Daily Times, Pakistan
July 7 2005
THINKING ALOUD: National borders and international disputes – Razi
Azmi
Few Pakistanis know that Gwadar, the country’s up-coming port, which
is regarded as a strategic and economic asset by the government,
belonged to the Sultan of Oman until 1958. It was purchased by the
Pakistani government for Rs 90 million
`What is mine is mine, what is yours in mine too’. Nowhere does this
seem more true than in the case of international borders. The list of
countries with territorial claims on a neighbouring state is long.
Often, border disputes have led to skirmishes, even full-scale wars
and conquests.
Historically, the spoils of war belong to the victor. The worst
recent example of this is the territorial settlement imposed by the
victorious Anglo-French alliance on a defeated Germany after the
First World War. She was deprived of 13 percent of her territory
(40,000 square kilometres), home to seven million people.
Following the German defeat and Soviet victory in the Second World
War, Russia annexed Eastern Prussia from Germany, besides regaining
Western Ukraine from Poland. Being on the winning side, Poland was
duly compensated by being moved approximately 120 kilometres further
west into what had been Germany.
In 1939, as tension was building towards the Second World War, the
Soviet Union invaded little Finland to its north. The Finns put up a
stiff resistance, but lost one-tenth of their territory for good.
Two of the worst examples of territorial aggrandisement in modern
times are the occupation of Mexican territory by the United States
and of Bolivian territory by her neighbours.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican War
(1846-1848) awarded all lands north of the Rio Grande to the United
States. By the terms of the treaty, Mexico ceded to the United States
two-fifths of its territory and received an indemnity of $15 million.
Bolivia lost great slices of territory to three neighbouring
countries. Several thousand square kilometres of land, 315 kilometres
of coastline and its outlet to the Pacific Ocean were taken by Chile
after the War of the Pacific (1879-1884). In 1903, a piece of
Bolivia’s Acre Province, rich in rubber, was ceded to Brazil. And in
1938, after losing the Chaco War of 1932-1935 to Paraguay, Bolivia
lost 160,000 square kilometres of territory. Today’s Bolivia is a
land-locked country, a mere three-fifths of its original size.
Hoping to take advantage of the disarray in Iran after the Islamic
revolution in 1979, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan
province in 1980 and renamed it Arabistan, only to be thrown back
after an eight year-long war. Two years later, to salvage his pride
and wipe off his debts in one stroke, Saddam occupied his
defenceless, oil-rich neighbour, Kuwait, declaring it Iraq’s 27th
province. That venture, too, proved to be a bloody and costly fiasco.
India and China went to war in 1962 after Indian border patrols
discovered that her `brotherly’ neighbour (`Hindi-Chinee bhai bhai’)
had quietly taken possession of thousands of square kilometres of
territory in the remote Aksai Chin area of Kashmir. India lost the
war and some pride too. China continues to be in de facto possession
of 20 percent of Kashmir. This includes over 8,000 square kilometres
ceded to China in 1963 by Pakistan, which wisely took advantage of
the Indo-Chinese conflict to seal its alliance with that country by
donating a piece of strategic real estate.
Both India and Pakistan do not accept the Line of Control in Kashmir
as a permanent border between them. India regards the Chinese
presence in Aksai Chin as illegal and China does not recognise the
border along the McMahon Line with India’s northeast. Afghanistan
disputes the Durand Line with Pakistan. The two countries fought
border skirmishes in the early 1960s.
China and Russia clashed over a disputed border on the Ussuri river
in 1969. Libya disputes its borders with all its neighbours and had
occupied Chadian territory for many years. Armenia has seized about
10 percent of Azerbaijani territory (Nagorno-Karabakh) inhabited by
ethnic Armenians.
In 1976, Morocco conspired with Mauritania to divide and annex the
Western Sahara as soon as Spain granted it independence. Three years
later, when Mauritania withdrew its forces because of guerrilla
warfare led by the Polisario Front, Morocco helped itself to the rest
of the Western Sahara. Thus, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic
has the distinction of being the world’s only stillborn country.
Cambodia, on the other hand, has the distinction of shrinking in
peacetime. According to reports coming from there, all three of
Cambodia’s neighbours, but particularly Vietnam, are slowly creeping
into Cambodian territory, having moved the border at some points by
as much as 15 kilometres.
The former `Father King’, Norodom Sihanouk, has commented that the
stone border markers with Vietnam had legs and kept walking deeper
into Cambodian territory. In late March this year Sihanouk sent an
open letter to the governments of Vietnam, Laos and Thailand accusing
them of `nibbling away’ at Cambodian territory.
Nations, national borders, passports and visas are relatively recent
concepts. For example, until the middle of the 19th century, Germany
was a conglomeration of dozens of states and principalities. British
India included hundreds of princely states of various sizes with
their own rulers, spread over two-fifths of the subcontinent. Kashmir
and Hyderabad were the largest and best-known of them. Pakistan
inherited a number of princely states, namely Kalat, Bahawalpur,
Swat, Hunza and Chitral.
They were vestiges of a bygone era when there were neither nations
nor countries as we now know them. Land belonged not to nations or
people but to rulers. Territories were bought and sold and could even
be given as a gift. Principalities merged as a result of matrimonial
alliances. The states of Monaco, San Marino and Leichtenstein in
Europe survive from that era.
Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867 for $7 million. The
purchase was approved by the US Senate by just one vote because, at
the time, many Americans regarded it as a bad deal. Few Pakistanis
know that Gwadar, the country’s up-coming second port, which is
regarded as a strategic and economic asset by the government,
belonged to the Sultan of Oman until 1958. It was purchased by the
Pakistani government for Rs 90 million.
Colonisation by European countries created empires where kings,
rulers, princes, potentates and chiefs once held sway over pre-modern
societies. Countries and nations as we now know them emerged as a
result of decolonisation. It is worth pointing out that the United
Nations, which now has 191 member-states, had just 51 at the time of
its founding in 1945.
Is it possible in the current era of nationalism – with its dogma of
`every inch of the motherland is sacred’ – even to imagine such deals
as Gwadar or Alaska? Leave alone selling land for money, even the
hint of ceding land for peace, friendship and security has the
potential for toppling governments.
Jewish extremists in Israel are violently opposed to the full return
of Gaza to the Palestinians even by a government that has served
their interests very well. Any mutually-acceptable, realistic deal on
Kashmir by India and Pakistan is sure to be denounced as a sell-out
by virtually all opposition parties in both countries. Such is the
nature of populist politics that this will happen regardless of which
parties are in power and which in opposition.
But, then, successive governments in the two countries have only
themselves to blame for raising national expectations to levels that
now prevent them from achieving a realistic solution to a territorial
dispute.