PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Monday, August 15, 2005
(Volume IV, Number 30)
Contents:
Burundi to make huge savings after debt cancellation deal, finance minister says
Debt cancellation stands to benefit health and education programs in Burundi.
Former guerrilla leader denounces former position.
Prosecutor drops genocide charge in Congo mass murder trial
Group of officials charged in death of 350 people.
Georgia, Ukraine push for new alliance to promote democracy
New organization called Commonwealth of Democratic Choice.
Head of peace monitoring team arrives in Indonesia's Aceh
Javier Solana describes mission as first EU peace mission in Asia.
Aceh peace deal latest chapter in province's bloody history
Aceh conflict has a long history, dating back to colonialization.
EU to send €7.9 million (US$9.8 million) to help pay for October elections in Ivory Coast
Elections a crucial stage in reconciliation process in country.
UN observers harassed, vehicle wrecked in southern Ivory Coast
Observers forced to take refuge in government buildings.
UN official discusses election preparations with Ivory Coast rebels
Conflict between existing government and rebels regarding election rolls.
Indian Kashmir's top woman politician asks Pakistan to help end bloodshed
Politician puts pressure on Musharraf to bring peace to Kashmir.
Islamic rebel groups reject call for truce in Indian Kashmir
Most powerful group refuses to agree to truce.
Kosovo
Construction of new homes underway in Kosovo in effort to close down refugee camp
Apartments will replace refugee camps at Plementina.
UN envoy returning to Kosovo to review developments
Kai Eide expected to submit report to UN in September whether to begin status talks.
Official was formerly deputy special representative in Kosovo.
Hope for Moroccan POWs
Op-ed suggests that U.S. put pressure on Algeria in handling prisoners held by Polisario Front.
Nepal radio stations resume newscasts after court stays king's ban
Court ruling allows radio stations to resume news bulletins.
Election puts fragile peace deal in Muslim region at risk
Arroyo ally has won election in Mindanao.
Serbian deputy PM warns oil company privatization problems jeopardize republic's future
Stalling privatization of oil company may harm Serbian aid from IMF.
No word from negotiators about hijacked ship in Somalia, says UN food agency official
Ship was carrying food to tsunami victims.
Somali warlord Aidid seeks end to bitter dispute over government seat
Warlord and officials discussing options over government seat.
Minority Tamils fear being targeted following murder of Sri Lanka foreign minister
Tamil Tigers deny role in killing of Sri Lankan foreign minister.
Sudan's new vice president promises to follow path of peace, work for unity of the country
Mourning continues after death of southern Sudanese leader John Garang.
Halting the genocide in Darfur
Op-ed criticizes lack of action in ending genocide in Darfur.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis Click here to access the PILPG Report.
Burundi to make huge savings after debt cancellation deal, finance minister says
Aloys Niyoyita, Associated Press, 8/9/05
Burundi stands to save between US$40 million (€32.3 million) and US$50 million (€40.4 million) in debt repayments each year if a group of rich nations' plan to cancel the central African country's debts to multilateral finance institutions comes through, the finance minister said Tuesday.
The money saved in repayments of the principal and interest on US$1.2 billion (€0.97 billion) owed to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the African Development Bank will be used to fund health and education projects, said Finance Minister Athanase Gahungu.
"This has been a historical decision for a country which comes from more than a decade of civil war," Gahungu said.
Last month, leaders of the world's eight richest countries agreed in Scotland to wipe out US$40 billion (€32.3 billion) in debt that 18 poor countries - 14 of them in Africa - owe the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
One of the countries is Burundi.
The boards of the respective institutions have to give their final approval to the deal.
Gahungu said that Burundi's debt owed to individual countries, called bilateral debt, was US$1.5 billion (€1.2 billion) as of Dec. 31, 2004.
He said that to qualify for the cancellation of its multilateral debt Burundi has agreed to opening up its coffee sector to allow private companies to market Burundi's coffee. He said another condition was for the country to intensify its fight against corruption, including may be having international auditors doing a one-time assessment of the country's finances.
Ex-rebel chief 'demobilizes' before taking Burundi presidency
Agence France Presse, 8/12/05
The ex-Hutu rebel leader assured of becoming Burundi's first post-transition president next week symbolically renounced his guerrilla chief position here on Friday.
Pierre Nkurunziza, head of the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD), ceremonially "demobilized" before members of the country's armed forces ahead of parliament's August 19 election of a new leader in which he is the sole candidate.
He and 40 of his former fighters, including several senior officials in the FDD's political wing which swept a series of polls assuring Nkurunziza of victory, participated in the ceremony in central Burundi.
Like all other ex-rebels to have made peace, they were registered at this demobilization center east of Bujumbura, given a short training session and the first installment of a total of some 18 months' pay.
For Nkurunziza, who was registered as a major, the first tranche amounted to 562,743 Burundian francs (540 dollars, 435 euros) which he said he would use to "help patients confined to hospitals because they cannot pay their fees."
"I renounced arms a long time ago, this ceremony today was just symbolic," Nkurunziza told AFP, referring to the FDD's decision in November 2003 to join a peace process aimed at ending Burundi's now 12-year civil war.
Since then, Nkurunziza and his ex-rebel movement have been active players in the tiny central African nation's transitional government which will come to an end a week after the presidential vote with the swearing-in of a new administration.
The FDD trounced all its opponents in local and national elections in June and July, securing a huge majority in the national assembly and senate and securing the presidency for Nkurunziza who will replace outgoing President Domitien Ndayizeye.
Burundi's war erupted in 1993 after the assassination of the country's first democratically elected president, a member of the Hutu majority, by members of the Tutsi-minority-dominated army.
The conflict has claimed some 300,000 lives but is now kept alive by only one remaining Hutu rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), despite a nominal ceasefire and talks aimed at producing a comprehensive settlement.
Prosecutor drops genocide charge in Congo mass murder trial
Agence France Presse, 8/9/05
The prosecutor in the trial of 15 officials accused in the murder of some 350 Congo refugees dropped genocide and war crimes charges Tuesday, but said seven of the defendants should serve up to 10 years' hard labor for crimes against humanity and other offenses.
Prosecutor Robert Armand Bemba called in his closing argument for the acquittal of eight of the defendants, six of whom he said had no responsibility for the killings and two of whom should receive the benefit of doubt.
Bemba argued that seven of the accused should receive terms of hard labor ranging from five years to a maximum of 10 years for General Blaise Adua, the former head of the Republican Guard, "for not doing anything to stop the disappearance of the refugees" held in a building under his unit's control in 1999.
The case centers on the fate of several hundred refugees who returned to Brazzaville's river port, or Brazzaville Beach, from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo on the other side of the Congo River in May 1999 and who were detained on suspicion of backing a militia hostile to the government.
Human rights groups and relatives say that 353 of them were never seen again -- apparently having been tortured and executed.
All 15 of the defendants in the trial which began last month pleaded innocent to the range of charges, which also included rape, murder and arbitrary arrest.
But Bemba said the most that could be charged against all but two of the defendants was that they were guilty of "negligence" and failing to carry out their duty.
Bemba said the court should take into account demands for damages by civil parties in the case.
He acknowledged that the disappearance of the refugees was "a fact" based on the testimony of many witnesses rather than physical evidence.
Lawyers for the civil parties have complained that the make-up of the criminal court was "unconstitutional" as all its magistrates had been appointed directly by Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso, instead of by a judicial council, which is provided for by the constitution but does not in fact exist.
One of the lawyers representing the civil parties, Ambroise Herve Malonga, withdrew earlier from the trial, saying it was a "parody of justice."
A lawyer for one of the defendants called Tuesday for all to be acquitted as he said there was not sufficient evidence to convict them on the charges.
"Is there concrete proof? No, there is not proof. I ask for the acquittal of all the defendants and not just those who I am defending," said Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi, one of the three French lawyers representing defendants.
His colleague, Francois Saint-Pierre, acknowledged that there had been "exactions" and disappearances, but said there was no evidence of a plan or specific orders from above, and argued that all the defendants should be acquitted.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Georgia, Ukraine push for new alliance to promote democracy
Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili, Associated Press, 8/12/05
Leaders of Ukraine and Georgia called for the setting up of a new regional alliance that would champion freedom and democracy in the former Soviet lands - a move likely to anger Moscow, which is concerned about losing its clout on its former home turf.
Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko and Georgia's Mikhail Saakashvili said in a statement that the Commonwealth of Democratic Choice will become "a powerful tool for freeing our region from the remaining divisive lines, violations of human rights, any spirit of confrontation and frozen conflicts."
"That will help usher in a new era of democracy, security, stability and peace across Europe, from the Atlantic to the Caspian Sea," the leaders said after their talks Friday in Borjomi, a renowned Georgian spa.
They said the new alliance would be inaugurated at a summit in Ukraine this fall and invited the United States, the European Union and Russia to attend it as observers. They said that the new grouping would unite democracies of the Baltic, Black Sea and Caspian regions, but wouldn't elaborate which specific nations could join.
The name of the new alliance sounds like a deliberate parallel to the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States - a loose alliance of 12 ex-Soviet nations that includes both Georgia and Ukraine.
The plan for a new alliance is likely to irritate the Kremlin, which has viewed massive uprisings that recently toppled unpopular regimes in Georgia, Ukraine and another ex-Soviet nation, Kyrgyzstan, as part of a Western-guided effort to isolate and sideline Russia. "We need to know what values, what freedoms our neighbors adhere to," Yushchenko said at a news conference after Friday's talks. "If we manage to find a way of protecting democratic values ... we will live in a stable, economically prosperous region."
Asked whether the planned new grouping would strain their nations' ties with Moscow, Yushchenko responded in a conciliatory manner, saying that he wants to develop friendly ties with Russia.
Saakashvili made a veiled hint at Russia's imperial ambitions when he said that a residence where he and Yushchenko met Friday had hosted members of the Russian imperial family, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and other leaders of the Soviet empire. "Even in their nightmares they couldn't have imagined that presidents of independent Ukraine and Georgia would sign declarations here," Saakashvili said.
Head of peace monitoring team arrives in Indonesia's Aceh
Agence France Presse, 8/14/05
The head of an international mission monitoring a peace deal to be signed between the Indonesian government and separatist rebels in Aceh Sunday called on both sides to spurn violence.
The agreement to be signed Monday in Helsinki is intended to end nearly three decades of bloodshed between government forces and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
Peter Feith, the Dutch head of the joint EU-ASEAN Initial Monitoring Presence, said the European Union and five members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were invited by the Indonesian government to help monitor implementation of the accord.
"I'd like to conclude by urging both parties to show maximum restraint, to desist from the use of violence and the use of force and to cease all offensive operations," he told reporters after arriving at Banda Aceh's airport accompanied by the British ambassador to Indonesia Charles Humphrey. "That will be the best base for starting the programme of decommissioning and disarmament," he said.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has described it as the European Union's first peace mission in Asia, following similar operations in Bosnia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Almost 15,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since 1976 when the GAM launched its armed rebellion in resource-rich Aceh province on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra.
Two earlier truces in 2000 and 2002 were short-lived, with both sides accusing the other of violations and descending once more into violence.
Last December's catastrophic tsunami, which left at least 131,000 people dead in Aceh, proved to be the catalyst for a new agreement, with both sides voicing optimism that this time it would hold.
Feith said the EU-ASEAN team would help monitor implementation of the peace deal. "We will do that in full respect of the territorial integrity of the republic of Indonesia," he said. "We have already deployed an initial presence to prepare for the mission which will start on 15th September," he said.
Indonesia has traditionally been extremely wary of allowing foreign involvement in its domestic troubles.
Separately, 11 more peace monitors from the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore arrived in Banda Aceh.
About 200 unarmed military and civilian officials from Europe and Southeast Asia will spend up to one year in Aceh to monitor implementation of the pact, which includes the disarmament of rebels and the withdrawal of non-local troops.
Jakarta has also agreed to release all GAM political prisoners two weeks after the signing of the peace agreement.
GAM on Sunday accused the government of reneging on a promise to release five jailed rebel negotiators in time to attend the signing of the peace deal. The five are serving sentences of between 12 and 15 years for sedition. "GAM is very disappointed that our negotiators have not been released as promised," top GAM spokesman Bakhtiar Abdullah said in a statement sent to AFP, saying Jakarta promised during talks in July that the five would be released.
Meanwhile, Aceh provincial police chief Inspector General Bachrumsyah Kasman said 1,000 police would be pulled out on Monday.
Another 1,000 men would be shipped out on August 25, Kasman was quoted by Sunday's Kompas daily as saying. "We are ready to pull out all (non-local) police in Aceh but should there be treachery to the peace accord, we will summon an even bigger force," Kasman said.
Foreign monitors were deployed to Aceh under a short-lived ceasefire agreed in December 2002. But the few dozen monitors from Thailand and the Philippines were forced to withdraw amid escalating violence.
There are fears that this time also, some diehard rebels and troops on the ground will be reluctant to end the conflict.
Aceh peace deal latest chapter in province's bloody history
Agence France Presse, 8/15/05
The peace deal between the Indonesian government and rebels in Aceh province to be signed Monday is the latest chapter in a battle over the fate of the staunchly Muslim region dating back to Dutch colonialists 130 years ago.
While December's devastating tsunami disaster may have provided the push to end a separatist conflict that has left nearly 15,000 people dead since 1976, the people of Aceh have long resisted attempts to subdue them.
Located on the northern tip of Sumatra island, Aceh emerged as a sovereign state in the 16th century. It remained an influential political and economic entity and centre for Islamic learning under the leadership of a sultan.
The Netherlands and Britain signed the London Treaty in 1824, which allowed the Dutch to gain control of all British possessions on Sumatra.
Although in the same treaty the Dutch agreed to allow independence for Aceh, in 1871 the British authorised them to invade Aceh, possibly to prevent a French annexation.
Two years later the Netherlands issued a formal declaration of war and invaded Aceh. It took 30 years of bitter war before the Dutch managed to subdue the Acehnese, although guerrilla activity continued until at least 1914.
The war was the longest fought by the Dutch, costing them more than 10,000 lives.
They eventually abandoned their occupation of Aceh in 1942, shortly before the Japanese invaded Indonesia, and the region was incorporated into the nascent Indonesian republic in the late 1940s.
Aceh, rich in oil and gas, gave enormous material support to the young Indonesia. In 1949, the Aceh people donated two airplanes, one of which was the famous Seulawah plane that later became a pioneer in the establishment of national flag-carrier Garuda Indonesia.
But resentment began when Jakarta merged Aceh into the neighbouring province of North Sumatra, with Acehnese accusing the government of reneging on its promises to accord Aceh special status.
The precursor to the independence movement arose in the 1950s when Islamists on the major Indonesian island of Java rebelled in an attempt to establish a Muslim state.
Acehnese lent support to the rebellion and in 1953 staged their own revolt against Jakarta, forcing the government to give Aceh the status of "special territory," which ostensibly conferred a degree of autonomy.
The rebellion was crushed but the desire for an independent state did not die out, firing up again in 1976 when Hasan di Tiro founded the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) as an armed resistance group.
The bloodshed intensified when Aceh was designated a special military operation zone between 1989 and 1998, during which time thousands were killed, went missing or were physically abused.
After the fall of longtime dictator Suharto in 1998, tentative peace moves began.
Talks with GAM representatives overseas since 2000, mediated by the Geneva-based Henry Dunant Center, had in the past brought only a series of short-lived truces with each side accusing the other of bad faith.
The situation plummeted to a low in May 2003, when the province was placed under martial law and the military began a major operation which continued even after the December 26 tsunami.
On July 17, 2005, both sides announced a memorandum of understanding to end the conflict would be formally signed on August 15 in the Finnish capital Helsinki.
Aceh Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
EU to send €7.9 million (US$9.8 million) to help pay for October elections in Ivory Coast
Associated Press, 8/11/05
The European Commission said Thursday it would grant €7.9 million (US$9.8 million) to help Ivory Coast pay for elections planned for October.
The money is to be spent on training election officials and electoral education campaigns and buying equipment, such as polling booths and computers to tally results.
The elections "represent a crucial stage for reconciliation" in the West African country, said Louis Michel, the EU's commissioner in charge of development policy.
The aid will also be used to back the deployment of election observers from non-governmental organizations.
The EU Commission warned, however, that the aid was conditional on the implementation of recent peace accords, ensuring the disarming and demobilization of militias.
The government in Ivory Coast also must ensure a proper electoral list was drawn up, and that reform of the country's Independent Electoral Commission was carried out effectively, the Commission said.
The U.N. voiced concern last month that elections would not be conducted properly due to a deterioration of law and order in the country.
Ivory Coast has been split since a failed September 2002 coup attempt plunged the nation into months of civil war. A series of peace deals followed, but the country has remained divided and tense.
Nearly 10,000 U.N. and French peacekeepers patrol a buffer zone that stretches east to west across the country.
UN observers harassed, vehicle wrecked in southern Ivory Coast
Agence France Presse, 8/12/05
Two UN military observers were threatened by supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo in southwestern Ivory Coast and their vehicle wrecked in the second such incident in two days, a UN spokesman said Friday.
Hamadoun Toure said the two unarmed observers from the United Nations operation in the divided country were harassed by hostile young men in the town of Gagnoa Thursday. "Under pressure, our two observers had to take refuge on foot in the regional government offices. Their vehicle was damaged by the demonstrators. Troops of the Bangladeshi contingent had to come and evacuate them," Toure said.
A military source in the UN mission known as ONUCI said the vehicle was "very badly damaged" and the observers were threatened with death but not physically molested.
On Wednesday pro-Gbagbo "young patriots" had forced a UN civilian team to turn back in the same region, the president's birthplace and stronghold, as they were on their way to meet senior local officials.
Gbagbo's spokesman Tuesday had called on Ivorians not to stand in the way of the UN and French peacekeeping forces operating in the country following a number of incidents in government-controlled areas.
Toure said: "We condemn this new obstruction and we want the authorities to take steps to ensure that the message (from Gbagbo) reaches everyone."
Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, has been split in two since a failed attempt to oust Gbagbo in 2002.
The so-called young patriots accused the peacekeepers of being on the side of the rebels holding the northern half of the country.
In one of the most serious incidents, UN forces trying to reach an area north of Abidjan where mysterious attacks reportedly caused a number of deaths last month were held up for 24 hours.
Prosecutor Ange Kessi said Thursday the investigation into the July 24 attacks had been completed, with 61 people charged, and it was now up to the examining magistrate to decide whether to proceed to trial.
According to the army, the attacks on police stations in Anyama and Agboville killed seven members of the security forces and 17 assailants.
Some 40 people were arrested, including nationals of neighbouring Mali and Ivory Coast, the military said.
Gbagbo suppporters accused the rebel New Forces holding the northern part of the country of responsibility, which the latter strongly denied. The opposition press has suggested a put-up job on the part of the Gbagbo camp.
Efforts to resolve the tense stalemate in Ivory Coast are making little headway, with the repeated failure of the rebels and the army to get a disarmament programme under way.
There are fears of a "constitutional void" if presidential elections are not held as scheduled on October 30, when Gbagbo's current term ends.
The country's peace plan, agreed via South African mediation, calls for pro-government militia groups to be dismantled by August 20.
Disarmament of rebel groups is due to start on September 19.
Meanwhile UN spokesman Toure said four experts from the world body had arrived in Abidjan Wednesday to verify compliance with the November 2004 arms embargo slapped on Ivory Coast by the Security Council.
A further resolution in February 2005 empowered ONUCI and the associated French peacekeeping force to carry out checks to ensure the embargo was being obeyed by both sides.
UN official discusses election preparations with Ivory Coast rebels
Agence France Presse, 8/14/05
The UN Ivory Coast representatives monitoring the implementation of a peace agreement and preparations for presidential elections met the main rebel group Sunday, rebels said.
The New Forces (NF) group met a UN delegation including Pierre Schori, the representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and UN election monitor Antonio Monteiro in the central city of Bouake.
Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, has been split in two since a failed attempt to oust incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo in 2002.
Monteiro invited the NF to nominate representatives for the proposed independent electoral commission, which was due to start operations by July 31.
The commission was a foreshadowed in the peace agreement mediated by South African President Thabo Mbeki, on June 29.
However the NF and opposition parties have refused to nominate representatives for the commission, which will prepare for the country's October 30 presidential elections.
They are opposed to new decrees issued by Gbagbo which give the existing government body, the National Institute of Statistics, a major role in the creation of electoral rolls of eligible voters.
Mbeki ruled in favour of the new electoral laws but the FN Sunday reiterated its oppositon.
But a statement after the meeting said the FN would meet Wednesday to consider Monteiro's request "with a favourable eye."
Indian Kashmir's top woman politician asks Pakistan to help end bloodshed
Agence France Presse, 8/11/05
Indian Kashmir's top woman politician appealed to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf Thursday to help bring peace to the revolt-hit region by persuading Islamic militants to declare a ceasefire.
"Encourage them to announce a ceasefire," Mehbooba Mufti urged Musharraf. "Please make the youth understand people in Kashmir want peace, not violence."
She made the appeal after being unanimously re-elected chief of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which came to power in 2002 in state elections on a pledge to bring "peace with dignity" to Indian Kashmir.
The region has been torn by a 16-year revolt against Indian rule.
Mufti, whose father Mufti Mohammed Sayeed is chief minister of Indian Kashmir, accompanied her appeal with a charge that Islamabad is sending guns into the Indian zone of the divided Himalayan region.
Mufti said Musharraf was seeking to please the West by cracking down on Islamic extremists in Pakistan after recent deadly bombings in London.
"In our land, there are people who are dying. Don't you feel pain when people die here?" she said. "I appeal to President Musharraf to prevent bloodshed in Kashmir...try to treat this festering wound."
The insurgency has left over 44,000 people dead by official count. Separatists say the toll is at least double.
New Delhi accuses Islamabad of arming militants in Indian Kashmir. Islamabad denies the charge but says it gives moral support to Kashmir's "freedom struggle."
The nuclear-armed nations have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir but ties have warmed since they launched a fresh bid in 2004 to forge a lasting peace. The two countries each hold part of Kashmir but claim it in full.
Mufti asked Musharraf to try to get militants to announce a truce like one declared in July 2002 by the region's top rebel group, Hizbul Mujahadin, whose leadership is based in the Pakistani zone of Kashmir.
India reciprocated by suspending military operations against the group but Hizbul abandoned the ceasefire after just two weeks. In November 2002, India declared a unilateral ceasefire that ended after six months. "Our party has an agenda to get the issue of Kashmir resolved through dialogue. I will continue to strive for that," added Mufti, whose party is in a power-sharing arrangement in Kashmir with India's national ruling Congress.
Islamic rebel groups reject call for truce in Indian Kashmir
Agence France Presse, 8/13/05
Two Muslim militant groups in Indian Kashmir have rejected a call by the region's top woman politician for a truce, saying their "jihad" or holy war would continue until the region was wrested from India.
The Himalayan region's top woman politician appealed to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf Thursday to help bring peace to the revolt-hit region by persuading Islamic militants to declare a ceasefire. "Encourage them to announce a ceasefire," Mehbooba Mufti urged Musharraf. "People in Kashmir want peace, not violence."
But the region's most powerful group, Hizbul Mujahedin, said it would not agree to any ceasefire in the 16-year-old insurgency against New Delhi's rule. "The jihad will continue until Kashmir is liberated from India," Hizbul's spokesman and Kashmir-based field commander Junaid-ul-Islam was quoted by a local news agency as saying late Friday.
Pro-India political parties and moderate separatists have been urging both India and militants to conclude a ceasefire in Kashmir.
But the Hizbul spokesman said, "There is a need to strengthen ourselves rather than thinking about a truce at this crucial hour."
He said the group was planning to get more arms and seek fresh recruits.
Hizbul's leadership is based in the Pakistani zone of divided Kashmir and favours Kashmir's merger with Pakistan.
On Thursday, Mufti asked Musharraf to try to persuade militants to announce a truce like the one declared in July 2000 by Hizbul.
India reciprocated by suspending military operations against the group but Hizbul abandoned the ceasefire after just two weeks. In November 2000, India declared a unilateral ceasefire that ended after six months.
Another pro-Pakistan group Jamiat-ul-Mujahedin also rejected a ceasefire. "The mujahedin are holding guns for a genuine cause cherished by people," Jamiat spokesman Muneeb-ur-Rehman said in a statement. "We will renounce guns only after the objective is completely achieved," Rehman said.
The insurgency has left over 44,000 people dead by official count. Separatists say the toll is at least double.
New Delhi accuses Islamabad of arming militants in Indian Kashmir. Islamabad denies the charge but says it gives moral support to Kashmir's "freedom struggle."
The nuclear-armed nations have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir but ties have warmed since they launched a fresh bid in 2004 to forge a lasting peace. The two countries each hold part of Kashmir but claim it in full.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Construction of new homes underway in Kosovo in effort to close down refugee camp
Garentina Kraja, Associated Press, 8/8/05
Kosovo authorities began building dozens of new apartments Monday for some of the families living in makeshift homes since the end of the war six years ago in a first step toward closing a refugee camp.
The 36 apartments will be constructed for some of the 114 families displaced by the province's 1998-1999 war and who have lived at the camp in Plemetina, a village in central Kosovo. Kosovo's government and the U.N. mission sponsored the building project.
The Plemetina Camp shelters about 500 mainly Albanian-speaking Roma.
Kosovo's Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi said his government was redressing a "consequence of war," after shoveling concrete into the foundation of the new apartment building. "People in this camp have continued to suffer the consequences of war six years since it ended," Kosumi said. "We want to bring to an end the suffering of the people in this camp."
Kosovo's government and the U.N. mission in Kosovo have each allocated €200,000 (US$ 247,040) for the project and work on the construction of 19 additional apartments will follow soon, Kosumi said, pleading for donors to help others return to their homes.
Kosovo's government and the U.N. mission have repeatedly come under pressure by human rights organizations for tolerating the appalling conditions in the postwar camps, which mainly shelter the minorities that lost their property in the war's aftermath.
Their houses were mainly destroyed when ethnic Albanian extremists attacked the minorities, seeking revenge for the killings of some 10,000 of their ethnic kin by Serb forces. Kosovo officially remains a province of Serbia-Montenegro. It was put under U.N. administration in June 1999 following a NATO air war that pushed Serb forces out of the province after they cracked down on ethnic Albanians seeking independence.
Glancing over the bulldozers near her makeshift home, mother of six Anemshah Pucolli said the new attempt to secure her a home offered a glimmer of hope as she went on to describe the hardship of life in the camp with no running water and very cold winters. "No one thought of us - we were stuck here," the 29 year-old said as barefoot children played in the muddy grounds of the camp. "The children get sick all the time. You become disgusted with life."
UN envoy returning to Kosovo to review developments
Associated Press, 8/14/05
A U.N. envoy was to return to Kosovo on Sunday on a final visit to the province before he makes a report on whether to open talks on its future status.
Kai Eide, a Norwegian diplomat, was appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in June to review how far Kosovo has come in reaching a list of U.N.-set targets for democracy and minority rights and to make suggestions on the way forward.
This is Eide's third visit to the province since his appointment.
Previously, he held talks with Kosovo's leaders and U.N. officials, toured towns and villages, made stops in Serbia's capital, Belgrade, to discuss the province with Serbian authorities and also visited some Western capitals and institutions that are represented in Kosovo.
He is expected to submit his recommendations on Kosovo by September. If the review is positive, it would be the first step toward possible negotiations on the disputed province's final status.
Kosovo officially remains part of Serbia-Montenegro, the union that replaced Yugoslavia. It has been under U.N. and NATO administration since a 78-day NATO-led air war that halted a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.
The province's majority ethnic Albanians want full independence, but the Serb minority insists Kosovo remain part of Serbia-Montenegro.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Annan tapped Italian UN official as special representative for Western Sahara
Agence France Presse, 8/11/05
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has picked an Italian UN official to be his special representative in the Western Sahara, the UN said Thursday.
Francesco Bastagli, currently serving as Annan's deputy special representative for civil administration for the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), will head the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), it added.
MINURSO, which fields a total of 447 people, including 198 military observers and 27 troops, was established in April 1991 by a UN Security Council resolution.
Late last month Annan appointed former Dutch UN ambassador Peter van Walsum as his personal envoy for the Western Sahara -- a more political post -- to explore how best to break the current political deadlock between Morocco and the Polisario Front.
Morocco annexed the Western Sahara -- formerly ruled by Spain -- in 1975 but its claim is contested by the Polisario Front, an Algerian-backed independence movement.
Rabat has dismissed the last UN scheme for a five-year period of autonomy followed by a self-determination referendum, the Baker Plan, named after US former secretary of state James Baker, who threw in the towel as Walsum's predecessor in June 2004 expressing his frustration over lack of progress.
During years of on-off talks and the deployment of a UN observer mission in the territory, the Polisario Front has implemented a ceasefire, but every time the prospect of a referendum came close it has stalled on the issue of who should be allowed the vote.
Rabat has now declared a referendum "obsolete" and inapplicable, instead offering broad autonomy but declaring Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara non-negotiable.
Hope for Moroccan POWs
The Washington Times, 8/12/05
In May, we brought readers' attention to the plight of 408 Moroccan POWs being held by the Polisario Front in Western Sahara. Many of the prisoners have been incarcerated for more than two decades, which makes them the longest-serving POWs in the world. Last month, the head of the Polisario, Mohammed Abdelaziz, announced that his group would release all the Moroccans "as soon as possible," according to France's Le Monde newspaper. "We are going to inform the International Committee of the Red Cross and work with them on the technical logistics of their liberation," Mr. Abdelaziz said. It's been three weeks since Mr. Abdelaziz's pledge and zero POWs have been set free.
In fact, a spokeswoman for the ICRC told the Moroccan Times on July 28 that the ICRC has had "no official information concerning the probable release of Moroccan prisoners held by the Polisario Front." She added, "The news that the ICRC is currently in Tindouf [Algeria] to arrange the release of the remaining prisoners is not correct."
Since the United Nations negotiated a ceasefire between Morocco and the Algerian-back Polisario Front in 1991, this reneging on promises has been a recurrent theme. The Polisario Front has used the Moroccan POWs, captured during the devastating 1976-91 war, as political leverage to solicit political compromises from Morocco and aid from non-governmental organizations. Meanwhile, the conditions of the POWs remains one of the worst violations of human rights in the world. A 2003 report from the human-rights group France Libertes documents examples of extreme torture, slave labor and barbarous forms of executions, such as burning prisoners alive. The Polisario Front counters that Morocco is also detaining Polisario POWs, though there is no evidence for this.
The political disputes between Morocco, which claims sovereignty over Western Sahara, and the Polisario, which seeks independence, cannot be resolved until all POWs are released. Anything less than full liberation constitutes a hostage situation in which Morocco is justified in its refusal to negotiate.
While Sen. John McCain has called on Mr. Abdelaziz to release all prisoners, the United States should be doing more. Pressure should be placed on Algeria, which hosts the Polisario Front. There's reason to believe that if Algeria forces the issue, then the Polisario would have little choice but to comply.
The United States, of course, should not become embroiled in a regional dispute. Mr. Abdelaziz's announcement, however, offers hope that with a little more international pressure he might be persuaded to end this tragic situation. At the very least, the United States should make clear that the Polisario will never get what it wants as long as it holds 408 human beings in bondage.
Nepal radio stations resume newscasts after court stays king's ban
Agence France Presse, 8/12/05
Nepal's private FM radios resumed news broadcasts on Thursday after the Supreme Court effectively stayed a ban on bulletins imposed after King Gyanendra seized power in February, a radio group said.
The court issued the order late Wednesday while hearing a petition challenging a government order that private Nepal FM be closed down for defying the ban, said Raghu Mainali, coordinator of the Save the Independent Radio Movement (SIRM).
The petition was filed by Nepal FM managing director Bishnu Hari Dhakal on Monday.
In his order, Justice Anup Raj Sharma told the government not to go ahead with its plans to close down the station and questioned the grounds on which it was acting, Mainali said.
The court would make a final ruling once it received a written reply from the Information and Communications Ministry, Judge Sharma had said.
"We are very happy that the apex court has once again protected the people's right to information," Mainali said, adding that the order had paved the way for the resumption of news bulletins by 52 private FM stations across the Himalayan kingdom.
SIRM spokesman Ghamaraj Luintel, who runs Kathmandu-based Radio Sagarmatha, also welcomed the court order, saying Thursday his station had already begun broadcasting news bulletins.
All other stations were expected to follow suit, Luintel said.
The ban was slapped on the FM stations after Gyanendra sacked the elected government and assumed full powers on February 1, saying his action was necessary to deal with an ongoing Maoist insurgency.
Since then, the stations have been airing only entertainment and social programmes but twice defied the ban -- on July 7 to broadcast news on activities relating to the monarch's birthday and on June 15, when he visited Doha.
Nepal FM had also been running a programme that focused on social and development issues.
The Federation of Nepalese Journalists says more than 2,000 reporters have lost their jobs since Gyanendra's power grab, with several news outlets shut down under a state of emergency that included press censorship.
The king lifted the state of emergency at the end of April but has continued to restrict press freedoms and the right to protest.
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Nepal Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Election puts fragile peace deal in Muslim region at risk
Roel Landingin, Financial Times (London), 8/15/05
A key ally of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has won the governorship of the semi-autonomous Muslim region of Mindanao, in a vote seen as a test of the government's ability to hold credible elections amid vote-rigging allegations against her.
But the victory on Friday of Zhaldy Datu Puti Ampatuan, son of an influential provincial governor, could add fresh risks to a nine- year-old peace deal with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), officials and analysts say. The group fought a violent separatist war for more than two decades in the southern Mindanao region before a peace agreement was reached in 1996.
Soured relations with the MNLF may also complicate Manila's efforts to forge a new peace deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (Milf), a faction of the separatist movement that has grown into a more formidable force.
Since 1996, the MNLF has controlled the so-called Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which covers five provinces and a city where about half of the country's 4.5m Muslims live. In past elections Manila backed MNLF leaders, sealing their victory. This time, Mrs Macapagal professed neutrality but was perceived as favouring Mr Ampatuan, whose father was governor of a province where she won one of her biggest margins in the May 2004 presidential vote.
Parouk Hussin, the outgoing governor of the autonomous region and a key MNLF leader, said greater uncertainty now surrounded the fate of the 1996 peace agreement, worrying aid agencies and the Islamic countries who helped broker the accord.
"This is a very serious question for the government to answer. Who are the best people to implement the peace agreement, of which the ARMM is a byproduct, if not the signatories?" said Mr Hussin, who withdrew from the polls after failing to win Mrs Macapagal's and the ruling party's support.
Mr Hussin, a doctor who lived in exile in Sweden before the 1996 peace deal, promised to help the new governor but other MNLF leaders are angry. More than half the region's population is poor, compared with the national average of 30 per cent.
Analysts doubt that the MNLF, which was weakened by infighting in recent years, has the capability to mount a successful rebellion even though its members still bear arms. "At most, small bands of disgruntled members may engage the military in limited fire fights," said Ramon Casiple, executive director of a poll watchdog.
In February, close to 60 government troops and MNLF members died following clashes sparked by the accidental killing of a Muslim child by soldiers pursuing bandits.
Serbian deputy PM warns oil company privatization problems jeopardize republic's future
Jovana Gec, Associated Press, 8/11/05
Serbia's deputy prime minister warned Thursday that authorities attempts to stall the privatization of the state oil company could jeopardize the republic's ties to the International Monetary Fund.
Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus said in a statement that Serbia must follow through with the planned privatization and other commitments it made to the International Monetary Fund or risk losing an IMF credit arrangement and damaging the republic's image abroad.
"The government of Serbia has accepted an agreement with the International Monetary Fund and if it does not implement it, Serbia will lose credibility," Labus said.
The IMF is helping Serbia transform itself into a market economy after decades under a state-controlled, Communist-era system. Serbia agreed to restructure and privatize its state oil company, the Oil Industry of Serbia, as a condition for the IMF's assistance.
Serbian media have reported that IMF recently warned the government that the privatization process must be launched by October or Serbia will lose its assistance.
Labus said losing IMF support would discourage foreign investors and put promised foreign debt relief at risk.
Some opposition parties and politicians have argued the oil company is one of the republic's biggest assets and should not be sold. Parliament will debate the concerns over the privatization later this month.
With its 17,000 employees and reported it produced the equivalent of 783,000 metric tons of oil and with a profit of 2.4 billion dinars (US$35 million, €28.5 million). Its retail wing owns hundreds of gasoline stations throughout the republic.
Russia's Lukoil and Britain's British Petroleum as possible bidders for the oil company.
Labus suggested unnamed business people were trying to interfere in the oil company's privatization.
"Viewing public companies through (political) party perspective presents a risk for Serbia's future," he added without elaborating.
Also Thursday, Energy Minister Radomir Naumov said that the government start the oil company's privatization process next week by inviting bids for future consultants on the deal.
On Wednesday, the oil company's workers demanded in an open letter to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica that they be granted company bonds and unspecified social benefits in return for supporting any privatization deal.
Serbia's economy is in taters following years of mismanagement and international sanctions imposed for its role in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
No word from negotiators about hijacked ship in Somalia, says UN food agency official
Tom Maliti, Associated Press, 8/10/05
U.N. officials and a group of elders negotiating with a band of pirates have had trouble communicating with each other, hampering efforts to determine what happened to a hijacked ship that was carrying food aid to Somalia tsunami victims, a U.N. official said Wednesday.
The ship was hijacked and its crew taken hostage more than a month ago and they were due to be released earlier this week according to an agreement between both sides.
"We hope the agreement reached on Friday holds and that the ship and food will be released as agreed as soon as possible," said Peter Smerdon, a spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program.
Somali gunmen boarded the MV Semlow, registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, on June 27. The U.N. agency said Saturday that an agreement had been reached to release the ship, its 10-member crew and the U.N. food aid it was holding within three days.
However, a resident of the central Somalia town of Haradheere, where the hijackers go for supplies, said that the hijackers had openly expressed disagreements about the deal, which was negotiated by local elders, transitional government officials and diplomats.
Some hijackers want to honor the agreement, while others reportedly want to make more unspecified demands, said Musa Arone, one of only two radio operators in Haradheere, 220 kilometers (137 miles) northeast of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.
The WFP suspended shipments to Somalia on July 4, but resumed them this month.
The captain of the hijacked vessel is Sri Lankan, the engineer is Tanzanian and the remaining eight crew are Kenyan. The ship was carrying 850 metric tons (937 tons) of rice donated by Japan and Germany for Somalia's 28,000 tsunami victims.
Piracy along the Somalia coast is common - several ships a month are attacked, if not hijacked, with valuables stolen and crews held for ransom. This is the first time the United Nations has reported a ship hijacked by Somali pirates.
Somali warlord Aidid seeks end to bitter dispute over government seat
Agence France Presse, 8/15/05
Powerful Somali warlord Hussein Mohamed Aidid said Monday he hoped to mediate an end to a bitter dispute in the lawless nation's transitional government that has sparked fears of deepening anarchy.
Aidid, the deputy prime minister in the government, travelled to Mogadishu on Sunday after a four-year absence from the city and held talks with influential parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, he said.
"I met the speaker ... at night and told him my desire to mediate between members of Somali federal institutions that are in Mogadishu and those in the town of Jowhar," Aidid told AFP.
Aden, along with some government members, lamakers and the powerful warlords who control Mogadishu, vehemently oppose plans by transitional president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and prime minister Ali Mohamed Gedi to set up shop in Jowhar.
"The speaker listened to what I told him and (said) he would meet his political allies before giving me a reply," Aidid said.
Aidid, whose father Mohammed Farah Aidid was largely blamed for the chaos that followed the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, said he would try to bring members of parliament and the government together in a bid to hammer a truce.
"The whole idea is to bring members of the parliament and those of council of ministers together in order to break the deadlock.
"I honestly want to end the conflict which is wasting the time of Somali insitutions," said Aidid, a US citizen and leader of the Somali National Alliance (SNA).
Aidid said he would meet other warlords from the dominant Hawiye clan in a bid to shuttle between both camps to breathe life into Yusuf's faltering government.
However, he said he had no plans to join Yusuf and Gedi in Jowhar, the provincial outpost 90 kilometers (55 miles) north of the capital where the pair and their allies have based themselves citing insecurity in Mogadishu.
Apart from Gedi, a relatively unknown quantity in unpredictable Somali politics, Aidid is the only Hawiye to hold a top rank in the government.
Previous efforts to end the Somali conflict have failed miserably amid the persistant inter-clan fighting that has ravaged the country since the 1991 ouster of Siad Barre thrust the nation into anarchy.
Minority Tamils fear being targeted following murder of Sri Lanka foreign minister
Krishan Francis, Associated Press, 8/14/05
With Sri Lanka's foreign minister dead and the country under emergency rule, there is growing fear among the island's minority Tamils that they may once again be targeted by security forces fighting Tamil Tiger rebels.
The Tigers have denied government claims they were behind the assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar - one of their most vociferous critics - and urged the military to look within its own ranks for the perpetrator.
But nearly everyone seems to agree the murder was a severe blow to Sri Lanka's fragile peace process.
Now, ethnic Tamils who live outside areas controlled by the rebels in the north and east of the country say they could be faced with a nightmare scenario - the peace process collapsing and taking with it a measure of security Tamil civilians have enjoyed since a 2002 cease-fire. "There is fear everywhere, we are not as confident to go out to the road as we used to do," said F. Lawrence, a Tamil-speaking advertising professional. "We are getting calls from anxious relatives who want to know whether we are all right," said Lawrence, who lives in a suburb of the capital Colombo.
Discrimination against the Tamils led the Tigers to take up arms in 1983, and a resulting war with government forces on this tropical island of 19 million left more than 65,000 people dead before a cease-fire was brokered in 2002.
The cease-fire has largely held and both the rebels and government pledged to respect it following Kadirgamar's killing.
But within hours of the slaying, a state of emergency went into effect and soldiers and police began scouring the capital for suspects.
Twelve Tamils have so far been arrested in connection with the killing, which the rebels deny being involved in - a statement government officials say they doubt.
Police, however, have been unwilling to provide any details on the suspects, and Tamils fear the detentions could hint at a broader roundup of members of their community by the security forces. "The Tigers have denied that they killed the minister, but the government wants to take cover under this and harass the Tamils," said Sriharan Prasanna, a 27-year-old businessman. "We don't mind security checks as long as they are fair," he added.
Security officials on Sunday tried to assuage Tamil fears, saying they simply wanted to track down the killers. "We are searching not only Tamil homes, it is not about the community," said Sri Lanka's police chief, Chandra Fernando. "We evaluate the intelligence before raiding a home," he said. "We are not discriminating against anybody, this is sadly mistaken," Fernando said.
Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority is made up mainly of Buddhists and accounts for about 14 million people. They dominate the military and police.
The Hindu Tamils, in contrast, number only about 3.2 million, and are concentrated in the country's north and east and in the tea-growing hills of central Sri Lanka. About 2.8 million live outside rebel-held regions.
The Tigers waged a bloody campaign for nearly two decades. They were among the first modern groups to use suicide bombings, killing numerous officials, including late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa two years later.
Human rights groups have also blamed the Tigers for killing dozens of rival Tamil politicians who disagree with the rebels, even after the cease-fire went into effect.
Before the cease-fire, Tamil residents of government-controlled areas say they were in constant fear of arrest, detention without trial, torture - or even disappearing while in police custody.
During the war, human rights groups repeatedly accused the Sri Lankan police and military of using torture to obtain confessions from Tamils suspected of belonging to the rebels.
Tamil families were required to register at police stations, providing photographs and fingerprints. They even had to inform police when visitors stayed overnight.
The government has not made any moves toward reintroducing those draconian measures aimed solely at Tamils.
But the state of emergency declared by President Chandrika Kumaratunga empowers authorities to detain without charge anyone suspected of taking part in terrorist activities and to search and demolish buildings.
With the government balking at the Tiger's denial of involvement in the killing, Tamils are bracing for the worst. "There is fear of a return to past, true, but the government to its credit has not been harsh so far," said Ilayathamby Dayananda, a Tamil analyst.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
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Sudan's new vice president promises to follow path of peace, work for unity of the country
Tanalee Smith, Associated Press, 8/11/05
It was a stark contrast to the jubilation at the same event, in the same place, a month ago. There were no foreign dignitaries and no tribal dancers.
Instead, the inauguration of former southern rebel commander Salva Kiir Mayardit as Sudan's deputy leader Thursday was tinged with mourning over the man he was succeeding in the post, charismatic southern leader John Garang de Mabior.
Kiir said the day of his inauguration as first vice president would "remain engraved in my mind as one of the saddest days." President Omar al-Bashir called it "a day in which sadness and joy mix."
Garang was sworn in to the post July 9 after being welcomed in Khartoum by 1 million people who saw his arrival as a sign that peace had truly come to Sudan.
His death in a July 30 helicopter crash devastated his supporters and caused riots, raising fears that the peace deal that brought him to the presidency may have died with him.
Kiir, who took the oath of office with his hand on a red copy of the interim constitution that is built on the January peace deal, reaffirmed he would not veer from Garang's vision of a peaceful Sudan.
"The only way to do justice to Garang's memory and be worthy of him is to follow his path and abide by the fundamental principles for which the SPLM has been fighting," he said, referring to the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. He recalled Garang as "my dear friend, leader and brother."
Kiir's quick elevation to first vice president underlined the desire on all sides to show that the peace deal that ended 21 years of civil war between the mostly Muslim Arab north and the mainly Christian-animist south is still on track. Under the deal, southerners will be integrated into the Khartoum government and will get autonomy in the south, as well as a share of the nation's wealth - including the south's oil reserves.
Thursday's inauguration also made Kiir president of the southern autonomous government. Kiir was Garang's longtime deputy at the head of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and was the top commander of its armed wing.
After his oath, Kiir stood with President Omar al-Bashir and Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha, his partners in the national unity government, and all three joined hands and raised them high to the applause of the audience.
An upbeat song began - "I am African, I am Sudanese" - and some in the crowd spontaneously stood and danced toward the leaders, raising their walking sticks in the air and embracing each other. Even the president danced a little as he smilingly shook hands with well-wishers.
But it was muted in comparison to Garang's inauguration at the same site outside the Republican Palace. That ceremony has seen a host of foreign dignitaries, entertained by tribal dancers and popular singers amid a strong sentiment of hope and excitement for Sudan's future.
Kiir quickly moved to dismiss speculation that he might favor the eventual secession of the south. Garang had always advocated a unified Sudan, though the Comprehensive Peace Agreement gives southerners a referendum on secession after a six-year transitional phase.
"I wish to affirm that is neither my intention to turn from the route of John Garang nor to redefine the objectives of the SPLM," he said, to the applause of the audience.
He said he was committed to the deal, which aims to make the unity of Sudan attractive to southerners, and asserted his desire to help find solutions to other conflicts in this fragmented nation. "Comprehensive peace requires a quick resolution to the problems of Darfur and eastern Sudan. To that cause I shall emphasize all the energies of the SPLM as well as mine," Kiir said.
A career military man, Kirr now faces the challenges of politics, working with al-Bashir and Taha on naming a Cabinet in their national unity government and setting up the southern government.
Garang was flying in a Ugandan presidential helicopter when it crashed into a mountain in southern Sudan. The cause of the crash is being investigated jointly by the SPLM and Khartoum government. "We've lost our leader, and we have another leader. We have to move on," said Deng Dongrin, acting secretary-general of the southern Sudan government, said at the inauguration.
Halting the genocide in Darfur
The San Francisco Chronicle,
8/11/05
The 21st century's first genocide in the Darfur region of western Sudan has entered its third year. According to an analysis of U.N. data by Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College (see www.sudanreeves.org), since early 2003, 215,000 civilians have been killed in a campaign of ethnic cleansing of the non-Arab African inhabitants of Darfur carried out by a government-backed Arab militia known as "Janjaweed." Approximately 200,000 more have died from disease and malnutrition, bringing the total dead in Darfur to more than 400,000. At least 2 million persons, more than half the population of Darfur in 2002, have been uprooted, and several hundred thousand have fled the country into neighboring Chad.
Our misunderstandings and inaction have, once again, given victory to the entrepreneurs of genocide. Sudan's government in Khartoum now has what it wants: a diminished, controllable, disregardable Darfur population that it can leave to the international humanitarian organizations and their terrorized agents to maintain, culturally speaking, in a permanent vegetative state in camps along the Sudan-Chad border and throughout Darfur.
The Darfur disaster has established, once again, that every democratic country in the world opposes slaughtering large numbers of civilians and, at the same time, that no country in the world will take action to stop such slaughter if it entails any significant risk, burden or price. A Kosovo-style intervention could have stopped the Darfur genocide at any time, but the international community has chosen instead to repeat the trial-and-error pattern of policies that failed in Bosnia. The resolutions, statements of concern, empty deadlines, ineffective sanctions and observers, and deployment of troops without a mandate to protect civilians are actions that have deadly consequences demonstrated in Bosnia and elsewhere. Remember Srebrenica, where 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were massacred by Serb forces while being under the "protection" of the United Nations troops.
Why do we have to learn the same lessons again? Why waste precious time building the African Union's capacity at the expense of Darfur lives? Why accept obviously tendentious slogans like "African solutions for African problems"? Why not accept, as a community of nations, the responsibility to protect the people of Darfur?
Some claim that the genocide has stopped because the destruction by the Khartoum government and its allied militias of a village a day has stopped. But the full effect of genocide undermines the conditions of survival of a people and radically diminishes its capacity for culture. It is not necessary to physically eliminate every last member of the targeted people.
The government of Sudan continues its campaign of genocide in Darfur by killing smaller numbers of civilians as an intended "collateral damage" of its retaliatory attacks against Darfur's rebels and by outfitting its Janjaweed killers in uniforms and putting them in charge of the government-controlled camps for internally displaced persons, where they continue to terrorize their victims. How many people die each month from malnutrition, disease and sheer despair in the refugee camps and elsewhere in Darfur?
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's benighted remarks during and after her recent visit to Khartoum leave little hope that the Bush administration will take any effective action to stop the genocide in Darfur. Her apparent forcefulness in calling for actions, not words, and her criticism of Khartoum's failure to stop the rapes (and what of the killings and burnings?) were undermined in four ways: 1) the failure to call for a change in the mandate of the African Union troops to allow them to protect civilians; 2) her declaration that in the Darfur crisis, the African Union "has the lead" despite that body's evident lack of the necessary capabilities, experience and political will; 3) her silence about the evident tokenism of the NATO program to transport to Darfur no more than 50 African Union troops per day, a force not augmented by better equipped non-African troops far more trusted by the victims than those of the African Union; and 4) her dubious claim that the new unity government should be given a chance to solve the Darfur problem despite the fact that the North-South Peace Agreement, under which this government is constituted, completely ignores Darfur and contains no provisions that would enable the new government to deal with this crisis.
The callousness of the call to give Sudan's new unity government more time, which would postpone the effective mandate-changing and force-upgrading solutions known to all, only reveals how much the Bush administration has been seduced by the arguments of Khartoum. The thread of appeasement in Rice's trip, the real purpose of which was to "set the conditions" for further collaboration with Khartoum in the global war on terror, illustrates clearly that the Khartoum regime's continuing terrorization of its own citizens is studiously ignored by this administration.
The death of Southern Sudanese leader John Garang de Mabior last week is a severe setback to the implementation of the North-South Peace Agreement, but also to the prospects that the international community will take any effective action to end the Darfur genocide. Just as Garang's entry into the new government became Rice's excuse to give Khartoum more time, so the "instability" of the country following Garang's death will likely be used as an argument against an effective intervention. The international community will now again focus its efforts and attention on salvaging the North-South Peace Agreement, thereby giving the Khartoum regime an opportunity to reinforce its troops and proxy militias in Darfur.
To move our own words to actions, the United States should demand the immediate deployment of an international force sufficient to stop all ongoing violence and protect the people of Darfur, the refugee camps, the relief workers, the relief-transport systems, the International Criminal Court investigators and the refugees trying to return to their villages.Elvir Camdzic is a co-founder of the San Francisco Bay Area Darfur Coalition (www.darfursf.org) and executive director of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Center of San Francisco. John Weiss is the founder of the Darfur Action Group (www.weaversofthewind.org) at Cornell University, where he is an associate professor of history.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis
Click here to access the Report prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.