HOME / foreigners: Opinions about events beyond our borders.

Breaking AwayLooking for the next South Ossetia.

By Joshua KuceraPosted Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008, at 6:55 AM ET

(Continued from page 1)

RSS

Related in Slate

Joshua Kucera filed dispatches from South Ossetia, Azerbaijan, and Urumqi. Anne Applebaum explained what’s going on in Abkhazia. Emily Meeham visited Somaliland.

Xinjiang is populated primarily by Muslim minorities, mainly Uighurs, who have long had a contentious relationship with the Chinese government. Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. State Department put a shadowy Uighur nationalist group on its official list of terrorist organizations, signaling support for China's crackdown in Xinjiang. But since then, Uighur human rights issues have become a cause célèbre in Washington. In the last year, President Bush has met twice with Rebiyeh Kadeer, a prominent Uighur activist. Like many Uighurs, Kadeer advocates an independent Uighur state to be called East Turkestan.

The situation in Xinjiang has gotten hotter recently, with attacks against police and other security forces increasing over the last few months. Presumably, the Afghanistan experience has soured Washington on trying to undermine rival superpowers by backing Muslims who may have Islamist sympathies. But coming out on the side of the Uighurs in a more serious conflict could be seen as a way to prove to the world that the United States isn't anti-Islam, so you can't count it out.

Even the peaceable Tibetans have lately become more restive, and it's hard to imagine more sympathetic freedom fighters. Although most influential voices in the Pentagon advocate engagement with China rather than confrontation, there is almost certainly an anti-China Charlie Wilson wannabe somewhere in Congress plotting to send weapons to the Tibetans.

Somaliland: Somalia has vexed the United States ever since 1993, when the U.S. military was kicked out of the country, tail between its legs. Washington has long been concerned that the world's most failed state could be harboring Islamist terrorists and has not been shy about getting involved again. The United States established a base in neighboring Djibouti soon after Sept. 11 with the aim of keeping an eye on Somalia and trying to minimize the chaos that it could spread around the region. When Islamists with ties to al-Qaida took over Mogadishu in 2006, Washington backed an Ethiopian invasion intended to restore a feckless, but secular, government and conducted airstrikes against al-Qaida suspects.

Lately, the Pentagon has bandied about the idea of using Somaliland (population 2 million, capital Hargeysa), a relatively stable breakaway territory on the northwestern tip of Somalia, as a sort of foothold into the country. Somaliland is just one of several breakaway territories in Somalia with its own government, currency, and flag. Its friendly government and relative stability have appealed to some in the U.S. military, who argue that Washington should offer security assistance—i.e., training for its military—as a bulwark against Somalia proper. The Pentagon believes that "Somaliland should be independent," one defense official told the Washington Post in December 2007. "We should build up the parts that are functional and box in" Somalia's unstable regions, particularly around Mogadishu, the official added. It's not clear that any other big power thinks Somalia is worth the trouble, but we've seen before that Somalia doesn't need help to cause problems for Washington.

Southern Sudan: This majority-black, Christian, Texas-sized part of Sudan (population 7.5 million, capital Juba) won substantial autonomy from the Arab Muslim-dominated central government in 2005, ending a 22-year civil war. Darfur gets the headlines, but Southern Sudan now has its own government, calls itself New Sudan, and plans to hold a referendum in 2011 to decide whether to secede. To complicate matters, Southern Sudan and Sudan proper don't agree on the border between the two entities. Naturally, this border area is where a large portion of Sudan's oil is buried. Southern Sudanese leaders accuse Khartoum of cheating it out of oil revenues the two governments are supposed to share and of taking too long to withdraw its military from the border areas.

China's ties with the Sudanese government are notorious, and the government of Southern Sudan is friendly with Washington. There is internal dissension within Southern Sudan about whether to seek independence or participate in the central government. It's not clear if the United States would support independence for the south, but there are enough points of contention for this to get messy again and draw in the United States and China.

Of course, this is only a partial list. It doesn't include Taiwan, Dagestan, the Basque region, Catalonia, Gorkhaland, eastern Bolivia, or Kurdistan. Not to mention disputed territories like Gibraltar and Kashmir; peaceful independence movements like those of Flanders, Scotland, or Vermont; or disputed sovereignty over unpopulated territories like the Spratly Islands, the Hanish Islands, Perejil, or Aksai Chin.

And then there's Greenland (population 56,000, capital Nuuk). On Nov. 25, voters are expected to approve a referendum to redefine the island's relationship with Denmark, its colonizer, most likely leading to eventual independence. That will have implications for the U.S. missile-defense site, as well as the substantial oil and mineral reserves that are only just starting to be exploited with the help of foreign companies. There's a lot at stake. Think about it.