PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Monday, January 23, 2006
(Volume V, Number 1)
Contents:
EU says Russia should try harder for lasting peace in Chechnya
EU urges Russia to give more attention to human rights situation, and boost to transparency, legitimacy and legal framework for NGOs.
Uganda hands over armed Congolese to Kinshasa
Refugees cross border to escape fighting between Congolese army and rebel groups.
Breakaway Abkhazia to ask ethnic Georgians to renounce citizenship to get ID papers
New Abkhazian IDs leave ethnic Georgians to determine the question of citizenship.
New law the next hurdle in Aceh's peace process
Draft law for Aceh's autonomy must be passed by March.
Aceh peace accord "a success": mediator
Mediator Martti Ahtisaari and Indonesian Vice President Yusuf Kalla evaluate progress on Helenski deal.
Rioting in Ivory Coast Denounced By U.N as 'Orchestrated Violence'
Violence in support of President Laurent Gbagbo is recognized as planned and condemned by the UN and EU.
Lukewarm Start to S. Asian Peace Talks;
India and Pakistan make little headway on the Kashmir dispute
The third round of talks began last week restatement of old commitments, but no signs of a deal on Kashmir.
Kosovo
Serbs in Kosovo demand separation from ethnic Albanians
Kosovo Serbs call for autonomy and decentralization.
Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova dies without seeing aspiration of independence fulfilled
Rugova, the ethnic Albanian leader, dies of cancer.
Rugova's death complicates Kosovo status talks but not outcome: analysts
In the midst of a transition, expected outcome of independence remains strong.
Liberian president to ask Nigeria to hand over Charles Taylor to war crimes court
President Sirleaf declines timetable, but confirms she will consult with regional leaders and ask Nigeria to hand over Talor to war crimes tribunal.
Poll candidate gunned down in Nepal
Suspected Maoist rebels assasinate a candidate leading up to the municipal polls on February 8.
Chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor says Mladic hiding in Serbia
Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte asks Belgrade to arrest and hand over Mladic to the Hague.
Powerful Somali faction agrees to hold parliament session to discuss unity
Lawmakers give the speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan consent to organise a parliamentary meeting inside Somalia.
Deadly blast greets new US-Norway push for peace in Sri Lanka
US Under Secretary of State and Norway's International Development Minister renew call for end to terrorist violence by Tamil group.
AU's Dafur mediators not informed of alliance between rebels
The Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) announce their merger in hope of greater solidarity, without knowledge of AU mediators.
UN presses for Darfur peace deal soon
Pronk suggests February deadline for Darfur rebels and Khartoum officials.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis Click here to access the PILPG Report.
Armenian, Azerbaijan presidents invited to negotiate in Paris
Agence France Presse, 1/20/06
The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been invited to Paris next month for negotiations over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, the Armenian foreign ministry said Friday.
The invitation from French President Jacques Chirac was announced during talks Thursday in London between the two ex-Soviet republics' foreign ministers, the ministry said in a statement.
The London talks were held to set up the planned meeting between Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev, the ministry said.
Armenia and Azerbaijan remain in a tense military standoff over Nagorno Karabakh and have held years of fruitless negotiations under the mediation of the Minsk group, made up of France, Russia and the United States.
Azerbaijan's majority ethnic-Armenian region of Nagorno Karabakh broke off in a 1988-1994 conflict that claimed nearly 25,000 lives and led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, most of them ethnic Azeris.
Burundi's lone rebels willing to enter peace talks: president
Agence France Presse, 1/20/06
Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza on Friday said the country's last active rebel groups had expressed willingness to enter peace talks with the government after they were suspended last year.
Nkurunziza said in a statement that the Tanzanian government, which hosted the talks, was officially approached by the FNL who said they were ready to engage in talks with the government of Burundi, confirming an earlier announcement by Tanzania's ambassador to Burundi Francis Mdolwa.
But he expressed reservation at the latest gesture by the National Liberation Forces (FNL) as they have refused to acknowledge his government and continued with attacks against civilians and military instalations.
"The behaviour on the ground by elements of this movement such as acts of terror, barbarism and selective massacre of civilians casts doubts on the willingness of the FNL to enter a peace path," Nkurunziza said.
Mdolwa earlier said the FNL had communicated with the Tanzanian government saying they were ready to revamp the stalled negotiations."I told the Burundian leader that the FNL say that they want to negotiate peace. My country is ready to help the two parties to negotiate," Mdolwa told AFP, adding that no date has yet been fixed for the negotiations.
But a senior government officials said the intention by FNL's leader Agathon Rwasa remained to be seen becaue it was not the first time he had hinted at resuming peace talks."It is not the first time that Agathon Rwasa announces his readiness for talks with the government. We have to wait and see this time round it is the right announcement," the official said, adding that it was also the wish of the government to see that the talks resume.
Last year, the government and the rebels held series of talks and agreed on a cease-fire arrangement that has been violated by both parties.
The FNL is the only of Burundi's seven Hutu rebel armies still fighting and has refused to recognise the country's new government, which was installed in August in a power-sharing plan after a series of elections aimed at ending 12 years of ethnically driven conflict that has claimed some 300,000 lives.
EU says Russia should try harder for lasting peace in Chechnya
Associated Press, 1/18/06
The European Union on Wednesday criticized Russia for its handling of unrest in Chechnya and urged it to try harder to find a lasting and peaceful resolution to the conflict.
"The political, social and human rights situation in the Caucasus republic continues to be unsatisfying and, indeed, worrying," said Hans Winkler, Austria's state secretary for European affairs."The EU continues to have reservations about the human rights situation in Chechnya and calls upon the Russian authorities to give the process more legitimacy and transparency." Austria holds the rotating EU presidency.
Winkler and EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner also criticized a controversial Russia law restricting non-governmental organizations, which is seen as part of a Kremlin campaign to increase control over society and stem dissent.
The legislation provides for a new agency to oversee the registration, financing and activities of Russia's more than 400,000 NGOs, about 2,000 of which are involved in human rights.
Ferrero-Waldner said she was concerned "at the evidence of continuing difficulties NGOs have to face, including those receiving support from the European Commission. This also affects NGOs delivering humanitarian assistance," she said.
Ferrero-Waldner said the commission planned to open an office in the northern Caucasus, possibly in Vladikavkaz, to be able to better monitor its aid programs for Chechnya.
EU asylum laws leave Chechens abandoned in Poland
Agence France Presse, 1/18/06
In the corner of the dimly lit entrance hall of a Soviet housing block in the Warsaw suburb of Wolomin, housing Chechen refugees, a middle-aged man toys aimlessly with a large switchblade.
Children's voices ring down from the upper storeys of the building, home to between 200 and 300 Chechens who have fled the war in their north Caucasus homeland to end up at one of 17 refugee centres in Poland.
A pall of cigarette smoke hangs over the hallway, where a dozen Chechen men mill around, nothing better to do with their day.
Mikail, 39, has been at this centre for one year and two months. He left behind him an idyllic life in Chechnya, where he headed a cultural centre and his family reared horses until their stables were destroyed in the war.
"I'm not a murderer. I left Chechnya because my mother pleaded with me to go before I disappeared without a trace," he told AFP.
Upstairs, Liza, 28, shares a musty room of 12 square metres (130 square feet) with her husband and three children, aged two, four and 10.
"One day my husband was arrested and beaten. We paid a ransom, bought him back, and the next day we decided to leave," she told AFP.
Hava, 34, lost her brother and husband in Chechnya.
"The Russians came and took my brother, so my husband went to get him back. I never saw either of them again," she said.
After she filed a formal complaint about the disappearances, masked men came to the house. They beat Hava's 13-year-old daughter so severely that she now has vision problems, and Hava's son, now four, was so terrified, he still doesn't speak.
"We need help. We need medical care. Poland can't give it to us. We want to be able to live a normal life. I've had an interview with officials about obtaining refugee status. That was in October and I still haven't had an answer. I don't know what to expect."
EU officials met at the weekend to try to harmonise asylum law -- not to make it easier for genuine refugees to make sense of EU rules or to help countries like Poland, which bears the brunt of the influx of refugees from the east, but to stem the number of asylum-seekers trying to enter the bloc.
In 2004, the year Poland joined the EU, 7,183 people from the Russian Federation, 90 percent of them Chechens, sought asylum in Poland -- more than double the number of two years earlier, according to the Polish Office of Repatriation and Aliens.
"Poland receives the same aid as everyone else from the EU to deal with refugee issues," said Jan Wegrzyn, head of the Repatriation and Aliens agency, which deals with refugee issues.
"We don't see the possibility of getting more," he said. There was no system in the EU which would allow the refugee burden to be more fairly shared out among member states, he added.
Only around eight percent of Chechens are granted refugee status in Poland, Wegrzyn added.
Most are given 'tolerated stay' status, which gives holders the right to work but little else.
Many simply disappear, heading west to what Chechens see as EU Eldorados.
Hava, Liza and Mikail have all tried their luck sneaking into Germany or France, but all were caught and sent back to Poland, their first port of call in the EU and, under the 2003 Dublin regulations, the country in which they must seek asylum.
"Most Chechens come to Poland because it is the closest place they can reach," said Attar Ornan, a psychologist who works at refugee centres in Poland for global medical charity, Medecins Sans Frontieres.
"Not being allowed to go elsewhere in the EU is very difficult for them," she said.
"They feel no one is interested in what is going on in Chechnya or here. No one wants to listen. They feel abandoned, there and here."
Mikail has been granted tolerated stay status in Poland, meaning he has been given a work permit but will not get the 1,000 zlotys (250 euros, 333 dollars) a month paid to refugees.
"The Polish state gave me 1,200 zlotys (300 euros, 400 dollars) for two months. I have to find an apartment and work but it's very hard," said Mikail, who has learned Polish and trained to work as a security guard.
Poland has the highest unemployment rate in the EU, at around 18 percent of the workforce.
"The authorities here won't let me leave, but I can't live here. I can't work. We want to be able to live normal lives, not as sub-standard citizens. If there were no war in Chechnya, I'd go back in an instant. But that's out of the question now," he said.
New law the next hurdle in Aceh's peace process
Agence France Presse, 1/19/06
With the first phase of Indonesia's peace pact with Aceh rebels smoothly navigated, the next challenge will be countering nationalist sentiment in Jakarta where parliament must pass a contentious autonomy law, analysts say.
Implementation of the historic accord, signed in the wake of the December 2004 tsunami tragedy which forced both the government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) to reassess priorities, has so far surpassed expectations.
Rebels in the staunchly-Muslim province at the tip of Sumatra surrendered their arsenal of 840 weapons by the end of last year as promised and in return, the Indonesian military and police withdrew all of their non-local forces.
Now, attention is focusing on a draft law completed last week by the home affairs ministry which grants wide-ranging autonomy to resource-rich Aceh and must be passed, according to the pact signed in Helsinki, by the end of March."What we face in the next few months will not be an easy task because it might involve political and nationalist sentiment in Jakarta," warned Afrizal Tjoetra from the Aceh Society Taskforce, which helped draft the law.
The law will pave the way for local elections to be held immediately.
"If everyone can look at it from the perspective of a peaceful settlement in Aceh, there will be no meaningful problems," Tjoetra said. "But if political perspective and interests are involved, then everything will be different."
The most likely candidate for scuttling the process appears to be former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, leader of nationalist-inspired Indonesian Democracy Party for Struggle, the country's largest opposition party.
Megawati, who was ousted by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in October 2004 elections, has aired resistance to a clause in the pact which would be enshrined in the new law."It is difficult for us to accept one of the clauses in the agreement which requires decisions of the government and parliament to get the approval of the Aceh executive and legislature," she said last week, local media reported."Even in federal states, things are not like that," she said.
Lawmaker Priyo Budi Santoso from the largest party Golkar said 23 chapters or about a fifth of the total were where "thorough debates may take place."
These include chapters concerning the creation of local political parties, how to share spoils from Aceh's lucrative gas and oil deposits, and the potential for new provinces to split off.
Under the peace deal, aimed at ending nearly three decades of conflict, the government conceded that it would allow the establishment of local political parties in Aceh, which have so far been outlawed in the country.
Determining a revenue-sharing ratio between the central government and Aceh could become a minefield, Santoso cautioned, while the push by several Aceh districts to form their own provinces has not been welcomed by former rebels.
Megawati's party has insufficient numbers to block the law, although it could do so if it convinces minor parties to join its ranks.
Nevertheless, Santoso remains upbeat that the law, which must be passed by a simple majority in the 500-seat legislature, will get through."We all have an interest in completing this law," he said.
Political scientist J. Kristiadi from private thinktank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said the challenges ahead will relate to getting information to lawmakers and hitting on the right terminology in the law, so it does not offend nationalists. "I think that resistance in the parliament comes from the fact that many legislators have not really read the draft law and not followed the day-to-day process" of it being compiled, he said.
Foreign monitors overseeing the pact have hailed the completion of the crucial early phase, saying that the peace process has become irreversible.
Indonesia's vice president Yusuf Kalla is currently in Finland, and is reportedly scheduled to meet with exiled GAM leaders to discuss the future of the peace pact.
The separatist conflict claimed about 15,000 lives, most of them civilians, since GAM began its struggle for an independent state in 1976.
Aceh peace accord "a success": mediator
Agence France Presse, 1/21/06
The peace agreement signed by Indonesia's government and Aceh rebels in Helsinki last year was on Saturday declared "a success" by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari who mediated the talks between the two sides.
"It would be difficult not to say that it has been a success. This is the beginning of a process ... but it's a very, very good beginning," Ahtisaari told reporters in the Finnish capital after follow-up talks with Indonesian government representatives and rebel spokesmen. "From my point of view I could have hardly expected anything better than what has happened. We have to remember that only five months have passed" since the parties began implementing the peace plan, he added.
Under the Helsinki deal, signed in August, the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) dropped its call for independence in exchange for a form of local government, while Jakarta agreed to grant ex-fighters amnesties and allow local political parties.
The landmark accord was signed in the wake of the December 2004 tsunami, which killed an estimated 168,000 Acehnese and forced both sides to take stock of their priorities.
GAM has since handed in its weapons for destruction and disbanded its armed wing while the government has completed the pullout of non-local troops and police.
Foreign monitors overseeing the peace pact have hailed the completion of the crucial early phase of the accord, saying that the peace process has now become irreversible.
Indonesian Vice President Yusuf Kalla, who is representing Jakarta in Helsinki, also said he was "very optimistic" over the progress being made."This the first time we are evaluating (the process) after five months. Both sides are very happy with the progress," he told reporters at a separate news conference on Saturday.
Kalla also said he did not see "any obstacles" to implementing heavily criticized draft law that grants wide-ranging autonomy to Aceh and lays the groundwork for local elections in the province.
According to the peace agreement, the law, which has been bashed by nationalists who fear similar calls for autonomy will spread through the Indonesian archipelago, must pass by the end of March.
Kalla has however said that local elections in Aceh will not likely be held before May or June, instead of April as expected, and on Saturday he pointed out that GAM would not be allowed to participate in the vote under its current name."GAM means independence," he said.
The hitch did not appear to trouble GAM's self-styled prime minister Malik Mahmud."The elections have been shipped to June, but it's ok because we need a lot of time to prepare," he told AFP, adding that he had no plans of participating in the elections himself.
Of Kalla, with whom he met Friday evening and again Saturday morning, he said "I think he's a remarkable man and both of us think we can work together."
The separatist conflict in Aceh claimed about 15,000 lives, most of them civilians, since GAM began its struggle for an independent state in 1976.
Aceh Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Rioting in Ivory Coast Denounced By U.N as 'Orchestrated Violence'
The Washington Post, 1/22/06
Rioting by pro-government youths in Ivory Coast this week was a troubling but familiar occurrence in a country that has descended from stability into a place where power is wielded by young men armed with metal bars, Molotov cocktails and the self-certainty of youth.
Six times in the past six years, supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo have encouraged young men to take to the streets, then ordered them home after a few days. And each time, the rioters have made clear that they were prepared to redeploy, if asked.
"Every time, the same people do the same things. It leads the country backwards," Horetense Bille, 40, a resident of Abidjan, the Ivorian commercial capital, said Saturday. "They are just wasting time."
The tactic has drawn increasingly sharp denunciations. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Tuesday called for an end to the "orchestrated violence," and the Security Council renewed threats to impose sanctions against the leaders of the rioting. The European Union also condemned the "orchestrated acts of violence."
"It was absolutely planned, organized, orchestrated street protests," said Gilles Yabi, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, speaking from his office in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, north of Ivory Coast in West Africa. "By showing their strength on the ground, they want to influence the whole political process."
The violence included an attack on a U.N. base in the western city of Guiglo that left four protesters dead. Rioters also besieged the U.N. headquarters in Abidjan, leaving burn marks on a concrete perimeter wall and holes large enough to climb through. U.N. forces beat back the rioters and fired tear gas."My fear was that the wall would break down," said Lt. Col. Manuel Gauthier, an engineer for the U.N. forces. He said troops covered the holes with wood and concrete.
Abidjan was calm Saturday. Business owners had rolled up the metal shutters that protected windows from looters, and a few burned tires were all that remained of hundreds of barricades set up by the protesters. Many people had returned to work Friday and traffic flowed normally.
Gbagbo, a former history professor who assumed power after disputed elections in 2000, has avoided taking an obvious role in rallying the protesters. Last week, as he sometimes has in the past, he publicly urged them to go home, but only after several days of mayhem.
Observers acknowledged that the periodic demonstrations over the past six years have often given Gbagbo a boost in a country of 17 million that has been split between a rebel-held north and a government-held south since a failed coup ignited a civil war in 2002.
"It does seem to be effective," said Corinne Dufka, an investigator for Human Rights Watch, speaking from Dakar about the protests. "They are frightening guys. . . . They are a militia."
The rioting erupted Monday after a U.N.-backed mediation group announced that the Ivorian parliament, whose mandate ended Dec. 16, should be dissolved. Leaders of Gbagbo's ruling party said in a radio broadcast Tuesday that the actions of the United Nations "cannot but raise the wrath of every patriot and every citizen worthy of this name," according to a translation provided by the BBC.
On Thursday, Gbagbo's allies declared victory after Olusegun Obasanjo, chairman of the African Union and president of neighboring Nigeria, was quoted in news reports as saying the U.N. group "has no power, ability nor intention to interfere in the internal affairs of the Ivory Coast."
Charles Ble Goude, head of the Young Patriots, the biggest and best-known group of pro-Gbagbo demonstrators, boasted of his group's effectiveness even as he urged members to cease demonstrating. Without them, Ble Goude said in an interview from Abidjan on Friday, the parliament would have been dissolved and Gbagbo weakened."That was a victory for the Young Patriots," Ble Goude said.
Ble Goude denied that the president has had any direct role in deploying the protesters, saying the demonstrations were "spontaneous." But he said his Young Patriots were ready to intervene again."If there is a problem," he said, "we will take the streets. Of course."
The protesters' targets have changed over the years. In 2000 and 2002, they focused on opposition leaders from Ivory Coast's mostly Muslim north.
Then in November 2004, they turned their fury on the French, the country's former colonial rulers. After an Ivorian jet bombed a French military position in the country, killing nine French soldiers and a U.S. agricultural researcher, French forces destroyed Ivory Coast's tiny air force. In the rioting that followed, the homes and businesses of thousands of French citizens were looted. Many of the French left the country in a hastily arranged airlift.
Last week, the protesters targeted the United Nations, which has 10,000 peacekeepers in Ivory Coast and has taken the lead in pushing for new elections and a transitional government in which Gbagbo has limited authority.
Richard Pecaut, 67, an engineer, said he supported the protests. "The people are protesting against a violation. It's like the U.N. going to Britain or France to dissolve the assembly there," he said. "I understand what is making people move, although it is unfortunate that something like this had to take place. A lot of people lost business; everyone is losing."
Lukewarm Start to S. Asian Peace Talks;
India and Pakistan make little headway on the Kashmir dispute. They agree on a second bus link and pledge additional discussions.
The Los Angeles Times, 1/19/06
India and Pakistan entered their third round of peace talks this week with little sign of significant progress toward resolving their dispute over Kashmir.
After two days of negotiations that kicked off the latest round of talks, the nuclear-armed neighbors on Wednesday were only able to repeat an old commitment to seek a peaceful settlement to the Kashmir conflict and announce the opening of a second bus link across the cease-fire line that divides the Himalayan territory. They also promised more talks on efforts to encourage travel and trade across the line and to reduce the chances of an accidental nuclear war.
There was no indication that a deal on Kashmir was near.
India and Pakistan agreed in January 2004 to begin structured peace talks to resolve the decades-long conflict over the region, and a range of other disputes.
The agreement to negotiate in a "composite dialogue" followed a crisis that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war in 2002, after an attack on India's Parliament killed 14 people. New Delhi blamed the assault on Pakistani militant groups and Pakistan's spy agency.
Pakistan outlawed the groups but denied involvement.
So far, the biggest peace dividends for Kashmiris have been bus service between the Indian- and Pakistani-held areas and an end to artillery battles between Indian and Pakistani forces across the cease-fire line.
Hopes that the October earthquake centered in the Pakistani-controlled portion of Kashmir would lead to freedom of movement across the border have been dashed. Five points were opened to ease quake survivors' suffering, but less than 1,000 people have crossed.
Before the current round of talks that began Tuesday, Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, who leads a moderate faction of a Kashmiri separatist alliance, complained that the peace process was moving too slowly."If the process continues as it is at present, then it may derail," he warned Friday, after a weeklong visit to Pakistan.
India says Pakistan is not fulfilling a promise to make sure territory under its control is not used by militants to launch cross-border assaults.
Indian authorities blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba for two recent attacks: In October, 62 people were killed in three bombings in New Delhi, and in December a militant armed with an assault rifle and grenades killed one person in the high-tech hub of Bangalore in southern India.
Pakistan banned Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2002, but the group took a new name, Jamaat ud-Dawa, and its members are running relief camps for quake survivors.
This week India's security forces in Kashmir killed a man identified as the Pakistani mastermind of the New Delhi bombings, a Lashkar-e-Taiba militant named Abu Huzaifa.
As the violence and negotiating drag on, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has made audacious public proposals to break the deadlock in the Kashmir dispute.
On Jan. 7, he suggested in a television interview that, in exchange for previous Pakistani offers, India should lay the groundwork for a deal by pulling its troops out of Kupwara, Baramullah, the Kashmir Valley and Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir state.
India's Foreign Ministry replied that troop deployments were an internal matter. The Indian military said militants were still operating bases in Pakistan despite denials from Islamabad.
But India's army chief of staff, Gen. J. J. Singh, also said his forces had "been able to scale down the level of infiltration and deal a deadly blow" to insurgents. One Indian soldier is lost for every eight insurgents killed in Kashmir, he said.
In October 2004, Musharraf stunned his nation with a radical proposal to demilitarize both sides of Kashmir and share the territory with India or put it under the control of the United Nations.
He appeared to drop Pakistan's long-standing demand that Kashmiris should decide in a vote supervised by the U.N. whether to become independent or join India or Pakistan. Opposition parties and militant leaders angrily accused him of selling out to India.
The Indian government has resisted Musharraf's pressure for a dramatic solution. New Delhi has focused instead on gradual steps to build confidence by opening up borders to more trade and travel.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the Kashmir Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law & Policy Group.
Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova dies without seeing aspiration of independence fulfilled
Associated Press, 1/21/06
Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova, the ethnic Albanian leader who came to epitomize the province's decades-long struggle for total independence from Serbia, died of lung cancer Saturday without seeing his dream fulfilled. He was 61.
"President Ibrahim Rugova died today at 1140 (1040GMT). He carried his battle with cancer with great dignity and courage until his last breath," said Rugova's spokesman Muhamet Hamiti. "He was surrounded by his family, personal physician and American physicians who were treating him."
The flag at Rugova's hillside residence in Pristina was lowered to half staff and tearful staff, bodyguards and neighbors gathered outside his home. Pristina' streets were empty, with people glued to their radios and television screens.
Often called the "Gandhi of the Balkans" in an allusion to the Indian leader's epic campaign for his nation's independence, Rugova's death leaves a vacuum in the fraction-ridden political scene at a crucial time.
The restive province is embarking on the delicate process of negotiating a solution that its ethnic Albanian majority hopes will result in full independence although its minority Serbs want Kosovo to remain part of Serbia-Montenegro, the union that replaced Yugoslavia.
Rugova, whose election in 2002 made him the province's first president, came to embody ethnic Albanians' struggle for independence from Serbia. He was officially diagnosed with lung cancer last September, and had been a chain-smoker until then.
The first formal U.N-mediated talks had been scheduled for Wednesday in Vienna, Austria, but the negotiations were postponed until February due to Rugova's death, said Hua Jiang, the spokeswoman for the U.N. team leading talks on Kosovo's future.
Martti Ahtisaari, the U.N. envoy leading the status talks, said: "I'm certain that President Rugova would have liked to see that we will proceed with the status negotiations."
France's President Jacques Chirac urged those involved in the talks to continue in Rugova's "spirit of realism, tolerance and dialogue."
"His departure, while talks are under way on the question of the final status, couldn't be more tragic," said Chirac, who expressed his condolences to Rugova's family and Kosovo's public.
Soren Jessen-Petersen, Kosovo's U.N. official, appealed for unity.
Serbia's government official responsible for relations with Kosovo, Sanda Ivic-Raskovic, said she was worried about Rugova's successor."I am deeply aware that Mr. Rugova was the creator of the idea of independent Kosovo, but he was not a part of this armed democracy that we are seeing today in Kosovo," she said. "I am worried if someone from that echelon takes his place, somebody who would incite unrest and violence to achieve independence."
The head of Kosovo's assembly, who is likely to serve as the acting president, pledged the province will "not lose its drive and its calm" as he greeted mourners at Rugova's residence."Kosovo is in deep mourning," said Nexhat Daci, sitting in a chair next to the one usually reserved for Rugova.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians were shocked at the news of Rugova's death."He put us on a right path and taught us to be patient. With his wisdom we have gained this freedom," said retired Pristina resident Jonuz Gashi, his voice shaking.
Adelina 34, an economist who would not give her surname, was shocked at the news of Rugova's death."It is a great loss. There is insecurity to come. With him there was stability, because people trusted him," she said.
Rugova had been at the forefront of ethnic Albanian demand for independence since the early 1990s, when he started leading a nonviolent movement against the policies of Slobodan Milosevic, then president of Yugoslavia.
No other Kosovo politician has been held in as much regard. He won international respect through his peaceful opposition to Serb dominance, in contrast to other Kosovo Albanians now in positions of leadership, who were part of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army that fought Serb troops.
His death will also leave the province's political scene grappling with possible succession battles.
The party that he created, the Democratic League of Kosovo, is fraught with divisions and simmering tension which could be exacerbated by his death. The party is currently in coalition with the much smaller Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, led by former rebel commander Ramush Haradinaj, who has been indicted for war crimes by a U.N. court in The Hague, Netherlands.
No funeral arrangements had immediately been made, Rugova's spokesman said.
Rugova's death complicates Kosovo status talks but not outcome: analysts
Agence France Presse, 1/23/06
The death of Kosovo's president Ibrahim Rugova further complicates crucial talks on the final status of the mainly ethnic Albanian Serb province, but will not alter the expected outcome of independence, analysts say.
"There will be no dramatic impact on the talks, in as much that there was virtual consensus among Kosovo's main parties about the desirability of independence," Charles Kupchan, a professor of 21st-century geopolitics at Georgetown University in Washington, told AFP.
"But there will be new fights for political dominance that were held in abeyance by Rugova's authority, and so the international community will now have to deal with an actor that is in the midst of transition and that's not good news," added Kupchan, who is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Rugova, who died of lung cancer on Saturday, was to lead the Kosovo Albanian delegation to the UN-led talks that had been slated to start on Wednesday in Vienna. The talks, chaired by Finnish UN mediator Martti Ahtisaari, now have been adjourned until next month.
Although an advocate of independence, Rugova was seen by the West as a moderate leader who did not preach violence, in contrast to more hardline and radical Kosovo Albanian leaders now jockeying for position.
"Rugova's death makes an already difficult situation more difficult because one of the key concerns for the international community in going to the talks is trying to get the Kosovo Albanians singing from the same song sheet," John Norris, head of the Washington office of the International Crisis Group, which monitors conflicts around the globe, told AFP.
"His death doesn't rob the talks of their certain inevitability but it adds another layer of difficulty and anguish," he said.
The United States, which has appointed its own envoy to the talks, has made no secret that its ultimate ambition for the province, whose two million population is 90 percent Albanian, is independence from Serbia.
Such an outcome, however, would be conditioned on the Kosovo Albanians showing proof of good governance, protecting the rights of the Serb minority and decentralization.
Analysts say that Rugova's death poses a dilemma for the international community as it tries to steer the province -- which has been administered by the United Nations since a 1999 NATO bombing campaign halted a Serbian crackdown on ethnic Albanians -- toward full independence and eventual membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union.
"Progress on those important fronts -- decentralization, functioning institutions, protection of Serbs -- becomes more difficult with an Albanian leadership that is plunged in turmoil," Kupchan said.
"Most analysts believe that independence is the likely outcome of the talks, but it's a conditional independence," he said, adding, "and now it may take them (the Albanians) longer to get there."
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
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Nepal Negotiation Simulation
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Chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor says Mladic hiding in Serbia
Associated Press, 1/19/06
Chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said Thursday that top war crimes suspect Gen. Ratko Mladic is hiding in Serbia under the protection of the Serbian army.
She rejected reports from Belgrade on Wednesday that Mladic had fled to Russia to evade attempts to capture him and transfer him to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.
"Mladic is in Serbia and, as you know, Mladic is protected by power of the army," Del Ponte told reporters. "What I need is an ... obligation from Belgrade to arrest him and deliver him to The Hague."
Del Ponte said her assertion was based on information she had received, but she did not elaborate or offer other details.
She also said she wanted to start the trial of Mladic in July along with the other eight suspects charged with genocide during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.
Both Mladic and the other top war crimes suspect, Radovan Karadic, another former Bosnian Serb leader, have been sought for more than a decade by the U.N. court, indicted for the 1995 massacre of about 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica Europe's worst carnage since World War II and for other war crimes during the war.
Del Ponte's remarks came after she met with the European Union's commissioner in charge of expansion, Olli Rehn, and other officials to ask for the EU's help in getting Belgrade's full cooperation with the tribunal.
Rehn warned that the Belgrade's path to closer relations with the EU and possible membership in the bloc could be frozen if it does not take action.
In particular, he said the EU could halt talks with Serbia on a so-called stability and association agreement, which would give Serbia much needed financial aid to boost economic and political reforms to ready it for possible EU membership.
"Suspension of negotiations is certainly one alternative and I expect that the Serbian government will take this message very seriously," Rehn said. "Serbia has to chose now between its nationalist past and a European future."
Del Ponte also held talks with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and NATO's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to push for the two organizations to put more pressure on Serbia to hand over the fugitives.
In Belgrade, Serbia-Montenegro Defense Minister Zoran Stankovic said his government's search for Mladic was ongoing, adding he recently met with the fugitive's wife and son.
"The operation to catch Mladic is under way and I cannot comment on it," Stankovic told reporters. "All available army personnel are engaged in this."
Stankovic offered no details on his meeting with Mladic's wife and son at the Defense Ministry building in Belgrade shortly before the New Year.
Stankovic announced an intensified search for Mladic last month and accepted the military was partly to blame for the failure to arrest him.
EU envoy in Montenegro for talks on independence referendum
Associated Press, 1/23/06
A European Union envoy was due on Monday to begin mediation between Montenegro's rival camps on key rules for an independence referendum.
Miroslav Lajcak, the Slovak diplomat sent by Brussels to mediate in the internal Montenegrin dispute, was to meet with the separatist authorities and the anti-independence opposition leaders.
Montenegro is deeply divided over whether the tiny Adriatic republic should become an independent state or remain in a union with much-larger Serbia.
Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic's government is planning to hold the independence referendum in April.
Under discussion are the rules under which the plebiscite should be held. The opposition says that more than 50 percent of all eligible voters need to vote in favor of independence before the union with Serbia is abandoned.
Djukanovic and his allies say that a majority of votes would be enough, even if that only represents 25 percent to 40 percent of registered voters.
There are 440,000 registered voters in the Adriatic republic of 650,000 people. Recent polls showed around 41 percent in favor of independence, 32 percent opposed and the rest undecided.
Montenegro's parliament is to convene Feb. 7 to set an official date for the referendum. A failure to agree on terms for holding the plebiscite could lead to a boycott by those opposed to independence.
Montenegro was the only republic that stayed together with Serbia after the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991. But their relations have deteriorated over the years, and the EU brokered a deal in 2003 that created Serbia-Montenegro as a union of two nearly independent states sharing only a small central administration.
Deadly blast greets new US-Norway push for peace in Sri Lanka
Agence France Presse, 1/23/06
A landmine killed three Sri Lankan soldiers Monday as a top US official began a new push for peace with a call for an end to "terrorist" violence by Tamil rebels.
US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns branded the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) a "reprehensible terrorist group keeping this country on the edge of war. We do believe the Tamil population has legitimate grievances," Burns said after talks with government leaders in Colombo.
And he underlined the "need for the government to make sure that there is no official support for the paramilitary groups" which attack the LTTE and its supporters.
But he added: "Full responsibility here lies on the LTTE ... the organisation has to choose peace instead of the reprehensible policies of the last 10-20 years. The major part of the burden for peace rests on the organisation," Burns insisted. In contrast, he called the government "democratic" and "responsible", enjoying strong US support. Burns said the LTTE carried out Monday's attack in the east coast district of Batticaloa, where four people had died and 23 were wounded last Thursday.
The latest blast, which also wounded four soldiers sweeping a highway for mines, raised to 149 the number of people killed in an upsurge of violence since December.
Burns also met Monday with Norway's top peace envoy Erik Solheim, who arrived in a fresh bid to jump-start an ailing peace process amid fears that the bloodshed could reignite full-scale war.
Solheim, Oslo's international development minister, was to travel to LTTE-held territory Wednesday for talks with Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran.
The talks in the rebel-held northern town of Kilinochchi would focus on the "current situation and ground realities", said the LTTE's chief negotiator Anton Balasingham.
After months of arguing over a venue for peace talks, a government official said it was hoped a deal would be struck for a face-to-face meeting soon with the LTTE in either Oslo or Geneva after a near three-year break.
"Solheim will be told that we are ready to compromise on the venue issue in the interest of getting talks started," said the official, asking not to be named.
The venue did not matter, Solheim told reporters.
"It could be in Kilinochchi, Vavuniya, Colombo, Bangkok, EU, Norway, South Africa and even if they want to meet on the Moon we are ready," he said.
"The important thing is what is to be discussed, but not the venue."
Solheim added his voice to Burns in calling for an end to the bloodshed.
"Everyone is worried about the present deterioration in the security situation in Sri Lanka. The key is to stop and reduce the killings," he said.
LTTE commander in chief Prabakharan warned President Mahinda Rajapakse last November to grant the minority Tamils autonomy or face war in 2006.
Violence has soared since Rajapakse won elections that same month, pledging to rein in the LTTE and review Norway's much-criticised role as peace-broker.
But on the ground the LTTE has forced troops onto the defensive and Rajapakse has had to look to Norway for help in launching negotiations.
US ambassador to Sri Lanka Jeffrey Lunstead issued a veiled warning to the LTTE in an article published in Monday's Wall Street Journal Asia which presumed the rebels were behind most of the bloodshed.
"There can be a role for the LTTE in the future development of Sri Lanka, but only if it returns to the peace table, renounces terrorism in word and deed, and becomes a responsible participant in Sri Lanka's future," Lunstead wrote.
"If the LTTE chooses to abandon peace, the cost of a return to war will be high. Through our modest military training and assistance programs, we are helping to build a stronger, more capable and more determined Sri Lankan military."
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation
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AU's Dafur mediators not informed of alliance between rebels
Agence France Presse, 1/21/06
African Union (AU) mediators in the Darfur crisis in Sudan said Saturday they had not been officially informed of a merger of the two main rebel groups.
The two movements in Sudan's Darfur region, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), announced on Friday they were creating a single alliance.
"The AU is yet to get any official document that the SLM and JEM have merged to form an alliance," AU spokesman at the Sudanese peace talks in Abuja, Noureddine Mezni, told AFP by telephone.
"The two movements have agreed to join and coordinate all political, military and social forces, their international relations and to double their combat capacity in a collective body under the name, the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan," the SLM and JEM had said Friday in a press statement."This union will strengthen the solidarity, cohesion and unity of the people of Sudan in general and that of the west in particular," the document said.
Meanwhile, the commission on power-sharing, one of the three negotiating frameworks for the current seventh round of talks, continued its deliberations Saturday in Abuja, Mezni said.
The commission resumed formal discussions on Thursday after the Eid-El Kabir recess and following separate briefing sessions and consultations by the AU mediation team with all the Sudanese parties, representatives of the co-mediators, facilitators and international partners, he said.
While acknowledging slow pace of work in the talks generally, AU officials said that some progress had been made since the resumption of the current round late last year."We have made progress in some areas. For example, there is a preliminary accord by parties for a Darfur region, while positive progress is also being made on the controversial issue of Sudan's presidency," one of them said.
The AU mediation team urged parties to the talks Friday in a statement to make the current round "decisive".
Fighting in Darfur began in February 2003 between black rebel groups and the Khartoum government, supported by Arab Janjaweed militias. It is estimated to have cost some 300,000 lives and displaced more than two million refugees.
UN presses for Darfur peace deal soon
Agence France Presse, 1/22/06
The UN envoy for Sudan on Sunday urged Darfur rebels and Khartoum officials taking part in AU-sponsored peace talks to strike a deal by the end of February.
"I think the parties would be wise, together with the African Union, to set a new deadline that is very strong," Jan Pronk told a news conference in Khartoum."Why not the end of February?" he added. "I think the government will be interested in getting a peace agreement soon."
The African Union has been brokering peace talks between two rebel movements in Darfur and the Sudanese government, seeking to put an end to the war that has claimed 300,000 lives in the western region since 2003.
A seventh round of talks opened in Abuja in November with AU mediators calling on the parties to make those negotiations "decisive."
The two rebel movements in Darfur -- the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) -- announced on Friday in Ndjamena that they were merging to create a single alliance, a decision seen as bolstering prospects for peace.
While the AU is engaged in a diplomatic effort to bring pace, it has also deployed a 7,000-strong force to Darfur whose mission has been plagued with financial problems.
The UN envoy called on donors to come up with funds to ensure "a continuation of the AU mission in 2006" in Darfur, where fighting has displaced two million people.
Fighting in Darfur began in February 2003 between black rebel groups and the Khartoum government, supported by Arab Janjaweed militias.
"As far as the security on the ground is concerned, there is chaos, in particular in west Darfur where there are many parties fighting," Pronk said."There are still attacks by militias on civilians," he said.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis
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