PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Monday, August 29, 2005
(Volume IV, Number 32)
Contents:
Foreign ministers of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan see hopeful signs on Nagorno-Karabakh
Leaders meet in Moscow with American and French representatives present.
Rice urges Armenian, Azerbaijani leaders to settle Nagorno-Karabakh problem at summit
Secretary of State Rice also urges Aliyev and Kocharian to enact reforms.
Ten heads of state expected for historic event.
Burundi's new leader faces challanges to rebuild battle-wracked nation
Fears of impatience among population if benefits of peace dividend are not felt immediately.
Putin decrees parliamentary elections in Chechnya to be held Nov. 27
Human rights activist doubts elections will be free and fair.
Warlord claimed responsibility for 2004 Beslan school massacre.
Families of Congo genocide victims file challenge to acquittals
Relatives of group killed in 1999 challenge previous rulings.
UN launches operation in Congo against militias who attacked voter registration centers
Authorities began registering voters in June.
Georgia's president says country not preparing to leave ex-Soviet alliance
Georgia not planning on leaving Commonwealth of Independent States.
Guerrillas descend from Aceh mountains following peace pact
Separatist guerrillas placed under military protection.
Indonesian leaders warn of challenges ahead for Aceh peace pact
General warns that implementation of peace process will not be perfect.
Rights group condemns caning of two women in Indonesia's Aceh for violating Islamic law
Unmarried couples caned for consumption of alcohol.
Ivory Coast rebels say October elections unlikely
Gbagbo administration wants to hold onto elections at October.
Eight die as senior separatist seeks Kashmir conference
Four members of powerful Islamic group killed.
Kosovo
U.N. envoy says more work needed before talks on Kosovo's future
Kai Eide meets with officials in Belgrade.
Final status talks on Kosovo likely to start by year's end: UN official
Jessen-Petersen reminds officials in Serbia that Serbia belongs within Europe.
Former fighters must find role in Liberia, says new UN chief
Demobilization, demilitarization, and reintegration programs implemented.
Candidates running for presidency have varied life experiences.
Western Sahara POW conflict not completely resolved.
Diplomats in Nepal condemn Maoist harassment of foreign companies
Unions affiliated with rebel groups believed to be harming economy with strike threats.
US war crimes envoy presses for Mladic and Karadzic arrest in Serbia
Ambassador Prosper puts pressure on Serbia to cooperate with The Hague.
UN-appointed human rights envoy visits lawless Somalia
Doctors Without Borders reports high levels of trauma cases in Somalia.
Sri Lanka's new foreign minister seeks Indian leaders' help in Tamil Tiger peace process
Foreign minister travels to New Delhi to meet with Indian leaders.
Security Concerns Leaders at Sudan Camp
UN refugee official on tour of camps in Darfur.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis Click here to access the PILPG Report.
Foreign ministers of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan see hopeful signs on Nagorno-Karabakh
Associated Press, 8/24/05
The foreign ministers of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan said Wednesday that they saw hopeful signs recently in the drive to find a settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "Now there is certain progress and we have chances to reach an agreement on this issue," the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov as saying.
His Armenian counterpart Vartan Oskanyan stressed, "The people of Nagorno-Karabakh should have the right to self-determination," ITAR-Tass reported.
"Other problems are to cope with the consequences of the conflict, settle territorial claims and return refugees," he added.
The three ministers met in Moscow on Wednesday, along with representatives of the United States and France, which together with Russia are mediating negotiations on settling the conflict.
They also discussed arrangements for a meeting Saturday between Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev on the sidelines of a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Russia's Volga River city of Kazan.
The bloodshed in Nagorno-Karabakh began after the legislature of the ethnic Armenian-dominated enclave in Azerbaijan called in 1988 for the region to be incorporated into Armenia, which like Azerbaijan was then still a Soviet republic. Full-scale military offensives broke out in 1991; thousands were killed and a million displaced.
A tense cease-fire has held since 1994 but efforts to finally resolve Nagorno-Karabakh's status have failed repeatedly.
An Azerbaijani serviceman who had been detained in Armenia was sent home Wednesday, the International Red Cross announced in Geneva. It said it had helped repatriate 652 people involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict since 1992.
Rice urges Armenian, Azerbaijani leaders to settle Nagorno-Karabakh problem at summit
Associated Press, 8/25/05
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is urging the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia to settle their lingering disagreements over the Nagorno-Karabakh region at a summit conference in Russia.
Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Robert Kocharian of Armenia are meeting Saturday in the Russian Volga city of Kazan at a summit conference of the Commonwealth of Independent States, 12 former republics of the Soviet Union.
Rice telephoned Aliyev and Kocharian on Thursday to "stress to them the importance that the United States attaches" to their meeting, the State Department said.
The office of the department spokesman said in a written statement that Rice expressed the hope to the two presidents that they "will make the compromises necessary in order to reach a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict." The statement said the two were upbeat about prospects for progress.
A cease-fire has kept the fragile peace in the enclave since 1994, but Nagorno-Karabakh's status remains unresolved.
Fighting began after the legislature of Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave within Azerbaijan dominated by ethnic Armenians, demanded in 1988 to be incorporated into Armenia. Both were Soviet republics at the time. Thousands died and a million were displaced after full-scale military offensives broke out in 1991, the year the Soviet Union dissolved.
The State Department said Rice also stressed to Aliyev the importance of free and fair parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan this November and told Kocharian she hoped Armenia would work to enact constitutional changes now before the parliament.
African leaders plan show of support for new Burundi president
Agence France Presse, 8/24/05
Leaders from at least 10 African nations will gather here this week for the inauguration of Burundi's first post-transition president in a display of support for the war-ravaged nation's peace process and development, officials said Wednesday.
The leaders, many of them from Africa's volatile Great Lakes region, plan to offer their joint backing to Hutu ex-rebel chief Pierre Nkurunziza, who will be sworn in at a ceremony on Friday with a mandate to unify Burundi as it struggles to emerge from a bloody 12-year civil war, they said.
"We expect about 10 heads of state for this historic event," said Karenga Ramadhani, a spokesman for Nkurunziza.
The presidents of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia as well as the prime minister of Ethiopia and senior officials from the African Union, the European Union, the United Nations and the United States are expected to attend, he said.
Ramadhani said other high-profile African and international guests might also attend the inauguration that may be followed by a mini-summit of Great Lakes leaders to discuss the situation in Burundi.
Those leaders have played a key role in the five-year-old peace process aimed at ending Burundi's ethnically driven civil war that erupted in 1993 after the assassination of the country's first democratically elected president, a Hutu.
Some 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict which has largely pitted majority Hutu rebel groups against the minority Tutsi-dominated military and political machine in Bujumbura.
Nkurunziza, 40, was elected president last week by parliament in a vote that was one of the last steps in the regionally backed peace process and transitional period that saw his ex-rebel Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) sweep local and national polls in June and July.
The new president will lead a power-sharing government under the terms of the new constitution -- adopted overwhelmingly in a February referendum -- that calls for a 60-40 split between Hutus and Tutsis in the country's political administration.
But the youthful Nkurunziza and his government face huge challenges in repairing Burundi's war-shattered economy and infrastructure as well as coping with the continued insurgency by the country's lone remaining Hutu rebel group.
The only one of Burundi's seven ex-rebel groups still fighting, the National Liberation Forces (FNL) has kept up attacks mainly in the south and west of the country, despite a nominal truce and efforts to bring them into the peace process.
A spokesman for outgoing transitional president Domitien Ndayizeye, Pancrace Cimpaye, said the mini-summit would discuss issues related to the FNL and the UN Operation in Burundi.
Burundi's new leader faces challanges to rebuild battle-wracked nation
Lucie Peytermann and Esdras Ndikumana, Agence France Presse, 8/27/05
As Burundi successfully ends a four-year extended transitional period with the election of a new president, the tiny African country still faces tough challenges on its path to full recovery from 12 years of civil strife and instability.
Ex-Hutu rebel leader-turned-president Pierre Nkurunziza was sworn in here Friday as the country's first post-transitional leader before a crowd of regional leaders and foreign dignitaries, who hailed the process as significant in restoring stability in the country.
But Nkurunziza, 40, faces the huge task of revamping a country whose history is marked with civil wars since independence from Belgium in 1962. "There is a huge expectation from the people," who may grow impatient if they do not immediately reap peace dividends, according to Louis Michel, the European Union's commissioner for development.
"He convinced me," said Leonce Ngendakumana of Front for Democracy in Burundi party, referring to Nkurunziza's inaugural speech, in which he vowed to fight graft and promote a government of national unity. "What remains is to translate his promises into action."
According to Willy Nindorera, a Burundi analyst, the new president will have to address the country's socio-economic situation, which has been devastated by civil wars.
The country now faces a new problem of insecurity and overpopulation as many refugees and displaced people were returning to the country with the new dawn of peace, he said.
Nkurunziza also faces the task of finding a solution to the problem posed by the recalcitrant National Liberation Forces (FNL) rebels, who have continued to raid army installations, killing civilians in the process.
In his speech, he called on the insurgents to "stop fighting and open negotiations with the government so that the country can be peaceful."
His remarks were echoed by outgoing president Domitien Ndayizeye, also Hutu. "We cannot forget that the FNL has not laid down arms," said Ndayizeye. "We ask them to immediately return to the negotiating table for their good and the good of Burundians."
The new president was elected under the terms of the country's new constitution endorsed in February that calls for a 60-40 power split between the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority who have dominated the country for decades.
Nkurunziza's inauguration marked the official end of the political transition process started four years ago after the signature of a peace deal in Arusha in Tanzania in 2000. It is hoped to bring to an end the civil strife that has wracked the country for 12 years and in which some 300,000 lives have been lost.
"After more than 10 years of war between brothers of the same country, after the years invested in negotiations ... Burundi is taking a new direction toward the end of the road we walked in search of peace, security and stable institutions," said Ndayizeye.
Burundi observers said the the discipline of the public during the country's marathon election process, which began on June 3, showed their will to give up fighting.
The new president will lead the country for a five-year term.
Putin decrees parliamentary elections in Chechnya to be held Nov. 27
Steve Gutterman, Associated Press, 8/23/05
President Vladimir Putin signed a decree Tuesday setting Nov. 27 as the date for the first parliamentary elections in Chechnya since Russian forces drove the region's separatist leadership from power and established a Moscow-backed government.
Putin's decree, announced by his news service, confirmed the date named last month by a federal government minister for the parliamentary vote in the Caucasus region, which has been wracked by two devastating wars in the past decade.
The Kremlin and Russian-backed Chechen authorities had promised the elections after pushing through a regional constitution that cemented Chechnya's allegiance to Moscow. A presidential election was held in 2003.
Kremlin critics, human rights groups and Western governments including the United States have said that Kremlin-backed presidential winners enjoyed unfair advantages in Chechnya, and have called for a free and fair parliamentary vote that reflect the people's will.
Human rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva said she doubted elections would be free and fair, the Interfax news agency reported.
When he announced the date last month, Regional Development Minister Vladimir Yakovlev said there would be 40 lawmakers in Chechnya's People's Assembly, half elected directly in individual districts and half by a party-list system. The RIA-Novosti news agency said the parliament would also have a second chamber, the Republican Council, but it was unclear how its 21 seats would be filled.
Russian troops entered Chechnya in 1994 in a bid to crush separatists, but withdrew in 1996 after a peace deal that gave the region de facto independence. Rebel military leader Aslan Maskhadov was elected president in 1997, but then was driven from power when Russian forces rolled back into the region in 1999. He was killed in March after years in hiding.
Putin, who gained popularity with his tough stance on Chechnya, has said the war is over. But many Chechens now live in fear amid deadly violence and abductions blamed on Russian troops and Moscow-backed Chechen security forces, as well as rebels.
Citing Putin spokesman Alexei Gromov, Interfax reported that the president also signed an order handing over control of a federal department in charge of building and other reconstruction work to authorities in Chechnya. Gromov said Putin had fired the head of the Directorate for Construction and Reconstruction Projects of the Chechen Republic, the agency reported.
Pro-Moscow Chechen officials have been pushing for more control over reconstruction funds and income from oil in the region. Analysts say reconstruction efforts are riddled with corruption.
Chechen Warlord Rejoins Rebel Government
Maria Danilova, Associated Press, 8/27/05
Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who claimed responsibility for last year's deadly school seizure in southern Russia and other devastating terrorist attacks, has rejoined the rebel government as deputy prime minister, a statement said Friday on a pro-Chechen Web site.
Analysts said the move reflected the rebels' desire to regroup following the killing this spring of their leader, Aslan Maskhadov, and that the new separatists' new government included the most radical warlords.
In a decree posted on the pro-rebel Web site Kavkaz-Center, Maskhadov's successor, Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, said he has formed a new government in which Basayev reassumed the role of deputy prime minister. The old government was dissolved early this month, the Russian daily Kommersant reported Friday.
Another warlord and radical ideologue, Movladi Udugov, took the post of press minister, the decree said. Udugov will replace Akhmed Zakayev, Maskhadov's London-based international envoy. Maskhadov was killed by Russian security services in March. Zakayev was given the post of deputy prime minister and culture minister.
Sadulayev has also fired Ilyas Akhmadov, the foreign minister in the rebel cabinet who had been granted political asylum in the United States. Sadulayev has been criticized by the radical wing among the rebels for seeking compromises with the Kremlin by seeking only limited autonomy for Chechnya.
Sergei Arutyunov, a leading expert on Chechnya and other Caucasus regions with the Russian Academy of Sciences, told The Associated Press that Basayev's joining the reshuffled government reflected the rebels' uncertainty about their capabilities following Maskhadov's killing.
"They have been acting in an absolutely uncoordinated manner. They have realized that they are relatively ineffective on their own," Arutyunov said. "Now they will be looking for ways to cooperate."
The killing of Maskhadov, a relative moderate among the rebels who has repeatedly called for talks with the Kremlin, has left the Chechen rebel movement largely in the hands of Basayev, the best-known of the warlords.
Earlier this month, officials opened two new schools in the southern Russian town of Beslan to replace the one devastated by last year's hostage seizure that killed more than 330 adults and children.
During the Sept. 1-3 crisis, more than 1,100 hostages were held by heavily armed Islamic extremists in the sweltering gymnasium of Beslan School No. 1 with no food and little water. About 330 people, more than half of them children, died when the standoff ended in a storm of explosions and bullets and bloodied children fleeing the building.
Basayev has claimed responsibility for the attack, and he also has been linked to a 2002 hostage-taking assault on a Moscow theater that left 170 people dead, a 2003 suicide attack in the Moscow subway that killed 41 people, and a 2003 double suicide bombing at a Moscow rock concert that killed 17 people.
The Gazeta.ru news Web site called the new Cabinet a "radical government made up of the most odious rebel leaders."
Umar Khanbiyev, who was reappointed health minister by the rebels, told the Kommersant daily the new government did not entirely rule out the idea of holding talks with the Kremlin.
"If such a situation arises, a representative for negotiating contacts will be appointed immediately," Khanbiyev said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, has steadily refused to negotiate with rebels, calling them terrorists.
Russian forces and their local allies have been fighting Chechen separatists for most of the past decade in the predominantly Muslim province.
Families of Congo genocide victims file challenge to acquittals
Agence France Presse, 8/24/05
Families of hundreds of returning refugees massacred in the Congo have gone to the Supreme Court with a suit filed in protest at the acquittal of 15 defendants at a genocide trial, a lawyer said Wednesday.
Relatives of 86 acknowledged victims of the genocide of a group of some 350 people in Brazzaville in 1999 want the Supreme Court to annul the acquittals, but lawyer Ambroise Herve Malonga said their suit had simply been lodged.
"I can't yet draft and introduce the request for the annulment of verdicts because there's no ruling, that's to say it's not yet available," Malonga told AFP, without saying how many of the families he personally represented.
Brazzaville's High Court on August 17 provoked an outcry from lawyers and human rights experts when it acquitted all 15 defendants, including military and police officers, while ordering the state to pay damages to the victims' families.
The high-profile case in a central African country ruled by President Denis Sassou-Nguesso and wracked by successive civil and militia wars until the turn of the century was internationally seen as a key test of its judiciary. Those who vanished, considered massacred on orders from the top, after their return across the Congo river in May 1999 were called the "Beach disappeared" after the name given Brazzaville's port.
"We have a massacre, but no one responsible for it," said Patrick Baudouin, honorary president of the Brussels-based International Federation for Human Rights, which includes almost 150 member bodies round the world.
The court handed down not guilty verdicts on all charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity but told the state to pay compensation totalling 10 million CFA francs (about 15,250 euros / 18,600 dollars) to the relatives of 86 victims because it had failed to ensure the refugees' safety.
Those who took the case to court included 102 civil parties who said after the verdict that they would appeal for an annulment since it was not possible under Congolese law to demand a retrial on the substance of the charges themselves. Local lawyers and the FIDH dismissed the outcome of the trial as a "masquerade".
The prosecutor, Robert Armand Bemba, had requested sentences of forced labour between five and 10 years for seven of the accused, but once they were acquitted he declared himself satisfied with the verdict.
Malonga, who had been among seven lawyers for the families, withdrew during the first week of the hearing, which began on July 21, saying it would prove a "parody of justice" whose outcome was "known in advance".
"Relatives of the victims wrote to the Supreme Court on August 18 to inform the bench of my reinstatement as their lawyer," he told AFP on Wednesday.
UN launches operation in Congo against militias who attacked voter registration centers
Eddy Isango, Associated Press, 8/25/05
Backed by helicopter gunships, hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers began sweeping through forested villages in eastern Congo on Thursday to hunt down militiamen who attacked voter registration centers.
Twin attacks Monday in Ituri province killed two people and were the first of their kind since authorities began registering voters in June for a constitutional referendum later this year that will pave the way for 2006 presidential elections.
Peacekeeping spokesman Lt. Col. Thierry Provendier said 700 U.N. troops were deployed in the province by helicopter.
"The deployment is being made on one hand in reaction to the militia's crimes, but also to demonstrate that even if we're occupied with securing the electoral process, we still have the critical capacity to respond against armed groups," Provendier said.
Congolese authorities are hoping to register about 28 million people in the vast country, which has a population of about 60 million. About 5 million have been registered so far.
Electoral officials said unidentified militiamen armed with rifles opened fire Monday on a voter registration center in Bule village in Fataki district, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of the regional capital, Bunia. One electoral worker was shot and killed.
A second unidentified person was killed in a similar attack the same day in Mangiya, south of Bunia.
Congo's transitional government, set up after Congo's ruinous 1998-2002 war, is struggling to gain control over the east, formerly held by Congolese rebel groups whose leaders have been given top positions in government.
Despite the war's end, ragtag bands of Congolese militiamen still roam Ituri, where more than 16,000 militiamen and nine armed groups have voluntarily disarmed. About 1,000 more have refused to lay down arms and have launched sporadic attacks on peacekeepers and local civilians.
Provendier said the latest operation involved vehicle and foot patrols "with helicopter support in case of militia resistance." He said the troops would be deployed in several parts of Ituri.
Since 1999, clashes between ethnic Lendu and Hema militia have killed more than 50,000 people in Ituri, aid groups say. Though the area has been relatively calm this year, renewed fighting in December forced more than 100,000 people into squalid displaced camps in the green hills, with dozens dying each day of cholera, diarrhea and measles.
The Ituri conflict was a bloody spin-off of Congo's larger five-year war that ended in 2002.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Georgia's president says country not preparing to leave ex-Soviet alliance
Mike Eckel, Associated Press, 8/27/05
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili on Saturday said his country was not preparing to leave the loose 12-member alliance of ex-Soviet states despite its problems.
Speaking at a news conference one day after a summit of leaders from the 12-nation Commonwealth of Independent States, Saakashvili also tried to reassure other members that a recent declaration he made along with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko was not intended as a "democratic test for any nation."
Saakashvili acknowledged the CIS has problems, underscored by the leaders' apparent failure to agree on substantial reforms to reinvigorate the commonwealth - a trade and political association formed after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country dominates the CIS, made only passing reference to a "package of measures" to increase cooperation, gave no details and took no questions from reporters at a post-summit news conference.
The summit came amid new signs that the peaceful revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, which brought pro-Western leaders to power, were threatening to pull the group apart.
Earlier this month, Saakashvili and Yushchenko called for a new regional alliance to champion democracy in the former Soviet states. The Commonwealth of Democratic Choice, the two leaders said, would "help usher in a new era of democracy, security, stability and peace across Europe, from the Atlantic to the Caspian Sea."
Georgia and Ukraine have made membership in the European Union and NATO priorities, and Moldova has taken a sharp Westward turn. Moscow's ties with all three countries consequently have deteriorated.
The Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan also saw a new administration come to power after mass demonstrations.
Saakashvili said Georgia was not intending to pull out of the CIS, and he defended his and Yushchenko's statement, known as the Borzhomi declaration after the Georgian spa where the two met.
"We have not created any sort of democratic test for any nation," Saakashvili said. "This is a declaration of two leaders of friendly, democratic nations who are trying to build open societies of a European type. "And any other state which is located in the Baltic, Black or Baltic sea regions which intends to follow this path can participate," he said, adding that the main requirement was to conduct free and democratic elections.
Georgia's relations with Russia have turned prickly since Saakashvili became president following the 2003 mass demonstrations known as the Rose Revolution. He has also cultivated warm ties with Yushchenko and U.S. President George W. Bush praised the country during a visit to Tbilisi in May.
Later, following a one-on-one meeting with Putin, Saakashvili praised the Russian leader for backing the withdrawal of Russian troops from two Soviet-era bases in Georgia, which he called "a civilized decision."
"I particularly value this decision... your political courage and decisiveness in resolving these questions which complicated bilateral relations," Saakashvili said.
Georgia's relations with Belarus - another CIS member - have also soured. Saakashvili on Saturday demanded that Belarusian authorities release two Georgian activists accused of teaching their Belarusian counterparts to stage anti-government protests similar to Georgia's Rose Revolution.
Belarusian security officials said Friday they would deport the two Georgians, who were detained Wednesday and accused of "conducting training on organizing acts of civil disobedience accompanied by mass disorder similar to the ... revolution in Georgia."
The other six CIS members are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Guerrillas descend from Aceh mountains following peace pact
Agence France Presse, 8/23/05
At least 60 separatist guerrillas have left their rebel stronghold in Indonesia's Aceh province after a peace pact was signed last week, the military and a report said Tuesday.
The move comes a day after 1,300 Indonesian soldiers withdrew from Aceh province, the first major step by Indonesia to begin implementing the historic peace.
Major Priyo Purwoko, an Aceh military spokesman, confirmed that the rebels from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) had descended from their mountain camps and said they would be placed under military protection. "We have received confirmation on the surrender of rebels in South Aceh," he told AFP.
The guerrillas have been leaving their jungle hideouts in groups since the historic peace pact was inked on August 15 and are now staying at a house in Simpang Tiga village in South Aceh district, the state Antara news agency said.
Among the 60 leaving the jungle hideouts were a subdistrict military commander and his deputy, the local subdistrict chief M. Nasir was quoted as saying. "They have come without their weapons but said that the weapons were currently stored at a particular location and would be surrendered once an order from their superiors is received," Nasir said.
Under the pact, the rebels have to surrender their weapons at specified locations to the international Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), which will be composed of officials from the European Union and Southeast Asia.
The mission is only due to begin operations on September 15. "They have begun to drink coffee with military personnel from the nearest posts there," Nasir said, referring to the popular tradition in staunchly Muslim Aceh for men to socialize at coffee stalls.
South Aceh district military chief, Lieutenant Colonel Jamhur Ismail, told AFP that the rebels would not be officially described as having surrendered until foreign monitors, some of whom are already on the ground preparing for the formal start of the AMM, approve the process.
Several GAM members have surrendered to the authorities, carrying their weapons with them, since August 15, but this is the first reported case of rebels coming out in public without being arrested.
Both sides have said they will refrain from making statements or taking actions which may jeopardise the peace pact, which paves the way for an end to a 29-year conflict in which some 15,000 people have lost their lives.
Indonesian leaders warn of challenges ahead for Aceh peace pact
Agence France Presse, 8/24/05
Indonesia's military chief and defense minister warned Wednesday of the challenges ahead in implementing a peace accord struck last week with separatists from Aceh as the first report of post-pact violence emerged.
Indonesia's military head said he expected some groups of rebels to refuse to lay down their arms but said both sides should consider them "common enemies".
"That this (disarmament) will not take place in a perfect manner is a certainty," General Endriartono Sutarto told reporters. "We understand that there are factions within GAM and there are those who oppose the agreement which has been signed," he said. Sutarto urged the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) to clamp down on any rebellious factions, saying that the military had shown good faith by withdrawing some troops even before rebels disarmed.
Indonesia and GAM's exiled leadership signed the peace deal in Helsinki on August 15, agreeing to end a 29-year conflict which has left around 15,000 people dead -- mostly civilians.
The military on Monday withdrew some 1,300 soldiers from Aceh, the first major step by Jakarta to begin implementing the deal.
Indonesia's defence minister Juwono Sudarsono meanwhile said he too expected obstacles, such as potential land dispute between guerrillas and tsunami victims in the coming months.
"It will be a very sensitive issue if rebels who come down from the mountains and victims of the tsunami face each other off in a land dispute," Sudarsono told reporters.
But he described the government's lack of "speed and accuracy" in preparing a proper mechanism to distribute funds to compensate rebels as a "more crucial" problem. "There is still no explanation about whether the funds are sufficient or the government has prepared a clear mechanism to distribute them," Sudarsono warned.
Under the peace accord, GAM dropped its long-held demand for independence for a form of local self-government and agreed to disarm and demobilise its 3,000 fighters.
Indonesia promised to withdraw its non-local security forces by the end of the year, allow the creation of political parties in the province and offer amnesties to rebels.
Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin told a parliamentary body that the granting of amnesties was a key prerequisite for peace and reconstruction in the tsunami-battered province.
Some legislators have complained about a lack of transparency in drawing up the pact and are in particular concerned about the amnesties, to be granted by August 31 to all GAM members and supporters convicted or detained for political reasons. "Our motivation is that the reconstruction and rebuilding of Aceh should proceed quickly and be accelerated," Awaluddin said. "If this is delayed or there are still security disturbances, there will be no acceleration of the reconstruction and recovery of the Aceh economic conditions."
Despite the peace deal, violence continued, with police in Aceh's provincial capital Banda Aceh saying that a former GAM rebel was killed by an unidentified gunman over the weekend.
The 32-year-old had been working as a farmer in the area after he surrendered to authorities earlier this year, they said.
Saye Belnis, a member of the Initial Monitoring Presence tasked with preparing for the arrival of more than 200 foreign peace monitors next month, said her office was investigating.
Rights group condemns caning of two women in Indonesia's Aceh for violating Islamic law
Associated Press, 8/28/05
A leading human rights group on Sunday condemned as "insane" an Islamic court's caning of two unmarried couples in Aceh province for drinking alcohol and being alone together after dark.
They were the latest Aceh residents to fall foul of new regulations that give the staunchly Muslim province the right to impose a version of Islamic Shariah law.
The women fainted after being beaten 40 times on Friday outside a mosque in central Aceh, witnesses said. They were taken to a hospital, but had no serious injuries. "We protest this insane sentence, and it should be reviewed by the Supreme Court," said Ifdhal Kasim of the rights organization ELSHAM. "It violates Indonesia's constitution that outlaws corporal punishment, torture and humiliation (of prisoners)."
The four were arrested late at night last month and found guilty by an Islamic court of violating laws prohibiting the consumption of alcohol and unmarried couples being together in private places. It was not clear where they were detained.
The latter law is aimed at preventing premarital sex, seen as sin in Islam.
Aceh is the only province Indonesia that has implemented Shariah.
The region was granted semiautonomy from the central government last year because of a long-running separatist war. In August, both sides signed a peace agreement that has so far stemmed the violence.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has a policy of secularism. Attempts by religious hard-liners to have Islamic law - including corporal punishment - adopted nationally have failed.
The first caning in Aceh occurred in June, with the flogging of 15 men convicted of gambling.
Aceh Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Ivory Coast rebels say October elections unlikely
Serme Lassina, Associated Press, 8/25/05
A leader of rebels in Ivory Coast said Thursday that crucial presidential elections scheduled for October were unlikely to take place, casting the most serious doubt yet over whether the poll will be held.
Guillaume Soro, who heads the New Forces rebel group, said authorities had done little to prepare for the vote, including the key step of registering voters. "We're convinced that the elections planned for October 30 will not take place on that date," Soro said in the rebel stronghold of Bouake.
President Laurent Gbagbo has said repeatedly that his government is committed to holding the Oct. 30 ballot.
Tensions have been on the rise in the world's No. 1 cocoa producer in recent months, with many Ivorians questioning whether the country, split into government and rebel zones, can hold elections and fearing bloodshed either way.
Ivory Coast has been divided since a failed September 2002 coup attempt plunged the nation into months of civil war. A series of peace deals followed that ended major fighting, but the country remains split between a rebel-held north and a government-held south.
Both sides blame each other for failing to take key steps to make way for the poll, including starting a nationwide disarmament program as called for under an April peace deal brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki.
On Saturday, Ivory Coast's former army chief of staff, Mathias Doue, threatened to oust Gbagbo "within days" in a radio interview, and said in a written letter distributed to newspapers in Abidjan that Gbagbo's "camp wants war, not with the objective to reunify and reunite a people, but rather for the sake of staying in power."
Gbagbo's office could not be reached for comment.
Doue, who spoke on Radio France Internationale from an undisclosed location, went into hiding after Gbagbo dismissed him in November. "The international community, if it so wishes, can still intervene to obtain the departure of those who hold the reins of power," Doue said in the letter. "If not, it will bear witness to that which we have always wanted to avoid in Ivory Coast."
A buffer zone, separating warring factions, is patrolled by 6,000 U.N. troops and 4,000 French peacekeepers, whom Gbagbo's party and pro-government militias have been demanding quit the country, charging they are partisan.
Eight die as senior separatist seeks Kashmir conference
Agence France Presse, 8/26/05
Eight people were killed in the latest violence in Indian Kashmir, officials said Friday as a senior separatist said he planned to call a conference of leaders from both sides of the divided state.
An army official said Indian troops shot dead four members of Kashmir's most powerful Islamic rebel group, Hizbul Mujahedin, while suspected rebels killed a public servant and his son.
"The militants were killed in two separate clashes late Thursday in the districts of Anantnag and Pulwama," army spokesman Vijay Batra told AFP.
Both districts lie south of Indian Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar and are considered strongholds of Hizbul, which wants all of Kashmir to be joined with neighbouring Pakistan. Also Thursday, suspected militants shot dead a government official and his son in the southern district of Rajouri, police said.
Police blamed militants for two more shootings in which a village head and a Kashmiri working in the Indian army were killed in the districts of Baramulla in the north and Budgam in the southwest respectively.
None of the dozen rebel groups active in Kashmir has claimed responsibility for the the four killings.
More than 44,000 people have died in an insurgency against Indian rule in Kashmir since 1989, according to official figures. Separatists and Pakistan say the death toll is twice as high.
The violence has continued despite a slow-moving peace process launched by nuclear rivals India and Pakistan in January 2004 to resolve their disputes, including over Kashmir.
Meanwhile, senior separatist Yasin Malik said Friday the Kashmir dispute was heading towards a solution and he planned to call a Srinagar conference of leaders from both the Indian and Pakistani zones. "This conference will give chance to Kashmiris to speak their minds," Malik told a rally in northern Kashmir town of Bandipora, 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Srinagar.
India in the past has not allowed such conferences and observers said it was unlikely Malik would be permitted to stage a meeting.
He urged India and Pakistan to allow such a gathering as it would push forward the peace process. "There is tremendous pressure on India and Pakistan from the international community to resolve the dispute," Malik said. "I can tell you with authority that the Kashmir issue is heading towards a resolution."
Kashmir is claimed in full by both Pakistan and India. The issue has sparked two of three wars between the two neighbouring countries since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.
Malik's Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front wants to secede Kashmir from both India and Pakistan and make it an independent country. "The way Palestine is heading towards a solution, similarly serious efforts are on to resolve the dispute over Kashmir," he said, but warned that Kashmiris would not accept any resolution forced on them.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
U.N. envoy says more work needed before talks on Kosovo's future
Associated Press, 8/22/05
A U.N. envoy said Monday that more work is needed to improve tense relations between Kosovo's Serbs and ethnic Albanians before talks can begin on the contested province's future status.
Kai Eide, a Norwegian diplomat, met Monday with officials in Belgrade who also expressed concern over the situation in Kosovo. Eide was appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in June to review Kosovo's progress in meeting U.N.-set targets on democracy and civil rights for the province's minority Serbs.
"More needs to be done in Kosovo, not only on better ethnic relations, but also about the rule of law in Kosovo," Eide said after his talks with Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic.
But Eide did not rule out delivering a "more positive" report to Annan by next month, which could pave the way for U.N.-mediated negotiations on Kosovo's future status.
The province's majority ethnic Albanians want full independence, but the Serb minority and Belgrade insist that Kosovo remain part of Serbia-Montenegro, the union that replaced Yugoslavia.
Draskovic said after meeting Eide that Kosovo "is not even close to the start of talks on its future status." He described conditions for Serbs in Kosovo as "dramatically difficult."
Kosovo has been under U.N. and NATO administration since a 78-day NATO-led air war that halted a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.
But tensions in Kosovo remain high six years after the end of the conflict. About 100,000 minority Serbs mostly live in isolated enclaves, guarded by NATO troops and fearing attacks from ethnic Albanians extremists.
Belgrade officials insist the position of Serbs in Kosovo must improve before talks on the province's future can start. Belgrade also demands that some 200,000 Serbs who fled the province in the wake of the war be allowed to return to the region.
This is Eide's third visit to the region since his appointment. Before coming to Belgrade, he met ethnic Albanian and Serb officials in Kosovo.
Final status talks on Kosovo likely to start by year's end: UN official
Agence France Presse, 8/26/05
Negotiations on the final status of the UN-run province of Kosovo could start before the end of the year, the head of the UN mission in the troubled southern Serbian province said Friday.
Soren Jessen-Petersen of Denmark, quoted by the Ritzau news agency, also said it would be hard to dismiss the Kosovo Albanian majority's push for independence but Belgrade had to be given an incentive to compromise -- notably closer partnership with Europe.
Speaking at a meeting of foreign ministers of Scandinavian and Baltic countries, the UN adminstrator said "significant steps" made in Kosovo were now under review and a report was expected to be submitted to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan by the end of September. "I am certain that the negotiations on the final status will be under way before the end of this decisive year for Kosovo," Jessen-Petersen said.
"The question remains whether the situation will continue as is or if there will be a new Kosovo."
Inter-communal tensions have remained high since the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict, which ended when a NATO-led bombing campaign ousted Serbian troops to end Belgrade's crackdown on ethnic Albanian rebels.
The province has been administered by the UN ever since.
Jessen-Petersen said "it will be very difficult to ignore the wish (for independence) of the majority, the Albanians who represent 90 percent of the population."
"Consequently it is clear that Belgrade must be ready to compromise. But this also requires some sort of political encouragement like the possibility of membership of the European Union and NATO and possibly other compensations," he said.
"When negotiations start, Serbia must know that its place is in Europe," Jessen-Petersen told the meeting.
He also stressed that Kosovo Albanians must "know that the path towards a (final) status will come only through improving conditions for the Serb minority."
Only about 12,500 of some 200,000 Serbs who, Belgrade says, have left the province since 1999 have returned home, fearing revenge attacks from Albanians for years of Serbian oppression.
The UN administrator also said "an international presence will be necessary for at least two or three years after the adoption of a final status" for Kosovo.
The UN Security Council decided in May to review Kosovo's implementation of UN-set democratic standards that are a condition for the opening of final negotiations on the province's status.
Its ethnic Albanian majority is keen for talks to start so it can push its independence demands, which Belgrade considers unacceptable, instead offering wide autonomy.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Former fighters must find role in Liberia, says new UN chief
Agence France Presse, 8/24/05
Former fighters in the conflict in Liberia have to be brought back into society if there is to be peace in the country, the new local chief representative of the United Nations said Wednesday. "The reintegration process has to continue. This process is indispensable to genuine peace in Liberia," Alan Doss, the newly-appointed envoy of the UN secretary-general and coordinator of the UN mission in Liberia (UNMIL) told reporters in the capital Monrovia.
UN sources say "disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration" (DDR) programmes have been launched to reintegrate some 100,000 former fighters -- many very young -- from the various factions in the wars which devastated the west African country for more than a decade.
About 50,000 have been enrolled in primary schools or are undergoing voational training, while the rest are unemployed. There have been charges that a lack of funds is slowing the DDR process.
"We will keep asking donor countries to help so that the process can be completed," Doss said. "You have to reintegrate these young people for them to completely turn the page of violence."
He said that UN missions in Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone would work together to prevent former fighters offering their services as mercenaries and the development of such activities in the region.
"Liberians say that mercenaries could come from Côte d'Ivoire to disrupt the peace in Liberia, and Ivorians think the same way about Liberians," Doss said.
He said there was no hard evidence of the movement of weapons and mercenaries moving between the two neighbouring countries, but that did not mean it as not happening.
Doss, 60, a Briton, this month succeeded Jacques Klein of the United States as head of UNMIL, one of the world body's largest international peacekeeping operations, with 15,000 troops and more than 1,000 police officers.
They are charged in particular with overseeing a general election due to be held on October 11 which is supposed to end a transition period headed by President Gyude Bryant.
Liberia, with a population of some three million, has been devastated by 14 years of civil war.
The conflict ended only when Charles Taylor, a rebel leader who became president before being charged with war crimes by an international court in Sierra Leone, left for exile in Nigeria in 2003.
In postwar Liberia, world-class African soccer icon vies for presidency
Jonathan Paye-Layleh, Associated Press, 8/25/05
Liberians are flocking to the presidential campaign of a young, international soccer star with little formal education and no political experience who pledges to lead his war-scarred country to peace and development after decades of despots.
Sure, rival candidate Sekou Conneh, a former rebel leader, helped drive corrupt former President Charles Taylor into exile. And another hopeful, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, has Citibank vice president and World Bank official on her resume. But George Weah was FIFA's World Player of the Year in 1995.
"As I look in your faces tonight, I see that I am your future," the 38-year old former Chelsea and AC Milan striker boomed to boisterous fans as he formally launched his campaign with an all-night rally earlier this week.
His supporters waved placards reading "Rescue Liberia, Vote Weah."
Weah says if he wins, his administration would focus on putting some 70,000 former combatants to work. He also says he would lower the presidential term limit from six years to four.
Weah is among 22 candidates running in Oct. 11 elections overseen by nearly 15,000 U.N. troops guarding the country's transition to democracy after the end of its 1989-2003 crisis.
Weah's opponents, many with much-longer resumes of public service, question whether a man with only a high school education is capable of leading this nation of 3 million out of its troubles.
Weah, whose roots are in Monrovia's slums, has a populist rejoinder: Liberians should look around at their crumbling roads, ruined government buildings and refugee camps and ask whether the elite that held power for so long has the answers.
"Politicians have been up there and the masses have been down for many years. It is time for the masses to go up," Weah told The Associated Press in an interview. "With all their education and experience, they have governed this nation for hundreds of years," Weah said. "They have never done anything for the nation."
In a deeply impoverished country where only about half the adult population can read, his lack of advanced degrees may be a boon.
"Degree holders, where are you? Weah is already in the (presidential) mansion," his supporters chanted at the election rally.
Freed American slaves resettled on Africa's West coast founded Liberia in 1847, making it Africa's longest self-governed republic.
The former slaves adopted the lordly manners and dress of their former masters, and disenfranchised the local people whose lands they claimed.
A caste system was born. Descendants of the settlers, known as Americo-Liberians, were at the top and more than a dozen indigenous ethnic groups like Weah's Kru were at the bottom. Today, Americo-Liberians are about 3 percent of the population - and deeply resented by many of the rest.
Americo-Liberians alone prospered until President William Tolbert was overthrown in 1980 in Liberia's first coup, carried out by indigenous Liberians.
In 1989, a charismatic young warlord named Charles Taylor educated - and once imprisoned - in the United States led a small, armed band of cohorts into Liberia from neighboring Ivory Coast.
Taylor, son of an Americo-Liberian father and indigenous Gola mother, fought government troops and his own former allies in a savage, multi-fronted battle that killed 150,000 and ruined nearly every countryside hamlet. In 1996, West African intervention forces quelled the fighting.
Taylor won elections in 1997, but he ruled harshly and another insurgency including many former Taylor allies erupted in 2000. By July 2003, fighting raged in the capital, Monrovia.
Under heavy international pressure, Taylor fled into exile in Nigeria in August 2003 and a peace deal and U.N. force were quickly implemented.
Liberia's postwar caretaker Chairman Gyude Bryant is to cede power to a democratically elected president in January. About 1.3 million Liberians have registered to vote, hoping they're finally at the doorstep of lasting peace, and that peace will be the key to prosperity.
Weah's ascent from Monrovia's slums to the heights of international soccer resonates with the aspirations of many Liberians, and they crave his leadership.
Others, though, question whether Weah's soccer stardom makes him fit to run the country. "This football legend, in my opinion, should not be misled into continuing his presidential bid," said John Kehler, a 38-year old university student. "He's quite inexperienced for the job. This is not a popularity contest."
Freed war prisoners: Pawns or impetus for peace in Western Sahara's long-running conflict?
Scheherezade Faramarzi, Associated Press, 8/22/05
Mohammed Hassi cried while watching the last Moroccan prisoners of war leave the plane that carried them to freedom. "I was reminded of the day I was released myself," said Hassi, 55, a former soldier freed in 2002 after spending a quarter-century as a prisoner of Polisario Front guerrillas. "It felt like being born again."
Bassou Khachouni, a 57-year-old who was freed by Polisario in 2003 - after 24 years, one month and three days of captivity - also shed tears watching the televised event. He said the POWs' release completed his own freedom.
But, he added, "The cause remains unresolved."
Washington, which mediated the deal, hopes it will open the way to resolving a bitter dispute that has caused regional instability, which could allow Islamic extremists to operate in the area's vast expanses. Others are pessimistic about the chances for a settlement.
Like Hassi and Khachouni, the 404 Moroccans flown home Thursday were pawns in a conflict over a sparsely populated but mineral-rich stretch of desert known as the Western Sahara, kept as the world's longest-held prisoners even though fighting stopped in 1991.
The conflict began when Morocco annexed the former Spanish Sahara in 1975 and the Polisario Front took up arms seeking independence. Morocco brought in settlers and its army fought the guerrillas to a standstill.
Although the truce has held for 14 years, the dispute still strains relations between Morocco and neighboring Algeria, where the Polisario Front is based. Both Muslim countries are U.S. allies in the fight against terrorism, so Washington wants to end the conflict.
Morocco's initial response was not warm.
While the kingdom welcomed the men's freedom, the Foreign Ministry said the move "in no way" could be viewed as a gesture by Polisario or an intervention by Algeria.
The French-language newspaper Aujourd'hui le Maroc also was dismissive, running a piece under the headline "War Crimes" that said the releases "definitely do not close this file." The Polisario should be held accountable for the suffering of the prisoners and must detail the fate of those who disappeared while in its custody, the paper added.
In contrast, Algeria said the releases should open the way to progress on the Western Sahara issue and expressed hope for a "dynamic for peace" in the region.
Ahmed Baba Miske, author of a book on the Polisario Front and former U.N. ambassador for Mauritania, which lies south of Western Sahara, also said the move should help peace efforts.
Algeria has no interest in maintaining "a war atmosphere," he told The Associated Press.
"Even simple common sense tells us that this liberation is a positive element in this conflict," Miske said.
But retired Moroccan army Col. Mohammed Boughdadi, who has written several books on Saharan history, said relations between Morocco and Algeria "remain a question mark."
He called the POW release a Polisario "publicity stunt to get on the good side of the international community."
The United Nations has long tried to organize a referendum on independence for the Western Sahara under the truce accord, but disagreement over who should cast ballots has prevented a vote.
Khadija Mohsen-Finan, an expert on North Africa at the French Institute for International Relations in Paris, said the Polisario's decision to free its remaining prisoners was well calculated.
"It is a sign of detente from the Polisario and a way of obliging its adversary (Morocco) to take a position and resume talks," she said.
Yet, she is pessimistic, predicting that "nothing will change."
Hassi and Khachouni, the former POWs, say the onus to ending the conflict is on Algeria - not Polisario. "Algeria is the one responsible for my detention, torture and the destruction of our lives," Khachouni said, adding that Polisario was merely a tool of Algeria's government.
Both men claimed some of their torturers were Algerians. Hassi said he also was held in jails in the Algerian capital for several years and in other parts of Algeria before being returned to the Polisario's camp at Tindouf in Algeria's southwest near the Moroccan border. "I cannot describe what they did to us," said Hassi, who was 28 years old when captured.
He left his wife and 3-month-old daughter to go to war in January 1977 and was captured 10 months later. His family had no news of him until 1996, when the International Committee of the Red Cross visited him in detention.
From then until his release in 2002, Red Cross officials brought letters from his family twice a year.
When he was finally freed, Hassi said, "I wanted to scream and tell the world, but no one listened. They thought I was making up the horrors I went through."
The most difficult thing for him, he said, was the loss of his youth. Before his captivity, he had hoped he would have a large family, including sons, and maybe prosper.
Now, with only an unemployed 28-year-old daughter, he has no money to buy a dowry for her wedding. He considers himself homeless because the house he lives in with his wife, Halima, is in her name, bought during his absence with the help of her family.
Although they do not appear to suffer from depression, Hassi and Khachouni are typical long-held prisoners trying to adapt to normal lives.
Both Hassi and Khachouni are unemployed and barely get by on meager army pensions. They complained they did not receive any government compensation for their captivity. Their salaries, they said, were paid to their wives.
Diplomats in Nepal condemn Maoist harassment of foreign companies
Agence France Presse, 8/24/05
Diplomats in Nepal Wednesday condemned Maoist harassment of foreign companies, including demands that led to the shutdown of an Indian unit of Anglo-Dutch consumer company Unilever this month.
The Industrial Security Group, comprised of diplomats from France, Germany, India, Britain, the United States and the European Union, said unions linked to the rebels are hurting the economy by threatening frequent strikes.
"The forced closures and threats of closure of companies, including foreign joint ventures, continue to hurt the commercial interests of foreign investors in Nepal, deterring future investment in Nepal's economy." the group said in a statement. "This in turn negatively affects the prosperity of all Nepalis."
The statement came after threats by a pro-Maoist union forced the closure of a factory run by India-based Hindustan Lever, a unit of Unilever, on August 18.
The All Nepal Trade Union warned Unilever Nepal in a letter earlier this month that if it failed to meet a 15-point set of demands, including higher wages, by August 16 "the factory would not be permitted to operate and further actions would be taken," a company statement said.
"We've closed the factory as the 15-point union demand can't be met," Ravi Bhakta Shrestha, a director of Unilever Nepal, earlier told AFP.
The plant had produced cosmetics and toiletries and had annual sales of 1.5 billion rupees (21.35 million dollars).
The plant, which employed around 2,000 workers, is located 90 kilometers (56 miles) south of the capital Kathmandu. Its closure was the latest blow to impoverished Nepal's economy, reeling from a Maoist revolt which has claimed around 12,000 lives since 1996. Companies that ignore Maoist demands are often attacked by rebels and their employees are intimidated into staying away from work, police say.
Last year Unilever Nepal said suspected rebels caused major damage when they bombed the factory in what it described as an unprovoked attack. "These Maoist actions violate the human rights of workers and cause great damage to the livelihoods of thousands of innocent people, their families, and the overall economy of Nepal," the diplomats' statement, released by the United States as acting director of the group, said.
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Nepal Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
US war crimes envoy presses for Mladic and Karadzic arrest in Serbia
Jovana Gec, Associated Press, 8/24/05
A U.S. war crimes envoy again urged Serbia on Wednesday to arrest the two top Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitives sought by a U.N. tribunal.
U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes, Pierre Richard Prosper, said that Serbia-Montenegro cannot move forward into the European Union and NATO without the capture of wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic.
"For this society and the international community to put the war crimes issues behind us once and for all, it is important to finish the job," Prosper said. "That means that here in Serbia and Montenegro, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic must be brought to justice."
Karadzic and Mladic were charged with genocide in 1995 by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. The two allegedly orchestrated the Srebrenica massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys, and the siege of Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, during 1992-95 war.
Mladic and Karadzic have been on the run since late 1990s. U.S. officials believe Mladic is hiding somewhere in Serbia, while Karadzic is believed to be in Serb-held Bosnia or in Montenegro.
Serbia's government officials have repeatedly said they do not know where the fugitives are, despite Serbian media reports that authorities have been holding secret talks with Mladic about terms for his possible surrender.
During his Belgrade visit, Prosper also met Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, as well as Serbia's prosecutors and judges dealing with war crimes committed by Serb troops during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
"Cooperation with The Hague tribunal has to be completed," Kostunica said in a statement after the meeting. "We are permanently working on solving the remaining cases," he said, referring to government attempts to locate Karadzic and Mladic.
Prosper also visited a refugee camp in Pancevo, a town outside Belgrade, where about 130 Serbs live after being displaced from Croatia and other parts of former Yugoslavia during the Balkan conflicts.
"The United States wants to recognize the Serb victims of the conflict," Prosper said at the camp. "We came here today to acknowledge that the people here too have suffered as the result of the conflict."
UN-appointed human rights envoy visits lawless Somalia
Agence France Presse, 8/24/05
The UN-appointed human rights envoy for Somalia is visiting the lawless Horn of Africa nation this week to survey conditions amid growing concern about violence against civilians there, officials said Wednesday.
Ghanim Alnajjar, a Kuwaiti political science professor appointed by UN chief Kofi Annan in 2001 to be an "independent expert" on human rights in Somalia, arrived in the country on Tuesday, the United Nations office in Kenya said.
As part of an 11-day visit to Somalia and neighboring countries, Alnajjar will look into women's and children's rights, freedom of speech, prison and education conditions as well as economic, social and cultural rights, it said. "He will meet with a variety of diplomats, local authorities, civil society representatives and international organizations in Nairobi and different regions of Somalia as time and security permit," the UN office said in a statement.
Alnajjar's visit, his fifth annual fact-finding trip to Somalia and the region, will result in a report to be published under the auspices of the Geneva-based UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, it said.
The announcement of his arrival comes just two days after the international charity Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors Without Borders) warned that a seemingly endless cycle of extreme violence in Somalia is having a "catastrophic" effect on civilians.
At two hospitals in the divided central town of Galkayo alone, it said it had treated more than 500 people for violent trauma injuries in the first half of 2005, nearly three per day, most with gunshot wounds and many of them women and children.
"This level of violence is simply a reflection of the brutality of everyday life for the people living in this country," MSF said. "Extreme violence has become a part of daily existence and the effect on the population is catastrophic."
Hundreds of thousands of people have died in Somalia since 1991 when dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was toppled, plunging the Horn of Africa nation of up to 10 million into anarchy and chaotic clan warfare.
With no functioning central administration or organized medical care for the past 14 years, Somalia has "some of the worst health indicators in the world," MSF said, lamenting the lack of attention paid to the plight of ordinary Somalis.
Sri Lanka's new foreign minister seeks Indian leaders' help in Tamil Tiger peace process
Rajesh Mahapatra, Associated Press, 8/26/05
Sri Lanka's new foreign minister on Friday asked leaders in neighboring India to help keep his country's increasingly shaky peace process with Tamil Tiger rebels from collapsing after his predecessor's assassination.
Foreign Minister Anura Bandarnaike met with Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh to discuss how New Delhi could help with talks between Sri Lanka's government and the Tigers, said a foreign ministry official who cannot be named under briefing regulations.
"The two ministers reviewed the entire gamut of bilateral relations and agreed that they were in excellent shape," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Many of Sri Lanka's minority ethnic Tamils, whose ancestors were brought to the island from nearby India as indentured laborers by British colonial planters in the 18th century, have family ties with Tamils living in southern India.
Bandarnaike's India visit comes ahead of crucial peace talks between his government and the Tigers to review their cease-fire, which has become increasingly fragile since the Aug. 12 assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, Bandarnaike's predecessor.
Sri Lanka's government and the Tigers signed a cease-fire in February 2002, but subsequent peace talks to end the two-decade separatist war broke down a year later.
A recent spate of violent incidents in the country have raised fears that the truce is on the brink of collapse.
Sri Lanka's military blamed the Tamil Tigers for Kadirgamar's killing, but the rebels have denied involvement.
The Tigers began fighting in 1983 for an independent Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka's north and east, accusing the majority Sinhalese of discrimination. More than 65,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
India has previously been involved in efforts to end the civil war.
In 1987, New Delhi sent peacekeeping troops to Sri Lanka, but withdrew them three years later after more than 1,100 Indian soldiers died in clashes with the Tigers.
India labeled the Tigers terrorists after a Tamil suicide bomber killed former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
Bandarnaike arrived in New Delhi on Thursday for a two-day visit.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Security Concerns Leaders at Sudan Camp
Tanalee Smith, Associated Press, 8/24/05
Frustrated leaders of a refugee camp in the Darfur region of western Sudan on Wednesday told a U.N. official that security for the 13,000 inhabitants is a bigger issue than food, which is also scarce.
United Nations High Commission for Refugees chief Antonio Guterres held talks with leaders of the Riad displaced people's camp on the outskirts of Geneina, capital of West Darfur state.
Guterres is on a 10-day tour of sprawling camps housing some of the millions of Sudanese displaced by fighting in both this volatile region and southern Sudan.
The UNHCR is trying to help Sudanese displaced by war to return to their homes, but only once security has been restored and each person has made the choice to voluntarily return.
"This is not your home. We need to create a way that you can return to where you came from but we will not force you in any way," Guterres told some 45 male and female leaders of the Riad camp, who applauded his remarks. "When there is peace, when there is security, you can choose."
Guterres is scheduled to assess his organization's work in Darfur, neighboring Chad and southern Sudan, where millions of Sudanese have settled in camps after escaping violence and insecurity. "This is the biggest displacement problem in Africa," Guterres said of Sudan.
Sudan's 21-year civil war in the south - which ended with a January peace deal - displaced more than 4 million people. Some refugees have started to return south from neighboring countries or areas within Sudan, Africa's largest country.
Two years of violence in Darfur, western Sudan, has caused another wave of refugees. As of July 1, 3.2 million people in Darfur need humanitarian assistance and 1.9 million live in crowded camps in Sudan, according to a U.N. report released last week. At least 200,000 Sudanese live in refugee camps in neighboring Chad.
Guterres said he wanted refugees to return to their homes but acknowledged that the security situation would not yet allow this in Darfur. "Return is the key of our policy," he said. "We don't want to keep people in camps. But return requires security, and there is no security without peace."
While the intensity of the violence has decreased, looting and banditry have intensified, and violence against women is a continuing concern.
The fighting in Darfur began when rebels from black African tribes took up arms in February 2003, complaining of discrimination and oppression by Sudan's Arab-dominated government. The government is accused of unleashing Arab tribal militia known as the Janjaweed against civilians in a campaign of murder, rape and arson. At least 180,000 people have died - many from hunger and disease.
Talks scheduled for Wednesday in Nigeria to try to end the Darfur conflict were postponed until Sept. 15, African Union envoy Salim Ahmed Salim said.
UNHCR efforts in West Darfur are concentrated on protecting refugees and monitoring their movements. Guterres planned to visit camps there plus a women's center established by his agency to help respond to sexual violence and let women minimize the risks they face and find peer support.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis
Click here to access the Report prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.