SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY VOTES TO KEEP SCOTLAND IN NATO;
PLOY TO GARNER CENTRIST VOTES PROMPTS 2 M.S.P.S TO QUIT PARTY
The Scottish National Party (S.N.P.) narrowly voted in a party conference on October 19th to keep Scotland in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) if a 2014 referendum on independence from the United Kingdom should succeed. But the party, voting 394-365, agreed that continued membership in NATO is contingent on the withdrawal of any nuclear forces from Scottish territory and waters. The S.N.P.’s leader, Alex Salmond, had advocated staying in NATO, his argument being that fear of being left militarily vulnerable might be keeping some voters from supporting secession. Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s minister of justice, articulated the position, saying, “We’re all against” Trident missiles; “but we have moved on from being a party of protest to being a party of power. I have marched for C.N.D.”—referring to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament—“and I have protested against Trident and I am tired of marching. I want a seat for our government in the situations of power.” The U.K. has promised, however, to block an independent Scotland’s membership in NATO, whose rules would require it to reapply. After the party’s decision, two members of Scotland’s parliament for Highlands constituencies, John Finnie and Jean Urquhart, quit the party in protest. A few days later, Salmond was dodging questions about rumors that he received legal advice to the effect that the European Union (E.U.) may make adopting the euro a condition for an independent Scotland’s “re”-admission to the E.U.
Alex Salmond |
[For updates from Nigeria and Cameroon , including the Bakassi Peninsula and Boko Haram conflicts, see this week’s Nigeria Separatism Update.]
Kenyan Court Reinstates Ban on Mombasa Separatists; Warrants Issued for Leadership. In Mombasa, Kenya, a high court has outlawed the popular separatist organization in Kenya’s predominantly-Muslim Coast Province, the Mombasa Republican Council (M.R.C.), which had had its ban lifted by another kcourt mere months ago, in July. The magistrate, Stephen Riech, was responding to an appeal by the Kesnyan government. Arrest warrants were immediately issued for those of the M.R.C. leadership that were still at large. The M.R.C.’s leader, Omar Hamisi Mwamnuadzi, was arrested on October 15th (as reported on at the time in this blog), along with his wife, on weapons charges, but released October 22nd on the equivalent of $35,300 (U.S.) bond. The weapons in question included (get this—you don’t hear this every day): “four bottles of petrol bombs, three Swahili swords, six knives, four arrows, two bows, two Maasai swords, one spear, and eight machetes.” I wonder if he’ll tell the judge he was just planning to do a little yardwork?
The Mombasa Republican Council’s flag |
Sheikh Farid Hadi’s perp walk |
Azawadi Islamists Bulldoze More Sufi Tombs in Northern Mali. Near Timbuktu, in the part of northern Mali run by Islamist militias as the Independent State of Azawad, militants with bulldozers demolished three Sufi tombs on October 18th. The Islamists, who were from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Ansar al-Dine group, obliterated the resting places of at least three Sufi saints: Cheick Nouh, Cheick Ousmane el-Kabir, and Cheick Mohamed Foulani Macina. A resident said, “They arrived aboard six or seven vehicles, heavily armed. They flattened everything with a bulldozer and pulled up the skeletal remains.” In Ansar al-Dine’s strict interpretation of Islam, Sufism is heretical and it is forbidden to build structures atop burial sites. The group’s systematic destruction of Sufi tombs in and around Gao and Timbuktu followed closely upon the United Nations Cultural and Educational Organization (Unesco) declaring them an endangered World Heritage Site earlier this year.
... and in the “You Know You’re an Extremist When ...” Department ... One of Osama bin Laden’s former senior advisors has spoken out against the Islamists running the de facto independent Azawad republic in northern Mali, saying, “I am against the way in which these groups have gone about establishing an Islamic state in northern Mali. This undertaking will do far more harm than good to the Muslims and people in the sub-region. It would be better to seek dialogue and find a solution jointly.” The advisor, Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, parted ways with bin Laden after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Mahfouz Ould al-Walid. Even he thinks the folks running northern Mali are bonkers. |
After Kenyan Rout of al-Shabaab, Puntland Supports Autonomous Jubaland. The president of the de facto independent Puntland State of Somalia spoke at Friday prayers in Garowe, the capital, on October 26th and praised the newly stabilized (but, sadly, still barely existent) Federal Republic of Somalia, while also calling for the reestablishment of an autonomous Jubaland State in the areas of southern Somalia where African Union (A.U.) forces led by Kenya recently took control from the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab militia. The president, Abdirahman Mohamed Farole, said, “Puntland played an important in the national political process for Somalia and we appeal to the new Somali Federal Government to promote national reconciliation and state-building processes, such as the formation of Jubaland.”
E.U. Brings Somaliland into EUCAP Nestor Anti-Piracy Initiative. The European Union (E.U.) announced this week that it is officially incorporating the unrecognized but de facto independent Republic of Somaliland into its EUCAP Nestor program for suppressing sea piracy off the Somali coast. Somaliland’s foreign minister, Dr. Mohamed Abdilahi Omar, called the agreement a milestone, especially given the context: a visit by the E.U.’s envoy to Somalia and Somaliland, Michele Cervone d’Urso, to Hargeisa, the Somaliland capital, to meet with the president, Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo.
Journalist Killed in Somaliland Brings Somalia Total to 16 for 2012. A 25-year-old television reporter for Universal T.V. of the United Kingdom was shot in the head and killed on October 23rd in a disputed area in the de facto independent Republic of Somaliland. The journalist, Ahmed Saakin Farah Ilyas, is the 16th to be killed this year in the areas the international community regards as the Federal Republic of Somalia. The killing occurred in Las’anod, in the Sool region, which is claimed by both Somaliland and the Puntland State of Somalia and is also the site of a recent secessionist movement by the so-called Khaatumo State.
3 Bombs Planted in Disputed Somaliland Region; 4 Injured. Also in Las’anod, Somaliland, (see above article), authorities announced on October 25th the discovery of three bombs planted at an Islamic school and a public market. The one at the school detonated and injured three police who were trying to disable it, plus a civilian.
Casamance Rebels among Suspects Rounded Up after Guinea-Bissau Coup Attempt. In the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, 20 people were arrested this week following an attack on an army facility on October 22nd by military servicemen that is being called an attempted coup d’état. While the presumed mastermind of the attack, Capt. Pançao N’Tchama, is at large, some of those arrested include fighters from the Democratic Forces of Casamance (M.F.D.C.), a rebel group fighting for the secession of the adjacent southern region of the Republic of Senegal.
Barotse King, Prime Minister Snub Zambian Vice-President on Visit; Prisoners Freed. Both the prime minister and the litunga (king) of the separatist region of Barotseland, in western Zambia, refused over the October 20-21 weekend to meet with Guy Scott, vice-president of Zambia, who tried to cool the war of words between the Lozi (Barotse) people and the government by making a side trip during a visit to Mongu, capital of Western Province (formerly Barotseland). Scott is a white African, of mixed Scots and English ancestry. Meanwhile, 17 Barotse separatists charged last month with malicious damage to government property for publicly tearing up copies of a draft Zambian constitution (as reported on earlier in this blog) were freed on bail on October 16th by a high court in Lusaka, the Zambian capital.
EUROPE
[For updates on Catalonia, Galicia, and the Basque Country, see this week’s Spanish Separatism Update.]
Belgian Premier Rejects Separatism, Populism as Way Out of Economic Crisis. The prime minister of Belgium, Emilio di Rupo, a French-speaking Socialist, urged European leaders in Brussels this week to confront the continent’s economic crisis in a way that does not give quarter to populists and separatists. He noted that 40 of Belgium’s 150 legislators do not want to preserve the country. Thirty-nine of those are members of the New Flemish Alliance (N.–V.A.), who effectively put Belgium’s partition into Flemish and Wallonian regions back on the table last week (as reported in this blog) in an election in which the N.–V.A.’s leader became mayor of Antwerp.
Emilio Di Rupo wants Flemings and Walloons to stay together/ |
Vetëvendosje! activists in Pristina |
Strasbourg Court Sides with Transnistria’s Moldovans over Russia’s Language Policy. In Strasbourg, France, on October 19th, the European Court of Human Rights (E.C.H.R.) ruled in a 16-1 decision to hold the Russian Federation culpable for depriving children of education in Transnistria by imposing chauvinistic language policies that prompted Moldovan authorities to shut several schools down. The policy, in place since the early 1990s, requires Moldovan to be written in the Cyrillic alphabet, as it had been when Moldova and Transnistria were part of the Soviet Union. Transnistria is an eastern sliver of the Republic of Moldova which seceded in 1990 as the still-today-unrecognized Pridnestovian Moldavian Republic (a.k.a. Transnistria) and is propped up and occupied by Russian troops. In a statement, the E.C.H.R. “found that the separatist regime could not survive without Russia’s continued military, economic, and political support and that the closure of the schools therefore fell within Russia’s jurisdiction.”
3 Militants, 1 Policeman Killed in Gun Battle with Islamists in Tatarstan. A gun battle broke out on October 24th in Kazan, capital of central Russia’s predominantly-Muslim Republic of Tatarstan, with police and security forces besieging an apartment building in Kazan where Islamist radicals were holed up. The interior ministry reported that three militants, described as radical Muslims, were killed, as well as one officer killed and one wounded. Or, as the Islamist radical Caucaus Emirate’s website put it, a little subjectively: “A member of the K.G.B. commandos gang was eliminated. The Russian terrorist died in hospital of his wounds. Another Russian terrorist one badly wounded, and later also went to his Master Satan.” (Watch a video of the siege here.) Authorities later linked the men in the siege to the coordinated assassination attempts (one successful) on moderate Tatar muftis in Kazan in July (reported at the time in this blog).
The siege in Kazan, Tatarstan |
BITS OF ASIA THAT LIKE TO PRETEND THEY’RE PART OF EUROPE
[For updates from the North Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan), see this week’s Caucasus Update.]
Tolib Ayombekov |
Turkish fans waving the Northern Cypriot flag |
400 Kurdish Prisoners on Hunger Strike, Rights Group Reports. The Turkish Human Rights Association reported on October 22nd that as many as 400 Kurds in Turkey’s prisons are refusing food in a hunger strike over Kurdish rights and for conditions of the imprisoned founder of the armed separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.), Abdullah Öcalan. About 70 Kurdish prisoners began the hunger strike on September 12th, and the numbers have grown since then.
Abdullah Öcalan’s original perp walk |
Palestine Reschedules Try for Upgrade to U.N. “Member State” Status for November. The chief negotiator for the Palestinian National Authority (P.A.), Saab Erakat, told interviewers in Ramallah, in the West Bank, this week that Palestine would apply next month to upgrade its status at the United Nations (U.N.) from “observer” to “non-member state.” This plan—originally (as reported in this blog) scheduled for last month—is less ambitious than the failed bid in 2011 to apply for full membership in the U.N. General Assembly (G.A.), which was blocked by the United States’ veto on the Security Council. The Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.) has had U.N. “observer” status since 1998. Palestine is diplomatically recognized by most of the world (133 sovereign out of, depending on how you count them, 193 sovereign states) and is treated as a de facto member state by U.N. institutions such as Unesco. Should the vote succeed, Erakat said, “Palestine will become a nation under occupation. The moment we get this, every single thing Israel does in East Jerusalem or the West Bank will become null and void.” The U.S. has no veto in the G.A., which has authority over upgrades such as the P.A. is planning.
6 Killed as Hamas, Israel Exchange Rocket Attacks, Bombs, Airstrikes. Six people were killed in a series of retaliations between Israel’s military and rebel fighters inside the Palestinian Territories’ Gaza Strip exclave this week. Rockets apparently fired from within the Gaza Strip on October 22nd prompted Israeli Defense Forces (I.D.F.) airstrikes—one on a supposed Hamas training camp in Beit Hanoun, and another at nearby Jabalya. At Beit Hanoun, two Palestinians were killed and wounded two others. In Jabalya, four were wounded. An I.D.F. soldier was injured by a bomb planted along the border between Gaza and Israel on October 23rd. Then, on October 24th, 60 rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel, wounding five people. Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the bomb and the rockets, though the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (P.F.L.P.) claimed the October 23rd bomb as well. Israeli airstrikes killed four Hamas fighters in retaliation.
Low Turnout in West Bank Voting; Rival Fatah Faction Gains in Jenin, Ramallah. There was a disappointing turnout in local-council elections in the West Bank portion of the Palestinian Territories on October 20th, with only 55% voting. The enclave’s ruling party, Fatah, did well in Hebron, Bethlehem, Kalkiya, Jericho, and Tulkarm, while a dissident Fatah faction came out ahead in Jenin, Nablus, and the Palestinian capital, Ramallah. Hamas, the Islamist terror group which governs the Gaza Strip, boycotted the elections.
Emir of Qatar Pays First State Visit by Anyone to Hamas-Ruled Gaza Strip. For the first time since the Islamist terrorist militia Hamas took power there after a 2007 election, a foreign head of state has visited the Gaza Strip portion of the Palestinian Territories. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, emir of the State of Qatar, crossed into Gaza via a border crossing with Egypt. Qatar had already been a supporter of Hamas, but both the government of Israel and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority criticized the visit as lending the party legitimacy.
Palestinian children welcome the Emir of Qatar to Gaza. |
Baloch Rebels Claim Bicycle-Bomb Attack That Killed 8 (Officially Only 3) Soldiers. In Quetta, capital of Pakistan’s Balochistan province, three members of the federal paramilitary Frontier Corps (F.C.) were killed and 10 people, including six civilians, were injured when a remote-control bomb on a bicycle took out a patrol convoy on October 19th. The Baloch Liberation Army (B.L.A.) claimed responsibility. The B.L.A.’s statement claimed eight dead Corpsmen instead of three. Meanwhile, an F.C. officer was killed in an armed attack on a checkpoint in Dera Bugti, in Balochistan, on the same day, and five were injured.
Rival Chittagong Hills Factions Clash in Bangladesh, Leaving 1 Dead. At least one person was killed after a clash between rival factions in southeastern Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hills region. The battle involved the Parbotto Chôṭṭogram Jônoshônghoti Shomiti (P.C.J.S.S., or United People’s Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts), which signed a peace treaty with the Bangladeshi government in 1997, and the United People’s Democratic Front (U.P.D.F.), which rejects the treaty and desires more autonomy for the Chittagong Hills region, which is home to Buddhist-majority tribal groups within a predominantly Muslim nation. The army was deployed, and five people were arrested.
The five arrested in the Chittagong Hills |
Charges Dropped against Sikh Nationalists Arrested in 2005 for Advocating “Khalistan.” A court in Amritsar, India, on October 22nd dropped all charges against 21 members of Dal Khalsa International, a Sikh separatist organization, who were first arrested in 2005 for “provocative speeches” arguing for an independent Khalistan. They had been demonstrating to mark the 19th anniversary of Operation Bluestar, the Indian government’s deadly attack on Amritsar’s Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest site. The charged included Dal Khalsa’s president, H. S. Dhami.
Flag of Khalistan |
Telugu Nationalists Riot over Film Said to Parody Telangana Statehood Movement. If you thought the movie Borat got people’s knickers in a twist ... activists throughout the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh, in India, vandalized movie theaters in Hyderabad and other cities on October 19th and also attacked a film director’s office, burning posters and film reels. The film in question, Cameraman Gangatho Rambabu, which is in the Telugu language and had been released the day before, was perceived to mock the political movement to create a separate federal state for the Telangana region. Members of the Telangana Joint Action Committee and the Telugu Desam Party claim that two characters in the film are parodies of Telangana separatist leaders. Some dialogue offended Telugu nationalists as well. The filmmakers promised to release an edited version to placate the protesters, but the groups demanded the entire film be banned. The film has been pulled from theaters throughout the region to avoid unrest.
The offending film |
Accessory to Suicide Attack on Sri Lankan Army Commander Given 35 Years in Prison. In Sri Lanka, a Tamil man named S. Suriyakumar was given 35 years in prison on October 23rd for aiding and abetting a female—and pregnant—Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (L.T.T.E.) suicide bomber the attempted assassination of the Army commander (and later presidential candidate) Gardihewa Sarath Chandralal Fonseka in 2006. Nine people were killed in the eventual attack, but without harming Fonseka.
Sarath Fonseka: his would-be assassin finally receives justice. |
5 More Self-Immolations in Tibet, amid Reports Beijing Killed Man Planning Another. Tibetan exile information networks are reporting that a 57-year-old Tibetan man who had been planning to immolate himself to protest Chinese rule over the region has disappeared and may even have been killed by Chinese authorities. The man had arrived in Siling, in the north of the People’s Republic of China’s misnamed Tibet Autonomous Region, and, according to a well-connected Tibetan exile who spoke to Voice of America, “Chinese security personnel murdered Dorjee Rabten in Siling’s ‘Pachen’ guest house” on August 23rd. The source, Gyaltsen Choedak, went on, “The Chinese security official called Dorjee Rabten’s elder son, Drukjham Gyal, and told him that he should come at once to pick up the body,” but the son received only ashes, and a warning to keep silent. If true, the events would confirm an escalation in China’s crackdown on Tibetan activists and on self-immolators in particular. Meanwhile, there were five more self-immolations in Chinese-occupied Tibet, all in Tibetan areas of Gansu province. A man in his fifties named Dhondup (his full name) set himself on fire on October 22nd at the Labrang Monastery, two days after another self-immolation near the same monastery. The next day, also near Labrang, Dorje Rinchen, age 58, immolated himself along a roadside near the police station. These three Gansu self-immolations are among seven in Tibet in the past month alone. There were two self-immolations on October 26th in Amuquhu, in Gansu’s Xiahe County: a 24-year-old farmer, Lhamo Tseten, who burned himself at a military base, and a Tibetan in his early 20s named Tsepag Kyab who did the same at a bus station.
Dorje Rinchen’s last minutes |
112 Dead in New Eruption of Buddhist–Muslim Violence in Burma. In western Burma, where a cycle of violence between disenfranchised Rohingyas, who are Muslim, and members of the country’s Buddhist majority left scores or hundreds dead and tens of thousands homeless in May and June, 112 people have been killed in a new round of violence which began on October 21st, with scores wounded and almost 2,000 (mostly wooden) homes burned to the ground. The violence first flared in Minbyar and Mrauk-U, two remote townships in Rakhine (a.k.a. Arakan) State, by the border with Bangladesh, but then spread. The first three killed in this cycle of violence were one Buddhist man and two Muslim women. Muslims have borne the great brunt of the unrest.
The unofficial flag of the Rohingya people |
3 Malay Insurgents Surrender in Southern Thailand. Three fighters from the rebel group Runda Kumpalan Kecil (R.K.K.), which aims to establish a separate state for ethnic Malays in what is now southern Thailand, surrendered to police this week. The governor of Narathiwat province, in the far south, accepted their surrender and promised safety for them and their families. Later, on October 27th, two Thai soldiers were injured in a drive-by shooting in another insurgency-plagued southern province, Pattani. The same morning, a landmine on a rubber plantation in Narathiwat injured one man.
OCEANIA
Indonesian Cops Injure Break Up Independence Rally in West Papua, Injure 8. In Indonesia’s far-eastern West Papua province, hundreds of police broke up a pro-independence rally with rubber bullets, injuring at least eight demonstrators. Media report that the rally, at the University of Papua in Manokwari, became violent when students, who were among the 300 or so protesters, began throwing stones at police. Four were hurt by rubber bullets, and another four in ensuing scuffles with police. One journalist who was there said, “They punched me twice in the face and tried to strangle me. They hit other journalists and I saw at least two people get shot.” The rally was organized by the West Papua National Committee (K.N.P.B.), which advocates a referendum on independence for the provinces of Papua and West Papua.
The rally in Manokwari, West Papua |
Aboriginal Boxer Apologizes to Tasmanians but Not to Opponent He Trash-Talked. The famed Australian aboriginal boxer Anthony Mundine had to back-pedal from trash-talking of a fellow Aboriginal boxer he is to face in the ring in January, after suggesting that Tasmanian Aborigines were extinct. In his comments, he had questioned his opponent Daniel Geale’s claims to indigenous ancestry, saying, “He’s got a white woman. He’s got white kids. I keep it real, all day every day.” He said Geale should not wear the Aboriginal flag on his shorts and said, “I thought they wiped all the Aborigines from Tasmania out.” Indeed, the last full-blooded indigenous Tasmanian died more than a century ago. By the 1830s, all the Aboriginal Tasmanians that had not been exterminated in an overt genocide had been removed from their communities. Surviving people of aboriginal Tasmanian descent are of mixed ancestry and have benefited from almost no cultural transmission. The languages of the island are extinct. Mundine has apologized to the Tasmanian people, but he refuses to apologize to Geale, saying, “I know there are a lot of Aborigines in Tasmania that are proud of their heritage, just like me,” but “There are people who get jobs, and are claiming benefits, who claim to be Aboriginal, because they have a great-great-great-great-grandmother or grandfather; that, I think, is wrong.” He also called Australia a racist country and demanded a new flag that honors Aboriginal people instead of “the Union Jack, something that symbolises the invasion, the murder, the pillaging, and on and on.”
Anthony Mundine and Daniel Geale go to the mat over who’s more indigenous. |
Brazil Indian Tribe Vows Mass Suicide after Judge Upholds Eviction from Sacred Land. An entire Indian tribe of 170 people in Brazil has vowed to commit mass suicide following a court ruling which orders them to abandon what they call their sacred land. The land in question is a graveyard inside a privately owned ranch in Mato Grosso do Sul state in southwestern Brazil, bordering Paraguay. A judge this week upheld the rancher’s eviction notice on the so-called “squatters.” A letter to Brazilian authorities from the tribe, the Guarani-Kaiowá, read, We are already going to and want to be killed and buried along with our ancestors here where we are today, therefore, we ask the Government and the Federal Justice not to decree our eviction, but instead we request them to decree our mass death and to bury us all here. We ask them, once and for all, to decree our total decimation and extinction, besides sending many tractors to dig a large hole to drop and bury our bodies. This is our request to the federal judges. We already await this decision of the Federal Justice. Decree our mass death Guarani and Kaiowá of Pyelito Kus/Mbarakay and bury us here. Given that we fully decided it and won't leave this place dead or alive.” Others denied the interpretation of the letter as a literal threat of mass suicide.
A Guarani-Kaiowá activist tends to graves on “privately owned” land his people refuse to vacate. |
CENTRAL AMERICA & CARIBBEAN
Curaçao Independence Party Tops Vote, but Barely; Must Form Coalition. Election results in Curaçao, in the southern Caribbean, released on October 20th put the Sovereign People Party, which calls for independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, ahead, but with a plurality that still requires a coalition deal in order to form a government. Sovereign People received 23% of the island colony’s 87,000-or-so votes and will thus still hold only five out of the colonial parliament’s 21 seats. The far more mainstream Movement for the Future of Curaçao, headed by a former Curaçaoan prime minister, Gerrit Schotte, won 21% of votes, with an equal number of parliamentary seats. Curaçao, which is just off Venezuela’s coast, won separation in 2010 from the Netherlands Antilles, and the two are now separate “constituent countries” of the kingdom. The two other Dutch “constituent countries” are Aruba and Sint Maarten; all are in the Caribbean.
The flag of Curaçao |
Nuwaupian Scare Letters to Georgia Officials Were in Fact from Splinter Group. Investigations are revealing this week that the loopy scare letters sent to various law-enforcement and other officials in central Georgia, in the United States, were not from the Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, the Black nationalist sect (classified as a racist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (S.P.L.C.)) whose cause they took up, but from a hitherto unknown splinter group. Claiming to be from the embassy of the United Nuwaupian Nation (sic: with a p, not a b), the letters were addressed October 1st to officials and citizens involved in the law-enforcement take-down, in 2004 and 2005, of the Nuwaubians, their 500-acre compound in Putnam County, Georgia, called Tama Re, and the sentencing of their leader, Dwight Malachi York, to 135 years in prison on racketeering, tax-evasion, and child-molestation charges. Previously well known members of the Nuwaubian movement have hastened to distance themselves from this month’s mailings. Journalists, however, have identified the first signature on the letters—which nominally signed “for the Ministers of Justice” by one Ari Hatep sanan en mut (sic, including idiosyncratic lowercase)—as that of one Doosua York, a.k.a. Damon Pryor, linked to the Celebrity Status hair salon and tattoo parlor in Atlanta. Another signature is that of Joe Hibner, one of seven officers from the Macon Police Department who quit the force in 2004 out of loyalty to York. A more mainstream Nuwaupian named Kermit B. “Damur” Nowlin said, “There are a lot of law-abiding Nuwaupians that do not agree with the actions of this ‘Sovereign Citizens’ group called the United Nation of Nuwaupia,” whom he called “paper terrorists” and “bullies.”
Flag of the Nuwaubian Nation of Moors. Crescent, Star of David, ankh—see? they love everybody! |
3,000 First Nations Rally at B.C. Parliament against Tar-Sands Project. In Canada, more than 3,000 protesters, including First Nations leaders and elders, filled the square in front of British Columbia’s parliament on October 22nd to protest plans by Enbridge, Inc., to run an oil pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to Kitimat, on the northern B.C. coast. Scores of First Nations communities have organized in opposition to the project and its environmental risks. Art Sterritt, who is from the Tsimshian community of Hartley Bay and is executive director of Coastal First Nations, spoke and asked the crowd if they were willing to lie down in front of bulldozers if necessary to stop the project and the crowd replied loudly, “Yes!” The B.C. parliament has yet to rule on the proposed project.
Haida protesters in Victoria |
[Also, for those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with a forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas. Look for it in spring 2013. I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.]
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