PEACE
NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Thursday, February 8, 2007
(Volume VI, Number 1)
Contents:
Burundi
Burundi police unearth explosives
cache
Police are
interrogating suspects to determine why and to whom the explosives were
ferried.
Divisions grow in Burundi ruling
party
The ruling party will hold a special
congress to resolve differences later this week.
Chechnya
Russian authorities refuse to
meet international lawyers
The delegation of international
lawyers had visited to investigate anti-terrorism measures and human
rights in Russia.
Democratic
Republic of Congo
DR Congo clashes killed 100
in past week: officials
87 were killed in a government
crackdown on members of a religious sect, according to UN peacekeepers.
Congo forms new Cabinet
President Kabila named his new Cabinet,
fulfilling campaign promises to candidates that backed him in last fall's
landmark vote.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation.
Georgia
Georgia calls for direct
talks with leader of breakaway province; rebel leader defiant
Abkhazia leader rejected the call,
saying the sides must sign a nonaggression pact.
Georgia says Georgian village shelled
by breakaway South Ossetia
A monitoring group consisting of
peacekeepers and OSCE representatives is investigating the situation.
Ivory
Coast
Ivorian foes open talks to re-start
peace process
The two sides expressed optimism
the talks will move the process forward.
Kashmir
Moderate separatist leader
in Indian Kashmir calls for withdrawal of Indian troops
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq made statement
after returning from meeting with Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Pakistan's Musharraf hails Kashmir
talks with India
He said that India and Pakistan
have changed their stance from "confrontationist ... to reconciliatory
resolution".
Deaths in custody deepen cynicism
in Indian Kashmir
Local human rights groups say about
10,000 people have been reported missing in Kashmir since 1989.
Kosovo
Analysis: Kosovo's long walk
With a draft recommendation
from the UN special envoy now on the table, Kosovo has moved one step
closer to independence.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation.
Macedonia
U.S. talking with Macedonia
over NATO application despite Greek objections over name
State Department spokesman said
that Greece and Macedonia need to work the name dispute to get on with
international business.
Nepal
Nepal Maoists to start peaceful
protests
Protests are intended to pressure
the government to speed up the pace of election preparations.
Somalia
Somalia's government starts implementing
martial law in the country
A curfew was imposed last week on
the southern Somalia town of Baido.
Reconciliation talks begin in Somali
capital
Prime Minister Gedi hopefully that
reconciliation in Mogadishu will promote peace throughout Somalia.
Sri
Lanka
Sri Lanka: Ongoing Conflict Threatens Donor Funding
Donors warned that achieving sustainable economic development
might not be possible without peace.
Sri Lanka offers talks from
former Tiger town
President Rajapakse says he is ready to offer the LTTE a political
package if the guerillas will lay down their weapons.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation.
Sudan
U.N. refugee agency
appeals for more money to aid Darfur refugees
UN High Commissioner fro Refugees
said that under the present condition, there is no prospect of return
for the millions of refugees.
Sudanese justice minister: Let Sudan
prosecute Darfur crimes itself
The minister says that international
courts have no valid reason to investigate suspects in the Darfur crisis.
China offers aid for 'peaceful resolution'
of Darfur conflict
President Hu Jintao refused to make
future aid conditional on progress made.
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.
Burundi police unearth explosives cache
Agence France Presse,
2/2/07
Police in the Burundi capital
Bujumbura on Friday said they had found a cache of explosives stashed
in a boat and a house in the south of the small central African state.
Police spokesman Pierre-Claver
Gahungu said they discovered hundreds of dynamite sticks, several explosive
wicks and 1,000 detonators in the Tanzania-flagged boat and a house
in the Nyanza-Lac area, some 145 kilometres (90 miles) south of the
capital.
"On Monday, a boat from
Tanzania ... ran aground near Nyanza-Lac. Police found 196 dynamite
sticks and 20 rolls of explosive wicks," Gahungu told AFP.
After questioning three Tanzanian
crew members, police were led to a house in the locality where they
found 80 dynamite sticks, nine rolls of explosive wicks and 1,000 detonators
early Friday.
"For the moment we are
interrogating suspects to find out whether there are more explosives
that were previously ferried to the country, who to and the reason why,"
Gahungu said.
Burundi is emerging from more
than a decade of ethnically-driven civil war that has killed some 300,000
people.
Divisions grow in Burundi ruling party
Agence France Presse,
2/6/07
Burundi's ruling party will
this week hold a special congress to resolve differences threatening
efforts in the central African nation to recover from years of civil
strife, officials said Tuesday.
The meeting on Wednesday in
the northern town of Ngozi will "review the party's status, internal
rules and the election of senior officials," said Manasse Nzobonimpa,
secretary general of the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD).
But embattled party chief Hussein
Radjabu, who has been blamed for stoking divisions, said the meeting
was illegal because the secretary general has no powers under party
rules to call the conference.
Radjabu is also accused of
being behind the unsuccessful prosecution of ex-head of state Domitien
Ndayizeye on charges of plotting a coup, which sparked an avalanche
of condemnation against the 15-month old government.
The FDD, which came to power
after winning elections in 2005, suffered deeper divisions last month
after the sacking of a minister which prompted some members to call
for President Pierre Nkurunziza's intervention.
Radjabu said he would not attend
the meeting, dismissed the secretary general as a "mere puppet"
and insisted he was the party leader.
"I am the legitimate party president and so I will remain," he told AFP. "Nzobonimpa is just a puppet manipulated by powerful people who are against me. I know who is behind these attacks."
Burundi is struggling to emerge from a 13-year ethnic civil war that claimed some 300,000 lives. The government of the tiny republic has come under fire recently over accusations of authoritarianism and failure to tackle corruption.
Russian authorities refuse to meet international lawyers
Agence France Presse,
1/31/07
A delegation of international
lawyers on Wednesday said they had cut short a trip to investigate anti-terrorism
measures and human rights in Russia, after the authorities refused to
meet them.
"The interior ministry,
the Prosecutor's Office, the FSB (Federal Security Service) and the
Russian foreign ministry refused to let their representatives meet the
delegation," the International Commission of Jurists said in a
statement.
"Given this situation,
the group of lawyers decided to leave Russia one day earlier than planned."
The commission had been planning
to speak to the press on Thursday, the same day Russian President Vladimir
Putin holds his annual news conference.
The lawyers, including former
Irish president and former UN high commissioner for human rights Mary
Robinson, had requested to meet Russian officials on Wednesday and Thursday.
During a conference in Moscow
Monday, lawyers and human rights defenders said that Russia was violating
human rights by including military operations in Chechnya in an international
fight against terrorism.
The group includes eight judges, lawyers and academics chosen by the International Commission of Jurists to study the impact of the fight against terrorism around the world. They have already visited Algeria, Britain, Colombia and the United States.
DR Congo clashes killed 100 in past week: officials
Agence France Presse,
2/3/07
Violence in the Democratic
Republic of Congo has killed nearly 100 people this week, including
87 in a government crackdown on members of a religious sect, officials
and UN peacekeepers said Saturday.
"At least 87 people including
10 from the security forces were killed" during the clashes in
Bas Congo province in western DR Congo, General Denis Kalume Numbi,
interior minister, told a news conference here.
The total was made up of 16
people in the Bas Congo capital Matadi, 26 in nearby Boma, 37 in Muanda
and 8 in Songololo, he said in the first official statement on the number
of casualties.
A Western diplomat in Kinshasa
said he expected the death toll to "rise and could exceed 100"
because of the high number of people with gunshot wounds.
The clashes began on Wednesday
and followed allegations by the Bunda dia Kongo (BDK) religious movement
that the recent first-round election of Bas Congo's governor -- a candidate
close to victorious presidential candidate Joseph Kabila -- was rigged.
Bemba's opposition Congo Liberation
Movement (MLC) said on Saturday that it had filed official complaints
about the result in Bas Congo as well as in the capital Kinshasa.
Bemba, the former rebel turned
vice president who lost to Kabila in landmark presidential elections
last year, called for the election in Kinshasa to be annulled and for
a second round to take place in Bas Congo.
"We will not stand by
and do nothing while a dictatorship installs itself, especially after
what happened in Bas Congo," Fidele Babala, MLC candidate in Bas
Congo, told AFP.
Candidates from Kabila's political
coalition, the Alliance of the Presidential Majority (AMP), won first
round victories in eight of the nine provincial assemblies choosing
governors last month.
The results cemented the political
dominance of Kabila, whose camp already dominated both houses of parliament
as well as seven out of the 11 provincial assemblies.
But his victory in Kinshasa
-- a Bemba stronghold -- was a surprise.
The gubernatorial elections
marked the final stage in what it is hoped will be a definitive return
to multi-party democracy after four decades of kleptocracy and war that
left millions dead and the vast mineral-rich DR Congo in ruins.
The UN mission in DR Congo,
known as MONUC, meanwhile said on Saturday said that in the restive
eastern province of Sud Kivu, six rebels and three government soldiers
were killed this week in the Minembwe area.
There have been clashes on
a daily basis in the area since January 25 between the army and soldiers
loyal to dissident General Michel Rukunda, and the violence intensified
at the start of the week.
MONUC spokesman Thierry Kranzer
told AFP that the situation was calm again around Minembwe following
the arrival of MONUC peacekeepers but that clashes were continuing around
50 kilometres (30 miles) northeast near Kamombo.
"According to information
garnered on location by the (peacekeeping) mission, Rukunda's men attacked
positions" of the regular army, Kranzer said.
He added that MONUC had been
unable to confirm allegations that the regular army, commanded by Major
Patrick Masunzu, had been involved in massacres and burning villages
with the assistance of Rwandan Hutu rebels.
MONUC "went to the village of Azarias Ruberwa, where it found no pillage, no trace of fighting," Kranzer said.
Rwandan rebel group FDLR also denied any involvement.
Congo forms new Cabinet
Eddy Isango, Associated
Press, 2/6/07
Congo's president has named
his new Cabinet, fulfilling campaign promises to candidates that backed
him in last fall's landmark vote.
President Joseph Kabila named
as minister of agriculture Zanga Mobutu, the son of ex-Congolese dictator
Mobutu Sese Seko. Mobutu, a presidential candidate, ran against Kabila,
before agreeing to back him.
The new minister of foreign
affairs, Mbusa Nyamwisi, also ran against Kabila in the first round
of last fall's presidential ballot, then endorsed him in the second
round.
The appointments, announced
late Monday, are in addition to Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga, an 81-year-old
former opposition leader whom Kabila appointed Dec. 30. Gizenga was
a deputy in the government of Congo's first leader Patrice Lumumba,
who was assassinated shortly after independence from Belgium in 1960.
Gizenga then headed up a rebel
movement and later a political party and shadow government in exile
during decades of dictatorial rule.
Left in the opposition is most
notably Jean-Pierre Bemba, a warlord-turned-senator who came in second
behind Kabila in last fall's presidential vote. Bemba initially challenged
the results and his militia clashed with Kabila's forces, but he eventually
backed down and accepted the outcome after the country's Supreme Court
declared Kabila the rightful winner. Bemba later won a seat in the Senate.
Congo, a mineral-rich Central African nation the size of Western Europe, has been wracked by years of war and decades of dictatorship. Last fall's presidential poll marked the country's first free elections in over 40 years.
Democratic Republic of Congo
Negotiation Simulation
Click here to
access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International
Law & Policy Group.
Georgia calls for direct talks with leader of breakaway province; rebel leader defiant
Misha Dzhindzhkhashvili,
Associated Press, 1/31/07
Georgia on Wednesday again
called for direct, unconditional talks between its president and the
leader of the breakaway Abkhazia region, but the separatist leader rejected
the call, saying the sides must sign a nonaggression pact.
"The Georgian side is
ready for direct business dialogue with the Abkhazian side without any
preconditions," Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili told reporters.
"But this meeting must be aimed at achieving a concrete result
... that is why it must be thoroughly prepared."
Abkhazian leader Sergei Bagapsh,
however, was ready to hold such talks only after the two sides pledge
not to resume hostilities, said his spokesman, Kristian Zhvania.
"We don't need a meeting
for the sake of a meeting," Zhvania quoted Bagapsh as saying.
Bagapsh also insisted there
could be no talks with Tbilisi until it withdraws its troops and government
officials from Abkhazia's Kodori Gorge.
In late July, Georgian forces
moved into the upper part of the gorge to root out members of a defiant
militia and established a local administration made up of people who
fled the fighting in Abkhazia in the 1990s. Abkhazian separatist officials
said that Georgia's move into the gorge violated cease-fire terms.
Abkhazia broke from Georgia
in the early 1990s and has run its own affairs without international
recognition, cultivating close ties with Russia, which has peacekeepers
deployed there.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has vowed to bring Abkhazia, and another rebel region, South Ossetia, back under central government control.
Georgia says Georgian village shelled by breakaway South Ossetia
RIA Novosti, 1/4/07
Georgia said Sunday a Georgian
village was shelled by its breakaway province of South Ossetia.
Fire at the Georgian village
of Nikozi was opened Saturday evening from Tskhinvali, the capital of
the separatist region, Georgia said.
South Ossetia declared independence
from Georgia following a bloody conflict in 1991-1992 that killed hundreds
of people. The pro-Western Georgian government of Mikheil Saakashvili
has said it is determined to bring the breakaway region back under its
control.
Mamuka Kurashvili, the commander
of the Georgian peacekeeping battalion in the Georgia-South Ossetia
conflict area, said that large-caliber weapons, mortars and automatic
rifles were used to shell the village and that the shelling lasted 45
minutes.
He said a monitoring group
consisting of peacekeepers and OSCE representatives in the conflict
area is investigating the situation.
The Georgian side also said
a resident of the village of Nikozi was wounded during the shelling
and was taken in a grave condition to a hospital in Tbilisi for treatment.
At the same time, South Ossetian authorities said the breakaway republic's capital of Tskhinvali was subjected to fire yesterday evening from three Georgian villages located in the conflict area. As a result of the shelling, which began at 09:30 p.m. Moscow time (06:30 p.m. GMT), a local resident was injured, the republican information and press department said.
Ivorian foes open talks to re-start peace process
Agence France Presse,
2/5/07
Senior representatives for
Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and the leader of the New Forces
rebels Guillaume Soro took part in talks here on Monday to restart the
stalled Ivorian peace process.
The preliminary talks, which
are to lay the groundwork for the first face-to-face meeting between
Gbagbo and Soro in several months, are being brokered by Burkina Faso
President Blaise Compaore.
The first session adjourned
after a few hours and will resume Tuesday.
"The debates between the
two parties have not really started," Compaore said, adding that
he "just reminded the members of the two delegations of their historical
responsibility in the crisis" in Ivory Coast.
"We expect them to be
constructive in the dialogue," Compaore said of the delegates.
"I think that by the end
of the week, we will be clear on the way forward in the process,"
he added.
The two sides expressed optimism
the talks will move the process forward.
"Everything went on perfectly
well. We have our raw materials... we will back tomorrow," said
rebel spokesman Sidiki Konate.
"I am absolutely confident,
if not I would not have come to Ouagadougou. There will be as many meetings
as necessary. The ambience was perfect," said Gbagbo's advisor
Desire Tagro.
The preparatory talks are to
pave the way for Gbagbo and Soro to meet for the first time since the
United Nations Security Council adopted a new resolution in November
last year, granting large powers to Charles Konan Banny, the prime minister
of the UN-backed Ivorian transitional government.
Konan Banny, who met Compaore
last week, does not appear to have a direct role in the current talks.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
last week expressed the desire for the proposals from the ongoing talks
to be in line with UN resolution 1721.
A conflict sparked by an unsuccessful
coup bid against Gbagbo in 2002 has politically and militarily split
Ivory Coast, the one-time bastion of stability in West Africa, into
a rebel-held north and a government-ruled south.
A peace process in the world's
largest cocoa producer and former economic hub of the region began in
January 2003, but has not moved much due to bickering between the foes.
It has thus far led to the
formation of the transitional government headed by ex-banker Konan Banny,
after the deployment of UN and French peacekeepers on ceasefire lines.
However, the tasks of disarming
armed groups, voter registration for planned elections and national
reunification have been blocked for more than two years, with each side
accusing the other of creating obstacles.
Compaore recently assumed the
presidency of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) and was tasked with facilitating the direct talks, proposed
late last year by Gbagbo.
Ivory Coast has regularly accused its northern neighbour Burkina Faso of supporting the New Forces rebels, but Ouagadougou has repeatedly denied the allegations, saying the crisis there is due to internal problems.
Moderate separatist leader in Indian Kashmir calls for withdrawal of Indian troops
Aijaz Hussain, Associated
Press, 2/1/07
An influential separatist leader
in Indian-controlled Kashmir said Thursday that Indian troops should
start withdrawing from the Himalayan region.
"The time has come to
resolve the Kashmir issue in a phased manner. The first phase is that
Indian troops should start withdrawing from Kashmir," Mirwaiz Umar
Farooq, chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, told thousands
of supporters after returning from neighboring Pakistan. Farooq met
with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to discuss ongoing Pakistan-India
peace negotiations.
The APHC is an alliance of
separatist groups based in Indian Kashmir.
Mostly Muslim Kashmir is divided
between Pakistan and India, but is claimed by both.
More than a dozen militant
groups most based in Pakistan have been fighting in India's part of
the territory, seeking independence for Kashmir or its merger with predominantly
Islamic Pakistan.
The insurgency, which began
in 1989, has killed more than 68,000 people, mostly civilians.
Earlier this month Farooq called
for the first time for an end to the armed struggle in Indian Kashmir
to pave the way for a negotiated settlement with India.
Rebel groups and hard-liners
within the APHC accused Farooq of selling out. On Wednesday, suspected
militants hurled a grenade at the APHC's office in Srinagar.
India and Pakistan have fought
two wars over Kashmir, but relations have improved after three rounds
of peace talks since 2005.
Musharraf has angered many in Pakistan by proposing greater autonomy for Kashmir under "joint management" by Pakistan and India. He has also proposed that both sides pull out their troops from the region.
India has not accepted the proposal, although it has given impetus to the peace process.
Pakistan's Musharraf hails Kashmir talks with India
Agence France Presse,
2/5/07
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf
Monday said he was optimistic that a more conciliatory tone in talks
with India would bring an end to their 60-year dispute over the Himalayan
territory of Kashmir.
His comments came as thousands
of Pakistanis rallied across the country for a "Kashmir Solidarity
Day" and condemned alleged atrocities in the Indian-ruled part
of the Muslim-majority region.
Musharraf said that nuclear-armed
India and Pakistan -- who have fought two of their three wars since
1947 over Kashmir -- had changed their stance from "confrontationist
... to reconciliatory resolution".
"We are seeing some light
at the end of the tunnel where we may be able to resolve the dispute
for good, and for the benefit of the people of Kashmir and to give them
final peace," the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan quoted
Musharraf as saying before he left to visit Tehran and Ankara.
Hindu-majority India and mostly
Muslim Pakistan both hold Kashmir in part and claim it in its entirety.
The row over its future has bedevilled a three-year peace process between
New Delhi and Islamabad.
In January, Pakistan and India
renewed their commitment to carry forward the peace dialogue during
talks between their foreign ministers in Islamabad which covered subjects
including the Kashmir dispute and terrorism.
Musharraf said Solidarity Day
-- a national holiday here -- was different to previous years "as
(the) focus has changed towards the resolution of the dispute, and I
am happy about it."
Pakistani authorities continued
with a full programme of events, including one minute's silence for
tens of thousands of people killed in Kashmir during a 17-year Islamist
revolt against Indian rule.
About 1,000 students, labourers
and political party workers marched in the capital, Islamabad. Streets
were bedecked with banners saying: "Kashmir, a valley of tears"
and "We salute freedom fighters in Kashmir".
More than 3,000 people rallied
in the central city of Multan and protests elsewhere denounced Indian
"atrocities".
Pakistanis and Kashmiris formed
a human chain at Kohala bridge, which links Pakistan with its part of
Kashmir, state television said. Special prayers for Kashmir's freedom
were also offered in mosques across the country.
The day officially supports
Kashmir's right of "self-determination" under longstanding
UN resolutions which call for a plebiscite in Kashmir on whether it
should be ruled by India or Pakistan.
In October 2004, Musharraf
suggested resolving the dispute by demilitarising Kashmir and either
placing it under United Nations mandate, putting it under joint control
or giving it independence.
However, in December he angered
separatists by saying Pakistan did not favour independence.
Musharraf urged Kashmiri leaders
-- a fractious mix of pro-Pakistani parties, Islamists and independence-seekers
-- to work together to find "unanimity of views and to guide us
on how to resolve this issue."
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz
told the legislative assembly of the Pakistani sector of Kashmir on
Monday that Pakistan was committed to resolving the dispute "in
accordance with the aspirations of the Kashmiris".
Deaths in custody deepen cynicism in Indian Kashmir
Aijaz Hussain, Associated
Press, 2/6/07
Late last year, Abdur Rahman
Padder, a 35-year-old carpenter, paid his life's savings to his cousin,
a police official in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, to secure
a government job.
But days after handing over
75,000 Indian rupees (about US$1,700), Padder disappeared. Over the
following weeks, police investigators trying to track him down traced
his mobile phone to members of the police anti-insurgency squad and
began unraveling a murky plot of rogue policemen they say were killing
innocent villagers to claim rewards and government honors.
Last week, police said the
father of five had been shot and killed in a staged gunbattle with Indian
security forces in a small town near Srinagar, the summer capital of
India's Jammu-Kashmir state. He had been killed Dec. 8, the night he
disappeared.
At the time of the shooting,
police identified the dead man as a member of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a Pakistan-based
separatist militant group. They basked in the glory of having killed
yet another rebel.
By Saturday, investigators
had exhumed the bodies of at least five civilians, including Padder,
all of whom had been shot and killed in faked "encounters,"
as gun battles are known here. Authorities have promised an investigation,
but few Kashmiris are satisfied.
Investigator's say Padder's
cousin, Farooq Ahmed, organized the killings, and over the weekend he
and three other policemen, including two senior officers, were arrested
for their role in either carrying out the killings or condoning them.
Ahmed's demand for 75,000 rupees
for a job, a common practice in India's corruption-riddled bureaucracies,
was pure greed, police say.
Ahmed "promised my husband
a job, robbed him of his hard-earned money and later passed him on to
killers," said Muneera, Padder's wife, holding their 3-month-old
daughter.
Since the Padder case came
to light, Kashmir has been rocked by protests, with angry residents
saying the government ignored their pleas despite years of complaints
that security forces had killed hundreds of residents.
On Tuesday, shops and businesses
were closed in Srinagar and public transport stayed off the roads as
separatist groups protested the deaths.
"Tyrants leave Kashmir!"
protesters chanted as they marched through Srinagar, and "We want
freedom!"
Analysts say the array of security
forces police, military and paramilitary fighting Kashmir's insurgents
are almost never punished for crimes against Kashmiri civilians.
Heightening the problem: promotions
in rank are often handed out based on the number of militants someone
kills.
"India failed to prosecute
or discipline the perpetrators, who believe they are, indeed, 'above
the law,'" the rights group Human Rights Watch said in a statement
last week.
The latest revelations have
deepened cynicism among Kashmir residents, who make little secret of
their fury at the Indian military.
Kashmir is India's only Muslim
majority state, and most people favor independence from mainly Hindu
India, or a merger with predominantly Muslim Pakistan.
India has an estimated 700,000
soldiers in Kashmir, fighting nearly a dozen rebel groups since 1989.
In many areas, the region has the feel of an occupied country, with
soldiers in full combat gear patrolling streets and frisking civilians.
More than 68,000 people, mostly
civilians, have been killed in the conflict.
Many other people have simply
disappeared.
Local human rights groups say
about 10,000 people have been reported missing in Kashmir since the
separatist insurgency began in 1989.
Last month, Kashmir Chief Minister
Ghulam Nabi Azad said only 1,017 people had disappeared in the state
although in 2003 his predecessor put the number at about 4,000.
The government says most of
the men who disappeared are Kashmiri youth who have crossed the frontier
into neighboring Pakistan for weapons training.
But local activists believe
many of the disappeared wound up dead in staged gun battles.
"Since 1998, we have been
demanding that the government appoint an inquiry commission to probe
into disappearance cases in the state," said Pervez Imroz, a lawyer
with the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons.
Azad, the chief minister, has
ordered an inquiry into the killings, saying the deaths will be treated
as murders.
But political and religious
leaders have demanded an independent probe, saying a police investigation
cannot be objective.
"Killers can't be judges.
How can the police investigate the killings when they are themselves
involved in these deaths?" says Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of
the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an alliance of Kashmiri separatist
groups.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click here to
access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International
Law & Policy Group.
Analysis: Kosovo's long walk
Edith Honan, United Press
International, 2/5/07
With a draft recommendation
from the United Nations' special envoy for Kosovo now on the table,
the former Yugoslav province -- and U.N. protectorate since 1999 --
has moved one step closer to independence.
While refraining from use of
the word independence, the plan gives Kosovo the right to govern itself
and envisions the drafting of a constitution, which would almost certainly
declare Kosovo free.
"The settlement package
that I have presented to both parties today represents a compromise
proposal," Martti Ahtisaari, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's
envoy to Kosovo said at news conferences in Belgrade and Pristina, the
Serbian and Kosovar capitals. "I am willing to consider constructive
amendments and I'm willing to integrate compromise solutions that the
parties might reach."
A political resolution to Kosovo's
final status remains weeks, if not months, off. Pending advice from
the two capitals, Ahtisaari will submit a revised proposal to the secretary-general.
The document will then be circulated
to the 15-member U.N. Security Council, which has been sharply divided
on the Kosovo issue. Russia in particular, one of five veto-wielding
members, has voiced skepticism over independence.
It is not clear how, if at
all, Belgrade and Pristina can be brought closer together. Albanians
in Kosovo, who make up 90 percent of the population, have called for
outright independence, while Serbia has rejected the idea.
The fate of the 100,000 ethnic
Serbs living in the province has been one of the central concerns addressed
in negotiations.
Since NATO forces drove out
Yugoslav troops in 1999 amid brutal ethnic fighting, Serbian Orthodox
Churches have been subject to frequent acts of vandalism and ethnic
Serb communities have complained they feel anything but secure.
If Kosovo is to be made independent,
it is unclear what precedent exists, if any, to guide that process.
In fact, to the view of some countries, it is Kosovo that will play
the role of standard-bearer.
Under Ahtisaari's proposal,
a European Union official would have ultimate supervisory authority
over civilian aspects of the settlement, including the power to annul
laws and remove officials.
The constitution would emphasize
Kosovo's multi-ethnic culture, and the flag and national anthem would
also represent the full national character of Kosovo. Kosovo would have
no official religion and the Albanian and Serbian languages would be
given equal status.
An international military presence,
led by NATO, would, for a finite period, serve as the backbone of Kosovo's
security.
Non-Albanians would be guaranteed
a place in key public institutions and certain laws may only be enacted
if a majority of the Kosovo non-Albanian legislative members agree.
The plan also calls for wide-ranging
decentralization, focusing in particular on the specific needs and concerns
of the Serb community, which will have a high degree of control over
its own affairs, including health care, higher education and financial
matters, including accepting transparent funding from Serbia. Six new
or significantly expanded Kosovo Serb majority municipalities will be
set up. Kosovo's justice system is to be integrated, independent, professional
and impartial, ensuring access to all, with the judiciary and prosecution
service reflecting its multi ethnic character.
Provisions on religious and
cultural heritage will ensure the unfettered and undisturbed operation
of the Serbian Orthodox Church and 45 Protective Zones will surround
key religious and cultural sites.
Once the settlement enters
into force, there will be a 120-day transition period during which the
mandate of the U.N. Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo will stay
unchanged.
During this period, the Kosovo
Assembly, in consultation with an international representative, will
be responsible for approving a constitution and the legislation necessary
for the implementation of the plan.
At the end of the period, the U.N. mission's mandate will expire and all legislative and executive authority vested in it will be transferred to the Kosovo authorities. Within nine months general and local elections will be held.
Kosovo, which is nearly the size of Connecticut, was an autonomous region within the Yugoslav federation until 1989, when Slobodan Milosevic began to exert tighter control over the province and strip ethnic Albanians of some of their rights. Belgrade's brutal crackdown on guerrilla rebellions in Kosovo led to the NATO intervention of 1999. The province was granted autonomy, and has since been overseen by the United Nations, which has taken the lead in brokering Kosovo's final status.
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U.S. talking with Macedonia over NATO application despite Greek objections over name
Associated Press, 2/1/07
It is only Greece that has
a problem with calling Macedonia Macedonia, and the two southern Balkan
neighbors need to work it out to get on with international business,
a State Department spokesman said Thursday.
As for the United States, Sean
McCormack said, it is willing to discuss NATO membership with Macedonia
under that name and would like a resolution of the name dispute with
Greece.
Greece is a member of both
NATO and the European Union, to which Macedonia applied for membership
in 2004. Greece has threatened to stand in the way of Macedonian membership
under that name in both international organizations.
McCormack said the United States
has no say in the EU situation, but "in the case of NATO, then
we will talk to Macedonia about their aspirations.
"We have made it very
clear that NATO should have a door open to consideration in expanding
its membership, and we're going to continue to talk to Macedonia about
what their aspirations are."
Athens refers to Macedonia
by the acronym FYROM, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the name
under which the country entered the United Nations in 1993. The Greek
position is that the name Macedonia implies a claim by FYROM on the
northern Greece province of Macedonia and could destabilize the region.
"I understand, in the case of Greece, that they need to come to some accommodation on this for those two parties difficult issue," McCormack said. "It's an emotional issue. But they should try to work through the issue.
"They, after all, live next door to one another. Neither of them are going to be able to move. So they should work to resolve the issue."
Nepal Maoists to start peaceful protests
Agence France Presse,
2/5/07
Nepal's former rebel Maoists
said Monday they will start nationwide peaceful protests to pressure
the government to pick up the pace of crucial election preparations.
Maoist leader Prachanda, and
his second in command, Baburam Bhatterai, said protests would start
next week as they feared election plans and other elements of an historic
peace deal with the government were not being met.
The Maoists "once again
find it necessary mobilize people peacefully across the nation in order
to defeat regressive forces and take the country towards the path of
peace, progress and democracy," they said in the statement released
late Monday.
The Maoists and seven-party
government signed a peace deal late last year, and the rebels have begun
to place their weapons under United Nations monitoring.
As part of the deal that ended
a bitter 10-year "people's war", the government has pledged
to hold elections to a body that will rewrite Nepal's constitution permanently,
a long-held Maoist demand.
A new interim 330-seat parliament
was formed in mid-January containing 83 Maoists, but the new cabinet
has yet to be named.
"We have sensed serious
obstacles in forming the interim government and the holding of constituent
assembly elections due to the status quo maintained by the parliamentary
parties and the growing conspiracies of regressive forces," the
statement said.
"Regressive forces,"
is a phrase the Maoists commonly use to refer to pro-royalists.
The former rebels will start
their 22-day protests in the capital on February 13, the statement said.
Once former foes, the Maoists
and political parties formed a loose alliance in late 2005 to counter
King Gyanendra who seized direct control of the nation earlier in the
year.
They organised mass protests which forced the king to end his direct rule and reinstate parliament in April 2006.
Last year's peace agreement ended the "people's war" that killed at least 13,000 people and decimated the Himalayan nation's already fragile economy.
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Somalia's government starts implementing martial law in the country
Mohamed Olad Hassan, Associated
Press, 1/31/07
Somalia's interim government
has begun imposing martial law in areas under its control, the prime
minister said, as rising violence threatens its tenuous grip on power.
A curfew was imposed Tuesday
night on the southern Somalia town of Baidoa, as Prime Minister Ali
Mohamed Gedi warned that remnants of an ousted Islamic movement have
returned to the towns and are planning to destabilize the lawless country.
"From now on the martial
law would be implemented across government-controlled areas, starting
with Baidoa tonight," Gedi told government-controlled radio late
Tuesday.
The three-month emergency law
was announced on Jan. 13 but was not implemented.
African leaders meeting in
neighboring Ethiopia have failed to make up a shortfall of 4,000 troops
for a peacekeeping mission to Somalia, and fears are mounting that Somalia
could again be plunged into civil war without a peacekeeping force.
Since the Islamic movement
was ousted by Somali government troops backed by Ethiopian soldiers,
tanks and war planes, factional violence has again become a feature
of life in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
But Ethiopia has begun withdrawing
its forces, with diplomats warning it could create a power vacuum that
Islamic fighters could take advantage of.
On Tuesday night, unknown gunmen
attacked Ethiopian bases on the northeastern outskirts of the capital
with rocket-propelled grenades. No civilians were hurt by the Ethiopian
who returned the fire with anti-aircraft missiles, said businessman
Koge Omar.
Also Tuesday, extremists in
Somalia have warned that they would try to kill any peacekeepers deployed
to the war-ravaged country.
In a videotape posted on the
official Web site of Somalia's routed Islamic movement Tuesday, a hooded
gunman read a statement saying that any African peacekeepers would be
seen as invaders.
So far five nations Uganda,
Nigeria, Malawi, Burundi and Ghana have pledged around 4,000 troops.
"Somalia is not a place
where you will earn a salary it is a place where you will die,"
one militant, carrying an assault rifle and dressed in military fatigues
said in the warning to the peacekeepers. "The salary you are seeking
will be used to transport your bodies." Five other hooded gunmen
were visible, armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
"We will not be intimidated,"
the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, told reporters at
the African Union summit where the peacekeeping force was being discussed.
"Obviously, whenever you
are going into a dangerous situation, it's prudent military planning
to expect someone to attack you or your forces."
The United States has accused
the Islamic group of sheltering suspects in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings
of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Osama Bin Laden has said Somalia
is a battleground in his war on the West. The U.S. launched two airstrikes
against fleeing Islamic fighters, although details of the attacks are
unknown.
Somalia has not had an effective
national government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohammed
Siad Barre and then turned on one another, throwing the country into
anarchy.
A transitional government was
formed in 2004 with U.N. help in hopes of restoring order. But it has
struggled to assert authority.
Reconciliation talks begin in Somali capital
Mohamed Olad Hassan, Associated
Press, 2/6/07
The government has begun a
weeklong meeting with an array of leaders in Somalia's capital, which
has seen spiraling violence over the past month, as part of promised
efforts to reconcile Somalis after 16 years of conflict.
The capital, Mogadishu, and
much of southern Somalia has borne the brunt of the country's conflict
that began in 1991 when clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed
Siad Barre and then turned on one another, sinking the Horn of Africa
nation of 7 million people into chaos.
Mogadishu also saw the heaviest
fighting when government forces backed by Ethiopian troops, war planes
and tanks ousted the country's Islamic movement from its southern Somalia
strongholds that included the capital.
"I hope it will be the
beginning of reconciliation among the people of Mogadishu, which is
the mirror of all of Somalia and I hope if a solution is found here,
other areas will be peaceful," Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi
told the meeting Monday in comments broadcast on local radio.
Ismail Moalim Musse, chairman
of the government-appointed national reconciliation commission, told
The Associated Press the elders, traditional chiefs, representatives
of private aid and development groups will discuss their roles in restoring
security in the capital and awareness programs on peace and security.
Musse declined to comment on
whether warlords who had ruled Mogadishu for most of the last 16 years
had been invited to the meeting. The major Mogadishu warlords have in
recent weeks handed over weapons and equipment and ordered their militias
to camps where they are to be trained and join the national army.
The commission was formed in
2005 but has done little work, partly because the government was until
recently unable to assert its authority beyond the southern Somalia
town of Baidoa.
The two-year-old transitional
government only managed to establish itself in the capital in December.
The ousted Islamic movement, which still has strong support in Mogadishu,
has vowed to wage an Iraq-style insurgency, and clan rivalries also
are a challenge for the government.
Ethiopia has said it cannot
afford to keep its forces long in Somalia and has begun pulling out
as the African Union presses ahead with preparations for a peacekeeping
mission to Somalia. So far, the A.U. has received only half the 8,000
peacekeepers it believes is needed, but could start an initial deployment
soon.
Three battalions of peacekeepers
from Uganda and Nigeria are ready to be deployed in Somalia and will
be airlifted in as soon as possible, a senior African Union official
said last week.
A leader of the Islamic movement
that was ousted last month has said that a proposed peacekeeping force
would not bring peace to Somalia.
Many Somalis are deeply distrustful
any peacekeeping mission after a disastrous U.N.-led mission in the
1990s.
The Islamic movement was credited
with restoring order in areas of southern Somalia it controlled, but
some Somalis chafed at its fundamentalist version of Islam and the U.S.
accused it of harboring al-Qaida suspects.
The transitional government was formed in 2004 with U.N. help. It has struggled to assert authority and heal clan rifts, and was confined to Baidoa until Ethiopian troops arrived to help oust the Islamic movement.
Sri Lanka: Ongoing Conflict
Threatens Donor Funding
Amantha Perera, Inter Press Service, 2/2/07
Foreign donors this week urged
the Sri Lankan government to resume negotiations with the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to avert civil war.
Without peace, donors warned,
achieving sustainable economic development is unlikely.
However, at the two-day donor
review that ended Tuesday, President Mahinda Rajapakse was emphatic
that the country did not want donor funding with strings attached. But
then pledges of $4.5 billion U.S. over the next two years are hard to
ignore, and the government is keen to show that its military campaign
has support.
Economist and researcher Muttukrishna
Sarvananthan said the government was probably betting on the donors
not withholding funds. "I doubt the donors would hold back funds.
The Japanese normally do not attach conditions to their aid either on
economic liberalization and reform issues or on the peace front. The
Americans are also unlikely to stop aid unless the government goes back
on its promise to come up with a (power) devolution package," Sarvananthan
told IPS.
Much of the pressure on Colombo
came from the European Union (EU) which sent a low level delegation
to the conference. EU chair, Germany, spoke of an aid freeze. Europe,
nevertheless, accounts for only 10 percent of Sri Lanka's annual aid
flow and has limited leverage.
The government can pursue its
plans as long as the conflict is confined to the Tamil-dominated north
and east of the island. "I think the government can move ahead
on economic development in other parts of the country if it could prevent
attacks on economic targets outside the north and east," Sarvananthan
said.
Yet, the donor review was a
far cry from the last two meetings in 2003 and 2005, when the "peace
dividend" was stressed.
Each of those meets raised
more than $3 billion U.S. The 2003 meeting also resulted in the formation
of the Tokyo Donor conference, with the EU, Japan, the United States
and Norway as co-chairs.
But at this year's meeting,
donors led by the World Bank stated that without any tangible progress
in peace negotiations, development would be unsustainable.
"We want to ensure that
the money provided by the donors does not fuel the war. There will be
less cash if there is no progress on the peace front," a diplomat
from a Western embassy said, asking not to be named.
The government has hiked defense
spending for 2007 by about 30 percent to $1.28 billion. A five-year-old
ceasefire remains on paper even though the country has slipped into
all-out confrontations between government forces and the LTTE.
Since December 2005, some 4,000
people have died in the violence -- including more than a thousand civilians,
adding to the more than 65,000 deaths in ethnic war since the early
1980s.
As government forces steadily
regain land under LTTE control, the latter have retaliated with a series
of strikes in the south. The country's main port in the capital of Colombo
came under attack on Jan. 27 when three militant boats made an attempt
to infiltrate.
A similar attack in November
was mounted on the southern port of Galle, a major tourist destination
and the location for the donor meeting. The day before the Galle attack,
100 sailors died in a suicide attack in the north central city of Habarana,
another tourist favorite. During the first week of January, two bus
bombs killed more than 20 people in the south.
Tension is palpable ahead of
Sunday's planned celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Sri Lanka's
independence from Britain, with massive troop deployments in the capital
and rigorous searches of vehicles and raids. Roads leading to the Galle
seafront have been closed to traffic.
Attacks in the Sinhala-dominated
south have put pressure on the economy and reduced tourism. While the
government's tough approach may disgruntle donors, many believe that
Rajapakse may succeed if he sustains development in the south and offers
a political solution to the ethnic conflict acceptable to donors --
even if it is rejected by the LTTE.
Rajapakse has urged donors
to make a distinction between the war and economic development.
"Our aim in defeating
terrorism is to liberate the people who have become victims of terrorism,"
he said. "In such a liberation excise, we are committed to ensure
that human rights are preserved and democracy is respected.
"We consider development
in liberated regions and in rest of the north and east as critical in
promoting sustainable peace and finding meaningful solutions to many
potential conflicts within multiethnic and multireligious societies.
I have no doubt that our development partners will therefore separate
terrorism from a conflict in a complex multicultural society with many
income and regional disparities," he said.
However, donors were quick
to point out that without peace, any economic progress would be short-lived.
"The renewed and deepening
conflict in Sri Lanka over the past six months or so looms over everything
else that we might say here. There is no way to politely skirt this
issue. As a major development partner to Sri Lanka, the World Bank would
be failing if we did not place the conflict front and center in our
deliberations," Praful Patel, World Bank vice president for the
South Asia region, told the donor meeting.
While Rajapakse spoke of economic
progress, Patel reminded the gathering that the last 14 months have
been bloody and violent, especially for civilians. "The past year
has not been good at all for the families of the more than 3,500 Sri
Lankans killed as a result of the increased hostilities. Nor has it
been a good year for the additional 200,000 persons displaced by the
conflict. It has not been a good year for the whole population of the
north and east who have gone through serious difficulties and distress."
Although the recent months
have witnessed spectacular military successes for Colombo, the government
has come under severe criticism by the United Nations and other watchdogs
for human rights violations and letting the humanitarian situation deteriorate.
Aid agencies have complained of being forced to close projects in the
north and east under government pressure.
The short-term bleak economic
outlook with rising inflation and an exchange rate under pressure did
not seem to dampen the government's outlook. "The Sri Lanka Development
Forum has announced new development assistance for 2007-2009 in the
region of $4.5 billion," the government announced triumphantly.
Yet, the government had recognized
that if it could create power-sharing proposals, it might end the conflict.
"The government and the development partners agreed that terrorism
should be separated from finding a solution to the conflict and that
a lasting solution should be found through a negotiated settlement,"
according to an official statement.
On the ground, however, the
Sri Lankan army is preparing to launch a major drive to clear the east
of the LTTE, according to reports from the area.
Sri Lanka offers talks from former Tiger town
Amal Jayasinghe, Agence
France Presse, 2/3/07
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda
Rajapakse visited a former Tamil Tiger bastion and offered fresh peace
talks on Saturday to end decades of ethnic bloodshed.
The president said he was ready
to offer a political package to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) to halt the separatist violence and asked the guerrillas to lay
down weapons and return to talks.
"They must begin surrendering
weapons and come for talks," Rajapakse told AFP while visiting
this town wrested from rebel control two weeks ago after fighting that
killed 45 troops and 331 rebels by official count.
Top presidential aide, Basil
Rajapakse, a brother of the president, said the guerrillas could lay
down arms in a phased manner if they gave an initial firm commitment
to decommission.
"The laying down of arms
can be done in a stage-by-stage basis," said the president's brother
who was accompanying Rajapakse along with officials and journalists.
The rebel Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) held Vakarai, 330 kilometres (190 miles) east
of Colombo, as a de facto separate state for over 10 years before being
driven out two weeks ago.
"What we have done is
to liberate the people from terrorists," Rajapakse said of the
estimated 30,000 residents here.
"I am here to thank the
troops for their action without causing a single civilian casualty."
Local politician Amir Ali said
he was visiting the area after 25 years.
"We could not come here
because of the fighting," Ali told AFP. "I am very happy to
be able to come and see the place after so long."
The Tigers melted away on January
19, prompting the residents to flee to the safety of neighbouring government-held
towns.
The region's top military commander
brigadier Daya Ratnayake said small groups of civilians were already
coming back to survey their town and map out a return to their homes,
many of them damaged by fighting.
Rajapakse flew into Vakarai
in a military helicopter and travelled along the coastal town. He mingled
with his troops and an elite unit of 16 special forces troops who were
the first to dismantle the rebel structures.
The president also visited
a police station established here, taking over from an office run by
a guerrilla front organisation.
Vakarai was one of the worst-hit
Sri Lankan towns in the December 2004 tsunami, which devastated large
coastal areas of this Indian Ocean island. The president said although
internal aid poured for the victims, little was seen here.
"I want foreign ambassadors
in Colombo to visit this area and see if the money their governments
and people sent was well used," he said. "We want to start
clearing mines in the next two weeks to allow all civilians to return."
Rajapakse, accompanied by the
top military brass, flew to neighbouring Trincomalee district where
security forces won another key location -- Sampur -- from the rebels
last year.
"I am here to convey the
gratitude of the nation to you at a time we are marking the 59th independence
(from Britain) anniversary," Rajapakse told troops at Sampur, a
strategic coastal town near the Trincomalee port.
The Tigers have admitted losing
both Sampur and Vakarai and said they made a "tactical withdrawal"
while their main military machinery remained in tact in the island's
north.
The military moved to capture the Tiger-held areas in the east following intense artillery duels despite a truce in place since February 2002.
Nearly 4,000 people have been killed in the past year and truce monitors have said the ceasefire is only holding on paper.
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U.N. refugee agency appeals for more money to aid Darfur refugees
Alfred de Montesquiou, Associated
Press, 1/31/07
The U.N. refugee agency appealed
Tuesday for additional money to help millions displaced by violence
in Darfur as Sudanese, African and U.N. officials negotiate a peacekeeping
deal for the troubled region.
Despite a peace agreement signed
last May between the Sudanese government and a single rebel group, fighting
has only worsened in Darfur, a vast region of western Sudan where more
than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million chased from their
home since 2003.
"With constant fighting
between government troops and rebels opposed to the (peace agreement),
as well as regular attacks by Arab militia on African tribes, there
is no prospect of return" for the millions of people living in
camps, said the United Nation's High Commissioner for Refugees in a
statement appealing for funds Tuesday.
Darfur is the world's largest
ongoing humanitarian effort, with some 15,000 aid workers, including
1,000 from abroad, according to the U.N.
But 12 humanitarian workers
have been killed in the past six months and several aid groups have
warned the increasing violence is pushing them to the "breaking
point." A major French aid group announced earlier this week it
was pulling out of Darfur, while several others say they may do the
same if warring factions continue denying them access to civilians and
targeting humanitarian workers.
But the UNHCR, which has over
100 staff working in most of Darfur's refugee camps, said it had no
intention of leaving the region. Its appeal Tuesday for $19.7 million
would cover most of its costs for 2007 in Darfur, said Annette Rehrl,
UNHCR's spokeswoman for Sudan.
"We are determined to
stay in Darfur; we provide the basic protection and if we go, everything
goes," Rehrl said by telephone.
The U.N. and others accuse
Sudan's government of arming and directing the janjaweed militias of
Arab nomads as part of its counterinsurgency tactics. The UNCHR said
in its appeal Tuesday that Arab militias burnt to the ground at least
25 villages in neighboring Chad in recent weeks, and observers in Darfur
blame the janjaweed for widespread atrocities against tribes of ethnic
African farmers.
The government denies controlling
the janjaweed, and in turn accuses Chad of backing the rebel groups
that refused a peace agreement.
Khartoum also denies accusations
its air force indiscriminately bombs civilians villages.
"We bomb the people who
are sabotaging the peace agreement, or rebel factions who attack the
army and civilians," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali Sadiq.
The U.N. says a series of air raids earlier this month killed several
villagers and breached cease-fire agreements.
On Monday, U.N. Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and urged him
to "cease hostilities as an essential foundation for a successful
peace process and humanitarian access" in Darfur.
Al-Bashir has opposed a Security
Council resolution for some 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers to replace the
7,000-strong AU force deployed in Darfur, but his government appears
to be edging toward a comprise deal for U.N. troops to join African
ones in a common mission.
"We agreed to accelerate
the joint U.N.-AU efforts for the political process and the preparation
for a peacekeeping mission," Ban told reporters Monday after meeting
with al-Bashir.
Al-Bashir has sent mixed signals
for months on the size of any U.N. presence he is willing to allow in
Darfur.
Jan Pronk, a former U.N. envoy
to Darfur, said Tuesday the world body should rethink its global peacekeeping
operations and finance more missions by local or regional peace troops.
Pronk said in a lecture at
the Netherlands' Institute of Social Studies that the U.N. could use
the money it would spend on its own peacekeeping operation to finance
another military force to carry out the task, such as the African Union
in Darfur.
"They have good troops,"
he said, many of them with experience in U.N. peace missions to Bosnia
or elsewhere. "I'm very positive about the African Union in Darfur."
Sudanese justice minister: Let Sudan prosecute Darfur crimes itself
Alfred de Montesquiou, Associated
Press, 2/1/07
The Sudanese can do a better
job prosecuting crimes in Darfur than anyone else, Sudan's justice minister
said Wednesday, asserting international courts have no valid reason
to investigate suspects in the vast area of western Sudan.
Justice Minister Mohammed Ali
al-Mardi spoke as a team from the International Criminal Court was in
Khartoum to look into what the United Nations and others describe as
war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
"We as a government are
willing and able to try all perpetrators of offenses in Darfur, and
for this reason the ICC has absolutely no right to assume any jurisdiction,"
Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi told The Associated Press in
an interview. He declined to comment on specifics of the international
court mission.
Some top Sudanese officials
are believed to be on the list of suspects the U.N. Security Council
handed to the international court in 2005 for investigation. Many observers
believe Khartoum's fierce rejection of a planned U.N. peacekeeping force
for Darfur is linked to government fears the peacekeepers would seek
out war crime suspects.
At The Hague, where the international
court is based, officials said they would not comment on the investigation.
But they confirmed that prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo intended to present
his first cases to judges in February.
Sudan is not a party to the
statute that governs the International Criminal Court, and the court
could only intervene if the government was refusing to investigate,
al-Mardi said. He said three special courts have been set up in Darfur
by the government.
"Our judges are qualified,
experienced and impartial," he said. "They've passed sentences
of imprisonment and of capital punishment against civilians, and even
against the military, for crimes committed in Darfur."
Al-Mardi did not say how many
suspects the courts have tried in connection with violence in Darfur.
However, Human Rights Watch and other international rights groups say
Sudan does little to prosecute perpetrators of atrocities in Darfur.
For example, the Sudanese judiciary
says it received complaints of about 36 rapes in Darfur in 2006, and
that eight perpetrators were sentenced to prison. Aid groups working
in Darfur say rape is a daily occurrence and that cases last year number
in the thousands.
The United Nations says more
than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million made refugees by
four years of fighting, rape and plunder in Darfur. The U.N. and others
accuse the government of having countered local rebel groups by unleashing
militias of Arab nomads known as janjaweed who are accused of atrocities
against farmers from the region's ethnic African tribes. Washington
has labeled the violence genocide.
"Allegations that the
government has been arming or masterminding militias known as the janjaweed
are absolutely false," al-Mardi said.
He said armed groups of mostly
Arab tribesmen in the region were part of regular army forces, not militia,
but conceded that "maybe other people misrepresent themselves by
wearing police or army uniforms to commit crimes."
"This is human weakness,
it happens everywhere, not just Darfur or Sudan," he said.
Like other top government officials,
al-Mardi says the violence in Darfur is not ethnic strife, but stems
from rebels exploiting the rivalry between cattle herders and farmers.
And he said only local courts can make rulings that will be legitimate
in the eyes of the people.
Suleiman Baldo, a Sudan expert
at the International Center for Transitional Justice, a New York-based
rights group, disagreed. He said the government has armed Arabs in Darfur,
creating the conditions that have displaced millions and destroyed the
balance of power between tribes and the legitimacy of traditional courts.
"It is criminally disingenuous
of the government to say it relies on traditional justice, because its
policies have destroyed that system," Baldo said by telephone.
He said the Sudanese judiciary
was only going after "foot soldiers" in Darfur, and has shown
no sign of investigating the "highest circles of power."
The international court, he
said, is mandated to go after high-level offenders.
Some 50 names of suspects were
handed over to the international court by the U.N. The names remain
secret, but the U.N. has separately imposed sanctions on four individuals
suspected of war crimes: a high-ranking government official, a general,
a militia chief and one rebel leader.
China offers aid for 'peaceful resolution' of Darfur conflict
Mohammed Ali Saeed, Agence
France Presse, 2/2/07
Chinese President Hu Jintao
offered Sudan assistance for the peaceful resolution of the Darfur conflict
Friday but ignored Western pressure to make future aid conditional on
the progress made.
"The African Union and
the United Nations must play a constructive role in upholding peace
in Darfur, advancing regional stability and improving the living conditions
of the people," Hu told Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Beshir, according
to the website of state-run China Radio International.
"The Chinese side appreciates
the efforts by the Sudanese government, the African Union, the United
Nations and other concerned nations to resolve the Darfur problem,"
it quoted Hu as telling Beshir in their Khartoum talks.
"In resolving the Darfur
question the following principles should be adhered to -- Sudan's sovereignty
and territorial integrity should be respected and dialogue and consultations
on the basis of equality should be upheld to peacefully resolve the
issue."
Following talks between Hu
and Beshir, China agreed to offer 40 million yuan (5.2 million dollars)
in unspecified aid and materials for the peaceful resolution of the
Darfur question, the radio reported.
The two leaders held "frank,
in-depth and fruitful" and reached "consensus... on major
regional and international issues," China's official Xinhua news
agency said.
The international community,
led by Washington which accuses Khartoum of genocide in Darfur, had
been hoping that Beijing would use its economic muscle to press Khartoum
to accept the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Darfur, where African
Union troops have failed to quell the bloodshed.
But Beshir has consistently
rejected such a move, accusing Western powers of seeking to use the
United Nations as a cover to invade his country and plunder its resources.
Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam
Akol said: "The two sides agreed to support the Addis Ababa agreement,"
referring to the accord calling for a hybrid UN-African Union force
in the troubled western Sudanese region.
Hu said Beijing was pleased
to see that Khartoum had scored "remarkable achievements in national
reconciliation" and had "signed accords with several factions
in the north, east and west, thus promoting social stability."
Khartoum has yet to approve
the final phase of the three-stage plan for UN forces to supplement
the African contingent in Darfur.
More than 200,000 people have
died and 2.5 million fled their homes in Darfur as a result of a four-year-old
war pitting ethnic minority rebels against government troops and their
Arab militia allies.
But China's mild words on Darfur
seem to underscore the Asian giant's no-strings-attached stance on doing
business in Sudan.
China has agreed to give Sudan
an interest-free loan of 100 million yuan (12.8 million dollars), Finance
Minister Al-Zubair Ahmed Hassan told reporters.
Beijing also pledged increased
cooperation in telecommunications, irrigation, energy and infrastructure,
and promised to explore stepping up assistance in human resources, vocational
training and health, Xinhua said.
"We are now officially
economic partners," Beshir said before heading into his talks with
Hu.
The agreements will further
boost two-way trade that reached 2.9 billion dollars in the first 11
months of 2006.
China's energy-hungry economy
-- the fourth largest in the world -- is badly in need of resources
from Sudan and other African countries.
No other country has more clout
on the Khartoum government than China, which takes 60 percent of Sudan's
total oil output and has repeatedly used its UN Security Council veto
power to block further sanctions on the regime.
The China National Petroleum
Corporation has huge stakes in Sudan's oil industry, producing around
500,000 barrels per day. China is also building a dam on the Nile, which
is currently Africa's largest hydro-electric project.
Hu received a warm welcome
Thursday in Liberia, the second leg of his African tour after Cameroon.
Emphasising its commitment
to Africa, China said this week it would write off debts owed by 33
African countries as part of a multi-billion-dollar pledge made last
year.
Hu is due in Zambia on Saturday.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal
Analysis
Click here to access the Report
prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.