeastern Ethiopia only about 30 meters (yards) from the border with central Somalia and eyewitness accounts of the fighting were sketchy.
Tensions between the two factions have run high for some time but they have managed to live together in the Yamarug area for years without violence, according to Somali observers.
They said those tensions likely erupted into fighting due to the scorching drought that has hit east Africa, threatening more than eight million people with starvation in four countries, including Ethiopia and Somalia.
About 3.4 million people -- 1.7 million each in southeast Ethiopia and southern and central Somalia -- are at-risk and in dire need of assistance to stave off famine, according to UN agencies.
Sri Lankan government, Tamil leaders prepare for two-day peace talks near Geneva
Associated Press 02/21/06
Sri Lankan government officials and leaders of the Tamil Tiger rebels have arrived at a secluded chateau outside Geneva and are preparing for their first direct talks in nearly three years, officials said Tuesday.
The government and rebels will try to patch up their unraveling cease-fire and stop the ethnically troubled tropical island from slipping back to war when they begin their talks on Wednesday.
Objectives are limited, with political solutions which have eluded the minority Tamils, concentrated in the country's north and east, and the Sinhalese majority in the south still too remote to discuss.
The conflict has its roots in Tamil resentment over their status which erupted into war in 1983. The Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam launched a violent campaign to create a separate state for ethnic minority Tamils in the northeast, accusing the majority Sinhalese of discrimination.
The civil war killed 65,000 people before a cease-fire was signed in 2002. Peace talks broke down a year later over rebel demands for wide autonomy.
The Geneva talks will mostly focus on renewed violence that has left 150 people dead, including 81 soldiers, since December. The fighting has threatened to derail a Norwegian-brokered truce from 2002.
Just agreeing to talk has helped to reduce the number of Sri Lankans fleeing their homes in fear, according to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres. UNHCR said some 6,000 families have been displaced by fighting in Sri Lanka since mid-December.
"We have seen the number of Sri Lankans fleeing regional insecurity, both internally and to India, diminish in the weeks leading up to the Geneva talks," Guterres said in a statement. He attributed the decline in part to "the high expectations of those living in the conflict-affected areas for the upcoming peace talks."
The government blames the increased violence on the rebels, while the rebels say the military and a breakaway faction of its group are responsible.
The rebel movement split in 2004 when an eastern-based military commander named Karuna broke away with 6,000 fighters. The rebellion was suppressed by the mainstream rebels, but Karuna and several other leaders managed to escape and are known to operate in eastern Sri Lanka.
The Tamil Tiger rebels say they will insist during the talks that the Sri Lankan army disarm and neutralize Karuna, but Colombo denies having anything to do with him.
The government is expected to demand an end to the forced recruitment of children into guerrilla ranks. The Tigers deny responsibility for the attacks or abducting children, but Norwegian-led truce monitors confirm 1,794 child soldiers were recruited from 2002-2005.
The two sides also may discuss strengthening the mandate of the 60-person Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission, created under the Norwegian-brokered cease-fire agreement in 2002.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Bush: Darfur force should double
Agence France Presse 02/17/06
US President George W. Bush said Friday that ending violence in Darfur will probably require double the number of peacekeepers there now, led by the United Nations with strong NATO support.
"We need more troops," Bush stressed during a day-long visit here, saying that the 7,000-strong African Union (AU) deployment there "was noble, but it didn't achieve the objective."
"I'm in the process now of working with a variety of folks to encourage there to be more troops, probably under the United Nations," he said days after meeting UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
"But it's going to require a NATO stewardship, planning, facilitating, organizing, probably double the number of peacekeepers that are there now, in order to start bringing some sense of security," said Bush.
The US president's comments, his most detailed to date about how to respond to the worsening situation in Darfur, came hours after he spoke by telephone with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
The president telephoned de Hoop Scheffer "to share his concerns about the deteriorating situation in Darfur," said White House spokesman Trent Duffy, adding that the two discussed "what additional actions NATO might take in the future."
The African Union force, which was deployed in 2004, has been suffering from poor funding and inadequate resources to contain the escalating bloodshed in Sudan's troubled western region.
The UN Security Council earlier this month approved contingency planning for UN peacekeepers to take over from the AU force in Darfur but, despite strong pressure from Western governments, Khartoum has so far remained implacably hostile to the deployment of UN troops there.
The war there broke out in February 2003, when black ethnic groups launched a rebellion against Khartoum that was brutally repressed by the Arab Islamist regime of President Omar al-Beshir.
The combined effect of the war and one of the world's worst humanitarian crises has left up to 300,000 people dead and an estimated 2.4 million displaced.
"There has to be a consequence for people abusing their fellow citizens," said Bush. "Our country was the first country to call what was taking place a genocide, which matters -- words matter."
Looking to repair a broader north-south peace agreement, Bush said that Sudan's rebel groups "are not united in their objectives. And so politically, or diplomatically, we have to work to make sure there's one voice."
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeated the charge that "genocide" was taking place in Darfur, but moves to bolster security with a UN force were held up pending a request from the African Union.
"On Darfur, our policy is unchanged. It is our view that genocide was committed and in fact continues in Darfur," Rice said in testimony before the House International Relations Committee.
Washington had set a goal of using its presidency of the UN Security Council this month to push through a resolution setting out the size and terms of a UN force for Darfur.
Sudan tells U.S. congressional delegation it opposes proposal for U.N. troops in Darfur
Associated Press 02/20/06
Sudan told a visiting U.S. delegation that it opposed a proposal to deploy international peacekeepers to the troubled Darfur region and that it was committed to negotiations to end the tensions there.
Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha spoke to the 11-member congressional delegation Sunday night after they returned from a daylong visit to Darfur.
"Sudan rejects replacement of the African Union forces with United Nations forces," Taha told them, according to a Monday report by the state-run Sudan News Agency.
The United Nations has suggested a peacekeeping force of up to 20,000 troops to disarm militias and provide security so over 2 million displaced people can return home. Sudan opposes non-African peacekeepers.
The African Union, which has 7,000 troops in Darfur, has accepted in principle the need to transform into a U.N. peacekeeping force. Its current mandate in Darfur expires March 31.
According to the Sudan Media Center, a tribal delegation in Darfur gave the U.S. delegation a memorandum in which they rejected any foreign international forces in their region.
"Talking about dispatching Atlantic troops to the region means sending a wrong signal to the rebels that troops would be sent to remove the current government and impose a new political reality therein," Amin Hassan Omar, government delegation spokesman in Abuja, told SMC.
SUNA said Taha told the delegates that Sudan was committed to resolving the Darfur problem through peaceful negotiations, and blamed the rebels for procrastinating in the ongoing peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria.
Samani Al-Wasilla, state minister of Foreign Affairs, said Taha briefed the visitors on the nature of the conflict in Darfur, explaining it was "a situation of security violations and intertribal fighting over water and grazing areas and could not under any circumstance be described as a genocide."
He said Sudan stressed its commitment to reach a peaceful settlement in Darfur but criticized the rebels for their "lack of will" to reach a peaceful settlement, according to SUNA.
The 11-person delegation, led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, left Sudan Sunday night. It also plans to visit Cape Verde, Ghana, Liberia and South Africa.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis
Click here to access the Report prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.