PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Thursday, April 5, 2007
(Volume VI, Number 8)
Contents:
Armenia
Armenia names defence
minister as new PM
Like the President,
the future Prime Minister is from the disputed region of
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Chechnya
U.S. Human Rights
Watch says Bush visitor at White House responsible for multiple rights abuses
in Chechnya
The White House said
that Bush was not aware of the allegations against Gen. Shamanov before their
meeting.
Democratic
Republic of
Congo
Opposition leader may
quit DRC for medical treatment
Bemba injured his leg last
December
by falling down stairs.
Army keeps up pressure on DRCongo rebels
The UN reports that government troops found a huge quantity of weapons.
Congo opposition leader says exile is only choice
Since losing the presidential election last October, Bemba has had a difficult time transforming his political movement into a functioning democratic opposition.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation.
Indonesia
Rebel takes the reins
in Indonesia's Aceh Province
New governor of Aceh
says he doesn’t know who to trust.
Indonesia's former Aceh rebels to set up political party
The party will subsume the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
Aceh Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation.
Ivory
Coast
Rebel leader named
Ivory Coast prime minister
Gbagbo appointed
Guillaume Soro as PM as part of the peace accord between the government and
the rebels.
Kashmir
India promises to
wield 'sharp sword' against Kashmir militants
The comments come amid
demands from Congress' main political ally in Kashmir for a drastic cut in
troop levels in the region.
Kashmir leader says troop cut will help Islamic militants
Chief
Minister strongly ruled out demilitarization or reduction of security forces
in the state.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation Click here
to access the
Kashmir
Negotiation
Simulation.
Kosovo
European Parliament
backs U.N. plan granting Kosovo supervised sovereignty
The EU assembly voted
to back "supervised sovereignty" for Kosovo that would give it access to
international financial organizations to help its economic
recovery.
EU fails to endorse Kosovo independence plan
Slovakia, Romania and Greece were not yet ready to approve the proposal.
UN Security Council braces for contentious Kosovo talks
The plan will be reviewed by the Security Council this week in talks that could go on for weeks.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation.
Macedonia
US defense envoy says
Macedonia needs faster reforms for NATO membership
U.S. Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense said that there must be “democratic, political, economic
and military reforms.”
Nepal
Maoists sworn into new
Nepal government
The former rebels hold
five portfolios in the 22-member
cabinet.
US tells Nepal Maoists to abandon violence
US Embassy says rebels must “at last join the mainstream as a non-violent political party."
Somalia
U.S.: Terror Still a
Threat in Somalia
A White House report
says that foreign terrorists are still able to find a safe haven in Somalia
because of a lack of governance in the
country.
Somalia Battles Called Worst in 15 Years
More than 220 people were wounded within 24 hours.
Clan in Somalia's capital says it has brokered truce with Ethiopian military
Hawiye clan spokesman said the fighting should end within hours after the truce.
Sri
Lanka
Sri Lanka troops on the
offensive after plane
attack
Government security
forces took control of Kokkadichcholai and seized a large haul of arms,
ammunition and land mines from the LTTE base.
Sri Lankan government says ready for peace talks with Tamil Tigers anytime
Foreign Minister says “we need to explore all avenues.”
Bus bomb kills 15 in Sri Lanka
25 were wounded.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation.
Sudan
Sudanese
president repeats rejection of U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur
This move
signaled
yet
another slap to international efforts to stem the escalating
violence.
Killing of 5 AU soldiers underscores dangers of Darfur mission
The five peacekeepers were guarding a "water point" in Darfur near the border.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis Click here to access the PILPG Report.
Peace Negotiations Watch is prepared by the
Public
International Law & Policy Group in cooperation
with American
University and is made possible by a grant from the
Carnegie
Corporation of New York and the
Ploughshares
Fund.
Armenia names defence minister as new PM
Agence France Presse, 4/2/07
Armenia's ruling Republican party on Monday named Defence Minister and presidential favourite Serge Sarkisian as the country's new prime minister.
Sarkisian is a close ally of President Robert Kocharian, who is expected to approve the nomination on Wednesday, parliamentary speaker Tigran Torosian told AFP.
Sarkisian, 52, will succeed Andranik Margarian, who died of a heart attack on March 25 after seven years as prime minister.
The defence minister is considered the favourite to replace Kocharian when the president's second term expires next year.
Like Kocharian, Sarkisian is from the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and fought in the 1988-1994 war in which Armenia seized the region from Azerbaijan.
He also chairs the Republican party's ruling council and is expected to play a key role in the party's campaign for May 12 parliamentary elections.
U.S. Human Rights Watch says Bush visitor at White House responsible for multiple rights abuses in Chechnya
William C. Mann, Associated Press, 3/29/07
A leading U.S. human rights organization says President George W. Bush should not have met at the White House with a Russian military official the group alleges was responsible for serious rights abuses in the breakaway Chechnya province.
The White House said Thursday that Bush was not aware of the allegations against Gen. Vladimir Shamanov before their Monday meeting, which also included retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Robert Foglesong. Shamanov and Foglesong are co-chairmen of the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs, a 15-year-old commission dedicated to accounting for all U.S. military personnel who went missing during the Cold War.
Bush agreed to the meeting because he "was attempting to reinvigorate that commission," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. She said, however, that it is "unlikely" that Bush would have done so if he had been aware of the allegations.
"Due to the information about the current Russian commission leadership, we're going to review how best to move forward with that important work," she said.
Human Rights Watch has compiled records, interviews and other documentation of Gen. Vladimir Shamanov's service in Chechnya less than a decade ago, Rachel Denber, deputy director of the group's Europe and Central Asia division, said Wednesday.
She said the documentation leaves no doubt that Shamanov had to have known what his troops were doing. In the town of Akhan-Yurt, for instance, Russian bombs, rockets and mortars rained down in November 1999, killed an unknown number of civilians and destroyed much property, said Human Rights Watch's report, which was based on interviews with survivors.
Denber said the POW/MIA commission has "a great mission." But, she said, "It just seems that folks in the Defense Department and the administration just didn't do their homework."
Besides their work on the commission, which Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, organized when he was president, Foglesong is president of Mississippi State University and Shamanov was a counselor to Russia' former defense minister, Sergei Ivanov.
Not only should Shamanov have been denied the opportunity to hobnob with the president, she said, the United States never should have accepted him as Russia's co-chairman for the commission.
"When his name popped up involved in serious human rights abuses, they should have done some digging," Denber said in a telephone interview from New York City, where Human Rights Watch is based. "It should have rung some alarm bells."
At the Russian Embassy, spokesman Alexey Timofeev refused to discuss Shamanov's record in Chechnya.
"Are we talking about the meeting with President Bush or about his record in Chechnya?" Timofeev asked. "If I must be honest, it is a very good journalist trick if someone is doing something worthwhile and you take out excuse me dirty clothes."
The White House did not play up the officers' appearance in the Oval Office for what was said to be a private photo opportunity.
A report about the visit on the Mississippi State University Web site described it as a "briefing with President Bush" in connection with the commission's work. "This meeting was important in emphasizing the U.S. commitment to our work on behalf of missing American servicemen and their families," Foglesong was quoted as saying.
Opposition leader may quit DRC for medical treatment
Agence France Presse, 3/28/07
Opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, who sought shelter in the South African embassy during heavy fighting in Kinshasa last week, could be flown to Portugal for medical treatment, diplomatic sources said on Wednesday.
Bemba whose militia were routed by the army over two days, needs treatment to an injury he sustained when he fell down some stairs last December.
"Monsieur Bemba suffers from his leg injury," the diplomatic source told AFP, adding that "a medical evacuation is being envisaged fairly rapidly, to Portugal."
Bemba was in Portugal last year for treatment when he first suffered injury.
A second diplomatic source confirmed to AFP that talks were underway between Bemba, the DRC government, the South African and Portuguese authorities and MONUC, the UN mission in here, to arrange a possible evacuation.
"The only problem now, is to know when and how," he added.
About 2,000 government troops overcame 700 fighters loyal to former vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba in the Gombe district of Kinshasa on Thursday and Friday.
Last Friday, President Joseph Kabila's government issued an arrest warrant against Bemba on charges of treason and maintaining a militia.
In theory Bemba, a former rebel leader and vice president, enjoys parliamentary immunity by virtue of his seat in the senate. That immunity can only be lifted by parliament.
Nor is he under any pressure to quit his embassy sanctuary. South Africa's deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad said Tuesday that Bemba could stay there as long as he liked.
But in recent days Bemba's supporters have told AFP that they would like to see him safely out of the country, at least for the time being.
Bemba himself told the French daily Le Monde on Monday that he was prepared to go into exile if his security could not be guaranteed by Kinshasa.
Meanwhile the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana called on both sides to reach a peaceful agreement.
A statement issued by his office in Brussels said Solana had spoken with Kabila on Wednesday and with Bemba a few days earlier.
"Mr Solana expressed concern at the latest developments in the DRC, where the parties have resorted to violence to resolve their differences.
"He called on them to use reason and dialogue to reach a negotiated outcome, based on consensus, to enable the DRC to return to the path to stability and prosperity to which the Congolese people aspire."
Solana is currently in Saudi Arabia attending the Arab League summit.
President Kabila left for Tanzania on Wednesday, where he will have to explain his actions to his colleagues at 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit.
The crises in his country and in Zimbabwe are high on their agenda.
On Tuesday, 14 European Union ambassadors on Tuesday urged Kabila's government "to do everything to assure the existence of a democratic space in order to guarantee the free expression of all political opinions."
In their joint statement, they also condemned the government's excessive use of force during last week's fighting.
Up to 500 people, many of them civilians, had been killed; both sides had been guilty of rape and pillage; and the Spanish and Greek embassies and the UNICEF offices in Kinshasa had been bombed, they said.
Government troops meanwhile continued their search for the remnants of Bemba's militia in the easter part of the capital Wednesday.
A police spokesman told AFP that the police and army had set up roadblocks in Kinshasa's Kingabwa quarter. He said they were going through the district looking for weapons abandoned by the fleeing militia.
Late Tuesday, the defence ministry said another 600 soldiers formerly loyal to Bemba and based in his home region in northwest Equateur said they were now ready to join the ranks of the army.
Army keeps up pressure on DRCongo rebels
Agence France Presse, 3/28/07
Government troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo have found a huge quantity of weapons as forces loyal to an opposition leader began to surrender, the UN said Wednesday.
The weapons find came after fighting between military and opposition forces loyal to former vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba last week claimed scores of lives in the capital.
President Joseph Kabila left for Tanzania on Wednesday for a special summit of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community, where the crisis in his country was high on the agenda.
Lieutenant Colonel Didier Rancher, military spokesman for the United Nations mission in DRC, said the 677 weapons and hundreds of crates of ammunition had been found in a drinks factory at Gbadolite, in northwestern Equateur province. Equateur is Bemba's home province.
The weapons included mortars of up to 120 millimetre calibre, anti-aircraft guns and other artillery, rocket-launchers, machineguns and dozens of assault rifles, Rancher said.
He said the arsenal was located near a base of Bemba loyalists, some 600 of whom had surrendered their weaponry and agreed to join the government armed forces.
In eastern districts of Kinshasa, government troops continued their search for the remnants of Bemba's militia, police said, setting up roadblocks in the Kingabwa quarter.
Meanwhile, diplomatic sources said Bemba, who sought shelter in the South African embassy during heavy fighting in Kinshasa last week, could be flown to Portugal for medical treatment. Bemba needs treatment for a leg injury he sustained when he fell down stairs in December.
About 2,000 government troops overcame 700 fighters loyal to Bemba, also a former rebel leader and failed presidential candidate, during fighting that occurred in the Gombe district of Kinshasa on Thursday and Friday.
Bemba had rejected attempts to incorporate his guard into the government army.
On Friday, Kabila's government issued an arrest warrant against Bemba on charges of treason and maintaining a militia.
In theory Bemba enjoys parliamentary immunity by virtue of his seat in the senate. That immunity can only be lifted by parliament.
South Africa's Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said Tuesday that Bemba could stay at the embassy as long as he liked, though Bemba's supporters have told AFP they would like to see him safely out of the country, at least for the time being.
Bemba himself told the French daily Le Monde on Monday that he was prepared to go into exile if his security could not be guaranteed by Kinshasa.
The UN mission in DRC on Wednesday called for dialogue between the government and opposition.
It said security should now be maintained by police and not the military, and disciplinary measures should be taken against soldiers found to have participated in looting or other crimes.
Many of Bemba's guard members have begun showing up at military camps in the Equateur region, while 140 reported to UN headquarters in Kinshasa. About 200 have been arrested and sent to prison, DRC and UN sources said.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana again called on both sides to reach a peaceful agreement.
On Tuesday, 14 EU ambassadors urged Kabila's government "to do everything to assure the existence of a democratic space in order to guarantee the free expression of all political opinions."
In their joint statement, they also condemned the government's excessive use of force during last week's fighting in which 200 to 500 people, many of them civilians, had been killed.
Catholic charity organisation Caritas said Wednesday its figures so far showed that 163 people had been killed and 150 seriously injured.
Congo opposition leader says exile is only choice
Laurie Goering, Chicago Tribune, 3/30/07
Mar. 30--Since losing a presidential election runoff to President Joseph Kabila last October, Jean-Pierre Bemba, a businessman, former warlord and Congo's leading opposition figure, has had a difficult time transforming himself and his political movement into a functioning democratic opposition for the war-ravaged country.
In the days after the election, Bemba -- a transition government vice president and now a national senator -- refused to accept the election results, despite observers declaring the voting largely free and fair. Bemba has since insisted on keeping a private army of 2,000 men around Kinshasa as a guard against what he believes have been repeated assassination attempts by Kabila's forces.
Tensions between Congo's army and Bemba's men earlier this month exploded into several days of heavy fighting in the capital that United Nations officials say left at least 100 people dead. In the aftermath, Bemba was charged with treason and fled to the South African Embassy in Kinshasa.
Now Kinshasa newspapers report that Bemba is likely to leave Congo as early as Saturday to fly to Portugal for medical treatment, and what may turn out to be an extended exile. Western diplomats say continuing violence has damaged efforts to restore peace and democratic rule to Congo, and that the departure of the country's still-armed opposition leader could prove a military relief -- but also a major blow to efforts to build a credible democracy in a country struggling to move beyond a decade of conflict that has left nearly 4 million people dead of hunger, disease and violence.
The United Nations mission in Kinshasa has called for Congo's government to "respect the principles of transparency, inclusiveness and tolerance of dissent" and insisted that Bemba and his followers "adhere to these same democratic norms, voicing their views responsibly and without resort to violence."
The Tribune spoke to Bemba by telephone at the South African Embassy in Kinshasa on Thursday.
Q.: Are you in fact planning to leave Congo this weekend, as the Kinshasa newspapers are reporting?
A.: That's what I hope to do, yes. We are still negotiating, but my hope is to leave as soon as possible.
Q.: Do you have plans to return, especially given the treason charges against you? Will you fight them?
A.: I want to come back and continue playing my role as an opponent. But I don't know if the conditions will be clear for me to come back. The problem we have in Congo is Kabila doesn't like the opposition to be active. Kabila wants to kill me.
Q.: Why do you say that? What does the government gain by assassinating you?
A.: He has tried three times to kill me, and if he kills me, nobody will be able to [oppose him] anymore. I won 42 percent in the last election and that will probably grow in the next five years. He fears that. The only solution he can find to his problems is to kill me.
Q.: What happens to your party if you leave Congo and do not return?
A.. My political party will not participate anymore in parliament. We will go out of the institutions and the government will be one party, a state party, not more. We will not continue in a dictatorship.
Q.: Would your movement take up arms again against the government?
A.: It's clear we have no way to fight. The party would go on, but we would withdraw as the democratic opposition.
Q.: You have refused in recent months to disarm your private guard, citing fears for your life. But your men this week have begun turning their weapons over to Congo's army. Is that because you're no longer at risk or because you're preparing to leave?
A.. I don't know. Maybe both.
Q.: Did you issue orders for the disarmament?
A.. I haven't, not really.
Q.: What does your party want for Congo?
A.: Real democracy with the government running the country and the opposition watching, proposing, criticizing on the other side, and not being worried about our security. Remember back in January when people wanted to demonstrate on the streets against corruption in politics? Troops were sent to meet them. Now they send troops to kill me. I don't know if this is really an example of democracy. When I see all that happens, I'm not really confident. I don't have a lot of hope for my country with this kind of leadership.
Q.: So you don't believe Kabila's government can return democracy to Congo?
A.: Tanks are on the streets of the capital. When you send tanks into the streets, what message do you expect to send? This is not solving things by negotiation. This has nothing to do with democracy. This is giving a strong signal to the opposition that they should not criticize.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
Indonesia
Rebel takes the reins in Indonesia's Aceh Province
Seth Mydans, International Herald Tribune, 3/28/07
The little green car accelerated around a mountain curve and flashed through a village here in Aceh Province, scattering chickens, children, dust and pebbles.At the wheel was Irwandi Yusuf, the new governor of Aceh, and he was racing into the hills to catch illegal loggers by surprise.
''I have to do it myself,'' he said, his foot on the accelerator. ''I couldn't rely on law enforcement. I don't know who I can trust.''
Irwandi, 47, is a one-man political science experiment, a separatist rebel who has, quite unexpectedly, become the leader of the government he until recently fought against.
Under a peace agreement signed in 2005, Irwandi renounced his separatist agenda, ran for governor in December and won, taking almost 40 percent of the vote in a field of eight. The second-place finisher was also a member of the former separatist movement, bringing its total to more than 50 percent of the votes cast.
Irwandi took office at the start of February and is now guarded by the army that once hunted him in the jungle. He works with a police force that was known for its brutal treatment of his comrades. He travels to Jakarta to talk policy with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, himself a former general.
He has no alternative but to leave the past behind, he said. Most of the people he works with are his former enemies.
Military intelligence still watches him, he said,and he expects hard-line opponents to try to complicate his job with political manipulation. But the agreement that ended Aceh's 30-year separatist war is holding - after the death of 15,000 people - and both sides seem to have embraced nonviolence.
Irwandi has inherited a wounded province of four million people here on the northern tip of Sumatra Island. The traumas of its long, brutal conflict have been compounded by the devastation of the Asian tsunami that killed 170,000 people in Aceh in December 2004.
Along with economic revival, he must deal with the reintegration of former rebel fighters, delicate relations with Jakarta, Muslim clerics with a hard-line agenda and a local administration that is known for corruption and ineffectiveness. In a doubly unusual move for a new governor who is also a former rebel, he has decided to keep the old administration in place, cabinet ministers and all.
''I tell them: I believe, I trust you all. You are all trustworthy until you prove otherwise. Then I will know.''
If they are up to it, he said, they are welcome to ''rock and roll'' with him. ''Rock and roll,'' he said. ''That means to do something new, rocky, that was never felt before. It is spirit. Spirited people. Young blood. Young spirit.''
As he raced through the mountains, Irwandi talked, one after another, into three cellphones, dodging trucks and bicycles with one hand on the wheel.
''I'm not afraid of anything,'' he said, speaking of his adversaries but driving straight into oncoming traffic.
Illegal logging, a major enterprise in Aceh, illustrates the problems he faces, and the way he means to take them on.
''They have Jakarta connections and they've got backing from the police and the military and also civil servants,'' he said. ''I entered into a system with all the network there. I have no network.''
He does have assistants and a security detail, most of them his former comrades in arms. As he careered through the mountains, he was chased by three unmarked vans carrying what he said was his personal security team.
''This is a pilot project,'' he said of the logging raid. ''Scare the hell out of them. I want to show them, 'Don't play games with me.' All the government people, when they see I do what I say, they won't have courage to play games anymore.''
When he reached the sawmills, rocketing up a rutted forest road, the overseers were gone, apparently forewarned of his raid. It seems the bad guys may still have better intelligence than their new governor.
But Irwandi insisted he had made his point. He used a tiny camera to take pictures of fresh-cut logs and heavy equipment that he said would be used as evidence when he made his move. ''I know I can't do it all,'' he said. But he seems to be trying.
Irwandi said he had felt at home in his new job from the beginning.
''For me it was just like a natural transition, like I was pushed here little by little to this position,'' he said, from the jungle to peace negotiations to governor. ''The jobs are about the same, dealing with people.''
By training, he is a veterinarian, with a degree from a local university where he later taught. He married a student there and they have five children, 4 to 16.
He joined the insurgency, the Free Aceh Movement, known as GAM, in 1990, but took a break three years later to study for a master's degree in veterinary science on a scholarship to Oregon State University.
Back in Aceh he joined GAM's central command, where he served as chief spokesman and propagandist and helped restructure its military.
In 2003, Irwandi was arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison for rebellion. He was behind bars, 19 months later, when the tsunami struck. ''There was a big earthquake,'' he said, recalling the terror of the trapped prisoners, ''and then we heard a roaring noise outside the high wall. Everybody tried to escape out the front door, but it was locked.''
Irwandi climbed to the second floor. The walls around him were collapsing. ''I didn't know what to do,'' he said. He climbed an iron bar to the ceiling, punched through a layer of asbestos and clambered onto the roof, where he rode out the waves. He was one of just 40 survivors from a prison population of 278.
The trauma of the tsunami led the two weary armies to reach a peace agreement in August 2005. Irwandi became GAM's liaison with the international peacekeeping mission that, among other things, prepared the way for the election he won.
As governor, he works hard to stay ordinary, shunning an official mansion for a small rented house, where he receives a stream of visitors and petitioners.
On the day after his raid on the loggers, Irwandi attended the inauguration of a soybean plantation here at Bireuen, where he was born, 140 kilometers, or about 90 miles, southeast of the provincial capital, Banda Aceh.
He was the only dignitary to arrive on time. He sat patiently, cross-legged on a plastic mat, as one local official after another arrived, with polished shoes, in convoys of polished black cars.
Indonesia's former Aceh rebels to set up political party
Agence France Presse, 4/3/07
Former separatist guerrillas in Indonesia's Aceh province will establish a new political party next month, one of their leaders said Tuesday.
The party will subsume the rebels' Free Aceh Movement, also known as GAM, which fought a three-decade insurgency against Indonesian rule, the leader said.
"GAM members will only have one party," said Tengku Muhammad Usman Lampoh Awe, the head of the GAM Central Council.
"If there are GAM members who set up other parties, their GAM membership will be rescinded."
Other parties established by members of the movement would not represent GAM, he said.
The conflict in Aceh claimed at least 15,000 lives, but GAM dropped its claim for independence in return for more autonomy for Aceh under a 2005 peace deal.
The pact was signed after the 2004 Asian tsunami killed 168,000 people in Aceh and forced the rebels and the government to reassess the conflict.
GAM candidates did unexpectedly well in district and gubernatorial elections last year. One of its former spokesmen, Irwandi Yusuf, won the race to become Aceh's governor.
Parliamentary elections are due in the staunchly Muslim province in 2009 and GAM was expected to build a party to contest them. Such local political parties are banned elsewhere in Indonesia, but allowed in Aceh.
Two local parties have been set up in Aceh so far. The Aceh People's Party was established by former student activists and the Gabthat Party includes former GAM fighters and activists.
Rebel leader named Ivory Coast prime minister
Agence France Presse, 3/29/07
Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo Thursday formally appointed rebel leader Guillaume Soro as his prime minister as part of a peace accord between the former arch-rivals, his spokesman said.
Desire Tagro said the decree was signed during a meeting between the two men in Abidjan, following the accord reached in the Burkina Faso capital of Ouagadougou on March 4.
The Ivorian peace accord envisages a government of 33 cabinet ministers, of which 18 portfolios will go to Soro's New Forces group.
Soro, a 34-year-old former student leader, led an attempted coup against Gbagbo in 2002, sparking a civil war that left the rebels holding the north of the country, once a cocoa-rich economic powerhouse.
Gbagbo said Tuesday that the new government would be in place "this week or next week at the latest."
"The war is finished and the crisis is finished. All the agreements have been signed," Gbagbo said, adding that once the government was in place he would immediately embark on a tour of the "occupied zones" in the north where citizens "have not seen their chief for a long time."
Soro will replace Charles Konan Banny, who was approved as prime minister by the United Nations Security Council in 2005. However, he struggled to carry out his task of pursuing the peace process and moving toward new elections.
Konan Banny said Monday that he had succeeded in his mission by "restoring trust" between the main players.
Soro accepted an offer in January for "direct dialogue" with his former enemy Gbagbo to take the country toward a peace accord and elections.
"I would like to salute all the Ivorians and all those who contributed to conditions such that the peace process gives hope to Ivorians," Soro said after his meeting with Gbagbo.
He said he would make an address to the nation "very soon."
Soro led an Ivory Coast student union from 1995 to 1998 and was given the nickname "Che" because of his left-wing militant activities. He was imprisoned several times for taking part in demonstrations against the ruling party of the time.
After living in Britain and then France, Soro returned to the Ivory Coast and appeared at the side of General Robert Guei, who overthrew President Henri Konan Bedie in 2000.
Soro was also close to former prime minister Alassane Ouattara when he was banned from the 2000 presidential election.
In October 2002, Soro was the secretary general of the Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement which took control of the north of the country after the coup attempt against Gbagbo. He later became leader of the New Forces rebellion which took control of 60 percent of the cocoa-rich country.
After a first peace accord in January 2003, Soro was part of a national reconciliation government and was communications minister from 2004 to 2005.
The New Forces have been demanding that Soro become prime minister since late 2005. He was a minister for reconstruction in Konan Banny's government.
Meanwhile, a report from the UN mission in Ivory Coast detailed major human rights violations committed by both sides between May and August last year.
It reported summary executions, torture and rape by government troops, often during security operations or at road-blocks.
Among the New Forces, it also detailed executions, detention of suspected spies, murder and rape, and highlighted one case of sexual abuse against a 18-month-old girl.
The report added that intercommunity violence had raised concerns about human rights in the demilitarised zone under UN surveillance.
India promises to wield 'sharp sword' against Kashmir militants
Agence France Presse, 3/29/07
The chief minister of revolt-hit Indian Kashmir vowed Thursday to wield a "sharp sword" against Islamic militants while pledging to spare civilians from the crackdown.
"Security forces have been advised to deal with the menace of militancy with much fervour and determination," Ghulam Nabi Azad said in a statement.
"I myself will prove a sharp sword against militants and shall be soft towards innocent people," the Congress party official said in a statement.
His comments come amid demands from Congress' main political ally in Kashmir for a drastic cut in troop levels in the Himalayan region, which is held in part by India and Pakistan but claimed in full by both.
India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and other Hindu political groups, however, have been accusing Azad of going soft on battling the 17-year-old insurgency.
Authorities in Indian Kashmir are also probing five cases where innocent civilians were detained, killed and passed off as "wanted" Islamic militants by security forces.
Some eight police officers have been arrested and are facing charges on murder case.
Azad, however, said that action against offenders in the security forces should not be seen by militants as a concession.
"The action against security officials on account of human right violations should not be deemed as any leniency towards militants," he said, insisting that New Delhi was determined to "eliminate the menace of militancy."
"The action of any security force personnel involved in any human rights violation shall not be tolerated," he said.
Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's regional People's Democratic Party (PDP), a key partner of Kashmir's Azad-run administration, has threatened to withdraw its support if New Delhi rejected its demands for troop cuts by mid-year.
Although India has consistently refused to scale down troop numbers in Kashmir, Azad stressed that during the last 17 months in power he has pulled-out soldiers posted in 92 private houses, 27 government buildings, 24 hotels and nine orchards.
"The process will continue," he said.
The insurgency began in 1989 and has claimed more than 42,000 lives, according to official figures.
Kashmir leader says troop cut will help Islamic militants
Agence France Presse, 4/1/07
Indian Kashmir's chief minister Sunday voiced opposition to any move to cut troop levels in the Himalayan state, saying it would "directly help" Islamic militants.
"Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad strongly ruling out any demilitarization or reduction of security forces in the state has erased all false impressions created by vested interests for political mileage," an official statement said.
The statement came two days after India set up a panel to review a possible cut in troop levels in insurgency-racked Kashmir.
The announcement on Friday came after demands by a regional ally of the federal ruling Congress party, which also governs Kashmir, to reduce troop numbers in the state.
Azad in the statement "said his refusal for any demilitarization and reduction in security forces was based on ground realities and was appreciated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other senior leaders as well."
The chief minister added that he wants troop withdrawals to start only after 17-year-old insurgency ends.
Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's People's Democratic Party has threatened to withdraw support for the state government in Kashmir if New Delhi rejects its demands for troop cuts. But he has not set any deadline and welcomed the panel.
India has deployed an estimated half a million troops and paramilitary soldiers in Kashmir, the cause of two of the three wars between India and Pakistan since their 1947 independence from the British.
Pakistan and separatists have linked the region's demilitarisation to lasting peace between the South Asian rivals.
In the latest violence Sunday, a soldier was killed in the state's southeast in a battle that also left two rebels dead, a defence spokesman said. Such shoot-outs are common in the region.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
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European Parliament backs U.N. plan granting Kosovo supervised sovereignty
Jan Silva, Associated Press, 3/29/07
The European Parliament on Thursday overwhelmingly backed a U.N. plan that would give Kosovo supervised independence from Serbia, and the EU's foreign policy chief said the bloc's planned development project in the province was "the most important EU mission in history."
The EU assembly voted to back "supervised sovereignty" for Kosovo that would give it access to international financial organizations to help its economic recovery.
U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari presented a proposal to the U.N. Security Council on Monday to grant the province eventual independence from Serbia, initially supervised by the international community.
"The European Parliament takes the view the only sustainable settlement for Kosovo is one which envisages an international presence in order to maintain the multiethnic character of Kosovo," the parliament said in a report.
But parliamentarians said the international presence must not result in the establishment of a parallel administration or replicate the current U.N. administration. Kosovo was placed under U.N. oversight in 1999, after NATO air strikes ended a Serb crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told the parliament that the bloc's 2,000-strong mission to Kosovo for which the EU assembly must approve funds will be the largest mission the EU has ever had.
After Kosovo's final status has been determined, the EU team will move in to assist local authorities in developing autonomous institutions, police and judiciary and ensure the rights of minorities are observed. The EU also wants to prepare Kosovo for closer ties with the 27-member bloc.
"We cannot afford to fail. If we fail in stabilizing Serbia and Kosovo, it will ... reduce our possibilities to do anything like that further afield," Solana said.
The EU has said international grants of up to euro1.5 billion (US$2 billion) may be required to help Kosovo in the first three years after the final status of the Serb province is determined. The money will be needed to cover Kosovo's share of the Yugoslav debt, the cost of implementing Kosovo's status, economic development and an international military and civilian presence.
Kosovo has an estimated 50 percent unemployment rate, and many people live in poverty, making it the poorest region in the western Balkans, according to EU figures.
The economy has mostly been kept afloat by international aid in reconstruction projects. Kosovo has failed to attract much foreign investment due to the unresolved political status and fears of instability.
Ahtisaari's plan faces an uncertain future in the Security Council. Russia supports Serbia, which wants the province to remain within its borders, and has implied it could use its veto power in the council if Belgrade's interests are not addressed. The United States and the European Union back the plan.
"We'll have difficulties with Russia and very probably also with China," Solana said.
He said the EU must help Serbia to overcome the loss of Kosovo and form a pro-European government that would bring the country closer to the EU.
"I'd like to be as generous as possible in helping Serbia," Solana said, but also called on Belgrade to step up its cooperation with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, where wartime Bosnian Serb army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic is wanted.
EU fails to endorse Kosovo independence plan
Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press, 3/30/07
The European Union on Friday failed to muster unanimous support for a contentious plan to grant partial independence to Serbia's Kosovo province but officials said reservations by three countries would not derail the plan, which now heads for a vote in the U.N. Security Council.
"There are still some hesitations" about granting Kosovo internationally supervised independence, said Slovene Foreign Minister Dimitri Rupel after an EU foreign ministers meeting.
Slovakia, Romania and Greece were not yet ready to approve the proposal to grant the province of two million people 90 percent of whom are ethnic Albanians internationally supervised statehood and elements of independence including its own army, flag, anthem and constitution.
Diplomats downplayed the significance of these reservations, saying it was crucial to win UN Security Council endorsement for the plan, drafted by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari.
"We are dependent on an agreement in the Security Council," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said outside a meeting of the 27 EU foreign ministers.
Ahtisaari's plan faces an uncertain future in the Security Council. Russia supports Serbia, which wants the province to remain within its borders, and has implied it could use its veto power in the council if Belgrade's interests are not addressed.
Reservations within the EU about cutting Kosovo loose from Serbia have long been rooted in fears of setting a precedent for other independence-minded areas in Europe.
EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana and Olli Rehn, the EU Enlargement Commissioner, briefed the EU foreign ministers on the significant financial and security challenges facing Kosovo if it achieves internationally supervised statehood.
They asked for sustained EU financial and technical support for Kosovo in the years ahead in areas such as security, the economy and political reforms.
The two have previously warned the Balkans could again be engulfed in violence akin to the wars in the 1990s during the breakup of Yugoslavia unless the future status of Kosovo is resolved quickly.
"It is of vital importance to the EU and the security of Europe," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeir said. "It is our neighborhood, a top priority for us."
Kosovo has been under U.N. administration since NATO launched airstrikes in 1999 to halt a Serb crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanian rebels.
About 200,000 people are believed to have perished in a series of wars sparked by the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. The conflicts, which spread from Slovenia to Croatia, Bosnia and finally Kosovo, cost the international community an estimated US$110 billion dollars, two-thirds of which was paid directly or indirectly by EU member nations.
The EU is planning a 2,000-strong mission for Kosovo, the largest the EU has ever had. After Kosovo's final status has been determined, the EU team will move in to assist local authorities in developing autonomous institutions, police and judiciary and ensure the rights of minorities are observed. The EU also wants to prepare Kosovo for closer ties with the 27-member bloc.
Solana and Rehn have estimated that Kosovo will need international aid of up to euro1.5 billion (US$2 billion) in the first three years after the final status of the Serb province is determined. The money will be needed to cover Kosovo's share of the Yugoslav debt, the cost of implementing Kosovo's status, economic development and an international military and civilian presence.
UN Security Council braces for contentious Kosovo talks
Agence France Presse, 4/1/07
A contentious plan to grant supervised independence to the Serbian province of Kosovo will be reviewed by the Security Council Tuesday in talks that diplomatic sources say could go on for weeks.
UN chief mediator Martti Ahtisaari is to brief the 15-member body on his recommendations for the Albanian-majority breakaway province which were unveiled last Monday amid strong opposition from Belgrade and Moscow.
"Kosovo is going to be the big topic in April at the Security Council," one Western diplomat predicted, estimating that discussions were likely to last "several weeks."
Tuesday's session is mainly for members to listen to Ahtisaari's plan, which is backed by the United States and European Union, and for preliminary discussions on the matter. No text is to be circulated and no decisions made.
Kosovo has been administered by a UN mission since mid-1999, after a NATO bombing campaign ended the brutal crackdown by Serbian forces against the province's ethnic-Albanian majority.
Some 10,000 ethnic Albanians died and hundreds of thousands fled Kosovo during the 1998-1999 conflict.
"Independence is the only option for a politically stable and economically viable Kosovo," Ahtisaari said in his report, hailed by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders who represent 90 percent of the province's two million people.
In his report, Ahtisaari made it clear that in the initial phase, international supervision of an independent Kosovo would be required.
Under the scheme, the province would adopt a constitution within 120 days of its new status being confirmed, by which time the mandate of the current UN mission in Kosovo will end.
General and local elections are to be held within nine months of the new status being introduced.
An international civilian representative, who will be a European Union representative, would oversee the implementation of the plan while having no direct role in administering Kosovo.
He will be aided by a NATO-led military mission and an EU police force which will "monitor, mentor and advise on all areas related to the rule of law."
That international supervisory role "would come to an end only when Kosovo has implemented the measures set forth in the settlement proposal," the UN mediator added.
However Serbia, which views Kosovo as the birthplace of its civilization, remained bitterly opposed to its proposed independence.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica is to attend the Security Council session, his office said Friday.
Russia, a close ally of Belgrade and a veto-wielding council member, has also stepped up its opposition to the Ahtisaari plan ahead of the formal debate in the Council on Kosovo's future status.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned that Ahtisaari "will fail" if he pursues his current plan for Kosovo.
"This problem can't be solved without taking into account the positions of the two conflicting sides, Belgrade and Pristina. Ahtisaari has decided to ignore them, but I think he will fail," Lavrov was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying on Thursday.
Lavrov has even suggested Ahtisaari be replaced as UN chief mediator.
In Tuesday's talks, Security Council members are expected to consider a Russian proposal to send a fact-finding mission to Belgrade and Kosovo to take stock of the situation on the ground.
One diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity expected the idea to be received favorably because such a trip could be useful in helping non-permanent members of the Security Council to form an opinion.
Such a notion would particularly apply to south Africa, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo, who are torn between two important principles to their continent: non-interference in a state's affairs versus the right to self-determination, the diplomat said.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
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US defense envoy says Macedonia needs faster reforms for NATO membership
Associated Press, 3/29/07
A senior U.S. defense envoy said Macedonia needed to speed up reforms required to become a full NATO member in a new enlargement round expected next year.
"It is apparent that Macedonia has made impressive strides in defense reform and modernization," Daniel Fata, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, said after meeting Defense Minister Lazar Elenovski.
But he added that "not only defense, but every other aspect of reform must be completed" toward that goal. "There have to be democratic, political, economic and military reforms and all that is part of the package of issues to be reviewed."
The U.S. Congress recently sent legislation to President George W. Bush that endorses expansion of NATO to include three more Balkan countries and two former Soviet republics: Albania, Macedonia and Croatia, as well as Georgia and Ukraine.
Macedonia, Croatia and Albania have been working toward joining the alliance with Membership Action Plans since 2002.
"We have spent a considerable amount of resources working with all three ... We are here to talk with Macedonia on how else we can help them to have the best possible candidacy when the allies get together in 2008," Fata said.
Maoists sworn into new Nepal government
Agence France Presse, 4/1/07
Nepal's Maoists were sworn into a new interim government on Sunday, witnesses said, in a major step forward for a peace process that ended a decade of civil war in the nation.
The former rebels hold five portfolios in a 22-member cabinet tasked with steering the impoverished Himalayan nation into new elections in June.
"It's a historic day for Nepal," Maoist leader Prachanda, whose name means "the fierce one", told reporters.
"A new process of making a new Nepal has begun now and our responsibility has increased," he said.
He was speaking after the new ministers read out an oath in parliament to be "committed and responsible for the sovereignty of the nation and the people."
The rebels signed a peace deal with the country's mainstream parties in November in a deal that formally ended the civil war that claimed at least 13,000 lives.
Under the deal on the new cabinet, veteran Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala -- the architect of the peace deal and leader of the Nepali Congress party -- retains his position as premier.
The admission of the Maoists in a new government comes after the former rebels registered their weapons and fighters with the United Nations.
But the Maoists continue to face accusations of mafia-like practices such as beatings, extortion and kidnappings, and remain on a US list of "terrorist" organisations.
Prachanda, however, vowed his group would work to hold new elections "in a free and fearless environment."
The polls, scheduled for June, will elect a body tasked with rewriting Nepal's constitution that includes deciding the future of the country's monarchy.
The Maoists are pushing for the country, one of the world's poorest, to be declared a republic.
US tells Nepal Maoists to abandon violence
Agence France Presse, 4/1/07
Nepal's rebel Maoists must renounce violence entirely after being given positions in a new interim government, the United States said Sunday.
"As a partner in the interim government, the Maoists must now be held fully accountable for their actions," a statement from the US embassy here said.
"They must meet their commitments and at last join the mainstream as a non-violent political party," it said.
The Maoists vowed to end their decade-long civil war when they signed a peace deal in November last year, but they still feature on Washington's list of foreign "terrorist" organisations.
The US ambassador to Kathmandu also warned mainstream political leaders last week that it was too early to allow the former rebels into government.
The statement was issued immediately after the former rebels were sworn into a new interim cabinet, taking government posts for the first time. The cabinet includes five Maoist ministers and one with a junior portfolio.
The cabinet will oversee elections to a body that will rewrite Nepal's constitution permanently and address the future of Nepal's embattled monarchy.
"The next step in this process should be the holding of constituent assembly elections as quickly as possible," the statement said.
Sunday's cabinet formation marks a milestone in Nepal's peace process, and is a vital test for the former rebels to see whether they can function in the political mainstream.
The group continues to be accused of mafia-like practices, including beatings, kidnappings and extortion.
At least 13,000 people were killed in the Maoist "people's war" that began in the rural west of the country in 1996.
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Somalia
U.S.: Terror Still a Threat in Somalia
George Gedda, Associated Press, 3/29/07
Despite recent setbacks to Islamic radicals in Somalia, foreign terrorists are still able to find a safe haven there because of a lack of governance in the country, contributing to a growing security threat throughout East Africa, according to a White House report.
The report, submitted to key congressional committees, said several al-Qaida operatives have used Somalia as a base of operations, including the perpetrators of the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa and the 2002 attacks against an Israeli airliner and a hotel in Kenya.
"The individuals pose an immediate threat to both Somali and international interests in the Horn of Africa," the report said.
The report, mandated by Congress, was submitted to the committees by President Bush.
The study makes clear that Somalia remains a major security concern despite the ouster of a radical Islamic group that had taken control of Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia last year. The so-called Union of Islamic Courts was driven from power by Ethiopian troops and forces loyal to a U.N.-backed government.
Insurgent activity continues to plague Mogadishu. Somali and Ethiopian troops pounded rebel positions in the capital on Thursday.
American counterterrorism concerns are directly related to the presence of al-Qaida and affiliated jihadists and individuals willing to harbor them, the report said.
"We will therefore take strong measures to deny terrorists safe haven within Somalia," the study said.
The United States has looked with concern at Somalia for years, seeing it as a fertile ground for terrorists because of the absence of an effective government to combat them.
The report said the United States will continue to work with other countries "to counter the threat of terrorism and eliminate Somalia as a safe haven and platform for terrorists."
Countries cooperating with the United States in counterterrorism activity in the region include Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia.
The report noted that Uganda has offered to send 1,500 troops to Somalia, permitting Ethiopian troops to withdraw while preventing the creation of a security vacuum.
The United States also is providing $40 million in new assistance to Somalia, including $16.5 million in humanitarian assistance and $24 million in reconstruction and development assistance.
Somalia Battles Called Worst in 15 Years
Mohamed Olad Hassan, Associated Press, 3/30/07
Insurgents shot down a helicopter gunship in Somalia's capital and mortar shells slammed into a hospital Friday in the worst fighting seen in this beleaguered capital in more than 15 years.
Dozens of people have been killed since Thursday, when the government and allied Ethiopian troops launched an offensive to quash an increasingly brutal insurgency by Islamic militants. A statement from the International Committee of the Red Cross said the people of Mogadishu are caught up in the worst fighting in more than 15 years.
More than 220 people have been wounded in the past 24 hours, most them civilians with bullet, grenade and other shrapnel wounds, the ICRC said.
Mogadishu resident Abdi Hussein Aboke said he saw 10 bodies in the street Friday, all apparently civilians.
"Some were lying in alleys between houses while others were lying on the streets," he said.
Earlier Friday, an Associated Press reporter said an anti-aircraft missile hit an Ethiopian helicopter that had been bombing insurgent positions.
"The helicopter looked like a ball of smoke and fire before crashing," said Ruqiya Shafi Muhyadin, who watched as the helicopter rolled over in the sky and went down in a residential area near the airport.
Dr. Mohamed Dhere, who spoke to The Associated Press by telephone from an underground room, said three mortar shells hit Alhayat hospital, injuring a doctor and a staff member.
"Since early this morning I have been hiding here from the mortar shells so I can't help rescue people. I urge the two sides to respect health facilities," Dhere said.
Somalia has seen little more than anarchy for more than a decade. The government, with crucial support from Ethiopian troops, only months ago toppled the Council of Islamic Courts, the militia that had controlled Mogadishu for six months.
But insurgents with links to the Islamic group have staged attacks nearly every day on government and Ethiopian troops. Last week, a cargo plane carrying equipment for African Union peacekeepers here was shot down by a missile during takeoff, killing the 11-person crew.
The United States has accused the Islamic group of having ties to al-Qaida. On Thursday, a White House report said that despite recent setbacks to Islamic radicals in Somalia, foreign terrorists are still able to find a haven there because of the country's lack of governance, which contributes to a growing security threat throughout East Africa.
The report, submitted to relevant congressional committees, said several al-Qaida operatives have used Somalia as a base of operations, including the perpetrators of the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa and the 2002 attacks against an Israeli airliner and a hotel in Kenya.
"The individuals pose an immediate threat to both Somali and international interests in the Horn of Africa," the report said.
The U.N.'s refugee agency said 57,000 people have fled violence in the Somali capital since the beginning of February, including more than 10,000 people who fled the city in the last week.
The figures were based on information provided by non-governmental organizations in Somalia, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said.
Clan in Somalia's capital says it has brokered truce with Ethiopian military
Salad Duhul, Associated Press, 4/1/07
The dominant clan in Somalia's capital brokered a truce with Ethiopian military officials supporting the government, a clan spokesman said, even as a mortar barrage continued in the capital for a fourth day Sunday.
Hawiye clan spokesman Ahmed Diriye said the fighting should end within hours. Ethiopian officials were not immediately available for comment.
Somali government troops and their Ethiopian allies have been waging a fierce offensive since Thursday to wipe out Islamic insurgents, sparking some of the heaviest fighting in 15 years in Mogadishu. Untold numbers of civilians have been killed and hundreds wounded.
The offensive has focused on parts of the capital controlled by a clan that is a major supporter of more radical elements of the Council of Islamic Courts, which ruled Mogadishu for six months before being driven out in December. That clan is the Habr Gedir, a branch of the larger Hawiye clan.
Dozens of people have been killed since Thursday and more than 220 wounded, most of them civilians with bullet, grenade and other war wounds, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. But the fighting is so severe and widespread that bodies were not being picked up or even tallied. Hospitals were overwhelmed, with patients sleeping on floors.
Ethiopia says its forces have killed more than 200 insurgents since the assault started.
Somali presidential spokesman Hussein Mohamoud Hussein has blamed the violence on foreign terrorists, saying al-Qaida had sent fighters to battle government and allied troops.
The insurgents are linked to the Council of Islamic Courts, which was driven from power in December by Somali and Ethiopian soldiers, accompanied by U.S. special forces. The U.S. has accused the courts of having ties to al-Qaida.
The Islamic courts stockpiled thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition during the six months they controlled Mogadishu. The insurgency will likely last until that stockpile is depleted, or key leaders are killed.
The militants have long rejected any secular government and have sworn to fight until Somalia becomes an Islamic emirate. Clan elders have tried to negotiate several cease-fires, but cannot control the young insurgents.
The U.N. refugee agency says 58,000 people have fled violence in the Somali capital since the beginning of February.
Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another.
A U.N. peacekeeping operation in the 1990s saw clashes between foreign troops and Somali fighters, including the notorious downing of two U.S. Blackhawk helicopters in 1993 which was followed by battles that killed some 300 Somalis in 12 hours. The U.S. withdrew from Somalia in 1994, and that was followed a year later by the departure of U.N. peacekeepers.
A national government was established in 2004 but has failed to assert any real control.
Sri Lanka troops on the offensive after plane attack
Amal Jayasinghe, Agence France Presse, 3/28/07
Sri Lanka's military said Wednesday it had captured a key Tamil Tiger rebel stronghold in the island's embattled east, two days after the guerrillas stunned the capital with their first ever air raid.
Security forces took control of Kokkadichcholai in the district of Batticaloa and seized a large haul of arms, ammunition and land mines from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) base, the army said in a statement.
"Marking one more milestone in the army's forward march to secure the besieged eastern areas from LTTE clutches, valiant troops this morning completely brought Kokkadichcholai under their control," the statement said.
It gave no details of casualties, but the statement suggested that the Tigers may have abandoned the area without putting up any resistance.
The army said it found a large amount of "warlike items that had been hurriedly left behind by fleeing Tiger terrorists in the face of advancing troops."
The guerrillas had left behind a distillery which had been used to manufacture alcohol for sale in the coastal district, the army said. "It has been a local money-spinner for the terrorist organisation," the army said.
There was no immediate comment from the Tamil Tiger rebels, who on Monday staged a daring air attack against the main base of the Sri Lankan airforce.
The dramatic twist to the long-running conflict involved two single-engined planes flying over the main military air base adjacent to Sri Lanka's only international airport and dropping bombs.
Three airmen were killed in the attack, the LTTE's first ever air raid.
President Mahinda Rajapakse on Wednesday ordered the setting up of a toll-free telephone number to receive information about aircraft operated by Tamil Tiger rebels to prevent a repetition of the incident.
On Tuesday, the president said that the Tamil Tigers' acquisition of aircraft threatened South Asian security.
Rajapakse has ordered an investigation into the major security lapses that allowed the attack -- which has seriously embarrassed the island's defence establishment -- to take place even though the planes were spotted on radar.
The Tigers possess at least two Czech-built Zlin-143 single-engine four-seater aircraft and an airfield.
A press report here said that the radar near the air base had not functioned and thereby allowed the guerrillas to stage the attack and escape unscathed.
"Initial investigations revealed that the first generation radar installed by India failed to detect the incoming aircraft," the privately-run Island newspaper said.
However, military sources said that ground troops had spotted the Tiger aircraft and also seen them on radar about an hour before the attack began.
The air attack was followed by the Tigers with a suicide bombing against a military camp in the Batticaloa district Tuesday, killing at least eight people.
More than 60,000 people have been killed in Sri Lanka's Tamil separatist campaign since 1972. The two sides agreed to a truce in February 2002, but subsequent peace talks have broken down.
Sri Lankan government says ready for peace talks with Tamil Tigers anytime
Dilip Ganguly, Associated Press, 3/28/07
Sri Lanka's government said it was ready to hold peace talks anytime with the Tamil Tigers, following two days of dramatic attacks by the rebels, including their first airstrike and a suicide bombing outside a military camp.
"We must try to bring a comprehensive and substantial peace," Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogolagama told reporters Tuesday. "Our government believes that we need to talk, we need to explore all avenues."
Asked when such talks could be held, Bogolagama replied, "If LTTE wants, we can have it tomorrow." LTTE is the acronym for the rebels' formal name, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
No immediate reaction was available from the rebels on the offer.
Earlier Tuesday, a rebel drove an explosive-laden tractor to the Chinkaladi military camp in the eastern district of Batticaloa, drawing fire from guards and triggering a blast. The insurgent, three soldiers guarding the gate and five civilians were killed in the blast, the military said.
Of the five civilians, four were members of a pro-government Tamil political party, Eelam People's Democratic Party, which has its office next to the military camp, party spokesman Stephen Peiris said. The party renounced violence and joined the political mainstream in 1987.
Twenty people also were wounded in the attack.
"Our alert soldiers had detected the tractor and the driver, and had asked the driver to stop. When he ignored, they opened fire," military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe said. The tractor subsequently exploded, he said.
The attack came a day after at least one rebel propeller plane bombed a Sri Lankan air force base outside the capital, Colombo, in the separatists' first airstrike since they started their campaign for a homeland for the country's Tamil minority in 1983. Three airmen were killed in that attack and 16 were wounded, but no aircraft on the ground were damaged.
Apart from Tiger suicide bombings, almost all the fighting in the conflict has taken place in predominantly Tamil regions in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, and the airstrike showed the rebels can now strike deep inside the southern heartland of Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority.
Also Tuesday, air force fighter planes bombed three Tamil Tiger guerrilla positions in the northeast, but there was no information on damage or casualties, said air force spokesman Group Captain Ajantha Silva.
The Tigers launched their fight in 1983 to create an independent homeland for the country's 3.1 million Tamils after decades of discrimination by Sinhalese. In the years since, they have pioneered the use of suicide bomb belts and slowly built up a navy of small gunboats.
Hopes for peace that followed a 2002 cease-fire have been dashed in the past 18 months as sporadic shootings and bombings have grown into all-out war in eastern and northern Sri Lanka.
An estimated 65,000 people were killed in fighting before the cease-fire, and an estimated 4,000 fighters and civilians have died in the last 18 months.
Bus bomb kills 15 in Sri Lanka
Agence France Presse, 4/2/07
At least 15 people, including a child, were killed and 25 wounded when a bomb ripped through a crowded bus in eastern Sri Lanka Monday, officials said.
The defence ministry immediately accused Tamil Tiger rebels of setting off the bomb, while the rebels denied they were responsible.
Passengers were getting off the vehicle to be checked by troops manning a road block when the blast occurred, said police in the town of Ampara, 350 kilometres (220 miles) east of the capital Colombo.
"The bomb went off just at the Kondawattuwan check point," the police officer said. "We now believe that the blast was aboard the bus. It may have been a parcel bomb or even a suicide attack."
The head of the Ampara hospital, Lankathilaka Jayasinghe, said the injured were still being rushed to the region's main hospital.
"Three people were dead on admission and 12 others died in hospital," Jayasinghe said, adding that 25 more people were undergoing treatment.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) denied involvement in the attack.
"We have nothing to do with this blast," rebel spokeswoman Navaruban Selvy said by telephone from the rebel head office in Kilinochchi, in the island's north, after the defence ministry said the attack was the work of the Tamil Tiger rebels who have been held responsible for similar blasts in the past.
The attack came as security forces tightened their grip on areas held by the LTTE, with elite police commandos making advances into jungle territory dominated by the guerrillas.
Sri Lankan jets and helicopter gunships also carried out night-time bombing raids against Tiger rebel positions over the weekend.
However, defence officials had said that the guerrillas still had the ability to stage hit-and-run attacks.
The government has vowed to drive out Tamil Tigers from the sprawling Eastern Province, where the guerrillas maintain strongholds deep inside jungles.
In other violence, six civilians were shot dead in Batticaloa, just north of Ampara, on Sunday night and the military and the Tigers blamed each other for the massacre.
Another two civilians were gunned down on Sunday night in the north of the island.
The Tiger rebels, however, accused a breakaway faction allied with government forces of carrying out the attacks.
"Two of those killed had recently escaped from the Karuna faction," rebel spokeswoman Selvy said.
The Tamil rebels have waged a 35-year campaign for independence that has claimed more than 60,000 lives in Sri Lanka.
More than 4,000 people have been killed in the latest upsurge of fighting that began in December 2005 despite a truce arranged in 2002.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation