List of articles and abstracts

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Conflict in Afghanistan: Ethnicity, Religion and Neighbours

Rasul Bakhsh Rais

Abstract

This article surveys the current situation in Afghanistan against the developments of the last decade after the winding down of the Cold War. The Afghan people have paid a heavy price for their successful resistance to the strategic aims in the region of the former Soviet Union. The Afghan civil war has not merely grown more complex in time, but has also accumulated all the elements of a deadly mix—ethnicity, sectarianism, religious extremism and external intervention. Afghanistan has also lost all its vital institutions, the structure of the state and the historical consensus that the country once had. The rise and success of the Taliban which is dealt with in great detail here has added to the complexity of the Afghan civil war. While the regional powers such as Iran, Pakistan and some of the Central Asian states share some of the responsibility for the destruction of the Afghan state, the major powers particularly the western countries have not fulfilled their part of the responsibility to the people of Afghanistan in the wake of the end of the Cold War.

Language, Politics and Power in Pakistan: The Case of Sindh and Sindhi

Tariq Rahman

Abstract

Sindhi is probably the oldest written language of Pakistan. Even when Persian was the official language of the Muslim rulers of Sind, Sindhi was given more importance in the educational institutions of Sind than the other languages of Pakistan were in the areas where they were spoken. From the 17th century onwards a number of religious and other books were written in Sindhi and were probably part of the curricula of religious seminaries. It was the only indigenous Pakistani language which was taught officially by the British at various levels of education. After the influx of Urdu-speaking Mohajirs  to Sindh in 1947, the teaching of Sindhi has become an ethnic, identity symbol for the Sindhi nationalists. Thus, it is promoted by the Sindhis and resisted by the Mohajirs. This article sheds light on how language-teaching, in this case that of Sindhi, can have implications for ethnic politics.

Peace Processes from 1988-1998: Changing Patterns

John Darby and James Rae

 Abstract

During the eleven years between 1988 and 1998, formal peace agreements have been signed between combatants in over thirty countries experiencing internal, mainly ethnic, conflicts. This quantity is unprecedented, particularly as most were the result of internally agreed initiatives rather than settlements imposed by external powers. Most of the peace agreements share a remarkably similar structure, focusing mainly on the ending of violence, security arrangements and the process of political ratification. Tangential, but often key, elements such as human rights legislation, truth commissions, and socio-economic development appear less frequently. While all the peace accords considered in the article deal with internal conflicts, international organisations have intervened frequently in a variety of ways-good offices, contact groups, third-party mediation, multidimensional peace-building, and military peacekeeping-each of which impacts differently on the future of these agreements. This article represents an introductory analysis of these peace agreements carried out as a preliminary study for the ‘Coming out of Violence’ project, an in-depth investigation of peace processes involving academic partners in five countries working to a common methodology. It highlights some characteristics of the recent peace processes, and points to possible changes in the way peace may be managed in the future.

Insurrectionary Violence in Sri Lanka: The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Insurgencies of 1971 and 1987-1989 - A Review Article

Tisaranee Gunasekara

 Abstract

As this article shows the book being reviewed does not deal adequately with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna’s (JVP) insurgency of 1971, where the United Front (UF) coalition government led by Mrs Sirima Bandaranaike resorted to a repressive policy which resulted in a death rate that, in the two weeks the insurrection lasted, was proportionately heavier than in the JVP insurgency of 1987-89. The author’s virtual neglect of the government repression of 1971 is in marked contrast to his treatment of the state’s counter offensive against the JVP in 1987-89 to which he devotes several chapters. The article points out that the shooting war which became the second JVP insurgency of 1987-89 was started not by the government in power at that time but by the JVP. While anti-Indianism was supposed to be the raison d’être of the JVP’s second insurgency, none of the JVP’s targets and victims were from the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). The book recounts in detail how close the system came to succumbing to the JVP in 1989 and also how, very close links between the JVP and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) were, with each party seeking to use the other for its own purposes. Given the JVP’s refusal to compromise, the Premadasa government "fighting for its very existence with its back to the wall" had only two options: either to hand over power to the JVP, or to try to face the challenge of the JVP. The government opted the latter and succeeded in crushing the movement in late 1989. By the middle of December 1989 the country was back to normal.

Crisis Management: Chinese Entrepreneurs and Business Networks 
in South Asia - A Conference Report

Hans Dieter-Evers

Solvay Gerke

Thomas Menkhoff

From 28-30 May 1999 the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Bonn hosted an international conference entitled "Crisis Management - Chinese Entrepreneurs and Business Networks in Southeast Asia." The objective was to shed light on the complex and little understood interconnections between Chinese business in Southeast Asia, globalisation and the Asian financial and economic crisis triggered by the devaluation of the Thai bhat in June 1997...

Tribute to Neelan Tiruchelvam

K M de Silva