Warning: these spots could be explosive in 2009

The Times
January 2, 2009

Can experts tell where conflicts will begin in the coming year? Where
will the next South Ossetia be?

Michael Binyon

What in the world will go wrong this year? Whatever precautions
politicians take to cover themselves, they are always caught out by the
unexpected. What throws governments off course and plans into turmoil
are, in Macmillan’s phrase, `events, dear boy, events’.

A year ago it was already clear that Pakistan would remain one of the
world’s most dangerous and unstable nations in 2008 – though no one
foresaw the fall of Pervez Musharraf or the Mumbai attacks. Bombings
and killing were never likely to cease in Iraq. And the relentless
increase in Taleban attacks, roadside bombs and Nato casualties in
Afghanistan was sadly predictable. But who foresaw Russian tanks in
Georgia, the banking collapse, or the worst riots in Greece for 30
years?

It is always the unexpected that has politicians, journalists and the
UN Security Council scrambling. It will be the same in 2009. We will
suddenly know the names of small towns caught up in a new conflict
zone, understand the ethnic balance of warring communities or
recapitulate forgotten history to show why the eruption of violence was
always on the cards.

Planning can already begin for some of Donald Rumsfeld’s `known
unknowns’: for another terrorist atrocity in Pakistan or a provocative
redoubling of nuclear enrichment in the laboratories of Iran to test
the mettle of the new US president. Diplomats can gird themselves for a
promised new round of Middle East diplomacy to salvage whatever is
possible from the conflict in Gaza.

Nothing can be done to prepare governments for the unknown unknowns,
however, or get foreign ministers to pay attention to the pleading of a
minor diplomat in a faraway country who sees a tsunami rolling his way.
But perhaps foreign ministries ought, for a change, to use their
hindsight in advance.

The Georgian attack on South Ossetia, during the Olympic Games in
Beijing, caught many by surprise. But not the Russians. And not those
diplomats who had given warnings about Europe’s `frozen conflicts’,
unresolved disputes that arose from ethnic antagonisms within the old
Soviet Union. There are still three others that could trigger violence.

One is Nagorno-Karabakh. This is a patch of territory, inhabited mainly
by ethnic Armenians, inside the borders of neighbouring Azerbaijan. In
1988 the local assembly passed a resolution calling for unification
with Armenia. Violence against local Azeris triggered a massacre of
Armenians in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait. The conflict escalated
and in 1991 the Azeris occupied most of the region. The Armenians
counterattacked and by 1994 had seized back the enclave and a swath of
adjacent territory. Some 600,000 Azeri refugees fled. A
Russian-brokered ceasefire was imposed in 1994, by which time about
25,000 people had died.

Little has changed since. Periodic talks on a settlement have failed.
Armenia still controls the territory it occupied and the refugees are
still homeless. But with Azerbaijan’s new oil wealth, increasing
assertiveness and hostility to Russia, an attack to retake the
territory is always possible – provoking a counterattack by Armenia,
intervention by Russia and the same international escalation seen in
Georgia in the summer.

Then there is Transdniestria, the sliver of territory along the
boundary of Moldova and Ukraine, largely Russian-populated and a hotbed
of smuggling, corruption and organised crime. After the collapse of the
Soviet Union, the region proclaimed secession from Moldova, triggering
fighting along the Dniester river. A ceasefire was signed in 1992 and a
stand-off is still in place after the Russian Army prevented Moldova
subduing the province. In any of these regions, renewed fighting could
provoke a wider dispute between Russia and its neighbours.

The Balkans could also have a new round of fighting. The Kosovo Serbs
are unreconciled to the province’s independence, and might provoke
violence in order to draw in Serbia. In neighbouring Macedonia, the
Albanian minority is chafing at what it sees as discrimination against
it and hankers for union with Albania. And the tranquillity in Bosni
a
may be deceptive if any of the former combatants attempts to alter the
status quo.

Europe, however, is more prepared than Asia for trouble. Thailand shows
that democracies are not immune to subversion by the mob. The airport
blockades, defiance of the police and demonstrations have exposed a
collapse in government authority and deep-seated hostility between the
urban middle class and rural supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra, the
exiled former Prime Minister. Another military coup looks all too
possible.

As the economic downturn bites, conflicts masked by fast growth could
gather pace. Long-running rebellions have racked India’s isolated north
east; and in the central provinces Maoists, known as Naxalites, have
been waging a campaign of terror against government targets. Most
ominous, however, is the possible radicalisation in India of the 150
million-strong Muslim minority, marked by the emergence of groups
claiming responsibility for recent terrorist bombings. The run-up to
the general election in May could see communal violence on an
unprecedented scale, paralysing India’s politics and driving away
investment.

China, too, has ethnic rebellions. There seems little chance that
Tibetans will again be able to defy Beijing. But in the remote north
west the Uigurs, non-Han Muslims, are fiercely opposed to Chinese rule
and further terrorist attacks in Xinjiang could provoke a violent
response from the Chinese Government.

Clashes triggered by religious conflict could also threaten Indonesia,
where massacres by extremist Muslims of Christians in Sulawesi have led
to reprisals and heightened tensions. The central Government has only
weak control in the fissiparous provinces; a worsening of the economic
situation could fuel widespread anger that is easily exploited.

Similar long-running clashes in the Philippines, where a Muslim
insurgency in the south has been helped by al-Qaeda, could lead in turn
to terrorism in an attempt to provoke government repression. Tensions
along the religious faultline splitting the Muslim north of Nigeria and
the south have already led to sporadic violence. That can easily
spread. And unless the political turbulence is resolved in Thailand,
the Muslim insurgency in the southern provinces could threaten much of
the peninsula.

Africa, too, will provide more horrors: Zimbabwe, Somalia, Darfur and
Congo could all implode into renewed war, massacres and starvation,
each having the potential to suck in neighbours. Neither on this
continent, nor across a restless world, can stability be underpinned as
long as markets, economies and global trade remain in turmoil: 2009
will be a year that many statesmen would like to avoid.