A potentially more dangerous conflict than Kosovo continues to brew in South Asia.
by Melvin Rhodes
While the attention of the major powers
was on the Balkans, a potentially more dangerous conflict resurfaced thousands
of miles away on the Indian subcontinent. There are a number of similarities
between these two wars that have their origins in ethnic rivalries that
go back centuries. Both are what might be termed "post-colonial ethnic
conflicts."
The proliferation of wars in the Balkans
has happened because of the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Yugoslavia
itself was never a part of the Soviet Warsaw Pact alliance of eastern
European communist nations, but the fall of communism throughout the
region released long suppressed nationalist sentiments in the area
that soon spread to Yugoslavia.
Precisely because it had been a more liberal
and less centralized state, Yugoslavia was easier to divide. Added
factors were the former divisions throughout the nation between regions
that had historically been a part of the Catholic Hapsburg Austrian
Empire and the Muslim Turkish Ottoman Empire right up until the early
years of the 20th century. A further complication was the outside support
of sympathetic nations in Europe-Russia supporting the Orthodox Serbs
and Germany quick to recognize the independence of the Catholic Croatians
and Slovenians.
Contrast India and Pakistan. Predominantly
Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan (together with what is now Bangladesh)
were one country until 1947, administered by a British viceroy appointed
from London. The British Empire had ruled the subcontinent for over
200 years, often having to police ethnic tensions and doing so effectively
enough that few predicted the post-independence conflicts that have
arisen. Ironically the descendants of those same British rulers are
now having to police ethnic conflicts nearer home in the Balkans and
even at home in Northern Ireland.
