The harsh Kurdish mountains of southeast Turkey echo less with rattling gunfire these days as Ankara's 14-year-old counter-insurgency war against the separatist Kurdish Workers Party (p.k.k.) winds down. What is needed now, says the military, is massive private sector investment and greater emphasis on education. But though security has been mostly restored, the wounds of war are still not healed and bitterness towards Ankara is still rife.
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An agreement reached in April 1998 offers hope that the 30 years of Troubles that pitted Catholic nationalists, who want a united Ireland, against Protestant unionists, who wish to maintain Northern Ireland as part of Britain, may be at an end. The conflict left more than 3,000 dead, but the major paramilitary groups have been observing a ceasefire for more than a year. The new political structures set up under the agreement--an Assembly in Belfast and a ministerial council joining politicians from the North and the Irish Republic--may provide a mechanism for the two communities to work out their differences peacefully. But the two sides are still deeply suspicious of each other, and episodes of sectarian violence could flare again.
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Since 1997 Vitrolles--a suburb of Marseille in which 20% of the residents are foreigners--has been dominated by the National Front, the extreme right political party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen. In Vitrolles and the three other southern cities it controls--Orange, Marignan and Toulon--the National Front has introduced racially discriminatory policies: the municipal government has slashed grants to cultural and sports clubs associated with ethnic minorities and purged libraries of books it considers incompatible with French culture. Complaints among Arab and African youths about police harassment have risen dramatically. Should the National Front's electoral fortunes continue to improve, Vitrolles could become a bad example that other French cities follow.
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The Corsican nationalist movement exploded in 1975 after members clashed with police, killing two. The following year nationalists founded the National Front for the Liberation of Corsica (f.l.n.c.), an umbrella group whose members sought goals ranging from outright independence to autonomy with state subsidies and tax advantages. But over time the f.l.n.c. has broken into so many rival splinter groups that it appeared more at war with itself than with the French government. Many of these armed factions also operate mafia-like criminal networks engaged in extortion, counterfeiting and embezzlement. And while the separatists fight on, an overwhelming majority of Corsicans--some 80%--say they would vote against independence in a referendum.
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German neo-Nazis proudly call areas like the suburb of Olvenstedt in the eastern city of Magdeburg a "liberated zone," a place where immigrants and foreigners dare not go. Since 1994 when the first attacks on immigrants occurred, the city has come to symbolize far-right violence and xenophobia in Germany. So-called "liberated zones" exist in several other eastern towns including Fuerstenwalde, Frankfurt/Oder and Schwedt. The issue had been decried as a youth problem related to the shock of German reunification and confined to the eastern part of the country. But according to a report by Germany's internal intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, violent attacks on foreigners increased by 27% across the nation in 1997.
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Racial discrimination and high unemployment continue to ravage the Romany population in the Czech Republic, the country's second largest minority. According to the Documentation Center for Human Rights, more than 1,300 racially-motivated crimes have been committed in the Czech Republic since 1990.
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Relations between Hungary and Slovakia remain tense over the estimated 600,000 ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia. Slovakia has been criticized by the Council of Europe, the E.U. and the United States for its lack of progress in minority rights. Although the government has announced that it will pass a law enshrining the rights of minority languages, including Hungarian, the bill has yet to be passed.
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Ethnic Hungarians make up over 10% of Romania's total population. After the 1989 revolution, there were clashes between Romanian nationalists and ethnic Hungarians, but the threat of serious conflict has receded. In 1996 a treaty was signed between Hungary and Romania recognizing the rights of the Hungarian minority in Romania and the smaller Romanian minority in Hungary.
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The self-proclaimed Trans-Dniestrian Moldovan Republic (p.m.r.) is in a state of perpetual crisis. In the summer of 1992, when the Russians who predominate here declared their intention to break free from Moldova, this stretch of land on the eastern bank of the Dniester river was the scene of violent conflict. A tense peace has held since an agreement signed in 1997 gave the region a high degree of autonomy while remaining part of Moldova.
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This long sliver of Croatian territory, known as eastern Slavonia which runs down the west bank of the Danube at the border with Serbia, was one of three swathes that rebel Serbs seized from Croatia when it seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991. Backed by the then President of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbs ethnically cleansed the regions. In May and July 1995, Croatia retook two of the rebel enclaves and ethnically cleansed them again. The Erdut agreement, reached simultaneously with the Dayton agreement in Nov. 1995, arranged for the handover of the territory to Croatian authorities. Since the final handover last year, a steady stream of Serbs has left the region. There have been numerous attacks against them but little action by Croatian police.
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After almost four years of brutal fighting, Bosnia's capital has been at peace since the beginning of 1996. Since the Dayton Peace Accord was signed in 1995, about 255,000 Muslim and Serb refugees have returned to their homes. Though there seems little chance of war breaking out again, long-term stability remains elusive. While the Dayton agreement envisioned a reunified country, none of the country's leaders is working for a multi-ethnic state. Progress is slow, with every step--from privatization to police restructuring--embroiled in the politics of ethnic division. Elections last September confirmed the grip of nationalists among most positions of power in the country.
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One of the most explosive unresolved conflicts left over from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia is the Kosovo question. The ethnic Albanian majority in this Serbian province demands independence. The stalemate between Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and Ibrahim Rugova, the political figurehead for Kosovo's ethnic population, could still ignite war. As Milosevic answers Albanian demands with brute force, Rugova is under increased pressure from radical groups within his camp. Amidst accusations that Milosevic is conducting another ethnic cleansing campaign, the United States and European Union slapped new sanctions on Serbia and agreed to deploy nato troops to the borders of neighboring Albania and Macedonia.
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Though its 1991 secession from the former Yugoslav Federation was bloodless, ethnic violence is increasingly marring Macedonia. Macedonia is a mosaic of rival ethnicities. Last year's violence in neighboring Albania prompted U.N. troops to extend their stay. Minorities--including ethnic Albanians, Turks, Serbs and Romany gypsies--are increasingly raising allegations of human rights infringements and discrimination. Leading the campaign are ethnic Albanians in Tetovo, where violent demonstrations demanding increased Albanian-language education and greater representation in public sector jobs rattled the region in 1995.
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The militant group Euskadi ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Liberty, or e.t.a.) first emerged in 1961. Since that time more than 750 people have been killed and thousands injured as a result of e.t.a. attacks. The organization demands an independent Basque state, the withdrawal of all Spanish security forces from the region and the release of all e.t.a. prisoners. Although the Basque region enjoys considerable political and financial autonomy, the e.t.a. militants continue to carry out terrorist attacks and kidnappings. Anti-e.t.a. feelings in Spain are strong, with each new outrage drawing thousands of demonstrators into the streets.
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There is a chill over the Aegean sea as the tension between Greece and Turkey over disputed territories raises fear of another confrontation. Not since the 1996 clash over a deserted rocky outcrop, known to the Greeks as Imia and to the Turks as Kardak, have the two feuding neighbors been so at loggerheads over sovereignty in the Aegean. Turkey says 181 of over 1,000 barren isles are of undetermined ownership. Denying these claims, Greece plans to establish nature sanctuaries and further strengthen its hold on a host of uninhabited Aegean rocks within hailing distance of Turkey's shores.
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After nearly a quarter of a century of division, Cyprus is still an island pulled apart by ethnic strife. Countering a Greek sponsored coup, Turkey invaded and occupied the northern half of Cyprus in 1974. Since then soldiers have patrolled the Attila Line that runs through the capital Nicosia and marks the border between the Turkish north and the Greek south. Cyprus fanned international fears of a new showdown between its sister states Greece and Turkey after the island's Greek Cypriot government announced plans to purchase a host of Russian rockets. Turkey vowed to use military force to block the rocket's deployment. Adding to the malaise, Turkey has threatened to annex northern Cyprus if the island's Greek half joins the European Union.
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