PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Thursday, February 15, 2007
(Volume VI, Number 2)
Contents:
Burundi
Burundi’s
ruling party elects new leader, unseats
Radjabu
The new leader, Jeremy Ngendakumana,
promised "to be the eyes and ears of the president and of all the party
members.”
Chechnya
Kidnappings and attacks down in Chechnya in 2006:
prosecutor
NGO that monitors disappearances in Chechnya disputed the
figures.
Russian Official Says Insurgency In Chechnya Has Been Tamed
Defense minister Ivanov said ''the problem has been solved.”
Democratic
Republic of
Congo
134 dead in DRCongo unrest:
UN
The clashes followed allegations that the
recent first-round election of Bas Congo's governor was
rigged.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation.
Georgia
Breakaway Georgian region cuts contacts with Tiblisi government after
kidnapping
Separatist President says that Abkhazia will not hold any dialogue with
Georgia until abductees are released.
Indonesia
Ex-rebel inaugurated as governor of Indonesia's Aceh
The inauguration has been hailed as a positive move.
Aceh Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation.
Ivory
Coast
Rebel leader in Burkina Faso for talks to
end peace stalemate
Parties arrived to prepare for the direct talks aimed at unlocking the blocked peace process.
Kashmir
Indian police use tear gas on separatist
Kashmir protesters
Demonstrations marked the 1984 execution
of a pro-independence leader.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation Click here
to access the
Kashmir
Negotiation
Simulation.
Kosovo
U.N. mediator postpones talks on Kosovo
plan by a week after Serb request
Serbia requested more time to allow for a
parliament to be formed in Belgrade.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation.
Nepal
Nepal Maoist chief wants monarchy's
end
Prachanda claims that the king has been stirring up ethnic unrest in order to derail the peace process.
U.N. says first stage of disarming communist rebels to be complete this week
However violent protests across southern Nepal over the past three weeks have delayed the process.
Somalia
Diplomats stress need for all-inclusive talks
on the future of Somalia
Specifically, talks should include
prominent Somali warlords, leaders of the breakaway Somaliland region and
leaders of the ousted Islamic movement.
Somali prime minister says leaders of ousted Islamic movement will face justice
Meanwhile, Somalis vacated homes near government buildings fearing more attacks.
Sri
Lanka
Sri Lanka military: 2 Tamil Tiger rebels killed in clashes with army
Northeast of Columbo, Tigers attacked army troops on a foot patrol Saturday
and the soldiers retaliated.
Sri Lankan navy destroys rebel boat, captures another
Defense Ministry says that the Navy recovered several weapons and a map.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation.
Sudan
UN
Security Council frustrated and skeptical at Sudanese leader's failure to give
green light to peacekeeping force in Darfur
Secretary-General Ban said he is still waiting for "a positive and clear agreement" from the Sudanese government to pave the way for deployment of the "hybrid" force.
Envoys in Sudan in new Darfur peace bid
U.N. and A.U. representatives head to Darfur to try to win over rebel groups that did not sign the May 2006 peace agreement.
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's ruling party elects new leader, unseats Radjabu
Agence France Presse, 2/7/07
Burundi's ruling party voted at a meeting here on Wednesday to throw out its embattled leader Hussein Radjabu, who was not present, electing colonel Jeremy Ngendakumana to take his place.
Ngendakumana, the Burundian ambassador to Kenya, was elected with 1,060 votes out of 1,075 party representatives who partook in the show of hands at a high school in Ngozy, 130 kilometers (81 miles) north of Bujumbura.
Known as a "man of dialogue" and rumoured to be very close to Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza, Ngendakumana beat another colonel, Gelase Ndaberabe, in the race.
The new leader of the ruling National Council for the Defence of Democracy-Front for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) promised "to be the eyes and ears of the president and of all the party members."
"We will always tell him (Nkurunziza) the truth, if things are going badly or if things are going well, without ever overstepping his authority," he said.
Radjabu, who until recently was the party's all-powerful leader, did not attend the Ngozy meeting, insisting it was "illegal" and calling on party members not to attend.
Tensions have risen in Burundi since last month when a serious crisis within the CNDD-FDD threatened to set off clashes in the small central African nation, which is still struggling to emerge from 13 years of civil war.
Radjabu has been criticized for his arrogance and his strong-fisted leadership, and party leaders have accused him of committing recent "errors" of government.
Diplomatic sources in Bujumbura also said "President Nkurunziza (wanted) to get rid of Hussein Radjabu, who was casting a shadow over him".
"This meeting has created hope across the entire country and all Burundians are happy with what has just happened," Nkurunziza said at the meeting, insisting that the country had taken "a step in the right direction".
He admitted however that Radjabu was much to thank for the CNDD-FDD win in Burundi's general elections in 2005.
"While he has committed errors, he has also done a lot of good," Nkurunziza said.
Kidnappings and attacks down in Chechnya in 2006: prosecutor
Agence France Presse, 2/9/07
The number of attacks and abductions in Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya dropped greatly last year, the local prosecutor said Friday, in figures contested by a human rights group.
"The number of attacks fell by 58.9 percent (39 cases in 2006 against 95 in 2005), kidnapping cases by 63.7 percent (61 cases in 2006 against 168 in 2005)", Chechnya prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.
The number of attacks against security services also dropped over the year to 166 from 229 the year before, he said.
The non-governmental organisation Memorial, which monitors disappearances in Chechnya, disputed the figures, while acknowledging "a declining trend".
"The prosecutor's office is talking about crimes that have been registered. The question is to know how many complaints are registered," Alexander Cherkasov, a spokesman for Memorial, said.
Memorial said it had registered 184 abductions in 2006 of which 91 people were freed, some thanks to a ransom, 11 found dead, 63 listed as missing and 19 still in captivity.
It said in 2005, 320 people were kidnapped, of which 154 were freed, 24 killed, 127 listed as missing and 15 in captivity.
"The police are very reluctant to accept abduction complaints, especially when members of the security services are implicated," Cherkasov said.
He said that once abduction victims were freed, the prosecutor would immediately close the probe, instead of letting it run its course.
The mainly Muslim province in the Caucasus mountains has experienced military conflict for most of the last 12 years, although the Kremlin claims to have normalised the situation.
Russian Official Says Insurgency In Chechnya Has Been Tamed
C.J. Chivers, New York Times, 2/12/07
Russia's defense minister said Sunday that Russia had succeeded in its latest war in Chechnya, defeating separatists and what he called their ''emissaries from 50 states.''
''We have scored a success in Chechnya,'' said the defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov. ''The problem has been solved.''
Mr. Ivanov, speaking before an international audience of defense officials and diplomats at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, underscored the Kremlin's confidence that the second war in Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union had largely ended, and that the separatists' ranks had been shrunk by military operations and offers of amnesty.
The second Chechnya war began late in 1999. There has been a sharp turn in Russia's favor since late 2004, and the insurgents have not conducted a large-scale guerrilla operation since 2005 or a major terrorist attack since the seizure of a public school in the autumn of 2004.
The military situation in Chechnya contrasts sharply with that of the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq, where American forces are struggling against growing insurgencies.
Attacks still occur in and near Chechnya, and an insurgency persists, mixing militant Islam, separatism and local vengeance codes.
But the pace of fighting is much slower than it was two years ago, and many of the insurgency's principal leaders -- including Shamil Basayev, the terrorist leader -- have been killed since 2005.
The turnaround has defied predictions from many analysts and critics of Russia, who believed that its army was hopelessly bogged down and that its rough and often indiscriminate tactics were creating more insurgents than were killed.
Russia has also found strong indigenous forces to serve as local proxies to do much of the continued fighting. These military allies, criticized by human rights organizations as corrupt and ruthlessly brutal, are now largely in control of the region's government.
Mr. Ivanov drew a distinction between Chechnya and the wars that the United States is fighting. He noted, for example, that Chechnya ''is a small territory compared to Afghanistan or Iraq.''
Mr. Ivanov is viewed as a possible successor to President Vladimir V. Putin, whose second term ends next year.
134 dead in DRCongo unrest: UN
Agence France Presse, 2/7/07
Violence last week in Bas Congo province in western DR Congo left 134 people dead, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
"We estimate at around 134 the number of lives lost in these clashes," Didier Rancher, a military spokesman for the UN mission said of the clashes between security services and members of the Bunda dia Kongo (BDK) religious movement.
"It is a real tragedy and we hope that light will be cast on these incidents," Rancher added. He said 300 UN peacekeepers had been deployed in the area.
The official toll at the central African country's interior ministry is 87 dead, including 10 from the security services.
The clashes began last Wednesday and followed allegations by the Bunda dia Kongo that the recent first-round election of Bas Congo's governor -- a candidate close to victorious presidential candidate Joseph Kabila -- was rigged.
The interior ministry has acknowledged wanting to nip in the bud what it saw as an attempt to paralyse the province, home to the country's biggest port.
Another spokesman, Jean-Tobie Okala said a UN team had been sent to evaluate the security and humanitarian needs in the area, especially in hospitals where casualties of the clashes were being treated for bullet wounds.
UN human rights officials had also been sent to investigate the clashes.
The 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.
Jean-Pierre 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.
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.
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.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
Breakaway Georgian region cuts contacts with Tiblisi government after kidnapping
Associated Press, 2/9/07
The breakaway region of Abkhazia severed all contacts with the Georgian central government Friday, its leader said, following the abduction of a local elections chief that Abkhazia blamed on Georgian forces.
"Abkhazia will not hold any dialogue with Georgia" until the election official and another alleged abductee are released, separatist President Sergei Bagapsh said.
His spokesman, Kristian Bzhaniya, said the election official, David Sigua, was seized by armed men in the Gali district on Feb. 3. He said a village chief, Bargebi Fridon, was also abducted.
"On the eve of local and parliamentary elections, Georgian special forces are involved in stoking tensions and creating an atmosphere of fear in the Gali region," Bzhaniya said. "Therefore no contacts will be possible until the abducted people are returned."
Georgian officials have accused separatists of staging the abduction to discredit the Georgian government and incite tensions ahead of local elections later this month and parliamentary elections in March.
The Gali district is controlled by Abkhazian authorities but is largely populated by ethnic Georgians.
Abkhazia and another separatist region, South Ossetia, both broke from Georgia during wars in the early 1990s. They have run their own affairs since then without international recognition, cultivating close ties with Russia, which deployed peacekeepers to both regions.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has vowed to bring both regions under central government control.
Ex-rebel inaugurated as governor of Indonesia's Aceh
Agence France Presse, 2/8/07
A former rebel jailed by Jakarta was Thursday inaugurated as governor of the Indonesian province of Aceh after winning a landslide victory in the first direct elections for the post.
Irwandi Yusuf, a former spokesman for the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), took 38 percent of the December 11 vote, with his nearest rivals on less than 17 percent.
The elections were seen as consolidating a peace accord signed between the rebels and Indonesian government in August 2005 to end decades of bloodshed.
Yusuf was jailed in 2003 for rebellion and eventually fled when the tsunami struck on December 26, 2004, flooding his prison.
The giant waves killed more than 168,000 people in Aceh and compelled the rebels and the Indonesian government to reassess their priorities after the long-running conflict.
Home Affairs Minister Mohammad Ma'ruf installed Yusuf and his running mate Muhammad Nazar as Aceh's governor and deputy governor in the provincial parliament.
"I express my respect to the Aceh parliament for their success in organising this election," the minister said, adding the polls could be a model for other regions.
"I also congratulate the people of Aceh for participating in the elections," Ma'ruf said to journalists after the event.
The US embassy hailed their inauguration as a positive move.
"The inauguration of Irwandi Yusuf as governor and Muhammad Nazar as deputy governor of Aceh is a positive step forward in Indonesia's democratic development and in the Aceh peace process," the embassy said in a statement.
"We welcome the fact that all sides have taken a constructive approach to the election and have publicly committed to working together to develop the province and continue the peace process."
Election observers had said the polls for governor and deputy -- previously directly appointed by Jakarta -- and district heads were peaceful and transparent, with turnout a high 85 percent.
A number of cabinet ministers, governors and ambassadors from the European Union, Finland, Germany and Portugal attended the inauguration, which was closed to journalists.
Hundreds of people crowded around three large televisions in a nearby park to follow the inauguration, which was relayed live across the province from the parliament building.
Thousands of people, mostly supporters of Yusuf and Nazar, on Wednesday night gathered in the park to pray for peace in the province, the state-run Antara news agency said.
Under the peace deal signed in Helsinki, GAM rebels laid down their weapons and Jakarta withdrew non-local troops and police from the province at the northern tip of Sumatra, and granted an amnesty to rebels and political prisoners.
In return for GAM dropping its call for independence, Jakarta granted the resource-rich region greater autonomy and allowed the establishment of local political parties, a first for Indonesia.
Indonesian politics has traditionally been locked to national Jakarta-based parties, which are seen as failing to reflect the aspirations of regions with strong local identities such as Papua, North Sulawesi and Bali.
Rebel leader in Burkina Faso for talks to end peace stalemate
Agence France Presse, 2/7/07
Ivory Coast rebel leader Guillaume Soro arrived in nearby Burkina Faso Wednesday for talks with a newly appointed regional mediator to the Ivorian crisis, a top rebel official said.
Soro, whose rebels seized the northern part of Ivory Coast in 2002 after a mutiny failed to remove President Laurent Gbagbo from power, was scheduled to meet Burkina President Blaise Compaore Wednesday evening, Sidiki Konate, director of the rebel cabinet told AFP.
Compaore was assigned by west African leaders under the tutelage of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to facilitate face-to-face talks between Soro and Gbagbo.
Senior Ivory Coast government and rebels envoys are this week in the Burkina Faso capital preparing for the direct talks and on Wednesday submitted to Compaore their written proposals aimed at unlocking the blocked peace process.
"Compaore studied our proposals. There is no stumbling block or difference, all is going well for the moment," said Konate after a meeting between the representatives and the mediator.
The registration of millions of undocumented Ivorians and the listing of voters for elections, which have been postponed twice in as many years, feature high on the proposals formulated by the delegations, according to Burkina Faso government sources.
The 15-nation ECOWAS last month asked Compaore to take over mediating in the four-year-long crisis that has left the once-upon-a-time oasis of stability in west Africa divided into a rebel-held north and a government-ruled south.
Efforts to end the crisis and reunite the country have so far not made much progress.
The UN has deployed more than 8,000 peacekeepers backed by 3,500 troops from the former colonial ruler France, to patrol the ceasefire lines and keep the two sides apart.
A UN-backed transitional government led by ex-banker Charles Konan Banny was formed with tasks of disarming armed groups and organising voter registration for planned elections and national reunification.
But these have been blocked for more than two years, with each side accusing the other of creating obstacles in this world's largest cocoa producer and former economic hub of the region.
Indian police use tear gas on separatist Kashmir protesters
Aijaj Hussain, Associated Press, 2/11/07
Police fired tear gas at Islamic separatists marching in India's portion of Kashmir on Sunday to mark the 1984 execution of a pro-independence leader, police and protesters said.
Protesters threw rocks at the police officers during the demonstrations in Srinagar, the main city of Jammu-Kashmir state, compelling the officers to fire tear gas to quell the violence, said S. K. Yadav, a Central Reserve Police Force official.
At least six police officers were injured in the resulting clashes, Yadav said.
Altaf Khan, a spokesman for the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front one of the groups marching on Sunday denied the protesters started the violence.
"We were leading a peaceful demonstration demanding the mortal remains of our founder leader back. Security forces resorted to baton charges and fired tear gas," Khan said.
The protesters chanted "We want freedom" and "Down with Indian security forces" as they marched in three groups through Srinagar.
Shops and businesses were closed and traffic was sparse across the state on Sunday after the JKLF and other separatist groups called a general strike to demand that Mabool Bhat's remains, interred in New Delhi's high security Tihar Jail, be returned to his family for a proper burial.
The family's requests for the remains have been repeatedly refused by the Indian government.
Bhat, the JKLF's founder, was hanged in a New Delhi prison in 1984 after an Indian court convicted him of conspiring to kill Ravindra Mhatre, an Indian diplomat in the British city of Birmingham.
Sunday's demonstrations were held by the JKLF and the Democratic Liberation Party, which plastered posters across Srinagar with Bhat's pictures and the words, "Give us the remains of martyr Bhat."
The JKLF was a key militant outfit until it renounced violence in 1994 and became a political group.
Separatist rebels have been fighting since 1989 for the Muslim-majority state's independence from predominantly Hindu India, or its merger with Islamic Pakistan. More than 68,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the conflict.
Kashmir is split between the two rival neighbors, who both claim the entire territory. They have fought two wars over Kashmir since their independence from Britain in 1947.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
U.N. mediator postpones talks on Kosovo plan by a week after Serb request
Garentina Kraja, Associated Press, 2/9/07
Negotiations over a United Nations plan for Kosovo were postponed Friday for one week, after Serbia requested more time to allow for a parliament to be formed in Belgrade, a U.N. mediator said.
Albert Rohan said chief U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari agreed to reschedule the talks for Feb. 21, after receiving a formal request from Serbian President Boris Tadic. The negotiations had initially been planned for Feb. 13.
Under the plan Ahtisaari unveiled last week, Kosovo would be granted internationally supervised statehood. The plan was endorsed by key ethnic Albanian leaders and rejected by Serbian officials.
Rohan said that although the start of the talks would be delayed, he still aimed to have discussions concluded by early March. Ahtisaari plans to submit his proposal next month to the U.N. Security Council, which will have the final say over Kosovo's future.
"We want to give both parties the opportunity, after having presented this proposal, to have a say, to put their positions forward," Rohan said. "Therefore we asked for understanding to the (ethnic Albanian leaders) that we want to give the Serbian side a chance to come to Vienna."
Meanwhile, in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, Ahtisaari said it was "very difficult" to imagine a negotiated solution for Kosovo's status, and that time would not solve the problem.
"I'm afraid that the U.N. Security Council will have to decide, since the views of the parties are diametrically opposed," he was quoted as saying from New York. "Time will not resolve this question. Even if I negotiate all my life, they will not reach agreement."
While negotiators had made progress on questions of protecting religious sites and guarantees for Kosovo's Serbs, Ahtisaari said that on the central question of Kosovo's status, "there is nothing I can do."
His comments seemed to lower expectations that a mutually accepted agreement would be reached and to lay the groundwork for an imposed solution by the U.N. Security Council.
Underscoring deep divisions between Russia and the West over Kosovo, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov issued a strong warning Friday that granting independence to Kosovo could spark a "chain reaction" among other breakaway regions in Europe and the former Soviet Union.
"If we imagine a situation where Kosovo achieves independence, then other people, people living in regions that are not recognized, will ask us: "Are we not as good as them?" Ivanov told reporters.
"This concerns obviously the post-Soviet space, but also regions in Europe," he said. "This can create a chain reaction ... we must be careful not to open Pandora's box."
Kosovo has been administered by the U.N. since NATO airstrikes in 1999 ended a Serb crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians. The province's ethnic Albanian majority wants full independence, but minority Serbs and the Serb government want Belgrade to retain some control.
Rohan said Tadic assured the mediators that a Serbian delegation would go to the talks once parliament was constituted and authorized a delegation. Serbia held parliamentary elections on Jan. 21, and politicians are in the midst of negotiations to form a new government.
Kosovo's President Fatmir Sejdiu said he expected the next phase of talks to make up for the delay.
"We have said that any delay does not produce positive effects, but for us it's important to stand ready to continue the process," Sejdiu said.
Rohan, a deputy to Ahtisaari, spoke at a news conference in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, where he met with ethnic Albanian leaders to discuss the plan.
The U.N. plan does not explicitly mention independence from Serbia, but spells out conditions for self-rule complete with a flag, anthem, army and constitution and the right to apply for membership in international organizations. Kosovo's Serb minority would have a high degree of control over their own affairs.
In the northern, Serb-dominated part of the province, about 5,000 Serbs held a protest rally in the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica.
"No To Independent Kosovo", "Kosovo is Soul of Serbia", "No to Anti-Serb Plan" read some of the banners, while Serbian leaders announced another protest for Feb. 27 in front of the U.S. Embassy in Serbia's capital Belgrade.
Kosovo's Serb hardline leader Milan Ivanovic said that if Kosovo becomes independent "then Serbs should have the right to self-determination all over the region."
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
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here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
Nepal Maoist chief wants monarchy's end
Sam Taylor, Agence France Presse. 2/7/07
The leader of Nepal's Maoists called Wednesday for the immediate abolition of the country's monarchy, accusing King Gyanendra of trying to undermine a peace deal that threatens his throne.
"He has not got enough power to control the country again, but he has the power to create problems," Prachanda, whose nom-de-guerre means "the fierce one", told AFP in an interview.
"We are proposing that we have to take steps to declare a republic right away," said the Maoist leader.
Under a peace deal between the government and former rebels late last year, the future of the 238-year-old monarchy is supposed to be decided by a constitutional body set to be elected this year.
But according to Prachanda, the embattled king has been stirring up ethnic unrest in the southeast in a bid to derail a peace process which has already stripped the king of most of his powers.
"He has influence inside the army, inside the bureaucracy. He has influence inside the police force and he has influence in some sections of people, mainly Hindu fundamentalists," said the 53-year-old rebel leader.
"The king is trying to create problems by stirring the Mahadhesi movement because he knows that he has no relevance," said Prachanda, whose real name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
At least 19 people have been killed in several weeks of unrest in the impoverished Terai region, which is dominated by the marginalised Mahadhesi community.
The protests flared after a Maoist cadre shot and killed a Mahadhesi protester, an incident described by Prachanda as a "serious mistake."
"We have to address the genuine demands of the masses but we have to isolate those regressive elements and Hindu fundamentalists. We also appeal to the masses to be cautious," said the teacher-turned-revolutionary.
Since King Gyanendra ended a 14-month period of direct control last April, the reinstated parliament has stripped him of most of his powers, including his position as head of the army.
Parliament now swears allegiance to the prime minister, and the central bank has said that they plan to remove the royal image from all banknotes.
However, despite the sidelining of the monarch, he still has influence in the nation where he is revered by devout Hindus as an incarnation of Vishnu, the god of protection.
The rebels have said that they will abide by the results of the constituent assembly election, due to be held by June, and Prachandra said that civil war will not restart if a majority of people vote to retain any form of monarchy.
"We won't return to war but we will stage peaceful demonstrations appealing to the people that they made a mistake," said Prachanda.
He also pledged to cooperate with any probe into human rights abuses during Nepal's civil war, which left at least 13,000 people dead.
"We will investigate these kinds of cases -- not just ours, but all cases during the 10-year people's war. We have also agreed to take action, but we have not finalised what sort of action that might be," he said.
As part of the peace accord, the Maoists have begun to place their weapons and army under UN monitoring. They have been granted 83 seats in a new 330-seat interim parliament, but a government containing the former rebels has yet to be formed.
U.N. says first stage of disarming communist rebels to be complete this week
Binaj Gurubacharya, Associated Press, 2/12/07
U.N. weapons monitors expect to complete the first phase of disarming thousands of former rebels in Nepal's Maoist insurgency by the end of this week, a senior U.N. official said on Monday.
Disarmament has been a key condition by the ruling political parties before the Maoists who ended their decade-old insurgency last year can join an interim administration ahead of crucial July elections.
Violent protests across southern Nepal over the past three weeks, however, have kept U.N. experts from carrying out their work, said Ian Martin, the top U.N. official in Nepal.
Last week, the government reached a compromise with the southern protesters, bringing an end to the violence, and Martin said the disarming process was back on track.
"We have developed plans which should allow us to complete, by the end of this week, the registration of all weapons as well as the first stage of the registration of combatants," Martin said.
Thousands of former rebels fighters are being kept at seven main camps and 21 satellite camps across Nepal with their weapons locked up under U.N. supervision. The weapons are in the seven main camps only.
Martin, however, said some of the government-run camps lacked basic facilities such as electricity and running water and that conditions needed to be improved.
Closed-circuit television would be installed in the seven main camps to keep an eye on the weapons, he said.
Home Minister Krishna Sitaula acknowledged there were problems in managing the camps but insisted the government was making an effort to improve the situation.
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
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here to access the Nepal Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
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Somalia
Diplomats stress need for all-inclusive talks on the future of Somalia
Khalfan Said, Associated Press, 2/9/07
Diplomats attempting to broker peace in Somalia on Friday emphasized the need for all-inclusive talks on the country's future to ensure national stability and support for its transitional government.
Talks should include prominent Somali warlords, leaders of the breakaway Somaliland region and leaders of the ousted Islamic movement, Tanzania's Foreign Minister Bernard Membe said during a meeting in Dar es Salaam of the International Contact Group on Somalia.
European, African, Arab and U.S. diplomats concluded the meeting with a statement calling on the international community to provide urgent support to countries which have pledged troops to an African peacekeeping mission to Somalia, so they can deploy troops quickly.
Membe told journalists Tanzania had offered to train 1,000 Somali soldiers in coming weeks to prepare them to take over from a future African peacekeeping mission.
Jendayi Frazer, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Africa, said her country and others would work towards ensuring as many groups as possible agreed to, and participated in, all-inclusive talks.
Efforts to stabilize Somalia have taken on added urgency since December, when a government offensive backed by Ethiopian forces routed the radical Islamic movement that had taken control of much of Somalia's south.
The African Union has appealed for 8,000 peacekeepers for a mission to Somalia to prevent a return to violence as Ethiopian troops withdraw, but so far it has received pledges for only half that number.
Ethiopia says it cannot keep its forces in the country for much longer, and has already began pulling some forces out.
Membe called on Somalia's two-year-old transitional government to "establish broad-based and representative institutions and an all-inclusive political process as envisaged in the federal charter," Membe told the meeting.
He said the international community should not allow Somalia to slide back into the anarchy seen in the past 16 years, since the 1991 overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre by warlords.
In the past month, however, violence has risen in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, with daily mortar attacks reported, but so far few casualties.
The government "needs to be strengthened and given capacity to address the common problems of the Somali people," Membe said.
U.S. President George W. Bush plans to raise money for Somalia, in addition to the US$40 million (euro31 million) already pledged by the U.S. in political, humanitarian and peacekeeping assistance to the country, according to Frazer.
"Security in Mogadishu is key to stability in Somalia and the Horn of Africa in general," she said.
About 600 supporters of Somalia's Islamic movement held a rally Friday in Mogadishu to protest plans to send peacekeepers to Somalia, the presence of Ethiopian forces in the country and what they said was American support for the Ethiopians.
They burnt American and Ethiopian flags, and one masked man told the rally that Ethiopian soldiers would be attacked in their hotels.
The masked man, who gave his name as only Abdirisaq, claimed that he spoke on behalf of a group called Popular Resistance Movement in the Land of the Two Migrations, which he said was responsible for attacks on Somali government buildings and Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu.
His group has previously warned African peacekeepers from entering Somalia in a video tape posted on the official Web site of the radical group, the Council of Islamic Courts.
The protesters chanted "Down with America, Down with Ethiopia," and "We want Islamic courts back, they brought peace and security." They also carried banners denouncing the proposed AU peacekeepers to Somalia.
"We will not allow our people to be slaughtered," read one placard, in reference to the bitter memory Mogadishu residents have of a U.N. peacekeeping mission that failed in the early 1990s, when Mogadishu saw a lot of violence.
Some of the women protesters wore white bands, inscribed with the words "God is Great," wrapped around their heads. Some young men wore red turbans.
The rally was held in the northeastern Hurwa district of Mogadishu, which is considered a hotbed of support for the Islamists.
Somali prime minister says leaders of ousted Islamic movement will face justice
Tom Maliti, Associated Press, 2/13/07
Leaders of the country's ousted Islamic movement will eventually face justice for their opposition to the government, Somalia's premier said Tuesday, as Somalis vacated homes near government buildings fearing more attacks.
Hundreds of residents of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, fled their homes, a day after some of the worst violence there since the government moved into the city in December.
Monday's shelling and gunfire attacks which hit homes as well as the presidential residence, a radio station and a police station killed a 6-year-old boy and his father as they slept, and wounded at least seven people. Somalia's government moved into Mogadishu in December when its troops, with the help of soldiers from neighboring Ethiopia, drove out a radical Islamic militia known as the Council of Islamic Courts.
The Islamic movement, which still has support in Mogadishu, has vowed to wage an Iraq-style insurgency, and there have been regular attacks in the capital over the past month.
In Kenya, Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said the government was willing to talk to all Somalis in its reconciliation efforts, except those on a terrorist list but he did not specify which particular list. The U.S. has accused members of Somalia's Islamic movement of being responsible for the bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998.
The group has denied the allegations.
When asked whether the government would talk with moderate leaders of Somalia's ousted Islamic movement, Gedi only said the group's leaders are not innocent.
Diplomats have pressed the Somali government to reach out to moderate elements of the Islamic movement to help stabilize Somalia.
"We believe that they are not innocent. One day or another they will be brought to justice," Gedi told journalists in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. He did not elaborate or offer any other details.
The government, through its national reconciliation commission, is consulting with different communities and people across the country on a national reconciliation conference, Gedi said. Those being consulted will select delegates to a conference aiming to heal the wounds of 16 years of conflict in Somalia, he said.
Somalia has not had an effective national government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another, throwing the country into anarchy. The transitional government was formed in 2004 with U.N. help, but until December was confined to the farming town of Baidoa.
Residents of Mogadishu on Tuesday vacated their homes near the airport, seaport, presidential residence or any military or police base in the city.
On Friday, the Popular Resistance Movement in the Land of the Two Migrations claimed responsibility for the attacks on Somali government buildings and Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu.
"For the last two weeks a day hardly passes without shelling and heavy gunfire pounding our residential areas, so I do not want to wait for death in my dangerous house," said Halima Hashi Dahir, a southern Mogadishu resident, whose house is next to an Ethiopian military camp.
Aden Hassan Abayle, a father of seven who was moving his family, told The Associated Press: "They are shelling indiscriminately so we cannot stay here. I want to move my family to a safer place."
Gedi said his government will release information on people suspected to have fought with the Islamic movement and then seized in Kenya and deported to Somalia. He said the government was allowing "interested agencies" to talk with the detainees, who are all in government custody.
Over the weekend, Kenya deported as many as 20 people, including Americans, Britons and Kenyans, believed to have fought alongside Somalia's Islamic movement.
Sri Lanka military: 2 Tamil Tiger rebels killed in clashes with army
Associated Press, 2/11/07
Sri Lankan troops clashed with separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, leaving two of the guerrillas dead in the country's volatile north, the military said Sunday.
The Tigers attacked army troops on a foot patrol Saturday in Welioya, about 255 kilometers (160 miles) northeast of the capital, Colombo, said senior Defense Ministry official Lt. Col. Upali Rajapakse.
The soldiers retaliated and two insurgents were killed in the fight, Rajapakse said.
Separately suspected Tamil Tigers shot and killed an ethnic Sinhalese civilian in the northern town of Vavuniya on Sunday, police said.
Police officer G. M. Dharmadasa said the victim, 54-year-old Nawagamage Munidasa, was a taxi driver and that his body was recovered from his vehicle Sunday afternoon.
There was no immediate comment from the rebels.
The Tigers have fought government troops since 1983 in an attempt to create an independent homeland for minority ethnic Tamils after decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese.
The fighting has killed more than 68,000 people, including about 3,600 fighters and civilians who died after violence began escalating in late 2005 despite a cease-fire brokered by Norway in 2002.
Sri Lankan navy destroys rebel boat, captures another
Agence France Presse, 1/12/07
Sri Lanka's navy destroyed a Tamil Tiger boat off the eastern coastal town of Trincomalee Monday, while air force jets pounded suspected rebel positions in the north, the defence ministry said.
A naval patrol cruising towards the southern part of Sri Lanka along the eastern shoreline detected two Sea Tiger boats, Navy spokesman Commander D. P. K. Dassanayake said, adding one was destroyed and the other disabled and captured in subsequent fighting.
The navy recovered two bodies, including one female Tiger rebel, after the attack, he said, adding several weapons and a map were also recovered.
Each boat was manned by about four people, but the fate of the other rebels was unknown, Dassanayake said.
Israeli-built Kfir jets also bombed suspected Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) targets in Mullaittivu in the north, a military official said.
The rebels however said six air force Kfirs dropped "several" bombs over a civilian settlement in the area.
"Panicked school children ran out of their classrooms," the LTTE peace secretariat website said.
Elsewhere, in the Kilali lagoon in the northern Jaffna peninsula, three soldiers were killed and one wounded when suspected rebels launched a mortar attack on government troops.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's National Bhikku Front, an organisation of Buddhist monks, launched a fasting campaign Monday in Colombo demanding the government scrap the Norwegian-backed February 22, 2002 ceasefire agreement.
The protesting monks are threatening to continue their fast until the ceasefire agreement is cancelled. The Marxist JVP, a main opposition party, is also demanding that the truce pact be called off.
The two parties are convinced that if the ceasefire reaches five years without being formally renounced by the government, the Tamil Tigers -- classed by many foreign governments as terrorists -- would gain international recognition.
More than 60,000 people have died in the 35-year-old ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, where the LTTE is fighting for a separate state for minority Tamils.
Fighting has escalated between troops and Tamil Tigers in the past year, killing more than 3,800 people, despite a truce that has been in place since February 2002.
Both sides claim they are still adhering to the truce.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
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UN Security Council frustrated and skeptical at Sudanese leader's failure to give green light to peacekeeping force in Darfur
Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press, 2/7/07
Security Council members expressed frustration and skepticism at Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's failure to give a green light to a joint United Nations-African Union force to help bring peace to conflict-wracked Darfur.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who met the Sudanese leader last month, told reporters Tuesday after briefing the council on his trip to Africa and Europe that he is still waiting for "a positive and clear agreement" from the Sudanese government to pave the way for deployment of the "hybrid" force.
Indicating his own frustration, Ban told the council it was urgent to obtaining a cessation of hostilities and reinvigorate the peace process. Unacceptable delays are preventing help from reaching millions of victims, and slow progress is not tolerable, the secretary-general said, according to U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas.
Sudanese officials agreed in November on a three-phase U.N. package to help end the escalating violence in Darfur that culminates with the deployment of a 22,000-strong AU-UN force. But al-Bashir said last month that U.N. troops were not required in Darfur because the 7,000-strong African Union force on the ground could maintain order.
Acting U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said Tuesday the secretary-general told the council during the closed-door briefing that al-Bashir may still have questions that he wants answered.
"I think we certainly are frustrated," Wolff said. "I think there's a sense of frustration and the coalescence within the council that the time is running out and we need to move forward."
Wolff said the United States is going to try to get the secretary-general and the AU to accelerate agreement on the next steps ahead.
Britain's deputy U.N. ambassador Karen Pierce said "there was a lot of skepticism in the council that Bashir was really trying hard to make this work, and the secretary-general said he'd had a number of difficult conversations with Bashir where Bashir had been defensive."
Ban feels that one of the keys is movement on political negotiations, she said.
The Sudanese government and one of the major rebel groups signed a peace agreement in May. But the pact has provoked months of fighting between rival rebel factions that refused to sign.
As part of the effort to re-energize the peace process, the U.N. said Ban's special envoy for Darfur, Jan Eliasson, and the AU's special envoy for Darfur, Salim Ahmed Salim, are heading to Khartoum and Darfur from Feb. 12-17.
Pierce said the timetable appears to be that Eliasson and Salim will go to New York after their mission to report to the secretary-general. Ban will then see AU chief executive Alpha Oumar Konare. After that, the U.N. and AU will draw up a draft proposal that would go to al-Bashir, she said.
"What wasn't clear was whether that means you can still get a U.N. force or elements of a U.N. force in by June" when the mandate for the AU force in Darfur ends, Pierce said.
More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million been chased from their homes in Sudan's remote western region since 2003, when rebels stemming 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, in a conflict that the White House and others have labeled genocide. The government denies these charges.
Panama's U.N. Ambassador Ricardo Arias, a new council member, said the process of negotiating with al-Bashir appears to be getting "more complicated."
"So we don't have any advancements," he said.
Belgium's U.N. Ambassador Johan Verbeke said it is not clear what will happen with Darfur.
"And that is exactly a source of frustration," he said.
China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya briefed the council on the visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to Sudan and other African nations.
China has been under pressure to force Sudan, one of its biggest suppliers of oil, to accept U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur.
Ban told reporters he had been told that Hu had "a very good and successful visit to Sudan."
"It was very encouraging that the Chinese president had engaged in very serious discussions to let the Sudanese government know the urgency and the importance of resolving this issue as soon as possible," he said.
Envoys in Sudan in new Darfur peace bid
Mohamed Hasni, Agence France Presse, 2/12/07
Envoys from the United Nations and African Union began a mission on Monday to revive peace talks in the troubled western Sudanese region of Darfur amid fresh reports of violence.
Jan Eliasson of the United Nations and Salim Ahmed Salim of the African Union met officials in Khartoum before heading to Darfur in a bid to win over rebel groups which did not sign a May 2006 peace deal with the government.
"We will endeavour to broaden the accord to include the non-signatories," Salim told reporters.
The trip comes even as a delegation from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is still waiting in neighbouring Ethiopia for visas to enter the country after Khartoum expressed dissatisfaction with one of the members.
After a meeting with Foreign Minister Lam Akol, Salim underlined the importance of progress in Darfur to put an end to "the suffering of the population which has lasted too long."
Eliasson also stressed the need to end the bloodshed.
"The aim is to reduce violence and to improve the situation on the ground and to mobilise the will for political negotiations," he said.
In a joint statement released after they arrived, the two negotiators said their message to all parties would be the urgent need to end the fighting so that humanitarian operations could address the suffering of the people in the conflict zones.
"The two envoys are hopeful that their talks with all concerned would result in a tangible reduction of violence and preparedness for resumption of serious political dialogue that would pave the way to the all-inclusive political process," said the statement.
The urgency of their mission was underlined by the bombardment of two villages in northern Darfur by Sudanese forces on Sunday, according to the UN, which expressed concern over the violation of the ceasefire.
Six people were also reportedly killed in Darfur's Geneina district when an armed militia attacked a village on Saturday.
The conflict in Darfur began when ethnic minority rebels rose up against the Khartoum regime in February 2003, drawing a scorched earth response from government troops and Arab militia allies.
At least 200,000 people have died from the combined effect of war and famine, while well over two million more have fled their homes, according to UN officials. Other sources put the death toll far higher.
But only the mainstream faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) led by Minni Minnawi signed last year's agreement in the Nigerian capital Abuja and two other groups refused.
About 7,000 AU military observers are stationed in Darfur to try to oversee implementation of the agreement but the under-equipped and cash-strapped force has struggled to patrol a region the size of France.
The UN Security Council called on Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir last July to accept the deployment of 20,000 UN peacekeepers to replace the AU force.
But Beshir has repeatedly rejected the presence of UN troops, accusing the international community of wanting to invade his country and plunder its resources.
In November, the United Nations, the AU and Sudan reached a compromise providing for a mixed AU-UN peacekeeping force.
So far only the first phase of the deployment involving a small number of UN technical experts has been implemented and there is widespread scepticism about Beshir's willingness to follow through.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministry said it will not allow in a UN human rights mission if it includes an unnamed individual known for his "hostility" to Sudan.
"This person is unacceptable for us and he must be replaced before the mission is sent," spokesman Ali Sadeq said.
Khartoum has in the past criticised delegation member Bertrand Ramcharan, former UN deputy high commissioner for human rights, for describing the situation in Darfur as "genocide", according to a diplomatic source in Geneva.
The United Nations says the delegation, which is currently in Addis Ababa, is expected in Khartoum Tuesday and is still waiting for visas for its mission to Darfur and the border areas with Chad and the Central African Republic.
On Wednesday, Washington announced that President George W. Bush had approved plans for wide-ranging financial and other sanctions against Sudan if Khartoum does not follow through on the peacekeeping deal.
Under the plan, slammed by Khartoum as "unjustifiable", the US Treasury would block US commercial bank transactions connected to the Sudan government, including those involving oil revenues.
The package would also put pressure on Darfur rebel leaders who have refused to participate in the peace talks.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis
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here to access the Report prepared by the Public International Law &
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