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Ever since the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) came to power in 1994 in the wake of a genocide in which 800,000 people died, its government has mainly been assessed in relation to the way it has faced the legacy of the genocide and maintained stability.

By recognising Republika Srpska (RS) as a legitimate polity and constituent entity of the new Bosnia, the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement embraced a contradiction. For the RS was founded as a stepping stone to a ‘Greater Serbia’ and forged in atrocities against – and mass expulsions of – non-Serbs.

The 3 August 2001 murder of former State Security (DB) official Momir Gavrilovic acted as a catalyst for the emergence of a long-hidden feud within Serbia’s ruling DOS (Democratic Opposition of Serbia) coalition.

Indonesian policy in Irian Jaya is at a critical point. Since August 2000 the government has been able to restore its authority in the province by closing  in the political space that had developed after the fall of President Soeharto.

For most of the decade since it gained independence, Kyrgyzstan has been described as an island of democracy and stability in Central Asia. In comparison with other countries in the region, it has indeed carried out deeper economic reforms and allowed more room for civil society and opposition political activity. Recent developments, however, indicate that this stability is fragile, and that hard-won democratic gains are being eroded.

Uzbekistan plays a pivotal role in Central Asia. It is the region’s most militarily capable and populous country, and large Uzbek minorities live in neighbouring states. As it approaches the tenth anniversary of its independence, however, internal and external pressures threaten to crack the nation’s thin veneer of stability.

The deadlock in the Burundi peace process has finally been broken. On 23 July in Arusha, Nelson Mandela’s choice of Pierre Buyoya and Domitien Ndayizeye as president and vice-president of Burundi for the first phase of transition was endorsed at a summit of regional heads of state.

The past decade in the Western Balkans has seen very few peacefully negotiated transfers of territorial control. The most recent example – albeit one not involving any change of sovereignty - was also the only one achieved by NATO’s direct mediation. In May 2001, the Presevo Valley was brought back under Serbian government control, ending an ethnic Albanian insurgency that had lasted some seventeen months.

Bosnia’s economic reality is still bleak. After more than five years and five billion dollars of Dayton implementation, the country seems only at the beginning of an economic transition that should have begun in 1996.

Ten months after the fall of Slobodan Miloševiæ, considerable progress has been made in establishing democratic governance in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and reintegrating the country into the international community.