The clearest and perhaps the most significant (because
both opponents have nuclear weapons) interstate conflict
going into 2003 is the continuing 45 year struggle between
Pakistan and India over the status of Kashmir. In 2002
tensions reached a breaking point as both sides built
up forces along the Line of Control that divides Kashmir.
The buildup followed an attack on India's parliament by
Kashmiri separatists, during which seven Indians died.
In May, 2002, 30 Indians, including women and children,
were killed in an assault near an Indian army camp. The
United States, eager to keep Pakistan engaged on its northern
border against remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda, pressed
Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to take sterner
measures to prevent infiltration of extremists from his
country into Kashmir. This pressure, plus visits by U.S.
officials to New Delhi, calmed relations between the two
nuclear-armed countries, although both persisted in test-firing
missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Infiltrations
did not stop completely, however. (Witness the late November
attack on a Hindu temple in the Indian-controlled part
of Kashmir in which 13 died. India's security forces
claim they killed almost 1,600 "terrorists" in the first
11 months of 2002.) More trouble may lie ahead for Pakistan
and the United States. In October, an Islamic religious
coalition, the United Action Forum, came in third in elections
for the national parliament. It also took control of
the Northwest Province and made a strong showing in Baluchistan,
both of which border Afghanistan.
Israeli-Palestinian
conflict
Cleanly falling into neither inter- nor intrastate conflict
is the continuing brutal struggle for control over the
Occupied Territories. Since the current intifada began, some 2,500 people, mostly
civilians and mostly Palestinians, have died in firefights,
suicide bombings, and Israeli army operations. During
2002, the Israeli military occupied Palestinian West Bank
towns, villages, and refugee camps - in some instances
for weeks - and conducted military incursions into the
Gaza Strip on numerous occasions in retaliation for suicide
bombings or other attacks on Israelis.
The Sharon government - and the
White House - refused to deal with Yasser Arafat, leader
of the Palestinian Authority, accusing him of not doing
enough to halt attacks against Israelis by Hamas, Hezbollah,
Islamic Jihad, al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and others. At
the same time, Israel continued to expand existing and
to stake out new settlements in Palestinian areas in violation
of the Oslo Accords, which the Sharon government does
not recognize.
Israel seems intent on maintaining
its policy of sharp reprisals. To this end, in late November
it asked Washington for an additional $4 billion in military
aid over the planned $2.16 billion in military assistance
the administration plans to request in its Fiscal Year
2004 budget. (Israel also asked for $10 billion in economic
loan guarantees should the United States go to war with
Iraq.) Yet throughout 2002, Pres. Bush has remained firm
in his commitment to seeing the creation of a Palestinian
state alongside Israel - with someone other than Arafat
at the helm. In January 2003, both Israelis and Palestinians
were to hold elections, but the Palestinian elections
were canceled because of the continuing Israeli occupation.
This dashed hopes for a change in the tone of relations
between the two peoples and between the United States,
Israel's main backer, and the Islamic world.
Europe's
intrastate conflicts
Russia-Chechnya. Of all the intrastate
struggles, the quest for an independent Republic of Chechnya
has received the most attention in the U.S. media. Rus-sian
Pres. Vladimir Putin has labeled the Chechens as Islamic
terrorists, a position supported by Pres. Bush. While
most of the killing occurs in Chechnya, in late October
between 700-800 people were taken hostage in a Moscow
theater by 50 Chechens. When the crisis ended, all the
Chechens and 129 hostages were dead, with virtually all
the latter succumbing to a gas pumped into the theater
by Russian military forces. Then, in late December, two
truck bombs destroyed the main government building in
the Chechen capital of Grozny, killing more than 80 people.
As in the past, the Russian-Chechen
conflict threatens to enmesh the Republic of Georgia.
Moscow claims that Chechens are using Georgia's Pankisi
Gorge, an area not under Tbilisi's sway, as a staging
area for raids against Russian troops and Moscow-appointed
officials in Chechnya. On a number of occasions, Russian
aircraft violated Georgia's airspace pursuing Chechen
rebels on the ground. In September, Pres. Putin asked
the UN to support Russia if Moscow decided on military
strikes into Georgia on the grounds that, by its failure
to act, the government of Georgia was harboring international
terrorists in contravention of UN resolutions against
terror. For its part, the White House rejected Moscow's
bid.
Other conflicts. Both the Basque
separatists (ETA) in Spain and the splinter "Real IRA"
in Northern Ireland continued low-level violence and bombings
in 2002. The Irish Republican Army itself, in October,
ceased cooperation with disarmament overseers although
it said it would continue to observe the Good Friday Accord.
At year's end, however, Northern Ireland's political institutions
were still suspended, the result of October 2002 revelations
of an IRA spy ring inside the Northern Ireland Office.
Asia's
intrastate conflicts
Nepal. In November 2001, responding
to an upsurge in violence by Maoist rebels, Nepal's king
declared a state of emergency and directed the Nepalese
army to enter the battle. Some 25,000 troops are estimated
to be directly contesting with 2,000-4,000 hard core and
as many as 12,000 militia that make up the anti-monarchist
rebel ranks. In late August, the state of emergency was
lifted in anticipation of rolling elections scheduled
to begin in November. In early September, in two back-to-back
attacks in widely separated parts of the country, the
rebels killed over 120, mostly security personnel. In
October, the elected government was replaced by one appointed
by the king (despite objections from Nepal's major legal
political parties) and the emergency reimposed. Perhaps
sensing an opening, the rebels offered peace talks, an
offer renewed in November and December. But the government
remains wary - and with good reason. Of the estimated
7,000 killed on both sides in the seven years of fighting,
over 5,000 have died in the last 14 months.
Afghanistan. A year ago, Afghanistan
was the hottest war zone as remnants of the Taliban and
al Qaeda were being hunted in the rugged terrain bordering
Pakistan. As 2003 began, military and emergency assistance
operations were giving way to security and reconstruction
projects in 10 provinces. In November 2002, the Bush
Administration announced that civil affairs teams would
be augmented to help pinpoint and jump-start critical
infrastructure projects such as roads that, when completed,
could have disproportionate economic benefits. Combat
sweeps will continue in some parts of the country, notably
in the southeast along the Pakistan border where U.S.
officials believe many former Taliban and al Qaeda fighters
are still hiding. While U.S. fatalities have remained
remarkably low, those among Afghans fighting with U.S.
forces and among Afghan civilians remain uncounted. Meanwhile,
outside Kabul, the government of Hamid Karzai continues
to struggle to gain control of a country where loyalty
to clan and local warlords is stronger than allegiance
to central government. The inability of Kabul to enforce
a general round-up of weapons bodes ill for Afghanistan's
future.
Philippines. In January 2002,
the "war against terrorists with global reach" came to
the Philippines when 150 U.S. Special Forces started training
the Filipino army on Mindanao Island in counter-terror
tactics. Another 500 support troops and $92 million in
equipment were part of the new U.S. presence. The main
target was Abu Sayyaf ("Bearer of the Sword"), a group
of between 500-800 who claim to be fighting to establish
an Islamic state free of the predominately Christian majority.
But Abu Sayyaf has become little more than a group engaged
in kidnaping for ransom. There is evidence of past financial
and training links between Abu Sayyaf and al Qaeda, although
these ties seem to have ended. In late July, the original
U.S. contingent withdrew, but others have gone back since.
The U.S. effort seems to have helped as Filipino forces
enjoyed some success in attacking Abu Sayyaf forces on
Basilan and Jolo Islands, although in October the rebels
were blamed for two bombings that killed or injured over
150 people.
Elsewhere in the archipelago,
Manila resumed peace talks with the Moro National Liberation
Front, which so far has escaped the international terrorist
label. But in October, both the Communist New People's
Army and the splinter Moro Islamic Liberation Front came
under suspicion of planting a bomb that killed 6 and wounded
25.
Sri Lanka. After 19 years and
some 65,000 dead, it appears that this country's civil
war may soon end for good. In late November, Tamil Tiger
leader Velupillai Prabhakaran again indicated that he
would accept autonomy in place of secession. On December
5, an unexpected breakthrough in peace talks in Oslo occurred
when the Sri Lankan government agreed to a federal system
in which the minority ethnic Tamils would have significant
autonomy in their strongholds in the north and east.
Even the main opposition party, headed by Sri Lanka President
Chandrika Kumaratunga, welcomed the breakthrough, which
augers well for the agreement when it comes before the
parliament for ratification. Before this happens, however,
the rights of the Muslim minority must also be guaranteed.
Moreover, after nearly two decades of brutal conflict,
both the government and the rebels face the twin challenges
of reconciliation and rebuilding destroyed areas. There
may be some international help; Japan will host a donors'
conference in mid-2003 in an effort to secure external
funding for reconstruction.
Indonesia. In October, Indonesia
was in the headlines because of the nearly 200 people,
mostly tourists, killed in the Bali bombing attributed
to the radical Islamic group, Jemaah Islamiah. But Indonesia
faces other challenges and active insurgencies. The challenges
include preventing new outbreaks of communal violence
in Kalimantan, maintaining the 2001 accord with rebels
in West Papua (formerly Irian Jaya), and beginning implementation
of the Dec. 9, 2002 agreement with the Free Aceh movement
designed to end that 26-year old rebellion. The latter
pact calls for a cease-fire, rebel disarmament over seven
months, elections in 2004, and up to 70 percent of revenues
from petroleum sales going to the province. What it does
not do is resolve the rebel demand for independence, which
could eventually scuttle the accord.
The other two current major trouble
spots are Sulawesi and the Moluccas. Muslim-Christian
violence continued in both of these areas in 2002. In
Sulawesi, the killing has been greatly reduced since a
December 2001 truce was signed. However, the Moluccas
remain quite tense as the central government tries to
quell both Christian separatists and militant Islamic
groups such as the paramilitary Laskar Jihad. More than
5,000 have died in the Moluccas since January 1999.
India. In addition to its stand-off
with Pakistan over Kashmir, India continues to suffer
internal ethnic and religious unrest. In the northeast,
there is armed pressure to redraw state boundaries to
create a Naga tribal state. This pressure has, in turn,
led to the rise of armed groups opposed to new borders,
especially in Assam and Manipur states. The Maoist Peoples
War Group, which ostensibly seeks an independent enclave,
operates largely in Andhra Pradesh. But like Abu Sayyaf
in the Philippines, it has turned to criminal activity.
Surprisingly, the 10th anniversary of the destruction
of the Ayodhya mosque by a Hindu mob passed without serious
incidents. But earlier in the year, in Gujarat state,
Hindu-Muslim rioting caused between 1,000-2,000 deaths.
Central
Africa's wars: Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi,
and Uganda
Just as there seems to be a perpetual
arc of crisis stretching from the Persian Gulf through
the Levant to the newly independent Central Asian republics,
central Africa seems to be in continuous turmoil. The
center of the conflict area is where the Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC), Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda meet, with
fighting extending into the Central African Republic and
Sudan. The only improvements are the uneasy peace that
exists between Eritrea and Ethiopia and the end of the
decades-long civil war in Angola, where the former UNITA
rebels and the government are hammering out a new constitution.
In 2002, troops from the seven
countries that had been pulled into the DRC's multi-faceted
civil war officially withdrew from that country under
terms of one of the many agreements brokered by the UN.
But the peace talks in South Africa, which in December
achieved an accord between the two main rebel groups and
the government, still failed to include all of the rebel
factions. Some of these, such as the loosely aligned
Mai Mai, are still fighting in many places in eastern
DRC not under Kinshasa's control. Rwandan- and Ugandan-supported
rebels retain their forces at the ready in case further
talks with the government break down. Some 1,000 Ugandan
troops remain in the eastern DRC at the request of the
UN to provide some security until the newly expanded UN
peacekeeping force of 8,500 can get to the area (assuming
that countries will contribute enough troops to meet the
new authorization). In all, approximately 2.5 million
are estimated to have perished in this conflict since
1998.
Next door in Burundi, the death
toll continues to mount - now over 300,000 since 1993.
Two small factions of the main rebel groups signed a cease-fire
with the transitional government in September. The mainstream
National Liberation Forces (NFL) continues to hold out,
but the larger Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD)
agreed to a cease-fire that went into effect Dec. 30,
2002. Under the agreement, the FDD will join in a "unity"
government and the army, now dominated by the minority
Tutsis, will be redrawn to give equal Tutsi and Hutu representation.
Western
Africa: Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Liberia
Renewed violence has thrown both
Ivory Coast and Nigeria into major turmoil in a region
that has been beset by chronic instability. In Ivory
Coast, the latest in three years of coups, counter-coups,
and election fighting started in September. A shaky October
17 cease-fire between the southern (Christian) dominated
government and the main northern (Muslim) rebel group
that controls nearly half the country, the Patriotic Movement
of Ivory Coast (MPCI), held until December, when a mass
grave was discovered by French troops monitoring the truce.
Moreover, in late November, two new rebel groups - the
Movement for Justice and Peace and the Ivorian Popular
Movement for the Greater West - emerged in western Ivory
Coast, threatening to divide the country into three zones.
Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo accused Burkina Faso
and Mali of supporting the rebels, a charge denied by
the latter countries. The presidents of Mali and Togo
have proposed deploying a regional peacekeeping force
from countries belonging to the Economic Community of
West African States to replace the approximately 2,500
soldiers France has in-country, but so far no troops have
been offered. Since September, at least 400 have died
in the fighting.
Nigeria, meanwhile, made world
headlines in November 2002 when the Miss World pageant
sparked violence leading to the death of over 200 people
in the conservative northern (Muslim) part of the country.
That was but the latest outbreak in a three-year struggle,
which began with elections in 1999, that ended fifteen
years of direct military rule. Since that time, more
than 10,000 have been killed in ethnic or religious violence.
More deaths can be expected when a series of local and
national elections are held in Spring 2003. On a rare
positive note, Nigeria and Cameroon agreed to the formation
of a UN-sponsored commission to implement details of an
International Court of Justice ruling that awarded the
oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon. One key aspect
of the commission's work will be demilitarization.
Just as peace was coming to Sierra
Leone at the start of 2002, the three-year running war
in next-door Liberia flared. Liberian president Charles
Taylor, who had supported the Sierra Leone rebels, accused
another neighbor, Guinea, of supporting the main rebel
faction in his country, Liberians United for Reconciliation
and Democracy (LURD). By August, the rebels were on the
outskirts of Monrovia, but within a month they had been
thrown back. In November, the UN Security Council extended
its moratorium on all weapon exports to Liberia, whether
for the government or any rebel force.
Other
African conflicts
The latest round of negotiations
to bring some semblance of political unity to Somali began
in October in Kenya. The transitional government (which
controls little more than Mogadishu) and twenty-one opposition
groups agreed to a cease-fire that would last as long
as peace talks continued. Unfortunately, the faction
controlling the independent region in the north known
as Somaliland was not a signatory to the deal and likely
will reject whatever the peace conference yields. The
situation is further complicated by the growing U.S. presence
in the small country of Djibouti which, sitting on the
Gulf of Aden across from Yemen, borders Somaliland as
well as Ethiopia and Eritrea, between whom tensions remain
over their common border despite a judgment by an international
court and the virtual completion of a prisoner-of-war
exchange in December.
Also in October, supporters of
former Central African Republic (CAR) military chief of
staff Francois Bozize crossed into CAR from Chad and seized
part of the capital. Libyan troops, who have been in
CAR since May 2001 to protect the president, responded
along with loyal CAR military units. The Libyan force
of 200 is scheduled to leave upon the arrival of a regionally
based peacekeeping force assembled by the Central African
Economic and Monetary Community - assuming this force
is ever deployed. In an ironic twist, the CAR government
reportedly is being supported by force of 1,000 men from
the rebel Congolese Liberation Movement (the DRC lies
just south of CAR).
Just to the east, in Sudan, the
October nation-wide cease-fire between the Islamic government
in Khartoum and the mostly Christian/animist southern-based
rebels of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA)
has been extended even though negotiations in Kenya failed
to resolve outstanding differences. Still at issue are
power sharing, distribution of oil wealth between the
north and south, and the application of Islamic law (Sharia)
to non-Muslims in Khartoum. This 19-year struggle has
cost an estimated two million lives. In a related conflict,
Khartoum has extended permission for Ugandan military
forces to remain in southern Sudan to apprehend members
of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Ironically, the
LRA, which until recently received support from the Islamic
government of Sudan, claims its goal is to make the Ten
Commandments the basis for the Ugandan government. The
LRA has largely abandoned Sudan as its base and returned
to northern Uganda, from which it continues to attack
civilians and kidnap children.
Perhaps the brightest spot in
sub-Saharan Africa occurred in April when Angola's devastating
civil war ended. The signing of the peace accord was
made possible by the death of Joseph Savimbi in February.
Discussions on reintegrating the UNITA rebels and on a
new constitution were ongoing as the year ended.
Meanwhile, in Northern Africa,
the bloody ten-year old war between the Algerian government
and the Armed Islamic Group continued right through Ramadan,
during which at least 40 people were killed. Reports
speak of "thousands" killed in 2002 in a war that has
claimed as many as 160,000 lives. And 2003 will be no
different, for Washington has decided to sell U.S. military
equipment, possibly including weapons, to Algiers. The
Algerian army reportedly is seeking attack helicopters.
The
Americas' intrastate conflict: Colombia
While violent groups like Peru's
Shining Path still exist, by far the most significant
armed struggle in the Americas is being waged in Colombia.
In part this is the result of the election of Alvaro Uribe
Velez as Colombia's president. Uribe's approach to dealing
with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC),
the National Liberation Army (ELF), and the right-wing
Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) paramilitaries differs
markedly from his predecessor's. The government, with
new help from Washington ($537 million in 2003), is intent
on regaining control over vast areas that had been ceded
to rebel and paramilitary control. Large-scale spraying
of coca fields has also restarted under Uribe, who became
president in August. Washington has agreed to provide
advice and training for newly-formed army brigades, including
one whose primary mission will be to protect an oil pipeline
owned by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum. But
as Colombia cracks down, there is fear that turmoil will
intensify in neighboring states. A FARC presence has
been found or alleged in Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela,
while both the AUC and the FARC have entered Panama.
Table
1 lists the ongoing 30 significant conflicts in the
world at the start of 2003 (down by eight from 2002).
Table II lists 29 potential
hot spots where conflagrations could re-ignite or grow.
The large decrease from 2002 is due to a number of long-running
conflicts finally achieving cease-fire, truce, or peace
negotiation status, and the quelling of militant Islamic
movements in Central Asia.
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