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SELF-DETERMINATION & CONFLICT
TRANSFORMATIONSELF-DETERMINATION & CONFLICT
TRANSFORMATION
June 2002
Erkin Alptekin
General Secretary UNPO
Conflict prevention and resolution has been one of the
main tasks of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples
Organization, or briefly UNPO, since its founding in
February 11, 1991.
For instance , between 1992 and 2002 UNPO has sent 10
delegations to its member areas such as Abkhazia,
Georgia, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Chechenia,
Ingushetia, North Osetia, Ogoni, Zanzibar, Hawai,
Tibet and South Moluccas in order to investigate and
report on members situations or facilitate a peaceful
outcome of disputes.
UNPO mission reports were often the first, or among
the first, in-depth coverage of these situations.
Reports were broadly distributed to concerned
international sectors and action programs were
developed.
However, UNPO's efforts are merely a drop in a vast
ocean.
According to present estimates, there are almost 6,500
nations, peoples, minorities and indigenous peoples in
the world. Of that, less that 200 are represented in
the United Nations. The remaining unrepresented
nations and peoples live within the borders of the
present nations-states, which they then form a
voluntary or involuntary part of.
These unrepresented nations and peoples who are
struggling to achieve their basic rights have no
protection, whatsoever, neither do they have an
international forum in which they can voice their
grievances, desires and aspirations, and further they
have no access to the United Nations. Other
intergovernmental organizations are denied or severely
limited for them.
Many nation-states whose main task it is to protect ,
promote and represent the interests of its population
often do not fulfill their functions. Consequently,
many of these unrepresented nations and peoples do not
recognize these oppressive state-governments as their
legitimate representatives. Very often
state-governments have no qualms using any means
available to suppress and control them.
Standard mechanism within the UN and OSCE system for
preventing conflicts are generally not available for
the unrepresented nations and peoples. Furthermore,
the lack of political will among state-governments to
act preventively when issues of national sovereignty
are involved limits the action that the UN might like
to take.
National sovereignty has been a formidable barrier in
the protection of the unrepresented nations and
peoples through out the world. The double applied in
the protection of unrepresented nations and peoples in
similar settings and circumstances threw the world
into contradictions.
As a result, many unrepresented nations and peoples in
the world have lost faith in the international
community's ability to be fair and just in solving
their problems. Most of them feel deceived, abandoned
and betrayed by the international community. In their
hopelessness, frustration and desperation many
unrepresented nations and peoples are gradually
abandoning the path of nonviolence in order draw the
attention of the international community, because the
international community only reacts when conflict
breaks out.
As a result, after the Cold War, bloody conflicts
broke out in many parts of the world. According to
some experts the character of the conflicts has
changed from inter to intra-state conflicts as a
result of tremendous increase in claims of
self-determinations. Some peace researchers estimate
that intra-state conflict represents 90 per cent of
all violent conflicts in the world today.
The Uighurs , who are facing political oppression,
cultural assimilation, economic exploitation, racial
discrimination, ecological destruction, arbitrary
arrest, torture and executions at the hand of the
Chinese Communist rulers are no exception. For more
than 50 years the Uighurs have continuously appealed
to the international community asking them to to
seriously consider their grievances, desires and
demands. But the international community paid no head.
As a result, many young Uighurs, in their hopelessness,
frustration and desperation have gradually abandoned
the path of non-violence in order to draw the
attention of the internal community.
This shows that the current understanding and
interpretation and application of the principle of
self-determination has proven inadequate in preventing
both major and minor conflicts. Thus, there is an
urgent need to develop a just and equitable
international understanding, interpretation and
application of the principle of self-determination.
Otherwise, in the future the international community
will be confronted with more intra-state conflicts
that will certainly escalate into violence.
The right to self-determination is a fundamental right
enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, the
International Covenant of Human Rights and the
Covenant of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples
Organization. These instruments state that "all
peoples have a right to self-determination" and that "by
virtue of that right they are free to determine,
without external interference, their political status
to pursue their economic, social and cultural
development." The United Nations World Conference on
Human Rights, which took place in Vienna in June 1993,
affirmed that the right to self-determination is a
part of international law on human rights. At the same
time, it is recognized that compliance with the right
of self-determination is a fundamental condition for
the enjoyment of other human rights and fundamental
freedoms, be they civil, political, economic, social
or cultural.
Despite these seemingly clearly agreed upon
definitions , there is no agreement on the content,
applicability and implementation of the right to
self-determination. Political debates at the United
Nations and elsewhere, legal discussions and the
practices of states reflect deep divisions of views.
These range from the notion, on the one hand, that the
right to self-determination is a right of recognized
states to act without external intervention; on the
other hand, that each ethnic, linguistic or religious
group has the right to secede from the state of which
it forms a part of.
The prevailing view since World War II has been that
only colonized peoples and territories had the right
to self-determination. Today, self-determination has
been successfully claimed by nations and peoples in
the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia,
Eritera, and Slovakia. None of these are cases of
de-colonization in the classical sense, but the
international community has not yet come to grips with
the need to re-examine the concept and content of
self-determination.
Notwithstanding the theoretical importance of the
right to self-determination within the substantive
body of international law, consideration and
enforcement of this right by individual states and the
international community is extremely rare. The
reticence of individual states to vindicate the right
within their respective borders is not surprising. Few,
if any, state governments will voluntarily relinquish
authority to a competing political entity. Without a
competent, recognizable International organisation
able to intervene, these conflicts invariably become
violent.
Many governments are further concerned that
flexibility with respect to the needs of one group
within their borders will encourage demands for
special treatment by others including separatist
movements, threatening the longevity of their rule.
Self-determination should be understood or re-cast in
its broad sense. Self-determination is a process
rather than an outcome. At its core,
self-determination means simply that human beings,
individually or as groups, should be in control of
their own destinies and that the institutions of
governments should be devised accordingly.
Self-determination has its roots in and continues to
be inseparably linked to the core concept of democracy,
understanding this to mean the right to choose one's
rulers and to participation in decision-making.
Self-determination should not be viewed as a one time
choice, but as an ongoing process which ensures
peoples participation in decision making and control
over their own destiny, culture and natural resources.
If global peace and stability are the true goals of
the international community, its approach to the
tensions between existing states and their constituent
peoples is ill-conceived. By ignoring or suppressing
movements for self-determination, in varying forms,
will not occasion their disappearance. As the ongoing
bloody conflicts in Caucasia have shown, centuries of
intermittent occupation, efforts at assimilation and
even deportation of disfavored ethnic groups, as in
the case of the Crimean Tatars, Chechens and Ingush,
will not extinguish a peoples desire to preserve their
cultural and national identity.
The only long-term solution to conflicts between
states and the peoples and nations they rule-
legitimately or illegitimately, is one premised on the
free expression of the particular group's need to
determine its own destiny.
Therefore, I would like to repeat some of the
recommendations made by UNPO in the recent past for
thought:
-The experts should elaborate a working paper on the
content, applicability and implementation of the right
to self-determination as a contribution to
international peace, stability and security. This
working paper should also lead to re-conceptualization
of the right to self-determination in a broad sense,
and reflect how treaty bodies and other UN mechanisms
can effectively implement this right with a view
towards conflict prevention;
- The UN should pro-actively engage itself in the
prevention and resolution of conflicts involving
states and peoples or minority communities. In doing
so the United Nations should respect and promote the
implementation of self-determination in the broad
sense;
- The United Nations should create an effective
mechanism within the United Nations to assist in the
resolution of self-determination claims and conflicts;
- The intergovernmental and Regional Organizations
should deal with the issue of self-determination and
take into account the work of the United Nations on
the rights of indigenous peoples and include them in
their activities.
- The Non-governmental Organizations should promote
the right to self-determination, support those peoples
struggling for its implementation and raise specific
cases before the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights and other appropriate fora.
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