PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH

Burundi

Security Council extends UN force in Burundi to mid-January
The UN Security Council on Wednesday extended the mandate of the 6,481-strong UN peacekeeping force in Burundi until next January 15

Chechnya

Seven killed in Burundi rebel attack as government criticized
FNL launched the deadly attack late Sunday on a military position in Bujumbura Rural province killing 7
Relatives of men killed in attack in southern Russian region protest crackdown
Relatives of men killed in an assault on police that the violence had been rooted in official repression of Muslims

Indonesia

Indonesia 's Aceh calm as rebels drop plan to mark anniversary
Indonesian officials praised separatist rebels for refraining from celebrating the 29th anniversary of their uprising, in a bid to safeguard a peace deal

Aceh Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation.

Ivory Coast
Ivory Coast opposition says no to Gbagbo over talks
Opposition parties in Ivory Coast announced they would take no part in talks President Laurent Gbagbo had called to discuss naming a transitional prime minister
Ivory Coast president welcomes peacemaker PM
African mediators appointed Charles Konan Banny, the 63-year-old governor of the Central Bank of West African States, to the post of transitional prime minister

Kashmir
Top separatist leader asks India, Pakistan to pull backs troops from Kashmir
Kashmir's top Islamic cleric and separatist leader has said that longtime rivals India and Pakistan should demilitarize the disputed Himalayan region under NATO supervision

Kashmir Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation.

Kosovo
Yugoslav war crimes tribunal acquits chief Kosovo Albanian suspect
The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal acquitted a senior officer of the Kosovo Albanian rebels Wednesday of torturing and murdering ethnic Serbian and Albanian civilians at a prison camp during the 1998-1999 war
EU foreign policy chief calls for balanced solution for Kosovo
EU foreign policy chief expressed hope Monday that a balanced solution would be found for the contested Kosovo province at upcoming U.N.-mediated negotiations

Liberia
Liberia's president-elect, Nigerian counterpart discuss Charles Taylor
Liberia's Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf discussed with Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo the fate of Charles Taylor who is wanted on war crimes charges but protected by political asylum in Nigeria

Macedonia

Macedonian premier visits Croatia amid war crimes row
The prime ministers of Macedonia and Croatia vowed that a Croatian war crimes inquiry against a top Macedonia general would not disrupt political ties between the two Balkan nations

Moldova

Moldova asks OSCE to inspect Russian arms depots in Trans-Dniester
Moldova 's foreign minister called on the OSCE on Monday to inspect Russia 's arms depots in its breakaway region

Nepal

Maoist rebels extend Nepal ceasefire by one month
Maoist insurgents said Friday they had extended a unilateral ceasefire by one month after joining political efforts to restore democracy in Nepal

Serbia

Montenegro

Greek foreign minister warns peace still precarious in Balkans
Greek Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis warned on Wednesday that peace and stability remain precarious in the Balkans, as he prepared to visit Serbia and Kosovo next week

Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan cease-fire monitors warn of escalating violence in Sri Lanka following attacks
The Sri Lankan military on Sunday directly blamed the Tamil Tiger rebels for attacks that killed seven soldiers; international monitoring mission warns the hostilities could cause an "irreparable deterioration" of security in the country
Tamil group threatens to expel Sri Lankan military from northeast
Trincomalee Tamil Peoples Consortium threatened to force the military and "traitors" from the country's Tamil-dominated northeast if violence continues against the ethnic group there

Sudan
Sudanese government, Darfur rebels to open peace talks in Nigeria
Sudanese government officials and rebels from the country's war-wracked Darfur region opened a new round of peace talks Tuesday, with African Union mediators calling for an end to the slaying of civilians
Darfur talks restart in bid to solve power-sharing dispute
AU due to bring all the delegates to peace talks on the crisis in the Sudanese region of Darfur back together Monday after a 72-hour break to allow the parties to resolve a dispute over a power-sharing deal to end the conflict

Azerbaijani minister: War could resume if Armenia recognizes independent Nagorno-Karabakh
Associated Press, 12/6/05

Azerbaijan's defense minister warned Tuesday that war could resume if Armenia recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh's independence.

At a meeting with U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Jim MacDougall, Defense Minister Safar Abiyev said that the long-standing conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave posed a threat to the security of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which is soon set to start delivering Caspian Sea oil to the Mediterranean. "The Armenian leadership declares that it could recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh," Abiyev said, according to a Defense Ministry statement. "If that will be so, it could lead to the resumption of fighting."

Armenian President Robert Kocharian said last month that his country could officially recognize Nagorno-Karabakh if negotiations on its status reach a dead end.

A 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year war that left Nagorno-Karabakh, a mainly ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, in Armenian hands. Some 30,000 people were killed and 1 million displaced. The lack of a resolution of the enclave's status has impeded economic development in the region. The region's self-declared independence is not recognized internationally. Russian, French and U.S. envoys from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe are trying find a solution to the dispute over the mountainous region, which was seized by ethnic Armenian forces in a war with Azerbaijan in the 1990s.

Meanwhile, Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian insisted that Nagorno-Karabakh residents had the right to self-determination and that the conflict settlement process should be based on their decision.

"The acceptance by Azerbaijan of this right may become the beginning of a serious process, and after it is recognized we can turn to other aspects of this issue and adopt a complex approach," Vaskanian said Tuesday on Armenia's national television.

Oskanian spoke after an informal meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Elmar Mamedyarov, on the sidelines of an OSCE summit in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

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Burundi says rebels losing rural support
Agence France Prese, 12/7/05

Burundi's military said Wednesday that a new campaign against the country's last active rebel army had badly dented the group's support among its traditional base in the rural peasantry.

Army spokesman Adolphe Manirakiza said more than 1,500 rebel sympathizers in Bujumbura Rural province where the National Liberation Forces (FNL) are most active had over the past month "renounced" the group. "In the past month, 1,562 civilians have gone to the police or local administrators and formally renounced any collaboration with the FNL," Manirakiza told AFP. He said most of those making the statements were members of the Patriotic Hutu Youth movement or of clandestine support cells that had collected money and food for the FNL from the population.

The FNL is the only one of Burundi's seven Hutu rebel groups not to have signed onto a peace deal aimed at finally ending the tiny central African nation's 12-year ethnically driven civil war. It has refused to recognize a new power-sharing government that took office in August after a series of elections and has carried on fighting despite peace overtures from President Pierre Nkurunziza, a former Hutu rebel leader. After the FNL ignored an October 31 deadline to agree to talks, Nkurunziza ordered the military to boost operations against the FNL, telling residents of Bujumbura Rural province that the rebels would be dealt with by year's end.

On Tuesday, the army said its stepped-up patrols were responsible for the killing of 15 FNL fighters who were attempting to cross the border from western Burundi into the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Zenon Ndaruvukanye, the governor of Bujumbura Rural province that surrounds the capital, said the rebels' loss of support in his jurisdiction was due to a number of factors, not least the intensified military campaign."The army is tracking the rebels and we are sensitizing the people to the situation, going to them and explaining that the FNL no longer has a reason to fight," he said.

Despite the claims of success, the new campaign has been criticized by human rights groups and the country's former ruling party who say it has been marked by rampant abuses, including extrajudicial killings, torture and arbitrary arrests of alleged FNL supporters. On Monday, the head of the ex-ruling FRODEBU party complained that the government "often violates the constitution, it conducts arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings by police have risen to a worrying degree."

Early last month, New York-based Human Rights Watch accused Nkurunziza's fledgling administration of summary executions and torture of civilians suspected of being FNL collaborators. At the same time, a local human rights group, APRODEH, said some 400 people had been illegally arrested since September for allegedly associating with the FNL and that 18 of those detainees had been tortured. Burundi is struggling to recover from the ethnically-driven conflict that erupted in 1993 with the assassination of its first democratically-elected president, a Hutu, by members of the minority Tutsi-dominated military.

More than 100 Chechen refugees return home from Georgia
Associated Press, 12/6/05

Russian authorities took a planeload of Chechen refugees from the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia back home Tuesday - part of Kremlin efforts to show that war-shattered Chechnya is stabilizing.

Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry flew 125 refugees to Makhachkala in the southern Russian province of Dagestan, from where they will be taken by buses to Chechnya, said Alexander Rostovtsev, an official with the migration service. The refugees were among thousands of Chechens who fled to Georgia's rugged Pankisi Gorge across the border with Chechnya where their ethnic kin live. Some of the women, accompanied by children, wept as they stepped off the plane and turned away from the waiting television cameras. All the refugees looked extremely tired and haggard, hauling huge bags.

Bayan Karsanova, 50, said she had left Grozny in 1999 after her apartment was destroyed. But in Georgia she complained that conditions were difficult as the refugees subsisted on government handouts and could not work to earn their living."I am glad I am here, I hope it will be better at home," she said.

The Chechens' presence in the gorge badly strained Russia's relations with Georgia for years since the second war in Chechnya began in 1999. Russian officials claimed that Pankisi was infested with rebels and accused Georgian authorities of failing to eradicate them. Georgia launched an operation in 2003 to search the gorge for suspected militants, but Moscow called the operation largely useless. Smaller groups of refugees previously have returned from the gorge, and thousands others came back to Chechnya from refugee camps in Russia's republic of Ingushetia that borders Chechnya to the west.

The Russian authorities have encouraged the refugees' return in a bid to show that Chechnya was returning to normal and offered compensation for homes lost in the war. The compensation was only offered in Chechnya, and that encouraged many refugees to return despite concerns over continuing violence, rampant abductions and miserable conditions in the region.

Russian security officials had carefully screened Chechen refugees willing to return for links to rebels, Idigov said."Those who aren't coming back have their hands stained in blood," said Sultan Idigov, the head of the Moscow-backed Chechen administration's refugee department. He said that the refugees would be given temporary accommodation in Grozny.

President Vladimir Putin pledges to rebuild Chechnya, end abductions
Associated Press, 12/12/05

President Vladimir Putin attended the opening session of Chechnya's newly elected parliament Monday, pledging to help rebuild the war-shattered Chechen capital and urging authorities to combat rampant abductions.

The Nov. 27 election, in which the Kremlin-backed United Russia party won the largest number of seats, was a key part of the Kremlin's argument that the southern region is stabilizing, despite daily fighting, rampant abductions and endemic unemployment. Many observers, however, said the vote was far from free and fair and analysts say the new legislature will be nothing more than a rubber-stamp body for Chechnya's Kremlin-backed governing elite.

Speaking at the parliament session, Putin hailed the elections as a landmark step in Chechnya's history and promised that rebuilding Grozny would be a top priority for the government. Putin also urged authorities to punish those responsible for abductions "no matter who they are and what agencies they represent." "It's necessary to take every measure to end abductions," he said. Nearly 1,700 people have been abducted in Chechnya and are still missing, a regional government committee said earlier this year.

Seated on his left as he spoke was Ramzan Kadyrov, the flamboyant, 29-year-old deputy prime minister who heads a widely feared paramilitary force that is blamed for many of the abductions of civilians. Kadyrov, whose father was Chechnya's president until he was assassinated in a May 2004 bomb blast, is widely expected to become Chechnya's next president sometime after he turns 30.

Human rights groups say that federal troops and local security forces, including the so-called "kadyrovtsi" paramilitary fighters, have been responsible for most of the kidnappings.

Putin also on Monday insisted that Russia's military action in Chechnya was not directed against Muslims, saying that Russia "always has been the most loyal, reliable and consistent defender of the Islamic world's interests." By waging a war against Russia, the rebels are destroying "a key bulwark of support for the Islamic world," he said.

Russian forces retreated from Chechnya in 1996 after a 20-month war that left the Caucasus region de facto independent. They returned in 1999 after Chechen rebels raided Dagestan and after a series of apartment house bombings in three Russian cities including Moscow that killed some 300 people. Large-scale combat operations have ended, but rebels continue to ambush police and security forces and keep up a steady stream of land mine explosions.

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Head of former rebel group chosen to run for president of DR Congo
Agence France Presse, 12/12/05

Azarias Ruberwa, head of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), a former rebel movement-turned political party, was chosen to represent his party in upcoming presidential elections, the Democratic Republic of Congo's first free poll in 40 years.

Ruberwa was chosen by unanimity during an RCD party congress which opened Sunday in the DRC capital of Kinshasa. Some 270 representatives from 11 provinces participated in the party congress, its first since the ex-rebel movement became a political force in 2003. At the congress opening, Ruberwa, also one of the four vice president's of the DRC's transitional government, said his party was "determined to win" the upcoming presidential election.

The DRC, previously Zaire, has not known a free election in more than 40 years and currently has an interim government including former rivals in the last, 1998-2003 war. The RCD was the main rebel movement backed by Rwanda during that war, which drew in the armies of half a dozen other African countries on rival sides and directly or indirectly, through starvation and sickness, claimed an estimated three million lives.

Legislative elections and the first round of a presidential election set to transition the country from civil war to democracy are scheduled for March 20, 2006. A presidential run-off will be held on April 30. The so-called nationalist-patriot wing of the RCD, still supported by Rwanda, boycotted the congress, calling it premature

Tensions rise in Georgia's separatist province after four Georgians detained
Associated Press, 12/7/05

Tensions between Georgia and its breakaway province of South Ossetia escalated Wednesday after separatist authorities briefly detained three Georgian police officers and a civilian.

South Ossetian police detained the four men late Tuesday as they were traveling to what separatists called an illegal Georgian government checkpoint. Georgian authorities and separatists frequently clash over areas of control around the region. Russian peacekeepers deployed to South Ossetia handed all four men to Georgian authorities early Wednesday, the peacekeepers' commander Maj. Gen. Marat Kulakhmetov told The Associated Press.

Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said that the four Georgians had been beaten by separatists and called their detention "an act of vandalism." "We will not tolerate that," he said in televised remarks.

Mikhail Mindayev, the interior minister in South Ossetia's separatist government, said the four men had offered resistance to the arrest.

Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, who chairs the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe issued a statement expressing concern about the "unhelpful escalation in tension in the Georgian-Ossetian zone of conflict."

South Ossetia has run its own affairs - without international recognition - since it broke away from central government control in an 18-month war that ended in 1992. Both South Ossetia and another separatist province of Abkhazia have close ties with Moscow, which has granted Russian citizenship to many of their residents. Russian peacekeepers have been deployed to both regions since the early 1990s, and Georgian authorities repeatedly have accused them of siding with separatists.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has vowed to bring the breakaway regions back into the fold. Georgia's parliament recently passed a resolution urging the government to oust the peacekeepers next year should they fail to help a peaceful settlement. Relations between Russia and Georgia often have been tense as Tbilisi seeks to curb Moscow's influence and integrate more closely with the West.

Aceh rebels to complete fourth phase of disarmament as part of peace deal
Associated Press, 12/11/05

Former rebels will complete a fourth round of weapons decommissioning next week as part of a landmark peace deal to end 29 years of fighting in Indonesia's tsunami-devastated Aceh province, peace monitors said Sunday.

Under the peace accord signed in August, separatist rebels must hand over 840 functioning weapons, while the government withdraws 24,000 police and soldiers. Both commitments must be completed by the end of the year.

Peter Feith, the Dutch diplomat who heads an international mission monitoring the deal, said the rebels are scheduled to surrender 200 more weapons starting Wednesday at the town of Kutacane, as part of a peace deal to end 29 years of fighting."I am optimistic the disarmament and pulling out of the troops will end in peace on Dec. 26," said Feith. The rebels have now surrendered a total of 698 weapons, the monitoring mission said.

Maj. Gen. Bambang Darmono, the Indonesian representative within the Aceh Monitoring Mission, said the military plans to complete its fourth round of troop withdrawals at the end of December. He said it will be followed by a distribution of economic assistance as part of reintegration package to help former rebels settle back into society during the post-conflict period.

Peace efforts picked up speed after the massive earthquake and tsunami struck the area on Dec. 26, 2004, killing 131,000 people in the province and leaving half a million others homeless. Three earlier attempts have failed to end the Aceh war, which has claimed 15,000 lives.

Aceh Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.

Ivorian PM confident on election, disarmament
Agence France Press, 12/11/05

Newly elected Ivorian Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny on Sunday said he was confident that the task of organising new elections as well as disarming fighters in the divided west African state would be met.

Banny, who is continuing consultations both within and outside the Ivory Coast met South African President Thabo Mbeki on Sunday for talks on his recent appointment as well as challenges within his troubled country."If I did not think I could help to solve that important question I would not have embarked on this mission," Banny said in response to a question on whether he thought elections by October next year and the disarmament of rebels and militia were possible."My answer to that question is my acceptance of my appointment," he said at a joint press conference with Mbeki in Pretoria.

A United Nations Security Council resolution will give Banny wide powers including authority over all security, electoral and financial matters and will enable him to seize portfolios of uncooperative ministers.

Banny was asked whether he or Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo was in charge of the country, which has been in turmoil since fighting broke out in 2002 between Gbagbo's forces and rebels based in the mainly Muslim north."I have not come here to talk about that question, (although) it is an important one," said Banny."The term of President Gbagbo ended at the end of October 2005. I will take that into account when I try to accomplish the mission given to me. At the end of that I hope that that question would become irrelevant," he said.

Banny, who took over the reigns from his predecessor Seydou Diarra on Wednesday, already had discussions with leading Ivorian political players, as well as meeting Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Friday. Until now the governor of the West African Central Bank, Banny was appointed to his new job on Sunday by the chief mediators in Ivory Coast's political crisis, presidents Obasanjo -- who is also chairman of the African Union -- and Mbeki. His most pressing job will be to organise a national disarmament operation and to organise a presidential election before the end of October next year.

Obasanjo and Mbeki stressed that Banny, 63, would not himself be eligible to run in the election to replace Gbagbo. Mbeki said he spoke to the Ivorian prime minister about the task ahead and thanked him for taking responsibility."It is a challenging task and it needs someone like him, someone of stature, someone of standing and someone with perspective to run the government of national unity," Mbeki said.

Banny thanked Mbeki, saying "I appreciate that lot has been done thanks to him ... and to his support that he has readily offered."

Ivory Coast, the world's leading cocoa producer, once one of Africa's most prosperous states, has been split since fighting broke out in 2002.

Indian Kashmiris allege rights violations on world rights day
Agence France Presse, 12/110/05

Separatists in Indian Kashmir accused India's army of violating human rights and appealed for UN intervention as they staged protest marches Saturday to mark International Human Rights Day.

Police broke up a small march by activists of the main separatist alliance, Hurriyat, in the summer capital Srinagar and detained four separatists."They have been detained for violating law and order," a police officer at the scene told AFP.

But another group of protesters presented a petition to the small United Nations office in Srinagar that monitors the ceasefire along the Line of Control which separates the Indian and Pakistani zones of Kashmir. The protesters were led by a senior Kashmiri separatist leader Shabir Shah who spent over 20 years in Indian jails and who heads Kashmirs anti-violence Democratic Freedom Party.

The petition addressed to UN chief Kofi Annan alleged that rights violations were continuing in Kashmir despite a peace process between India and Pakistan who have been feuding for decades over the region."There is no let-up in human rights violations (by Indian troops) even as a constructive peace process is going on," read the two-page memorandum. "We continue to be killed and oppressed. On behalf of nearly 13 million people on both sides of the Line of Control, I passionately appeal to your kind self to respond to the boiling Kashmir situation," the document said. "We believe demilitarising the region would help find the long elusive Kashmir solution. Let this credible world body reach out to the oppressed people of Jammu and Kashmir," it added.

India's army is seeking to crush a 16-year-old Islamic revolt against New Delhi's rule. It denies allegations of systematic human rights abuses and says those found guilty of any wrongdoing are punished. New Delhi has barred Amnesty and other leading international human rights groups from visiting Kashmir to check on the situation. India says it has a "credible and impartial" National Human Rights Commission to monitor the situation.

War Crimes tribunal rules against Milosevic request to subpoena Blair, Schroeder
Associated Press, 12/9/05

The U.N. war crimes tribunal hearing the case of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic rejected a motion Friday to subpoena British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Milosevic has repeatedly sought to call Blair, Schroeder and other government leaders to testify about the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Serbia, which ended Serbian army action against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. The tribunal panel turned down a submission by two British court-appointed lawyers assisting Milosevic, saying it "finds that the issuance of a subpoena is not warranted in relation to either Mr. Blair or Mr. Schroeder."

The three judges said the defense had failed to prove it needed the two leaders' testimony as "a last resort," which is required.

Milosevic is defending himself against 66 counts of war crimes in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia during the 1990s. The former Serbian leader contends that the Kosovo war was an anti-terrorist operation. Prosecutors have charged him with murder, persecution and the unlawful eviction of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians from their homes in the province.

The lawyers' submission claimed that Blair and Schroeder "possessed information that was necessary for the resolution of specific issues relevant to the Kosovo indictment," and asked the court to "compel their attendance" at the trial, a tribunal statement said. The two British attorneys, Steven Kaye and Gillian Higgins, listed nine areas of questioning, ranging from NATO's arming and training of the Kosovo Liberation Army to the leaders' involvement with Milosevic at the peace talks in Paris that ended the war. The British and German governments responded that the questions were too broad to warrant summoning Blair and Schroeder to The Hague.

Milosevic was on "a fishing expedition in the form of taking the testimony of a head of government on any and every aspect of his government's policy regarding the Kosovo conflict," said the reply from London cited in the judges' ruling. Germany said Milosevic was "trying to shift the blame for the disintegration" of Yugoslavia onto NATO, which it said was "absurd."

The judges have yet to rule on a proposal to split Milosevic's trial in two, judging Kosovo separately as a way to speed up part of the proceedings. Both Milosevic and prosecutors opposed the idea, though for different reasons. Milosevic also has asked the tribunal for a six-week recess, citing doctors' report that he needed more rest because of chronic heart problems. The tribunal was likely to rule on the two questions before beginning a three-week winter adjournment.

Reform of local government becomes the first stumbling-block in talks on Kosovo's future
Associated Press, 12/12/05

Kosovo's top U.N. official told ethnic Albanian leaders Monday the reform of local government in the province aimed at enhancing the rights of Serbs and other minorities will be a key factor in determining Kosovo's future status.

Soren Jessen-Petersen, the top official in the U.N-run province, urged the five-member team set to negotiate Kosovo's future in the upcoming talks to be ready to discuss it with Serbian leaders in Belgrade. The reform of local governance will "be a key factor in determining the outcome of the status talks," Jessen-Petersen told reporters after the meeting.

U.N. and other Western officials have put pressure on ethnic Albanian leaders to address issues concerning minorities, in particular reforming local governance to give Serbs more say in areas where they live, as an incentive for them to participate in the political life of the province. In addition, there are attempts to bring Kosovo and Belgrade officials together to discuss the issue later this month in Vienna, Austria, as part of the direct dialogue between the two, a process which runs separate from status talks.

The U.N.-mediated talks on Kosovo's future status are expected to formally begin in January. Although still officially a province of Serbia-Montenegro, the United Nations has administered Kosovo since a 1999 NATO bombing campaign halted the Serbian crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority insists on independence, while Serbia and the Serb minority living here want to retain at least formal control over the region.

Albert Rohan, the deputy U.N. envoy who will arrive in Kosovo Monday for a new round of talks, said in an interview with Koha Ditore daily that reform is an attempt to forestall the division of the province along ethnic lines. Ethnic Albanian leaders, fearing such division, insist that the process is Kosovo's internal matter, and should not be a subject of negotiations with Serbia. However, they did not oppose the possibility of a meeting to discuss the matter in Vienna.

"The local government reform must be led by Pristina," said Hashim Thaci, the leader of Kosovo's largest opposition group. He said that "outside impact" on the process would involve the danger of province's ethnic partition.

Belgrade and the province's Serbs demand broad-reaching autonomy in the areas where they constitute a majority. Kosovo's government has put forward a plan that envisages new municipalities run by Serbs, albeit in smaller units than they have demanded.

Macedonia risks becoming casualty of EU budget impasse
Agence France Presse, 12/12/05

European Union foreign ministers failed on Monday to make Macedonia an official candidate for EU membership, amid concern the Balkan state will fall victim to a dispute over the bloc's budget.

Congratulated for quickly implementing reform in the four years since the end of its ethnic Albanian uprising, tiny Macedonia had hoped to be granted official EU membership candidacy status this week. But diplomats said that EU leaders, at their summit in Brussels starting on Thursday, are unlikely to discuss enlargement issues if they cannot reach a deal on the 2007-2013 spending plans with the bloc the size it is now.

Macedonia's case was discussed by EU foreign ministers on Monday, but they passed the decision upward as "there is not yet a full consensus on this question," said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. "It's the overall context that I think was of concern to some member states around the table," said Straw, whose country holds the bloc's rotating presidency until the end of the month and is trying to end the budget standoff.

France appears most vocally opposed to Skopje's EU overtures."We asked ourselves if the conditions are right today, in December 2005, to officially give Macedonia the status of a candidate. Is this the right time to choose?" said French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy."Granting candidate status like that would send a strong political signal to the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, which is positive, but it would also send a signal to the public ... that we are heading for more enlargement," he said during a meeting of EU foreign ministers. "The problem is knowing whether we should launch a new wave of enlargement."

The issue of continued expansion is particularly sensitive in France, where voters rejected the EU's constitution at the end of May in part due to fears over the costs and the possible influx of workers and immigrants it might mean. The budget has been in limbo for most of the year amid divisions over Britain's rebate and France's refusal to give up more farm subsidies, which consume some 40 percent of the spending package. It is worth more than 800 billion euros (944 billion dollars) and is vital to ensure the transfer of much-needed funds to the EU's relatively poor new member countries in central and eastern Europe.

"Macedonia is in danger of becoming a little victim of circumstances, but we are going to try to make sure that it is as small a victim as possible," said one European official on condition of anonymity. The European Commission recommended a month ago that Macedonia be accepted as a candidate, but the EU executive declined to predict when membership talks would start.

In the face of a possible set back for Skopje, EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn reiterated that stance on Monday."We are recommending granting candidate status ... The decision on this issue is very important for our credibility in the western Balkans," he said.

The prospect of EU membership, particularly for countries in the volatile Balkans region, is seen by many in the Union as vital to ensuring that they continue to improve their democratic standards. Douste-Blazy, when asked whether France would block the move to grant Macedonia candidacy status, said: "President (Jacques) Chirac will speak about it when the time is right."

Macedonia has pushed through a series of often unpopular reforms in recent years, motivated by promises of EU membership. Ethnic tensions flared again in July last year amid widespread opposition to EU-backed electoral changes.

NATO raps Russia over refusal to withdraw from Moldova
Agence France Presse, 12/8/05

NATO foreign ministers expressed regret Thursday that Russia has still not withdrawn from a separatist part of Moldova, urging Moscow to fulfill its commitments under a landmark 1999 accord.

The 26-nation military alliance said Russian troops must be pulled out of the separatist region of Transdniestr, a sliver of territory along its eastern border with Ukraine."We note with regret the lack of progress on withdrawal of Russian military forces from the Republic of Moldova and we call upon Russia to resume and complete its withdrawal as soon as possible," they said in a joint statement.

Transdniestr is controlled by Russian-speaking separatists who ousted Moldova's central authorities in 1992, one year after the country gained its independence in the break-up of the Soviet Union. More than 700 people were killed in that brief war and since then Russian peacekeepers have patrolled a buffer zone between the two sides.

NATO said that Russia must implement its commitments under the 1999 adapted Convention Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, which called for Russia to withdraw forces from both Moldova and Georgia."We reiterate our commitment to the CFE Treaty as a cornerstone of European security," said the NATO ministers, including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, after regular talks in Brussels.

Moldovan separatists hold parliamentary elections, despite OSCE objections
Associated Press, 12/11/05

Pro-Russian separatists controlling a province in eastern Moldova held parliamentary elections Sunday, rejecting objections by Moldova and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that the ballot would not be fair.

The OSCE has refused to monitor or recognize the ballot, saying the region was not allowing media freedom. The trans-Atlantic security organization also has criticized the fact that secret services were overseeing all polling stations. But Trans-Dniester's leader, Igor Smirnov, said the "elections were for the Trans-Dniester people and not for the OSCE."

The region has been fiercely pro-Russian since breaking away from Moldova with Russia's support in 1992, after a war which left 1,500 people dead. It claims to want the Soviet Union back, and its parliament is called the Supreme Soviet, as local legislative assemblies were called before the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. "We are not trying to prove to anyone that Trans-Dniester is a democratic state ... anyone who wants to come and see this is welcome to come," said Smirnov, who has ruled the region in an authoritarian manner since 1990.

By 6 p.m. (1600GMT), over 46 percent from the region's 430,000 voters had cast their ballots, surpassing the required threshold of 25 percent for the election to be declared valid. However, some voters at a Tiraspol polling station complained that they were being forced to vote by their company management.

Moldova's government has protested the elections, saying the ballot was a plot by Trans-Dniester's leader to legitimize his rule. Moldova has appealed to the international community not to recognize the ballot. Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin has said such elections must take place "only after Trans-Dniester is demilitarized, decriminalized and democratized."

EU lifts travel ban on eight from breakaway Moldovan region
Associated Press, 12/12/05

European Union foreign ministers Monday lifted travel restrictions imposed on eight people from the breakaway Moldovan region of Trans-Dniester accused of a campaign of intimidation against Moldovan-language schools.

"The situation for teachers, parents and students has improved considerably," the EU said in a statement. The visa ban will remain for two other people from the town of Ribnitsa, where the EU said Moldovan language students were still forced to study in temporary premises.

Separatist authorities in the pro-Russian region closed schools last year complaining because they were teaching students to write Moldovan with the Latin alphabet instead of the Cyrillic alphabet that is used in the separatist region, which also recognizes Russian and Ukrainian as official languages. Moldova's official language is Moldovan, similar to Romanian.

The school closures heightened tensions with Moldova, which broke off settlement talks with Trans-Dniester. The schools have since been reopened, and talks have resumed.

However, the EU maintains a travel ban on 17 members of the Trans-Dniester leadership imposed in early 2003 for obstructing efforts to negotiate a settlement with Moldova's authorities. The region broke away from Moldova in 1992, after a war which left 1,500 people dead.
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US rights group defends Western Sahara militants on trial
Agence France Presse, 12/10/05

US-based organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) has written to Morocco's King Mohammed VI to defend seven activists for the independence of Western Sahara currently on trial.

The seven are among 14 people whose trial in the main Western Sahara city of Laayoune since November 22 resumes on Tuesday. All face heavy prison sentences if convicted. The 14 were arrested during June and July in the wake of clashes in Laayoun between pro-independence militants and police in Laayoun in May.

Sarah Leah Whitson, head of HRW's Middle East and North Africa division. said in her letter to the king made public Saturday that the group "is concerned that little if any of the evidence implicating them in inciting, directing or participating in the violence appears to be credible. It appears rather that these individuals are being targeted for prosecution because of their activism on behalf of Sahrawi victims of human rights abuses, and their outspoken but peaceful advocacy of independence for the Sahrawi people and opposition to continued Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara."

Western Sahara was annexed by Morocco in 1975 after Spain gave up its rule of the phosphate-rich region. Sovereignty is claimed by the Polisario Front, which fought a lengthy guerrilla war against Rabat's forces before a ceasefire in 1991. UN-led attempts to resolve the future of the territory have been deadlocked, with the Polisario rejecting Morocco's offer of extensive autonomy.

HRW said the case against the seven appeared to rest on written statements attributed by the police to the various defendants but which they refused to sign. The group called on the judge to scrutinise the statements and those of "other persons implicating the human rights defenders in crimes."

"We ask Moroccan authorities to guarantee a fair trial for the defendants currently before the court in Laayoune, to end all forms of harassment and reprisal against persons for collecting and disseminating information about human rights violations, and to end censorship of websites dealing with the Western Sahara because of their human rights or political content," HRW added.

Nepal army chief brands Maoist truce a ploy
Agence France Presse, 12/6/05

Nepal's army chief Tuesday accused Maoist rebels of continued attacks, abductions and killings despite announcing a unilateral ceasefire.

General Pyar Jung Thapa said the military was determined to crush the insurgency, dismissing their four-month-old ceasefire as "crooked tricks" and a "ploy." "The Maoists have abducted over 8,000 civilians, forcibly recruited children, tormented and displaced army families and extorted money during the so-called truce," a military statement released on Tuesday quoted Thapa telling troops in eastern Nepal Monday.

On Friday, Nepal's insurgent Maoists extended a three-month unilateral ceasefire by one month, a move welcomed by the United Nations and the European Union. Human rights groups accuse both the Maoists and the Royal Nepalese Army of abuses that include torture.

The Maoists and seven mainstream opposition parties agreed last month to form an anti-royal alliance to restore democracy in the troubled Himalayan kingdom. Nepalese King Gyanendra fired a civilian government and seized power on February 1 ostensibly to end the deadly Maoist revolt. The rebels and opposition parties set out a 12-point plan and called for an end to fighting and for elections to be held under UN auspices. The rebels have been fighting for a communist republic since 1996 and the uprising has so far claimed more than 12,000 lives.

Philippines hopes for peace deal with Muslim rebels next year
Agence France Presse, 12/11/05

The Philippine government hopes to seal a peace agreement with Muslim separatist rebels in the country's south by the middle of next year but extremist groups remain a threat, an official said Sunday.

Jesus Dureza, chief presidential aide for the southern island of Mindanao, said the presence of US troops in the area giving non-combat support to Filipino soldiers was crucial in the fight against terrorism. The peace process with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is "being worked on," Dureza told AFP on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit here."There have been very, very positive points already in the contentious issues, especially on ancestral domain, so we are confident that by the middle of next year we will wrap up this agreement."

MILF rebels have been battling for a separate Islamic state in Mindanao since the late 1970s and have distanced themselves from the extremist Abu Sayyaf group, blamed for a spate of kidnappings and bomb attacks.

But Dureza said extremist groups remain a threat."They will continue to take opportunities. They are there. You cannot discount them," said Dureza, chairman of the Mindanao Economic Development Council."Since they belong to a group that is fanatical and have a very clear objective of hurting people without regard of hurting civilians, they are a factor in our security concerns."

Abu Sayyaf are believed to have links with the Al-Qaeda terror group. The Southeast Asia-based Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militant group is also thought to have clandestine training bases in Mindanao.

"We are addressing the issue very decisively. We've got most of the wanted JI leaders," Dureza said. He said the presence of a small group of US troops in Mindanao was "positively welcomed." "They are not doing combat operations. The Americans are providing support in terms of intelligence and providing hardware for our military. Of course the US role is important, especially in the fight against terrorism."

Conflict group backs independence poll for Montenegro
Agence France Presse, 12/7/05

A referendum on whether Montenegro should split from Serbia is unlikely to encourage similar secession attempts in the Balkans, a conflict resolution think tank said Wednesday.

"Allowing Montenegrins to decide their future in 2006 free of outside pressure from the European Union and Belgrade will enhance, not undermine, the regions stability," the International Crisis Group said in a statement.

The Republic of Montenegro is the only former Yugoslav republic still linked with Serbia in a loose EU-backed union formed in February 2003. Either side can leave the partnership after a three-year probation period. Montenegro's government has announced plans for an independence referendum by late April 2006, although the republic's main opposition parties and Belgrade are strongly opposed.

"The EU should encourage opposition groups to participate peacefully in the process and make clear that if Montenegro chooses to leave its state union with Serbia it will accept the outcome," Nicholas Whyte, the ICG's European Program director, said in a statement. The EU fears a divorce would undermine both Belgrade's and Podgorica's efforts to join the European bloc and officials also worry that another independence push, just as talks on the status of the UN-administered Serbian province of Kosovo enter a delicate phase, could stir up regional tensions. But the ICG, a non-profit organization dedicated to conflict resolution, sees the situation differently.

"The Montenegrin independence issue will not, as is sometimes feared, affect the international process underway to determine Kosovos final status or set off a domino effect of secession attempts in Macedonia or Bosnia," the ICG said.

The group's Serbian project director, James Lyon, said Montenegro "has proven it is ready" for an independence referendum as it "has been largely self-sufficient since 1999 and has undergone the necessary property, business and banking reforms." "It has earned the right to decide whether to stay in this unhappy marriage (with Serbia)," Lyon added.

The group warned that Serbian nationalists had interpreted the EU's stance as a green light to boycott a referendum and possibly resort to violence."In the event that Montenegro chooses independence -- likely but by no means certain -- the EU should stand ready to offer assistance to both Montenegro and Serbia," the ICG said."Belgrade and Podgorica should peacefully accept the results of a vote and negotiate as necessary smooth resolutions of issues such as dual citizenship, property, pensions, taxes, health care, education and residents rights," the group said.

Montenegro, which is about one-tenth the size of Serbia, has a population of about 650,000, many of whom live in Serbia. Serbian is the official language of both republics, while the dominant religion is Orthodox Christianity.

Serbia hands top fugitive's file to U.N. tribunal
Associated Press, 12/9/05

Serbia on Friday handed over to the U.N. war crimes tribunal a secret file on top fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic, including sections that had earlier mysteriously gone missing.

The handover, announced by human rights minister Rasim Ljajic, appeared to be a final attempt by the government to placate chief U.N. proscutor Carla Del Ponte before she submits her report on Serbia's cooperation with the war crimes tribunal to the U.N. Security Council. If the Security Council rules later this month that Serbia is not cooperating with the tribunal, the troubled Balkan country could face renewed political and economic sanctions and isolation.

Mladic's personal file, compiled by Serbia-Montenegro military, was sought by the U.N. prosecution in its case against the wartime Bosnian Serb military commander who was charged in 1995 with genocide during Bosnia's 1992-95 civil war.

After prosecution demands that lasted for three years, the Serbian authorities earlier this year finally handed the file to the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. But the prosecutors soon discovered that key parts were missing. Ljajic said Friday that the "complete" file was now handed over, including the seven missing pages that had disappeared while the document was in the military's possession. Mladic, who has been on the run since 2002, is believed to be hiding under the protection of hard-liners in the Serb-led military. The file is believed to contain details about Mladic's orders and movements during the Bosnian war - key in determining his guilt during the brutal Bosnian Serb onslaught against rival Bosnian Muslims and Croats.

Meanwhile, in comments published Friday, Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic said the United States and the European Union are losing patience with Serbia over its failure to arrest top war crimes suspects. Draskovic told the Beta news agency that Mladic and wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic are still at large because their capture depends on Serbia's "unreformed security services" which remain under the control of former President Slobodan Milosevic's allies. Draskovic, an opposition leader under the former regime, has claimed that Milosevic's allies still control Serbia's police despite his ouster from power in 2000, and his extradition to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in 2001.

The arrest in Spain of top Croatian war crimes suspect Ante Gotovina put the spotlight on Serbia to come up with the two other top fugitives from the Balkan wars. Mladic and Karadzic are believed to be hiding in Serbia or in the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia. The U.S. and the EU "are still supporting Serbia's European future, but are losing patience because of our failure to carry out our obligations" toward the U.N. tribunal, Draskovic said. Karadzic and Mladic were charged by the tribunal with orchestrating the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim boys and men from Srebrenica - Europe's worst carnage since World War II.

Judges to deliver verdicts in Serbia's landmark war crimes trial
Associated Press, 12/12/05

A Serbian court will on deliver on Monday its verdict in the landmark war crimes trial of 16 former militiamen accused of executing 200 Croat prisoners of war in 1991, one of the worst massacres of POWs during brutal Balkan wars.

Since the trial opened two years ago in Serbia's special war crimes court, only one suspect and two protected witnesses have confessed to their roles in the killings at a pig farm near the Croatian town of Vukovar. The prosecution has demanded maximum 20-year prison terms for all 16 defendants. Defense attorneys have asked for their acquittal.

During the fighting in November 1991, the Serb-controlled Yugoslav army advanced against the forces of newly independent Croatia and seized control of a disputed eastern territory, capturing several hundred Croatian soldiers and civilians. While most of those captured in the town of Vukovar were eventually released, about 200 were taken from a hospital and gunned down at the nearby farm in the village of Ovcara.

The POWs were separated into the groups of seven to eight men and sprayed with machine gun fire, the indictment said. Those showing signs of life were shot in the head with pistols, it added."Every (Serb) soldier who came to the pit was forced to shoot, as an assurance for their silence," the prosecution said.

In key testimony last month, former soldier Ivan Atanasijevic admitted taking part in the killings."I was completely in shock," he said. "Not even in movies have I seen so many corpses at one place."

The trial in Belgrade is seen as a key test of the ability of Serbia's judiciary to deal with cases of war crimes committed during the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Such trials only became possible only after pro-democracy leaders toppled former President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 and sent him to the U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. He is currently standing trial for his role in fomenting the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.The Hague tribunal is responsible for trying top civilian and military leaders - including three former Yugoslav army officers charged with command responsibility in the Croat POW slayings. Local courts in the Balkan countries deal with lower-level suspects.

Northern Somali foes exchange final batch of POWs
Agence France Presse, 12/6/05

Somalia's breakaway state of Somaliland and the neighboring semi-autonomous region of Puntland have exchanged a final batch of prisoners captured last year during a territorial conflict, the United Nations said Tuesday.

In what UN officials hailed as "a momentous step of reconciliation" the two sides traded the 36 prisoners Monday after mediation by Ghanim Alnajjar, a UN-appointed independent expert on human rights in Somalia, it said. "This event is a significant confidence-building gesture by both administrations," said Philippe Lazzarini of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Somalia.

The men were the last of scores of prisoners captured in October 2004 when the two enclaves battled over Somalia's eastern Sanaag and Sool regions that lie within colonial boundaries of Somaliland but are claimed by Puntland. After years of festering tension, the fighting, which claimed more than 100 lives, erupted less than two weeks after Puntland warlord Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was installed as the president of Somalia's transitional government. Although the conflict petered out, the ownership row has not been resolved but the UN said the exchange would boost efforts to end the dispute and provided statements by officials from both sides to back up its assessment.

"The exchange ... signifies a strong commitment by the authorities towards creating stability in the area," Puntland's minister of international cooperation minister Abdirahman Farole was quoted as saying.

In less forthcoming comments, Somaliland's justice minister, Ahmed Hassan Ali, said the exchange was "conducted on humanitarian grounds" and asked the international community to help the ex-prisoners integrate into society.

UNICEF and the Danish Refugee Council are to help the released POWs resettle in their respective homelands, the statement said. Unlike Somalia proper which has been wracked by anarchic violence since 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre, northeastern Puntland and its foe to the west, Somaliland, are relatively peaceful.

Tigers demand urgent talks to defuse Sri Lanka war fears
Agence France Presse, 12/10/05

Tamil Tiger rebels have asked Norway to arrange urgent peace talks with Colombo to prevent Sri Lanka from sliding back into war after 31 people died in a week of violence, a report on their website said Saturday.

The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said they told Norway's top envoy here, Hans Brattskar, that there should be immediate negotiations to maintain a tenuous truce in place since February 2002."Our commitment to the ceasefire and the peace process remains undiluted and what we request now is to urgently arrange a high-level meeting between the parties...," said the LTTE's political wing leader S. P. Thamilselvan.

In a report on their official website, the LTTE said only face-to-face negotiations could "bring about normalcy and avoid confrontational postures between the civilians and the occupying military." There was no immediate comment from the government or the Norwegians.

The LTTE leader flatly rejected a call by new President Mahinda Rajapakse to revise the ceasefire and dismissed Rajapakse's election pledge to abandon plans to turn the country into a federal state in exchange for ethnic peace. The government of Rajapakse -- who had earlier promised to overhaul the peace bid and review the role of the Norwegians -- on Wednesday did a U-turn and asked Oslo to stay on.

"It is true that Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse went to town with rigid stances relating to the 'unitary state' and the necessity to review the ceasefire," said Thamilselvan."But the ground realities and hard facts dictate there is no need to review the ceasefire for it is comprehensive and all-encompassing and what is needed is implementation of what has been agreed upon between the parties," he said. He said the "rigid stance" of sticking to a unitary state may have been an election campaign ploy, but it was not helpful to resolving the decades-old ethnic conflict between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil communities.
Rajapakse was elected president last month.

The Tigers agreed in December 2002 to settle for a federal state rather than full independence, but direct talks between the guerrillas and Colombo have been stalemated since April 2003. Diplomatic efforts to revive the process also remain deadlocked.

Following a surge in violence in the embattled northern and eastern regions that began last week, the military declared Friday it was ready to meet "any terrorist challenge." The chief of defence staff, Daya Sandagiri, however, said it did not expect the country to slip back into full-scale war.

Rajapakse asked Norwegian envoy Brattskar to keep up peacebrokering efforts even though two key allies of his government had insisted Norway be expelled from the peace process, accusing it of favouring the rebels. Norway has said the two parties must agree to certain unspecified conditions before it resumes the role of peace facilitator in a country where more than 60,000 people have died in ethnic violence since 1972.

Darfur negotiators meet on row over power, wealth sharing
Agence France Presse, 12/9/05

Delegates at the African Union-sponsored peace talks seeking an end to the 33-month-old crisis in Sudan's Darfur region returned to the negotiating table Friday in a bid to resolve a row over power and wealth sharing, an AU spokesman said.

"The meeting of the commission on power sharing is now under way. While that of wealth sharing will start at 4:00 pm," Nouredine Mezni told AFP."The representatives of the government of Sudan and those of the movements are expected to respond to a compromise proposal by the AU," he said. He said the meeting on power sharing was initially slated for Thursday night but had to be postponed to allow the region's two rebel movements to reach a compromise with delegates from the Khartoum government on some contentious issues.

The row over power sharing had almost stalled the latest round of talks which resumed on November 28."The government of Sudan does not want to concede the vice presidency to the south nor to Darfur. It also does not want Darfur to be considered a single region," said Ahmed Hussein Adam, spokesman for the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

Previous negotiations were undermined by regular ceasefire violations, and the United Nations has warned the Darfur region is falling into chaos, with murder, robbery and rape on the increase. War broke out in February 2003 when the rebels -- the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the JEM -- began fighting what they say is the political and economic marginalisation of the region's black African tribes by the Arab-led regime in Khartoum.

Up to 300,000 people have died and more than two million fled their homes in what UN aid agencies have dubbed world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Sudan leaders responsible for Darfur atrocities: rights group
Agence France Presse, 12/12/05

Sudan's top leadership, including President Omar el-Beshir, bears responsibility for widespread atrocities committed in the troubled western Darfur region, a leading human rights watchdog said Monday.

Beshir and 15 other current and former senior officials in the Khartoum government, military commanders and local administrators should be subjected to UN sanctions and probed for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said."The Sudanese government at the highest levels is responsible for widespread and systematic abuses in Darfur," HRW said in a report entitled "Entrenching Impunity: Government Responsibility for International Crimes in Darfur."

"Senior Sudanese officials ... must be held accountable for the campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur," said HRW's Africa director Peter Takirambudde.

The New York-based group called for the UN Security Council and individual nations to take stronger measures to atrocities there and boost the African Union (AU) military mission in the region. And it called on the International Criminal Court (ICC), the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal, to investigate Sudan's entire leadership for possible prosecution for the abuses. It named Beshir, Sudan's Second Vice President Ali Osman Taha, Defense Minister Abduraheem Hussein, armed forces chief of staff Abbas Arabi and intelligence chief Salah Abdallah Ghosh as among those suspected of orchestrating repression in Darfur. They "should be investigated for crimes against humanity and war crimes, either as a matter of individual criminal responsibility or command responsibility," HRW said in the nearly 90-page report.

Sudanese Minister of Information Zahawi Ibrahim Malek dismissed the report bu the US watchdog. "We do not pay attention to such organisations because they are not official institutions," he told AFP. "We are waiting for a report by the (ICC) prosecutor general that is expected to be issued during the coming few days," Malek added.

War broke out in Darfur in 2003 when rebel groups began fighting what they say is the political and economic marginalisation of the region's black African tribes by the Arab-led regime in Khartoum. As many as 300,000 people have died and more than two million fled their homes in what UN aid agencies have dubbed the world's worst humanitarian crisis with reports of rapes, extrajudicial killings and other atrocities rampant.

Much of the abuse is blamed on Khartoum's proxy militias -- the so-called "Janjaweed" -- but in its report, HRW placed responsibility higher, citing witness accounts from refugees and interviews with Sudanese soldiers and officials. Based on those accounts, HRW said: "the looting and destruction of villages was not just condoned by government officials, it was methodically organized, with troops and militia members permitted to take land, livestock and other civilian property."

Although the Sudanese army itself appears to have ended operations in Darfur, the Janjaweed are still active and despite promises to rein them in, Khartoum has done little to end the abuses of its proxies, it said. "The Sudanese leadership continues to implement policies that permit continuing attacks on civilians and perpetuate a climate of fear and intimidation through structural and institutional abuse," HRW said. "(It) has shown no sign that it is prepared to fundamentally change its policies," the report said. "If the ongoing abuses in Darfur are to be stopped, and if the ethnic cleansing is to be reversed, then the UN Security Council, regional bodies and other governments must sharply increase their sanctions on the Sudanese government for human rights crimes," it said.