PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Monday, October 17, 2005
(Volume IV, Number 37)
Contents:
Aliev calls for military build up as patience wears thin
Three wounded during mortar attack by last remaining rebel group
UNHCR calls upon Burundi to let 8,000 Hutus stay for fear of persecution in Rwanda
Eight Russian soldiers killed, 15 injured in Chechnya
Latest casualities in ongoing violence in Chechnya
Russia says Georgia parliament ultimatum is "provocation"
Aceh rebels hand over second gun cache
GAM hand over second cache of guns in compliance with Helsinki Agreement
Aceh disarmament marred by shooting of rebel
Rebel shot during disarmament of Aceh province
Aceh Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation.
UN Security Council endorses AU transition plan for Ivory Coast
French drafted resolution endoreses African Union transition plan
Amid tragedy, peace beckons;
Peace given a chance in earthquake stricken Jammu and Kashmir
Kosovo
Kosovo starts journey toward self-rule
U.N. report recommends that Kosovo begin the process of formally breaking away from Serbia and Montenegro
Taylor's hopes of return may be dashed in Liberia election
Taylor loyalists' election results look grim; Taylor unlikely to return
Weah building on lead in Liberia presidential race
Soccer star leads in polls in first presidential election since the 14 year old civil war
Separatist front locates Morocco's expellees in desert
Polisario locates hundreds of African migrants abandoned in Western Sahara
Sub-Saharan immigrants seeking European foothold deported from Morocco
Montenegro's independence bid triggers ethnic, religious tensions in tiny Balkan republic
Montenegro demands removal Serbian makeshift church
Rally marks kickoff of a campaign by the pro-government Movement for Independent Montenegro
UN: Security Council condemns increase in flow of weapons to Somalia,
Resolution 1630 adopted regarding increase of weapons to Somalia
Norway asks Tamil rebels to start talks with government to save fragile cease-fire
Norwegian negotiator urged the Tamil Tiger rebels to hold talks with the Sri Lankan government
U.N. officials warn of an upsurge of violence throughout Darfur region
U.N. warns of grave deterioration of the humanitarian and security situation throughout
Sudan's war-torn Darfur
Security Council slams attacks on AU troops, civilians in Darfur
Security Council condemns attacks on African Union peacekeepers
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis Click here to access the PILPG Report.
President: Azerbaijan's patience on Nagorno-Karabakh limited
Associated Press 10/14/05
Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliev said Friday that the ex-Soviet nation still hopes to settle the long-running Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through talks, but added that its patience was running out and called for a military buildup.
"Our patience has limits," Aliev said in a speech to youth organizations in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku. "I am absolutely convinced that if we want to get our lands back on the basis of a fair peace, we need to pay big attention to building up our military."
Aliev previously has made similar statements while campaigning for the ruling New Azerbaijan party in the run-up to the Nov. 6 parliamentary elections. The statements are an apparent response to the opposition's claim that a change in government is necessary to win back control over Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed enclave that has been under the control of Armenian separatists since the early 1990s.
Oil-rich Azerbaijan budgeted over US$300 million ([euro]248 million) for defense this year and is set to double its defense spending next year. In comparison, Armenia's defense budget for next year is equivalent to US$150 million ([euro]124 million).
Aliev on Friday pledged to make Azerbaijan's defense budget equivalent to the entire Armenian state budget, adding that it will help regain control over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan remains high more than a decade after a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year war that left Nagorno-Karabakh 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.
Burundi rebels attack capital in first strike after leadership split
Agence France Presse 10/15/05
At least three people were wounded when Burundi's last active rebel group fired mortars on the outskirts of the capital in its first attack since a deep split in its leadership, the army said Saturday.
Fighters from the National Liberation Forces (FNL) launched shells into Mutanga district in southern Bujumbura late Friday, dashing hopes that divisions among rebel leaders that emerged this week might signal an end to hostilties, it said.
"The FNL fired three 60 mm shells last night around 2100 (1900 GMT) in the direction of Mutanga that lightly injured three civilians and caused some small property damage," army spokesman Major Adolphe Manirakiza told AFP.
He said the mortars were fired from hills in neighboring Bujumbura Rural province where the FNL has been most active.
The attack was the FNL's first since a splinter faction wanting to engage in peace talks with the government broke ranks with the group's hardline leadership on Monday and announced it had taken control of the movement.
The split, in which former FNL deputy chief Jean-Bosco Sindayigaya ousted longtime supremo Agathon Rwasa, had raised hopes that the group was losing strength as a unified guerrilla army and that an end to the fighting might be imminent.
Sindayigaya has openly agitated for the FNL to join peace talks with Burundi's new government while Rwasa has steadfastly refused to accept the legitimacy of the administration that came to power in August and rejected its peace overtures.
Neither side -- whose relative strengths are unknown -- could be reached for comment on Friday's shelling.
Manirakiza said the army was unaware of any change in the rebels' behaviour since the split.
"We're not able to distinguish between the FNL of Rwasa or of Sindayigaya because for the moment there is no visible change on the ground," he said.
Burundi's new President Pierre Nkurunziza has given the FNL until the end of October to join peace talks, but has not specified consequences for their failure to do so.
The FNL is the only one of Burundi's seven Hutu rebel groups not to have signed onto the peace process aimed at bringing a final end to 12 years of civil war.
The conflict has claimed some 300,000 lives since it erupted in 1993 after the assassination of the country's first democratically elected president, a member of the Hutu majority, by officers in the minority Tutsi-dominated military.
UN calls on Burundi to let Rwandan refugees stay
Agence France Presse 10/16/05
The United Nations refugee agency called Sunday on the Burundian government to allow to stay more than 3,000 Rwandan refugees who fear persecution at home.
The call was made on the eve of a meeting Monday between Burundi's Interior Minister Savator Ntacobamaze and Rwanda's local administration minister Protais Musoni in northern Burundi.
"We continue to call on the Burundian government to consider the status of these people and we also ask for a site for housing for security and aid reasons," said a spokeswoman in Burundi for the the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Catherine-Lune Grayson.
Some 8,000 Rwandans, mainly majority Hutus, have fled to Burundi since March fearing prosecution by grassroots gacaca (pronounced "gachacha") courts trying suspects in the 1994 genocide during which some 800,000 people, mostly minority Tutsis, were slain by Hutu extremists.
The UNHCR has criticized Burundi for what it said was the forced repatriation of some of the Rwandans, and has urged Burundi recognize them as asylum seekers.
"They've been waiting months in precarious conditions ... a positive decision needs to be taken quickly," said Grayson.
Eight Russian soldiers killed, 15 injured in Chechnya
Agence France Presse 10/15/05
Eight Russian soldiers were killed and 15 injured in the latest fighting in Chechnya, an official from the Moscow-backed government there said on Saturday.
Four soldiers were killed and five injured in 13 separate attacks by Chechen rebels on federal troops positions over a 24-hour period across Chechnya, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Separate gun battles between federal troops and rebels near the town of Achkhoi-Martan southwest of the Chechen regional capital Grozny left two soldiers dead and one injured Saturday.
One Chechen militant was also killed in the fighting.
Also Saturday, one soldier was killed and two were injured when their UAZ military jeep was blown up in Grozny.
In a separate attack, a demining team came under fire in Grozny, which killed one soldier and left another one injured.
A military Ural truck was blown near the village of Dargo in southeast Chechnya Friday, wounding six soldiers.
Russian troops and their Chechen allies continue to suffer almost daily losses in ongoing fighting in Chechnya -- six years after Russian forces stormed into the republic.
Russia says Georgia parliament ultimatum is "provocation"
Agence France Presse 10/12/05
Russia reacted angrily Wednesday to a Georgian ultimatum threatening to seek the removal of Russian peacekeepers from Georgia's separatist territories, calling the challenge a "provocation."
The Georgian parliament on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution calling on Russia to improve the behaviour of Russian peacekeepers, whom Georgia accuses of supporting separatist forces in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
These Georgian territories developed separatist movements when the former Soviet republic of Georgia became independent in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Georgian parliament's resolution, adopted by all 143 parliamentary lawmakers, stated that if Russia did not improve the situation, Georgia would call for an end to all Russian peacekeeping activities in South Ossetia from February 10, 2006 and in Abkhazia from July 15, 2006.
Russia provides the official peacekeeping force charged with policing accords drawn up in the wake of a 1992-3 war for Abkhazian independence.
Russia and Georgia also have peacekeepers stationed in South Ossetia as part of a recent ceasefire agreement there.
"Russia considers this (Georgian) resolution an act of provocation intended to increase tensions," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"Russia will take all necessary measures for existing international accords to be applied, to prevent any destabilisation of the region and to defend the rights and interests of Russian citizens living there," the ministry said.
The two regions of Georgia -- Abkhazia in the west and South Ossetia in the north -- fought short but costly wars with Georgian forces in the early 1990s, resulting in de facto independence from Tbilisi to this day.
Russia officially recognises Georgian sovereignty in Abkhazia, but Tbilisi accuses Moscow of backing, arming and financing the rebels.
Georgia has also accused Russian peacekeepers of providing weapons to separatist leaders in South Ossetia in violation of a ceasefire agreement in the volatile region.
Aceh rebels hand over second gun cache
Agence France Presse 10/14/05
Rebels in Indonesia's Aceh province handed over a second cache of guns Friday to foreign monitors as part of a peace pact designed to end a three-decade insurgency in the tsunami-hit region.
The head of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), Pieter Feith, Indonesian government representatives and rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) witnessed one disarmament event in Paloh Gadeng area of northern Aceh.
Rebels also gave over their guns and ammunition in three other areas of North Aceh Friday, and independent monitors confirmed that almost 130 weapons had been handed over.
"I can confirm that there has been a decommissioning in four places and the process has been very successful," said AMM spokesman Juri Laas.
"In these four locations, a total of 128 weapons were handed over. Out of this, the AMM recognized 91 weapons, which means a total of 37 weapons were disqualified.
"We are continuing tomorrow in four more places in East Aceh and one place in Aceh Tamiang district."
Indonesian government officials disputed another 10 of the 91 weapons but the AMM would stick to its figure, the spokesman said.
The disarmament is taking place under the August 15 peace pact signed in Helsinki between the government and GAM to end the separatist conflict in the northern tip of Sumatra island.
Rebels have pledged to hand over their declared arsenal of 840 firearms in four stages before the end of the year.
A total of 279 weapons were collected in the first phase in September but the AMM disqualified 36 of them.
GAM had been scheduled to surrender 210 weapons, or a quarter of its arsenal in the first phase. The government has also withdrawn almost 6,000 troops and 2,000 police, or a quarter of its reinforcement troops there.
Meanwhile, the AMM said Friday it was investigating the alleged shooting of a GAM member by paramilitary police in western Aceh on Wednesday.
Police said the man was killed after refusing to stop at a checkpoint while driving a stolen car, but GAM said he was killed in an act of intimidation by the paramilitary police.
"We are still investigating the case with the full cooperation of both parties and we are still establishing the facts," said AMM spokeswoman Faye Belnis.
Observers see the Helsinki agreement as the best chance yet of ending the conflict which has claimed about 15,000 lives, most of them civilians, since GAM began its struggle for an independent state in 1976.
Under the accord, GAM dropped its long-held demand for independence in exchange for a form of local government in Aceh, a province of about four million people.
The peace pact was spurred by the December tsunami disaster, which left 131,000 people dead in Aceh.
Aceh disarmament marred by shooting of rebel
Agence France Presse 10/15/05
A rebel in Indonesia's Aceh province has been shot and wounded by a soldier during disarmament aimed at ending decades of violence in the tsunami-hit conflict zone, police said Saturday.
Rebels from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) began handing over their rifles and pistols to foreign monitors on Friday, in a second phase of disarmament that was part of a peace deal agreed with the government in August.
Police said the independent Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), established under the terms of the August deal in Helsinki, was probing the shooting of the GAM rebel, which coincided with Friday's disarmament launch.
"The AMM team is trying to clarify what happened in the area and will later decide which party was guilty," said Aceh police chief Bahrumsyah Kasman, referring to the shooting in the Peudada region of eastern Aceh.
According to GAM, the trouble started when three GAM members on a motorbike were pulled over by the military after refusing to stop at a checkpoint. One rebel ran away while the other two were allegedly assaulted.
"Later on, some of their friends came to the military post seeking their release," said GAM spokesman Irwandi Yusuf.
"While negotiations were taking place a shot was suddenly fired by one of the soldiers and wounded one rebel.
"I suspect the shooting was due to old animosity towards the rebel because he was on the wanted list when Aceh was under martial law."
Information Minister Sofyan Jalil, who negotiated the historic Helsinki agreement on behalf of the government, said the shooting would not derail efforts to bring peace to the troubled province.
"I think it will not have an impact on the peace process because the disarmament process is taking place very well," he told Indonesia's private Metro TV.
Major General Bambang Darmono, the top military officer in Aceh when it was under martial law, agreed, saying, "It absolutely has no impact on the ongoing process."
AMM is already investigating the alleged shooting of a GAM member by paramilitary police in western Aceh on Wednesday, before the second phase of disarmament started.
Police said the man was killed after refusing to stop at a checkpoint while driving a stolen car, but GAM said he was killed in an act of intimidation by the paramilitary police.
"We are still investigating the case with the full cooperation of both parties and we are still establishing the facts," AMM spokeswoman Faye Belnis told AFP on Friday.
Despite the shootings, disarmament has gone ahead with rebels surrendering 128 weapons in northern Aceh on Friday. Of the total, AMM recognized 91 weapons and disqualified 37 weapons deemed not to have been in working order.
The process continued Saturday at four other sites, including one in the Madat area of eastern Aceh attended by AMM chief Pieter Feith, government representatives and GAM members.
"A total of 93 weapons were handed over today (Saturday). Twelve of them were disqualified which means 81 were accepted and 21 weapons were disputed by the government," AMM spokesman Juri Laas told AFP.
Rebels have pledged to hand over their declared arsenal of 840 firearms in four stages before the end of the year. A total of 279 weapons were collected in the first phase in September but the AMM disqualified 36 of them.
In return for the disarmament the government agreed to withdraw from Aceh almost 6,000 troops and 2,000 police, or a quarter of its reinforcement troops there.
Observers see the Helsinki agreement as the best chance yet of ending the conflict which has claimed about 15,000 lives, most of them civilians, since GAM began its struggle for an independent state in 1976.
Under the accord, GAM dropped its long-held demand for independence in exchange for a form of local government in Aceh, a province of about four million people.
The peace pact was spurred by the December 2004 tsunami disaster, which left 131,000 people dead in Aceh.
Aceh Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
UN Security Council endorses AU transition plan for Ivory Coast
Agence France Presse 10/14/05
The UN Security Council on Friday endorsed an African Union (AU) plan aiming to steer divided Ivory Coast toward free and fair elections within a year but gave no commitment on a request for beefing up UN peacekeepers there.
The 15-member council unanimously adopted a French-drafted text backing a compromise blueprint for Ivory Coast worked out last week by the African Union's Peace and Security Council (PSC).
Ivory Coast had been scheduled to hold presidential elections on October 30, mandated under a long-dormant peace pact in the world's top cocoa producer.
But continued unrest, an abortive disarmament operation and entrenched political bickering has made such elections impossible, though Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo's armed and political foes have said they expected a power vacuum from October 31 when he was constitutionally mandated to step down.
At an emergency meeting last week in Addis Ababa, the AU's PSC decided to leave Gbagbo as head of state for a maximum 12 months. He was also required to name a new transitional prime minister accepted by all parties to the peace pact brokered in France in January 2003 to end months of civil war.
"The Security Council endorses the decision" of the PSC and "expresses its intention to take rapidly the necessary measures to support as appropriate its implementation, in order to organize free, fair, open, transparent and credible elections as soon as possible," a statement read by the council president for this month, Romania's Mihnea Motoc, said.
The council added that it was ready to consider the AU request for a troop increase at a later date "based on careful study of conditions in the country and of evidence of meaningful progress toward implementation" of successive peace agreements.
This caveat was added at the request of the United States, which has expressed reservations about the need for beefing up costly UN missions around the world unless tangible results can be shown. Washington contributes 27 percent of the budget for UN peacekeeping operations.
On Thursday, Nigerian Foreign Minister Olu Adeniji urged the council to give "a firm commitment" on the troop increase, noting that the UN mission's current strength of 7,400 "is far too low for the level you require if you want a credible disarming" of rival rebel and pro-government militias.
New Forces rebels meanwhile criticized the Security Council for endorsing the AU decision to keep Gbagbo in power after October 30.
"We believe that by endorsing a decision, seen as unjust and unrealistic by the entire Ivorian political establishment, except for the FPI (Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front party), the Security Council, like the AU, continues to send Ivory Coast into the unknown," New Forces spokesman Sidiki Konate said in a telephone conversation from Burkina Faso.
The 15-member Security Council meanwhile welcomed the upcoming visit to Ivory Coast by a high-level delegation led by Nigerian President Olusegun Obansanjo, the AU chairman, and South African President Thabo Mbeki, the AU mediator, to discuss implementation of the AU transition plan.
It urged "all the Ivorian parties to cooperate fully and in good faith with this delegation...to ensure the early appointment of a prime minister acceptable to all parties and to guarantee, with the support of the United Nations, the organization of free, fair, open, transparent and credible elections."
The council, which is also working on a broader resolution on the Ivorian crisis, expressed full support to the upcoming trip to Ivory Coast by the head of its sanctions committee to assess prospects for sanctions against those seen as blocking the peace process in the West African nation.
Greek UN Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis' three-day visit beginning Monday aims to assess progress made by the rival Ivorian parties in implementing their commitments under the peace process ahead of a council decision on whether to punish those individuals seen as a threat to national reconciliation.
The Security Council has imposed an embargo on arms exports to Ivory Coast and can also activate at any time a system of sanctions against some Ivorian personalities deemed an obstacle to peace.
The Ivory Coast, a former French colony, has for three years been split in two along truce lines patrolled by French and UN soldiers, with Gbagbo controlling the south and New Forces rebels controlling the north and part of the west.
Amid tragedy, peace beckons;
International Herald Tribune 10/15/05
The idea of Kashmir as a cause that has spurred on three wars between India and Pakistan and festered like an open wound for half a century, preventing peace between the two countries, lies in the rubble and lost lives of the earthquake that devastated the region last week.
The quicker the leaders of India and Pakistan realize this and move swiftly to end the dispute, the quicker they will be able to muster international support for reconstructing the lives of stricken Kashmiris and turn Kashmir into a bridge of peace.
The largest earthquake in South Asia since the one that struck Quetta in 1935 has destroyed the political, economic and social viability of Pakistani-held Kashmir, or Azad Kashmir. According to the United Nations, some four million people have been affected by the quake, mostly Pakistani Kashmiris. At least two million are now homeless, and many have begun to trek south into other provinces of Pakistan seeking shelter. They are unlikely to return soon.
The fragile infrastructure is utterly destroyed, as are the economy, livelihoods, schools, hospitals and communities. There is no single large town or city left standing in Azad Kashmir. Seventy percent of the capital, Muzaffarabad, has been destroyed. Much as in the case of Afghanistan next door, rebuilding this region would have to start from scratch.
The quake's epicenter was also the epicenter of training camps run by Pakistani extremist groups affiliated with Al Qaeda, for thousands of Islamic militants from Kashmir, Afghanistan, Central Asia and beyond. Nobody is likely to give out the death toll among militants, but it is bound to be substantial.
Many of these camps have been sustained, as President Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani Army hedge their bets on whether India is really serious about the peace process begun two years ago. These camps represented, even more than Pakistan's support for the Taliban regime before 9/11, the army's 25- year-long dependency on Islamic militancy as a major tool of its foreign policy in the region.
The physical damage is less in the Muslim part of Indian-held Kashmir, but there too the known death toll is mounting. However the political fallout for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is only just beginning.
Indian Kashmiri Muslims have lost anywhere from 50,000 to 100,00 people in the 16-year insurgency that has seen horrendous acts of barbarity carried out both by the militants and the Indian Army. For Indian Kashmiris, the earthquake and New Delhi's slow response to the tragedy is perhaps the ultimate example of Indian government neglect, perfidy and lack of concern.
Longstanding Indian attempts to legitimize the government of the State of Jammu and Kashmir in the capital, Srinagar, as the official government for all Kashmir is also foundering in the rubble of the earthquake. In fact, the complete incapacity to help the victims has exposed the two governments in Srinagar and Muzaffarabad as mere puppets of their masters in the national capitals.
Moreover, India has stalled over the peace process in the past two years, confident that it is far stronger than Pakistan and does not need to grant concessions. Therefore India has refused to discuss the Kashmir issue until a long almost infinite period of "confidence building measures" takes place. The Kashmiris were getting fed up with this Indian foot-dragging even before the earthquake.
Now that Kashmir itself has been physically devastated, no one can return to the status quo ante. Once the immediate humanitarian crisis is in hand, the international community will have to face how best to help in rebuilding, rehabilitation and long-term aid.
It is highly unlikely that the big Western donors are going to help reconstruct the past nor should they. In fact, Western states now have more of a say in determining peace in Kashmir than ever before, and they should use that clout.
The huge military buildups on the Line of Control between the two Kashmirs, divided families, unending poverty and political uncertainty, training camps for militants and everything else that has gone wrong in this blighted land since the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 has to end now.
India has to discuss a solution for Kashmir with Pakistan and Kashmiri Islamic and nationalist groups. It can no longer rest its case on the subterfuge that the puppet government in Srinagar is the one and only government for all Kashmiris. Pakistan's military has to finally end its support for militancy, act like a normal army and bring the curtain down on its dual-track policy of pandering to Islamic extremism while insisting it is the West's best ally in the war on terrorism.
Ultimately, of course, there will be no territorial solution to this problem. Both sides now know this, and even Pakistan's most die-hard generals realize there will be no repartition of the Line of Control and that India will not yield an inch of Indian Kashmir.
What is possible now is an honorable peace settlement not for the sake of satisfying national egos, but so that both countries can claim they did the best for the long-suffering Kashmiris. Today, nobody can oppose a settlement that helps the Kashmiris get back on their feet. This could encourage Western donors to help rebuild this region as a modern, dynamic part of the subcontinent that could set an example for the rest of India and Pakistan.
For the first time, instead of firing over the shoulders of the Kashmiris, India and Pakistan have the chance to really help them. Musharraf and Singh have to realize that this is not just an opportunity or even a duty to the victims of the devastation they have no other choice. The past is now another country.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Kosovo starts journey toward self-rule
The Toronto Star 10/16/05
He is called the Gandhi of the Balkans, a pacifist in a land of ethnic cleansing that killed 300,000 people in the heart of Europe.
Ibrahim Rugova, president of Kosovo, speaks like the professor of linguistics and literature he was - until 1989 when he joined the movement to resist the murderous Serb nationalism of Slobodan MilosEvic.
Had it not been for the 1999 NATO bombing that forced the Serbs out and placed Kosovo under United Nations control, "I'd not have been alive and talking to you," Rugova told me in 2001. Today, his campaign for Kosovo's independence is about to bear fruit.
A U.N. report recommends that Kosovo begin the process of formally breaking away from Serbia and Montenegro, the leftover state of the former Yugoslavia, of which Kosovo is still nominally a province.
However, on the eve of this momentous moment, Rugova is down with lung cancer.
"He's undergoing therapy and improving daily and will lead the negotiations to independence," Skender Hyseni, his chief political adviser, says over the phone from Pristina.
The Pristina-Belgrade talks, expected to last a year, will have much to untangle.
The 1998-99 Serb attacks on the Muslim Kosovars left at least 10,000 dead and a million homeless. About 800,000 have since returned, including most of the 5,000 who had found refuge in Canada.
Kosovo exemplifies the Canadian idea of the world community overriding state sovereignty to intervene on humanitarian grounds. It also offers a sobering lesson in the difficulties of nation building by a myriad of multinational agencies.
Of the 30,000 NATO troops originally sent, 17,000 from 30 nations remain. The Kosovo Force (KFOR) is supposed to report to the U.N. Interim Administration Mission (Unmik) but doesn't. It operates on its own.
While KFOR keeps the peace, Unmik runs the civil administration, gradually devolving departments to Rugova and the elected national assembly.
A separate 6,000-strong police force, the Kosovo Police Service, under an international commissioner, keeps domestic law and order, or tries to. Then there's the Kosovo Protection Corps, successor to the Kosovo Liberation Army that was supposedly dismantled after 1999 but wasn't. This contingent of 5,000 is an army-in-waiting.
The three forces don't work together. Which is why a minor incident against the minority Serbs last year got out of hand. Mobs destroyed Serb homes and churches, leaving 19 dead and 4,000 homeless.
The European Union is responsible for most of the reconstruction and redevelopment, while a six-nation Contact Group - the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia - guides overall policy.
Meanwhile, much to the chagrin of most parties, the International Criminal Tribunal, which is trying Milosevic, among others, has indicted a former Kosovo guerrilla commander, Ramush Haradinaj, for crimes committed by his unit in the events leading up to 1999.
He was, however, popular and rose to become prime minister. The Hague tribunal was seen as scoring brownie points while being impotent in apprehending notorious Bosnian war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic. Embarrassed, the tribunal last week announced that Haradinaj, out on bail since June, could re-engage in politics.
The cumulative result of all of the above has been that six years after being welcomed as liberators, the various international contingents in Kosovo have outlived their welcome. The Kosovars see them as a self-perpetuating bureaucracy, which must be resisted as if it were an occupying force, even a benign one.
The deeper problem lies with the international community that has kept Kosovo in limbo. It must provide enough carrots to Belgrade to let Kosovo go (perhaps a promise of membership in the EU). It must ensure protection for the Serb minority.
Partitioning Kosovo is not in the cards. Doing so would be to condemn Bosnia, where the Bosnians, Serbs and Croats were cobbled together into an uneasy union under the 1995 Dayton Accords.
Nor is the idea of ethnically Albanian Kosovo joining Albania. The Kosovars themselves do not want that.
The best way forward is for Pristina and Belgrade to begin negotiations, under international supervision, with the goal of Kosovo becoming independent, as did Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Taylor's hopes of return may be dashed in Liberia election
Associated Press 10/15/05
Hopes that former president Charles Taylor's party would perform well on his behalf have been dashed by early results from last week's vote, which could undermine his vow to return to Liberia instead of facing war crimes charges.
Despite his implication in heinous acts of torture and systematic looting of his own nation to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, according to UN and US documents, Taylor remains a mythic figure in his war-ravaged country two years since he fled into exile to end the second civil war in Liberia since 1989.
"Lots of people believe that if Charles Taylor was here he would have won election, and so no one in his party is nearly as capable," a senior west African official told AFP.
"He didn't build a system, he built a cult that makes him irreplaceable."
It is that cult of personality that the US-educated lay preacher is banking on to keep him in his exile in Nigeria, far from prosecutors at the UN-backed war crimes court for Sierra Leone where he faces 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for arming the rebel Revolutionary United Front.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has said he will only hand Taylor to an elected Liberian government.
Under the constitution, a president cannot take that decision without the consent of the legislative branch -- which means that whoever wins will have to face lawmakers and convince them to extradite the man most Liberians know as "Papay".
But with two-thirds of the votes tallied, only six candidates from his former National Patriotic Party -- four in the Senate, two in the House -- stand a chance of joining the post-war elected legislature.
It's a fairly poor showing from the 70 candidates presented to the bicameral legislature by the former ruling party, which during Taylor's era held 96 percent of the seats.
And it shattered predictions by senior members of the party before the elections -- including standard-bearer Roland Massaquoi, who has so far managed to attract just 3.7 percent of the presidential votes tallied.
"We are the party of the people, the party of the rural area, the party that understands what Liberia needs," Massaquoi told AFP in a pre-vote interview.
"We are not just the party of Charles Taylor; we existed before him and will survive long after him."
But according to the west African official, the NPP is exactly that: the party of Taylor that without him cannot exist.
Those associated with Taylor who did not run under the banner of the NPP have had far more success in their political aspirations, but it remains unclear what loyalty they still maintain.
Edwin Snowe, once married to Charles Taylor's daughter, has taken 60.8 percent of the votes cast for representative in Monrovia, running as an independent.
Adolphus Dolo, better known as General Peanut Butter from his days commanding one of Taylor's militias, is running second in the Senate race for northern Nimba county -- behind Prince Johnson, once Taylor's closest ally and now arch nemesis notorious for his torture and assassination of then president Samuel Doe in 1989.
"A lot of Taylor people, fearing the international climate against him, distributed themselves around," the west African official said.
"They have eased themselves into parties in power, realizing that even if NPP wins, it cannot resist political pressure to bring Taylor back (to stand trial). That is something other parties may be able to do."
Weah building on lead in Liberia presidential race
Agence France Presse 10/15/05
Football hero George Weah built on his lead Saturday in the Liberian presidential race, with nearly two-thirds of the polling stations tallied for the west African nation's first post-war election.
With 1,869 of 3,070 polling stations reporting, the onetime AC Milan and Chelsea striker had earned 32.2 percent of votes cast, the National Electoral Commission said.
Trailing behind him was World Bank economist Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, gunning to be Africa's first female president, with 18.6 percent, and businessman lawyer Charles Brumskine with 10.6 percent.
But Weah, who has ignited the mostly youthful electorate with his campaign despite his lack of formal education and political experience, has yet to reach the absolute majority needed to forestall a second round.
Liberia's post-war presidential and legislative polls aim to close the book on a history of lawlessness and corruption after nearly two decades of civil war that has left tens of thousands of people dead and robbed the country of hundreds of millions of dollars in state revenues.
Turnout was a high 74 percent of more than 1.3 million registered voters, NEC chairwoman Frances Johnson Morris told reporters in the morning briefing.
Certified results are due October 26 and a second round, if required, will be held November 8.
Separatist front locates Morocco's expellees in desert
Agence France Presse 10/14/05
The separatist Polisario Front movement said Friday it has located hundreds of African migrants abandoned in the Western Sahara desert by Moroccan security forces driving them out of the country.
"Since Wednesday, we have located four groups of clandestine emigrants cast into the desert on orders from the Moroccan government in several parts of the liberated zones of the Sahrawi Republic," the movement's leadership stated.
The UN refugee agency and a UN peacekeeping mission in the Western Sahara on Thursday said they were worried and seeking west Africans left to fend without water and food in the territory, disputed between Morocco and Polisario, at the start of the week.
One or two had managed to keep mobile phones and contact outsiders briefly to describe their dire straits, the outcome of a tough crackdown that started last weekend both in Morocco and Spain's North African enclaves.
The Polisario Front said the "hapless emigrants have been rescued by Sahrawi military units" around four points on defensive walls the Moroccan army built in the territory when separatists took up arms after it was annexed after Spanish colonists pulled out in 1975.
The expellees were "completely exhausted, thirsty and hungry," the movement said in a report by its Sahrawi news agency APS, adding that they had got there "in convoys in inhuman conditions from northern Morocco".
AFP has been able to follow the group since Saturday, when a Nigerian managed to slip a scrap of paper with his phone number to a photographer through the window of a bus.
Since then, the man known only as George, managed to call several times to report where the bus was headed by reading off highway signs, and the bus was last heard of close to the Western Sahara.
On Thursday, a Malian in the same group managed to reach AFP. "We have no water," he said. "We are going to die."
On Thursday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Geneva said troops of a UN force known as MINURSO were trying to find sub-Saharans in a desert all the more deadly because of mines laid since the start of the separatist conflict.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, pan-African and international human rights associations, and medical and other relief charities active in the region have all expressed concern over the speed and nature of the expulsions.
More than 1,000 people from poverty-stricken west African countries who had trekked to Morocco as a potential jumping off point for new lives in Europe were either taken by police or voluntarily came out of hiding to get a place on government-chartered flights from northeast Morocco to Mali and Senegal.
Scores of buses carrying others headed either for the Algerian border or on the long journey south across the Western Sahara, which stretches deep into the desert from the Atlantic seaboard, towards Mauritania.
Government ministers defended the swift measures as all Morocco could do to cope with the long-standing migrant problem in the wake of at least 14 deaths when desperate people several times stormed the wire fences of two Spanish enclaves on the northern coast.
In Mauritania, a new government installed after a military coup this year declared itself "reluctant" to allow the clandestine migrants over the border and then said if they did, they would need proof they went through the country on the arduous trek north.
The difficulties of the situation are compounded as Morocco has sour ties with Algiers since the latter has backed the Polisario Front during more than a decade of political stalement following a truce in 1992 and hosts Polisario's Sahrawi government in exile.
Morocco deports more immigrants from military base, denies abandoning Africans in desert
Associated Press 10/15/05
Moroccan authorities continued mass deportations of illegal African immigrants, flying 435 people out of the southern town of Goulimine after shipping nearly 1,600 Africans home from a city in the east, government and local officials said.
Meanwhile, Morocco denied claims by the rebel Polisario Front that it had abandoned hundreds of African immigrants in the Western Sahara desert. The allegations risked increasing long-running tensions between Morocco and neighboring Algeria, which backs the Polisario.
Immigrants from dozens of countries in sub-Saharan Africa have long sought a foothold in Europe via two Spanish enclaves in northern Morocco. However, concerted assaults in recent weeks on the barbed-wire fences that isolate Melilla, and a decision by Spain to turn back to Morocco immigrants who get over the barriers, have pushed Morocco into dramatic action.
Three Royal Air Maroc Boeing 737s took off Saturday for Dakar, Senegal, and Bamako, Mali, from a military base at Goulimine, some 800 kilometers (500 miles) south of Rabat, officials said.
A total of 435 Senegalese and Malians were sent home from Goulimine, the official MAP news agency quoted Goulimine Governor Ahmed Hamdi as saying. SOS Racismo, a non-governmental organizations in Spain tracking the immigrants, said that some 1,000 had been rounded up at the Goulimine military base, meaning more flights could be expected.
SOS Racismo reported days ago that some immigrants, including women and babies, were being held in a military camp at Dakhla.
Morocco already has sent nearly 1,600 illegal immigrants out on special flights from Oujda, on the border with Algeria to the east.
The Moroccan Interior Ministry said allegations by the Polisario Front that it had abandoned hundreds of immigrants in the vast desert of the Western Sahara was "disinformation," according to MAP news agency.
The Polisario is Morocco's foe in a long-running dispute over the Western Sahara territory that this North African kingdom annexed in 1975. The Polisario, backed by Algeria, is pressing for its independence, and for years the two sides carried out a guerrilla-style war until a 1991 cease-fire.
The Polisario said Friday it found hundreds of immigrants in four groups in a part of the disputed territory that it controls. It said the Africans were in a "state of total exhaustion, thirsty and starving." The information was first reported by the Polisario news agency.
"No migrant among the hundreds of immigrants illegally on Moroccan territory was left in the desert or abandoned to his own fate at the southern frontiers of the kingdom," MAP quoted the Interior Ministry as saying Friday.
However, the spokesman in Madrid for Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, also said people were being abandoned in the desert.
"It's a situation of great concern to us," Carlos Ugarte said. "There are not enough NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in the world to cover this area and give proper assistance to the immigrants."
It was Medecins Sans Frontieres that first said African immigrants were being left stranded south of Oujda. Immigrants at the Oujda camps confirmed they had been dropped off in the desert south of the city before being picked up again and taken to special centers for flights home.
The Polisario Front ambassador to Algeria, Mohamed Beissat, said his movement had located some 150 immigrants, adding that more were likely to be found. He said their feet had been injured from walking, and alleged that some had been beaten.
"We haven't the means to take charge of them, and the corridors they are passing through are filled with land mines," Beissat told The AP in Algiers. The mines would be remnants of a brutal decades-long desert war between Morocco and the Polisario.
In its denial, the Moroccan Interior Ministry took sharp aim at Algeria, denouncing what it called a politically motivated "Algerian-Polisario manipulation." It blamed Algeria for the situation, saying its border with Morocco had become a "sieve" for illegal immigrants.
Morocco annexed the territory, the former Spanish Sahara, in 1975 and conducted a desert war against the Polisario for more than 15 years, building a huge defense wall that stretches for hundreds of miles (kilometers) through desert to fend off rebels. The United Nations, while monitoring the cease-fire, has tried in vain to organize a referendum to resolve the crisis.
Associated Press writers Mar Roman in Madrid, Spain, and Aomar Ouali in Algiers, Algeria, contributed to this report.
Montenegro's independence bid triggers ethnic, religious tensions in tiny Balkan republic
Associated Press 10/12/05
Savo Djurovic kneeled down, crossed himself three times in front of a tiny mountaintop Serbian Orthodox church and made a bleak prediction: "There will be blood if Montenegro votes independence."
The Saint Trinity Church - a makeshift metal construction - was set up over the summer on top of Mt. Rumija in southern Montenegro at a religious site historically frequented by Christian Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Muslim worshippers.
Montenegro's pro-independence authorities have asked Serbian church leaders to remove the church, saying it would antagonize people of other faiths. They threaten to destroy it if it isn't taken down voluntarily, but the church refuses to budge.
The row epitomizes deep divisions between the Montenegrin "independists" and the pro-Serbian "unionists" ahead of Montenegro's independence referendum planned for early next year.
The pro-independence Montenegrin authorities say the aim of erecting the church, which the Serb-led army transported to the mountaintop by helicopter, was to mark out Serb territory in case Montenegro votes to split from Serbia.
Former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic used similar "markers" in his campaign to carve out a "Greater Serbia" from territories where Serbs lived in Croatia and Bosnia - the bloodiest carnage in Europe since World War II.
Serbia and Montenegro, both majority Christian Orthodox, are the only two former Yugoslav republics that stayed together when the six-member federation broke up in the series of conflicts in the 1990s.
But the two traditional allies have drifted apart over Montenegro's bid to gain independence and its claim that Serbia, which has some eight million people, was stifling its much smaller partner's 650,000 residents.
Montenegro was recognized as an independent kingdom in 1910, even though Serb nationalists always considered it a Serbian province. Montenegro, or Crna Gora (Black Mountain) in Serbian, lost its statehood when Montenegro's monarchs in 1918 joined an alliance of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes that later became Yugoslavia.
Montenegrins themselves are deeply divided over their relations with Serbia. The latest independent opinion polls indicate about 41 percent of Montenegrins would vote for independence, while 34 percent would be against. The rest are undecided.
"The independence-seeking majority in Montenegro has definitely been established," Montenegro's pro-independence Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic said in a recent interview.
Djukanovic said he was hoping that Montenegro will achieve independence peacefully - unlike through bloodshed in the other former Yugoslav republics of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia.
However, Montenegro's pro-Serb groups said a split could trigger violence.
"The referendum is a threat to the regional stability and peace in Montenegro," said Goran Danilovic, a leader of the Serbian Peoples' Party in Montenegro, announcing a series of protests against the "forcefully imposed" vote.
"All wars in former Yugoslavia started with independence referendums," Danilovic warned, comparing the simmering tensions in Montenegro to those in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia in the early 1990s, before the republics voted to split from former Yugoslavia and before Serbs intervened with force to annul those votes.
The majority of pro-Serbian support comes from northern and rural parts of Montenegro bordering Serbia, where men take pride in brandishing guns and glorifying their ancestors' warrior traditions.
"Serbs and Montenegrins are like a pair of eyes in one skull," Djurovic, the pro-Serb worshipper at Mt. Rumija, said. "If someone wants to dig one eye out, he will have to pay the price. In blood. That is in our tradition."
Thousands attend inaugural pro-independence rally in Montenegro
Associated Press 10/15/05
Thousands of pro-independence Montenegrins rallied Saturday in the tiny Balkan republic's historic capital to demand an end to their union with Serbia.
The rally in Cetinje, Montenegro's capital during its independence until 1918, marked the kickoff of a campaign by the pro-government Movement for Independent Montenegro intended to culminate with an independence vote in early 2006.
"We have to unite our forces to reach our goal to regain out statehood," said Ranko Krivokapic, the speaker of Montenegro's parliament.
"It won't be easy, but we want our freedom, which we lost 88 years ago," Krivokapic told the cheering and flag-waving crowd of about 4,000. "There will be no more waiting."
Serbia and Montenegro are the only two former Yugoslav republics that stayed together when the six-member federation broke up in the series of conflicts in the 1990s.
But the two traditional allies have drifted apart over Montenegro's bid for independence and its claim that Serbia, which has some eight million people, was stifling its much smaller partner's 650,000 residents.
Montenegro was recognized as an independent kingdom in 1910, though Serb nationalists had always considered it a Serbian province. Montenegro lost its statehood when Montenegro's monarchs in 1918 joined an alliance of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes that later became Yugoslavia.
Montenegrins themselves are deeply divided over their relations with Serbia. The latest independent opinion polls indicate about 41 percent of Montenegrins would vote for independence, while 34 percent would be against. The rest are undecided.
Montenegro's Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic on Friday rejected European Union demands that his government postpone the independence referendum, which is tentatively set for February or April.
Djukanovic said the EU leaders sought to delay the Montenegrin referendum until after talks on the status of Serbia's volatile Kosovo province. Those talks are to start later this year, but are likely to stretch into 2006.
UN: Security Council condemns increase in flow of weapons to Somalia, re-establishes group monitoring arms embargo for six months; Resolution 1630 (2005) adopted unanimously; Report says upswing in embargo violations 'sustained and dramatic'
M-2 Presswire 10/17/05
Condemning the significant increase of the flow of weapons and ammunitions to Somalia, the Security Council this afternoon requested the Secretary-General to re-establish the Group that monitors the arms embargo against that country.
Through the unanimous adoption of resolution 1630 (2005), the Council also requested the Committee on Somalia established in 1992 to consult with the Secretary-General on the re-activation of the Monitoring Group and recommend ways to improve compliance with the embargo in response to the continuing violations. Financial arrangements to support the work of the Monitoring Group were also requested from the Secretary-General by the resolution.
In its latest report to the Council, the Group said there had been a sustained and dramatic increase in arms embargo violations over the past six months. That increase in the flow of arms was a manifestation of the highly aggravated political tensions between the Transitional Federal Government and the opposition, which has given rise to increasing militarization and severely elevated threat of widespread violence in central and southern Somalia.
According to today's resolution, the Group would be re-established 30 days from today for a period of six months, with a mandate to continue to investigate all activities involved in the violations of the arms embargo, including revenue generation and transport.
The resolution also mandates the Group to continue refining and updating information on the draft list of individuals and groups that violate the embargo, in order to facilitate possible measures by the Council.
The meeting of the Council began at 12:05 p.m. and adjourned at 12:09 p.m.
Council Resolution
The full text of resolution 1630 (2005) reads, as follows:
"The Security Council,
"Reaffirming its previous resolutions and the statements of its President concerning the situation in Somalia, in particular resolution 733 (1992) of 23 January 1992, which established an embargo on all delivery of weapons and military equipment to Somalia (hereinafter referred to as the "arms embargo"), resolution 1519 (2003) of 16 December 2003, resolution 1558 (2004) of 17 August 2004 and resolution 1587 (2005) of 15 March 2005,
"Reaffirming the importance of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, political independence and unity of Somalia,
"Reiterating the urgent need for all Somali leaders to take tangible steps to begin political dialogue,
"Reaffirming its strong support for the leadership of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in his efforts in fostering inclusive dialogue, particularly through his road map for dialogue among the leaders of the Transitional Federal Institutions,
"Stressing the need for the Transitional Federal Institutions to continue working towards establishing effective national governance in Somalia,
"Commending the efforts of the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in support of the Transitional Federal Institutions and welcoming the African Union's continued support for national reconciliation in Somalia,
"Taking note of the report of the Monitoring Group dated 22 August 2005 (S/2005/625, annex) submitted pursuant to paragraph 3 (i) of resolution 1587 (2005) and the observations and recommendations contained therein,
"Condemning the significant increase in the flow of weapons and ammunition supplies to and through Somalia, which constitutes a violation of the arms embargo and a serious threat to the Somali peace process,
"Reiterating its insistence that all Member States, in particular those in the region, should refrain from any action in contravention of the arms embargo and should take all necessary steps to hold violators accountable,
"Reiterating and underscoring the importance of enhancing the monitoring of the arms embargo in Somalia through persistent and vigilant investigation into the violations, bearing in mind that strict enforcement of the arms embargo will improve the overall security situation in Somalia,
"Determining that the situation in Somalia constitutes a threat to international peace and security in the region,
"Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations,
"1. Stresses the obligation of all Member States to comply fully with the measures imposed by resolution 733 (1992);
"2. Expresses its intention, in light of the report of the Monitoring Group dated 22 August 2005 (S/2005/625, annex), to consider specific actions to improve implementation of and compliance with measures imposed by resolution 733 (1992);
"3. Decides to request the Secretary-General, in consultation with the Committee established pursuant to resolution 751 (1992) of 24 April 1992 (hereinafter referred to as "the Committee"), to re-establish within thirty days from the date of the adoption of this resolution, and for a period of six months, the Monitoring Group referred to in paragraph 3 of resolution 1558 (2004), with the following mandate:
(a) to continue the tasks outlined in paragraphs 3 (a) to (c) of resolution 1587 (2005);
(b) to continue to investigate, in coordination with relevant international agencies, all activities, including in the financial, maritime and other sectors, which generate revenues used to commit arms embargo violations;
(c) to continue to investigate any means of transport, routes, seaports, airports and other facilities used in connection with arms embargo violations;
(d) to continue refining and updating information on the draft list of those individuals and entities who violate the measures implemented by Member States in accordance with resolution 733 (1992), inside and outside Somalia, and their active supporters, for possible future measures by the Council, and to present such information to the Committee as and when the Committee deems appropriate;
(e) to continue making recommendations based on its investigations, on the previous reports of the Panel of Experts (S/2003/223 and S/2003/1035) appointed pursuant to resolutions 1425 (2002) of 22 July 2002 and 1474 (2003) of 8 April 2003, and on the previous reports of the Monitoring Group (S/2004/604 and S/2005/153) appointed pursuant to resolutions 1519 (2003) of 16 December 2003, 1558 (2004) of 17 August 2004 and 1587 (2005) of 15 March 2005;
(f) to work closely with the Committee on specific recommendations for additional measures to improve overall compliance with the arms embargo;
(g) to assist in identifying areas where the capacities of States in the region can be strengthened to facilitate the implementation of the arms embargo;
(h) to provide to the Council, through the Committee, a midterm briefing within 90 days from its establishment;
(i) to submit, for the Security Council's consideration, through the Committee, a final report covering all the tasks set out above, no later than 15 days prior to the termination of the Monitoring Group's mandate;
"4. Further requests the Secretary-General to make the necessary financial arrangements to support the work of the Monitoring Group;
"5. Reaffirms paragraphs 4, 5, 7, 8 and 10 of resolution 1519 (2003);
"6. Requests the Committee, in accordance with its mandate and in consultation with the Monitoring Group and other relevant United Nations entities, to consider and recommend to the Council ways to improve implementation of and compliance with the arms embargo, in response to continuing violations;
"7. Further requests the Committee to consider, when appropriate, a visit to Somalia and/or the region by its Chairman and those he may designate, as approved by the Committee, to demonstrate the Security Council's determination to give full effect to the arms embargo;
"8. Decides to remain actively seized of the matter."
Background
When the Security Council met today to consider the situation in Somalia, it had before a letter dated 5 October 2005 to the Council President from the Chairman of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 751 (1992) concerning Somalia, which attaches the report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia pursuant to Council resolution 1587 (2005) (document S/2005/625).
The report notes that during the current mandate period, arms embargo violations took a sustained and dramatic upswing, even when compared with violations of the previous period, which were also continual and numerous. Those involved in committing the violations included both members of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and members of the opposition in Mogadishu, as well as certain States in the region, whose more visible involvement in the affairs of Somalia in terms of providing arms to the side of their choice allegedly reflects their own strategic and vital interests.
The dramatic upswing in the flow of arms into Somalia is a manifestation of the highly aggravated political tensions between TFG and the opposition, the report continues. This has correspondingly given rise to the increasing militarization of both sides, which has resulted in a severely elevated threat of widespread violence in central and southern Somalia. Members of the opposition who committed arms embargo violations during the current mandate period -- some of them dissident members of the TFG -- are the same individuals who have been identified in the Monitoring Group's past reports as warlords who have demonstrated through their actions and activities that they do not want to see a Government established in Somalia that would infringe or overturn their personal political and economic vested interests. A number of these same individuals have well established and entrenched local administrations that are a reflection of their vested interests.
The Monitoring Group has obtained a better understanding of the structure and organization of some important local administrations and, as a result, has a better appreciation of the sources of the revenue that accrues to those in charge.
In particular, the Monitoring Group has identified certain key revenue generators in the area of marine fisheries and the export of huge commercial quantities of charcoal by cargo ships that provide the bulk of known earned revenue to certain powerful local administrations. Reliance on shipping and the fishing industry is necessary to complete the financial circuit. The Monitoring Group firmly believes that revenues thus obtained are used by those in charge to help maintain their militias and for purchasing arms.
The Monitoring Group recommends, therefore, that the Council consider enhancing and strengthening the existing arms embargo by adopting an integrated arms embargo for the purpose of reducing the financial capacity of individuals in charge of local administrations to buy arms in violation of the arms embargo. The Monitoring Group defines the concept of the integrated arms embargo as a process that includes several aspects, including a trade embargo on the export of charcoal originating in Somalia and a ban on foreign vessels fishing in Somali waters. The purpose of the approach is to enhance the overall effectiveness of the enforcement of the arms embargo on Somalia by reducing the funds available for the local administrations, warlords and others that have been engaged in the purchase of arms in violation of the embargo. The desired effect is to stem the unrestrained flow of arms into Somalia by key arms embargo violators.
The report notes that, in paragraph 3 (d) of its resolution 1587 (2005), the Council requested the Monitoring Group to continue refining and updating information on the draft list of individuals and entities who violate the measures implemented by Member States in accordance with resolution 733 (1992), inside and outside Somalia, and their active supporters, for the purpose of possible future measures by the Council, and to present such information to the Committee established pursuant to resolution 751 (1992) as and when the Committee deems appropriate. The Monitoring Group continues to refine and update the draft list.
Norway asks Tamil rebels to start talks with government to save fragile cease-fire
Associated Press 10/13/05
A Norwegian negotiator urged the Tamil Tiger rebels Thursday to hold talks with the Sri Lankan government to save a faltering cease-fire and prevent the country from sliding back into war, the rebels said.
Retired Norwegian Gen. Trond Furuhovde asked the Tigers' political wing leader, S.P. Thamilselvan, to take "extraordinary initiatives" and to "explore all avenues open, to break the ice," said the rebels' official Web site www.ltteps.org.
The meeting in the northern rebel-held town of Kilinochchi took place amid almost daily killings in the ethnic Tamil-majority northeast that have threatened to derail the February 2002 cease-fire that halted two decades of war that killed 65,000 people.
The Tigers and the government agreed to talks to salvage the truce after the government blamed the insurgents for the Aug. 12 assassination of Sri Lanka's foreign minister. However, the negotiations have been held up by a disagreement over the venue.
The government has insisted that any talks with the rebels must be held in Sri Lanka, and has rejected a rebel proposal to meet in Kilinochchi or overseas.
Thamilselvan on Thursday blamed the government for the failure to begin discussions.
"We do not see any sensibility in the adamant attitude of Colombo in the selection of a venue for talks," he said, insisting that locations other than those suggested by the Tigers would pose a security risk.
Meanwhile, the Tamil Tigers returned 24 child soldiers to their parents in the presence of visiting human rights activist Ian Martin, another rebel report said.
Martin, who accompanied Furuhovde to Kilinochchi, is a former secretary-general of the London-based human rights group Amnesty International.
The Tigers had fought the government since 1983 to create a separate nation for the country's Tamils, accusing the Sinhalese majority of discrimination. About 65,000 people died in the fighting.
Since the Norwegian-brokered truce was signed, scores of people, including Tamil Tigers, politicians opposing them and civilians, have been killed. One of the casualties was Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, who was gunned down by suspected Tamil Tiger snipers on Aug. 12 at his fortified residence in Colombo.
The Tigers have denied involvement in Kadirgamar's assassination and other violence during the cease-fire.
Peace talks launched since the truce have stalled because of disagreements over postwar power-sharing between the government and the Tigers.
Furuhovde has been heavily involved in Sri Lanka's peace process, leading a team of European truce monitors during most of the cease-fire period.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
U.N. officials warn of an upsurge of violence throughout Darfur region
Associated Press 10/12/05
The United Nations warned Wednesday of a grave deterioration of the humanitarian and security situation throughout Sudan's war-torn Darfur region following a recent escalation of violence.
The gloomy U.N. assessment follows the recent rebel kidnappings - and later release - of almost 40 members of an African Union team near the Chad border and killing of three Nigerian soldiers working as AU peacekeepers and their two Sudanese civilian drivers in southern Darfur.
The chairman of the African Union commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, for the first time directly blamed the Sudanese Liberation Army for Saturday's killings, which were the first of AU soldiers since they deployed to Darfur in April 2004 to monitor a shaky cease-fire deal.
The Darfur conflict started in 2003 after rebels led by the SLA and another group, the Justice and Equality Movement, took up arms against Sudan's government claiming discrimination and neglect.
The government has been accused of unleashing Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, in a campaign of murder, rape and arson against African tribes people in Darfur. The crisis has claimed the lives of more than 180,000 people and displaced several million from their homes.
Radhia Achouri, spokesperson for the U.N.'s envoy to Sudan, complained Wednesday of recurring incidents of armed looting, banditry, robbery and unconfirmed reports of renewed clashes between government forces and rebels throughout Darfur in recent days.
"Given the prevailing security situation, almost two-thirds of the areas of operation of the humanitarian community in southern Darfur are considered hazardous for the safety of humanitarian personnel and have been declared no go areas," Achouri said during a press briefing.
There have been preliminary reports of a SLA attack against a Sudanese government convoy late Tuesday in Kafod, a town near the city of Kutum in North Darfur state, according to AU acting head of mission in Darfur, Jean-Baptiste Natama. No further details were available.
U.N. official Achouri said areas in northern Darfur, particularly the Zam Zam refugee camp, continues to receive thousands of displaced people from throughout the vast region.
In the western Darfur city of Geneina, humanitarian agencies are facing "increasing constraints in delivering assistance" after the United Nations ordered that roads into the town be placed under restricted access because of armed clashes and "increased banditry," Achouri said.
The African Union called on the Sudanese government Wednesday to issue clearances for 105 armored personnel carriers provided by Canada so they can be delivered to peacekeeping troops in the field, Natama said in a statement.
The pan-African body's peace and security council has also decided to send a high-level team of military experts to Darfur immediately to assess the security situation and examine ways to improve protection for the AU team.
Security Council slams attacks on AU troops, civilians in Darfur
Agence France Presse 10/13/05
The UN Security Council on Thursday slammed the recent upsurge of violence in Sudan's restive Darfur region and urged the Khartoum government and rebels to respect their ceasefire accord and move to toward a peace settlement.
In a statement read by its president for the month, Romanian ambassador Mihnea Motoc, the 15-member council expressed its "deep concern at recent reports of an upsurge of violence in Darfur by all sides and insists that all parties strictly abide by the demands and commitments made" in a 2004 ceasefire accord.
The bodies of two Nigerian African Union peacekeepers who had gone missing after a deadly Darfur ambush last week were found Thursday.
"They were found dead today, a few metres (yards) away from the site of the ambush in Menawash, in the Khorabashi area," an AU spokesman told AFP.
The two had been missing since two other Nigerian peacekeepers and two civilian contractors were killed on Saturday. Three other troops were wounded and remain in serious condition.
The security council also condemned recent deadly attacks by pro-government militia and government forces on civilians.
It expressed concern about the impact of the violence on ongoing humanitarian operations in Darfur and about a UN finding that there had been "no visible effort by the (Khartoum) government to disarm the (pro-government) militia (that are terrorizing the people of Darfur) or hold them to account in accordance with past agreements."
It said the Darfur rebel groups had also failed to control their troops.
The council reiterated its support for the African Union mission tasked with monitoring respect of the ceasefire and to the peace talks being held in Abuja, Nigeria.
On Wednesday, a spokeswoman in Khartoum said the United Nations mission in Sudan has declared much of Darfur unsafe for humanitarian operations.
She cited the upsurge in violence and the brief abduction of nearly 40 other AU personnel by rebel forces as major causes for concern.
Between 180,000 and 300,000 people have died in Darfur since a civil conflict between rebels and government-backed Arab militias erupted in February 2003, with some 2.6 million civilians left homeless.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis
Click here to access the Report prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.