stonian and Russian negotiators reached a technical
border agreement in December 1996 which has not been ratified; draft
treaty delimiting the boundary with Latvia has not been signed; has
made no territorial claim in Antarctica (but has reserved the right
to do so) and does not recognize the claims of any other nation;
1997 border agreement with Lithuania not yet ratified; Svalbard is
the focus of a maritime boundary dispute in the Barents Sea between
Norway and Russia
Illicit drugs: limited cultivation of illicit cannabis and opium
poppy and producer of amphetamines, mostly for domestic consumption;
government has active eradication program; increasingly used as
transshipment point for Southwest and Southeast Asian opiates and
cannabis and Latin American cocaine to Western Europe, possibly to
the US, and growing domestic market
======================================================================
@Rwanda
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Introduction
Background: Throughout their colonial rule, first Germany and
then Belgium favored Rwanda's minority Tutsi ethnic group in
education and employment. In 1959, the majority ethnic group, the
Hutus, overthrew the ruling Tutsi monarch. The Hutus killed hundreds
of Tutsis and drove tens of thousands into exile in neighboring
countries. The children of these exiles later formed a rebel group,
the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and began a civil war in October
1990. The war, along with several political and economic upheavals,
exasperated ethnic tensions culminating in April 1994 in a genocide
in which roughly 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. The
Tutsi rebels defeated the Hutu regime and ended the genocide in July
1994, but approximately 2 million Hutu refugees--many fearing Tutsi
retribution--fled to neighboring Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and
Zaire, now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DROC).
According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, in
1996 and early 1997 nearly 1.3 million Hutus returned to Rwanda.
Even with substantial international aid, these civil dislocations
have hindered efforts to foster reconciliation and to boost
investment and agricultural output. Although much of the country is
now at peace, members of the former regime continue to destabilize
the northwest area of the country through a low-intensity
insurgency. Rwandan troops are currently in
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