Chirol recently “blogged on the shift in war since the 1990s”:http://www.cominganarchy.com/2006/01/14/increase-the-peace/trackback/. Interstate warfare has declined but since the fall of the USSR _internal_ conflicts have been the prime source of violent instability. Less than four years ago East Timor became the world’s newest recognized independant state, and there are a lot more potential “ministates” to follow suit. The “Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization”:http://www.unpo.org is an organization of proto-states that want to become part of the greater system. It’s “membership docket”:http://www.unpo.org/members_list.php is like a laundry list of possible future conflicts, and humanitarian interventions. How many of these have _you_ heard of?
bq. Abkhazia Aboriginals of Australia Acheh Ahwaz Albanians in Macedonia Assyria Bashkortostan Batwa Bougainville Buffalo River Dene Nation Buryatia Cabinda Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Chin Chittagong Hill Tracts Chuvash Circassia Cordillera Crimean Tatars East Turkestan Gagauzia Greek minority in Albania Hungarian minority in Romania Ingushetia Inkeri Iraqi Turkoman Ka Lahui Hawai’i Karenni State Khmer Krom Komi Kosova Kumyk Kurdistan Lakota Maohi Mapuche Mari Maasai Mon Montagnards Nagalim Nahuas del Alto Balsas Nuxalk Ogoni Oromo Rusyn Sanjak Scania Shan Sindh Somaliland South Moluccas Southern Cameroons Taiwan Talysh Tatarstan Tibet Tuva Udmurt Vhavenda West Balochistan West Papua Zanzibar
Read more about “subnationalism” and the possible repercussions of the “Annan Doctrine” in “The New World Disorder”:http://www.hooverdigest.org/002/beichman.html.
Why isn’t Japan on that map?
What’s also revealing is that these minority groups can exist in any nation, regardless of size. Georgia is smaller than South Carolina but has two, possibly three volatile mini-Timors within its borders. And plenty of ethnic and religious minorities that may seem complacent today could be violent in a generation — from the Welsh in Great Britain to the Bai in China, the entire Eurasian landmass is a minefield of potential ethnic strife.
Hawai’i, huh? Do they mean the Hawaiian independence – erm, splittist movement? I don’t care what Apology Acts Clinton signed, no one divides the Motherland. Hawaii has always been an inseparable part of the United States of America since ancient times!
And don’t even get me started on the ancient United States tributary kingdom of Chihuahua.
They have Hawaii but omit Basque, Quebec, and Okinawa?
I was thinking about Quebec too. I guess they are not signatories.
I’m a big fan of the Annan doctrine. Indeed, harnessing the power of mini-nations should help us shrink the Gap. How much easier it would be to prevent the reemergence of some tyranny if, after invasion, we can readily work with locals to dissolve the old state and leave functioning statelets (no threat to their neighbors) in its wake. And how much better it would be to use the power of ethnic militias to help us, instead of trying to fight them in an effort to save fake nations.
Of course to do that though, you’d have to endorse ethnic cleansing of some sort because all too often there are other ethnic groups not interested in becoming part of a new, independent statelet embraced around the majority ethnic group.
Aren’t we seeing this supposedly in Kirkuk with the Kurds and the Arabs?
As a former FULRO supporter, I’d love to see the Montagnards get their own country. But, what are the chances of 17 tribes representing two major races (malayo-polynesian and mon-khmer), coming together and working in harmony? What are their chances of building a modern, economically viable state without any access to the sea, except through Vietnam, and living by slash and burn agriculture? What is missing in all this is a view of the historical process by which minority peoples and states eventually meld into (usually) larger states. The Gauls, some Romans, Greek colonists, northern Catalans, northern Basques, Savoyards, southern Flemmish, Alsatians, and Lorrainers, united to form modern France, whose inhabitants, whatever their regional peculiarities, are French. That same process saw a branch of the Muong peoples adopt Chinese culture and language forms, graft Chinese religious beliefs onto their own, and become the Vietnamese. Assimilation and absorbtion may be lamented by anthropologists and linguists, but on the whole it generally advances civilization.
Eddie,
“Ethnic cleansing of some sort” is very vague. Even the US government engages in ethnically-oriented housing policies.
By the time we intervene in a country, very bad things are already happening. If an otherwise bloodless relocation of some people isn’t worth the buy-in from regions that it generates, the intervention probably shouldn’t have happened to begin wtih.
And don’t forget about Texas and Alaska. Just like some Hawaiians, there are people in these states arguing that they are illegally occupied by the US and are seeking independence. See my post on Wacky American Separatists at http://world-history-blog.blogspot.com/2005/10/wacky-american-separatists.html for more details.
As a timorese, I’m proud to have my nation freed from the once USA, supported Soeharto barbarian rezim. Hence i hope and dream for others nations, in the so-called Indonesian state, to have their countries liberated from this artificial unitarian state created by Soekarno cs. The fact is that almost all claimed provinces in Indonesia are ethnically and culturally diferent from Java. Therefore, they are entitled to a political reconized status as an independent states as others independent states in the world. Thanks to all the timorese heroes and people that today Timor people(Maubere) can have their state aknowledged by wrold as a sovereign state. May the power of humanism and solidarity help the quick liberation of Maluku, West Papua and Aceh from Javanese colonial ocupation of their lands.
Maubere People
SYDNEY (AFP) – The Indonesia military used starvation and ual as weapons to control East Timor during a 24-year occupation of the province that caused the s of up to 180,000 civilians, according to a report cited by The Australian newspaper.
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The newspaper said it obtained a copy of the 2,500-page report by the East Timorese Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation, which is due to be handed to the United Nations by East Timor President Xanana Gusmao on Friday.
The report detailed how Indonesian soldiers used and chemical weapons to poison food and water supplies during their 1975 invasion of the territory, a former Portuguese colony with an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic population.
The report, based on interviews with almost 8,000 witnesses as well as Indonesian military papers and intelligence from international sources, detailed thousands of summary s and the of 8,500 people, The Australian said.
Atrocities included the burying and burning alive of victims and the cutting off of ears and genitals to display to families, the paper said.
Thousands of East Timorese women were also allegedly d and ually assaulted during the occupation.
“Rape, ual slavery and ual were tools used as part of the campaign designed to inflict a deep experience of , powerlessness and hopelessness upon pro-independence supporters,” the commission was quoted as saying.
The commission claimed the policies of Indonesia’s military against East Timor’s civilian population caused the s of between 84,000 and 183,000 people — up to a third of the territory’s population — between 1975 and 1999.
More than 90 percent of the s were due to hunger and illness, it said.
The Indonesian security forces “consciously decided to use starvation of East Timorese civilians as a weapon of war”, the report says.
“The intentional imposition of conditions of life which could not sustain tens of thousands of East Timorese civilians amounted to extermination as a crime against humanity committed against the East Timorese population,” it said.
Of 18,600 unlawful s or disappearances reported in East Timor during the occupation, Indonesian police or soldiers were to blame for 70 percent of the s, it said.
The report was described by The Australian as a UN document.
But the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation is an independent body set up by former East Timor resistance and human rights groups, and its website makes no mention of any UN role in the drafting of the report.
The commission submitted its report to the government months ago, but Gusmao, the former Fretilin leader, wanted to keep it secret for fear of irritating Indonesia.
But he then relented and will hand the report to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York on Friday.
“The report has sparked heated debate at home and abroad. By making it public, I hope all parties have a clear understanding of its contents and recommendations,” Gusmao said in a press release dated Tuesday.
There are fears release of the report could inflame tensions with Indonesia and groups that are still active near the East Timor border.
But East Timor’s ambassador to the UN, Jose Luis Guterres, played down the likely impact, saying much of what is in the report was known and should not harm the good relations between his government and Indonesia.
“I don’t believe that the government of East Timor will try to prosecute any of the military figures in Indonesia because of the past human rights violations in East Timor,” Guterres said on Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio from New York.
Indonesia annexed East Timor with the acquiescence of major powers, including neighboring Australia, but the brutality of the occupation turned world opinion against Jakarta and led to a vote for independence in 1999.
The vote sparked y reprisals by Indonesian-backed groups who killed hundreds of people before an international force led by Australian troops restored order.
Dan,
Ralph Peters addressed this in his recent book, “New Glory”, condemning the US for using the old diplomacy of kings, tyrants and colonialists and tirelessly fighting to save “fake” nations as you put, even though we know in our hearts that such nations are not sustainable without a miracle.
I agree with you and him, but our government is too short-sighted to pursue a sensible policy to address this, instead it will use a disasterous ad-hoc policy that leads to bad situations getting even worse and many of them recieving no good resolution, which would only lead to a “failed state” that breeds instability and terrorism, rather than new statelets that have emerged relatively functional.
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