New life in separatist movements around the globe

For many decades separatist or secessionist groups around the world have been fighting their battles for autonomy or independence in various forums and by various means. The referendum and consequent secession last year of South Sudan as a separate sovereign nation, independent from northern Sudan, again put the spotlight on and gave new impetus to the 97 active separatist movements around the world.

Despite the internationally supported developments in Sudan, and the legitimate quests for autonomy or independence by a number of regions and movements, secession remains pretty much a dirty word in the political lexicon of the world..

On the pretext that their sovereignty will be undermined, governments have consistently opposed secession notions, quite often with brutal repression. However, the real reasons for this opposition more often than not are found in economic interests, the location of national assets and resources, international prestige, and the dominance of majorities over minorities.

The minority groups or regions seeking independence are often motivated by the same factors, in addition to their particular nationalisms and their quest for an independent cultural, religious, racial or ethnic identity and land.

Nigeria

A case in point is Nigeria where a secessionist movement in south-eastern Nigeria declared the short-lived independent Republic of Biafra in the late 1960s, giving rise to a devastating civil war.

Today another ethnically-based secessionist movement in the oil-rich Niger Delta is engaged in an armed struggle for the control of the region and its oil resources. Their justification is that they are not seeing any of the oil-wealth being ploughed into the development of the Niger Delta – the spoils mostly going to corrupt central politicians and to regions where other ethnic groups such as the Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa dominate.

Regular clashes also occur between people of the Muslim north and the Christian south, with some voices on both sides having argued for two separate states, something the central government strongly opposes.

Sudan has been the exception to the rule so far. Following two civil wars and repeated attempts for southern autonomy, a peace agreement in 2005 and subsequent referendum eventually led to the internationally recognised and orderly secession of South Sudan into an independent republic in 2011.

Apart from religious and ethnic differences between north and south, a major factor was the oil resources of the south, something that continues to cause tensions between the two.

Berlin Conference of 1884

In the case of Africa, most of the conflicts between ethnic groups and regions, whether within countries or across borders, and the movements for autonomy, secession and independence, are the direct consequences of the Berlin Conference of 1884.

It was here where the European powers divided Africa among themselves, leading to a century of colonial plunder and total disregard for the realities of Africa’s demographic, political and cultural realities.

Emmy Godwin Irobi, a former Biafran child soldier and now a political scientist living in Poland, wrote in a 2005 paper entitled Ethnic Conflict Management in Africa: A Comparative Case Study of Nigeria and South Africa: Conflicts in many African countries are mostly between ethnic groups, not states.

“If not checked, ethnic conflicts are contagious and can spread quickly across borders like cancer cells.

“It is important to note that most of these ethnic conflicts were caused by colonialism, which compounded inter-ethnic conflict by capitalising on the isolation of ethnic groups. The divide-and-conquer method was used to pit ethnicities against each other, thus keeping the people from rising up against the colonisers. Distribution of economic resources was often skewed to favour a particular group, pushing marginalised groups to use their ethnicity to mobilise for equality. These are the seeds of conflict,” he wrote.

According to Irobi there are some common conflict patterns which include the demand for ethnic and cultural autonomy, competing demands for land, money and power, and conflicts taking place between rival ethnic groups.

South Africa

In South Africa too, given its history of human settlement and early racial and ethnic conflicts, and following the major political transformation of the early 1990s, a “secessionist” movement in the guise of a loose collection of various Afrikaner volkstaters seeking  various forms of self-rule, autonomy and independence made itself heard for a while. This was a last desperate offshoot of separate development or apartheid.

Most of it has since disappeared, except for the settlement of Orania, a marginally “autonomous” collection of several tracts of land and an abandoned little town bought up by a group of Afrikaner right-wingers where today they live a culturally insulated life apart from the rest of South Africa.

On its website the Orania Movement describes itself as “an Afrikaans cultural movement with the aim to restore Afrikaner freedom in an independent, democratic Republic based on Christian values”.

In Africa today there are separatist movements in no fewer than 23 countries, or half of the continent. They vary greatly in their strengths, popularity, activities and methods. The more active and prominent ones are in Algeria, Angola (Cabinda), Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Morocco (Western Sahara), Niger, Nigeria, and Somalia.

Independence or separatist movements in Europe have returned to prominence with the current threat of a breakup of the eurozone and possibly even the European Union.

But Britain, the likely first pullout from the EU, itself has had to deal with internal nationalist and autonomy-seeking movements in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond’s recent proposal for a referendum for the independence of Scotland will probably fail, with opinion polls indicating Scottish support for independence at only  30%.

But, that can change. In the case of Canada search group Business Monitor International points out that despite the defeat of the Quebec independence referendum in 1980, the separatists regained momentum and came within a whisker of succeeding in  1995. If the Scottish nationalists lose by a narrow margin, they could eventually try again, possibly with more success.

In Europe there are separatist movements in no   fewer than 29 countries. Best known is probably Spain’s often violent Basque separatist movement and the recent ethnic conflicts in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Throughout the Middle East and Asia there are active separatist movements in 23 countries; in 4 countries in North and Central America and the Caribbean; in 10 island nations around the world; and in eight South American countries. It certainly is a phenomenon that cannot be ignored.