February 1997

The end of the Cold War promised to bring a new era of peace and progress for humanity. The contrary happened for large groups of the human society.

The demise of the Sovjet Union should have brought a peace dividend, which actually happened for the industrialised countries, but for a great number of countries it meant the outbreak of inter-state and intra-state rivalries. The conflicts where of relatively small scale but the large number, the intensity of them and the hate between them made it look very bad.

1997 will show that most of the conflicts which rose out of the demise of the superpower rivalry “are still alive and kicking” and are very difficult to solve.

In this article we will give a global view of a number of areas were conflicts are going on or where there is some tension between states or within states.

Europe

In Europe there is one major conflict between states. And this conflict is born out of an intra-state conflict, namely the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia fell apart through the rivalries about power and economic benefits between the several ethnic populations which lived in former Yugoslavia.

Only the conflict in Bosnia Herzegowina is still more or less going on. The intervention of IFOR and later SFOR stopped the actual war but the ethnic cleansing and the hate between the different people is still present. And if SFOR would leave in the near future it will be very likely that the Serbs, Croats and Muslems are at war again.

All other conflicts in Europe are of a different nature. They are intra-state, the willingness of a people for independence or greater autonomy. The Irish in northern-Ireland want a reunification with the rest of Ireland. The Basks in Spain want an independent state. The Corse in Corsica want a special, privileged, status within France. All those organisations which want to pursue their goals are mostly terrorist in their actions. All those organisations have not be able to get the support of the majority of their own people. The people of those areas would like to be independent or have more autonomy but they are not prepared to use violence. They can live with the situation as it is, it is not that important to them.

The intrest groups, like the IRA and ETA, will continue their fight even when they will never win. Because no side can win in this kind of war.

Africa

The continent experienced an explosion of internal violence after the demise of the superpowers. Old regimes lost their support from one of the two superpowers and the opposition/other clans could rise and try to take over power.

Algeria is struggling with a religious fundamentalistic opposition which is waging war through the use of at least two organisations, FIS and the GIA, to force the ruling government out of power. The religious groups represented through the FIS believe they are right because they won the elections that were cancelled through military and the sitting political elite.

The struggle between the two sides will continue till one of them is to exhausted to go on. Both sides enjoy less and less support from the population because the excessive violence used by both sides to intimidate each other estranged them from the population who suffer mostly from it.

Libya is also experiencing some violent opposition. The ruling of Khadaffi is questioned because the economic situation is deteriorating because of the low oil price but especially through the economic boycot. The opposition is not yet strong enough to eliminate Khadaffi but it is more then a nuisance.

Sudan is essentially a country divided in to two countries. The Islamic north and the Christian/anamist south. The north tries to force the Islam religion to the south to control and dominate the whole country. The northern forces are experiencing heavy opposition from the south. The south even gets support from the north of groups which do not agree with the autoritarian regime of Islamic fundamentalists. Both sides are not strong enough to enforce a solution in the coming months. It will mean a prolongation of the conflict for very long time.

Rwanda/Burundi, these two small states are inhabited by a Hutu majority and a Tutsi minority. The Tutsis dominated in the government and the military and the Hutus in trade and agriculture. This situation lasted till the elections. After that the Hutus achieved power, they used it to eliminate the Tutsi power and later in Rwanda to destroy the Tutsi as a people.

The Tutsis in Rwanda did get support from a Tutsi group which fled outside the country after the Hutus took over control after the elections some years ago. After a very long battle against the Hutu government the Tutsis could achieve a victory. A large number of Hutus fled, afraid of an eventual revenge of the Tutsis. The conflict moved itself to Zaïre.

Zaïre an impoverished country by the ruthless exploitation of its leaders. The Hutus who fled to Zaïre continued their battle against their enemies in Rwanda. At the same time they encouraged ethnic differences between the original Zaïrean people and Tutsis who had moved in several hundred of years ago. After some harassments the Tutsis hit back and with the support of some Zaïrean opposition groups and the Rwanda army they could force the Rwandan Hutus out of Zaïre and they could establish a small state of their own in eastern Zaïre.

The Zaïrean forces which are ill-equipped, badly paid and hardly trained could not pose any danger for the advancing opposition/Tutsi forces. The results of decade long neglection of any state structures becomes clear if you see the actions the “official” government takes to recover the lost territory. The government will not be able to regain power that easily. The conflict promisess to continue for a long time.

The conflict in Somalia is nearly over with the exception of the battle for control of certain parts of the capital and the countryside. But the country is effectively parted in several small holdings were a warlord is in power. And as long this is the accepted modus of operandi, the war will be over.

South America

The wild days of this continent seem to be over, with the exception of Colombia and Peru. These countries still possess some active querilla forces which creates some difficulties for the development process.

Colombia has the biggest problems with handling the internal security threat. About three to four querilla organisations and a number of criminal organisations are trying to undermine the government. The querillas have a political goal and the crmininals just want to do their illegal business. Both groups can easily continue the battle against the government because they are financially well off through the drugs and kidnapping business. The government at the same time is hampered in their actions against the querillas and criminals because of the scandals in which so many politicians are involved.

Peru has minimised the impact of querilla organisations on the society but they still exist. The “shining path” and MRTA organisations are still active, as seen by the operation in the Japanese embassy of the MRTA. Both organisations are difficult to eliminate and will stay dangerous until a political solution is found which is acceptable for all parties. But this maybe impossible, the best course of action is to eliminate their goals by adopting them and thereby to destroy their support and “raison d’etre”.

The Indian sub-continent

The factional wars in Afghanistan seem endless, even when the Taliban in in control of two-thirds of the country, it will have to fight hard to get the last third. The three warlords in the north will stay as long as possible in power and even when they loose they will continue as a querilla force to act against the Taliban. The Taliban will face the biggest problems after an eventual victory because it as always very difficult to keep Afghanistan in one part because the people have bigger loyalty to the clan and tribe than to the nation state.

The government in Sri Lanka has been succesfull in fighting the Tamil Tigers but after the destruction of the Tamil strongholds it will be more difficult to eliminate the small and agile combat units of the Tamils. When the government can not reach a political solution the warwill go on for a very long time.

India and Pakistan both face some internal dissent from several political and ethnic groups but they can more or less control the situation and take care that it will not grow into a conflict.

Asia

In a number of former Sovjet republics, which became independent after the dissolution of the Sovjet Union, is still some fighting going on over who is in control and what are the exact boundaries. An example of the last one Armenia and Azerbaïdjan about the enclave Nagorno-Karabach. This conflict is now at a standstill because of an armistice but the fighting will start again if the Azeris feel strong enough to eject the claims of the Armenians in the enclave.

An example of the former is Kyrgyristan and Taïjikistan, several parties are waging war about who will govern the country. And because of the shifting alliances no party is strong enough to alter the status quo. Especially as long as Russia is only interested in keeping the fundamentalistic influences out its sphere of influence.

China has also a number internal problems with groups who want to be separated from China. The people of Tibet and Xinjiang both want their independence. The Tibetians act mostly with peacefull means and by the use of the Dalai Lama get very easy an entrance to all international news agencies.

The people of Xinjiang, they are of Turkish stock and related with the people of the bordering countries, are more and more willing to use violence to stop the Chinese influence. In the long run this could mean that China is going to loose an important part of its territory, the part with a lot of minerals and raw materials. The Chinese can only stop the independence movement by violence and mass immigration of Han- Chinese but this will mean even more violence.

The third problem is based on the inequal development of the economy. The coastal regions are getting wealthy and more independent and the inner regions stay behind. The same is true for the people some enjoy the modernisation and get wealthy but the most of the people get relatively only poorer.

Beside the internal problems which China faces, there are also a few potential external problems. First, the now apparently solved problems with India, the border problem is now more or less solved but the new Chinese naval base and the increasing operations of the Chinese navy in the Indian Ocean is not really a act of good neighbourhood.

Secondly, the Chinese problems with the existence of Taiwan, what they consider as a renegade province. If the economical development of China develop itself better than we expect and China feels strong enough to claim Taiwan with other means then diplomatic or if Taiwan declares itself as an independent state and applies for membership of the U.N., then China will be compelled to use force to take over the island or change the mind of the Taiwanese politicians.

Thirdly, the Spratly Islands which are also claimed by China as a part of their territory. Seven countries have claim on the Spratly Islands and some of them, including China, already deploy forces and/or people on one or more of the many islands. All clashes which happened until now could be de-escalated but in the future with a self-conscious China, as powerhouse or in need, this will be more difficult.

The Middle East

Israel will also be 1997 the attraction of the world press, the implementation of the peace accords with now and then a terrorist assault will stress the relation between the Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt to the utmost.

The relation with Syria and Lebanon is more difficult to classify. A war between between them is unlikely, the superiority of Israel is still to big to overcome for Syria. But the tension between them can rise to unacceptable levels because Syria will let the Hezbollah fight a proxy war. The terrorist threat is very difficult to counter especially if the Hezbollah attacks are limited to military targets.

Israel can not easily give up the Golan heights but the absence of peace treaty will push Israel into a corner were it will loose the international support it uses to have. A wise peace which does not sacrifice Israeli security needs is also absolutely necessary.

Finally the conflict which goes on for decades, the Kurdish question. The Kurds are fighting for their own state for several years but they never came any further than autonomy in Iraq. And that was only reached when Iraq was in great difficulties. The goal of one Kurdistan is an illusion because the three countries with sizeable numbers of Kurds, Turkey, Iraq and Iran, will never allow them to unite. And even the Kurds in the different countries and the several clans/parties in a country will never be able to work or live together. See the autonomy of the Kurds in Iraq who were trying everything to eliminate eachother.

The several Kurdish parties wil continue their struggle for independence and the nations who are invloved will continue to combat them and to play out the several parties against eachother. For the Kurds it is a fight with no hope to succeed.