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Items
About Areas That Could Break Out Into War
December
30, 2006: There are several wars that have, well, "stalled", for want
of a better word. These include; Ivory Coast, Nepal, Haiti, Central Asia and
several Pacific islands. In most cases, peace negotiations are
under way, but the contending forces remain armed and ready to resume
fighting.
In
Ivory Coast, where the dispute is basically between new migrants, attracted to
the labor shortage in the booming cocoa growing industry, and the more
established residents in the south, egged on by a demagogic president who doesn't
like the competition. The southerners want to keep the northerners out of the
political process, and the northerners won't put up with that. Peacekeepers,
including French troops, keep both sides apart. But there is no final
resolution, the economy is a mess. Neither side is willing to resume the
fighting, but neither side is willing to make a deal. It just drags on.
Nepal
has, officially, settled its anti-monarchy uprising. But unofficially, the
place is still a powder keg. The anti-monarchists were mainly radical
communists (Maoists, in fact), and they now have some armed factions that
disagree with the compromise (the Maoists will share power and join a
democratic government). There are also armed monarchists (much of the army, for
example), who do not want to see their king diminished.
Haiti
is a multi-sided version of Ivory Coast. Many factions. Basically, you have
armed gangs representing populist politicians and criminal gangs. Another bunch
of armed groups represent the upper class (of the poorest nation in the
Americas), the police and more gangs. Peacekeepers try to keep the warring
parties apart, and suppress the criminal activity. Fact is, no one wants to go
to war, and the desperate poverty makes criminal activity a more attractive
prospect. For Haiti, this is as close to "normal" as you get. Been
like this for over two centuries, and the current effort to break the cycle
isn't going very well.
Central
Asia had outbreaks of Islamic radicalism and pro-democracy activism in the past
decade. Neither of these did very well against the post-Cold War dictators that
have taken over the new (formerly parts of the Soviet Union) nations. The
Islamic radicals had something going when the Taliban ran Afghanistan. But when
the U.S. took out the Taliban in late 2001, many Central Asian Islamic radicals
died, or were captured, in the process. There weren't many survivors, and many
of those ended up across the border, hiding out in the Pakistani tribal
territories. Most people in Central Asia are still unhappy with the strong men
(usually former communist era bureaucrats) who seized power when the Soviet
Union dissolved in 1991. All want better than the corruption, incompetent rule
and police state treatment they are getting now. Democracy is new and exotic,
and having a hard time gaining traction. Islamic radicalism is more familiar,
but not very popular. Islamic radicalism has not worked in the past, and has a
hard time overcoming its heritage. But both the democrats and Islamic radicals
keep trying.
The
Pacific Islands (Fiji, Solomons, Tonga, Papua, in particular) are largely new
nations, with many people who are just a few generations away from a
stone age existence. Lack of experience, and tribalism, combine to create a
very unstable situation. So unstable, in fact, that few factions can even get
an effective revolution, or government, going. When there is a tiff, it usually
ends in a sloppy stalemate. Little is ever resolved, but the political pot
always seems to be boiling.
There's
a lesson in all this. The absence of war, doesn't mean the presence of peace.