PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH

Armenia/Azerbaijan

Armenian foreign minister expresses optimism for progress on Nagorno-Karabakh
Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian notes that negotiations can continue and urges Azerbaijan to accept a mutual compromise .

Burundi

Burundi plans talks with last rebels
The Burundian government will hold direct discussions with National Liberation Forces (FNL) with the aim of integration.

Chechnya

UN refugee chief arrives in Chechnya
Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, stops in Grozny to assess the situation of displaced persons..

Congo

EU confident Congo force will be able to deter trouble during elections
The EU prepares a force to assist UN peacekeepers in Kinshasa during June elections.

Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation.

Indonesia

Slow rebuilding in Aceh after peace deal
Despite Jakarta's historic peace accord with the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), the province still bears the scars of war.

Aceh Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation.

Kosovo
U.N. official critical of Belgrade over Kosovo
Kosovo's U.N. chief Jessen-Petersen calls for constructive engagement from Belgrade.

Diplomats try to invigorate stalled U.N.-mediated talks on Kosovo
The six-nation Contact Group meets with local and international Kosovo officials.

Kosovo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation.

Liberia
U.N. Security Council agrees on moving Charles Taylor's war crimes trial to the Netherlands
Security Council could adopt a resolution next week, continues to debate technical issues.

Former warlord and president could denounce former allies in defense against charges
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor defense could reveal various connections.

Macedonia

Macedonia and Kosovo will discuss their border dispute, Macedonia's premier says
Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski and Prime Minister Agim Ceku seek resolution of demarkation, hope to conclude talks by the year's end.

Nepal

Anti-king protests spread, rocky times ahead for troubled Nepal
Nearly a week of protests and a loose anti-royal alliance between the rebels and ousted opposition parties has further isolated King Gyanendra.

Serbia

Montenegro

Montenegro government urges citizens to support independence
Prime Minister Djukanovic's government maintains that its bid for independence is motivated by a desire not to be dominated by Serbia.

Serbian premier says independence of Kosovo would have serious consequences
Following three rounds of U.N. mediated talks, Prime Minister Kostunica proposes direct talks with ethnic Albanians that include compromise.

Somalia

U.N. Says Somalia's New Government at Risk
U.N. urges donors to respond to humanitarian crisis and support fragile government in the process.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka donors meet Tamil Tigers to save peace talks
Ambassadors of Norway, Japan and the European Union meet with LTTE and pressure rebels to attend upcoming talks.

Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation.

Sudan
Envoy Says Crisis Has Worsened in Darfur
U.N. official Jan Egeland is barred from visiting western Darfur,and recent violence has forced 200,000 from their homes.

Sudan, rebels resume face-to-face negotiations over Darfur conflict
The Sudanese government and Darfur rebels engage in direct talks for the first time since January.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis Click here to access the PILPG Report.

Armenian foreign minister expresses optimism for progress on Nagorno-Karabakh
Associated Press, 4/5/06

Armenia expressed optimism Wednesday that progress could be made toward a settlement of its dispute with Azerbaijan over the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave despite the breakdown in talks between the two countries' presidents earlier this year.

"The negotiations must be continued and what we have on the table today must be used as the basis," Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian said at a meeting with Peter Semneby, the European Union's special representative in the South Caucasus region. He said there could be no military solution to the dispute, which sparked a six-year war that ended with a shaky cease-fire in 1994, and urged Azerbaijan to accept that mutual compromise was necessary.

"Armenia has already made all possible compromises, there is no place left to step back," he said. "The time has come for Azerbaijan to take steps so that we can get this (negotiation) process moving and bring it to completion." Semneby urged the two sides to act soon to get talks under way again. "Indeed, there is a window of opportunity, which we need to take advantage of," he said.

Nagorno-Karabakh is inside Azerbaijan but populated mostly by ethnic Armenians, whose troops face Azerbaijani forces across a half-mile-wide (kilometer-wide) no man's land. Clashes break out sporadically and Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev have traded increasingly bellicose statements since talks to resolve the enclave's status broke down in February.

At least 30,000 people have been killed and 1 million made refugees in the 18-year-old dispute. The hostilities have also hindered investment in the strategic, oil-rich Caucasus region. A decade of international mediation has failed to end the conflict. The dispute has dominated both countries' foreign policy since they became independent with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Foreign mediators have been pushing for a resolution of the conflict this year. Since neither country will have elections, their leaders should be free of domestic pressure to stand tough on Karabakh, the mediators have said.

Burundi plans talks with last rebels
Agence France Presse, 4/6/06

The Burundian government will hold direct discussions next week with the country's last remaining rebels group with the aim of integrating them, a spokeswoman for the presidency said Thursday.

The spokeswoman, Hafsa Mossi, said the talks with National Liberation Forces (FNL) would take place in Dar es Salaam. She said chiefs of state at Wednesday's East African Community summit in Arusha decided with Burundian President Pierre Nkuruziza that talks between the government and the rebels should start as soon as possible. "President Nkurunziza agrees to send a delegation to Dar es Salaam as from next week to discuss the integration of the FNL" in national institutions, Mossi added.

The FNL Hutu rebel chief Agathon Rwasa said last month he was ready for peace with no preconditions.

The Tanzanian government, which has several times mediated in Burundi's civil war, sought to bring the two sides together in January, but on that occasion Nkurunziza said the behaviour of the rebels cast doubts on their willingness to pursue the path of peace. The FNL refused to recognize the new reality resulting from the 2005 elections, which were dominated by the Hutu majority.

Burundi is attempting to emerge from 12 years of civil war between Hutu rebels and the army, which until recently was dominated by the Tutsi minority.

EU confident Congo force will be able to deter trouble during elections
Associated Press, 4/4/06

Senior European Union officials insisted Tuesday that the force they are putting together to support U.N. peacekeepers in Congo will be able to deter trouble during key elections this year, despite restrictions placed on the mission by EU governments.

"The force has the capacity to deter troublemakers," said Aldo Ajello, the EU's envoy to Africa's Great Lakes region. EU leaders agreed last month to send about 400 soldiers to the Congolese capital Kinshasa, backed by a reserve force of around 800, which will be based in a neighboring African nation ready to intervene if violence breaks out. The elections, expected to start late June, are Congo's first democratic ballots in 40 years.

The Europeans imposed a four-month time limit on the mission, and Germany, which is to play a leading role, has said its troops would not operate outside the capital. Ajello told a news conference the four-month limit was "quite realistic," because any discontents would likely act in the weeks after the vote count. The first round of voting had been scheduled for June 18, but has been postponed. Ajello said he hoped the vote would be close to June 30. The elections are supposed to solidify an uneasy peace deal between warring factions that battled for control of the vast African nation following the toppling of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997. The war killed an estimated 4 million and dragged in many of Congo's neighbors.

A senior EU military official said negotiations were underway with one of Congo's neighbors to provide a base for the European reserve force. Due to the sensitivity of the talks, he declined to say which country. He said the force would be able to deploy to Congo within 24 hours if violence breaks out.

The United Nations maintains 16,000 peacekeepers in Congo, but they are mostly active in the restive east of the country. Ajello said the EU forces would provide a visible deterrent in Kinshasa. The EU troops will also secure Kinshasa airport and help provide security for civilian election observers.

France is expected to provide most of the troops based in the Congolese capital. Germany, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Ireland and Sweden also said they would contribute to the mission.

Ajello said the force would likely be in place at least a week before the elections. He expressed regret that Congo's veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi declined to sign up for the presidential election by Sunday's deadline, but said that would not affect the legitimacy of the vote. "Nobody prevented him from running; it was his choice," Ajello said. "It does not change anything about the election or the legitimacy of the results."

Slow rebuilding in Aceh after peace deal
Agence France Presse, 4/9/06

Ibrahim looks out toward what was once his modest vegetable farm in Indonesia's Aceh province, before decades of separatist conflict reduced his fields to little more than mud. "I would like help to get my garden back that I had in the mountains, beyond the rice fields, so that I could grow more cocoa and onions," he says wistfully.

In August 2005, Jakarta signed a historic peace accord with the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami, but the province, one of the poorest in Indonesia, still bears the scars of war.

On the road to Tiro, the birthplace of former GAM leader Hasan Tiro, many fields remain unplanted. The village school is nothing but charred rubble -- it was torched in the fighting. Tiro did not suffer the ravages of the December 2004 tsunami that killed some 168,000 Acehnese, but years of clashes between government forces and separatist rebels have left the local economy in tatters all the same.

"To develop a field, buy seeds, it costs about 1,500 dollars. Where will they get that money from?" wonders Scott Guggenheim, one of the managers of a World Bank rehabilitation program in Aceh approved last July.

Residents say that although their livelihoods have not yet been restored, security is better in the region, as locals are no longer threatened by rebels when they head into the fields to tend to their crops. But with the return of former GAM fighters and prisoners following last year's peace deal, unemployment has skyrocketed to 75 percent in some areas and some fear economic pressures will shatter the fragile peace.

"Most of the former combatants have come back to their villages and live with their families, but the reintegration process is still too small in scope," explains Muslahudin Daud, who works as a World Bank facilitator. The bank's 64.7-million-dollar program in Aceh, which is funded through June 2007, is aimed at rebuilding vital infrastructure in some 3,000 villages like Tiro.

"We have fruits but no roads to get to the markets where we could sell them," explains one farmer at a town hall meeting with visiting World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, who is on a fact-finding tour of the region. "Reconstruction and the peace process are two things that will help each other if each of them is going to succeed," Wolfowitz told villagers.

Guggenheim notes: "We don't need transnational investments to come into Aceh. We need a sort of minimum standard of basic economic dignity for the people." But for the time being, even the World Bank official admits the situation is tenuous at best. "Once the euphoria of the initial peace process has faded away and the people have gone back, if there is nothing for them to do..." he says, trailing off.

U.N. official critical of Belgrade over Kosovo
Associated Press, 4/5/06

The United Nations' top official in Kosovo criticized Serbia Wednesday for urging the Serb minority to boycott the province's government and refuse to accept salaries set aside for them in the budget.

Soren Jessen-Petersen, the chief U.N. administrator running the province, said such moves undermined Western efforts to build a multiethnic Kosovo. U.N.-brokered talks are being held to determine whether Kosovo becomes independent, as its ethnic Albanian majority population insists, or remains part of Serbia-Montenegro, as the Serb minority wants. "Building confidence and reassuring minorities is the responsibility of all Kosovo Albanians, but in order to be fully effective it also requires a constructive engagement by Belgrade," Jessen-Petersen said.

The Serb province has been run by the UN since 1999, after a NATO bombing campaign against Serbia aimed at halting a Serb crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians fighting for independence. Jessen-Petersen said the continued departure of Kosovo Serbs from government-run sectors was "most unhelpful" for reconciliation efforts. The Serb minority has largely boycotted Kosovo's institutions, and recently opted out of receiving salaries from the province's budget, receive income from Serbia instead.

The U.N. official spoke at a one-day informal meeting of diplomats from the United States, Russia, the Balkans and six European Union countries on the future status of Kosovo. The talks, at a seaside resort near Athens, were closed to the media.

But Greece's deputy foreign minister said they were aimed at making sure concerns felt in Kosovo and its neighbors were better understood. "We must reach solutions that are mutually acceptable and not imposed from the outside," Yiannis Valinakis said. "It's very important the voice of the region is heard by those who are playing a lead role in determining (Kosovo's) future status ... We as neighbors have a better understanding of the sensitive sides of the issues."

Also attending were special U.N. envoy Albert Rohan and Rosemary DiCarlo, deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. State Department's Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. DiCarlo is part of the so-called Contact Group on Kosovo, also made up by Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia. Diplomats from Austria were also present, as well as from Greece and 10 southeast European countries: Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia-Montenegro, Moldova, Macedonia, Croatia, Turkey, Bosnia and Albania.

Athens in the past has opposed independence for Kosovo, fearing a change in Balkan borders could hurt regional stability. "We are trying to transform the Balkans once known as the powder keg of Europe into a European neighborhood. We must all contribute to the stabilization of the region, and that includes determining the final status of Kosovo," Valinakis said.

Diplomats try to invigorate stalled U.N.-mediated talks on Kosovo
Associated Press, 4/7/07

The six-nation Contact Group overseeing talks on Kosovo's future met with the province's officials Friday as it tries to invigorate stalled U.N.-mediated process.

Diplomats from the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Germany met with Kosovo's local and international officials, a day after urging Serbia's leader to seek "realistic solutions" in the negotiations on the future status of the contested province. Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since 1999, following NATO's bombing of Serb forces after their bloody crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatist.

The U.N. also launched negotiations on the province's future earlier this year, but the process has been stalled with the two sides failing to agree on the issue tabled the reform of local government aimed at giving Serb and other minorities more say in areas where they live.

Western officials have indicated that Kosovo's quest for independence is conditional on its respecting minority rights, especially those of Serbs, with local government reform being key to that goal. Serbian officials want the province to have broad autonomy, but Kosovo's ethnic Albanians insist on the outright independence.

About 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million population is ethnic Albanian. Tens of thousands Serbs and other non-Albanians fled the province after the end of war in 1999. Serbian officials have insisted that the remaining Serbs in Kosovo about 100,000 people be granted self-rule within Kosovo and be allowed to maintain close ties with the government in Belgrade. But the Contact Group officials on Thursday urged the Serbs, who are concentrated in the north of the province, to take part of the province's existing institutions rather than seeking territorial division. Serbs have complained that the provincial institutions are dominated by ethnic Albanians.

U.N. Security Council agrees on moving Charles Taylor's war crimes trial to the Netherlands
Associated Press, 4/8/06

U.N. Security Council members agree the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor should be moved from Sierra Leone to the Netherlands and could adopt a resolution next week to allow the transfer, the council president said.

China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said the Security Council was still debating several issues, including who should pay the costs. He scheduled closed-door consultations Monday on the draft resolution and said he expected it to be adopted "early next week." "I think there is agreement that he is going to be moved to The Hague," Wang said Friday. "Now, it's only the technical side, how the resolution will look ... (so) there will be no misunderstandings, no concerns."

The U.N.-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone has requested that Taylor's trial be moved out of West Africa for security reasons. Taylor has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of war crimes stemming from his alleged backing of Sierra Leone's rebels, who terrorized victims by chopping off their arms, legs, ears and lips. Taylor spent 2 1/2 years in exile in Nigeria as part of a deal that helped end Liberia's 14-year civil war. Nigeria agreed to hand him over last month under international pressure. Taylor fled but was captured within a day trying to slip into Cameroon.

The draft resolution states that the costs of trying Taylor in the Netherlands "are expenses of the Special Court" in Sierra Leone, which is funded by voluntary contributions. It reiterates an appeal to U.N. member states "to contribute generously" to the court.

In a March 29 letter to the Security Council, the Netherlands emphasized that the Special Court must shoulder the costs of the trial and "that no additional costs shall be incurred by the Netherlands without its consent." Wang said some members of the International Criminal Court want the issue of costs to be clarified further in the resolution to avoid future disputes. A U.N. appeal for $25 million to fund the Special Court for Sierra Leone this year has so far received only $9 million in pledges and $6 million in funding, which is expected to run out soon.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote to the foreign ministers of the 191 U.N. member states shortly before Taylor's capture, seeking $14.4 million for the court this year, U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said. She said that did not include the cost of moving Taylor's trial to The Hague, which has not yet been calculated.

U.S. Mission spokesman Benjamin Chang said the United States would seriously consider the request "because we want the court to be able to bring Charles Taylor to justice." The Dutch government also asked for assurances that once a verdict is reached, Taylor would immediately be transferred out of the Netherlands. Sweden and Austria said Wednesday they had received requests to imprison Taylor if he is convicted, but no decision has been announced.

Former warlord and president could denounce former allies in defense against charges
Associated Press, 4/9/06

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was known for boasting of friends in high places. Now he could well find it useful to denounce them as he defends himself against war crimes charges.

Taylor is accused of murder, rape, terrorism, slavery and other war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with his alleged support for notoriously brutal rebels during Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war. In return, he allegedly was paid in diamonds, which he used to fund his war to take power in Liberia. Taylor, who has pleaded not guilty before a Sierra Leone war crimes court, could now try to show his support for the Revolutionary United Front was a matter of politics, and that other leaders also supported the rebel group. Or he could simply name names out of spite, angry that former allies or those that once at least tolerated him did not prevent him being hauled before the independent, international tribunal trying those believed to hold the greatest responsibility for atrocities committed during the Sierra Leone war.

"I am sure that there are some governments that are afraid of the stories that might come out," Jewel Howard-Taylor, who divorced Taylor last year but remains in close touch, said in a telephone interview from Monrovia, Liberia. Howard-Taylor refused to name the countries, but Taylor's links to Libya, the United States and elsewhere are well known. He was, after all, once a head of state, as well as a warlord and international diamond dealer.

"While there may be some interesting revelations ... I don't see it being directly related" to the charges he faces, said Corinne Dufka, a Dakar-based Human Rights Watch researcher who has closely followed the Taylor case. "And it would not mitigate his personal responsibility for the crimes with which he's been charged."

Possible ties between Taylor and the CIA have been a matter of speculation for years. Some say the CIA helped him escape from a Massachusetts jail in 1985, where he had been held on a Liberian arrest warrant accusing him of embezzling nearly US$1 million from the government of the late Liberian President Samuel Doe, in which he served at the time.

Taylor went from the United States to Libya to train as a guerrilla and then launched an insurgency against Doe. The Sierra Leonean rebel leader with whom he is accused of allying, Foday Sankoh, also trained in Libya. Sankoh died of natural causes in U.N. custody in 2003.

The conspiracy theory has it that Taylor spied for the CIA on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. A CIA spokeswoman said it was the agency's policy to neither deny nor confirm employment, and refused to comment on whether the agency was worried about what Taylor might say on the stand. The United States, though, has pushed hard for his trial.

Gadhafi himself came close to being indicted by the Sierra Leone war crimes court, according to David Crane, the former chief prosecutor of the court who drew up the Taylor indictment. Gadhafi "has been involved in the tragedy that took place in Sierra Leone," Crane once told reporters. Gadhafi's support of a range of West African rebels was believed aimed at undermining pro-U.S. governments as well as spreading his own influence. He remains the mercurial head of a one-party state, but the Taylor trial comes as Gadhafi appears on the verge of international rehabilitation.

The U.S., which once reviled Gadhafi as the terrorist responsible for the 1988 downing of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people, opened a liaison office in the Libyan capital in 2004, 24 years after closing its embassy there. Full diplomatic relations are expected to be restored soon.

Like Taylor, Blaise Compaore, the president of Burkina Faso and a longtime Gadhafi ally, was accused of funneling guns to Sierra Leonean rebels and of smuggling out the diamonds they mined. Compaore denies the accusations and was not indicted by the Sierra Leone court.

"I think the United States, Libya and Burkina Faso are directly in the firing line in terms of ultimate responsibility" for the creation, arming and training of Taylor, said Alex Yearsley, who has followed the Taylor case closely for Global Witness, which tracks the tendency of mineral wealth to fuel conflict in poor countries. Yearsley said the trial may also shine a spotlight on lesser figures from the shadowy international worlds of diamond and arms trading.

Macedonia and Kosovo will discuss their border dispute, Macedonia's premier says
Associated Press, 4/4/06

Macedonian Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski said Tuesday he will meet his Kosovan counterpart Agim Ceku to try to solve their border dispute.

Kosovo the Serbian province that has been under U.N. administrative control since the end of the war between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999 claims some 2,000 hectares (about 5,000 acres) of disputed Macedonian territory, since a 2001 border agreement between Macedonia and the former Yugoslavia.

"We're trying to find a way of demarcation (of the border) between Macedonia and Kosovo," Buckovski told reporters after meeting Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek, adding he will hold talks over the problem with Ceku during his visit to Skopje.

Representative of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who want independence, and of a minority community of Serbs living there who want the province to remain part of Serbia, are scheduled to meet in Vienna, Austria, May 4 in a next round of U.N.-mediated talks on Kosovo's future status.

Buckovski said he would like the talks to be over by the year's end. His two-day visit to Prague was meant to boost political and economic ties between the two countries. He was scheduled to meet President Vaclav Klaus on Wednesday and to attend an economic forum in the Czech capital. Paroubek said the Czech Republic supports Macedonia's aspirations to join the European Union.

Anti-king protests spread, rocky times ahead for troubled Nepal
Agence France Presse, 4/11/06

With opposition parties and Maoist rebels calling for the continuation of anti-royal protests, Nepal faces its most dire crisis since the king assumed absolute control 14 months ago, analysts say.

The decade-long Maoist insurgency has crippled Nepal's economy and has cost at least 12,500 lives. Now a loose anti-royal alliance between the rebels and ousted opposition parties has further isolated King Gyanendra with almost a week of protests and strikes nationwide that make Nepal's future look increasingly volatile. Analysts say that unlike 1990, when violent protests led then King Birendra to agree to a constitutional monarchy and remain a popular titular head of state, the current crisis is not expected to end peacefully. King Gyanendra, who assumed power after Birendra and the former royal family were gunned down by the crown prince in a 2001 palace massacre, is not expected to budge.

"There is no atmosphere of compromise in the present situation," Rabindra Khanal, a political science professor at Nepal's Tribhuvan University, told AFP. "People are riled up and the king will not give up. He has his own roadmap to democracy, which is not acceptable to the political parties," Khanal said. With the stalemate making it increasingly grim for people to buy everyday items and work, many in the impoverished Himalayan nation are looking to an annual Nepali New Year speech by the king on Friday as the next step.

"The king's speech on Friday will be significant," said a senior western diplomat on condition of anonymity. "He only has two options, stick to his current course, which implies not making any concessions, which we hope he will not do. The other scenario is that on Friday he caves in, but that's not very likely," the diplomat said.

King Gyanendra has ignored strenuous international calls to restore democracy and reconcile with the political parties he sacked when he seized power on February 1 last year."An announcement on Friday that he is moving towards restoring democracy could save him and his dynasty," said Kunda Dixit, editor of the English language weekly the Nepali Times. Dixit's newspaper recently held a poll of around 5,000 Nepalis from all walks of life across the country, and the findings showed that while most people still wanted a monarchy, they didn't want King Gyanendra. "Something like 70 percent of the people said they wanted a monarchy, but that they don't like this king. An added concern is that most of the young urban people polled don't want a monarchy at all," Dixit said.

But the diplomat said people were speculating that King Gyanendra will cling to power as he has the backing of the Royal Nepalese Army, which remains the key power broker. "If the king sticks to his guns, then the fighting and the struggle will continue. This current clampdown could be reinforced by something much more rigorous such as the banning of the independent media and the control of the Internet," the senior diplomat said.

Meanwhile, Maoists and political parties are talking about the possibility of a ceasefire, according to one analyst who requested anonymity.

Should a ceasefire be forthcoming, the impending disaster could be avoided, said Dixit. "An optimistic outlook would be a Maoist ceasefire to which the government would be forced to match," said Dixit. "A negative scenario would be a major Maoist strike in the capital followed by emergency rule and then the country going the route of Burma. What will probably happen will be something in between the two," Dixit said.

Montenegro government urges citizens to support independence
Agence France Presse, 4/7/06

The pro-independence government of Montenegro on Friday urged its citizens to support its push to break away from its union with Serbia in a referendum next month.

"An independent state is the condition which will make it possible for the citizens to only decide on their future," the government of Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic said in a statement. An independent Montenegro would be "a democratic state, which will respect human rights and freedoms, international standards and the equal rights of its citizens," said the statement. It added that Montenegro would maintain "close and friendly" relations with Serbia, as well as other surrounding countries if it regains its independence after nearly 90 years of being tied to Belgrade.

Early last month, Montenegro's parliament unanimously backed an EU proposal to hold the historic referendum on the Balkan state's independence from Serbia on May 21. The European Union plan means the vote will have to pass by a 55-percent threshold in a turnout of at least 50 percent of the republic's 466,000 registered voters.

Deputies 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?"

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. Prime Minister Djukanovic's government has said its bid for independence was motivated by a desire not to be dominated by Serbia, which has more than eight million people compared with Montenegro's population of about 650,000. Serbian is the official language of both republics, while the dominant religion is Orthodox Christianity.

Serbian premier says independence of Kosovo would have serious consequences
Associated Press, 4/10/06

Serbia's prime minister said independence for Kosovo would have serious consequences for the region, according to a newspaper interview published Monday.

Vojislav Kostunica also proposed direct talks with ethnic Albanians that would not include Kosovo's independence, but would envisage "a compromise that ensures autonomy for Kosovo that is in accordance with European" standards. Independence would "represent a precedent with unforeseeable consequences" for Europe and the Balkans, the premier was quoted as saying by the pro-government Politika daily. The premier did not specify, but it is widely considered here that Kosovo's independence would trigger further demands for ethnic partition of the Balkan states, including Bosnia and Macedonia.

The comments came after three rounds of U.N.-mediated talks between Serbian and independence-seeking Kosovo Albanian officials, which produced no compromise on the future status of the troubled province. Kosovo has been a U.N.-run protectorate since 1999, when NATO bombing forced Serb troops to halt a crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists there.

While it formally remains part of Serbia, Kosovo is mostly populated by ethnic Albanians who have rejected offers of broad autonomy and demand outright independence.

U.N. Says Somalia's New Government at Risk
Associated Press, 4/5/06

Somalia's fragile new government risks collapse unless donors contribute millions of dollars to alleviate drought that has wiped out half the nation's livestock, a U.N. official said Tuesday.

The entire Horn of Africa is in the grips of the worst drought in a decade but Somalia is in particular danger of slipping into full-blown famine, said Christian Balslev-Olesen, the acting humanitarian coordinator for the nation. The United Nations is asking for $326 million for Somalia. Without help, up to 80 percent of the nation's livestock could die and southern areas could see 10,000-12,000 human deaths each month, Balslev-Olesen said. The crisis has gotten so severe that it could jeopardize the country's nascent government, Somalia's first since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

"If we cannot deliver on the humanitarian situation it's going to backfire on the political process," Balslev-Olesen said. Somalia's transitional parliament held its first session inside Somalia in late February. However, it exerts little control and the nation is almost completely lawless. Balslev-Olesen accused the international community of ignoring Somalia in the years since Siad Barre's ouster and the withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers in 1995.

Sri Lanka donors meet Tamil Tigers to save peace talks
Agence France Presse, 4/10/06

Envoys from Sri Lanka's international donors went Monday to meet Tamil Tiger rebels in a bid to keep peace talks due to be held in Switzerland from April 19 on track, officials said.

The ambassadors of Norway, Japan and the European Union (EU) flew north to rebel political headquarters at Kilinochchi to see the leadership of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Norwegian embassy spokesman Tom Knappskog said the diplomats would "stress the importance of taking the process forward to further meetings, of building deeper confidence and ultimately of realising substantive progress on the peace process".

Diplomats said the ambassadors representing the co-chairs of the peace process would urge the LTTE to attend the three-day truce talks despite renewed tensions. "The co-chairs are concerned about the government of Sri Lanka's and LTTE's preparations for the second round of ceasefire talks scheduled for later this month in Geneva and the important implications that the outcome of that meeting will have for the wider peace process", an EU statement said. The ambassadors were expected to convey government guarantees of safe passage for the Tigers, diplomats said. The diplomatic flurry comes amid raging disputes between the government and the rebels.

The LTTE has demanded the government abide by a pledge to disarm rival Tamil paramilitary groups, notably the Karuna faction, which targets the LTTE.

Meanwhile, tension remained high Monday in the eastern town of Batticaloa where both the LTTE and Karuna group were holding separate protests, officials said. The LTTE called for a shut-down strike of businesses, offices and public transport to mark Friday's gunning down of a pro-LTTE activist in the eastern port town of Trincomalee. The Karuna faction called for black flags to be raised in Batticaloa and Ampara, also in the east, to mark the second anniversary of a bloody battle with the LTTE.

Envoy Says Crisis Has Worsened in Darfur
Associated Press, 4/5/06

The conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region has worsened, with 200,000 additional people being forced from their homes, a top U.N. envoy barred from visiting the zone by Sudanese authorities said Tuesday.

Jan Egeland, U.N. under-secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, said Sudanese government officials had denied his U.N. aircraft permission to overfly Darfur in order to visit Sudanese refugees in neighboring Chad. A day earlier, they had barred him from visiting the capital, Khartoum, and the Darfur region. "Many believe the problems are over in Darfur. They are getting worse," he told journalists in Kenya after leaving southern Sudan. At least 200,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the last four months because of the violence, he said.

Fighting in Darfur has left about 180,000 dead most from disease and hunger and displaced another 2 million from their homes. Egeland has called the situation in Darfur and in the refugee camps in neighboring Chad the worst humanitarian crisis in the world at the moment. Egeland had been scheduled to visit Darfur to assess relief operations. Instead, he went to southern Sudan for the second leg of his mission, to check on progress toward implementing a peace accord between the Sudanese government and the semiautonomous former rebel movement. The 3-year-old conflict in Darfur set the Arab-dominated government and militias, known as Janjaweed, against ethnic African tribes. Sudan's government and rebels in Darfur have made little headway in peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria.

"I believe that there is now a total lack of unity of command. The government doesn't control the Janjaweed militias perhaps not even their own soldiers. The guerrillas are not controlling their armed troops on the ground," Egeland said. Government and rebel representatives at peace talks in Nigeria "are procrastinating, the people in the field are looting and pillaging even aid work," he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed "regret" Tuesday at the government's decision to bar Egeland from visiting Darfur and will try to speak to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir about it, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at U.N. headquarters in New York. "The pressing and urgent humanitarian requirements of Darfur are a priority for the United Nations and coordination efforts to sustain this large program were at the center of Mr. Egeland's visit," Dujarric said. The U.N. Security Council expressed concern and called on all parties, including the government, to provide greater cooperation with the United Nations.

China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya, the council president for April, said members "share the concerns of the secretary-general" and want a briefing from Egeland when he returns to New York.

Egeland said Sudanese authorities told him that visiting Khartoum and Darfur, in the Muslim part of the country, would be too sensitive because his nation, Norway, was among those that published offensive cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad. He called the excuse "utterly ridiculous." Egeland said that in addition to denying him permission to visit Darfur, the Sudanese government has also ordered the Norwegian Refugee Council to leave the country by Wednesday. He said Khartoum did not explain the order to expel the aid agency, which is responsible for operating one of the largest humanitarian operations in Darfur.

Sudanese government officials were not immediately available for comment.

"As we speak, we have already lost contact with 300,000 people 300,000 of the 3 million people who need our assistance we cannot reach because of insecurity or because of other obstacles to our work," Egeland said. The international community must also pay more attention to Darfur, for which there has been "waning interest," he added.

The international community has to put pressure not only on the government of Sudan, but also on the rebel groups who "have behaved in a totally irresponsible manner." Egeland also said the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur was ill-equipped to protect civilians from atrocities committed by both sides of the conflict. He called for a stronger force, echoing calls for a U.N.-led force to take over the peacekeeping mission. "World leaders thought it was going well in Darfur. It was not, and we did not keep pressure on the government nor on the guerillas," he said.

Sudan, rebels resume face-to-face negotiations over Darfur conflict
Associated Press, 4/10/06

Parties to Sudan's Darfur conflict have resumed direct negotiations following a weekend meeting with African Union leaders, officials said Monday.

The Sudanese government and Darfur rebels are talking directly to each other for the first time since January, African Union spokesman Nureiddine Mezni said. The two groups spent the past few months meeting separately with negotiators in the capital of the west African country. Denis Sassou-Nguesso, Republic of Congo's president and current head of the 53-nation African Union, had teamed up with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to urge Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and rebel leaders toward a resolution of more than three years of conflict."The parties agreed to negotiate directly," said Mezni. "We are encouraging them to do so; it's really positive."

More than 180,000 people have died in the civil war in western Sudan, with millions more forced from their homes. Seven rounds of talks in Abuja since August 2004 have yet to yield a breakthrough to end the fighting.

The decision to negotiate directly could result in the signing of a new cease-fire proposed by mediators "in the coming days" and lead to the conclusion of a peace agreement, an African Union statement cited Sassou-Nguesso as saying. The statement said Sassou-Nguesso asked mediators to quicken the preparation of a draft agreement settling differences on the key issues of how to share power and resources and maintain security in postwar Darfur.

Decades of low-level tribal clashes over land and water in Darfur erupted into large-scale violence in early 2003 when some ethnic groups took up arms, accusing the east African nation's 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. Sudan denies backing the Janjaweed.