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Although a political agreement has now been signed, and NATO is poised to enter Macedonia, the possibility of a full-blown civil war, with serious regional consequences, remains high. This briefing  paper  continues  ICG’s analysis of the Macedonian crisis.1 It examines what has happened in the past several weeks, the political agreement signed by the contending parties on 13 August 2001, and what yet needs to be done, in particular by the international community, if that agreement, against still heavy odds, is to bring peace.

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.

This ICG briefing paper continues the analysis of the Macedonian crisis begun in the ICG’s two most recent reports from Skopje: Balkans Reports No. 109, The Macedonian Question: Reform or Rebellion (5 April 2001) and No. 113, Macedonia: The Last Chance for Peace (20 June 2001).

Despite the continuing turmoil in Indonesia, foreign governments have quietly been reviewing their ties to the country's military. They have a real dilemma.

As Indonesia continues to struggle with its ongoing presidential crisis and secessionist violence in Aceh and Irian Jaya, the Bush Administration has undertaken an overall review of its military assistance policies toward Indonesia.