IT’S NOT WORTH RISKING A BIGGER CONFLICT FOR THIS DISPUTED ENCLAVE

Daily Express
Tuesday August 19,2008
UK

Georgian soldiers under attack as Russia asserts its control of
the region

By Frederick Forsyth FOR anyone studying the Russian-Georgian
hostilities two words should leap off the page and those words are:
Disputed Enclave.

That is what South Ossetia really is: a knob of land, not much bigger
than Norfolk, that is claimed as sovereign terri-tory by Russia to
its north and Georgia to its south.

It has a tiny population, grows nothing, manufactures nothing and
exports nothing. It has no priceless gem stones, strategic minerals
or valuable deposits; and it certainly has no oil or gas, the modern
equivalents of a cause for war.

Is it important enough to justify conflict between Russia and Nato?

Absolutely not. Is it the only such place in the world? Again, no,
no, no.

Let us just look around. Even we British own three disputed enclaves.

Though the Irish constitution has been amended to withdraw the formal
claim to Ulster, 90 per cent of the Irish devotedly believe it is
part of their Republic of Ireland. The IRA sought to prove it for 30
years with bombs and murder.

We say Gibraltar is ours, Spain says it is theirs. And Argentina
insists the Falklands – and, yes, an island or archipelago can be
an enclave in the sea – are theirs; we say they are ours and hav e
fought a vicious war to prove it.

In each case the acid test, a referendum, is something we need not
fear. We know each population would vote to stay British.

That is why the claimants think it a very bad idea. But, then, as
Mandy Rice-Davies once remarked in court, they would, wouldn’t they?

Across the Atlantic, Presi­dent Ydigoras of Honduras once claimed
neighbouring Belize (formerly British Hon­duras) as his and threatened
to invade. We won; Belize got its independence on British terms.

Nearer home there are two Spanish enclaves gouged into the north
coast of Morocco that Morocco wants back. Madrid replied: "No chance."

A resolution by referendum? Ah, here’s the rub. Statesmen only agree
to a plebiscite they know they can win. The last one in Gibraltar
said about 97 per cent of Gibraltarians wanted to stay British. But
in Melilla and Ceuta, the Spanish-Moroccans would probably vote to
rejoin Morocco, so they can whistle in the wind for a referendum.

Governments can become mildly lunatic over the most ridiculous of
land claims. Some years ago, Moroccans landed on a Spanish-owned,
goat-grazing islet called Parsley and a chunk of the Spanish fleet
was put to sea.

For years, China lusted after Hong Kong and Macao but wisely waited
until the treaties of occupation ran out and the British and Portuguese
left peacefully.

Goa was once a Portuguese enclave until the oh-so-peace-loving Indian
premier Pandit Nehru invaded and annexed it in a single afternoon.

President Sukarno, dictator of Indonesia, claimed North Borneo (the
enclaves of Sabah and Sarawak) was his and sent in troops. We claimed
both territories, once ours, belonged to Malaysia and slipped in the
Ghurkas and the SAS.

That usually slows ’em down. The secret war eventually fizzled out. The
two enclaves still belong to Malaysia.

But if there are two pieces of land whose sudden invasion could easily
trigger a huge regional or global war, they are Kashmir and Taiwan.

The latter, formerly Formosa, was the offshore Chinese island to which
the defeated Nation­alist Chinese of Chiang-Kai-Shek retreated in
1949 as mainland China fell to Mao Tse Tung’s Communists.

Since then, Beijing has repeatedly claimed it back. But Formosa is now
Taiwan, a prosperous, democratic, USA-aligned republic and America
would have to take its side ­- and that includes force of arms,
of which America has a mighty arsenal.

The two giants India and Pakistan ought to be the jewels in the
post-Raj Commonwealth crown. Yet they have been at virtual war since
1947 and twice at actual war because of two small but beautiful
enclaves lying between them: Jammu and Kashmir.

India owns and occupies them; Pakistan claims them. Once lovely resorts
for tourists, they are proving grounds for fundamentalist terrorists (o
r patriotic liberators) and given over to kidnaps, murders and riots.

India and Pakistan are incredibly passionate about Kashmir; both
have huge armies and nuclear weapons and Pakistan is profoundly
unstable. Why not a referendum? Because Kashmir is mostly Muslim,
would vote pro-Pakistan and India, therefore, will not grant one.

These disputed enclaves are almost all the residues of former empires
which collapsed and withdrew. The latest such empire was the Soviet
one, of which Vladimir Putin is a loyal son and unreformed devotee. A
majority of Russians absolutely agree with him.

As it ebbed in defeat 17 years ago, the empire left behind, as a tide
leaves rock pools, enclaves of ethnic Russians which Mos­cow had
deliberately implanted to head off any sign of nationalism. Latvia,
Lithu­ania and Estonia, for example, have large Russian minorities.

Some of these disputes aren’t even with Moscow. Nagorno-Karabakh
is 80 per cent Armenian-ethnic but belongs to Azerbaijan, another
potential powder keg.

The end of the Soviet empire was the messiest of them all and left a
tangle of claims and mixed populations, especially in the Caucasus
and around the Black and Caspian Seas. Now a new and ruthless tsar
in Moscow is using his oil wealth to afford the armed strength to
avenge the death of empire, even threatening Ukraine.

South Ossetia and Abkhazia were Soviet, then Georgian, now Russian
again.

Short of an insane war, they are not recoverable. They will die down,
like storms in a samovar.

But what of the future? Will Putin go on? And if he does? The West
can penalise Russia politically, diplomatic­ally, economically. And
we should.

But we must not plunge into war for an enclave in the Caucasian
patchwork quilt no bigger than Norfolk. Sad but true.

–Boundary_(ID_BhcmHlFYWmifNnaPmEsPPA)–