Pandora's Box: Ideals or Interest

By Pascal Boniface
Le Monde Diplomatique, January 1999

Last year's nuclear tests in India and Pakistan have focused world attention on the problem of nuclear proliferation. But the proliferation of states is potentially an even more serious threat to international stability.

All over the world, countries are fragmenting. It's a trend that goes beyond North-South and East-West divides (Ignacio Ramonet, Géopolitique du chaos, 1997). The Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia are particularly dramatic examples, but the trend is general-look at Quebec, Sri Lanka, China, the United Kingdom. The same thing is happening in Africa too, where colonial borders, retained for reasons of practicality, started to be redrawn with the recognition of Eritrea in 1993. Change could be on the way as a result of ethnic and political tensions in Somalia, Senegal, Angola, Congo, Liberia, Djibouti and a dozen other states.

In the next few years we are likely to see more new states. Even countries noted for their cohesion will not be immune. For instance, China, with its huge population, could turn out to be less monolithic than it appears. For years its outlying provinces, following the example of Tibet, have been wanting their independence and even in the Han regions, economic reforms could easily spark off separatist demands.

India too is under pressure from Sikhs on the Pakistan border fighting for an independent state of Khalistan, Gurkhas in the Himalayas planning to secede, and, for decades, an Islamic separatist movement in Kashmir.

Indonesia, with its 18,000 islands, its population of 200 million and its 500 ethnic groups, is also in danger of disintegrating into separate states, some with ambitions to become the new Singapore. East Timor will probably be the first to secede.

In Latin America separatists are also becoming more vocal. People in the prosperous south of Brazil are tired of subsidising the poorer regions north of Rio de Janeiro and want to be rid of them. And the leader of a separatist movement says that until that happens, Brazil is always going to be backward.

The same is happening in Mexico. People in the developed, democratic and relatively prosperous north want to break away from the poor and violent south, with its large Indian population. The division is reflected in Mexico's political parties. In the north, the strongest party is the liberal and business-orientated National Action Party. Not surprisingly, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, standing for state control and the redistribution of wealth, gains most of its support from the south.

The Chechens are not the only separatists in Russia. Theirs is a mainly ethnic and religious struggle. But in the rest of the federation the situation is quite different. The Republic of Tuva on the Mongolian border is demanding the right to defend its own territory. Tatarstan and Baskortostan have signed friendship and cooperation treaties with Abkhazia, an autonomous region of Georgia-another country created from the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It's not just in the larger countries that separatism is gaining momentum. The Pacific island of Bougainville is on the point of breaking away from New Guinea. Without wishing to belittle their nationalist sensibilities, one of the main reasons is its people's reluctance to share the island's copper wealth with the far less prosperous people of New Guinea. In the same way, it is not just for ethnic or religious reasons (Africans versus Arabs, Christians and animists versus Muslims) that southern Sudan wants to break away from Khartoum. It so happens the country's oil is concentrated in the south.

Even in Western Europe-an example of military security, economic prosperity and territorial integrity-the secessionist movement is gaining momentum. The figures speak for themselves. In 1923 Europe had 23 states and 18,000 km of borders. In 1999 there are 50 states, with 40,000 km of borders. Who knows what it will be like in 10 years' time?

Threat to peace

States have often been created as a result of wars. In 1500 Europe had almost 500 political entities. By the beginning of the 20th century it had a few dozen: most of them had been forcibly taken over by larger countries. Nowadays the trend is being reversed. It's the disintegration of states, not their unification, that starts wars. Large empires are no longer being built; the world is becoming Balkanised. And the biggest threat to peace is secession.

Secession is not the same thing as a war of independence. Its main aim is not to defend the identity of a group under threat in the larger country, but to take control of the country's wealth, which is felt to have been unfairly distributed in the past. In most cases, separatism is not rooted in a mad desire for freedom so much as in the belief that, in hard times, economic recovery will be easier in a small country, rather than in a larger grouping. That's why the Slovenes wanted to leave the Yugoslav federation. And the USSR collapsed largely because the Slavs were no longer willing to bear the burden of the Central Asian republics.

The Czechs, who were more prosperous, wanted to get rid of Slovakia; so they went along with its nationalist demands, which in the past they would have at best ignored, and at worst savagely repressed as an attack on the state. The geographical size of a country used to be seen as the measure of its influence in international affairs. But the Czech example shows power is no longer the goal: the Czechs merely saw it as an obstacle to prosperity.

The situation in Hungary is different, but the same thing is happening. Hungary has abandoned its irredentist aims; the dream of a Greater Hungary has evaporated and nothing remains but the rhetoric. Again, the motivation is mainly economic: the Hungarian minorities in poorer countries like Romania and Slovakia would get in the way of Hungary's ambition to join the European Union.

After seeing the problems the Germans have had, the South Koreans have decided to shelve their own plans for reunification-even if it is still officially a priority. If a rich country like West Germany finds it hard to merge with its less prosperous other half, what hope is there that South Korea can amalgamate successfully with North Korea, a country even more hidebound than the former GDR?

In the 19th century the unification of Italy put an end to the regions's disastrous divisions and was hailed as a step forward, a means of enhancing its international status. Now we have the Northern League winning popular support for its campaign to separate from the unproductive and costly south.

In Spain, regional nationalism is at its strongest in the two wealthiest and most industrialised regions, Catalonia and the Basque Country, which are seeking to dissociate themselves not so much from Madrid, but from poor-and less nationalistic regions-like Andalusia, Extremadura and the Asturias.

For separatists all over the world, "hell is the others". Sometimes the majority is trying to get rid of a minority it sees as a drain on the country, bringing down per capita GNP. Sometimes it is the minority which is hoping to improve its lot by breaking away from a poverty-stricken majority. In both cases, the solution is to jettison the undesirables in the hope of an easier life.

Just as the gulf between rich and poor is widening, so ethnic groups are growing further apart. Nowadays the world revolves around profit, the race for prosperity and unbridled consumerism. National honour and pride, the common good and the desire for power are all giving way to material considerations. And if, from time to time, a movement seems to be acting for idealistic reasons, it's usually a smokescreen. Increasingly, nationalism and cultural affinity are a cover for short-term economic interests.

Pascal Boniface, Director of the Institut des relations internationales et stratégiques (IRIS), Paris.