Suchergebnisse

Instances of external state involvement in seven postwar secessionist movements—those of Katanga, Biafra, the Southern Sudan, Bangladesh, Iraqi Kurdistan, Eritrea, and the Moro region of the Philippines—were analyzed to shed light on the patterns of interaction between the international system and secessionist minorities. Examined and tested were numerous assumptions of conventional wisdom on the subject, as well as a variety of other relevant questions concerning the constraints on, content of, and reasons for involvement. The results were contrary to many of the common assumptions. For example, given the international regime's norm against involvement with groups that threaten territorial integrity, external state support of these groups was more extensive than would be expected; and support was given for diverse reasons, rather than based solely on the prospects for tangible gain. Additional results of this study suggest a series of hypotheses for further examination.

Compares movements in Katanga (Shaba), Congo; Biafra, Nigeria; Southern Sudan; Bangladesh; Kurdistan, Iraq; Eritrea, Ethiopia; and the Moro region, Philippines.

The intractable Middle East conflict is examined from the prism of `ethnic' conflict resolution. The resolution of conflicts between states and ethnonationalist movements (placed under fourteen different headings) is distinguished into `denial' solutions and `acceptance' solutions - policies that accept the other side as a people apart and as an interlocuteur valable. Denial policies are by definition non-negotiable. They need to be enforced. As a result, they are unlikely to resolve conflicts that are basically ethnic, such as the one of the Middle East, particularly under present circumstances of world-wide ethnic assertiveness. Only acceptance solutions may lead to a process of conflict resolution through negotiations between the two main parties concerned, in this case the State of Israel and the PLO. To the extent that states and ethnonationalist movements are implacably irredentist, they cannot present the other side to a conflict with other than non-negotiable denial policies. Ten problems are identified as instrumental for the Middle East impasse and suggestions are made as to how they can be settled. They are the objective (zero-sum) conflict of interest, conflict attitudes, the domestic factor, the positive functions of the conflict, ethnonationalism, the asymmetry between state and revolutionary movement, the role of the superpowers, the religious-cultural dimension, regional expansionism and the regional arms race.

The Sudan, Africa's largest country, not much smaller than Western Europe, is caught up once more in the convulsions of a civil war pitting the Northern against the Southern Sudanese. Inevitably the present conflict is associated with the older civil war which began in the early 1960s and dragged on for ten years, claiming the lives of around one million, and bringing about a famine and devastation little known to the outside world. There are obvious communalities, but the contemporary struggle is hardly a replay of that smouldering little war that had been fought by the Southern Sudanese with the most meagre of means and but a trifle of external aid. I shall deal in some length with what can now be called the first Sudanese civil war, in order to provide the background for an understanding of the real issues at stake today, and to place this second Sudanese civil war in perspective. More generally, the 'Southern Problem' provides insights into communal conflicts and their international dimensions, important though overlooked and often unacknowledged problems of today's world.