On Election Eve, Mali’s Tuaregs Vow: Autonomy or War

Not a single hanging chad in sight

Votes are still being counted from the Republic of Mali’s runoff election yesterday, with huge implications for the unity of the country.  Tuareg rebels, in league for a while with Islamists affiliated with al-Qaeda, controlled the northern three-fifths or so of the country for about a year until February of this year, when invading French troops put the Malian government in control of the region’s cities.  But the Tuareg-led National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (known by its acronym in French, M.N.L.A.) says it will restart the war if any new government does not respect the autonomy of the large, sparsely-populated northern desert region called Azawad.

Map of Mali, showing the formerly de facto independent republic of Azawad in purple

The M.N.L.A. raised the stakes after the July 28th Malian elections it grudgingly recognized and yesterday’s runoff, the results from which are still inconclusive.  The group’s main European spokesman, Moussa Ag Assarid, said August 4th at a conference in Corsica organized by the local separatist Corsa Libera party that the Tuareg rebel group would take up arms against any new government in Bamako that did not guarantee autonomy to Azawad.  A peace deal reached in June stipulates that Bamako will open negotiations with the M.N.L.A. within 60 days of forming a cabinet following these elections.

Moussa Ag Assarid (right) speaking alongside a Berber separatist at a rally in Paris. 

If things do come to that, the M.N.L.A. may not be alone.  On August 9th, in neighboring Mauritania, the M.N.L.A. announced that they had patched things up with two rival Azawadi militias: the High Unity Council of Azawad and the anti-Islamist Arab Movement of the Azawad (M.A.A., formerly known as the National Liberation Front of Azawad, or F.L.N.A.).  This buries the hatchet following remote desert clashes between the groups in April.  Although French and Malian troops control Azawad’s cities, rebels still control areas of northern Mali’s vast deserts—it is not clear entirely how much.  Azawad’s “Arabs”—actually ethnic Berbers who have been speaking Arabic for centuries—are often also called “Moors”—in French Maures, hence the name Mauritania, where they are the largest ethnic group.  These Moors are the main inhabitants of most of Azawad’s territory but are only a small part of the population (perhaps 10-15%, though figures are unreliable), with little presence in the Tuareg-dominated cities of Timbuktu, Kidal, and Gao.  (The Tuareg language is somewhat close to Berber but only very distantly related to Arabic.)

Facing off for the presidency are the Rally for Mali party’s Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, a former prime minister of Mali (1994-2000), who got 40% of the vote in the July 28th round, and a former finance minister, Soumaïla “Sumy” Cissé, current president of the West African Monetary Union, who got 20%.  Cissé, who faces an uphill battle, is a native of Niafunké, the town in the far south of Azawad’s Timbuktu province, which is also the home town of possibly the world’s most famous Malian, the late musician Ali Farka Touré.  Both Keïta and Cissé have campaigned on vows to end the Azawad conflict without partitioning the country.  If they are not prepared to allow the 10% of the Malian population who are Tuareg and Moor a quasi-state in the north, that may be an impossible promise to keep.

If Keïta wins, he will have the perhaps impossible task of keeping Mali together.

[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 some time in 2013.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.]

Catalans, Basques Organize Themselves for Secession; Also Bashkortostan, Oromia, Casamance, Mahalla Republic, Corsica, Kukiland, Kabardino-Balkaria, South California: The Week in Separatist News, 9-15 December 2012

TOP STORY:
CATALONIA PLANS 2014 REFERENDUM WITH NEW COALITION DEAL;
SEPARATISTS LIKELY TO HOLD BALANCE OF POWER IN BASQUE COUNTRY TOO

Catalan Separatist Parties Form Coalition, Plan Referendum for 2014.  Reports emerged this week of a meeting between Artur Mas i Gavarró’s independence-minded ruling party in the Catalonia, Convergència i Unió (CiU, or Convergence and Union), and the autonomous region’s second-place party from last month’s regional election (reported on at the time in this blog), Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (E.R.C., or Republican Left of Catalonia) about forming a government.  Part of the agreement is that a referendum on independence from Spain will probably be held in 2014, the same year Scotland decides whether to remain in the United Kingdom.  Mas had only promised to hold a vote by 2017, but the E.R.C. pushed for an earlier date.

Gradualist Named Basque Premier, Will Need Radical Separatists to Rule in Coalition.  In Spain’s Basque Country, Iñigo Urkullu was appointed the autonomous region’s prime minister on December 13th after an election in October in which his Basque Nationalist Party (E.A.J.) came out with a plurality of 21 out of 75 seats (as reported at the time in this blog), but, although the E.A.J. are gradualists on the question of independence, they will need to govern with the help of the more stridently separatist Euskal Herria Bildu (E.H.B.) coalition.

AFRICA

Mali’s Civilian Prime Minister Nabbed, Forced to Resign by Sanogo Coup Plotters.  The interim prime minister of the Republic of Mali, Cheick Modibo Diarra, who took office in a negotiated handover after a military coup d’état in March, was arrested by members of the military as he was trying to flee the country on December 11th and hours later announced his resignation on state television.  The soldiers who apprehended him were loyalists of Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo, who led the original coup and who never really let go of the reins of power.  The new prime minister is Diango Cissoko, who had been minister of justice in the 1980s.  The rough transition calls into question the legitimacy of the civilian government, as well as prospects for an international intervention to root Islamists out of the self-declared Independent State of Azawad that prevails over the northern two-thirds of Mali.

Diango Cissoko, Mali’s new prime minister;
the implications for the retaking of Azawad are as yet unclear.

New Somali President Vows to Retake Puntland and Somaliland Ports.  The newly elected president of a supposedly newly post-transitional Federal Republic of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, vowed this week in a media interview to retake the harbor cities of Berbera and Bosaso, using words that sounded like a threat to undermine or even dismantle the de facto independent governments of Somaliland and Puntland, which have flourished in the northern half of Somalia as islands of stability, economic growth, and democracy during more than two decades of chaos and civil war.  Speaking confidently of the recent ejection of Islamist armies from Kismayo, the main port in southern Somalia, Mohamud said the next step will be Somaliland’s main port, Berbera, and Bosaso, in Puntland.  “The country has four main ports,” Mohamud said, “namely Mogadishu, Kismayo, Berbera, and Bosaso, which we intend to take-over soonest,” adding, “Once we seize full control of all the four ports, the federal government in Mogadishu shall apportion regional governments a minor share of the earnings”—the “regional governments” referring perhaps to Puntland, which is nominally a state within  Somalia, or perhaps to the at-this-point utterly fictional “provinces” of “Somalia” which overlay the political realities in the region.  Mogadishu’s refusal to recognize Somaliland’s independence is not new, but the Mohamud’s threats to Puntland’s autonomous status are.

3 Killed, 7 Injured in Somaliland over Election Results.  Violence accompanied the announcement of results from last month’s violence-plagued elections (reported on at the time in this blog) in the independent but unrecognized Republic of Somaliland.  In Hargeisa, the capital, three people were killed and seven injured during protests on December 6th by supporters of the Haqsoor political coalition.  The protests and unrest continued into the next day.  Later, on December 8th in Erigavo, scene of some of last week’s worst unrest and capital of the disputed Sanaag region, the offices of the electoral commission were raked with machine-gun fire.  No one was injured. ...

Post-election unrest in Hargeisa this week

... Somaliland Troops Retake Sool Town from Khaatumo Loyalists.  Meanwhile, in the nearby Sool region—also administered by Somaliland and claimed by Puntland—Somaliland national troops have retaken the town of Widwidh from loyalists of the officially-dismantled but surprisingly resurgent Khaatumo State, which tried to establish itself earlier this year in the Sool, Sanaag, and Cayn regions in the Puntland–Somaliland border zone.  The town was retaken without a shot being fired, and the Khaatumo loyalists are believed to have fled into Puntland-controlled areas.

Puntland Commandos Raid al-Shabaab Camp in Mountains, Inflict Heavy Casualties.  In the de facto independent Puntland State of Somalia, government commandos raided an Islamist militant camp in the remote Golis Mountains, inflicting heavy casualties, including deaths, though no exact figures were available.  The camp was operated by al-Shabaab, a jihadist army affiliated with al-Qaeda which has recently expanded into Puntland.

4 Homes Hit by Mortars in Somali City Divided between Puntland, Galmudug States.  Civilian homes were hit by mortar shells on December 7th in Galkayo, a city whose northern half is administered by the de facto independent Puntland State of Somalia but whose southern half is capital of the similarly self-governing Galmudug State—both of them nominally parts of the dysfunctional, barely existent Federal Republic of Somalia.  The mortars came from the direction of Galmudug territory and landed on the Puntland side of the border.  Four homes were damaged.

Kenyan Police Kill 3 Mombasa Separatist Militants, Disrupting Attack Plot.  In Kenya on December 9th, police shot and killed three suspected members of the Mombasa Republic Council (M.R.C.) who authorities the next day claimed had been plotting an attack on a police station.  There were also arrested of four other members of the M.R.C., an organization which seeks to form an independent state out of Kenya’s predominantly-Muslim south-coastal region.

Nigerian Military, Police Clash with Boko Haram in Potiskum; 14 Dead.  Suspected members of northern Nigeria’s Islamist militia Boko Haram attacked police in the streets of Potiskum, in Yobe State in the northeast, on December 11th.  The military was called in to repel the attack, and after a shootout one police officer and 13 of the jihadists were dead.  There was also looting and arson in the city blamed on Boko Haram.

Ethiopian Court Hands Long Prison Terms to 9 Oromo Separatist Activists.  A federal court in Ethiopia handed down prison sentences of eight and 13 years to two members of the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement on charges of inciting a separatist rebellion, supposedly as members of the banned Oromo Liberation Front (O.L.F.), which seeks independence for the vast, sprawling southern region of Oromia.  Seven other Oromo activists were given long sentences for receiving paramilitary training in Kenya and for skirmishes with Ethiopian troops.

Police Round Up 15 Biafran Separatists in Enugu State.  Police in Nigeria’s Enugu State reported this week that 15 members of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) were arrested when authorities busted up a planning meeting in Ogwofia Owa.  Charges have yet to be brought.

Casamance Rebels Release 8 Captured Senegalese Troops in Gambia.  Eight Senegalese soldiers were released this week by rebels from a militia which seeks independence for the region of Casamance, in southern Senegal.  The Movement for the Democratic Forces of Casamance delivered the prisoners to the International Committee of the Red Cross (I.C.R.C.) in a handover in the nearby Republic of the Gambia.

Alexandria, Other Egyptian Towns Declare Semi-Serious “Independence” from Morsi.  Separatism, if only of the tongue-in-cheek sort, has become a feature in the ongoing civil unrest and street politics in the Arab Republic of Egypt, where the new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, is facing what is increasingly resembling an Arab Spring revolution redux for his latest power grabs.  Alexandria and El-Mahalla El-Kubra, in the Nile Delta, are among the several municipalities across the country where local activists are declaring independence—in the case of Mahalla, one of the birthplaces of last year’s revolution and a major port with nearly a half-million people, a Republic of Mahalla.

Mahalla was one of the cradles of last year’s revolt against Hosni Mubarak.
This week, residents are talking (not seriously?) about independence from Mubarak’s successor regime.

EUROPE

2 Border Crossings Linking Serbia to Serb-Dominated North Kosovo Formally Open.  After protests and political wrangling, two border crossings operated jointly by the de facto independent Republic of Kosovo and the country that still claims it as its territory, the Republic of Serbia, opened on December 10th amid little fanfare.  The two crossings, Jarinje and Medarje, join Serbia proper with the region of North Kosovo, a Serb-dominated area lying out of Kosovo’s de facto control.  Four other crossings are to be in operation by the end of the year.

With Dominica on Board, Now More than Half of U.N. Member States Recognize Kosovo.  Following last month’s establishments of diplomatic relations by the Republic of Fiji (as reported at the time in this blog) and, the following week, the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, another Caribbean island nation, the Commonwealth of Dominica this week became the 97th independent state to recognize the Republic of Kosovo.  This officially tips the balance, so that now just over one-half of the United Nations’ 193 member states now recognize Kosovo.  See this week’s full article on this development.

Separatists Burn 24 French Vacation Homes on Eve of Corsican National Holiday.  The Corsican National Liberation Front (F.L.N.C.) is claiming responsibility for the destruction of 24 vacation homes by arson and explosives on December 7th on Corsica, the large Mediterranean island which was transferred from Italy (the Republic of Genoa, actually) to France in 1769 following a brief period of independence.  No one was injured in the violence, which targeted vacated or partially completed homes.  A few hours before the blasts, a man believed linked to the F.L.N.C. was arrested in possession of explosives.  On the same day, the eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which is also Corsica’s unofficial independence day, a nightclub owner was gunned down and killed in what is probably an organized-crime hit rather than something related to the wave of arson.

One of 24 vacation homes in Corsica destroyed by separatists this week

Renzo Bossi, Son of Northern League Founder, Probed for Misuse of Public Funds.  The young son of Umberto Bossi, the founder and disgraced former leader of Italy’s now-marginalized separatist Northern League, emerged December 14th as the target of a new corruption investigation focusing on right-wing parties.  The son, Renzo Bossi, who is suspected of misusing public funds, was discussed in this blog earlier this year as no. 10 in a list of “The World’s 21 Sexiest Separatists.”  Ironically, the press this week are referring to his being nicknamed “the Trout,” “because of his looks”—but it’s not clear if that is a compliment or not.  Certainly, the bee-stung lips and just general Mick Jagger look does not prevent another of the dozens of politicians newly under investigation—Nicole Minetti, a former regional councillor for Lombardy for the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Popolo della Libertà (P.d.L., or People of Freedom) party—from being considered a sex symbol.  Minetti, who is being investigated for spending €800 of public money on food and drink at a five-star hotel in Milan, is also still not free of charges that she procured underaged prostitutes for Berlusconi’s orgy-like  parties.  She began her political career as Berlusconi’s—ahem!—oral hygienist.  Yeah, that explains all the spit sinks at those bunga bunga parties.

Renzo Bossi and Nicole Minetti

Russian Troops Fail to Find “Bashkortostan Mujahideen” Training Camp in Urals.  The Caucasus Emirate separatist organization in the Russian Federation’s Muslim regions confirmed this week on their website an earlier report in the media from the Russian military that a militant Islamist training camp had been reported in the Urals region, run by the Bashkortostan Mujahideen, but that the feared Federal Security Service (F.S.B., successor to the Soviet-era K.G.B.) was unable to find it.  The website, the often-unreliable and propagandistic Kavkaz Center, which refers to the area in question, in Russia’s Republic of Bashkortostan, as part of the “Russian invader”–occupied “Idel-Ural,” links the Bashkortostan Mujahideen to a 2010 terrorist attack on traffic police in the city of Perm (which the site calls the “Russian-occupied Finnic country of Permia”).  The Idel-Ural State flourished briefly during the Russian Civil War as a multi-ethnic, predominantly-Muslim Menshevik state centered on modern Tatarstan, until it was crushed by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks in 1920.  Bashkortostan, where native Bashkirs and Tatars just barely together outnumber ethnic Russians, declared independence briefly in 1992 before being cajoled by President Boris Yeltsin into joining the Russian Federation.

A new trouble spot?
A map showing the location of the Republic of Bashkortostan within the Russian Federation.

Dagestani Police Colonel Assassinated by Masked Housebreakers; 3 Militants Killed.  A police colonel was killed in southwestern Russia’s predominantly-Muslim Republic of Dagestan on December 9th when masked intruders broke into his home in the Dagestani capital, Makhachkala.  The victim, Khizri Dzhabatyrov, was involved in investigations into corruption and white-collar crime.  Later, on December 13th three militants were killed in a shootout with police at a checkpoint in Makhachkala.

2 Militants, Including Suicide Bomber, Die in Police Siege in Ingushetia.  In Nazran, capital of southwestern Russia’s Republic of Ingushetia, in the North Caucasus region, a police siege of militants barricaded in a house ended this week with the two rebels dead in a hail of gunfire.  One of the dead men, according to Russia’s Federal Security Service (F.S.B.), had been commander of a “suicide battalion.”

7 Dead as Russian Forces Clash with Rebels in North Caucasus.  In Tyrnyauz, in the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, in the predominantly-Muslim North Caucasus region, Russian Federation forces clashed for two days with militants starting December 11th, in skirmishes that left six rebels and one police officer dead.  Three of the rebels were on terrorism wanted lists.

Suspect Nabbed in Killing of T.V. Anchor in Kabardino-Balkaria.  Russian federal security forces this week arrested a suspect in last week’s assassination (reported last week in this blog) of Kazbek Gekkiyev, a television news anchorman in southwestern Russia’s Kabardino-Balkar Republic, in Circassia.  The suspect is Zeytun Boziyev, age 30.

Plotters in Deadly Dagestani Suicide-Bombing Targeting Sufi Imam Arrested.  Meanwhile, in the Republic of Dagestan to the east, Russian federal security forces arrested three suspects for playing a role in planning a mass killing on August 28th, in which a female break-dancing suicide-bomber (though she was not break-dancing at the time of the bombing) killed seven people, including an 11-year-old boy and a prominent Sufi imam (as reported at the time in this blog).  The three suspects are said to be members of the Caucasus Emirate movement, which aims to create an independent state out of predominantly-Muslim areas along Russia’s southern rim.

Caucasus Emirate Claims Military Atrocities against Civilians in Dagestan, Chechnya.  The often-unreliable Jihadist website Kavkaz Center, run by the separatist Caucasus Emirate movement, reported this week on a series of violent “pogroms” against against civilians in the Russian Federation’s predominantly-Muslim North Caucasus region that were not reported in other media.  In one incident, on December 5th, troops from the Russian ministry of the interior, along with allied paramilitaries, removed two men from their homes in villages in the Chechen Republic on suspicion of being associated with the Mujahideen.  Their fates are unknown.  In the other alleged incident, on December 8th, Russian troops raided the village of Chontaul in the Republic of Dagestan, breaking into homes, smashing furniture, and getting as far as pouring kerosene over two captured young girls and a young man with the intention of immolating them, before villagers intervened.  The website also reported the “abduction” by police of two female terrorism suspects in Chechnya.

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

Russian Chopper Carrying Border Guards Crashes in Abkhazia; 7 Hurt.  A helicopter operated by the Russian Federation’s Federal Security Bureau (F.S.B.), successor to the dreaded K.G.B., crashed in the de facto independent but only partially recognized Republic of Abkhazia on December 10th.  Seven passengers were injured.  The craft was bringing border guards to the line between Abkhazia and the country that still regards it as its territory, Georgia.

ASIA—MIDDLE EAST

Southern Movement Motorcyclists Kill 2 Yemeni Soldiers in Drive-By Shooting.  Two soldiers were killed in a motorcycle drive-by shooting on December 11th in southern Yemen’s Ad-Dali’ province.  The perpetrators are suspected of being members of the Southern Movement, which would like to restore the independence of South Yemen.

ASIA—SOUTH ASIA

Mizoram Chief Minister Backs Creation of Kuki State in Northeast India.  In India’s far northeast, the Kuki State Demand Committee (K.S.D.C.) claimed this week that high-ranking officials in the region, including the chief minister of Mizoram state, support the creation of a State of Kukiland for the Kuki ethnic minority.  Speaking of the Mizoram chief minister, Lalthanhawla (who has only one name), a K.S.D.C. spokesman said, “He had told us that he was not just the Chief Minister of Mizoram but of all the Chin/Kuki/Mizo/Zomi brethren in India and the adjoining Myanmar” (i.e. Burma).  Meanwhile, the K.S.D.C. were carrying out more blockades this week to get their message across.

One proposal for the boundaries of Kukiland

ASIA—EAST ASIA

Dozens of Burmese Troops Dead amid Upsurge in Fighting with Kachin Rebels.  Rebels from eastern Burma’s Kachin ethnic group reported this week that dozens of Burmese soldiers were killed—out of at least 60 casualties—in a recent upsurge in fighting on December 9th and 10th.  “Fighting seems like nothing new now; it occurs everyday,” said a spokesman for the Kachin Independence Organization (K.I.O.).  Skirmishes were reported the morning of December 14th in the Lajayang region of Kachin State.

3 Uyghurs Given Death Sentences in Fishy “Foiled Hijacking” of Chinese Airliner.  A court in the People’s Republic of China—a one-party dictatorship with no independent judiciary—on December 11th sentenced three Uyghur men to death and one to life in prison for supposedly attempting to hijack a domestic airplane flight in late June (as reported in this blog), although it seems just as likely (as also discussed in this blog) that it was a scuffle between passengers over seating arrangements that the authorities are linking to Uyghur separatist terrorism for political purposes.  The court, in western China’s vast Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, said the men were guilty of a hijacking plot that included a plan to blow up the plane.

A cellphone-camera image of the scuffle aboard a Chinese passenger plane in June
which Beijing called an attempted Uyghur terrorist hijacking

3 Self-Immolations Include 17-Year-Old Girl as Grisly Tibetan Protests Show No Let-Up.  The wave of self-immolations by Tibetans protesting the People’s Republic of China’s brutal rule in their country continued this week, with two such burnings in a single day.  Kunchok Phelgye, a 24-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monk, died December 8th after setting himself on fire in front of the Taktsang Lhamo Kirti monastery in the Ngaba “Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture” in western China’s Sichuan province.  After his death, monks and other worshippers carried his charred body into the monastery to offer prayers.  Later in the same day, Pema Dorjee, age 23, set himself ablaze in front of a monastery in the Luchu region in the east of China’s “Tibet Autonomous Region,” in full view of worshippers.  He shouted slogans calling for Tibetan independence and the return of the 14th Dalai Lama from exile as he perished.  The following day, a 17-year-old girl named Wangchen Kyi, burned herself to death in a Tibetan region of Qinghai province, making her the eighth minor to take the step in the several-years-long wave of self-immolations.

Pema Dorjee, age 23, immolating himself to protest Chinese rule in Tibet

China Sentences 8 Tibetan Student Demonstrators to Harsh Prison Terms.  Eight Tibetan students were given five-year prison sentences on December 5th (but it was only announced several days later) for their role in a November 26th demonstration in western China’s Qinghai province over language rights.  Many students were injured by police and hospitalized in the course of the unrest, which was centered on the Sirig Lobling Medical School in Chabcha, Qinghai.

NORTH AMERICA

Confederate War College Sets Southern “Secession Clock” Forward 1 Hour.  On analogy with the “Doomsday Clock,” maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to represent how close we as a global community are to nuclear annihilation, there is also, it turns out, a “Secession Clock,” maintained by the Confederate War College (C.W.C.) website, based in Gilmer, Texas, to indicate how close we are to the reestablishment of the Confederate States of America.  This week, the C.W.C. moved it ahead one hour to 7 p.m., citing the wave of online secession petitions after President Barack Obama’s reelection last month (discussed recently in articles on this blog here and here), a Huffington Post poll showing 22% of Americans favoring their respective home states leaving the Union, and other separatist chatter.  Officially, however, the C.W.C. “does not have a position concerning secession at this time, though it does defend the Constitutional right of the sovereign states which formed the United States to divorce as was originally intended when the Constitution was approved by the respective states.”

Garry Trudeau chimed in recently on red-state America’s secession fever.

Maryland Catholic Anti-Gay Hate Groups’ Ties to Racist Dixie Separatists Exposed.  Not only did the Maryland Catholic Conference and the Catholic fraternal order Knights of Columbus fail in their attempt last month to defeat a Maryland state referendum recognizing same-sex marriage.  But now the two groups are trying to contain the damage from revelations from the Human Rights Campaign (H.R.C.), a gay-rights organization, that Michael Peroutka, the third-largest donor to their ad hoc pressure group the Maryland Marriage Alliance is a member of the League of the South.  The Alliance raised nearly a half-million dollars to defeat the ballot measure.  The League of South, which advocates secession of the southern states from the United States, is classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center (S.P.L.C.) as a racist hate-group.  The League opposes interracial marriage, calls slavery “God-ordained,” and believes society should be governed by an “Anglo-Celtic” élite.  Anglo-Celtic?  Oopsie, sounds like that southern European Untermensch Cristóbal Colón himself—you know, as in “Knights of”—wouldn’t clear that bar.  Ah, well, details, details.  It’s inspiring that hate groups are able to set such minor doctrinal differences aside, especially when there are minority groups to gang up on.

Inland Empire Politician Envisions 51st State of “South California” by 2016.  The supervisor of Republican-dominated Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, California, acknowledged to media this week that his “Rebellion 2012” campaign (reported on in detail earlier in this blog) to break 13 counties away to form a separate state of “South California” has slowed, but he still sees 2016 as a target date for the partition.  Though last month’s national elections detracted attention from his cause, the supervisor, Jeff Stone, says that a rally is planned for March or April for Temecula, in Riverside County, while another rally in Kern County will be held later in the year.  He says six attorneys are at work drafting a constitution for the proposed 51st state of the United States.  South California is merely one possible name for the new entity; other suggestions include Southern California, Western Nevada, and Free State.  Also suggested has been an annexation of the region by Arizona.  Ironically, Temecula and nearby Murrieta, in the very southwest of the vast Riverside County, are at the center of a new movement to secede to form California’s 59th county.

CENTRAL AMERICA & CARIBBEAN

Puerto Rico Governor Calls Special Session on Statehood before Giving Reins to Opponent.  The recently defeated, outgoing governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuño, who helped usher the territory to a referendum win for his pro-statehood initiative last month, said on December 8th that he was calling for a special legislative session on how to advance the cause of becoming the 51st state of the United States.  The new governor, Alejandro García Padilla, of the Popular Democratic Party (P.D.P.), favors an enhanced, more autonomous version of the current commonwealth status, rather than statehood.

Alejandro García Padilla, Puerto Rico’s governor elect, is not a fan of statehood,
but it’s on the legislative agenda anyway.

PRACTICALLY BLOODY ANTARCTICA

Falkland Islands to Hold Referendum on Status in March 2013.  The government of the Falkland Islands has chosen March 10th and 11th, 2013, as the dates for a referendum on the future status of the archipelago, which is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom threatened as of late by the saber-rattling of an expansionist Argentine Republic.  The question is to read, “Do you wish to remain a self-governing British Overseas Territory?”

[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.]

Catalonia, New Hampshire, Barotseland, Julian Assange’s Aboriginal Passport, Maori Wind Claims, Kosovo Moves Forward, Palestinian Statehood Application, Transitions in Horn of Africa: The Week in Separatist News, 9-15 September 2012

Photo of the week:  Thousands of Catalan thronged the streets of Madrid and Barcelona this week to push for independence from Spain, a nation devastated by Europe’s financial crisis.

TOP STORY:
HORN OF AFRICA IN TRANSITION:
ZENAWI’S DEATH RESHUFFLES ETHNIC DECK IN ETHIOPIA;
NEW PRESIDENT IN (WHAT’S LEFT OF) SOMALIA;
TENSIONS ALONG SOMALILAND–ETHIOPIA BORDER

Ethiopia and Ogaden Rebels Return to Negotiating Table.  The Ogaden National Liberation Front (O.N.L.F.), which controls much of the vast, desert border region between the Somali Republic and Ethiopia, announced September 8th that it recently began peace talks, in Kenya, with the Ethiopian government.  Addis Ababa also confirms the talks.  The Ogaden people are related linguistically and culturally to the Somali peoples.  It is not clear if the opportunity for détente was attributable to the death on August 20th of Ethiopia’s long-serving authoritarian prime minister, Meles Zenawi.

2 Swedish Journalists Imprisoned in Ethiopia for Ties to Ogaden Rebels Freed.  Two journalists from Sweden were pardoned and freed by the Ethiopian government on September 11th after being arrested in July 2011, then sentenced to 11 years in prison for crossing the Somalia–Ethiopia border illegally and supporting “separatist rebels.”  The two, Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson, a reporter and photographer respectively, were freed under an (Ethiopian) New Year’s Day amnesty signed by Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, shortly before his death on August 20th.  Charges against them included consorting with the Ogaden National Liberation Front (O.N.L.F.).

Somaliland Abuses of Oromo and Other Ethiopian Refugees Alleged, with 1 Dead.  The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (H.R.L.H.A.) this week issued an expression of concern and urge to action regarding Ethiopian refugees in the part of the Somali Republic which functions as an unrecognized Republic of Somaliland.  According to H.R.L.H.A., Ethiopians, most of whom are members of the Oromo nationality, were surrounded by Somaliland troops on an unspecified recent date in Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital.  One refugee was shot in the leg and others beaten.  One Somaliland soldier was also killed in what seems to have been an all-out mêlée.  Some 56 refugees are, as of August 31st, reportedly still being imprisoned by authorities in Hargeisa.  The border between Ethiopia and Somaliland has been tense, with military build-ups on both sides (as reported in this blog), since the death on August 20th of Ethiopia’s long-serving authoritarian prime minister, Meles Zenawi.  There are also worries, especially among Oromos and others, that Ethiopia’s precarious ethno-political balance will be disrupted, since Zenawi was a member of a former Tigray separatist-army-turned-political-party that had become allied with the country’s traditionally dominant Amhara ethnic group.

Afar Militia Rampage in Somali Part of Ethiopia Kills 17; Injured Flee to Somaliland.  Elsewhere along the border between Somaliland and Ethiopia, a militia from Ethiopia’s Afar Regional State called the Liyuu Police—who were accused by Somaliland last month of conducting cross-border raids (as reported at the time in this blog)—conducted a violent rampage in the Ethiopian border town Harshin, which is in Ethiopia’s Somali Region, another regional state populated by Somali-speaking ethnic groups such as the Ogaden.  First the Liyuu Police killed four people in a violent crackdown and then, when they were chased out of the town by residents, they regrouped and re-entered the town September 11th with a column of armored vehicles, fired into crowds, and killed 13 more, mostly women and children.  28 people were injured.  The death toll may be higher: some of the at least 28 injured managed to flee across the border, where some were treated at a hospital in Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital.  The town itself is deserted and may contain more bodies.  The central government in Addis Ababa has sent troops to Harshin to confront the Liyuu Police.  

Somaliland Congratulates Somalia’s New President, Won’t Retreat on Independence.  The president of the de facto independent but unrecognized Republic of Somaliland, Ahmed Mahmoud Silanyo, in a press release this week congratulated Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud on being unanimously appointed by parliament the new president of the Somalia, from which Somaliland seceded unilaterally in 1991.  Mohamoud inherits an office that is nominally in charge of the 44th-largest country in the world and the 19th-largest in Africa but in reality only administers the capital city, Mogadishu, and its outskirts.  Mohamoud’s accession ends the period of the Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.), as the Somali Republic formally becomes the Federal Republic of Somalia.  Silanyo’s statement does not push the issue of independence, but mentions a “hope that the two neighbouring countries will partner in working for a better Horn of Africa.”

Somalia’s new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud

Somaliland Opposition Party Vows to Boycott November Elections.  The United People’s Democratic Party (UDUB), an opposition party in the unrecognized Republic of Somaliland, announced this week an intent to boycott the November 28th Somaliland local elections.  The party’s leader, Ali Mohamed Waran-Cadde, told a press conference that the boycott was in response to maneuvers against UDUB by the electoral commission, which last week voided his own candidacy in the election.  Somaliland’s former president, Dahir Rayale Kahin, has also written to the current president, Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo, asking him to postpone the election, citing similar irregularities.

2 Al-Shabaab Rebels Surrender to Authorities in Puntland.  In the Somali Republic’s fully self-governing Puntland State, two young rebels, aged 18 and 24, defected on September 6th from the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab militia based in the Galgala Mountains and turned themselves in to the Puntland government.  They had been with al-Shabaab in the mountains for 13 months.

Defectors from al-Shabaab

THE REST OF AFRICA

Talk of War in Barotseland Follows Rounding Up of Activists.  In Mongu, the capital of the Republic of Zambia’s Western Province, police have begun rounding up and interrogating members of the Lozi (Barotse) nationality which dominates western Zambia over an activist stunt on September 6th involving ripping up copies of a draft proposed national constitution seen as granting insufficient autonomy to Barotseland.  Nathaniel Mubukwanu, a member of parliament for Mongu, said that the stunt was criminal because the draft copies were government property.  Others have compared the acts to treason.  Fifteen people have been arrested, most of them reportedly minors.  This has prompted the Barotse litunga (king), Libosi Imwiko II, to declare that the Lozi people will do battle with the Zambian state if Zambia sends police and soldiers into Barotseland (though it of course already has, since it administers the area).  And the commander of the Barotseland Liberation Army (B.L.A.), Lt. James Mwiya, has ordered Lozi people in Western Province (formerly known as Barotseland Province) to wear red clothing to symbolize their readiness for coming bloodshed in the quest for independence.

King Libosi Imwiko II is ready for war.

Darfuri Rebels Claim Killing of 10 Sudanese Soldiers in South Kordofan.  In South Kordofan, a state that remained, mostly against its will, in the Republic of Sudan when the Republic of South Sudan seceded last summer, rebels from (north) Sudan’s southwestern Darfur region are said to be battling Sudanese government forces.  This bolsters suspicions by some that there are increasing links between Darfuri groups and rebels operating in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states under the banner of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement–North (S.P.L.M.–N), an offshoot of the S.P.L.M. at large, which became South Sudan’s military upon independence.  This week’s announcement, referring to 10 government soldiers killed, was made by the Justice and Equality Movement (J.E.M.), an anti-government (but itself not separatist) insurgent army from Darfur.  The Sudanese government denied any such battle had occurred.

7 Militants, 3 Christian Youths Killed in Northern Nigeria Boko Haram Violence.  Authorities in Nigeria claim seven Islamist rebels were killed in a gun battle that followed a suspected Boko Haram attack an army checkpoint in Maidiguri, capital of Borno State in far northeastern Nigeria, on September 7th.  Thirteen arrests were made, but there were no reported military casualties.  Boko Haram is also suspected in an attack the same day on the home of the mother-in-law of neighboring Yobe State.  Militants stormed into the residence, ordered the occupants out, and burned it down.  There were no reported injuries.  In Bauchi State in the north, three young Christian men were killed on September 10th by unidentified members of the Fulani ethnic group—a nationality which dominates Boko Haram—in a drive-by shooting, and on the night of September 11-12 authorities arrested 11 suspected Boko Haram members in Borno State and recovered a cache of weapons.  Nigeria’s Muslims also staged a demonstration in Jos, in anger over a low-budget American film parodying the Prophet Mohammed, similar to but milder than other demonstrations around the Muslim world.  The protesters, some of whom wore shirts with the words “To Hell with America, to Hell with Israel,” were dispersed with live assault-rifle fire by police.

Biafran Independence Activists Arraigned in Nigeria.  Five members of an outlawed Igbo separatist organization, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) were arraigned in Onitsha, in southeastern Nigeria, on September 7th on charges of belonging to an “unlawful society,” as well as other offenses such as the possession of Biafran flags.  The five include Chief Arinze Igbani, who was receiving medical treatment at a clinic when he was nabbed in the September 4th round-up (as reported on last week in this blog).

Mombasa Republican Council Accused of Inciting Tana River Violence in Kenya.  Villagers in the Tana River district of Kenya’s Coast Province are reportedly saying that “outsiders” with a political agenda are behind the latest wave of killings, ostensibly over grazing rights, between the Pokomo and Orma ethnic groups.  Dhadho Godhana, a member of parliament for Galole, at the mouth of the Tana, was charged with inciting violence on September 12th, then released, and he has lost his post as assistant minister for livestock for his presumed role in the conflict.  Over 100 people have been killed in the retaliatory raids between the two groups this month.  Some Orma also accuse the Mombasa Republican Council (M.R.C.)—based in the predominatly-Muslim city of Mombasa at the other end of Coast Province, which the M.R.C. wants to establish as a separate state—of being behind an attack on September 10th in which 38 were killed.  Some Pokomo, who are 90% evangelical Christian—are sympathetic to the M.R.C.

Spaniard Captured, Released by Ansar al-Dine in Northern Mali.  A citizen of Spain boating down the Niger River was abducted September 6th by Ansar al-Dine, one of the two al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist militias that rule the northern two-thirds of the Republic of Mali as the Tuareg-dominated Independent State of Azawad, before releasing him the following day.  He was grabbed just outside the town Niafunké, in what the Malian government regards as the far south of its Timbuktu province.  From there he was brought south to the town of Mopti, capital of the multiethnic province of the same name, where Ansar al-Dine and other jihadists have recently extended their influence.  Elsewhere in Azawad, Nabil Sahrawi, an Algerian citizen and a senior military commander for the al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (A.Q.I.M.) who went by the nom de guerre Abu Olqoma, died in a car accident on September 9th in Gao.  [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).]

Nabil Sahrawi

EUROPE

On Eve of Mass Independence Rally, Catalan Leader Gives Scots Separatists a Pep Talk.  On September 10th, on the eve of a major pro-independence rally in Madrid, Spain (September 11th marks a Catalan defeat at the hands of King Felipe V in 1714), the father of Catalonia’s separatist movement, Jordi Pujol, visited London this week and offered words of support to Scotland’s much younger independence movement.  He pointed out that successful independence movements often start out as a minority movement, giving the United States as an example, pointing out that when the American Revolution was begun, only a third of the population supported it.  That is about the same proportion of Scots today that favor independence from the United Kingdom.  But Pujol said that a successful secession relies on “not only the will of the population but also the skill of the leaders.”  Scotland is due to vote on separation from the U.K. in 2014.

Paying homage to Catalonia

Spaniards March to Protest Release of Dying Basque Prisoner.  In Spain’s Basque Country, about 100 members of the Victims of Terrorism Association marched to Zaballa prison in the town of Nanclares de la Oca on September 8th to protest an August 30th court ruling (reported on last week in this blog) ordering the release of a terminally ill convicted Basque terrorist.  The prisoner, Jesús María Uribetxebarria Bolinaga, is dying of cancer while he serves a prison term for kidnapping and murder and was the focus of a hunger strike (reported at the time in this blog) by hundreds of Basque prisoners in France and Spain last month.  He is a member of the disarmed and mostly disbanded rebel army ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatusana, “Basque Homeland and Freedom,”), which fought for an independent Basque state in north-central Spain and southwestern France.

The families of terrorism victims protest a Basque militant’s release

On National Day, Gibraltar’s Leader Says Rock “Will Never Be Spanish.”  The chief minister of Gibraltar, an overseas British territory whose status has been a thorn in the side of relations between the United Kingdom and Spain since the early 18th century, vowed on the occasion of its National Day on September 10th, “We will never concede one grain of sand, one breath of our air, or one drop of our waters.  Gibraltar will never be Spanish.”

Kosovo’s “Supervised Independence” Formally Ends, but NATO, E.U. Are Staying On.  On September 10th, the Republic of Kosovo—which is recognized by only just under half of the world’s sovereign states, and not at all by the Republic of Serbia, from which it seceded in 2008—ended its period of “supervised independence.”  This means that the International Civilian Office (I.C.O.), set up by the International Steering Group for Kosovo (I.S.G.)—a 25-member body consisting of the United States, the European Union (E.U.), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia, and most E.U. member-states, plus Norway, Switzerland, Croatia, and Turkey—will disband.  The I.C.O. was empowered to step in and take over Kosovo’s governmental powers if human-rights abuses (against Serbs) or similar problems arose, but it never did.  NATO and the E.U.’s European Rule of Law Mission (Eulex) still maintain a presence in Kosovo.

Serbian Prosecutor Claims New Witness Can Testify to Kosovo War Organ-Harvesting.  In the Republic of Serbia, a public prosecutor said September 9th that he has detailed witness testimony of ethnically Albanian rebels harvesting organs from captured Serbs during the Kosovo War.  The harvesting allegedly occurred in northern Albania, during 1998 or 1999.  The general accusations are not new: in 2010 the Council of Europe reported on Kosovo Liberation Army (K.L.A.) detention camps along the Albanian border and an organ-harvesting ring implicating the highest Kosovar and Albanian circles, all the way to Hashim Thaçi, the current prime minister of the Republic of Kosovo, a state Serbia and much of the world do not recognize.  The charges are being investigated by the European Union (E.U.) as well.  The Serbian prosecutor, Vladimir Vukčević, says the witness, a former K.L.A. member, is being kept under close guard.

Separatists Bomb of 7 Supermarkets in Corsica; None Injured.  Seven supermarkets were the targets of a wave of bombings on September 9th across Corsica, an island in the Mediterranean Sea near Italy that has been administered for centuries by the French Republic.  There were no injuries and only minor damage to the buildings.  The Corsican National Liberation Front (F.N.L.C.), which seeks a separate Corsican state, claimed responsibility, saying it was a strike at “social and trade-union struggles of our people against the multiple outposts of French colonialism in Corsica.”

Corsica’s flag.  The original flag had the Moor blindfolded,
but Corsican separatists moved the bandana up a bit to symbolize liberation.

[For the latest news from the North Caucasus (including Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia), see this week’s Caucasus Update.]

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 this week’s Caucasus Update.]

WikiLeaks Wires Tell of Possible of Karakalpak Separatist “Time Bomb” in Uzbekistan.  Diplomatic cables sent home in 2008 by the United States ambassador to the Republic of Uzbekistan and now released by WikiLeaks shed light this week on the separatist situation in the Republic of Karakalpakstan, an ethnically distinct autonomous region making up almost the entire western half of Uzbekistan, including its access to the Aral Sea.  Separatist momentum was weak, according to the cables, mostly because of emigration by the Karakalpak, who are a minority in their own republic, outnumbered by Kazakhs and Uzbeks.  Independence is being pushed by the Free Karakalpakstan National Revival Party, which accuses Uzbeks of genocide.  The Uzbek government was in 2008 denying that separatism was a problem, according to the then-ambassador, Richard Norlan, but other experts called the Karakalpak situation a “time bomb.”  Karakalpakstan has its own parliament and constitution and considers itself a sovereign state, according to the cables.

[For the latest news from Turkey, including Turkish Kurdistan, see this week’s “Kurdistan and Syria Update.”]

ASIA—MIDDLE EAST

[For more news from Syria and Iraq, including the Kurdistan regions, see this week’s “Kurdistan and Syria Update.”]

Palestine to Apply for U.N. General Assembly Seat Again This Month.  The president of the Palestinian National Authority (P.N.A.), Mahmoud Abbas, in a press conference in Ramallah, the Palestinian capital, on September 8th, announced that this month the State of Palestine would again apply for admission to the United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly as a member state.  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 member state by U.N. institutions such as Unesco, but it is effectively blocked from a General Assembly seat by veto powers wielded on the U.N. Security Council by Israel’s only ally, the United States.  The U.S. scotched a previous Palestinian application last year.  General Assembly membership would be consequential because it would make Israel’s brutal occupation and blockade of Palestine an unambiguous act of aggression by one state against another.

Basra Pushes for Unified Autonomous Southern Region in Iraq.  As the northern autonomous Kurdistan region solidifies its quasi-separate status and fighting between Shiite and Sunni Arabs reaches newer heights throughout Iraq, centrifugal forces have emerged in the far south as well.  This week Sabah al-Bazouni, who heads the Basra Provincial Council, in Iraq’s far south, says that the city of Basra, now on track to being declared Iraq’s “economic capital,” wants to form a unified Southern Region, with an autonomous status similar to Kurdistan’s, formed out of several provinces and with Basra, Iraq’s only port, positioned at the country’s tiny wedge of coastline, as its capital.  Southern Iraq is where most of Iraq’s Shiites are concentrated.

Map showing the proposed unified southern province for Iraq

Former Vice President Will Return to Yemen from Exile to Aid Southern Movement.  The former vice-president of the Republic of Yemen, Ali Salim al-Beidh, whose withdrawal from the coalition government in 1993 sparked the 1994 civil war over southern secession, said September 13th that he plans to return to Yemen to aid the Southern Movement in its quest for independence.  He has been living in exile since 1994, when he fled Aden, the former capital of South Yemen, as federal troops seized it.  He went first to Oman, but now lives in Beirut, Lebanon.

Ali Salim al-Beidh

South Yemeni Separatist Leader Survives Car-Bombing on Day of Rally.  Thousands of supporters of independence for South Yemen, which was separate from Yemen until unification 1990, gathered at a stadium in the city of Daleh on September 10th.  Honoring the dead in the recent independence struggle, the crowds chanted “No unity—no federation—no colonialism!”  Meanwhile, the same day, the separatist leader Mohammed Ali Ahmed, who served as “interior minister” for South Yemen in a failed secession bid in 1994, survived an assassination attempt when a bomb planted in his car blew up while he was at a meeting in a nearby hotel in Hadhramaut province, in the eastern part of the former South Yemen.  Ahmed returned from political exile in March.

ASIA—SOUTH ASIA

Set Back by Vote, Tamil Party May Yet Form Coalition Government in 1 Province.  Overall, Sri Lanka’s Tamil party came in third in this week’s provincial elections, but in one province may be able to hobble together a coalition.  The nation’s ruling party, the United People’s Freedom Alliance (U.P.F.A.), this week narrowly won, with 51.05% of votes, three out of three provincial council elections held September 8th.  At stake was the leadership in the Tamil-dominated provinces of North Central and Eastern and the south-central Sabaragamuwa province.  The United National Party (U.N.P.) came in second, with 27.67%, while the Tamil National Alliance (T.N.A.), which has pushed the Tamil-autonomy agenda since the end of the Tamil–Sinhalese civil war in 2009, trailed with only 9.63%.  However, in Eastern Province, the U.P.F.A.’s plurality was so narrow that the T.N.A. said September 9th it was working with the U.N.P. and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (S.L.M.C.) about forming a coalition provincial government.

Sri Lanka’s provinces

U.N. Team Arrives in Pakistan to Investigate Balochistan “Disappearances.”  A United Nations (U.N.) fact-finding team that focuses on “disappearances” arrived in Pakistan this week for a 10-day investigation of allegations that the government is abducting and disposing of troublemakers, especially in the separatist province of Balochistan.  The group, the U.N. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, arrived September 9th at the invitation of the Pakistani government.  It is headed by Olivier de Frouville, of France.

Parties in Pakistan Pick Sides over Sindhi Separatists’ General Strike.  In Karachi, the nationalist, traditionalist political party led by Pakistan’s former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (P.M.L.–N), threw its support behind separatists in Sindh state who are calling a general strike September 13th to protest a new local-government system in the state.  In reply, Altaf Hussain, the chief of Sindh’s ruling party, the centrist, secular Muttahida Qaumi Movement (M.Q.M.), on September 8th called the P.M.L.–N “enemies of democracy” and “hypocrites,” adding that the party “is conspiring to break up the country, but this conspiracy will never be successful as long as the M.Q.M. is here.”

Village Chief, Policeman Killed, Soldier Hurt in Kashmir Violence.  In Kashmir, India’s only majority-Muslim state, one Indian special-forces policeman was killed and a soldier was wounded by Kashmiri separatists in the town of Sopore on September 8th.  The rebel group Lashkar-e-Taiba claimed responsibility.  A manhunt was on for the perpetrators.  Then, on September 10th, a village chief in Kashmir’s Baramulla district was shot and killed by separatists, according to police.

Soldier Killed, 12 Wounded by Separatist Bombs in India’s Manipur State.  In Imphal, capital of the state of Manipur, in India’s ethnically diverse far northeast, a soldier and a civilian were hurt by a bomb planted by the People’s Liberation Army (P.L.A.)—which shares the name of the People’s Republic of China’s military but is in fact the armed wing of Manipur’s separatist Revolutionary People’s Front (R.P.F.).  The following day, also in Manipur, an Indian soldier was killed and 10 were wounded on September 9th by an improvised explosive device.  The P.L.A. or another rebel outfit, the United National Liberation Front (U.N.L.F.), is suspected in that incident.

ASIA—EAST ASIA

R.K.K. Leader in Southern Thailand Promises General an End to Insurgency.  A Thai military commander met with nearly 100 ethnic-Malay rebels from the Runda Kumpulan Kecil (R.K.K.) militia and their leader in Narathiwat province on September 11th and secured a promise to cease their insurgency in the predominantly-Muslim southern provinces of the predominantly-Buddhist Kingdom of Thailand.  The commander, Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, hailed it as an historic step.  The separatist leader, a wanted insurgent named Wae-Ali Copter Waji (nom de guerre: Jeh Ali), turned himself in along with 90 rebels, but it was not clear if this was a formal surrender, let alone how much of the insurgency he actually commands.  The general added, “The talk had been prepared for a period of time but we could not reveal it to the public.  The coordination was done through their families and society.  The Army has always opened doors for them.”

General Chan-ocha and Jeh Ali bury the hatchet

Hong Kong Government Backtracks on Pro-Beijing School Curriculum.  The Beijing-leaning government of the People’s Republic of China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region backtracked on September 8th from a controversial school curriculum which had sent thousands of protesters into the streets (reported on last week in this blog) to decry “brainwashing.”  The curriculum will now no longer be mandatory.  The curriculum touted single-party authoritarian rule as enlightened, as opposed to the decadent democracy and freedom characteristic of most of the rest of the world—and, incidentally, of Hong Kong, whose Western-style political system was guaranteed in the 1997 agreement that ceded the territory from the United Kingdom to the P.R.C.  The sudden decision is seen as an attempt to, as one political scientist put it, “relieve the pressure on the pro-establishment and the pro-Beijing candidates” in the elections for Hong Kong’s semi-elected, semi-appointed legislature the following day.

Indonesian Confesses to Terror Plot against Buddhists, Angry over Rohingya Issue.  A citizen of Indonesia surrendered to authorities in Jakarta on September 9th and confessed to plotting a suicide-bomb attack on Buddhists in the city, in protest over the treatment of the predominantly-Muslim Rohingya minority in Burma by that country’s Buddhist-majority government.  Police were led to the man, Muhammad Toriq, by smoke emanating from his apartment.  A subsequent raid yielded a cache of explosive supplies.

Civil War in Burma’s Kachin State Spreads to South.  Fighting in Burma’s Kachin State raged on September 10th along a remote rail line, according to the Kachin Independence Organization (K.I.O.), part of a cycle of ongoing violence.  This follows the destruction of a railway bridge by Kachin insurgents the week before and affirms the spread of violence between the government and rebels into the southern part of the state.  Meanwhile, in eastern Kachin State, Kachin Independence Army (K.I.A.) forces reportedly killed 26 government soldiers in two early-morning attacks on September 12th.  There were no K.I.A. casualties.

OCEANIA

New Zealand Māori Activists Plan to File Claim to Indigenous Ownership of the Wind.  It sounds like poetry, but it is intended to be serious.  An elder from the indigenous Māori people of New Zealand, David Rankin, plans to bring a claim before the Waitangi Tribunal—a sort of supreme court which makes non-binding interpretations of the country’s founding document, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi—to file a claim to New Zealand’s winds.  This will mean that Māori would share automatically in any energy revenue from wind farms and would have a say in where wind turbines can be built.  Traditionally, according to Rankin, the wind was a deity in Māori culture, and the settler government has no right to use without consent from Māori people.  Given how coldly New Zealand’s prime minister, John Key, has greeted Māori claims for marine tenure, i.e. rights to energy from water resources (as reported on in this blog), air tenure is probably a non-starter.  As Key told a reporter who asked the question, “My view is pretty clear: no one owns water, no one owns wind, no one owns sunlight, no one owns the sea.  I could give you quite a long list if you like.”

Julian Assange to Be Awarded Australian Aboriginal “Passport” in Ceremony.  According to a September 9th press release by Australia’s Indigenous Social Justice Association, a planned September 15th ceremony in Sydney, New South Wales, to award over 200 “Aboriginal Land Passports” (reported on earlier in this blog) will now honor a celebrity recipient: Julian Assange, the embattled and wanted founder of the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.  Assange’s father, John Shipton, will accept the passport on his behalf, since Assange is for the time being wanted on criminal charges and a virtual prisoner inside Ecuador’s embassy in London.  The point of the ceremony is to remind the public that Australia is aboriginal land, amid a series of controversies over the treatment of asylum-seekers by the Australian government.  But the I.S.J.A. announced on September 14th that several Aboriginal nations were seriously considering giving Assange “refuge and sanctuary.”

John Shipton with his son Julian Assange’s Aboriginal passport

Charles Pidjot, New Caledonian Separatist Leader, Dies at 50.  Anti-colonialists in Melanesia this week mourned the death this week of Charles “Charly” Pidjot, founder of the Caledonian Union, the oldest political party advocating independence of New Caledonia from the French Republic.  He was 50 years old and died on Tanna Island in the nearby Republic of Vanuatu “after complications from a traditional operation.”  Tribal healers were attempting to relieve him of back pain resulting from a car accident, but complications arose because, according to the director of the hospital where he was eventually taken, the healers did not know their patient was diabetic.

Charles Pidjot

NORTH AMERICA

Canada Government Keeps Wary Eye on Possible Changes to Quebec Language Policy.  In Canada, the federal Commissioner of Official Languages, Geoff Fraser, put the incoming Parti Québécois (P.Q.) minority government in Quebec on notice September 7th that he will be watching closely to ensure that toughening of the province’s language laws, as promised during the campaign of the new premier, Pauline Marois, do not run afoul of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  A Quebecker himself, Fraser said, “The existing Charter of the French Language in Quebec has been tested by the courts and the current version is Charter-proof.  ...  I’ll be watching it to see: are they changing it in ways that might change that?”  Marois, who calls the decline of French in urban Quebec “at the heart of our concerns,” made campaign promises (as reported in this blog at the time) to expand the types of firms that must conduct all business in French and to require immigrants to receive higher education in French.  [Related article: “Quebec Cracks Down on Crimes against the State—Like Playing Hopscotch in English” (Nov. 2012).]

Group Sex, Boozing, Born-Again Christianity Figure in Portraits of Quebec Gunman.  More details emerged this week about Richard Henry Bain, the 61-year-old (some sources say 62) man who disrupted the separatist Parti Québécois’s election victory rally September 4th (as reported in this blog last week) with a fatal shooting that authorities are treating as a possible assassination attempt on the incoming provincial premier, Pauline Marois.  A couple from London, Ontario, who had recently hired him as a fishing guide, described him as obsessed with Quebec politics and that he had claimed to have written Jean Charest, the premier, to press him on the issue of granting land rights to owners of rural cottages such as himself.  The wife in the couple, Anthea Rowe, said, “We were complaining to people after we got back, like, ‘Oh, this guide who was supposed to take us fishing just spent the entire time talking about Quebec politics.’  It just seemed inappropriate for someone who was running a business.  We got sick of it.”  They say he also bragged about heavy drinking, three-way sex on the eve of an iron-man race, and the acceptance of Jesus Christ into his heart 18 months earlier, which he said made him unafraid to die.  Bain is now charged with first-degree murder, arson, and 14 other offenses.

Richard Henry Bain

Tea-Partiers Found New Hampshire Separatist Party.  At a meeting in Keene, New Hampshire, by-laws and a five-plank platform were adopted for a new political party called the New Hampshire Liberty Party, which advocates secession from the United States, as well as all individuals’ “right to declare themselves independent from any government.”  It also advocates non-violence and the release of prisoners convicted only of victimless, non-violent crimes such as drug possession or prostitution.  The co-chairs of the party are Ian Freeman, co-host of the radio show Free Talk Live; Conan Salada, a television producer; and Darryl W. Perry, former chair of the Boston Tea Party National Committee.

New Hampshire’s spectacularly lame flag (just the state seal on a blue background, like so many lame state flags), which one hopes would be dispensed with if New Hampshire became independent.

North Carolina G.O.P. Lawmaker Appears on White-Supremacist Radio Show.  Rep. Walter Jones, who represents most of coastal North Carolina in the United States House of Representatives for the (you’ll never guess) Republican Party, appeared on a notorious white-supremacist radio show on September 8th to tout his newly proposed legislation for the impeachment of President Barack Obama.  Though he mainly talked about health-care and foreign policy, the show, Political Cesspool, broadcast from Memphis, Tennessee, has been cited as hate speech by groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center (S.P.L.C.) and the Anti-Defamation League (A.D.L.).  Its co-host, James Edwards, has called African-Americans “subhuman ... heathen savages” and insisted that slavery was “the greatest thing that ever happened” to them.  The show’s mission statement calls the show “pro-White” and supports raising “the White birthrate” in order to “grow the percentage of Whites in the world relative to other races.”  It also comes out in support of Southern secession.  Jones is also famous for having, in 2003, pushed the effort to rename French fries “freedom fries” as a response to the French Republic’s opposition to the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq, but he later split with much of his party by becoming an isolationist in the libertarian mold, opposed to foreign adventurism, and a supporter of Ron Paul.

A book by the neo-Nazi talk-show host James Edwards

PRACTICALLY BLOODY ANTARCTICA

Fewer than One-Third of Falklanders Call Themselves “British.”  New census results for the Falkland Islands reveal that fewer than a third of Falklanders consider themselves British.  59% reported their nationality as “Falkland Islander.”  The 2,563 Falklanders—only 1,973 of whom are “status holders,” i.e. Falklands citizens—are overwhelmingly British in ancestry and are nearly unanimous in their desire to remain an overseas territory of the United Kingdom in the face of aggressive territorial claims by the Argentine Republic.  The territory has also experienced zero population growth since the last census, in 2006.

SPORT

Mo Farah Was a Top Target of Foiled London Olympics Terror Plots.  British media revealed this week that, during this year’s Summer Olympics in London, the United Kingdom’s intelligence agencies foiled up to 30 terrorist plots, arresting suspects throughout Europe and the Middle East.  Near the top of the target list was Mohamed “Mo” Farah, the double-gold-medal-winning runner, who was born in the Somali Republic and raised partly in the unrecognized Republic of Somaliland.  Apparently some Somali terrorists associated with al-Qaeda were angry that Farah was playing for Team Great Britain.

[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.]