Peace Negotiations Watch- Volume V, Number 17, July 26, 2006

The U.N. detention unit in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, where Taylor was held before beingtransferred to The Hague in June, served prisoners a local favorite a stew made of cassava orpotato leaf. Other meals included roast chicken and fruit juice. Khan also complained that staffshortages at the U.N.-run detention center meant Taylor was sometimes locked in his cell for upto 16 hours a day and was unable to make the same number of phone calls he could whiledetained in Sierra Leone. The detention system in The Hague, Khan said, is "far more draconian... than operates in Freetown." Taylor is being held in a cell block operated by the InternationalCriminal Court in a wing of the same maximum-security Dutch prison where former YugoslavPresident Slobodan Milosevic died in March while on trial for genocide and war crimes.Herman von Hebel, deputy registrar for the Sierra Leone court, described the complaints as"startup issues" for the detention unit and said he would visit Taylor next week to ensure they areironed out as soon as possible. Khan also angrily denounced U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annanfor allegedly referring to war crimes suspects as criminals during a July 3 visit to Sierra Leone.Khan described Annan's comment as "not just unseemly; it is repugnant to justice."Presiding Judge Richard Lussick assured Khan the tribunal would ignore Annan's comments."We are totally uninfluenced by what people might say outside the courtroom," he said.Prosecutors had hoped to start the trial early next year, but Khan said that was unlikely. "For acase of this size and magnitude, particularly given the geographical displacement of this courtfrom Sierra Leone. ... I do think that the earliest this trial can properly start is around July of nextyear," Khan said.Taylor was flown to the Netherlands in June amid fears that staging his trial in Sierra Leonecould trigger fresh unrest in the war-scarred African nation. The charges against Taylor stemfrom his alleged backing of Sierra Leonean rebels, who terrorized victims by chopping off bodyparts. Taylor also launched a Liberian insurgency in 1989 and won elections that handed him thepresidency in 1997. Rebels took up arms against him three years later, and he fled to Nigeria in2003 at the end of Liberia's 14-year civil war. In March, he was captured as he attempted to slipout of Nigeria after the country agreed to hand him over to authorities seeking his prosecution.NepalNepal Maoists pledge ceasefire extension, seek "lasting peace"Agence France Press, 7/19/06Nepal's Maoist rebels pledged Wednesday to extend a ceasefire in a bid to "establish lastingpeace" in the Himalayan nation. "As the peace process has moved in a positive direction, thethree-month ceasefire will definitely be extended," Maoist spokesman Krishna Bahadur Maharatold AFP. The spokesman did not reveal how long the ceasefire, which is slated to end in justover a week, would be extended but said the Maoists wanted "to establish lasting peace in thecountry."