Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka PDF
Preview Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka
Contested Lands Contested Lands ISRAEL–PALESTINE, KASHMIR, BOSNIA, CYPRUS, AND SRI LANKA Sumantra Bose HarvardUniversityPress Cambridge,Massachusetts London,England 2007 TomystudentsattheLSE 2000–2006 Copyright©2007bythePresidentandFellowsofHarvardCollege Allrightsreserved PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica Cataloging-in-PublicationDataavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress LibraryofCongresscatalogcardnumber:2006049604 ISBN-13:978-0-674-02447-2(alk.paper) ISBN-10:0-674-02447-8(alk.paper) Contents ListofMaps vi Introduction 1 1. SriLanka 6 2. Cyprus 55 3. Bosnia 105 4. Kashmir 154 5. IsraelandPalestine 204 Conclusion 290 Notes 305 Acknowledgments 323 Index 325 Maps SriLanka 8 Cyprus 56 Bosnia’sprewardiversityandpostwardivision 108 JammuandKashmir 158–159 TheKashmirValleyandcontiguousregions 165 TheGazaStripbeforeIsrael’s2005disengagement 208 ThePeelCommissionpartitionproposal,1937 222 TheUnitedNationspartitionplan,1947 228 TheRhodesArmisticeLine,1949 235 TheWestBankafterthe1995interimagreement 254 Hebronafterthe1997Israel-PAagreement 259 Jerusalemanditsenvirons 276 TheOldCityofJerusalem 278 Introduction This is a book about some of the most contested places on earth. Israel-Palestine,Kashmir,Bosnia,Cyprus,andSriLankaareallsites of very recent or ongoing peace processes.These peace processes formthecentralthemeofthisbook.Iaimtoilluminatethenature and complexities of each case and to draw broader lessons about how the cause of peace can be advanced in adverse conditions. Some parts of the world enjoy relative political stability today,an- choredintiesofregionalintegrationandcross-bordercooperation that spill across national sovereignties and frontiers.The European Union,which has helped to gradually transform much of the war- torn European continent of 1945, is an example. But other re- gions—the South Asian subcontinent, the western Balkans, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East—remain dominated by bitter divisions and perennial conflict.Are they fated to remain so?Orarebetterfuturespossible? The following chapters show that these conflicts—generically alike but with distinct histories and contexts—are intractable but not insoluble.Yet the challenge of stabilizing these unsettled parts of the world is enormous. Bosnia, Cyprus, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, andIsrael-Palestinearezonesofprotracted,intenseconflictswhere 1 2 ContestedLands ethnonational groups have come to see their interests and fre- quently their very existence in zero-sum terms, as incompatible with those of other groups.When rival states or mobilized ethno- national groups claim sovereign power over the same territory,the most intractable type of political dispute is born. Struggles over sovereignty are notoriously difficult to resolve; of all genres of political disagreement, they are the least amenable to solutions reached through negotiation,bargaining,and compromise.This is becausetheytypicallyyieldpositionsandclaimsthatareunaccept- able to the other side(s) in the conflict.The problem is aggravated by the traumatic effect of ethnonational war,as violence gives rise todeepanimositiesandnearlyunbridgeabledivides. That is the predicament of the societies described in this book. Anintuitivesolutionispartition—theseparationofhostilepeoples intosovereign,oratleastautonomous,territorialunits.Indeed,giv- ing antagonistic groups either sovereignty or autonomy over their “own”patchoflandisanintrinsicpartofcraftingsolutionstocon- flicts defined by collision between clashing agendas of “national self-determination.” In Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka,borders forged by war have become,or will have to become,thebasisofpeacesettlements.Butmakingafetishofsuch borders is neither practicable nor desirable.Recognition of those borders is an essential part of the compromise,driven by pragma- tism,andnotanendinitself.Itisextremelyimportanttoconstruct an architecture of peace that enables systematic cooperation across thebordersdrawninblood. Thisisimportantpartlybecausethoseborders—theGreenLines ofIsrael-PalestineandCyprus,theLineofControlinKashmir,the Inter-Entity Boundary Line in Bosnia, and the border between northeastern Sri Lanka and the rest of the country—are a focal point of contention,where one or more of the parties to the con- flictdonotagreewiththetrajectoryoreventheverylegitimacyof those lines as political boundaries.It is also important because in Introduction 3 the early twenty-first century,an era defined by globalization and itssubphenomenon,regionalintegrationandcooperation,itissim- ply impossible for communities to live in hermetic segregation from one another in ethnonational ghettos.Soft frontiers and the gradual development of ties of cross-border cooperation are the longer-term anchor for the stability of peace settlements, a vital part of the safety net that must be assured to minorities caught on the “wrong”side of the line,and the path to building a culture of coexistence in the world’s most troubled and turbulent lands.The poet Robert Frost famously wrote that “good fences make good neighbors.”Buthealsowrote: BeforeIbuiltawallI’dasktoknow WhatIwaswallinginorwallingout, AndtowhomIwasliketogiveoffense. Somethingthereisthatdoesn’tloveawall, Thatwantsitdown. This book shows that the difficult transition from a state of war to durable peace requires third-party engagement,which may take avarietyofformsrangingfromlow-keyfacilitationtodirectinter- vention.Withoutsomekindofthird-partyengagementthebitter- ness and distrust between the parties in conflict will combine with the vested interests of spoilers hostile to settlement to overwhelm prospectsofpeace.Theidentityofthethirdparty(orparties)varies across the cases in this book, from Norway in Sri Lanka to the United Nations in Cyprus and the United States in the Israeli- Palestinianconflict,asdoesthenatureofthethirdparty’srole.Yeta strong case emerges for the deployment of American leverage or influencefromexamplessuchasBosnia(wherethelate-1995peace agreement that terminated the war was engineered by purposeful American diplomatic intervention backed up by military power), Israel-Palestine,andevenKashmir.Tobeeffectiveinenablingpeace,
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