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21. Uribe's Re-Election: Can the EU Help Colombia Develop a More Balanced Peace Strategy?

Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
On 28 May 2006, President Alvaro Uribe won a second four-year term in a landslide. The first re-election of a sitting Colombian president in more than a century, combined with 12 March congressional elections which produced a pro-Uribe majority and saw the demise of the traditional Liberal-Conservative party system, heralds a profound change in the political landscape. While the outcomes could hardly have been better for Uribe, he now needs to get tough on impunity and diversify an anti-insurgency policy that has been almost exclusively military if he is to move Colombia towards the end of its 40-year armed conflict. The international community, and specifically the European Union (EU), can help by urging a new balance between the president's favoured security policies and the social and economic measures that are needed to get at root causes.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Democratization
Political Geography:
Europe, Colombia, and Central America

22. Southern Serbia: In Kosovo's Shadow

Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Southern Serbia's Albanian-majority Presevo Valley is a still incomplete Balkan success story. Since international and Serbian government diplomacy resolved an ethnic Albanian insurgency in 2001, donors and Belgrade have invested significant resources to undo a legacy of human rights violations and improve the economy. Tensions are much decreased, major human rights violations have ended, the army and police are more sensitive to Albanian concerns and there is progress, though hesitant, in other areas, such as a multi-ethnic police force, gradual integration of the judiciary, and Albanian language textbooks. Ethnic Albanians appear increasingly intent on developing their own political identity inside Serbia and finding a way to cohabit with Serbs, something that should be encouraged and supported. Nevertheless, the Kosovo status process threatens to disrupt the Presevo Valley's calm.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Diplomacy
Political Geography:
Europe, Kosovo, Balkans, Albania, and Southern Serbia

23. Montenegro's Referendum

Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Although there are some shoals still to be navigated, the narrow pro-independence victory in Montenegro's 21 May 2006 referendum should, on balance, increase rather than diminish stability in the western Balkans. It is in the interest of the European Union (EU), now that its previous policy of keeping Serbia and Montenegro together has run its course, to welcome the new state and speed its accession to international institutions. Podgorica still faces significant challenges associated with transition, but none should affect regional stability, and all can be resolved as the country moves forward with the Stabilisation and Association process towards EU membership. Given the positive international response to the referendum, Montenegro can aspire to becoming a “boring” country moving toward integration with Europe. But its opposition, and Belgrade, need to be persuaded not to renege on their commitments to the EU to accept the referendum result, lest this generate new uncertainties in the region as a Kosovo status decision approaches.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Europe, Caucasus, Kosovo, Serbia, and Balkans

24. A Congo Action Plan

Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
More than two years into the transition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the peace process remains at risk. As many as 1,000 people a day still die from war-related causes -- mainly disease and malnutrition, but also continuing violence. While the main belligerent leaders are all in the transitional government, their corruption and mismanagement threaten stability during and after the forthcoming national elections, now postponed from June 2005 to March 2006. The international community needs to maintain pressure on a wide front, making specific security sector reform, transitional justice and good governance measures prerequisites for the elections, not allowing them to be postponed until there is a new government.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Europe and Democratic Republic of the Congo

25. Ethiopia and Eritrea: War or Peace?

Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The next few weeks will go far to determining whether Ethiopia and Eritrea resume a path toward war - which took some 100,000 lives between 1998 and 2000 - or solidify their peace agreement. Ethiopia must decide whether to allow demarcation of the border to begin in October 2003 even though the international Boundary Commission set up under the Algiers agreement that ended the fighting has ruled that the town of Badme - the original flashpoint of the war - is on the Eritrean side. The outcome will have profound implications for both countries and the entire Horn of Africa, as well as for international law and the sanctity of binding peace agreements and arbitration processes. The international community, particularly the U.S., the African Union (AU), and the European Union (EU), all of which played major roles in brokering the Algiers agreement, need to engage urgently to help Ethiopia move the demarcation forward and to assist both parties to devise a package of measures that can reduce the humanitarian costs of border adjustments and otherwise make implementation of the demarcation more politically palatable.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Cooperation, Treaties and Agreements, United Nations, and War
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, North Africa, and Ethiopia

26. Macedonia: War on Hold

Publication Date:
08-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Macedonian and Albanian political leaders signed a political agreement – hailed by its Western midwives as a peace agreement – on 13 August 2001. NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson and the European Union's High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, flew to Skopje to attend the signing ceremony. But the strange context of the signing showed just how implausible it is that, without further extraordinary efforts, the agreement will actually provide a workable way to keep multiethnic Macedonia out of civil war. Details of the agreement had been hammered out by 8 August in Ohrid, a resort town chosen for the negotiations because it was some distance away from the latest fighting. Signature was delayed five days, however, while Macedonian government troops and ethnic Albanian rebels engaged in the deadliest series yet of tit-for-tat retaliations. Terms of the agreement were withheld from the public lest they provoke violent responses from hardliners on both sides. The ceremony, when it finally occurred, was carried out almost furtively, in a small room of the President's residence, without live television.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Politics, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, Macedonia, and Albania

27. A View from Tirana: The Albanian Dimension of Kosovo Crisis

Publication Date:
07-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Relations between Albanians from Albania proper and their ethnic kin over the border in Kosovo are complex. Despite obvious linguistic and cultural ties, the political division of the past 80 years and Albania's isolation during the communist period have caused the two communities to evolve in a very different fashion. Moreover, the arrival of Kosovo Albanians in Albania in recent years and their influence in some unsavoury spheres of the economy have caused resentment among Albanians from Albania proper, most of whom are too preoccupied with the daily struggle for existence to devote much time or thought to national questions. The upsurge in violence in Kosovo and the influx of several thousand Kosovo Albanian refugees have, nevertheless, reminded Albanians of the links between the communities and sympathy for their ethnic kin in Kosovo is especially strong in the border areas among the Ghegs, the northern Albanians.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Arms Control and Proliferation, Ethnic Conflict, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, Kosovo, Albania, and Tirana