Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

24 August 2004

AFGHANISTAN

• Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf promises visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai that Pakistan would not allow Islamic militants to use Pakistani soil to disrupt Afghanistan's October elections. (Reuters 240207 GMT Aug 04)
  
• A UN human rights expert called for the immediate release of an estimated 725 Taliban fighters taken prisoner in Afghanistan in 2001 and access to hundreds of detainees being held by U.S. forces. The former Taliban combatants including an estimated 350 Pakistanis are being held in "inhuman" conditions and Afghan government officials agree there is no legal basis to continue their imprisonment, Cherif Bassiouni told a news conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to a transcript released here on Monday. "They were not released and they are not detained under Afghan law as no charges against them were ever made. So there's no legal basis to detain them," he said. (AP 232122 Aug 04)
  

BALKANS

• The head of Europe's foremost human rights watchdog and Kosovo's top UN administrator signed two agreements Monday, calling for the protection of minorities and prevention of torture in the ethnically tense province. Council of Europe Secretary-General Walter Schwimmer and UN administrator Soren Jessen-Petersen signed the documents, which apply the council's human rights treaties in Kosovo. The agreement on the prevention of torture will allow an independent committee of experts to examine the treatment of prisoners by the UN mission in Kosovo. "The signing of the two agreements is of highly symbolic value," Schwimmer said. "It confirms that the people of Kosovo must enjoy the same rights and protections as all European citizens." (AP 230943 Aug 04)
  
• A nationalist ally of Slobodan Milosevic on Monday blasted as "traitors" Serbian officials who favor dropping a lawsuit against NATO over the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the anti-Western Serbian Radical Party, also urged Serbian lawmakers to support his party's proposal to bar government officials from withdrawing the lawsuit before the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands. Parliament was scheduled to debate the proposal at a session on Tuesday. "Tomorrow will be a great day for Serbia," Nikolic said, adding that the debate would reveal "who are the traitors and NATO mercenaries ... who want to turn Serbia into a slave." Nikolic's Radicals submitted the resolution last month after some Belgrade officials indicated that the lawsuit might be dropped to improve relations with NATO and the European Union. Tuesday's session was not expected to be the end of the debate. "I want to know whether we are going to give up the lawsuit or not. I want to know who is in charge," Nikolic said. (AP 231211 Aug 04)
  

OTHER NEWS

• British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw urged Sudan on Monday to comply with UN demands to end the conflict in Darfur. Sudan has until the end of August to prove to the UN Security Council it is doing more to protect more than a million people who have fled fighting in Darfur and has taken steps to disarm the Janjaweed. Otherwise it could face sanctions. "I will ... impress on them the need to make full progress in implementing the obligations they have accepted under the UN Security Council resolution," Straw said. Rights group Amnesty International urged Straw to be blunt. "Mr. Straw's message should be that rape, torture and murder absolutely must be stopped and that perpetrators need to be brought to justice," Amnesty's UK director Kate Allen said. (Reuters 232226 GMT Aug04)