EU optimistic over South Caucasus conflicts
Associated Press, 12/13/05

The European Union expressed optimism Tuesday that upcoming talks could help resolve conflicts in the Southern Caucasus, pitting Armenia against Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and the Georgian government against separatists in South Ossetia.

"We hope very much that the year 2006 may be a year that the solution begins to move," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. He stressed the importance of an impending visit to the region of international envoys that is due to lead to talks next month between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to look for a solution to the dispute over the mountainous region, which was seized by ethnic Armenian forces in a war with Azerbaijan in the 1990s.

Solana met with foreign ministers from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia as the EU seeks to include the three Caucasus republics in its "neighborhood policy" with agreements to improve political, economic and security ties. All three ministers expressed satisfaction that talks were proceeding despite reservations from EU member Cyprus over Azerbaijan's ties with the breakaway Turkish Cypriot administration in northern Cyprus.

Azerbaijan started talks Monday with the EU to tighten relations, following the other two Caucasus nations. "We are entering a new phase" in relations with the three countries, Solana said. Cyprus had delayed the start of talks since September to protest Azerbaijan's authorizing a Turkish Cypriot Airlines flight to its capital Baku in defiance of an international embargo.

With the EU insisting that talks between the three Caucasus nations run parallel, Armenia and Georgia had feared their efforts to draw closer to the European bloc could suffer. "We were concerned we could be a victim of this delay," said Armenian Foreign Minister Varan Oskanian. "That concern has been alleviated." Keen to firm up relations with a region it sees as potential focus of instability on its southeastern flank, the EU did not allow concerns over the fairness of recent elections in Azerbaijan to stop the start of talks.

"Our friends from Azerbaijan know very well what we think about that," Solana said, stressing that discussion of the EU's election concerns were "very friendly."

Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Elmer Mammadyarov said closer relations with the EU would boost stability and prosperity across the region making it easier to overcome long-standing differences.

Solana said the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia agreed on Monday to a three-step plan for talks with the Georgian government. He said the EU would be ready, if asked, to play a bigger mediating role in both the South Ossetia and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts. Tension in the region continues to run high. Azerbaijan's defense minister warned last week that war could resume if Armenia recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh's independence and Georgia's government responded angrily Wednesday when South Ossetia briefly detained three Georgian police officers and a civilian.

NATO envoy says progress possible in Southern Caucasus conflict
Associated Press, 12/14/05

A NATO official said Wednesday there were good prospects for a breakthrough next year in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over a disputed enclave, and insisted the alliance was not competing with Russia for influence on ex-Soviet territories.

Robert Simmons, the NATO's special representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, told a news conference that regular meetings between leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia could help resolve the 17-year dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan remains high more than a decade after a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year war over Nagorno-Karabakh, populated mostly by ethnic Armenians but located within Azerbaijan. Since then, the enclave has been under Armenian control. Some 30,000 people were killed and 1 million were displaced. Failure to resolve the enclave's status has impeded the region's economic development. A delegation from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, meanwhile, traveled to Yerevan on Wednesday, bringing new proposals for resolving the conflict.

The elected leader of Nagorno Karabakh, Arkady Gukasyan, said after meeting with the OSCE delegation that he had heard nothing new in the proposals, and he repeated the enclave's insistence that Azerbaijan must negotiate with it directly."We are still quite far from resolution," Gukasyan said.

Also in Moscow, Simmons said that NATO was not competing with Russian-led security groupings active in the Caucasus and Central Asia, but said the alliance preferred to confine its partnership to individual members of the group.

Moscow has strongly urged NATO to establish official links with the six-nation Collective Security Treaty, a military pact that links Russia with Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Many Russian officials and lawmakers have been jittery about the United States and NATO wielding increasing influence in the former Soviet republics. Kremlin leaders have accused the West of encouraging the mass protests that brought the opposition to power in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan over the past two years. Another security group dominated by Russia and China, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, urged the U.S. to set a timetable for withdrawing from bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan later evicted the U.S. forces. That grouping also includes four former Soviet Central Asian nations.

UN peacekeepers in Burundi set withdrawal plans
Agence France Press, 12/15/05

The United Nations said Thursday it would begin to draw down the number of peacekeepers in Burundi this month as part of a phased withdrawal of troops that will end in December next year.

"The gradual withdrawal plan begins now," said Derrick Mgwebi, the force commander of the UN Operation in Burundi (ONUB), which was deployed to assist in peace efforts in the tiny central African nation in June 2004. He said the first to leave would be a contingent from Mozambique on December 28, followed in February and March by batallions from Kenya and Ethiopia. Pakistani and South African troops will leave in April, Mgwebi said, adding that the withdrawal of all ONUB's 5,364 peacekeepers would be complete in December 2006.The schedule was announced after the withdrawal plans were formalized between the United Nations and Burundi's new government that came to power in August after a series of elections.

The polls, which saw ex-Hutu rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza elected president, were part of a regionally backed peace process aimed at ending Burundi's 12-year civil war that has claimed some 300,000 lives. Only one of the country's seven Hutu rebel groups, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), remains outside the process and is still active.

Burundi parades alleged captured rebels in stadium show
Agence France Presse, 12/15/05

Authorities in Burundi paraded some 200 alleged criminals, most of them suspected members of the country's last active rebel group, before the public in the capital on Thursday.

In an event criticized by human rights groups, the detainees were put on display at Bujumbura's Prince Louis Rwagasore stadium as part of a campaign to end the insurgency of the National Liberation Forces (FNL). Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza, who has vowed to crush the group by the end of the year, made a personal appearance at the spectacle that attracted about 500 curious onlookers and members of the media.

"As the president has long promised, we are showing you people we have arrested over the past two months in the fight against the FNL and criminal elements," Interior Minister Salvator Ntacobamaze told reporters.

Those on parade were accused of numerous crimes, including murder, rapes and fraud, but the huge majority -- nearly 150 of them, including 36 women -- are suspected of collaborating with the FNL. The Hutu group has refused to recognize Nkurunziza, himself an ex-Hutu rebel leader, as president and spurned peace overtures, prompting the two-month crackdown that has been criticized by some as excessive.

Rights groups have reported numerous violations, including the torture and arbitrary arrests of suspected FNL collaborators, all of which have been denied by the government. On Thursday, authorities acknowledged that none of the displayed detainees had yet been convicted of any crime and several protested their innocence and complained that the event violated their rights under the law."These people have not yet been tried because investigations are still ongoing, but they are criminals, wrongdoers," said judicial police commissioner Deo Suzuguye, later allowing that some might be proved innocent in court.

Detainee Marie Ndikumana, a 39-year-old widow and mother of six, said she believed she would be absolved of any guilt."I was accused of having helped the FNL," she told AFP. "But if I helped the FNL, it was because I was forced to."

Detainee Jean Damascene Kwizera, a 17-year-old student, told AFP he had been unjustly arrested at his school last month and had nothing to do with the rebel group."I am not an FNL member and nobody has questioned me about it until now," he said, accusing authorities of violating his rights.

Similar events were held simultaneously at three other venues in two outlying provinces and all were criticized by Jean-Marie Kavumbagu, the president of Burundi's main human rights group, Iteka."We condemn this public exhibition," he told AFP. "It flies in the face of the principle of the presumption of innocence that is enshrined in Burundian law." The FNL is the only one of the tiny central African nation's seven Hutu rebel groups to remain outside a peace process aimed at bringing a final end to a 12-year ethnically driven civil war that has claimed some 300,000 lives.

Putin dismisses lawmakers' move to rename Chechen capital
Associated Press, 12/17/05

President Vladimir Putin has dismissed a motion by Chechnya's parliament to rename the provincial capital after the late Moscow-backed Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov.

Chechnya's Moscow-backed parliament voted unanimously Wednesday to ask Putin to rename the city of Grozny as Akhmad-Kala in the memory of Kadyrov, the regional president who was assassinated in a rebel bomb blast in a Grozny stadium in May 2004. In remarks broadcast Saturday by Russia's NTV television, Putin referred to Kadyrov's son, Ramzan, opposing the plan to rename the city and said that "the issue is closed."

Ramzan Kadyrov, a powerful deputy prime minister in the regional administration who is widely expected to become the region's president when he turns 30 in October - the minimum legal age for the job - has strongly opposed the parliament's motion. He said the best way to commemorate his father would be to rebuild the war-ravaged capital.

During two wars over a decade, Grozny has been pulverized by relentless Russian artillery shelling and air strikes that turned most apartment buildings into blackened ruins. The destruction has drawn broad comparisons to Stalingrad, the Russian city destroyed and deserted in one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. Putin briefly visited Chechnya on Monday and pledged to help rebuild Grozny.

Russian forces retreated from Chechnya in 1996 after a 20-month war that left the Caucasus region de facto independent. They returned in 1999, after Chechen rebels raided a neighboring region and after a series of apartment house bombings. Large-scale combat operations in Chechnya have ended, but rebels continue to target police and security forces in regular raids and land-mine explosions.

Russian troop reductions expected in Chechnya
Agence France Presse, 12/19/05

Russian troop numbers in the war-torn province of Chechnya are likely to be substantially reduced as local structures take greater responsibility for security, the head of the province said Monday.

"We're talking about a reduction of thousands of men," Chechen President Alu Alkhanov said, announcing the probable reduction in federal forces in Chechnya, which currently number about 80,000 men. "We are working on this with the leadership of the general staff, the interior minister and the other ministries, and in a month you will have concrete details," Alkhanov told a Moscow news conference.

The Russian government of President Vladimir Putin has insisted that a process of stabilisation is under way in Chechnya, pointing in particular to elections last month for a new regional assembly. Chechnya's own military units as well as the local branch of the interior ministry and the FSB security service should "be responsible for the situation in Chechnya," Alkhanov said.

Despite the Kremlin's apparent confidence, reports from Chechnya indicate that the Russian military continues to suffer almost daily losses due to attacks by Chechen separatist rebels. Russia's army stormed into Chechnya in 1999 to re-establish control following defeat in a first war against separatist guerrillas in 1994-96.

Congolese vote in second day of constitutional referendum
Associated Press, 12/19/05

Voters marked ballots for a second day Monday in Congo's constitutional referendum on whether to adopt a draft charter meant to kickstart the war-battered central African nation's drive toward lasting peace.

Only one-quarter of Congo's 40,000 polling centers - those that opened late on Sunday or experienced distribution problems - reopened on Monday, said Desire Molekela, spokesman for Congo's Independent Electoral Commission.

Many Congolese believed they could vote either day and hundreds of would-be voters lined up around the capital, Kinshasa, in front of polling centers that stayed dark."I heard on national radio that we could vote on Monday, this is unbelievable," said Feret Mwanza, 33, an unemployed resident of Kinshasa who had traveled from the other end of the sprawling city to vote Monday morning. "I want to vote, but now I can't."

U.N. officials reported scattered violence during Sunday's first day of voting, with three injured in a fight in the southern diamond center of Lubumbashi. U.N. radio reported one child trampled underfoot during a rush to vote in Bukavu, an eastern city. Officials couldn't confirm the incident.

Congolese have not voted en masse since 1970, when then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko stood as the sole candidate. His reign ended in 1997 amid the first of two wars that wracked the country until 2002. The referendum is viewed as a crucial step toward lasting peace.

The charter would grant greater autonomy to mineral-laden regions but is viewed by many as another attempt by corrupt politicians to enrich themselves. Some 24 million people are registered to vote. Final results are expected by the end of the year. There were 280 international observers on hand to watch the voting. Turnout appeared moderate in Kinshasa, with traffic so light at some polling centers that election workers were asleep on the premises.

Many Western analysts say a rejection would represent bad news. Although they view the document as perhaps flawed in some ways, they consider it to be a crucial step toward ending a transitional government and laying the framework for the construction of a proper democratic government.

The charter was written by members of the transitional government, including many former rebel leaders and partisans of President Joseph Kabila. But many Congolese are suspicious, seeing manipulation that put politicians' interests ahead of their own. For example, the draft lowers the minimum age for presidential candidates from 35 to 30 - allowing the incumbent Kabila, a 33-year-old who inherited his father's rebel army that ousted Mobutu, to seek re-election.

If the constitution is rejected, the transitional government will continue to govern Congo, at least until its mandate ends on June 30. The constitution attempts to ensure female participation at all levels of government - notable in a country where rapes and gender-based violence were common during the wars. The draft constitution also aims to decentralize authority, dividing the vast nation into 25 semiautonomous provinces drawn along ethnic and cultural lines. The first general elections in decades are due in March.

The fighting in Congo sucked in armies from six neighboring nations and, according to aid groups, left nearly 4 million people dead. The United Nations, with over 15,000 peacekeepers in the country, is guarding a shaky calm in Congo; the east remains violent. The country the size of Western Europe has known little but strife, coups d'etat, corrupt rule and army revolts since it shook loose of brutal Belgian rule and gained independence in 1960.

Georgian president expresses readiness to meet with breakaway regional leader
Associated Press, 12/15/05

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has reiterated his unconditional willingness to meet with the leader of the breakaway region of Abkhazia, his envoy said. Saakashvili "welcomes the continuation of the Georgia-Abkhazian dialogue and is prepared at any time, without any preconditions, to meet with Abkhazian leader Sergei Bagapsh and consider questions of an economic or humanitarian character, the restoration of trust and security," Irakly Alasaniya Gruzii, Saakashvili's special envoy to Georgian-Abkhazian negotiations, told reporters Wednesday.

Abkhazia has run its own affairs since 1993, when separatists drove out Georgian government troops. The Black Sea region is not recognized internationally, but has cultivated closer ties with Russia.

Since coming to power in 2004, pro-Western Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has vowed to reunite his fractured Caucasus Mountain country and bring Abkhazia and another renegade province, South Ossetia, back under central control. But the leaders of both regions continue to resist Tbilisi's overtures.

The Georgian government estimates that 300,000 people fled Abkhazia as a result of the separatist war, including 240,000 ethnic Georgians. Between 40,000 and 50,000 ethnic Georgians have returned, the government says.

Republic of Georgia's foreign minister asks U.S. for help with Russians
Associated Press, 12/16/05

The foreign minister of Georgia is asking the United States for help in getting the Russian military out of his country.

Gela Bezhuashvili made a round of visits Friday, his only full day in a Washington drop-in, ending with a half-hour sit-down with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He was talking largely about Georgia's two restive regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, most especially about a three-part peace plan for South Ossetia."His main message was to get help with the Russians, because without that it will be basically impossible to bring the Russians on board to solve problem, and without the Russians on board it will be basically impossible to solve the problem," said David Soumbadze, deputy chief of mission at the Georgian Embassy.

Rice and Bezhuashvili discussed Georgia's hopes for full membership in NATO and the former Soviet republic's energy problems - Russia, its sole supplier of natural gas, has doubled the price. They also talked about Iraq, both this week's election and Georgia's 850-soldier complement in the allied force. Bezhuashvili made clear, Soumbadze said, that "we will stay there as long as we are needed."

Like Abkhazia, South Ossetia has been running its owns affairs since the early 1990s, after the Soviet Union's demise. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has promised to bring them back into the country. He also is striving to move his country politically Westward, away from the Russian orbit.

Soumbadze said the Ossetia peace plan's first two steps - demilitarization of the conflict zone and confidence-building measures such as economic projects financed by the central government - can be done within a few months. The third step, negotiations with Russia on the political future of the region, is the main sticking point. The Georgians say it could be finished by the end of 2006. Russia says the process requires a longer time, possibly years.

A 2,000-soldier peacekeeping force in Abkhazia is under the flag of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which comprises most of the former Soviet republics, but it is heavily Russian. In South Ossetia, a 1,500-strong force represents 500 each from security forces in Ossetia, Georgia and Russia. Russia had four bases in Georgia, two in Abkhazia. Under a 1999 agreement, the bases outside Abkhazia have been closed. In May of this year, agreement finally was reached to close the other two in 2008.

"The Americans have been very supportive of us from the very beginning of our peace plan," Soumbadze said. "They are talking to the Russians. We want to keep Georgia on the agenda."

Ivory Coast opposition downplays extending lawmakers' terms
Agence France Presse, 12/17/05

A Constitutional Council ruling to extend the mandate of divided Ivory Coast's parliamentarians carried little significance, a coalition of opposition parties said Saturday.

"We are not concerned by this ... this decision is nothing and has no effect," said coalition spokesman Alphonse Djedje Mady."We reserve the right to meet very soon ... for proposals for the future of the national assembly." The Constitutional Council, in response to a request from President Laurent Gbagbo, extended the five-year mandate of deputies which expired on Friday.

The lack of progress on disarmament in the country, which has been split in two since an armed rebellion in September 2002, led to the canceling of the October presidential election and general elections due this month.

According to the council ruling, read out to deputies in the 223-seat parliament elected in a disputed 2000 poll, "the national assembly continues functioning and retains its powers". The council did not stipulate a limit for the parliament's extended term. The four major parliamentary groups, including opposition coalition members PDCI and the Union for Democracy and Peace (UDPCI), earlier recommended lawmakers' terms be extended until the forthcoming elections.

Djedje Mady said the decision could only be taken after consulting various political parties, as required by the United Nations Security Council's resolution 1633, which agreed to an extra year to October 31, 2006, for President Gbagbo. The opposition RHDP coalition comprises Djedje Mady's PDCI, ex-premier Alassane Ouattara's Rally of Republicans, the UDPCI and the Future Forces Movement. Of the 223 parliamentary seats, 98 are held by Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front, 96 by the PDCI, 14 for UDPCI and the rest by minor parties. Ouattara's Republicans, who boycotted the December 2000 election, are not represented.

The world's leading cocoa producer has been divided since fighting broke out in 2002, with President Gbagbo's nationalists controlling the mainly Christian south and west, and New Forces rebels controlling the mostly Muslim north.

Security forces kill six suspected rebels in Indian Kashmir
Associated Presse, 12/14/05

Indian security forces killed six suspected Kashmiri rebels in a daylong gunbattle Wednesday, including a notorious one-armed master bomb-maker, police said.

The forces raided the village of Gulabdaji before dawn after receiving a tip that militants from the largest Kashmiri rebel group, Hezb-ul Mujahedeen, were hiding there, said police superintendent Ahmad Mujtaba. Gulabdaji is 45 kilometers (28 miles) southwest of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state. The forces surrounded two homes and called on the rebels to surrender, Mujtaba said. A 10-hour gunbattle ensued in which all six of the gunmen were killed. No casualties were reported among the security forces.

Among the dead men was Shokat Ganai, a one-armed explosives expert, long wanted for his role in a series of deadly bombings, Mujtaba said. Police believe Ganai lost his arm during an accident while preparing a bomb last year. The forces were continuing to search the area, hoping to find a weapons cache, Mujtaba said, adding that they found two assault rifles and four pistols on the dead rebels.

A dozen-odd Islamic militant groups have been fighting India for independence or merger with neighboring Pakistan since 1989. More than 65,000 people have been killed in the violence. The Himalayan region is divided between India and Pakistan, which have fought two wars over it and both claim Kashmir in its entirety.

Belgrade hopes Serbs, ethnic Albanians to meet for Kosovo talks in second half of January
Associated Press, 12/15/05

Serbia hopes U.N.-mediated talks with ethnic Albanian leaders over the future of the disputed province of Kosovo will start by the second half of January, a Belgrade official said Thursday.

Sandra Raskovic-Ivic, the Serbian government official in charge of Kosovo, made the remarks after meeting Albert Rohan, aide to U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president leading the status talks. "We support the idea that these be direct negotiations, that the Serb and Kosovo Albanian sides meet face-to-face," Raskovic-Ivic said. She added that Belgrade expects the "two sides to meet for the first time in the second half of January in Vienna," which has been chosen as Ahtisaari's base for the negotiations."The international community should not only supervise, but be the party which sets concrete tasks, homework for us," Raskovic-Ivic also said. "We prefer direct talks rather than just shuttle diplomacy."

Kosovo officially remains a province of Serbia-Montenegro but has been administered by the United Nations since a 1999 NATO bombing campaign halted the Serbian crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians. The U.N.-mediated talks on solving Kosovo's future status are expected to formally begin in January under Ahtisaari's auspices. Their mechanics are yet unclear but will likely involve much shuttle diplomacy. The two sides are diametrically opposed - Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians demand full independence while Belgrade wants the province to remain an integral part of Serbia.

In Kosovo on Wednesday, Rohan told the ethnic Albanian leaders that protecting the Serb minority was essential for resolving Kosovo's future status and urged them to reach out to the Serb and other minorities there by reforming local governments to give them more say in the areas where they live. Kosovo's 100,000-strong Serb community lives in isolated enclaves, protected by NATO-led peacekeepers. Their representatives have boycotted the province's ethnic-Albanian dominated institutions since a wave of riots by ethnic Albanian mobs targeted them in 2004.

"In talks with the Serbian community in Kosovo, I assured them it was our aim to ensure their presence in Kosovo's future and I repeated Ahtisaari's call to have them participate constructively," Rohan also said.

Liberian leader says she hopes to resolve status of country's indicted former president
Associated Press, 12/15/05

Liberian President-elect Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said Thursday she hopes to resolve the status former President Charles Taylor who has indicted by a U.N-backed war crimes court.

Johnson-Sirleaf said she discussed the Taylor situation at a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice."We're going to find a solution that keeps Liberia safe and at the same time preserves justice," she told reporters after the talks.

Nigeria granted Taylor asylum to lure him from office and prevent bloodshed as rebels attacked the Liberian capital. While it has repeatedly refused to hand over Taylor, President Olusegun Obasanjo has said he would consider doing so if Liberia's elected government made such a request.

On Wednesday, a group of U.S. lawmakers and a leading human rights group urged that Taylor be handed over to the court in Sierra Leone saying "it is a "matter of security and justice for the West African people." The lawmakers' demand came in a letter to Rice. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the U.S. position is that Taylor should be turned over to a Special Court for Sierra Leone, which indicted him for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Asked about remarks Sunday by international soccer superstar George Weah, who said he would work to stymie Johnson-Sirleaf's January inauguration, the president-elect said Weah's actions marred elections that were free and fair and represented a victory for the Liberian people.

A former World Bank economist, Johnson-Sirleaf won the November election by 59.4 percent to Weah's 40.6 percent to become Africa's first-ever elected female head of state. Weah rejected the results and charged fraud. International observers said the election was largely clean."We think he'll come around and overcome his disappointment and work with us in the interests of our country," Johnson-Sirleaf said. She said she and Rice also discussed economic development for her war-ravaged country, and voiced her hopes to obtain the support of the Bush administration and Congress for a rebuilding effort.

The elections for a leader to take over from a transitional administration arranged under peace deals that ended the war were supposed to move Liberia past its recent bloody history, which saw some 200,000 people killed in years of fighting that ruined the country. Some 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers are in the West African nation trying to preserve a tenuous calm. Liberia is Africa's oldest republic and was founded by freed American slaves in 1847.

Russian, Ukrainian presidents: OSCE should oversee peacekeeping in Trans-Dniester
Associated Press, 12/15/05

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said in a joint statement Thursday that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe should oversee Russian troops in Moldova's breakaway Trans-Dniester region.

The region, inhabited largely by ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, broke away from Moldova in 1992, after a war that killed 1,500 people. It is not recognized internationally, but receives strong support from Russia, which maintains a force of about 1,500 troops there and claims they are needed for peacekeeping. The Moldovan government believes the Russian troops are in Trans-Dniester to support the separatists, and has consistently called for the troops to be withdrawn.

Yushchenko, who is seeking a bigger regional role for his country, proposed a peace plan in May to settle the Trans-Dniester conflict. It envisions granting broad autonomy to Trans-Dniester but keeping it within Moldova's borders. The two presidents affirmed that settlement of the conflict "by way of defining and legislatively strengthening the special legal status of Trans-Dniester on the basis of observing the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldova," said the statement, which was released by the Kremlin.

Moldovan peace talks end in failure
Agence France Press, 12/17/05

Internationally mediated peace talks between Moldova's government and ethnic-Russian separatists of the Transdniestr province ended late Friday in failure, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Saturday.

"Participants in the negotiations were not able to come to agreement on any question," OSCE mission chief William Hill told journalists after talks broke up late in the night."The talks were very complex. I am not satisfied with the result. We were expecting better."

Moldova, an ex-Soviet republic bordering Ukraine and Romania, lost control of the Transdniestr territory after a brief war in 1992. Russian troops now patrol a buffer zone, although the OSCE says that a multinational force should be in place. The key issue discussed Friday was a previously accepted proposal for Transdniestr to hold parliamentary elections under the guidance of the OSCE and in parallel with demilitarisation and confidence-building measures. This idea has since appeared to have collapsed, because the rebel province went ahead on December 11 with elections at which an OSCE evaluation team was not present.

Hill said that "not everyone agrees on the need for sending an evaulation mission. Apart from that, there are also different understandings of what democratic elections are." Also mediating were EU, Russian, Ukrainian, and US representatives.

Nepal government rules out cease-fire against communist rebels
Associated Press, 12/14/05

Nepal's royal government on Wednesday ruled out agreeing to a cease-fire despite pressure to match a truce called by communist rebels. The Maoist rebels had initially declared a unilateral cease-fire in September and extended it by another month earlier this month.

"It is not the state that provoked the insurgency so there is no question of reciprocating the truce. Until and unless we are convinced that there will be lasting peace the government will not respond," said Information Minister Shrish Sumshere Rana.

The government has been under pressure to match the cease-fire declared by the rebels. The Association of International Nongovernment Organizations published a statement on Wednesday calling on the government to declare cease-fire. The association representing 57 organizations said it strongly encourages both the government and the rebels to agree to a mutual, long lasting cease-fire before the start of the new year as a means to serious negotiations.

Under the cease-fire, the rebels said they will not attack military or civilian targets but will continue to defend their positions. They have, however, continued to block highways, extort money and kidnap villagers for indoctrination sessions. The rebels, who claim to be inspired by Chinese communist revolutionary Mao Zedong, have been fighting to topple Nepal's monarchy and establish a communist state. Some 12,000 people have died in the insurgency since it began in 1996.

Senior Belgrade official warns that EU could suspend talks if Mladic not handed over
Associated Press, 12/17/05

The European Union could suspend talks on closer ties with Serbia-Montenegro if authorities fail to arrest top war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, a senior government official said in comments published Saturday.

Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus told the Vecernje Novosti daily that talks with EU officials will be held next week, but that another round planned for Feb. 20-21 could be canceled unless Serbia apprehends the former Bosnian Serb military commander and other suspects sought by a U.N. court. "I cannot guarantee that the next round will be held unless we move forward" in cooperating with the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, Labus said.

The international court indicted Mladic along with the Bosnian Serb wartime leader, Radovan Karadzic, with genocide for allegedly orchestrating the massacre of 8,000 Muslims in the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica in 1995. The chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, on Thursday sharply criticized Serbia in a report before the U.N. Security Council and urged the world body to hold Belgrade responsible for its failure to arrest Mladic. Del Ponte's report could eventually lead to renewed international isolation for Serbia. EU officials also have said that so-called stabilization and association talks with the bloc will be halted unless Mladic is captured and handed over. The issue has led to clashes between Serbia's President Boris Tadic and the government after Tadic criticized the Cabinet of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica for failing to arrest Mladic.

Labus suggested the responsibility lies with the security services."We must set the deadlines to the institutions that are tasked with finding him," Labus said. "If someone cannot do what they should by a certain date, they should be replaced." Labus also said he would urge the government to form a national security council to coordinate the work of the security services.

Defense Minister Zoran Stankovic on Friday announced that the authorities will hold a meeting next week to discuss what action to take regarding Mladic.
Del Ponte has claimed that Mladic was hiding here under protection from the hardliners in the military. Karadzic is thought to be hiding in neighboring Bosnia.

Montenegro's parliament to decide in February on independence referendum
Associated Press, 12/19/05

Montenegro's president on Monday called for a special session of the republic's parliament for Feb. 7 and urged lawmakers to schedule a referendum on independence from Serbia.

Taking his tiny republic a step closer toward sovereignty and dissolving what little remains of the union formerly known as Yugoslavia, Filip Vujanovic expressed confidence that Montenegro's lawmakers - still arguing over keeping or ditching the alliance with Serbia - will agree at the session about a date for the plebiscite. Vujanovic said the crucial vote must be completed by next spring.

The tiny republic of 600,000 stayed allied with Serbia in the early 1990s when four other republics of the former Yugoslavia declared independence. However their relations soured over the years as a pro-independence movement developed in Montenegro. In 2003, the European Union helped broker a deal under which Serbia and Montenegro became virtually sovereign states while staying loosely allied, sharing only a small central administration. The deal also allowed for the possibility of a full split, but not before the spring of 2006.

Vujanovic and Montenegro's powerful Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic have pressed for full sovereignty, despite opposition from pro-Serbia groups in Montenegro."I propose to all parliamentary parties to immediately begin a dialogue" on the highly divisive issue, Vujanovic said and urged lawmakers to set an official date for the referendum - presumably late March and in April.

EU envoy Miroslav Lejcak is expected to arrive in Montenegro on Tuesday to try to broker a deal between the rival groups on conditions under which the plebiscite should be held. Recent polls have shown a small majority of Montenegro's voters in favor of independence. Pro-Serbia groups insist that a break-up with Serbia may take place only if two-thirds vote in favor of independence.

Return to Table of Contents

Sri Lanka peace hopes dim amid fresh row over venue: diplomats
Agence France Presse, 12/18/05

Hopes for a revival of Sri Lanka's peace process dimmed after Tamil Tiger rebels rejected a government offer to hold ice-breaking talks at an Asian venue hosted by Japan, diplomats said Sunday.

The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Saturday rejected a government offer to end an impasse over a venue for talks on a fragile ceasefire in place since 2002 by agreeing to an Asian location.

Colombo had earlier insisted that any talks with the Tigers must be held on the island, but last week told Japan's peace envoy Yasushi Akashi that it was amenable to an Asian venue. The suggestion promoted Akashi to offer Japan as a venue. But the LTTE rejected the offer saying it wanted to continue with a Norwegian-sponsored talks format that the new government of President Mahinda Rajapakse had pledged to review.

"There is no change in our position with regard to the venue for talks and we stand by the Norwegian facilitator's original suggestion that the talks on effective implementation of the ceasefire take place in Oslo," the LTTE's political leader S.P. Thamilselvan said on the group's official website.

There was no formal government reaction to the LTTE's rejection of an Asian venue and insistence on Oslo for the proposed talks. Asian diplomats said the latest stance of the Tigers was a setback to hopes of the current peace broker Norway as well as Sri Lanka's key backers that talks to shore up the ceasefire could begin early next month. Diplomats said the Tiger statement was also a snub to Akashi who last week publicly offered to host the talks in Japan after Colombo told him that it was climbing down from its earlier stance and agreed to negotiations in Asia.

The rejection comes ahead of a meeting by a quartet known as the "co-chairs" that have pledged financial support for peace building in Sri Lanka -- Japan, the European Union, the US and Norway. They are due to meet in Brussels Monday to review Sri Lanka's faltering peace talks which broke down in 2003 on LTTE demands for autonomy in the northeast which is largely controlled by the rebels.

"The co-chairs were keen that the talks begin as soon as possible particularly in view of the deteriorating security situation in the northeast," a Western diplomat involved in the peace effort, who declined to be named, said.

At least 35 people, including 18 government soldiers and two policemen, have been killed in the northeast of the island nation this month alone in bloodshed linked to a separatist ethnic conflict that has claimed more than 60,000 lives since 1972.

The Western diplomat said there was growing concern that mediation efforts on the ceasefire were stalled completely as several governments have said continued violence has heightened the possibility of a return to war."We are not in a position to even talk about talks. We are getting bogged down over a venue," the Western diplomat said. "Even if we clear that soon, there has to be the question of delegations on both sides and where they want to start."

The status of the ceasefire was thrown into further doubt after rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran warned on November 27 that the LTTE would step up a struggle for an independent homeland in 2006 if the peace process remains stalled. A return to war could lead to further isolation for the LTTE.

The European Union has already rebuked the Tigers after the August 12 assassination of Sri Lankan foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar and announced that their delegations will not be received by any member state. The LTTE denies it had any role in the killing. Britain, the US and several other countries have already declared the Tigers a terrorist organisation

Sudan insists its judges, not those of a U.N., should try Darfur suspects
Associated Press, 12/14/05

Sudan insisted Wednesday its own judges, not those of a U.N. war crimes court, should try suspects in Darfur's atrocities.

"Our position remains that our judiciary is capable of handling all the cases and Sudan is serious, desirous and capable of trying any of those who committed crimes," Minister of Justice Mohammed Ali al-Mardi was quoted as saying by the state news agency Wednesday.

The U.N. court "will have no jurisdiction to try any Sudanese national," al-Mardi said a day after the chief prosecutor of the U.N. war crimes tribunal described the difficulties his investigators had faced, but added in a briefing for the U.N. Security Council that Sudan was cooperating. The Sudanese government has vowed it will never send suspects abroad for trial. Its own Darfur war crimes court issued its first known sentences last month, condemning to death two soldiers for torture and killing in a case about which little else has been reported.

U.N. officials have applauded Sudan for trying Darfur suspects, but said those trials were no substitute for proceedings before the Hague-based International Criminal Court. The Security Council last March referred Darfur to the Hague court, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal, in a resolution that requires the Sudanese government and all other parties to the conflict to cooperate with the prosecutor.

Al-Mardi said Sudan was cooperating with the U.N. court, but defined that as conducting its own trials.
He said a delegation from the international court was expected to visit in February, and that Sudanese officials would then explain the workings of their own Darfur court."There would be integration between us and the court but it should be made clear that we understand by this that the work we are doing should be convincing to them, this is what we understand by integration. Once again we would like to state that integration and cooperation does not mean that the ICC would be a substitute for the Sudanese national judiciary," al-Mardi said.

Luis Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the U.N. tribunal, questioned the effectiveness of the Sudanese probe during his presentation to the U.N. Security Council at U.N. headquarters Tuesday. But Moreno Ocampo told the council a team he sent to Khartoum in November reached agreement with the government to return in February to assess Sudan's national proceedings related to alleged crimes in Darfur. The prosecution team also requested several interviews and Sudanese officials also agreed that the Ministry of Defense would submit a preparatory report by March."So right now we are working well," Moreno Ocampo told reporters. He said his own investigation had been hampered by continuing attacks and killings in Darfur. Insecurity has made it "impossible to go there to interview witnesses in Darfur itself," he said. But he indicated that his investigation could be completed with witnesses outside the country.

A special U.N. investigative commission concluded in January that crimes against humanity had occurred in Darfur and named 51 potential suspects. The U.N. has not publicly released the 51 names. Moreno Ocampo said his investigation would not be limited by that list. On Saturday, Human Rights Watch said Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and other senior officials should be investigated for crimes against humanity in Darfur and put on a U.N. sanctions list.

The Darfur conflict started in earnest in 2003 after decades of low-level clashes over land and other resources by the region's clans. It has claimed the lives of more than 180,000 people, mainly through famine and disease. No firm estimates have been made of those killed in fighting. Several million of Darfur's people have fled into neighboring Chad or elsewhere in Sudan. The violence began after rebels took up arms against a Sudanese government they accused of neglect. The government has been accused of responding by supporting Arab nomads known as the Janjaweed, who have been blamed for a campaign of killings, rape and arson. The Sudanese government denies backing the Janjaweed.

African Union peacekeepers in Darfur to run out of funds within four months
Associated Press, 12/06/05

The African Union will run out of money for its peacekeeping mission in Sudan's troubled region of Darfur within four months unless it finds more funding, a senior AU official said Friday.

The European Union's injection of euro70 million (US$84 million) Friday into the mission's operations helps bridge its shortfall of US$135 million (euro112.5 million), but the African Union continues to struggle to run its peacekeeping operation in Sudan despite pledges made in May to give the mission an additional US$200 million (euro166.7 million), said Said Djinnit, the AU Peace and Security Commissioner. As of today we have only resources in cash to maintain the mission to the end of March, very early April," Djinnit told journalists. "We are concerned about this because we have to maintain the mission and you have to have resources of you want to maintain the mission." The 7,000-strong force needs US$465 million (euro387.5 million) a year to operate, but so far they only received US$330 million (euro275 million), Djinnit said."In January important decisions should be taken in terms of providing resources to enable the mission to be maintained for the agreed timeframe or in terms of discussing other options," he said.

On Thursday, an AU assessment mission, headed by Baba Gana Kingibe, the organization's special envoy to Sudan, said that the presence of African Union troops in Darfur had helped reduce violations of a fragile cease-fire between the Sudanese government and rebels. The group, however, qualified that, saying the security situation did not allow for those made homeless or refugees by the more than two year-old conflict to return to their homes.

The United Nations estimates that 180,000 people have died, mainly through famine and disease, and several million more have either fled into neighboring Chad or been displaced inside Sudan since the conflict began in February 2003, when two African rebel groups took up arms against the Sudanese government amid accusations of repression and unfair distribution of wealth.

Official: UN refugee agency to repatriate about 60,000 refugees to southern Sudan by May
Associated Press, 12/19/05

The U.N. refugee agency will repatriate about 60,000 refugees to southern Sudan by May, following a peace deal earlier in the year that has made it easier for them to return home, a senior U.N. official said Monday.

The move started Saturday and it could take up to five years to repatriate all 560,000 southern Sudanese refugees in seven neighboring countries - Central African Republic, Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda - said Jean-Marie Fakhouri, the head of operations in Sudan for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

All the refugees will be repatriated voluntarily from camps and settlements they have lived in for as long as 15 years. Many of the refugees' homes were destroyed in the war between rebels and the Arab-dominated government in the country's north. There are few hospitals or schools in southern Sudan, and the region lacks basic infrastructure such as running water and electricity.

"It is going to be many years before anyone can say the (living) conditions (in southern Sudan) are the same to what they (refugees) have enjoyed in asylum," Fakhouri told journalists. The agency is ensuring that the areas the southern Sudanese refugees will return to have some basic things such as a school, wells and a health facility, he said."We hope that we should be able to do it (the repatriation of all refugees) within 3 to 5 years," said Fakhouri.

The first 131 refugees - not 147 as earlier reported - were repatriated by the UNHCR Saturday to Kapoeta in Sudan's Eastern Equatoria state and Bor in Upper Nile state, from their camp in northwestern Kenya. When the rainy season starts in May, the repatriation will stop because southern Sudan has only 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) of paved road, making it difficult to move people, Fakhouri said.

The war in southern Sudan began with fighting that broke out in 1983. Over 2 million people died in the war, mainly due to conflict-induced famine. In January, the Sudanese government and the main southern rebel group reached a deal to end the conflict. The north-south peace agreement provides for an autonomous south with its own army, government and a new constitution during a six-year interim period. After the transition, the 10 southern states will hold a referendum on independence.