PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Thursday, March 22, 2007
(Volume VI, Number 6)
Contents:
Armenia
Armenia, Azerbaijan fail to overcome divide in talks;
Armenian FM
However the two ministers did decide to hold a further
meeting in April, which could lead to talks at a presidential
level.
Azerbaijani
soldier killed by Armenian sniper: official
The sniper shooting was in violation of the ceasefire between the
Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Burundi
HRW deplores prison abuses for Burundi
children
The alleged abuses include torture, rape and food
shortages.
Chechnya
Council of Europe says torture still widespread in
Chechnya
The Council’s report criticized Russian for not heeding prior calls for it
to improve the situation.
Chechnya's
Kremlin-backed president accuses federal authorities of torturing
detainees
Kadyrov's comments appeared to be an attempt to boost his popularity and
deflect blame from his paramilitary security force.
Democratic
Republic of
Congo
Guard changes for DR Congo's ex-rebel chiefs
Troops and armored vehicles will provide security for Bemba and Ruberwa, whose rebel movements battled Kinshasa until 2003.
DR Congo team inspects contested border region
The visit follows a meeting between Angolan and DR Congo representatives which agreed the need to establish a common frontier to prevent further territorial disputes.
Rwandan 'rebels' surrender to UN in DR Congo
Rebels claim to have been recruited by a rebel leader in eastern DR Congo.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation.
Georgia
Troublesome neighbors: in Ossetia, local conflict with
global echoes
Geopolitics is
beginning to intrude on the long-time dispute, with Georgia backed by Western
forces and Ossetians by Russia.
Analysis: Georgia woos NATO, angers Russia
EU officials hope Georgia can help guarantee regional security and be reliable energy transit country.
Blast kills border guard in Abkhazia
Explosion believed to have been caused by a mishandled grenade.
Ivory
Coast
Security Council commends peace agreement in Ivory
Coast and urges implementation
The Council’s President lauded Gbagbo and Soro for
creating a "comprehensive and all-inclusive settlement of the crisis through
the organization of credible elections."
Ivory Coast Takes Step to Unify Military Forces
Gbagbo signed a decree on Friday creating a joint military command center, the first step toward unifying government and rebel forces.
Kashmir
Pakistan, India predict watershed year for
peace
Last week, Indian foreign secretary and his Pakistani
counterpart wrapped up two days of talks in Islamabad marking the start of the
fourth round of the three-year-old negotiations.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the
Kashmir
Negotiation
Simulation.
Kosovo
UN plan proposes Kosovo's independence:
PM
Ahtissari’s proposal for the Kosovo status has been
submitted to the UN headquarters in New York.
Serbs refuse Kosovo's independence, recall deadly riots
Kosovo Serbs again say they won’t accept any division of the province from Serbia.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation.
Moldova
Court in separatist Moldovan region sentences bus
bomber to 20 years in prison
A man who blew up a bus in Trans-Dniester last
August, killing 2 and wounding 10, was sentenced to 20 years in
prison.
Nepal
Breakaway Nepal Maoist group kills former rebel
activist
The reason for the killing was unknown.
Philippines
Muslim rebel says 'hawkish' Arroyo officials trying to
sabotage peace talks
Moro Islamic Liberation Front chairman welcomed
President Arroyo's move this week to rein in military units operating in
rebel-held areas of Mindanao island to salvage the talks but said some
officials were undermining these
efforts.
Somalia
U.S. allies in Africa may have engaged in secret prisoner
renditions
Human rights activities claim that network of U.S. allies
in East Africa secretly transferred Somali refugees captured Kenya to prisons
in Somalia and Ethiopia.
Security
Council urges all parties to work toward peace in Somalia amid mortar attack
on government palace
In a press release, the Council expressed concern at, and
deplored, the violence in Mogadishu.
Insurgency
and intrigue could return Somalia to chaos
Diplomats, experts and aid workers fear that unless Prime Minister Gedi
steps down violence will again consume the country.
Sri
Lanka
Sri Lanka says air raids kill eight Tamil Tiger
rebels
An LTTE intelligence leader and a training instructor were
among those killed.
Sri Lanka
seeks foreign help to bring Tigers back to peace talks
Foreign Minister sought international help during a visit to
Washington, where he held talks with Secretary Rice.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation.
Sudan
British
envoy threatens UN sanctions resolution over Darfur
Britain’s
Ambassador was
reacting
to a Beshir letter responding to a UN request to send an advance contingent
of peacekeepers to Darfur as part of a joint AU-UN force of more than 20,000
troops.
In troubled
Darfur, some refugees avoid camps
Because of violence in the refugee camps, some such refugees instead
choose to live in rebel-controlled areas in constant fear of government or
militia attack.
After many
false starts, new US threat of action over Darfur seen as serious
The State Department signalled its readiness to act by announcing that
it would seek a new UN Security Council resolution aimed at forcing the
Sudanese government to allow a UN-led peacekeeping force into
Darfur.
Genocide in Darfur: A
Legal Analysis
Click
here to access the
PILPG
Report.
Peace Negotiations Watch is prepared by the
Public
International Law & Policy Group in cooperation
with American
University and is made possible by a grant from the
Carnegie
Corporation of New York and the
Ploughshares
Fund.
Armenia, Azerbaijan fail to overcome divide in talks;
Armenian FM
Agence France Presse, 3/14/07
Armenia's Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said Wednesday talks with his Azeri
counterpart in Switzerland over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh had
failed to overcome deep differences.
"Although there is clearer understanding of each other's positions, one thing
is evident that there are deep differences," Oskanian said in a statement
after he met Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov in Geneva.
However the two ministers did decide to hold a further meeting in April, which
could lead to talks at a presidential level, the Armenian envoy added.
Nagorno-Karabakh's break from Azerbaijan in 1991 precipitated a full-blown war
between the former Soviet republic and its neighbour Armenia, claiming some
25,000 lives before ending with a ceasefire in 1994.
The region's status remains unsettled, despite years of diplomatic
talks.
Azerbaijani soldier killed by Armenian sniper: official
Agence France Presse, 3/16/07
An Azerbaijani soldier has been killed by an Armenian sniper near the disputed
region of Nagorno-Karabakh, violating a ceasefire between the two ex-Soviet
states, Azerbaijani authorities said Friday.
Private Dilgam Sirinov was killed Thursday by fire from an Armenian sniper on
the territory of the Agdam region, the defence ministry said in a statement.
Armenian forces seized Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan during a war in the
early 1990s that claimed an estimated 35,000 lives and forced about a million
people on both sides to flee their homes.
A ceasefire was signed in 1994, but the two countries have cut direct economic
and transport links and failed to negotiate a settlement on the status of
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenian and Azerbaijani forces are spread across the ceasefire line, often as
little as a few dozen metres apart, and shootings are common.
HRW deplores prison abuses for Burundi children
Agence France Presse, 3/15/07
Children in the tiny African nation of Burundi suffer serious abuses in
prison, including torture, rape and food shortages, in a criminal justice
system that treats them as adults, Human Rights Watch said in a report
released Thursday.
"Children are sometimes tortured to extract confessions, and most have no
access to legal advice or representation," said Alison Des Forges, senior
Africa advisor at the New York-based rights group, in a statement.
"Children are locked up alongside adults in overcrowded and miserable
conditions for months or even years as they await trial."
The 50-page report, based on interviews with more than 100 children as well as
prosecutors and prison staff in 10 of Burundi's 11 prisons, details cases of
physical and sexual abuse of children, food shortages, poor sanitary
conditions, and a lack of education inside prisons.
"Those who are on death row, they threaten us sometimes. They don't hurt us
everyday, but they will hit you," said a testimony from 15-year-old Gaspar N.,
accused of theft, from Ruyigi prison last May.
"The first time, I was in the shower, which was very small, an adult came in.
He just forced himself on me," said another testimony from 17-year-old Adolph
M., also accused of theft, from Gitega prison last May.
At the end of 2006, there were more than 400 children aged between 13 and 18
in Burundi's prisons, the report said.
Burundi's parliament is considering proposed amendments to the law to raise
the age of criminal responsibility from 13 to 15 and provide alternatives to
incarceration for children.
Council of Europe says torture still widespread in
Chechnya
Agence France Presse, 3/13/07
Torture and abuse remain widespread in Chechnya, a Council of Europe report
said on Tuesday, criticising Moscow for not heeding previous calls for it to
improve the situation.
"Resort to torture and other forms of ill-treatment by members of law
enforcement agencies and security forces (in Chechnya) continues, as does the
related practice of unlawful detentions," the body's committee against torture
said, decrying a "climate of impunity" in the war-torn Russian republic.
It said it received allegations of extensive beating, asphyxiation using a
plastic bag or a gas mask, electric shocks, suspension by the limbs and
burning by cigarettes during two visits to Chechnya last year.
Detainees were also threatened with execution or sexual abuse, the committee
said, noting that the ill-treatment alleged was "frequently of such a severity
that it could be considered to amount to torture".
The report said: "The general picture which emerged was that any detained
person who did not promptly confess to the crime of which he was suspected (or
provide information being sought by those responsible for the detention) would
be in imminent danger of being ill-treated."
It added that many detainees said they had been held for some time -- and in
most cases ill-treated -- in locations that were not official detention
facilities, before being transferred to a formal facility or released.
The committee said it felt forced to make public its findings in light of the
Russian authorities' "failure to improve the situation" despite detailed
recommendations following its visits to Chechnya last year.
The Russian authorities had "consistently" refused to engage in a meaningful
way with the committee against torture, which "can only be qualified as a
failure to cooperate", it said.
It added that its suggestions had "received at most a token response and in
many respects have quite simply been ignored".
The committee, which is mandated to carry out unannounced inspections of
prisons, police stations and psychiatric hospitals across the 46 Council of
Europe member states, has previously published its concerns on Chechnya in
2001 and 2003.
Chechnya's Kremlin-backed president accuses federal
authorities of torturing detainees
Musa Sadulayev, Associated Press, 3/16/07
Chechnya's newly installed, Kremlin-backed president accused federal
authorities Friday of torturing detainees, echoing claims that have long been
made by Russian and international rights groups.
Ramzan Kadyrov's comments appeared to be an attempt to boost his popularity
and deflect blame from his paramilitary security force, which has faced
accusations of abductions, torture and other abuses.
Kadyrov said inmates at a detention facility controlled by ORB-2, a unit of
the federal Interior Ministry's southern district, were "systematically
subjected to torture." He said regional prosecutors had opened an
investigation into the situation at the facility in the town of Urus-Martan.
"We must solve the problem, because the torture and humiliation there are a
blatant violation of human rights," Kadyrov said, according to a statement
from his office.
The comments came three days after a European anti-torture committee said
Chechnya was plagued by torture and unlawful detentions and that human rights
violations are rarely investigated.
"It is clear that investigations into cases involving allegations of
ill-treatment or unlawful detention are still rarely carried out," the Council
of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture said in its report
released Tuesday. "This can only contribute to a climate of impunity,"
The report highlighted, among other things, allegations of abuse at the ORB-2
facility.
Roman Shchekotin, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry's southern federal
district, said there would be no official comment on the allegations before
Saturday at the earliest.
Kadyrov, 30, is credited with overseeing a reconstruction boom that he
administered as the region's prime minister. The capital, Grozny, is being
transformed from a moonscape of rubble and shattered buildings.
Kadyrov was tapped to become president earlier this month by Russian President
Vladimir Putin after Putin dismissed Alu Alkhanov, who had warned that Kadyrov
was building a personality cult. The nomination was quickly approved by the
regional legislature.
The reconstruction program has been at the heart of a Kremlin strategy to
crush rebels, but critics say the alleged abuses by Kadyrov's security forces
and by Russian and Chechen police and soldiers severely undermine attempts to
bring order to the North Caucasus region.
Analysts say Putin has entrusted Kadyrov with power in part because he is seen
as the only person who can keep large numbers of former rebels under control.
Many former rebels now serve in the police and security forces.
Kadyrov is the son of Akhmad Kadyrov, the pro-Moscow Chechen president who was
assassinated in 2004.
Two wars in the past dozen years between Russian forces and separatist rebels
who increasingly voiced militant Islamic ideology have left much of Chechnya
in ruins. Major offensives ended several years ago, but small clashes continue
and rebels attack Russian forces with booby-traps and remote-detonated
explosives.
The Council of Europe report said the Russian government refused to respond to
its findings and failed to cooperate with the torture committee, which should
have unlimited access to all detention facilities in the Council of Europe's
46 member states, including Russia.
"The Russian authorities consistently refuse to engage in a meaningful manner
with the (committee) on core issues. Detailed recommendations have been made
by the committee. ... To date, they have received at most a token response and
in many respects have quite simply been ignored," the report said.
An estimated 100,000 civilians, soldiers and insurgents have died in Chechnya
in the two conflicts since 1994.
Guard changes for DR Congo's ex-rebel chiefs
Sofia Bouderbala, Agence France Presse, 3/15/07
Dozens of regular soldiers accompanied by UN peacekeeping troops took up guard duties Thursday at the residences of two former rebel leaders in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The deployment of DRC Armed Forces (FARDC) troops and armoured vehicles of the UN mission to the Congo (MONUC) to provide security for Jean-Pierre Bemba and Azarias Ruberwa, whose rebel movements battled Kinshasa until 2003.
Both men subsequently became vice-presidents during a post-war transition to democratic rule overseen by the United Nations and have since been reluctant to give up their own personal guard details.
Since Bemba's soldiers were involved in bloodshed in the capital three times last year at the height of the transition process, some residents of the Gombe district where he and Ruberwa live said they feared further trouble.
The armed forces general staff ordered at the start of the month that troops still serving the two leaders should be in barracks by March 15. A presidential decree has granted the former vice-presidents of the transitional regime a guard of 12 police officers.
Before Bemba last November conceded defeat to the incumbent Joseph Kabila in a presidential election and vowed to lead parliamentary opposition, his troops clashed with Kabila's forces, supporters and police.
In one street battle after Kabila supporters won a majority in parliament and during the run-up to the vast country's first fully democratic presidential polls since independence in 1960 at least 23 people were killed last August.
"I hope they won't start fighting again," a florist named Joseph told AFP in the Gombe district, where a number of shops stayed closed, like the privately run French school there.
Dozens of Bemba's troops armed with assault rifles were either on patrol near his residence or sitting around on chairs outside, a few metres (yards) from the regular army patrols.
Western military sources estimate that 250 soldiers of Bemba's Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) form his guard, while Ruberwa has 150, but these figures fail to include forces no longer deployed in Kinshasa.
MONUC's military spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Didier Rancher, said the UN mission had deployed a few of its more than 17,000 personnel in the country "as a dissuasive measure, but we're not worried."
"Discussions are in hand to settle the political problem," Rancher said.
One of Bemba's aides, Thomas Luhaka, said the MLC wanted further talks and was "ready for a compromise", but this required more effort from Kabila and the armed forces.
"Our biggest worry is there'll be a clash between soldiers on the street," Luhaka said. "They've got strict orders to stay calm, but you can never rule out some individual stepping out of line."
"There was an agreement on October 29 between the second-round presidential candidates that guaranteed a minimum of security to the loser. Mr Bemba's safety cannot be guaranteed by 12 policemen. We are ready for a compromise, but the other side has to make an effort."
During the last devastating conflict to wrack the DRC from 1998 to 2003, when the armies of more than half a dozen countries fought a regional war on its soil, the RDC rebellion was launched from the east and Bemba's MLC was particularly active in the north and northeast.
DR Congo team inspects contested border region
Agence France Presse, 3/16/07
A team from the Democratic Republic of Congo has travelled to the southwest of the country bordering Angola as part of efforts to resolve a border dispute, officials said Friday.
The visit follows a meeting between Angolan and DR Congo government representatives earlier in the week which agreed the need to establish a common frontier to prevent further territorial disputes.
Kinshasa has condemned what it said was an Angolan incursion into the diamond-rich southwestern region of Kahemba in February, accusing Angolan security forces of having occupied 11 villages.
Luanda has strongly rejected the claims.
"The 1891 convention between (former colonial powers) Belgium and Portugal defines the border limits.
"We have to retrace them, analyze their current position compared to the old surveys," Godefroid Mayobo, a minister in the office of DRC's Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga told AFP.
He said there could have been movements by people on the DRC side in recent years. "We don't rule out moving the boundary. But it is too early to reach a conclusion."
At Tuesday's meeting in Kinshasa, the two countries established a bilateral team charged with identifying the 112 border markers between Angola and the DRC to enable "joint patrols along the common frontier."
Led by the DRC Interior Minister Denis Kalume Numbi, the DRC delegation comprises parliamentarians and locally-elected officials as well as geographic and migration experts and police.
Rwandan 'rebels' surrender to UN in DR Congo
Agence France Presse, 3/19/07
Ten Rwandans claiming to have been recruited by deception by a rebel leader in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have surrendered to United Nations forces, a UN spokeswoman said Monday.
Sylvie van den Wildenburg told AFP the men said they had deserted from the forces of renegade DRC general Laurent Nkunda in Nord-Kivu province, after being lured from Rwanda with promises of jobs.
She said the UN mission had begun the process of returning them to Rwanda.
The Kinshasa government has launched a plan to resolve unrest in Nord-Kivu by forming joint units of the regular army with troops loyal to Nkunda.
Rwandan Hutus opposed to the government in Kigali and so-called Mai-Mai rebels are also active there.
But exactions against civilians have increased and in February more than 50,000 people fled their homes in the province.
Local officials said that dozens of Rwandans had been brought across the border at Runyoni, 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the provincial capital of Goma, to swell Nkunda's forces.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
Troublesome neighbors: in Ossetia, local conflict with global echoes
Sebastian Smith, Agence France Presse, 3/14/07
Wars don't get any more local than the enemy living in your street -- or bigger than when two world powers are in the wings.
The conflict between Georgia and separatist Ossetians in South Ossetia can be bizarrely intimate.
From the Ossetian-held capital Tskhinvali, a single step down Stalin Street takes you into the adjacent Georgian village of Tamarasheni.
In this micro-journey you change timezone, currency and president.
If someone shoots at you -- and at night there's a good chance -- the crazy-quilt nature of Georgian and Ossetian settlement around Tskhinvali means you'll have little chance of proving who was responsible.
"That's where the Ossetians fire from," Davit Kharaishvili, a 37-year-old farmer in Tamarasheni said, pointing at a nearby hill.
"Ossetians never fire first -- the Georgians provoke us," protested Alan Kochiyev, 72, an Ossetian just down the road in Tskhinvali.
But now big-time geopolitics is intruding on this 15-year dispute between 60,000 Ossetians and Georgians over a picturesque patch of the Caucasus mountains.
The first clue comes in the uniforms worn by soldiers at competing checkpoints approaching Tskhinvali: Georgian troops wear US-made camouflage, the Ossetians Russian fatigues.
For Western powers, Georgia's security is increasingly important as the country provides transit to new Caspian and Central Asian oil and gas pipelines threading toward Europe.
Georgia is embracing Western institutions and reformist President Mikheil Saakashvili is pushing for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) membership.
Yet, Russia, which has ruled most of the Caucasus for the last two centuries, is in no hurry to surrender influence.
President Vladimir Putin's government may formally recognise Georgian sovereignty in South Ossetia and the other separatist region of Abkhazia, but Moscow openly supports the rebels.
Nearly all Ossetians have been issued Russian passports. They use the Russian ruble, collect Russian pensions, and keep watches on Russian, not Georgian time.
Ossetians say they want independence and have a self-declared president, Eduard Kokoity.
But a shiny billboard in Tskhinvali proudly shows Putin with the slogan: "Our president."
As if this province of bucolic hills and apple orchards were not already complicated enough, another "president" has emerged, this time a self-declared pro-Georgian leader called Dmitry Sanakoyev.
Surprisingly he is Ossetian, a former independence fighter who claims to have been elected last November with support both from local Georgians and Ossetians.
Independent observers are not quite sure what to make of Sanakoyev, but say his existence will help Tbilisi should South Ossetia get caught up in yet another international issue: Kosovo.
The UN Security Council is due later this month to discuss the status of the Albanian-dominated province, which seeks independence from Serbia.
Western governments generally back independence, but Russia, a traditional Serbian ally, is against and has hinted that recognition of Kosovo could prompt recognition of separatist territories such as South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The principle should be "universal," Putin says.
Sanakoyev demonstrates that not everyone in South Ossetia wants to copy Kosovo.
The fear is that Sanakoyev will end up in open conflict with Kokoity, sparking a war that sucks in Georgian forces, pro-Ossetian ethnic minorities from the Russian side of the Caucasus, and possibly Russia itself.
"It has all the potential if it goes wrong in terms of direct confrontation for destabilising the whole region," warned a Western diplomat in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, asking not to be identified.
Russia has repeatedly promised to defend its citizens in Georgia, which de facto means the bulk of Ossetians and Abkhaz.
But the United States will also want to protect its interests in the region.
"For the US, security of the pipelines is paramount," the Western diplomat said. "There's no telling how much they might be ready to invest."
The feuding peoples of South Ossetia have diametrically opposed understandings of the international standoff in which they are now enmeshed.
Chief Ossetian negotiator Boris Chochiyev, at his office in the bullet-pocked centre of Tskhinvali, suspects Washington of backing a Georgian military offensive.
"The fact is the USA is the main weapons supplier for the Georgian army and they (the Georgians) are preparing to attack us," he said.
Georgians claim just as vehemently that Russia wants war.
"The Russians arm them, train their fighters, and feed them," Kharaishvili, the farmer, said. "If the Russians left, then there'd be no problem."
Actually, Western governments have repeatedly warned Saakashvili not to resort to force.
And there are hopes that a new 11.8-million-dollar (nine-million-euro) economic development programme funded by US and European countries will lay the foundations for peace.
With the drip-drip of fighting, war-time tensions from more than a decade back remain strong. On average one person is killed and two are wounded every month, losses keenly felt in such a small community.
But reconciliation should not be impossible.
While their native languages are different, both Ossetians and Georgians are Christian and their ways of life are similar. Prior to the conflict about a third of marriages were mixed.
"If an Ossetian came right now, we'd be ready to sit and and drink together," said Georgy Koberidze, 36, a maths teacher in Tamarasheni.
Alan Kochiyev, enjoying the sun on Tskhinvali's dilapidated main square, remembered a "good" Georgian friend who died last year. "We all went to his funeral," he said.
"I say, let's discuss this peacefully. I have nothing against Georgians."
Analysis: Georgia woos NATO, angers Russia
Stefan Nicola, United Press International, 3/15/07
The former Soviet republic of Georgia is taking strides toward NATO membership, and European Union officials hope the country can help guarantee security in the South Caucasus and serve as a reliable energy transit country to Western Europe.
Ever since U.S.-educated Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in the South Caucasus republic in 2004 after the so-called Rose Revolution, Tbilisi has pushed to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union and reduce its dependence on Russia.
On Tuesday, in what observers have called a landmark decision for the country's post-Cold War political history, Georgia's Parliament almost unanimously approved the government's NATO accession plan.
While EU enlargement is put on hold, the country's NATO plans are becoming more concrete: Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli, currently on a working visit in Berlin, Wednesday spoke with German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung about possible Georgian troop deployment to Afghanistan, where the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force is battling the Taliban.
Germany, which currently holds the rotating six-month EU presidency, has in the past had Georgian soldiers support German troops on joint missions in northern Afghanistan. It supports Georgia's NATO bid also because regional and energy security (Georgia has little resources but is an important transit country) are high on the agenda of the German EU presidency.
The United States has also shown its support; Washington for years has trained Georgian soldiers, and earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to make Georgia (among other countries) eligible for U.S. aid aimed at preparing the country's NATO accession, by backing the NATO Freedom Consolidation Act.
Georgia, which has embarked on an ambitious reform course, says it justly deserves the place in NATO that observers say will be given to them in 2009.
While acknowledging that Georgia's road to a full democracy wasn't over yet, Nogaideli, the Georgian prime minister, said: "We have established a functional and predictable state ... We believe that as an independent nation we have both the right and the responsibility to pursue our own foreign policy based on our national interests."
Nogaideli spoke Thursday in Berlin at talks organized by the German Council on Foreign Relations, a political think tank based in the German capital.
Eberhard Sandschneider, a high-ranking official at the think tank, said while talking about security in the Caucasus, "there is always a third guest at the table, and that's Russia."
Georgia's westward push has been viewed very critically in Moscow, where officials feel threatened by what they see as an eastward expansion of NATO and especially the United States.
Recent U.S. plans to place an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic have angered Moscow. While some have stipulated that Georgia could also join the system, Nogaideli on Thursday said it was "not on the agenda," and refused to further fuel speculations. "This is a matter between the United States and Poland, and the United States and the Czech Republic," he said.
Besides the missile system, Moscow and Tbilisi have rowed heavily over frozen regional conflicts, namely the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both regions have proclaimed independence; in Abkhazia, Russia helped broker a cease fire agreement that ended a bloody independence war in the early 1990s.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia have not been recognized as sovereign states by the international community, yet their bid for independence is backed by the Russian government, which said that if the United Nations grants full sovereignty to the Serbian province of Kosovo, it should treat Abkhazia and South Ossetia the same way.
Russia has granted citizenship to many residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Tbilisi regularly accuses Moscow of meddling in its internal affairs. Moscow believes Tbilisi is preparing for military operations -- allegations Nogaideli on Thursday brushed aside as "fantastic stories."
Georgian-Russian relations are currently at historic lows after Moscow imposed trade bans on Georgian agricultural products, and a spy scandal -- in which Georgia arrested four Russian officers on charges of espionage and Moscow in turn stopped giving Georgians visas and expelled hundreds of Georgians from Russia.
Europe's interest in the region has surged, also because of energy security concerns.
Earlier this week, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier traveled to Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, in what observers say was a bid to set up a long energy corridor which could bring Eastern Caspian resources to Western Europe via the new Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
The pipeline was officially inaugurated on July 13, 2006, and is expected to deliver one million barrels of oil per day by 2008. Running from the Black Sea resort of Baku, Azerbaijan, over Tbilisi, Georgia, to the Turkish port city of Ceyhan, the pipeline is seen by many EU officials as an alternative energy source, as opposed to oil and gas imports from Russia.
Aware of his newly gained strategic attractiveness, Nogaideli said Thursday that with the oil pipeline and the South Caucasus gas pipeline, Georgia had a "tremendous potential" to help diversify Europe's energy imports from the Caspian region.
"And we are eager to play our part," he said.
Blast kills border guard in Abkhazia
Associated Press, 3/18/07
An explosion believed to have been caused by a mishandled grenade tore through a border guards' post Sunday in the separatist region of Abkhazia, killing one of the guards, an Abkhazian official said.
Georgian television station Rustavi-2 initially reported that the blast took place in a polling station where votes were being cast in the second round of Abkhazian parliamentary elections. But Nugzar Sameonia, deputy head of Abkhazia's State Security Service, said the blast was in a border guards' post in the Gali district and that it was presumed to have been accidentally caused by a grenade.
The Gali district borders Georgia and was the scene of tension in the first round of voting two weeks ago, when hundreds of Georgians held a protest at the border.
Abkhazia has been under the control of an internationally unrecognized separatist government since the end of fighting with Georgian forces more than a decade ago. Abkhazia seeks independence or to be absorbed into Russia.
Security Council commends peace agreement in Ivory Coast and urges implementation
Sarah DiLorenzo, Associated Press, 3/15/07
The U.N. Security Council welcomed the peace accord reached this month in Ivory Coast and urged both the government and the rebels to implement its components.
On March 4, President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel leader Guillaume Soro agreed to form a unity government, to begin dismantling a buffer zone between the two sides, and to hold elections before the end of the year.
The members of the council on Wednesday commended Gbagbo and Soro for creating a "comprehensive and all-inclusive settlement of the crisis through the organization of credible elections," South Africa's Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, who holds this month's rotating presidency in the council, said in a press statement after the meeting.
France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said the agreement was "of major importance, not only for Ivory Coast, but for West Africa also."
The council is looking forward to seeing it "concretely implemented," he said.
De La Sabliere said the deal indicated the Ivorians were ready to begin taking control of the peace process, which until now has largely been overseen by the international community.
It "is an appropriation by the Ivorians of the peace process, so the members of the council are extremely, extremely happy," de La Sabliere said, speaking in French.
In response to the signing of the accord, the Security Council began discussing a new resolution to redefine the U.N.'s role in the country in order to both support the newly forged peace accord and to help organize upcoming elections.
Elections were initially due to be held in October 2005 at the end of Gbagbo's five-year term. But the failure by all sides to implement prior peace deals has kept the country divided and Gbagbo has twice extended his term in office with U.N. backing.
This month's deal, signed in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, creates "an opportunity that must be seized," de La Sabliere said, though several council members have asked for more specifics on its components.
Among the areas the council would like clarified are the future role of the United Nations, whose current mandate expires on June 30; the role of the U.N.'s high representative for elections, Gerard Stoudmann, and the role of donors as the peace agreement is implemented throughout the country, said Abou Moussa, a U.N. envoy to the country.
"The Ivorian parties should provide details on some of the loopholes that have been identified, and of course they should be committed to the agreement that has been signed," said Moussa, one of the secretary-general's special representatives to Ivory Coast.
De La Sabliere said the council expected those clarifications in the coming days.
Most of the 9,000 U.N. troops and 4,000 French soldiers that are deployed in Ivory Coast patrol a giant buffer zone that runs east to west, dividing the country in half. The new deal calls for the buffer zone to be replaced by a series of observation posts monitored by impartial forces.
"With the end of the crisis, the question of the pullout of (the U.N.) and international forces will come up" but only if "accompanied by an end of the crisis," which remains to be seen, de La Sabliere said.
Ivory Coast, the world's leading cocoa producer, has been split between a loyalist south and a rebel-held north since insurgents began the war in September 2002 in the main city, Abidjan. Months of clashes ended with a peace deal signed in France, the former colonial power, in January 2003, but that accord as well as follow-up deals signed in Ghana and South Africa have never been implemented.
Ivory Coast Takes Step to Unify Military Forces
New York Times, 3/17/07
Ivory Coast's president, Laurent Gbagbo, signed a decree on Friday creating a joint military command center, the first step toward unifying government and rebel forces in the West African country.
The creation of the Integrated Command Center was part of a peace deal signed by Mr. Gbagbo and the rebel leader Guillaume Soro in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, two weeks ago, the latest in a series of agreements aimed at reunifying Ivory Coast, which has been divided since a brief civil war broke out in 2002.
The command center will concentrate on demobilizing militia fighters deployed by the government and the rebels but will not immediately replace the existing command structures of each force.
The head of the Ivorian Army, Gen. Philippe Mangou, and the chief of staff for the rebel New Forces, Soumaila Bakayoko, met Mr. Gbagbo in Abidjan, the country's economic capital, where they were handed copies of the decree and the Ouagadougou accord.
''There will be no blockage in implementing the Ouagadougou agreement,'' Mr. Bakayoko told reporters after leaving the presidential palace with General Mangou by his side.
The peace accord, reached after almost a month of talks, followed the failure of several United Nations-sponsored efforts to heal the rift between the mostly Muslim north and the largely Christian and animist south. Since the war ended in 2003, the north has been controlled by the government and the south by the rebels.
Under the terms of the deal brokered by Burkina Faso's president, Blaise Compaore, Mr. Gbagbo and Mr. Soro pledged to revive the process that would establish rules for voter registration and identification cards so that presidential elections could be held within 10 months.
The agreement also called on the United Nations and the French peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast to dismantle a buffer zone between the north and the south.
The deal envisages a line of observation posts staffed by ''impartial forces'' running through the center of what is now the buffer zone. Those forces would be reduced by half every two months.
France has welcomed the agreement, while the interim head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission said he believed that it could succeed because it was supported by all parties involved.
Pakistan, India predict watershed year for peace
Agence France Presse, 3/14/07
Top Indian and Pakistani diplomats said Wednesday that 2007 could be a "watershed" year for their peace process, with real hope of resolving their rancorous dispute over Kashmir and other issues.
Indian foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and his Pakistani counterpart Riaz Mohammad Khan wrapped up two days of talks in Islamabad marking the start of the fourth round of the three-year-old negotiations.
"2007 is a critical year and can prove to be a watershed," Khan told a joint news conference at the Pakistani foreign ministry after the talks between the nuclear-armed rivals.
Pakistan and India had dealt with "issues that have divided us" and that had "made it possible that we move from problems and disputes management to resolution of problems and disputes," Khan said.
The fact that this part of the peace dialogue coincides with the 60th year of India and Pakistan's independence "underscores the need for turning a new page in our relations," he added.
India's Menon said that during meetings with Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri late Tuesday he found there was "clear political will on both sides to make all-round progress."
"We agreed that in the fourth round we anticipate that considerable progress can be made," he added.
The diplomats said Wednesday's talks centred on the Himalayan territory of Kashmir. Tuesday's session was devoted to a review of the previous round of talks and on general peace and security including nuclear weapons.
Kashmir is split between the two countries and claimed by both in full. The territory has caused two of the three Indo-Pakistani wars since independence in 1947.
India and Pakistan were "engaged in the most sustained and intensive dialogue that they ever had" over Kashmir, Menon said.
The officials said that while they recognised the need to make progress on a solution to the Kashmir problem, on Wednesdsay they focused on "confidence-building measures" such as transport links created since 2004.
Pakistan had also suggested new measures such as sports events, a helicopter service and a postal service in Kashmir, Khan said.
He said the two countries' defence secretaries would soon hold talks on ending a 20-year standoff on the Siachen glacier in Kashmir -- dubbed the world's highest battlefield.
Kashmir has been the sticking point throughout the peace process which was launched in January 2004, less than two years after India and Pakistan massed hundreds of thousands of troops along their border.
The countries also held tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998, alarming the world, and fought sporadic clashes in the Kargil region of Kashmir in 1999.
The talks in Islamabad follow the February firebombing of a "Friendship Express" train in India that killed 69 passengers, mostly Pakistanis returning to their homeland.
But the two countries did not allow the attack to disrupt the peace process, vowing to boost cooperation in the fight against terrorism and to share information.
Khan and Menon said that India had given Pakistan a list of passport numbers to help identify 19 of whose who died in the blast.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
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UN plan proposes Kosovo's independence: PM
Agence France Presse, 3/16/07
Kosovo's prime minister said Friday that UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari has proposed giving the disputed Serbian province independence in a plan submitted to the United Nations overnight.
"The proposal for the Kosovo status is (at the UN headquarters) in New York and it is as we expected it to be, because Ahtisaari was very clear in his proposal on Kosovo's status," Agim Ceku told reporters.
"It remains now for Ahtisaari himself on April 3 to explain the content of his proposal to the members of the Contact Group and reasons which led him to propose independence for Kosovo," said the ethnic Albanian leader.
The informal Contact Group of nations has been monitoring peace in the former Yugoslavia since it collapsed in the last decade's bloody wars.
Kosovo has been in limbo under UN administration for almost eight years, since NATO bombing helped to drive out Serb forces carrying out a brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanians.
Its Albanians, who make up around 90 percent of Kosovo's two million population, have since been impatient for independence, which Belgrade and most Serbs strongly oppose.
NATO began reinforcing its 17,000-strong troops in the tiny Balkan territory this week as tensions have heightened ahead of the status settlement.
The UN Security Council will be asked in the coming weeks to consider a plan put forward by Ahtisaari following the failure of year-long talks between Serbia and Kosovo Albanians.
The plan, which Ahtisaari revised after a final round of talks that ended deadlocked on Saturday, would grant Kosovo self-rule, its own flag and anthem and membership in international organisations.
According to Albanian-language Kosovo media on Friday, the proposals sent overnight to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon contain a previously unseen annex that recommends granting Kosovo independence.
The UN Security Council was likely to make a final decision on the status of Kosovo by June this year, according to Kosovo president Fatmir Sejdiu.
"The plan for solving Kosovo's status contains a concrete proposal for monitored independence," said Sejdiu, adding it was crucial that the United States and European Union fully backed the process.
Serbs refuse Kosovo's independence, recall deadly riots
Agence France Presse, 3/17/07
Kosovo Serbs said on Saturday they would not accept any division of the province from Serbia as they marked the third anniversary of rioting that killed 19 people and displaced thousands.
Church bells rang throughout the mainly ethnic-Albanian province's Serb enclaves exactly at midday.
"Today, when Kosovo's fate is being decided by the world powers, we will not agree to the partition of Kosovo from Serbia," Bishop Artemije, a leading Serb Orthodox leader in the province, said in a speech in Gracanica.
"Whatever they decide and undertake we have to remain determined," he said.
Candles were also lit at an Orthodox church in Gracanica, 8 kilometres southeast of the provincial capital Pristina, where several hundred people gathered to pay tribute to eight Serbs who were killed during the 2004 riots.
The UN Security Council will be asked in the coming weeks to consider a plan put forward by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari following the failure of year-long talks between Serbia and Kosovo Albanians.
The plan, which Ahtisaari revised after a final round of talks that ended deadlocked last week, would grant Kosovo self-rule, its own flag and anthem and membership of international organisations.
According to Albanian-language Kosovo media, the proposals sent to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon contain a previously unseen annex that recommends granting Kosovo independence with international monitoring.
"Martti Ahtisaari is very clear in his main recommendation: monitored independence for Kosovo is the most realistic and best solution for Kosovo and the region," the daily Zeri quoted a western diplomat who has seen the text as saying.
During the three days of violence in the UN-run province in March 2004, villages populated by Kosovo's minority Serbs came under attack by ethnic Albanian extremists.
Along with the eight Serbs, 11 ethnic Albanians were killed. More than 900 were injured, including foreign police and peacekeepers.
The NATO-led mission in Kosovo was sharply criticised for failing to stop the rampage, in which 4,000 people, mainly Serbs, were expelled from their homes.
Dozens of Serb Orthodox churches, monasteries and other religious sites, some dating back centuries, were also destroyed or damaged.
The southern Serbian province of Kosovo has been controlled by the UN and NATO since June 1999 following a NATO air war which forced troops loyal to late Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw and end a crackdown against ethnic Albanians.
In a statement to reporters at Pristina airport, before flying to New York to attend a UN meeting on Kosovo on Monday, president Fatmir Sejdiu said "it is very important for us to remember this (the March riots) as a bad event and story which will never be repeated."
"President Ahtisaari proposed a monitored independence for Kosovo. It is very important for us that the fields in which the international monitoring will be concentrating have to do with security and rule of the law," he added.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
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Court in separatist Moldovan region sentences bus bomber to 20 years in prison
Associated Press, 3/19/07
A man who blew up a bus in the separatist region of Trans-Dniester, killing two people, was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison.
Ten other people were wounded in the explosion on Aug. 13 last year.
The suspect, Sergey Kapustin, told the court that he made the bomb from two grenades and wires, but that it went off accidentally on the bus, Trans-Dniester's official news agency Olvia Press reported. He said he intended to place the bomb instead at the headquarters of a company in Tiraspol after having had a conflict with its owner.
Kapustin, a resident of the breakaway province, also said he had kept the two Russian-made grenades since a 1992 war between Moldova and Trans-Dniester, which left over 1,000 people dead.
There have been isolated incidents involving grenades in recent years. A similar blast on a bus in July 2006 killed eight people and injured 46. Investigators have said the two incidents were not related.
Trans-Dniester is not recognized internationally, but receives strong support from Russia, which considers it strategically important and keeps 1,500 troops in the region.
Breakaway Nepal Maoist group kills former rebel activist
Agence France Presse, 3/17/07
A breakaway group of Maoists killed a former rebel activist after abducting
him from his home in southeast Nepal, police said Saturday.
Supporters of the Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha (Goit) or Terai People's
Liberation Front "shot dead a local Maoist activist in Sisuriya village" on
Friday, said police inspector Laxman Giri.
He was speaking from Siraha district where the killing took place which lies
350 kilometres (220 miles) southeast of the nation's capital Kathmandu.
Giri, who said the victim had been kidnapped earlier on Friday, said the
reason for the killing was not known. He had no further details.
The group broke away from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) two years ago
and has been spearheading an anti-Maoist movement in the southern plains
bordering India known as the Terai.
It says the Maoists do not represent the "true voice of the Terai people."
The group intensified its violence in the Terai region after the Maoists ended
a decade-long insurgency that claimed at least 13,000 lives.
It has demanded that the Terai region become an independent state and has
rejected plans for elections for a constituent assembly to draft a new
constitution for the Himalayan nation.
It says the election will only serve to undermine the aspirations of people of
the Terai region.
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
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here to access the Nepal Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
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Philippines
Muslim rebel says 'hawkish' Arroyo officials trying to sabotage peace talks
Agence France Presse, 3/15/07
Muslim separatists on Thursday accused "hawkish" Philippine officials of trying to sabotage peace talks.
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chairman Murad Ebrahim welcomed President Gloria Arroyo's move this week to rein in military units operating in rebel-held areas of Mindanao island to salvage the talks but said some officials were undermining these efforts.
Heavy clashes near the Mindanao town of Midsayap last week left 17 MILF rebels and a soldier dead. The MILF said the fighting erupted when troops advanced into rebel-held areas in violation of an earlier agreement to pull back.
The violence was another obstacle to resuming peace talks, which have been stalled since late last year over demands by Murad's group for economic control of what they claim are ancestral lands.
The truce is being monitored by a small team of Malaysian, Libyan and Brunei monitors.
The MILF central committee is "to keep combatants in place" in conflict zones because there are "spoilers of the peace process" among the government ranks, Murad said in a statement.
"On the part of MILF, war is not being stepped up. But the MILF will keep a short list of those intent at breaking the peace, including hawkish military officers and policymakers," Murad said.
He did not name those in the list or say what the MILF intended to do about them.
Earlier this week, Arroyo reminded military field commanders to be "constantly aware of the strategic implications of tactical actions in the proximity of MILF areas."
She ordered the defence department to devise a plan that ensured all levels of the military understood the peace negotiations.
But Murad on Thursday said a "prolonged cessation of hostilities" could only be achieved when troops are stripped of their powers to patrol civilian Muslim communities.
Troops often "disregard the preventive measures" to avoid violence, leading to fighting, Murad said.
"I have no doubt about keeping up the struggle to mobilize the population through a principled level of negotiation," he said. "Peace will reign when the military solution is contained and ... violations are not repeated."
Military and government officials were not immediately available for comment, but the military brass earlier this week began withdrawing from Midsayap villages.
Somalia
U.S. allies in Africa may have engaged in secret prisoner
renditions
Shashank Bengali & Jonathan S. Landay, Knight Ridder,
3/13/07
A network of U.S. allies in East Africa secretly have transferred to prisons
in Somalia and Ethiopia as many as 150 people who were captured in Kenya while
fleeing the recent war in Somalia, according to human rights advocates here.
Kenyan authorities made the arrests as part of a U.S.-backed, four-nation
military campaign in December and January against Somalia's Islamist militias,
which Bush administration officials have linked to al-Qaida.
The prisoners, who included men and women of 17 nationalities and children as
young as 7 months, were held in Kenya for several weeks before most of them
were transferred covertly to Somalia and Ethiopia, where they're being held
incommunicado, the groups charge.
The transfers, which authorities reportedly carried out in the middle of the
night and made public only after a recent court order in Kenya, violated
international law, according to the rights groups. They charge that the
program is being driven by the United States, which has built a close
relationship with Kenya and Ethiopia in the war on terrorism.
At least one of the transferees is an American citizen identified on a flight
manifest as Amir Mohamed Meshar. Meshar was flown from Nairobi to Baidoa, the
seat of Somalia's transitional government, on Feb. 10, according to Islamic
human-rights groups. His whereabouts, and those of 12 other detainees aboard
that chartered flight, are unknown.
American officials in Kenya declined to comment on the allegations that they
were involved in the detentions or renditions. In Washington, the State
Department had no immediate comment.
Representatives of Islamic groups who'd visited detainees in late January in
their jail cells in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, said they'd spotted U.S.
diplomatic vehicles outside the holding facilities. They also said some
detainees had reported being questioned by U.S. law enforcement agents.
The Bush administration has come under fire for the practice of so-called
extraordinary renditions: the transfer of detainees without court proceedings
to foreign countries where they can be interrogated, often in secret, and
sometimes _ according to critics _ subjected to torture. The new allegations
mark the first time that such renditions have been suspected in East Africa,
where U.S.-friendly regimes often are accused of treating prisoners brutally.
December's military intervention in Somalia was a well-orchestrated campaign
involving four countries: Somalia's interim government; Ethiopia, whose ground
forces drove the Islamists from power; Kenya, which sent troops to seal the
border with Somalia and prevent fighters from escaping; and the United States,
which gave a green light to the invasion, provided intelligence and training
support to the Ethiopians and conducted surveillance of Somalia that
apparently was used to track the Islamists' escape. The United States also
launched two air strikes on suspected terrorist targets in January.
But the campaign hasn't netted any al-Qaida figures, and U.S. officials think
that they're hiding in Somalia. Critics of the intervention charge that the
allies now are conspiring to illegally hold prisoners, many of whom are
described by family members as teachers or small-business owners who went to
Somalia in search of jobs.
"There is clearly some sort of cooperation that if you fight together, you can
deal with prisoners together," said Hassan Omar, a member of the Kenya
National Commission on Human Rights who's followed the issue closely.
"There has been massive foreign interference on the issue of terrorism. Quite
a number of foreign agencies' hands are tainted," he said.
Details of the detention program _ little reported in the news media in Kenya
or overseas _ emerged in recent weeks only after a Nairobi-based consortium of
community groups, the Muslim Human Rights Forum, challenged Kenyan authorities
in court.
After the Ethiopian invasion in late December, Kenyan security forces captured
at least 150 people on both sides of the Kenya-Somalia border, including some
17 women and 12 children. The detainees included citizens of Somalia, Yemen,
Syria, Tunisia and Ethiopia.
According to Muslim leaders, Kenyan police refused them access to the
prisoners, among them a woman who had a bullet lodged in her back but was
denied medical treatment. The police shuffled the prisoners among several
facilities in the Nairobi area to keep them out of sight.
Under a judge's order, authorities produced flight manifests that showed that
at least 80 detainees had been transferred to Somalia on three chartered
flights: Jan. 20 and 27 and Feb. 10. The manifests appeared to be filled out
hastily, with spaces for such details as the departure and arrival airports
left blank.
What's happened to the detainees since then is unclear. One detainee phoned
the rights group earlier this month from Ethiopia to say that he and several
other detainees had been transferred to a prison on the outskirts of the
capital, Addis Ababa. The line went dead before he could say more.
Dozens of detainees are thought to be in a holding facility near the
bullet-pocked airport in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, where a mounting
insurgency threatens the fragile government's grip on power. But rights groups
in Kenya haven't had contact with those prisoners in more than a month.
Ismail Mohammed Hurre, Somalia's foreign minister, confirmed that "quite a
number" of detainees were in government custody in Mogadishu, although he
declined to offer details. He said they were being treated humanely and that
he hoped that foreign governments would order the extraditions of their
citizens to face judicial proceedings in their home countries.
"These are people who have Somali blood on their hands," Hurre said. "They
have been fighting with jihadi forces. They are, in every sense of the word,
international terrorists."
Omar, the member of the Kenyan human rights commission, said returning the
detainees to Somalia was a fundamental human-rights violation.
"We are very skeptical of those being deported back to Somalia," he said. "The
country does not have peace or stability. All of the prisoners we spoke to
told us they were fleeing the hostilities."
Another 45 to 60 detainees _ members of Ethiopia's Ogaden and Oromo rebel
groups who allegedly fought alongside Somalia's Islamists _ were flown
directly to Ethiopia, according to a representative of an international
human-rights group in Nairobi, who requested anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the situation.
At least 19 people were set free in Kenya, and some U.S. and British detainees
were deported to their home countries.
One of the U.S. citizens who was held in Kenya is Daniel Joseph Maldonado, 28,
who FBI agents say has told them that he traveled to Somalia last year to
fight alongside the Islamist militias. Maldonado, who converted to Islam and
took the name Daniel Aljugaifi, was flown to Houston last month, where he was
charged in federal court with receiving training from al-Qaida in Somalia and
conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Security Council urges all parties to work toward peace in
Somalia amid mortar attack on government palace
Sarah DiLorenzo, Associated Press, 3/14/07
The U.N. Security Council condemned recent violence in
Somalia, urging all parties to work together within the peace process in a
plea that came as the country's capital was rocked by a mortar attack.
The Security Council "expressed concern at, and deplored, the violence in
Mogadishu," the council said in a press statement read by its president, South
Africa's U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo.
Council members also "condemned the attacks against the AU stabilization force
in Somalia and the leaders of the transitional federal institutions."
"The members of the council stressed the importance of all members of the
parties in Somalia continuing to work on a representative and inclusive
political process," said the statement.
It was issued on Tuesday, the day the country's U.N.-backed transitional
government, which has struggled to control the country since it was formed in
2004, moved back to the capital of Mogadishu from Baidoa. President Abdullahi
Yusuf's palace came under mortar attack soon after. He was not hurt by the six
mortar rounds, but a 12-year-old boy was killed.
Somalia has been mired in anarchy since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator
Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another. Last year government and
Ethiopian troops routed a radical Islamic movement, but insurgents thought to
be linked to the group continue to stage attacks like Tuesday's.
African Union peacekeepers from Uganda, who arrived last week, have also come
under attack. The AU has authorized 8,000 troops to be deployed in the
country, of which 1,100 are on the ground and 3,000 more have been promised.
Ahead of their statement, the top U.N. envoy to Somalia, Francois Fall,
briefed the Security Council on recent violence, particularly in the capital,
and a deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Horn of Africa country.
"All members of the council today agree on the need to foster an inclusive
dialogue in Somalia with all the stakeholders, those who can help to resume
peace and security and to renounce to violence and extremism," Fall told a
press briefing after the meeting.
The U.N. does not have a presence in the country, but has dispatched a
fact-finding mission, which will report to the Security Council in mid-April,
at which point the body will decide whether to send peacekeepers. The AU
mandate is for six months, and many have expressed the hope that U.N.
peacekeepers will replace the African ones.
Some have questioned whether the Islamic Courts Union, which was in control of
the capital and large swathes of the country before its ouster, will be
allowed to take part in the peace negotiations. Fall said that the "moderate
elements of the courts" were encouraged to join.
Kumalo said Fall and council members who spoke at Tuesday's closed meeting
stressed that process "has to be inclusive to include all parties in Somalia,
whether it be political parties or religious parties, if there's going to be
peace there."
The government has said it will accept any parties that renounce violence.
Though many expressed optimism about the progress made on the political side,
Fall said the humanitarian situation continues to worsen.
"The situation of the population is very, very bad," he said.
Security Council members expressed "great concern on the deteriorating
humanitarian state in Somalia."
The council encouraged a rapid deployment of additional troops to the AU force
and urged donors to provide financial, logistical support to the African
force.
Insurgency and intrigue could return Somalia to
chaos
Chris Tomlinson, Associated Press, 3/15/07
An increasingly sophisticated insurgency and political intrigue are
threatening to tumble Somalia back into chaos and spread instability in the
volatile Horn of Africa region.
Diplomats, experts and aid workers fear that unless Prime Minister Ali Mohamed
Gedi steps down or at least bring opponents into his government, violence will
again consume Somalia.
Gedi readily admitted Wednesday that almost daily attacks by insurgents are
undermining the government's ability to bring peace and assert authority,
while a U.N. report said 40,000 Somalis had fled the violence in Mogadishu,
the Somali capital, in just the past month.
The prime minister made his comments while in Nairobi to appeal for US$32
million in aid to finance a Somali reconciliation conference next month.
Sharing power is not officially on the agenda of the meeting, which will bring
together traditional elders, business leaders and clerics to discuss social
issues. But influential members of Gedi's Hawiye clan are reportedly lobbying
to replace him.
Gedi insisted his security forces will take control of Mogadishu in time to
convene the National Reconciliation Congress on April 16, perhaps the last
chance for his government to win popular support in the capital.
"The security issue in the next two weeks will be a test for us," Gedi told
journalists. He said 4,000 newly trained government soldiers were in the
process of deploying across Mogadishu to improve security.
But leaders of the Council of Islamic Courts, a hardline Islamic movement
ousted by Ethiopian troops backing Gedi's government in December, appear to be
delivering on their promise to create an Iraq-style insurgency unless they are
included in a new government. They have said in the past they want to appoint
the next prime minister.
The insurgents demonstrated a new level of sophistication Tuesday when they
used a remote-controlled bomb to attack a government convoy, killing two
officials and wounding Mogadishu's deputy mayor. Hours earlier, insurgents
welcomed President Abdullahi Yusuf back from a foreign trip with a mortar
attack on his residence, although Yusuf was unhurt.
Fighting has not been slowed by last week's deployment of Ugandan troops as
the vanguard of an African Union peacekeeping force. While the peacekeepers
have been ordered to protect key facilities and political leaders, they will
not patrol the streets.
"We are not here to disarm anybody or to get involved in any fighting," an
African Union spokesman, Capt. Paddy Ankunda, said in Mogadishu. "We appeal to
the leaders of the Islamic courts, wherever they are, to return back home and
attend the country's stabilization and national reconciliation conference."
Diplomats from a variety of countries have told The Associated Press, on
condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of peace efforts, that
despite enormous pressure on Gedi to hold direct talks with the leaders of the
Islamic movement, he has repeatedly set conditions that make such talks
practically impossible.
At stake is what the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, calls an
unparalleled chance to install Somalia's first central government since the
country descended into anarchy in 1992 after a longtime dictatorship was
ousted.
Somalia split into warring, clan-based fiefdoms ruled by warlords who kept the
country in chaos. The Islamic militia's rise last summer imposed a semblance
of order in much of the south, but its fighters were quickly defeated when the
Ethiopian army intervened to help Gedi's U.N.-backed administration.
Gedi's government was established along clan lines in an attempt to unite the
country. But critics say key Cabinet ministers were chosen for their loyalty
to Gedi and the president, not on their popularity within their clans.
"The problem is that they need to become even more representative," Frazer
told journalists in Washington on March 2, saying that the administration must
have members "that truly reflect the desires of the various clans."
Ted Dagne, an expert on Somalia at the Congressional Research Service, issued
a report Monday saying the violence in Mogadishu may only be a precursor to
worse fighting if talks do not succeed.
"If the objective of the reconciliation process is simply to have dialogue
without a clear intent to share power ... Somalia may continue to face
political instability and uncertainty," Dagne said. "Security forces are not
facing an organized insurgency, although militia groups and forces loyal to
the courts may re-emerge."
In Kenya, police have gone on high alert because of the large number of
Somalis pouring across the border, many of them loyal to the Islamic movement
and opposed to Gedi's government. More than 500 Somalis have been arrested for
immigration violations since January, police say.
The clampdown on traditional smuggling routes follows a warning from the U.S.
Embassy that terrorists might strike the World Cross Country Championships in
the Kenyan coastal resort of Mombasa on March 24. Kenyan police arrested at
least one suspected terrorist allegedly involved in the plot after he fled
Somalia a few weeks ago, senior police officials said.
Ethiopia also remains on high alert, after sending troops into Somalia to
crush the Islamic movement and install Gedi in Mogadishu. Islamic militants
have also threatened to stage attacks in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.
Diplomats agree peace in Somalia would go a long way to solving the Horn of
Africa's volatility, but that will depend on Somalia's leaders and the success
of the reconciliation conference.
Sri Lanka says air raids kill eight Tamil Tiger rebels
Agence France Presse, 3/13/07
Eight suspected Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in strikes by Sri Lanka
warplanes as part of a military offensive in the eastern Batticaloa district,
the defence ministry said Tuesday.
"An east LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) intelligence leader
identified as Irakkian and a training instructor were among the dead," the
ministry said of the air strikes on Monday.
Security forces last week began a new drive to advance deep into a Tiger
stronghold known as the Thoppigala jungle, which stretches from the Batticaloa
district to neighbouring Ampara district in the northeast of the island.
The airforce, using Israeli-built Kfir and Russian-made supersonic MIG jet
fighters, conducted air sorties against suspected rebel targets in the
Thoppigala jungle, the ministry said, adding that more than a dozen LTTE
soldiers were injured.
There was no immediate comment from the LTTE, who have been fighting for a
separate state for minority Tamils since 1972.
Elsewhere, in the northern province of Mannar, Tiger rebels handed over the
body of a Sri Lankan soldier to the Red Cross on Monday. The military said the
soldier was abducted on Sunday while guarding the forward defence line.
The killings came as charities operating in the embattled east Monday
expressed serious concern for the safety of civilians in the Batticaloa
district, where there are more than 120,000 refugees.
More than 40,000 people have fled their homes in recent days following
shelling between the Tamil Tigers and government troops in the Batticaloa
district, adding to the 80,000 who have already been internally displaced.
More than 4,000 people have been killed amid an upsurge in fighting since
December 2005, despite the two sides agreeing to a Norwegian-brokered truce to
halt the conflict in February 2002.
Sri Lanka seeks foreign help to bring Tigers back to peace
talks
Agence France Presse, 3/17/07
Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama on Friday sought international
help to prod Tamil Tiger rebels waging a battle for a separate homeland to
return to the negotiating table.
"The international community should once again seek to prevail upon the LTTE
to return to the negotiations and to negotiate in good faith," he said during
a visit to Washington, where he held talks with US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and other senior government officials.
Direct peace negotiations between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) stalled in October last year and fighting has intensified despite
the two sides agreeing to a Norwegian-brokered truce in 2002.
More than 4,000 people have also been killed since December 2005.
Bogollagama urged the international community to make clear to LTTE rebels
that they should respond "in a time bound fashion with specific targets" if
they wanted to return to talks.
They should "not seek to use such an opportunity to merely buy time or to
score tactical advantages," he said.
"Above all they must join the democratic political mainstream. After all there
are several militant groups that have successfully made this transition," he
said.
Bogollagama said it was "hard to tell" whether foreigners would succeed in
convincing the LTTE but added that they "must push the LTTE to make this
choice, and make it now" as Colombo prepared constitutional reforms that would
set the stage for devolution of power in Sri Lanka.
An all-party consultative committee has emerged with several proposed
constitutional reforms to be refined into a "final" plan by April, he said.
If the Tamil Tigers "cannot be de-clawed," he said, the international
community should commit themselves to work with Tamil democratic parties to
further the interests of the Tamil community.
The LTTE has been fighting for about three decades for an independent state
for the minority Tamil community northeast of the majority-Sinhalese island
nation.
The United States together with Japan, the European Union and Norway are
co-chairs of the a Tokyo donors' conference which had tied 4.5 billion dollars
of aid to Sri Lanka to progress on a peace settlement.
Rice and Bogollagama discused human rights and humanitarian conditions in Sri
Lanka as well as the peace process, State Department spokeswoman Nancy Beck
told AFP.
"We support the Sri Lankan government's efforts to seek a political settlement
to the conflict that will satisfy the aspirations of all Sri Lankans," Beck
said.
Human Rights Watch has accused Sri Lanka of forcing people displaced by recent
fighting in the country's civil war to return home despite fears that the
areas were still unsafe, and called for Colombo to guarantee their security.
It had accused the military of threatening to withdraw security for people who
refused to return.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
British envoy threatens UN sanctions resolution over
Darfur
Agence France Presse, 3/13/07
Britain's UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry threatened to introduce a sanctions
resolution against Sudan in the Security Council if it reneges on its
commitment to joint African Union-UN peacekeeping in Darfur.
"We are going to hold President Omar al-Beshir to his commitment," Jones Parry
said.
"If there isn't going to be anything helpful out of Khartoum, then plan B will
have to be part of the strategy and that means putting pressure -- what I mean
is the prospect of sanctions," he added.
"I would put down a resolution on sanctions, I think, in the course of next
week on the basis I'd expect it to be adopted," Jones Parry said.
He was reacting to a Beshir letter responding to a UN request to send an
advance contingent of peacekeepers to Darfur as part of a joint AU-UN force of
more than 20,000 troops.
The UN said last week that although the Beshir letter "contains some positive
elements," including support for joint AU-UN efforts to re-energize the Darfur
political process, it also contained "some elements which seem to challenge"
an agreement reached last November with the AU and the UN.
Diplomats said Jones Parry was considering a draft that as a first step would
expand a list of Sudanese officials found responsible for atrocities in Darfur
that would be subjected to an assets freeze and a travel ban.
Other punitive measures could include extending the existing UN arms embargo
in Darfur to the whole of Sudan or even imposing a no-fly zone over Darfur.
In Washington, the State Department warned that Washington could soon take
tougher action against Sudan if it does not follow through on its agreement in
principle to allow a joint AU-UN peacekeeping operation in strife-torn Darfur.
"To the extent that the government of Sudan does continue to try to frustrate
implementation of the agreement, the US and the other representatives of the
International Community are going to have to think seriously about
implementing additional measures to deal with the humanitarian crisis in
Darfur," department deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.
Casey did not elaborate, but US officials have in the past said they were
considering measures ranging from political and financial sanctions against
Khartoum to the imposition of a no-fly zone over Darfur.
In 2005, the Security Council approved a resolution that allowed for the
seizure of assets and a travel ban against individuals who commit atrocities,
impede the peace process in Darfur or "constitute a threat to stability" in
the region.
It also extended an existing arms embargo against non-state parties in Darfur
to the Sudanese government and specifically prohibited Khartoum from offensive
military flights into the region.
Meanwhile South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, who chairs the Security
Council, said Tuesday that council members have just received the Beshir
letter along with a 14-page annex translated from Arabic.
He said in forwarding the Beshir letter and the annex, Ban said they "raised
questions about some of the issues that the secretary general had assumed that
had already been agreed."
Ban was to discuss the issue with Security Council members during a luncheon
scheduled for Thursday, Kumalo added.
The UN estimates at least 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur with a
further 2.5 million displaced since February 2003 when rebels from minority
tribes in the vast western province took up arms to demand an equal share of
national resources.
The insurgency prompted a heavy-handed crackdown from Sudanese government
forces and their Janjaweed proxy militia.
An under-funded and ill-equipped AU force of 7,000 men has been unable to halt
the violence, which the main UN human rights agency on Monday said amounted to
war crimes by the Khartoum government.
In troubled Darfur, some refugees avoid camps
Alfred de Montesquiou, Associated Press, 3/14/07
With violence high in Darfur's refugee camps, some of those driven from their
homes are choosing to stay away, living in rebel-controlled areas in constant
fear of government or militia attack. They struggle to stay alive with little
access to outside humanitarian aid.
Jabr Ali is one of them. On a recent day, the Darfur farmer crouched next to a
pile of thorns and carefully lifted one branch, pointing to an unexploded bomb
that lay stuck in the sand near his mud hut home.
He had put the pile of thorns around the shell to prevent his 10 children from
getting near, and to avoid losing more cattle. More than a dozen cattle had
died during the air raid when the bomb was dropped a few weeks earlier. Ali
blamed government airplanes.
The mud huts where he and his family live are near to Anka, a once busy
regional center in Darfur's vast northern expanse that is now a ghost town.
Ali wants to leave the region in what would be his third relocation since
violence erupted in Darfur in 2003, when ethnic African rebels took up arms
against the Arab-dominated central Sudanese government in Khartoum.
But the farmer said he didn't have the money to pay for the several-hundred
mile trip to Darfur refugee camps in neighboring Chad. And, closer refugee
camps in Darfur aren't an option either, Ali said, because they lay in zones
controlled by Sudan's central government.
The 45-year-old said that because his tribe is strongly associated with the
Darfur rebels, he feared that government forces would kill him if he went to a
Darfur refugee camp.
In the camps, millions live amid growing insecurity and tensions among rebels,
the government and aid workers. But they also get international humanitarian
support.
The refugees who live outside the camps, in contrast, get little humanitarian
aid because they live in rebel-controlled and government-attacked regions too
volatile for aid groups to work in, the groups say, except in limited
instances.
The refugees, mixing with villagers and rebels, also face bombs dropped by the
Sudanese government on rebel areas, and face violence from janjaweed militias
that the U.N. says are organized by the government.
Increasingly, Darfur civilians outside the refugee camps also face violence
from a former rebel group that signed a peace deal with the government last
fall and are now part of the government, the U.N. says.
More than 15,000 of the 78,500 Darfurians who fled their homes in January and
February were trying to escape attacks from the former rebels, according to a
U.N. report released Wednesday.
Some rebels charge that the former rebels now act as a proxy for the
government, doing its work just as the janjaweed do.
Of those who fled, another 34,000 said they were fleeing either the government
or the janjaweed, the U.N. said.
Also worsening is inter-tribal fighting, including battles within Arab tribes
in Darfur, which pushed out more than a third of those who fled in January and
February, the report said.
In all, more than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have fled to
refugee camps since the Darfur crisis began in 2003, according to the U.N.,
which has blamed the janjaweed for the bulk of atrocities.
The Sudanese government denies those figures and says it doesn't control the
janjaweed militia. It also has accused rebels of spreading lies about the
peace deal and the former rebels, and has rejected a U.N. Security Council
resolution for some 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers to deploy in the region.
Meanwhile, the African Union peacekeepers currently in Darfur are altogether
absent from rebel-controlled zones where some refugees live precariously, and
overwhelmed elsewhere.
Nobody knows how many hundreds of thousands still live in scattered
settlements across the rebel zones, but the U.N. says there are now 4 million
"war-affected people" overall in Darfur.
Some humanitarian workers blame the rebels who scorned the peace deal for
worsening the living conditions of those Darfurians not in camps because, they
say, the rebels hijack aid vehicles.
But the rebels insist only bandits or janjaweed militia members attack aid
workers, and say their families suffer from the growing isolation as much as
other villagers and refugees who are not in camps.
Attacks on aid groups have lowered the groups' ability to provide aid to
Darfurians outside refugee camps. The World Food Program says its main storage
house in the northern rebel zone was destroyed by a janjaweed raid last
November.
While refugees in government-controlled camps get daily food rations,
villagers in Karo, another town in northern Darfur, could not remember the
last time they received a shipment.
Like virtually all other settlements in this vast area, Karo has no
electricity, running water, roads or medical facility. In the school a set of
wooden huts teachers displayed a few boxes of chalk sticks given by UNICEF and
said this was the only support they'd received.
"Of course, it's harder to stay here than to go in a refugee camp," said Yaya
Moussa, a rebel who like his brothers is usually away fighting or attending
cattle in the desert. "But this is our land," he said, "we know that if we
leave it, we'll never get it back."
