The World at War: January/June 1, 2006
By Col. Dan Smith, USA (Ret.)

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“Resistance is the right of every human being whose country is occupied by foreigners.”
~ Sheik Abdul Dhari, Fallujah mayor

“Wars Decrease.”

Set against non-stop cable news broadcasts recounting the ongoing daily carnage in Iraq and the resurgent violence in Afghanistan, the headline was a jolt.

No less of a jolt was the tacit admission by one of the original architects of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that the whole operation could have been avoided. Carefully hedging his statement, Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense in the first George W. Bush administration, observed to Agence France-Presse: “If somebody could have given you a Lloyds of London guarantee that weapons of mass destruction would not possibly be used, one would have contemplated much more support for internal Iraqi opposition and not having the United States take the job on the way we did.”

“If you could have given us a guarantee….”

The instinctive reaction to such a lament by an adult supposedly grounded in realpolitik is to note the childishness of the statement. The second reaction is to note that Life provides no guarantees to anyone in any circumstance, be it rain or shine, peace or war, life or death.

The third reaction is to note that what Wolfowitz really said about the invasion confirms the view that planning for this war was so advanced that it had ceased to be merely a contingency plan long before the actual opening of hostilities in March 2003. He does not say that with an ironclad guarantee the war would not have occurred, but that the U.S. would have approached the task differently. The alternative mode arguably would have mirrored Afghanistan by providing “much more support for internal Iraqi opposition.”

The War Count

As 2006 began, FCNL registered 15 significant ongoing armed conflicts (1,000 or more deaths) and another 23 “hot spots” that could slide into or revert to war. The total number of significant armed conflicts is eight less than in 2005, marking one of the largest declines in any one year and the lowest overall number at the beginning of a calendar year since this survey began 17 years ago.

The graph illustrates the changing count.

What did not change is the distribution pattern of warfare across the continents. Africa accounted for fully one-third of the total with Asia right behind with four. The Middle East and the Americas each registered two “wars,” with Europe adding one. The U.S.-proclaimed and -led global war on terror, re-christened the “long war,” rounds out the count at fifteen.

Because so many conflicts were dropped, this year’s report looks first at these eight as a group. Six of the eight were shifted to the secondary “watch” list while the remaining two were entirely dropped. The other initial point to note is that all 15 significant armed conflicts are intra-state; there are no government vs. government armed hostilities.

Now in general, civil wars usually end because one or more of the following conditions develop:

• one side suddenly gains a decisive military advantage;
• both sides become exhausted by the length and intensity of the fighting;
• outside mediation, arbitration, or international pressure halts the conflict, or
• a disaster of such monumental proportions occurs that the belligerents are overwhelmed by the event – Nature’s version of “shock and awe.”

All four conditions came into play in 2005-and the first half of 2006. And of the eight wars deleted from the main list, two were substantially influenced by natural disasters.

Indonesia. The December 26,, 2004 tsunami sent both the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government reeling and, in turn, focused international assistance and then international pressure to negotiate an end to the 30-year civil war that had claimed an estimated 120,000 lives. (By comparison, the tsunami killed approximately 166,000.) Mediated by Finland’s Crisis Management Initiative, the two sides met in late January 2005 to work out a formal cease fire. The two sides agreed on peace terms – for GAM, amnesty, significant autonomy, recognition of GAM as a regional political party, and more equitable sharing of the revenue generated by Aceh’s natural resources; for Jakarta, a four-stage demobilization of 3,000 GAM fighters and their weapons, and no independence for Aceh – on July 18 and signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on August 15, 2005.

The MoU calls for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and for an 80-member Aceh Monitoring Mission led by the European Union. The MoU also set March 31st, 2006 as the projected date for Jakarta to promulgate a new law for governing Aceh madated local elections in April.

Pakistan-India. On October 8, 2005, a massive earthquake rocked the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir. An estimated 73,000 were killed and another 3.7 million displaced. This disaster sparked a massive international response – the U.S. even shifted helicopter resources from Afghanistan because many villages in the high mountain areas affected were inaccessible by road. The sheer extent of the disaster and the challenge to relief efforts seemed to dissolve any lingering reservations the leaders of India and Pakistan might have harbored about including Kashmir within the framework of the “irreversible” peace negotiations begun in April 2005. At that April meeting, President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid the groundwork for shifting from “conflict management” to “conflict resolution.” Both leaders insisted that the Line of Control along which the province is currently divided will not be normalized as an international border. Any effort to hold the popular referendum called for at the time of partition more than likely would rekindle violence among the extremists on both sides of the LoC. So if there is to be a resolution to the Kashmiri question, it would seem to lie in some form of cooperative engagement by those residing therein and some form of shared responsibility at the national level for security in the province. Obviously, the process to final peace will be a lengthy one.

Looking at another aspect of the Kashmiri question, in 2005 the main indigenous Kashmiri umbrella resistance organization, the All-Party Hurriyat Conference, which represents 25 guerrilla organizations, fractured further. Two of the larger insurgent groups, The National Front and the People’s Conference, began a dialogue with New Delhi, although they declined to attend a “roundtable” on peace. Nonetheless, in early May 2006, the insurgent leaders met with Prime Minister Manmohut Singh and agreed to a formal structure for negotiations. Sensing that these direct talks may prove more decisive, Singh has seemingly sidelined other discussions (i.e., the next roundtable scheduled for May 25, 2006) in a bid to reach a resolution of the Kashmir question by the end of 2008.

One of India’s longest running rebellions in Assam appears to have ended. The National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) signed a ceasefire with New Delhi in May 2005, after sustained operations by Bhutan against rebel bases in that country severely damaged the NDFB’s infrastructure base. The ceasefire is for a one-year term during which negotiations for a permanent peace are to be held. The NDFB’s negotiators are seeking a wide-ranging autonomy deal in place of their original demand for independence – the tact taken in 2004 by another insurgent group, the Bodoland Liberation Tigers. Only one other major insurgent group, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), remains outside Assam’s peace process.

One of Colombia’s three insurgencies seems to have ended. The rightist Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) paramilitaries continued to disarm and re-integrate into Colombian society. In early April 2006, the last 1,700 AUC fighters turned in their weapons, bringing the total number demobilized to 26,000. Most will receive amnesty, and the maximum sentence for those responsible for atrocities is eight years in jail. Some AUC splinter groups remain outside the peace process, as do the two leftist insurgent groups. By law, the number of U.S. military trainers and U.S. contractors working with Colombian troops and police are limited to 800 and 600, respectively.

In the Middle East and North Africa, two armed resistance movements have simply faded.

Abu Abbas, Yassir Arafat’s successor as President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), is committed to negotiating rather than fighting to create a two-state settlement with Israel.

Three events in early 2006 changed the landscape. Ariel Sharon, who had bolted the rightest Likud political party to form his own – called Kadima – suffered a massive stroke that left him in a coma. Kadima, under Sharon’s deputy, Ehud Olmert, won a plurality in the March balloting for the new parliament, forcing it into an alliance. How this will affect Sharon’s master plan for finally settling Israel’s borders – preferably with the PA’s concurrence but unilaterally if the PA demurs – remains to be seen. The third event was Hamas’ victory in the 2006 Palestinian local elections, a result attributed to its wide-ranging social aid infrastructure. (See below for further comments.)

Algeria’s bloody 14 year civil war seems to have ended through sheer exhaustion on both sides. The military remains powerful, although less visible than in the past. A few pockets of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) still exist, but these are in remote areas. An estimated 150,000 Algerians died in the fighting, but the population, which approved a peace plan in a September 2005 referendum, seems intent on forgetting the past.

In sub-Saharan Africa, Laurent Gbagbo unilaterally extended his term as Ivory Coast’s president in October 2005, a maneuver reluctantly accepted by the UN Security Council with the stipulation that elections had to take place by October 2006. In December an interim government was installed with a mandate to prepare for the election and to disarm the rebels in the north of the country and militias loyal to Gbagbo. Both projects seemed in jeopardy in mid-May 2006 as peace talks scheduled for April failed to take place and ethnic and political unrest mounted. This country may return to the major wars category if violence continues to escalate.

Ongoing Major Conflicts

“We will not defeat terrorists solely through the use of force. We must assist others to create good governance and the rule of law.”
~General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
“Chairman’s Guidance,” October 1, 2005

The following chart lists this year’s snapshot of the 15 significant armed conflicts, after which – as in the 2005 report – the text begin with Afghanistan and Iraq.

* Causes are simplifications and should not be regarded as the full explanation for what is often a very complex set of circumstances.

Afghanistan

As it had in 2004, Afghanistan continued to show uneven improvement in security and governance in 2005. In February 2005 the U.S. and NATO agreed to combine the counterterrorism and peacekeeping/peace building missions. NATO, which already had five provincial reconstruction teams (PRT) working in Afghanistan, added five more, over the course of 2005 and took over two (of 13) U.S. PRTs. But the more seismic shift in the security situation came in early May, 2006, when, under British command, NATO forces moved into four of the most volatile provinces: Helmund, Kandahar, Zabul, and Uruzgan, all in the south where the Taliban originated. To meet this expanded mission, NATO added approximately 7,000 to the 9,000 troops that comprised the International Security Assistance Force in and around Kabul. The U.S.-led multinational counterterrorism effort will still involve another 16,000 troops even with the expected withdrawal of 2,500 U.S. soldiers.

However, the Taliban and the remnants of al-Qaeda have not been intimidated by NATO any more than they were by the U.S. Armed attacks, especially in the south an along the border with Pakistan, continued and even increased late in 2005 and into 2006. Ominously, the new year saw growing use of car bombs and suicide bombers against both soldiers and civilians. Some intelligence reports cite increases in the fighting strength of the Taliban and increased intimidation of rural villagers – armed incursions, destruction of schools and health clinics, and assassinations of government officials. In fact, with 1,600 civilian deaths attributed to terrorist incidents, 2005 was the most lethal year since the Taliban lost political power at the end of 2001. U.S. fatalities in 2005 came to 99 with another 36 recorded through mid-May of 2006. Since October 2001, when Operation Enduring Freedom commenced, 295 U.S. military personnel have died in Afghanistan; coalition dead total 78.

With respect to governance, the September parliamentary and provincial elections were hailed as a great success. The parliament convened in December 2005. In late January, another donors’ conference convened, this time in London. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, noting that the U.S. had already poured more than $10.3 billion into reconstruction in Afghanistan, said that President Bush’s Fiscal Year 2007 budget would ask Congress for $1.1 billion more. In all, the London conference elicited new commitments of $10.5 billion by the 70 countries in attendance. In return, Kabul presented a five-year “Compact” of domestic reform and development whose main orientation is improving the quality of life of ordinary Iraqis rather than devoting energy toward institution building. One significant challenge to any government plan is weaning Afghan farmers away from opium production.

Iraq

Once again, the battlefield numbers tell most of the story: U.S. dead through the first half of May equal 2,448. After a March in which only 31 U.S. military personnel died, April spiked to 76 and by mid-May that month’s count had reached 44. British losses stood at 111 (seven just in May) and other coalition fatalities also stood at 111. Iraqi security personnel – police and military – losses in 2006 through mid-May were 817. At the current rate of losses, Iraqi losses among security forces will be about 2,200-2,300, about two-thirds of the fatalities during 2005. That assumes, of course, that the anticipated Iraqi cabinet of newly elected Prime Minister Maliki succeeds in stabilizing the political scene – which may be difficult as long as Maliki holds the Defense and Interior portfolios

With the series of elections and the constitutional referendum in 2005, Washington had hoped to make 2006 a real transition year, to include withdrawing a significant number of U.S. and other coalition troops. Instead, the field commanders are finding they have to send U.S. patrols back into areas “turned over” to Iraqis because of sectarian violence. In 2006, through mid-May, recorded civilian fatalities stand at 3,424. Death squads, some connected to police and some to militias, are killing more than al-Qaeda-in-Iraq.

Middle East

Abu Abbas as President of the Palestinian Authority may be committed to negotiation, but other actor keep the violence going. The more radical Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad remain unwilling to negotiate with a government they regard as illegitimate. The West, which views Hamas as a terrorist organization, cut all financial support to the PA when Hamas took control of the PA cabinet, warning that it would not re-engage until Hamas renounces its call for the destruction of Israel, renounces the use of violence, and brings the other guerrilla organizations to the “negotiating” table. Israel for its part not only is withholding the $55 million per month (on average) in customs and other taxes it collects “on behalf of” the PA, it also has been able to block money transfers from oil-producing Arab states to the new Hamas-dominated cabinet. And despite continued construction of the barrier fence, suicide bombers still get through to Israeli cities – and their carnage merely triggers reprisal raids and the inevitable deaths of by-standers.

The Americas – Colombia

Although the AUC formally disbanded, Colombia remains locked in struggles with the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Although heavily beset by government offensives over the last two years, both groups remain intact. The smaller ELN (3,000-5,000 fighters) finances both its military operations and its ideological “social justice” work through kidnapping-ransom activities more so than through drug trafficking. The larger (16,000 fighters) FARC relies more heavily on revenue from direct dealings in drugs and alliances with drug lords. Some analysts believe that the drug trade has diluted the FARC’s political vision, rendering it little more than a narco-trrorist organization. That certainly is the U.S. perception; both FARC and ELN are on Washington’s list of terrorist organizations.

Preparing for Haiti’s February 2006 presidential election was a major effort of a special electoral commission of the Organization of American States (OAS) in conjunction with the UN. The presence of a Brazilian-led UN peacekeeping mission of 7,500 troops and 2,000 international police dampened violence, but even this force could not prevent hunger strikes by a former prime minister that roiled segments of the population and the kidnapping of election workers conducting voter registration. Former president (1996-2001) Rene Preval was the winner of the contested election, inheriting what one analyst termed a perpetual failed state. Recognizing that peace is essential for Haiti to make any progress, in March Preval asked for and received assurances from Brazil that its peacekeeping troops would not be withdrawn until Haiti stabilizes further. No party has a majority in Haiti’s new parliament, which met for the first time on May 9th, 2006. Preval himself was installed as president on May 14th, ending a hiatus in permanent governance that began in February 2004 when Jean Bertrand Aristide was forced from office. Given Haiti’s history, a major goal for Preval, elected for a five-year term, and for parliament, elected for a four-year term, is simply to last through their terms in office without a coup d’etat.

Europe – Chechnya

The seven year brutal war continues, albeit well below the radar of most media. It is probably best classified as a reciprocal bout of shootings between or among the now much-reduced Russian army, “indigenous” security services, and the remnants of the rebels. The rough estimate of those killed lies somewhere between 300,000-400,000. The capital city of Grozny, once home to a million people, may have up to 400,000 inhabitants today. Human rights violations perpetrated by the Russian army, Chechen security services, and the remaining rebel groups are a constant of life in Chechnya.

As poor as the state of governance has been, the bottom almost dropped out in April 2006 when a brief but intense gun battle occurred between security personnel of rival “political party” factions headed by Ramzad Kadyrov (prime minister) and Alu Alkhanov (president). Kadyrov, who heads a private army that he uses, with Moscow’s approval, to terrorize Chechens, is in line to become president in October 2006.

Chechnya did break the western media’s radars May 15th. A Russian judge ruled that the sole survivor of the rebels that attacked the school in Beslan in 2004 was guilty of terrorism, among other crimes, and responsible for the 330 deaths that resulted when the Russian anti-terrorist unit on the scene botched their attack to end the siege..

Asia

Nepal descended into absolute chaos in February when King Gyanendra dismissed the cabinet and began ruling by royal decrees – the first of which was a state of emergency declaration. Wide-spread arrests were reported, including journalists and human rights activists. Leaders of the various political parties were under house arrest. Another 750 were arrested when the army broke up a street demonstration in March.

For their part, the Nepalese Maoists, who have been fighting to abolish the monarchy and install a peoples’ republic, voiced the view that their day had come. Western countries brought diplomatic and economic pressures to bear and Nepal’s chief sources of military equipment and services – the U.S., UK, and India – suspended all transfers. U.S. military education and training money continues to flow, but this typical hovers around $500,000.

In late 2005, the seven legal political parties formed a new alliance with the Maoists and proposed a 12-point program for restoring democracy. The king refused to consider it. Protest demonstrations were organized, gradually multiplying in frequency, size, and intensity of emotion. The police and army broke up some, injuring and killing demonstrators. Surprisingly, the number of fatalities was relatively light. Finally, in March, the king capitulated, and a new cabinet was installed. The Maoists agreed to negotiate with the new government about their vision of Nepal’s future. Some ministers have called for new parliamentary elections and a constituent assembly to write a new constitution. Should the latter convene, the king’s powers undoubtedly will be greatly circumscribed – and that assumes the monarchy is not abolished altogether.

In India, the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) finally began peace discussions with New Delhi in October 2005. By January 2006 the talks had hit a dead end – emphasized by a grenade attack against an oil facility. ULFA and three other northeast India insurgent groups with roots in Bengal and Manipur warned people to avoid celebration’s for Independence Day, but most ignored the warnings.

Manipur state is more convoluted than a year ago. Sixteen different insurgent groups – at least – are active; three of the largest have joined together to form the umbrella organization Manipur People’s Liberation Front (MPLF). Competitors include the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and the Zomi Revolutionary Front and Army.

But it is in Andhra Pradesh and Nagaland where the Communist Party of India – Maoists (CPI-Maoist) is creating what appears to be a power base. In April 2005, after ten months of a very shaky ceasefire, the extremists formally declared the talks over. By that time, 116 fatalities associated with insurgent violence had been reported compared to 88 for all of 2004. (The final toll for 2005 was 669.) In fact, the extremists, known as “Naxalites” because their origins lie in the town of Naxalbari, appear to have used the ceasefire period to rest, recruit, and rearm. New Delhi estimates their fighting strength at 10,000. With a presence in nearly half of India’s 28 states, the government considers the Maoists the chief internal security threat both directly and – as wealthy landowners create militias to protect their holdings – indirectly. For unless security stabilizes, a scenario similar to Colombia‘s conceivably could develop.

Still in Asia, the Philippines government continues to launch occasional operations in Basilan and Jolo against remnants of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Abu Sayyaf group, whose hard core fighters are estimated to number no more than 500. The most noteworthy incident in 2005 involving these militants occurred in February when three imprisoned leaders of the group were killed in an attempted prison escape. Then, in late April and early May, two other significant Abu Sayyaf members were caught in the Southern islands, further weakening what has become little more than a gang of extortionists.

Africa

War on this continent seems eternal as countries bounce from one insurgency to dictatorship to genocidal attacks and back to a new insurgency. But in February 2005, ministers from 11 nations centered on Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo and Africa’s Great Lakes met under the auspices of the UN and African Union (AU) to hammer out a regional approach to the challenge of constant warfare. The initiative led to the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) which convenes ministerial-level meetings on subjects ranging well beyond traditional security. The eleven core nations signed a mutual security pact in November and have taken steps to control the flow of small arms and light weapons into the region.

Meanwhile, the killing continues. In Sudan, the 20-year North-South civil war formally ended in early 2005. Rebel leader John Garang became a vice-president of the reformed government in Khartoum, only to die less than a month later in a helicopter accident. But as this conflict ended, the genocide in Darfur intensified. Estimates of the dead ranged as high as 200,000 with another two million in refugee camps along the border with Chad or internally displaced. Under heavy pressure from the international community, Khartoum reached a tentative ceasefire in May 2006 with the main insurgent group operating in Darfur, but two splinter groups refused to sign. Ominously, in early 2006, Chad accused Khartoum of trying to destabilize the border and backing opponents of Chad’s president, Idriss Deby. Nonetheless, the UN is preparing to send a second peacekeeping mission to Sudan to augment the 7,000 overstretched AU monitors currently in Darfur. This new mission will be distinct from the mission monitoring implementation of the North-South accord.

Moving south, Uganda still is trying to eliminate the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony. The LRA’s main tactic involves kidnapping children and forcing them to fight and kill civilians, frequently neighbors and even family members. Some 1.5 million people live in refugee camps because the government of Yoweri Museveni cannot guarantee their safety. Museveni has given Kony until the end of June to surrender, promising Kony immunity from trial. However, that promise runs against pending indictments before the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

LRA elements have now been found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), adding another insurgent presence to an already volatile mixture in that country’s northeast. Rebel bands, including Hutus complicit in the Rwanda genocide in 1996, battle Congolese troops while ethnic-based militias conduct raids and reprisal raids against each other. The continuing violence has created an internally displaced population within the DRC of an estimated 1.7 million people, including 20,000 displaced by fighting in Kivu during February 2006. UN peacekeepers numbering 17,000 troops backed by French soldiers have battled tribal militias as well as other armed groups as the Kinshasa government prepares for national elections now set for the end of July. These forces will be further augmented for the election period by nearly 1,200 additional troops from 16 countries – including 780 from Germany.

Somalia, which has been without an effective central government since 1991, experienced fresh waves of violence in April and May 2006. News media described pitched battles in various parts of Mogadishu between what were termed Islamic radicals and secular warlords. Well over 250 people have been killed in the last few weeks. Accusations of U.S. support for the warlords have been leveled by the interim Somali “government-in-exile” based in neighboring Kenya. Washington has denied involvement, although clearly the White House and the Pentagon regard Somalia as a prime “safe haven” for al-Qaeda and other terror organizations.

Finally, religious-based communal violence in Nigeria continued to flare, primarily in the country’s Islamic north. In February 2006, more than 100 people were killed in a single rampage. Sectarian violence is punctuated by pipeline explosions such as the May 2006 rupture that killed 200 poor Nigerians trying to collect the spilled oil. Groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta continue to kidnap oil workers in an attempt to extract concessions from the government on distributing oil revenues. The political situation became murky in May when the Nigerian senate turned back a bid by President Olusegun Obasanjo to have the constitution amended to allow for a third term.

Unfortunately, some conflicts that had been quiescent seem to be gaining strength again.

The border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea continued to simmer but at a higher temperature. The UN Security Council imposed a mid-year deadline for Ethiopia to accept the boundary commission’s decision or face sanctions.

In the Pacific, Australian police reinforcements began to land in mid-April 2006 in the Solomon Islands after rioting broke out over the selection of a new prime minister. Some sections of the capital city have been destroyed. In 2003, Australia led a multilateral force that stopped an attempted coup.

While the Abu Sayyaf organization declined in 2005-2006, the Communist New People’s Army (NPA) became more active. Peace talks had broken off in August 2004 when NPA demands to be removed from the U.S. list of terror organizations were rejected. Targets of NPA activity have been police outposts – raided and stripped of their weapons – and army patrols. However, in November 2005, a band of 15 NPA insurgents invaded a church, killing three civilians and wounding three more.

On the other hand, negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front produced an agreement on ancestral lands that opens the way to a full peace treaty to be completed by September 2006.

Most worrisome is Sri Lanka. The December 2004 tsunami also struck Sri Lanka a highly lethal blow, killing 35,000. But unlike Indonesia, the natural disaster seemed to harden the positions of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government in Colombo despite the fact that both sides nominally observed a cease fire and held negotiations. Violence involving government forces and LTTE rebels – and instances of rebel factions battling each other and conducting a targeted assassination campaign – accounted for approximately 250 war-related deaths in 2005 whereas only 109 died in 2004 from such confrontations. LTTE demands that the new government, elected in November 2005, produce a “reasonable political framework” by December 31st were brushed off by Colombo.

Going into 2006, the LTTE and the government continued to observe the formalities of the 2002 cease fire while underneath the surface the armed struggle continued. April, with some 200 deaths from the fighting, was the deadliest month since the 2002 truce, while in early May the LTTE demanded that it should be given control of the territorial seas off the land areas it controls. Further peace talks have been postponed twice – most recently at the end of April. Some 65,000 have died in the rebellion which began in 1983 over autonomy-independence for Tamil ethnic areas.

Sri Lanka is another prime candidate to be back on the main active conflict list next year.

The following chart lists the 23 “hot spots” where there is continuing low level violence or the real potential for war to resume.

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Reviewed: 06/02/2006

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