Contents:
Nagorno-Karabakh sets constitutional referendum for December
President Gukasian set the referendum for Dec. 10
Highest court ruled that a former president and six others accused of plotting to overthrow the government must remain in jail.
Burundi grants temporary immunity to rebels during peace negotiations
Lawmakers say no criminal charges will be brought while the two sides are negotiating details of the recent peace deal.
Radical Russian party alleges Politkovskaya killing tied to her work toward tribunal on Chechnya
Party also said that top officials including President Vladimir Putin should be questioned in connection with the killing.
Violence Flares as Congo Tallies Election Results
The election so far seems to be following the pattern of the first round in July, when Mr. Kabila won big in the east and Mr. Bemba carried the west.
Winner of Congo's presidential runoff will face crumbling infrastructure, massive poverty
For now, the world's largest U.N. force helps keep the peace in Congo and international money props up much of its infrastructure.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation.
Representatives from break-away regions said Georgia should withdraw its troops from the Kodori Gorge, as well as from the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone.
Aceh Negotiation Simulation Click
here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation.
India's army chief orders probe into stressed soldiers killing colleagues in Kashmir
There have been at least four cases over the past 10 days of distraught soldiers in Kashmir shooting colleagues to death, then committing suicide.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation.
Kosovo
Serbian leaders say voters approved constitution that claims Kosovo is Serb territory
Referendum strongly condemned by the ethnic Albanians.
Macedonia
Macedonian parliament adopts crucial bill on police reform
New law is part of a legislative package required before Macedonia can open EU accession talks.
Moldova: Separatist leader to run for fourth term as Trans-Dniester president
The breakaway, self-declared republic has no term limits.
Key members of security council made clear they want progress in ending the stalemate before the new six-month mandate for the 225-member U.N. mission expires on April 30, 2007.
Rights-Nepal: New Government Shows Little Interest in Justice
Indonesian academic and human activist made comments during the conference in Nepal's capital Monday and Tuesday.
Nepal asks India to back peace talks with Maoists
Deputy Prime Minister Oli said Kathmandu hoped New Delhi would continue to offer its backing to his country, ahead of planned peace talks in Nepal.
Somalia's Islamic courts seize new town as talks with the government stall
The fighters peacefully seized Hobyo in the central Mudug region.
Somalia's Islamic militia denies U.S. claims that the group is planning suicide attacks
The Council of Islamic Courts said "the U.S. statement is totally baseless."
Somalia's government asks head of parliament to reconsider plans to negotiate alone with Islamists
The parliament speaker is planning to leave Sunday for Mogadishu, which is currently under the control of the Council of Islamic Courts.
Sri Lanka says willing to open highway if Tamil rebels cease violence
Peace talks failed after the government rejected a Tiger demand to reopen the highway.
Tamil Tiger boat suspected of carrying arms destroyed, military says
A powerful explosion that came from the boat suggested that there was ammunition inside.
U.N. officials warn of aid workers' flagging access to Darfur's needy people
Violence has spiraled recently in Darfur and this fresh fighting has caused increasing numbers of aid workers to withdraw, leaving many refugees without food or medicine.
Sudan denies involvement in latest killing in Darfur, blames bandits
UN released a report charging the government-allied janjaweed militia for the deadly raids against seven villages and a refugee camp in the Jebel Moon area of West Darfur.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis Click here to access the PILPG
Report.
Nagorno-Karabakh sets constitutional referendum for December
Associated Press, 11/3/06
The leader of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed Armenian-controlled territory in Azerbaijan, on Friday ordered a constitutional referendum to be held next month. President Arkady Gukasian set the referendum for Dec. 10, his office said. The draft constitution says that Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, also called the Republic of Artsakh, is a sovereign democratic nation.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a region in Azerbaijan that has been under the control of Armenian and ethnic-Armenian Karabakh forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year separatist war that killed about 30,000 people and drove about 1 million from their homes. The region's final status has not been worked out, and years of talks under the auspices of international mediators have brought few visible results.
Burundi court orders suspects in alleged coup plot be held without charge
Aloys Niyoyita, Associated Press, 10/31/06
Burundi's highest court has ruled that a former president and six others accused of plotting to overthrow the government must remain in jail, drawing objections that the suspects have been imprisoned for three months without formal charges. "The court orders that the coup plot suspects remain in custody as a preventive measure," the Burundi High Court of Justice wrote in a statement made public Tuesday. The decision came Saturday in a closed hearing. Nine people including former President Domitien Ndayizeye and former Vice President Alphonse Kadege were arrested in July after the government said it had uncovered a coup plot. Two people have been released, but all court proceedings have been held behind closed doors.
Critics have said the year-old government fabricated allegations of a coup plot to arrest opposition members in the tiny central African state. Defense attorney Anatole Miburo said the court's decision was politically motivated. "The judges were not acting in good faith or in good conscience," he said.
The country has long been riven by tension between the majority Hutus and minority Tutsis, who have dominated the government, economy and military since independence from Belgium in 1962. Hutu-Tutsi animosities have brought bloodshed elsewhere in the region including the 1994 slaughter of a half-million Tutsis and moderate Hutus by militant Hutus in neighboring Rwanda. In Burundi, President Pierre Nkurunziza was elected in 2005 as part of a Hutu-dominated government to replace a power-sharing administration that oversaw the postwar transition. Ndayizeye and Kadege, the politicians who are currently in jail, belonged to that administration. Ndayizeye is a Hutu and Kadege is a Tutsi.
Burundi grants temporary immunity to rebels during peace negotiations
Aloys Niyoyita, Associated Press, 11/3/06
Burundi lawmakers Friday granted temporary immunity to leaders of the country's last rebel group, saying no criminal charges will be brought while the two sides are negotiating details of their recent peace deal. The government signed a cease-fire in September with the National Liberation Force, sealing the end of a brutal 12-year civil war in a country rife with allegations of human rights abuse. Friday's bill passed with no opposition, although two lawmakers abstained. Burundi's justice minister, Clotilde Niragira, said the bill will help accelerate the implementation of the permanent cease-fire. The bill covers offenses committed until September 7 the date the peace deal was signed. It grants immunity until a special tribunal is established for Burundi, but gave no timetable. The cease-fire with the rebel group, which is known by its French acronym, FNL, came more than a year after the country's other rebel groups agreed to lay down arms. It was a vital development toward long-term peace in Burundi, an impoverished central African nation of nearly 8 million people.
In October, New York-based Human Rights Watch accused President Pierre Nkurunziza's year-old government of failing to prosecute those accused of extra-judicial killings. The new government came to power in mid-2005 on a wave of optimism in a country still reeling from a civil war that killed more than 250,000 people. The country has long been riven by tension between the majority Hutus and minority Tutsis, who have dominated the government, economy and military since independence from Belgium in 1962. Hutu-Tutsi animosities have brought bloodshed elsewhere in the region including the 1994 slaughter of a half-million Tutsis and moderate Hutus by militant Hutus in neighboring Rwanda.
Radical Russian party alleges Politkovskaya killing tied to her work toward tribunal on Chechnya
Judith Ingram, Associated Press, 10/31/06
A radical Russian party alleged Tuesday that the murder of investigative journalist and rights activist Anna Politkovskaya was tied to her work on establishing an international tribunal on war crimes in Chechnya, and said top officials including President Vladimir Putin should be questioned in connection with the killing. "The result of the international tribunal's activity could be punishment in the form of imprisonment of a number of people from the leadership of the Russian Federation and Chechen Republic, including the top leaders," the fringe party, the National Bolsheviks, said in a statement. "These people could have an obvious motive for 'ordering' Politkovskaya's killing insofar as with her death, work on preparing the international tribunal could be slowed for a long time or 'silenced' altogether."
Politkovskaya, who investigated and publicized killings, abductions and other abuses against peaceful civilians in Chechnya, was gunned down in the entrance to her apartment building on Oct. 7. The Prosecutor-General's office has said it is pursuing several possible motives but it has not identified which is the main one pending completion of the investigation. However, the Kommersant daily reported last week that investigators were focusing their inquiry on former police officers linked to crimes against civilians in Chechnya. "We are certain that the investigation is being purposely put on ... the wrong track," the National Bolsheviks said. In an interview last week with Politkovskaya's newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, Russian rights activist Stanislav Dmitriyevsky said that he and Politkovskaya had started discussing a possible tribunal and that they had received the first funding. "We were preparing the juridical basis for this tribunal," he was quoted as saying.
Shortly after Politkovskaya's killing, a Russian court shut down Dmitriyevsky's non-governmental organization, the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society. The NGO had campaigned energetically against the government's crackdown on separatists in Chechnya and published reports alleging torture, abductions and killings of civilians by Russian forces and their pro-Moscow Chechen allies. Prosecutors justified the demand for the group's closure under a new law that makes it illegal for an NGO to be headed by a person with a criminal record. Dmitriyevsky was convicted in February of inciting ethnic hatred and given a a two-year suspended sentence.
Violence Flares as Congo Tallies Election Results
Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, 10/31/06
Election workers started tacking up results on Monday from Congo's presidential election runoff, as violence continued to flare across the country. United Nations officials said a drunken army sergeant shot and killed two election workers in Goma, in eastern Congo, inciting riots in which 43 polling places were destroyed and thousands of ballots were burned.
In Kinshasa, the capital, the first official results were posted on schoolhouse doors, showing a tight race between Joseph Kabila, the incumbent president, and Jean-Pierre Bemba, a businessman and militia leader accused of war crimes. The election took place on Sunday and so far seems to be following the pattern of the first round in July, when Mr. Kabila won big in the east and Mr. Bemba carried the west, narrowly preventing Mr. Kabila from winning an outright majority. ''It's going to be close, but Kabila will pull it out,'' said Sadin Banza, the president of the League of Voters, an independent Congolese election monitoring organization with 1,650 observers nationwide.
Mr. Banza said preliminary results telephoned in from across the country indicated that turnout dropped sharply from the first round of voting, when 70 percent of Congo's voters cast ballots. ''I guess they figured the outcome was predetermined,'' he said. A tropical thunderstorm was another factor, drenching Kinshasa on Sunday and preventing many people from getting to the polls. This election was the first time in 40 years that Congo's people have been able to pick their leader, and initially the voting was seen as a turning point. Since the late 19th century, when King Leopold II of Belgium set his eyes on Congo's vast forests, teeming with rubber and ivory, people here have been exploited and brutalized while their rulers reaped the benefits. In the past 10 years, millions have died in civil wars. But the Congolese are learning that democracy can be dangerous, too. This election has driven a new wedge between east and west in Congo, a massive, chaotic country with 60 million people and a very big river, the Congo.
People in the east lionize Mr. Kabila, who speaks Swahili, the language of the east, and has helped bring peace to their region, where the fighting was worst. Mr. Bemba, one of Congo's four vice presidents, is enormously popular in the west. He speaks Lingala, the language of the west, and his family, one of the country's richest, is from Equateur Province in the west. Accusations by international rights groups that Mr. Bemba has encouraged his militiamen to disembowel civilians do not seem to have been a major factor in the election. Both men have thousands of soldiers standing behind them, and in August, a miniwar erupted in downtown Kinshasa between Mr. Kabila's troops and Mr. Bemba's when the first-round election results were announced. Mr. Kabila won that round 45 percent to Mr. Bemba's 20 percent, with 31 other candidates splitting the rest. More than 20 people were killed in the fighting.
The United Nations, which has invested $500 million in the elections, has 17,600 peacekeepers in Congo to discourage more violence. This week, many of the blue-helmeted troops were hunkered down behind sandbags, their machine guns trained on Kinshasa's boulevards. Police officials say that when the final election results are announced, probably within two weeks, the killing will start again. ''These politicians, no matter what they say, can't control their people,'' said Dominique Mandjenga, a top police official in Kinshasa.
Winner of Congo's presidential runoff will face crumbling infrastructure, massive poverty
Heidi Vogt, Associated Press, 11/3/06
In Congo's largest hospital, surgical patients die for lack of antiseptics and doctors amputate broken limbs infected before patients find money for casts. When the power goes out, surgeons operate by flashlight. Four years after the end of a 1998-2002 war, experts say 1,000 people are still dying every day in Congo, mostly from diseases or injuries easily treated elsewhere. But the collapsing health care system is just one of the challenges the winner of last Sunday's landmark presidential runoff will face as head of a nation crippled by rampant unemployment, deep poverty, and violence in the lawless east. Fixing it will not be easy.
Voters are choosing between incumbent President Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former rebel chief who became vice president in Congo's transitional government. Results of the vote are not expected for days if not weeks. Many Congolese say they want a leader who can secure the country's precarious peace sporadic fighting still breaks out in the militia-plagued east but then quickly add that what they need most are peacetime basics like health care, jobs, roads or just food. "Normally people eat three times a day, but maybe instead we'll eat one day and not the next," said Fils Belango, a 29-year-old hotel janitor in Kinshasa.
Some "jobs" barely qualify as jobs. Men operating street-side photocopy machines make just 35 cents U.S. a day. One woman at Kinshasa's port makes a living sifting chaff from bags of corn kernels for others lucky to have to afford a full sack, earning about the same. On the streets, children open car doors then demand payment. Armed police stop vehicles and ask for "just a little gift" to buy tea.
During the 32-year dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, who was ousted in a Rwandan-backed rebel war in 1997 and died in exile, Mobutu treated the state treasury as a private bank account, dipping into it at will. While building lavish palaces and holding elaborate banquets, Mobutu left much of the country to rot, and did little to develop the nation's vast jungled interior, where dirt roads through the bush are easily swallowed by fertile forests. In the nearly 10 years since Mobutu's ouster, life has not gotten much better. The country the size of Western Europe has few paved roads, and even large cities can lack clean water or dependable electricity. "Under Mobutu we had a good life. Good salaries," said 28-year-old seamstress Nathalie Mangabu. Her husband used be an electrician. Now he is unemployed.
Congo has no dependable unemployment statistics, but it is easy to find people without jobs, and many talk about the work they once did. "I used to have a my own office, to help people pay their taxes," said Yvon Mbisi, 37, at an outdoor bar in a Kinshasa suburb. "Now it's closed, since two years." He sat with a group of about 20 friends, who all said they were out of work.
Dr. Mbwebwe Kabamba, head of emergency surgery at Kinshasa's main hospital, was hopeful a new administration could bring improvement, but like many, he was skeptical. "We've had so many regimes ... Everyone promises, but then there's what you see in practice," Kabamba said.
For now, the world's largest U.N. force helps keep the peace in Congo and international money props up much of its infrastructure. Congo might be able to prop up itself if it could end corruption and take advantage of its mineral wealth. The country is rich in diamonds, copper, cobalt and gold, much of which has been plundered by neighboring states and foreign businessmen.
At the 2,000-bed Kinshasa General Hospital in the capital, the list of needs is long. "We don't have thread for sutures. We don't have alcohol to disinfect wounds. We don't have gloves," Kabamba said. Patients arriving with potentially fatal wounds are handed a list of supplies to buy before the doctors can operate. Sometimes materials don't arrive quickly enough, and patients die. The government stopped subsidizing hospitals more than a decade ago and many rely on aid groups. Across Congo, medical centers with collapsed latrines, and without waste removal or clean water are common, said Yvan Hildebrand, head of the Belgian arm of Medicins Sans Frontieres in Congo. "It's the worst I've seen in terms of the collapse of the basics," said Hildebrand, comparing Congo's system to others in Africa.
Earlier this year, a study published in The Lancet, Britain's leading medical journal, said about 1,200 people are dying daily in Congo, most from easily treatable diseases. "Their country has been ruined by wars, colonialism and looting by foreigners," said Mluleki George, South Africa's deputy defense minister and head of its observer mission for the vote. "The Congolese will have to be very patient."
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
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Abkhazia, S. Ossetia for talks if Tbilisi meets preconditions
RIA Novosti, 11/2/06
SUKHUMI, November 2 (RIA Novosti) - The leaders of Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia said Thursday they are ready to meet with the Georgian president if Tbilisi fulfills its obligations. "A meeting with President Mikheil Saakashvili should be a result of resumed talks based on Georgia's unconditioned fulfillment of its obligations under previous agreements," Sergei Bagapsh and Eduard Kokoity said in a statement. They said Georgia should withdraw its troops from the Kodori Gorge, the only Tbilisi-controlled area in Abkhazia, as well as from the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone, and cease all activities that destabilize the situation.
On Monday, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili proposed direct talks between Tbilisi and Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. Kokoity rejected the proposal the next day, saying the recent intrusion onto South Ossetian territory by armed Georgian militants made talks impossible. On Monday, South Ossetian authorities said a group of four heavily armed terrorists was spotted in the breakaway region's Dzhava district, having infiltrated from Georgia. They opened fire on police during an identification check and were killed in the ensuing firefight. Georgian authorities denied any knowledge of the group.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia declared independence from Georgia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, unleashing bloody conflicts in the region. Russia mediated ceasefire agreements between the sides and Russian peacekeepers have been deployed in the conflict zones ever since.
Bagapsh and Kokoity praised a statement the Georgian foreign minister, Gela Bezhuashvili, made Tuesday, that "Russia should be one of the positive players in the resolution of the conflicts." The leaders also said in the statement that Georgia was unilaterally revising and violating obligations it had assumed, and was ignoring recommendation from the UN Security Council. "In this regard, any bilateral agreements lose all their meaning," the statement said. "The conflicts can be resolved and tensions in the region eased only through negotiations."
President Saakashvili, who came to power on the back of the 2003 "Rose Revolution," pledged to bring the self-proclaimed republics back into the fold. His defense minister also said Georgian troops would celebrate New Year's day in the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali. Georgia deployed massive troops in the Kodori Gorge, controlled by Abkhazia in its lower section, last summer under the guise of a police operation there. Russia called it a provocation and demanded their withdrawal. On October 13, the UN Security Council unanimously approved a Russian-sponsored draft resolution on Georgia, urging the ex-Soviet country to refrain from provocative actions in Abkhazia and calling for an extension of the Russian peacekeeping mission in the region until April 15, 2007.
EU monitor calls elections in Aceh province 'last chance for peace”
Robin McDowell, Associated Press, 11/2/06
The upcoming elections in Aceh are the "last chance for peace" in the tsunami-ravaged province that recently emerged from a decades-long civil war, the head of the EU election monitoring mission said Thursday. "It took 25 years, a change of government and a global tragedy to get us to the stage we are now," said Glyn Ford, who will help oversee the Dec. 11 vote for Aceh governor and other local positions. "If this falls apart, it's not going to come back very easily."
Efforts to end a 29-year war that claimed 15,000 lives picked up pace after the 2004 tsunami slammed into Aceh's coastlines and killed more than 131,000 people, with separatist rebels and the government saying they didn't want to add to people's suffering. The rebels gave up their weapons and their long-held demand for independence, and the government promised to let the former fighters field candidates in local elections, something that would have been illegal in the past. Some 2.5 million people will be eligible to vote.
Ford said he thought the chance of violence during campaigning that kicks off Saturday was low, though his 80-member monitoring team may have trouble convincing losing candidates the elections were free and fair. Tensions also could arise if some former rebels are forbidden from standing, he said. But overall, the mood in Aceh appeared calm and people were looking forward to the polls. "The people in Aceh ... realize that this is the last chance for peace," Ford said. "If this fails, what has been a problem for the last quarter of a century will be a problem for the next quarter of a century."
Aceh's conflict first erupted in 1873 when Dutch colonialists occupied the previously independent sultanate. The Acehnese assisted Indonesia's successful 1945-49 war of independence against the Dutch, but launched a decade-long uprising in the early 1950s this time against Jakarta's rule. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former army general and the country's first directly elected leader, was credited with helping end the latest rebellion, which began in 1976. While past administrations were determined to stamp out the guerrillas militarily, failing again and again, he was willing to negotiate a peaceful end to the fighting. Under the terms of a peace agreement signed on Aug. 15, 2005, the army pulled more than 20,000 troops from Aceh and the province was given control over 70 percent of its natural resources. "I think Yudhoyono was instrumental in getting the military to go along with the deal and that was a critical step," Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group said recently. "Without his strong endorsement and support, it would not have happened."
Ivory Coast president appeals for calm after U.N. resolution calls for curbs on power
Pauline Bax, Associated Press, 11/3/06
The president of Ivory Coast appealed for calm after the U.N. Security Council voted to extend the war-divided country's transitional government for a year and curb his powers in favor of the prime minister. The resolution, passed Wednesday, endorsed an African Union decision to give Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny control of the security forces and other powers that would enable him to reunite the nation and organize repeatedly delayed elections before November 2007.
Supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo are staunchly opposed to any curbs on his power, however. In a speech to the nation Thursday, Gbagbo said "any articles, any clauses in the resolution which constitute violations of Ivory Coast's constitution will not be applied." He did not specify which parts of the resolution might contradict the constitution, but the comment appeared to be a reference to the call for Banny to take command of the military. "I call on all Ivorians to gather around our constitution and our institutions," Gbagbo said. "The strength of the sacred link between the head of state, the population and the army constitutes our force in this struggle."
Rebels were not immediately available to comment, but they have repeatedly called on Gbagbo to step down, saying his mandate, extended by the United Nations last year for 12 months, ran out long ago. Last year, a U.N.-backed peace plan extended Gbagbo's five-year mandate by 12 months when it became clear that elections scheduled for October 2005 could not be held. The latest U.N. resolution gives the government an extension starting Nov. 1 "for a new and final transition period not exceeding 12 months." Gbagbo says the constitution allows him to remain in power and delay elections if war or natural disaster prevent polling from taking place. The elections are meant to help secure a fragile peace and unite Ivory Coast, which has been divided between a government-controlled south and a rebel-held north since fighting broke out in 2002. About 10,000 U.N. and French forces are deployed in the west African nation, many of them patrolling a buffer zone that separates the two sides.
Banny was appointed last year after mediators persuaded both warring factions to accept him. He had already taken over some executive powers from Gbagbo, but he is seen as having a weak mandate and has failed to convince all parties to implement key parts of the peace deal. The U.N. resolution gives the prime minister "all the necessary power and means" to implement the transition program including disarming militias, overseeing the registration of voters, restoring state authority throughout the country, and implementing agreements between the opposing sides to hold free elections by Oct. 31, 2007. The U.N. text states that full implementation of the resolution and the peace process led by Banny "requires full compliance by all Ivorian parties and that no legal provisions should be invoked by them to obstruct the process."
When asked how quickly the powers in the resolution would be transferred to the prime minister, the Ivory Coast' U.N. Ambassador Philippe Djangone-Bi said in New York on Wednesday, "the powers will not be transferred to the prime minister." The president keeps his executive powers but grants those powers necessary for the prime minister to do a specific job for a specific time, Djangone-Bi said, "and we are sure the prime minister and president will cooperate for the good of the nation." U.N. officials in Abidjan, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were unauthorized to speak to the media, said the U.N. resolution, as international law, supersedes Ivorian law.
Rebels and opposition leaders want a transitional leadership put in place to replace Gbagbo, though that is unlikely to happen. Gbagbo said Ivorians must solve the crisis themselves. "We must gather together and use our imagination to find peace for our country ourselves," Gbagbo said.
Many people had been bracing for possible violence before the Security Council vote, and tensions remain high. "Everybody is worried," said tailor Abou Toure. "A lot of people think Gbagbo should go. His time is up. But what can we do?" Philippe Kouame, an unemployed Abidjan resident said: "Gbagbo has been stripped of his powers. He's probably not happy. We'll have to see how he's going to react to that."
India's army chief orders probe into stressed soldiers killing colleagues in Kashmir
Nirmala George, Associated Press, 11/2/06
India's army chief has ordered an investigation into a string of recent incidents of soldiers fatally shooting their colleagues in India's insurgency-wracked portion of Kashmir, where years of heavy fighting are taking their toll on stressed, isolated troops, officials said Thursday. There have been at least four cases over the past 10 days of distraught soldiers in Kashmir shooting colleagues to death, then committing suicide. Officials say 17 years of bloody insurgencies in Kashmir, and to a lesser degree in India's remote northeast, are wearing down the military.
During this year's Hindu festival of Diwali, when most Indians feast with their families, a soldier in Kashmir shot dead four others, then killed himself with his AK-47 assault rifle. The army gave no reason for the shooting, but news reports said the soldier had been refused leave to visit his family over the holiday. Gen. J.J. Singh, the army chief, ordered the probe after a soldier shot and killed his unit commander Tuesday in Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, said an army spokesman, Vijay Joshi. The new inquiry will try to pinpoint what plays on soldiers' minds when serving in tough areas, and what could help keep them calm, officials said.
In Srinagar, the army spokesman said, soldiers are being taught yoga to help them cope. After a spate of similar shootings in the early 1990s, the army reformed its rules, easing conditions for leave and salary hikes for soldiers serving in difficult areas, Gen. Ashok Mehta said. "It's time for a re-look at these issues. Clearly, more reforms are needed."
More than a dozen Islamic militant groups have been fighting Indian security forces since 1989 in Muslim-majority Kashmir, seeking the Himalayan territory's independence from predominantly Hindu India or its merger with mostly Muslim Pakistan. Both countries claim of all of Kashmir, which is divided between them. India has an estimated 700,000 soldiers in Kashmir, many along the frontier with Pakistan, but plenty more in dangerous, violence-savaged towns and villages. In many areas, the region has the feel of an occupied country, with soldiers in full combat gear patrolling streets and frisking civilians at checkpoints.
Violence continued Thursday in the region. Gunmen shot and killed one soldier and wounded another in a busy market in Srinagar, said the city's deputy inspector of police, Farooq Ahmed. The gunmen fled. Kashmiri civilians make little secret of their anger at the Indian military, which is regularly accused of human rights violations. Living amid hatred takes its toll on the soldiers.
"This is an insurgency-wracked area. Soldiers operate in an environment where they are not sure about the future. This situation generates a lot of stress, and sometimes results in these kinds of incidents," said Col. Hemant Juneja, an army spokesman in Srinagar. Also contributing to the pressure are changes in Indian society, like the breakdown of the tradition of men staying with their parents even after marrying and having their own children. "A soldier who went off to war was sure his wife and children would be looked after in the event of his being killed in battle. With modern nuclear families, the soldier is always beset by concerns about his family's future," Juneja said. There are other changes in India as well. The military, long a high-status profession, has been eclipsed by the far-better-paying jobs in the private sector.
But prolonged deployment in dangerous situations is the largest factor in increasing stress levels, says Brig. Harwant Singh, a retired army officer. "In terrorist- and militancy-affected areas, the potential presence of terrorists in close proximity takes its toll," said Brig. Singh. "This makes them edgy, resulting in some taking the extreme step of either shooting themselves or their superiors whom they perceive to be the cause of all their miseries." Military experts also say that the army is becoming "overstretched" with soldiers having to do long spells in difficult areas. The solution, they say, lies not in increasing the size of the army already among the world's largest with more than 1 million soldiers but in training paramilitary troops to take over some of the duties now left to the army. "The army can then keep its powder dry for its real task," of fighting a full-scale war, said retired Gen. Ashok Mehta, a military commentator.
Suspected Islamic militants shot and killed three people in separate incidents in Indian controlled-Kashmir on Thursday, police said. A soldier was shot and killed and another was wounded in a busy market in Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state. The two soldiers were shot at close range by the gunmen, who then fled, said Srinagar's deputy inspector of police, Farooq Ahmed. "One soldier died on the spot and the other soldier is critically wounded and was evacuated to hospital," he said. There have been a series of close range attacks on soldiers and police in Srinagar in recent weeks, but no group has claimed responsibility.
In the village of Bumphan, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Srinagar suspected militants shot a man police said was a former militant. The man was critically wounded and died on the way to hospital, said district deputy police commander Hemant Lohia. There was no claim of responsibility. Also, in Baramulla, a town 55 kilometers (35 miles) north of Srinagar, one man was shot and killed by gunmen, said local police chief Viplav Kumar. The Heb-ul-Mujahadeen group claimed responsibility for the shooting in a call to the local news agency, Current News Service. The man was killed for being an army informer, the group said.
Heb-ul-Mujahadeen is one of about a dozen Islamic militant groups that have been fighting since 1989 for the independence of the Muslim-majority Himalayan territory of Kashmir from mostly Hindu India or its merger with neighboring Pakistan. Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, and both claim it in its entirety. Nearly 68,000 people, most of them civilians, have died in the conflict.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
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Serbian leaders say voters approved constitution that claims Kosovo is Serb territory
Katarina Kratovac, Associated Press, 10/30/06
Serbia has approved a new constitution reasserting the country's claim over the breakaway Kosovo province, officials and independent observers said. Serbian conservative Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and pro-Western President Boris Tadic both congratulated the nation. Final results were to be announced Monday but the Belgrade-based Center for Free Elections and Democracy said their sample count indicated that 96 percent of those who participated in the referendum supported the new charter. "This is a great moment for Serbia," Kostunica told Serbian state television. "This is a historic moment, a beginning of a new era." Tadic said a "huge job is now behind us" and stressed the "best thing about this constitution is that we now left" the constitution dating back to former autocratic leader Slobodan Milosevic's regime "behind us."
CeSID estimated that turnout was 53.3 percent at least 50 percent of the country's 6.6 million electorate had to participate for the results to be valid. State referendum authorities announced similar results, saying 96 percent voted in favor of the new charter based on 10.6 percent of returns counted and estimated turnout at 53.6 percent. Kostunica said the turnout was "adequate, considering that opponents chose to boycott the vote" rather than cast "no" votes. "We have reasons to be very happy." The referendum was been strongly condemned by the ethnic Albanians, who have long boycotted any ballot under Serb auspices.
Western diplomats have warned that only the international negotiations can decide on Kosovo's future, but the Belgrade politicians believe that adopting the new constitution would bolster their position in the talks. Serbia's opposition Liberal Party claimed "massive fraud" had taken place at polling stations in the final hours of voting, with individuals allegedly voting several times and without identification papers. The charter's key point declares Kosovo an "integral part of Serbia" despite ongoing U.N.-brokered talks on the province's future status.
Serbs in Kosovo where the 2 million strong majority ethnic Albanian population was not even invited by Belgrade to vote began celebrating even before official results were announced. Hundreds gathered Sunday night in the Serb-populated northern Kosovo town of Kosovska Mitrovica, waving banners, cheering and shouting "Kosovo is the heart of Serbia" as NATO peacekeepers watched on and dispatched reinforcements to the scene.
Serbia saw a massive government campaign to say "yes" to the document, with ads flashing at the top of television screens Sunday on the state-run broadcaster calling on people to vote in favor of the draft constitution. In Serbia's northern Vojvodina province where turnout was very low, provincial assembly speaker Bojan Kostres accused authorities of "forcing the new constitution" on the people. "The final voting hours were very strange, with a sudden, steep rise in turnout" Kostres said, warning any evidence of illegalities could seriously hurt Serbia's already tanished image abroad.
The 206-article charter which aims to consolidate democracy and the rule of law in the Balkan country has focused on the preamble seeking to prevent a possible secession of the disputed Kosovo. The province's independence-seeking ethnic Albanians form 90 percent of the population in Kosovo, which has been under U.N. administration since 1999, when U.S.-led NATO air strikes halted a Serb crackdown on the separatists. Serbs cherish Kosovo which today is home to a dwindling Serb community of 100,000 as their historic heartland.
Government opponents and nongovernment organizations have criticized the charter as hastily drafted and flawed on issues such as independence of the judiciary, equal rights for minorities and autonomy for local governments. The pro-Western Tadic has defended the charter as a break with the era of the late autocrat Slobodan Milosevic. Tadic also said the new constitution could propel Serbia toward coveted membership in the EU and NATO. The need for a new constitution arose in June after Montenegro Serbia's last partner from the former Yugoslav federation declared independence and left Serbia on its own for the first time since 1918.
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Macedonian parliament adopts crucial bill on police reform
Konstantin Testorides, Associated Press, 10/30/06
Lawmakers on Monday adopted a new law on police reform that is part of a legislative package required before this small Balkan country can open EU accession talks. The law gives local authorities more say in naming police chiefs, allows greater police independence from the central government and provides for tougher action in fighting organized crime. The EU mission in Macedonia hailed the new law as "an important step on the country's reform agenda," but called for greater political consensus and continued reforms. Following a monthlong debate, 71 of the 83 deputies present in the 120-seat, unicameral parliament voted for the bill, while 12 abstained.
The opposition DUI the largest ethnic Albanian minority party and the Liberal-Democrats boycotted the vote. The party said it was not consulted during the drafting of the bill, which it said stops short of granting real independence to local government authorities. It also said the law was passed without strong enough support from ethnic Albanian lawmakers as required for key legislation, according to a 2001 peace agreement drawn up following an insurgency by ethnic Albanian guerrillas.
Ethnic Albanians make up about a quarter of Macedonia's 2.1 million population. Relations between many minority leaders and the government remain tense, while minority factions are also engaged in violent rivalry. DUI spokeswoman Ermira Mehmeti accused the governing conservative coalition of "showing disrespect for the will of the majority of Albanians," and urged mayors in Albanian minority areas to ignore the new law. "This is just the beginning of how we will express our revolt against the manner and the stubbornness with which the government has chosen to impose the bill," she said.
The EU mission office in Macedonia called on the government and opposition parties in a statement Monday to "endeavor to build mutual understanding on the implementation of the law, including all its bylaws, as well as on future steps in the police reform." "Equitable representation, internal control, the issue of language rights and decentralization of the police are among the many areas where progress is required," the statement said. The EU also wants Macedonia to reform its judiciary system, and to do more tackle corruption and organized crime.
The country which gained independence from then-Yugoslavia in 1991 applied for EU membership in March 2004 and was accepted as a candidate last year. Macedonia hopes to be invited to open entry talks next year, and plans to fulfill all membership conditions by 2012.
Moldova: Separatist leader to run for fourth term as Trans-Dniester president
Associated Press, 11/3/06
The leader of a pro-Russian separatist region in eastern Moldova has submitted his candidacy for a fourth term as Trans-Dniester president, officials said Friday. Igor Smirnov, who has run the province with an iron fist since 1991 when it declared independence from Moldova, said he "trusted in the people's will." The head of Trans-Dniester's electoral commission, Piotr Denisenko, said Smirnov's candidacy met all legal requirements, and the leader's name would be on the ballot for the December 10 election. The breakaway, self-declared republic has no term limits.
Trans-Dniester, which is dominated by aging Russians and Ukrainians and ex-Soviet military families, broke away from Moldova after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Backed by Russia, the province fought a 1992 war with Moldova that killed 1,500 people, sparked in part by fears that Moldova would reunite with Romania, with ethnic Russians fearing they would lose status.
Smirnov, 65, is born in Russia and is a Russian citizen. He arrived in the former Soviet republic of Moldova in 1986 as director of a then-secret arms factory in Trans-Dniester's capital, Tiraspol. He was first elected as Trans-Dniester's president in 1991, and re-elected in 1996 and 2001. Trans-Dniester held a referendum in Sept., with 97 percent of voters endorsing a proposal to join Russia. That vote which was opposed by Moldova was not recognized internationally. Moldova's President Vladimir Voronin has said the Trans-Dniester region was run by an undemocratic regime that fosters organized crime, and has called on Russia to withdraw its 1,500 troops stationed in Trans-Dniester.
U.S., Britain and France call for end to impasse over Western Sahara after voting to extend U.N. mission in the mineral-rich territory
Associated Press, 10/31/06
The United States, Britain and France called for an end to the impasse between Morocco and the Polisario Front over the Western Sahara after joining in a unanimous U.N. Security Council vote Tuesday to extend the U.N. mission in the vast mineral-rich territory. After 15 years and more than US$600 million (euro480 million), the U.N. has been unable to resolve the standoff between Polisario Front rebels seeking independence for Western Sahara and the Moroccan government which refuses to give up sovereignty and instead has offered the phosphate-rich region autonomy.
While the council voted to extend the U.N. mission, which has been unsuccessful in trying to arrange a referendum on the territory's future, key members made clear they want progress in ending the stalemate before the new six-month mandate for the 225-member U.N. mission expires on April 30, 2007. William Brencick, a senior U.S. diplomat, said the United States voted in favor of the extension on the understanding that Morocco, Algeria and the Polisario will "move beyond rhetoric to the serious work needed for a resolution of this conflict." "The United States remains concerned that the Western Sahara conflict has impeded regional integration and development for the last 30 years," he said. "A lasting resolution is now long overdue."
Morocco and Mauritania split Western Sahara after its Spanish colonizers left the territory in 1975. Full-scale war broke out the following year, and Morocco took over the whole of Western Sahara after Mauritania pulled out in 1979. The fighting, which pitted 15,000 Polisario guerrillas against Morocco's U.S.-equipped army, ended in 1991 with a U.N.-negotiated cease-fire that called for a referendum on the region's future. But the vote has never happened. The United States calls for the parties to compromise and show flexibility, and urges Morocco "to move quickly to fulfill its many promises to table a comprehensive and credible autonomy proposal for the Western Sahara" and to engage seriously with all people in the territory including the Polisario, Brencick said.
The United States also calls on Secretary-General Kofi Annan to examine a timetable to dismantle the U.N. mission if it continues "to prove ineffective" and if the parties don't make substantial progress toward a political solution, he said. France's deputy U.N. Ambassador Jean-Pierre Lacroix said "the next few months should be used profitably to break the impasse" between Morocco and the Polisario Front and reach a political agreement. Morocco's intention to present some proposals in the coming months "is an encouraging development which we hope will make it possible to move forward," he said.
Britain's deputy U.N. ambassador Karen Pierce also called for "progress in the next six months beyond the current impasse," warning that no U.N. peacekeeping mandate should be regarded as open-ended. Britain insists that a solution "has to be mutually acceptable and based on self-determination" of the people of Western Sahara, she said. Britain also wants human rights in the region should be monitored as a result of reported violations, Pierce said.
In a letter to the president of the Security Council on Tuesday, the Polisario Front's U.N. representative Ahmed Boukhari welcomed the council's commitment to the right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination. But he expressed regret that the resolution did not reflect "a legitimate and justified concern regarding the violation of human rights in Western Sahara by Morocco."
Rights-Nepal: New Government Shows Little Interest in Justice
Marty Logan, Inter Press Service, 10/31/06
The government is unlikely to do much to deliver justice to the victims of Nepal's decade-long Maoist insurgency, rights activists said during a conference here. "We believe that a nation that has suffered many horrors -- murders, rapes and other crimes -- is able to progress only if those experiences are told," Indonesian academic and human rights activist Karlina Supeli said during the conference in Nepal's capital Monday and Tuesday.
The international meeting hosted by local human rights group Informal Sector Service Center (INSEC) and development agency FK Norway came as peace talks between the government and former Maoist rebels were again postponed to a date "in the near future." The month-long round of discussions has stalled over two issues: whether to give the tainted monarchy a second chance and how and when to lock up the guns of the rebel soldiers. The Kantipur daily newspaper reported Tuesday that the two sides had agreed that the Maoist arms will be locked up, the keys given to rebel leaders, surveillance cameras installed at the site, with U.N. experts having the right to inspect the site at any time. The report has not been confirmed.
The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) regained its legitimacy in the state's eyes after joining an alliance of mainstream political parties to lead street protests that swelled to what one political leader called a "human tsunami" on the streets of Kathmandu in April. Faced with a likely confrontation between passionate protesters and soldiers at the royal palace gate, King Gyanendra chose to give up power and reinstate parliament. Days later, government and Maoist leaders declared a ceasefire in the 10-year uprising that has killed as many as 14,000 people, most of them innocent villagers caught in the crossfire, in one of South Asia's poorest nations. Since then the two sides have entered into protracted peace talks that often appear to move one step forward, then one step back.
"The focus on all sides has been on weapons, monarchy and positions in the interim government, without guarantees for ensuring a culture of human rights, an end to impunity and justice to the victims of past violations," Sushil Pyakurel, former commissioner of the Nepal Human Rights Commission (NHRC), said Tuesday. "This is the time that Nepal's human rights defenders must stand against efforts by any side to hide or urge others to forget the truth and violate rights and principles in the process," he added at the conference.
Lawyer and women's rights activist Sapana Pradhan Malla accused political leaders of sidelining the NHRC by not naming replacements for the commissioners who resigned after April's change of government. Without those officials, the NHRC is powerless to hire staff it urgently needs to tackle a towering backlog of files or to forward recommendations to the government. "The human rights commission should have played a very critical role (since April's people's movement). I say (the delay) is intentional and it's political will that is lacking to create a functional system in this country," said Malla. Besides those killed, tens of thousands of Nepalis were forced to flee their homes during the 10 years of fighting, after attacks or threats from the Maoists or state security forces. They are slowly beginning to return to their villages but hundreds of people "disappeared" by both sides remain missing and their fate is a point of argument.
Pradhan Malla's accusation followed a presentation by Appellate Court Judge Anand Bhattarai, who argued -- raising eyebrows in the hall -- that Nepal's judiciary is both independent and professional enough to deliver transitional justice, but that the nation's legal framework is wanting, including laws to protect victims. The biggest bar of all, added Bhattarai, is the culture of impunity. "It is the positive duty of the state to prosecute, investigate and eventually sanction" those who committed crimes, but "the withdrawal of court cases for political reasons has created ... a very high level of impunity in this country."
In South Africa, the post-apartheid government accepted its responsibility to lead the transitional justice process, said Clem Van Wyk, director of programs at that country's Desmond Tutu Peace Center. "It is always incumbent on the present government to build relationships ... to bring people together. Peace requires that a government address all issues of discrimination and exclusion. "The government had to say, 'In order to move forward you have to move back.' South Africa did not want in 20 years time to be haunted by its past," added Van Wyk. While in South Africa amnesty was granted to those who fully disclosed their abuses against the nation's black population if the crimes were politically motivated, Nepal's government has already given amnesty to many Maoist leaders, some of whom committed terrible crimes, according to Bhattarai. He agreed with Pyakurel that civil society is "caught between not wanting to disrupt the ongoing peace efforts while guarding basic rights."
However, Nepal will fulfill its obligation to victims, stressed Deputy Prime Minister KP Oli. "Any peace accord which does not redress the sufferings of the victims and provide for truth and reconciliation initiatives is liable to unravel." One young activist raised loud doubts about that pledge. "The culture of impunity has been running in our blood for centuries. ... In the present government are sitting people who were responsible for human rights violations in the past," said the activist, who didn't want to be named. "I don't think that the truth commission model of South Africa can be applicable here."
Nepal asks India to back peace talks with Maoists
Agence France Press, 11/5/06
Nepal's Deputy Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli arrived here Sunday to seek Indian support for Kathmandu's efforts for peace with Maoist guerrillas in the Himalayan country. Oli, who is scheduled to meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee during his week-long trip, said Kathmandu hoped New Delhi would continue to offer its backing to his country, ahead of planned peace talks in Nepal Monday. "India is a friendly country and has always supported peace, development and democracy there and New Delhi has a major contribution towards strengthening democracy in the Himalayan country recently too," Oli told reporters in New Delhi.
Oli's new government and the Maoist rebels have observed a truce since late April after massive street protests forced King Gyanendra to end 14 months of direct rule and reinstate parliament. Both sides have been engaged in multi-party government following the king's moved, which ended a revolt that has claimed more than 12,500 lives since 1996. But the negotiations failed to yield results last month due to differences over the role of monarchy, the status of rebel weapons and troops and the outline of a temporary constitution to allow the rebels to join an interim government.
Oli, who also is in-charge of Nepal's foreign office, said he would "specifically" seek India's support to the ongoing peace process, the Press Trust of India added. "This visit will provide an ideal opportunity for both sides to review bilateral relations and other issues of mutual interest which will lead to strengthening of India-Nepal relations," he added.
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Somalia's Islamic courts seize new town as talks with the government stall
Mohamed Sheikh Nor, Associated Press, 11/1/06
Militias loyal to Somalia's powerful Islamic movement expanded their control by taking over a strategic coastal town, as peace talks with the country's official government stalled. The fighters peacefully seized Hobyo in the central Mudug region on Tuesday night, according to an official with Somalia's Council of Islamic Courts. "There was no fighting and the people here welcomed us," Mohamed Mohamud Jimale Agawiene, a spokesman for the group in central Somalia, told The Associated Press by telephone. The new takeover came as peace talks in Khartoum, Sudan, between the Islamic group and the government were at a standstill. The talks were meant to start Monday, but delegates from both sides were holed up in their hotel rooms refusing to negotiate, Sudan's official news agency reported Tuesday.
Somalia has not had an effective national government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another, throwing the country into anarchy. A transitional government was formed in 2004 with U.N. help in hopes of restoring order after years of lawlessness. But the government never asserted much authority. The Islamic movement which began in the 1990s seized the capital, Mogadishu, after fierce battles with secular warlords in June and now controls much of the country's south. The government controls just one town, Baidoa, 250 kilometers (150 miles) northwest of the capital. Osman Elmi Bokore, the deputy chairman of the transitional parliament, said Tuesday's takeover will "just move us apart" in negotiations. "It shows the courts do not do not respect the agreements reached with the government," he said.
Central Somalia is not under the control of a particular group and has seen some inter-clan violence over the past 16 years. The Islamic group has been expanding into central Somalia since August. Sudan, which currently heads the 22-nation Arab League, has taken the lead in promoting peace talks for Somalia. The talks began in Khartoum in June when the two sides agreed on a formula for mutual recognition. A second session was held in the city on Sept. 2-3 when the two sides signed an agreement to form a unified national army. The Islamic group had been reported as saying they would boycott this week's peace talks in Khartoum because of the Ethiopian troops in Somalia. Ethiopia has said several hundred of its "military trainers" are in Somalia, providing expertise to the interim government. U.N. officials in the country say thousands of Ethiopian soldiers are defending Baidoa.
Somalia's Islamic militia denies U.S. claims that the group is planning suicide attacks
Salad Duhul, Associated Press, 11/3/06
Somalia's increasingly powerful Islamic militia on Friday denied U.S. claims that the fundamentalist group was planning suicide attacks in East Africa, and said the United States was trying to frame the group for violence in this volatile region. The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, issued a travel warning on Thursday telling citizens "to remain vigilant and to use extreme caution" in public places, saying Somali extremists were threatening suicide attacks at landmarks within Kenya and Ethiopia. The Council of Islamic Courts, which controls Somalia's capital and much of the south, said "the U.S. statement is totally baseless," according to spokesman Sheik Abdirahim Ali Mudey. The "Americans want to accuse us of being responsible for explosions," Mudey said, adding that he has "received information" that the CIA, along with intelligence agents in Kenya and Ethiopia, were planting bombs in Nairobi and the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa as part of a plan to frame the fundamentalist group.
Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictator and then turned on one another. But the Islamic courts seized control of the capital, Mogadishu, in June and now controls much of the country. Earlier this week, peace talks collapsed between the militants and Somalia's U.N.-backed interim government, which controls only the western city of Baidoa. Somali government officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
The U.S. government has charged that some in the Somali militant group have ties to al-Qaida. Experts also warn that Somalia could become a proxy battleground for neighboring Eritrea and Ethiopia. Eritrea, which broke away from Ethiopia in a 1961-91 civil war and fought a 1998-2000 border war with its rival, supports the Islamic militia. Ethiopia backs the interim government. A confidential U.N. report obtained by AP last week said 6,000 to 8,000 Ethiopian troops were in Somalia or along the border. It also said 2,000 soldiers from Eritrea were inside Somalia. Eritrea denies having any troops there, while Ethiopia insists it has sent only a few hundred advisers.
Kenya, and Tanzania just to its south, already have been victims of al-Qaida terrorism, with the bombings at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998 and attacks on a hotel and an Israeli airliner in Kenya in 2002. The attacks emanated from Somalia, where the growing militant movement has prompted concerns that the chaotic nation could become fertile ground for Osama bin Laden's terror organization. Two leaders of the Islamic courts appear on U.S. and U.N. lists of people known to have ties to al-Qaida, although both men have repeatedly denied the allegations.
Somalia's government asks head of parliament to reconsider plans to negotiate alone with Islamists
Salad Duhul, Associated Press, 11/5/06
Somalia's government have asked the country's most powerful lawmaker to reconsider his plans to hold his own talks with Islamic militants who have taken over much of the country. Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden, the parliament speaker, is planning to leave Sunday for Mogadishu, which has been under the control of the Council of Islamic Courts since June. He announced the plan, without consulting the president or prime minister, just days after peace talks with the Islamists collapsed in Khartoum, Sudan.
"The transitional government urges the speaker not to go to Mogadishu before he consults with the government delegation to the Khartoum talks," said the written statement by Somalia's Council of Ministers. "The government will come to the peace talks and all we want is to form a unified position." Aden is considered the most sympathetic leader in Somalia's government to the Islamic courts, which the United States accuses of having ties to al-Qaida. His decision to hold talks without the cooperation of the prime minister and president is a direct challenge to their authority and could lead to the government's collapse.
If Aden strikes his own deal, a majority of the parliament could abandon the president and prime minister. Islamic courts spokesman Sheik Abdirahim Ali Mudey welcomed Aden's plans. "We will welcome the speaker to Mogadishu because he is one of the MPs who care about the Somali people," he said Friday. Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictator and then turned on one another. But the Islamic courts have been expanding their territory since June and now control much of the country. The government controls just one town.
Experts warn that Somalia could become a proxy battleground for neighboring Eritrea and Ethiopia. Eritrea, which broke away from Ethiopia in a 1961-91 civil war and fought a 1998-2000 border war with its rival, supports the Islamic militia. Ethiopia backs the interim government. A confidential U.N. report obtained by the AP last week said 6,000 to 8,000 Ethiopian troops were in Somalia or along the border. It also said 2,000 soldiers from Eritrea were inside Somalia. Eritrea denies having any troops there, while Ethiopia insists it has sent only a few hundred advisers.
The United States warns that Somali extremists are threatening suicide attacks in Kenya and Ethiopia. The U.S. government has charged that some in the Somali militant group have ties to al-Qaida. Sheik Abdirahim Ali Mudey, a spokesman for the Islamic courts, said the allegations were baseless.
Sri Lanka says willing to open highway if Tamil rebels cease violence
Associated Press, 10/31/06
The Sri Lankan government said Tuesday it was willing to reopen a highway that connects the rebel-held north with the mainland, the blockade of which led to the failure of the just concluded peace talks in Geneva. "The closure of A-9 is not permanent and we are willing to reopen it provided the LTTE (rebel group) gives security guarantee and stops acts of hostility," said Nimal Siripala De Silva, who headed the government delegation at the talks. The talks, aimed at salvaging a 2002 cease-fire and halting more than two decades of conflict, failed after the government rejected a Tiger demand to reopen the highway.
Tamil Tiger boat suspected of carrying arms destroyed, military says
Krishan Francis, Associated Press, 10/31/06
The Sri Lankan navy on Tuesday destroyed a boat suspected of transporting arms and ammunition for Tamil Tiger rebels in the country's north, the military said. "One of the LTTE boats bringing arms and ammunition was destroyed," military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe said, referring to the rebels by the acronym of their formal name, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. He said the navy spotted a suspicious boat near Talaimannar seas, 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of the capital, Colombo and when it defied an order to stop the navy fired and destroyed the boat, he said. A powerful explosion that came from the boat suggested that there was ammunition inside, Samarasinghe said. There were no independent details of the incident and there was no immediate report on casualties.
Earlier Tuesday suspected rebels detonated a roadside bomb in the northern town of Vavuniya, killing a Sri Lankan government soldier and wounding three others, Samarasinghe said. He said that the Tigers have also launched sporadic shell attacks on a two main military camps in eastern Batticaloa district. The violence came amid rebel claims that the government was planning a major offensive against them in the wake of stalled peace talks held over the weekend in Geneva, raising fears of a return of a full-scale hostilities. "The Sri Lanka government is planning to launch a big offensive attack toward (the Tamil held area of) Elephant Pass, and to capture Kilinochchi, the capital of the LTTE," rebel official Severathnam Puleedevan told The Associated Press on Monday.
Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella on Tuesday called the rebel claim of an impending offensive "propaganda." "We do not have a planned offensive on our table, but if our forces are attacked we will retaliate," Rambukwella told The Associated Press. "The talk of a major offensive by us is propaganda by the LTTE," Rambukwella said.
The talks in Geneva, aimed at salvaging a 2002 cease-fire and halting more than two decades of conflict, failed after the government rejected a Tiger demand to reopen a key highway that connects the Tamil-dominated northern Jaffna peninsula with the rest of the country. But the government said Tuesday it was willing to reopen the highway provided the rebels stop acts of violence. "The closure of A-9 is not permanent and we are willing to reopen it provided the LTTE gives security guarantees and stops acts of hostility," Nimal Siripala De Silva, who headed the government delegation at the talks, told a news conference in Colombo. There was no immediate comment from the rebels on the government's conditions.
The government offered during the talks to set up a sea delivery route, saying it would cheaper and safer, claiming the rebels themselves hamper deliveries by threatening and extorting those using the road. But the rebels rejected the offer. The Tamil Tigers began fighting in 1983 for a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils in the north and east of Sri Lanka, claiming discrimination by the majority Sinhalese. More than 65,000 people were killed in the conflict before the cease-fire.
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U.N. officials warn of aid workers' flagging access to Darfur's needy people
Eliane Engeler, Associated Press, 10/31/06
U.N. officials warned on Tuesday that aid workers' already precarious access to needy people in Darfur could worsen, while the U.S. and British leaders kept up pressure on Sudan's government to act quickly to end violence in the region. Violence has spiraled recently in Darfur, where more than three years of fighting have left more than 200,000 people dead and 2.5 million homeless. Fresh fighting has caused increasing numbers of aid workers to withdraw, leaving many refugees without food or medicine.
The situation is "extremely difficult" for aid workers and "insecurity often prevents us from being able to access people," said Simon Pluess, a spokesman for the World Food Program. He said aid workers had been unable to get access to some 224,000 people in Darfur during September. Pluess told reporters that aid workers and the local population were constantly exposed to security threats, banditry and other criminal acts. "The biggest victims are the civilians, the displaced, in Darfur who suffer almost on a daily basis from violations and attacks," Pluess added.
Jennifer Pagonis, of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said violence and insecurity were severely hampering the aid workers' job. "We have reduced access," she said. "Sometimes we just simply can't get out to (displacement) camps because of security constraints." But Sudanese Culture Minister Mohammed Youssef Abdullah said at a separate news conference that the humanitarian situation was not that bad.
He said 14 of Darfur's 23 provinces were peaceful, with the south and west calmer than the north. "We believe the security in Darfur is OK," he said. Pagonis, however, said her agency's assessment of the humanitarian situation in Darfur does not "tally with that of the Sudanese minister." Bush and Blair both kept up pressure on Khartoum to end the fighting in Darfur.
The United States says genocide is taking place in the region and accuses Sudan's government of unleashing Arab militiamen known as janjaweed to quell a rebellion by ethnic African tribes that began February 2003 in Darfur. Cease-fire and peace deals have failed to halt the violence. "The government of Sudan must understand that we're serious, when you deliver a message to them on behalf of our government, that we're earnest and serious about their necessity to step up and work with the international community," Bush said in Washington after meeting with Andrew Natsios, the special U.S. envoy to Sudan. Bush told reporters that Natsios delivered a "grim report about the human condition" in Darfur after a 10-day trip to the area.
Meanwhile, Blair told Salva Kiir Mayardit, Sudan's first vice president, that his country faces international isolation if fails to make immediate progress toward a renewed peace deal for Darfur. Blair said the Khartoum government had one last chance to move toward ending the conflict or face the consequences, the prime minister's office said. The U.N. has authorized 20,000 troops to replace an under-equipped force of 7,000 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur. But the Sudanese government has rejected the U.N. force, and last week expelled U.N. envoy Jan Pronk.
Sudan denies involvement in latest killing in Darfur, blames bandits
Mohamed Osman, Associated Press, 11/5/06
The Sudanese government denied any involvement in a new wave of violence in the country's western Darfur region that killed over 50 people, saying Sunday that reports on the incident contained "huge amounts of lies" and that outlaws should be blamed for the attacks. The United Nations on Friday released a report charging the government-allied janjaweed militia for the deadly raids against seven villages and a refugee camp in the Jebel Moon area of West Darfur on Oct 29 and Oct. 30. The U.N. cited witnesses saying that men clad in Sudanese military officers' garb were with the horse-mounted militia when they attacked, killing at least 27 children and about as many adults.
"At the very least, the attacks demonstrated the government of Sudan's continued failure to disarm militia in Darfur, and at worst its use of militia forces that target civilian populations," said the U.N. report released in Geneva. Khartoum dismissed the report as disingenuous. "We should be cautious about these reports, circulated by the western media, because they contain huge amounts of lies, manipulation and lack of credibility" Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali Sadeq told the official Sudan News Agency.
Sudan's Arab-dominated government has long denied backing the janjaweed, a militia of Arab nomads blamed for much of the atrocities against ethnic African villagers in Darfur since 2003, when African rebels first took up arms against Khartoum. More than 200,000 people have since been killed, and 2,5 million chased from their homes. A May peace agreement between the government and one rebel group has been largely ignored and violence has escalated in recent months, with increased rebel infighting and a large army offensive in the north of the region.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman said that neither the Sudanese army nor regular pro-government paramilitary groups were at present fighting in Darfur, contradicting multiple reports by international observers in Darfur that the army and pro-government militia continue to regularly clash with rebels in the region. "There are active outlaws in Darfur and it is not fair to accuse the government for all the looting, killing and violence," Sadeq said.
A U.N. Security Council resolution plans to replace an African Union mission that has shown little results in ending Darfur's violence with 20,000 U.N. peacekeepers. But Khartoum opposes the move as "neocolonial."On Sunday, Mini Minnawi, the rebel chief who signed the peace agreement with Khartoum and has since become a senior assistant to the Sudanese president, said the government must take "appropriate measures" to quell the violence in Darfur if it wants to avert a U.N. presence.
Genocide
in Darfur: A Legal Analysis
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here to access the Report prepared by the Public International Law & Policy
Group.