From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Wed Aug 13 2008 - 08:10:24 EDT
"Indeed, Africa has countless border and tribal issues to contend with. So
it is of no help at all that the west, led by movie stars and singers, gets
incensed about Darfur with scant understanding of the ethnic and economic
complexities there or the history of the Darfur Sultanate, which was
incorporated into Sudan in 1916..."
http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1383&Itemid=35
Georgia's Lessons for Asia
<http://del.icio.us/post?v=4&noui&jump=close&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asiasentinel.com%2Findex.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D1383%26Itemid%3D35&title=Asia+Sentinel-Georgia%92s+Lessons+for+Asia>
<http://www.mister-wong.com/add_url/?bm_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asiasentinel.com%2Findex.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D1383%26Itemid%3D35&bm_description=Asia+Sentinel-Georgia%92s+Lessons+for+Asia>
<http://www.newsvine.com/_tools/seed&save?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asiasentinel.com%2Findex.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D1383%26Itemid%3D35&h=Asia+Sentinel-Georgia%92s+Lessons+for+Asia>
<http://reddit.com/submit?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asiasentinel.com%2Findex.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D1383%26Itemid%3D35&title=Asia+Sentinel-Georgia%92s+Lessons+for+Asia>
<http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/bookmarklet?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asiasentinel.com%2Findex.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D1383%26Itemid%3D35&=Asia+Sentinel-Georgia%92s+Lessons+for+Asia>
<http://technorati.com/faves?add=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asiasentinel.com%2Findex.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D1383%26Itemid%3D35>
<http://digg.com/submit?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asiasentinel.com%2Findex.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D1383%26Itemid%3D35>
Philip Bowring 13 August 2008 Russia's latest conflict has troubling
echoes for other multi-ethnic regions
The crisis in and around Georgia may seem rather remote from most of Asia.
Yet there are issues and lessons from this latest fall-out from the break up
of the Russian/Soviet empire that are relevant in Asia, which still faces
border disputes and ethnic minority issues left over from European and other
imperialisms.
Of course, the Russians are proving once again that for thuggish behavior
they have few peers. Putin's 1999 destruction of Grozny, the capital of
Chechnya, comes to mind, as does the brutalization of Budapest in 1956.
Instead of merely pushing the Georgians back from their attempt to regain
control of the Russian-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia they
launched a brutal onslaught on civilians as well as the Georgian military.
High on oil money, the Russians will get away with all this as the rest of
the world merely issues pious statements. The US is infuriated because it
strongly supported Georgia's hot-headed President Saakashvili but is unable
to give him any practical help. George Bush fulminates against his former
pal Putin and presidential contender John McCain makes bellicose but empty
statements, all to no avail. Europeans wring their hands and reluctantly
admit that strategies such as pipelines through Georgia and Turkey to avoid
Russia are even more subject to political disruption (by Kurds as well as
Russia) than ones through Russia itself.
In the long run this is a very dangerous game for the Russians to be
playing. The patchwork of nationalities in the Caucasus are often at each
others' throats, but they do not have any great love for Russian
overlordship, actual or attempted. Chechnya could again revolt against
Moscow, predominantly Muslim Dagestan and Ingushetia have potential trouble
as do the various republics in southern and eastern Russia where minorities
are the majority.
Even the Ossetians, for whom the Russians now claim to be fighting, are
themselves a minority and other minority and border issues also have an
impact on larger neighbors, Turkey and Iran and the smaller independent
Caucasus republics, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Despite Chechnya, post-Soviet
federalism has not been a failure and has been helped by Soviet-era
infrastructure integration. But underlying tensions remain and the
demographics favor the minorities as Russian numbers start to decline.
But the west has barely begun to admit that it also bears plenty of
responsibility for the problems in the Balkans and Caucasus that followed
the Soviet break-up and the collapse of Yugoslavia into warring states.
Europe in effect encouraged the emergence of multi-states from the single
entity that a wiser Europe devised after World War I. Then Yugoslavia was
created from bits of the defunct Turkish and Austro-Hungarian empires. It
made a lot of sense. It may have had three main religions – Catholic and
Orthodox Christian and Muslim and two scripts (Roman and Cyrillic) ‑ but the
spoken language and social mores had much in common. Yet after the death of
Marshall Tito and the fall of Communism in Europe it rapidly degenerated
into civil war and genocide.
A united Europe not only made scant efforts to hold it together, but in the
name of "freedom of choice" last year furthered the process of Balkanization
by supporting Kosovo's break from Serbia, creating eight states (Bosnia is
in effect two) from the former Yugoslavia, an act that infuriated Russia,
which warned of serious consequences. Those have now begun to unfold in
Georgia.
"Self-determination" is a powerful concept at the root of all independence
movements. But drawing lines between a theoretical right and a practical
reality is very difficult. In post-colonial Asia newly independent nations
have naturally focused on maintaining whatever territorial borders they
inherited. Re-alignment of some borders might have made a lot of sense – for
example, Thailand and Malaysia would both be stronger if Thailand has lost
its three Malay-Muslim southern provinces, as almost happened in 1945. It
would still make sense now – but is politically impossible.
Even the tiniest of border adjustments can take years to negotiate – as
witness the China-Russia dispute over a small island in the Issuri River. In
addition, minorities often get short shrift a nationalistic majority makes
second class citizens of minorities who yearn for their own
self-determination. Serbia, Israel and Burma are all countries that have
excelled in this regard.
In Asia there is no European Union supporting the break-up of others in the
name of self-determination. But do not imagine that similar centripetal
forces could not emerge in Asia. For the foreseeable future, China may be
able to keep the lid on the demands of Tibetans and Uighurs, but sooner of
later some other power will want to promote their demands for strategic
reasons. And given Beijing's crude approach to these minorities, animosities
run deep and can become endless sources of trouble for China. Can China
loosen a centralism rooted in its history of bureaucratic rule and Han
chauvinism as well as more recent Communist Party domination?
Burma's irredentist problems are vastly greater, with minorities comprising
perhaps 40 percent of the population. The military regime has had some
success in limiting the activities of the numerous separatists groups –
Shan, Karen etc. What is unclear is how far any future government in
Rangoon, democratic or not, would deal with these issues. What sort of
federal system would hold the country together while allowing large measures
of autonomy? Or are the Shan, for example, as entitled to their own state as
the Georgians or the Kosovans?
Even India, with its multiplicity of languages and religions, has trouble
with minorities, particularly in the northeastern hill regions. But overall
de-centralism does seem to work quite well in India, at least in terms of
maintaining political unity even at cost of efficient government. Indonesia
may be finding the same now – and not only in dealing with Aceh. Meanwhile,
Timor Leste is showing that even with oil, independent mini-states can
create more problems than they solve. Nor do divisions reluctantly conceded
necessarily lance the boils. Ethiopia has been in almost continuous war with
Eritrea ever since the latter gained independence in 1993 after the collapse
of the Marxist regime in Addis Adaba.
Indeed, Africa has countless border and tribal issues to contend with. So it
is of no help at all that the west, led by movie stars and singers, gets
incensed about Darfur with scant understanding of the ethnic and economic
complexities there or the history of the Darfur Sultanate, which was
incorporated into Sudan in 1916. China is attacked for supplying arms to
Khartoum while humanitarian activists turn a blind eye to the supplies
provided to the rebel groups via Chad. The most likely sources of funds are
the French, who have long viewed Chad as a client ex-colony, and Israel,
eager to keep up a war that the western media likes to present as demonic
Arabs fighting innocent black Africans.
Even when small, newly independent states are not at war with each other or
oppressing minorities, they find cooperation very difficult. The ex-Soviet
Central Asian 'stans all have economic problems – mostly centering on power
and water -- and each can make life for the others more difficult, or
together they can work out a balance of interests. Thus far there has been
mostly stalemate.
Yet the most dysfunctional 'stan of all, Afghanistan, was once almost a
model of a loose federation of tribes and tongues held together by a king
and a desire to keep foreign powers at a distance.
The Caucasus region is an extreme example of the collision of post-empire
self-determination and multi-ethnic geography. But for that very reason the
issues in Georgia and with neighbors big and small deserve close watching in
Asia if only as examples of what not to do.
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----