PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Thursday, April 12, 2007
(Volume VI, Number 9)
Contents:
Armenia
Disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region sets July 19 as date for
presidential vote
The vote will be the third for the
region.
Chechnya
Police say associate
of slain Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev killed in
Chechnya
Suleiman Elmurzayev
was killed in what Chechnya's Interior Ministry said was a special
operation.
Kadyrov sworn in as Chechnya's new Kremlin-backed president
Human rights groups allege that Kadyrov’s security forces abduct and torture civilians suspected of ties to Chechnya's separatist rebels.
European court condemns Russia over disappearance of Chechen
European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia for numerous violations of the European Convention on Human Rights, notably the right to life.
Democratic
Republic of
Congo
UN blasts 'threats'
against DRCongo opposition
The U.N. mission said
it was "deeply worried by the intimidations and the threats against several
opposition members.”
DRCongo prosecutor wants death penalty for journalist's killers
The military tribunal is set to deliver its verdict on April 13.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation.
Georgia
Georgia's parliament
gives tentative backing to provisional government for South
Ossetia
This is a move the
government hopes will help quicken efforts to bring the region back under
central control.
Ivory
Coast
ICoast premier hands over to successor
New Prime Minister Soro is expected to announce his
cabinet by Friday.
Kashmir
Indian official rules out Kashmir
demilitarisation
Governor Sinha says the army must remain in the region
to protect Indian
borders.
Pakistan, India talks could narrow differences on Siachen standoff, official says
Success
in the two days of negotiations has yet to yield a significant
breakthrough.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the
Kashmir
Negotiation
Simulation.
Kosovo
Deep divisions over
Kosovo independence at UN
Serbian Prime Minister called for new negotiations to reach a compromise between Kosovo's Serbs and Albanians that doesn’t “violat[e] the UN charter."
Kosovo's parliament endorses U.N. plan on province's future
The resolution was approved 100-1 in the 120-seat assembly.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation.
Liberia
Liberia: Over 150 witnesses identified to testify against
Charles Taylor
The court will decide whether the witnesses will
testify via technology or will be taken to The Hague.
Morocco
Morocco to present
W.Sahara autonomy plan to UN next week
Saharawi officials
close to Morocco were involved in drawing up the draft
plan.
Nepal
Nepal prepares for
landmark vote; New constitution to decide future of
monarchy
Prime Minister Koirala
promised that his government would devote itself fully to establishing peace
and security in the Himalayan state.
Nepal's ex-communist rebels file application seeking political party status
Maoists seek to be recognized as a legitimate political party ahead of planned elections later this year.
Somalia
Somalia's dead buried
in mass grave after lull in fighting
Dozens of bodies
were buried in a mass grave after the worst fighting in 15 years.
U.S. diplomat in drive for peace in war-ravaged Somalia
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs held talks with President Yusuf about an upcoming conference to bring Somali society together.
Sri
Lanka
Sri Lanka rebel naval
HQ destroyed: defence ministry
The LTTE said there
were no casualties from the bombing.
Singapore man pleads guilty to plot to arm Tamil Tigers
Haniffa Bin Osman is the latest person to plead guilty in the FBI’s undercover tracking of alleged arms dealers from Baltimore to Guam.
Sri Lankan navy, Tamil Tiger rebels battle at sea
Both sides say they destroyed enemy craft.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation.
Sudan
U.N.:
Displaced Rising in Darfur Region
After his week-long visit to Darfur, U.N. humanitarian chief said urgent political action was needed to bring peace to the region.
Sudan approves UN reinforcement of AU force in Darfur
AU’s peace and security commissioner said the AU is now urging the UN to "move quickly" to implement the plan.
LaHood to seek more money for Darfur
The Illinois Republican traveled to the region as part of an overseas trip during which he and 10 other congressmen spent three days in Sudan.
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.
Disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region sets July 19 as date for presidential vote
Associated Press, 4/4/07
Officials in Nagorno-Karabakh on Wednesday set July 19 as the date for the disputed Caucasus territory's next presidential election.
The vote will be the third for the region, which is claimed by Azerbaijan but has been controlled by ethnic Armenians since a six-year conflict ended in 1994. Some 30,000 people were killed and 1 million were driven from their homes during the fighting.
Arkady Gukasian, who has served two, five-year terms since being first elected in 1997, has said he will not run again.
Armenia has close ties to the region's government and provides substantial support, but has stopped short of recognizing it as independent.
The lack of resolution over Nagorno-Karabakh's final status has tied up development in the strategic South Caucasus region.
Police say associate of slain Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev killed in Chechnya
Associated Press, 4/4/07
Russian security forces killed a senior associate of slain Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev on Wednesday and killed or wounded nearly a dozen other wanted gunmen, Chechen police said.
Suleiman Elmurzayev was killed in what Chechnya's Interior Ministry said was a special operation in the Vedeno region, southeast of the capital, Grozny.
Ten other gunmen were either wounded or killed during the operation, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. No further details were released.
Police said Elmurzayev was involved in the May 2004 bombing at a Grozny sports stadium that killed the Kremlin-backed Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov.
Basayev was a long-hunted separatist warlord who claimed responsibility for some of Russia's worst terrorists attacks in recent years, including the 2004 Beslan school hostage-taking.
His death in an explosion in July was considered a critical victory for Russian forces and their Chechen allies.
Chechnya has been ravaged by two wars in the past 13 years as separatist militants sought to break away from Russia and, later, to create an Islamic state. Large-scale fighting has all but ended, but rebel fighters have continued to stage small scale, hit-and-run attacks on Russian forces and allied paramilitaries.
Kadyrov sworn in as Chechnya's new Kremlin-backed president
Musa Sadulayev, Associated Press, 4/5/07
The widely feared strongman Ramzan Kadyrov was inaugurated Thursday as the new president of Chechnya with the blessing from the Kremlin, which has relied on him to stabilize the region after more than a decade of separatist fighting.
Human rights groups allege that security forces under Kadyrov's control abduct and torture civilians suspected of ties to Chechnya's separatist rebels. Some observers suggested he was tied to last year's murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who had reported extensively on Chechnya's wars and sufferings. Kadyrov has denied any involvement.
However, Kadyrov, 30, is credited with a reconstruction boom that he administered as the region's prime minister, under which the capital, Grozny, is being transformed from a moonscape of rubble and shattered buildings.
"My main goal is to make Chechnya prosperous and peaceful," Kadyrov said at the inauguration ceremony which took place amid high security.
Analysts say Russia's President Vlaidmir Putin has entrusted Kadyrov with power in part because he is seen as the only person who can keep large numbers of former rebels under control. Many former rebels now serve in the police and security forces.
In his inauguration speech, Kadyrov pledged that Chechnya will always remain part of Russia. "We fully realize that our well-being is impossible without a strong and stable Russia," he said, adding that he wasn't seeking to create "a state within a state."
But some observers see Kadyrov's growing clout as a potential risk for the Kremlin and say that his loyalty to Russia is closely tied to his relationship with Putin, who is approaching the end of his second and final term.
Kadyrov has repeatedly praised Putin including calling for him to stay on as president despite the two-term limit but has harshly criticized the Russian government and the state-run oil company OAO Rosneft, calling for greater economic freedom for Chechnya and for a larger share of its oil revenues.
With the power to foment new chaos in fragile Chechnya and create serious problems for Russia, analysts say he could take a more demanding stance if his relations with the Kremlin become clouded.
Kadyrov is the son of Chechnya's first pro-Moscow president, Akhmad Kadyrov, who was killed by a rebel bomb in 2004. The elder Kadyrov became president in 2003 in a Kremlin-conducted vote aimed at undermining rebels by creating the image of Chechens being allowed a high degree of self-determination.
Kadyrov became acting president in February when Putin dismissed his predecessor Alu Alkhanov. His nomination was quickly sealed by the regional parliament in a near-unanimous vote. Alkhanov was elected, but changes in Russian law called for all regional leaders to be appointed.
The reconstruction program has been at the heart of a Kremlin strategy to crush rebels, but critics say the alleged abuses by Kadyrov's paramilitary forces and by Russian and Chechen police and soldiers severely undermine attempts to bring order to Chechnya.
Two wars over the past dozen years between Russian forces and separatist rebels who increasingly voiced militant Islamic ideology left much of the republic in ruins and its people gripped by fear and resentment. Major offensives died down early this decade, but small clashes continue and rebels attack Russian forces with booby-traps and remote-detonated explosives.
European court condemns Russia over disappearance of Chechen
Agence France Presse, 4/5/07
The European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia on Thursday over the disappearance of a Chechen civilian the court said was probably now dead.
Asmart Magomedovna Baysayeva, 49, from Pobedinskoye near the Chechen capital Grozny, accused Russia of being responsible for the death of her husband, Shakhid Baysayev, who vanished in March 2000 on his way to work.
The same day, a special operation by the Russian government forces had been conducted in the village to identify members of illegal armed groups.
In August that year, with no news of her husband, Baysayeva was offered a video by a masked stranger in military uniform who claimed to have information about his disappearance.
She bought the video from him showing her husband lying on the ground, being kicked by a soldier. He was then taken away by soldiers towards partially destroyed buildings.
The European Court of Human Rights said that the arrest of Shakhid Baysayev had coincided with the military operation carried out the same day and, citing the video, said it believed he had died following his detention.
"The Court concluded that it had been established beyond reasonable doubt that Shakhid Baysayev had to be presumed dead following his unacknowledged detention by State servicemen," the court said in its written ruling.
"Noting that the authorities did not rely on any ground of justification in respect of the use of lethal force by their agents, it followed that liability for his presumed death was attributable to the Russian Government."
It condemned Russia for numerous violations of the European Convention on Human Rights, notably the right to life.
Some 200 requests concerning Chechnya are currently pending at the Strasbourg-based European court, half of them concerning disappearances.
Moscow has the right to appeal within three months.
UN blasts 'threats' against DRCongo opposition
Agence France Presse, 4/4/07
The United Nations on Wednesday criticised the alleged intimidation of Democratic Republic of Congo opposition members following clashes between government troops and opposition militants.
The UN mission in the central African country, MONUC, said it was "deeply worried by the intimidations and the threats against several opposition members, including members of parliament, senators, journalists and other people considered to be linked to MLC (Bemba's Congolese Liberation Movement) or close to people who are."
"MONUC has received information about 27 people, of whom 19 are opposition members and eight are journalists, whose residences continue to be visited by security forces, and sometimes ransacked," mission spokesman Kemal Saiki said.
"Some of these people have also received threats over the phone. Others have learned that members of their families have been arrested in their place. All of them have been living in fear and insecurity since these events."
Diplomatic sources say at least 200 people were killed in clashes between government troops and fighters loyal to main opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba in Kinshasa from March 22 to 25.
MONUC also warned against the establishment of "a climate of persecution" of opposition members and people from the northern Equateur province, where Bemba comes from.
Bemba, who lost the presidential election to Joseph Kabila last October, remains at the South African embassy in Kinshasa, where he took refuge when last month's fighting began. He is awaiting evacuation to Portugal for medical treatment.
The ex-rebel leader, who served as a vice president for DR Congo's transitional government following the country's bloody five-year civil war, had refused to have his vice-presidential bodyguard integrated into the regular army, arguing that his personal security could not be guaranteed.
MONUC said it had created "an investigation team" after being informed of "allegations of serious human rights violations" including summary executions, sexual violence and illegal detentions committed by both sides.
The UN mission said it was counting on the government to cooperate with its probe by giving it "access to all places of detention with no exceptions."
DRCongo prosecutor wants death penalty for journalist's killers
Agence France Presse, 4/5/07
The Democratic Republic of Congo's state prosecutor has demanded the death penalty for five men accused of killing a journalist and his wife in 2005, a local media rights group said Thursday.
A military tribunal in Kinshasa-Matete is set to deliver its verdict on April 13, putting an end to a trial which has dragged since July 12 last year.
Franck Kangundu, a journalist with La Reference Plus daily, and his wife Helene Paka were killed on November 3, 2005 outside their home in Limete, a working class eastern suburb of Kinshasa, by armed men.
The accused, three soldiers and two civilians, are being tried for murder, extortion and the theft of arms. The initial charge of manslaughter was changed to murder by the military tribunal.
The local Journalists in Danger media rights group on Thursday also said that lawyers had "deplored the light manner in which the police and the military court have handled the case" and the fact that despite numerous requests several people had not been allowed to testify.
The chief accused, 2nd Lieutenant Joel Muganda, who has admitted using the victim's cellphone, had asked the judge to try him alone and denied that the other four were involved.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
Georgia's parliament gives tentative backing to provisional government for South Ossetia
Associated Press, 4/5/07
Georgia's parliament gave tentative backing Thursday to legislation setting up a provisional administration in South Ossetia, a move the government hopes will help quicken efforts to bring the breakaway region back under central control.
The bill, which must go through two more readings, was likely to worsen tensions with South Ossetia, which split from Georgia in a war in the early 1990s.
The provisional administration will likely only have effective control over the South Ossetian villages populated by an estimated 14,000 ethnic Georgians and making up roughly 40 percent of South Ossetia's territory.
But Georgian authorities hope the administration will sap support from South Ossetia's current government, which is unrecognized anywhere though is tacitly backed by Russia, which has given passports to many of the estimated 65,000 ethnic Ossetians who live there.
"On the one hand, we will achieve the creation of autonomous rights for the Ossetian population of Georgia, and on the other hand, we will defend the territorial integrity of the country from the interference of external forces," President Mikhail Saakashvili said after the bill was approved by a vote of 165-2.
Boris Chochiyev, a top official in the South Ossetia's unrecognized government, said the plan would destabilize the region, and he accused Georgia's government of only escalating matters since Saakashvili swept to power during the Rose Revolution mass uprising in 2003.
"This is foolishness aimed not at the search for a settlement of the conflict, but at its aggravation, and it's been going on since the boys in the rosy pants came to power in Georgia," Chochyiev told The Associated Press.
In a similar effort to pressure officials in another breakaway region, Abkhazia, Georgian authorities last year set up a provisional administration into part of the Kodori Gorge.
ICoast premier hands over to successor
David Youant, Agence France Presse, 4/4/07
Ivory Coast's outgoing prime minister Charles Konan Banny on Wednesday handed over power to his successor, former rebel leader Guillaume Soro, as part of a peace deal.
Soro, who was named prime minister by President Laurent Gbagbo last Thursday, paid tribute to his predecessor in his inaugural speech.
"As I succeed you in this post, I am fully aware of the challenges that lie ahead. The first of these challenges will be reinforcing trust between Ivorians and the return of a lasting peace."
Earlier, Konan Banny said he had made "restoring trust among the Ivorian people the top priority of my mandate".
Soro, the leader of the New Forces, also known as G7, takes power under an agreement brokered in neighbouring Burkina Faso last month.
Soro is expected to announce his cabinet by Friday. More than half the cabinet seats have been set aside for New Forces members.
The March 4 peace agreement signed in Ouagadougou between Soro and Gbagbo heralds the third change of government in four years of crisis in the country.
The Ouagadougou accord required both sides in the country's long-running dispute to settle their differences to achieve lasting peace, said Soro. He called on the support of his predecessor to make the deal work.
Konan Banny said Soro knew the challenges that faced him.
He would have to continue a detailed census of the population; disarm the militias and extend administration of the country into the north.
Once a bastion of stability in west Africa, Ivory Coast has been split since 2002 after a failed coup led by Soro.
Since then, his forces have controlled the north of the country, while Gbagbo troops have held the south.
Speaking earlier, at a ceremony to mark the end of his 15 months in power, Konan Banny called for a resurrection in the country.
"I want a resurrection in Ivory Coast," said the practising Catholic, just days ahead of the Easter festival that marks the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Switching metaphors he remarked: "We have scored the try, now it is a question of converting it, and we must not miss the conversion.
"My wish is that the team that is going to succeed us continues that work, finishes it so that we can arrive at peace," he added, to the applause of his ministers.
Konan Bany was imposed on Gbagbo by the United Nations as interim prime minister in December 2005.
His brief was to lead a transition government towards parliamentary and presidential elections by October 2006, but he failed partly because of a lack of cooperation on both sides of the political divide.
Indian official rules out Kashmir demilitarisation
Agence France Presse, 4/5/07
India's top representative in revolt-hit Kashmir on Thursday ruled out demilitarisation of the Himalayan state, saying the army must remain in the region to protect Indian borders.
"The army has to be permanently located in Kashmir to defend its borders," governor S.K. Sinha said in a statement.
"Demilitarisation per se cannot take place in Jammu and Kashmir just as there can be no demilitarisation in Punjab, Rajasthan or any other border state of the country," he said.
The states border nuclear rival Pakistan, which has linked Kashmir's demilitarisation to forging a lasting peace with India.
Sinha, who served as lieutenant general in India's army, added troop cuts could only come after a 17-year-old Islamic separatist insurgency ends in Indian Kashmir.
"The present additional role of the army in terms of restoring internal peace in a state, which is a victim of terrorism, can cease only when peace is restored," he said.
The troops, Sinha said, can then return to barracks or their overall strength in the state can be reduced "but that will not be demilitarisation."
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has called for Kashmir's demilitarisation as a move toward finally ending the six decades of hostility between India and Pakistan over the region.
Some dozen rebel groups are active in Kashmir, most of them fighting to break Kashmir away from India and join it with Pakistan. Few want the region, once a hit tourist spot, to be an independent state.
The region's chief minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, objected earlier this week to any demilitarisation or cut in troop levels in the state, saying it would "directly help" Islamic militants.
New Delhi last week set up a panel to review a possible cut in troop levels, after demands by a regional ally of the federal ruling Congress party, which is part of a coalition governing Kashmir
The announcement came after a fall in violence in the state.
India has deployed an estimated half a million troops and paramilitary soldiers in Kashmir, the trigger of two of the three wars between India and Pakistan since their 1947 independence from the British.
Many Kashmiri politicians have long pushed for the withdrawal of troops from the region.
Pakistan, India talks could narrow differences on Siachen standoff, official says
Munir Ahmad, Associated Press, 4/6/07
Pakistan and India began talks Friday on a proposed troop withdrawal from the Siachen Glacier, the world's highest battlefield, amid hopes they could narrow their differences to end the 23-year standoff.
Success in the two days of negotiations, held in Rawalpindi, near the capital, would be a major boost for the peace process between the South Asian nuclear rivals that began more than three years ago, but has yet to yield a significant breakthrough.
In 1984, Pakistan dispatched a large number of troops to Siachen, which lies at the northern end of the disputed territory of Kashmir, after Indian troops moved onto the otherwise uninhabited 78-kilometer-long (49-mile-long) glacier, fearing Islamabad wanted to claim it.
Hundreds of soldiers have died on the battleground, at heights of up to 6,700-meters high (22,000-feet). More have died from the polar conditions than from hostile fire. A cease-fire has held there since late 2003.
The two sides have held several rounds of talks on pulling back troops from Siachen. Pakistan says it has given certain proposals to India, which has acknowledged receiving them, but it's unclear if they are close to a resolution.
On Friday, a Pakistani Defense Ministry official said defense officials from Pakistan and India will "discuss the issue of Siachen at length," and there are chances they "will narrow down their differences."
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media, provided no further details.
This week, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz met with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of a South Asian regional conference in New Delhi, and discussed issues including Kashmir and Siachen.
Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since gaining independence from Britain in 1947. Kashmir is divided between Pakistan and India through a cease-fire line, but they have competing claims to the Himalayan region.
When the Line of Control that divides Kashmir was set by the two countries after a 1971 war, it only reached a point on the map called NJ 9842 and did not extend to Siachen because it was considered uninhabitable, so the frontier was never demarcated.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
Deep divisions over Kosovo independence at UN
Gerard Aziakou, Agence France Presse, 4/4/07
A Security Council meeting on Kosovo here Tuesday laid bare deep divisions over UN chief mediator Martti Ahtisaari's plan to grant supervised independence to the breakaway Serbian province.
Ahtisaari briefed the 15-member body on his recommendations, unveiled last week, for the future status of the Albanian-majority province.
His plan has already been endorsed by Kosovo Albanians, the European Union and the United States but is strongly opposed by Belgrade and Moscow, a veto-wielding, permanent council member.
The council also met informally and separately with Serbian Prime Minister Vojislac Kostunica and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian president Fatmir Sejdiu.
Kostunica again explained why Belgrade was adamantly against the Ahtissari plan, charging that it violates the UN charter by harming the territorial integrity of a member state as well as a UN Security Council resolution on the need to ensure democratic standards in the disputed province.
He called for new negotiations to reach a compromise between Kosovo's Serbs and Albanians "taking into account the territorial integrity and sovereignty of existing states and offering substantive autonomy to enable Kosovo to develop its future without violating the UN charter."
But US acting ambassador Alejandro Wolff dismissed suggestions that the Ahtisaari plan violated the UN charter, saying Kosovo was a "unique situation" involving a territory under UN rule for the past eight years.
British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry told reporters that Tuesday's meeting marked the start of a lengthy process expected to culminate in a council ruling on Kosovo's future status.
He said that while there would be further council consultations on the issue this month, it would be first up to capitals of the Contact Group on Kosovo to first decide whether to introduce a resolution endorsing the Ahtisaari plan.
The Contact Group brings together Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States.
Jones Parry also said the council would decide in the coming days whether to undertake a fact-finding mission to Kosovo and Belgrade as requested by the Russian delegation.
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.
The British envoy conceded that the council discussions reflected "tension between territorial sovereignty, a threat of dismemberment of a nation state and on the other hand the whole question of self-determination."
Ahtisaari meanwhile rejected suggestions that he would be asked to terminate his mission and said he remained available to both UN chief Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council.
He also warned that "tinkering with some of the elements in the proposals I made" would make it impossible to implement the plan.
Sedjiu for his part insisted that Ahtisaari had produced "a fair and very balanced package" and expressed regret that no agreement with Kosovo Serbs had been possible.
"We believe that the only viable outcome of the Kosovo status process is independence, subject to a period of international supervision," he said. "Kosovo stands ready to accept and implement the proposal in its entirety."
He said Kosovo's ultimate objective was full membership in the European Union and in NATO.
French Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said the Ahtisaari blueprint "represents not only a balanced solution but also ... the only realistic option."
"To keep the status quo is not an option," the French envoy said. "What is at stake is the stability of Europe. This is the completion of the process of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia."
Under Ahtisaari's plan, Kosovo 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 would end.
General and local elections would be held within nine months of the new status being introduced.
Kosovo's parliament endorses U.N. plan on province's future
Garentina Kraja, Associated Press, 4/5/07
Kosovo's parliament overwhelmingly endorsed the U.N. plan Thursday that proposes internationally supervised independence from Serbia.
The resolution was approved 100-1 in the 120-seat assembly, drawing thunderous applause and a standing ovation. Nineteen lawmakers were absent from the vote.
The U.N. plan needs to be approved by the U.N. Security Council which is divided over Kosovo's future to take effect. The vote indicates that Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders will not bend to Serbian demands to restart the negotiations on the province's status.
In Serbia, Vuk Jeremic, foreign policy adviser to President Boris Tadic, described the Kosovo vote as a "unilateral act" that does not help the U.N.-led negotiating process.
"Belgrade believes that only a compromise solution can bring a sustainable peace to the region," Jeremic told The Associated Press.
The resolution passed by Kosovo's parliament called the plan "a balanced and right solution that is in accordance with the will of people of Kosovo."
The lawmakers pledged to "fully implement" the package pending Council's approval of the plan, drafted by U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari, a former president of Finland who mediated yearlong talks between Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and Serbia over the contested territory.
The parliament "welcomes with no reservation the civilian and security presence that will be created in Kosovo as foreseen in the agreement and pledges to cooperate and to support this presence in every possible way until the completion of their tasks stemming from the agreement," it read.
The lawmakers were referring to a European Union-led mission that will oversee the implementation of the deal and the continued presence of the NATO-led peacekeeping force when the agreement comes into force.
Ahtisaari appeared before the U.N. Security Council to discuss his plan Tuesday and faced opposition and skepticism from some members. The proposal has the support of United States and key European Union countries, but Russia has indicated it could use its veto power in the council if Serbia's interests are not addressed.
The division among the veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council signaled an uphill struggle to reach agreement.
Despite open Western support of the plan, Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said in a statement Thursday that "the simple truth is that Ahtisaari's proposal does not enjoy support from the U.N. Security Council."
Kosovo has been under U.N. and NATO administration since a 78-day NATO-led air war that halted a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.
Ahtisaari's proposal calls for the province's independence from Serbia, initially supervised by the international community, and offers broad rights to the province's Serb minority to run their daily affairs and preserve their identity and culture.
Ethnic Albanian leaders, who demand independence, have supported the plan and Serbia which insists the province remains within its borders has vehemently rejected it.
Some ethnic Albanian hard-liners have protested the plan, which they say offers too many concessions to the Serb minority living in Kosovo and risks dividing the province along ethnic lines.
Kosovo's Serbs, who have boycotted the province's public institutions, have warned of secession of the Serb-dominated north if Kosovo gains independence.
"We want to show to the entire world, to the international community and also to the countries that are doubtful of Ahtisaari's proposal and independence of Kosovo, that behind Ahtisaari is ... the vast majority of the people of Kosovo," Prime Minister Agim Ceku said after Thursday's vote.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
Liberia: Over 150 witnesses identified to testify against Charles Taylor
BBC, 4/4/07
The UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone says the prosecution has identified over 150 witnesses to testify against Charles Taylor.
The spokesman of the Special Court said the number might reduce during the selection of witnesses for the case. Mr Peter Andersen said the court in The Hague would decide whether the witnesses would testify via technology or would be taken to The Hague.
Mr Andersen also told Star Radio the Witness Protection Section of the Special Court would ensure the security of the witnesses.
Morocco to present W.Sahara autonomy plan to UN next week
Agence France Presse, 4/6/07
Morocco will present its plan to grant the disputed Western Sahara territory self-rule to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, a source close to the government told AFP.
"The (Moroccan) delegation will submit a full copy of the project for autonomy which the kingdom plans to grant to the territory under Moroccan sovereignty" to resolve the 32-year conflict, the source said Friday.
The dispute "is hindering the process of Maghreb integration," it added without giving details.
Saharawi officials close to Morocco were involved in drawing up the draft.
Over the past months Morocco has sent envoys to a number of countries including China to explain the government's proposals for self-rule.
Moroccan Communications Minister Nabil Benabdellah said in February the plan for the southern desert region rests on "three axes," namely "the sovereignty of Morocco... the social and cultural characteristics of the (Western Sahara) region and international criteria for autonomy."
"A second phase of consultations on the autonomy plan will be undertaken with political parties... and representatives of the Sahrawi tribes, as well as at the international level, before the plan is presented in April to the UN," Benabdellah said.
French President Jacques Chirac has praised the plan as "constructive".
However, it was rejected by Algerian-backed separatist group the Polisario Front, which has been fighting for full independence for the Saharan or Saharawi people since 1973.
Polisario chief Mohamed Abdelaziz on Sunday criticised France and Spain for supporting Morocco's stance.
Morocco annexed the desolate but phosphate-rich northwest African territory after the withdrawal of the region's former colonial power Spain and neighbour Mauritania in the 1970s, settling it with around 300,000 Moroccans in 1975.
A war ensued with the armed Polisario Front independence movement which contested Rabat's sovereignty, ending only in 1991 with a UN-brokered ceasefire.
Since then, the United Nations has tried several times to organise a referendum on self-determination.
The presentation of the project on Tuesday coincides with the start of consultations on the Western Sahara at the Security Council, according to Moroccan press reports.
On April 27, the Council is to vote on a possible extension of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara mandate which runs out three days later.
Nepal prepares for landmark vote; New constitution to decide future of monarchy
Chitra Tiwari, Washington Times, 4/7/07
Nearly a year after an alliance of seven parties and the Maoist rebels in Nepal undertook a democracy movement, leading to the collapse of King Gyanendra's autocratic rule, the Himalayan country is preparing June 20 elections to a Constituent Assembly that will draft a new constitution to decide, among other things, the future of the 238-year-old Shah monarchy.
Despite skepticism about the fragile peace between the former Maoist rebels and the seven-party alliance (SPA), that government survived and created a 21-member interim coalition Cabinet on April 1, with the Maoists on board and Nepali Congress party leader Girija Prasad Koirala continuing as prime minister.
After being sworn in, Mr. Koirala, leading Nepal's government for the sixth time, said: "This is the beginning of a new chapter in Nepal's history. I urge all to leave behind minor differences and move forward together to reach our goals." He promised that his government would devote itself fully to establishing peace and security in the Himalayan state.
While the prime minister's party kept the Home, Defense, Finance, Peace and Reconstruction ministries, the Maoists took over Communications, Local Development, Physical Planning and Works, Forest and Soil Conservation, and the ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare.
Moderate on board
Another moderate communist party, the Unified Marxist-Leninists (UML), which has similar strength as the Maoists in the interim legislature, got the Foreign Affairs, Education, Agriculture, General Administration and Tourism ministries.
Six Maoist leaders, led by Maoist lawmaker and spokesman Krishna Bahadur Mahara, have joined the Koirala-led interim coalition Cabinet. Other Maoist ministers include peace negotiator Dev Gurung, and Hisila Yami, wife of Baburam Bhattarai, who holds the No. 2 position in the Maoist party.
Mr. Mahara, the minister representing the Maoist party said, "We will focus on holding the Constituent Assembly elections and work in consensus with other parties in the government."
Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, welcomed the formation of an interim Cabinet as the beginning of a new Nepal and said that the existence of a "dual state" in Nepal had ended. He added that his party has not joined the "old mainstream," as is often portrayed in the press, but created a new mainstream and has embraced the democratic parties into the new order.
Maoist lists priorities
Maoist chairman Prachanda outlined the priorities of his party as ensuring the election of a Constituent Assembly in a free, fair and fearless environment, to provide immediate relief to the people, and to orient the state toward new progress in the long term.
The Maoists have risen from hunted guerrillas a year ago to the pinnacles of power. Analysts say the ministries to be headed by Maoists are large, with substantial budgets, which will give them an opportunity to implement their version of development and social welfare in Nepal and continue their influence in rural areas.
Nepal watchers say the political deadlock in Nepal that began when the Maoists began their "people's war" in 1996, started to ease in November 2005, when political parties, hounded by Gyanendra's autocratic rule, joined the Maoists with a 12-point understanding to end the 238-year Shah monarchy.
A popular uprising in April 2006 forced Gyanendra to capitulate, opening the way to serious peace negotiations between the moderate political parties and the Maoist revolutionaries. Foreign governments with interest in Nepal were quick to endorse the new developments.
India approves
Welcoming the formation of the interim government in Nepal, a press statement by India's Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi said: "The formation of the interim Government marks another step forward in the implementation of the peace process .. the Government of India looks forward to working with the interim government to further strengthen India's traditionally close and mutually beneficial relations with Nepal."
On behalf of the European Union, Germany's ambassador in Nepal, Franz Ring, congratulated the new interim government, saying: "The promulgation of the interim constitution and formation of an interim parliament and government, are important milestones in the peace process in Nepal."
Ian Martin, special representative of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, congratulated the eight parties involved and called on them to create a more inclusive democracy, establish effective law enforcement, provide a future for former combatants and embark on wider reform of the security sector.
The U.S. Embassy in Katmandu voiced "full support" for Nepal's peace process in a statement, and urged the new government to create an atmosphere for free and fair elections by "vigorously enforcing law and order throughout the country."
U.S. pledges aid
U.S. Ambassador James F. Moriarty, who had opposed bringing the Maoists into the Cabinet "until they improve their behavior," said U.S. assistance would continue to the new government.
Formation of the interim government was made possible after protracted negotiations between the Maoist rebels and the seven-party alliance for nearly a year after the April uprising of last year, producing several understandings and agreements.
As part of the peace accord, the Maoists confined their People's Liberation Army of 31,000 fighters to the 28 cantonments and locked up nearly 3,500 weapons under U.N. supervision.
Analysts say Nepal's transition from being riven by a deadly insurgency to peace has not been easy, and is not likely to be easy in the future. They note the growing regional, ethnic and sectarian tensions that have plagued Nepal since early this year.
Since January, sectarian violence has hampered life in southeastern Nepal, where some groups among the Madhesi people seek greater autonomy. Some demand outright independence.
Deadly ethnic strife
At least 60 persons have been killed in sectarian violence since January, and on March 21, 29 persons were massacred in clashes between former Maoist rebels and supporters of an ethnic political group, the Madhesi People's Rights Forum (MPRF). Human rights groups said the MPRF hired professional killers from India and fired indiscriminately on a Maoist meeting in the town of Gaur, in southern Nepal.
Critics of the conflict say Madhesi people have genuine grievances because they were historically neglected in the politics and administration of Nepal. The rise of the MPRF points to its penetration by disgraced monarchical elements and Hindu fundamentalists opposed to the new secular arrangements under Nepal's peace process.
While the coalition government plans to hold elections to a Constituent Assembly on June 20, there are concerns about its ability to manage free and fair elections that soon. The chief election commissioner, Bhoj Raj Pokhrel, has indicated it may not be possible to hold elections by June 20, given the lack of election laws, delays in registering an estimated 17.5 million voters and delineating electoral constituencies, training more than 100,000 election officials, and lack of time to invite international observers.
Rural security unsure
Moreover, press reports from Nepal say the security situation in the countryside particularly in southeastern districts where agitators have used arms against government supporters is not favorable for conducting elections. However, the government is determined to hold them and has issued orders to hand over all illegal weapons within a week or face stern legal action.
Analysts say failure to conduct elections on schedule would push Nepal back into a constitutional crisis, and likely destroy the peace process. The monarchy could be made a scapegoat and Maoists could agree to postpone voting on condition that the monarchy be abolished and Nepal declared a republic.
Writing in Nepalnews.com, an online publication, Sanjaya Dhakal, a newspaper columnist, warned that "the formation of an interim government must not end up as an 'April Fool' joke on the people of Nepal, who have bitter experiences of being fooled in the past by the people in power."
Nepal's ex-communist rebels file application seeking political party status
Binaj Gurubacharya, Associated Press, 4/10/07
Nepal's communist former rebels filed an application Tuesday to be recognized as a legitimate political party ahead of planned elections later this year.
The Maoists' deputy leader Baburam Bhattarai told reporters the application listed the party's name as the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists), and the official symbol was a hammer, sickle and star on the traditional red background.
Maoists joined the government this month a year after they entered a peace process aimed at ending a decade-old insurgency that claimed more than 13,000 lives.
Before they joined the government, the Maoists and seven other parties agreed that Constituent Assembly elections would be held on June 20.
The government has yet to officially announce a date, and doubts have been raised that balloting can be held so soon. Elections officials have also said they need more time to prepare for the polls.
But Bhattarai said the Maoists were certain elections would be held on schedule, and warned any date changes could have negative consequences.
The elected Constituent Assembly will rewrite the constitution and decide what type of political system Nepal, a longtime constitutional monarchy, will have in the future.
The communist rebels gave up their armed struggle last year and later signed a peace deal. They have confined their fighters and weapons in U.N.-monitored camps.
The Maoists joined Parliament earlier this year, and became part of the government this month.
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
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Somalia
Somalia's dead buried in mass grave after lull in fighting
Salad Duhul, Associated Press, 4/4/07
Dozens of bodies were buried in a mass grave in Somalia's capital on Wednesday after the worst fighting in 15 years killed hundreds of people and sent tens of thousands fleeing the battle-scarred city for safety.
As a fragile three-day cease-fire held in the coastal capital, Mogadishu, residents cleared the dusty alleyways and back streets of the unclaimed dead killed during four days of heavy fighting, and loaded them onto trucks for burial at the city's largest cemetery.
"We have seen dozens of Somali bodies in battle fronts," said Hussein Farah Siyad, a member of Mogadishu's dominant and highly influential clan, the Hawiye, who had negotiated a truce with Ethiopian officials.
"We collected and buried them at Barakat cemetery in a one big burial," he said after spending a day on the streets with Ethiopian troops, clearing the dead.
The violence broke out last week when Somali government forces and their Ethiopian backers began an offensive against Islamic insurgents. But civilians bore the brunt of the fighting.
The International Contact Group on Somalia, meeting in Cairo, condemned the fighting Wednesday and demanded that "all parties in Somalia comply with international humanitarian law, guarantee the safety and security for all humanitarian and relief work in Somalia, and ensure the protection of the Somali population."
The contact group is comprised of U.S., European, Arab and African diplomats.
Aid agencies say nearly 400 people were killed and some 565 people wounded when Ethiopian troops used tanks and attack helicopters to crush insurgents. The insurgents are linked to an Islamic movement that had ruled Mogadishu for six months until it was driven out in December.
Somalis poured out of the ruined coastal city on foot and in donkey carts, cars and trucks, joining the exodus of 47,000 people mainly women and children who have sought safety in the last 10 days, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
Since February, almost 100,000 people have fled the violence. Somalia's transitional government warned of new attacks to crush the insurgents.
Kenya has doubled the number of troops patrolling its 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) border with Somalia to prevent a new influx of refugees, said Antony Kibuchi, the Kenyan police chief in the border province. The Kenyan army is also patrolling in light tanks, he said.
At least 1,300 people who fled Mogadishu arrived at Dobley, a Somali town seven kilometers (four miles) from the Kenyan border. Camps there are dealing with overcrowding, illness and lack of water, aid agencies say.
Somalia's 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 militants have long rejected any secular government and have sworn to fight until Somalia becomes an Islamic emirate.
The country has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned against each other. A national government was established in 2004, but has failed to assert any real control.
U.S. diplomat in drive for peace in war-ravaged Somalia
Salad Duhul, Associated Press, 4/8/07
The top U.S. diplomat for Africa, on a visit to Somalia, urged the country's transitional government and other officials to maintain the fragile cease-fire set just six days ago to end the worst violence in the capital in 15 years.
Somalia must forget its bloody past and focus on national reconciliation to end 16 years of conflict that has allowed the nation to become a terrorist haven, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said Saturday.
Frazer making the first visit by a top U.S. official to Somalia in more than a decade held talks with President Abdullahi Yusuf about an upcoming conference to bring Somali society together.
"We talked about the need for a cease-fire ... and the return to a political process to try and build support and legitimacy for the transitional federal government and to isolate the extremists," Frazer said at a news conference in neighboring Kenya after the visit.
The extremists were not interested in talking to the government, she said, adding that no insurgency could sustain itself without outside help, and she named Eritrea as supporting the insurgency in Somalia.
"Eritrea is the country of most concern, but it is not the only country," she said. Extremist Islamic fighters "are getting their support from the global jihadist network."
Frazer said Washington believes Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of a routed Islamic movement, and extremist fighter Hassan Turki were still in Somalia, along with the newly chosen head of Somalia's al-Qaida cell, Aden Hashi Ayro, who was one of the people targeted by a U.S. airstrike in January in Somalia.
"Somalia, unfortunately, has become a haven for terrorists, and that continues to be a prime concern of the United States of America," she said earlier at a news conference in Somalia, after meeting Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi.
Frazer is the highest-ranking American envoy to visit since 1993, when rebels brought down two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu, and then engaged U.S. soldiers in a 12-hour firefight that killed some 300 Somalis. The U.S. withdrew a year later.
Frazer had been scheduled to come to Somalia in January, but the trip was called off due to security concerns.
She flew in Saturday to the government stronghold of Baidoa, an agricultural town 155 miles (250 kilometers) southwest of Mogadishu, amid extremely tight security. She did not travel to Mogadishu, and left later Saturday for Nairobi, Kenya.
Her unannounced visit comes on the sixth day of a fragile cease-fire in fighting that has left hundreds dead and sent thousands of Mogadishu residents fleeing the capital for safety.
A local human rights group said more than 1,000 civilians have been killed or wounded in four days of fighting in Mogadishu between insurgents and Ethiopian-backed Somali government forces using tanks, artillery and attack helicopters.
Frazer condemned the insurgent attacks on the government, and expressed concern over the large number of civilian casualties.
"I think everybody used excessive forces; when you talk about the number of civilian casualties, it is obvious," she said, adding that only reconciliation and peace talks would end the violence.
On Friday, an EU conflict expert said in an e-mail obtained by the AP, that Ethiopian and Somali forces may have committed war crimes during heavy artillery shelling against the Islamic insurgency in the capital, and that foreign donors could be complicit.
The United States is a major financial supporter of the weak transitional Somali government and the peacekeepers, having pledged more than US$120 million (euro90 million).
One Somali human rights group, which asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, said it was gathering evidence of war crimes in Somalia for submission to the International Criminal Court.
The U.N. refugee agency says some 124,000 people have fled Mogadishu since the beginning of February, including 11,000 in the past six days.
Sri Lanka rebel naval HQ destroyed: defence ministry
Agence France Presse, 4/4/07
Sri Lankan warplanes "bombed and completely destroyed" a key Tamil Tiger naval base Wednesday, the defence ministry said, drawing an immediate denial from the rebels.
Israeli-built Kfir jets pounded what the defence ministry said was the "Sea Tiger headquarters" of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at Puthukkudiyiruppu, some 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the coast, in the northeast of the country.
The LTTE said there were no casualties from the bombing, which they said took place near the "White Pigeon" charity, which helps victims of landmines.
"The bombs fell about 60 metres (yards) away from the White Pigeon building," LTTE spokeswoman Navaruban Selvy told AFP from the rebel political headquarters of Kilinochchi, 330 kilometres north of here.
"Fortunately there were no casualties, but the buildings were damaged," she added.
In another attack in the same area, a military air raid killed two civilians and injured four others, according to the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website. There was no immediate word from the military about casualties.
Sri Lankan warplanes have been routinely bombing suspected rebel positions in the island's northeast since April last year as part of a new wave of violence.
"The base was completely destroyed, including its fuel storage facilities, which burst into massive flames," the ministry statement said. "The headquarter complex and many vehicles parked were also destroyed due to the strike."
The Tiger spokeswoman said there were no rebel installations and described it as a civilian area. "It was not a Sea Tiger base. The sea is about 15 kilometres from where the bombs fell," she added.
The Tiger rebels on Tuesday said that the air force had bombed the same area that day and wounded four civilians who were admitted to the Puthukkudiyiruppu hospital.
The air force suffered a humiliating attack last week when Tiger aircraft bombed its main base next to the island's only international airport and managed to escape unchallenged.
The rebel craft were in the air for more than two hours.
The latest military air raid came as the defence ministry announced that troops had shot dead six Tamil Tiger rebels in clashes in the embattled northern and eastern regions on Tuesday.
Four members of the LTTE were shot dead in the Jaffna peninsula, the ministry said. Two more Tiger gunmen were shot dead in the eastern district of Ampara, the scene of a bus bombing on Monday that left 16 people dead, it added.
There were no reports of casualties among troops.
The Tamil rebels have waged a 35-year campaign for independence that has claimed more than 60,000 lives.
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.
Singapore man pleads guilty to plot to arm Tamil Tigers
Agence France Presse, 4/5/07
A Singapore man pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of conspiring to provide arms to the Tamil Tigers in a crackdown on a weapons smuggling network which has netted six Asians, US authorities said.
Haniffa Bin Osman, 55, was the latest person to plead guilty in the affair which saw undercover agents track the alleged arms dealers from the eastern US port of Baltimore to the South Pacific US territory of Guam.
"The disruption of the supply chain of this organization should reassure the public that the US government is committed to dismantling terrorist groups worldwide," said the FBI's special agent William Chase.
Six people have been charged either with conspiracy to support a terrorist organization or with attempting to illegally export arms to the Tamil Tigers after the intricate investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
"Keeping sophisticated US weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists has never been more important," said James Dinkins, special agent for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore.
"This three-year undercover investigation ... highlights the reach and impact of international arms trafficking."
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are fighting for independence in Sri Lanka's northern and eastern regions. More than 60,000 people have been killed in the conflict since 1972.
But the rebels has been tagged as a terrorist organization by the United States since 1997.
Five out of the six people arrested have pleaded guilty to the charges against them. A sixth person, Sri Lankan Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa, goes on trial next month on charges of conspiracy, attempting to export arms, money laundering, and illegal possession of weapons.
US attorney Rod Rosenstein said Osman had pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and to money laundering.
Osman conspired with two Indonesians to buy 53 military weapons, including sniper rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers as well as ammunition and night-vision devices for the Tamil Tigers, the Justice Department alleged.
They contacted an undercover business in Maryland to request a price list and negotiate a deal. Those three have been charged with conspiracy to provide support to a designated terrorist organization, as well as money-laundering.
Three others, two Indonesians and a Sri Lankan, have been charged in the affair with attempting to illegally export arms as well as money-laundering.
They all face significant jail terms.
In a sting operation in July, Osman met with undercover FBI agents in Baltimore to discuss transferring the arms to Sri Lanka.
He told the agents that if the first order, for some 900,000 dollars of supplies, went smoothly a second one worth 15 million dollars could follow, according to a Justice Department statement.
In August some 250,000 dollars was wired from a Malaysian bank to an undercover US bank account as a down payment for the weapons' purchase.
Osman then travelled to Guam to inspect the weapons, and a second down payment of 452,000 dollars was made.
Osman was joined by retired Indonesian general Erick Wotulo and they both met with undercover agents to discuss shipping the weapons to Sri Lanka. They were arrested in September in Guam.
"We will use all available legal tools to prevent terrorism, including undercover operations targeting people who attempt to obtain military weapons in violation of American law," added Rosenstein.
Sri Lankan navy, Tamil Tiger rebels battle at sea
Krishan Francis, Associated Press, 4/6/07
Sri Lankan naval gunships battled Tamil rebel boats off the island's northwest coast Friday, the military and rebels said, both sides claiming to have destroyed enemy craft.
The sea battle comes amid a flurry of violence in recent weeks that has killed hundreds as the military tries to capture rebel bases in the east. The Tamil Tigers have hit back with bomb attacks and a daring air raid on an air force base outside the capital, Colombo.
A human rights watchdog said Friday international monitors were urgently needed in Sri Lanka to protect civilians, often deliberately targeted by both sides of the conflict.
The military said its patrol craft spotted five rebel boats, believed to be on a suicide mission, off Kalpitiya, 140 kilometers (90 miles) northwest of Colombo.
They intercepted them and opened fire hitting one boat, which exploded, said navy spokesman Cmdr. D.K.P. Dassanayake.
At least two rebels were on board when it sank, Dassanayake said, adding one navy sailor was wounded by the explosion.
However, the rebels said their forces sank a Sri Lankan ship, killing seven sailors before returning to base without a loss.
"There was a 15-minute battle and one Sri Lankan patrol craft sank and three fled taking aboard the dead and the wounded," said rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan from Kilinochchi, the Tamil Tiger's de-facto capital in the north.
"All our craft returned to base safe," he said.
Dassanayake called the rebel version of events "totally wrong."
It was not immediately possible to explain the discrepancies, but both sides frequently deny their own losses and inflate those of the other side.
The Tamil Tigers, who pioneered suicide bombings, have used suicide boats in the past to ram and sink naval vessels and attack Sri Lankan ports.
Also Friday, the army said it discovered a powerful bomb in Jaffna, the northern bastion of the Tamil rebels.
Meanwhile, the London-based Amnesty International group called on the government to allow international human rights monitors into the country.
"Amnesty International is gravely concerned about the rising number of civilians being killed or injured as a result of deliberate attacks in Sri Lanka's increasing violence," the group said in a statement.
"Both sides to the conflict systematically violate their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect from harm those taking no active part in hostilities," the group said, adding that killings, abductions and arbitrary detention of civilians were "daily occurrences."
Amnesty said these violations could only be prevented if there were impartial human rights monitors on the ground in conflict areas, who could document and investigate abuses to identify those behind them and bring them to justice.
Government officials declined to comment on Amnesty's call. The government has in the past rejected requests for monitors, saying they would be interfering in Sri Lanka's internal affairs.
The Tamil Tigers rebels have fought the government since 1983 to create an independent homeland in the country's north and east for the country's 3.1 million minority ethnic Tamils, who have faced decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese. The civil war killed at least 65,000 people before a Norwegian-brokered cease-fire in 2002.
The cease-fire temporarily halted the fighting, but more than 4,000 people have died since late 2005, when violence flared again. Both sides still claim to be abiding by the truce.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
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U.N.: Displaced Rising in Darfur Region
Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press, 4/5/07
The U.N. humanitarian chief said Wednesday the number of displaced persons in Sudan's Darfur region and neighboring countries has risen dramatically and urgent political action was needed to bring peace to the region.
John Holmes delivered his grim report to the U.N. Security Council after a week-long visit to Sudan and neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic.
Holmes said 250,000 people had fled their homes in Darfur for refugee camps in the last six months, raising the number of displaced civilians now living in camps to 2.2 million well over a third of Darfur's population. That number could reach over half the population about 3.3 million in another 18 months or so if the violence continues.
"This is a truly horrifying prospect," Holmes said.
Across the border from Darfur, the army has abandoned a large part of eastern Chad and left it to the rule of the militias and armed groups of all kinds, Holmes said. This has led to increasing ethnic and political violence.
"Since autumn 2006, hundreds of people have been killed, dozens of villages have been burned, the number of displaced persons in eastern Chad has risen from 50,000 to 140,000 in just a few months," he said.
"The militarization of the refugee camps and of displaced person sites has been accelerated" and forced recruitment by armed groups, especially of children, has become a problem, he added.
In neighboring Central African Republic, Holmes said humanitarian organizations estimate that a million people, about a quarter of the population, need assistance. The number of internally displaced has increased in less than a year from 50,000 to 212,000 in addition to about 70,000 refugees from Chad and Cameroon.
Holmes said many of the displaced have fled into the wilderness, and he visited abandoned villages, some completely burned and plundered. Some villagers told him they fled not only insurgents but the army and presidential guard and it was clear the government had completely abandoned people in the northwest, he added.
"In each country, the fundamental and crying need is above all for political solutions brought about through dialogue and mediation, aided from outside where necessary, but relying on the national actors themselves," Holmes said.
He urged the Security Council and the international community to invest more in conflict prevention, resolution and mediation.
"This is the best investment of all, especially compared to the appalling human cost of what we see in the three countries I visited," he said.
The humanitarian operation in Darfur has succeeded in sustaining millions and saving hundreds of thousands of lives, Holmes said. But the program is increasingly fragile, morale is low, and human rights abuses in the camps "continue unchecked."
He said it was time for politicians and concerned leaders to stop playing "protracted games with each other, with little or no thought to the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens, whom the international community meanwhile keeps alive."
An estimated 200,000 people have been killed in the four-year conflict in Darfur that began when rebels from ethnic African tribes rose up against the central government. Khartoum is accused of having responded with indiscriminate killings by unleashing the janjaweed militias of Arab nomads blamed for the worst atrocities in Darfur. The government denies these charges.
Currently, Holmes said there is relatively little actual fighting between government forces and the rebel groups but violent incidents occur almost daily and lawlessness and insecurity are the rule.
Holmes called for increased humanitarian aid, saying the U.N. has received only 23 percent of the $174 million it needs this year for Chad and only 18 percent of the $54 million it sought for the Central African Republic.
He said an international security presence was essential to protect the displaced in Chad and urged the Chadian government to protect refugees in the east. He also called for better protection of the Central African Republic's borders and urged the international community to find a solution to its crisis.
Sudan approves UN reinforcement of AU force in Darfur
Agence France Presse, 4/9/07
Sudan on Monday gave its approval for the United Nations (UN) to start sending reinforcements to African Union (AU) peacekeepers in Darfur, the AU's peace and security commissioner said.
"The government of Sudan has made a series of remarks and questions. Today the AU and UN provided them (with) all the clarifications and they have agreed on this second package," Said Djinnit told a press conference.
He was speaking following talks between UN, AU and Sudanese government officials in Addis Ababa over the three-stage plan for international peacekeeping in Darfur, drawn up last November.
Djinnit said the Sudanese representatives agreed on all but "one outstanding point" of the second-stage plan to send UN troops to support the AU force, but did not specify what this point was.
They promised to respond to this outstanding issue "within days", after speaking to the government in Khartoum, Djinnit said.
He said the agreement was a "very important step forward" and said the AU was now urging the UN to "move quickly" to implement the plan.
However, a member of the UN delegation noted that details of the third stage, which forsees UN and AU peacekeepers operating in a joint force in Darfur, were still not agreed.
"It is a very important move. But it is only the second phase, not the end. We are just at the middle stage," the diplomat said.
Khartoum has objected to the idea of a hybrid force and insisted the AU keep control of it.
The Sudanese delegation did not comment on Monday's talks, which will be followed by further meetings on Darfur at the UN on April 16 and 17 and in Libya on April 28, according to Djinnit.
The AU has about 7,000 peacekeepers in Darfur but, underfunded and badly equipped, its force has been subject to repeated attacks in the past few weeks.
On April 1, it suffered its deadliest attack since its deployment in 2004 when five of its soldiers were killed by gunmen.
In July, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution authorising the deployment of a 20,000-strong UN-AU force.
Darfur has been ravaged by four years of civil war between rebels from the local black population and Arab militias supported by the Sudanese army.
The UN estimates 200,000 people have been killed and two million displaced in the conflict, although Khartoum contests the figures.
South African President Thabo Mbeki is due to visit Khartoum on Tuesday to urge support for UN reinforcements, and US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte is also due in the region on Wednesday.
Earlier on Monday, China urged Sudan -- its main African ally -- to be more flexible on the UN-AU plan.
LaHood to seek more money for Darfur
Dennis Conrad, Associated Press, 4/10/07
U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood on Monday called for more U.S. help for the Darfur region of Africa, after seeing firsthand the humanitarian crisis there.
The Illinois Republican traveled to Darfur as part of an overseas trip during which he and 10 other congressmen spent three days in Sudan, the largest African nation. They returned to the U.S. Saturday.
"We, as a country, cannot tolerate what has happened in that region, and it is my hope that the starvation, displacement and killing will end," LaHood, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement released by his office.
LaHood said seeing thousands of people living on the desert floor in the face of 100-degree Fahrenheit temperatures, with winds creating 30 mph to 40 mph sandstorms, made a vivid impression.
The bipartisan group of congressmen, led by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., met various high-level Sudanese government officials, U.S. Embassy staff and heard from non-governmental agencies such as Save the Children.
LaHood said the U.S. currently gives about $2 billion a year through the United Nations to help refugees in Darfur. He said he would seek an as-yet-unspecified increase in funding.
"There was a consensus that this is an example where the U.N. is doing a very good job," he said of his congressional colleagues who made the trip.
At least 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes since 2003, when the conflict in Darfur erupted between ethnic African rebels and the