Gunplay at Quebec Victory Rally, MNLA + Ansar al-Dine = BFF?, Blair in the Dock in Edinburgh?, Migron Dismantled, Vermont Separatists’ Montpelier Manifesto, Yugoland Decays: The Week in Separatist News, 2-8 September 2012

TOP STORY:
PARTI QUÉBÉCOIS WINS, CAN FORM GOVERNMENT, PUSH FOR REFERENDUM;
VICTORY RALLY DISRUPTED BY POSSIBLE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

The Parti Québécois (P.Q.), with its goal of seceding from Canada, on September 4th secured 54 of Quebec’s National Assembly’s 125 seats, not a majority but enough to put it in charge of forming a new government and on track perhaps for another referendum on separation.

Quebec’s premier elect, Pauline Marois, being hustled off stage by her bodyguards as shots are fired.

But a Montreal victory rally by the P.Q. leader and now incoming premier, Pauline Marois, declaring that “Quebec needs to become a sovereign country,” was disrupted by a man wearing only a bathrobe, black underpants, and what one can these days only describe as a Pussy-Riot-style black balaclava who opened fire nearby, killing a 45-year-old man and injuring another man, and then set a small fire.  Marois was in no direct danger but was hustled off stage to a by her security detail.  The shooter was identified later as Richard Henry Bain, age 62, an anglophone fishing-lodge owner who was having business troubles that he blamed partly on government red tape.  No firm motive has been established, but authorities are not ruling out the possibility that it was an attempt on Marois’s life.  He is being charged with first-degree murder and related offenses.  As Bain was packed away by police he was heard to say, “The English are rising up.”  Oddly enough, he said it in French.  [Related article: “Quebec Cracks Down on Crimes against the State—Like Playing Hopscotch in English” (Nov. 2012).]

Richard Henry Bain, the shooter

AFRICA

Islamists Take Major Town in Mopti, Expanding Area of Control in Central Mali.  Islamist extremists that control the northern two-thirds of the Republic of Mali, calling it the Independent State of Azawad, expanded their territory in the divided Mopti region on September 1st by capturing the town of Douentza, a mere 120 miles from the region’s eponymous capital and a mere 500 miles from the Malian capital, Bamako.  The Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) rolled into town in pick-up trucks and took control from the Ganda Iso self-defense militia, which had been resisting the jihadists.  A MUJAO leader said they would not retreat, but would also not attempt to take Bamako unless provoked.  [Related articles: “Mali Becomes the Latest African Country to Split along North–South Lines” (Feb. 2012), “A New Country in Africa: Islamic Republic of Azawad” (April 2012), “Why It Matters What You Call Your Country: Cyprus vs. Northern Cyprus, Azawad vs. the Azawad” (April 2012), “Dream of a Tuareg State Fizzles: Is This the End of Azawad?” (July 2012), “Mali Becomes the 92nd Country to Formally Recognize Kosovo ... or Not” (Aug. 2012).]

Map of Mali showing, in red, the Douentza district, which is part of Mopti province.  To the north are the solidly Azawadi-occupied provinces of Kidal, Timbuktu, and Gao.

Al-Qaeda Captors Kill Algerian Deputy Consul in Northern Mali.  The al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (A.Q.I.M.) announced that it had executed, on September 1st, a diplomat from Algeria that it had been holding in captivity along with three other diplomats in the northern part of Mali which calls itself the Independent State of Azawad.  The statement read by the A.Q.I.M. leader, Abulwaleed al-Sahrawi, said that the diplomat, al-Tuher Tuwati, Algeria’s deputy consul for northern Mali, was executed because the deadline given to the Algerian government by A.Q.I.M. for freeing three al-Qaeda prisoners had expired.  Algeria, in response, vowed “painful revenge” for the execution.  [Related articles: “Mali Becomes the Latest African Country to Split along North–South Lines” (Feb. 2012), “A New Country in Africa: Islamic Republic of Azawad” (April 2012), “Why It Matters What You Call Your Country: Cyprus vs. Northern Cyprus, Azawad vs. the Azawad” (April 2012), “Dream of a Tuareg State Fizzles: Is This the End of Azawad?” (July 2012), “Mali Becomes the 92nd Country to Formally Recognize Kosovo ... or Not” (Aug. 2012).]

M.N.L.A. Regrouping, Maybe Even with Ansar al-Dine, to Retake Azawad from MUJAO.  The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (M.N.L.A.), the Tuareg army which declared the northern two-thirds of the Republic of Mali an Independent State of Azawad in April, only to see their secession hijacked by Islamists linked to the al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (A.Q.I.M.), said this week that it is organizing Azawadi tribes in an attempt to take Azawad back from the Islamists.  It is not interested in remaining part of Mali.  “We were able to defeat the Malian army,” one rebel said, “and we can also eliminate these extremist terrorist brigades.”  Iyad Ag Ghali, a Tuareg spiritual leader who heads Ansar al-Dine, one of the two jihadist militias ruling Azawad, indicated that he may take up the M.N.L.A. suggestion that his ranks join them in a fight against the other jihadist group, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO).  Of the two Islamist militias, MUJAO, which is more closely linked to A.Q.I.M. and Algeria, is proving more ruthless, while Ansar al-Dine, which is dominated by Tuaregs, is softening its position and is more and more resentful of MUJAO’s religious hard line and its ties to foreigners—especially after this week’s execution of an Algerian diplomat by A.Q.I.M. (see article above).  [Related articles: “Mali Becomes the Latest African Country to Split along North–South Lines” (Feb. 2012), “A New Country in Africa: Islamic Republic of Azawad” (April 2012), “Why It Matters What You Call Your Country: Cyprus vs. Northern Cyprus, Azawad vs. the Azawad” (April 2012), “Dream of a Tuareg State Fizzles: Is This the End of Azawad?” (July 2012), “Mali Becomes the 92nd Country to Formally Recognize Kosovo ... or Not” (Aug. 2012).]

Somaliland Claims Complete Control of Buhoodle Region.  The de facto independent Republic of Somaliland announced August 31st that it was firmly in control of the Buhoodle region, in what the Somali Republic calls Sool province and what was formerly claimed by the Sool, Sanaag, and Cayn (S.S.C.) State, a.k.a. Khaatumo State.  The announcement coincided with the assumption of their duties by a new governor and mayor under central Somaliland auspices.  Sporadic violence by Khaatumo loyalists had persisted for weeks after the August 12th peace accord between Khaatumo rebels and Somaliland’s government.  [Related articles: “Somalia the ‘Failed State’—So What Are Somaliland and Puntland? Chopped Liver?” (Feb. 2012), “Somaliland’s Own Mo Farah Clinches Olympic Immortality” (Aug. 2012).]

Somaliland Parliament Rejects Gender, Ethnicity Quotas for Elected Officials.  The lower house of the unrecognized Republic of Somaliland’s parliament this week rejected a legal provision dictating the proportion of parliamentarians and local council members that must be women and minorities.  With just over half of members in attendance, the vote was 30-8 against the provision.  The deputy speaker of parliament, Bashe Mohamed Farah, called the proposal unconstitutional.  [Related articles: “Somalia the ‘Failed State’—So What Are Somaliland and Puntland? Chopped Liver?” (Feb. 2012), “Somaliland’s Own Mo Farah Clinches Olympic Immortality” (Aug. 2012).]

U.N. Sounds Alarm over Puntland President’s Army of South African Mercenaries.  A report by the United Nations’ Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea (S.E.M.G.) blamed the government of South Africa for failing its international obligations by allowing South African mercenaries belonging to Sterling Corporate Services (S.C.S.) to function as the “private army” of Abdirahman Mohamed Farole, president of the self-governing Puntland State of Somalia.  An earlier U.N. report had called Saracen International Lebanon—like S.C.S., a shell company for South African and Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) mercenaries linked to lawless, murderous mercenary firms like Blackwater Worldwide (now known, ridiculously, as “Academi”) and Executive Outcomes—the “most egregious threat” to peace and stability in the Horn of Africa.  Offenses include the torturing of recruits and what the recent report called “brazen, large-scale, and protracted violation of the Somalia sanctions regime.”  S.C.S. and Saracen at the moment are run by Lafras Luitingh, a South African who became a citizen of Australia in 2009 and lives in Sydney.  [Related article: “Somalia the ‘Failed State’—So What Are Somaliland and Puntland? Chopped Liver?” (Feb. 2012).]

A Saracen International recruit in the aftermath of a training session.

Barotse Boycott Zambian Constitutional Meetings; Activists Tear Copies of Constitution.  The Barotse Royal Establishment (B.R.E.), which represents the interests of the traditional Lozi (a.k.a. Barotse) people of Zambia’s Western Province, notified the central government on August 31st that it was declining to name two representatives, as Zambia had requested, to meetings to plan a new Zambian constitution.  In a letter signed by Wainyae Clement Sinyinda, the B.R.E.’s prime minister, explained, “all the previous submissions by the BRE and other Barotse people to all the previous Constitutional Review Commissions (CRC) fell on [deaf] ears, meaning that the Zambian Government has no intention to respect and honour our views.”  Then, on September 6th, hundreds of Barotse stormed the district administration office in Mongu, capital of Western Province, and tore into pieces over 500 copies of the draft constitution translated into the Lozi (Barotse) language.  As a result, Mongu police are interrogating members of the Barotse Freedom Movement, the organization which organized the protest, for “disrupting peace and unity.”

A modified map showing the notional territory of Barotseland

Nigerian Soldiers arrest 19 Biafran Separatists, Including Local Onitsha Leader.  Soldiers from a Nigerian artillery regiment arrested 19 members of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), an Igbo separatist movement, on September 4th, including Chief Arinze Igbani, MASSOB’s regional head for Onitsha, in southeastern Nigeria.  Igbani was being treated at an orthopedic clinic when he was arrested, simultaneous with other coordinated arrests around the city.  The arrest further injured Igbani’s leg, which he was having looked at from a motorcycle accident in June.  No reason has been given for the arrests.  [Related articles: “Remembering Odumegwu Ojukwu: On Biafra and on an African Continent Riven by European Borders” (Nov. 2011), “Southern Nigeria Splitting Apart Too as the Muslim North Burns” (Aug. 2012).]

Efik King Urges Nigeria to Appeal World Court Ruling That Gave Bakassi to Cameroon.  The obong (king) of Calabar, the traditional kingdom of the Efik ethnic group in southeastern Nigeria and adjoining—including disputed—areas of Cameroon, along with other Efik leaders, this week asked the Nigerian government to appeal the International Court of Justice’s 2002 ruling ceding the till-then-Nigerian-administered Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon before a 10-year window for appeals closes on October 10th.  The obong, Edidem Ekpo Okon Abasi-Otu V, affirmed that Bakassi is the territory of the Efik kingdom’s ruling houses.  A month ago, the Bakassi Self-Determination Front (B.S.D.F.) declared an independent Republic of Bakassi from a pirate radio station on a Cameroonian-ruled island offshore of the peninsula (as reported recently in this blog), and the larger region, Ambazonia, is a formerly British-ruled area that would like to secede from the authoritarian, centralized francophone government in Cameroon.  King Edidem and other Nigerian Efik, however, are merely seeking a reassignment of Bakassi to Nigerian jurisdiction or, failing that, the right of exiled Bakassian Efik in Nigeria to return home and settle in Bakassi.  [Related articles: “Remembering Odumegwu Ojukwu: On Biafra and on an African Continent Riven by European Borders” (Nov. 2011), “Ambazonian Separatists Focus on Bakassi Peninsula in New Push to Split Cameroon” (Aug. 2012), “Southern Nigeria Splitting Apart Too as the Muslim North Burns” (Aug. 2012).]

The King of Calabar

Ogoni Leaders Reassure Nigerian President on Autonomy Declaration.  Some mainstream leaders of Nigeria’s Ogoni ethnic group are distancing themselves from an August 2nd declaration of autonomy (reported on at the time in this blog) by Goodluck Diigbo, head of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP).  Two leaders—Sen. Magnus Ngei Abe and the Ogoni paramount ruler, Godwin N. K. Gininwa—visited Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan at his villa on September 3rd and told him that, while they favored greater opportunities and autonomy and freedom for the Ogoni, they did not seek unilateral separation.  However, the leaders did support a plan to create a new state, to be called Bori State, out of the existing Rivers State, in the Niger Delta region.  [Related articles: “Remembering Odumegwu Ojukwu: On Biafra and on an African Continent Riven by European Borders” (Nov. 2011), “Southern Nigeria Splitting Apart Too as the Muslim North Burns” (Aug. 2012).]

33 Dead in Nigerian Strife Linked to Boko Haram Islamists.  This week’s ongoing violence by the northern Nigerian Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram left 33 people dead in Nigeria.  A presumed Boko Haram ambush on August 31st at a mechanical workshop in Damaturu, in Yobe State, in the northeast, killed a member of the military’s anti-terrorist Joint Task Force (J.T.F.).  Meanwhile, military authorities claimed this week that five suspected Boko Haram fighters were killed after they attacked a military patrol with “a fuel-propelled improvised explosive device” in Maiduguri, capital of Borno State in the far northeast.  Two soldiers were injured, as was a civilian, and several houses were burnt.  Meanwhile, over the September 1-2 weekend, also in Borno, in the town of Marte, gunmen killed a police sergeant and two civilians and set fire to five police vehicles, the police station, a church, and the residence of an army commander.  Boko Haram is also suspected in the killings of two people in Maidiguri, one killed in his bed and the other shot point blank in the head on the street.  Again in Damaturu, Islamists attacked a police vehicle on September 4th, but there were no reports on casualties.  Suspected Boko Haram rebels began firing on security forces in Maiduguri on September 6th, and seven militants were killed in the ensuing gun battle, while on the same day in Damaturu Boko Haram rebels killed 15 during a severely disruptive wave of attacks on cellphone transmission towers across northern Nigeria.  [Related articles: “Remembering Odumegwu Ojukwu: On Biafra and on an African Continent Riven by European Borders” (Nov. 2011), “Ten Separatist Movements to Watch in 2012” (Dec. 2011), “Jihadists Imperil Nigerian Unity” (June 2012), “Southern Nigeria Splitting Apart Too as the Muslim North Burns” (Aug. 2012).]

Cabindans Voted for Angola’s Ruling Party after All.  On September 6th, newly released results from the Republic of Angola’s August 31st elections (reported on earlier in this blog) showed that the small exclave of Cabinda, disconnected from the rest of Angola by the Democratic Republic of Congo’s narrow wedge of coastline, opted as well for the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola–Labor Party (M.P.L.A.), a former rebel group (from the days of fighting rule by Portugal) which is now a political party and which opposes Cabindan independence.  The M.P.L.A. was easily reelected, with 71.8% of the national vote and 59.4% of Cabinda’s.  The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), another former rebel group and the main opposition party, which also opposes Cabindan independence, came in with 18.6% of the national vote and 24.5 of Cabinda’s.  [Related article: “The World’s 21 Sexiest Separatists” (April 2012), featuring a profile of Angola’s Queen Nzingha of Ndongo and Matamba.]

Cabindan separatists with their flag

Moroccan Troops Arrest 5 Sahrawi Protesters in Western Sahara.  Moroccan occupation forces arrested five young Sahrawis in Dakhla, Western Sahara, on September 5th for holding a non-violent protest in favor of greater freedoms and for independence for the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, according to Sahrawi human-rights monitors.  The Kingdom of Morocco has been occupying Western Sahara, in violation of international law, since Spain abandoned the colony in 1975.  [Related article: “10 Ethnonationalist Causes That Might Disrupt the Olympics” (July 2012).]

EUROPE

Separatists Want Blair to Face War Crimes Charges in Scottish Court for Iraq Invasion.  While an independent Scotland’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) may still be an unresolved issue among Scottish separatists, some Scots nationalists have made their feelings about western European militarism known by putting forward a motion to bring the United Kingdom’s former prime minister, Tony Blair, to Scotland to face charges on war crimes for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  The proposal got immediate support from five Scottish National Party (S.N.P.) backbenchers.  Even the S.N.P.’s leader and Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, would not speak out against the idea, saying, “ I fully understand the sentiment because I think that Tony Blair misled this country into an illegal war ....  I led an attempt to impeach the prime minister on this very subject. In terms of the interpretation of Scots law, that’s a matter for law officers.”  The nationalist member of the Scottish Parliament (M.S.P.) who brought the motion, Margo MacDonald, is an independent, though still a nationalist.  Her husband, Jim Sillars, former leader of the Scottish Labour Party and now an S.N.P. member who is on the outs with Salmond, wrote on the matter this week in The Scotsman, arguing, “Blair knew aggressive war was a crime.  He believed he was safe, there being no legal system that could touch him.  There is one now—ours.”  [Related articles: “The Iraq War Is Over, but Is Iraq’s Partition Just Beginning?” (Dec. 2011), “Succession or Accession—Could Scotland Leave Britain but Stay in Europe?” (Jan. 2012), “Orkney—the Next Dubai? Further Reflections on Scottish Independence” (Feb. 2012),  “Celts, Cypriots, Aborigines Raise Stink at Olympics: Ethnonationalist Protest Update” (July 2012).]

Margo MacDonald wants to see Tony Blair in chains.

Sturgeon Named “Minister for Scottish Independence.”  The First Minister of Scotland and head of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (S.N.P.), Alex Salmond, on September 5th appointed his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon, the new Minister for Scottish Independence, to guide Scotland to its separation from the United Kingdom.  Sturgeon had also been serving as Scotland’s minister of health.  [Related articles: “Succession or Accession—Could Scotland Leave Britain but Stay in Europe?” (Jan. 2012), “Orkney—the Next Dubai? Further Reflections on Scottish Independence” (Feb. 2012),  “Celts, Cypriots, Aborigines Raise Stink at Olympics: Ethnonationalist Protest Update” (July 2012).]

Rioters Wound 47 Police at Republican Parade in Northern Ireland.  Rioting in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, between loyalists, who wish the territory to remain in the United Kingdom, and republicans, who want it to join the Republic of Ireland, injured 47 police on September 2nd.  Police say the violence began when loyalists began throwing golf balls and paving stones at a republican parade.  Police dispersed the crowd with water cannons.

Belfast this week

Gagauzia Threatens Secession if Moldova and Romania Reunify.  The leader of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, a self-governing region of the Republic of Moldova’s Turkic-speaking minority, told media this week that increasing calls for the reunification of Moldova and Romania may push the Gagauz to declare independence.  See my separate article on this development.

The flag of Gagauzia

Policewoman Injured as Official Vehicles Fired upon in North Kosovo.  An unidentified assailant opened fire on September 7th on two moving official vehicles in the partially recognized Republic of Kosovo’s disputed North Kosovo region.  One policewoman was wounded in the incident, which occurred in the majority-Serbian village of Zubin Potok.  Two vehicles were fired on: one from the Kosovo Police, and one from the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, known as Eulex.  North Kosovo is the one part of Kosovo, near the border with the Republic of Serbia, which is dominated by Serbs rather than by ethnic Albanians.  It is largely administered through proxy by Serbia, but it is claimed by Kosovo.  The day before, in the North Kosovo town of Leposavić, a bomb was thrown into the garden of a city official, but no one was injured, though his house was damaged.  [Related articles: “Balkan Semantics: How Kosovo Dropped Two Words and Serbia Gained Europe” (March 2012),  “10 Ethnonationalist Causes That Might Disrupt the Olympics” (July 2012), “Mali Becomes the 92nd Country to Formally Recognize Kosovo ... or Not” (Aug. 2012).]

Spain Relents to Hunger-Strikers’ Demands, Releases Terminally Ill Basque Prisoner.  A court in Spain on August 30th agreed to release a convicted Basque terrorist whose continued incarceration despite his terminal cancer prompted a hunger strike among hundreds of Basque prisoners in France and Spain last month (as reported on at the time in this blog).  The prisoner, Jesús María Uribetxebarria Bolinaga, is serving time for murder and kidnapping charges on behalf of the struggle for a separate Basque state.  [Related article: “The World’s 21 Sexiest Separatists,” featuring a profile of the Basque warrior Idoia López Riaño, a.k.a. la Tigresa.]

Jesús María Uribetxebarria Bolinaga

Bossi Touts Founding of Padana–Alpine Euroregion.  In Gattico, in the northern Italian region of Piedmont, the Northern League’s founder, Umberto Bossi, told a rally that his parting gift to the League, after his removal as leader following a corruption scandal earlier this year, is the Padana–Alpine Euroregion.  Euroregions are politically powerless cross-national designations approved by the Council of Europe to guide tourism and economic development.  The Padana–Alpine Euroregion is the newest, declared last month in St. Gall, Switzerland, and covering parts of Italy and Switzerland.  It joins the existing Northern League–lobbied Adriatic, Alps–Mediterranean, Insubria, Sea–Alps, and Tyrol–South Tyrol–Trentino Euroregions.  [Related articles: “Ten Separatist Movements to Watch in 2012” (Dec. 2011), “Umberto Bossi’s ‘Republic of Padania’ Expands into Central Europe” (Jan. 2012), “Valtellina: A History Lesson on Europe’s Tense North–South Border” (July 2012), and “The World’s 21 Sexiest Separatists,” featuring a profile of Bossi’s son Renzo Bossi.]

“Yugoland” Communist Theme Park in Serbia on Verge of Closing for Lack of Funds.  A theme park catering to Serbs nostalgic for the old Communist Yugoslavia is on the verge of shutting down for lack of money, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle.  Yugoland, founded in 2003 in Subotica in the Republic of Serbia, is a 1.5-acre tourist attraction featuring iconography of the dictator Josip Broz Tito, flags, monuments, and landscaping that includes a ditch dug to resemble the Adriatic Sea and a pile of soil said to represent Triglav, Yugoslavia’s highest mountain (currently—ahem!—in independent Slovenia).  Thousands of Yugoland “passports” have even been issued.  Its founder, Blasko Gabric, a Serbian printer, was moved to found the park in 2003, after Yugoslavia, then down to two constituent republics after the secessions of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia, changed its name to the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.  (Secessions by Montenegro and Kosovo came later.)  Gabric worries that Serbia will further disintegrate if “Yugo-nostalgia” such as he promotes is not nurtured.  (Ironically, the decaying Yugoland sits on the territory of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, a part of Serbia that indeed does have its own separatist movement.)  Three other, much larger, Communist theme parks are still open in other parts of the world.  Their names are the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Belarus, and Transnistria.  [Related articles: “Balkan Semantics: How Kosovo Dropped Two Words and Serbia Gained Europe” (March 2012),  “10 Ethnonationalist Causes That Might Disrupt the Olympics” (July 2012).]

Sho whaddaya shay, Tito?  We had a good run, didn’t we?  Hic!

[For the latest news from the North Caucasus (including Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Krasnodar Krai), see today’s article “Pankisi Gorge Questions, Azeri Axe-Murderer Pardoned, New N.K.R. Pres, Cossacks on Patrol: Caucasus Update, 2-8 September 2012.”]

BITS OF ASIA THAT LIKE TO PRETEND THEY’RE PART OF EUROPE

[For the latest news from the South Caucasus, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, see today’s article “Pankisi Gorge Questions, Azeri Axe-Murderer Pardoned, New N.K.R. Pres, Cossacks on Patrol: Caucasus Update, 2-8 September 2012.”]

[For the latest news from Turkey, including Turkish Kurdistan, see this week’s update “Turkey Crosses Iraq Border Again: Kurdistan Update, 2-8 September 2012.”]

ASIA—MIDDLE EAST

[For the latest news from Iraq, including Iraqi Kurdistan, see this week’s update “Turkey Crosses Iraq Border Again: Kurdistan Update, 2-8 September 2012.”]

Israel Evacuates 300 from Migron “Outpost,” but Settlement Expansion Rolls On.  Authorities in Israel evacuated on September 2nd one of the largest illegal Jewish settlement “outposts” in the West Bank portion of the Palestinian Territories.  The outpost, Migron, near the Palestinian capital, Ramallah, is built on land privately owned by Palestinians.  Police met little resistance in the removal of about 300 Jewish settlers from the hilltop site.  A Christian monastery near Jerusalem was vandalized two days later in what authorities believe was retaliation for the evictions; graffiti included the name Migron and the phrase, “Jesus is a monkey.”  (Is that really the best they could come up with?)  Israel’s right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, made it clear that he had no intention of halting the illegal expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, which is in violation of United Nations resolutions and international law and is the primary barrier to peace between Israel and Palestine.  “We are honoring the court’s rulings,” he said, “and we are also strengthening settlement.  There is no contradiction between the two.”  In addition to new housing for the people of Migron, he promised the construction of hundreds more illegal settlements in areas that are less likely to be challenged in court.  [Related article: “Ten Separatist Movements to Watch in 2012” (Dec. 2011).]

Not everyone left the Migron outpost willingly.

Israeli Forces Kill 6 in Gaza, Thwarting Terror Attacks.  The Israeli Defense Forces (I.D.F.) thwarted what it said were two terrorist plots this week.  On September 5th, Israeli aircraft bombed a group of Palestinians in the central Gaza Strip who were apparently preparing to fire rockets into Israel.  The operation killed three Palestinians and wounded one.  Then, the next day, Israeli tanks and aircraft killed three Palestinians seen planting a bomb along a border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel proper, according to the I.D.F.  Israel blamed Hamas, the Islamist terrorist organization which runs Gaza within the Palestinian Territories, for the incident.  [Related article: “Ten Separatist Movements to Watch in 2012” (Dec. 2011).]

3 Injured in South Yemen Separatist Rally in Aden.  In Aden, former capital of the formerly independent South Yemen, which merged with (north) Yemen to form the Republic of Yemen in 1990, police fought on September 6th with secessionists who want to reestablish the region as independent.  Three people were injured when police responded to stone-throwing with live ammunition.  The protesters were trying to storm a jail to free separatist prisoners.  [Related article: “Ten Separatist Movements to Watch in 2012” (Dec. 2011).]

ASIA—SOUTH ASIA

1 Rebel Killed in Shootout between Indian Security Forces and Kashmir Separatists.  In Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only majority-Muslim state, gunfire broke out September 1st between separatists in their hideout and Indian security troops who had surrounded them, acting on a tip.  At least one separatist militant was killed in the incident, which occurred in the Ganderbal district.  Meanwhile, in Kulgam district, authorities arrested the chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (J.K.L.F.), Mohammad Yasin Malik, during a protest rally and caused injuries when they used batons to beat away protesters interfering with the arrest.

Mohammad Yasin Malik

Baloch Rebels Claim Killing of Pakistan Government Death-Squad Member.  The Baloch Liberation Army (B.L.A.), which seeks to separate the province of Balochistan from Pakistan, announced August 30th that its militants had killed a member of the Musallah Defa Tanzeem, which they call a government-backed civilian death squad.  The killing of the man, Mohammad Ali, ak.a. Parvez Painter, was in Khuzdar, in Balochistan.  Another government collaborator, Abdul Khaliq Baranzai, was also attacked and injured, possibly in the same incident.  [Related article: “Ten Separatist Movements to Watch in 2012” (Dec. 2011).]

ASIA—EAST ASIA

Thousands in Hong Kong Protest Beijing’s “Brainwashing” School Curriculum.  Thousands of parents, students, and teachers protested in Hong Kong on September 3rd outside the People’s Republic of China’s government offices, in anger over a controversial school curriculum.  The new material, which critics call “brainwashing,” sings the praises of single-party authoritarian rule and denigrates alternative forms of government, such as the more democratic system in place in Hong Kong, a former United Kingdom colony.  [Related article: “Happy Dependence Day, Hong Kong!  400,000 Protest Chinese Rule—but Secession Is Not on the Table” (July 2012).]

Hong Kongers take to the streets against “brainwashing”

6 Thai Soldiers Injured by Bombs in Wave of Violence on Anniversary.  A wave of violence on August 31st swept the predominantly-Muslim, ethnically Malay provinces of southern Thailand, which are agitating to form a separate state.  Authorities reported 102 separate incidents, including at least 60 bombs planted, Thai flags burned, and Malaysian flags raised.  Six soldiers were wounded by bomb blasts in Narathiwat province.  August 31st marks the 55th anniversary of both the founding of the Federation of Malaya (precursor to modern Malaysia) and of predecessors to the Malay secessionist movement Bersatu in Thailand.

A Thai bomb squad attending to a booby-trapped Malaysian flag in the separatist Muslim south

World Islamic Body Sends Fact-Finding Mission to Burma over Rohingya Question.  A fact-finding team from the 57-member Organization of Islamic States (O.I.C.) arrived in Burma on September 6th to look into the welfare of the disenfranchised and predominantly-Muslim Rohingya people of western Burma, who bore the brunt of a wave of interethnic violence with members of Burma’s Buddhist majority this June.  The military junta which rules Burma as the Republic of the Union of Myanmar welcomed the delegation and claimed to be eager to clear up “misconceptions” about the treatment of the 800,000 or so Rohingyas, whom the United Nations calls the most numerous stateless people in the world.  [Related article: “The Moment Burma’s Ethnic Minorities Have Been Waiting for” (Jan. 2012).]

Civilian Shot and Killed by Burmese Troops in Kachin State.  In Burma, government troops shot an unarmed civilian in the neck on September 5th, killing him, in western Kachin State.  The civilian, Kareng Naw Chyan, was gathering jade stones in the jade-mining region when he was shot and left for dead.  [Related article: “The Moment Burma’s Ethnic Minorities Have Been Waiting for” (Jan. 2012).]

OCEANIA

Papuan Independence Leader Arrested; Link to 2011 Machete Attack Claimed.  In Indonesia’s far-eastern Papua region, security forces stormed the headquarters of the Free Papua Organisation (O.P.M.) on September 3rd and arrested its leader, Daniel Kogoya, who was shot in the leg while resisting arrest.  Dozens of others were arrested, and weapons were seized.  Kogoya is receiving medical care at a hospital in Jayapura, the Papuan provincial capital.  He is accused of involvement in numerous attacks on police and others.  Indonesian authorities said later that the raid was in response to an August 1, 2011, separatist machete attack which killed four.  Six of those arrested, including Kogoya, are considered to be implicated in the attack.  [Related article: “Ten Separatist Movements to Watch in 2012” (Dec. 2011).]

Papua’s banned “Morning Star Flag” on display

In Wake of Assassination Flap, Canberra Still Backs Indonesian Rule in Papua.  In the wake of a scandal (reported on last week in this blog) linking Australian anti-insurgency trainers to the June 2012 assassination (also reported on at the time in this blog) of Mako Tabuni, a Papuan separatist leader in Indonesia, Australia’s foreign minister, Bob Carr, clarified his government’s position on independence for Indonesia’s far-eastern Papua and West Papua provinces, saying it was “in support of Indonesian sovereignty over the two Papuan provinces.”  He added, “While we make representations as required about human-rights issues there, we are unequivocal.”  [Related article: “Ten Separatist Movements to Watch in 2012” (Dec. 2011).]

Queensland Aboriginal Parliamentarian Eric Deeral Dies.  Aboriginal leaders in Queensland and throughout Australia are mourning the death of Eric Deeral, the state’s first indigenous member of parliament, who died September 5th in Hope Vale, Queensland, at the age of 80.  He represented Cook in Queensland’s parliament from 1974 to 1977.

NORTH AMERICA

Quebec’s Atikamekw Cree Make Last-Hour Land Deal to Avert Roadblocks.  Just as the deadline they had declared was running out before the roadblocks were to go up (as reported on last week in this blog), three chiefs from the Atikamekw Nation, part of the indigenous Cree ethnic group in northern Quebec, Canada, agreed August 31st with negotiators from the Quebec Liberal Party (P.L.Q.) (this was just before their defeat in a September 4th election; see article above) to a deal which offers more environmental protections to their vast forested territory.  Denis Chilton, an Atikamekw elder, said, “We were ready to get out there and block logging roads, to protest, to get political.  We were waiting in the parking lot outside the band council when they told us they’d reached a deal.  It was almost disappointing that we didn’t get to take our struggle to the streets.”

Squamish Activists Take to Canoes to Protest Oil Pipeline Expansion.  Members of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, part of the indigenous Squamish ethnic group in British Columbia, Canada, took to the water in canoes September 1st to protest a planned major expansion of a Texas firm’s oil pipeline in their territory.  The small nation—which is part of the Salish language group and is based at the suburban Burrard Inlet Indian Reserve, near North Vancouver—insists that the existing pipeline has already had spills that have damaged their environment and their traditional resources.  If it the expansion occurs, says the Tsleil-Waututh’s elected chief councillor, Justin George, “the Vancouver waterway becomes a major oil-port city, and oil-port cities throughout the world become waterway dead zones.”

Squamish activists near Vancouver this week

Vermont Separatists Release “Montpelier Manifesto” in Run-Up to Annual Conclave.  In the northeastern United States, the Second Vermont Republic movement released a manifesto in advance of its Third Statewide Convention on Vermont Self-Determination, to be held September 14th in Montpelier, the state’s capital.  Called the Montpelier Manifesto (read it here), the document calls on Vermonters to “consider ways peaceably to withdraw from the American Empire by (1) regaining control of our lives from big government, big business, big cities, big schools, and big computer networks; (2) relearning how to take care of ourselves by decentralizing, downsizing, localizing, demilitarizing, simplifying, and humanizing our lives; and (3) providing democratic and human-scale self-government at those local and regional levels most likely to effect our safety and happiness.”  The manifesto is signed by two retired economics professors, Thomas Naylor and James Starkey; Kirkpatrick Sale, a Green Party activist and author of respected scholarly studies of Christopher Columbus, the original Luddites, bioregionalism, and other topics; and Charles Keil, an ethnomusicologist.

87 Months Added to Aryan Brother’s Life Term for Texas Beating.  A “general” in the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas who is serving a life sentence for a 2010 murder was given an additional 87 months in prison for brutally beating a Brotherhood member.  The convict, Steven Walter “Stainless” Cooke, who is 48, confessed to orchestrating an attack, in 2008 in Tomball, Texas, by about a dozen Aryan Brothers on an underling who owed them drug money.

Steven “Stainless” Cooke of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas

PRACTICALLY BLOODY ANTARCTICA

Falklands Executive Council Announces Referendum on Status for March 2013.  The Executive Council of the Falkland Islands announced this week that the planned referendum on the islands’ political status will be held in March 2013.  A more precise date has yet to be set, but the Council recommended that representatives from mainland South American countries—which overwhelmingly support the Argentine Republic’s claims on the archipelago—serve as independent election observers.  The vote is expected to ask voters to choose between independence, joining Argentina, or maintaining the territory’s current status as an overseas dependency of the United Kingdom.  Predictably, the reaction from Buenos Aires was swift.  Argentina’s minister of defense, Arturo Puricelli, said, “If you ask any English citizens [note typical Argentine confusion between England and U.K.] if they’d like to continue being English or not they will most probably answer yes.  So, as I see it, that referendum lacks any creativity.”  An interesting criticism, given that Argentine arguments supporting their Falklands claims are quite creative—one might almost say, wildly inventive.  [Related articles: “Prince William Lands in the Middle of a New Cold War over the Falklands” (Feb. 2012), “What Is a Colony? The United Nations’ Definition Needs an Overhaul” (June 2012), “10 Ethnonationalist Causes That Might Disrupt the Olympics” (July 2012).]

SPORT

Farah’s Olympic Bathwater for Sale on eBay—Maybe.  Meanwhile, a vendor on the online auction site eBay was, according to media, hawking this week what he or she claimed to be Mo Farah’s bathwater.  The product description read, in part: “This is only water that I hope to have been scooped out of Mo Farah’s ice bath and placed into this water bottle after his 2012 Olympic win.  Impossible to authenticate buy at own risk.  Their was ice in the bottle but it has melted.  My apologizes.  This unauthenticated, melted, possibly-purchased-from-the-grocery-store bottle of water has a starting price of $1,000.  There are no bids, yet.”  As of a few days later, the listing had been removed—possibly because eBay bars the auctioning of human body parts or fluids, and, let’s face it, Farah’s bathwater would only really have any collector value if tiny bits of him were floating in it.  [Related article: “Somaliland’s Own Mo Farah Clinches Olympic Immortality” (Aug. 2012).]

Mo Farah Shows Off New Twin Daughters.  This week Mohamed “Mo” Farah, the Olympic runner whose family hails from the unrecognized Republic of Somaliland but who won two gold medals for the United Kingdom this summer at the London games, showed off his newborn baby girls, Aisha and Amani.  He plans to have his two gold medals engraved with their names.  Farah is himself a twin.  His twin brother, Hassan Farah, lives in Somaliland.  [Related article: “Somaliland’s Own Mo Farah Clinches Olympic Immortality” (Aug. 2012).]

Mo Farah and his two baby twin daughters.
Now, if anyone tries to sell their bathwater on eBay, I’m calling the police.

[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.]