nomad9

being involved in a conference for peaceful conflict resolution in ethiopia and the horn of africa, i had to do some research about the respective country. again, useful information can not only be found in books or whatsoever, but also accessing a variety of news websites around the globe.
here is my info-update about ethiopia:



Ethiopia is Africa's oldest independent country and, apart from a five-year occupation by Mussolini's Italy, has never been colonised.

But it is better known for its periodic droughts and famines, its long civil conflict and a border war with Eritrea.


In the first part of the 20th century Ethiopia forged strong links with Britain, whose troops helped evict the Italians in 1941 and put Emperor Haile Selassie back on his throne. From the 1960s British influence gave way to that of the US, which in turn was supplanted by the Soviet Union.

Although largely free from the coups that have plagued other African countries, Ethiopia's turmoil has been no less devastating. Drought, famine, war and ill-conceived policies brought millions to the brink of starvation in the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1974 this helped topple Haile Selassie. His regime was replaced by a self-proclaimed Marxist junta under which thousands of opponents were purged or killed, property was confiscated and defence spending spiralled.

The overthrow of the junta in 1991 saw political and economic conditions stabilise, but not enough to restore investors' confidence. This was dealt a further blow with the war with Eritrea in the late 1990s, which left tens of thousands of people dead.


A fragile truce has held, but the UN warns that ongoing disputes over the demarcation of the border threaten peace.

Ethiopia is one of Africa's poorest states. Its people are almost two-thirds illiterate. The economy revolves around agriculture, which in turn relies on rainfall.

Many Ethiopians depend on food aid from abroad. In 2004 the government began a drive to move more than two million people away from the arid highlands of the east in an attempt to provide a lasting solution to food shortages.



Population: 74.2 million (UN, 2005)
Capital: Addis Ababa
Area: 1.13 million sq km (437,794 sq miles)
Major languages: Amharic, Oromo, Tigrinya, Somali
Major religions: Christianity, Islam
Life expectancy: 46 years (men), 49 years (women) (UN)
Monetary unit: 1 Birr = 100 cents
Main exports: Coffee, hides, oilseeds, beeswax, sugarcane
GNI per capita: US $110 (World Bank, 2005)
Internet domain: .et
International dialling code: +251

Head of state: President Woldegiorgis Girma

Prime minister: Meles Zenawi


Meles Zenawi's Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) won bitterly contested elections in May 2005, despite a swing to the opposition. The win paved the way for his third five-year stint as prime minister.


But the opposition cried foul and their supporters took to the streets. Around 36 people were killed and hundreds were arrested in the protests; 46 protesters died in further violence in November. Mr Meles accused the opposition of planning to topple his government.
Meles Zenawi began a second five-year term in 2000 after Ethiopia's first multi-party elections.

He is a veteran of the guerrilla campaign against the Mengistu regime and was chosen as transitional head of state after the dictator was overthrown in 1991. Once a Marxist-Leninist, by the 1990s he had become a champion of the free market and parliamentary democracy.

He was one of the architects of the 1994 constitution, which provided for a federal republic with ethnically-based regions. In 1995 he became prime minister.



Foreign minister: Mesfin Seyoum
Finance minister: Ahmad Sufyan

Although the state controls most of Ethiopia's radio and television stations, the print and broadcast media have seen dramatic changes since Mengistu's demise.

Deregulation has been on the cards for some years; in 2006 licences were awarded to two private FM stations in the capital.

Some opposition groups beam radio broadcasts to Ethiopia using hired shortwave transmitters overseas.

The number of privately-owned newspapers has grown; some are available online. The Walta website also hosts a few pro-government English-language newspapers.

The private press offers quite different reporting to the state-owned newspapers and is often critical of the government.

The relationship between the press and the authorities has sometimes been difficult. Media rights group Reporters Without Borders cited a "spiral of repression" against the private media in the wake of the violent protests that followed the 2005 elections.

The press

Addis Zemen - state-owned daily
Ethiopian Herald - state-owned English-language daily
Menelik - private, weekly
Addis Admas - private, weekly
Seifenebelbal - private,weekly
Tobya - private, weekly
Wonchif - private, weekly
Tomar - private, weekly
The Reporter - private, English-language web pages
The Sun - private, English-language weekly
Capital - English-language, business weekly
Television

Ethiopian Television (ETV) - state-owned
Radio

Radio Ethiopia - state-owned, operates National Service and External Service
Voice of Tigray Revolution - Tigray Regional State government radio
Radio Fana - founded in 1994 by ruling party
News agencies

Walta Information Centre (WIC) - privately-owned, pro-government
Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) - state-owned

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interesting enough for the study of a country, is a look at its history and culture, not the only factors to take in account, but important aspects to understand the ethics and the traditions of a culture, such as the very diverse ethiopian culture:

2nd century AD - Semitic people from the Arabian peninsula establish the kingdom of Axum.

4th century - Coptic Christianity introduced from Egypt.


Obelisks in Axum, once the seat of an ancient kingdom
1530-31 - Muslim leader Ahmad Gran conquers much of Ethiopia.

1818-68 - Lij Kasa conquers Amhara, Gojjam, Tigray and Shoa.

1855 - Kasa becomes Emperor Tewodros II.

1868 - Tewodros defeated by a British expeditionary force and commits suicide to avoid capture.

1872 - Tigrayan chieftain becomes Yohannes IV.

1889 - Yohannes IV killed while fighting Mahdist forces and is succeeded by the king of Shoa, who becomes Emperor Menelik II.

1889 - Menelik signs a bilateral friendship treaty with Italy at Wuchale which Italy interprets as giving it a protectorate over Ethiopia.

1889 - Addis Ababa becomes Ethiopia's capital.

Italy invades

1895 - Italy invades Ethiopia.

1896 - Italian forces defeated by the Ethiopians at Adwa; treaty of Wuchale annulled; Italy recognises Ethiopia's independence but retains control over Eritrea.


HAILE SELASSIE
Emperor of Ethiopia and god to the Rastafarian movement
Born in 1892
Became king in 1928, emperor in 1930
Died in 1975

2000: Andrew Harding reports on funeral
1913 - Menelik dies and is succeeded by his grandson, Lij Iyasu.
1916 - Lij Iyasu deposed and is succeeded by Menelik's daughter, Zawditu, who rules through a regent, Ras Tafari Makonnen.

1930 - Zawditu dies and is succeeded by Ras Tafari Makonnen, who becomes Emperor Haile Selassie I.

1935 - Italy invades Ethiopia.

1936 - Italians capture Addis Ababa, Haile Selassie flees, king of Italy made emperor of Ethiopia; Ethiopia combined with Eritrea and Italian Somaliland to become Italian East Africa.

Haile Selassie's reign

1941 - British and Commonwealth troops, greatly aided by the Ethiopian resistance - the arbegnoch - defeat the Italians, and restore Haile Selassie to his throne.

1952 - United Nations federates Eritrea with Ethiopia.

1962 - Haile Selassie annexes Eritrea, which becomes an Ethiopian province.

1963 - First conference of the Organisation of African Unity held in Addis Ababa.

"Red Terror"

1973-74 - An estimated 200,000 people die in Wallo province as a result of famine.

1974 - Haile Selassie overthrown in military coup. General Teferi Benti becomes head of state.


MENGISTU HAILE MARIAM
Thousands were killed under Marxist dictator's "Red Terror"
Born in 1937
Head of state 1974-91
Exiled in Zimbabwe

1975 - Haile Selassie dies in mysterious circumstances while in custody.
1977 - Benti killed and replaced by Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam.

1977-79 - Thousands of government opponents die in "Red Terror" orchestrated by Mengistu; collectivisation of agriculture begins; Tigrayan People's Liberation Front launches war for regional autonomy.

1977 - Somalia invades Ethiopia's Ogaden region.

1978 - Somali forces defeated with massive help from the Soviet Union and Cuba.

1985 - Worst famine in a decade strikes; Western food aid sent; thousands forcibly resettled from Eritrea and Tigre.

1987 - Mengistu elected president under a new constitution.

1988 - Ethiopia and Somalia sign a peace treaty.

Ethiopia after Mengistu

1991 - Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front captures Addis Ababa, forcing Mengistu to flee the country; Eritrea establishes its own provisional government pending a referendum on independence.


Mengistu fled after failing to stop rebel advance in 1991
1992 - Haile Selassie's remains discovered under a palace toilet.
1993 - Eritrea becomes independent following referendum.

1994 - New constitution divides Ethiopia into ethnically-based regions.

1995 - Negasso Gidada becomes titular president; Meles Zenawi assumes post of prime minister.

1998 - Ethiopian-Eritrean border dispute erupts into armed clashes.

War with Eritrea

1999 - Ethiopian- Eritrean border clashes turn into a full-scale war.

2000 June - Ethiopia and Eritrea sign a ceasefire agreement which provides for a UN observer force to monitor the truce and supervise the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Eritrean territory.

2000 November - Haile Selassie buried in Addis Ababa's Trinity Cathedral.

2000 December - Ethiopia and Eritrea sign a peace agreement in Algeria, ending two years of conflict. The agreement establishes commissions to delineate the disputed border and provides for the exchange of prisoners and the return of displaced people.


WAR WITH ERITREA
Tens of thousands perished in a conflict over disputed borders
2000: BBC's Terry Stiastny on peace deal
2001 24 February - Ethiopia says it has completed its troop withdrawal from Eritrea in accordance with UN-sponsored agreement.
2002 April - Ethiopia, Eritrea accept a new common border, drawn up by an independent commission, though both sides then lay claim to the town of Badme.

2003 April - Independent boundary commission rules that the disputed town of Badme lies in Eritrea. Ethiopia says the ruling is unacceptable.

2004 January-February - Nearly 200 killed in ethnic clashes in isolated western region of Gambella. Tens of thousands flee area.

2004 March - Start of resettlement programme to move more than two million people away from parched, over-worked highlands.

2004 November - Ethiopia says it accepts "in priniciple" a boundary commission's ruling on its border with Eritrea. But a protracted stalemate over the disputed town of Badme continues.

2005 March - US-based Human Rights Watch accuses army of "widespread murder, rape and torture" against Gambella region's ethnic Anuak people. Military angrily rejects charge.

2005 April - First section of Axum obelisk, looted by Italy in 1937, is returned to Ethiopia from Rome.

Disputed poll

2005 May - Third multi-party elections: Protests over alleged fraud precipitate violent protests in which around 40 people are shot dead.

2005 August-September - Electoral fraud complaints lead to re-runs in more than 30 seats. Election authorities say final results give the ruling party enough seats in parliament to form a government.

2005 November - 46 protesters die during renewed clashes between security forces and opposition supporters over May's elections. Thousands of people, including opposition politicians and newspaper editors, are detained.

Amid reports of troop build-ups along the disputed Ethiopia-Eritrea border, the UN Security Council threatens both countries with sanctions unless they return to the 2000 peace plan.

2005 December - International commission, based in The Hague, rules that Eritrea broke international law when it attacked Ethiopia in 1998. It says the attack could not be justified as self defence.

More than 80 people, including journalists and many opposition leaders, appear in court on charges of treason and genocide relating to November's deadly street clashes.

edited by Jose Pascal da Rocha, www.proconsensus.org


p.s.: more is to come on ethiopia, as the conference preparations move ahead to realization.

liberia is one of the african countries i am starting to take a closer look at. so please find an edited information from different websites about liberia:



Liberia is Africa's oldest republic, but it became better known in the 1990s for its long-running, ruinous civil war and its role in a rebellion in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
Although founded by freed American and Caribbean slaves, Liberia is mostly made up of indigenous Africans, with the slaves' descendants comprising 5% of the population.

The West African nation was relatively calm until 1980 when William Tolbert was overthrown by Sergeant Samuel Doe after food price riots.

The coup marked the end of dominance by the minority Americo-Liberians, who had ruled since independence, but heralded a period of instability.

By the late 1980s, arbitrary rule and economic collapse culminated in civil war when Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) militia overran much of the countryside, entering the capital in 1990. Mr Doe was executed.

Fighting intensified as the rebels splintered and battled each other, the Liberian army and West African peacekeepers. In 1995 a peace agreement was signed, leading to the election of Mr Taylor as president.
The respite was brief, with anti-government fighting breaking out in the north in 1999. Mr Taylor accused Guinea of supporting the rebellion. Meanwhile Ghana, Nigeria and others accused Mr Taylor of backing rebels in Sierra Leone.

Matters came to a head in 2003 when Mr Taylor - under international pressure to quit and hemmed in by rebels - stepped down and went into exile in Nigeria. A transitional government steered the country towards elections in 2005.

Around 250,000 people were killed in Liberia's civil war and many thousands more fled the fighting. The conflict left the country in economic ruin and overrun with weapons. The capital remains without mains electricity and running water. Corruption is rife and unemployment and illiteracy are endemic.

The UN maintains some 15,000 soldiers in Liberia. It is one of the organisation's most expensive peacekeeping operations.

Population: 3.6 million (UN, 2005)
Capital: Monrovia
Area: 99,067 sq km (38,250 sq miles)
Languages: English, 29 African languages belonging to the Mande, Kwa or Mel linguistic groups
Major religions: Christianity, Islam, indigenous beliefs
Life expectancy: 41 years (men), 43 years (women) (UN)
Monetary unit: 1 Liberian dollar (L$) = 100 cents
Main exports: Diamonds, iron ore, rubber, timber, coffee, cocoa
GNI per capita: US $110 (World Bank, 2005)
Internet domain: .lr
International dialling code: +231

President: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

US-educated economist and former finance minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf won the second round of presidential elections in November 2005 and in January 2006 she was inaugurated as Africa's first elected woman head of state. The poll was intended to draw a line under Liberia's war.


Her rival, the footballer and political novice George Weah, alleged fraud. International observers said the vote had been broadly free and fair.
Known in Liberia as the "Iron Lady", Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf drew much of her support from women voters, and from Liberia's small educated elite. She faces the twin challenges of trying to rebuild the country and of fostering reconciliation. One of her priorities is to reintegrate into society former child soldiers. She has declared a "zero tolerance" of corruption.

The president served as finance minister under President William Tolbert in the late 1970s and fled the country after the Tolbert government was overthrown. She has worked for the UN and the World Bank.

Some of the opposition to Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf stems from her one-time association with former Liberian leader Charles Taylor. She briefly supported the then warlord in his quest to overthrow military leader Samuel Doe.

Born in 1938, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is a widowed mother-of-four.


Vice president: Joseph Nyuma Boakai
Foreign minister: George Wallace
Finance minister: Antoinette Sayeh

Years of civil war left Liberia's broadcasters and publishers with the task of repairing damage caused by fighting and looting and the need to find resources to pay staff.

The state-run broadcaster has no television service and operates a single radio service. The station does not have national coverage.

Many private radio stations were shut down by former president Charles Taylor, leaving the airwaves dominated by stations run by Mr Taylor's Liberian Communication Network (LCN).

In its heyday LCN ran a TV service, FM radio stations, a shortwave radio station and two newspapers.

Community radio stations are on the air, some of them run with the support of international agencies.

The press

The Inquirer - private daily
The News - private daily
The Analyst - private daily
The Heritage - private weekly
Poll Watch - private daily
The Independent - private daily
Television

DC TV - private
Radio

ELBC - state-run, operated by Liberian Broadcasting System
Star Radio - FM and shortwave station, operated in partnership with Swiss-based Hirondelle Foundation
UNMIL Radio - operated by United Nations mission
Kiss FM - private Monrovia station
DC 101 - private Monrovia station
Radio Veritas - Catholic station
ELWA - Christian station
Sky FM - private Monrovia station
News agency

Liberian News Agency

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and a chronology of events:

1847 - Constitution modelled on that of the US is drawn up.


Monrovia: Capital is striving to recover after 14-year conflict
Founded 1822 as haven for freed slaves from Americas
Named after US President James Monroe
Population: 543,000 (2002)

1847 July - Liberia becomes independent.

1917 - Liberia declares war on Germany, giving the Allies a base in West Africa.

1926 - Firestone Tyre and Rubber Company opens rubber plantation on land granted by government. Rubber production becomes backbone of economy.

1936 - Forced-labour practices abolished.

1943 - William Tubman elected president.

1944 - Government declares war on the Axis powers.

1951 May - Women and indigenous property owners vote in the presidential election for the first time.

1958 - Racial discrimination outlawed.

1971 - Tubman dies and is succeeded by William Tolbert Jr.


INDEPENDENCE
[Providence] will miraculously make Liberia a paradise...
President J J Roberts, 1847
Listen to a reading of his inaugural address
1974 - Government accepts aid from the Soviet Union for the first time.
1978 - Liberia signs trade agreement with the European Economic Community.

1979 - More than 40 people are killed in riots following a proposed increase in the price of rice.

Years of instability

1980 - Master Sergeant Samuel Doe stages military coup. Tolbert and 13 of his aides are publicly executed. A People's Redemption Council headed by Doe suspends constitution and assumes full powers.


Samuel Doe: Leader of 1980 coup was killed in 1990
1984 - Doe's regime allows return of political parties following pressure from the United States and other creditors.
1985 - Doe wins presidential election.

1989 - National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) led by Charles Taylor begins an uprising against the government.

1990 - Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) sends peacekeeping force. Doe is executed by a splinter group of the NPFL.

1991 - Ecowas and the NPFL agree to disarm and set up an Interim Government of National Unity.

1992 - The NPFL launches an all-out assault on West African peacekeepers in Monrovia, the latter respond by bombing NPFL positions outside the capital and pushing the NPFL back into the countryside.

Tentative ceasefire

1993 - Warring factions devise a plan for a National Transitional Government and a ceasefire, but this fails to materialise and fighting resumes.

1994 - Warring factions agree a timetable for disarmament and the setting up of a joint Council of State.

1995 - Peace agreement signed.

1996 April - Factional fighting resumes and spreads to Monrovia.


CHARLES TAYLOR
Taylor and his forces in 1990, during the rebellion against Doe
1996 August - West African peacekeepers begin disarmament programme, clear land mines and reopen roads, allowing refugees to return.
1997 July - Presidential and legislative elections held. Charles Taylor wins a landslide and his National Patriotic Party wins a majority in the National Assembly. International observers declare the elections free and fair.

Border fighting

1999 January - Ghana and Nigeria accuse Liberia of supporting Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone. Britain and the US threaten to suspend aid to Liberia.

1999 April - Rebel forces thought to have come from Guinea attack town of Voinjama. Fighting displaces more than 25,000 people.

1999 September - Guinea accuses Liberian forces of entering its territory and attacking border villages.

2000 September - Liberian forces launch "massive offensive" against rebels in the north. Liberia accuses Guinean troops of shelling border villages.

2001 February - Liberian government says Sierra Leonean rebel leader Sam Bockarie, also known as Mosquito, has left the country.

2001 May - UN Security Council reimposes arms embargo to punish Taylor for trading weapons for diamonds from rebels in Sierra Leone.

2002 January - More than 50,000 Liberians and Sierra Leonean refugees flee fighting. In February Taylor declares a state of emergency.

Rebel offensives

2003 March - Rebels advance to within 10km of Monrovia.


2003: Citizens run for cover as rebels, government forces clash
2003 June - Talks in Ghana aimed at ending rebellion overshadowed by indictment accusing President Taylor of war crimes over his alleged backing of rebels in Sierra Leone.
2003 July - Fighting intensifies; rebels battle for control of Monrovia. Several hundred people are killed. West African regional group Ecowas agrees to provide peacekeepers.

Taylor in exile

2003 August - Nigerian peacekeepers arrive. Charles Taylor leaves Liberia after handing power to his deputy Moses Blah. US troops arrive. Interim government and rebels sign peace accord in Ghana. Gyude Bryant chosen to head interim administration.

2003 September-October - US forces pull out. UN launches major peacekeeping mission, deploying thousands of troops.

2004 February - International donors pledge more than $500m in reconstruction aid.

2004 October - Riots in Monrovia leave 16 people dead; the UN says former combatants were behind the violence.

2005 June - UN extends a ban on Liberian diamond exports - a source of funding for the civil war.

2005 September - Liberia agrees that the international community should supervise its finances in an effort to counter corruption.

2005 23 November - Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf becomes the first woman to be elected as an African head of state. She takes office the following January.

2006 February - Truth and Reconciliation Commission is set up to investigate human rights abuses between 1979 and 2003.

2006 April - Former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, appears before a UN-backed court in Sierra Leone on charges of crimes against humanity.

edited by Jose Pascal da Rocha, www.proconsensus.org, from website such as bbc.co.uk., crisisgroup.org

minute briefing bulgarien 2 - der Weg in die EU

Bulgarien ist aufgrund seiner geopolitischen Lage in Südosteuropa eine Schnittstelle
zwischen der Europäischen Union (EU) und dem Balkan sowie der Schwarzmeerregion.
Nach dem Fall der Berliner Mauer und dem Aufbau demokratischer Strukturen nahm
Bulgarien schon 1989 diplomatische Beziehungen zur EU auf. 1990 unterzeichnete es ein
Handels- und Kooperationsabkommen mit der EU. 1993 folgte ein weitreichendes
Assoziationsabkommen, ein so genanntes ,,Europa-Abkommen", das bereits zeigte, dass
Bulgarien eine EU-Mitgliedschaft anstrebte. Dieses Abkommen, mit dem eine
Freihandelszone zwischen Bulgarien und den Mitgliedstaaten geschaffen wurde, war
bereits Teil der Heranführungsstrategie der EU, die auch beträchtliche finanzielle und
technische Hilfe umfasste.
1993 beschlossen die Mitgliedstaaten in Kopenhagen, dass die assoziierten Länder in
Mittel- und Osteuropa, die einen EU-Beitritt anstreben, Mitglied werden können, sobald sie
die erforderlichen wirtschaftlichen und politischen Anforderungen erfüllen. Daraufhin
stellte Bulgarien 1995 seinen Beitrittsantrag. Die Beitrittsverhandlungen mit Bulgarien
wurden im Februar 2000 eröffnet, zusammen mit den Verhandlungen mit Rumänien und
mehreren anderen Ländern, die der Union 2004 beitraten. Bulgarien ist deshalb Teil der
fünften Erweiterungsrunde, die im Mai 2004 zehn Länder in die EU führte. Der bulgarische
Beitrittsprozess leistet einen Beitrag zur Sicherung von Demokratie, Stabilität und
wirtschaftlicher Entwicklung in Europa. Dies steht im Einklang mit den grundlegenden
Zielen des europäischen Projekts, Europa zu einem Ort des Friedens und des Wohlstands zu
machen und die Konflikte der Vergangenheit zu überwinden.
Die Beitrittsverhandlungen wurden im Dezember 2004 mit dem Ziel abgeschlossen,
Bulgarien im Januar 2007 als Mitgliedstaat aufzunehmen. Den Beitrittsvertrag
unterzeichneten die 25 Mitgliedstaaten sowie Bulgarien und Rumänien im April 2005. Die
Ratifizierung durch die Mitgliedstaaten ist noch nicht abgeschlossen. Bulgarien hat den
Beitrittsvertrag bereits ratifiziert.
Als Hüterin der Verträge überwacht die Kommission nun Bulgariens Beitrittsvorbereitungen,
um im Interesse der derzeitigen Mitgliedstaaten und Bulgariens sicherzustellen, dass dieses
Land beim Beitritt alle mit der vollwertigen Mitgliedschaft verbundenen Pflichten und
Anforderungen erfüllen kann. In diesem umfassenden Monitoring-Bericht legt die
Kommission dar, zu welchen Ergebnissen sie bei ihrer Bewertung der bulgarischen
Beitrittsvorbereitungen gelangt ist. Berichtet wird über die politischen und wirtschaftlichen
Reformen, die Bulgarien durchgeführt hat, um die Anforderungen der EU zu erfüllen, sowie
über die Anwendung des so genannten gemeinschaftlichen Besitzstands , d.
h. der gemeinschaftlichen Rechtsordnung, die jeder einzelne Mitgliedstaat einzuhalten hat . Dieser
Bericht deckt die Entwicklungen bis Ende September 2005 ab.

Die Ergebnisse dieses Berichts lassen sich wie folgt zusammenfassen:
Die politischen Beitrittskriterien werden von Bulgarien weiterhin erfüllt. Insgesamt erfüllt es
die Anforderungen für die EU-Mitgliedschaft in ausreichendem Maße. Trotz der Fortschritte
gibt es jedoch noch eine Reihe von Mängeln. Es muss verstärkt daran gearbeitet werden, die
Funktionsweise der Justiz zu verbessern, vor allem, was die vorgerichtliche Phase und
Strafverfahren anbelangt; auch der Abbau des Rückstands bei der Bearbeitung anhängiger
Rechtssachen durch die Gerichte und die wirksame Bekämpfung der organisierten
Kriminalität und der Korruption erfordern zusätzliche Anstrengungen. Im Bereich der
Menschenrechte und des Minderheitenschutzes besteht weiterer Handlungsbedarf, vor allem
im Hinblick auf die Integration der Roma-Minderheit.
Was die wirtschaftlichen Beitrittskriterien angeht, so verfügt Bulgarien weiterhin über eine
funktionierende Marktwirtschaft. Bei unvermindert anhaltenden Reformbestrebungen dürfte
Bulgarien in der Lage sein, dem Wettbewerbsdruck und den Marktkräften innerhalb der
Union standzuhalten. Bulgarien konnte einen hohen Grad makroökonomischer Stabilität mit
starkem Wirtschaftswachstum, relativ geringer Inflation und sinkender Arbeitslosigkeit
wahren. Vor allem das Unternehmensumfeld muss aber noch weiter verbessert werden.
Bei der Rechtsangleichung hat Bulgarien ganz erhebliche Fortschritte erzielt. Es dürfte bis
zum geplanten Beitrittstermin in der Lage sein, die aus der Mitgliedschaft erwachsenden
Verpflichtungen zu erfüllen, sofern es seine diesbezüglichen Anstrengungen in einer Reihe
von Bereichen verstärkt und sich auf den Ausbau seiner Verwaltungskapazität insgesamt
konzentriert. In Bezug auf den Stand der Beitrittsvorbereitungen werden in dem Bericht drei
Kategorien von Bereichen unterschieden:
· Die erste Kategorie umfasst Bereiche, in denen Bulgarien beitrittsfähig ist oder seine
Vorbereitungen fortsetzt, so dass die Anforderungen in diesen Bereichen bis zum Beitritt
erfüllt sein dürften, wenn die Vorbereitungen mit unvermindertem Tempo fortgesetzt
werden. Hierzu gehören z.B. die Wettbewerbspolitik, der freie Kapital- und
Zahlungsverkehr sowie die Bereiche Kultur und audiovisuelle Medien.
· In die zweite Kategorie fallen diejenigen Bereiche, in denen verstärkte Anstrengungen
erforderlich sind. Hier werden die bulgarischen Behörden ermutigt, ihre
Reformbemühungen in der bis zum Beitritt noch verbleibenden Zeit gezielter auf die
Anpassung an die EU-Anforderungen auszurichten. Beispiele hierfür sind die Förderung
der sozialen Integration oder die Gewährleistung der uneingeschränkten Einhaltung der
EU-Standards in Luft- und Seeverkehr sowie im Bereich der Umweltverschmutzung
durch die Industrie.
· Die dritte Kategorie umfasst eine Reihe von Bereichen, in denen Anlass zu ernster Sorge
besteht und in denen Bulgarien umgehend tätig werden muss, um wirklichen Nutzen aus
seinem EU-Beitritt ziehen zu können, aber auch um das Gleichgewicht innerhalb der
Union zu wahren. Beispielhaft zu nennen sind hier die Fähigkeit zur Aufnahme aller
Gemeinschaftsmittel, die bulgarischen Empfängern gewährt werden, die Gewährleistung
eines hohen Grades an Lebensmittelsicherheit und die wirksame und aktive Bekämpfung
von Korruption und organisierter Kriminalität. Bulgarien wird nachdrücklich
aufgefordert, keine Mühe zu scheuen, um die noch vorhandenen Lücken unverzüglich zu
schließen.
Die Abschnitte B.3, C.3 und D.3 enthalten die genauen Schlussfolgerungen.
Die Kommission unterstützt Bulgarien finanziell bei seinen Beitrittsvorbereitungen und wird
sich auf Maßnahmen konzentrieren, die zur Beseitigung der in diesem Bericht festgestellten
Mängel beitragen. Das Gesamtvolumen der Heranführungshilfe für Bulgarien ist
beträchtlich; für 2006 sind rund 545 Mio. EUR angesetzt. Diese Hilfe wird für
Heranführungsprogramme verwendet.
Der Beitrittsvertrag sieht vor, dass Bulgarien der EU am 1. Januar 2007 beitritt. Er enthält
eine Reihe von Bestimmungen, auf deren Grundlage die Union tätig werden kann, um
ernsthafte Störungen des Binnenmarktes zu verhindern oder gegen eine mangelhafte
Zusammenarbeit Bulgariens in zivil- und strafrechtlichen Fragen vorzugehen. Die
Rechtsordnung der Gemeinschaft enthält darüber hinaus weitere Schutzklauseln. Sollte es
angesichts des Stands der Vorbereitungen auf die Übernahme und Anwendung des
gemeinschaftlichen Besitzstands in Bulgarien eindeutige Anhaltspunkte dafür geben, dass
das Land in einer Reihe wichtiger Bereiche offenkundig nicht in der Lage sein wird, den mit
der EU-Mitgliedschaft verbundenen Anforderungen gerecht zu werden, kann der Beitritt
Bulgariens um ein Jahr verschoben werden.
In der Zeit bis zum Beitritt wird die Kommission Bulgariens Vorbereitungen weiterhin
überwachen und das Land zur Fortsetzung seiner Reformen ermutigen, um eine reibungslose
Integration in die EU zu gewährleisten.

edited by jose pascal da rocha, 2006
intercommadvisor@mac.com

hi there! from now one, i will post once in a while information about my travel destinations, to give you a general idea on the observations i made, or just to share infos and documentation over a certain city, region, country and culture. bear with me if sometimes i might expect a lot from you, but i didn't always have time to translate all of the info i got. please do not hesitate to ask me for a revised abstract or excerpt of what i am trying to explain.
to start with: a recent east european, i visited not long ago: bulgaria.

Länderinformationen: Bulgarien (Бългapия)


Amtliche Bezeichnung:

Republika Balgarija (Republik Bulgarien)

Hauptstadt:

Sofia.

Weitere größere Städte:

Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas, Ruse (...)

Einwohner:

ca. 8,2 Mio. (davon 1,1 Mio. in Sofia)

Fläche:

110 993 km²

Verwaltungsgliederung:

9 Regionen (Oblast): Stadt Sofia, Region Sofia (Pernik, Kjustendil, Blagoevgrad), Region Plovdiv (Plovdiv, Pazardzhik, Smolian), Region Haskovo (Haskovo, Stara Zagora, Kardjali), Region Burgas (Burgas, Yambol, Sliven), Region Varna (Varna, Shoumen, Dobrich), Region Ruse (Ruse, Silistra, Razgrad), Region Lovech (Lovech, Pleven, Gabrovo), Region Montana (Montana, Vratsa, Vidin).

Amtssprache:

Bulgarisch.
Das Bulgarische ist eine südslawische Sprache. Hauptdialekte sind Ost- und Westbulgarisch. Es wird die kyrillische Schrift verwendet.

Religion:

ca. 86% Bulgarisch-orthodoxe Christen, 13% Muslime

Politik:

Bulgarien ist seit 1991 parlamentarische Republik.

Die Regierung von Bulgarien.

Das Parlament von Bulgarien.

Der Präsident von Bulgarien.

Parteien: Vereinigte Demokratische Kräfte (ODS), Nationale Bewegung Simeon II. (NDSW), Sozialisten (SP), "Bewegung für Recht und Freiheit" (DPS; Partei der türkischen Minderheit) u.a.

Konstitucionen sad - Verfassungsgericht


Währung:

1 Lew (Lw) = 100 Stotinki (St.)

FX Converter von oanda.com


Wirtschaft & Finanzen:

Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Ministerstvo na ikonomikama - Wirtschaftsministerium.

Ministerstvo na financite - Finanzministerium.

Balgarska Narodna Banka - Bulgarian National Bank.

Privatization Agency Bulgaria.

Foreign Investment Agency Bulgaria.

Die deutschen Außenhandelskammern.

National Center for Information and Documentation (NACID).

International Fair Plovdiv.


Verkehr:

BALKAN Bulgarien Airlines.

Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ).


Bildung & Wissenschaft:

Sofijski universitet Sv. Kliment Ohridski - Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, (...)

Kultur:

SLOVOTO, die virtuelle Bibliothek bulgarischer Literatur (die meisten Texte sind nur auf Bulgarisch, eine englische Version ist im Aufbau);
bulgarische Schriftsteller: Jordan Jowkow (1880-1937) u.a.

Alles über bulgarische Musik der Richtungen Klassik, Folk, Pop, Rock und Jazz gibt es im Bulgarian Music Guide.

Alles über den bulgarischen Film: B'lgarskijat kino sajt.

Ministerstvo na kulturata - Ministerium für Kultur.

Geschichte:

681-1018: Erstes Bulgarisches Reich (Staatsgründer: Chan Asparuch), 864 nimmt Boris I. das Christentum an.

1018-1185: Bulgarien steht unter byzantinischer Herrschaft.

1187-1393: Zweites Bulgarisches Reich.

1393-1876: Bulgarien steht unter der Herrschaft des Osmanischen Reiches.

1878: Nach dem Russisch-Türkischen Krieg (1877-1878) erlangt Bulgarien im Frieden von San Stefano die Unabhängigkeit vom Osmanischen Reich. Dies wird jedoch nach dem Berliner Kongress teilweise revidiert: Das nördliche Bulgarien wird ein autonomes Fürstentum, bleibt aber dem Osmanischen Reich tributpflichtig. (Dagegen wird den Fürstentümern Rumänien, Serbien und Montenegro die Unabhängigkeit bestätigt) Alexander von Battenberg wird zum Fürsten gewählt. Das durch den Berliner Vertrag entstandene Ostrumelien (=Südbulgarien mit damaliger Hauptstadt Plovdiv) bleibt osmanische Provinz.

1885: Vereinigung Bulgariens mit Ostrumelien. Serbisch-Bulgarischer Krieg.

1908: Prinz Ferdinand von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha (Nachfolger Battenbergs) erklärt Bulgarien zu einem unabhängigen Königreich und läßt sich zum Zaren krönen.

1912: Bulgarien, Serbien, Griechenland und Montenegro schließen sich zum Balkanbund zusammen und greifen im 1. Balkankrieg die Türkei an, um das türkische Makedonien für sich zu gewinnen. Die Türkei muss als Verlierer den Großteil seines europäischen Gebietes abtreten.

1913: Bulgarien beginnt wegen eines Streits um die Aufteilung Makedoniens den 2. Balkankrieg gegen Serbien und Griechenland. Im Frieden von Bukarest verliert Bulgarien die zuvor gewonnenen Gebiete und muß die [Süddobrudscha] an Rumänien abtreten. Makedonien kommt an Serbien und Griechenland, Adrianopel zurück an die Türkei.

1915-1918: Bulgarien schließt sich im Ersten Weltkrieg den Mittelmächten (Deutschland und Österreich-Ungarn) an und beteiligt sich an der Niederwerfung Serbiens und Rumäniens. Die Süddobrudscha erhält es zurück. 1918 Waffenstillstand mit der Entente (Frankreich, England, Russland). Zar Boris III. wird Nachfolger seines Vaters.

1919: Bulgarien muß im Frieden von Neuilly die Süddobrudscha erneut an Rumänien abtreten. Ostthrakien kommt an Griechenland und Strumica (Stadt in Mazedonien) an Serbien. Präsident A. Stambulijski wird 1923 gestürzt und ermordet.

1935: Nach einem Militärputsch (1934) und der Auflösung der politischen Parteien folgt eine autoritäre Regierung unter Zar Boris III.

1940: Bulgarien schließt sich den Achsenmächten an und gestattet deutschen Truppen gegen territoriale Versprechen den Durchmarsch nach Jugoslawien und Griechenland. Die Süddobrudscha erhält es auf deutschen Druck (2. Wiener Schiedsspruch) von Rumänien zurück.

1943: Tod Boris III., sein minderjähriger Sohn Simeon II. wird König.

1944: (Sept.) Die Sowjetunion erklärt Bulgarien den Krieg, Einmarsch sowjetischer Truppen. Machtübernahme durch die kommunistische "Vaterländische Front". Bulgarien erklärt dem Deutschen Reich den Krieg.

1945-48: Bulgarien wird Volksrepublik mit Georgi Dimitrov als Regierungschef. Ebenso wie in den anderen ehemaligen Feindstaaten der UdSSR (Rumänien und Ungarn) werden Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft nach sowjetischem Vorbild umgestaltet. Abschaffung der Monarchie, König Simeon II. wird aus Bulgarien vertrieben.

1947: Im Friedensvertrag von Paris werden die Grenzen von 1940 bestätigt.

1954: Todor Živkov wird Generalsekretär der KP. Innen- und außenpolitisch erfolgt eine enge Anlehnung an die Sowjetunion.

1989: Schwere Unruhen, Ausreise Hunderttausender bulgarischer Türken (Živkov betrieb eine minderheitenfeindliche Politik). Živkov wird durch reformorientierte kommunistische Kräfte gestürzt.

1990: Bei den ersten freien Wahlen setzen sich zunächst die reformbereiten Kommunisten durch. Bis Mitte der 90er Jahre gibt es zahlreiche Regierungswechsel.

1996: Petar Stojanov (von der Oppositionsartei ODS) wird zum Präsidenten gewählt. Bankenkrise.

1997-2001: Nach Wirtschafts- und politischer Krise (Stürmung des Parlaments) Reformen unter Ministerpräsident Kostov.

2001: Simeon Sakskoburggotski (der frühere Zar Simeon II.) wird neuer Ministerpräsident.

2004: NATO-Beitritt

(...)

being involved in some conflict resolution processes, discussions and conferences on peaceful conflict resolution in ethiopia and liberia, i had the urge to get a quick but effective update over the situation in africa. i find it sometimes useful to select papers, publications or books by reporters, who spend their time travelling, analyzing and reporting from their dedicated countries. most of the time, the observations are accurate, sensitive and they found a good basis for my daily work as an intercultural advisor. one book that i can totally recommend is the one by howard w. french.

in a new world, where multi-culturality has been questioned and, sometimes, postponed due to the clashes between cultures, the struggle of the western world for its universal beliefs to the freedom of expression and much more, it is vital to recall the many various forms of inter-human relations thru the theoretical bases of the social sciences. after the end of the cold war, a re-united germany, the balkan wars, 9/11, afghanistan, iraq, and a still struggling africa, concepts and theories, such as liberalism, realism, communitarism are being revised, re-discovered, re-invented, or just challenged by new, emerging theories - such as cosmopolitanism, already a concept in ancient greeece, lived and created by the cynics and the stoics and re-emerging thru the definitions and work of learned people. watch the review below of a fantastic book, which is not only dedicated for the scholar world, but also for the philosophically hungry book-searcher:

it has been stated many and several times, but experts, so-called experts, governmental bodies and agencies, and much more learned people, that the war on terror would be one of the most crucial endeavour to meet a subtle danger of another world war. since 9/11, asymmetrical warfare, whether information or conventional warfare, has replaced the old 2-bloc-system and the world is not a clear division of two ideologies anymore but is substantially repartitioned between many stronger or weaker interest groups. besides world wide diseases such as aids, new viruses ermeging from everywhere, terror is another great challenge of every civilized human society. though it seems to be a hydra, there are clear factor on how to analyze the global threat due to terrorism by starting to analyze its structures, players, interest groups. the vocabulary that shouldn't be used and confused at all times doesn't anymore mention ethnicities, culture or nations. terrorism is about specific interest groups, that can be exactly well defined and analyzed.
to have a starting point, it is interesting to see well-defined observations made by some of the media people in the world. reliable and credible information is as always hard to get, but there are articles out there, who really nail the arguments to the point.
a very interesting article about the threat of terrorism in europe, and where it finds its bases for growing and prospecting, has to be found in the archives of the l.a. times. being already 5 years old, it hasn't lost any of its dramatic and actuality at all - thinking about the bombings in madrid. as terrorism becomes more and more sort of "outsourced", it is important to get back to the basics, to understanding the human, geographical, sociological and political context in which terror can emerge and grow.
here is the article:

Terrorists Use Bosnia as Base and Sanctuary

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-100701terror.story

LOS ANGELES TIMES

SUNDAY REPORT



U.S. sees possible threat from militants who came to help Muslims fight Serbs, Croats in ´90s, then became citizens. Some have ties to Bin Laden.

By CRAIG PYESJOSH MEYER and WILLIAM C. REMPE

Times Staff Writers

October 7 2001

ZENICA, Bosnia--Herzegovina -- Hundreds of foreign Islamic extremists who became Bosnian citizens after battling Serbian and Croatian forces present a potential terrorist threat to Europe and the United States, according to a classified U.S. State Department report and interviews with international military and intelligence sources.

The extremists include hard-core terrorists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden, protected by militant elements of the former Sarajevo government.

Bosnia-Herzegovina is "a staging area and safe haven" for terrorists, said one former senior State Department official.

The secret report, prepared late last year for the Clinton administration, warned of problem passport-holders in Bosnia in numbers that "shocked everyone," he said. The White House leaned on Bosnia and its then-president, Alija Izetbegovic, to do something about the matter, "but nothing happened," the former official said.

Although no evidence connects any Bosnian group to the suicide hijacking attacks of Sept. 11 blamed on Bin Laden, U.S. and European officials are increasingly concerned about the scope and reach of Bin Laden networks in the West and the proximity of Bosnia-based terrorists to the heart of Europe.

A number of the extremists "would travel with impunity and conduct, plan and stage terrorist acts with impunity while hiding behind their Bosnian passports," the former official said. In several instances, terrorists with links to Bosnia have launched actions against Western targets:

* An Algerian with Bosnian citizenship, described by one U.S. official as "a junior Osama bin Laden," tried to help smuggle explosives in 1998 to an Egyptian terrorist group plotting to destroy U.S. military installations in Germany. The shipment included military C-4 plastic explosives and blasting caps, the former U.S. official said. The CIA intercepted the shipment, foiling the attack.

* Another North African with Bosnian citizenship belonged to a terrorist cell in Montreal that conspired in the failed millennium plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport.

* One of Bin Laden top lieutenants--a Palestinian linked to major terrorist plots in Jordan, France and the United States--had operatives in Bosnia and was issued a Bosnian passport, according to U.S. officials.

After the foiled plot against American bases in Germany, the U.S. suspended without public explanation a military aid program to Bosnia in 1999 in an attempt to force the deportation of the Algerian leader of the group, Abdelkader Mokhtari, also known as Abu el Maali.

Finally, after the U.S. went a step further and threatened to stop all economic aid, Izetbegovic agreed to deport El Maali. But the Algerian was back in Bosnia within a year.

Two months ago, he was reported to be moving in and out of the country freely. He is now thought to be in Afghanistan with the leadership of Bin Laden´s Al Qaeda group, according to a senior official for the NATO-led peacekeeping force, SFOR, in Bosnia.

President Clinton´s secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, personally appealed to Izetbegovic to oust suspected terrorists or rescind their Bosnian passports.

The effort by top State Department aides continued through the last days of the administration. "It wasn´t just one meeting, it was 10 to 12, with orders directly from the White House," said a former State Department official.

Izetbegovic declined the appeals, several sources said, apparently out of loyalty to the fighters who had come to his country´s rescue. The president argued that many had married Bosnian women, had taken up farming and were legal citizens.

"The point we kept making to Izetbegovic was that if the day comes we find out that these people are connected to some terrible terrorist incident, that´s the day the entire U.S.-Bosnia relationship will change from friends to adversaries," the former State Department official said.

Senior U.S. and SFOR officials believe that some hard-line members of Izetbegovic´s political party gave direct support, through their control of the Foreign Ministry and local passport operations, to foreign Islamic extremists with ties to Bin Laden. Although Izetbegovic stepped down in October 2000, many hard-liners remain in Bosnia´s bureaucracy, and they are suspected of operating their own rogue intelligence service that protects Islamic extremists, military and intelligence sources said.

Last week, Bosnia´s new interior minister, citing "trustworthy intelligence sources," said scores of Bin Laden associates may be attempting to flee Afghanistan ahead of anticipated U.S. military reprisals for the Sept. 11 attacks, seeking refuge among militant sympathizers in Bosnia.

The minister, Mohammed Besic, vowed to intercept any who try to enter the country. U.S. and SFOR officials acknowledge that the new coalition government in Sarajevo has become much more responsive to fighting terrorism. A senior State Department official lauded Sarajevo this year for "working with the international community" in trying to clamp down on suspected terrorists.

Since Sept. 11, Bosnia has launched an audit of passports and mounted a more intensive crackdown on those naturalized citizens who are wanted by foreign law enforcement agencies. After years of inaction, several international fugitives have been arrested this year and extradited.

Bosnia has a large Muslim population, most of whom do not practice a strict form of Islam.

One senior State Department official cautioned that "a lot of people´s interests are served by hyping the terrorism problem in the Balkans," referring to anti-Muslim sentiment among other ethnic groups there. But, he added, "that is not to say there are not bad people who would exploit the weaknesses in the government and the lax security and use [Bosnia] as a place to hide."

To date, Western interests in the Balkans have not been terrorist targets. However, a senior peacekeeping official in Bosnia said local police report that "there are plans to attack the Western interests here in Bosnia after any future retaliatory strikes in Afghanistan. We don´t have anything to confirm it." Bosnia has traditionally served as "an R&R [rest and recreation] destination" for members of Bin Laden´s organization and other extremists, according to U.S. officials and the peacekeeping force.

"They come to Bosnia to chill out, because so many other places are too hot for them," said a former State Department official active in counter-terrorism. They also use Bosnian passports to travel worldwide without drawing the kind of scrutiny that those who hold Middle Eastern or North African documents might attract, officials said. Bosnian passports are particularly valuable for ease of travel to other Muslim countries where no visa requirement is imposed on Bosnians.

Under the Izetbegovic government, the immigration system was so unregulated, that Bin Laden allies "would get boxes of blank passports and just print them up themselves," the former State Department official said.

A military official said that "for the right amount of money, you can get a Bosnian passport even though it´s the first time you´ve stepped foot into Bosnia." Among those who Western intelligence sources say was granted Bosnian citizenship and passports was Abu Zubeida, one of Bin Laden´s top lieutenants.

Zubeida, a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, was in charge of contacts with other Islamic terrorist networks and controlled admissions to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. He arranged training for unsuccessful millennium bomb plots in Canada and Jordan and a recently foiled suicide attack on the U.S. Embassy in Paris, according to court records and investigative reports.

Zubeida also asked LAX bomb plot figure Ahmed Ressam to get blank Canadian passports that would allow other terrorists to infiltrate the United States, according to testimony from Ressam, who was convicted in the bomb plot and is cooperating with investigators. Another terrorist with Bosnian credentials is Karim Said Atmani, a Moroccan who was Ressam´s roommate in Montreal and who was in the group that attempted to bomb LAX, according to testimony. The Bosnian government arrested him in April, and Atmani was extradited to France, where he awaits sentencing on terrorism charges.

Beginning in 1992, as many as 4,000 volunteers from throughout North Africa, the Middle East and Europe came to Bosnia to fight Serbian and Croatian nationalists on behalf of fellow Muslims. They are known as the moujahedeen. A military analyst called them "pretty good fighters and certainly ruthless." "I think the Muslims wouldn´t have survived without this" help, Richard Holbrooke, the United States´ former chief Balkans peace negotiator, said in a recent interview. At the time, U.N. peacekeepers were proving ineffective at protecting Bosnian civilians, and an arms embargo diminished Bosnia´s fighting capabilities.

But Holbrooke called the arrival of the moujahedeen "a pact with the devil" from which Bosnia still is recovering.

The foreign moujahedeen units were disbanded and required to leave the Balkans under the terms of the 1995 Dayton, Ohio, peace accord. But many stayed--about 400, according to official Bosnian estimates.

Although the State Department report suggested that the number could be higher, a senior SFOR official said allied military intelligence estimated that no more than 200 foreign-born militants actually live in Bosnia, of which closer to 30 represent a hard-core group with direct links to terrorism.

"These are the bad guys--the ones you have to worry about," the official said.

But he also said that "hundreds of other" Islamic extremists with and without Bosnian passports "come in and out" and that Bosnia remains a center for Al Qaeda recruiting and logistics support.

A U.S. counter-terrorism official confirmed that "several hundred" former moujahedeen remain in Bosnia. "Are they a threat? Absolutely. Are we all over them? Absolutely," he said.

The fighters were organized as an all-moujahedeen unit called El Moujahed. It was headquartered in Zenica in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall. Bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan, according to Mideast intelligence reports. Other support and recruits for El Moujahed came, at least in part, through Islamic organizations in Milan, Italy, and Istanbul, Turkey, that European investigators later linked to trafficking in passports and weapons for terrorists.

A series of national security and criminal investigations across Europe have since identified the El Moujahed unit in court filings as the "common cradle" from which an international terrorist network grew and ultimately stretched from the Middle East to Canada.

Abu el Maali, its leader during the Bosnian war, remains an enigmatic figure, charismatic and popular within the moujahedeen but barely known outside. He briefly appeared in a propaganda video on El Moujahed during the war, but his face was digitally removed before distribution.

French court documents say El Maali now is the leader of terrorist cells in Bosnia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Court testimony, confidential police records and interviews with European intelligence officials show how El Maali marshaled recruits from the West and Muslim countries to assemble the infrastructure of what would become a terrorist organization.

Two French converts to Islam, both in their mid-20s, were among the early volunteers for El Maali´s ranks in the Bosnian war. Christophe Caze, a medical school dropout, and Lionel Dumont joined El Moujahed to provide humanitarian services. But once assigned to the moujahedeen unit in Zenica, they immediately "plunged into violence," an associate told French police.

A French judicial official said their eventual passage to terrorism was strongly influenced by El Maali, with whom they became close. El Maali "exerted a lot of influence on the fighters . . . which led them to commit these violent actions under the cover of Islam," the magistrate said.

The converts emerged as leaders, rendering impassioned exhortations to younger volunteers to defend Islam "by all means," according to court records. They also began setting up a clandestine network in France, creating multiple identities, encoding phone lists and recruiting followers they could call into action later. Court records say that Caze, working as a medic, recruited future terrorists among the wounded he treated.

At the war´s end, U.S. officials focused on state-sponsored terrorism and worried about getting Iranian fighters back to Iran. Less clear were the implications of loosely allied extremist groups and individuals.

Looking back, peace negotiator Holbrooke blamed imprecise and "sloppy intelligence" for failing to distinguish which Muslim groups posed a threat to the United States. It turned out that Iranian fighters went home. Many of El Maali´s trained warriors did not.

In Bosnia, most of the violence stopped with the peace accord in 1995. But in January 1996, it broke out again--on the streets of northern France. A puzzling crime wave swept the area around Roubaix, a gritty, Muslim-majority town near the Belgian border. Small groups of men began holding up stores and drivers. They brandished machine guns and wore hoods and carnival masks. Two people were killed.

On March 28, just before a Group of 7 summit of leading industrial nations that would bring top ministers to Lille, police discovered a stolen car abandoned in front of the police station. It was parked askew. And it contained a bomb packed into three gas cylinders rigged to devastate everything within 600 feet. It was disarmed.

The next night, a special tactical squad surrounded a house at 59 Rue Heni Carette in Roubaix that had been linked to the booby-trapped car. Police fired thousands of rounds into the building. The house erupted in flames due to munitions inside, police said later. Four charred bodies were recovered.

Two men fled the barrage and inferno. At a police roadblock just inside Belgium, another furious gun battle erupted. One of the men was killed, and his accomplice was wounded.

In the getaway car, police found rocket launchers, automatic weapons, large amounts of ammunition and grenades. They also recovered an electronic organizer containing coded telephone contacts, nearly a dozen of them in Bosnia. The dead ringleader was identified as Christophe Caze, the young medic who went to fight in Bosnia.

French authorities, confused about the motives for the spasm of gang violence, considered it a new phenomenon, calling it "gangster terrorism." Their investigation uncovered what may have been the first terrorism cell exported from Bosnia.

After an investigation of the surviving associate, Caze´s electronic organizer and other evidence recovered by French police, the robbery gang was identified as nine militants who attended a local mosque. Most of them had undergone military training at the El Moujahed compound in Bosnia.

The armed robberies were a radical form of fund-raising by Caze and his associates to benefit their "Muslim brothers in Algeria." Their high-powered weapons were smuggled home from the Bosnian war. Caze´s organizer was described by one official as "the address book of the professional terrorist." It contained phone contacts in England, Italy, France and Canada, as well as direct lines to El Maali´s Zenica headquarters. It led French authorities to trace travels and phone records and to set up electronic surveillance.

French counter-terrorism officials soon realized they had stumbled upon more than a band of gangsters. Five years before the sophisticated terrorist assault on the U.S., the French were starting to uncover loosely linked violent networks spreading into several countries, all tied together by a common thread: Bosnia.

One of the phone numbers in the dead terrorist´s organizer led to a suspect in Canada: Fateh Kamel, 41, who ran a small trinkets shop in Montreal. French authorities say Canada rejected their initial request to investigate Kamel, calling the dapper Algerian "just a businessman."

But Kamel also was a confidant of El Maali. He spoke frequently to the Bosnia moujahedeen chief over his wife´s cell phone. Kamel had gone to Bosnia early in the war, suffered a shrapnel wound in one leg and been treated at the El Moujahed hospital by Caze, the young medic.

Kamel first came to the attention of European intelligence officials in 1994, when Italian agents tracking suspected terrorists stumbled upon him recruiting fighters in Milan for El Maali´s brigade. After the Dayton accord, French police say, Kamel became deeply involved in terrorist logistics. He was "the principal activist of an international network determined to plan assassinations and to procure arms and passports for terrorist acts all over the world," according to a French court document.

In 1996, an Italian surveillance team recorded Kamel discussing a terrorist attack and taped him declaring: "I do not fear death . . . because the jihad is the jihad, and to kill is easy for me." During the same period, Kamel assisted other North African extremists relocating to Canada, exploiting the country´s lax immigration laws and Quebec´s eagerness for French-speaking immigrants such as Algerians.

According to French investigators, Kamel was the leader of a terrorist cell in Montreal. Other members included Ressam, Atmani and a third roommate, Mustafa Labsi.

Like Kamel, Atmani had served in Bosnia and was close to El Maali. A U.S. law enforcement official described Atmani as a "crazy warrior with a nose so broken and twisted that he could sniff around corners."

Later, authorities believe, the three roommates went to Afghanistan together to train for a terrorist attack on the United States. They returned to the West after learning that their target would be Los Angeles International Airport. The conspiracy was interrupted when Atmani was deported from Canada to Bosnia.

When Ressam, traveling alone, was captured at the border with explosives in his rental car, U.S. officials tried to track down his former roommate Atmani.

Authorities had information that he was traveling between Sarajevo and Istanbul, but Bosnian officials denied even that Atmani had been deported there. Investigators later learned that Atmani had been issued a new Bosnian passport six months earlier. Atmani was part of the hard-core terrorist group noted in the secret State Department report. He remained beyond the reach of international extradition until this year, when he was arrested and turned over to France by Bosnia´s new coalition government. He awaits sentencing on terrorism charges.

Kamel, the alleged ringleader of the group, was arrested in Jordan and was extradited to France, where he is in prison on a terrorism conviction. Ressam and Labsi also have been jailed. All of the members of the former Montreal cell have been convicted of being operatives in a terrorist network that originated in Bosnia.

James Steinberg, deputy national security advisor in the Clinton administration, said that although the U.S. works closely with countries in the Balkans to deal with "the problem of these cells," the very nature of secret terrorist organizations confounds those efforts.

"It´s one thing to [arrest] the people you know [are terrorists], but then the others . . . bury themselves even deeper," he said.

Relevant Links

Bin Laden’s Balkan Connections
http://www.balkanpeace.org/our/our09.shtml

Balkan wars and terrorist ties
http://www.balkanpeace.org/our/our02.shtml

Director of the U.S. Congress' Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional warfare: "Some Call It Peace"
http://members.tripod.com/Balkania/resources/geostrategy/bodansky_peace/bp_part1.html

NATO Probes Claims that Bin Laden is in Kosovo
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/april00/hed80.shtml

Persecution Watch : Kosovo
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/may00/hed127.shtml

Defang the KLA
http://www.balkanpeace.org/library/picture/hackworth.html

Destabilizing the Balkans: US & Albanian Defense Cooperation in the 1990s
http://www.balkanpeace.org/rs/archive/mar01/rs126.shtml

Bin Laden in Kosovo
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/april00/hed76.shtml

Bosnia Arrests Three Suspected Bin Laden´s Associates
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/july01/hed3790.shtml

A Bosnian Village's Terrorist Ties; Links to U.S. Bomb Plot Arouse Concern About Enclave of Islamic Guerrillas
http://www.balkanpeace.org/wtb/wtb12.shtml

Bin Laden opens European terror base in Albania
http://www.balkanpeace.org/wtb/wtb08.html

US tackles Islamic militancy in Kosovo
http://www.balkanpeace.org/wtb/wtb06.html

US alarmed as Mujahidin join Kosovo rebels
http://www.balkanpeace.org/wtb/wtb05.html

accessed in 2001, re-published for this blog and commented by Jose Pascal da Rocha, www.proconsensus.org

...werden die menschen. zumindest, wenn man von europa aus auf die weltkarte schaut, und einen blick auf die nord-amerikanischen staaten wirft. nächste woche geht es nach st. louis, die stadt des "Midwest", dort, wo eine riesiger torbogen steht, und symbolisieren soll, wie die beiden entdecker, lewis und clarke, weiter gen westen vorstiessen. natürlich werde ich hierzu noch ein wenig mehr berichten. doch zuvor habe ich mich um andere beobachtungen gekümmert, als die da wäre, dass die menschen kleiner werden, je mehr man in richtung landesinnere fährt. so kommt es recht häufig vor, dass ich frauen treffe, die höchstens 1,60m sind. dafür habe ich aber auch frauen in new york erlebt und gesehen, die schuhgröße 46 tragen - grösser als meine schuhe!! - naja,...jedem land sein bestes und ich bin gespannt auf die bilder und erlebnisse.
go west!

the situation in congo is getting more and more political as steps are being undertaken to replace guns by the power of the ballots. but what political credibility can elections bring to this country divided by interest groups, corruption and the fight for power? read an article from the international crisis group:

"The Gamble of Elections in the Congo",
by Jason Stearns in The East African

14 April 2006
The East African

Replacing the logic of guns with the logic of ballot boxes can be dangerous: former fighters may just return to the trenches if they cannot get what they want at the polls.

This could soon be the case in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where 25 million voters are scheduled to go to the polls in late June. One of the former rebel groups, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), has little support outside of the Congolese Hutu and Tutsi communities of the eastern Congo. The movement, which at one time controlled almost a third of the country, will lose most of its power at the polls. At the same time, part of its former army is still intact, making violence almost inevitable in coming months. Nonetheless, neither the United Nations nor the Congolese government appears willing to act.

When the RCD signed the peace deal over three years ago, few in the party believed they would be held to their promise to participate in national elections. With election now around the corner, the RCD faces a bleak future. Most of the population sees them as a Rwandan aggressor and resent the high number of Hutus and Tutsis in their leadership.

The party will not win more than 40 of the 500 seats in the national assembly. In South Kivu, not a single member of the Congolese Tutsi community, which produced many former ministers and legislators, is likely to be elected to parliament. Politicians have been jumping ship to avoid going down with the RCD. Three of their ministers in the current government have left the party. Just last week the secretary general of the party, Mumba Gama, also defected.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re going to the polls,” one member of the RCD joked with me, “it feels more like going to the guillotine.”

A return to arms

Given this dreary scenario, some RCD hardliners decided to resort to force to assert power. In May 2004, RCD officers mutinied in Bukavu, laying waste to the border town before they fled. Violence broke out again in November the same year and in January 2006 in North Kivu. Each time, a small group of former RCD soldiers led by Hutu and Tutsi officers attacked the newly integrated national army. As a result, hundreds were killed and thousands displaced.

The main protagonist in these events has been Laurent Nkunda, a young Tutsi from the hills of North Kivu. His name is linked to numerous atrocities. In 2002, in response to an insurrection in Kisangani, he helped orchestrate the killing of over 160 civilians. When his troops sacked Bukavu in 2004, they killed and raped dozens of people. In one incident, Nkunda’s soldiers gang-raped a mother in front of her husband and children while another soldier raped her three year-old daughter.

Nkunda is still at large in North Kivu. He commands around 400 troops and has the sympathy of perhaps a thousand more. His last attack was in January, and it is almost certain that, left to his own devices, Nkunda will launch another offensive in the coming months in order to derail the elections. While the Congolese government has issued a warrant for his arrest, and the UN has called for him to be brought to justice several times, neither the UN mission in the Congo nor the weak Congolese army have made his capture a priority.

Ethnicity rears its head

The conflict has taken on a dangerous ethnic tinge. As the dissidents are mostly Hutu and Tutsi, many Congolese see those communities as guilty for this aggression. Innocent civilians, including women and children, have had to pay for the crimes of the dissidents. After Nkunda’s troops launched the mutiny in Bukavu in 2004, the Congolese army executed over twenty Tutsi soldiers and civilians while they arrested many others. The entire Tutsi population of Bukavu – several thousand people – fled across the border into Rwanda.

These abuses continue. At the beginning of this month, twenty-two Tutsi youths were arrested at a border crossing in South Kivu and held without charge for several weeks. According to UN officials, Congolese border guards keep a register of all Tutsi crossing in and out of the Congo. In February, Tutsi soldiers were beaten in an army integration camp.

The crimes perpetrated by Tutsi commanders and the persecution of their community form a vicious circle. Many Tutsi officials held leadership positions during the war and, in the minds of most Congolese, power was identified with this small ethnic group. So was the brutality of the rebellion. A high-ranking Congolese army officer in Bukavu told me: “We will fight and kill to prevent the Tutsi from ruling us again.”

In part this animosity has led many Tutsi soldiers – even those who were not members of the RCD – to desert from the national army in recent months. Several hundred have withdrawn to the mountains of South Kivu and are allegedly in contact with Nkunda’s forces to the north. The words of Michel, a young Tutsi officer, echo those of the officer in Bukavu: “We will fight to prevent anyone from attacking our community.”

If RCD dissidents launch an attack, ethnic tensions could easily degenerate into widespread violence. After Nkunda’s January attack, youths took to the streets in North Kivu with machetes demanding revenge. While local authorities were able to avoid the worst it may not be so easy next time around.

Congolese politicians have not helped. There must be efforts to reconcile communities on a local level but, it being election season, no one wants to appear pro-Tutsi. President Kabila, who is likely to win at the polls, could go a long way towards calming tempers by opening a sincere dialogue about ethnicity in the eastern Congo. He could say that Tutsi and Hutu are Congolese like other tribes – many other communities claim that by definition they are not – and should not be blamed for the crimes of a few dissident officers. But, perhaps worried to lose votes, he has not.

Equally important as local reconciliation efforts, there must be an end to impunity. If nothing is done about Nkunda, he will launch another attack, killing people and burning houses. The Congolese army and United Nations peacekeeping troops must stop and arrest him before he acts. They would have the support of many Tutsi and Hutu leaders, who have repeatedly blamed Nkunda for giving their communities a bad name.

Elections are a good and necessary step. We need to move beyond the corruption and mismanagement of the current government. But, by definition, elections pit different parties against each other. In this case, the parties have guns. If we do not take the necessary precautions, elections could bring more violence to the eastern Congo.

Jason Stearns is a Senior Analyst with the International Crisis Group, www.crisisgroup.org

accessed by Jose Pascal da Rocha on April, 21st at 4:14 p.m., www.proconsensus.org