(International Political Economy) Godfrey Baldacchino (Eds.) - The Political Economy of Divided Islands - Unified Geographies, Multiple Polities-Palgrave Macmillan UK (2013)

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Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
The Political Economy of
Divided Islands
Unified Geographies, Multiple Polities
Edited by
Godfrey Baldacchino
Canada Research Chair (Island Studies), University of Prince Edward Island, Canada
Editorial matter, selection and introduction © Godfrey Baldacchino 2013
Individual chapters © Respective authors 2013
Foreword © Philip E. Steinberg 2013
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Contents
List of Maps and Tables vii
Foreword viii
Philip E. Steinberg
Preface and Acknowledgements xv
List of Acronyms xviii
Notes on Contributors xxi
1 Only Ten: Islands as Uncomfortable Fragmented Polities 1

Godfrey Baldacchino
2 Coherent Unity or Fracture and Flow? The Problematic

Island Polity 18
Stewart Williams
3 New Guinea 34
Ronald J. May, Patrick Matbob and Evangelia Papoutsaki
4 Borneo (Including Sebatik) 58

Taufiq Tanasaldy
5 Timor 79
Anthony Soares
6 Cyprus 102
Ahmet Sözen
7 Ireland 119
Stephen A. Royle
8 Usedom/Uznam 137
Maciej J˛edrusik
9 Hispaniola 157
Marie Redon
10 Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten 176

Steven Hillebrink
v
vi Contents
11 Tierra del Fuego 195

Peter van Aert
12 Bolshoi Ussuriiski/Heixiazi 212

Akihiro Iwashita
13 Britain: The Fractured Island 228

Ray Burnett
Index 246
Maps and Tables
Maps
P.1 The World’s Only Inhabited Divided Islands: Names and

Locations xxv
12.1 Details of the Russia-China border along the
Ussuri/Heilongjiang and Amur/Wusuli river deltas 222
Tables
3.1 Comparing West Papua (Indonesia) and Papua New

Guinea 37
4.1 Considering the three-way division of Borneo (and
including Sebatik) 60
5.1 Comparing West Timor (Indonesia) and Timor-Leste 80
6.1 Comparing the Republic of Cyprus with Turkish Cyprus
(but excluding the British Sovereign Bases which are sui
generis) 103
7.1 Comparing the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland 120
8.1 Comparing German Usedom and Polish Uznam 138
9.1 Comparing Haïti and the Dominican Republic 159
10.1 Comparing Saint-Martin and Sint Maarten 177
11.1 Comparing Chilean and Argentine Tierra del Fuego 196
12.1 Bolshoi Ussuriiski (Russia) and Heixiazi (China) 213
vii
Foreword
Island or Continent?
Philip E. Steinberg
‘Island or continent?’ This is the first utterance of the engineer

Cyrus Harding in Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island (1875), when he
wakes up from a coma on a barren beach after the crash of his hot-air
balloon.
His fellow castaways, who arrived ashore conscious and thus, by the
time they found Harding, have had some time to reflect on their sit-
uation, fail to comprehend why their companion is consumed with
getting an answer to this burning enquiry. At first, they are bemused
by what they take to be an expression of Harding’s scientific curiosity:
‘ “Island or continent!” To think of that, when at one’s last gasp! What a
man!’, remarks the sailor Pencroft. Later, however, as Harding continues
to obsess on this seemingly academic question, his colleagues become
irritated, wishing that the engineer would devote his problem-solving
faculties to what they believe to be more pressing needs. As the still
enfeebled Harding leads the group up a 1,200-m mountain to ascertain
whether or not the land on which they have found themselves is sur-
rounded by water, Pencroft persistently, but unsuccessfully, tries to prod
him to address questions of more practical import, such as how to start
a fire.
It soon emerges, however, that Harding’s question is not simply one
of idle curiosity. It is also a profoundly social question. Whether or
not the place on which they have landed is an island will have a sig-
nificant impact on the kind of society that they will be able to (or
need to) establish there. Harding therefore holds that before anything
else one must first answer this fundamental socio-geographic question:
island or continent? As Harding explains to his companions, if the des-
olate beach on which they have landed is connected to the mainland,
they need to concentrate only on finding a settlement, from which
they can rejoin mainstream society. If, however, they are on an island,
and if that island was previously uninhabited, then the five survivors
have no choice but to form a new polity there, a society with all the
viii
Foreword ix
political institutions and social technologies that will enable survival

and (hopefully) prolonged habitation.
And thus, through the character of Cyrus Harding, Verne reproduces
a well-established trope wherein the morphology of the island is meta-
physically linked with that of the state. Both the ideal of the island
and that of the state suggest a bounded, permanent wholism among
fundamentally equivalent but entirely independent units (Gillis 2004,
Steinberg 2005). As a result, the island has come to represent the ideal
state-form. The island is the most blatant manifestation of John Agnew’s
(1994) ‘territorial trap’, in which the boundaries define the territory and
the territory (the insides of the boundaries) defines the nation, creating a
situation in which the state-territory is taken as the starting point, rather
than the ending point, of social analysis. When state boundaries are pre-
sented as natural (which is an exceptionally easy argument to make in
the case of island states), the legitimacy of the nation as an organic, uni-
fied body is enhanced (Sahlins 1989). Moreover, the synchronisation of
state boundaries with seemingly natural borders makes it impossible to
comprehend domestic, cross-border or extra-territorial social dynamics
as anything other than subsequent to the formation of national societies,
identities and policies.
And yet, as Verne makes clear, this association between the state
and the island which appears so straightforward and simplistic is, in
fact, quite variable, in large part because there are varying degrees of
both stateness and islandness. Neither the category of ‘island’ nor that
of ‘state’ is absolute; nor is either of the two stable in time or space,
notwithstanding ideological pretensions to the contrary. As Harding
elaborates, even if he and his fellow castaways are on an island, they
may not be truly separated from the rest of society, since the island may
or may not be inhabited. It also may be part of an archipelago, which
would impact the degree to which any society forming there would be
connected with its neighbours, or it may be close to an adjacent main-
land. Indeed, the castaways had already landed on one tiny islet, which
they named Safety Island, from which they had made their way onto the
island ‘mainland’ where they were now pondering their future. They
also are aware that their isolation would be greatly reduced were the
island proximate to global shipping lanes. And even if they could make
a determination about just how isolated they were on the island, this
condition would not necessarily be permanent. During the course of the
book, Harding uses his civil engineering skills to construct an island on
the island, so as to better protect their settlement from invaders. Thus
we learn that islands can exist within islands, adding another dimension
x Foreword
to degrees of islandness, and that they can be manufactured. The tem-

poral dimension of islandness is further revealed at the end of the book,
when a volcanic eruption sends the entire island tumbling into the sea.
The degree of statehood sought by the islanders (once they determine
that they are, in fact, islanders) is not straightforward either. Alternately
devoting their talents towards improving the place where they have
found themselves and towards returning to the land that they had left,
the castaways’ love/hate relationship with the island that they have
made into their home produces an increasing tension throughout the
book. In the end, they choose neither to remain permanently on the
island nor to leave it. Rather, the castaways – Northern soldiers and sym-
pathisers who had fled in a stolen hot-air balloon from a Confederate
prison camp during the US Civil War – plan to deliver the newly settled
land to the United States of America.
Thus, they construct an island that is both isolated and connected,
stable and ephemeral, a space of escape but also reintegration. The cul-
mination of the island’s settlement and its construction as a distinct,
inhabited place – a permanent community – is not to be isolation
but rather cession into a broader world. In other words, even as the
castaways (who prefer to call themselves ‘colonists’) seek to extend a
nationalist narrative that constructs states according to the model of the
idealised island – unified, indivisible and stable in time and space while
being developed and made into territory by individuals who are natu-
rally connected with the land – they contribute to the construction of an
entity that defies this ideal: the expansionist, rootless empire. Although
not commented on by Verne, the island’s very potential existence as a
far-flung dependency of the United States, settled by an immigrant pop-
ulation, echoes the origin myth of the United States. In both cases, the
polity affirms the general principle of the territorial nation-state while
disassembling the romantic – and insular – ideal in which the state form
naturally arises amidst self-evident borders wherein blood and soil are
intrinsically connected.
∗ ∗ ∗
‘Islands’, writes John Gillis (2004), are ‘good to think with.’ They have
also been good to work with. And much of the work that has been per-
formed on islands has involved state-building. But, as the chapters in
this volume show – and as is also illustrated in The Mysterious Island –
the states that are created on islands are not simply realisations of (or
models for) the unified, bounded territories of nationalist fantasy. One
Foreword xi
can indeed draw a through-line from the representations of islands in

Renaissance-era isolarios and portolan charts to the idealised states of
19th- and 20th-century nation-builders (Steinberg 2005). However, the
connections between island life and state practice (and national iden-
tity) are more complicated (e.g. Clifford 2001, Fog Olwig 1993). For
if, to quote Gillis again, ‘no island is an island’, then it is also the
case that no state is a state (see, for instance, Abrams 1988, Biersteker
and Weber 1996, Der Derian and Shapiro 1989, Krasner 1993, Mitchell
1999, Painter 2006, Ruggie 1993). The state-ideal, like the island-ideal,
is invariably complicated by real divisions and connections, between
and within territories. Thus, just as the island exemplifies the properties
that we expect in the insular state, it also presents all of the problems
inherent in the realisation of this ideal: boundaries are not natural,
individuals are not self-evidently and timelessly associated with spe-
cific points in space, the organisation of space is not unchanging and
timeless, and the existence of states does not predate their interaction
(and re-constitution) within a global political (and, more broadly, socio-
economic) system. From offshore banking havens to corporate-managed
island tourism resorts (or detention centres), islands simultaneously
reproduce the power dynamics of the state system while challenging
the socio-spatial imaginary of absolute, equivalent spaces with sharply
defined insides and outsides that underpins the legitimacy of its con-
stitutive states. By reproducing, in an extreme form, the wholistic,
independent foundation of the modern territorial state, island states
reinforce that ideal. However, because they invariably end up stray-
ing from that ideal, island states also lead one to question the ideal’s
correspondence with reality.
In this context, islands that are divided into multiple states are
revealing counter-examples. Divided islands are sites at which accepted
associations and definitions are explicitly and, when mapped, graph-
ically questioned. They thereby challenge us to question the ideal of
insularity (in all senses of the term) that lies behind the modern notion
of territorial statehood. A divided island is not just an affront to the
map; it is an affront to the naturalisation of the territorially delimited
nation state.
∗ ∗ ∗
To explore the power of the divided island as a destabilising counter-

example, this book presents 11 revealing case studies. But, before leaving
the reader to peruse these, I want to return to The Mysterious Island.
xii Foreword
As the colonists find their way around their new home, they set about
naming its landmarks, a ‘ceremony of possession’ frequently practised
by conquering forces (Seed 1995):
The island was spread out under [the colonists’] eyes like a map,
and [the colonists] had only to give names to all its angles and
points. Gideon Spilett would write them down, and the geographical
nomenclature of the island would be definitely adopted.
In the fashion of colonial conquerors, they name most features after

the heroes of the country for whom they claim their island home:
Washington Bay, Mount Franklin, Lake Grant and, of course, Lincoln
Island.
In The Mysterious Island, however, the colonists slowly realise that they
do not have complete dominion over their territory; the island of their
refuge, it turns out, is also a divided space, notwithstanding the cast-
aways’ attempts to name and thereby unify it as a singular, indivisible,
socio-natural organism. Unlike the divided islands considered in the
subsequent chapters of this book, however, the division of this island is
more vertical than horizontal. While the American colonists control the
surface, the island’s subterranean (and submarine) space is controlled
by the mysterious Captain Nemo. As is revealed in Twenty Thousand
Leagues under the Sea (Verne 1870), as well as The Mysterious Island, Cap-
tain Nemo has his own complex relationship with the ideals, and spaces,
of statehood. Through his adventures, Nemo challenges the ideal of ter-
ritorial statehood as he seeks to create an international republic of the
seas. All the while, he obsesses on the concept of national identity and,
seemingly in contradiction with his internationalist goals, he plunders
shipwrecks to aid national liberation struggles (for further discussion of
Captain Nemo’s, and Verne’s, politics, see Chesneaux 1972, Steinberg
2001).
Nemo’s complex (but very American) political ideology that fuses
national pride with distrust of territorial absolutism aligns well with
the colonists’ goal of using the island’s apparent unity to facilitate cere-
monies of possession that culminate with an act of cession to a distant
nation to which the colonists claim an even deeper allegiance. And
indeed, Nemo endorses the colonists’ plan. This redirecting of island ter-
ritorial nationalism towards a ‘higher’ goal, however, is unusual. In most
cases, island nationalists not only remain close to the ideals of ter-
ritorial nationalism wherein borders define the limits (as well as the
idealised homogeneity and naturalism) of the nation, but the stark and
Foreword xiii
apparently self-evident dividing line between land and sea is used to

emphasise the concordance between nation, territory and state. In such
instances, divided islands become problematic.
And yet, as this book makes clear, they persist. In so doing, they
challenge national leaders and the islands’ inhabitants to question
the ideal of the state as natural and absolute with primal boundaries
between inside and outside. They also challenge islanders to find new
modes of accommodation amidst the community of nations. These,
it turns out, are precisely the challenges that Captain Nemo, with his
complex blend of pacifism, anarchism, nationalism and cosmopoli-
tanism, brings to those he encounters as he roams beneath the seas.
While it is unlikely that the leaders of any of the divided islands pro-
filed in this book view themselves as following in the footsteps (or
the wake) of Captain Nemo, they face a similar challenge: how to
reproduce the legitimacy of statehood and the moral imperative of
nationhood while defying what would appear to be the paradigmatic
example of its central representation – the naturally bounded, insular
territory?
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Agnew, J. 1994. The territorial trap: the geographical assumptions of interna-
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Biersteker, T. and Weber, C. (eds.) 1996. State sovereignty as social construct.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chesneaux, J. 1972. The political and social ideals of Jules Verne. Translated by
T. Wikeley. London: Thames and Hudson.
Clifford, J. 2001. Indigenous articulations. The Contemporary Pacific, 13(2):
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Der Derian, J. and Shapiro, M. (eds.) 1989. International/intertextual relations:
Postmodern readings of world politics. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Fog Olwig, K. 1993. Global culture, island identity: Continuity and change in the
Afro-Caribbean community of Nevis. Philadelphia, PA: Harwood.
Gillis, J. 2004. Islands of the mind: How the human imagination created the Atlantic
world? New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Krasner, S. 1993. Westphalia and all that. In J. Goldstein and R. Keohane (eds.)
Ideas and foreign policy: Beliefs, institutions, and political change. Ithaca, NY:
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Mitchell, T. 1999. State, economy and the state effect. In G. Steinmetz (ed.)
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Ruggie, J. G. 1993. Territoriality and beyond: problematizing modernity in

international relations. International Organization, 47(1): 139–174.
Sahlins, P. 1989. Boundaries. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Seed, P. 1995. Ceremonies of possession in Europe’s conquest of the New World.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Steinberg, P. E. 2001. The social construction of the ocean. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Steinberg, P. E. 2005. Insularity, sovereignty and statehood: the representation
of islands on portolan charts and the construction of the territorial states.
Geografiska Annaler B, 87(4): 253–265.
Verne, J. 1870/1962. Twenty thousand leagues under the sea. Translated by
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Preface and Acknowledgements
To even think about editing a book on such a quirky and specialised

topic as this one requires some insight, and some steely nerves. I owe
much of the inspiration for the project to my colleague and friend
Stephen A. Royle, professor of island geography at Queen’s University
Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was his few paragraphs and a suggestive
map in his excellent 2001 book A Geography of Islands that introduced
me to the world’s divided islands as a potential conceptual category for
the first time, and planted a little seed in my mind. Dr Royle is himself
from a divided island, and he honours us with his fine chapter on the
island of Ireland in this book. His guided tour of the different Republi-
can/Catholic and Protestant/Unionist strongholds in his city of Belfast
was the highlight of my visit there in 2009.
Then there were my visits to the island of Cyprus. One coordinated
by my colleague Dr Klitos Symeonides, a Greek Cypriot who lived in
Kythrea before he had to escape south in the face of advancing Turkish
troops in 1974: a portrait of his house in what he now calls ‘occupied
Cyprus’ hangs in his living room. Another visit following an invitation
to an international conference organised by the Eastern Mediterranean
University in Gazimağusa/Famagusta, and which included a dinner
meeting with long-time Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktaş, a divisive
figure. There were my own attempts to make sense of ‘the Cyprus ques-
tion’ and to offer some suggestions for a possible way forward. Certainly
from the Greek Cypriot perspective, the island was/is not meant to be
divided.
There was also the interesting methodology used to good effect by
Jared Diamond, where he referred to the divided island of Hispaniola
to argue for the manner in which environmental governance and pub-
lic policy decisions can and do lead to completely different resource
management cultures, physical landscapes and economic development
trajectories. The difference between Haiti and the Dominican Republic
is so clear as to be visible in photographs taken from orbiting satel-
lites. I dabbled in a similar methodology – where so many aspects can
be assumed to be constant between the two polities other than that
they belong to, or comprise, different states – in profiling, with Léo Paul
Dana, the contrasting tenor of entrepreneurship in Dutch Sint Maarten
versus French Saint-Martin.
xv
xvi Preface and Acknowledgements
I kept the idea on the proverbial backburner, but would habitually

bring this up in various dialogues and presentations; those cynical about
the seriousness of taking islands as a rigorous conceptual category would
struggle in trying to explain why, in spite of there being literally thou-
sands of inhabited islands in the world, there are so very few of them
that are divided. It was a conversation piece that lent itself to a quiz
question: so, how many of the world’s inhabited islands that are divided
between more than one country can you name? (No one has as yet been
able to name them all to me.) But the subject matter had the potential to
lend itself to something much more sustained. And so, on 20 February
2011, the morning after a public lecture at the University of Tasmania,
Hobart, Australia – I was at that time a visiting professor to its School
of Geography and Environmental Studies while on sabbatical from my
employer, the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada – and after the
matter of divided islands had yet again turned up on one of my slides,
I matter-of-factly told Anna, my wife: I am going to (have to) start a
new book.
I was full of optimism in embarking on this enterprise, comforted by
the knowledge that I had a fairly extensive international network of
island studies scholars. What I had not bargained for was the difficulty
in finding suitable chapter contributors who could critically and sym-
pathetically represent two different points of view (or even three). And
then, even if they could be identified, they had to be willing, they had to
be available and they had to be able to write, and write well, in English.
No wonder that a book on the world’s divided islands had not yet been
written.
Finding a publisher proved almost uneventful, since I targeted
Palgrave Macmillan and its cutting-edge series on International Politi-
cal Economy from the outset as my publisher of choice. I had already
had the privilege of contributing a chapter to another book that has
appeared in this series, and I very much enjoyed the experience and
the quality of the end product. I owe the proverbial mountain of grati-
tude to Tim Shaw, series commissioning editor with Palgrave Macmillan,
for seeing both merit and a goodness of fit in my proposal; from then
on, I was in safe hands, shepherded by my editor Christina Brian,
her administrative support, Amanda McGrath, and project manager
Cherline Daniel.
The sequence of the book chapters presented another challenge: in
what order to lay out the chapters? By island size? By island popula-
tion? By the amount of time each has spent divided? Even a simple
alphabetical order was fraught with controversy, particularly because
Preface and Acknowledgements xvii
some islands have more than one name, and having to choose one over
another might easily offend. I eventually decided to go by geographical
cluster: first, the three cases that involve Indonesia (New Guinea, Borneo
with Sebatik, Timor); then, the three cases drawn from Europe (Ireland,
Cyprus, Usedom/Uznam); and third, the three cases from the American
continent (Hispaniola, St. Martin/Sint Maarten, Tierra del Fuego); keep-
ing for last the very latest (and barely inhabited) island to be divided,
and the only such example from the set that is a river island (Bolshoi
Ussuriiski/Teixihazi). The last case is also particular in the rich details
it provides on the process of partition and ensuing developments to
construct a viable borderscape. I thank Professor Akihiro Iwashita, the
author of this chapter, for the permission to reproduce the map in his
chapter, on page 222. Finally, considering that the division of islands is
a work in progress, I have added a ‘what if?’ taste to the collection by
throwing in for good measure a contribution about what could be the
world’s 11th inhabited divided island after 2014: none less than Great
Britain, courtesy of Ray Burnett.
I also wish to thank Ronald J. May and Stephen A. Royle for critically
commenting on an earlier draft of the editorial introduction to this text,
Tozun Bahcheli for reviewing the Cyprus chapter, and JoDee Samuelson
for lending me her Popeye comic strip publication. Of course, the usual
disclaimers apply.
The map of the world, showing the general location of each
case and its basic geographical details, has been kindly prepared by
Maura Pringle, formerly at the School of Geography, Archaeology and
Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, United
Kingdom.
Acronyms
AD Anno Domini
ADB Asian Development Bank
ANGAU Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit
APODETI Associação Popular Democrática Timorense
ASEAN Association of South East Asian Nations
BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
BDA Border Development Authority
BdV Bund der Vertriebenen
CARIFORUM The Caribbean Forum
CBA Criminaliteitsbeeldanalyse
CESFRONT Cuerpo Especializado de Seguridad Fronteriza Terrestre
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
COM Collectivité d’outre-mer
DAP Dewan Adat Papua
DR Dominican Republic
DR-CAFTA Dominican Republic-Central America United
States Free Trade Agreement
EC European Commission
EOKA Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston
EU European Union
FLNKS Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste
FoE Future of England
FRETILIN Frente Revolucionária do Timor-Leste Independente
FRG Federal Republic of Germany
FTF Frequent Traveller Facility
GB Great Britain
GC Groupe de travail sur la Compétitivité
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GDR German Democratic Republic
GNP Gross National Product
HMS His/Her Majesty’s Ship
HNP Haitian National Police
IADB Inter-American Development Bank
ICG International Crisis Group
xviii
List of Acronyms xix
IFJ International Federation of Journalists

IHSI Institut Haïtien de Statistique et d’Informatique
IMF International Monetary Fund
INTERREG Innovation and Environment: Regions of Europe
Sharing Solutions
IOM International Organisation for Migration
IPE International Political Economy
IPPR Institute for Public Policy Research
IRA Irish Republican Army
LME Liberal Market Economy
LNG Liquefied Natural Gas
LPG Liquefied Petroleum Gas
MINUSTAH United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
MP Member of Parliament
MRP Majelis Rakyat Papua
MSG Melanesian Spearhead Group
NAQIA National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection
Authority
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
NPD Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands
OAS Organization of American States
OLIPPAC Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and
Candidates
OPM Organisasi Papua Merdeka
OTSUS Otonomi Khusus
PHARE Poland and Hungary: Assistance for Restructuring their
Economies
PICTA Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement
PLB Pas Lintas Batas
PMV Private Motor Vehicle
PNG Papua New Guinea
PNGDF Papua New Guinea Defence Force
PRC People’s Republic of China
RDTL República Democrática de Timor-Leste
RoC Republic of Cyprus
SABL Special Agriculture and Business Lease
SBA Sovereign Base Area
SCIS Scottish Centre for Island Studies
SNP Scottish National Party
TKI Tenaga Kerja Indonesia
xx List of Acronyms
TMT Türk Mukavement Teşkilatı

TNI Tendrasa Nasional Indonesia
TRNC Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
UBB Usedomer Bäderbahn
UDI Unilateral Declaration of Independence
UDT União Democrática Timorense
UK United Kingdom
UN United Nations
UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UN-ECLA United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organisation
UNFICYP United Nations Force in Cyprus
UNHCR United Nations High Commission for Refugees
UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
UNSG UN Secretary-General
UNTEA United Nations Temporary Executive Authority
UP4B Unit Percepatan Pembangunan Papua dan Papua Barat
US United States
USA United States of America
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
UVF Ulster Volunteer Force
VOC Veerenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
VoC Varieties of Capitalism
WHO World Health Organisation
WSP West Sepik Province
Contributors
Godfrey Baldacchino is Canada Research Chair (Island Studies) at

the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada; Visiting Professor of
Sociology at the University of Malta, Malta; and Executive Editor of
Island Studies Journal. His recent publications include A World of Islands:
An Island Studies Reader (2007), The Case for Non-Sovereignty (edited with
David Milne, 2009) and Island Enclaves: Offshoring, Creative Governance
and Subnational Island Jurisdictions (2010).
Ray Burnett is Honorary Research Fellow at the Scottish Centre for

Island Studies, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, Scotland;
Director of the Dicuil Institute of Island Studies, Isle of Benbecula,
Western Isles, Scotland; and an Executive Council member of the
International Small Islands Studies Association. He has been an active
contributor to Scottish island and national political and cultural affairs
for many years.
Steven Hillebrink is a legal officer at the Directorate for Constitutional

Affairs and Legislation of the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and King-
dom Relations in The Hague, the Netherlands. His recent publications
include The Right to Self-Determination and Post-Colonial Governance: The
Case of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba (2008).
Akihiro Iwashita is Professor of the Slavic Research Center (SRC),

Hokkaido University, Japan. He specialises in Eurasia border studies and
foreign policies. He has directed research on the Russia–China border
issue as a member of an international relations research group, part of
an SRC priority research project. He is undertaking a large-scale project
analysing Russian foreign policy from the perspective of Asian interna-
tional relations. His publications include A 4,000 Kilometre Journey along
the Sino-Russian Border (2004) and Eager Eyes Fixed on Eurasia: Russia and
its Eastern Edge (2007).
Maciej Jedrusik
˛ is Professor of Earth Sciences, Head of Department of
Geography of Africa, Asia and Oceania at the Faculty of Geography
xxi
xxii Notes on Contributors
and Regional Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland; and Editor-in-Chief

of Miscellanea Geographica – Regional Studies on Development. His recent
publications (in Polish) include Wyspy tropikalne. W poszukiwaniu
dobrobytu (2005) [Tropical Islands: Looking for Welfare] and Geografia
turystyczna świata. Nowe trendy. Regiony turystyczne [Tourist Geography of
the World: New Trends. Tourist Regions] (with F. Plit and J. Makowski,
2010).
Patrick Matbob is Lecturer in Journalism at Divine Word University

in Madang, Papua New Guinea. He teaches applied journalism and
research methods and supervises research projects. He is an experienced
journalist and currently writes for the Island Business magazine. He has
a master’s degree in Journalism Studies from Cardiff University, Wales.
He researches media, communication, politics and governance issues in
Papua New Guinea.
Ronald J. May is an emeritus fellow of the Australian National Uni-

versity, attached to the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia
Program. He was formerly Director of what is now the National Research
Institute in Papua New Guinea. He has published extensively on Papua
New Guinea, West Papua and the Philippines.
Evangelia Papoutsaki is Associate Professor at the Department of

Communication Studies, UNITEC, New Zealand; Research Associate
at the Pacific Media Centre, AUT University, New Zealand; Reviews
Editor for the Pacific Journalism Review and Editor of UNITEC ePress.
She was previously Head of the Communication Arts Department at
Divine Word University, Madang, Papua New Guinea. Her scholarly
publications include Media, Information and Development in Papua New
Guinea (edited with Dick Rooney, 2006), South Pacific Islands Com-
munication: Regional Perspectives, Local Issues (edited with Usha Harris,
2008) and Communication, Culture and Society in Papua New Guinea:
Yu Tok Wanem? (edited with Michael McManus and Patrick Matbob,
2011).
Marie Redon is a geographer and Assistant Professor at the University

of Paris 13-Nord, France, member of the research cluster Spaces, Societies,
Cultures (CRESC) and focal point for a research organisation on the dis-
semination of geographical information (PRODIG). She is the author of
Des îles en partage: Haïti & République Dominicaine, Saint-Martin, Timor
Notes on Contributors xxiii
(2010), based on her PhD research on these islands that are divided by a
political border.
Stephen A. Royle is Professor of Island Geography at Queen’s Univer-

sity Belfast in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, where he has taught
since 1976. He is a Deputy Editor of Island Studies Journal and Treasurer
of the International Small Islands Studies Association. He has written
A Geography of Islands (2001) and books on St Helena, The Company’s
Island (2007) and Vancouver Island, Company, Crown and Colony (2011).
He is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Anthony Soares is Co-Director of Queen’s Postcolonial Research Forum,

and Lecturer in Portuguese Studies at Queen’s University Belfast, North-
ern Ireland, United Kingdom. His recent publications include Islanded
Identities: Constructions of Postcolonial Cultural Insularity (edited with
Maeve McCusker, 2011) and Towards a Portuguese Postcolonialism (2006).
Ahmet Sözen is Professor of International Relations and Chair of the

Department of International Relations at Eastern Mediterranean Uni-
versity, North Cyprus. He is the Founding Director of Cyprus Policy
Centre (a political think tank) and the Turkish Cypriot Co-Director
of the UNDP-funded programme Cyprus 2015, which operates under
Interpeace. Sözen has published extensively on the Cyprus conflict and
Turkish foreign policy. He has also been very active on the policy and
advocacy fronts.
Philip E. Steinberg is Professor of Geography at Florida State Univer-

sity and Marie Curie International Incoming Fellow at Royal Holloway,
University of London, UK. His publications focus on the governance of
spaces that challenge accepted notions and institutions of territoriality
and sovereignty. They include The Social Construction of the Ocean (2001),
Managing the Infosphere: Governance, Technology, and Cultural Practice in
Motion (2008) and What Is a City? Rethinking the Urban after Hurricane
Katrina (2008).
Taufiq Tanasaldy is Lecturer in Indonesian and Asian Studies at the Uni-

versity of Tasmania, Australia. His main research interests are in identity
politics, communal conflict, regionalism, overseas Chinese and contem-
porary politics in Indonesia. He is the author of Regime Change and Ethnic
Politics in Indonesia: Dayak Politics of West Kalimantan (2012).
xxiv Notes on Contributors
Peter van Aert is a Dutch anthropologist residing in Argentina since

2005. He is Director of the Institute of Culture, Society and State of the
newly founded National University of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. He
is a PhD candidate at the National University of Quilmes, Argentina,
researching the social sustainability of Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego.
Stewart Williams is Lecturer in Human Geography at the University

of Tasmania, Australia. His academic work has appeared in such
peer-reviewed journals as Australian Geographical Studies, Geographical
Research, Island Studies Journal, Social Forces, Environment and Planning
D: Society and Space, Housing Studies, Local Global: Identity, Security,
Community and the International Journal of Housing Policy.
Map P.1 The World’s Only Inhabited Divided Islands: Names and Locations
1
Only Ten: Islands as Uncomfortable
Fragmented Polities
Godfrey Baldacchino
The setting
The existence of multiple jurisdictions on distinct continental spaces

raises no eyebrows. There are 54 countries in Africa, 50 countries in
Europe, 44 in Asia, 23 in North and Central America and 12 in South
America. Nor do we habitually consider Africa, North America or South
America (let alone Eurasia) as islands, even though – since the carving
of the Suez and Panama canals – they would each qualify as pieces of
land surrounded by water. Perhaps that is because a continent is often
deemed too large to be considered an island. But there is another tru-
ism to be considered: that an island deserves a unitary polity. Islands
are such special places that they should only be run by, and as, a sin-
gle administration. How else could one explain Australia, not exactly a
small territory, being called an island continent? If Australia is success-
fully conceptualised as an island – apart from being a continent – this
may result not so much by virtue of its size – which is considerable, since
it is almost as large as Europe – but by virtue of the fact that it has been,
since January 1901, a single country (McMahon 2010).
It is true that there are various practical and logical conveniences in
having an island administered as a single political unit. Discrete pieces
of land separated by stretches of water from mainlands are difficult
to administer from afar, by ‘remote control’, without a modicum of
local administration. There is therefore a logistical tendency and pref-
erence for an island to be self-administered, especially if distant from its
metropolitan power (Peckham 2003: 503). But, there also seems to be
some difficulty – conceptual, political, emotional, imaginary and sym-
bolic – with accommodating more than one sovereign state on the same
island space.
1
2 Only Ten: Islands as Uncomfortable Fragmented Polities
Even the hugely popular cartoon fictional character Popeye the Sailor
Man finds himself embroiled on a divided island. In ‘Chapter III: The
Great Rough-House War’, Popeye is unwittingly recruited on behalf of
King Blozo and the Nazilian Army to lead the fight against ‘the cow-
ardly Tonsylanians’ led by King Gargileo (Segar 1931/2007: 32). The
‘great war’ is unfolding on the Addynoid Islands, and the map shows a
bare, oval-shaped Pacific island neatly divided by a straight line between
the two warring kingdoms (ibid.). The subject matter is clearly humor-
ous – all the names are contrived from the human nose and mouth
region – but there is apparently, even in the world of cartoon strips, no
better or more poignant way to dramatise a division than by having two
warring factions living cheek by jowl on the same, small piece of land
in the middle of a vast ocean. The dispute is suggested to be a petty
affair, and its unfolding on the same small and remote island adds to its
overall insignificance. Jonathan Swift might have done even better to
emulate this example and locate Lemuel Gulliver’s adventures in Lilliput
and Blefuscu on the same island, rather than have two distinct warring
island kingdoms, separated by an 800-yard channel (Swift 1726: part I).
There are many islands and archipelagos in the material world, and
in some cases they are subject to the competing claims of various
regional powers. Consider Mayotte in the Indian Ocean (contested
between France and the Comoros); Hans Island/Tartupaluk in the Nares
Strait (claimed by both Canada and Greenland/Denmark); Iturup and
Kunashir Islands, in the Kurile Group (occupied by Russia but claimed
by Japan); and Dokdo/Takeshima (claimed by both Japan and South
Korea); and the 250-or-so islands in the South China Sea, including the
Spratly Islands, for which claims have been submitted by no less than
six countries. However, what is striking here is that, in all these and
other cases, the submitted claims for sovereignty are usually to whole
islands, not to parts thereof. ‘In fact, only very rarely are islands divided
between nation states’ (Royle 2001: 150). There are today only ten inhab-
ited islands whose territory is divided amongst two or more countries.
(Or 11, if one adds Sebatik Island, alongside Borneo.)
Islands as absolute spaces
But an island is a naturally closed entity. Its shoreline is the bound-

ary of the bubble separating it from the rest of the world. And then
impose a human-made barrier on an island? What is the meaning of
isolation – a word derived, in fact, from the Latin for ‘island’ – if you
have to share it with someone else?
(Jacobs 2012)
Godfrey Baldacchino 3
Islands, like the maps that frame them, present themselves as abso-
lute spaces. They are easily imaginable wholes; they are not arbitrary
(Jepson 2006: 158). Being geographically defined, and often imagined
as circular, an island is easier to hold, to own, to manage or to manip-
ulate, to embrace and to caress. Is this part of the reason why so
many islands are self-contained jurisdictions? Just as much as anyone
finding oneself on, or close to, an island finds early on a craving to
circumnavigate, circumambulate or climb its highest point and ‘take
it all in’ (e.g. Baum 1993: 21, Redfield 2000). A drawn island thus
tends to fit quite nicely onto a sheet of paper. Is it their bounded-
ness and separation that make islands so attractive to fantasy and
mythology? Their beguilingly simple form – often perceived to approx-
imate a circle, that perfect shape – makes the exercise easier, as well
as somehow more perfect (Baldacchino 2005a). Utopia, Thomas More’s
perfect commonwealth, had to be located on a befittingly ‘just right’
island space: it was enisled, cut away from its original peninsula (More
1516).
The reference to Utopia, and its deliberate islanding, reminds us that
islands are also sites for thinking about how to govern; about chang-
ing understandings of territory, security and sovereignty (Baldacchino
2010). Islands represent quintessential platforms for nation states: they
are delineated spaces and discrete bounded territories that are at once
knowable and, because of their consolidated, readily defensible form,
also function as ideal embodiments of the state’s relationship to the
nation (Peckham 2003: 503). Such a finite and self-evident island geog-
raphy smoothens the nurturing of a sense of identity that is contiguous
with territory (Anckar 2005, Baldacchino 2005b, Srebrnik 2004). Per-
haps this condition is one strong explanation for the existence of such
few islands in the world today that are divided between more than one
country. The political map of the world ushered in after the Treaties
of Westphalia (1648) abhors divided islands: countries, and nations, on
continents may be carved up by politicians in various ways, and often
driven by expediency or compromise; but countries on islands are fash-
ioned by God and/or Nature, and are not – or should not – as easily to
be tampered with. To reach such a conclusion is to fall into the ‘terri-
torial trap’: uncritically accepting the notion of territory as embedded
in modernist ideas about the state as a fixed unit of sovereign, material
space (Agnew 1994).
The elimination of divided islands in recent centuries has indeed pro-
ceeded hand in hand with the march of the richly imagined nation state
as the default jurisdiction of choice. Prior to the age of the nation state,
islands have often been divided: islands such as Sicily (now part of Italy)
and Euboea (now part of Greece) were long divided amongst several city
states; Tasmania (now part of Australia) was divided between various
indigenous tribes prior to European colonisation; mainland Australia
itself was effectively run as a series of separate colonies before 1901.
Islands such as Corsica (now part of France), Efate (Vanuatu), Elba
(Italy), Long Island (New York, USA), Newfoundland (Canada), Sakhalin
(Russia), Sardinia (Italy), St Kitts (St Kitts-Nevis), Ternate (Indonesia) and
Tobago (Trinidad and Tobago) may now each be territories of single
countries, but they have all spent periods of their history as divided
places. Until as late as 2008, Sri Lanka was a de facto divided jurisdic-
tion, with the separatist Tamil Eelam coexisting with the official state.
Mindanao, in the Philippines, remains in a similar predicament, with a
well-entrenched separatist Muslim movement – the Moro Islamic Lib-
eration Front – in control of a significant part of the island. Perhaps
the best-known example of a long-divided island that became a single
sovereign state in 1707 via ‘Acts of Union’ is Britain: a union, however,
whose days may be numbered if Scotland votes ‘yes’ in an independence
referendum due in 2014.
That the status of divided islands is problematic or uncomfortable is
also evidenced by the tensions that have historically existed between
many of those states that find themselves sharing the same island space.
Most of the divided islands showcased in this collection spent some
time as a single political entity, even if (as in the case of Borneo and
Timor) for a few years as Japanese-occupied territories during the Sec-
ond World War. In other cases – Bolshoi Ussuriiski/Heixiazi, Cyprus,
Hispaniola/Quesqueya, Ireland, Tierra del Fuego, Usedom/Uznam and
again Timor – one or more of the concerned powers, or constituent
organisations thereof, would have coveted (or even controlled, for some
time) the whole island, and would typically have tried to either pre-
vent or undo its division, arguing that unification offered a ‘better’
and a more ‘natural’ status. And, in most cases, nationalism and pol-
itics apart, there are today serious attempts at crafting transnational
economic zones of cooperation from which both sides seek to benefit,
even if just to reduce dangerously high border tensions. Indeed, divided
islands often have a sui generis trans-border political economy, which is
what much of this book is about.
Islands and idiosyncratic governance practices
Recent history continues to throw up examples of political exceptional-

ism, and islands are very well represented.
The uninhabited island continent of Antarctica is one such place:

geography and serendipity have delivered it to the modern world in a
shape that has somehow reconciled the traditional states-based rivalry
over rights and duties on an entire continent, where a few claimed
territorial prerogatives, others denied these in principle or detail, and
most of the globe was denied standing at all. Its 20th-century model of
governance – the Antarctic Treaty System – remains idiosyncratic; what
is more worrying is that it is becoming fragile as states become even
more aggressive in extending their territorial rights in search of lucrative
mineral deposits (Hemmings et al. 2012).
From the 17th through the late 19th centuries, Svalbard (also known
as Spitzbergen), in the Arctic Circle, hosted only seasonal habitation
by European and Russian whalers. In 1906, the American-owned Arc-
tic Coal Company founded the first permanent settlement, the town
of Longyearbyen, which was soon sold to Norway’s Store Norske coal
company. This permanent Norwegian presence was, perhaps, a fate-
ful circumstance: the Spitsbergen Treaty, signed following the First
World War, granted Norway sovereignty over the islands; nevertheless,
the treaty’s other signatory states could undertake economic (mainly
mining) activities on the islands, and the territory was partially demil-
itarised. Thus, for most of the 20th century, human settlement in the
Svalbard archipelago primarily took the form of coal mining company
towns operated by Norway and USSR/Russia. Today, Longyearbyen is
a multinational town, featuring a fledgling local democracy that at
times clashes with the archipelago-wide jurisdiction exercised by the
Norwegian-appointed governor (Grydehøj et al. 2012).
Until 1975 part of the four-island French Overseas Territory of the
Comoros, Mayotte voted to remain French, thanks largely to manoeu-
vres by the Paris government, while the other three islands declared
independence unilaterally, but on behalf of all four (Newitt 1984). The
UN accepted the new state as consisting of all four islands. Since then
the dispute has dragged on. The Comoros has meanwhile been battling
internal secessionist tendencies and opted for a federal structure to try
and assuage these. In 2011, Mayotte became a French overseas region-
department (and the only one with a significantly Muslim population);
it will probably become an EU Overseas Region in 2014. France justifies
and seeks to build legitimacy for its continued ‘occupation’ of Mayotte
by writing a historical narrative which detaches Mayotte from the other
islands (Muller 2012).
Tuvalu (formerly Ellice Islands) had the unique experience of sep-
arating from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands by agreement before
independence. As the British colonial administrators introduced rep-

resentative institutions from the 1970s, tensions developed between
Micronesian Gilbertese, resenting disproportionate Ellice success in the
civil service, and the Polynesian Ellice Islanders sensing their perma-
nent minority status in the legislature. After a thorough report in 1973
and a referendum in 1974, British officials still doubted whether a
separate country of 9,000 would be viable, but they feared unilateral
secession. Separation followed in October 1975 and the former eight
inhabited islands of the Ellice Group achieved independence as the state
of Tuvalu – which means ‘eight standing together’ – in October 1978
(McIntyre 2012). The lingering secessionist tendencies of even small
archipelago states and territories – think of Anguilla, Aruba, Nevis and
the Netherlands Antilles – are often referred to as ‘the Tuvalu effect’.
But perhaps the best-known and most notorious case of all concerns
Guantánamo: the United States continues to detain suspected terrorists
and enemy combatants in ‘legal limbo’ on its sprawling 115 km2 island
base at Guantánamo Bay, an enclave on the island of Cuba, granted
in perpetual lease to the US under the 1903 Cuban–American Treaty
(Supreme Court of the United States 2004). In choosing a place that is
physically outside the nation itself, the US administration has kept var-
ious arrested persons ‘abroad in a cynical attempt to delocalise liability
on the use of torture’ (Bigo 2007: 19). Guantánamo Bay has effectively
been crafted as a ‘juridical limbo’, a ‘zone of indetermination’, a ‘care-
fully constructed legal absence’ and a field of experimentation because
it is a threshold where the border between inside and outside is uncer-
tain (Bigo 2007: 17–18, Butler 2002, Fletcher 2004, Reid-Henry 2007:
630). Guantánamo has become ‘an ambiguous space both inside and
outside different legal systems’ (Kaplan 2005: 833). This situation recalls
that of refugees (mainly from Haiti, but also from Cuba itself) held at
Guantánamo Bay in the 1980s and early 1990s: they were denied any
rights to appeal for asylum on the grounds that they were in a ‘law-
less enclave’ outside US jurisdiction (Kaplan 2005: 839, McBride 1999).
In spite of promises by the US Obama administration to close it down,
Guantánamo Bay persists as a ‘legal black hole’ (Lopez 2010).
This collection
This edited collection is the first ever focused study of the intriguing and
unique political economy of these rare, shared island spaces. It examines
the fascination, and obsession, with islands as unitary geographies and
polities, and explores the tensions in contemporary ‘divided islands’ –
as in the case of formal and informal, legal and illegal ‘border cross-
ings’ and practices – from both an ‘island studies’ and an ‘international
relations’ perspective. It also offers comparative insights that can be con-
sidered by scholars of other divided but non-island territories, such as
Palestine, Korea and Somalia.
This collective work provides an interesting twist to the post-colonial
experience. Admittedly, ‘[i]sland stories have tended to slip the net of
postcolonial theorising’ (Edmond and Smith 2003: 5). But, even within
islands, the stories of these ten are even more exceptional. Some of the
largest of these – New Guinea, Borneo and Hispaniola, but also Timor –
were long fragmented into separate kingdoms or tribal chiefdoms before
the onset of Western colonialism. In their case, it was the lingering
presence of more than one colonial power that eventually led to a reduc-
tion of polities to the current two-way division (and the three-way split
for Borneo). But, in most cases ‘[w]hat becomes clear . . . is that each
of [the world’s divided islands] became divided after interference from
the outside, be this colonialism, migration, or invasion – sometimes
all three’ (Royle 2001: 152). The territories involved – with the excep-
tion of French St. Martin/Dutch Sint Maarten, each of which remains
totally disinterested in independence – have had not just to contend
with a transition to full sovereignty as, or as parts of, decolonising
states, but to warily watch over their shoulders at their neighbour’s own
transformation and its territorial and nation-building designs. There are
many cases of violence (and even more threats thereof) that have pre-
ceded, accompanied and followed the islands’ divisions. But there are
also many examples of ‘trade’ – from fruit and vegetables to manu-
factures; from smuggling of immigrants to tourism – that may operate
through official border posts and protocols, and that may not. And there
is the role and influence of ‘third parties’: supranational bodies like the
European Union, regional powers like the US and Australia, neighbour-
ing states and multinational corporations who may have an eye on
lucrative mineral deposits – copper, gas, gold, oil – on land or in the
sea and smaller ‘stateless nations’, with independence-leaning political
parties waiting and watching closely to see how to advance their own
claims to sovereignty (Baldacchino and Hepburn 2013).
Border matters
Borders reflect humanity’s need for obstacles, for a line in the sand
between Them and Us.
Jacobs (2011)
An island’s boundary – where it meets the sea – is self-evident and

non-negotiable. In contrast, a land boundary, almost by definition, is
contestable: it can be changed, shifted to suit, reflecting power politics,
the outcome of victor and vanquished in warfare or negotiated com-
promise. And then there are the ten inhabited islands where both these
dynamics pan out.
This collection is also a study of the flexibility of borders. While always
being at the edge, borders are powerful symbols of the reach of the state
and its territorial powers. Theirs is a symbolism that inculcates a sense of
identity as much as of alterity; of security as much as of threat. Borders
keep people in as much as they keep people out. Whether one is deal-
ing with the deliberately invisible border on St. Martin/Sint Maarten,
the completely fenced and UN-patrolled Green Line on Cyprus or the
exclave of Oecusse in Timor, the world’s divided islands must contend
with a specific political economy, a space of transition which can only
partly be regulated, but whose reality and representation of the Other
is an important and unavoidable constituent of the national psyche.
There are clear, often explicit relationships between a state’s material
indivisibility and discourses of national identity, to the extent that the
portrayal of the national territory is often done at the expense of the
island’s comprehensive geography. Of course, this is habitually done
by all states, but does it not look especially contrived when the rest
of an island space simply goes missing from the political map? One
wonders how the tensions between any unitary island imagination and
the stark symbols of its violation – by such statist artefacts as flags,
borders, checkpoints and currencies – are habitually represented, pro-
jected and constructed beyond cartography: as in literature, art, song
and music.
But then, and to the chagrin of their guardians, borders always
leak. In spite of the necessity of bordering, there are always consider-
able temptations and incentives to cross the border. Where erstwhile
national divisions may have resulted from colonialism and state build-
ing, locals may navigate across borders almost with the same impunity
and inconsequentiality of their forebears: properties, fields, hunting
grounds, their very relatives may be found in what are today dif-
ferent countries. Spoken languages trickle over state frontiers. There
are opportunities for trade and commerce that arise from compara-
tive and competitive advantage, and are not to be missed: thriving
markets of all kinds can be found in many border regions, offering bar-
gains not readily available locally. It is not just products, services and
finance that are mobile, but people shuttle across boundaries for work,
education or tourism; they look for bargains, asylum or just adventure.

The more porous a boundary, the greater and keener the human traffic
across.
Layout
This book should prove to be of interest to scholars of political geog-
raphy, world history, comparative politics, international political econ-
omy, governance, international relations, island studies, as well as peace
and conflict studies. This is, after all, a unique and thorough collection
of a fairly idiosyncratic group of jurisdictions.
Reflective of the nature of the topic, its organisation is also twofold.
First is an introductory section. This includes a pithy foreword (by Philip
E. Steinberg), which alerts us to some crucial differences between islands
and continents; next comes this editorial overview, followed by a syn-
thetic thinkpiece (by Stewart Williams) that looks at the subject matter
from a more theoretical angle. It presents a double problematique of
politically divided islands. First, because this class of territories does not
fit a still dominant disposition to simplify island spaces and their phe-
nomena often in stark binary terms, as glocal spaces perched between
closure and openness, interiority and exteriority, singular fixity and dias-
poric multiplicity. Second, because the state – the basic unit of analysis
in political science – does not fit in its conflation with the nation, and
less so in these challenging divided polities, requiring in turn an accom-
modation to new interpretations and manifestations of sovereignty and
identity. In both these tensions, there is a critical role for a trans-border,
and effectively inter-national, political economy, where boundaries mat-
ter for their (re)inscription and social construction as much as for their
erasure.
Content review
The second, and most substantial, section of this book presents a crit-
ical exposé of each of today’s ten divided inhabited islands. (There
are various other uninhabited, and very small, divided islands (Jacobs
2012) and their division is often accidental: they include Märket
island, which means, quite aptly, ‘the mark’, a skerry shared between
Sweden and Finland.) Here is a critical exploration of the nature of
borders, competing claims for full sovereignty, transition to accom-
modation and settlement, the political economy of trade, migration
and co-habitation, typically within a largely descriptive historical
framework.
A review of three divided Asian islands comes first. We should not

be surprised that the common denominator in all three is the world’s
largest, exclusively archipelagic state, Indonesia. State formation in this
country may be said to have begun during the Second World War, when
the territory was occupied by the Japanese, who ended Dutch colo-
nial rule in 1942. But Dutch imperialism in Southeast Asia had been
shared begrudgingly for decades with other European powers, partic-
ularly the British and the Portuguese. Where such powers ended up
sharing islands, permanent political borders have been drawn up, and
not always with the full cooperation of those concerned.
We begin with New Guinea, the world’s second largest island (after
Greenland), currently divided between the independent state of Papua
New Guinea and the Indonesian territory of West Papua. The chapter
co-authored by Ron May, Evangelia Papoutsaki and Patrick Matbob
explores the ambiguous relationship between these two ‘brothers’.
It diligently reviews the island’s colonial history context and the role
of the main colonial powers that led to the island’s division, along with
the post-colonial and cold war legacies that sealed the fate of the island
as a divided one. The second part deals with the current geopolitical sit-
uation that involves the interests of Indonesia, PNG and, increasingly,
Australia. Evidence is presented using both a comparative historical
overview as well as an ethnographic, richly descriptive account of bor-
der events. There is a rich trans-border political economy in place; one
that includes various forms of human displacement.
Borneo (and including much smaller Sebatik Island alongside), the
world’s third largest island, is today split into three separate politi-
cal jurisdictions. In his contribution, Taufiq Tanasaldy examines the
governance of the island prior to the arrival of European colonisers,
the bordering that accompanied the construction of the post-colonial
developing states of Indonesia and Malaysia (and resource-rich Brunei
deciding to go its own way) and the regional problems and their impacts
on the partition of the island in the post-independence period. This
chapter looks at the range and extent of cross-border dynamics and
exchange, and their relationship to the nation-building pursuits driven
by Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta.
The withdrawal of Indonesia from Timor-Leste in 1999 and the inter-
national recognition of East Timor’s independence in 2002 mark the
recent acceptance of the (recent) division of the island of Timor into
two halves: the eastern half – but also including the exclave of Oecusse –
forming the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, and the western half
forming part of the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara. The
chapter by Anthony Soares charts the formation of the border divid-

ing this island, arising initially from territorial disputes over Timor – the
world’s 44th largest island – between the Dutch and the Portuguese colo-
nial powers, and then from East Timorese resistance to the eastern half’s
integration into the Republic of Indonesia. It also considers the border’s
porosity in terms of contemporary two-way population movements, as
well as its strategic use by the governments on both sides in moving
individuals out of the jurisdiction where they stand accused of seri-
ous crimes. Given its occasional fragility, for many within Timor-Leste
the border between east and west has not brought an end to colonial
history.
While European powers were contributing to island divisions across
the globe, the drama of division was unfolding in Europe as well.
Ireland, as Stephen Royle argues in his contribution, has long been
caught up in the grip of that dominant island to its east, Great Britain.
The Anglo-Normans invaded in 1169; in the 17th century, locals were
cleared to make way for British settlers. Resistance was inevitable; strife
in 1642, and in 1798 especially, shortly after which came the Act of
Union in 1801, which made Ireland – the world’s 20th largest island –
an integral part of the United Kingdom, but was actively resisted, par-
ticularly by Ireland’s majority Catholic population. In those places, as
in Belfast, where the Catholics rubbed up against Protestants, there was
constant conflict and tension between competing groups. Matters came
to a head during the First World War when in 1916 nationalists rebelled
in Dublin (the Easter Rising) when the theoretically United Kingdom
was at war, whilst Ulster Protestants died in their thousands on the
Somme. After the war, division was inevitable; much of the island could
not be held within the UK, whilst in Ulster the Protestant majority areas
could not be forced from it. The eventual boundary ensured that six
ancient contiguous counties in the northeast were retained in the UK,
whilst 26 counties left to form what became the Republic of Ireland.
Partition did not solve the political problems; there was bloodshed and
violence, most horribly during ‘The Troubles’ from the 1960s to 1990s.
Since then, there has been an uneasy peace and a power-sharing gov-
ernment in Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, there has also been a steady
stream of cross-border transactions, legal and otherwise, as citizens on
either side seek to exploit the comparative advantages of two markets,
as well as to minimise the damage from excessive exposure to their
weaknesses.
‘Today, [post-Troubles] one probably does not notice the border has
been crossed until observing that the road signage has changed’, writes
Royle about Ireland. The border in place in Cyprus, in contrast, is a

very visible one. As Ahmet Sözen reminds us in his chapter, the conflict
on this Eastern Mediterranean island – the 81st largest in the world –
has been on the UN’s agenda for more than five decades. After the
collapse of the 1960 Republic of Cyprus as a partnership between the
island’s two communities (Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots), efforts
to reach a solution have proved elusive. More so after the military inter-
vention/invasion and subsequent occupation of Northern Cyprus by
Turkey in June 1974, which institutionalised the border and its buffer
zone. Things have improved since the opening of the border in 2003,
but the main form of cross-border ‘trade’ remains the movement of
day trippers, plus some Turkish Cypriots working in the Greek Cypriot
economy. We are also reminded that 3 per cent of Cypriot territory was
excised as two British Sovereign Base areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia in
the run-up to the independence of Cyprus from Britain in 1960. This is
the world’s most complex island division.
Not all divided islands trace their histories to colonialism. The polit-
ical division of the island of Usedom (in German) and Uznam (in
Polish) – for centuries a wholly German island – ensued from the
1945 Yalta Conference and included Poland’s annexation of Szczecin,
whose economy was closely linked with the functioning of Świnoujście
(Swinemünde), the city located at the eastern end of Usedom. In Poland,
the territory was regarded as a part of the Regained Lands and a war tro-
phy compensating for the loss of Polish eastern territories to the Soviet
Union. The Germans, on the other hand, found it difficult to accept the
loss of the territory and the resettlement of its German population. Nev-
ertheless, the division was recognised first by various bilateral treaties,
and finally by Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004, as
well as the abolition of border controls in 2007 (Poland’s accession to
Schengen Area). The result – a fast-paced economic, cultural and polit-
ical unification of both parts of the island – is critically described in
the chapter by Maciej J˛edrusik. Today, it is almost impossible to regard
Usedom/Uznam as a divided territory.
We head out next to the Caribbean, and the world’s only island shared
by the full territories of two sovereign states. A large Caribbean island –
22nd largest in the world – is shared by two sovereign states: Haiti and
the Dominican Republic (DR). It is known by at least three different
names: Hispaniola, Saint-Domingue or Quisqueya. This ambiguity of
nomenclature, as Marie Redon reminds us in her piece, is redolent of
a fractured insularity, reinforced by the stark economic, social and cul-
tural differences that pertain to the two countries that share this island,
separated – and united – by a 300-km border. The island is split asun-

der by this historically forged space: a border, a frontier, an interface,
a transit zone for goods, workers and migrants. Even the landscape
looks different on either side. With long years as a plantation economy
driven by slave labour on the west and an extensive livestock indus-
try with grazing pastures on the east, distinct socio-economic systems
have developed in parallel. These have, in turn, impacted upon not
just the histories but even the characterisations and the bilateral rela-
tions of the two neighbouring states and their peoples. Even though an
international frontier suggests a pause and break to mobility, the Haiti–
DR border plays a significant role in facilitating the construction of a
hybrid, pan-island culture: whether it deals with transnational alliances
carved through marriage, or Haitian labour conscripted to work in the
DR economy.
As for the much smaller Sint Maartin/St. Martin, its history of
division dates from the Treaty of Concordia (1648). In his chapter,
Steven Hillebrink traces the division of this Caribbean island between
the French and the Dutch, up to the recent completion of constitu-
tional reforms on both sides. A long history of multiple jurisdictions
has affected the culture, economy and other aspects of life on this
island. On the one hand, Sint Maartin/St. Martin serves as an exam-
ple of how one island can be administered by many governments
(France, Guadeloupe, EU, Holland, the Netherlands Antilles, along with
the autonomous Sint Maarten and St. Martin governments) with very
few border disputes. Yet, on the other hand, there are (failed) attempts
at nation building (at least on the Dutch side) and a feeling that the
metropolitan governments have contributed to dividing a society which
used to be more united than it is now. Various attempts at coopera-
tion between governments have failed, although a new treaty regulates
a form of shared border control. There has also been of late a strong
and almost simultaneous movement on both sides of the island towards
a separate constitutional status; this new development may affect the
chances of both sides becoming united under a single government in
the future.
We next head south, to Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego – the world’s
29th largest island – at the southern tip of South America, split as the
result of an 1881 boundary treaty that allocated the eastern portion to
Argentina and the remainder to Chile. A dispute over adjacent smaller
islands intensified in the late 1970s into preparation for a conflict that
was fortunately avoided. While some tensions persist, the island is now
the site for profitable mineral extraction, tourism and trout fishing. The
chapter by Peter van Aert addresses the origins of the island’s division in
the context of nation building by both Argentina and Chile, the history
of disputes on the island, the difficulties in the management and pro-
tection of natural heritage in a divided island and the likely pressures
on regional management in forthcoming decades.
We return to Asia, where we have left Bolshoi Ussuriiski (in Russian)
or Heixiazi (in Chinese Mandarin) for last. Along with Tarabarov Island,
this was one of the disputed spaces between Russia and China, and lying
close to the Russian city of Khabarovsk, between the rivers Amur and
Ussuri. Since the Aigun Treaty of 1958 stipulated that the left bank of the
Amur belonged to Russia, possession of the largest islands on the river-
border has been a sore point in Sino-Russian relations. After the Chinese
Eastern Railway incidents in 1929, when Russia expelled Chinese resi-
dents from the island, China has persistently claimed Heixiazi Island as
its own. A Sino-Russian military clash on Damanskii Island in 1969 was
triggered by assertive and uncompromising claims on Heixiazi Island.
China and Russia eventually concluded an agreement in 1991, but the
Sino-Russian ‘deal’ on Heixiazi Island, based on a ‘fifty-fifty’ solution,
was only secured in 2004, and started being implemented after 2008.
In his chapter, Akihiro Iwashita regales us with the fine details of this
division and of its operationalisation, confirming that, indeed, the devil
is in the details.
Meanwhile, what next? An ‘independence referendum’ in Scotland
slated for 2014 shifts the spotlight to the island of Great Britain, the
9th largest island in the world. Notwithstanding its avowed status as
a multinational political formation, the ‘national’ institutions of this
assumed ‘nation’-state tend to present themselves through the mono-
focal prism of the dominant partner as the ‘island race’ of England’s
historical lineage, the ‘sceptred isle’ of patriotically English cultural ref-
erents. At the heart of the notion of ‘Great Britain’ as a unitary island
polity lies the union first (since 1536) of Wales and England and then
(since 1707) of Scotland to that union. The concluding chapter, penned
by Ray Burnett, examines the tensions within the Scotland–England
relationship from a distinctively Scottish and subaltern viewpoint. After
outlining the reasons why the relationship is disintegrating as the ide-
ological unction of ‘Britishness’ thins and evaporates, from Shetland
to Cornwall, it considers the repercussions of ‘break-up’ within and
beyond Scotland for the UK’s other constituent units. Far from abra-
sion and rupture being a prospect of the future, division has always
been an ever-present reality of this creaking island polity, one that has
been ignored or overlooked for far too long (Cartrite 2012). The chapter
concludes that the implications of the Anglo-British imperial project

had profound implications not only for the internal crafting of the
cultural constructs of its own small island periphery, but for the mul-
tiplicity of its island territories across the globe (Matthews and Travers
2012).
Conclusion
In his novel The Stone Raft, Literature Nobel Laureate José Saramago
conjures up a whimsical tale of how one day, inexplicably, the Iberian
Peninsula simply breaks free from the rest of continental Europe, and
starts to draft westwards across the Atlantic. (Gibraltar, meanwhile,
remains rigidly stuck in its place, and becomes an island.) This geophys-
ical oddity is merely the backdrop to Saramago’s story, but it offers us
a few interesting insights relevant to this collection. The Spaniards and
the Portuguese, finding themselves thrust out on the high seas alone
and together, are suddenly looked upon, to their respective dismay, as
Iberians by the rest of the world. What was a peninsula, now an island,
has been reduced ‘to a single country’ (Saramago 1995: 249); and Spain
and Portugal are proposed as the signatories to a ‘joint and complemen-
tary strategy’ (ibid.: 263) to chart their common future. Even in fiction,
and re-echoing Popeye, the pressure is there to dismember international
borders on islands and to chastise them for highlighting and construct-
ing differences rather than commonalities between people, cultures,
customs, labour markets, networks of conviviality, consumption and
exchange. Why at all should there be an international political economy
of divided islands?
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2
Coherent Unity or Fracture
and Flow? The Problematic
Island Polity
Stewart Williams
Introduction
It is exceptional when an island gets rent apart to create two sepa-

rate polities. Yet it does occur. At the time of writing, plans to hold a
long-awaited referendum on Scotland’s secession from the United King-
dom in 2014 have just been announced. The change that could result
from the outcome of such a referendum poses a major disruption to the
island – in this case, Britain – as a basic unit of analysis.
The island polity has, however, always been a doubly difficult prob-
lematic. First, within the multi-disciplinary field of island studies, the
empirical focus is explicitly on islands as well as the attendant notion of
islandness. While islands tend to comprise singularly unique places of
study, they can also offer up some useful generalisations. In particular,
islands represent difference in terms of an otherness, and the ambiguous
and paradoxical nature of islandness is therefore relevant here.
Second is a much more expressly political approach in line with the
understandings and practices of international relations and political
economy, as well as the theorisations of political philosophy and polit-
ical geography. This approach reveals a similarly necessary shift in the
conception as well as in the practice of the relevant notions of territory,
sovereignty and identity. Their manifestation in and as nation states
has been accepted as the distinct and solid foundation for an inter-
nal domestic order on which is based the study of comparative politics.
However, the nation state is today widely seen (rightly or wrongly) to be
on the decline; this development has both presented opportunities and
18
Stewart Williams 19
posed threats in relation to matters of political identity and sovereignty

with their various de- and re-territorialisations.
This chapter first presents insights into how insular and political
entities each comprise particular forms of problem. The next section
then identifies borders or boundaries as a common critical component
that warrants further attention; after all, it is with their use to delin-
eate precisely the island as an internally consistent spatial container –
including that of the nation state or sovereign entity – that problems
arise.
Places of paradox: islands, insularity and islandness
The study of islands and island phenomena has come to be well estab-
lished in its own right as key authors, publications, websites, research
centres, institutions and events are now identified with island studies
(Baldacchino 2004, 2006a). This area of research is easily imagined to be
discreet, with its scope or extent somehow limited, as in and of itself
like an island. However, the reverse is now increasingly the case, as
island studies has blossomed, with an abundance of topics examined
from an array of disciplinary perspectives. Its contributors have vari-
ously discussed the Earth itself as an island or reflected in islands, and
they have linked archipelagos and globalisation in this world of islands,
stepping on and off beaches and crossing bridges in their refusal to be
confined to any one or other island nor to matters specifically insular
(e.g. Baldacchino 2007a).
Such a paradox is typical of islands themselves, which frequently
get explicated in relation to those other islands and mainlands, as
well as oceans and continents, which constitute their outside. This has
been alongside calls for ‘nissology’ as a coherent approach to the study
of islands on their own terms (Hay 2006, McCall 1994). Indeed, the
attraction of islands as specific places of interest tends to valorise a par-
ticularity that gets grounded in otherness. The difference encapsulated
within or on an island and celebrated by islanders is usually in rela-
tion to, and contrasted against, an outside world. It might even only
be noted and remarked on as distinct when encountered or examined
by outsiders, extrapolated beyond there, compared with elsewhere and
made meaningful in other contexts. Islands are thereby seen to comprise
uniquely individual cases that can offer some generalisable lessons and
insights. They are often then made subject to alternating and extreme
interpretations, ranging from utopian paradise to hellish prison, from a
place of progress and novelty to a parochial and stultifying backwater,
20 Coherent Unity or Fracture and Flow? The Problematic Island Polity
in their absolute difference. Yet there is still much variation in-between

too, and which island studies is starting to document and analyse (often
conducted by or with islanders).
An ambiguity also insinuates the notion of ‘islandness’: a term
coined to help describe and manage the many, often contradictory
phenomena associated with islands as objects of study. Through major
scholarly undertakings, the periphery is seen to have returned to the
metropole with a vengeance; those enduring perceptions of islands
(and islanders) as quite simply static, backward, remote or inaccessi-
ble have necessarily changed. The concern that once may have been
fixed on a singular island has now evolved to embrace other islands
in all their fluxing totality (and beyond): it has shifted its focus away
from insularity towards islandness, exuding an interest in globalisa-
tion as well as in isolation, openness as well as closure. Baldacchino
(2006a: 9), for example, thus advocates examining ‘small islands as
somewhat closed (read manageable) systems . . . in order to test and
explore conceptual schemes and specific hypotheses emerging from
academic and policy debates at a mainland, regional or global level’
and ‘looking critically and comparatively at island experiences and
at “pan-island” approaches to similar challenges’. Their usefulness as
heuristic devices informing us about globalisation is explicitly recog-
nised (Clark 2004). Islands are seen as having become special places
expert at leveraging global markets in commodities, such as food and
water produced in environments with a clean, green image (Jay 2007,
Khamis 2010).
Likewise, as indicators of change, islands have always provided a
litmus test in elucidating political developments on a spectrum, rang-
ing from conservative stagnation to radical innovation; they include
tax havens and entrepreneurial enclaves as well as failed states and
economies propped by aid and migrant remittances (Baldacchino
2006b, 2006c, 2006d, 2010, Baldacchino and Milne 2000, Bertram
2006, Stratford 2006, 2008). Elsewhere they are being likened to the
canary in a coal mine when it comes to the world’s currently most
pressing ecological concerns. With climate change, for example, polar
ice melts and sea level rise are already reshaping coasts, waterways,
islands and continents, threatening some islands with their own dis-
appearance and testing their resilience, raising questions around the
issues of environmental refugees, humanitarian aid provision and global
responsibility in the process (Barnett 2006, 2010, Barnett and Campbell
2010, Farbotko 2010a, 2010b, Gerhardt et al. 2010, Vannini et al.
2009).
Stewart Williams 21
Then again, islands have for quite some time been sought out and
valued as particularly good places in which to make observations and
conduct experiments on other phenomena such as sustainable devel-
opment and ecological modernisation (Baldacchino and Milne 2000,
Biagini and Hoyle 1999, Stratford 2003). This claim is all the more valid
if we consider earlier anxieties about the biodiversity, invasion, compe-
tition and extinction of various species, although the lessons continue
to be drawn out for wider use in other times and places, and includ-
ing references to the evolution, colonisation and collapse of human
societies (Diamond 2005, Olson and James 1982, Quammen 1996). Like-
wise, the exploration of possible fixes for flailing island economies has
included forays into sustainable tourism (Briguglio et al. 1996, Lockhart
and Drakakis-Smith 1996).
However, it is with the natural sciences that we see the island ren-
dered in its most familiar form as the hermetically sealed space of a
laboratory. Classic work here includes the development of island bio-
geography and evolutionary theory. For these disciplinary fields, and
such others including archaeological and anthropological studies of spe-
cific peoples and places, islands continue to provide important research
settings and empirics (Baldacchino 2007a). With some islands, smallness
and remoteness, as much as any supposed isolation or insularity, have
been the key factors in creating conditions for the evolution of distinct
species, lost or hidden cultures, remnant populations and environmen-
tal refugia together with all the opportunities and challenges attending
them. Yet they became what they are through previous arrivals from
elsewhere, including via land bridges now long since gone and past mass
migrations.
Scholars who study human migration to/from islands are concerned
with the movements in an island’s population inwards as much as out-
wards (Connell 2010, King 2009, King and Connell 1999). Similarly, it
is the flows of material objects, resources or commodities, money, infor-
mation and ideas as much as people (and again in both directions and at
multiple scales) that are so critical to the socio-cultural, environmental
and political–economic life of an island and especially if it is small or
somehow constrained. Island barriers exist but they can be surmounted
and are always permeable. Alternatively, they can be reinforced even if
only in the mind’s eye rather than, say, economically, legally or physi-
cally. In fact, islands are often as much imaginary as real (Deleuze 2004,
Edmond and Smith 2003, Gillis 2004, Williams 2012). They therefore
continue to provide not only laboratory settings as traditionally con-
ceived but also, and most recently, for hi-tech industries such as genetics
research and pharmaceuticals production that need closure, secrecy and

security while still being well networked with other places around the
world (Greenhough 2006, 2011, Williams 2010).
Islands and island phenomena exude paradox and duality. They are
clearly diverse and contradictorily complex. Yet, when drawn variously
together, their differentiation most often hinges on notions of closure
and openness, interiority and exteriority, a singular fixity and diasporic
multiplicity, the insular and the global. Islands are portrayed not only
as traditionally simple, insular entities, but are also constituted as ever
more complex units, both internally and in relation to others; they are
worlds unto themselves as well as global places. In fact, as difference
so deeply cross-cuts islands and island phenomena, it has become most
apparent that there is need to revisit these places of ambiguous extremes
and to reconsider them in light of all there is in-between.
States of confusion: territory, identity and sovereignty
Alongside the paradoxes of islands, there are parallel issues with states
constituted as the basic unit of comparative politics, international law,
international relations and political economy. Contradictions and con-
fusion have arisen here with the conflation of state and nation set
against a background of shifting notions and practices of territory, iden-
tity and sovereignty. For the political sciences, the Peace Treaties of
Westphalia in 1648 continue to be taken as the instituting moment
in the creation of the modern political world. Also central are those
foundational myths of the state understood as a fixed, contiguous and
clearly demarcated territory inside of which operates a central sovereign
power.
The conflation of state and nation has involved their collapse together
as an immutable sovereign space or territory, despite the many chal-
lenges to the nation state today contributing to ‘the crisis of the hyphen’
(Antonsich 2009). A seminal work here is the still well-respected thesis
on ‘the territorial trap’ (Agnew 1994), which posits three core problems:
first, the historically blind assumption that the state is a fixed unit of
sovereign space that enables political organisation inside its territory;
second, the domestic/foreign polarity defined in terms of the state’s
internal order versus an anarchic outside, which reduces states to indi-
vidual actors engaged in competition and a ‘war of all against all’ but
since made redundant especially in the age of footloose capital and
trans-national corporations; and third, the assumption of the territo-
rial state that is imagined having been in existence prior to and as a
Stewart Williams 23
container of society, such that social matters are understood as equating

far too simply and neatly with national phenomena.
Agnew’s (1994) original thesis was promulgated at a time of intensify-
ing globalisation and post-Soviet fragmentation, but it has continued
to be borne out by various developments worldwide. Notable exam-
ples comprise the many varied international conflicts, military alliances,
peace-keeping roles, concerns over ‘failed’ or ‘rogue’ states and assaults
on territorial integrity as well as the rise of common markets, trading
agreements, currency regimes and exchange-rate mechanisms (Agnew
2005, 2009, Elden 2006, 2009, Ruggie 1993). In the wake of the latest
financial as well as terrorist crises, it is notable that the state’s economic
prosperity and military security tend to be imagined increasingly now
as resources and capacities that are attained or threatened at the global
level: ‘capacity building’ has become a major consultancy industry the
world over. However, territory remains a critical component in the con-
stitution of political identities and not least as sovereign entities acting
on the world stage. Agnew’s thesis therefore continues to be revisited
with ‘the continued need to think very carefully about the ways in
which the claims of state sovereignty and national security are mobilised
in our geopolitical present’ (Reid-Henry 2010: 752).
In the contemporary world, there appear to be ever more political
entities that are not actually sovereign nation states with their own
bounded territory but behave like states and strive to exist within
the state system. Examples include the various ethno-regionalist par-
ties that continue to emerge in the European Union (EU) as well as
other, more long-standing stateless nations such as the Tibetan Gov-
ernment in exile, but extending to include micro-states and leased
territories or ‘states of exception’ such as Guantánamo Bay (Agamben
2005, Bahcheli et al. 2004, Duursma 1996, Guibernau 1999, Kingston
and Spears 2004, McConnell 2009, 2010, Miodownik and Cartrite 2006).
At the same time, there has also been an enduring significance and
value attached to the nationalist territorialisation of the world. Con-
sider, for example, the efforts made today to preserve Iraq or Afghanistan
in the face of tribal differences. The traditional state’s functionality
has faced recent challenges, which range from supra-state nationalist
projects through to shared sovereignty arrangements, and state spaces
are no longer considered wholly exclusive and limited. But there is
still need to examine the stubborn persistence of nationalism, territo-
rial identities and the ideological underpinnings of such entities as they
exist and are being maintained or envisaged (Elden 2005, 2010, Murphy
2010).
Antonsich (2009) likewise suggests that, in the face of global flows,

relational networks and the rescaling of places, we are better off pursuing
research on territory rather than just dismissing it as passé (as believed
most strongly when in association with the nation state). In general,
territory has often been reduced either to a device of state control,
containment and discipline or to a symbolic source of national iden-
tification. In these frameworks, he concludes, we risk treating people
as passive subjects or failing to distinguish the territory as a space of
socio-political organisation from its being a source of ethno-cultural
identity. The conflation of state and nation is recognised here as hav-
ing been discursive as well as territorially based. Thus the tendency now
is for governmental authorities and other institutions to respond to the
historic and culturally contingent factors associated with their different
peoples and communities.
Still, Antonsich (2009: 801) notices ‘a contradictory reaction’ among
(and sometimes within) nations; this couples ‘de-ethnicising’ moves
towards more generic principles of tolerance and respect, for example,
with efforts to protect and preserve particular ethno-cultural identi-
ties by limiting immigration and testing for compatibility. Such post-
national territorialisation therefore admits of the new, multiple, hybrid
and discontinuous spaces of cultural identification while still also
retaining the geographically contiguous and bounded space of politi-
cal belonging. The success or failure of territorial accommodation as a
way to manage differences and conflicts identified in ethnic terms, for
example, can however only be gauged individually, and thus warrants
more comparative case studies (Wolff 2011).
Sovereignty is the other pertinent concept here, with its own pop-
ular variants linked to ideas of selfhood, community and identity as
well as its more traditional deployments within the political sphere
(as state sovereignty). Following the Roman imperial legacy, sovereignty
was deemed ‘the highest power of command’ and taken mostly to mean
a political and legal relationship of subjection. Except, that is, in its more
recent interpretation as a founding and constitutive power (e.g. Schmitt
1927/1996). Sovereignty is no longer seen as a relatively uncontested
nor simply accepted, timeless concept or universal ideal; it is far more
contingent on historical and political contexts, perhaps even becoming
redundant, yet still retaining great ‘explanatory power and normative
relevance’ (Bartelson 1995, 2006: 465, 2010, Krasner 2001, Sassen 1996,
2006, Spruyt 1994).
There are conflicts and contradictions that inhere within ‘the noto-
riously ambiguous concept of sovereignty’ (Bartelson 2006: 470). With
Stewart Williams 25
the various claims to sovereignty made by different peoples and com-

munities, the many are rendered into one and a constituent power
invested in the People, the Community or the Nation. Likewise, with
the multiplicity of forms embraced by late sovereignty, evinced by such
terms as constitutional plurality and cosmopolitanism, one encounters
a tendency to reduce difference in the universal values of ‘respect’ or
international human rights regimes. Furthermore, when a sovereign
authority is installed with a new juridical order, such as a democratic
constitution (rather than, say, through political imposition or military
force), there is usually a justification based on enduring right (based,
for example, on claims to represent everyone) as well as a dismissal of
all that went before that particular constituting act. Therefore, its legit-
imacy is based necessarily on some originary violence and often with
reference to a transcendental authority such as God (Bartelson 2006,
Kalyvas 2005).
The political problematic of the state is understood most frequently
in terms of its identification with a territorialising presence. In fact,
it continues to be very much about the constitution of one discreet,
enclosed entity with its own internal order contra an anarchic outside.
The notion of a sovereign people or nation is thus often based con-
tradictorily on the claim to represent all or to be the one enduring
constitution. Furthermore, its practices as well as conception as a polity
still usually require being spatialised in one fashion or other, even if it is
not always nowadays (if ever) completely bound and hence contained
within a territory.
Borders unlimited
Thus, a paradigm of fracture and flow might best describe the insu-
lar and political entities of our world. It certainly accords with the
fact that globalisation has been a major force producing such effects
as seen, respectively, with a shift in focus from insularity to islandness
or with calls heralding the demise of the traditionally territorial nation
state. However, there is a persistent spatiality too, which undergirds
both islandness and politics. The geographical imaginary with its capac-
ity to delineate extension and containment therefore remains useful
(and seemingly inevitable) in the identification and analysis of those
variously relevant insular and political phenomena. And hence the
inscription of borders or boundaries is also critical here.
The study of borders and boundaries has flourished over the past two
decades (and across an array of academic disciplines) despite the asser-
tions that have constantly been made about the globalised post-modern
world being borderless and de-territorialised. Much of this border work

has been conducted by political scientists and scholars, working in
related fields such as international law, who have an interest in the de-
and re-territorialisations of the state and other political economic insti-
tutions, processes and practices. ‘Notions of territory and borders . . . go
hand in hand’ (Newman 2010: 774). There has been a significant
qualitative shift here too, however. The usual focus on describing bor-
ders as the physical, static outcomes of political decision making has
widened to include analyses of what are the more dynamic processes
of trans-boundary relations, cooperation and functionality (Newman
2006, Newman and Paasi 1998, Van Houtum et al. 2005).
The understanding of political borders – traditionally seen as a rigid
and deterministic delineation that bounds state space – now resonates
better with a broader definition of human territoriality that recognises
more of the factors at play in our attempts ‘to affect, influence or con-
trol people, phenomena and relationships by delimiting and asserting
control over a geographic area’ (Sack 1986: 19). Political scientists have
since continued to suggest that there is a territorial logic at work here
(Brighenti 2010, Elden 2007, 2009, 2010, Shah 2012, Vollaard 2009).
A key aspect of it includes that instrumental, spatial calculus one sees in
cartography and surveying as used in marking out the borders of lands
that are then claimed as a fixed, impersonal and empty (so also refill-
able) space. But the other critically important components now also
accepted here are the organically fluid, socio-culturally and economi-
cally meaningful relationships that individuals and communities have
with, in and through places as they are imagined in all their diversity
and multi-scalar imbrications.
Rather than focus on the border simply as a marker of inclusivity
and exclusivity, it is deemed more productive to look at the discur-
sive and material practices of bordering in themselves because they are
what actually constitutes political and other relations. Contrary to the
essentialising, objectivist concerns with islands and states understood
primarily as abstract spaces imposed on the naturalised (more than just
‘natural’) physical terrain, this shared perspective reveals insular and
political entities to be immanent, relational events and processes that
are constantly taking place together with and through all manner of
things real and imagined.
Islands are not necessarily just fixed or enclosed entities. Instead,
there are marshy, intertidal islands; floating islands that come into
view then recede; global islands in a world of islands; and islands that
have been mapped and remapped hence even relocated here, there
Stewart Williams 27
and everywhere (Atkinson and Blandy 2009, Baldacchino 2006a, 2008,

Benítez-Rojo 1996, Bradshaw and Williams 1999, Royle 2001, Steinberg
2005, Williams 2010). The likelihood of limiting islands and island phe-
nomena to any static, bounded (perhaps more traditionally conceived)
form can thus seem virtually impossible (Williams 2012). Indeed, island
scholars have long been as enticed by the sea as by the islands it sur-
rounds, and their interests have been captured by this watery medium
of communication as well as transported to yet other islands else-
where and configurations, such as archipelagos (Benítez-Rojo 1996, De
Loughrey 2007, Depraetere 2008a, 2008b, Hau’ofa 1994, Steinberg 2001,
2005, Stratford et al. 2011, Vannini et al. 2009). Some have written
extensively on the critical liminal space of the beach as a place of
border crossings (Dening 1980, 2004, McGlashan and Duck 2011). For
others, there has been a focus on the transformative technologies of
bridges and ferries on islands (Baldacchino 2007b, Royle 1999, Royle
et al. 1990, Vannini 2012). All have contributed to a reworking of the
island border: an analysis into how insular and political entities are
being constituted in the contemporary world demands attention to
borders and boundaries that are simultaneously being both erased and
reinscribed.
Already there is some overlap. From a political studies perspective,
imperial and dynastic power is seen for centuries to have pushed
forwards frontiers, embracing islands, rivers and estuaries in the terri-
torial claims made over the seas as well as land. Likewise, the exclu-
sive relations assumed to exist between sovereignty and territory are
being problematised with analyses of extra-territoriality in the case of
embassies understood as ‘alien islands’, for example, and biopolitical
zones described as a ‘global archipelago’ of states of emergency and
exception (Benton 2010, Elden 2009, Ruggie 1993, Shah 2012, Vaughan-
Williams 2008, 2009). It is significant that Newman (2010) refers to
divided islands such as Cyprus and Ireland when commenting on the
need to consider the human experience and narration of bordering in
relation to the ongoing contests over political boundaries that are con-
tinuously and variously being made, unmade and then remade in the
contemporary world.
Coda
The division of the island polity represents yet another variation in the
constant making and remaking of such insular and political entities as
discussed here. Research has thrown up similar issues in dealing with
both the paradoxical places that comprise islands and the contradic-
tory natures of territory, identity and sovereignty. There is a critically
important and shared role here for borders and boundaries understood
in the broadest sense, including in relation to the production of dis-
cursive meaning and material practices. With the various inscriptions,
erasures and then reinscriptions of the borders that constitute island and
political entities happening at various scales, new avenues of inquiry
are needed to look at the processes occurring within, through and
outside these spaces, including through more grounded empirics and
local case studies. This book makes one significant contribution in this
direction.
The observations brought together in this collection provide valuable
insights into what have always been and will likely continue to be the
problematic spaces of islands and polities. The interest and intrigue are
redoubled though, with the book’s focus on these few island polities that
are so manifestly and unusually caught in the upheavals of division. The
great rarity of such phenomena is in itself quite telling. The constitu-
tional enactment of a sovereign entity is reinforced with its demarcation
made clear by naturalised markers of history, blood and soil; and so,
while a polity will often be identified with a particular people, it also
gets territorialised or mapped onto a physical space. This constitutive
political act is perhaps never more easily rendered inevitable (and hence
its upset most vehemently resisted) as when it is superimposed, and is
thus consolidated, on the discreet physical geography and spatial con-
tainer of an island. Here, all the mythologies that ride on the nature
of islands and polities are brought to bear in unsettling the fragmented
island polity. There may be only a few around today; but there is little
wonder that there is so much value to be had from a close and critical
examination of such divided islands.
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3
New Guinea
Ronald J. May, Patrick Matbob and Evangelia Papoutsaki
Introduction
New Guinea is the world’s second biggest non-continental island; only

Greenland is larger. Politically, the island is divided in two. The western
half, generally referred to outside Indonesia as ‘West Papua’, comprises
the two Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua; the eastern
half is the independent country of Papua New Guinea (PNG). This
chapter provides an overview of the island’s history, contrasts the inde-
pendent state of PNG with the ‘internal colony’ of Indonesia’s West
Papua, and looks at the impact of transnational political economy on
the relationship between the two parts of the island and Indonesia by
focusing on border trade activities and human displacement, influenced
by geopolitics and globalisation.
Context and legacy
New Guinea, located north of Australia and at the eastern end of

Indonesia, consists of a land mass of 785,753 km2 , with several associ-
ated large island groups. Second only to the Amazon, the island has one
of the largest tracts of tropical rainforest left in the world: around 70 per
cent is still covered by native forest, although that is being reduced by
logging. The level of biodiversity is high, with new species constantly
being discovered. New Guinea’s predominantly Melanesian population,
totalling around 11 million in 2011, consists largely of fragmented clan-
or village-based groups engaged primarily in subsistence agriculture.
Some 1,100 distinct languages are spoken; New Guinea thus accounts
for about 16 per cent of the world’s languages (Lewis 2009).
34
Ronald J. May, Patrick Matbob and Evangelia Papoutsaki 35
The border between what is now Indonesia and PNG follows the
line drawn in 1883 to separate Dutch New Guinea from German and
British New Guinea (May 1986, Sinclair 2001, Van der Veur 1966). It was
defined more precisely by an Australian–Indonesian border agreement
of 1973 and has been the subject of a series of agreements between
Indonesia and PNG concerning border administrative arrangements.
The border follows longitude 141◦ , except for some 55 km where the Fly
River crosses from PNG into West Papua and back again and where the
border is defined by the thalweg of the river. The border area is sparsely
populated and the border itself poorly defined. Until the 1980s, there
were only 14 markers along the entire 760 km of the land border.
The name ‘New Guinea’ (Nueva Guinea) was given to the island by
Spanish explorer Yñigo Ortiz de Retez in 1545. Referred to as ‘the last
unknown’ (Souter 1963), New Guinea was one of the last areas of the
world to be subjected to European colonisation. The well-populated
highlands valleys of New Guinea were not visited by Europeans until
the 1930s; and as late as the 1950s first contact was being made with
remote groups. It is claimed that there may yet be uncontacted groups
in West Papua. Prior to European contact, inter-group or ‘tribal’ fighting
was endemic; inter-group fighting still occurs fairly regularly.
The western part of the island was once considered part of the
Majapahit Empire centred on the island of Java in what is now the
Republic of Indonesia. Prior to European settlement, the Sultan of Tidore
claimed sovereignty over parts of the western coast of West Papua, and
there was extensive trade between coastal villages and Maluku. In 1828,
West Papua was claimed by the Netherlands as part of the Dutch East
Indies, although until well into the 20th century there was little out-
side penetration beyond the coastal fringes of what became Dutch New
Guinea. In 1942, Japan invaded and briefly occupied northern New
Guinea. After the war, the Dutch returned, but the status of West New
Guinea or West Papua (as Dutch New Guinea became known) became
a point of contention between the Netherlands and the newly inde-
pendent Republic of Indonesia. After protracted dispute (see below), in
1969 the territory was formally (but controversially) incorporated into
the Republic of Indonesia.
In the northeast, where German traders and explorers had been
visiting regularly since the 1870s, Germany established a formal colo-
nial presence in 1884. German New Guinea included the northeast
mainland, to which was given the name Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, and the
Bismarck Archipelago (present New Britain and New Ireland) as well as
North Solomons (Bougainville and Buka) from 1886. From 1885 to 1899,
36 New Guinea
the territory was administered for Germany by the German New Guinea
Company. When the First World War broke out in 1914, Australia dis-
patched an expeditionary force to German New Guinea, which took
possession of the German colony. After the war, Australia remained as
the administering authority of a League of Nations mandated territory
(and subsequently a United Nations trusteeship) of New Guinea.
In 1883, the then British colony of Queensland annexed the south-
east portion of the island, including the D’Entrecasteaux Group and the
Louisiade Archipelago. This claim was revoked by Britain; but, under
pressure from Australia, Britain established a protectorate over southeast
New Guinea in 1884 and declared it a colony in 1889. In 1905, British
New Guinea was renamed Papua, and the following year the Territory
of Papua was transferred to the recently federated Commonwealth of
Australia.
Although the two parts of eastern New Guinea were formally under
Australian administration from 1920, they were administered separately
until the Second World War came to the Pacific. From 1942, northern
New Guinea and the New Guinea Islands (New Britain, New Ireland,
Bougainville, Buka and Manus) were briefly occupied by Japan and
became the scene of intense fighting. From 1942 to 1946, both terri-
tories came under the wartime Australian New Guinea Administrative
Unit (ANGAU). After the war the joint Australian administration con-
tinued under a civil authority; the territory was known initially as Papua
and New Guinea and subsequently as Papua New Guinea. In 1975, the
country became an independent state (see Table 3.1).
Around the time of West Papua’s incorporation into Indonesia and the
lead-up to independence in PNG, there were proposals, coming mostly
from expatriate settlers in PNG, for a federation of Melanesia, incor-
porating West Papua, PNG and Solomon Islands; but there was never
serious support for the proposal.
West Papua
In 1949, the former Dutch East Indies – with the exception of West
Papua – became independent as the Republic of Indonesia (Bone 1958,
King 2004, May 1986, Ondawame 2010, Osbourne 1985, Penders 2002,
Singh 2008, Tebay 2005). West Papua was not initially included in the
demands of the Indonesian nationalists, and for a while the Netherlands
sought to retain control of the territory, in which it had made belated
attempts to promote development and nurture a Papuan nationalist
elite – what Van der Veur (1963) called ‘terminal colonial democracy’.
Table 3.1 Comparing West Papua (Indonesia) and Papua New Guinea
West Papua Papua New Guinea (PNG)
Political status Province of Indonesia in Independent sovereign

1969. Split as two state since 1975
provinces – Papua and
West Papua – since 2001
Area (km2 )(incl. offshore 420,540 462,840
islands)
Population (millions, 3.7 7.1
2011)
Population density 9 13
(persons/km2 )
Capital city Jakarta (on Java) Port Moresby
No. of living languages 274 830
Human development Papua 0.655 West Papua 0.466 (2010)
index 0.685 (2009)
% of population that 44% 13%
lives in Urban Areas
Life expectancy in years 68.5 (for Indonesia) 62.1
(2009)
% annual population 1.07% (for Indonesia) 2.7%
growth
GNP per capita (US$, Not available (4,200 2,420
2010) for Indonesia)
Standing on human 124th out of 187 153rd out of 187 countries
development index countries
(2011)
% of population below Over 35% 37%
poverty line
Adult (15+) literacy rate 92% (for Indonesia) 60%
(%, 2011)
Main language(s) spoken Bahasa Indonesia Tokpisin (English-based
creole); also English and
Hiri Motu
Currency (exchange rate Indonesian Rupiah PNG Kina (1US$ = 2.2PGK)
as at November 2011) (1US$ = 9.2IDR)
Elections for a West Papuan parliament were held in 1961 and a Papuan
People’s Congress, anticipating independence, chose the name West
Papua, a flag (the Morning Star) and an anthem. Indonesia strongly
opposed these moves. Following a brief military confrontation with
Indonesia in West Papua, and facing growing international pressure,
the Netherlands accepted that continued occupation of West Papua
was not an option and instead initially supported Papuan nationalist
38 New Guinea
demands for a separate West Papua. Concerned about the potential

rise of communism in Southeast Asia, however, the United States put
pressure on the Netherlands and Australia to withdraw their support
of West Papua’s independence. Under a US-initiated and UN-brokered
agreement, a United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA)
was set up in 1962 to govern the territory pending a referendum on the
future status of West Papua in 1969.
In 1963, Indonesia took control of UNTEA, dismissed the West
Papuan Parliament and replaced it with an appointed regional assem-
bly. It banned political activity by West Papuans and carried out military
operations against West Papuan nationalists, making it clear that, in
a future referendum, only a vote for incorporation into the Repub-
lic would be acceptable. In the event an ‘Act of Free Choice’ (known
among its critics as the ‘Act of No Choice’) was held under strict
Indonesian military supervision; 1,026 ‘representatives’ were chosen to
vote on the future status of West Papua and unsurprisingly opted for
incorporation. Observers of the process reported widespread intimida-
tion and harassment of the representatives and the general population
(Hastings 1969); but the UN General Assembly ‘took note’ of the out-
come of the exercise (with some African countries protesting that the
process did not represent a popular vote). In the context of the Cold
War, neither the countries of the Western bloc (least of all the United
States) nor the countries of the Eastern bloc saw value in questioning
Indonesian rule in what became the province of Iran Barat and later
Irian Jaya.
West Papua is seen as a basket case of Asian colonialism (Kennedy
Report on West Papua 2006, Matbob and Papoutsaki 2006a: 3). This
has also been the sentiment of regional leaders who condemned the
transfer of West Papua to Indonesia. Melanesian Papuans could not be
turned into Indonesians: ‘we are helping to prepare the ground for a
Papuan irredentist movement and laying up grave trouble in store for
New Guinea . . . ’ (Sydney Morning Herald editorial, quoted in Osborne
1985: 47).
The realisation among the Papuan elite, who had initially supported
the Indonesian independence struggle, that colonial rule was being
replaced by the internal colonialism of Indonesia, caused several to
leave their homeland, mostly for the Netherlands or PNG. This also
led, around 1965, to the formation of a separatist group, Organisasi
Papua Merdeka (Free Papua Movement, or OPM), which has carried on a
propaganda and guerrilla campaign against Indonesian rule ever since,
but with little international support (Ondawame 2010).
Over the ensuing four decades, repression of West Papuan political

aspirations and cultural identity has been maintained through a strong
military presence. Estimates vary of the number of West Papuans killed
in military operations, but there is general agreement that several thou-
sand lives have been lost; the military has made frequent use of torture,
and significant areas of traditionally owned land have been alienated
(Brundige et al. 2004, Sidel 2007, The New Internationalist 2002, 2005:
4–5, Wing and King 2005).
Following the demise of Indonesian president Suharto in 1998, some
concessions were made to West Papuan demands. It was agreed to
change the name of the province from Irian Jaya to Papua, and the
Papuan people were permitted (under increasingly stringent conditions)
to fly the West Papuan Morning Star flag. Prior to this, the raising
of the Morning Star flag was considered to be an act of subversion
(makar) and a number of people were shot in flag-raising incidents.
The province was also granted special autonomy (Otonomi Khusus
(OTSUS)), along with Aceh, and a Papuan People’s Assembly (Majelis
Rakyat Papua (MRP)) was to be set up to represent the cultural inter-
ests of indigenous Papuans. In 2000, a second Papuan People’s Congress
(the first being that of 1961) was held in Jayapura. Attended by some
5,000 West Papuans, including a number living abroad, the Congress
endorsed the aspiration for independence, to be pursued through peace-
ful means, and established a Presidium Council (Presidium Dewan Papua)
to carry on a dialogue between West Papuans and the Indonesian
government.
Subsequently, however, these concessions were progressively wound
back; the autonomy provisions (enacted in 2001) were never fully imple-
mented; flag raising has again become an offence; the province was
subdivided into two, with recent proposals for a third province of
Central Papua (a move widely seen in West Papua as an attempt to
undermine West Papuan solidarity); and the chairman of the Papuan
Presidium, Theys Eluay, was murdered by Indonesian soldiers in 2001
(Chauvel 2004, Sullivan 2003, Tebay 2005).
With growing frustration at the lack of progress towards genuine
autonomy, and continued repression of the Papuan people by the
Indonesian military, in 2010 groups of protesters began calling for the
rejection of OTSUS and for a referendum on independence. In October
2011, a third Papuan People’s Congress was convened. This re-endorsed
demands for West Papuan independence and declared the creation of a
Federal State of West Papua. As on previous occasions, the Indonesian
army’s response to the protests was marked by excessive force, with
40 New Guinea
at least six people killed and hundreds arrested, including the chair
of the Papuan Traditional Council (Dewan Adat Papua, DAP), Forkorus
Yaboisembut, who had been named as president of the Federal State.
In March 2012, the Jayapura state court found Yaboisembut and four
others guilty of treason.
The West Papuan provinces are resource rich, with one of the world’s
biggest gold and copper mines at Grasberg, operated by Freeport
Indonesia, a subsidiary of the American-owned Freeport McMoRan
Copper and Gold Inc., the largest taxpayer to the Indonesian gov-
ernment (The New Internationalist 2002: 12), petroleum and natural
gas resources under development at the western end of the island,
and extensive rainforests whose hardwoods have been extensively
(and often illegally) logged. The Indonesian military has been heav-
ily involved in economic activities in the province, both in providing
security at the Freeport mine and in logging. Notwithstanding this
resource wealth, living standards among the indigenous population are
among the lowest in Indonesia. In 2011, the Indonesian government
announced plans to establish a Special Unit for the Acceleration of
Development in Papua and West Papua (Unit Percepatan Pembangunan
Papua dan Papua Barat (UP4B)), as a basis for dialogue with West
Papuan leaders; to date (March 2012), West Papuans have shown little
enthusiasm.
West Papua has been a major destination for both state-sponsored
(and World Bank funded) internal migration (trasmigrasi) and spon-
taneous migration. The result is that West Papuans are estimated to
constitute only about half of the population: Tebay (2005: 14) cites a
figure of 52 per cent Papuans in 2005; and in-migration since then is
likely to have exceeded any natural increase. The proportion is even
lower in urban centres. Most of the small businesses and market stall-
holders in West Papua are migrants from other parts of Indonesia, as are
many of the public officials in the two provinces. The influx of mostly
Muslim migrants to West Papua, whose population is mostly Christian,
has further created tensions and potential for future communal vio-
lence, as has occurred in other parts of Indonesia (ICG 2008). West
Papuans also complain that their land has been taken for big resource
projects without compensation and that the jobs generated by such
projects have mostly gone to people from outside the province. On sev-
eral occasions the mining operations at Freeport have been disrupted by
local landowners protesting at the lack of benefits from the mine, and
in 1977 the pipeline carrying copper ore from the mine to the port at
Ammapare was sabotaged.
Regular reports of human rights abuses against the people of West

Papua, both from within (notably from the Indonesian Commission
on Human Rights, Komisi Nasional Hak Asasi Manusia) and from inter-
national organisations, have received little attention despite efforts of
the OPM and supporters of West Papua to mobilise regional and inter-
national support. For some years West Papuan leaders have sought
recognition from the Pacific Islands Forum, the major regional group-
ing for the island Pacific, and more recently from the sub-regional
Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), comprising the independent states
of PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji and the Kanak nationalist
group, Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) in New
Caledonia (a French territory). Neither group has agreed to grant West
Papua membership or observer status; but, in 2010, the MSG accepted
Indonesian demands for observer status.
The achievement of independence by Timor Leste in 2002 raised
hopes among West Papuans that they might also attain separate status,
but there has probably never been any serious prospect of Indonesia let-
ting go of its wealthy eastern provinces. Only the Republic of Vanuatu
has taken concrete supporting action by allowing West Papuans to open
an information office in its capital (Ondawame 2010). To this day, the
West Papuan situation remains one of the least reported conflicts both
regionally and internationally. The Indonesian state sought to obstruct
the flow of information about West Papua to both Indonesian and
foreign media (e.g. Kirsch 2002: 72). The availability of local infor-
mation through West Papua media is also limited. Local papers, like
Cepos Cederawasih Pos and Tifa Irian, both in Indonesian, are owned or
run by the Army (Tendrasa Nasional Indonesia, TNI) and/or politicians:
(Werror, personal communication with Papoutsaki cited in Matbob and
Papoutsaki 2006b: 90; see also Pacific Media Watch 2006a, 2006b).
An earlier ban on all foreign media, churches and non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) was enforced on the argument that their pres-
ence in West Papua would ‘encourage Papuans to campaign on issues
of human rights’ (IFJ 2006).
Papua New Guinea
After years of Australian colonial administration, PNG made a smooth

transition to independence in 1975, although for the most part the indi-
genisation of business, the public service and even the churches had
been slow (Connell 1997, Dorney 2000, Griffin et al. 1979, May 2001,
2003). In the populous highlands, where for many communities there
42 New Guinea
was little presence of government until the 1960s, some indigenous

leaders resisted the rapid movement towards independence in the early
1970s, fearing they would be dominated by people from the coastal
communities who had experienced colonial administration for a longer
period and gained higher levels of education. Within a decade of
independence, however, the tensions between highlanders and coastal
people had largely dissipated, and in 1984 Papua New Guinea had its
first highlander prime minister.
PNG’s national constitution, drafted by a wholly Papua New Guinean
Constitutional Planning Committee after an extensive process of con-
sultation across the country, provides for a Westminster parliamentary
system. Elections for the National Parliament have been held, on sched-
ule, every five years and are keenly contested: in 2007, there were, on
average, 25 candidates per single-member constituency. Electoral irreg-
ularities and some violence have characterised elections, increasingly
since the 1990s and particularly in the volatile highlands electorates:
in 2002, elections in six electorates in the Southern Highlands were
declared ‘failed’ and had to be re-conducted in 2003. Nevertheless,
the outcomes of the electoral process have been broadly endorsed by
international observer teams and there has been little post-election dis-
putation beyond some localised violence and the legal appeals of losing
candidates.
Every government in PNG has been a coalition, and up till 2002
every government since 1977 had changed during the course of the
parliamentary term, mostly as a result of parliamentary votes of no
confidence, as members of parliament (MPs) shifted from one party to
another and parties shifted from one coalition to another – what Papua
New Guineans refer to as ‘yo-yo politics’. The turnover of MPs has been
high – over 50 per cent in all elections and almost 80 per cent in 2002.
In 2001 an Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Can-
didates (OLIPPAC) came into force, seeking to strengthen the political
party system and providing sanctions against MPs who switched par-
ties. Partly as a result of the OLIPPAC provisions (and the governing
coalition’s use of its majority to silence the relatively small parliamen-
tary opposition), the Somare government of 2002–2007 became the
first to survive a full parliamentary term. Somare was voted back as
prime minister in 2007; but in 2010 the PNG Supreme Court invali-
dated certain sections of OLIPPAC, opening the way for a resumption
of ‘yo-yo politics’. In 2011, while Somare was in Singapore receiving
medical treatment, the National Parliament controversially declared the
prime ministership vacant and a new prime minister, Peter O’Neill, was
elected. In December 2011, the Supreme Court ruled against Parlia-

ment’s action; but O’Neill refused to accept this decision. For a while,
there were thus two claimants to the office of prime minister, though
the majority of MPs, and subsequently the public service, lined up
behind O’Neill. The impasse was broken when scheduled national elec-
tions were held in June 2012. O’Neill’s party won the largest number
of seats, and he became prime minister, heading a large coalition. Sur-
prisingly, Somare and his National Alliance Party joined the O’Neill
government.
Below the national government level, there are twenty-one provin-
cial units, including the National Capital District. Below the provincial
level are district administrations and elected local government councils.
Government functions are distributed between the three levels of gov-
ernment (national, provincial and local) in this quasi-federal system;
but, because of a combination of limited funds, financial mismanage-
ment and lack of capacity, service delivery is poor in most provinces.
In more remote areas, people often look to churches and big resource
projects for service provision; currently, the Australian government
channels a small part of its substantial development assistance through
churches and resource project operators.
In the first decade after independence, PNG’s economic performance
and governance record defied the pre-independence ‘prophets of doom’,
with PNG’s currency (the kina) appreciating against both the Australian
and US dollars, and governments pushing ahead with reformist agendas
and public sector localisation. This began to change around the mid-
1980s (May 1997). Problems of law and order, including inter-group (or
‘tribal’) fighting, mostly in the highlands, and urban and rural crime
(‘raskolism’) accelerated. The PNG Defence Force (PNGDF) was called out
to assist police in several declared states of emergency. On the island
of Bougainville, home to one of the world’s largest gold and copper
mines, landowner demands for increased compensation in 1988 culmi-
nated in the closure of the mine (which at the time contributed about
17 per cent of government revenue and over 40 per cent of exports)
and an armed rebellion that continued for a decade and whose effects
are still being felt (Regan 2010). Loss of revenue from the Bougainville
mine was exacerbated by falling export commodity prices and poor
financial management. Corruption and nepotism, in both the public
and private sectors, also impacted negatively on governance and service
delivery.
In 1997, an attempt by Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan to resolve the
Bougainville conflict through the engagement of military consultants
44 New Guinea
Sandline International came unstuck when Defence Force Commander

Jerry Singirok opposed the government’s action, ‘arresting’ and deport-
ing the Sandline mercenaries and calling on the prime minister,
deputy prime minister and defence minister to resign. Singirok received
widespread popular support but he was dismissed and charged with sedi-
tion, a charge of which he was later acquitted. Chan ‘stepped aside’
pending an inquiry, which cleared him of wrongdoing; he resumed
the prime ministership but lost his seat in the national election soon
after (Dinnen et al. 1997, Dorney 1998, O’Callaghan 1999). This was
the closest PNG has come to a military coup.
Following political and economic crises in the late 1990s, under the
government of Sir Bill Skate, PNG’s economy and politics experienced
something of a turn-around under the leadership of former Treasury
secretary and Central Bank governor Sir Mekere Morauta and then
Sir Michael Somare. Improved commodity prices and administrative
reforms contributed to an inflow of foreign investment, particularly in
the mining and petroleum sectors. Having failed to secure a gas pipeline
to Australia, PNG has embarked on a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project,
based in the Southern Highlands, to come into production in 2014,
which is expected to double the county’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Unlike West Papua, where all land comes under state control, 97 per
cent of land in PNG is held by landowners under a variety of traditional,
essentially communal, landholding arrangements. But land ownership
is often contested, and the identification of the legitimate landowners,
particularly for the payment of compensation and royalties involved in
big resource projects, has raised seemingly intractable problems. Some
commentators see PNG’s traditional land ownership as a barrier to devel-
opment and call for privatisation of tenure, either to individuals or to
incorporated land groups. But there is considerable popular opposition
to changes in land tenure systems (Yala 2010). Recently, there has been
particular concern over special agriculture and business lease (SABL)
arrangements meant to facilitate local and foreign investment in agricul-
ture, but misused to enable foreign interests to gain access to customary
land, mostly for logging (Filer 2011).
There are high expectations from the benefits to be gained from
the LNG project, which have been factored into an ambitious 2050
Vision statement designed to guide PNG’s development into the mid-
21st century. But the management of expectations, especially among
traditional landowners in the areas impacted by the project, as well as
the infrastructure demands associated with this and other projects, poses
substantial challenges.
With regard to PNG’s trade relations with Indonesia and its neigh-
bouring province of West Papua, one needs to look first at the impact of
economic liberalisation since the 1990s when the Pacific Islands started
opening up their economies through greater regional integration. This
set off the creation of a number of regional associations, such as the
Pacific Islands Forum in 1999 (originally set up as the South Pacific
Forum in 1971), agreement pacts (such as the Pacific Island Coun-
tries Trade Agreement, or PICTA) and others beyond the region that
opened up trade markets in Asia and Europe. The involvement of the
Asian Development Bank (ADB) in the Indonesia/PNG Border Trade
and Investment Development Project is an indication of the increas-
ing importance of regional trade. By opening up its trade policy, PNG
has encouraged faster economic growth, much of which remains trade
dependent: in 2009, exports accounted for about 60 per cent of the GDP;
and minerals, including gold, copper and oil, accounted for about 77 per
cent of the total value of exports (ADB 2009). The move by a previous
government, led by the National Alliance Party, to dramatically increase
investments that exploit natural resources has seen a massive growth in
commercial and industrial activities on a scale that the country’s own
infrastructure and manpower are not able to support. This has had seri-
ous implications on the capacity of the state to meet the demands of the
investors and at the same time ensure that the laws of the country are
being followed and the people are not exploited. For instance, the agree-
ment between PNG and China to develop the Ramu Nickel project has
posed a challenge: the majority of Chinese nationals brought into the
country to work could not speak English, which is a legal requirement
for foreigners to be employed in PNG; Chinese interests were however
accommodated (Papoutsaki et al. 2011). The government at the time
overlooked legislation and made amendments in Parliament that would
favour the interest of foreign investors. Supreme Court reviews of the
new laws have been sought to determine whether they are constitu-
tional or not (ibid.). Furthermore, PNG’s porous borders pose serious
issues of security and its trading relationship with Indonesia is compro-
mising issues of human rights, especially those of West Papua refugees
in PNG.
PNG and West Papua: a shifting relationship?
In 1957, a joint Australian–Netherlands Co-operative Agreement pro-

vided a formal basis for contact between the two colonial adminis-
trations and their Melanesian protégés, and as the Dutch moved to
46 New Guinea
promote West Papua’s political development and Papua New Guineans

began to question their colonial status, personal relations were created
between the emerging indigenous leaders in the two halves of the island.
In 1962, the PNG Legislative Council expressed concern over the han-
dling of the West New Guinea question and supported an immediate
referendum on self-determination.
In 1969, Michael Somare, leader of the PNG independence move-
ment, then a member of the Papua and New Guinea’s Territorial
Assembly, accused Australia of maintaining ‘concentration camps’ along
the border for West Papuan asylum seekers: ‘We often hear the UN
condemning European colonialism but it never thinks of condemning
Asiatic colonialism, and this is what is happening now on our border
and it is colonialism on the part of Indonesians’ (Somare, quoted in
Osborne 1985: 44). After 1969, there was a good deal of sympathy and
support in PNG for the West Papuan demand for separate status, and
some West Papuans who crossed into PNG were subsequently granted
PNG citizenship. ‘Secret diplomacy’ was also conducted in the early
1970s through meetings between OPM leaders and PNG’s foreign minis-
ter, Sir Albert Maori Kiki. However, Somare, PNG’s prime minister at the
time, would later be called ‘a good friend’ by Indonesia. The predica-
ment that Somare found himself in, changing from being a critic to
an ally of Indonesia, is one shared by other Melanesians leaders and
Papua New Guineans in general. Most of the latter sympathise with
their Melanesian neighbours in West Papua and their cause, but are
forced to also recognise Indonesia’s sovereignty, not to mention trading
interests.
A PNG media study indicates that there has been a great shift in cover-
age over the past 20 years, indicating a decline in stories on West Papua
and a general lack of interest from PNG media to invest time and effort
for proper coverage (Matbob and Papoutsaki 2006b). Up until the 1980s,
the Indonesian embassy in Port Moresby was having great difficulty
handling Indonesia’s negative image in the PNG media with regard to
West Papua. However, this changed since the 1990s with Indonesian
officials taking the initiative to invite journalists to the embassy for
functions and to organise trips to visit West Papua and other parts of
Indonesia. The governments of PNG and Indonesia have also formalised
bilateral agreements, which have benefited a number of Papua New
Guinean organisations, including the media.
Acknowledgement of a shared Melanesian identity was implicit in the
citizenship provisions of PNG’s constitution: a person born in PNG does
not have automatic PNG citizenship, but the constitution provides that
persons born in PNG before independence with two grandparents from

PNG or ‘adjacent areas’ (specifically Irian Jaya, Solomon Islands and the
Torres Strait Islands of Australia) have automatic citizenship. However,
in 1978 PNG refused to grant asylum to a group of OPM leaders who
had crossed into PNG in the belief that they were to have talks with
PNG’s political leadership. The West Papuans were eventually resettled
in Sweden.
Anxious to maintain good relations with Indonesia, PNG govern-
ments have consistently recognised Indonesian sovereignty in West
Papua and sought to discourage movement across the border. The fact
that the two halves of the island, with their multiplicity of vernacular
languages, have developed different lingua franca – Tokpisin in PNG and
Bahasa Indonesia in West Papua – also contributes to the weakening of
any sense of common New Guinean identity.
When in 1984 some 10,000–12,000 West Papuans crossed the border
into PNG to escape a crackdown by the Indonesian army, following a
flag-raising incident in Jayapura, and claimed refugee status, Papua New
Guinean sympathies for their Melanesian neighbours were tested. The
influx of border crossers into the poorly resourced areas along the border
put strains on food and other supplies, and, apart from occasional thefts
of food from village gardens, Papua New Guinean border villagers felt
some resentment that the border crossers were receiving assistance from
the PNG government and from NGOs that, as Papua New Guineans,
they had never received.
Around this time, there were several incursions across the border
by Indonesian soldiers and military aircraft, and complaints from
Indonesia that PNG was not doing enough to deny access to the OPM,
who had established several camps in the thick jungle along the north-
ern section of the border inside PNG. Conscious of the potential adverse
political reaction, PNG governments have consistently declined to be
involved in joint border patrols with the Indonesian army. A highway
being constructed along the Indonesian side of the border also crossed
into PNG at one point, although the Indonesian government initially
denied this. Relations between PNG and Indonesia deteriorated to the
extent that PNG took its complaints about Indonesia’s border incur-
sions to the UN General Assembly in 1984. Many of the border crossers
were re-settled at East Awin in PNG’s Western Province, but several
were later repatriated to Indonesia. Tensions between the two coun-
tries in this period were exacerbated by repeated Indonesian denials that
well-documented incidents had in fact taken place (Blaskett 1989, May
1990).
48 New Guinea
In the aftermath of this, in 1986 the two countries signed a Treaty

of Mutual Respect, Friendship and Cooperation. Under this treaty,
the two agreed not to threaten or use force against one another and
not to cooperate with others in hostile or unlawful acts against each
other or allow their territory to be used by others for such purposes
(an obvious reference to the OPM). Provision was also made for con-
sultation and negotiation in the event of any dispute. The treaty was
hailed at the time by Indonesia’s President Suharto as ‘another mile-
stone in the history of both countries’, although sceptics observed
that there was nothing in the treaty that had not been the subject of
earlier and repeated verbal assurances or was not already adequately
provided for in the existing agreement on border arrangements (May
1987).
The situation along the border has quietened down since the late
1980s; though cross-border incidents, as noted above, continue to
occur. In May 2011, PNG’s foreign affairs minister accused Indonesia of
breaching the border agreement when an Indonesian military helicopter
violated PNG’s air space near Wutung. With the PNGDF committed to
the rebellion in Bougainville, there was virtually no patrolling along the
PNG side of the border during the 1990s.
The sometimes strained relations between Indonesia and PNG were
raised to a new level in March 2010 when, at a meeting in Port Moresby,
President Yudhoyono and Prime Minister Somare agreed to open an offi-
cial border post at Skouw-Wutung as well as sign a Defence Cooperation
Agreement, a Double Taxation Agreement and letters of exchange on
agricultural cooperation.
Papua New Guinean leaders, frustrated by their own country’s prob-
lems of law and order, uneven development and poor service delivery,
have looked to West Papua from time to time and praised Indonesia’s
authoritarian governments (perhaps over-generously) for bringing order
and development. But most value the political freedom PNG has
enjoyed as one of the few post-colonial states to have maintained
an unbroken record of democratic government. West Papuans, on
the contrary, mostly feel that the colonial rule of the Netherlands
was replaced by the repressive internal colonialism of non-Melanesian
Indonesians who have denied West Papua even of its promised auton-
omy and have sought to exploit West Papua’s resources and wipe out
its Melanesian cultures. Ongoing developments following the Third
Papuan People’s Congress in 2011 demonstrate that these issues remain
unresolved.
The political economy of trans-border trade
Before the arrival of Europeans, people in the border area, who share
common languages across the border, regularly moved across the
present political divide to harvest sago (a starch extracted from palms),
hunt and visit kin. Border surveys in the 1960s found that the border
ran through the middle of at least one village and that several villages,
which had been administered by the Dutch, were in what was then
Australian territory. In 1980, a village included in the PNG national
census was discovered to be inside Indonesian territory. The situation
is made more complex for administering authorities by the tendency,
among populations of shifting cultivators, for whole villages to shift,
reform and disappear over time. The border has never been contested,
but it was not properly surveyed until the 1980s and has been a point of
periodic contention as West Papuan refugees have crossed into PNG and
the Indonesian military has made incursions across the border in pur-
suit of West Papuan separatists and suspected sympathisers (May 1987,
1990, 1991).
The first basic agreement on border arrangements was drawn up in
1973 (when Australia was the administering authority in PNG, although
the agreement was signed by Somare, PNG’s then chief minister). It has
since been renegotiated several times – as with the 1993 special arrange-
ment for traditional and customary land border crossing – with minor
amendments. The agreement covers definition of the border area, con-
sultation and liaison arrangements (including the establishment of a
joint border committee), border crossings for traditional and customary
purposes and by non-traditional inhabitants, customary border trade,
the exercise of traditional rights to land and waters in the border area,
border security, quarantine, navigation, exchange of information on
major construction and major development of natural resources in the
border area (which includes the large gold and copper mines in the Star
Mountains of PNG’s Western Province), environmental protection and
compensation for damages. There are also provisions binding the two
parties to prevent the use of their respective territories for hostile acts
against one another.
There is only one road crossing the border, which links the PNG
coastal town of Vanimo with the West Papuan capital of Jayapura. The
only official border checkpoint is on this road, at Skouw-Wutung. This
crossing sees significant trading activity. Elsewhere, the border is largely
invisible, although there are 15 recognised traditional crossing points
50 New Guinea
in the mountainous hinterland, through which movement is some-

times monitored by local government ward councillors. Along with the
Skouw-Wutung border crossing in the north, Daru in PNG’s Western
Province in the southwest is used for smuggling illegal immigrants
through Indonesia and PNG into Australia. The smugglers use a network
that exploits the customary cross-border rights. Daru’s local economy is
largely dependent on fishing and smuggling, so much so that it is called
a ‘smuggler’s paradise’ (Bohane 2006).
There is also the sea on both sides of the island that crossers use,
often pretending to go fishing far out in the sea and then ‘straying’
into the PNG or Indonesian sides (KamReed 2004). But both land and
sea borders can be porous, surveillance sporadic and officials corrupt:
the borders are used for illegal trade and people trafficking. Migration is
one of the national security concerns for PNG. Economic liberalisation
sets off economic growth through transfer of human capital across bor-
ders and PNG is experiencing an economic boom that requires human
capital to support it. This is linked to human smuggling and illegal
immigrants bringing in non-traditional security issues through transna-
tional crime (Hualupmomi 2010: 44). Asian illegal migration to PNG is
on the increase, with the potential to trigger civil unrest such as the
2009 riots against Asian business.
Recognising the important role that cross-border trade could play in
promoting economic development in its poorer border provinces, the
PNG government created the Border Development Authority (BDA) in
2008. Its key mandate is to develop the border areas of PNG, espe-
cially in terms of providing infrastructure that would help authorities
such as the Customs, Immigration, Foreign Affairs officers and security
forces to do their work and promote socio-economic activities in border
provinces.
West Sepik Province (WSP) is PNG’s largest and one of the least devel-
oped. It also shares 260 km of land border with Papua Province, which
is the second richest province in Indonesia; it offers products and ser-
vices at prices 25–40 per cent lower than those of PNG (ADB 2009:
2). PNG buys from West Papua spare parts for trucks, rice, water, elec-
tronics, textiles and house ware while Indonesia buys beef, beer, betel
buts, cocoa, snack foods, tuna and vanilla from PNG (UNCTAD 2006).
In 2007, this cross-border trade reached about US$7 million, including
a substantial revenue from trading vanilla produced in this province
(ADB 2009: 2). This expanding trade with Indonesia across the bor-
ders with West Papua is important for the economic growth of the
region.
Border observations
Wutung border post on the PNG side is a 45-minutes travel west along a
well-sealed road from Vanimo town. The Vanimo border post is manned
by police, customs and National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection
Authority (NAQIA) officers who monitor movements of plants, animals
and goods. A military post guarded by PNG soldiers is where vehicles
and travellers are generally checked first. At the border post, those who
cross over some 300 metres to Batas market record their names under
the supervision of a police officer. Local traditional border crossers going
across to Indonesia to tend their gardens report to the post and register
their names. These are issued with simple yellow border crosser identity
cards that include their photo.
While the natural environment looks the same, there are obvious
signs that one is moving from one country to another. The most telling
is the difference in architecture and infrastructure. There is a well-sealed
road with high embankments and paved footpaths on both sides that
lead to the Indonesian post. The post itself is ‘Asian’ in architecture
with thick walls, steep red roofs, protected by metal picket fences fixed
to solid concrete posts. Unlike the PNG border post, all crossers are
required to enter the Indonesian post and go through a security check
carried out by soldiers.
Other than the traditional border crossers from the West Papua side,
there are fewer visits to PNG by Indonesians than the number of Papua
New Guineans who cross to the other side. Papua New Guineans cross
over regularly for gardening or to shop at the Batas market. There is
a well-organised PMV (public motor vehicles, usually small vans con-
verted for public transport) system that transfers market goers across the
border to the market in an orderly manner and from an allocated park-
ing lot. The provincial government authorities obviously place some
importance on the transportation system to the border post and the
Batas market. Until September 2011, the Batas market had been oper-
ating daily, adding pressure on the authorities to effectively monitor
the activities happening across the border. Despite its fame throughout
PNG, the market remains a clutter of hurriedly nailed together timber
and iron roof sheds packed with cheap varieties of Asian goods coveted
in PNG. On sale are clothing and household goods, electronic gadgets
(mobile phones, TV sets, MP3s), a range of basic food items such as rice,
flour, noodles and cooking oil mostly sold in bulk, as well as build-
ing and hardware materials (such as roofing iron). Rice and flour, for
instance, are sold cheaper at K50 for 25-kg bags (normal PNG price:
52 New Guinea
K80). Prices of all items, which start at around K10 and upwards, can
be bargained for. There are no currency exchange facilities and all items
are priced in PNG kina. It is not clear whether the PNG kina that goes
across the border is banked in Indonesian banks or used to purchase
PNG goods. The Bank of South Pacific in Vanimo often runs out of
cash because of the huge amounts being withdrawn and spent across
the border.
The steady flow of goods being bought and brought into PNG over the
border provides customs duty revenue and generates income for a num-
ber of other people on the PNG side, including the PMV operators who
charge a fee on each item. Customs officers charge a tax on the more
expensive and larger items, such as TV sets, scooters, building materi-
als and rice and flour bales. Even after the tax and fees, the items are
cheaper than if purchased in Vanimo or elsewhere in PNG where prices
are higher.
On the PNG side, market stalls offer some PNG goods that are in
demand across the border, including such PNG products as Ox and Palm
tinned meat, Besta tinned fish, betel nuts and souvenirs. However, trad-
ing business on this border is mostly one way with Asian-manufactured
goods flooding into PNG. There is a bustling betel nut market by West
Papuans from Wamena, who are admired by Papua New Guineans for
being resourceful and business-minded.
The lack of clear border lines often results in incidents: for example, in
November 2011, Wutung villagers disrupted work on the construction
of a border monument: villagers disputed the location of the current
border marker, claiming that it should be moved further back into
Indonesian territory at Tami River. Wutung villages on the PNG side
claim ownership of land areas up to the Tami River.
As a spokesperson for the Institute of Papuan Advocacy and Human
Rights, Paula Makabory accurately describes the situation, ‘[t]he land
itself is only one land. The peoples there is one people, the culture is
also one. So it’s like just people trespass and divided your house into
two. So for them, “It’s my right, I just go on my land, without having
any document” ’ (Pacific Media Watch 2011).
In another incident, early in 2011, the PNG government authorised a
controversial joint police and military operation called ‘Sunset Merona’
to stop illegal activities happening on the PNG border. A group of people
displaced by the operation were settlers from Wamena in West Papua,
living along the road to Wutung. Their settlement was burnt and the
people were said to have been moved to East Awin refugee camps in
Western Province. These people have returned after walking through the
jungles for weeks to Vanimo where they have resettled. The Wamena
people, like other West Papuans, are generally accepted by PNG peo-
ple and given land areas to settle. In return, the Wamena people, well
known for their farming skills, clear large areas of forest and build large
gardens for their hosts. The gardens are well drained and planted with
highlands crops such as sweet potatoes and cabbages, which are not
grown locally.
Operation Sunset Merona was originally announced as a law and order
enforcement exercise to stop the illegal flow of goods across the bor-
der from Indonesian military (TNI) sources – including a TNI-owned
shopping complex – that were affecting local PNG businesses and to
ensure there were no illegal workers within the logging companies
from Malaysia and Indonesia operating at the PNG/West Papua border
(Chesterfield 2011). The connection between illegal logging in the area
and the Indonesian military business interests has been a concern for
West Papua analysts, who fear that serious human rights abuses in West
Papua could spill over into PNG territory (ibid.). Although there is local
sympathy towards the plight of West Papuan refugees, there is also a
strong history of local business leaders working closely with Indonesian
mercantile interests to clear refugees out of this area.
Observers commented how the operation quickly became an ‘offen-
sive against Indonesia’s enemies in PNG’, namely West Papua dissi-
dents/separatists, one commentator arguing that ‘the question PNG
people need to have asked is . . . What kind of Melanesians are we to do
Jakarta’s work?’ (ibid.). PNG authorities decided rather arbitrarily that
anyone found not to be a PNG citizen would be considered an OPM
activist and sent to East Awin camp, which is under the United Nations
High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) control. PNG’s acting deputy
police commissioner was quoted saying that ‘respect for the sovereignty
of Indonesia is more important than the shared ethnicity of people
living on either side of the border’ (Pacific Media Watch 2011).
Conclusion: a transnational political economy of

human displacement
Globalisation and trade liberalisation promote greater trans-national

trade across borders where investment, exploitation of natural resources
and economic cooperation can improve bi-national economic infras-
tructure and trade, even if that means turning a blind eye to human
rights abuses and human displacement: there are currently some 12,000
West Papuans living in refugee camps in PNG.
54 New Guinea
As long as the Pacific Island countries remain supportive of the polit-

ical status quo, the issue of West Papua will not go beyond local politics
(Pacific Media Watch 2006a). National political and economic interests,
regional geopolitics and the personal interests of both political leaders
and local businesspersons all contribute to keeping the island divided
while failing to deal determinedly with human rights abuses. While
the United States appears to condemn human rights abuses in West
Papua, it also supports Indonesia’s efforts against separatism (Antara
News 2011).
Geopolitics continues to largely determine the fate of the island of
New Guinea. As long as the PNG and Indonesian governments coop-
erate in economic terms through trade and with the blessing of bodies
such as the ADB, a trans-national political economy of human rights is
bound to persist (see Hyndman 2001: 45).
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4
Borneo (Including Sebatik)
Taufiq Tanasaldy
Introduction
This chapter examines the political economy of divided borders on the

Southeast Asian island of Borneo. First, it considers the origins of the
island’s division (extending to the smaller but neighbouring island of
Sebatik) into three separate political jurisdictions. After examining the
governance of the island prior to European colonisation, it evaluates
the role of the colonisers, particularly those of the British and Dutch, in
drawing more permanent political borders within and across the island.
Next, it discusses regional issues and their impact on the partition of
the island after the departure of the colonial powers. The crucial mat-
ter of the territorial disputes among Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia is
then examined. Finally, this chapter looks at the increasing cross-border
activities and their potential social, economic and political impacts.
Origin of the divisions
Before Western colonisers began to bring it into their sphere of influ-

ence and eventual colonisation, the island – later known as Borneo or
Kalimantan – was governed by many independent native sultanates; at
least 17 on the current Indonesian side alone (Lontaan 1985). Some
of the well-known sultanates were Pontianak, Sambas and Sintang in
the west, Kutai Kartanegara in the east, Banjar in the south and Brunei
(from which the name ‘Borneo’ is derived) in the north. Sovereignty
of these sultanates slowly declined when Europeans started to exert
their control from the 19th century onwards. Justification for inter-
vention varied: many were the result of requests by sovereigns for
assistance in quelling domestic revolts or solving their internal court
58
Taufiq Tanasaldy 59
struggles. Binding agreements were signed between the sultans and the
Dutch eventually led to full subjugation of the sultanates, sometimes
with diminished territory, or their complete abolishment (Cribb 2000:
118–119).
In northern Borneo, a large territory of Brunei was given to James
Brooke in 1841 after his role in pacifying local revolts. He then estab-
lished himself as the king of this territory, known as Sarawak. Another
part of Brunei’s territory, later known as Sabah, was ceded to the British
North Borneo Chartered Company (hereafter North Borneo). The weak
Brunei sultanate continued to lose its territories to these two neighbours
in a series of agreements until 1905 when further ceding was prohibited
by the British (Cribb 2000: 118–119, Leifer 1978: 242, Singh 1986: 169).
Meanwhile, by the mid-19th century, other parts of Borneo had fallen
under the control of the Dutch, albeit loosely. The Dutch only started
to tighten their grip on this region after seeing increasing threats from
Sarawak and North Borneo (Black 1985: 287, Cribb 2000: 119, Irwin
1955, Wadley 2001: 627). The whole of Borneo was under British or
Dutch control by the end of the 19th century.
Through a series of agreements, including in 1891, 1915 and 1938,
the British and Dutch were able to establish the international border in
the island as it exists today (see Table 4.1). The agreements also split
control over adjacent Sebatik island (Forbes 2003, Haller-Trost 1995:
6–10). Prior to that, political borders among native sultanates were
unclear due to non-existent or unsophisticated demarcation (e.g. border
agreement between Landak and Pontianak sultanates in Rahman et al.
2000: 130–137). Sultanates in the interior region often claimed a much
larger territory than was under their actual control; and so territorial
overlapping between sultanates was common (Haller-Trost 1995, Veth
1854: 53).
Independence and formation of national identity
The journeys towards state creation under colonial rule (Anderson

1991), which later moulded the political orientation of the people in
Borneo, took different shapes and speeds. Up until 1942, the residents
of Dutch Borneo were told that they were part of the Dutch East Indies,
with ties to the Netherlands, and gravitated towards Batavia as their
regional metropolis. The people of northern Borneo gravitated to dif-
ferent regional centres as they lived in three separate political entities
(Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo). But they shared the protection of,
and links with, the British. That political divide was disrupted when the
60
Table 4.1 Considering the three-way division of Borneo (and including Sebatik)
West Kalimantan East Kalimantan Sarawak Sabah Brunei

Darussalam
Political Status Part of Indonesia Part of Indonesia State within State within Fully sovereign
since 1945 since 1945 Federal Malaysia Federal Malaysia state since
(provincial status (provincial status since 1963 since 1963 1984
since 1956) since 1956)
Capital City Pontianak Samarinda Kuching (state); Kota Kinabalu Bandar Seri
(province); (province); Kuala Lumpur (state); Kuala Begawan
Jakarta (country) Jakarta (country) (country) Lumpur
(country)
Population (2010) 4,393,239 3,550,586 2,506,500 3,214,200 399,000
Land surface area (km2 ) 147,307 204,534 124,449 73,620 5,765
Resident population 30 17 20 44 69
density
(persons/km2 )
% of population that 27.72% 55.36% 49.94% 49.34% 76% (2010)
lives in urban areas
(2009)
Life expectancy in 70.7 73.2 75.6 78 78
years (2010)
% annual population 0.91% 3.81% 1.40% 1.00% 1.79%
growth (2010)
Gross regional product 1,197 3,292 8,613 4,213 48,194 (GDP
(GRP) per capita per capita)
(US$) 2009
Human development 0.702 0.769 0.643 0.692 0.837
index (2009)
% of population below 8.60% 6.77% 1.1% (2005) 6.5% (2005) 3.9% (2008)
poverty Line (2011)
Adult (15+) Literacy 90% 97% 79% (2006) 82% (2006) 95%
rate (%) (2010)
Main language(s) Indonesian, Indonesian, Malay, Chinese Malay, Chinese, Malay,
spoken Chinese dialects, Banjarese, Bugis, dialect, English, English, Chinese,
Dayak dialects, Dayak dialects Iban Kadazan English
Malay
Currency (exchange Rupiah (1US$ = 9,094 Rupiah) Ringgit (1US$ = 3.0 Ringgit) Dollar Brunei
rate as at March (1US$ = 1.3
2012) Dollar Brunei)
61
62 Borneo (Including Sebatik)
Japanese occupied the region during the Second World War (hereafter
WWII). For the only time in its history, the whole island was unified
under one colonial government and all its inhabitants became subjects
of the Japanese emperor.
The Japanese occupation redrew some of the regional administra-
tive boundaries, although reminders of earlier divisions still could be
seen. British and Dutch Borneo were administered by different mili-
tary establishments: the former – reorganised into five administrative
divisions, each headed by a provincial governor – was administered
by the Imperial Japanese Army (Ooi 2007), while the latter was at
first also administered by the Army but then transferred to the Impe-
rial Navy (Maekawa 2002: 156–157). Administration of most of the
island remained localised and compartmentalised according to previ-
ous boundaries. The only exception was Brunei, which was grouped
with another part of Sarawak to form a new administrative division
(Hussainmiya 2003: 278). Owing to their short-lived occupation, the
Japanese were not able to mould a single island identity; however, the
prospects of cultural assimilation with a view to create an extension of
Japanese settlements similar to those in Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan
was thought to be suitable for Dutch Borneo if not for the whole island
(Raben 2005: 22).
The Western powers returned to their former colonies after the con-
clusion of WWII; but the situation on the ground had changed. The
Dutch faced strong resistance in trying to re-assert control over their
former colony. As a part of their tactics to weaken the newly proclaimed
Republic of Indonesia, the Dutch formed more than a dozen pro-Dutch
states within the former Dutch East Indies, and shrewdly approached
formerly disempowered local power holders such as sultans or kings to
head such states. Six of these states – West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan,
Dajak Besar, Kota Waringin, Bandjar and Kalimantan Tenggara – were
in Borneo (Cribb 2000: 160). Yet, all these statelets were dissolved and
became part of the Republic of Indonesia by 1950. In contrast to the
Dutch, Britain did not face stiff opposition from the local populace in
northern Borneo: Brunei remained a protectorate, while Sarawak and
North Borneo became British colonies (Lockard 1967: 114).
The island’s relative peace in the 1950s started to shift in the early
1960s. As part of its decolonisation strategy, Britain pushed for the
establishment of a federated state of Malaya-Singapore (Subritzky 2000:
209–210). Britain wanted to ensure its continuing military presence
in Singapore, and so could not let the island fall into the grip of
Barisan Sosialis, a growing influential leftist opposition political party
(Subritzky 2000: 209–210). At the insistence of Malaya, which had its
own concerns – British Borneo was also included: this move ensured
a Malay racial majority in the new federal state, removing the threat
posed by a significant Chinese community in Malaya (Chin 1997: 98,
Jones 2000: 88). This concession was made even though many of the
people of Sarawak and Sabah, their local leaders and even their British
governors, initially opposed the idea (Chin 1997: 98, Jones 2000: 89–94,
Means 1963: 146–147).
Under constant British pressure, however, and after significant lobby-
ing by the political leaders of Malaya and Singapore (Chin 1997: 98–99),
numerous leaders of Sarawak and North Borneo decided to support
the new federal state, having secured constitutional safeguards protect-
ing religion, language, education and immigration (Chin 1997: 99–100,
Kroef 1963: 176, Milne 1963: 79). Brunei opted out because of disagree-
ments over revenue sharing and the sovereignty of its monarch (Jones
2000: 103, Weatherbee 1983: 726–727). The federation was officially
formed in September 1963 despite significant opposition: the Cobbold
Commission found that one-third of the local inhabitants in Sabah and
Sarawak were completely opposed to their inclusion in the new state
(Chin 1997: 99).
Indonesia’s President Sukarno, who had positioned himself as the
champion of the Third World, saw the federation as a form of a new
imperialism by the British and a potential threat to Indonesia. With
a government under the strong influence of the Communists, who
had voiced their disapproval to the federation idea since its inception,
Sukarno launched Konfrontasi, a campaign to sabotage the formation
of a federal Malaysia (Sutter 1966: 526–531). Indonesia started to train
volunteers, including from northern Borneo as well as West and East
Kalimantan, to sabotage the British plan. Border areas in Borneo soon
became the main arena of violent incursion and raids (Sutter 1966:
527–528). The tension on the border had a profound impact on cement-
ing the national identity of those who lived there. Konfrontasi taught
them the importance of the political demarcation that differentiated
them from their kin on the other side of the border (Amster and
Lindquist 2005: 5–6). (The Malaysia–Singapore federation would even-
tually collapse, Singapore becoming its own sovereign state in 1965.)
Territorial disputes and cooperation
From September 1963, Borneo was transformed into three separate

political entities: Brunei (still a British protectorate), Indonesia and
Malaysia. Border issues between Brunei and Sarawak/Sabah (which had
been hitherto unaffected when they were under the same British flag)
started to surface. Although Brunei had lost a significant part of its

territories to Sarawak and North Borneo, it only disputed Limbang,
which according to Brunei was unlawfully incorporated into Sarawak
(Crisswell 1971: 224–226, Weatherbee 1983: 724). This was an ongoing
issue until 2009, when Brunei agreed to drop its claims over Limbang
after gaining two oil-rich maritime blocks in the South China Sea from
Malaysia (Leong 2010).
Malaysia and Indonesia started to work on their border in Borneo
after normalising relations in 1966. Although the Dutch and British had
imposed detailed demarcations along the Borneo border, there remained
considerable scope for ambiguity (Forbes 2003: 58). One issue is the
extensive use of temporary markers for the terrestrial border, such as
the use of watersheds, instead of precise latitude and longitude coordi-
nates; another is the lack of details relating to maritime boundaries, and
which affect the status of islets off the main island.
There are ten outstanding border issues between Indonesia and
Malaysia in Kalimantan (Aju 2011, Habibu 2011). An important one
relates to the oil-rich Ambalat block, close to Sebatik Island, and which,
at times, has brought bilateral tensions to the brink of war (Shari
2007, Storey 2009: 54, Suhartono 2009, Zulfakar 2005). Both countries
had also hotly contested Sipadan and Ligitan, two islets not far from
Ambalat. This dispute was resolved after both countries referred the case
to the International Court of Justice, which ruled in December 2002 that
they belonged to Malaysia (Ong 1999: 403, Tan 2002).
Claims that the Malaysian government or companies have encroa-
ched Indonesian Borneo frequently appear in Indonesia’s newspapers. A
report in October 2011 accused Malaysia of having appropriated some
1,400 hectares of Indonesian territory in Camar Bulan village and 80,000
square metres in Tanjung Datu, both in Sambas, West Kalimantan (Khoir
2011). Such reports are usually met with some strong nationalist rhetoric
by politicians (Harian Joglo Semar 2011, Swara Sulut 2011), who may
try to exploit the issues for their own political gains. For the people
on the border, however, such claims are viewed differently. In their
eyes, nationalism should not negatively affect their livelihood, which
depends on peaceful and fluid cross-border relations (Equator 2011a,
Hidayat 2009, Vinco 2011).
Cross-border activities
The international border in Borneo was drawn by its former colonisers

without adhering to ethnic boundaries, a common colonial practice
(Jackson and Rosberg 1982: 14). Thus, groups who shared similar
ethnic backgrounds and had been in contact for centuries in inte-
rior Borneo suddenly found themselves divided into different political
entities. Often unaware of the existence and consequence of the demar-
cation, locals continued their nomadic lifestyle and daily activities (such
as hunting, fishing and shifting cultivation), which often involved
crossing the international border. These social and cultural ties were
important preludes for cross-border activities (King 1976: 85, Thien
2004).
Non-existent or ineffective control of movements across the long and
porous political boundaries facilitated cross-border activities (Ishikawa
2008: 118, Lindquist 2009: 24, Wadley 2001: 629–630). The length
of international land borders on the island is more than 2,000 km;
1,782 km between Malaysia–Indonesia, and 381 km between Malaysia
and Brunei (Singh 2005: 184). With the exception of the land sur-
rounding border control posts, the majority of the border is open (i.e.
unfenced) and under minimum surveillance. The sprawling Indonesia–
Malaysian border is monitored by just 50 check-points (Wakker 2006: 4)
and eight joint-border posts (six in Sarawak and two in Sabah) (The Star
2011).
Most of today’s cross-border activities are economically driven.
Within Malaysia, the network of roads in Sarawak and Sabah remains
the worst within the country; yet, it remains comparatively better than
those within the Indonesian side of Borneo. Thus for Indonesians in
both West and East Kalimantan, travelling to neighbouring Sarawak
or Sabah towns and villages is easier and more practical. For example,
the distance from West Kalimantan’s Badau to Sarawak’s town of Lubok
Antu is only 10 km with a smooth road on Malaysia’s side of the bor-
der, while access from Badau to the nearest Indonesian town of Lanjak
and Nanga Kantuk is at least three times longer and impassable dur-
ing the rainy season. Its distance to the district capital of Putussibau
is 175 km with similar difficulties (Petebang 2009, Vinco 2011). Ironi-
cally, sometimes it is more efficient to travel between Indonesian towns
in the border areas through Malaysia: for example, it takes ten hours to
travel from Pontianak to Badau via Kuching and Lubok Antu in Sarawak;
but 22 hours if through Putussibau (Petebang 2009). The Malaysian and
Indonesian governments agreed to open 13 border check-points after
the disappearance of the Chinese trading network in the interior of
West Kalimantan as a result of an anti-Chinese programme in 1967. This
allows people in the interior of West Kalimantan to officially obtain their
daily necessities in Sarawak (Kroef 1968: 256).
These access issues have led to unstable supplies, and more expensive
goods and services in Indonesia’s border region. In East Kalimantan, for
example, fuel was dispatched twice weekly by air transport to the three
border districts. Owing to infrequent and costly transport, the cost of
fuel in the border area skyrocketed to Rp 50,000 (US$5.80) per litre,
while fuel purchased from Malaysia cost only half as much (Kaltim
Post 2011). Similarly, Indonesians on the border tend to seek medical
treatments in Sabah’s and Sarawak’s hospitals (Borneo Tribune 2010,
Pontianak Post 2010, Tribun Kaltim 2011). Sourcing similar goods and
services from Malaysia is more practical, and is often cheaper: some
essential items, such as gas, fuel, sugar and flour, are subsidised by the
Malaysian government (The Borneo Post 2011b).
Economic disparities and price differentials between the two countries
make border trading a lucrative business. There is a now growing trend
for Bruneians to buy cigarettes from across the Sarawak border since
the cost is several times cheaper than inside Brunei (Amiruddin 2010).
Non-Muslim Bruneians have to travel into Sarawak’s border in order to
purchase liquor, since the sale of alcohol within Brunei, a Moslem state,
is prohibited (Too 2008). As explained later, many Bruneians also fre-
quently travel to Sarawak for shopping due to, among other reasons,
cheaper prices. Similarly, Sarawakians make short trips to the Indonesian
border to buy cheaper goods (The Brunei Times 2011b). From a pro-
ducer’s perspective, selling produce – such as rice – to markets in Sabah
and Sarawak (rather than domestic markets) is a rational choice: it pays
better, and the markets are also more easily accessed (Gunawan and
Supriyanto 2011, Kompas 2001, Matanews 2008).
This ease of access is in part a function of administrative initiatives
that have made the border more porous: Malaysia and Indonesia have
agreed that borderland people are only required to present a travel doc-
ument known as PLB or Pas Lintas Batas (Border Crossing Pass) when
requested during the border crossing. This PLB can be obtained at a
local crossing point, unlike passports that require travel to one of four
immigration offices in the province (Entikong, Pontianak, Sambas and
Sanggau) to obtain. Travel between Brunei and Sarawak has also been
streamlined with the implementation of a Frequent Traveller Facility
(FTF) scheme (Piri 2011b). In addition, the Malaysian government has
for many years implemented a special passport for Sarawakians and
Sabahans who want to travel to Brunei. This type of passport has the
same length as the regular passport, but is six times cheaper (The Borneo
Post 2010, 2011a). Such cross-border arrangements are important to
both countries. Bruneians travel frequently to Sarawak, while people
from Sabah and from the Limbang and Lawas regions of Sarawak will
need to pass four to eight border check-points if they want to visit
Kuching, and vice versa.
Illegal activities
Yet, official measures do not tell the whole story. One implication of
porous borders and profits is thriving smuggling activities. Of course,
smuggling is not new in the region: it has existed at least since the inter-
national border was established by the Dutch and British in Kalimantan
(Ishikawa 2008: 122–123, Kroef 1968: 254–255, Obidzinski et al. 2006:
5, Wadley 2001: 627).
Of the two borders, the Malaysia–Brunei border is less problematic.
The number of illegal crossings generally poses no serious concern for
both countries, though the smuggling of goods does. Two of the main
items that often find their way into Brunei from Sarawak are cigarettes
and alcohol, for reasons already explained (Ya’akub 2011). Items such as
fuel, livestock and illicit drugs are also occasionally reported (Piri 2011a,
The Brunei Times 2008, 2011a).
Smuggling activities along the longer border between Indonesia and
Malaysia are more intense and on a much larger scale. A minimum
of 50 tons of sugar, 30–45 tons of flour were being smuggled from
Sarawak to West Kalimantan daily in 2003 (Kompas 2003); Malaysian-
subsidised liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) also finds its way easily across
the Indonesian border (Luberto 2011, Wahyuni 2011). From the other
direction, 200 tons of West Kalimantan’s rice found itself across the bor-
der daily in 2001 (Kompas 2001); about four million cubic metres of
timber from Indonesian Kalimantan was smuggled into East Malaysia
in 2002 (Obidzinski et al. 2006: 25). An operation of this magnitude
occurs not merely because of the different prices that fetch across
the border. First, there are contrasting living standards: the per capita
income of Indonesians in Kalimantan was less than US$300 in 2011,
much lower than that of their Malaysian neighbours, which is between
US$4,000 and US$7,000 (Pidani 2011). Second, the high population
numbers along the border: the number of Indonesian residents in the
West Kalimantan sub-district that borders Sarawak was about 160,000 in
2000; for East Kalimantan, the number was 143,000 (Badan Pusat
Statistik 2000). Third, there is the existence of numerous traditional
routes: in West Kalimantan alone, there were 52 documented traditional
routes linking 55 villages in Indonesia and 32 kampung in Sarawak
(Sinar Harapan 2011a). There were hundreds of such unofficial routes
from East Kalimantan to Sabah and Sarawak (Idrus 2010). The number
of these unofficial routes may be increasing partly because of logging
and palm-oil plantation activities (Abdillah 2011, Obidzinski et al. 2006:
10). Finally, there is a lack of law enforcement, and a facilitation of cross-
border dynamics by various local and regional intermediaries and power
brokers, as well as corrupt local officials (for example Obidzinski et al.
2006). Forbes (2003: 48) claims that governments often tolerate illicit
trade as it is generally beneficial to both sides.
Integration of the Borneo borderland
Border activities bind people from both sides of the political border
closer together and create some levels of interdependence between
them. Owing to this linkage, any disruption of cross-border flow will
negatively impact on the livelihood of communities in the region.
Many Indonesians in the interior region have relied for their liveli-
hood (consumption, income and other daily activities) on the other
side of the border. In 2011, 5,000 people in three sub-districts of interior
East Kalimantan suffered because their access to Tapak Mega Camp in
Sabah was closed for almost two months (Koran Kaltim 2011a, 2011b);
although reports suggest that these people eventually found other ways
of continuing to shop there (Koran Kaltim 2011a). The regional econ-
omy is also hurt if the flow of people is restricted, because visitors spend
money during their visits. On the basis of 2007 data, Sarawak would
potentially lose revenue of RM280 million (US$81 million), the money
spent by 1.4 million Brunei visitors annually (Bahrum 2009). It also
will forgo significant revenue derived from Indonesian visitors. From
Indonesian visitors through Entikong and Jagoi Babang crossings alone,
Sarawak may lose annually RM83 million (US$24 million) in revenue:
annually, some 418,000 people cross the border from both posts (Equa-
tor 2011b, Tempo Interaktif 2010b). Its economy can also expect some
shocks if the Malaysian government implements a drastic measure to
curb migrant workers (legal or illegal) from Indonesia.
Malaysia has been a favourite destination for Indonesian migrant
workers, known in Indonesian as Tenaga Kerja Indonesia (TKI). Indonesia
has been the major supplier of labour (both legal and illegal) to Malaysia.
In 2009, around half of some two million foreign workers in Malaysia
came from Indonesia (International Organization for Migration 2010:
39); and as many as 70 per cent of Malaysia’s 700,000 illegal workers
came from Indonesia in 2006 (International Organization for Migration
2010: 41). Economic disparities, geography proximity, the presence of
network of worker agencies, linguistic similarities and social and cultural

affinity between the two are some of the reasons (International Organ-
isation for Migration 2010: 39). The prospect of ‘better’ paid jobs and
high demand for workers in the so-called 3D (dirty, dangerous, demean-
ing) sectors, such as in plantations, logging, and construction, domestic
work in Malaysia, and easy access to East Malaysia, are other contrib-
utors. One source estimates that the number of Indonesian workers in
Sarawak in 2011 has reached 204,000 (Kompas 2011) and in Sabah about
600,000 (Suara Pembaruan 2011). The proportion of illegal workers was
not known but, based on previous reports, it could easily exceed half of
those numbers: of 450,000 plus Indonesian workers in Sabah in 2009,
about 318,000 were illegal (Saju 2010); and another report claims that,
at the end of the 1990s, more than half of 46,900 Indonesian workers in
Sarawak were illegal (Agustiar 2000: 235).
Malaysia has, on several occasions, deported illegal migrants; but its
policies have not been successful in reducing their numbers, due to the
various aforementioned factors. Another policy more acceptable to busi-
ness sectors in Malaysia is the regularisation of the workers. Through this
strategy, businesses are able to keep their workers and the business pro-
cess continues uninterrupted. In 1993, about 500,000 illegal TKI were
regularised and in 1996 another 300,000 benefitted from the same pol-
icy (International Organisation for Migration 2010: 42). Similar efforts
in 2011 would benefit 1.2 million illegal TKI (Suara Pembaruan 2011).
The Malaysian government is even considering the option of accepting
the employment of illegal migrants due to the continued demand for
low-wage labour (The Brunei Times 2010) and large numbers of illegal
migrants in the country.
There is evidence that suggests that the linkages on the island have
reached beyond the immediate border areas, at least between West
Kalimantan and Sarawak. The number of medical visits from other
parts of West Kalimantan to Sarawak hospitals has been notable. It is
estimated that the four daily flights from Pontianak to Kuching bring
about a hundred medical tourists to Sarawak daily. The visitors seek
more comprehensive and better medical treatment offered by the
hospitals in Kuching (Munandar 2011). Tertiary education provided
by institutions in East Malaysia is another indicator of such a link.
In 1998, Indonesian students constituted 82 per cent of foreign stu-
dents in Sarawak (Fariastuti 2002: 101). A representative of Malaysia’s
Inti College in Indonesia estimated that, in 2000, some 200 of its 500
Indonesian students in Sarawak were from West Kalimantan (interview).
From my observations until 2005, middle- and high-income families in
West Kalimantan are attracted to Sarawak’s tertiary education due to the

proximity of Sarawak, its higher quality education, tuition fees that are
markedly cheaper than those in other advanced countries, the combina-
tion of instruction in both English and Malay and the presence of a large
Chinese community. Moreover, tuition fees for postgraduate study in
Malaysia for Indonesian students may be even cheaper than they would
have to pay should they have decided to stay at home (Kusuma 2010).
Cross-border activities on Sebatik Island mirror closely those in
Borneo’s borderland. Population and economic movements within the
island are not constrained by political boundaries. Many Indonesians
live on the Malaysian side of the border (Kukuh 2010), some deliberately
building their residence on the border (Noveria 2006: 21). Surprisingly,
the Malaysian government allows and even facilitates Indonesians liv-
ing in the Malaysian part of Sebatik by providing them with houses
that could be occupied with cheaper rent payments (Kukuh 2010); and,
in the 1980s, an easy access to Malaysia’s identity card (Noveria 2006:
51). The smuggling of goods and people can also be found here (Daily
Express 2011a, 2011b, New Sabah Times 2010).
The Indonesian part of Sebatik is much dependent on Tawau of Sabah,
which is the main market for Sebatik’s fresh produce. Tawau attracts peo-
ple who seek medical treatment because this is both cheaper and offered
from better facilities when compared with other Indonesian towns close
by. Better employment opportunities and existing social ties with peo-
ple also result in frequent travel between Indonesia’s Sebatik and Tawau
(Noveria 2006: 48–49). Malaysian products, easily found in Indonesia’s
Sebatik, are shipped from Tawau (Tempo Interaktif 2010a).
Underdevelopment and nationalism inside Indonesian

border
Nationalism in Borneo borderland is more of an issue within Indonesian

Kalimantan, than inside Malaysia or Brunei. A package consisting of bet-
ter education and health facilities, higher accessibility, more jobs and
better pay, reliable supplies of electricity, clean water and a constant
supply of basic goods in East Malaysia is undeniably attractive to the
borderland Indonesians. Products and services from Malaysia are per-
ceived as being of a better quality than those from inside Indonesia (e.g.
Luberto 2011, Wahyuni 2011). The Malaysian ringgit is considered a bet-
ter currency in border transactions and is in common usage even on the
Indonesian side of the border (Gunawan and Supriyanto 2011, Iskandar
2010 ). Many interior people cannot receive any Indonesian radio or
television channels other than Malaysian. Owing to the frequent con-

tacts and flow of information from the other side, they are more aware
of issues and developments in Sarawak and/or Sabah than of those in
their own province (Bintoro 2010, Eilenberg 2005, Koran Kaltim 2011c,
Republika 2011, Yurnaldi 2009). Indonesians in the borderland recog-
nise the large discrepancies between the two sides of the border and are
naturally disappointed with the Indonesian government. How can their
kin on the other side of the border live better? It is not surprising to find
frustrated borderland Indonesians threatening to switch nationality if
the government does not improve their conditions immediately (Nur
2011, Unjianto 2011). Changing nationality or having dual national-
ities for Indonesians on the border has occurred for decades, but has
been underreported (Equator 2011c, Radar Tarakan 2010).
The Indonesian government has implemented several strategies to
counter the rise of Malaysian nationalism among its borderland pop-
ulation. These range from implementing a national school curriculum
to inculcate national ideals (Eilenberg 2005: 166–169), re-settling people
from Java and Bali to help to create a feeling of being part of Indonesia’s
multi-ethnic nation among the border population and introducing
economic opportunities through logging and plantation activities.
Unfortunately, the development of the borderland has not been sig-
nificant. Centralised development policies in the past have tended to
ignore the borderland, perhaps even intentionally so as not to encour-
age a communist mobilisation at the border (Eilenberg and Wadley
2009: 61). No state bodies and policies were expressly designed to tackle
underdevelopment and poverty in the borderland. Furthermore, corrupt
practices caused the already meagre funding from the central state to
shrink even further when they reached the local region, resulting in
low-quality infrastructure (such as roads and school buildings).
The borderland started to feature more prominently in local and
national newspapers after 1998. Local NGOs and politicians took advan-
tage of a new political freedom to start voicing their concerns. The
process of pemekaran (redistricting), often a result of efforts to redress
the imbalance of regional development and improve access of local
government, also often touched on border issues.
In 2010, the government finally established Badan Nasional Pengelola
Perbatasan (National Agency for Border Management) to specifically
tackle the issue of underdevelopment in the borderland. The govern-
ment pledged Rp 5 trillion (US$550 million) to road infrastructure
in order to open up the region, as well as addressing other concerns
related to improving services and welfare (Fajar 2011). Since then,
significant road building and upgrading activities in the borderland

have been underway in East and West Kalimantan (Bun 2011, Sinar
Harapan 2011b). The government also launched a strategy to contain
the influence of foreign media in the borderland. In West Kalimantan,
for example, the government has established 24 Desa Informasi
(Information-enabled Villages) where villagers now have access to tele-
phone, internet, community radio and television channels (Equator
2010, Republika 2011). Other efforts include purchasing electricity from
Sarawak to serve residents in the West Kalimantan borderland. Such
developments have had an immediate effect, but registering an over-
all improvement in people’s welfare will take some years. Until then,
cross-border activities will continue and the integration of the region
will continue to bind people from all sides of the border closer together.
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5
Timor
Anthony Soares
Introduction
More than nine years after independence, and twelve after the with-
drawal of the occupying Indonesian forces from its territory, the East
Timorese foreign minister was able to inform the press in 2011 that
Timor-Leste and Indonesia were in the final phases of their negotiations
over the borders between the neighbouring countries – the terrestrial
ones that is, as negotiations over the maritime borders had not yet
begun in earnest. This may seem like a long time to define the ter-
ritorial limits of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste and those of
the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara (Nusa Tenggara Timur);
but it pales into insignificance compared with the more than three
centuries that it took Portugal and the Netherlands to agree the same
thing – although, of course, the boundaries in this case would sepa-
rate Portuguese Timor from Dutch West Timor. As discussed elsewhere
(Soares 2011: 186–187), however, the border separating East from West
on the island of Timor has not always overcome its artificiality as those
living on either side of the line have continually attested to its invis-
ibility. In fact, it is not one line that we must consider here, but two
since, apart from the smaller neighbouring islands of Ataúro and Jaco,
the territorial limits of Timor-Leste includes the enclave of Oecusse
within Indonesian West Timor. Nevertheless, demarcation of the island
of Timor by external powers underlined the colonial projects of the
Dutch, Portuguese and Indonesians, while final agreement on where the
West ends and East begins (or vice versa) will firmly place the hyphen
into post-colonial Timor-Leste (see Table 5.1).
As has so often been the case, the territorial lines drawn by the
Dutch and Portuguese colonial powers paid scant attention to the lands
79
80 Timor
Table 5.1 Comparing West Timor (Indonesia) and Timor-Leste
West Timor Timor-Leste
Political Status Part of Nusa Tenggara Sovereign state since

Timur province, of the 2002
Republic of Indonesia
Capital City Kupang (provincial Dili
capital)
Population (2010) 1,600,000 1,120,000
Land surface area (km2 ) 15,850 15,007
Resident population 100.9 (2010) 76.2 (2009)
density (persons/km2 )
% of population that lives 21% 28%
in Urban Areas (2010)
Life expectancy in Years 65.8 (2010) 62 (2009)
% annual population + 2.3% + 3.4%
growth (2010)
GNP per capita (US$) 340 (2009) 2,220 (2010)
Standing on human 124th out of 182 147th out of 182
development index countries (Indonesia) countries
(2010)
% of population below 67.3% 41%
poverty line (2009)
Adult (15+) Literacy rate 71% (2009) 51% (2007)
(%)
Main language(s) spoken Bahasa Indonesia, Uab Tetum and Portuguese
Meto and Tetum (official languages),
Fataluku, Kemak,
Makassae and
Galoli (with about
another ten lesser
spoken indigenous
languages), and
Bahasa Indonesia
(a working language,
alongside English)
Currency (exchange rate Rupiah (1 Indonesian US$
as at January 2012) Rupiah = 0.00011 US$)
inhabited by different ethno-linguistic groups, or to the relationships

that may have existed between them. It would be wrong to imagine
that, when the Portuguese first set foot on the island of Timor – the
easternmost of the Lesser Sunda islands – early in the 16th century, they
were stumbling upon an ‘island-nation’. Bearing in mind the colonial
eyes that gave rise to these distinctions, one can note the absence of a
Anthony Soares 81
homogeneous community laying claim to the entire island, as Douglas

Kammen notes: ‘the Portuguese and Dutch viewed Timor as being
divided into two provinces: Servião in the west, which was comprised
of about 16 kingdoms, and Belos in the east, with about 50 different
named polities’ (2010: 246). All these polities had their own territo-
ries; but any boundaries were especially permeable in times of peace.
So, when the Portuguese created their first administrative settlement
in Lifau on the north-western coast of the island (in what is now the
enclave of Oecusse, a rich source of sandalwood), there was no sense of
an island-wide Timorese identity. Timorese ‘kingdoms were neither uni-
fied nor centrifugal, combin[ing] loosely-knit localized territorial groups
in a general hierarchy of clans’ (Taylor 1991: 2).
The absence of an island-wide identity did not impede the creation
of links that went beyond individual communities. While the island’s
mountainous terrain made communication difficult between differ-
ent groups, this did not entail complete isolation. Coastal Timorese
‘kingdoms’ had been engaged in trade (mainly in valuable Timorese san-
dalwood, as well as beeswax) with peoples from East Java, the Celebes,
India and China, long before the arrival of Europeans (Dunn 2003:
3, Gunn 2001: 5, Molnar 2010: 26, Taylor 1991: 1). The importance
of these coastal kingdoms in their contact with the ‘outside’ world,
trading local products for imported goods, which would in turn be
exchanged for goods from groups living in the interior, means that the
more significant axis of communication and power is not east–west,
but interior–exterior. With varying degrees of difference, those groups
located on the coast were viewed as more worldly, while those from
the interior were seen as having special ritual powers, and exchange
obligations linked different groups into complex political alliances that
often crossed ethno-linguistic as much as physical boundaries (Traube
1995: 44).
The colonial division of the island into two halves along an east–west
axis makes little sense, then, in a social context oriented on the notion
of inside–outside, with groups from what would become Portuguese
Timor having ritual links to others in what would become Dutch Timor.
Moreover, the mercantilist nature that for centuries characterised the
Portuguese and Dutch presences on the island did not unduly impact on
existing indigenous modes of trading relations, nor did it create a dis-
tinctive separation between East and West Timor. The mercantilist form
of colonialism practised until the end of the 19th century was struc-
tured on ‘the desire of the core imperial powers to secure a trade surplus
[ . . . ] and required their export-dependent colonies to play the role of
82 Timor
sources of cheap raw materials as well as captive markets for manufac-

turing exports originating from the centre’ (Seccareccia 2007: 3). Thus,
one can begin to understand how Timorese trading practices could map
onto this structure without a marked degree of change. Broadly speak-
ing, as long as the colonial powers restricted themselves to the external
trade in goods, leaving a complex network of alliances and forms of
ritual tribute linking different native communities undisturbed, then
the inside–outside economic structures prevalent in Timor would not
be dramatically altered, even if some of the dividends would now be
diverted to the Dutch and Portuguese.
Early (non)colonialism
Before the full-scale arrival of the Dutch East Indies Company (Veerenigde
Oost-Indische Compagnie – VOC) in the region in the early 17th century
the Portuguese had largely been content to directly trade with Timor
from their base on the island of Solor. The Portuguese presence in Timor
was largely sub-contracted to the Topasses; descended from Portuguese
and natives mainly of Solor. In 1642, however, and to some extent react-
ing to Holland’s increasing presence, the Portuguese decided to attempt
‘to extend their influence beyond the coast to control the island’s inter-
nal trade’ (Taylor 1991: 4). The Dutch VOC meanwhile behaved no
differently in terms of its own insertion into the political economy of
the western region of Timor. The Dutch did defeat the Portuguese gar-
rison of Kupang, forcing them to flee to their base in Lifau, in 1653;
but the VOC’s attempts to control Timorese trade had a negligible effect
on local networks of exchange. Both the Portuguese and Dutch simply
either replaced or positioned themselves above Timorese rulers to whom
their subjects paid tribute in the form of produce and labour. Beneath
these higher hierarchical strata, the Timorese political and economic
structures were barely touched, since lower-ranking rulers continued to
receive tributes from their own local subjects, while making tribute to
those immediately above them, as well as continuing to exert their polit-
ical influence through the arrangement of marriages that would either
cement existing alliances or create new ones.
What may be viewed from a Westernised perspective as the spread of
a Wallersteinian capitalist world-system into the eastern Sunda islands
did not present itself as such to many Timorese in the 17th and 18th
centuries. ‘What, in other societies, might have produced fundamen-
tal structural changes’ as Taylor remarks, ‘resulted paradoxically in
the strengthening of basic aspects of Timorese society’ (1991: 9). For
Anthony Soares 83
the Dutch, Portuguese and Topasses, control of Timorese trade meant

increasing rivalry, which the Timorese could exploit, without signifi-
cantly altering their economic structures. Following their conquest of
Kupang, for example, the Dutch attempt to consolidate their position
in western Timor through a significant military campaign in 1656 was
thwarted by local rulers, aided by Topasses-supplied weaponry, leading
the Dutch to retreat to the island of Roti. Timorese kingdoms in the
east also frequently rose in revolt against both the Topasses and the
Portuguese, but would unite with both groups in order to halt Dutch
advances. In 1749, in what would effectively split the island in two – at
least from the colonisers’ point of view – a joint invasion by the Topasses
and Portuguese of Dutch areas in the western regions was definitively
repelled in the battle of Penfui, asserting Dutch control of the west
(except for Lifau, which would become the enclave of Oecusse). This
event also marks the demise of Topasses’ power in the east, which was
left in the hands of the Portuguese. The latter effectively abandoned
Lifau to Topasses control in 1769, moving their base of operations to
Dili on the north-eastern coast.
Dutch and Portuguese semi-peripheral colonialism
A formal binding resolution of the boundaries between Dutch West

Timor and Portuguese East Timor would have to wait until 1914, but the
effective division of the island dates back to the battle of Penfui. Still, the
‘line’ separating Dutch from Portuguese Timor was nothing more than
a foreign fiction with little real impact on the Timorese. Groups whose
languages were spoken on both sides of the colonial divide did not cease
to affirm their loyalty to each other through marriage alliances, which
implied the largely unimpeded continuation of the exchange of goods
over a ‘foreign’ border. It was principally in attempts to control Timorese
external trade that Dutch and Portuguese influence could be felt.
In Portugal’s case, this is not surprising if one accepts Boaventura de
Sousa Santos’s characterisation of its position within the international
political economy: ‘Portugal is and has been since the seventeenth cen-
tury a semiperipheral country in the modern capitalist world system’
(2002: 9). This position was mainly an outcome of two interconnected
factors: first is the almost total absence of a domestic industrial base,
resulting in a minimal amount of home-produced manufactured goods,
most of which had to be imported from other nations including the
Netherlands and, later, Britain; second is a reliance on the trade of
mainly raw materials between the periphery and the core of the world
84 Timor
system in order to obtain revenue to pay for Portugal’s importation of

manufactured goods – goods that may have used raw materials from
Portuguese overseas possessions, including Timor. To engage in this type
of activity, the Portuguese did not see the need to exert any signif-
icant control that went beyond guaranteeing sufficient access to the
trade in the raw materials available in their territories. Although prin-
cipally referring to Portugal’s presence in Africa, Boaventura de Sousa
Santos’s characterisation of the nature of the colonialism that results
from these practices is applicable to the Portuguese presence in South-
east Asia as well: ‘the Portuguese engaged in trade in the region were
colonizers without a colonial state and therefore forced to practise a
kind of colonial self-government’ (2002: 26).
Dutch relations with Timorese rulers within their sphere of influ-
ence were, as in the Portuguese case, not always denotative of the
assured imposition of European political power. Dutch insertion into
the Timorese political economy through agreements with local lead-
ers, according to Steven Farram, enabled the latter ‘to exercise influence
greater than that which their Dutch masters had probably intended’
(2004: 2). Viewed from a specifically Timorese context, therefore, it
would have been difficult to note the passing of the Portuguese into the
semi-periphery of a world system in whose core they were replaced by
the Dutch; there was no notable difference in their respective abilities to
exert their influence in the island. Importantly, however, Dutch inser-
tion into the core is both a product and a cause of their increasing dom-
inance in the region, which would eventually restrict semi-peripheral
Portugal’s presence to its half of the island of Timor, while the western
half was part of the much larger space formed by the Dutch East Indies.
The importance of this becomes increasingly significant in the transition
from a mercantilist colonialism to high imperialism, and eventually to
the struggle for Indonesian independence from the Dutch.
Until then, however, both powers’ limitations on the island of Timor
were most visible not only along the borders that separated their colo-
nial possessions, but also along those that marked the frequently con-
tested territorial limits of individual Timorese kingdoms within Dutch
and Portuguese Timor. Disputes over territory or resources between rival
Timorese kingdoms whose rulers had declared their loyalty to one or
other of the colonising powers would oblige the Dutch or Portuguese
to intervene; and also underlined the absence of any significant belief
among Timorese leaders in either a Dutch or Portuguese Timor to
which they all belonged. Instead of the Dutch flag in the West and
the Portuguese flag in the East representing a supreme authority, which
Anthony Soares 85
those from each side of the island needed to respect at all times, individ-
ual Timorese rulers repeatedly obliged their supposed colonial masters
to expend energy and revenue in restoring order within their remote
possessions.
On the Dutch side of the island, the beginning of the 19th cen-
tury coincided with the colonial power’s recognition of the failure to
impose its rule through the VOC and the need for the national govern-
ment to take direct control of its overseas possessions. Characterised by
corruption and mismanagement, the actions of VOC personnel within
the Netherlands Indies in general and Timor in particular were increas-
ingly seen as undermining the image of Dutch rule. By the beginning
of 1800, the VOC had been disbanded and its territories became the
property of the Dutch government. However, what may be seen as a
Dutch attempt to centralise political and economic power within the
hands of the state did not bring about significant change on the ground
until the beginning of the 20th century. Until then, practices inherited
from the VOC continued with little significant change, with limited
trade of sandalwood and beeswax, allied to the granting of concessions
for tax collection (mainly to Chinese) making Dutch Timor an unprof-
itable enterprise (Farram 2007: 467), mirroring the situation found on
the Portuguese side of the island.
Wracked by internal political turmoil for much of the 19th century,
Portugal had no real power or desire to develop its remote Timorese
territory. In 1822, with Brazil’s declaration of independence, it lost its
most important and profitable colony; and in 1851 Portugal ceded its
claims to Flores and other islands near Timor to the Dutch. Instead,
Africa became the central focus of Portuguese imperial designs, where
it was hoped that a ‘new Brazil’ could be built to restore Portugal’s
economic fortunes as well as its national pride. However, dreams of
creating an African colony that stretched from Angola on the Atlantic
coast to Mozambique on the Indian Ocean were irrevocably shattered
following Britain’s ultimatum in 1890, which required the Portuguese
government to withdraw all its personnel from the central African
regions both imperial nations coveted. Forced to return to the confines
of its existing colonies, Portugal was confronted with the stark limita-
tions of its politico-imperial power and obliged to recognise the might
of a nation whose ‘Empire was based on a dynamic balance between
colonialism and capitalism’ (Santos 2002: 11) – something that had
not been achieved within the Portuguese imperial sphere. The conse-
quences of this enforced confrontation with reality were the eventual
downfall of the Portuguese monarchy (seen as largely responsible for
86 Timor
Portugal’s capitulation to British demands) and the implantation of the

first Republic in 1910.
The ‘civilising’ mission: 1900–1941
The beginning of the 20th century saw the introduction of the Dutch
‘Ethical Policy’, aimed at repaying what the jurist Conrad van Deventer
had termed ‘a debt of honour’ in an 1899 article of the same title
(Een eereschuld). An increase in educational and health provision by the
Dutch (some of which was seen in West Timor) was now part of a moral
project enacted by a liberal colonial power, even if, ‘All of this [ . . . ]
brought as many benefits to Dutch commercial interests as it did to the
Indonesians themselves and depended to a great extent on the grow-
ing demand for colonial products in world markets’ (Carey 2001: 1063;
my translation from Portuguese). Indeed, the veil of morality would
not endure the vagaries of global economic forces, and when, at the
start of the 1920s, the prices for colonial products fell, Dutch conserva-
tives began to criticise the ‘ethical policy’, and its principles were firmly
abandoned.
The same ‘global’ financial downturn would also claim the downfall
of Portugal’s liberal republic; its inability to solve the nation’s increasing
economic difficulties and its reliance on foreign credit left it defence-
less in the face of a military coup in 1926. However, it would be the
Coimbra University economics professor brought in by the generals
to solve Portugal’s economic difficulties who would lead the country’s
political life for the next four decades, and also reaffirm its imperial
identity. Rather than seeing Portugal’s colonial possessions as an unnec-
essary drain on the country’s paltry economic resources, António de
Oliveira Salazar (1889–1970) cemented them within its political iden-
tity through the Acto Colonial (Colonial Act), which became part of his
dictatorial Estado Novo’s (New State’s) original 1930 constitution. This
renewed colonising zeal, however, would not really reach Portuguese
Timor until the end of the Second World War.
Added to a lack of ‘development’, Portuguese Timor’s relative isola-
tion in terms of its distance from other parts of Portugal’s empire meant
that the eastern half of the island of Timor was in some ways reliant
on the Dutch territories to the West (Schouten 2001: 205). Portuguese
Timor’s relative economic insignificance in regional terms is reflected
in the fact that the ‘rupiah (guilder) was the passable currency rather
than the [Portuguese] pataca, the official tender’, leading to ‘the smug-
gling of valuable commodities such as sandalwood and [ . . . ] coffee to
Anthony Soares 87
West Timor’ in order to obtain the more sought after guilders (ibid.).
However, the greater value of the Dutch guilder relative to the pataca
is adduced from a regional context – not, in my view, specifically from
within the local context of the island of Timor where both currencies
were at times interchangeable, especially along the border separating
Dutch from Portuguese Timor. Thus, for example, the administrator of
Dutch West Timor ‘reported in 1938 that copper and silver coins used
in Portuguese Timor were in general circulation in [Dutch] Belu’, but
‘advised against any action against it as it was only the result of the lively
cross-border trade that existed in the area’ (Farram 2004: 150). It can be
presumed, however, that a similarly benign attitude was not adopted by
the colonial authorities on either side of the border as their increasingly
concerted efforts to collect taxes in the early 20th century were contin-
ually flouted by Timorese who ‘crossed the borders repeatedly to avoid
paying taxes or performing corvee’ (Farram 2004: 101).
As these cross-border evasions partly attest to, even as the colonis-
ing efforts of the Dutch and Portuguese gathered renewed vigour, there
is little evidence of Timorese loyalty to either colonising power’s flag
or any sense of a discrete identity on either side of the island in the
first decades of the 20th century. By the 1920s, the colonial political
economies in operation in both West and East Timor differed little
in their overall nature. The degree of intensity with which they were
applied by each colonising power may have varied at different times,
leading some Timorese to vote with their feet as to which regime they
wished to live under. And yet, none of this signifies that the Timorese
had in any real sense begun to believe that they shared an identity com-
mensurable with the geographic limits of the island of Timor, or even
with those of their own halves of the island – any more than they had
when the Portuguese and Dutch had first arrived.
Instead, and as an unintended consequence of the Dutch ‘Ethical
Policy’, what begins to emerge is the idea of an Indonesian iden-
tity – one which will eventually encompass the Western half of Timor.
Whereas educational opportunities would remain almost non-existent
in Portuguese Timor until 1941, the Dutch Indies experienced a signif-
icant and coordinated expansion in educational provision in the first
years of the 20th century but one that, instead of creating loyal and
productive natives, fomented anti-colonial and nationalist sentiments.
Not only did the highly centralised and uniform Dutch school system
offer its native students ‘a self-contained, coherent universe of expe-
rience’ (Anderson 2006: 121), its geographic spread ‘gave the maps of
the colony which they studied (always coloured differently from British
88 Timor
Malaya or the American Philippines [or Portuguese Timor?]) a territo-

rially specific imagined reality which was every day confirmed by the
accents and physiognomies of their classmates’ (Anderson 2006: 122,
also Almeida 2004: 97).
The fragility of the Indonesian nationalist project, however, becomes
clearly visible in Dutch West Timor where ‘the educated elite had few
members from the Atoni or Tetun, who were native to the island’
(Farram 2004: 119). Consequently, the local leaders of the nationalist
movement tended not to be local, and could be met with suspicion from
the Timorese who distrusted ‘outsiders’ brought in by the Dutch colo-
nialists to take up positions of authority that were not readily available
to ‘insiders’. Nationalism did not readily appear to redress what many
in Dutch Timor saw as the neglect to which the territory’s indigenous
population had been all too often condemned to as their colonial mas-
ters privileged the western parts of its East Indies empire, particularly
Java. The political organisations that emerged in West Timor between
the 1920s and the outbreak of the Second World War and the Japanese
occupation of the island of Timor (1941–1945) presented a variety of
platforms and demands, but none seemed to have firmly captured
the imagination of the Timorese beyond sections of the inhabitants
of Kupang. Nevertheless, such political activity would be unthinkable
across the border in Portuguese Timor, since Salazar’s dictatorial regime
used every means possible to identify and crush dissent in the colonies,
as it did in Portugal itself.
The Second World War and aftermath
The brutal Japanese occupation of Timor (arguably, the only time dur-
ing which the island was governed as a single geographical entity) and of
the entire Dutch East Indies accelerated the drive for Indonesian inde-
pendence and the desire to be free of Dutch colonialism. Once again,
though, what took place in other parts of the Dutch East Indies was
not always replicated in West Timor. Whereas ‘the Japanese did little to
popularise the notion of Indonesian independence in West Timor’, fol-
lowing the end of hostilities and Japan’s surrender, ‘in western Indonesia
the Allied occupation forces were faced with an organised independence
movement’ (Farram 2004: 219). After Sukarno, the Javanese leader of
the anti-colonial struggle, declared the independence of the Republic
of Indonesia on 17 August 1945, the returning Dutch were met by
armed Indonesian resistance in the central and western regions of the
archipelago. The Dutch met no similar resistance in West Timor.
Anthony Soares 89
Instead, both the Dutch and many Timorese looked upon Javanese in
the territory with suspicion: the former because they saw them as active
in an Indonesian revolution that sought to bring an end to their colonial
rule; the latter because they regarded the success of the revolution as not
only bringing with it Javanese political and economic domination, but
also the rise of Islam, threatening the continued existence of a substan-
tial Catholic population. Although the Dutch attempted to delay the
inevitable with the creation of ‘autonomous’ states (including Negara
Indonesia Timur – the State of East Indonesia – which included West
Timor) to rival the Republic of Indonesia, the formal independence of
the Republic was recognised on 1 January 1949; by August 1950, all
remaining ‘autonomous’ states had joined the Republic, with Negara
Indonesia Timur and the state of East Sumatra being the last to do so
(Farram 2004: 252–253).
Such dramatic events appeared to have resulted in a distinguish-
ing split on the island of Timor: the western half now belonging to
a large, archipelagic independent postcolonial nation, and the eastern
half remaining as the remote possession of a dictatorial colonial regime.
The end of global conflict in 1945 did not give rise to any identifiable
anti-colonial or nationalist movements in Portuguese Timor, and the
post-war years saw the most significant developments (comparatively
speaking) in terms of the construction (and reconstruction) of infras-
tructure, agricultural production for export and provision for education.
Underlying this burst of colonial activity are two principal factors: first,
and as occurred on the other side of the island, the need to address the
destruction left by the Japanese; and, second, a desire by Portuguese
authorities to quickly re-assert themselves as the territory’s colonial
rulers. The latter was facilitated by the lack of a significant native elite
that could have spearheaded any nationalist movement (Dunn 2003:
18–19, Gunn 2001: 11) and by West Timor’s own apparent reluctance to
participate with the same vigour as other parts of Indonesia in the strug-
gle against the Dutch. West Timor’s unintended role as a buffer against
the more radical Indonesian nationalist movements originating further
west, and East Timor’s own distance from any other Portuguese colony
where an anti-colonial struggle may have arisen, left unfertile ground
for an East Timorese resistance to emerge.
In the intervening years between the end of the Second World War
and the fall of the Sukarno regime in 1965, however, and despite the
apparent ideological divide between an Indonesian postcolonial state
antipathetic towards the ‘West’ and an anti-Communist Portuguese dic-
tatorship, the flow of goods and people (both legally and illegally)
90 Timor
across the border in Timor resumed after the disruption caused by the
Japanese occupation. Traditional kinship ties that traversed the frontier
continued to be affirmed, while small-scale (and largely unsanctioned)
commercial activities allowed for the sale and purchase of commodities
not readily available on one or other side of the border.
At an official level as well, relations were generally cordial enough to
resolve isolated problems along the border, such as the Timorese man
from the Portuguese enclave of Oecusse who in 1961 crossed the bor-
der and fired at two West Timorese, and who was then ‘pursued into
Portuguese Timor, decapitated and his head carried back to [ . . . ] West
Timor’ (Farram 2004: 337). Official cross-border cooperation at other
times, such as the repatriation of suspected criminals (which had also
occurred during the period of Dutch rule), ensured sufficient goodwill
between the Indonesian and Portuguese authorities to overcome specific
instances of potential discord. Portuguese fears over Sukarno’s possible
designs on East Timor were also sufficiently allayed to enable a rela-
tively harmonious co-existence on the island. Various public statements
made by the Indonesian leader and his government’s official position
recognised Portugal’s sovereignty over East Timor and that Indonesia
had no claims on the territory, ‘using as a pretext the fact that it had
never been part of the Dutch East Indies’ (Fernandes 2006: 273; my
translation).
The Suharto regime and the occupation of East Timor:

Cold War logic?
It was only weeks before his downfall that, on 17 August 1965, Sukarno
called for the liberation of Portuguese Timor, a ‘desperate political act’
aimed at diverting attention from Indonesia’s increasingly desperate
economic situation – a situation felt more keenly in West Timor than
in most regions of Indonesia (Fernandes 2006: 273). Although the vio-
lent ousting of Sukarno by General Suharto would temporarily put a
stop to such plans, East Timor’s integration into its giant neighbour was
already being pondered by leading Western nations, with ‘both London
and Washington consider[ing] Portuguese Timor too small, backwards
and isolated to survive on its own and resign[ing] themselves as a mat-
ter of policy to its eventual absorption by Indonesia’ (Simpson 2005:
284). This would be a mantra repeated many times over the follow-
ing decades, and one that both ignored colonialism’s responsibility for
Timorese ‘backwardness’, and served to obscure the West’s geopolitical
and economic self-interest.
Anthony Soares 91
Nevertheless, the mid-1960s saw the beginnings of East Timorese

anti-colonial sentiment. Those who would be at the forefront of East
Timorese nationalism (as well as those who would ultimately find them-
selves in opposition to it) were products of Portugal’s belated efforts to
create an educated native elite capable of working in the lower eche-
lons of the colonial administration (Almeida 2004: 94, Carrascalão 2006:
25–32, Gusmão 1994: 9–12); although, unlike their Indonesian neigh-
bours or those in Portuguese Africa, their increasingly critical stance
towards Portugal’s presence did not lead to armed resistance. Indeed,
even after the April 1974 revolution in Portugal that overthrew Marcelo
Caetano – Salazar’s successor – and which led to the process of decoloni-
sation and the formation of political parties in East Timor, the East
Timorese nationalist leadership appeared to share some of the concerns
of the Western powers in relation to the territory’s readiness for indepen-
dence (Gusmão 1994: 11, Pouyé 2005: 10–12). Very clear as to Portugal’s
blame for the situation, their anxieties were principally related to the
lack of East Timorese personnel with the necessary skills to govern an
independent nation, although they were also conscious of the uphill
struggle they would face in gaining international support. As a result,
apart from a small minority represented by APODETI (Associação Pop-
ular Democrática Timorense, Timorese Popular Democratic Association)
who were in favour of integration with Indonesia, the two largest polit-
ical parties – FRETILIN (Frente Revolucionária do Timor-Leste Independente,
Revolutionary Front of Independent Timor-Leste) and the UDT (União
Democrática Timorense, Timorese Democratic Union) – initially called
for a transitional period of several years before East Timorese indepen-
dence. FRETILIN, however, would soon change its position in favour of
immediate self-determination (Niner 2001: 16).
During 1974–1975, the border between East and West Timor was busy.
Much of the two-way traffic may have been the customary (legal and
illegal) crossing of people and goods; but some of it was consequent to
the political situation. Indonesian agents crossed into the East to sup-
ply logistical and financial support to APODETI and, when it became
clear to the Suharto regime that this party had little popular support,
to infiltrate the UDT and convince its leadership of the Communist
threat posed by FRETILIN: this was a party that had spent considerable
energy in spreading its nationalist message in rural areas, making it the
most significant political force in the territory by 1975. APODETI and
UDT leaders also crossed into West Timor and travelled to Jakarta,
consulting with Indonesian officials on the evolving political landscape
in East Timor.
92 Timor
Events took a violent turn in the summer of 1975 as Indonesian warn-

ings of an impending Communist coup by FRETILIN led the UDT to
launch a pre-emptive grab for power, provoking a short but bloody
civil war from which FRETILIN emerged victorious, with UDT mem-
bers and their sympathisers fleeing across the border into West Timor.
Over the following weeks, in the opposite direction, with evermore
frequency and destructive power, came Indonesian military, attacking
East Timorese border villages and towns (Nevins 2005: 51). The full
Indonesian invasion would arrive on 7 December 1975, shortly after
FRETILIN’s unilateral declaration of East Timorese independence on
28 November, marking the beginning of 24 years of a brutal occupa-
tion that would cut off East Timor from the rest of the world – finally
effecting the isolation that had been seen as an obstacle by Western
powers to East Timorese self-determination and a reason for integration
into Indonesia. Paradoxically, now that the East had become by force a
part of the West, the border between East and West Timor that had been
so permeable before would become a stern barrier.
Cold War logic has frequently been used both by East Timorese
(Duarte 1988: 56, Gusmão 1994: 55–57) and outsiders (Hull 1999: 62,
International Crisis Group 2006: 1–2, Philpott 2006: 135) to explain
Indonesia’s invasion. The possibility of what was characterised as a
Marxist FRETILIN-led independent Timor-Leste emerging in the region
could not be entertained by an anti-Communist Indonesian regime sup-
ported by a Western Capitalist bloc still coming to terms with recent
events in Vietnam. As Brad Simpson notes, ‘Such concerns partially
explain the subordination of East Timor’s fate to the perceived imper-
ative of maintaining friendly relations with the Suharto regime, whose
growing importance in the regional political economy overshadowed its
defiance of international law’ (2005: 282). From an external perspective,
allied to geopolitical considerations, were the repeated concerns regard-
ing East Timor’s size and state of ‘development’, seeing it as ‘too small
and too primitive to merit self-determination’ (Simpson 2005: 282). But,
as Indonesian forces entered the territory equipped with US-supplied
weaponry, significant economic factors were also at play.
Having ‘long sought to dominate the region, given its immense min-
eral wealth and vast commercial opportunities’ (Nevins 2005: 48), the
end of the Second World War and the subsequent demise of European
colonial rule in Southeast Asia gave the United States greater freedom to
achieve its objectives. For successive US administrations, not only was
Suharto’s Indonesia viewed as ‘a bastion of anti-Communism and sta-
bility’, it was also ‘a crucial source of resources and one of the fastest
Anthony Soares 93
growing sites in the world for US private investment’ (Simpson 2005:

283). Condemned by the United Nations, Indonesia’s invasion and sub-
sequent annexation of East Timor as its 27th province in 1976 was given
de facto recognition by the United States and other countries with simi-
lar interests in the region generally and in Indonesia specifically: such as
the United Kingdom, Japan and New Zealand. Australia even went one
step further by giving de jure recognition to East Timorese integration
into Indonesia, erasing not only the land borders between the two terri-
tories but, more importantly, also the maritime ones. Canberra’s ‘de jure
recognition in January 1979 of Indonesia’s annexation of East Timor’
was ‘a necessary step to enter into negotiations with Jakarta over the
rights to the seabed of oil and natural gas deposits between northern
Australia and the south coast of East Timor’ (Nevins 2005: 63, also Cleary
2007: 13–32).
Indonesian military and political circles were also perhaps more atten-
tive to the economics rather than the politics in their decision to occupy
East Timor. While ‘the rise in oil prices [ . . . ] made the territory’s poten-
tially vast undersea oilfields a tempting target’ (Simpson 2005: 286),
the Indonesian generals who oversaw the invasion owned a Chinese-
managed company, PT Batara Indra, whose activities in occupied East
Timor would bring them significant wealth through its monopoly on
the export of coffee and sandalwood, and the extraction of marble,
among other concerns (Carey 2001: 1065). The ‘development’ afforded
by Indonesia drained East Timor of raw materials, appropriated land for
migrants from other parts of the archipelago and, through its expan-
sion of educational provision (or ‘Indonesianization’), left a generation
of young educated East Timorese with little or no access to jobs taken
by those from Java and elsewhere in Indonesia – a situation similar to
that found in the other half of the island of Timor, which continued to
be one of the poorest Indonesian regions.
Western capitals were able to support and profit from the fiction
of an Indonesian economic miracle they did much to create; mean-
while, the suffering necessary to maintain East Timor within the Asian
republic was deliberately ignored. Nevertheless, the East Timorese were
determined to bring about the creation of a border that would mark
their independence. To achieve this objective, from the early 1980s
onwards, the East Timorese resistance continually attested to its ability
to overcome East Timor’s Indonesian-enforced isolation by mounting
an external campaign that employed a human rights discourse, or a
strategy of ‘publicised victimhood’ (Pouyé 2005: 29). From the outset,
East Timorese nationalists targeted the Suharto regime as the object of
94 Timor
their enmity, not an Indonesian population they regarded as equally vic-

timised (Araújo 1977: 58). Such an outlook enabled young East Timorese
students to traverse the border ostensibly to further their education,
but in reality to forge relationships with young Indonesian activists
who would take up the East Timorese cause (Jannisa 1997: 295–297,
Wigglesworth 2007: 56). Their actions in turn formed part of the wider
external front of the East Timorese resistance that would ultimately
result in an independent Timor-Leste that is at least partly ‘a product
of roving citizenship’ (Pureza 2004: 412; my translation) – a citizen-
ship that not only crossed terrestrial borders in order to define its own
national boundaries, but also employed technological developments to
‘claim independence in cyberspace’ (Hill 2002: 26).
East Timorese independence: the border as the troubled

post-colonial hyphen
Ultimately, however, the catalyst for change would come from within
Indonesia. As the Suharto regime fell in 1998 under the weight of its
own corruption, no longer capable of withstanding the anger of its own
citizens or the wider Asian economic downturn, the incoming govern-
ment surprised Western powers (and displeased the Indonesian military)
with a radical announcement. It would offer the East Timorese the
opportunity to vote on their territory’s future status: whether to become
an autonomous region of the Republic of Indonesia or an independent
state. For Indonesia’s political and economic establishment, such an
announcement represented a dangerous fillip: in places such as Aceh
and Irian Jaya, the Indonesian regime had long been resisting seces-
sionist tendencies whose defeat was seen as essential for the survival of
the world’s largest archipelagic state, and East Timorese independence
would only make this task harder (repeating arguments made in favour
of the original invasion of East Timor). Nevertheless, the possibility
of finally achieving an internationally recognised border separating an
independent Timor-Leste from the rest of the island to which it belongs
geographically was strengthened by the deliberate re-casting of the East
Timorese political economy. ‘In the case of FRETILIN, the party that
had started with a Marxist wing in 1975 had, by 1999, embraced the
free market as an economic principle’ (Kingsbury 2007a: 20); stark ide-
ological differences between East Timorese political formations had also
been set aside in order to form an umbrella organisation incorporating
all nationalist parties. It was as a result of a confluence of such circum-
stances that a UN-sponsored referendum on the status of Timor-Leste
Anthony Soares 95
was held in August 1999 that confirmed what most both within and
outside the territory had been claiming for so long: 78.5 per cent of the
population voted in favour of independence and against the proposed
autonomy within Indonesia.
In the run-up to the referendum, however, and particularly once
the results were announced, the border between East and West Timor
became the source of heightened danger. Once the East Timorese had
opted for independence, weaponry and personnel crossed the border in
order to give Indonesian-sponsored militias the means to wreak a terri-
ble vengeance on East Timor’s population for having rejected the offer
of autonomy. Tens of thousands of East Timorese were forcibly moved
into West Timor by militias and Indonesian military personnel, to be
housed in ‘refugee’ camps. Even after the reality of the outcome could
no longer be denied, ‘militia leaders [ . . . ] claimed [ . . . ] that the two
western-most districts of Bobonaro in the north and Covalima to the
south should be ceded to Indonesia – regardless of the fact that the two
districts overwhelmingly voted in favour of independence’ (Kingsbury
2007b: 87). As the threat of violent incursions dissipated over the fol-
lowing years, the border became a site of economic danger, as smuggling
‘denied badly needed revenue to the [East Timorese] government’, and
‘had the capacity to subvert the legitimate economy’ (Kingsbury 2007b:
94). East Timor’s best chance for avoiding failed state status was ‘if its
institutions functioned at a relatively competent level, [ . . . ] if its rule
of law applied fully and consistently up to the limits of its borders, and
if its territorial and economic integrity was not undermined, especially
from beyond its borders’ (Kingsbury 2007b: 88).
Borders are certainly a major concern in the East Timorese govern-
ment’s 2006 strategic defence policy document, Força 2020. Crucially,
however, the borders it considers are not limited to those that sepa-
rate East from West Timor. Instead, Força 2020 underlines the fact that
the ‘geo-strategic situation of Timor-Leste [lies] between the two great
regional powers’, with Indonesia offering ‘high human potential’, and
Australia ‘high economic potential, the maritime frontier with which is
still disputed’ (RDTL 2006: 7) What this and similar comments demon-
strate is an awareness of the position of Timor-Leste as a constituent part
of an island, as well as of the island’s situation within a much larger geo-
political context. This factor shapes East Timorese perceptions not only
of what lies on the other side of its border to the West, but also of what
lies beyond the sea to the South.
Nevertheless, the same document is clear on how its land border
is ‘the principal factor of vulnerability’ (RDTL 2006: 18), with an
96 Timor
increasing disparity between economic prospects in West and East

Timor becoming the possible cause of cross-border instability. Whereas
economic neglect of the whole island of Timor under Dutch and
Portuguese colonial rule could be said to have smothered east and west
under similar levels of poverty and lack of opportunities, East Timorese
independence has brought into sharp focus the situation in West Timor.
The inherent ability since 2002 for Timor-Leste to exploit what are now
(arguably) its own resources makes it an attractive destination for those
living in West Timor, part of one of two provinces with the lowest per
capita income in Indonesia – the other being Maluku, a group of neigh-
bouring islands (ibid.). Yet, it is not the possibility of migration from
West to East Timor that is seen as the principal threat to East Timorese
interests, but rather that ‘poverty is a factor that produces impacts on
the stability of the political environment in the immediate neighbour-
ing regions’ (ibid.). Migration from west to east, in this perspective, is
not the cause of instability, but rather the effect. Thus, what is needed to
safeguard stability within Timor-Leste is a healthy Indonesian economy
capable both of satisfying the needs of its citizens, and of assuring the
supply of imported goods into Timor-Leste.
It was perhaps in part to address economic concerns, and particu-
larly the higher levels of poverty affecting districts on both sides of
the West/East Timor border, that in 2003 East Timorese political circles
began to discuss the creation of a free-trade zone along the frontier. This
plan, which has yet to come to fruition, has not been met with universal
acclaim in Timor-Leste, as many within its fledgling business commu-
nity fear an eventual Indonesian domination of local trade. Echoing
fears that surfaced intermittently in the past, in West as well as East
Timor, a free-trade zone has been seen as a gateway for more economi-
cally powerful forces from Java and elsewhere in Indonesia, rather than
a means of bringing much sought-after prosperity to the border region.
As one young East Timorese businessman told me in 2007, a free-trade
zone would see a few East Timorese kiosks appearing in West Timor,
and large Indonesian enterprises overwhelming a limited business class
in Timor-Leste (e.g. Moxham 2005). Much of the proceeds from such
a free-trade zone, according to this view, would not stay in either East
or West Timor, but would find their way to what are already the more
prosperous regions of Indonesia, further north and west.
The border, however, cannot be seen purely as an economic zone,
but also as a site of political concern that, from an East Timorese
perspective, is always connected to the centre of Indonesian govern-
ment. Although the threat of armed incursions from West into East
Anthony Soares 97
Timor by militia members has receded over time, their continued

presence along the border, and doubts as to the ability and/or willing-
ness of the Indonesian government and military to control them, are
sources of anxiety in Timor-Leste. Continuing links between members
of the Indonesian armed forces and Timorese militia groups responsi-
ble for much of the violence in 1999 are no longer aimed at reversing
Timor-Leste’s sovereign status, despite incidents such as the raising of
the Indonesian flag by soldiers crossing into Oecusse in May 2010.
Instead, they are ‘motivated primarily by material incentives, [ . . . ]
dedicat[ing] themselves to theft, illegal trafficking or making localised
demands, provoking instability in certain border regions’ (República
Democrática de Timor-Leste 2006: 22). Indeed, the enclave of Oecusse,
due to its isolation from the rest of Timor-Leste, has presented a signifi-
cant challenge to the political demarcation represented by the border.
As the International Crisis Group remarks, ‘though the enclave has
remained politically distinct for several hundred years, links remain
strong between families divided by the border [ . . . ] crossing regularly
for marriages and funerals’, and even farming land in the other country
(2010: 1). The 67,000 inhabitants of Oecusse remain heavily reliant on
cheap goods from Indonesia, and ‘informal arrangements have served
to facilitate movement of goods and people’ (International Crisis Group
2010: 1). However, attempts by both central governments to formalise
these arrangements by definitively demarcating the border have high-
lighted the inextricable links between politics and economics. Disputes
over the right to land and resources separated from their presumed own-
ers by the frontier have frequently sought to question the limits of
either Indonesian or East Timorese sovereignty, raising fears that the vio-
lence seen in 1999 could recur, especially when members of Indonesia’s
military cross into Oecusse – something to be avoided at all costs.
Conscious of the fragility of the post-Suharto Indonesian political
landscape, particularly in relation to the armed forces’ capacity to
avoid interfering in democratic processes or seeking to protect its own
economic assets, post-independence East Timorese governments have
appeared anxious to avoid providing any cause for political instability in
the neighbouring country that would do little to solve problems at the
border. This has been especially visible in the apparent desire of some of
Timor-Leste’s leading political figures to draw a line under the past, or
their ‘lack of political will [ . . . ] to hold accountable those responsible for
the [Indonesian] systemisation of repressive violence’ during the occu-
pation (Philpott 2006: 148). There is a palpable fear that, by insisting on
the prosecution of leading members of the Indonesian security forces
98 Timor
and their allies involved in human rights abuses in Timor-Leste, further

instability in the border regions would result, adding to the threat of the
return to a more hard-line regime in Jakarta.
Consider the case of Maternus Bere. A leader of the Laksaur militia
group, he stood accused of orchestrating an attack on a church in the
East Timorese town of Suai in the immediate aftermath of the 1999 refer-
endum, in which three priests and dozens of people were killed. Despite
being indicted by the United Nations Serious Crimes Unit, Bere crossed
from West into East Timor in July 2009 to attend a family funeral in
the grounds of the same church in Suai, where he was then arrested
by East Timorese police. However, Bere, an Indonesian citizen and a
minor government official in West Timor, was released from prison and
transferred to the Indonesian embassy in Dili, the East Timorese capital,
as Timor-Leste was celebrating the tenth anniversary of its indepen-
dence referendum. Both the president and prime minister of Timor-Leste
justified their interference in their own nation’s judicial processes by
claiming that Bere’s release – who returned to West Timor – should be
seen in the context of normalising relations with Indonesia. It should
also be added that Indonesia’s support was being sought to secure Timor-
Leste’s membership of Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN);
an objective that, at the time of writing, has yet to be fulfilled.
Conclusion
It is the means by which Timor-Leste has been integrated into a ‘global’

political economy following its independence in 2002 that represents
a threat to its integrity, and not so much what lies on the other side
of its terrestrial border. ‘The first World Bank mission into post-conflict
East Timor in November 1999 treated the territory in its working doc-
uments as a kind of social terra nullius where all institutions would
have to be rebuilt along the lines of an international model’, regard-
less of existing East Timorese social structures (Gunn 2007: 95). That
‘international’ model itself, however, becomes evidence of the way in
which rival nations compete for the opportunities that Timor-Leste rep-
resents, where Timor-Leste is regarded – once again – as a territory to be
exploited. With reference to the actions of foreign bilateral agencies in
post-colonial Timor-Leste, ‘each of their objectives and modi operandi is
substantially different from each other, reflecting the various economic
and geopolitical agendas of the nations involved’ (Shepherd 2004: 112).
It is also to safeguard the United States’ own geopolitical agenda in
the region, and perhaps to be within reach of the oil that lies in the
Anthony Soares 99
Timor Sea, that in November 2011 US president Obama announced in

the Australian city of Darwin the expansion of its military presence
in the capital of the Northern Territory. Given China’s strengthen-
ing regional economic and political relations, including Timor-Leste,
Obama’s announcement does not surprise. Nevertheless, it represents
one more threat to the long-fought for territorial, economic and political
integrity of Timor-Leste that does not originate from the West of Timor.
The extent to which the island of Timor will be able to develop produc-
tive and peaceful relationships between its two jurisdictions – ones that
in some ways could reproduce those that existed for centuries before
East Timorese independence – will be shaped by the degree to which
external agents resist the temptation to interfere in order to advance
their own self-interests. Wishful thinking?
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6
Cyprus
Ahmet Sözen
Introduction
The island of Cyprus was geographically divided into two in 1974 after
a Turkish military operation that sought to prevent a Greek coup, which
attempted to unite the island with Greece. Following a population
exchange agreement in 1975, the population of the northern part of the
island ethnic-wise became even more predominantly Turkish Cypriot,
while the south became even more solidly Greek Cypriot.
The first signs of the physical division of the island can be traced back
to the second half of the 1950s when Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot
communities were engaged in violent clashes against one another. It was
after violent inter-ethnic clashes following the December 1963 constitu-
tional crises that a ‘green line’ – a buffer zone – between the two commu-
nities was first installed in 1964 by British Major-General Peter Young,
who was then in charge of a ‘peacekeeping force’ that would soon
become the United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP 2012). Today, the
green line refers to the some 180-km-long UN-controlled buffer zone
that divides the Turkish Cypriot north from the Greek Cypriot south.
It is today also an accidental wildlife sanctuary (Simonsen 2009) (see
Table 6.1).
Inter-communal negotiations between the island’s two communities
originally started in 1968 with the aim of re-designing the 1960 con-
stitution. They have continued on and off since. The 1977 and 1979
High Level Agreements between the two communities have constituted
the basis of all subsequent inter-communal negotiations, including the
current round of peace talks. These negotiations, which have taken place
under the aegis of the UN, have sought to find a lasting and compre-
hensive settlement to the Cyprus conflict. Their basis has, so far, been
102
Ahmet Sözen 103
Table 6.1 Comparing the Republic of Cyprus with Turkish Cyprus (but exclud-
ing the British Sovereign Bases which are sui generis)
Republic of Cyprus Turkish Cyprus
Political Status Sovereign State since Occupied by Turkey

1960 (whole island since 1974.
except British Sovereign State since
sovereign bases) 1983 (but only
recognised by
Turkey)
Capital City Nicosia Nicosia
Population (2011) 1,120,500 294,900 (includes
settlers/immigrants
from Turkey)
Resident population density 116 82
(persons/km2 )
% of population that lives in 69% 70%
Urban Areas
Life expectancy in years 79 78
(2009)
% annual population +1.2% +1.3%
growth
GNP per capita (US$) 24,800 (2011) 13,930 (2009)
Standing on human 31st out of 182 92nd out of 187
development index (2009) countries countries
% of population below Not available Not available
poverty line
Adult (15+) Literacy rate (%) 97.9% (2011) Reported as 99%
(2010)
Main language(s) spoken Greek Turkish
Currency (exchange rate as Euro (1US$ = 0.76) Turkish Lira (1US$ =
at November 2011) 1.752TRY)
that of establishing a federal republic based on a suitable power-sharing

formula between the two communities.
The Cyprus issue has been occupying the agenda of the international
community since the 1950s. It has been largely approached by the inter-
national community as an attempt at ‘unifying’ the two sides; but the
general sense is that, after four decades of trying, the matter has come to
a critical turning point. The comprehensive peace plan cobbled together
by UN under the leadership of Secretary-General Kofi Annan was scup-
pered by the heavy ‘no’ vote (76%) of Greek Cypriots, and despite the
65 per cent support of Turkish Cypriots (BBC News 2004). This outcome
104 Cyprus
most likely dealt a mortal blow to the idea of (re-)establishing a federal

solution: one based on power sharing between the two communities in
Cyprus, in the spirit of the 1960 Constitution. There is a widespread
perception today that the failure of the current round of the peace
negotiations would effectively mean the end of the federal (unifying)
solution model in Cyprus. In such a case, alternative solution models
that are more ‘divorce’-oriented would most likely come into play.
Early division(s)
A mental division between the Greek and Turkish communities on the

island of Cyprus – the 3rd largest island in the Mediterranean Sea –
can be traced back to the time of the Ottoman rule in Cyprus (1571–
1878). According to the Ottoman Empire’s ‘millet’ system, each religious
community was autonomous in its domestic affairs. In other words,
each community was accorded freedom in its religious practices, edu-
cation and even tax collection within its own religious community
(Purcell 1968). There was then no geographical division between the
two communities on the island – indeed, there were many examples
of ‘mixed’ Greek and Turkish villages – nonetheless, very few inter-
communal (inter-faith) marriages between Christian Orthodox Greeks
and Moslem Turks took place. There was therefore no real integration
between the two communities; instead, there was a mental, linguis-
tic, religious and psychological divide: an imaginary wall started taking
form between these two island communities from the late 16th century,
with each community living in its own religious domain, or enclave,
quite independently from the ‘other’.
Greek nationalism became prominent in the 19th century, expressed
in initiatives to seek independence from the Ottoman Empire. The rise
of Turkish nationalism followed in the 20th century. Both these waves
had a dramatic impact on the respective communities in Cyprus (e.g.
Nevzat and Hatay 2009). Hence, in the 20th century, the already exist-
ing religious division between the two communities was compounded
with the addition of nationalism into the inter-communal mix. While
administered by Britain since 1878, and annexed as a British colony in
1914, each of the two island communities aspired to become part of the
bigger ‘nation-state’ that it naturally identified itself with.
The 1950s was a period when the nation-state paradigm was at its
peak in Cyprus. It was clear that, just like elsewhere, the colonial power
would withdraw from Cyprus in the near future. There was one burning
question: Once the British withdrew from the island, who would govern
Ahmet Sözen 105
Cyprus and how? The Greek Cypriots established their underground

organisation – EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston – National
Organization of Cypriot Fighters) – in 1955 to carry out an ‘indepen-
dence’ struggle against the British. The idea was to force the British out
of Cyprus and ‘unite the island’ – Enosis – with what the Greek Cypriots
regarded then as their ‘motherland’ Greece. They were not really inter-
ested in establishing an independent state in Cyprus, which was more
common in other independence movements elsewhere. As a reaction
to EOKA, and fearing the implications of Greek irredentism on their
own rights and prospects, the Turkish Cypriots responded by estab-
lishing their own underground organisation – TMT (Türk Mukavement
Teşkilatı – Turkish Resistance Organization) – in 1958: its main aim was
the prevention of Enosis and instead the implementation of the ‘parti-
tioning of the island’ – or Taksim (division) – between the two respective
motherlands, Turkey and Greece. Taksim was a policy that envisaged the
union of Turkish Cypriots with the bigger nation state, Turkey. Hence,
in 1958, the two Cypriot communities were deeply embroiled in inter-
communal violence and were quite adamant in pursuing their respective
ultimate and contradictory national objectives of Enosis and Taksim. The
worsening state of inter-communal life in the context of this deteriorat-
ing political situation becomes clear when one looks at the dramatic
decrease in the number of mixed villages in Cyprus. Census data report
230 mixed villages in 1911, 221 in 1921 and 162 in 1946. In 1958,
Turkish Cypriots abandoned 33 mixed villages and sought refuge in
‘pure’ Turkish Cypriot regions (Anastasiou 2008, PRIO Cyprus Centre
2011).
Contextual rumblings
To fully understand political developments in Cyprus in the 1950s, one

has to especially appreciate two key global political trends of the time
and how these interplayed with the more local and regional issues in
Cyprus. These were decolonisation and the Cold War.
In the 1950s, events in Cyprus were also influenced by the global anti-
colonial movements and struggles taking place in Africa and Asia. How-
ever, unlike other ‘national’ movements of independence elsewhere, the
anti-colonial movement in Cyprus had remained by and large a Greek
Cypriot initiative. Moreover, the Greek Cypriots were not interested in
independence per se. While their initial intent was the removal of the
British colonial presence, this was just a necessary step prior to the
annexation of Cyprus to the Greek motherland. EOKA launched various
106 Cyprus
violent attacks against the British colonial administration and, to a lesser

extent, also against the Turkish Cypriot community (as well as some
Greek Cypriots) who adamantly opposed to the idea of Enosis, dread-
ing the implications of what would happen if Cyprus were to become a
colony or satellite of Athens (Borowiec 2000).
Meanwhile, the Cold War superpower competition had already
divided the world into two ideologically distinct camps. The two super-
powers were very sensitive to the potential political developments
anywhere in the world that could tilt the current balance of power.
Hence, both camps were closely observing the developments in Cyprus,
which were perceived as having a high disruptive potential. The US and
the UK were especially concerned with how the inter-communal vio-
lence in Cyprus had the potential to escalate into a war between the two
respective motherlands – Greece and Turkey, who were embarrassingly
both North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) members and responsi-
ble for guarding the organisation’s south-eastern European flank. It was
common sense that during the Cold War, a conflict – with a potential
for a full-scale war – between the two notional NATO allies would not
be tolerated; for the other members of NATO, a conflict between Turkey
and Greece over Cyprus was to be pre-empted at all costs. Hence, a
Cyprus solution that would exclude both Enosis and Taksim options –
and so very unpopular with the Cypriots themselves – was the only for-
mula conceivable at the time that could at least temporarily prevent
an armed clash between the two Cypriot communities and the Aegean
conflict that could very easily follow (Camp 1980).
Neither nation state nor unitary state
This is the difficult background to the creation, in 1960, of the Repub-

lic of Cyprus (RoC). This came to pass with the coming into force
of three international treaties: a Treaty of Establishment, a Treaty of
Guarantee and a Treaty of Alliance. The RoC was put together by the
UK, Turkey and Greece – who became the three guarantor states that
have the right as well as the responsibility to guarantee the security,
independence, territorial integrity and the constitutional order that
was created by the three treaties in 1960. The RoC was thus born as
a semi-independent, bi-communal federation based on consociational
democracy (Theophanous 2010).
The RoC was neither a nation state nor a unitary state. It was
(in principle) a functional response to a crisis that was tearing the
island apart. It was conceived as a bi-communal federation based on
Ahmet Sözen 107
consociationalism, in the sense that the functions and the competences

of the state were divided and shared between the two communities.
For example, in the executive branch, the president would be a Greek
Cypriot and the vice-president a Turkish Cypriot, each of whom would
be elected separately by their respective communities. The president
and the vice-president would have veto power on laws or decisions
concerning foreign affairs, security and finance. There was a 7:3 Greek
Cypriot to Turkish Cypriot ratio, both in the Cabinet of Ministers
as well as in the legislative branch; although certain legislative deci-
sions required separate majority voting from the MPs representing each
respective community. In the judiciary branch, the Supreme Consti-
tutional Court had one Turkish Cypriot, one Greek Cypriot and one
neutral (non-Cypriot) president. Hence, the RoC was based on a deli-
cate power-sharing arrangement between the two Cypriot communities,
with some sense of proportionality based on the demographic distribu-
tion: the 1960 census reported a resident population made up of 80 per
cent Greek Cypriots and 18 per cent Turkish Cypriots (Coufoudakis
1976).
Although there was no geographical division between the two soci-
eties, there was nonetheless a clear division between the Greek Cypriot
and Turkish Cypriot communities in terms of the powers and the
functions of the state. The effective functioning of the state naturally
necessitated the renunciation of the idea and aspiration of joining one’s
own nation state by each of the two communities (Enosis and Taksim)
as well as required their active cooperation to succeed. Moreover, there
was never any intent to promote the development of an island-wide,
specifically Cypriot identity and nationalism; indeed, the division con-
tributed to the maintenance and reinforcement of ethnic cleavages
(Joseph 2009).
The RoC was also only a semi-independent state: the founding
international treaties clearly prohibited both Enosis and Taksim, hypo-
thetically even in case of bi-communal consensus on the issue; it also
accepted the right of intervention in the internal affairs of Cyprus to
the three guarantor states. The banning of any activity that would fos-
ter Enosis and Taksim, or even the independence of constituent parts
of Cyprus, was enshrined in Article 22 of the 1960 Constitution, hav-
ing been transferred from the Treaty of Establishment: that could not
be altered under any circumstance. The Treaty of Guarantee, moreover,
gave the right and responsibility to the three guarantor powers to pre-
vent Enosis and Taksim, in addition to the right of intervention under
certain provisions.
108 Cyprus
There was more: while the island was not to be divided, 3 per cent
of the island’s land area was designated British sovereign territory.
According to Article 1 of the Treaty of Establishment, two military
sovereign base areas (SBAs) were created: Akrotiri and Dhekelia. These
were fully sovereign and completely outside the jurisdiction of the RoC.
These bases were also expressly excluded when the ROC acceded to the
European Union in 2004 (Constantinou 2005, Souter 1984). Some 3,000
British troops are stationed there at any time; the SBAs cover a land area
of 250 km2 , almost equally divided between Akrotiri and Dhekelia.
For the majority of the Greek Cypriot political elite, the RoC was an
unwanted and half-baked development; the RoC was an unfair impo-
sition of Cold War politics on the Greek Cypriot majority, who were
forced to share their island state with the Turkish Cypriot minority. The
leader of the Enosis struggle, Archbishop Makarios III, became the first
president of the RoC; but he treated the RoC as a stepping stone to
Enosis. Hence, according to Makarios, as a first step, the unfair consti-
tutional burdens imposed on the RoC required modification. With that
in mind, Makarios proposed 13 points to change in the constitution to
the Turkish Cypriots. The proposed changes would have reduced the
Turkish Cypriot co-founder of the republic to a minority ripped off from
presidential veto power, separate majority voting and other protective
measures. The proposed changes would have turned the bi-communal
RoC into a Greek Cypriot unitary state. Not surprisingly, these changes
were rejected by Dr Fazıl Küçük, the Turkish Cypriot vice-president, and
the Turkish Cypriot political elites. This led the Greek Cypriot estab-
lishment to resort to force in order to implement what were felt to be
necessary constitutional changes. As a result, inter-communal fighting
resumed in December 1963; in 1964, this led first to the withdrawal
of the Turkish Cypriots from state machinery, and then to the station-
ing of the UNFICYP peacekeeping force to form a buffer zone between
the two tense Cypriot communities. As of 1964, just four years after
it was set up, the RoC became a de facto Greek Cypriot state in the
absence of the Turkish Cypriots from all levels of the state. Today, what
is known as the government of the RoC is a purely Greek Cypriot
one. However, the Turkish Cypriots had no other option but to form
their own governing organisations separate from the RoC. In 1967 after
renewed ethnic clashes, the Turkish Cypriots established the Provisional
Turkish Cypriot Administration; this became the Autonomous Turkish
Cypriot Administration in 1974; the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus
in 1975; and finally the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC)
in 1983.
Ahmet Sözen 109
Inter-communal negotiations between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish

Cypriot interlocutors finally began in 1968, first in Lebanon and
then in Nicosia, the Cypriot capital. In these negotiations, the idea
was to re-negotiate the 1960 constitution and design a new structure
of power sharing between the two communities where the Turkish
Cypriots would be given more regional autonomy (local government)
in return for fewer competences in the central government. These
inter-communal peace talks that started between the Greek Cypriot
interlocutor Glafkos Clerides and the Turkish Cypriot interlocutor Rauf
Denktash went on and off until they were interrupted by a coup on
15 July 1974 organised by the Greek Military Junta (the Colonels’
Regime 1967–1974) and supported by EOKA B and the Cyprus National
Guard, toppled the Makarios government and sought to implement
Enosis. Narrowly escaping an attempt on his life, Makarios was flown
out of Cyprus from the Akrotiri base to London.
The (big) division
But this was not to be. On 20 July 1974, just five days after the coup,
Turkey sent troops into Cyprus to thwart the Greek Junta’s plans to
annex the island to Greece, citing its rights and responsibilities as a
guarantor state under the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee. A few days later,
a cease-fire was issued and negotiations to resolve the Cyprus issue
began in Geneva, with the participation of all three guarantor powers.
However, an inability to reach a settlement in Geneva, along with the
continuation of bloodshed on the island, prompted Turkey to resume its
military operation and advance into Cyprus on 14 August. Within a few
days, as a result of the military advance, 37 per cent of the island fell
under Turkish control. Faced with this Cyprus turn-around, the Greek
junta collapsed.
In 1975, the two communities participated in a few rounds of talks
under the UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim’s aegis in Vienna. Dur-
ing the third round of the Vienna Talks, the communities reached their
first ‘Agreement on Voluntary Regrouping of Populations’, also popu-
larly known as the ‘population exchange agreement’. By the end of
1975, the large majority of Turkish Cypriots who were still resident
in the southern part of Cyprus crossed the Green Line to take up res-
idence into the northern part under the Turkish army’s control; while
most of the Greek Cypriots still residing in the northern part of the
island crossed to take up residence in the southern part, then under
the control of the Greek Cypriot National Guard. This marks the big
110 Cyprus
division of the island into two, by and large distinct, ethnically homoge-
neous zones, separated by the UN-patrolled Green Line. This protracted
division continues today.
For 28 years – between 1975 and 2003 – crossing from one side to the
other across the Green Line was extremely difficult, if not impossible.
It could only be done following the granting of special permission from
the authorities of the two administrations in Cyprus. This meant that,
during this period of more than a quarter century, there was almost
no contact between the two communities. Meanwhile, a new genera-
tion of people growing up on both sides of the UN divide have done so
within their own ‘nation state’, without direct contact and communica-
tion with the other community, growing up in its own ‘nation state’ on
the other side of the UN buffer zone.
The 1977 and the 1979 High Level Agreements between the leaders
of the two communities laid down the basic parameters of a future
Cyprus settlement: at least on paper. The two communities agreed to
establish a federation, which would be a single sovereign entity and
have one international personality; it would be bi-zonal with regard to
its territorial aspects and bi-communal with regard to its constitutional
aspects; and there would be political equality between the two consti-
tuting communities. In other words, a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation
based on political equality with single sovereignty was put forward as
the basis for a UN-brokered solution to what became known as ‘the
Cyprus problem’ (e.g. Kyriacou 2000). Although the two sides have
agreed on the broad parameters of a future settlement, when it comes
to the details, the two sides have so far failed to reach the final compre-
hensive solution and the island continues to be divided having two de
facto political administrations – one internationally recognised, and the
other not.
Meanwhile, with barbed wire, border guards and UN peacekeepers
patrolling the whole length of the 180-km Green Line – which varies
in width from 20 metres to 7 kilometres, and includes four villages –
cross-border incursions were rare but violent, both sides accusing each
other of excessive use of force and inciting militancy.
There is, however, also another story to be told. Economics can
trump nationalism, it seems. During 1974–2003, there was some neg-
ligible inter-border trade, mostly involving small-time smuggling of
Greek Cypriot brandy, guns or automobile parts to the Turkish side (e.g.
Hellenic Resources Network 1998, 1999). It was usually a handful of
Turkish Cypriots who worked at the British Sovereign Base in Dhekelia
who were most able to cross to the Greek side through the base – there
was no checkpoint there. The British base at Dhekelia was one of the few
Ahmet Sözen 111
places in Cyprus, along with the ‘mixed’ village of Pyla close by, where a
handful of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots continued to meet and
work together.
The establishment of the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ by
the Turkish Cypriots in 1983 – recognised as a sovereign state only
by Turkey – and the EU membership of the RoC in May 2004 mark
two important developments in the story of the division of the island.
These two dynamics, if used wisely, could perhaps have fostered the
unification of the island. Instead, as things have turned out so far,
both episodes appear to have contributed to maintaining, if not even
exacerbating, the existing divisions.
During the early 1980s when the inter-communal negotiations were
faltering and there was hardly any optimism about negotiating a last-
ing and acceptable solution, the Turkish Cypriots unilaterally declared
independence (UDI) and established the TRNC. The Turkish Cypriots
included a clause in the declaration, stating that they would continue
inter-communal negotiations aimed at creating a united federal republic
in Cyprus. Various observers initially believed that the Turkish Cypriots’
UDI would bring the Greek Cypriots back to the negotiation table and
accept a compromise on the basis of a federal solution. And yet, though
the Greek Cypriot side initially returned to the UN-sponsored inter-
communal negotiations, it nevertheless held on to its preferred strategy
of internationalising the Cyprus problem through the internationally
recognised status of the RoC and its diplomatic reach and influence. The
Greek Cypriots expected the international community to apply pressure
on Turkey such that it would make those concessions on Cyprus that
would lead to a solution acceptable to the Greek Cypriot side. Mean-
while, of course, this was the perfect pretext for the Turkish Cypriot
separatist nationalist elites to popularise the claim that this was 1960 all
over again: the Greek Cypriots were not interested in power sharing with
the Turkish Cypriots at all; and that they rather just wanted to get rid
of Turkey and dominate the Turkish Cypriots as a minority in Cyprus.
Today, a considerable part of the Turkish Cypriot community has come
to accept that a divided Cyprus is here to stay and that the TRNC is the
best guarantor of the rights of Turkish Cypriots, even though it would be
a significant obstacle to a negotiated federal solution. Hopes for any fed-
eral formula are quickly ebbing: according to a Cyprus 2015 poll, 23 per
cent of Turkish Cypriots say that, in a potential future referendum for
a federal solution, they would either almost certainly (14%) or likely
(9%) vote no; within the Greek Cypriot community, there are even more
detractors, with 31 per cent almost certainly and 11 per cent likely to
vote against (Christou et al. 2011).
112 Cyprus
The accession of the RoC to the EU as a member state had been a very
controversial issue (Yeşilada and Sözen 2002). Many EU political elites
believed that the prospects and run-up to EU membership would be a
positive motivation for both Cypriot communities to solve the Cyprus
conflict. This could have been an accurate assessment, if the member-
ship were conditioned on the solution of the problem. Had the EU made
the solution of the problem a prerequisite for the EU membership of a
united Cyprus, then, EU membership would have been a very impor-
tant prize and incentive for both communities to work harder, make
the necessary concessions and reach a comprehensive solution. How-
ever, the EU – naively or short-sightedly, but certainly surprised by the
overwhelming rejection of the Annan Plan by the Greek Cypriots in the
April 2004 referendum – allowed a still-divided Cyprus to enter the EU;
perhaps Brussels continues to hope that the conflict would someday,
somehow, go away. Owing to the lingering division of the island, the
EU suspended its acquis communautaire from ‘those areas of the Repub-
lic of Cyprus in which the Government of the Republic of Cyprus does
not exercise effective control’ (Protocol 10, Treaty of Accession 2003).
In this way, the EU suspended its body of laws and regulations in
the ‘TRNC’ – the region/territory/country that the EU diplomatically
describes in 21 words. Despite the decision of the EU Council of Minis-
ters on 26 April 2004 to lift the isolation of Turkish Cypriots and bring
them closer to the European Union as a reward for the Turkish Cypriots’
support for the UN’s re-unification plan, the EU by and large failed to
keep its promises and succumbed to the veto of the (Greek Cypriot)
RoC, which has become a member of the EU since 1 May 2004. In a
way, the EU membership of the RoC, where the EU laws and regula-
tions are applied in the southern part and where they are suspended
in the northern part, has made the division of the island that much
more tangible and palpable since the RoC’s EU membership in 2004
(Hoffmeister 2006).
Current political economy of the Green Line
On 23 April 2003, the Turkish Cypriot authorities unilaterally lifted the

restrictions on the crossings to the southern part of the island. ‘All of
a sudden, the impossible was happening’ (Morgan 2003). The Greek
Cypriot authorities reciprocated by allowing ‘Cypriots’ to cross from the
north to the south. Mobility across the Green Line was thus allowed for
the first time in 28 years, as long as the members of both communities
Ahmet Sözen 113
returned home at the end of each day. Then, as of 1 May 2004, the
Greek Cypriots, now part of the EU, were obliged to accept the ‘Green
Line Regulation’, allowing free movement even to other (non-Cypriot)
EU nationals who may have wanted to cross over to the southern part
of Cyprus from the north. These concessions contrasted with the policy
line that the Greek Cypriot Government had maintained since 1974:
since the northern part of their sovereign state was ‘under occupation’,
anyone who entered the island from any port in the northern part of
Cyprus was considered as an illegal entrant into the island and would
not be allowed to cross to the southern part (Council Regulation (EC),
No 866/2004 of 29 April 2004). There is now an uninhibited contact and
freedom of communication between the peoples on the two sides.
But over 400 years of communal tensions do not disappear overnight.
While there has been some volume of traffic – of persons, goods and
services – in line with the Green Line Regulation, human crossings
and the volume of trade have remained rather insignificant and can-
not be considered as any definitive sign of a real thaw in relations and
of some integration of the two Cypriot communities. Following the ini-
tial euphoria, crossings of Greek Cypriots into the North have decreased
after 2005; and those of Turkish Cypriots (which are higher) are also
down and were back almost to 2003 levels by 2009 (UNDP 2011).
In spite of these crossings across the buffer zone since 2003, the levels
of contact and trust between the two Cypriot communities have been
quite low. An inter-communal survey of public opinion in 2007, organ-
ised by the UNFICYP, reports that 90 per cent of Turkish Cypriots claim
to have no contact at all with the Greek side; 7 per cent have personal
contacts; and just 3 per cent have professional contacts. Among Greek
Cypriots, 87 per cent claim to have no contact at all with the Turkish
side; 8 per cent have personal contacts; and 5 per cent have professional
contacts (UNIFCYP 2007).
Cypriots are skeptical of having friends, colleagues, and neighbours

from the other community, or of allowing their children to attend
mixed schools. Both communities are opposed to having a leader or
a boss from the other community, and to bi-communal marriages.
(Jarraud et al. 2010: n.p.)
A similar poll take two years later, in 2009, notes some improvements in
inter-communal communications and relationship building; but still a
long way to go: 76 per cent of Greek Cypriots and 62 per cent of Turkish
Cypriots still had no contact at all with ‘the other side’ (CYMAR 2009).
114 Cyprus
The amount of expenditure of the two communities through the

Green Line trade is also rather limited. This low volume shows how the
two economies are quite independent and almost completely disinte-
grated with one another. The less economically developed Turkish side is
keener to trade with its more developed Greek counterpart: the volume
of Turkish Cypriot trade with/in the RoC has grown from 0.5 mil-
lion in 2004 to 7.2 million in 2008; then back to 6 million after the
2008 financial crisis. Greek Cypriot trade with its poorer Turkish Cypriot
neighbour is more subdued: a peak of just 1.4 million was reached in
2008 (UNDP 2011).
Since the 2004 implementation of the Green Line Regulation, there
are greater opportunities for the crossing of people, goods and services
across the Green Line. The most important factor in economic inter-
dependence is the movement of people across the Green Line. This
accounts for 75 per cent of total intra-island expenditures, the rest being
contributed by Green Line trade, employment of some 2,400 Turkish
Cypriots in the RoC, social insurance and health provision. 3.8 mil-
lion crossings across the Green Line were registered in 2008, falling
to 3.2 million in 2009 (UNDP 2011: 6). However, unfortunately, there
remains hardly any indications for a future integration or unification of
the two communities. Rather, it appears that the division between the
two communities is the order of the day, certainly for the foreseeable
future. It may also become the basis for a lasting agreement between the
two sides.
Power sharing: come again?
The crux of the matter in the Cyprus conflict was clearly stated by the
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan after the failure of the 2004 referenda,
in his 28 May 2004 report to the UN Security Council:
[ . . . ] the sheer size of the ‘No’ vote raises even more fundamental
questions. This is the first time that the Greek Cypriot public has
been asked to vote on a bicommunal, bizonal federal solution of
the Cyprus problem. Such a solution means not just two constituent
states, but also political equality and the sharing of power . . . If the
Greek Cypriots are ready to share power and prosperity with the
Turkish Cypriots in a federal structure based on political equality, this
needs to be demonstrated, not just by word, but by action.
(UNSG Report 2004: para. 85–86)
Obsession with embracing one’s unitary ‘nation-state’, rather than

learning to share power with the other community in a consociational
Ahmet Sözen 115
democracy, has dominated the recent political history of the two

Cypriot communities since the collapse of the constitutional order of
the RoC in 1963. The majority of the Greek Cypriot political establish-
ment has always considered the Turkish Cypriots as a minority on the
island. In that regard, for them, the RoC can only be a unitary Hellenic–
Greek Cypriot nation state where Turkish Cypriots would be just any
other citizens on a ‘one person, one vote’ basis, with no special rights or
guarantees. As a reaction to that, of course, the majority of the Turkish
Cypriot elite believes that there is no other way but to have a unitary
Turkish Cypriot nation state in Cyprus to protect the Turkish Cypriot
community from the larger Greek Cypriot population. An island-wide
sample poll of 2,000 respondents in 2009 tested preferences between
five options among the two communities: (1) a single unitary state, (2) a
bi-zonal, bi-communal federation, (3) a continuation of the status quo,
(4) a confederation of two sovereign states and (5) two separate and
internationally recognised states. A Greek Cypriot nation state remains
the most popular support among Greek Cypriot respondents (with 93%
support), federation comes next, and is still acceptable to a majority
(79% support). In contrast, the first preference for Turkish Cypriots is
the two recognised sovereign states solution (90% support). However,
many are also prepared to accept federation as a workable option (76%
support) (Sözen et al. 2009). In this particular historical experience of
almost half of a century, the politics of division between the two com-
munities has been the dominant narrative in the political space on both
sides. However, inter-communal negotiations may have come to a crit-
ical juncture; one where the current UN Secretary General has stated
that ‘the talks have moved into the final phase’ (UN 2012). There remain
three particularly difficult issues to resolve: the election of the executive,
property and citizenship. Another failure of the current peace process
similar to the 2004 failed referenda would probably mean the end of the
search for a federal solution model to the Cyprus conflict and, hence,
the rise of alternative, division-oriented solution templates.
Recent developments
There are currently important external factors that make a solution

of ‘the Cyprus problem’ an urgent one. Rich hydrocarbon resources,
particularly gas, have been discovered in Cyprus’ exclusive economic
zone in 2011. For the peaceful exploitation of these resources, a solu-
tion to the Cyprus conflict is a valuable prerequisite, as seen in recent
diplomatic exchanges between the RoC and Turkey (BBC News 2011,
Champion 2001). In addition, the non-resolution of the Cyprus affair
116 Cyprus
poses an important obstacle in front of Turkey’s own accession bid to

the European Union, not to mention the lingering matter of a healthy
institutional co-operation between the EU and NATO where the (Greek
Cypriot) RoC and Turkey are members, respectively, and where they
can wield their veto power to block any decision affecting important
developments in international relations in this volatile region. There is
a de facto freeze on Turkey’s accession negotiations as a direct outcome
of the Cyprus impasse. Nevertheless, recent political developments in
Turkey point to its emerging confidence as the regional power, reducing
Ankara’s incentive to secure what it could interpret as a non-favourable
resolution to the Cyprus problem.
The continuing division of the island also jeopardises the levels of
co-operation required for the two communities to deal effectively with
the fight against drug trafficking, illegal arms trade, human trafficking
and money laundering. Whether a comprehensive settlement is even-
tually secured or not, both sides need to learn to co-operate better in
Cyprus.
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7
Ireland
Stephen A. Royle
Introduction
‘Islands constitute natural unities; sea channels constitute natural divi-

sions’. So wrote Kevin Howard (2006: 9) with particular reference to
the two largest islands of the British Isles: Great Britain and Ireland.
However, at the time of writing, the political unity of Great Britain is
being called into question, while Ireland has been divided since the
1920s. Part of the island of Ireland is united not with the rest of the
island, but with Great Britain across the other side of the ‘natural divi-
sion’ that is the Irish Sea, for Ireland’s history, development and political
structures have long been moulded by Great Britain. The journey to
this ‘unnatural’ unity and the associated division of Ireland forms the
material for this chapter.
Ireland is not a small island; at 84,421 km2 , it is the world’s 20th
largest island by area, 19th by population size. However, it is small com-
pared with Great Britain as close as 21 km to its east whose 209,331 km2
makes it the 9th largest island by area while it is third in popula-
tion behind only Java and Honshu. Great Britain is in some ways
itself also divided. There are three constituent parts – England, Wales
and Scotland – the last two having their own sub-national legislatures.
Internationally, this division is marked principally by the fact that
Great Britain fields three separate national football teams, but there
are pressures for formal political secession, especially from Scotland
(see Chapter 13, this volume). Scotland was only brought into polit-
ical union with the rest of Great Britain in 1707 and, at the time of
writing, the Scottish parliament is controlled by the Scottish National
Party, which has announced that a referendum on the union will be
held. At present, Great Britain, dominated numerically, economically
119
120 Ireland
Table 7.1 Comparing the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland
Republic of Ireland Northern Ireland
Political Status British Dominion Part of the United

(as the Irish Free Kingdom of Great
State) 1922–1937; Britain and Northern
Sovereign State since Ireland since 1922
1937
Capital City Dublin Belfast
Population (2011) 4,581,269 1,799,392 (2010 est)
Resident population density 65.2 130.0
(persons/km2 )
% of population that lives in 60% (2005) 65.1% (2001)
Urban Areas
Life expectancy in years 80.2 (2011) 76.4 (M); 81.3 (F) (2008)
(2009)
% annual population +1.1% (2011) +0.6% (2010)
growth
GNP per capita (US$) 32,740 36,580 (UK) (Northern
Ireland c. 75% of UK =
27,435)
Standing on human 5th out of 182 21st out of 182 countries
development index (2009) countries (UK)
% of population below 5.5% 14% (UK)
poverty line
Adult (15+) Literacy rate (%) 99% 99%
Main language(s) spoken English, Irish English
Currency (exchange rate as Euro (1US$ = 0.77 Pound (1US$ = 0.64
at January 2012) Euro) GBP)
and politically by England, forms part of what is usually called for short
the UK. The full name of this state is the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland, note, for one significant
outcome of Ireland’s relations with and domination by Great Britain, is
a constituent part of the UK being situated on the divided island of
Ireland (see Table 7.1).
Irish history to 1801: a condensed version
Irish history is a long and complex affair (see, for example, Foster’s
Oxford history of Ireland 1992), much tied in with colonialism from
Britain (Montaño 2011). In 1171 the Anglo-Norman king of England,
Henry II, great-grandson of William the Conqueror, the Norman lord
Stephen A. Royle 121
who had invaded England in 1066, himself invaded eastern Ireland.

This followed a smaller incursion two years earlier and was an attempt
by Henry to bring stability to Ireland and protect the west coast of
Britain. The Anglo-Normans never succeeded in gaining control of all
of Ireland; as the nationalist Irish historian, Alice Stopford Green, put
it ‘there remained Irish kingdoms and the remnants of old chiefdoms,
unconquered, resolute and wealthy’ (1911: 105). The English position
was weakened by an invasion from Scotland by Edward the Bruce in
1315 and catastrophes such as the Black Death in the late 1340s and
the Wars of the Roses, a civil war between rival branches of the English
ruling house, in the following century. By the late-15th century the
English area of control in Ireland had been reduced to an area around
Dublin known as the Pale, within which sat the Irish parliament, whose
writ extended de facto only to its boundaries. In 1542, this parliament
declared Henry VIII of England to be also King of Ireland. Previously,
the English king had been Lord of Ireland, delegating local rule to pow-
erful Norman (by then termed Hiberno-Norman) clans whose loyalty
had proved unreliable. As a kingdom, Ireland offered these lords royal
protection in return for their recognition of the central government in
which they were entitled to serve. Although the Pale extended once
more after this change, there were risings against English rule with
its imposition of foreign customs and cultures, including the English
language. The English responded with repressive strategies to subdue
Ireland such as martial law and increased military presence. A longer-
term policy called the ‘plantation’ was to settle Ireland with people
from England and, later, Scotland. This was first employed under Queen
Mary in the 1550s, when Queen’s County (now County Laois) was
planted (Loeber 1991). Plantation reached its peak in the northeast of
Ireland, the province of Ulster, after Hugh O’Neill, the Earl of Tyrone,
had become involved on the Spanish side in the war between Spain and
England and had his lands confiscated in 1603. He was offered his lands
back, but not wishing to live under the English, he and other lords left
for the continent in 1607, a movement called the Flight of the Earls.
Much land was re-issued to settlers from Great Britain in the Plantation
of Ulster to try to forestall further rebellion. This movement of thou-
sands of Protestants, both Anglicans and Presbyterians, into what had
been a largely Catholic island set up ethnic divisions that were certainly
a factor in the later political division (Graham 1997). This plantation
did not affect the two eastern Ulster counties of Antrim and Down,
which were settled privately, largely with migrants from Scotland. One
notable County Antrim settlement from the early 17th century was
122 Ireland
Belfast, founded in 1603 (chartered 1613) on the land granted to Sir

Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy of Ireland. Belfast was laid out within
earthen ramparts for a migrant Protestant population, local Catholics
being required to reside outside the defences (Gillespie 2007).
Like other strategies, plantation failed to bring peace to Ireland and
there was a serious rebellion in 1641 by Irish Catholic gentry, which
saw the English lose control over much of the island, their rulers being
distracted by the build-up to the English Civil War that broke out
the following year. However, in 1649 following the execution of King
Charles I, the English parliament sent Oliver Cromwell, later the Lord
Protector, to invade Ireland and reverse the Catholic gentry’s gains,
an earlier invasion of 1647 having been unsuccessful. Cromwell’s New
Model Army won after a brutal campaign and almost all land owned
by Catholics was confiscated. It was not returned following the restora-
tion of the monarchy in England in 1660. Things might have improved
for Irish Catholics after 1685 under the English King James II, who was
Catholic himself, but he was removed from power in the Glorious Rev-
olution of 1688 when William III and Mary II become rulers of England,
the former being of the House of Orange in the Netherlands. Irish
Catholics attempted to restore King James in the Jacobite Rebellions,
which saw the former king come into Ireland with French assistance.
He was opposed by King William in person at the Battle of the Boyne
in 1690, following which the defeated James fled and the rebellion
in Ireland (though not in Scotland) ended in 1691 with the Battle of
Aughrim and the Treaty of Limerick (Simms 1969). The Battle of the
Boyne became a great symbol of Protestant triumphalism in Ireland
and is celebrated with marches and bonfires every year on 12 July
in areas of the northern part of the now divided island. Following
their defeat in the 1690s, the Irish Catholic landed classes were never
able to organise effective resistance again, partly through the effect of
the Penal Laws that prevented them from inheriting property. Instead,
Ireland became dominated politically and economically by the Protes-
tant Ascendancy. Resistance came largely through the activities of secret
societies such as the Whiteboys, operating mainly in the countryside.
Day to day the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin Castle ruled, although the
Irish parliament did meet regularly. That this parliament could only
pass laws approved in England denotes the limits of power within the
island. This regulation, known as Poyning’s Law, had actually been in
place since 1495 and was rescinded only in 1782 when the Ascendency,
identifying themselves increasingly as Irish, sought more independent
control. Trade restrictions were also liberalised then, ushering in an
era of prosperity, still reflected in some handsome streets and public

buildings in Dublin.
The late-18th century was an era of radicalism with pressure for free-
dom and rights in Europe and North America, and this was seen also
in Ireland, from letters to the press to armed rebellion. For example, in
1780 the Belfast News Letter published a letter from a miller in which he
stated ‘it’s truly a hard case that Ireland, which has as good a right to be
free as any country under the sun, should be so racked and ruined by
the haughty Englishmen and hindered from making an honest liveli-
hood’. Organised protest came especially through the United Irishmen,
a society founded in Belfast, many leaders and members of which were
Protestant, especially Presbyterians who had also suffered discrimina-
tion under the Penal Laws. They campaigned for Catholic rights and
the establishment of a non-sectarian Irish republic inspired by publica-
tions such as Thomas Paine’s Rights of man (1791) and their own leader
Wolfe Tone’s An argument on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland (1791).
The United Irishmen were behind much unrest, including an attempted
French invasion in 1796, which was set aside only through bad weather,
and a full-scale rebellion in 1798. This was suppressed with brutality.
Tone, himself an Anglican, the group best served by Ireland’s political
system, before committing suicide to ‘cheat the hangman’, wrote: ‘From
my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Ireland and
Great Britain as the curse of the Irish nation’ (see Moody et al. 2009).
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
After the 1798 rebellion, the British abolished the Irish parliament,
imposing a form of direct rule through the 1801 Act of Union, which
established the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Alice
Stopford Green characterised the aftermath of the 1798 rising as a ‘dark
time’, claiming that only seven of the members of the legislature who
voted in favour had not been bribed. Irish members were elected to the
unified parliament at Westminster, but ‘a hundred members would be
lost in the British parliament’ (1911: 219).
This United Kingdom was not a union of equals. The Irish were second
class, a reserve labour force for Britain’s needs: they built the railways
as they had earlier dug the canals; they served disproportionately in
the armed forces; they migrated seasonally to gather the harvest or
permanently to take up construction or factory work. Being Irish was
not seen to confer an advantage in life. Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of
Wellington, victor at Waterloo against Napoleon, twice prime minister
124 Ireland
of the UK, an iconic, heroic figure in British history, was actually Irish.
He was born – probably in Dublin – in 1769 and raised in Ireland but
thoroughly resented his Irish pedigree and is famously supposed to have
remarked: ‘Being born in a stable does not make you a horse’. Anti-Irish
prejudice was rife, characterised for us today through the stereotypical,
racist images of the Irish portrayed in cartoons in the humorous maga-
zine, Punch (de Nie 2004). Relationships were not helped by the failure
of the mainstay of Irish peasant life, the potato, in the Great Famine
(an Gorta Mór) of 1844–1849 when the Irish resented the clumsy and
ill-run attempts at relief from Britain, to which Ireland had continued
to export food, while the British for their part resented having to pay for
relief for their Irish fellow countrymen. An 1849 Punch cartoon entitled
‘The English Labourer’s Burden’ depicts a stalwart English yeoman car-
rying on his back one of the racist, monkey-like depictions of a ragged
Irishman.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was united only
in name; in 1803, within two years of union, there was a rebellion
against it led by some of the people involved in the 1798 rising. Later,
a barrister, Daniel O’Connell, known as the Liberator, established the
mass-membership Repeal Association. One success was Catholic eman-
cipation in 1829, following which Catholics could be elected to the UK
parliament – as O’Connell himself was – but the organisation’s princi-
pal demand – the repeal of the 1801 Act of Union – was unsuccessful
at that time. Repeal was opposed by most of Ireland’s Protestants, who
dominated Ulster following the Plantation and the migration streams
into Counties Antrim and Down. Parts of the province, especially in
and around Belfast and Londonderry (or Derry; its very name is con-
tested), prospered during the 19th century due to industrialisation
(shipbuilding and linen manufacture together with other industries
such as chemicals, engineering and rope-making drove growth in Belfast
and shirt-making led the way in Londonderry) while large parts of
rural and Catholic Ireland suffered economically. The availability of
work in Belfast had drawn tens of thousands of people into the town
(city from 1888) from all over Ireland giving it a substantial Catholic
minority, but the Protestants and Catholics lived in separate districts
and did not bond. There was usually trouble on 12 July when the
Orange Order (a Protestant organisation founded in 1795) paraded to
celebrate the victory of William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne –
The London Review summed up Belfast’s 12 July festivities generally as
a ‘saturnalia of bigotry and ruffianism’ (1865: 82). There were also seri-
ous outbreaks of violence when some catalyst caused the underlying
sectarian hatreds to flare up as in 1864, 1872, 1880, 1884 and 1886

(Royle 2011). Catholic–Protestant rivalries became caught up in pres-
sures for Irish ‘Home Rule’ in the late 19th century. There were usually
about 80 Irish MPs in favour and Home Rule was supported by William
Gladstone, the British Liberal prime minister, who had little patience
with unionist Protestants from Ulster. After one meeting with a group
of Belfast industrialists who thought Home Rule would cause ‘confusion
and disaster’, Sir Edward Harland, the founder of the massive Belfast
shipbuilding company of Harland and Wolff and then a unionist Belfast
MP, wrote that ‘Mr Gladstone’s hand [was] pressing, with all gentleness,
yet firmly on the throttle-valve of free speech deliverance’ (Chamber
of Commerce 1893: 4). There were Home Rule bills in 1886 and 1893
but both were rejected; the second in the British parliament’s upper
chamber, the House of Lords, which was dominated by Conservatives
and Unionists and could, at that time, dismiss government legislation.
Pressure continued, island autonomy being compelling to some such as
Alice Stopford Green who ended her 1911 Irish identity thus: ‘The natu-
ral union approaches of the Irish nation – the union of all her children
that are born under the breadth of her skies, fed by the fatness of her
fields and nourished by the civilisation of her dead’ (254). That year
the Parliament Act reduced the House of Lords’ powers to delaying leg-
islation only, which would ensure an easier passage for another Home
Rule bill and in 1912 the Liberal government introduced a third such
bill. This was resisted by the opposition in Westminster, with Sir Edward
Carson, a Dublin-born barrister, unionist MP for Trinity College Dublin,
in the vanguard. This bill would not have given Ireland full indepen-
dence; rather devolution, with Ireland retaining MPs at Westminster.
It had not been passed by 1914 when the outbreak of the Great War led
to it being suspended.
1916 and its aftermath
Two events in 1916 made the partition of Ireland inevitable. The first
was the Easter Rising, an armed insurrection in Dublin led by Pádraig
(Patrick) Pearse and his Irish Volunteers and James Connolly with
his Irish Citizen Army, united as the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
On Easter Monday, 24 April, Pearse and his followers occupied a number
of buildings in central Dublin including some on Sackville Street (now
called O’Connell Street in tribute to the Liberator). At the Central Post
Office the existence of an Irish Republic was proclaimed. A plaque on
that building displays the text: ‘We declare the right of the people of
126 Ireland
Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of

Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible . . . We hereby proclaim
the Irish Republic as a sovereign independent state’.
The rebels were relatively few in number, perhaps 1,250. After suc-
cesses on the first day when the British were surprised, soon they were
considerably outnumbered by British forces under orders from the prime
minister, Herbert Asquith, to put down the rebellion quickly, without
restraint being placed upon their actions. The British acted harshly: a
gunboat on the River Liffey was employed as part of the shelling; there
was no aversion to destroying buildings or shooting people in civilian
clothing. On 29 April, Pearse surrendered. The casualty figures were 64
deaths among the rebels; 132 British troops and police were killed (32
being themselves Irish) and 264 civilians died. Over 3,000 people were
arrested, mainly members of Sinn Féin, a republican organisation that
had not played a role in the rising. Most were released but almost 1,500
were interned. Sixteen men were executed, though one of the leaders,
Éamon de Valera, was not hanged and went on to become a long-serving
taoiseach (prime minister), then president of Ireland.
The Easter Rising was not universally applauded by the Irish people,
given the death and destruction, while the fact that it took place dur-
ing the war was felt by some to be inappropriate However, the rising
made the British less popular with many, given the severity of their reac-
tion. The fact that the British tried to impose conscription on Ireland in
1918 was another factor in their growing unpopularity. These events
helped lead to a Sinn Féin landslide at the post-war election of 1918,
and in 1919 at the Mansion House in Dublin an independent Ireland
was declared once more, ratifying the proclamation of 1916. This was
not recognised by the British or internationally and with there being
no movement on the Home Rule bill in Westminster, elements of the
nationalist movement formed the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and
began a campaign of violence, the War of Independence. The British
countered this through the use of police and former soldiers, a rather ill-
disciplined force known without affection as the Black (the police) and
Tans (the soldiers). Both the British and the IRA were responsible for
controversial deaths, the British most notoriously when in November
1920 they killed 14 people by shooting into a crowd attending a Gaelic
football match at Croke Park, Dublin after several British intelligence
officers had been assassinated earlier that day.
Finally, the UK parliament passed the fourth Home Rule bill, the
Government of Ireland Act in 1920, but the IRA under Michael Collins
continued to press for a greater measure of independence and carried
on the armed struggle. A truce was signed in July, the Anglo-Irish Treaty,
under which a parliament was created giving dominion status to the
Irish Free State, a step short of a full republic. The status was similar to
that of Canada, with the British monarch as head of state; Irish parlia-
mentarians would have to swear an oath of allegiance to the monarch
and the new country would have join the British Commonwealth.
Moreover, three strategic ‘Treaty Ports’ were to be retained for the use
of the British navy. These conditions were too much for some nation-
alists, including de Valera, and a bitter civil war ensued among those
who accepted the treaty, who made up the government and those who
rejected it. There was fighting in Dublin with over 300 dead, mainly
civilians, before pro-treaty forces secured the city, as they then did
the other major towns. Unrest and atrocities, including executions of
people held by both sides continued for months but gradually anti-
treaty forces lost ground, not helped by the Catholic Church declaring
for the pro-treaty side. Éamon de Valera’s anti-treaty forces eventually
declared a cease-fire in May 1923. De Valera went on to found the
Fianna Fáil party and he re-joined Irish parliamentary politics. He gained
power in 1932 and abolished most of what he regarded as objection-
able in the Anglo-Irish Treaty such as the Oath of Allegiance. An Irish
president became head of state from 1937 (de Valera himself was to
hold the office from 1959 to 1973); the Treaty Ports were returned in
1938; ten years later membership of the British Commonwealth was
abandoned and the Irish Free State became the Republic of Ireland.
A pro-treaty party, Fine Gael, had also been formed and these two par-
ties founded in bloodshed have dominated Irish politics for decades
afterwards.
The divided island
Although the 1937 constitution of Ireland stated under Article 2 that:

‘The national territory consists of the whole island of Ireland, its islands
and the territorial seas’, this was an aspiration rather than a state-
ment of the reality on the ground. The Irish Free State, which had
come into being in December 1922, was not coterminous with the
island of Ireland. Ireland had been partitioned, had become a divided
island. To understand why, one must recall the 17th-century planta-
tions and migrations that had led to a Protestant majority in Ulster
and also consider another event in 1916, the Battle of the Somme.
In 1912, Protestants in the north of Ireland, led by Edward Carson and
James Craig, formed a militia to resist Home Rule by force if necessary.
128 Ireland
In September that year almost a quarter of a million men with the

support of almost as many women had signed the Ulster Covenant,
pledging to use ‘all means which may be found necessary to defeat the
present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland’. The
following year, 100,000 signatories between the ages of 17 and 65 were
formed into the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), which saw the foundation
of the Irish Volunteers in opposition (Stewart 1967). On the outbreak of
the Great War most men in the UVF volunteered for the British Army,
mainly serving in the 36th (Ulster) Division, a unit that suffered tremen-
dous casualties on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July
1916. The author’s own grandfather was in a unit that relieved the front
and wrote: ‘What a sight the battlefield was. I cannot speak of it; it would
be treading on sacred ground. I can see our brave boys lying there now’
(Royle 1985: 40). The sacrifices of the UVF and other volunteers from
Ulster who died for the UK in their thousands during the Great War as
well as the expectation that there would be massive, armed resistance
if much of Ulster was to be forced into an independent Ireland neces-
sitated partition. Even in the deliberations on the pre-war third Home
Rule bill, there had been discussion that an area to be called Northern
Ireland might be excluded. The 1920 Government of Ireland Act allowed
Northern Ireland to secede from the Irish Free State, which promptly
it did. Unicameral parliaments were established in Northern Ireland as
well as the Irish Free State; there was also to be a Council of Ireland,
but this never met. Northern Ireland, with its sub-national legislature,
remained within the UK, an international border, a land boundary, sep-
arating the Irish Free State from the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland.
Under the 1920 Act, a provisional border had been drawn around six
of the nine counties of Ulster – Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh,
Londonderry and Tyrone – delineating a region that, because of its
Protestant majority, could be guaranteed to deliver a unionist govern-
ment for Northern Ireland. A boundary commission was to refine the
area but the Irish Civil War delayed its operation until 1924. Northern
Ireland itself was wary of this body, fearing that some of its territory
might be lost in its deliberations, and the local legislature refused to
appoint a delegate to it so the British appointed the representative for
Northern Ireland. There was also unease in Dublin about the Free State
losing territory from its three Ulster counties of Cavan, Donegal and
Monaghan to Northern Ireland; indeed, the Free State expected to make
considerable territorial gains. In the event, a map from the Boundary
Commission was leaked prematurely and published in the Morning Post.
This showed part of County Donegal being ceded to Northern Ireland

and only modest amounts of territory coming into the Free State, which
caused embarrassment to Dublin and the border agreement was swept
into a wider discussion on financial matters including the Free State’s
share of the old UK’s national debt. The 1920 provisional border around
the six counties was accepted as a compromise by all sides. It became
the international border formally in 1925 and remains so today. The
Boundary Commission’s report was kept a secret and was not published
until 1969 (Hand 1969). Because no adjustments to the provisional bor-
der were made, tens of thousands of Catholics in the five Northern
Ireland counties along the border (all but County Antrim) found them-
selves on the ‘wrong’ side, as did about one-third of the population
of Belfast, although they, like Catholics in the rest of County Antrim,
could never have been placed within the Free State. Some people so
affected were prepared to struggle to have their situation altered. In addi-
tion, there was much discontent among nationalists everywhere that
Ireland had been divided and the British still ruled in one corner of the
island. In short: ‘the Northern state as created in the early 1920s was a
nineteenth century answer that proved inadequate to tackle twentieth
century problems’ (Martin 1999: 57).
There were violent IRA campaigns within Northern Ireland demand-
ing Irish unity in the 1920s, 1930s and 1950s and then came the
‘Troubles’, a mild name for almost 30 years of violence, bloodshed,
bombs and murder from the late 1960s when over 3,500 people were
killed. The Troubles began as a civil rights movement not dissimilar to
those elsewhere in Europe at the period, with the Northern Catholics
being recognised as the underclass. Concern for Catholic rights trans-
muted into a wider, renewed and violent campaign for Irish unity with
nationalist paramilitary groups such as the IRA being countered by oth-
ers set up on the unionist side such as a re-launched Ulster Volunteer
Force. During the Troubles the sub-national government of Northern
Ireland was suspended for long periods and replaced by direct rule from
Westminster. The advent of the peace process, which can be traced back
to the late 1980s, after many setbacks eventually led to the Good Friday
or Belfast Agreement of 1998. One effect of this was to see an amend-
ment to the 1937 Irish constitution, Article 2 of which was altered in
1999 to a recognition that ‘a united Ireland shall be brought about
only by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people,
democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island’. Under the
agreement, paramilitary groups disarmed and committed themselves to
political measures to achieve their aims. The demands of the political
130 Ireland
movement associated with the IRA, Sinn Féin (which is Irish for ‘our-
selves alone’) have not changed: the party still writes on its website
of Ireland being regarded as ‘a single national unit throughout its his-
tory’ and a map of the whole island of Ireland without the border is
prominently displayed at the bottom of every web page (www.sinnfein.
ie/history).
North–south and British–Irish bodies were set up under the Belfast
Agreement, cynics would say simply to add window-dressing to ensure
that the agreement could be passed by seeming to offer the Irish some
wider participation in governance. The North–South Ministerial Council
deals with 12 ‘areas for co-operation’ within Ireland such as transport,
tourism and the environment. The British–Irish Council has repre-
sentation from all the polities in the islands, including the devolved
administrations of the UK and those of the three Crown Dependencies
of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. Its 17th meeting took place in
January 2012 when youth unemployment and drugs were the matters
principally discussed and the establishment of a permanent secretariat
based in Edinburgh was welcomed. The leader of the Northern Ireland
delegation, the First Minister, Peter Robinson, took the opportunity ‘as
a unionist and as an Ulster-Scot’ to warn against the danger of Scotland
leaving the United Kingdom (Belfast Telegraph, 13 January 2012). Finally,
the British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference deals with matters that
have not been devolved to the local administration in Northern Ireland.
This last body has seemingly been inactive and has not met since 2007.
What is more important on a day-to-day basis for the people of Northern
Ireland was the restoration of a devolved administration, the Northern
Ireland Assembly, which operates with powers rather like those in Wales,
if under a system that requires a cumbersome permanent coalition
between nationalists and unionists.
The Irish border
At times the Irish border has had considerable physicality. It has been
guarded and fortified; during the height of the Troubles crossing points
were reduced, unapproved roads blocked and watchtowers were erected.
Despite this, the border was ‘fuzzy’ even in those troubled times, for
being nothing more than a series of county boundaries it has its idiosyn-
crasies. The main road running south west from Monaghan town is
the N54 in County Monaghan, becomes the A3 for about 4 km as it
crosses a pendulous piece of County Tyrone, reverts to being the N54
in Co Monaghan for about 5 km, becomes again the A3 for 3 km as it
returns to the north before entering the Republic of Ireland once more
as County Cavan’s N54 – a driver crosses the Irish border four times
within a few minutes. The road to Belcoo in County Fermanagh from
rest of that county to the southeast, because of the way County Cavan’s
border runs up to the shore of Lough Macnean, perforce runs through
Blacklion in the Republic of Ireland. There is an official ‘concession’
or courtesy that allows northern travellers unimpeded passage as long
as they proceed directly back across the border. Other border crossings
could have customs posts, at least until 1993 when they were replaced
by mobile checkpoints. These were on ‘approved’ roads, such approval
relating to fiscal rather than security issues. Posts in Northern Ireland
were sometimes targeted during the Troubles, an easy target indeed as
they were often in isolated, rural locations. That on the A1, the main
road between Belfast and Dublin, at Killeen, County Armagh, is a dole-
ful example. It was first attacked in 1971, two people employed by the
customs being killed by shots fired from inside the Republic of Ireland;
in 1975 the IRA shot dead three civilians; the same year two IRA men
died there when the bomb they were transporting went off prematurely;
ten years later four northern policemen were blown up in their patrol
car by a remote-controlled bomb; in 1987 the Lord Justice of Appeal
in Northern Ireland, Sir Maurice Gibson and Lady Gibson were killed
by another remote-controlled device; the following year three civilians
including a boy of six were blown up when their vehicle was mistaken
for one carrying another judge; in 1990 a soldier was killed at the check-
point by a van bomb. Killeen was abandoned and the post moved to
the urban area of Newry further into Northern Ireland where it could
be more easily protected. This area of South Armagh was known to
the British security forces entirely without affection as ‘Bandit Country’
and some of the largest British military bases, perhaps holding 3,000
troops at their peak, were on the border there, often supplied by heli-
copter to avoid the dangers of travel along roads that might have been
mined.
Other crossings were ‘unapproved’ and some were left open for
the benefit of locals with the possibility of mobile patrols operating,
although many such routes were blown up or barricaded. Shortly after
moving to Northern Ireland in 1976 the author, his wife and dog visited
County Tyrone and, with the curiosity of a geographer, he took them
along a country road to see the border. It was picked out by a concrete
barrier of a size sufficient to have held back a tank but retaining a lively
dog proved more difficult and the animal took an unauthorised trip into
County Monaghan, returning to its anxious Northern Ireland-bound
132 Ireland
owners ten minutes later from an entirely different direction. Local peo-
ple could also manage to cross these roads unofficially, as Irish travel
writer Dervla Murphy discovered when she toured parts of the border
region on a bicycle in 1976 as research for her book about Northern
Ireland, A place apart. She asked a farming family in County Cavan how
to cross the border into County Fermanagh:
The women came out to the road to give me precise instructions.

They didn’t think the stepping stones would be above water today –
and they were right. Round the next corner a concrete roadblock sup-
ported a NO ROAD sign. Then I saw a river lined with willows and
alders . . . Standing on the remains of the old narrow bridge . . . I looked
down at the rusty carcass of a bus filled with boulders; the locals’
attempt – plus those submerged stepping stones – to replace the
bridge.
(1978: 52)
Smugglers have also used such crossings to profit from different prices
and fiscal regimes on either side of the border. Cattle have commonly
been taken on illicit journeys, fuel too. In the 1930s, people would come
north to buy clothes and avoid tax and there are stories of them wearing
multiple layers on their return journey, their new shoes hastily scuffed to
present a patina of age. Shoppers continue to make cross-border move-
ments in a (usually) legal fashion for financial reasons, the direction of
travel depending on currency fluctuations and, especially, differing rates
of value added tax.
There always was some co-operation across the border: regarding fish-
eries in divided sea loughs, water courses, railway connections: the
‘Enterprise’ is the neutral name for the Belfast–Dublin railway service
jointly operated by Northern Ireland Railways and Iarnród Éireann.
On some occasions, the border seems particularly porous: wealthy
unionists from Northern Ireland might well have a cottage in County
Donegal, that scenic Ulster county of the South, much of which lies fur-
ther north than Northern Ireland. To people living in the east of County
Donegal, what they call ‘Derry’ is their local central place. Regarding
sport, while in football the team labelled ‘Ireland’ represents the South
and sometimes competes with another international side called ‘North-
ern Ireland’, the border does not exist during rugby internationals for
‘Ireland’ represents the whole island of Ireland. The Royal Irish Academy
is another institution to operate on an all-Ireland basis, the author,
though having only a British passport, is proud to have been elected
as a Member. The Queen’s University Belfast historian David Harkness

concluded that:
Ireland has proved too small to be divided. Though their country was
partitioned in 1920, the peoples of Ireland have rarely allowed this
to interfere with daily life in practice. Even after seventy-five years of
separate statehood they are, by and large, unwilling to regard as their
stamping ground anything less than the whole island.
(1996: 115)
At present, post-Troubles, on the ground there is little to see of the

Irish border. The watchtowers and the army bases have been dismantled
and blocked roads re-opened. Movement across the border has never
required passports to be shown and today one probably does not notice
the border has been crossed until observing that the road signage has
changed, distances are marked in kilometres in the South, in miles in
the North.
This is not to say that there are not real divisions across the Irish bor-
der. It is significant in socio-economic terms on which side a person
lives for, as with the legal and educational systems, the economies are
not united. Northern Ireland had little benefit from the Celtic Tiger that
brought such great but so ephemeral wealth to the South but nor is it
suffering from the consequences of that beast’s death. The UK, always an
unenthusiastic partner with Europe, unlike the Republic of Ireland never
took up the Euro and although troubled by debt and economic problems
at the time of writing, at least it has its own currency with the possibili-
ties of establishing independent fiscal policies to deal with the problems.
Further, David Harkness’s perspective has been challenged, he being
characterised as reflecting views typical of a Northerner for Anderson
and Bort wrote: ‘Few Southerners have regarded the North as anything
less than a “place apart” (in Dervla Murphy’s famous phrase)’ (1999:
27). They presented what they termed a ‘less reassuring’ alternative to
Harkness:
The Border [authors’ capitalisation] [is] a fundamental feature of the

Irish political landscape which has a determining influence over the
nature of the political regimes north and south of it: deeply etched in
the political cultures of the population, it is a crucial political instru-
ment in the hands of the authorities in both halves of Ireland, used
for both symbolic and practical effect.
(1999: 15)
134 Ireland
Conclusion: an island question
Ireland’s partition came about following a long and bitter history

between the neighbouring islands of Ireland and Great Britain. There
was colonialism, colonisation, land grabs and migration streams, forced
population movements and ethnic cleansing. There were regular rebel-
lions and quotidian sectarianism wherever the competing groups of
Catholics and Protestants faced their fellow-Christian (and despite
the Punch cartoons) physically indistinguishable Other. Such history
has had its impacts. In Anderson and Bort’s edited book, there is a
chapter by Steve Bruce based on research into Protestant evangelicals
in Northern Ireland in which he concluded that ‘For most Unionists,
the south has not only been a distant country but also a hostile one’
(1999: 134). Furthermore, in his major publication on the Irish bor-
der (1962) a Dutch geographer, Marcus Heslinga, postulated that the
border marked an earlier cultural divide; that the north of Ireland was
already distinct through its links with Scotland before the Plantation,
a distinction then reinforced by it being settled by Scots. Heslinga’s
thesis has been criticised for being deterministic (Howard 2006), but
at least it can be seen to have a long heritage, part of a ‘two nations’
theory that sees the north of Ireland as forming a distinct nation on
the island of Ireland. The concept of two nations sharing the island
has been traced to the late 19th century and was one of the justifica-
tions for partition, however geographically illogical such a sundering
might appear, to revisit the quote from Kevin Howard with which
this chapter opened: ‘islands constitute natural entities’. Other land-
masses have also been seen as natural entities such as with the USA’s
‘manifest destiny’ to stretch ‘from sea to shining sea’. By contrast,
continental areas less impacted by recent overwhelmingly dominant
migration streams than the USA might seem to be naturally divided.
Europe with its mosaic of different languages and cultures has spent
most of its recorded history driven by warfare; the European Union is
only a recent political construct and is anyway presently under threat
from internal contradictions. At the sub-continental scale, are island
landmasses a natural unit or are there circumstances where it is divi-
sion not unity that is natural? Regarding Ireland, this island displays
characteristics of both traits: the two-nations thesis and the sectarian
divisions on the one hand versus on the other a universal desire for
Ireland to beat other teams at rugby as just one manifestation of many
aspects of a shared culture not sundered by the border. The answer then
must be nuanced; it must accept that Ireland has characteristics of both
‘natural’ island unity and ‘natural’ island division. Nuanced opinions

on Ireland, however, are often not encountered for there are many who
hold or did hold simple views on this issue – favouring unity or, alter-
natively, division – of such strength that they have been prepared to
kill or be killed for them throughout the centuries of Ireland’s bloody
history.
References
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Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 15–40.
Anon.1865. Belfast Tories. The London Review, 22 July, 82.
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Bruce, S. 1999. Unionists and the border. In M. Anderson and E. Bort (eds.)
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8
Usedom/Uznam
Maciej J˛edrusik
Introduction
The island of Usedom (Polish: Uznam) is situated off the south-western

shore of the Baltic Sea. It is separated from the continent by the shallow
coastal Szczecin Lagoon (German: Stettiner Haff) and the Peene Strait
(German: Peenestrom; Polish: Piana), supplied also by waters from a river
of the same name. To the east, Usedom is separated from the neigh-
bouring island of Wolin by the Swine Strait (German: Swine; Polish:
Świna). This small archipelago (apart from Usedom and Wolin, there
are several small uninhabited or sparsely populated islands) was further
segmented by human activity: in the second half of the 19th century,
the Piast Canal (Kaiserfahrt; Kanał Piastowski) was constructed in the
south-western part of Usedom, transferring what had hitherto been a
peninsula into Karsibór (Kaseburg) island.
The total area of Usedom is 445 km2 , divided quite unequally between
Germany (373 km2 ) and Poland (72 km2 ). The estimated total popu-
lation of the island amounts to some 67,500. The German part has
nearly31,500 people scattered in over 70 towns and districts. The largest
town on the island, however, is Świnoujście (German: Swinemünde)
located on the Polish side, with over 40,000 inhabitants (as of 31.12.
2010) spread over Uznam, Wolin and Karsibór islands. Uznam’s popula-
tion is about 35,700 residents (as of 31.12.2010) (Świnoujście w liczbach
2010) (see Table 8.1).
In this chapter, the whole island is referred to as Usedom; but
otherwise reference is made to Usedom if dealing with the German side,
and Uznam if dealing with the Polish side. The Polish name Uznam was
introduced in 1949 by a decree of the Polish authorities. The Slavic name
137
138 Usedom/Uznam
Table 8.1 Comparing German Usedom and Polish Uznam
Usedom Uznam
Political Status Includes the town of Świnoujście is a city

Heringsdorf (amtsfreie poviat (county), part
Gemeinde) as well as of the voivodeship
the two amts (województwo or
(administrative region) of West
divisions): Pomerania
Usedom-Nord and
Usedom-Sud, all
part of landkreis
(administrative
district) of
Vorpommern-
Greifswald
Capital City Berlin (Germany) Warsaw (Poland)
Population (2010) 31,500 35,712
Land surface area (km2 ) 373 72
(persons/km2 )
% of population that lives in approx. 70% 100%
Urban Areas (2010)
Life expectancy in years 82.1 79.8
% annual population –0.3% (estimate) –0.1%
growth (2010)
GDP per capita (US$) (2011) 33,600 (for Germany) 13,100 (for Poland)
development index (2010) countries (Germany) countries (Poland)
% of population below 15.5% 17%
poverty line (2009)
Adult (15+) literacy rate (%) 99% 100%
Main language(s) spoken German Polish
Currency (exchange rate as Euro (1US$ = 0.77 Zloty (PLN) (1US$ =
at January 2012) Euro) 3.21 PLN)
Uznoimia was already being used in the 12th century by Bishop Otto of
Bamberg.
History and geopolitical relations until the Second

World War
Usedom has been inhabited for at least 5,000 years; archaeological exca-
vations suggest that there was already a dense resident population by
the second millennium BC. The area was originally inhabited by the
Maciej J˛edrusik 139
Germanic people, followed by the Slavs in the 5th century AD. In the
12th century, the region was ruled by Pomeranian tribes, presumably
the Wolinians. In 1128, Wartislaw I, Duke of Pomerania, was baptised by
Bishop Otto, leading first to the foundation of monasteries, and even-
tual occupation of the entire island by monks. It was only at the time of
the Reformation that the Dukes of Pomerania managed to regain their
dominance over Usedom. As a consequence of the 1630 invasion of the
Swedish ruler Gustav Adolph, during the Thirty Years’ War, Usedom
became part of the Swedish empire for almost a century (Biermann
2006).
In 1720, the island was sold to the Prussian sovereign Frederick
William I. The Swedes, however, still controlled both the sailing on the
Peene and the seaport in Wolgast at its southern coasts, imposing high
trade duties, which were only revoked as late as 1815 (Historia Kanału
Piastowskiego n/a). It obliged Prussia to search for a new trade route to
the Baltic. The Swine Strait was chosen, which led to the decision to
develop a small seaport in Swinemünde. The settlement was granted a
town charter in 1765. Slowly but surely, Swinemünde became the trade
centre of Usedom and neighbouring Wolin. In 1815, an independent
administrative unit named Kreis Usedom-Wollin, with Swinemünde as its
capital, was established (ibid.). Steam ships unable to navigate the rather
shallow and winding Swine River were obliged to unload at this sea-
port, contributing to the town’s prosperity. In 1851–1856, during the
Crimean War, practically all of Russia’s trade with the West took place
through Swinemünde (Historia Świnoujścia 2008). The existing commu-
nications infrastructure was however insufficient. Plans to construct a
7.5-km canal were made in 1862, and construction on the Kaiserfahrt
(now the Piast Canal) started in 1875, completed by 1880, and had
its watercourse deepened to 7 m by 1900. In 1911, the Piast Canal
was extended by digging the 4-km-long Mieliński Canal (Mellin Fahrt)
through the centre of Swinemünde, offering what remains today a vital
sea link to Szczecin, a large city with a developed shipbuilding industry
(Historia Kanału Piastowskiego n/a).
Swinemünde has been an attractive spa and bathing resort at least
since 1824. In 1826, 613 patients were reported to have came to
Swinemünde whereas, just over a century later, in 1936, there were as
many as 48,260 (Lesiński 1973). Other towns, situated along the north-
ern coasts of the island, also became holiday resorts or spas. A naturally
favourable microclimate, extensive beaches and relatively warm waters
(for the Baltic Sea) made various towns on Usedom attractive to visitors,
although Swinemünde remained the most sought after (Hinz 1996). The
140 Usedom/Uznam
island was also only a short train journey away from Berlin; so much
so that, by the end of the 19th century, Swinemünde was known as
‘Berlin’s bathtub’ (Historia Świnoujścia 2008). Usedom airport was built
in the 1920s, receiving its first flights from Berlin in 1927 (Faligowski
2002).
At the same time, municipal infrastructure on the island was greatly
improved. Faligowski (2002: 13) reports:
As the capital city of the poviat [an administrative unit], Swinemünde

has developed and changed its character most quickly. A theatre, a
few schools, regional museum, municipal hospital, post office and
gasworks were established. In 1869, gas lighting of the main roads
was introduced, which in 1885 was replaced by electricity. In 1910,
water and sewerage facilities were developed. Retail markets and
crafts focused on appealing to the numerous visitors. Small businesses
hiring up to 50 workers were common.
An extension of the railway service was also spurred by military interests

and the development of the military industry. Fortifications in Świnou-
jście had been built in the mid-19th century in order to better protect
the port, a vital haven for the Prussian Emperor’s fleet. This military
function was intensified during the time of Nazi Germany. There was
a German submarine base near Karsibór Island; a motor torpedo boat
base for the Kriegsmarine in Szczecin; and a torpedo missile base (Wyspa
Karsibór 2011). Swinemünde was the largest sea base for the German war
fleet, from where battleships of all kinds could operate. But, perhaps
most notorious of all, was the establishment in 1937 in Peenemünde,
near the western border of Usedom, of the Military Research Institute
(Heeresversuchsanstalt). In two separate locations on the island, research
was conducted on both the unmanned missile planes V-1, as well as
on vertical take-off rockets V-2, under the overall direction of Werner
von Braun. More than 2,000 prisoners were kept here, assembling these
rockets. The first flights of these machines took place during the Sec-
ond World War. This research was also fruitful in other areas: the very
first industrial television and radar systems for night navigation were
invented here. After 1943, all these facilities were heavily bombed by
the Allies (Meyer and Valentine 1999).
Thus, three significant economic functions – pertaining to health
tourism, seaport services and military interests – backed by very good
transport facilities (by rail, canal and road), and by its short distance
from Berlin, were the pillars for Usedom’s development during two
centuries of German dominance. All this was to change abruptly at the

end of the Second World War.
Genesis of division and separation
After April 1945, Western Pomerania, including the island of Usedom,

was occupied by the Soviet army, accompanied by the Polish army.
At the close of hostilities, Swinemünde had been considerably damaged
by air-raids; many buildings, including three railway stations, had been
destroyed.
The decision to merge Swinemünde with Poland, and hence to
politically divide Usedom, was proposed during the Yalta Conference
(February 1945), and confirmed during the post-war Potsdam Confer-
ence (17 July–2 August 1945), in accordance with the position of the
Polish Provisional Government of National Unity. This government
argued strongly for war reparations, including territorial concessions
and the resettling people from the densely inhabited regions of Central
and Eastern Poland. The takeover of hitherto German land was justi-
fied by appealing to the Polish origins of the western lands and the
reaffirmation of Polish historic rights:
The history of Poland since the 10th century shows that Poland
extended up to the Oder river . . . and every now and then went con-
siderably beyond these borders. As late as the 13th century, Poland
started losing its western borders in the face of German aggression.
(Kozub-Ciembroniewicz and Majchrowski 1993: 8)
As a result of the Potsdam Conference, Poland received substantial areas

in the west and in the north, including Szczecin and a significant part
of the Szczecin Lagoon. Almost the whole of the Oder River was now
within Polish borders: an important, canalised inland navigation track.
The harbour in Szczecin became, along with Gdańsk – set up as Gdynia
in the 1920s, and which was also reclaimed from Germany – the most
important Polish seaport. As noted above, the harbour in Szczecin,
however, could not function without Swinemünde.
According to historians, Joseph Stalin primarily planned the border
near Szczecin, around 10 km further west from today’s border. However,
the Potsdam Summit determined that the post-war Polish–German bor-
der should lie directly west from Szczecin and Swinemünde (now known
in Polish as Świnoujście), specifically ‘by the Oder estuary, marked by a
straight line linking the middle of the bridge over the Oder in Gryfin
142 Usedom/Uznam
with the church tower in Ahlbeck’ (Podgórski 1989: 39). The border was
actually delimited in autumn, after the Polish–Soviet border committee
meetings in September 1945. The work was done rather carelessly and in
the absence of S. Leszczycki, the Polish geographer who had been nomi-
nated as the expert for the Polish government. As a result, some changes
were made to the location of the border; on Usedom, these meant that
the supply of drinking water for Świnoujście was left on the German
side. Within the next six years, potable water for the town had to be
imported from west - German part of island.
The Polish government officially took over the Usedom–Wolin admin-
istrative region on 4–6 October 1945. The rest of Usedom remained part
of the Soviet occupation zone until October 1949, when the German
Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) came into existence.
The island’s division and the fact that the biggest city was on the
Polish side made its remaining German residents flee west. These migra-
tions were encouraged by various acts of violence, including some 40
murders, on the Germans (Prauser and Rees 2004). Research suggests
that various riots were inspired by Polish officials: police officers known
as the Civic Militia, and other security services (Historia Świnoujścia
2008). The deserted city of Świnoujście was quickly populated by set-
tlers from other parts of Poland. According to the 1946 Census, there
were 5,770 inhabitants, compared with 26,500 in 1939 (Ludność Świnou-
jścia 2011). Over the following years, the population grew steadily, after
an initial decline, and has recently stabilised: 5,440 in 1950; 9,300 in
1955; 17,000 in 1960; 41,500 in 2002 (ibid.). The destruction of the city
and of the seaport, the uncertainty of the border’s future shape, as well
as the continuous presence of the Soviet army (until as late as 1993) were
considerable barriers to civilian settlement and thwarted initiatives for
the rebuilding of the civil infrastructure. The uncertainty concerning
the future was strengthened, for example, by the corrections to the bor-
der. The Polish–German border was formalised by the 1950 Treaty of
Zgorzelec between the Polish government and the GDR. Article 1 of the
Treaty states:
The Parties to this Treaty unanimously claim that the established and
existing border going from the Baltic Sea along the line to the west to
Świnoujście and further on, along the Lusatian Neisse to the Czech-
Slovak border, constitutes the national border between Poland and
Germany.
However, inter-governmental negotiations led to a 1951 land swap,

providing access to drinking water and water treatment stations to
Świnoujście, in lieu of 76.5 hectares of land in the south-west, ceded

to the GDR.
The Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany, created in
1949), however, respected the international borders as in existence at
the time of Nazi Germany, back in 1937 (and largely unchanged since
1918). It disagreed with the annexation of part of Usedom by Poland
until 1970, when another treaty normalised relations. Yet, in spite of
its ratification by the German Bundestag in 1972, a statement by the
Federal Constitutional Court of Germany states that this did not lead
to the FRG’s formal acknowledgement of the Oder–Neisse border; only
to the FRG’s acceptance of the status quo and its declaration not to
threaten it by any armed hostilities. The full respect of the new bor-
der was an outcome of another Polish–German border treaty, signed in
November 1990, ratified by Poland in November 1991, and by Germany
in December 1991. It came into force in January 1992 (Traktat 1990).
Equally unstable was the situation on the German side of the island.
The period just after the war was marked by the looting of estates, other
acts of violence and the inflow of a considerable number of refugees
from areas taken over by the Soviet army. In addition, and in line with
denazification and the introduction of a socialist economy, all land and
industrial facilities were nationalised in 1945–1946.
Thus, Usedom entered a new era in its history as a run-down and
divided island, with a disorganised infrastructure, two sets of new and
tense inhabitants and truncated communication systems. Each of its
two parts had started to gravitate towards a different political and
economic pole.
Political and economic dualism
In principle, the two neighbouring regimes on Usedom had much

in common. Poland and the GDR were both members of the same
political and military pact (codified as the Warsaw Pact as from 1955)
and economic alliance (Comecon as from 1949), both dominated and
controlled by the Soviet Union, and notionally promoting a pact of
‘friendship, cooperation and mutual help’ between these neighbouring
countries. Yet, history is not easily forgotten; nor was there any shared
vision of a sustainable future.
Developments on the Polish side

For Uznam, yet another destabilising factor was the Soviet presence that
transformed Świnoujście into one of its major naval bases. The Russians
144 Usedom/Uznam
controlled the entire town, especially the seaside district, granting the
civilians some freedom only in the central district, a situation that was
not very attractive to tourists. Regardless of the efforts made, the restora-
tion of the health resort industry proved impossible. Only after 1957
did the Soviet Navy leave the seaside district, although it continued to
occupy other parts of the town, especially those close to the East German
border. This allowed some of the recreational and health functions of
the town to be restored. Entry visas to Usedom and Wolin – which had
been required even for the Polish population – were abolished in 1957,
facilitating traffic to and from Uznam. The official status of a health
resort was granted to the town in July 1959.
Meanwhile, there were plenty of communication barriers. Within
Poland, Świnoujście was a marginal settlement, with no fixed connec-
tion to the rest of the country. The only bridge to the mainland on
Uznam – the Piast Bridge, 370 m long and just 4.2 m wide – was only
constructed in 1966, connecting Usedom with Karsibór Island over the
Piast Canal. To reach Uznam from mainland Poland, one had to make a
ferry crossing. One could arrive in Świnoujście on passenger ships and
hydrofoils departing from Szczecin on the Oder. It was a relatively quick
and convenient connection, operating annually from April to Novem-
ber. More than five million passengers made use of this popular route
in 1970 (Faligowski 2002). The connection, as a tourist attraction, was
reactivated in 2008. In the high season, in order to cross by car, one may
have to wait several hours.
Even today, trains coming from central Poland do not go beyond the
Świnoujście Port railway station, located on Wolin Island. Since 1964,
when seasonal ferry connections with Ystad in Southern Sweden were
re-established, and new ferry routes (including one to Copenhagen)
were started, Świnoujście became an important passenger seaport.
Admittedly, at least until 1970, travel to Uznam from the rest of Poland
was limited: there were highly restrictive passport politics in place,
lifted temporarily during a short period of liberalisation connected with
the rise of the Polish trade union movement Solidarity (Solidarność) in
1980–1981.
These communication bottlenecks were acknowledged by the Polish
authorities, but somewhat half-heartedly. In the 1970s, during an inten-
sive industrialisation programme, a plan to build a huge harbour, a
city and a spa on the western boarder of Poland was conceived, but
never realised. Usedom was supposed to be connected by means of a
dyke through Szczecin Lagoon with Nowe Warpno town, and under the
Swine there was to be a tunnel. None of these projects came to pass.
There were also administrative changes in progress. The Polish state

was re-organised and the Usedom–Wolin administrative district set up in
September 1945. In October, mayors, village-mayors in communes and
village administrators were nominated, whereas in May 1946 a poviat
(comprising Wolin, Usedom, Karsibór) was established with Świnou-
jście as its capital (Lipiec n.d.). After administrative reforms in 1975,
the Świnoujście commune, along with Mi˛edzyzdroje and a few villages
on Wolin Island, was hived off as an independent administrative unit.
Mi˛edzyzdroje itself was hived off in 1999, thus transforming Świnoujście
into a separate city with poviat rights.
Meanwhile, the reduction and departure of the Soviet garrison from
the most attractive parts of the city led to an economic growth in
Świnoujście. Industrial facilities were built, mostly on the right bank
of the Swine, on Wolin Island. Some of these did not survive the wave
of liberalisation that accompanied the opening to the free market after
1990. The Uznam part of Świnoujście has largely remained a health
resort and spa. There are more than 100 hotels and sanatoriums. In July
2000, the official accommodation facilities were estimated at just over
9,000 beds (Faligowski 2002). In addition, there is a ‘grey zone’, com-
prising unregistered facilities, that is hard to estimate. In 2010, there
were 1,520 beds in sanatoriums (Przybyłowski and Tamowicz 2011),
to some extent used by the foreigners coming over as health tourists.
The Germans constituted a considerable number of visitors, benefiting
from the geographical closeness and substantially lower prices when
compared to German health resorts.
Developments on the German side

Unlike Uznam, the communications system on the German part of
Usedom was a carry-over from the pre-war period. This part of the island
has long enjoyed a road connection to the mainland, whereas the Pol-
ish one did not. Since 2000, Usedom is connected by a national road
and a highway (Ostseeautobahn) to Berlin, Rostock, Lübeck, Schwerin,
Hamburg and the European highway network. After Poland joined
Germany in the Schengen Area in 2007, border controls within the
EU were abolished. The road connections on Usedom were thus re-
integrated after 62 years, and it is now easier to access the European
continent by road from the German side, even for Polish residents.
Various rail connections that connected Usedom to the rest of
Germany had been destroyed during the Second World War. The coastal
railway was, however, rebuilt: connecting Ahlbeck to Wolgast, now
just a swing-bridge away from Usedom. Increased pedestrian traffic on
146 Usedom/Uznam
Usedom speeded up the decision to rebuild the Wolgast fixed link in

1950; but, for nearly 40 years, a railway trip to Usedom involved walk-
ing 1 km along the bridge over the Peene River in Wolgast. In the 1980s,
some 400,000 holiday-makers (including some 70,000 children) trav-
elled in this manner (Historia kolei na wyspie Uznam 2009). Economic
growth and change after German reunification in 1990 led to increases
in the number of private vehicles in the country, suggesting that the
appeal of rail travel was over. It was proposed to liquidate the Usedom
railway in 1992; however, the company was recapitalised in 1993 and re-
launched as Usedomer Bäderbahn (UBB). Today, this is the most efficient
and inexpensive means of transport to the island – since 2008 serving as
far as to the centre of Świnoujście. A rail connection now exists to the
local Heringsdorf airport, at Garz, which had been used by the Soviet
Army until 1996. The re-building of the pre-war rail connection through
Karnin to Ducherow and Berlin is planned; this would shorten the rail
journey from Berlin to Usedom to two hours.
Administratively, German Usedom was initially part of the Soviet
occupation zone. In January 1947, Usedom became part of the new state
(German: land) of Mecklemburg-Vorpommern. This state became part
of the GDR when this country came into being in 1949. It was incor-
porated into the FRG on the basis of the German reunification treaty
in 1990, and part of the district (landkreis) of Ostvorpommern, with
its seat in Anklam, since June 1994. In September 2011, following fur-
ther reform, Ostvorpommern was incorporated into the new district of
Vorpommern-Greifswald. Within this district, there are on the island a
commune Heringsdorf and two offices: Usedom Nord and Usedom Süd.
During the Cold War, when the Warsaw Pact was a given and the
Soviet presence on Usedom limited, the natural advantages of the
island’s coast were exploited for economic use. The German part of the
island started rebuilding its holiday and spa facilities, soon becoming
one of the most significant areas of this type in the country. Heringsdorf
became the main health resort, even though its development was hin-
dered by various government-imposed restrictions, including a ban on
running private accommodation, and a ban on recreational sailing in
the Baltic Sea. National holiday centres and camping sites were nev-
ertheless built on the island, generating more tourist traffic. German
reunification abolished these restrictions, and significant investments
were made in public infrastructure and in the quality of tourist accom-
modation, which became almost entirely privatised. In 1996–1997,
various island towns were awarded the official status of bathing resort
(Bansin, Koserow, Loddin, Trassenheide, Ückeritz, Zempin, Zinnowitz),
holiday resort (Karlshagen) and health resort (Ahlbeck, Heringsdorf).

In 2001, the total capacity of German Usedom’s tourist accommodation
was estimated at nearly 44,000 beds (Faligowski 2002).
Tourism continues to dominate the island’s economy as its ‘single
remaining resource’ (Greverus 1997: 13). Inshore fishing and farming –
there are some 2,000 hectares of farmland – have been of only marginal
importance. Until German reunification, the East German army used
the area around Peenemünde as a military base, which made Usedom
a world leader in military technology, placing the island ‘at the fore-
front of innovation’ (Greverus 1997: 16). The island was then ‘anything
but periphery’ (ibid.). No more: since 1992, the base has been open to
tourists. ‘Economic activity parks’ occupy several hectares of the island.
Rapprochement
Before the end of the Second World War, the island of Usedom con-
stituted an unambiguous spatial, political and economic unity. The
decisions of the Allies in 1945 changed that. The two sides – newly
constituted politically, administratively and even demographically –
scrambled to secure new and contrasting social, political and economic
identities. This led to the development of two unrelated and isolated,
although parallel, spatial systems. Polish Świnoujście leant to Szczecin,
while the German part of Usedom leaned towards Berlin. Each of these
two spatial systems was configured differently. In nearly 50 years, the
German side of Usedom became logistically well integrated with the
continent, partially due to two bridge crossings. Uznam, meanwhile,
remained more of an island, without any permanent mainland connec-
tion with the rest of Poland. Theoretically, such a trip was possible via
Germany; but there were a few obstacles: the lack of road border cross-
ing, passport clearances, customs limitations and a longer distance that
made the trip unaffordable but for a privileged few.
This situation lasted until well into the 1980s. There had been short
periods of liberalisation of cross-border traffic in the late 1970s, when
identity cards could be used instead of a passport and enabled peo-
ple to cross the Poland–East Germany border. This ease on restrictions
facilitated the growth of informal trade in numerous places around the
Polish–German border. Yet, this was not the case on Usedom, where
there was only a pedestrian border crossing, not conducive to commer-
cial exchange. In any case, this period of free traffic ended with the rise
of Solidarność in Poland in 1980: East German officials did not wish such
improper, revolutionary ideas to be exported from Poland into their
148 Usedom/Uznam
country; and, the Polish Government imposed martial law in 1981. The
Poland–East German border was again closed. Nonetheless, when mar-
tial law was lifted in 1983, bilateral exchanges in border traffic resumed
with a vengeance.
The game-changing 1989 ‘autumn of Nations’ commenced in Poland
and led to the removal of communist regimes in other East European
countries. This wave of democratisation also gave a significant stimu-
lus for changes in Usedom. There were sweeping political and economic
changes in Poland, including free travel (since 1989) and liberalisation
(since 1990). With German reunification and a Polish–German polit-
ical rapprochement, many opportunities to narrow, if not close, the
Usedom–Uznam divide emerged.
The changes that have taken place over the past two decades resem-
ble the phases of development of geographic space as conceptualised
by tourism geographers (Liszewski 1995), involving the creation of a
space of exploration, penetration, assimilation, colonisation and touris-
tic urbanisation. By analogy, a similar cycle of phases can be glimpsed
in the process of Usedom’s ‘unification’.
The exploration phase was short: it was marked by increased pedes-
trian traffic at the Ahlbeck–Grenze border crossing, as Świnoujście
inhabitants were lured to visit the German spa resorts at the western
side of Usedom. The situation evolved quickly into one of penetra-
tion: pedestrian traffic sky-rocketed and the inter-border zone lent itself
to profitable trade. Right at the border in Świnoujście, a market was
established. It was so large that it became the city’s second biggest
employer, even though many of its structural elements and transac-
tions went beyond officialdom. The Poles would buy alcohol, cosmetics
and washing detergent from Germany, while the Germans would buy
food and household articles from Poland. Traffic statistics were quite
asymmetric: in 2000, the border was crossed more than ten times more
often by Germans than by Poles (Faligowski 2002). Meanwhile, some
smuggling of goods was undertaken on the coastal ships that oper-
ated between the German resorts and Świnoujście. Duty-free sales were
started on these vessels, which increased turnover for both ship owners
and tradespersons.
The gradual erasure of the border was not just a result of individual
actions, but of institutional initiatives at different levels, enabling a tran-
sition analogous to assimilation and colonisation. In 1990, common
development plans for the island were created; these focused mainly on
tourism, the improvement of communications and residential infras-
tructure, and environmental protection. Commitments included the
building of a sewage treatment plant for the whole island. A project brief
was prepared in 1991 and was agreed to by both the Polish and German
governments. A joint sewage network for Ahlbeck, Heringsdorf, Bansin
and Świnoujście has indeed been in operation since 1993 (Sewage System
Świnoujście 2002).
First official contacts between the communities on either side of the
border (Świnoujście, Ahlbeck and Heringsdorf) took place as a part of a
programme of cooperation in spatial planning and environmental pro-
tection. The European Union (EU) cross-border cooperation programme
Poland and Hungary: Assistance for Restructuring their Economies
(PHARE) was also implemented: this source of funding was tapped for
the construction of the Świnoujście–Garz road border crossing (PHARE
2003). The more significant institutional project was, however, the cre-
ation of a trans-national ‘Euro-region’, called Pomerania, consisting
of almost 100 communes from north-western Poland, a few landkreis
from northern Germany and more than 30 communes from southern
Sweden (Pomerania.net 2008). Usedom is located close to the centre
of Pomerania. This trans-border entity seeks to reconstruct and per-
haps revitalise the commercial and political connections of the past
and to introduce projects that re-established relations, which had been
overtaken by the divisions of the latter half of the 20th century.
Usedom had many barriers to overcome. The most difficult of all
was probably the lack of a border passing, which virtually prevented
the inhabitants of Świnoujście and tourists from coming to the city
via Heringsdorf airport, while Germans from the western side of the
island could not use the ferry seaport in Świnoujście. In addition, despite
relaxed border controls in Ahlbeck, tourists in Świnoujście enjoyed lim-
ited access to tourist locales on the (more developed) German side. Nev-
ertheless, there were more than five million border crossings reported
in 2000 (Faligowski 2002). The island is well branded as a tourism des-
tination, nationally and internationally (e.g. Williams 2009). In 1997,
Germany and Poland agreed to establish a bus connection through the
border crossing at Świnoujście–Ahlbeck; such a project was only imple-
mented in 2004. Until 2008, all passengers had to change buses at the
border. After August 2010, the circulation of all types of buses has been
allowed.
Overcoming obstacles was easier after Poland joined the European
Union in May 2004. (Germany had been a founder member of the
EU – then the European Economic Community – in 1957.) EU accession,
for example, enabled duty-free goods to flow to the island. Poland also
became a signatory to the Schengen Agreement in 2007, which removed
150 Usedom/Uznam
border crossing requirements for EU nationals. The most visible effect

of this integration was the extension of the railway track UBB to the
Świnoujście–Centrum station, connecting this Polish city to the German
railway network, as from 2008, and co-financed by the EU via its cross-
border Innovation and Environment: Regions of Europe Sharing Solu-
tions (INTERREG) IIIA programme (Municipality of Świnoujście 2011).
Abolishing border controls enabled free road traffic through two previ-
ous border crossings in Ahlbeck and Garz, which, at least in principle,
established Świnoujście’s connection with the German road network.
Traffic between the two parts of the island did not decrease after
Poland’s accession to the EU. Walking or cycling from Świnoujście to the
west of Usedom is a favourite tourist pastime: visitors to Poland include
a quick walk or cycle to Germany as an extra attraction on their itinerary.
Tourists can enjoy carefree walks along the beach and seaside pier: there
is a pre-war boulevard that stretches along both sides of the border. Inter-
national bicycle trails were established around Szczecin Lagoon and the
coastal region that formed part of the Hanseatic League in the 13th–17th
centuries. They are supported by small-scale, trans-border, local invest-
ments, such as the opening of a foot bridge for bicycles and pedestrians
over the marsh in May 2010, near Kamminke, close to the airport in
Garz. This is part of the trail for pedestrians and bikers, one of the com-
mon Polish–German undertakings on Usedom. The EU covered 85 per
cent of the costs, via its European Territorial Cooperation Programme
(Municipality of Świnoujście 2011).
Border guards report that, in 2006, nearly 4.5 million people used the
border crossing at Świnoujście–Ahlbeck, and all crossings in Świnou-
jście were used by almost six million persons (Przest˛epczość graniczna
2007). Human traffic increased even more after 2007. The Germans visit
Świnoujście most of all for commercial reasons, enjoying lower prices,
particularly of food and fuel, and hunting for bargains. The individ-
ual importation of goods from Germany, so essential until 2004, has
lost its value, in the context of a bottoming out of price differentials in
the cost of alcohol and cosmetics. The scale of the trade now is, how-
ever, relatively low. The goods that are most notably still sought for on
the German side by Polish bargain hunters are better quality washing
powders.
United and divided
The reaffirmation of the island’s uniting geography is not (yet) accom-

panied by significant social or political changes, particularly in national
discourse. A dual ethnic structure, an outcome of the post-war changes,
persists. Migration movements between the Polish and the German

parts of the island are negligible. Calls by Germans for regaining the
eastern part of the island, and reuniting Usedom as a German island,
are occasionally made but are not very popular (see below). The rea-
son for this is possibly the demographic domination of a very Polish
Świnoujście over the rest of the island.
Mutual knowledge of the Polish and German languages is scarce. Just
as problematic, yet losing its significance due to the growing popu-
larity of credit card plastic is the operation of different currencies on
the two sides of the border: the euro in Germany, the zloty in Poland.
Yet, observing the past two decades of change, and in spite of some
complicating issues, there is a noticeable current of mutual aspiration
towards rapprochement on the local and regional levels. The process is
sometimes disturbed by national interests.
One pressing issue relates to Poland’s attempts to diversify away from
its energy dependence on Russia as its main gas supplier. In 2006, a
decision was taken to build a terminal at the Świnoujście seaport where
liquefied natural gas (LNG) could be delivered from the Middle East. The
terminal is due to start operations in 2014. This investment would nega-
tively impact on the business of Russian company Gazprom and has led
to some geo-political tensions between the two states. Russia completed
its underwater gas pipeline Nord Stream to Germany in 2011, in order
to be able to supply its mineral resources independently of both Poland
and Belarus, at the same time being able to limit gas deliveries to Cen-
tral Europe, including Poland. This pipeline route passes through the
deeper waters of the bay of Pomerania; but it cuts close enough to the
shallow sea-lanes to Świnoujście to irk Polish interests. The fear from
Warsaw was that the pipeline could limit the size of ships that could
approach the seaport and jeopardise its development (Bosacki 2011,
Hydrocarbons-Technology.com 2011, Kublik 2011).
It is also hard to judge the impact of local energy investments on the
island’s ‘unification’. Usedom caught ‘oil fever’ in 2011 when an oil well
was dug near Pudagla, in the German sector of the island; the mineral
deposits, known since the time of the GDR, were re-examined. The well
may deliver some ten million barrels of oil; environmental groups are
however concerned about the possible ecological damage that would
accompany its extraction.
Finally, ‘unification’ may be disturbed by what appear to be small,
local events that however are symptomatic of deeply engrained sen-
timents. The inhabitants of Świnoujście, for example, find it hard to
understand the reasons behind the introduction of a local ‘health resort
tax’ in 2011 by officials in Heringsdorf. This tax is common in German
152 Usedom/Uznam
resorts; the revenue is used to cover costs associated with maintaining

beach infrastructure, cleanliness and safety. Initially, all tourists who
stayed overnight on Usedom (whether in Poland or in Germany) were
exempt from this tax; but this waiver was removed following a court
decision. And so, even for a short stay in the German side, the Poles now
need to buy a Kurkarte, which costs 3 per adult, 1.50 per student and
1 per dog (Tvp.Info 2011). Still, such and similar events can serve as
excuses to increase support for organisations and political groups that
may wish to disturb the current bilateral relations on the island.
The most influential German political party that calls for regain-
ing the territories lost as a result of the Second World War is the
right-wing Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD). In the latest
Mecklemburg-Vorpommern state elections (September 2011), this party
secured nearly 20 per cent of the vote in the main towns of the island,
the best result in its history (Diening 2011, NPD auf Usedom 2011).
This xenophobic party has gained popularity by focusing first of all
on the threats resulting from the liberalisation of the border traffic: it
has printed posters saying Polen invasion stoppen (Stop the Polish inva-
sion); and it is claiming an increase in the German crime rate, including
in the number of thefts committed by ‘those strangers’ from Poland.
The relative popularity of the NPD in Usedom is possibly an outcome
of a fear that Poles from a dominant Świnoujście ‘invade’ the much
smaller towns on the German side. An aversion to foreigners and their
physical abuse is not, however, a behaviour typical of NPD activities
on Usedom/Uznam only, but is rather widespread on most of the for-
mer East German territories. Yet, in the 2011 NPD campaign, calls for
Germany to regain control over the eastern part of Usedom have been
rare and did not generate much attention. The most popular German
organisation arguing for a revision of the borders, or at least for some
financial compensation for expulsions, is the Federation of Expelled Per-
sons (Bund der Vertriebenen, or BdV). This organisation, however, does
not focus its activities on Usedom/Uznam.
By contrast, the Polish ‘threats’ focus mainly on German tourists.
A brief analysis of the local internet fora reveals a certain fear in north-
west Poland of German economic domination and the exploitation of
the population of Świnoujście by German tourists. Some Poles believe
that the local authorities have built the infrastructure on Uznam –
including the rail link with the city centre, bus transport perhaps even
an airport – exclusively for German use (Twoim zdaniem 2011). Solu-
tions introduced to facilitate transportation bottlenecks are treated as
burdens, rather than improvements. As an internet blogger complains:
‘There are hardly any parking spaces, because there are plenty of
Germans and every one of them needs to come to Świnoujście’ (ibid.).
However, there are also other reasonable opinions about the conse-
quences of the German presence in the town. Tourism demand cre-
ates jobs; without the German tourist, Polish unemployment rates on
Uznam ‘would skyrocket’ (ibid.).
Tourism has been a major driver for economic cross-border collabora-
tion: many Poles work on the German side of the border; the number
of Germans visiting Polish sanatoriums in Świnoujście was 37,300 in
2009 (up from just 16,000 in 2000) (Świnoujście w liczbach 2010); no
wonder many of the island residents find it useful to be able to speak
or understand both German and Polish. It is hardly surprising that
the highly visible German presence arouses some general concerns in
Poland over economic dependence, as well as of a territory, only brought
into the national fabric some six decades ago, being ‘bought out’ by the
neighbours. Is this form of economic domination some kind of German
revenge for the loss of political control in 1945? The actual demographic
dominance of Świnoujście over the rest of Usedom does, however, sug-
gest evidence to the contrary, and especially when one considers the
steady convergence in the quality of life of residents on both sides of
the island.
Conclusion
Usedom belongs to one of the poorest German regions, and with high
rates of unemployment, dependent largely on a seasonal tourism econ-
omy. The situation on the Polish side is similar, although the quality
of life on the German side is arguably better. Located at the respec-
tive peripheries of both nations, the island’s citizens can afford to
forget national and historical differences when assessing their current
economic condition.
Looking ahead, there are two possible future scenarios for the island.
The more probable one, on the basis of recent trends, is a scenario of
ever closer and deeper union by both sides of Usedom until the island’s
eventual re-unification, not as the territory of any particular country, but
as a component of a regional (Pomeranian) community, backed by the
security and financing of the European Union. These changes are char-
acteristic of the entire ‘continental’ Polish–German borderland. Similar
phenomena may be noticed when analysing the operation of border
towns, such as Görlitz – Zgorzelec and Frankfurt (Oder) – Słubice. A less
likely scenario would see a halt to this unification process, even a return
154 Usedom/Uznam
to the schism of the past, possibly as an outcome of the unravelling of

the EU in the wake of the current euro fiscal crisis. In the latter’s case, the
consequences will be much more serious than just Usedom’s division.
Both sets of changes contemplated above are not unduly impacted
by Usedom’s constitution as a geographical island. Perhaps Usedom/
Uznam is situated too close to a continent that is too large and pow-
erful, and with which it has always had close connections, for the island
to be characterised by any distinct features. Its current inhabitants are
the sons and daughters of recent settlers, and do not readily see them-
selves as islanders. Usedom is not even a single commune on its German
side. In any case, while officially divided between Germany and Poland
since 1945, the island’s current management on various policy matters –
transport, waste control, mobility, tourism, trade . . . – is integrated and
coordinated both internally (within the island, particularly at munic-
ipal level), as well as within the regional alliance of the EU in which
both Germany and Poland are members. Such integration, however,
does not deflect from a general regard of the island – by Berlin, Warsaw
and Brussels – as a region in need of economic development. Its for-
mer claim to fame, and economic survival, was in its representation as
Berlin’s bathtub; now it is as the Pomerania Island. And it remains pos-
sible to speak of one side of the island as if the other side does not exist,
and never did (e.g. Greverus 1997).
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9
Hispaniola
Marie Redon
Introduction
It is surprisingly difficult to come up with an acceptable name for

the second largest island in the Caribbean Sea and the 22nd largest
island in the world: Should it be called by its colonial (Spanish) name,
Hispaniola? Or by the name assigned by its other (French) colonial mas-
ter, Saint-Domingue? Or by the indigenous (Taino Amerindian) word
that remain in usage on either side of the border, Quisqueya? This
quandary is revealing of an insular fragmentation, reinforced by eco-
nomic, social and cultural differences on the ground, which persists
on either side of a land border that runs some 300 km along a largely
north–south axis.
The Dominican Republic and Haïti are, respectively, the second and
third largest countries – by both land area and resident population –
in the Caribbean basin; only Cuba is larger. A land border, forged out
of a long history, runs across this island with a total land area of some
76,000 km2 , splitting it into two independent and (along with other,
smaller, sub-national islands close by) self-contained states. This unique
division – no other island in the world is thus divided so neatly –
expresses two types of fractures: that of an island with domestic fron-
tiers, as well as of two states that are in it together, for better or for worse:
sharing a common and unique island coastline, a tumultuous past and a
future destiny. One must note, for example, that a rebellion secured the
independence of the Dominican Republic from Haïti in 1844. Before the
war, the whole island of Hispaniola/Quesqueya had been under Haitian
rule for 22 years.
157
158 Hispaniola
After the tragic earthquake that struck Haïti on 12 January 2010, the
Dominicans were the first foreigners to respond, providing emergency
supplies and other forms of aid by land; the port facilities at Port-au-
Prince, the Haitian capital close to the epicentre of the quake, had been
largely destroyed. It was the same Dominican government who financed
the construction of the new Henri Christophe University campus at
Limonade, near Cap Haitien, symbolically inaugurated on 12 January
2012. The university is a gift of the Dominican people to the peo-
ple of Haïti, and cost US$50 million. Meanwhile, in November 2011,
at the frontier area of Savann Bonm (north of Malpasse), in circum-
stances yet to be determined, a state of tension has been declared
after the confirmed deaths of at least four Haitians in what has been
described as an act of Dominican ‘reprisal’ after the disappearance
of two Dominican farmers. The secretary-general of the Organization
of American States (OAS) urges the two governments to appeal for
calm and to engage in a constructive dialogue to get to the roots
of this tension and to discuss any other matters of common inter-
est that relate to the border zone (Caribbean 360 2011, Haïti Libre
2011).
These facts speak to a deep and persisting ambiguity in the relation-
ship between these two countries and their people. Quisqueya is an
island forged out of connected yet separate jurisdictions; of two peo-
ples who live together yet apart. This chapter will discuss the enduring
political economy of this relationship; in coming to better terms with
the nature of the border and its dynamics, one hopes to come to better
grips with the island itself.
An Island Frontier: between barrier and interface
One island, contrasting realities

In 1960, the Dominican Republic and Haïti had a comparable gross
national product (GNP) per capita; however, since then, the GNP of the
Dominican Republic has grown, while that of Haïti has contracted in
real terms. In four decades, the economy of the Dominican Republic
has shown a healthy mean annual rate of growth of 5 per cent, one
of the highest in the region; in contrast, Haïti has only managed an
annual rate of economic growth of about 1 per cent, the lowest in the
region, and has had a deteriorating GNP per capita, even before the dev-
asting earthquake that struck its capital in 2010 (Groupe de travail sur
la Compétitivité 2009: 8). Quisqueya is the site of some very sharply
contrasting socio-economic situations (see Table 9.1).
Marie Redon 159
Table 9.1 Comparing Haïti and the Dominican Republic
Haïti Dominican
Republic
Political status Sovereign state since Sovereign state since

1804 1844
Capital City Port-au-Prince Santo Domingo
Population (2011) 9.7 million 9.9 million
(persons/km2 )
Urban Areas
Life expectancy in years 61 73
(2009)
% annual population + 0.7% + 1.3%
growth
GNP per capita (US$) 1,100 (2010) 8,900 (2010)
% of population below 77% 50%
poverty line
Adult (15+) literacy rate (%) 49% 88%
Main language(s) spoken French, Creole Spanish
Currency (exchange rate as Gourde (1US$ = Peso (1US$ = 38.4
at November 2011) 40.3 gourdes) pesos)
How can one plausibly explain these substantial differences? Are

they largely accidents of geography, consequences of specific histori-
cal episodes or more likely to be the outcomes of public policy and
governance practices? An International Monetary Fund (IMF)-sponsored
study claims that there are minimal geo-physical differences between
the two sovereign states, including the quality and quantity of natu-
ral resources, the productivity of the land, the level of public health
provision and the access of local products to international markets
(Jaramillo and Sancak 2007). Having eliminated this potential explana-
tory factor, the authors have then looked at whether the widening gap
since the 1960s between the two neighbouring states can be explained
by historical events or rather as the consequence of decisions taken
by their respective political leadership. Their conclusion is that there
had been a very poor institutional fabric in both countries up until the
start of the 20th century (with a greater level of political instability in
the Dominican Republic), but this factor could not plausibly be used to
160 Hispaniola
explain the contemporary cross-state difference. And thus they conclude

that it was the unfolding of political practice since 1960 that must have
played the most significant role in the divergence of economic growth
between the two states.
In looking at common points across the two countries, the radical and
rapid transformation of their economies looms large. On the Haitian
side, agriculture represented close to 95 per cent of the total economic
output in the early years of the 19th century, at the time of this coun-
try’s emergence as the first ex-slave, post-emancipation state in the New
World. In 2009, the primary sector was responsible for just 23 per cent
of the gross national product of Haiti. This decline occurred at the same
time as the rapid growth of the services sector, retail and wholesale trade
in particular, which shot up from about 5 per cent to 60 per cent of
GNP in the same period. This tertiary sector growth in Haiti has mainly
occurred in the informal and unregulated sectors (Paul et al. 2011).
As for the secondary (manufacturing) sector, this accounted for some
17 per cent of GNP in Haiti in 2009 (IHSI 2010), almost half its level of
contribution to the economy of the Dominican Republic, where it stood
at 32 per cent of GNP in 2009 (Association of Caribbean States 2012).
For long dependent on agricultural exports (especially sugarcane,
cocoa, banana and tobacco), the economy of the Dominican Repub-
lic shifted in the 1980s towards the development of tourism and free
enterprise zones to attract productive investment in manufacturing. The
country had been involved in a policy of import-substituting industrial-
isation since the 1950s, but maintaining a keen interest in attracting
foreign investment: manufacturing soon became the country’s eco-
nomic engine. Already at the end of the 19th century, it was thanks
to the US and Cuban investments that the first large sugar plantations
had been established here, helping to modernise the economy; whereas
in Haiti, the world’s first black Republic, no such investments were
made. The exports of the Dominican Republic progressively branched
into other, lucrative sectors (meats, citrus, eggs) and, very often, agri-
cultural labour in the Dominican Republic was composed of Haitian
migrant workers. Not only the US but also European, Chinese and
Korean investments are today critical to the two key economic sectors
of manufacturing (mainly textiles), as well as tourism.
Indeed, the Dominican Republic now receives more than four mil-
lion visitors annually, the second largest figure for any Caribbean island
country (only beaten by Puerto Rico). Tourism, with its associated indus-
tries, is today the main source of economic revenue for the country.
Tourism arrivals have seen a spectacular increase starting from the
Marie Redon 161
1990s. (Meanwhile, Haiti has seen its tourist numbers fall – Dupont
2009.) The Dominican Republic today attracts some 14 per cent of the
gross Caribbean tourism market; its tourist accommodation infrastruc-
ture has multiplied by 12 times in 24 years: from some 5,000 beds in
1980 to 60,000 in 2004, with a healthy mean annual bed occupancy
rate of 75 per cent, and holding on well in spite of the recent recession
(Pattullo 1996, Puerto Rico is the Place 2011).
Industrialisation has led to an exodus from the countryside to the
main towns (Saint-Domingue, Santiago and San Pedro de Macoris), so
much so that nearly 70 per cent of the Dominican population can
now be described as urban dwellers; such an urbanisation has not be
anywhere as significant in neighbouring Haiti. Accompanied by the
development of tourism and a renewed interest in cultural heritage –
the historic centre of Santo Domingo is inscribed as a United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Her-
itage Site – has led to a significant improvement in the quality of urban
infrastructure; again, a trend not as strongly witnessed across the border,
except perhaps in the north, at Cap-Haitien.
Shifting rapidly from a cash crop to an industrialising economy, the
Dominican Republic has graduated away from the unenviable status of
a ‘least developed country’. This change has been confirmed by rapid
and sustained economic growth, but with unequal social spillovers,
leading to an exodus of migrants (as in Haiti). The two neighbouring
countries both benefit from significant transfer of remittances, forth-
coming from two impressive diasporas: some 1.3 million Dominicans
and some 1.8 million Haitians (of the latter, some 300,000 illegal immi-
grants) in the United States alone, according to the Haitian minister
responsible for Haitians overseas (personal communication, 5 Decem-
ber 2011). The financial flows of these expatriate nationals amount
to some US$3,000 million, and close to 7 per cent of GNP, for the
Dominican Republic – as vital a source of revenue as tourism – and the
main source of economic revenue for more impoverished Haiti, with
US$1,300 million flowing to the country from abroad in 2006 (Inter-
American Development Bank 2011). More than two-thirds of all private
remittance transfers to the two countries flow from the United States.
Both countries have a strong economic reliance on the United States.
Given its geographical location, and an extensive history of commer-
cial relations, the United States has long been a privileged player in
the international relations of both countries. Its main customer as
well as its main supplier, the United States was solely responsible for
more than 60 per cent of exports to, and 40 per cent of imports
162 Hispaniola
from, the Dominican Republic in 2009 (NationMaster.com 2012); these

percentages were even higher some years ago. Both countries registered
a trade deficit with the United States after 2005; but the free trade
agreement signed between the United States, the Dominican Republic
and various Central American countries – called DR–CAFTA (Dominican
Republic–Central America United States Free Trade Agreement) – which
entered into force in 2007, should go some way to rectify this for the
Dominican Republic. A trade gap of almost US$2,000 million between
the United States and the Dominican Republic was registered in 2009
(Embassy of France in the Dominican Republic 2010). As for Haiti, close
to 80 per cent of its total exports head to the United States, with the
Dominican Republic being its second largest export market (with 7.5 per
cent of the value of total exports). Almost half of Haiti’s imports in
2007 also came from the United States (ISHI 2010). Haïti’s exports to
the Dominican Republic were valued officially at some US$260 mil-
lion in 2009, but the figure under-estimates cross-border transactions.
The goods exported are mainly labour intensive: agricultural products –
coffee, mangos, avocados, dates, pigeon peas and some game birds –
and construction material (Attali 2011, IHSI 2010, Paul et al. 2011,
RESAL 2001). Compare this with US$462 million of products sold by
the Domincian Republic to Haiti in 2010: including wheat flour, sugar,
soybean oil, rice, natural water, crackers, pasta, bananas, textiles and
clothing (Haiti Startup 2011).
The climate for doing business appears to be improving for the
Dominican Republic. It has moved up from 102nd to 86th on the
Doing Business Index (World Bank 2012). The country’s banking sector,
reformed after a crisis in 2003 (a result of the bankruptcy of the country’s
three major commercial banks), now enjoys relatively healthy levels of
liquidity and deposits (Embassy of France in the Dominican Repub-
lic 2010). As a member of the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM), the
Dominican Republic is also party to an economic partnership agreement
with the European Union, signed in 2008 and involving 14 Caribbean
states, meant as a successor to the Cotonou agreement.
In contrast, after the January 2010 earthquake, Haiti’s infrastructure
was heavily damaged, significantly reducing the opportunities for any
economic growth in the short to medium term, and notably so because
of the massive loss of life and capital, the destruction of private busi-
nesses, the acceleration of unemployment and the severe deterioration
in the purchasing power of the people living in the densely populated
areas affected by the quake (IHSI 2010). A national development plan
has been drafted and presented to international donors in March 2010
Marie Redon 163
with a view to better manage the flow of funds and aid to Haiti; yet, the
country’s government appears unable to fully and properly coordinate
this flow, without ceding some of its authority to foreign interests.
There is thus a clear divergence in the unfolding socio-economic his-
tories of these neighbouring countries after 1960. We now turn to a
discussion of the border and its role in the relationship between the
two states.
An elusive yet tractable frontier
The land border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic has been in
place since 1777 and is not officially contested.
The Spanish had taken possession of the island since the first voy-
ages of Colombus in 1492; but a number of French corsairs had set up
their bases on the western side of the island. Their presence and occupa-
tion of Western Quisqueya was noted by the French government and, to
Spain’s dismay, officially recognised by the Treaty of Nimègue of 1678
as belonging to France.
Hispaniola was thus split in two: a French part to the west, referred
to as the colony of Saint-Domingue, and a Spanish part to the east. The
division was not particularly significant until the extension of coloni-
sation into the interior of the island, where various border incidents
started taking place. Various attempts were made in the 18th century
to stabilise the border, even if this was never fixed or rendered mate-
rially other than a few scattered border guards at the main crossing
posts. Exploiting this indeterminacy, various French settlers would foray
regularly into Spanish territory. A provisional treaty between the two
settlements was agreed to at Saint-Michel de l’Atalaye (in modern-day
Haiti) in 1776, and subsequently approved and ratified in Aranjuez,
Spain, in 1777. This document was accompanied by a ‘pact of good
neighbourliness’, dealing with what to do with escaped slaves, army
deserters and the sale of cattle between the two colonies (Glénisson
2006: 81–85). It also established a border, which was however only fixed
in the far north (at the Massacre River) and the far south (at Pedernales
or Anse-à-Pitre River). It would stay so for over 100 years.
The border runs across lands that have been won and lost by both
sides in the courses of various violent contests, rebellions and incur-
sions. Given its strong symbolic value, one would thus expect the
national border to be very systematically laid out and delineated. And
yet, the presumed length of this land barrier varies by as much as 30 per
cent, depending on which source is consulted: from 276 km (according
164 Hispaniola
to the Consulate for the Dominican Republic in France (La France en

République Dominicaine 2012) to 310 km in a geographical information
website for the Dominican Republic (ACQ 2012); 360 km in the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook (CIA 2012); 375 km (French
Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2012); and as much as 391 km, according
to a 2005 communiqué by the Secretariat for External Relations of the
Dominican Republic (Alter Presse 2005).
There is however a scientific explanation for these discrepancies: the
actual figure depends on the scale at which the border is measured. The
finer the scale, the more detailed will be the frontier, and its length will
increase as a result. Any land frontier is, by its very nature, approximate;
and it must therefore always be interpreted or deduced. Most maps must
suffer this cartographic discretion, reminding us that there is nothing
objective and scientific about land borders. In certain places, the bor-
der follows a watercourse, and is therefore liable to natural change, as
much as to interpretation. We are dealing really with a porous and sin-
uous border that zig-zags across territory (after Théodat 1998). There is
nothing natural about it, reminding us that it is a political, and not a
physical, construction.
And yet, this is a very real and visible frontier, one that heightens
the differences pertaining to either of its sides; it is a border that can
be clearly identified from high-resolution images, taken either from
an aerial view or from orbiting satellites. We see before our eyes two
contrasting and highly symbolic models of Caribbean development:
the hacienda-style, cattle-raising economic model on the west, and the
modern, intensive sugarcane plantation on the east. This is a veritable
insular division of labour that is laid out onto this island’s landscape
(Cassa 1992).
Other than its functional purpose, the border appears as a barrier
at certain border crossings, where national icons abound, and where
strong messages of being inside and outside, of us versus them, pre-
vail. At the border post of Jimani-Malpasse, a white line cuts across
the mountain face to materialise the trace of the border. But such
demonstrations of nationalism are few and far between at the border
itself.
There are two competing ‘iconographies’ at this Quisqueya island
border (Gottmann 1966), and they both provide a net advantage
to the Dominican side. One is military, the other is commercial.
First of all, there is a net Dominican advantage in military invest-
ment: the Dominican army has some 40,000 troops, of which 24,500
regular troops and 15,000 paramilitary personnel (Fuerzas Armadas
2012). In contrast, Haiti has disbanded its army in 1995. The absence
Marie Redon 165
of a Haitian military threat may lead one to argue in favour of

demilitarisation of the Dominican side of the border; instead, the
opposite has happened. A specialised Border Security Corps (Cuerpo
Especializado de Seguridad Fronteriza Terrestre, or CESFRONT) was set up
in 2006: the very name of this elite force, comprising 500 soldiers
and which includes three helicopters amongst its equipment, leaves no
doubt as to its intentions (e.g. Dominican Today 2010).
Similar to many other land borders, the Quisqueya borderland is the
outcome of a violent, contested and complex history; one can refer to
it as a border seared in blood. From the Dominican perspective, it is an
artefact that construes the Haitian neighbour in a somewhat bad light
(Théodat 2003). A barrier separates these two states – one that is political
and historical as well as mental and psychological. And yet, this defini-
tive frontier is also a conduit and spur for economic dynamism. Frontier
posts are sites of connection, points at which transit various types of
merchandise. Various trucks can be seen daily negotiating the border at
Jimani, above and below the bridge at Dajabón, and the control point of
Belladère; various individuals in the Artibonite district of western Haiti
can be seen wielding bags of flour bought in the Dominican Republic.
All signs of an intense traffic in bilateral trade.
A border turned inside out

The borderland is a militarised zone, and those traversing it are fully
aware of a strong military presence and of the location of military posts,
roads and other communications facilities in the vicinity of the bor-
der proper. But these military posts and structures become avenues for
village markets, which concretise the commercial exchange that has
grown between the two countries since the 1990s. The two countries
are not just geographically but also economically linked; it is, however,
a most unequal linkage. The most economically dynamic economy of
the region, linked to the poorest country and the most unstable in the
region (Doucet et al. 2011).
In spite of the common land border, Haïti is the destination of just a
third of the Dominican Republic’s exports, after the United States and
Puerto Rico. Part of the reason for this is the 1991–1994 trade embargo
imposed on Haiti, during which time the smuggling of various goods
across the border intensified. The same networks and channels that
made such smuggling possible have been reinforced once the embargo
was lifted. To the extent that, some 20 years ago, perhaps three trucks
would cross the Jimani–Malpasse border every week; today, some 60
trucks cross every day. There were three flights per week between the
two capitals in the 1990s; today, there are four flights every day (ibid.).
166 Hispaniola
Because of these growing exchanges and articulations, the Quisqueya

border region palpates with an appreciated dynamism. Border villages
polarise the trope of the international frontier and yet also act like
stitches, riding across long-suffered wounds and fusing the island as one
commercial organism. These border villages are treasure islands of sorts
in themselves: owning a historical legacy that speaks to the border, yet
points of transit and negotiation for different types of exchange. There
are four such key border spaces on the island: Ouanaminthe/Dajabón
in the North, from where a third of all officially registered Dominican
merchandise exports to Haiti pass through; Belladère/Elias Piña, in the
centre, with limited trade that represents some 5 per cent of total offi-
cial exports; the key crossing of Malpasse/Jimani, somewhat to the
south, from where half of all merchandise crosses the border; and
Anse-à-Pitre/Pedernales, in the south, which is however badly served
logistically. All four market-villages on the Dominican side have seen
a considerable increase in their population, much higher than their
respective national demographic average (ONE 2012). Their growth
and commercial vibrancy puncture the conceptualisation of national
territoriality and reinforce the geographic unity of the shared island
space. They are helping to make the border reality evolve from one
of acute danger to economic promise. Even though, once again, the
balance is stacked in favour of the Dominican side. There are clear infras-
tructural and logistical weaknesses on the Haitian side, including limited
access points for the transportation of goods. And the so-called bi-
national markets trade disproportionately in Dominican goods. Hence
this is another form of geographic disequilibrium, and more evidence of
an interdependence that is mutually beneficial yet most unequal.
The border is therefore porous, broken through and challenged daily,
in manners that are both legal and illegal, formal and informal. It is ren-
dered so, thanks to the cross-national differentials that are economic,
commercial, fiscal and legislative in nature. Dominican clothing firm
Grupo M opened a subsidiary in 2002 at Mariaroux, in Haiti, exploiting
the setting up of a free trade zone, and paying the cheapest wages in the
region (e.g. Werner 2007). This free trade zone has been set up to attract
Dominican capital in what has been officially declared as a special bor-
der development zone, a vast swathe of land that involves all the Haitian
provinces that straddle the international border. A similar zone is being
launched in Caracol near Cap Haïtien. Meanwhile, across the border, a
large covered market is being constructed at Dajabón, part-financed by
grants from the European Union (Agence Française de Développement
2012). This will reinforce the commercial infrastructure in the region,
Marie Redon 167
along with a new road linking Dajabón to Cap Haitien to the west and to
Santiago in the east. And Decree No. 272-02 by President Hipólito Mejía
has institutionalised the principle of free trade zones in the Dominican
Republic as from April 2002.
Alongside these legal transactions, the island border gives rise to var-
ious other shadier transfers. The two countries lie along the drug route
axis that sees massive amounts of drugs cross from South to North
America, aided by the presence of immigrant communities and serious
levels of corruption amongst those entrusted with border controls. Drug
seizures are frequent: for example, the United Nations Stabilisation Mis-
sion in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and the Haitian National Police (HNP) seized
420 kg of cocaine in a vehicle with official plates at Léogâne in May
2007, with an estimated street value of US$8 million; five out of ten
suspects arrested were HNP officers (Kiskeya Radio 2007). Haitian ex-
president Réné Préval in 2007 declared his determination to fight the
drug problem regionally, while criticising the United States for lack of
support on the interception of speedboats and flights from Venezuela
and Colombia that use clandestine Haitian landing strips, or drop their
cocaine packages into the sea offshore (Crisis Group Report 2007: 19).
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime lambasted Haiti as
a fortress for drug traffickers that required urgent policing initiatives
(UNODC 2010).
The economic exchanges between Haiti and the Dominican Republic
are extensive and intensive, but skewed and unequal, given the very dif-
ferent levels of development of the two countries. The transactions – not
institutionalised by any formal free trade agreement or customs union –
remain heavily biased in favour of the Dominican side. This situation
continues to further threaten the already strained productive capacity of
the Haitian state, which finds itself as primarily an importer of its neigh-
bour’s products. Thus, the two countries continue to nurture ambiguous
relations, close yet distant, friendly yet suspicious, tight yet asymmetric.
Divided island, connected territories
In spite of all these differences, there are commonalities. There is a

growing population right across the island. Given current trends, pro-
jections forecast a total island population of nearly 25 million by 2035:
12.2 million for Haiti and 12.7 million for the Dominican Repub-
lic (US Census Bureau 2012). The current high population density
would be even higher, straining natural resources – potable water,
arable land, native species threatened by extinction – even further. Can
168 Hispaniola
one even contemplate such higher populations without some sense of

shared environmental management plan between the two states? Such a
question raises concerns about the very different styles of environmental
stewardship that prevail in the two countries.
Same island, contrasting vulnerabilities

Quisqueya presents a sad but clear illustrative example of how different
land use practices can result in different environmental vulnerabilities,
even on the same island. Of course, Haiti and the Dominican Republic
share the natural disasters that occur commonly in the region, remind-
ing us that such natural hazards do not respect political borders. The
cholera epidemic that followed the January 2010 earthquake left 7,000
dead and 522,000 reported cases in Haiti; with 300 deaths and 21,000
cases notified in the Dominican Republic. The appeal of the World
Health Organisation was for a cholera-free Hispaniola (WHO 2011).
And yet, note the discrepancy in mortality and morbidity. When hur-
ricane Jeanne tore across the island in August 2004, it caused over 3,000
deaths in Haiti – of which some 2,800 in Gonaïves alone, which was
nearly washed away – but only 27 deaths in the Dominican Republic.
These figures are partly explained by the almost absolute level of defor-
estation in Haiti (close to 98%) compared with the greener Dominican
Republic (60%). The heavy tropical rains on this mountainous island
can lead to cliff erosions and landslides, especially where the land and
soil are not held down by tree roots. Haiti, with its almost absent
tree cover plus higher population density, is thus much more seriously
threatened by the consequences of flooding.
Jared Diamond makes this case in his 2005 bestseller Collapse: he
argues that the environment presents one of the three most vivid and
convincing distinctions between Haitian and Dominican societies. The
Dominicans inherited the eastern side of the island, with its richer nat-
ural resource base – forests, rains, rivers, fertile soils – great potential for
sustainable agriculture and hydroelectric power. Moreover, the prevail-
ing winds and clouds come in from the east, and discharge rain as they
reach the central mountain range that divides the two countries. In this
way, the Dominican Republic receives much more rain than does Haiti;
and so much of this rain flows down eastwards, replenishing Dominican
rivers. These observations contradict the assessment of Jaramillo and
Sancak (2007) presented above.
The second explanatory factor for the inter-country difference,
according to Diamond (2005), is the history of colonisation. The France–
Haiti colonial relationship was a much deeper, more intrusive and
exploitative one than that between Spain and the Dominican Republic.
Marie Redon 169
A declining colonial power at the end of the 18th century, Spain

has shown much less enthusiasm to exploit its Caribbean half-island
colony. By that time, Haiti’s forests were cut down to pave the way for
an intensive plantation economy run by many thousands of African
slaves. After independence in 1804, the new state – ostracised by many
other powers – shunned such a slave-driven economy and even pre-
vented foreigners from owning land or controlling active investments
in the country. And so, Haiti was the recipient of both minimal for-
eign investment and minimal immigration, contrary to its neighbouring
republic.
The nature of political rule is the third determining factor identified
by Diamond. Rafael Trujillo became the president of the Dominican
Republic in 1930, while Francois Duvalier came to power in Haiti
in 1957. The former wanted to develop a modern state based on an
industrial economy; but the latter did not. While both are known for
their despotic rule, the first accelerated the economic transformation
of his country; the second restrained it. Now, after several decades, the
Dominican Republic protects its forests, a haven of biological diversity;
and its hydroelectric power has fuelled its industrial growth. In Haiti,
charcoal and firewood remain the main sources of household energy,
contributing even further to deforestation.
The differential impact of public policy on forests, or on their absence,
is just one example of note. Similar conclusions can be drawn with
respect to the quality of buildings, public infrastructure and emergency
services. No less than 220,000 people lost their lives in the wake of the
January 2010 earthquake in Haiti: such a level of mortality, along with
considerable human suffering and infrastructural collapse, has been
exceptionally high when compared with other locations impacted by
a similarly powerful tremor. Indeed, it has been the world’s fourth most
destructive tremor in the past 100 years (Hou 2011).
People of blended lands

It appears that Haïti and the Dominican Republic suffer each other’s
presence on the same island. Their territorial and historical proximity is
an objective condition that cannot be neglected or avoided; it has also
contributed to considerable cultural exchange (Matias 2001). These link-
ages are all the more significant when one acknowledges the presence of
a Haitian diaspora of about 500,000 persons in the Dominican Repub-
lic, plus a further million or so residents on the Dominican side of (up
to third generation) Haitian descent. This is reflective of, as much as a
contributor to, a considerable current of flows and exchanges between
the two states.
170 Hispaniola
The situation of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic is

a bone of contention between the two governments, however, as also
reported by Amnesty International (2007). The children of these immi-
grants, according to Dominican law, should be granted Dominican
citizenship; but the Dominican government is not keen to do so, con-
tinuing to treat these people as ‘in transit’. The illegal status of many
of these Haitian immigrants poses an additional problem: If the par-
ents should not be in the Dominican Republic in the first place, how
can the status of their children be regularised? Double citizenship,
which would provide a potential solution to this impasse, is recognised
by the Dominican government but not by the Haitian one: its 1987
constitution states that dual Haitian and foreign nationality is in no
case permitted. As a result, many Haitian immigrant-born children in
the Dominican Republic have a state of legal anonymity, and do not
officially exist (Moral 1961).
This considerable and largely one-way flow of migrations across the
border can be largely explained by the strong socio-economic differ-
ences. Many Haitians cross the border daily, looking for a better life on
the other side. At the same time, the forced repatriations of Haitian emi-
grants back to Haiti are also a daily occurrence, an operation supported
by Dominican military personnel and CESFRONT staff who supervise
the formal border crossings. But the Haitians do not despair: many try
crossing again, and many succeed in doing so, in spite of the very poor
working conditions that await them. The irony is clear: while their state
was born out of a repudiation of slavery, desperate Haitians today choose
to work in near-slave conditions in the Dominican Republic (Anaya
Gauthier 2007). This is especially the case in the bateyes: labour camps or
company towns restricted to male immigrant agricultural labourers from
Haiti who engage in the heavy manual labour and long hours required
on the sugarcane plantations. This form of deliberate segregation acts as
a system of labour control on the Haitian labourers.
It is primarily around the market towns that a specific border cultural
space and border practices exist. Commercial exchanges often rest and
thrive on daily encounters, the summation of which involves transac-
tions in millions of pesos. Dominican traders, sellers and middlemen
are obliged to enter the world of their Haitian customers, even if just
to negotiate and agree on a deal. The Dominican merchant class at
the border effectively organises its commercial and social activities to
satisfy the various demands of their Haitian neighbours. That much
can be glimpsed also from the various radio announcements, made in
Creole, which one can hear in the border regions, as well as from various
Marie Redon 171
publicity postings, also in Creole, in the same locations. These details are
proof of a robust Haitian–Dominican métissage that straddles the bor-
der zones; a trans-national socio-economic culture that leads to mixed
marriages and mixed families, even to an informal polygamy in some
cases – with persons belonging to two families, one on each side of the
border (Matias 2001). These cultural forms are hurt and corralled by the
active construction of nationalism and the stubborn persistence of legal
obstacles, particularly on the Dominican side, as in the case of children
born of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic, denied a legal
identity.
At the border, the control of the migratory flux is itself an ambigu-
ous pursuit, subject to considerable discretion and latitude, renewed
and refreshed between legality, arbitrality, corruption and need. The
Dominican government seeks on the one hand to outfox and outdo
the buscones, members of its society that engage in human trafficking,
meant to provide cheap Haitian labour for the sugarcane fields. It also
tries to mollify international opinion, as well as that of the Haitian gov-
ernment, who regularly complain of heavy-handed practices. But it also
keeps a wary eye on its own general public, largely suspicious of Haitians
‘invading’ their much better kept country.
Beyond the frontier region, meanwhile, new generations of immi-
grants, no longer sugarcane labourers but students and trained tech-
nicians, are starting to change the general negative perception of the
Haitian in Dominican society. Meanwhile, on the other side of the
island, bachata (a type of Dominican music and dance) is practised as far
as the westernmost reaches of the country, where an increasing number
of Haitians now also speak Spanish.
Conclusion
Such visibly different landscapes and socio-economic regimes on either

side of a land border on an island space result in a bewildering polit-
ical economy. There is a heavy baggage of state-sponsored symbolism
and nationalism: this weighs heavily on border practices; and it both
nuances and strains bilateral relations. And yet, the same division and
contrast are also the trigger for considerable economic dynamism. The
inter-country land border acts as an interface: whether to support the
operation of free trade zones; to conscript Haitian labour in Dominican
agriculture; to witness the to-and-fro of migrations and repatriations; of
goods and products changing hands; of new and blended lives, liaisons,
alliances and families being struck (Philoctete 1989). These are some
172 Hispaniola
of the constituents of a merging and blurring, of an interval that has

become its own culturally and economically legitimate space, and a con-
stant rebuttal against the sense of discontinuity and duality imposed
by the dry politics of a land border, and its two states. The border has
definitely perturbed and scripted the overarching islandness in defin-
ing and suggestive ways. Quisqueya is an intermediately divided island
space, with each of its constituent countries uncomfortably connected
to, and dependent on, each other. Its two states are much like anxious
bedfellows, pushing to contain and manage the ambiguities, as well as
the opportunities, of a forced relationship (Saintilus 2007).
The presence of a land border does not compromise insularity, but
it certainly impacts on the nature of the island experience (e.g. Redon
2010, 2011). One does not quite see the island in the same way; as if
a piece of the puzzle is missing. If insularity is characterised by isola-
tion, then what characterises islandness is fragmentation (Bonnemaison
1992: 120). On divided islands, this rupture is doubly felt: the separa-
tion from the continent, as reminded by the ocean; and the separation
from the rest of the island, as reminded by a land frontier. This discom-
forting sense of place can manifest itself at various levels of analysis.
On Quisqueya, the nature of the land-based difference can be felt at
different scales: when contrasting hues and terrain are looked down
upon from an aircraft at 10,000 m altitude; as much as through the
international division of labour, or the commercial transactions, prac-
tised there. And yet, there are people and households who may not
apply an island perspective to their condition, locked as they may be
in some mountainous village deep in the island’s interior. The keen
sense of being naturally closed and separated by the Caribbean waters
that circumscribe the whole island may be breached, countered and
even replaced by a sense of other types of borders, in this case politi-
cal ones, which rudely interfere on the mental processes that determine
a particular sense of place (Moles 1982: 283).
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10
Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten
Steven Hillebrink
Introduction
St. Martin is the world’s smallest inhabited island shared by two

states. With an open border, a tempestuous economic and demographic
growth, a mixed population of more than 100 nationalities, large-scale
migratory movements and an economy that is much dependent on
international dynamics, it is a microcosm of globalisation. As one of the
most popular tourist destinations in the Caribbean, it is a place where
migrants from some of the poorest countries work, and also one where
some of the richest people anchor their yachts. The local population,
which has been reduced to some 20 per cent of the total population on
both sides of the island, meanwhile struggles to preserve its identity.
This chapter describes the history of the division of St. Martin and the
development of the constitutional status of the two sides. It analyses
how the division of the island has influenced its economic devel-
opment, and how the governments and also residents, migrants and
tourists on both sides of the island have adapted to the uniquely
prevailing circumstances.
Context
St. Martin is one of the Leeward Islands in the north-eastern Caribbean.

It is located in-between Puerto Rico and Guadeloupe and a number of
other overseas territories of the United States, France, the Netherlands
and the United Kingdom; the only independent states in the vicinity are
Saint Kitts & Nevis and Antigua & Barbuda. It covers just 87 km2 of
mountainous terrain. The northern part is a collectivité d’outre-mer (over-
seas community) of France, called Saint-Martin. The southern part is
called Sint Maarten and is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands as
176
Steven Hillebrink 177
an autonomous land (country). (Reference to ‘St. Martin’ in this text

indicates the island as a whole, ‘Sint Maarten’ refers to the Dutch side,
and ‘Saint-Martin’ to the French side.)
The island numbers among the most densely populated territories in
the world. The French part (53 km2 ) is larger than the Dutch (34 km2 ),
but the Dutch side has slightly more inhabitants: 41,000 against 37,000
on the French side (Statistical Yearbook Netherlands Antilles 2009: 15,
www.insee.fr). Estimates of the number of unregistered resident aliens
vary substantially, from 10,000 to 40,000. Some 1.5 million cruise ship
passengers visit the island per year, and some 500,000 travellers visit
the island via Princess Juliana International Airport in Sint Maarten and
Grand Cas Airport in Saint-Martin. All this explains why a visit to the
island – especially to the Dutch side – imparts a ‘feeling of crowding that
borders on the claustrophobic’ (UN-ECLA 1998: 7) (see Table 10.1).
Table 10.1 Comparing Saint-Martin and Sint Maarten
Sint Maarten Saint-Martin
Political status Autonomous country Overseas

within the Kingdom of community of
the Netherlands since France since 2007
2010
Capital city Philipsburg Marigot
Population (estimated, 40,920 37,460
2009)
Resident population density 1,203 707
(persons/km2 )
% of population that lives in Practically 100% Practically 100%
Urban Areas
Life expectancy at birth in 73.1 (male, 2010) 76.2 (male, 2007,
years Guadeloupe)
78.2 (female, 2010) 83.1 (female, 2007,
Guadeloupe)
% annual population 3% (2000–2010) 2.9% (1999–2008)
growth
GNP per capita (US$) 19,900 (2008) 20,800 (2009 est.)
Human development index n.a. n.a.
% of population below n.a. n.a.
poverty line
Adult (15+) Literacy rate (%) 95.8% (2010) n.a.
Main language(s) spoken English, Spanish French, English
Currency (exchange rate as Netherlands Antilles Euro (1US$ = 0.75
at November 2011) guilder (1US$ = 1.79 NAf) EUR)
178 Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten
The division of the island
The division of St. Martin dates from the 17th century, when French
settlers occupied the northeast coast of the island and the Dutch West
Indian Company occupied the area around the great salt pond in the
south of the island. In 1648, the separation was formalised in the Treaty
of Concordia, which provided that the French and Dutch shall live
on the island as friends and allies. The original text of the Treaty of
Concordia was probably lost, perhaps when British troops burned down
the Court House in Philipsburg in 1810, disappointed that they did not
find the treasures they had hoped for (Badejo 1989: 5). But the contents
(as reproduced in Tertre 1667: 412–414) have been recognised as binding
by France and the Netherlands (Hoeneveld 2002: 90–91).
The Treaty instructed the French and Dutch authorities to determine
the precise course of the border. There is a popular story about how the
border was drawn. A Frenchman and a Dutchman started walking in
opposite directions from Oyster Pond, on the east coast. The Frenchman
walked along the northern coast of the island, the Dutchman along the
southern coast. At the place where they met up, they drew an imaginary
line back to Oyster Pond, which roughly corresponds to the present-day
border. The Dutchman walked slower – or took a nap halfway because he
had too much to drink – which explains why the Dutch half is smaller.
This story is used on the island to mock the Dutch, or to illustrate that
the French are ‘dangerous to the “relax and enjoy yourself” ideology of
the island’ (Guadeloupe 2009: 21–23).
Whether the walking contest has any relation to historic fact is
unknown. The first written sources do not mention this episode. In the
version of the French missionary Jean-Baptiste Tertre, the French and
Dutch colonial authorities sent detachments to St. Martin after the
Spanish abandoned their occupation in 1648. The French and Dutch
commanders agreed to revert to the situation that had briefly existed
before the Spanish had chased them from the island (Tertre 1667: 409
et seq.). A later British version offers more details, apparently derived
from a visit to the island during the mid-18th century. According to
this account, French and Dutch prisoners of war, who had escaped to
the woods during the Spanish occupation, agreed upon the division
after the Spanish left. They built a canoe, and the Dutchmen used
it to inform their Governor in St. Eustatius, from where the French
authorities would also be informed. But ‘from a true principle of Dutch
perfidy, they forgot the last part of the errand’, and returned to claim
the entire island. The French authorities in St. Kitts found out, and
sent troops, but their commander decided to offer a peaceful division

of the island, which the Dutch accepted (Jefferys 1761: 75–76). The for-
mal separation by way of a treaty seems to have been inspired by the
division of nearby St. Kitts, which would also explain the treaty’s refer-
ence to rivers and lakes, which did not exist on St. Martin (Glasscock
1985: 11).
During the colonial period, it was not uncommon for Caribbean
islands to be occupied by settlers from different European countries.
Examples are Saint Kitts (British and French), Saint Croix (Dutch and
British), Tobago (Latvian and Dutch) and Quisqueya (also known as
Hispaniola, French and Spanish). All these separations except the last
have now been terminated. One of the reasons for this may have been
that the early colonial economies shifted from trade (and piracy) to agri-
culture. The colonists moved inland in search of land, where they came
into conflict with settlers from other countries. St. Martin did not pro-
vide much opportunity for agriculture, especially on the Dutch side,
which might explain why the separation survived the early colonial
period, and why the island was not granted to the British in the Utrecht
Peace Treaty of 1713 (Hartog 1981: 32–33).
Nonetheless, there has always been a drive towards unification of
the island, either by force, by buying up the other half, by petition-
ing the British Crown to take over the entire island, by proposing to
sell the entire island to the United States, or to become an independent
state (Speetjens 2002). During the 17th and 18th centuries, the French,
Spanish, British and Dutch on various occasions controlled the entire
island. Each time, the situation of the Treaty of Concordia was quickly –
or after a few years – re-instated. During the 19th century, there were
many French initiatives to acquire the Dutch side, and vice versa: for
example, the Commander of the Dutch territory during the 1740s rec-
ommended that the West Indian Company should consider buying the
French side to relieve the overpopulation on the Dutch side. He esti-
mated that the French side could be bought for 150,000 guilders (Hartog
1981: 41). Yet, none of these initiatives came to pass (Sicking 2006). Per-
haps this can be explained from the minimal and declining economic
and strategic importance of the island after the 18th century.
After the Second World War, the idea of uniting the island under a
single colonial government lost much of its appeal, and was replaced by
the idea of becoming independent as a single country. Appeals for the
independence of St. Martin have been mooted, and this idea has gained
some popularity since the 1980s, particularly on the Dutch side (Lake
2000, Sekou et al. 1990).
Constitutional status
After the Second World War, the constitutional development of the two
sides of the island took distinctly different turns. Saint-Martin was inte-
grated into the mother country as part of the département d’outre-mer
(overseas department) of Guadeloupe in 1946, whereas Sint Maarten
gained a large amount of autonomy as part of the Netherlands Antilles
in 1951. As a result, the two sides of the island developed quite differ-
ently. But one thing they have in common is that they both represent
a trend in overseas governance of fission or disintegration into ever
smaller administrative units. This trend started in the 1960s with the
high-profile break-up of the West Indies Federation, and may continue
until a situation is reached where each dependent island has its own
(autonomous) government that has direct constitutional ties with the
metropolitan government. At the same time, a process of Caribbean
economic integration has started, but the dependent territories cannot
always participate in this process in the same way as their independent
neighbours.
Sint Maarten
Until 2010, Sint Maarten was part of the island federation of the
Netherlands Antilles, which was an autonomous country within the
Kingdom of the Netherlands. The seat of the federal government of the
Netherlands Antilles was located on Curaçao, off the coast of Venezuela,
almost 1,000 km from Sint Maarten. The Netherlands Antilles fur-
thermore consisted of the smaller islands of Bonaire, Saint Eustatius
and Saba.
Within the Netherlands Antilles, Sint Maarten handled many of its
own affairs independently, but it depended on the central govern-
ment in Curaçao for law enforcement, tax collection and a number
of other subjects. The Kingdom government (i.e. the Dutch govern-
ment in The Hague in consultation with the Netherlands Antilles and
Aruba) retained responsibility for foreign affairs and defence, as well as
the task of issuing Dutch passports to the inhabitants of the islands.
A large proportion of the legislation prevailing in Sint Maarten was
made in Curaçao. Sint Maarten participated in the federal government
of the Netherlands Antilles, but with its three seats in the 22-seat federal
parliament, its influence was obviously limited.
Despite the large amount of autonomy that Sint Maarten enjoyed
within the Netherlands Antilles, it was not fully free to develop its own
economic policies. The example of Aruba, which left the Antilles in
1986 to obtain a separate status within the Kingdom, and thereafter

went through a period of strong economic growth, helped to reinforce
the idea that Sint Maarten would be better off without being subordi-
nate to Curaçao. That it was possible for even a small island to secede
from a larger territorial entity was already well known in Sint Maarten
and Saint-Martin. Many islanders had seen British paratroopers land on
neighbouring Anguilla in 1969, after that island had attempted to secede
from the British-associated territory of St. Kitts–Nevis–Anguilla. The
‘Anguillian revolution’ ultimately led to a separate status for Anguilla
as a dependency of the United Kingdom in the 1980s, whereas St. Kitts
and Nevis became independent. It was argued that severing the ties with
Curaçao would also facilitate cooperation with the French side (Atlink
2003: 40–41). But a referendum in 1994 showed that most of the voters
preferred to stay part of the Netherlands Antilles.
The deciding moment for many Sint Maarteners probably came in
the aftermath of hurricane Luis, which struck the island in 1995. The
Netherlands was quick to supply aid, and agreed to provide further
aid directly to the island, and not via the central government of the
Netherlands Antilles in Curaçao, as had been customary until then. This
reinforced the perception that Sint Maarten would benefit by virtue of
having direct ties with The Hague. The failed attempts at restructuring
the central Antillean government during the 1990s probably sealed the
fate of the Netherlands Antilles as a single country.
The island government of Sint Maarten organised a referendum in
2000, in which 67 per cent of the voters chose to leave the Netherlands
Antilles and become a separate country within the Kingdom of the
Netherlands. The government of the Netherlands Antilles did not really
object to this, but the Netherlands was not prepared to discuss a sep-
arate status for Sint Maarten. Partly because it feared that the chronic
governance issues of Sint Maarten made it unsuitable for increased self-
government, and partly because a secession of Sint Maarten would spell
the end of the country of the Netherlands Antilles as a whole.
In 2004 and 2005, referendums in the other Antillean islands showed
that a large majority of the population of those islands was also in favour
of dismantling the Netherlands Antilles. Combined with the growing
problems of the central Antillean government, the Netherlands became
convinced that the Netherlands Antilles no longer had a future and
agreed to a break-up of the country. The Netherlands provided debt relief
to the amount of 1.7 billion euro, so that the islands would not be bur-
dened with an enormous debt at the start of the new situation. Curaçao
and Sint Maarten agreed to a number of conditions in the areas of law
enforcement and state finances. Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba became
part of the Netherlands, as special overseas municipalities (Hillebrink
2008: 177–180).
Sint Maarten became a separate country in 2010. It is not an inde-
pendent state, but remains part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The constitutional status of Sint Maarten is now the same as that of
Aruba and Curaçao. It makes its own laws and policies on all subjects,
except foreign affairs, defence, nationality and a few others, which con-
tinue to be the responsibility of the Kingdom as a whole. A few subjects
are handled jointly with Curaçao and/or the Netherlands and Aruba.
The Sint Maarten government obtained the authority to conclude loans,
although this authority is subject to restrictions.
Near the end of the process of constitutional reform, Sint Maarten
agreed with the Netherlands and the other parts of the Kingdom that
the Sint Maarten government was not yet ready to take on all of its
new responsibilities independently. Sint Maarten formulated plans of
approach for the improvement of its police force, prison facilities and
the handling of immigration. The realisation of these plans is monitored
by a joint ‘committee of progress’ (Staatsblad 2010, nr. 344). The island
government’s budget and spending are also monitored by an indepen-
dent committee of financial supervision (more about this below, in the
section on growing pains), which was instituted jointly by Sint Maarten,
Curaçao and the Netherlands (ibid.).
A few of the former institutions of the Netherlands Antilles remain in
place for Sint Maarten and Curaçao. These islands continue to share a
central bank – the Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten, (www.
centralbank.an) – and an official currency, the ‘Netherlands Antillean
guilder’, which is to be replaced by the ‘Caribbean guilder’. While
Sint Maarten is now an autonomous country and no longer formally
depends on Curaçao, its relations with the Netherlands government
have become more direct. The build-up of its autonomous government
in part continues to depend on the cooperation of Curaçao and the
Netherlands.
Saint-Martin
The constitutional status of the French side of the island also changed
during this same period. France, a unitary state, had long resisted the
trend of disintegration among overseas island territories. Since 2007,
Saint-Martin is one of the first French collectivités d’outre-mer (over-
seas communities, or COMs) that consists of only one inhabited island
(Oraison 2008: 161), or rather, half an island. It also consists of a number
of uninhabited islands and islets, one of which (Tintamarre) used to be

inhabited until 1960 (Büch 2000: 158).
Until 2007, Saint-Martin was a community of the overseas depart-
ment of Guadeloupe. Politicians on Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy
had long been pleading for a separate status of their islands within the
French republic. The main island of Guadeloupe, located 250 kilometres
to the south, is very different in many respects. Guadeloupe is tradition-
ally an agricultural society, oriented towards its relationship with France,
whereas the two northern islands are more embedded in their Caribbean
and American environment, also because the French administration
remained virtually absent from the northern islands for a long period of
their history (Seners 1999: 8–10). In Saint-Martin it was claimed that its
constitutional attachment to Guadeloupe did not fit well with its inter-
national orientation, its inescapable relationship with Sint Maarten and
its economic emancipation (Oraison 2008: 157–158). The fact that the
authorities on Guadeloupe were largely invisible in Saint-Martin until
the 1970s (Diémert 2007: 675) did not stimulate a sense of belonging to
that department.
After a change in the French Constitution in 2003, it became legally
possible for Saint-Martin to leave Guadeloupe and become a separate
COM. This status offers the local government more autonomy and
creates more room for France to adapt the prevailing legislation and
policies to the specific circumstances of Saint-Martin. In 2003, a refer-
endum was held, in which 76 per cent of the voters voted ‘yes’ to the
status of COM. Only 44 per cent of the voters turned out (Diémert 2007:
669), but the outcome was nonetheless considered valid. The ‘document
d’orientation’ that had been adopted by the local representatives before
the referendum served as a roadmap for the French organic law by which
Saint-Martin was transformed into a COM in 2007, at the same time as
Saint-Barthélémy (Loi organique nr. 2007-223 of 21 February 2007).
France did not provide many specific measures for Saint-Martin. The
legal regime therefore remains much the same as before. This conserva-
tive approach to the new status was proposed by Saint-Martin itself, and
differs from the more adventurous road taken by neighbouring Saint-
Barthélémy. Coupled with the fact that Saint-Martin has requested to
remain part of the European Union as an ultra-peripheral region, the
newly created room for tailor-made solutions that deviate from French
legislation does not yet appear to be stretched to the maximum (Oraison
2008).
The local government of Saint-Martin has obtained more authority
over local affairs. The local authorities may provide – within limits set by
French statutes – rules on subjects such as local taxes, roads and traffic,
labour permits for foreigners and tourism. As of December 2012, these
subjects will also include energy supply and urban planning (Article
LO6314-3 of the Code général des collectivités territoriales). The authori-
ties of Saint-Martin have also obtained a limited possibility to act on
the international level, somewhat similar to the government of Sint
Maarten. Cooperation between the two governments should therefore
become easier, for instance, through the harmonisation of legislation, or
by formulating joint policies, also with regard to international relations.
Economic development
In spite of an international border cutting across the island, the island

has formed a free trade area since the 1648 Treaty of Concordia. Even
though Saint-Martin is part of the European Union while Sint Maarten
is not, there is free, unregistered and untaxed movement of persons and
goods. Both sides do not levy import duties. Since 2010, a treaty between
France and the Netherlands provides for cooperation in the area of cus-
toms administration. Other than that, however, there are few common
economic policies, and legislation is not harmonised. The island can-
not therefore be considered as an economic union. Even though the
US dollar is widely used on both sides of the island, there is no monetary
union, because the official currency of Sint Maarten is the Netherlands
Antillean guilder, and on the French side it is the euro.
From the 17th century onwards, the economy of the French side
was characterised by plantations (mainly sugar) and that on the Dutch
side by the exploitation of salt ponds. The products of the island were
exported to North America, and to islands in the region. These activities
became less and less profitable; and so, until around 1960, the island
had become a sleepy backwater with no more than 5,000 inhabitants
in total, whose main occupation was fishing and raising cattle (Johnson
1994: 100), and which strongly relied on remittances from St. Martiners
abroad (Kersell 1993: 61).
The economic situation of Sint Maarten started to change after
the Netherlands Antilles achieved self-government in 1951. Elections
quickly brought into power Claude Wathey, the son of a local merchant,
who would stay in power for 40 years (Badejo 1989). His entrepreneurial
spirit played an important role in the development of Sint Maarten’s
potential for tourism. Wealthy Americans discovered the island through
an enthusiastic article about a French–Dutch island ‘of virgin beaches
and friendly natives’ in the widely read Saturday Evening Post in 1957
(Speetjens 2002: 24–26). The article seems to have created a rush for
land (Badejo 1989: 86–87). But the development of tourism did not
really take off until after the United States imposed an embargo on
Cuba in 1962 (Johnson 1994: 105). An airport had been built by the
United States on the Dutch side in 1942, and a pier for cruise ships
was opened in 1962, also on the Dutch side. Foreign investors came in
to build increasingly large hotels and casinos on Sint Maarten, which
attracted US tourists who could no longer holiday in Cuba. The econ-
omy of the Dutch side boomed during the 1970s and 1980s. At first,
this was largely a function of tourist arrivals from North America,
but gradually also from Western Europe and Latin America (Haan
1998: 88).
The foreign investments, which made this development possible,
allegedly derived partly from international crime syndicates. These alle-
gations gained Sint Maarten a somewhat notorious reputation. The size
of the informal economy of Sint Maarten, and its influence on the
economy of the island as a whole, has not been the subject of much eco-
nomic research. But there are indications that the drugs trade, human
smuggling and money laundering have played – and continue to play –
a substantial role in the economy of the island (CBA 2012, Ilegems and
Sauviller 1995, Redon 2006, Van den Heuvel 2003, Verhoeven et al.
2007).
During this same period, the Sint Maarten government was criticised
for a perceived lack of integrity, and for not living up to standards of
good government (Badejo 1989). The integrity issue came to a head
in the early 1990s, when the government of Sint Maarten was tem-
porarily placed under the supervision of the governor in Curaçao, and
Claude Wathey and others were convicted on charges related to cor-
ruption (Oostindie and Klinkers 2001: 265–266, Van Ditzhuijzen 1996:
65). Recent years have witnessed convictions of a politician and a num-
ber of senior law enforcement officials, also on charges of corruption
(CBA 2012: 212 et seq.).
The economy of the Dutch side started to overheat near the end of
the 1980s. From 1990, economic growth slowed down for various rea-
sons. Attempts to diversify the economy were not very successful. The
island was struck by two big hurricanes in the second half of the 1990s,
which damaged many hotels and apartment complexes. The growth of
the economy picked up afterwards, but never achieved the levels of the
1970s and 1980s.
The development of the tourism industry in Sint Maarten obviously
affected Saint-Martin in many ways. The two sides of the island have
become economically closely intertwined and interdependent since

the 1960s. The infrastructure on the Dutch side (airport, sea harbour
and cruise ship berthing facilities) is the ‘lungs’ of the entire island’s
economy (Seners 1999: 28). The French side has aimed to provide an
attraction for stay-over tourists on the Dutch side, by developing com-
plementary services. It has been noted that Europeans are not likely to
fly nine hours to visit ‘an expensive copy of Menton’ (Kersell 1993: 63);
but for tourists from the American continent, Saint-Martin offers an
opportunity to visit a little part of France without having to cross the
Atlantic.
Despite this interrelationship, the development of the French side
proceeded at a much slower pace, until the taxation of investments
in the overseas departments was reduced by a French law of 1986, the
Loi Pons. This so-called défiscalisation sparked a building spree in Saint-
Martin during the 1990s, which almost equalled the boom of the 1970s
and 1980s on the Dutch side. Instead of the large hotels, casinos and
fast food restaurants on the Dutch side, French entrepreneurs invested
in luxury hotels, boutiques and restaurants offering a more refined cui-
sine. A similar development did not occur to the same extent in the
other French communities in the Caribbean, which were granted the
same tax privileges. This suggests that the proximity of Sint Maarten
played a role – perhaps not only by providing the economic ‘lungs’, but
maybe also because its entrepreneurship served as an example for ini-
tiatives on the French side. Some 3,000 hotel rooms were built within
a few years, drastically changing the landscape, economy and society of
Saint-Martin (Seners 1999: 22–23). Apparently, not all of the new hotels
catered to demand, because some 1,200 rooms either closed down after
1995, or were turned into apartments. The remaining hotels have faced
declining or varying occupancy rates (Hyest et al. 2005: 44).
Growing pains
The rapid economic growth of St. Martin has caused social, demographic
and environmental problems (Haan 1998, Hyest et al. 2005, Jeffry 2010,
Johnson 1994, Seners 1999). The demographic numbers are staggering.
The population of the Dutch side grew from 2,700 in 1960 to 32,000 in
1992 (Central Bureau of Statistics of the Netherlands Antilles 2005: 15).
According to the Dutch government, the actual number of inhabitants
was closer to 50,000 (Kamerstukken II 1991/92, 33 300 IV, nr. 2: 19). The
French figures show a similarly explosive development somewhat later
in time: from 8,000 in 1982 to 35,000 in 2002 (Hyest et al. 2005: 10).
The demographic growth originated mainly from immigrants, who

were attracted by the chronic labour shortage since the 1970s (Haan
1998: 89). The local St. Martiners – that is, those inhabitants who
descend from families that have lived on the island for several
generations – now probably constitute less than 20 per cent of the pop-
ulation. There are probably more than 100 nationalities on the island
(Benoît 2008: 211). The demographic figures do not reflect the prob-
ably considerable number of unregistered foreign inhabitants of the
island. Research shows that approximately 75 per cent of the immi-
grants who came to Sint Maarten during the 1980s were not registered
(Van Dam 1995). These immigrants worked as labourers in the construc-
tion of the large hotels and casinos. In 1996, the Dutch government
estimated that half the population of Sint Maarten was on the island
illegally (Kamerstukken II 1996/97, 24 074 (R1531), nr. 9: 1). During the
1990s, when the economic growth slowed down, the authorities started
deporting illegal aliens, especially on the French side (Benoît 2008: 217).
Their share in the population probably decreased since then, but it is
not known to what extent. There remains considerable movement of
unregistered persons to and from the island (Verhoeven et al. 2007).
Integrating large groups of immigrants from many different coun-
tries into a small society is not an easy task, and may be aggravated
by islandness (Hyest et al. 2005: 64). It has been noted that people
born on either side of the island tend to consider themselves part of
one and the same people (Atlink 2003, Rummens 1993: 318). These
St. Martiners are described as being strangers in their own country
(Oraison 2008: 156, Verhoeven et al. 2007: 33). However, they do
not appear to be a repressed minority, at least not if one looks at
political representation. The council of ministers and the parliament
of Sint Maarten, with just one exception – the new United Peoples
Party, led by Claude Wathey’s grandson Theo Heyliger – is made up
largely of representatives of old St. Martin families, and the same
goes for the political bodies of Saint-Martin, where old St. Martin
family names such as Gumbs, Fleming and Richardson are still com-
mon. But this does not change the reality that much of the economic
power has shifted to persons who are usually not considered local
St. Martiners.
Economic growth has put considerable pressure on public services on
both sides of the island. The public sector on the Dutch side of the
island did not keep pace with the growth of the private sector during
the 1970s and 1980s (Haan 1998: 89). According to the Dutch govern-
ment, the large-scale construction of hotels, casinos and condominiums,
combined with a lack of adequate planning and insufficient admin-

istrative competence, led to overpopulation, traffic jams and badly
overstretched public services (Kamerstukken II 1991/92, 33 300 IV, nr. 2:
19). A chronic shortage of housing arose during this period, with large
numbers of illegal workers living in slums across the island, deprived of
adequate medical care or education for their children.
At the same time, the public authorities on both sides of the island
have struggled with considerable budget deficits for many years (Haan
1998: 126–127, Hyest et al. 2005: 47–51). As Saint-Martin is an inte-
gral part of France, tax collection and public spending is for a large
part determined in Paris, or by representatives of the French govern-
ment in Saint-Martin. For Sint Maarten the situation is different. As an
autonomous country, it is responsible for raising and collecting taxes
itself, and for determining how such revenues are spent. In combina-
tion with the debt relief that the Netherlands provided in 2010, a form
of financial supervision was put in place for Sint Maarten. An inde-
pendent Board of financial supervision (College Financieel Toezicht, Cft)
monitors whether the budget and spending of the island government
conform to certain standards that have been laid down in a Kingdom
act (Staatsblad 2010, nr. 334). So far, the Cft has reported on a number
of occasions that draft budgets of Sint Maarten government did not con-
form to the standards and has repeatedly expressed concerns. The Sint
Maarten government feels that the supervision hinders the development
of the newly acquired country status. Former deputy Prime Minister
Theo Heyliger recently classified the current state of affairs as ‘modern
day slavery. ( . . . ) Only thing the Dutch now provide is supervision. ( . . . )
[We have] supervision out the nose, coming out of the eyes, you name
it. There is no Dutch budgetary help, we have to suck salt’ (The Daily
Herald 2011).
The border
The border between Saint-Martin and Sint Maarten is hardly visible.

There is no physical barrier, no customs and no border patrols. (Saint-
Martin is not part of the European Schengen area.) The border is often
described as merely ‘symbolic’, which suggests that the border has no
real meaning for the islanders. But this is not true. The border has
far-reaching consequences for the inhabitants when it comes to their
contacts with the state in matters such as passports, social security,
health care and education. St. Martin thus shows that ‘a border is not so
much a physical demarcation as a political project’ (Benoît 2008: 219).
The border delineates two distinctly separate jurisdictions. The law in

Sint Maarten is for a large part based on the legislation of the former
Netherlands Antilles, which in turn was often based on Dutch legisla-
tion. The new country now makes its own laws (www.sintmaartengov.
org/laws). In Saint-Martin, most French legislation applies, as well as the
large bulk of European Union law. As a result, there are many legal dif-
ferences. Certain behaviour may be punishable in Saint-Martin but not
in Sint Maarten, or vice versa; certain goods may be sold in Sint Maarten
without restrictions, but not in Saint-Martin; and so on.
The relevance of the border is increased by the fact that the two gov-
ernments cooperate in fewer areas than might be expected on such a
tiny island. Each side of the island produces its own drinking water, has
its own power plant, hospital, airport, prison and schools. And there is
little official cooperation or coordination of government efforts in these
areas. While this is to some extent inherent to the way modern govern-
ments operate, and can also be explained from the constitutional status
of both sides of the island (Kersell 1993: 51), the current situation does
seem a far cry from the intentions of the signatories of the Treaty of
Concordia, who agreed that ‘the French and the Dutch established on
the said island shall live as friends and allies.’ Recent years have seen
an increasing number of initiatives, which may eventually lead to more
cooperation between the two sides. In 2010, a treaty was signed between
France and the Netherlands on island-wide police cooperation, but this
treaty has not yet been ratified (Tractatenblad 2010, nr. 311).
As it is, these two rather disparate jurisdictions, separated by a com-
pletely open border, offer many opportunities for evading onerous
regulations that do not apply on both sides, or which are not enforced
with the same strictness on both sides. The legal, economic and fiscal
differences between the two sides are constantly on the minds of inhab-
itants. There is ‘a permanent game of comparative advantage, often at
the limits of the law, which is itself also relative’ (Redon 2006: 258, my
translation). This situation offers opportunities for profit maximisation.
The business elite has ‘strongly objected to plans to either remove the
border or drastically change its character’ (Atlink 2003: 41), because the
border offered a tourist attraction. But the division of the island also
makes it easier to evade certain government policies. For instance, the
minimum wage is twice as high in Saint-Martin as it is in Sint-Maarten,
and employers have to pay social benefits on the French side that are
three times higher than in Sint Maarten (Seners 1999: 24). It is therefore
not surprising that more businesses have their seat in Sint Maarten than
in Saint-Martin (Baldacchino and Dana 2006: 427).
Important differences also exist between the social protection offered

to residents and other persons. Generally speaking, public services on
the French side, and access to them, are comparable to those in Western
Europe; while Sint Maarten models itself after the United States in this
respect. The corresponding differences are very relevant for people with
low income or lack of legal status on the island, which puts pressure on
the schools, hospitals and other public services on the French side. This
situation is criticised by French scholars (Hyest et al. 2005: 51, Redon
2006: 249, Seners 1999: 39).
There have been appeals to regulate the border with Sint Maarten,
also because the open border – combined with the absence of much
cooperation between the two governments – hampers effective crime
control. But regulating the border, however lightly, would have many
negative consequences for Saint-Martin. Instead, France has for a long
time sought to obtain some amount of control over who enters the
island through the airport on the Dutch side. On 17 May 1994, France
and the Netherlands signed a treaty in Paris, which provides for certain
‘at risk’ flights to be subject to a joint inspection by French and Sint
Maarten authorities. Passengers on such flights should satisfy the entry
requirements for both Saint-Martin and Sint Maarten.
The ratification of the treaty came to a standstill in 1999, after Sint
Maarten voiced fears that the treaty would harm its economy. The
treaty would restrict access of people from nearby countries to Sint
Maarten, because they would be required to obtain a visa before arrival
(Kamerstukken II 1995/96, 24 074 (R 1531), nr. 7). At the same time,
Sint Maarten feared that Europeans would flood the island, because the
treaty seemed to give them free access. The treaty became a symbol for
the dissatisfaction with the continued constitutional ties with France
and the Netherlands among the local cultural elite (e.g. Lake 2000).
France agreed to partly synchronise the list of nationalities that require
a visa to enter Saint-Martin with the requirements for Sint Maarten.
Although the Sint Maarten government continued its opposition, the
Netherlands parliament approved the treaty in 2006, and it entered into
force in 2007. It is not yet clear if, and to what extent, the treaty will
affect the economy of the island.
During this same period, France has developed policies to make
Saint-Martin socially less attractive for its Caribbean neighbours. These
policies revolve basically around a requirement of legal residence for
a certain period before a foreigner obtains access to certain public
services. Some observers have called attention to the precarious situa-
tion of unregistered aliens in Saint-Martin and Sint Maarten as a result
of these policies. They describe the development of an ‘institutional

border’ similar to that in Western Europe, which ‘consists of mecha-
nisms which turn access to social security into a site of immigration
control away from the physical border enclosing the territory’ (Benoît
2008: 225).
Concluding remarks
The French and the Dutch side of the island have followed very differ-
ent paths in their political and economic history since the 1950s. But
the island as a whole has been transformed from a rural backwater into
one of the most densely populated territories of the world; a bustling
regional centre with a busy economy; and a newly acquired autonomy
on both sides of the island. The fact that the island is shared by two
states played a considerable role in this development.
The division of St. Martin coupled with its small scale means that the
entire island is a borderland. This creates many challenges for the two
governments. Recent French policies tend towards the creation of an
institutional border, which might take the place of the absent physi-
cal barrier, and which would increasingly restrict access to some public
services to certain categories of persons. At the same time, the new con-
stitutional status of both sides of the island, which was partly motivated
by a desire for more cooperation, clearly makes cooperation easier, and
offers more possibilities for harmonisation of regulations and policies in
the areas of taxation, the labour market, energy supply, tourism, roads
and traffic. This might help the authorities face the challenges of the
open border and the tempestuous economic and demographic devel-
opments of recent decades, as well as cut some of the high costs of
providing adequate public services on a small island.
In February 2012, a declaration of intent was signed by France, Saint-
Martin and Sint Maarten, which should lead to more cooperation in
many areas. According to the prime minister of Sint Maarten, the dec-
laration celebrates the ‘everlasting cooperation’ between the two sides
of the island. The president of the Territorial Council of Saint-Martin
saw it as a symbol that Sint Maarten and Saint-Martin are an ‘insepara-
ble couple’. The French Préfet Délégué, who signed the declaration on
behalf of France, commented on a more sober note that: ‘The road will
be difficult but we have a duty to succeed for the welfare of our citi-
zens who would not understand why, in the 21st century, leaders of two
friendly countries sharing a common territory, are not able to agree on
such cooperation’ (Today 2012).
Saint-Martin and Sint Maarten are sometimes described as each

others’ competitors. This is probably only true at the government level.
Local entrepreneurs, inhabitants and tourists, who are often neither
French nor Dutch, simply choose to reside, trade, work or visit where
conditions are most favourable. Instead of viewing each other as com-
petitors, the two governments might achieve better results by investing
in effective forms of cross-border cooperation, in the spirit of the Treaty
of Concordia, which formed the basis for the separation of the island
in 1648.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Reinoud Pronk, André Hoeneveld and Marion

Bense for their valuable comments on a first draft of this chapter. Any
mistakes, of course, remain my own.
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11
Tierra del Fuego
Peter van Aert
Introduction
Tierra del Fuego (literally, Land of Fire) is the name of the archipelago
in the southernmost part of the Latin American continent. It consists
of a large island, Isla Grande, and dozens of islands and islets to its
south that together form the southern tip of Patagonia, the immense
peninsula covering the southern provinces of the Republics of Chile
and Argentina. Patagonia is different from the rest of Latin America:
it has a relatively cold, windy and barren climate; when the continent
is mostly tropical to subtropical. Perhaps that explains why Patagonia
was never successfully colonised by European powers and remained
unclaimed until the beginning of the 19th century, when Chile and
Argentina started a squabble over its sovereignty that lasted almost two
centuries and finally divided the territory up to the last isle. Within this
division, Isla Grande of Tierra del Fuego was to suffer an artificial political
partition by means of a vertical line that divides Chilean from Argentine
territory (see Table 11.1).
The political economy of cross-border transactions between Argentina
and Chile must be seen as part of a larger dynamic in which the
entire Fuegian archipelago and continental Patagonia are implicated.
The history of Tierra del Fuego partly comes to light as a reconstruction
of geopolitical interventions by national governments, both in keen
pursuit of their respective state formation.
Early movements and incursions
Archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest known signs of

human habitation of Tierra del Fuego date back 10,800 years (Borrero
195
196 Tierra del Fuego
Table 11.1 Comparing Chilean and Argentine Tierra del Fuego
Chilean Tierra del Argentine Tierra del

Fuego Fuego
Political Status Chilean territory Argentine territory

since 1881, Province since 1881, Province
since 1990 since 1990
Capital City Porvenir Ushuaia
(of province); (of province); Buenos
Santiago (of country) Aires (of country)
Population (2010) 7,003 127,205
Resident population density 0.2 5.9
(persons/km2 )
Urban Areas
Life expectancy in years (2010) 78.8 (for Chile) 75.7 (for Argentina)
% annual population growth 0.9% (for Chile) 2.9% (for Argentina)
GNP per capita (US$) 13,561 (Chilean 17,965 (Argentine
Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego only)
only)
% of population below Poverty 11.5% (in 2009) 2.2% (2010 in Tierra
Line del Fuego only)
Adult (10+) Literacy rate (%) 98.7% (for Chile) 98.4% (for Argentina)
Main language(s) Spoken Spanish Spanish
Currency (exchange rate as at 1 US$ = 476.850 1 US$ = 4.35
February 2012) Chilean Peso Argentine Peso
1997). Indigenous tribes settled from the north and gradually divided
themselves into four groups, each with its own territory, language
and lifestyle. Within each of these populations, various grades of
territoriality can be defined along the line of ethnic division. Within
each of these divisions, there were smaller political territories, composed
of peer groups of extended families. Any such territorial segregation
was abruptly interrupted and fully disappeared – along with the entire
indigenous population – within a lapse of two centuries through the
process of occupation by Western powers that began in the mid-19th
century.
The presence of Western powers in the area dates from the year 1520,
when Portuguese explorer Magellan (actual name, Ferdinand Magalhães,
1480–1521) discovered the inter-oceanic route named after him, and
becoming the first person to lead a circumnavigation of the globe. It was
he, too, who gave Tierra del Fuego its name, referring to the fires lit by
Peter van Aert 197
the indigenous population, and which were spotted from his ships. For
three consecutive centuries, English, French, Dutch and Spanish expedi-
tions came by the islands but did not set foot on them, until the English
Captain Robert Fitz Roy arrived in 1830, discovering yet another water-
way in between the ocean south of Cape Horn and the much more
northerly Straits of Magellan, naming the Channel after his ship: the
Beagle.
In 1832, Fitz Roy’s His/Her Majesty’s Ship (HMS) Beagle arrived in
Tierra del Fuego for a second time, with the young naturalist Charles
Darwin on board. On Christmas Day, Darwin reports on the indigenous
inhabitants:
These were the most abject and miserable creatures I anywhere

beheld [ . . . ] These poor wretches were stunted in their growth,
their hideous faces bedaubed with white paint, their skins filthy
and greasy, their hair entangled, their voices discordant, and their
gestures violent. Viewing such men, one can hardly make oneself
believe that they are fellow-creatures, and inhabitants of the same
world.
(Darwin 1997: 203)
Tierra del Fuego was still completely unexplored territory; little was
known about its inhabitants. When Fitz Roy took four Indians captive
during his first visit and took them back to England to ‘civilise’ them,
European interest in the life of these ‘savages’ grew, even encouraging a
specific literary genre (Hazelwood 2000, Thompson 2005). As of 1844,
several missionary expeditions set sail to Tierra del Fuego to establish
a settlement among the tribes in order to evangelise and civilise them.
Many of these attempts ended up as horrific adventures of fatal con-
frontation – all the indigenous people were eventually wiped out – as
much as with the harsh climate as with the local population. Finally,
in January 1869, the first permanent European settlement was set up at
Ushuaia, meaning ‘the bay that points to the west’ in the local Yamana
language, at the northern shore of the Beagle Channel, almost halfway
between the two oceanic passageways. This choice was not coinciden-
tal: Ushuaia offered a wide and protected harbour, with large adjacent
lands fit for cultivation. Ushuaia became a permanent home for tens of
Yamanas and several missionaries and their families (Bridges 2000).
The missionary settlement in Ushuaia may have inaugurated a per-
manent Western presence on the island; but meanwhile, on the other
shore of the Straits of Magellan, a Chilean colony had been established,
eventually named Punta Arenas in 1848. For Chile, the territorial
expansion towards the south had both geopolitical and economical

motives. Land suitable for agriculture was most desirable to Chile
(a largely mountainous country), and the Magellan region was declared
tax exempt to attract economic activity. Moreover, possession of the
Straits of Magellan was thought to offer significant strategic potential
with growing inter-oceanic trade, and especially so after the introduc-
tion of the steam boat that could better navigate the narrow waters of
the Strait, avoiding the more dangerous open waters of the Drake Pas-
sage south of Cape Horn. Punta Arenas became an important logistic
centre for international companies until the opening of the Panama
Canal in 1914, which degraded the city to the periphery of interna-
tional trade flows. Nevertheless, since its foundation, Punta Arenas has
remained southern Patagonia’s largest settlement.
With a British presence on the Great Island of Tierra del Fuego, and
on the Islas Malvinas/Falkland Islands, an effective trade and transport
network was developed between Port Stanley, Ushuaia and Punta Are-
nas. This network was sustained well after the Border Treaty of 1881,
which paved the way to the division of all land and water into Chilean
or Argentine territory.
Towards a national border
Most states are younger than the societies that they purport to
administer. States therefore confront patterns of settlements, social
relations, and production, not to mention a natural environment,
that have evolved largely independent of state plans. The result is
typically a diversity, complexity and unrepeatability of social forms
that are relatively opaque to the state, often purposely so.
(Scott 1998: 183)
This canny observation holds true for Tierra del Fuego. Before politi-
cal borders artificially split this region, it functioned as an autonomous
and peripheral society, consisting of various settlements of which Punta
Arenas was the hub.
A quick glance at a topographical map of Tierra del Fuego suggests that
much of the border between Argentina and Chile on Tierra del Fuego
does not coincide with any logical natural division; it thus has all the
hallmarks of a rational compromise. Indeed, the border separating the
two countries is merely an abstract line drawn in space, forged as a result
of long and fierce political struggles. The dispute over the ownership
of the most southern region, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego was not
Peter van Aert 199
settled easily; the issues at stake were too great a concern for the two
main parties in the dispute.
Only through various geopolitical interventions of an authoritarian
nature could both Chile and Argentina secure their sovereignty over
their respective southern edges. Economic activity was accompanied by
a new process: that of keen state formation. This process was directed
from the respective centres of the two nations and expressed through
a competitive clash between two neighbouring states that accused each
other of threatening national territory. It was not through territorial or
economic arguments but through strategic and even sentimental aspi-
rations that the discussion resulted in a crucially maintained status quo
(Luiz and Schillat 1998: 81).
The competition for land took off after the two fledgling nations
wrested their independence from the Spanish crown, both in 1810. The
distribution of and control over land was seen as directly related to that
of political power:
Issues dealing with (among other things) military and political secu-
rity, the demarcation and protection of international borders . . . have
been, and still are, the prerogatives of national governments.
(Ganster et al. 1997: 4)
State formation is implicated in the positioning of its borders: the pur-

suit of space was a keen policy objective by many other nations on the
continent in the initial years immediately following the declaration of
independence. In this respect, extension of territory does not necessar-
ily originate from an interest in more land, but from a concern with
one’s relative strength in proportion to that of others. Apart from the
Straits of Magellan, claim to that vast territory of continental Patagonia
and Tierra del Fuego, practically unknown to either of the two nations,
could then only have had a strategic purpose. After all:
[A]nyone who declines to compete, merely conserving what is his,

while others strive for an increase, necessarily ends up smaller
and weaker than the others, and is in ever-increasing danger of
succumbing to them at the first opportunity.
(Elias 1982: 43)
The political border conflict between Chile and Argentina is a contin-

uum of mutual strategic anticipations and reactions on domestic and
international affairs. One cannot isolate this tension from the much
larger spatial rivalry in which both countries were involved (Thies 2008).
Political clout and strategies are directly related to events and results in
this larger sphere of operations. Whereas Chile fought various coun-
tries to expand its territory, Argentina found itself defending an already
heavily diminished territory. Significant chunks of what used to be
the viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata, under the jurisdiction of Buenos
Aires, were gradually lost in different battles, forming part of Bolivia
in 1825, the Republic of Uruguay in 1828, and part of Paraguay in 1870
(Romero 1997).
In 1855, the Republic of Chile and the Confederation of Argentina
signed a Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Commerce and Navigation (Luiz
and Schillat 1998: 79). This Treaty referred to the principle of ‘uti pos-
sidetis’, respecting the border between both nations as it existed when
Spanish rule ended in 1810. However, maps for the southern territories
were particularly inadequate and contained sparse information. More-
over, as Argentina and Chile were recovering from the war with Spain
and in search of some internal political stability, both nations aspired
to take over the as yet un-colonised austral territories. As a result, both
Chile and Argentina claimed sovereignty over Patagonia and Tierra del
Fuego (ibid.: 93–94).
In 1843, possession of the Straits of Magellan and its adjacent land was
officially claimed by Chile, and after several earlier attempts the country
finally made good on its claims by founding Punta Arenas in 1848. The
possession of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego for Argentina became more
a matter of consolidation and strategic balance than of any economic
or industrial aspirations. Threatened by the growing strength of Brazil
to the north, and the English presence on the Malvinas/Falklands to
the east, the issue of sovereignty over Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego
became a matter of significance to the Argentine state (ibid.: 81). Chile’s
possession of the Straits of Magellan effectively forced Argentina to react
and hold on to what it believed should be its own.
But protracted negotiations were in store. They were reopened in 1872
by Argentina to try to clarify the possibly troubled contents of the agree-
ment made in 1855. By this time, Chile, however, had changed tack
and responded by laying claim to the entire territory south of latitude
of 44◦ . It argued that it already had a prosperous colony established at
the northern bank of the Straits of Magellan, whereas Argentina had
not yet shown any concrete interest in this area; its settlements lay far
away from the disputed territory (ibid.: 120). Argentina fiercely resisted
these claims, exposing them as mere opportunism, and not backed
by any precedent. In 1876, Chile presented a new proposal, gambling
Peter van Aert 201
with the continental land of Patagonia to achieve its key objective:

securing the Straits of Magellan. Argentina again rejected this proposal
outright.
Then, in 1879, Chile declared war on Peru and Bolivia. Sensing its
moment, Argentina took the initiative. While Chile was preoccupied in
the north, Argentina took definitive action on the Patagonian plains.
Two maritime sub-prefectures were established, in Puerto Deseado and
Río Gallegos, in 1879 to consolidate its sovereignty over the Patagonian
Atlantic coast. And a controversial military campaign, called ‘desierto’,
ruthlessly ended lingering hostilities with indigenous tribes and took
over 84,000 km2 of Patagonian land (Morzone 1982: 57).
Now Argentina’s presence in the south could no longer be denied.
With the Border Treaty of 1881, completed following international
arbitration, continental Patagonia and eastern Tierra del Fuego were
assigned to Argentina; whereas Chile obtained the Straits of Magellan
and its adjacent territories, western Tierra del Fuego and the archipelago
south of the Beagle Channel.
What was now left to settle was Tierra del Fuego, consisting of one
large island (Isla Grande) and countless small fjords on its southern flank.
These negotiations were no longer a matter of gaining as much land
as possible, but of preventing the opponent from obtaining a relative
competitive advantage. A clinical approach was the only way to settle
the matter. Hence the glaringly artificial vertical borderline, crossing the
great island of Tierra del Fuego, from the Atlantic mouth of the Straits of
Magellan to the waters of the Beagle Channel, which marks the border
further eastwards, until flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.
Not long after this agreement, fresh problems arose. Since both parties
now had to identify any positional advantages within the concepts of
the treaty, differences arose in the way the agreement was interpreted.
Tensions were again rising and an ‘Additional Protocol to clarify the
1881 Treaty’ was signed in 1893 (Luiz and Schillat 1998: 97), tightening
the agreements so as to counter any possible friction. But still this was
not enough: in 1896, international intervention was requested to calm
the situation once more, leading to the British Arbitrary Judgement of
1902 (ibid.: 128).
One major issue still remained unresolved: sovereignty over three
small islands at the far eastern side of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago.
The 1881 Treaty had declared that Argentina was granted Staten Island,
and ‘all other islands situated in the Atlantic ocean, east of Tierra del
Fuego’, whereas Chile came to possess ‘all islands south of the Beagle
channel down to Cape Horn’. The islands were not explicitly mentioned
in the agreement, and so both nations laid claims to Picton, Nueva and
Lennox islands. Negotiations to settle ‘the Beagle conflict’ started in
1904, but for decades led nowhere until it nearly erupted into a mili-
tary confrontation in 1978. Since military aggression was not deemed
an effective means of settling land claims by either nation, diplomacy
persevered, finally resulting in the ‘Treaty of Peace and Friendship’ of
1984 – again secured through international political and ecclesiastical
intervention – which assigned all three islets to the Republic of Chile
(ibid.: 126).
Colonisation
Following the 1881 Treaty, both Argentina and Chile commenced

a rapid process of colonisation of their respective Fuegian territory.
That of Chile was characterised by production-based initiatives, while
Argentina, until the 1970s, opted for a consolidation of symbolic state
representation.
With a stable and well-developed urban centre at the Western shore
of the Magellanic Straits, Chile initiated the colonisation of Tierra del
Fuego soon after the 1881 Border Treaty was signed. The discovery of a
trace amount of gold deposits promptly encouraged the start of min-
ing activity on Isla Grande. By 1898, 223 miners were employed in
Chilean territory on the island (Martinic 1981). Some accompanying
merchants and tradespersons settled down on the other shore of the
Strait, where the first Chilean settlement on Fuegian ground arose in
1894, suggestively named Porvenir (literally, Future).
However, the true spin off of the colonising process was not mineral
gold but ‘white gold’, as the production of lamb’s wool was nick-
named. The allotting of large parcels of land – in some cases, up to
180,000 hectares – led to a massive growth in the production and
export of wool from lambs that had been imported originally from the
Malvinas/Falklands. Magellan wool was highly valued on the British
market; the rearing and shearing of more than 250,000 lambs by the
end of the 19th century boosted the social–economic conditions of the
Chilean Magellan region, even though Porvenir, its main urban hub,
had only 151 inhabitants reported for 1990 (Martinic 1981: 79).
Argentina decided to follow suit and also assigned its side of the island
territory to the breeding of lambs. By the end of the 19th century, the
northern steppe had been auctioned into parcels that could each exceed
100,000 hectares. However, no Argentine settlement was yet established
in Fuegian territory. The interior of the island was hardly explored, and
Peter van Aert 203
the relative successful expansion of Chilean investments on the island

resulted in encroachments by Chilean interests into Argentine land,
and of Chilean workers moving into Argentine territory. This led to a
drastic geopolitical intervention by the Argentine national government
in 1972, with the implementation of a Special Customs Area to attract
industrial activity, and with it, voluntary migration from continental
Argentina.
After an early prosperity, the plummeting of wool prices on the inter-
national market stagnated Porvenir’s growth and relativised Tierra de
Fuego’s role in the regional Chilean economy. Only by 1990 was Chilean
Tierra del Fuego declared a province, integrating it within the 12th
province that comprised the ‘Magellan Region and Chilean Antarctic
Lands’. Its capital city would be Porvenir that, according to the last
National Census of 2002, counts 5,416 inhabitants. The same census
revealed a total population of 6,904 inhabitants, distributed over almost
30,000 km2 , making it the third least densely populated of Chile’s 54
provinces.
Things went different on the Argentine side of the border. After the
1881 Treaty, Argentina also moved to consolidate its position in the
region. Santiago was suspected of wanting to expand its borders; since
Chile already had an urban centre at Punta Arenas, Argentine terri-
tory could easily be entered from the western banks of the Straits of
Magellan. Furthermore, considering the presence of various third coun-
tries in Atlantic waters – not only because of the inter-oceanic passage
but also because of the profitable hunting for whales, sea lions and pen-
guins, Argentina felt the necessity to consolidate its possessions on the
Atlantic side as well. In 1884, two sub-prefectures were established in
Tierra del Fuego: one on Staten Island, and the other at Ushuaia on
Isla Grande. Both extreme southern corners of Argentine territory were
hereby occupied.
Soon thereafter, eastern Tierra del Fuego was officially declared a
National Territory, under the administration of the Ministry of Domes-
tic Affairs. Very little power was assigned to the local governor; juridical
and legislative responsibilities rested in the urban centres of continental
Patagonia.
At that time, a sub-prefecture was a division of the national army,
which represented and secured the sovereignty of the territory, guiding
and controlling all navigation in the area. It is thus quite remarkable
that a sub-prefecture was established at Ushuaia, since the Beagle Chan-
nel was not a busy maritime route. And the Anglican mission was the
only so-called ‘civilised’ settlement there. Perhaps the main reason to
establish the sub-prefecture in Ushuaia was to use the mission’s local

knowledge to facilitate the administration of what was then left of the
local, indigenous population.
After the 1895 national census, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego’s only settle-
ment, counted 39 houses, 39 families and 313 inhabitants, indigenous
population excluded. Any growth during the first years of its existence
is hardly noticeable. This led to a push by both the territorial governor
and the national government to design a project to stimulate population
growth. Voluntary settlement was scarce, and for that reason the idea to
establish a penal colony was mooted, following the example of various
other island colonies such as New Caledonia (by France) and Australia
(by Britain). This idea was soon accepted as the most expedient and
practical way to catalyse Fuegian progress, and which afterwards would
hopefully attract voluntary migration (Basalo 1981: 87–88). Establishing
such a penal colony in Ushuaia would not only offer a solution to actual
socio-political problems to the acceptance and function of new peniten-
tiaries, but would reinforce physical sovereignty over Tierra del Fuego by
the Argentine state. The plan was approved and the prison opened its
doors in 1902. This prompted the first proper urban development when
the prison guards and support staff settled in Ushuaia.
But the hope for trickle effect in terms of population growth did not
materialise. In 1947, Argentine president Perón ordered the prison to be
shut down. Moreover, unfolding international developments foresaw a
new destiny for Ushuaia.
Argentina had found itself in a political and economic impasse. The
country had declared its neutrality during the Second World War, where-
upon the United States openly condemned the passivity of Argentina
and boycotted the country economically. The US Marshall Plan pro-
hibited any financial aid assigned to European countries to be used for
trade with Argentina. The country felt threatened and at the brink of
another military conflict. Consequently, the military presence in the
south needed to be expanded, and the distance between Buenos Aires
and its southern periphery had to be reduced. In 1948, the Naval Air
Station of Ushuaia was opened; in 1950, a naval base was installed in
Ushuaia, occupying the buildings of the former penitentiary.
Finally, in 1957, the Argentine government redefined the borders of
its southern National Territory, incorporating the Malvinas/Falklands,
the Southern Georgia Islands, the Southern Sandwich Islands and the
Antarctic sector between the Meridians 25◦ W and 74◦ W and the Paral-
lel 60◦ S up to the South Pole (0◦ S). This vast territory was supervised
from the naval air base in Ushuaia, catapulting the settlement into key
Peter van Aert 205
strategic importance. The naval base quickly changed the character of

the city by opening up a commercial market and creating a more res-
idential atmosphere: the marines were not captives but inhabitants of
Ushuaia, and had moved there with their families. The city was also
connected by air to the rest of the nation in an unprecedented way.
After the provincialisation of Santa Cruz in 1972, the whole continen-
tal area of Argentina was divided into various provinces, designating
peripheral regions as National Territories. In the same year, national
legislation created three distinct fiscal areas within the incorporated
national borders: a General Regime (Régimen General), which comprises
the continental area of Argentina; the Special Customs Area (Aerea
Aduanera Especial) operative in Tierra del Fuego; and a Free Trade Zone
(Zona Franca), which covers the South Atlantic Islands and that part of
Antarctica to which Argentina has laid claim.
The General Regime upholds national policies of tax and trade. The
Free Trade Zone applies exceptions with regard to taxes on commodi-
ties. This is a tax-free zone and is regarded as a transit market. The
Special Customs Area goes further: not only are goods exempt from any
import or value added tax, but companies also do not pay taxes on prof-
its and individuals do not pay taxes on income. The transportation of
goods and people between this zone and others is tightly supervised;
but, within its borders, one is free from levies and taxes. Since the intro-
duction of this law, Tierra del Fuego has offered a major tax advantage
to both corporate firms and individual inhabitants.
This far-reaching measure was mainly implemented to attract volun-
tary migration of Argentine residents to the island. It can be justified
when taking into account the demographic disadvantage of Argentina
in a context of growing tensions with Chile. In 1947, almost half (44%)
of the population of this region was Chilean; but, given the continu-
ous immigration of Chileans to the area, this grew to nearly 70 per cent
by 1970. The main hub for this growth was the urban settlement of
Punta Arenas, already with 63,000 residents by 1970. Argentina feared a
Chilean invasion.
In March 1976, a coup ended the Peronist era. The incoming mili-
tary junta faced a serious financial crisis: a recession with high rates of
inflation. Following liberalising reforms in the UK and the US, a similar
free market policy was considered more capable to equally discipline all
actors, stimulating efficiency and preventing uncompetitive corporative
behaviour (Romero 2001: 212). The social and economic protectionist
measures of the Peronist regime were dismantled; foreign investment
was encouraged.
Many local enterprises in the textile, food and electronics sectors fled
to the south in order to survive the invasion of foreign industry. This
ushered in the incidental industrialisation of Tierra del Fuego: more and
more companies were unable to withstand foreign competition and, in
order to survive, were obliged to move to the protected zone of Tierra
del Fuego. Here, state subsidies and tax advantages protected industries
from certain bankruptcy. From 1980 to 1987, the number of industrial
establishments in Tierra del Fuego grew nearly 250 per cent while the
total resident labour force grew by over ten times: from 45 establish-
ments with a total staff of 600 in 1980, to 109 establishments with a
total staff of 6,720 in 1987. What had been a largely naval community
in Ushuaia was swamped by new industrial activities, which brought
along a continuous stream of migrants. Río Grande, a former mission-
ary post on the Atlantic shore, was converted within two decades into
an industrial city of immigrants from all over Argentina and bordering
countries.
In 1990, the last and southernmost Argentine province was created
and baptised Tierra del Fuego, Antártida e Islas del Atlántico Sur, through
which it also lays claim to the Islas Malvinas/Falklands, various south
Atlantic Islands and a part of Antarctica (the triangular wedge between
Meridians 25◦ W and 74◦ W and Latitude 60◦ S).
Repercussions of border dynamics
Colonisation processes, geopolitical interventions, national political

transformations and global market fluctuations have had significantly
different impacts on the social construction of the two national terri-
tories that comprise Isla Grande of Tierra del Fuego. The 2011 census
reports 127,000 residents on the Argentine side, whereas the latest
official numbers (from the 2002 Census) indicate less than 7,000
inhabitants on the Chilean side. These numbers evince a clearly dif-
ferent colonisation strategy, undoubtedly related to the presence of the
Chilean city of Punta Arenas, now with about 120,000 inhabitants, just
across the Straits of Magellan.
Political and economic relations between the now capital cities of
Punta Arenas (Region of Magallanes and Antártica Chilena) and Ushuaia
(Province of Tierra del Fuego, Antártida e Islas del Atlántico Sur) origi-
nated from before the Border Treaty; but following the ratification of
borders and sovereignty over territory, official contacts were frozen,
turning trade partners into political rivals for over a century. Within
the geographical limits of a single island, two territories arose, intensely
Peter van Aert 207
suspicious of each other. It is only recently that these have expressed

some interest in regional integration, stimulated by national policies of
regional integration and institutionalised by the creation of the South-
ern Common Market, (Mercado Común del Sur, or MERCOSUR) in 1991
and the Union de Naciones Suramericanos (UNASUR) in 2008.
Conclusion
For the past two centuries, the relation between Argentina and Chile
has been overshadowed by reciprocal accusations of expansionism. The
arbitral award of 1977, which was to end the Beagle Conflict assigning
the three islets at stake to the republic of Chile, was signed by Queen
Elizabeth II on a moment that Argentina as well as Chile held on to their
respective representation of national territory prior to the Border treaty
of 1881. School books in both countries still claimed sovereignty of the
entire Patagonian peninsula even eight decades after the first agreement
was signed (Lacoste 2003). The idea of an expansionist Chile was pop-
ularised in Argentina through the national media, which created the
fertile grounds for a ‘massive mobilisation of troops and arms towards
the border on that edgy Christmas of 1978’ (ibid.: 380). The conflict did
not erupt into cannon fire, but did bring the bitter taste of the 5,150-km
border twist to the surface.
The representation of being a constant threat to the other catalysed
many geopolitical interventions by both young nation-states to disin-
tegrate frontier dynamics, such as the trade circuits between agrarians
of northern Patagonia and markets in the southern Chile (Bandieri
2002). The construction of railroads and the relocation of urban centres
that would realign these activities towards the Atlantic were initiatives
applied simultaneously, with the opening of the penitentiary in Ushuaia
and the allotting of the plains in northern Tierra del Fuego at the turn
of the 21st century. In this sense, following the distinction made by
Bandieri (2002) between the notion of a frontier and that of a border,
the social space implicated in frontier regions was gradually disinte-
grated by the authoritarian imposition of limiting borders. The political
economy of Tierra del Fuego, being one of the primary settings of the
long-lasting border conflict that tended towards social disintegration,
must be understood in the context of these processes.
As most border struggles aggravated on account of political engi-
neering of military governments, since the last dictatorship in both
countries came to an end (1983 in Argentina, 1990 in Chile) relations
have improved. The democratisation of public and private institutions
in both countries facilitated a gradual decline of rivalry, and stimulated

a change in the perception towards the neighbouring country (Lacoste
2003). Not only in political sense were improvements felt, but also
in the field of economic cooperation things changed rapidly. By the
year 2000, Argentina’s export to Chile had climbed to over two bil-
lion US dollars, which made it the third export market with close to
7 per cent of total exports. The same year, Chile exported over one bil-
lion US dollars to Argentina, which represented 5 per cent of its sales
abroad, lifting Argentina to the fifth place in Chile’s export ranking
(ibid.: 383). In 2010, the commercial balance between Argentina and
Chile climbed to US$5.8 billion; of which US$4.7 billion are Argentine
exports (Cámara Aduanera Chile 2011).
The latest tendencies of growing cooperation have encouraged polit-
ical leaders of both countries to fit in the notion of regional integration
into their discourses, in that way explicitly abandoning the repelling
politics applied during the clash on border issues. This brings to mind
the interesting question whether the notion of a region can hold pro-
jecting it onto the southernmost confine of the continent. After all,
Tierra del Fuego is the name of a region that was afterwards divided
into two national territories.
Following Matteucci (1998: 120), we can understand a region ‘as a
construction whose character depends on the objectives of the region-
alisation process. Therefore, there is always more than one possible
regionalisation for any given territory’. In this manner, its applicabil-
ity depends on ‘its construction from the social interactions that define
it as such in terms of space and time’ (Bandieri 1996: 80). Exploring
the cross-border cooperation in Tierra del Fuego therefore implies an
analytic approach of Tierra del Fuego as a region. This brings us back
to the fundamental question of this chapter: How has the territori-
alisation of Tierra del Fuego impacted the political economy on the
island? By means of final reflection, we can propose a hypothesis that
may inform future research for the better understanding of the social
construction of the Fuegian territory and its cross-border relations.
The above pages have shown how both territories underwent dif-
ferent impacts through different kinds of state interventions. While
nearly 8,000 people live in the Chilean segment, the Argentine part
of the island is host to almost 130,000. Productive capacity between
both territories is therefore very unequal. But also the nature of produc-
tive activity is extremely different; Chilean Tierra del Fuego represents
few private companies, most of them orientated to the primary sector,
while the Argentine counterpart, through the industrial promotion and
Peter van Aert 209
the exploitation of hydrocarbon fields off shore, count various multi-

national oil companies and manufacturers. Where Chilean Tierra del
Fuego leans on the regional economy, boosted by Punta Arenas across
from the Straits of Magellan, Argentine Tierra del Fuego takes advan-
tage of the presence of oil and gas fields off the Atlantic coast, and
tax benefits on industrial production sustained by national law. Since
these benefits only count on exports towards continental Argentina,
none of the promoted industrial production is exported to Chile. How-
ever, Argentina does export hydrocarbon-based products from Tierra
del Fuego to Chile, worth no less than US$526 million in 2011. Not
much of these exports, naturally, are destined to Chilean Tierra del
Fuego.
The productive activity that does presuppose a complementary char-
acter is that of tourism. In 2009, Tierra del Fuego attracted close
to 300,000 tourists, of which 70 per cent during summer months
(Municipalidad de Ushuaia 2011). According to research undertaken by
the Secretary of Tourism for Ushuaia, the motives for tourists to travel
to the so-called uttermost part of the world has little to do with its polit-
ical division. The spectacular natural landscape, the imaginary of ‘The
End of the World’, the proximity to the Antarctic continent, are the
key reasons for travel; they are totally indifferent to which state pos-
sesses the valuable resources, and how they are divided. Indeed, the
circuit that absorbs large tourist flows includes Punta Arenas, Ushuaia,
Cape Horn and Antarctica; it is a trans-national itinerary that leads to a
shared dependency on tourism receipts (Daverio and Luiz 2002). With
this significant economic activity in place, one would expect strategic
initiatives on behalf of both Chilean and Argentine policy makers in
favour of bilateral cooperation to stimulate an integral exploitation of
the region and introduce smooth custom procedures. And yet, not much
progress has been made in this respect; there are no companies active
on both sides of the border and custom procedures are fastidious. More-
over, although an excursion from Ushuaia to Chilean Isla Navarino on
the other side of the Beagle Channel would further improve the local
tourist offer enormously, regulations prohibit the commercialisation of
this international crossway.
Arguably, in spite of recently improved relations between the two
neighbouring nations, memories of the Beagle Conflict still resonate
in local political circles. Moreover, Argentina’s and Chile’s claims on
Antarctica partly overlap (respectively 74◦ W–25◦ W, and 90◦ W–53◦ W):
this is a pending and potentially delicate geopolitical matter that could
seriously hamper fraternal reconciliation.
To conclude, this preliminary interpretation of the facts suggests

that there are the seeds of a distinct international political economy
for Tierra del Fuego. An increase in economic cooperation between
both regions and countries could benefit their sustainable development.
Governments, local and national, do not appear so keen to facilitate
cross-border dynamics, however. What does appear clear is that the bor-
der that separates the two parts of the Great Island of Tierra del Fuego,
part of a process that led both Argentina and Chile to develop their
own national identity, has perhaps been the most determinant factor
of the Island’s contemporary history. The social construction of modern
Tierra del Fuego is not so much a story of extreme latitudes, indige-
nous past or colonial interests. It is a story of a line drawn in space
that for decades has stifled arguments and initiatives for the pursuit
of the regional integration and shared identity of two alienated yet
uncomfortably neighbouring territories.
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12
Bolshoi Ussuriiski/Heixiazi
Akihiro Iwashita
Introduction
A large river delta between the Ussuri and Amur rivers (or the
Heilongjiang and Wusuli rivers, in Mandarin Chinese) is the site of
a series of serious challenges between China and Russia for many
centuries. The delta is almost 350 km2 in area and is located very
close to Khabarovsk, the capital city of the Russian Far East. It includes
two sparsely inhabited islands, called Bolshoi Ussuriiski and a smaller
Tarabarov island (as known in Russian) or Heixiazi and Yinlong,
respectively (in Mandarin). This remote delta area has been occupied by
Russia since 1929, but China has maintained its claims to this territory.
Deadlock over the future of this region has proved to be the main
obstacle towards the full resolution of Sino-Soviet border disputes for
various decades. The dispute led to the Zhenbao/Damanskii military
clash in 1969 and drove the two countries to the edge of a nuclear
war. Since 2004, a ‘fifty-fifty’ solution has finally been implemented and
agreed to by both sides.
This chapter is based on archival research, a critical perusal of recent
Russian and Chinese newspapers, and fieldwork undertaken by the
author in the affected region late in 2011. It explores the unfolding
of the challenges and claims raised by Russia and China on this delta
region, up to its (very recent) division. Even a 2001 Treaty for Good
Neighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation had failed to resolve the
delta issue after repeated high-level talks on the matter. This chapter also
examines the somewhat uncertain path being now pursued to chart the
region’s future. Both China and Russia are now promoting the delta as
a working example of ‘one island, two countries’; but the operational
details still need to be fleshed out, to the satisfaction of the parties
212
Akihiro Iwashita 213
concerned. The happy resolution of the Bol’shoi Ussuriiski/Heixiazi

conundrum may indeed provide the key to a broader resolution of bor-
der disputes and an eventual stabilisation of Sino-Russian relations. The
two governments appear enthusiastic in promoting the merits of this,
quite unique, resolution of a border dispute involving islands. They
augur that the citizens of both countries, and particularly those inhab-
iting the border regions under discussion, would be able to develop a
trans-national, cross-border system of economic and cultural cooper-
ation. This would include a special freedom of movement, the right
to be able to stay and/or go back and forth across the border without
any restrictions. Details about the divided island, and the two countries
involved in the case, are provided in Table 12.1.
Table 12.1 Bolshoi Ussuriiski (Russia) and Heixiazi (China)
Bolshoi Ussuriiski Heixiazi
Political Status Part of administrative Part of Fuyuan county,

division of Heilongjiang province,
Khabarovsk Krai, People’s Republic of
Russia China (PRC)
Capital City Moscow Beijing
Population (2011) Probably less than Barely inhabited
100 inhabitants all
year round
Resident population density Very low Very low
(persons/km2 )
% of population that lives in None None
Urban Areas
Life expectancy in years (2009) 63 for men; 75 for 71 for men; 75 for
women (in Russia) women (in PRC)
% annual population growth –0.47% (for Russia) +0.49% (for PRC)
GNP per capita (US$) 13,200 (2011) for 8,400 (2011) for PRC
Russia
Standing on human 66th out of 187 101st out of 187
development index (2011) countries (Russia) countries (PRC)
% of population below poverty 13% 2.8%
line (2009)
Adult (15+) Literacy rate (%) 99.5% 94%
Main language(s) Spoken Russian Mandarin (Standard
Chinese), Cantonese
Currency (exchange rate as at Russian Rouble Chinese Yuan
March 2012) (1US$ = 29.4 RUB) Renminbi (1US$ = 6.3
CNY)
214 Bolshoi Ussuriiski/Heixiazi
Roots of confrontation
Understanding why the resolution of the delta border has been so prob-
lematic for China and Russia involves a foray into history. Yet, such
a backdrop does not help much in shedding light on the claims and
counter-claims of the two sides. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Russian and
Chinese historians do not agree amongst themselves as to the back-
ground conditions that led to the disputed territory. Moscow never
recognised the inequality of the past treaties, which Beijing claims, were
imposed on China by Russia in the 19th century. The protracted nego-
tiations are indicative of the high sensitivity and symbolic value of the
territory in question (Maxwell 2007, Ryabushkin 2007). Now, after the
resolution that came into force in 2008, it appears that the Solomonic
‘fifty-fifty’ solution would work well as a mechanism for decoupling a
tortuous history with serious spatial challenges from a bone of con-
tention and a regional ‘hot spot’ to an area of economic and border
cooperation.
The initial bone of contention was not the Amur–Ussuri delta itself,
but control over a river (Iwashita 2004). After the Aigun Treaty of 1858
and the Peking Treaty of 1860, an emboldened Russian empire took con-
trol over the Amur and Ussuri rivers and stretched its power towards
the Sea of Japan and the Korean Peninsula; while China under the
Qing Dynasty, then engaged in and distracted by its Second Opium
War, was pushed back from the coastal regions around the Sea of Japan.
These treaties reversed the outcome of the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) in
Russia’s favour, and basically established what remains today as the gen-
erally disposition of the long Sino-Russian border. China described these
as ‘unequal treaties’ because they were imposed unilaterally, rather than
negotiated by two nations that treated each other as equals (Hsü 1970:
239); hence Beijing was under no moral obligation to honour or accept
their terms. Indeed, China continued to claim the ceded lands at this
delta region persistently, and regardless of regime changes – whether as
the Republic of China, Manchukuo, Taiwan or as the People’s Republic
of China. Interestingly, these treaties provided for the inhabitants along
the Amur, Sungari and Ussuri rivers to be allowed to trade with each
other, with all restrictions on trade being lifted.
A closer look at the specific geography of the area helps one to bet-
ter understand what is at stake: as the Amur River widens near the city
of Khabarovsk, it merges with the Ussuri River at a number of spots.
The delta, effectively a sand bar, called Bolshoi Ussuriiski or Heixiazi, is
located where the two rivers conjoin. One juncture, north of the delta,
is 30 km away from Khabarovsk – with some 570,000 residents, the

second largest city in the Russian far east, after Vladivostock – while
another juncture is further south, between the delta and the Chinese
city of Wusuzhen. The channel bounding the southern sides of Bolshoi
Ussuriiski/Heixiazi has at least three different names – Xiaotongjiangzi,
Fuyuanshuidao, Kazakevichevo – reflecting its keenly contested status.
The last of these is the current Russian name, identical to the name
of a Russian village on the right bank of the Ussuri River and which
originates from Petr Kazakevich, a Russian representative during Sino-
Russian border negotiations in 1861. When settlements are named after
border negotiators, they alert us to the heavy nationalist baggage of
border work.
The disagreements about what to do with the delta region were trig-
gered by which of the two Amur–Ussuri junctures should be considered
as the main one: the south or the north? An interpretation of inter-
national norms and arguments was the basis for discussion. But both
China and Russia wanted to acquire maximum control over the river
delta. According to Article 1 of the 1858 Aigun Treaty, the left bank
from the Argun River to the mouth of the Amur River belonged to
Russia, while the right bank to the Ussuri River belonged to China.
Russia argued that the Kazakevichevo channel (or Fuyuan channel, to
the Chinese) is a branch of the Amur River. Accordingly, the Ussuri
River comes to an end at the south junction point near the village of
Kazakevichevo, and a stream flowing from it could be taken as being
a tributary of the Amur River. If the Ussuri River stops before the
beginning of the delta, the delta should then technically be considered
Russian territory.
China argued differently. It had first claimed the delta back officially
in 1906. Beijing emphasised that the north junction is a natural border;
the Fuyuanshuidao channel is not the main stream of the Amur at all
but only a narrow and shallow rivulet. Moreover, the stream flowing
to the west of both Bolshoi Ussuriiski/Heixiazi and Tarabarov/Yinlong
islands was an integral part of the Ussuri River. The Russian geogra-
phers disagreed with China’s assertion: since the water flowing in the
Kazakevichevo channel ran through the Amur River to the Ussuri River,
the delta was formed by the sediment left by water flowing out of the
Amur River, which was undeniably Russian.
Marine geography apart, other claims could be lodged in terms of set-
tlement history. But who were the first people to live in that sparsely
populated region? Neither country could come up with long-standing
historic claims. From the Russian point of view, the name assigned to
Tarabarov Island originated from the first settlers on the delta, but these
came on the scene well after the Aigun Treaty of 1858. A jetty was
built on the delta and the village of Ussuriiski was founded there in
1895. Chinese historic records indicate that Chinese Han people had
already lived on the delta and were practicing farming and fishing by
1901. Chinese records also refer to Russia prohibiting Chinese ships
from navigating on the north river channel of the delta since 1911;
although Chinese ships could once again navigate freely from 1918 to
1923 as a result of Russia’s weakness just after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Russia then had expelled all Chinese residents from the delta region
and completely controlled the islands and the surrounding channels
following the so-called Chinese Eastern Railway Incident of 1929, where
the Soviet Union reversed a Chinese incursion into a complete Russian
victory (Patrikeeff 2002). In short, Russia’s exclusive control of Bolshoi
Ussuriiski and Tarabarov had been active since 1929, in spite of the sub-
sequent protests of the Kuomintang and subsequent Chinese political
leadership.
From military clash to reconciliation
Officially, the first Sino-Russian border negotiations took place in 1963–

1964. At that point, the Soviet Union almost accepted the thalweg
principle – which joins the lowest points along the entire length of a
riverbed or valley – and today a major navigation principle for the delim-
itation of river borders. The spirit of the negotiations suggested that
the USSR was quite prepared to transfer the numerous islets that appar-
ently belonged to the Chinese part of the rivers. If this were realised,
Zhenbao/Damanskii Island would have been transferred to China with-
out any military conflict in the 1960s. However, Russia urged China
to accept one condition in exchange for the acceptance of this princi-
ple: that the delta, along with Bolshoi Ussuriiski, Tarabarov and other
islets between the Amur and the Ussuri rivers, would all remain an inte-
gral part of Russia. China refused the proposed swap and demanded
once again that the delta be returned back to China. Since this proposal
was intended as an all-inclusive package deal, negotiations reached a
stalemate. The 7,000-plus-km Sino-Soviet border became a dangerous
non-regulated line, and border guards from both countries were forced
to watch over it with heightened tension.
Finally, the frustrated Chinese decided to break the political stale-
mate by encroaching on what was felt to be Russia’s ‘weak’ defensive
line, on the Ussuri River near the location of Zhenbao/Damanskii island
(with a land area of just 0.74 km2 , and so flat that it would easily dis-
appear under water during flooding). The main disputed island in that
stretch of the river was, then, neighbouring Qiliqin/Kirkinskii Island,
3 km to the north. Soviet Union had a military unit stationed to defend
Kirkinskii, but not Damanskii. In March 1969, China launched a surprise
attack on the few Russian border guards patrolling Damanskii; this accel-
erated mobilisation along the whole Sino-Soviet border. China launched
other incursions into Soviet territory along other parts of the Amur. The
conflict over Zhenbao/Damanskii raised concerns that it could ignite
another world war, until an initial resolution of the conflict was secured
in November 1969 following a meeting by Alexei Kosygin and Chou-
En Lai. By virtue of this agreement, Soviet border guards were ordered
not to prevent a renewed incursion into both Zhenbao/Damanskii and
Qiliqin/Kirkinskii by the persistent Chinese. It was not until May 1991,
however, that the two sides officially agreed that both Zhenbao and
Qiliqin islands were part of the territory of the People’s Republic of
China (Naumov 2006: 192).
Full-scale negotiations over the border issue were resumed only after
Gorbachev’s Vladivostok speech of 1986, where he indicated the USSR’s
willingness to establish cordial and long-lasting peaceful relations with
its neighbours (e.g. Lapidus 1987). In 1987, Russia and China reaffirmed
the constructive results of the 1964 consultations and agreed to demar-
cate the river border based, again, on the thalweg principle. But the
devil, as they say, lies in the details. Most delimitation issues on the Sino-
Soviet 4,300-km-long eastern border, from Mongolia to North Korea,
were finally resolved after a couple of tough negotiation rounds (Kireev
2006). The delta near Khabarovsk between the Amur and the Ussuri
rivers remained, however, ‘a thorn in the side of peaceful Sino-Russian
relations’ (Levenstein 2011).
For a moment, it looked like the 1960s all over again: Gorbachev
hoped to conclude the package deal with the Amur–Ussuri delta remain-
ing in Russia’s hands, in exchange for giving China hundreds of
islands along the disputed rivers on the basis of the thalweg princi-
ple; but China never accepted the offer (Iwashita 2005a, 2005b). Once
again, negotiations faced an ‘all or nothing’ scenario just like in the
Khrushchev era; but both sides finally agreed to decouple the most dif-
ficult delta’s fate from other issues that had already been resolved on
paper. Agreement was reached on 98 per cent of the disputed territory
(Iwashita 2008, 2009). The 1991 agreement on the Sino-Soviet eastern
boundary was conceived in this way by excluding the fate of the delta
to future negotiations. This agreement not only reflected the seriousness
of the challenges, and highlighted the strategic and symbolic impor-

tance of the disputed delta region to both sides; but it also paved the
way to an eventual solution, thanks to considerable confidence building
(Hyer 1996).
A long way to a final decision
The collapse of the Soviet Union added a new urgency to the pend-
ing negotiations. The Russian Primorsky region, next to Khabarovsk,
was the site of an anti-Chinese demonstration against the 1991 agree-
ment, which had allowed China to wrest back several territories that
had belonged to Russia for over a century. Damanskii Island became
a symbol of Russia’s weakness in conceding land to the Chinese bully.
Besides, there was a largely unmanageable influx of Chinese immigrants
to the Russian Far East: an outcome of a visa-free regime for Chinese
workers and by the sheer impossibility of registering and controlling the
passage of foreign visitors and guest workers along the enormous border.
Local Russian sentiments in the region were galvanised against what
they perceived as a ‘China threat’. Even more recently, the Damanskii
Island incident ‘still looms large in the mind of the older generation,
and in the senior echelons of the armed forces in particular’ (Kuhrt
2007: 112).
The Khabarovsk city authorities also insisted at the time that a seri-
ous security threat would materialise if the Amur–Ussuri delta, not too
far from their city, were transferred to China. They also mentioned the
significant economic damage that would result to local citizens, many
of whom had practised agriculture on Bolshoi Ussuriiski for many years.
They particularly criticised Moscow for granting Chinese ships, includ-
ing military vessels, the right to navigate freely on the river channels
near the city. The Khabarovsk authorities were also wary of the possible
‘joint use’ of the disputed islands. If such an arrangement were put in
place for both Bolshoi Ussuriiski and Tarabarov, then the disputed delta
region would be open to Chinese influence, even if it were to remain
notionally under Russian jurisdiction. They were concerned that there
would be a rush of Chinese settlers on those islands facing Khabarovsk
in order to establish permanent settlements there and use them as a
base from which to conduct business. Local newspapers in Khabarovsk
insisted on the legitimacy and legality of Russia’s possession of and con-
trol over the two islands and of China’s presumed malicious and evil
intent towards them. One widespread but groundless rumour, fuelled
by Russian sinophobia, and which had spread all over Russia since 1998,
was that China was secretly filling in a narrow gap in the Kazakevichevo
channel in order to get Heixiazi back.
Rumour or no rumour, the people of Khabarovsk felt justified in
have an uneasy feeling about the future of the two islands. In July
2001, when Russia and China were preparing to sign a 20-year Treaty
of Good Neighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation, Russia showed
considerable interest in having all remaining problems on the territo-
rial issue resolved in time for the signing of the treaty (Ministry of
Foreign Affairs – China 2001). During this time, a story was being
circulated: Russian president Vladimir Putin hoped to hand Abagaitui
Islet (58 km2 ) on the Argun, another of the few remaining dis-
puted areas, over to China in return for keeping the delta between
the Amur and the Ussuri rivers under Russia’s control. China, once
again, is said to have rejected Russia’s proposal. Rumours of ‘a secret
Chinese plot to fill in the Kazakevichevo Channel’ persisted. But there
were also some encouraging developments: a 700-m floating pon-
toon bridge between Bolshoi Ussuriiski and Osinovaia Rechka, on the
way to the village of Kazakevichevo, was built in 1995, providing
the first ever fixed link between the disputed island and the Russian
mainland.
The ‘fifty-fifty’ solution: drawing a new border on the island
Few expected any solution over the near future, but a surprise was
in store. A high-level summit meeting between China and Russia in
14 October 2004, put a sudden end to all remaining border disputes,
including the lingering delta question. The solution that had been
reached was leaked to the public just after Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao
had declared a historic ‘win-win’ resolution for finalising all pending
territorial problems: all remaining disputed islands would be divided
between Russia and China on the basis of a clinical, ‘fifty-fifty’ solution.
As far as Bolshoi Ussuriiski and Tarabarov islands on the Amur river
delta were concerned, they would be partitioned in almost equal halves:
Tarabarov (some 40 km2 ) was handed over to China in its entirety; but
Bolshoi Ussuriiski (some 300 km2 ) would be partitioned off such that, in
total, both countries each ended up with some 160–170 km2 of the delta
in all. That meant that some 120–130 km2 of Bolshoi Ussuriiski were
handed over to China; while the remaining 160–170 km2 remained in
Russia. (The exact size of the land area remains unclear; it is subject to
a continual erosion and silt deposition underway because of the actions
of the rivers.)
Admittedly, both sides continued a round of secret negotiations for

dealing with the remaining disputed islands. It seems that every imag-
inable attempt was being made to prevent the partition of small islands.
Russia even proposed to provide China with some surplus destroyers
in exchange for the whole of Heixiazi Island (Iwashita 2005b). China
refused, and in turn, suggested it would give up Heixiazi in exchange
for some territory around the Tumen River, which would provide access
to the Sea of Japan. It was Russia’s turn to decline the offer.
The ‘fifty-fifty’ policy was clearly a last resort. Both sides had avoided
splitting whole islands, preferring instead to maintain a single and
unambiguous management and governance structure for what were
very small island spaces. This ‘Judgment of Solomon’ type solution had
however been tried before: in 1997, when China and Russia had agreed
to divide a disputed area of some 300 hectares in the Khazan region, near
the trilateral Sino-Russia-Korean border: 140 of these hectares remained
Russian; and 160 hectares moved to China (Iwashita 2007). That prob-
ably represented the first case of the ‘fifty-fifty’ formula being used
to resolve a land dispute through a political judgement. Once such a
precedent had been set, similar cases followed in the western section of
the former Sino-Soviet borderlands in dispute. The 1998 Sino-Kazakh
agreement, the 1999 Sino-Kyrgyz agreement and the 2002 Sino-Tajik
agreement resolved all remaining disputes through the ‘fifty-fifty’ for-
mula. The results did not necessarily mean dividing territories in exactly
equal halves; rather, there was an emphasis placed on a political decision
for balancing mutual claims and benefits. These were pragmatic depar-
tures from a ‘winner takes all’ strategy that was clearly unacceptable to
one of the parties.
The ‘fifty-fifty’ deal over the Amur–Ussuri river delta was most likely
hatched in May–June 2004. The plan was carefully kept away from
the public eye, while the concerned parties laid the groundwork for
implementation. The then Governor of Khabarovsk city, Viktor Ishaev,
had long resisted the (even partial) transfer of Bolshoi Ussuriiski and
Tarabarov islands to China in the 1990s; how he was eventually per-
suaded to support the deal, even if begrudgingly, was most likely a
crucial detail for realising the success of the division. He pretended to
mull over the deal when it was finally made public; but he must have
been informed about the matter beforehand and seemed unable to reject
the deal.
The ‘fifty-fifty’ formula presented both a loss and a victory to either
party. It also allowed for some attempts to balance each country’s
national and local interests, as much as its pride; and so, the details
of the agreement are crucial. Would Russian farms, dachas, churches

and military equipment on the islands remain under Russian control?
Would China exercise control over the Kazakevichevo channel of the
Amur River? The details on bordering must depend on the actual work
demarcating the site following the agreement. As things turned out, it
was not until July 2008 that both sides signed the protocol for the 2004
agreement and agreed to finalise all necessary procedures (Weitz 2008).
On 14 October 2008 – exactly four years to the day of the agreement –
China and Russia celebrated the opening of new boundary makers on
the delta with a formal ceremony (The Economist 2008).
The full details of the demarcation process were revealed to the public
in 2008; a final challenge to the protracted Sino-Russian negotiations
over the Ussuri–Amur river delta could still have reared its head at this
point, squabbling over the actual realisation of the demarcation line
drawn according to the 2004 agreement. Had the line been drawn as
an exact straight from the designated point along the Amur River to
that on the Ussuri River near Kazakevichevo, a chapel, dedicated to
St Victor, that Russia had firmly claimed as its own would have had
to be transferred to China (see 2nd inset to Map 12.1). The details of
the 2004 agreement, however, successfully resolved this quandary by
shifting the proposed straight line slightly to the west. Other challenges
were happily resolved by devising several carving points for boundary
demarcation.
Asymmetry of division
The case of Bolshoi Ussuriiski/Heixiazi is the only known case of a pop-

ulated, albeit small, island divided between two countries on the basis
of a presumably fair compromise: an almost equal division of land area
(rather than, for example, on the basis of geographic expediency).
But the novelty of the situation does not stop there: in 2010, China
and Russia issued a joint programme for the mutual development of
the delta. The two separate plans look similar: the goal is to enhance
local economic activity, set up a tourist and recreation zone and guaran-
tee the rich ecological diversity on the delta islands. Both also agree to
open a border checkpoint and promote the free entry and exit of person-
nel within the islands as if they were unified with no barriers (Iwashita
2004). There are various ongoing plans for the development of these
islands: they include conservation areas and buffer zones, military facil-
ities, a security tower, customs office, along with shopping and rest areas
for visitors. These are outlined on Map 12.1.
222
Map 12.1 Details of the Russia-China border along the Ussuri/Heilongjiang and Amur/Wusuli river deltas
The plans on the Chinese side are much more ambitious. A bridge
between Wusu and the islands is nearing completion; the wetland area is
identified; some buildings connected to the conservation experimental
area have been built; and the commercial and travel areas are under
construction. Such progress is in sharp contrast to that on the Russian
side, where minimal investments have been made.
This has been the common and conventional scenario observed on
the Sino-Russian borderscape: a China eager to exploit opportunities
presented by cross-border dynamics; and a rather inactive Russia con-
cerned with what may be happening at its doorstep. Some experiments
in Sino-Russian cross-border cooperation had already been introduced
in the 1990s. Then, there were plans for free trade and exchange for
both Chinese and Russian citizens in various border regions: Manzhouli-
Zabaikalsk (at a special zone near an international railway and the
boundary between Inner Mongolia and Chita region), Great Heihe
Island (on the Amur River between Heihe and Blagoveschensk) and
Suifenhe-Pogranychnye and Dongning-Poritavka (at a special zone
between Heilongjiang province and Primorsky region). Most of these
cases followed a similar pattern: China was the more eager of the two
parties and has been keen to inaugurate these plans and complete its
own reforms first; while Russia agreed to the plan as a whole but delayed
the project for decades with hardly any progress being made.
For most of these cross-border experiments, the original plan has had
to be changed. China border cities – such as Manzhouli, Heihe and
Suifenhe – were much too developed to open themselves to Russians as a
‘special economic zone’ with visa exemptions. In contrast, Russian bor-
der cities – such as Blagoveschensk and Pogranychnye – allowed Chinese
nationals to enter with visa exemptions, but do not provide a ‘special
economic zone,’ although here was some moderate economic develop-
ment. In the Manzholi–Zabaikalsk special zone, no progress has been
made at all on the Russian part of the zone; the same situation exists
with regard to the special zone on Great Heihe Island. In August 2011,
a 4.53-km2 zone on the Suifenhe–Pogranychnye border was sanctioned
for ‘free-tax trade’; but the original plan had been laid out back in 1994.
The road to borderless transactions is a slow and tortuous one, at best.
The same applies to the joint Heixiazi–Bolshoi Ussuriiski development
plans. A free trade shopping area and an industrial park are planned; the
latter geared to house factories making products for the Russian mar-
ket. The joint development of roads, bridges, seaports, and an airport to
link Heixiazi with Khabarovsk, and ‘to jointly develop the entire China–
Russia border in this area as a tourist and business hub’ are notionally
under discussion (China Military News 2010). A railway station, port

and other important facilities on the border area between Wusu and
Fuyuan are being provided along the border connecting the islands. The
number of passengers travelling annually through Fuyuan port has shot
up from 93,000 in 2002 to 155,000 in 2007 (Heilongjiang Year Book
2002–2007). Once again, Beijing is definitely the more eager party to
get moving. In July 2011, China has celebrated the invitation of the
first group of 150 tourists to the island, allowing visits to the historic
boundary stone, the former Russian barracks and a tour of the area’s
natural environment (Levenstein 2011). In turn, Moscow has confirmed
its hope to open the eastern parts of Bolshoi Ussuriiski for tourism and
investment, but the pace of development is slow and raises doubts about
the future of the plan.
It is quite understandable that patriotic Russians may not wish to
visit an island, or even a region, that has been partly lost to China.
Meanwhile, the Chinese section is likely to be further developed by
attracting more Chinese tourists from Beijing, Shanghai and other inter-
national visitors. The gap between the divided areas might widen as
a result and the implications of this uneven approach on the border
region are hard to predict. The ‘one island, two countries’ slogan itself
is reminiscent of China’s ‘one country, two systems’ model, applicable
to the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, and
offered to Taiwan (by whom it has, however, been refused); but per-
haps not so suitable to Russia. Some Chinese are not so comfortable
with the rate of development, preferring to rely on local initiatives,
rather than on the state-centred current programmes. They also know
quite well how Russia reacted negatively to China’s rapid involvement
on another part of the border: the Heihe–Blagoveschensk cooperative
proposal based on the notion of ‘one city, two countries’. The local
Russians were already imagining that a developed Heihe would absorb
a more slowly developing Blagoveschensk. Talk of ‘Sino-Russian border
cooperation’ is often interpreted as a nightmare for the locals (Iwashita
2004).
It is noted that the Fuyuan development plan is a local initiative
driven largely by the city of Jiamusi (a centre of the Heilongjiang
eastern district), while the more sensitive development of Heixiazi itself
is administered directly by Beijing. An ambitious plan that includes
an ‘export processing zone’ must first be sanctioned by Beijing, which
wants to feature these frontier spaces to showcase and recover state
prestige. It may therefore not be too enthusiastic about Fuyuan’s own
development ambitions. The complex rivalry and competition among
different levels of the Chinese state bureaucracy may yet hinder or
apply brake on the rapid development of this and other Sino–Russian

trans-border regions. Nevertheless, the railroad and station are almost
completed and the port area is ready for use. The recent increase of
Fuyuan’s trade with Russia and the development of the city are nothing
short of impressive: the volume of annual cross-border trade has risen
from US$32 m in 2002 to US$664 m in 2007 (Heilongjiang Year Book
2002–2007).
Conclusion
Thanks to the ‘fifty-fifty’ compromise, China and Russia have overcome

some serious challenges to more stable cross-border relations; the cli-
mate is certainly much less tense than in 1969. The confidence that both
countries have shared in the process of securing this achievement, and
the peace of mind that subsequently followed, is difficult to grasp. That
it took exactly four years to finalise the details of the demarcation of
Heixiazi/Bolshoi Ussuriiski (2004–2008) was to be expected. Some media
reporters who knew little about the boundary-making process and may
have wanted to overplay the distrust between China and Russia tried
to sensationalise the Sino–Russian discussion on demarcation (Sino–
Russian Joint Statement 2007). Luckily, to no avail: China and Russia
successfully kept on track.
The future of the divided island, and of its environs, is difficult
to foresee. The implementation of a common plan for a cross-border
region will generate its own challenges. However, long but sustainable
spells of collaboration between different levels of government of the
two countries would accomplish what is effectively a ground-breaking
experiment in the Sino–Russian relations.
The lessons of history do not suggest a bright outlook for Sino–Russian
trans-border cooperation, and these carved up, divided spaces may suffer
as a consequence. For Russia and, to some extent, China, the border has
not been a ‘tool’ or an interface for cooperation with neighbours. It has
been, in contrast, more of a bastion against potential aggressors, con-
ceived as some kind of a ‘Great Wall’. Securing the border thus relates
directly to national security. Any economic benefits may be seen as sec-
ondary, although economic considerations are assuming an ever larger
role: energy-rich and resource-rich Russia can ill afford disregarding an
energy-hungry neighbour and a lucrative market of some 1.4 billion
citizens: there has been a fair ‘deepening of energy relations’ between
the two countries of late (Hauser 2009: 28). Already by 2004, China
was Russia’s fourth largest trade partner, and Russia was China’s eighth
largest.
Most of the world’s few divided islands have endured centuries of

interaction on the site before and/or after bordering. By comparison, the
Heixiazi/Bolshoi Ussuriiski case is very recent. The area is very sparsely
inhabited. Any social, economic or cultural interaction on and around
these islands has a history of some civilian settlement of no more than
70 years. Most of the land area of the islands was deemed off limits
since it was earmarked for military use. The dividing line is also quite
artificial, arising out of a political judgement established between the
two countries at the highest imaginable political level. It appears that,
for the moment, the balance of the arrangement is working largely
in favour of the non-island residents of China, who can now visit as
tourists. In conclusion, the fate of the islands will depend on political
brinkmanship, as in the 2004 deal. The islands are just one spot on a
4,300-km border – the longest international border between two coun-
tries in the world – but their current status is a template for Sino–Russian
borderland cooperation, and a clear alternative to the political tension
and loss of human life that affected both China and Russia in the late
1960s.
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13
Britain: The Fractured Island
Ray Burnett
Introduction
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, . . .

This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea, . . . .
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
(William Shakespeare, King Richard II, Act II, scene 1)
Despite the sonorous magnificence of Shakespeare’s John of Gaunt

monologue, England is not an island. Rather this ‘England, that was
wont to conquer others’ just thinks, acts, governs, talks, plays and
presents itself as if it is. For the island polity known as ‘Britain’, more
formally as ‘Great Britain (GB)’, the ‘United Kingdom (UK)’ is an odd
place. In spite of its self-promotion as the ostensible product of a long,
stable and immutable partnership of equals, the ‘national’ institutions
of this state-nation consistently present themselves as those of a singu-
lar ‘nation-state’ through the monofocal prism of the dominant ‘island
race’ of England: the English historical narrative of ‘this sceptred isle’,
and a smothering blanket of English cultural referents.
Yet this wilful misrepresentation finds universal acceptance and acqui-
escent dissemination on a global scale. Whether through uncritical aca-
demic discourse, the elisions of library cataloguing or the commonalities
of popular culture, it is the prevailing and established prism through
which this island polity is invariably perceived, classified and discussed.
It is, however, a depiction that conceals both the actuality of history and
the reality of the present – the fracturing process now finally registering
on a myopic anglocentrism as the ‘break up of Britain’. This chapter
sketches the background past, outlines the conjunctural moment of the
228
Ray Burnett 229
present and suggests a framework for considering the future from a

perspective based on the discipline of international political economy
(IPE). And it does so rooted in a critical perspective from Scotland
‘beyond the wall’, the other side of the tectonic shift in this most divided
of island polities.
The past of a stateless nation
. . . for, as long as a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any

conditions be subjected to the lordship of the English. It is in truth
not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for
freedom alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.
(Declaration of Arbroath, 1320)
One of Europe’s oldest nation-states, Scotland is a ‘mongrel nation’,

with its own origins, mythic history and a distinctive grand narra-
tive of independence gained through struggle with an expansionist,
aggrandising island neighbour (Donaldson 1998). There was no Roman
conquest here, only an unsettled frontier ‘beyond the wall’. And iron-
ically, although the superior Roman forces of Agricola slaughtered the
Pictish men of Caledonia at the battle of Mons Graupius in 83/84 AD,
it is the eve of battle speech that historian Tacitus ascribed to Calgacus,
their leader, that has passed down through the generations in Scottish
folklore and memory:
We, the most distant dwellers upon earth, the last of the ‘free’, with
only the sea behind us must stand and fight. The Romans boast of
their great empire, but look around you: to robbery, butchery and rap-
ine, they give the lying name of ‘pax Romana’; ubi solitudinem faciunt,
pacem appellant [They make a wilderness/solitude and call it peace].
(Tacitus 85 AD/2010: 19–20)
This text has retained a powerful resonance within colonial struggle

around the globe, as the British Empire proudly presented its global
imperial rule as ‘Pax Britannica’, the modern era’s successor to ‘Pax
Romana’.
Nor was there a 1066 and a ‘Norman Conquest’, only a later invite to
Norman grandees to come north and settle in the realm by Scotland’s
King David I (1124–1153). Nor was there a protracted antipathy to the
230 Britain: The Fractured Island
French who were partners in the ‘Auld Alliance’. For the emergent and
tenacious Scotland, with its own separate and distinctive notions of pop-
ular sovereignty, it was England that was the ‘auld enemy’ as the Scottish
‘community of the realm’ faced down centuries of an aggressive English
expansionism drawing cultural hegemony through the ideological con-
struct of ‘Britain’ and ‘Britons’. The 1603 Union of the Crowns saw
James VI of Scotland leave for London to become James I of England;
the Scottish monarchy never returned. Not one but three distinct but
linked Civil Wars, in England, Scotland and Ireland, mercantile cap-
italism, militant Protestantism, emergent Empire, England’s ‘Glorious
Revolution’ of 1688 and the Hanoverian accession to the throne, were
all precursors to 1707 and the passing of not one but two Acts of Union,
whereby the Scots dissolved their Parliament and the English contin-
ued their own, slightly enhanced with a modicum of members from
Scotland and under new nominal nomenclature as the parliament of
the ‘Kingdom of Great Britain’.
ii
[T]he River Tweed was the line of demarcation between all that was
noble and all that was base – south of the river was all honour, virtue,
and patriotism – north of it was nothing but lying, malice, meanness
and slavery. Scotland is a treeless, flowerless land. Formed out of the
refuge of the universe, and inhabited by the very bastards of creation.
John Wilkes, The North Briton, 1763
(cited in Young 1996: 27)
As the song, story and poetry of Scottish tradition testify, the 1707 Act of
Union, passed by a parliament with no democratic franchise, was deeply
unpopular and there were widespread expressions of anti-English senti-
ment. Nor was union popular south of the border. Following the 1689
Williamite revolution and the defeat of the followers of the exiled Stuart
kings, there were a series of Jacobite rebellions in Scotland campaigning
for the restoration of ‘the rightful king’ and a demand for ‘Prosperity
to Scotland and No Union’. After the 1745 Rising in particular, with
its ill-fated march on London and ultimate defeat at Culloden, the
Scots themselves, ostensible partner ‘Britons’ in a shared union island
polity, became deeply unpopular in England. It was a prevalent senti-
ment in 1760 London, the other side of the voice of popular English
radicalism. As the British imperial project developed, however, Scottish
national sentiment was reconstructed by many as a form of unionist
nationalism. With a dual identity of patriotic Scot and fervid imperial
Ray Burnett 231
Briton, the military, mercantile, administrating, governing and explor-

ing dimensions of the Empire were serviced by thousands of loyal and
faithful Scots. As peoples around the world discovered, not least in the
myriad island populations where their presence was felt, the Scots were
the backbone of Britannia as it ‘ruled the waves’ and ‘waived the rules’
around the globe from Ireland to the far Pacific.
From the 1760s to the 1960s, the wave of Britannic commitment to
union and empire rose, peaked and then began to fall. The process is a
complex dynamic of economics, culture, politics and above all ideas, the
ideational dimension being the key element in the unifying unction of
‘Britishness’ that held this peculiar state-nation together. The trajectory
of union within this divided island polity has been traced in a series of
corrosive critiques by Tom Nairn that chart both the ‘break up of Britain’
from an early prophetic prediction of its immanence (Nairn 1977) and
the concomitant demise of ‘Britishness’ in both its ancient and modern
guises (Nairn 2000). A key feature of Scotland’s passive acquiescence to
Anglo-Brit cultural hegemony, its complicity in the imperial promotion
of the latter, has been what Nairn terms ‘self-colonialism’, an aspect
of the relationship in terms of cultural capital and power that could
be formulated in a more specifically Gramscian manner as collective
subalternity. It is not that Scotland did not retain a significant tradi-
tion of radical thought grounded in an undiluted Scottish identity in
which a critical detachment from an imperial Britain and an occasion-
ally explicitly anti-union sentiment was expressed (Burnett 2004). But,
from the moment in the early 19th century that the emergent Scottish
labour movement bought into the formation of a pan-Britain Labourism
to combat cross-border Capital, a process of deep cultural ‘britifica-
tion’ took place in which the latter was reduced to a marginalised and
excluded subaltern status (Burnett 1990).
iii
I want to begin with the words I have always wanted either to say or
to hear someone else say: the Scottish Parliament, which adjourned
on the 25th day of March 1707, is hereby reconvened (Applause).
(Winnie Ewing MSP, Opening of Scottish Parliament,
12 May 1999)
By the late 1960s, the first signs of a shift in the political culture of
Scotland were emerging. Voices on the left began to seek ways to break
free from the suffocating blanket of britification as a new political
nationalism also began to develop. A period of intense, often bitter,
debate and realignment ensued as a resurgent nationalism and a dying

Labourism fought for dominance as the prevailing representative party
of the socio-economic interests of the Scottish people, while old manu-
facturing industries, a depleted rural hinterland and a decayed urban
landscape declined and died. A fierce Anglo-Brit labourist rearguard
action checked the momentum but in due course a popular campaign
within Scottish civil society forced the London government to accede
to legislation providing for a devolved administration. After almost 300
years, a reconvened Scottish Parliament met in Edinburgh in May 1999.
The legislation and the voting arrangements were designed to ensure
a permanent unionist majority within the new body of governance.
Comforted by the thought that ‘power devolved is power retained’, the
ardent defenders of Westminster-rule pronounced that benign devolu-
tion would ‘kill nationalism stone dead’. Instead, precisely the opposite
happened. The governance and ideological lubrication of Scotland as a
stateless nation had always been a complex affair (McCrone 1992) in
which Scottish identity was ever present and the implicit premise on
which a unionist aversion to independence or even more powers to the
Scottish parliament was that this was the position that best suited the
interests of Scotland. When the Scottish electorate thought differently,
and with the Parliament providing a focal point to sharpen up such
thinking, then things began to fall apart. The first devolved Scottish
government had been a coalition of unionist parties, but in 2007 the
electorate returned a minority Scottish National Party (SNP) government
pledged to independence. And then in 2011 the unthinkable that was
never meant to happen actually happened. Despite all the locking mech-
anisms, the power of the unionist parties and media, the SNP romped
home across Scotland with a majority government and Scottish unionist
Labourism went into the final throes of its terminal decline.
The conjunctural moment of the present
Back in the 1980s, when the ‘Iron Lady’ came to power and
‘Thatcherism’ – neoliberalism through an Anglo-Brit prism – became
the new ‘common sense’, the ideational orthodoxy that lubricated the
UK’s political economy, within the anglocentric UK left, an awareness
emerged that some fundamental re-thinking as to the ideas and insti-
tutions of politics, culture, society, the economy and the state was
an urgent necessity if this new challenge to the hard-won gains and
achievements of previous generations was to be fully understood, halted
and ultimately overcome. A leading figure was Stuart Hall and a core
Ray Burnett 233
argument was his advocacy of a ‘Gramscian turn’. In a series of outputs,

Hall and his cohorts sought to ground Gramscian theory and method in
the context of the island polity of Britain. In raising awareness of the sig-
nificance of the new neoliberal agenda, Hall focused on the Gramscian
concept of the historical conjuncture to portray the Thatcher project
as one such conjunctural moment, where ‘history shifts gear’ (Hall
1988: 162).
‘Gramsci’, wrote Hall (Hall 1987: 2), ‘knew that difference and speci-
ficity mattered.’ Therefore:
instead of asking ‘what would Gramsci say about Thatcherism?’ we

should simply attend to this riveting of Gramsci to the notion of
difference, to the specificity of a historical conjuncture: how different
forces come together, conjuncturally, to create the new terrain, on
which a different politics must form up. That is the intuition that
Gramsci offers us about the nature of political life, from which we
can take a lead.
(ibid.)
Ironically, it is events as they have unfolded some 25 years later not

in England but in Scotland – this ‘other’ northern ‘beyond the wall’
realm of the divided island polity of Britain – that have come together
to confirm the aptness and relevance of this early exhortation. There has
been a rewriting of ‘a different politics’ and national agenda around the
‘independence question’, the gathering pace and momentum of ‘dif-
ferent forces’ coming together and the ‘new terrain’ of a reconvened
parliamentary centre of gravity to graphically underline the historical
significance of this specific conjunctural moment. For with the seismic
election of a majority SNP government in Edinburgh and the confir-
mation that there will be a referendum in 2014 as to whether the
Scottish people would ‘wish Scotland to be an independent country’,
the slow drifting apart of the ‘different politics’ of this divided island
over the devolution has now acquired the kinetic energy of a tectonic
and irrevocable rupture.
I say ‘ironically’ because, of course, despite their persistent advocacy
of ‘thinking conjuncturally’, the latter is the one thing that the lumi-
naries of the Gramscian turn in English critical thought seem perversely
incapable of doing (Hall and Massey 2010). Political thought, we are
told, requires an ability to see the ‘degree of openness or contingency’
that is to be found in every historical conjuncture (Hall 2007). Yet, in
the summer of 2011, notwithstanding the profound significance for this
divided island polity of the Scottish people’s return to power, against all
the obstacles, of a majority SNP government committed to indepen-

dence and the pledge to hold an independence referendum, Stuart Hall
and Doreen Massey, the leading advocates of conjunctural thinking, sur-
veyed Britain’s political economy in the light of the ‘the long march
of the Neoliberal Revolution’ and did so from a singularly monofocal
perspective. Despite their professed awareness of the need to view the
present as ‘an open horizon’, any such ‘openness’ to the significance of
conjunctural events does not extend to north of the border. In the sum-
mer of 2011, the profound political shifts in Scotland signalled major
uncertainties as to the future of every political element within this deep
fractured island. Yet, an important critical survey of the background,
meaning and future implications of the identified conjunctural moment
within British society could only be framed in terms of the political
interventions of ‘English intellectuals’; the ideational history of ‘English
common sense’; the grand narrative of ‘the English race’; the inherited
beliefs that ‘Englishmen were born free’ and that ‘England was the true
home of Liberty’ (Hall 2011).
Such a myopic inability to see a ‘Britain’ other than that refracted
through the monofocal prism whereby ‘England’ and ‘Britain’ are two
superimposed images of the same thing should come as no surprise.
For, in the three centuries since the Union was enacted, such a narrow,
blinkered view is what has long passed as normal vision in the ‘com-
mon sense’ discourse whereby the island polity of ‘Britain’ is regularly
presented and discussed across the English-speaking world and beyond.
It sets the framework and the parameters of the dominant ‘way of see-
ing’, the ‘current ideological hegemony’ that its professed critics seek to
challenge. An intellectual framework of enquiry in which Scotland, as
the ‘other’ dimension of this shared and divided island, remains firmly
out of sight and out of mind: an invisible realm that lies over the border
and ‘beyond the wall’ – beyond intellectual comprehension, concern or
comfort zone.
While persistent disregard, the wilful sleight-of-hand elision of ‘UK’
into ‘Britain’ into ‘England’ and back again, or an arrogant disdain for
the ‘united’ polities in an avowedly ‘United Kingdom’, may be the pre-
vailing norms of intellectual integrity in a range of academic disciplines
and studies or in the cultural and political programme output of the UK
and global media, it would be wrong to portray it as the only type of
response to the growing articulation of dis-uniting sovereignty claims
within this shared island polity. In both Scotland and England, there
is a wide range of reactions and responses, all reflective of a particular
strand of opinion, some more vocal, some, arguably, more articulated
Ray Burnett 235
or influential than others. And the implications of the advancing ‘break

up of Britain’ for the two other devolved polities of Wales and North-
ern Ireland, whether through devo-max or independence, could be
substantial (SCIS 2012).
Among those in favour of the status quo (i.e. the existing Union and
governance arrangements with the minimum of amendment), reactions
to political demands for significant changes to the governance of this
shared island include:
• ignore it as the novelty and the delusion will pass

• oppose it through ridicule, racial contempt and/or accusations of
racism
• oppose it by stirring up fear with manufactured misrepresentation of
‘the facts’ or black propaganda and false stories
• oppose it with the ideological sealant of a new modernised
‘Britishness’
• placate it with occasional gestures of recognition of the ‘Other’.
For the majority in favour of some degree of change (i.e. those in

favour of ‘full independence’ for Scotland, or ‘further devolution of
powers to Scotland’ and/or some degree of institutional power for the
distinct political entity of ‘England’), reactions and responses include:
(i) Scotland
• independence but the SNP programme as a necessary stepping

stone to further independence, for example, no monarchy
• independence with the SNP programme as adequate in itself
• ‘devo-max’ or fiscal autonomy and all other powers except
defence and foreign affairs
• still undecided but not uncomfortable with either devo-max or
independence
(ii) England
• actively encourage Scotland to go independent to free England

of a ‘burden’
• accept Scotland’s right to regain full independence, but reluc-
tantly and with regret
• support Scotland’s right to full independence and for new
institutions of governance for political polity of ‘England’
• do not support independence but agree to ‘devo-max’ although
with qualified concerns as to implications for England
Space precludes exemplars of this wide range of reactions and

responses; but a selection is available online with links to some rele-
vant websites as the volume, if not always the quality, of responses will
obviously intensify over the coming two years (SCIS 2012). By way of
selection, two are perhaps particularly useful in catching a sense of the
different moods, north and south of the border, in which the debate is
unfolding.
In Scotland, such is the distinct and palpable sense of national cohe-
sion around the prevailing sentiment that the status quo is no longer
an option and that something has to change, that it is possible for one
insightful eye to reflect on the prevailing national mood and encapture
it in a single statement. Such was the editorial in the Sunday Herald,
Scotland’s leading weekly broadsheet on 22 January 2012 reflecting
on the content of the ‘Hugo Young Lecture’ given by Alex Salmond,
Scotland’s First Minister, to a London audience of informed political
commentators (Guardian 2012).
Apart for what Scotland could do for itself with a positive outcome to
the independence referendum to be held in 2014, there were other ben-
efits that would accrue to this divided island polity. ‘Scotland’, Salmond
informed his London audience, ‘can be a beacon for progressive opin-
ion south of the Border’. This statement, in the opinion of the Sunday
Herald, was of greater consequence than any other recent comment sur-
rounding the independence question, more significant than even the
phrasing of the referendum question itself:
For the really vital question is not simply should Scotland be

independent, but why we would want to be.
This was why even the simple fact of the announcement of the 2014
referendum had been so important. For:
Whether by design or by accident the SNP’s march towards the refer-

endum has chimed with the mood of a country feeling at once more
confident about its abilities and more alienated from the dominant
culture in Britain.
This sense of alienation from the ‘dominant culture’ was palpable.

Scotland itself as a ‘beacon of progressive opinion’ may not yet have
come to fruition, but already within the Scottish Parliament, ‘we at least
see evidence that initiatives close to our hearts – long-term care for the
elderly, no tuition fees, no prescription charges – are being protected’.
Ray Burnett 237
In marked contrast were the policies and actions of the UK Coalition

Government, ‘unable or unwilling to tackle corporate greed, seemingly
determined to make the most vulnerable pay for the sins of the richest’
at home and ‘still sabre-rattling over the Middle East while ignoring the
dreadful lessons of “our” intervention in Iraq’ in its disastrous foreign
policy. Faced with the latter as the consequences of being British, the
Scots were turning to look at themselves:
And so we look at the land in which we live, and wonder: couldn’t

we make this a land we’re proud of? Couldn’t this reflect the values
we wish to shape our lives?
Circumstances change, and as the campaign unfolds it may well be

that Scotland may yet decide against independence. But for now the
really important thing is that the national debate had started. For what
the campaign and the debate and the ever-growing tension between
Edinburgh and London reflect is the basic fact that ‘Scotland has
changed’:
Changed in ways we’re still struggling to understand but changed

irrevocably. The old arguments, the old negativity, are irrelevant.
We may not yet know where we’re going. We may not yet know what
awaits us when we arrive. But Scotland has moved on.
For England, ten times the population of Scotland and with a very dif-
ferent social fabric and political culture, it would probably be futile to
try and find a comparable articulation of a broad national popular sen-
timent. All the indications are that the range of reactions and responses
are less developed and more inchoate than in Scotland. A simple reflec-
tion, in part, of the completely different significance attached to what
are conveniently, if too simplistically termed, ‘constitutional questions’
in the two parts of our divided island polity. However, if one document
can be singled out as an insightful indicator to shifting mood and polit-
ical sentiment, directly caused by the recent decade of devolution and
further detachment of Scotland from the rest of Britain, it would be the
findings of the Future of England (FoE) Survey in their aptly titled report,
The Dog that Finally Barked (IPPR 2012).
It had long been a common belief within political commentary that
the process of devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
would provoke an English ‘backlash’ against the anomalies and per-
ceived territorial inequities of a devolved UK state. Slow in coming,
belated in arrival, the FoE Survey confirmed that by the end of 2011
the reactive stirrings in England had finally taken shape and a degree
of cohesion in their responsive demand had materialised. The survey
had examined English attitudes to the Union and to devolution; English
views on the structures whereby England itself was governed; and trends
in national identity in terms of Englishness vis-a-vis Britishness. The
central and most significant finding was that:
The evidence presented here suggests the emergence of what might

be called an ‘English political community’, one marked by notable
concerns within England about the seeming privileges of Scotland,
in particular, in a devolved UK, a growing questioning of the capac-
ity of the current UK-level political institutions to pursue and defend
English interests, and one underpinned by a deepening sense of
English identity.
The majority of those surveyed increasingly believed that the English

have got a ‘raw-deal’ from the devolution settlement with Scotland; that
the Scots get more than their fair share of public spending; and that the
Scottish economy benefited more than England’s from being within the
UK. And, while less than a quarter actually approved of Scotland gain-
ing independence, some 80 per cent agreed strongly with some form of
‘devo-max’ with Scots having full control of their own fiscal and eco-
nomic affairs while Scots MPs in Westminster should be barred from
voting on English laws.
In relation to the governance of England itself, less than a quarter had
any support for the status quo, the majority did not trust the govern-
ment of the day to work in the best long-term interests of England,
and argued that there should be an ‘English dimension’ to UK poli-
tics with a distinct governance arrangement for England itself, although
it remained unclear as to what precise form such arrangements might
take. With respect to trends in national identity, the evidence pointed
to the emergence of a different kind of Anglo-British identity, ‘in which
the English component is increasingly considered the primary source of
attachment for the English’, with the caveat that members of England’s
ethnic minorities placed much greater emphasis on their British iden-
tity. Perhaps most worrying in the context of recent social disturbances
in the English cities and the propensity of the far-right to capitalise
on political alienation and to portray themselves as the only political
grouping prepared to act as the defenders of Englishness, the report
found a growing belief that none of the mainstream parties stood up
for English interests. And they concluded:
Ray Burnett 239
the main problem is not that the English question is now finally
being asked by the country’s electorate, but rather that the British
political class has failed to take it, and them, seriously.
In trying to place this emergent ‘English political community’ with

its growing demands for recognition within the scenario of possi-
ble outcomes to the current constitutional conjunctural moment, the
report also contained – as a reflection, rather than a finding – an
uncomfortable observation. If the Scottish people vote for indepen-
dence, then a new constitutional settlement for England and the
rump of the UK will obviously be required. And even if ‘devo-
max’ is the eventual outcome for the moment, then the contin-
uing presence of Scottish MPs voting on solely English matters at
Westminster will become even more untenable. ‘But’, the report authors
concluded:
even if Scotland chooses to reject independence and ‘devolution-

max’ and instead opts for the status quo, the Future of England
survey suggests that the rise in English sentiment against the current
arrangements will prove hard to resist.
In short, even south of the border the tectonic plates are shifting, further
confirmation if it were needed of the validity of addressing the present
crisis as a conjunctural moment in the long history of this divided island
polity.
Further evidence of the dissipation of the ideological function, the
shared alignment under the rubric of Britishness, that once held the
nations of this shared island together in common cause and a united
vision of the future, comes from the wider body of publications, online
blogs and journals, media comment and emergent campaign groups
that augment the political outreach of the existing political parties.
Too numerous and rapidly growing in both Scotland and England
to be listed here, they confirm that it is within the national-popular
political culture of both polities that the role of history, culture and
ideas in the formation of ‘hegemonic common sense’ are under criti-
cal scrutiny in a new and deeply significant way. And notwithstanding
the perverse unwillingness or inability to look ‘beyond the wall’ by
some, there is a sufficiency of realisation within engaged English crit-
ical thought that happenings in Scotland will reverberate on outcomes
in England.
In the articles referred to earlier on the continuous march of neo-

liberalism, a valid warning was issued: ‘without a serious engagement
with the current ideological hegemony it will be impossible to break
the stranglehold of the present economic discourse’ (Massey 2011: 29).
As with Hall, the context in which this caution was given was restricted
exclusively to England. What the more perceptive observers within the
English polity are aware of is that, in the present conjunctural moment,
events in Scotland and England are inextricably linked. And if the ques-
tion for this shared island polity is, ‘how can we contribute to the
provocation of a moment of rupture in which the different instances
interlock in crisis and open up the ground for a shift in the balance
of social power’ (Massey 2011), then the answer is most appropriately
sought ‘beyond the wall’, on that other shifting plate where a framework
for these necessary ruptures in ideology and a challenge to the prevailing
orthodoxy of economic common sense is already being developed.
A framework for the future
In December 2011, Sir Gus O’Donnell, Britain’s most senior civil servant,
startled the complacency of the London political establishment with a
candid assessment about the long-term future of the Union. ‘Over the
next few years’, he warned, ‘there will be enormous challenges, such as
whether to keep our kingdom united’ (Daily Telegraph 2011).
The parting comments of the chief Cabinet Secretary in London on
the eve of his retirement were a prescient reading of the way the wind
was blowing within the divided island polity whose government he
served. A few weeks later they were followed by a similar report from
Edinburgh where the senior Scottish Civil Servant told his team to antic-
ipate a positive response to the forthcoming referendum and to prepare
for a post-UK independent Scotland (Daily Telegraph 2012). As the path
towards a referendum vote and the campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote took shape,
the view of the informed senior figures in the corridors of powers of both
state and devolved governance was clear. Whatever the final outcome,
the status quo ante was no longer an option.
Notwithstanding the cries of outrage from the Unionist parties, the
observations of these senior officials were no more than a prudent recog-
nition of the actuality of the shifts in direction of popular political
sentiment on either side of the border. The divide along the inherent
fracture line was deepening. Given the tangible formation of a cohe-
sive national-popular historical bloc within Scotland committed to a
significant degree of transfer of sovereignty back to Edinburgh, and the
Ray Burnett 241
concomitant emergence of an identifiably ‘English’ political commu-

nity in England, then advice and future planning based on a scenario
that takes cognisance of the diverging political realities makes sense.
And out with the inner circles of governance, in the context of an ever-
widening divergence in terms of social and economic policy between
the two polities, then a framework of analysis that focuses on the inter-
national relations between differing political economies, also presents
itself as a useful analytical engagement. The adoption of a framework,
in short, that draws on the disciplinary field of International Political
Economy (IPE).
In recent years the full-length studies of Scotland’s political economy
prevalent in an earlier era (Scott and Hughes 1980) have been replaced
by short précis attached to more specifically political, identitarian or
constitutional studies (Keating 2009). Over the devolution decade, the
focus within this sphere of the social sciences has tended to be on mat-
ters of policy, particularly in terms of equality, deprivation, poverty and
social justice where the focus has been on how to protect the rem-
nants of welfare state provision from the penetrating acid of free market
neo-liberalism (Cumbers and Whittam 2007, Mooney and Scott 2012).
Common to these studies is an approach theoretically underpinned by
the ‘varieties of capitalism’ (VoC) discourse (Campbell et al. 2006, Hall
and Soskice 2001) and an assessment of the extent to which future gov-
ernance in Scotland will continue with its divergence from the preferred
‘liberal market economy’ (LME) of the UK and its preferred orientation
towards the coordinated market economies of the small Nordic coun-
tries. Implicit to the underpinning that frames this VoC approach is a
model based on the core concepts of path dependency and institutional
framework. They provide the structures through which the economic
agendas within Scotland are seen to gain or lose purchase through the
success or otherwise of their grounding within the discrete history, cul-
ture and civil society in which political and economic ideas take root
and gestate.
In setting the background to the present situation within this divided
island, it was argued that it is in the cultural field in its broadest and
most variegated sense that the exercise of ideological hegemony and
thereby passive consent to political and economic dominance is actively
promoted and achieved. The cultural is a contested terrain over which
struggle for control over cultural capital, ideational direction and lead-
ership are crucial. The struggle over culture and ideas matters, not least
in economic terms. Far from being aspects of life that are of minor
significance compared with the ‘real’ world of the economy, class and
capital, as David Coates points out: ‘Models of capitalism do not sim-

ply run. They have to be lubricated. Ideas, articulated by intellectuals
and brought into packages by political leadership, are the key lubri-
cants’ (Coates 2009). In Scotland, in relation to the dominant polity of
Britain/UK, it is an exercise of power that involves such processes as were
outlined earlier: self-colonialism, subalternity and britification. By way
of conclusion, the question put forward for consideration is: How might
these ideas be most usefully developed through association with, or
incorporation into, a framework deriving from an IPE perspective?
The answer lies in a consideration of the role of history and culture
in securing the foundations of the inter-linked, political and economic
formations on which this island polity is based. In political terms, the
maintenance of the Union and ‘Britain’ as a union polity is based not
on force, repression or economic control but through ideational con-
sent. And the form and manner through which this consensual union
arrangement is sustained is, in actuality, not a relationship of ‘part-
nership’ but one of dominance and self-colonialism, of hegemony and
subalternity. A key and inherent element in the sustaining and repro-
ducing of the socio-economic relations of production of capitalism, with
all its inequalities and exploitative misuse of the human and physi-
cal resources of the planet, is also through the inter-related consensual
acceptance of its lubricating values and ideas.
Understanding the role of culture and history is essential not only to
the first but also to the second as these two facets of the social order –
the cultural and the economic – are inextricably linked. And, in spatial
terms, it is an interconnection that needs to be understood and exam-
ined in differing configurations of the national, the state-nation and the
global, in all their complexities. As previously alluded to, an important
theorist on this interface is Antonio Gramsci; and, not surprisingly, a
considerable literature has accumulated in IPE and the associated field
of International Relations, developing a Gramscian, or neo-Gramscian
approach, a promotion that has generated its own vigorous discourse
and debate (Davidson 2008, Morton 2007).
From the perspective of Scotland, and in relation to understanding the
peculiarity of the situation between the diverging polities on this frac-
tured island, one approach from within this neo-Gramscian strand of
IPE discourse is of particular interest. In recent studies, Ian Bruff (2008,
2011) has argued for the deployment of Gramsci’s concept of ‘common
sense’ as a theoretical aid to an understanding of how consent is secured
and sustained for both political hegemony and economic power on the
contested terrain of culture in national varieties of capitalism (Bruff
2008).
Ray Burnett 243
While readily acknowledging the many advances made by the VoC

approach, Bruff argues that to fully understand the intricate processes
involved, we need to go beyond the latter’s limitation:
through delimiting the formation of consensus to the institutional

environment, the variety of capitalisms literature cuts institutions
off from the society they are rooted in. In contrast, I asserted that
we need to consider culture in order to conceptualize the role of
consensus.
(Bruff 2008: 158)
Whereas the VoC approach is based on institutions as the point of

departure for its analysis, the ‘Neo-Gramscian’ perspective is grounded
on the material basis for existence, that is, capitalism itself; while the
former considers the state–society relationship as separate from each
other, the latter sees them as intimately linked, if methodologically
distinctive; whereas from the VoC perspective the institutional envi-
ronment is the source of consensus, from the Gramscian perspective
it lies within national culture; and while the lens for analysis the pres-
ence or absence of consensus in the former is through social learning or
path-dependency, in the Gramscian approach the potential for synthesis
between different versions of common sense shapes whether consensus
is present or absent (Bruff 2008: 159).
As its application to other national capitalisms within Europe demon-
strates, the deployment of such an analysis only enables us to move
beyond the ‘institutional reductionism’ on which the VoC approach
is premised. It enables the discrete studies of the different aspects of
the present political and policy tensions within Scotland to be more
usefully analysed in a holistic manner. In analysing the evolution of
national political economies we need to recognise that varieties of capi-
talism are also varieties in capitalism (Bruff 2011). Nowhere is this more
aptly demonstrated than on the divided island polity of Britain.
As has been argued, whether the eventual outcome of the present
conjunctural moment in Scotland is a vote for independence or for
further fiscal control over Scotland’s economy and economic policies,
the continuance of the status quo is not an option. Key salients in
the forthcoming war of position already feature prominently on the
contested cultural–political terrain: education, the universities; media,
broadcasting, the cultural industries; health, public sector welfare ser-
vices; land, energy, the environment; defence, nuclear weapons, NATO,
foreign policy. In each cluster of issues, the political, cultural and social
are inextricably mixed in an ideational struggle for consensual consent,
hegemony or subalternity (SCIS 2012). If the SNP strategists have their

way then the impending ‘break up of Britain’ will be no more than
one final, soft shuffle and silent glide across the ballroom floor of the
Titanic. However, while the old Gramscian adage, ‘pessimism of the
intellect, optimism of the will’, is kept firmly in mind, the tremors from
the concentric conjunctural crises in Europe and in global capitalism
itself continue to be felt even in the further reaches of Scotland. With
reverberations from Greece in the background, the quiet observation of
David Harvey comes to mind:
Crises are moments of paradox and possibility out of which all man-
ner of alternatives, including socialist and anti-capitalist ones, can
spring.
Harvey (2011: 216)
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Index
Abagaitui islet, 219 Beagle Channel, 197, 201, 203, 209

Aceh, Indonesia, and secessionist Belfast, Northern Ireland, xv, 11,
tendencies, 94 121–33
Acts of Union, (England, Scotland, Belladère/Elias Piña border crossing,
Wales), 4, 14, 230 166
Addynoid Islands, 2 Bere, Maternus, militia leader, 98
Afghanistan, 23 Bishop Otto of Bamberg, 138
Aigun Treaty, 214, 216 Bismarck Archipelago (Bougainville
Akrotiri and Dhekelia, Sovereign Base and Buka), 35
Areas in Cyprus, 108 Blefuscu, 2
Ambalat block, disputes over, 64 Bolivia, 201
Amur/Wusuli river, 212, 214, 216, Bolshoi Ussuriiski, 4, 14, 212–27
217, 220, 221 cross border experiments, 221–5
Anguilla, 6 cross border trade, 225
Annan, Kofi, UN Secretary General, Damanskii island incident, 217, 218
103, 114 ‘fifty-fifty’ solution, 219–20
Anse-à-Pitre/Pedernales border joint use option, 218
crossing, 166 plans for mutual development,
Antarctica, 5 221–5
Arctic Coal Company, 5 river junctures, 214–15
Argentina, 13–14, 195–210 roots of confrontation, 214–16
accusations of expansionism, 207 uniqueness of case, 221
Aruba, 6, 180–1, 182 Border Crossing Pass, 66
Australia, 7, 10, 34, 36, 46, 93 Border as foreign fiction, 83
as destination of illegal immigrants, Bordering as practice, 26–7
50 Border Security Corps in Dominican
and expansion of US military Republic, 165
presence, 99 Borders as leaking structures, 8–9
as island versus continent, 1 Borders made, unmade and
as penal colony, 204 remade, 27
Australian New Guinean Border Treaty (Argentina-Chile), 201
Administrative Unit, 36 Borneo, 4, 7, 10, 58–78
cost of fuel in border area, 66
Badau, Kalimantan, 65 cross-border activities, 64–7
Bahcheli, Tozun, xvii cross-border interdependence,
Baldacchino, Godfrey, 1–17 68–70
‘Bandit Country’ of South Armagh, deportation of illegal migrants, 69
Ireland, 132 economic disparities, 66
Battle of the Boyne, 122, 124 illegal activities, 67–8
Battle of Culloden, 230 migrant labour, 68–9
Battle of Mons Graupius, 229 nationalism inside Indonesian
Battle of the Somme, 127, 128 border, 70–2
Beach as critically liminal space, 27 native sultanates, 58–9
246
Index 247
part of federated state of Collins, Michael, 126

Malaya-Singapore, 62–3 Comecon economic alliance, 143
price differentials, 66 Comoros, 5
redistricting, 71 Comparative advantage as game, 189
territorial disputes and cooperation, Conflation of state and nation, 22
63–4 Corsica, France, 4
travel documents at border Crimean War, 139
crossings, 66 Cromwell, Oliver, 122
Bougainville, and armed rebellion, 43 Cross-border interdependence,
Brazil, and independence, 85 68–70
Britain, (Great Britain), 11, 14, 18, Cuban-American Treaty, 6
119, 133, 134, 228–45 Curaçao, 180, 181, 182, 185
and alienation from dominant Cyprus, 4, 12, 27, 102–18
culture, 236 accession to European Union, 112
as a construct of English hegemony, and British Sovereign Base Areas,
232–4 108
as fractured isle, 228–45 coup in 1974 and Turkish
Britification, 231 intervention, 109
British-Irish Council, 130 and creation and unfolding of
‘Britishness,’ 231 Republic of Cyprus, 106–8
British North Borneo Chartered and division (taksim), 105, 106
Company, 59 early divisions, 104–5
British Sovereign Bases in Cyprus, 12 and Green Line, 8, 102
Brooke, James, 59 and hydrocarbon deposits, 115
Brunei, Darussalam, 59 inter-border trade, 110
Buenos Aires, 200, 204 and international community,
Burnett, Ray, 228–45 103
and NATO, 106
Caetano, Marcelo, 91 population exchange agreement,
Calgacus, Scottish tribal leader, 229 109
Camar Bulan village, 64 and rejection of comprehensive
Cape Horn, 209 Annan peace plan, 103–4, 112
Captain Nemo, xii, xiii and Turkey’s bid to accede to the
Carson, Edward, 125 European Union, 116
Castaways’ love-hate relationship with uniting Cyprus with Greek
the island, x ‘motherland’ (enosis), 105, 106
Celtic Tiger, 133 as world’s most complex island
Ceremony of island possession, xii division, 12
Chan, Julius, 43–4
Chile, 13–14, 195–210 Damanskii/Zhenbao Island, 14, 212,
accusations of expansionism, 207 216, 217, 218
China, 14, 212–26 Dana, Léo Paul, xv
Chinese Eastern Railway incident, 216 Denktaş, Rauf, xv, 109
Chou-En Lai, 217 D’Entrecasteaux Group, 36
Clerides, Glafkos, 109 De Valera, Éamon, 126
Coates, David, 242 ‘Devo-max’ or independence for
Cold War superpower competition, Scotland, 235, 239, 243
106, 146 Diamond, Jared, xv
Collapse, 168 and Hispaniola, 168–9
248 Index
Divided islands as affronts to Falkland Islands (Malvinas), 198, 200,

territorial delimitation, xi 202, 204, 206
as challengers to the ideal of Federal Republic of Germany (West
insularity xi Germany) (FRG), 143
as problematic xii, xiii ‘Fifty-fifty’ solution, 14, 219–20,
Dokdo/Takeshima, 2 225
Dominican Republic, 12–13, 157–75 Fine Gael, 126
Dominican Republic-Central America First World War, 5, 11
United States Free Trade Fitz Roy, Robert, Captain, 197
Agreement, 162 Frederick William I, 139
Dongning-Poritavka border region, Free Papua Movement, 38
223 Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold
Drake Passage, 198 Inc, 40
Dutch East Indies, 35, 36, 59, 62 Free Trade Area in Bolshoi
Dutch East Indies Company (VOC), Ussuriiski/Heixiazi, 223
82, 85 Free Trade Zone, 205
Dutch ethical policy, 86, 87 in Haiti, 166
Dutch Imperialism in South-East Asia, Frequent Traveller Facility
10, 59 Scheme, 66
Future of England Survey, 237, 238
Earthquake in Haiti, 158, 169
Eastern Mediterranean University, xv Gazprom, 151
Easter Rising in Dublin (1916), A Geography of Islands, xv
125–6 German Democratic Republic (GDR),
East Kalimantan, 58–78 142
East Nusa Tenggara, 10–11, 79 German New Guinea, 35–6
East Timor (Timor Leste) and Germany, 12, 35, 36
independence, 10, 41 Gibraltar, 15
anti-colonial sentiment, 91 Gladstone, William, 125
un-sponsored referendum, 94–5 Glorious Revolution (1688), 122
Economics trumping nationalism in Good Friday (or Belfast) Agreement
Cyprus, 110 (1998), 129, 130
Efate, Vanuatu, 4 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 217
Elba, Italy, 4 Gramsci, Antonio, 233, 242
Elimination of divided islands, 4 ‘Gramscian turn,’ 233
Eluay, Theys, 39 Great Britain, 11, 14, 18, 119, 133,
England as ‘auld enemy,’ 230 134, 228–45
English ‘backlash’ to devolution, as fractured isle, 228–45
237 Great Heihe Island border region, 223
English political community, Greek nationalism, 104
emergence of, 239 Greenland, 34
Enosis (unity) between Greece and Green Line (buffer zone) in Cyprus,
Cyprus, 105, 106 102, 110
Euboea, Greece, 3–4 cross-border crossings, 114
European Union, 23, 108, 112, 133, difficulty of crossing, 110
134, 149, 154, 162, 166 limited trade, 114
abolition of internal border controls mobility since 2003, 112–13
via Schengen Treaty, 145 Groupo M clothing firm, 166
Evasion of regulations, 189 Guadeloupe, 176, 180, 183
Index 249
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, 6 land border dynamics, 163–7

as ‘juridical limbo,’ 6, 23 land use practices and
Gulliver, Lemuel, 2 environmental vulnerabilities,
168
Haiti, 12–13, 157–75 name variations, 157
diaspora in Dominican Republic, other borders, 172
169–70 reliance on the United States,
earthquake, 158, 169 161–2
free trade zone, 166 tourism, 160–1
Haitian-Dominican métissage, 170–1 visibility of frontier, 164
Hall, Stuart, 232–3, 234, 240 History of colonisation in Hispaniola,
Hans Island/Tartupaluk, 2 168
Harding, Cyrus, viii, ix Hong Kong, 224
Harkness, David, 133 Hu Jintao, 219
Harland and Wolff, 125 Hurricane Jeanne in Hispaniola, 168
Harvey, David, 244
Health resort tax in Heringsdorf,
Indonesia, 10, 11, 34–57, 58–78,
151–2
79–101
Heixiazi, 14, 212–27
declaration of independence of, 88
cross border experiments, 221–5
Indonesian military, 38–40, 49, 53, 92,
cross border trade, 225
95
Damanskii island incident, 217, 218
Information-enabled villages, West
‘fifty-fifty’ solution, 219–20
Kalimantan, 72
joint use option, 218
International Court of Justice, ruling
plans for mutual development,
of, 64
221–5
International political economy, 241,
river junctures, 214–15
242
roots of confrontation, 214–16
International republic of the seas, xii
uniqueness of case, 221
Henri Christophe University, Haiti, Iraq, 23
158 Ireland, xv, 4, 11, 27, 119–36
Heslinga, Marcus, 134 attempted French invasion of, 123
Heyliger, Theo, 187, 188 border movements, 130–3
Hillebrink, Steven, 176–94 early history, 120–3
Hispaniola/Quesqueya, 4, 7, 12, and Irish Free State, 126–8
157–75 and Irish ‘Home Rule,’ 125
agriculture, 160 Protestant ascendancy in Ulster,
border iconographies, 164 121–3
border practices in market towns, smugglers and border crossings, 132
170–1 socio-economic divisions, 133
business climate, 162 Irian Jaya, Indonesia, and secessionist
cholera epidemic, 168 tendencies, 94
explaining economic disparities, Irish border dynamics, 130–3
158–9 Irish Free State, 126
and French-Spanish treaties, 163 Irish ‘Home Rule,’ 125
industrialisation, 161 Irish Republican Army (IRA), 126
investment, 160 violent campaigns, 129
and Jared Diamond, Irish Republican Brotherhood, 125
168 Ishaev, Victor, 220
250 Index
Isla Grande de Terra del Fuego, 13–14, as states of confusion, 22–5

195–211 as uniquely individual
archaeological evidence, 195–6 cases, 19
democratisation of institutions, Island studies, 19
207–8 Island tourism resorts, xi
fatal confrontation, 197 Isolarios, xi
independence from Spain, 199 Iturup and Kunashir Islands, 2
industrialisation, 206 Iwashita, Akihiro, xvii, 212–27
migration, 205
mining activity, 202 Jakarta, Indonesia, 53
population, 204, 206 Japanese occupation in Second
presence of Western powers, 196–7 World War, 4, 10, 35, 36,
rapid colonisation, 202 62, 88
rationale of border, 198 Java, Indonesia, 35
regional integration, 208 Jayapura, West Papua, 39, 49
settlement at Ushuaia, 197 J˛edrusik, Maciej, 137–56
social formation, 206–7 John of Gaunt monologue, 228
state formation, 199–202 ‘Judgement of Solomon’ solution,
tourism, 209 220
wool production, 202
Isla Navarino, 209 Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, 35
Island boundary as self-evident, 8 Kalimantan, 58–78
Island detention centres, xi Kanak nationalist group (Front de
Islandness and ambiguity, 20 Libération Nationale Kanak et
Island offshore banking havens, Socialiste), 41
xi, 20 Karisbór island, 137, 140, 144
Island or continent?, viii Kazakevichevo/Fuyuanshuidao/
Island polity as doubly Xiaotongjiangzi Channel, 215,
problematic, 18 219, 221
Islands, 1–17, 18–33 Khabarovsk, Russia, 14, 212, 214, 215,
as absolute spaces, 2–4 217, 218, 219, 220, 223
and climate change, 20 Khrushchev, Nikita, 217
as divided space xii Kirkinskii/Qiliqin Island, 217
as dynamic and mobile entities, Konfrontasi campaign, 63
26–7 Korean Peninsula, 214
as entrepreneurial enclaves, 20 Kosygin, Alexei, 217
exuding paradox and duality, 22 Küçük, Fazil, 108
as fashioned by God/Nature, 3 Kupang, conquest of, 82, 83
as ‘good to think with’ x Kurile Islands, 2
as hermetically sealed spaces, 21
as ideal state formation ix Land boundary as contestable, 8
and idiosyncratic governance, 4–6 Land use practices and
and migration, 21 environmental vulnerabilities on
as naturally closed entity, 2–3 Hispaniola, 168
as places of paradox, 19 Liberal market economy in Scotland,
as realisations of nationalist 241
fantasy x Lilliput, 2
as sites for sustainable Limbang, disputes over, 64
development, 21 Long Island, NY, 4
Index 251
Longyearbyen town, Svalbard, 5 National Organisation of Cypriot

Louisiade Archipelago, 36 Fighters (EOKA), 105
Lubok, Sarawak, 65 National-popular historic bloc in
Scotland, 240
Macau, 224 Nazi Germany, 140, 143
Magalhāes, Ferdinand (known as Neo-liberalism, march of, 240
Magellan), 196, 197 Netherlands Antilles, 6, 180, 181, 182,
Majapahit Empire, 35 184, 189
Makarios III, Archbishop, President of Nevis, 6
Republic of Cyprus, 108, 109 New Caledonia, 41, 204
Malaya-Singapore (Federated State), 62 Newfoundland, Canada, 4
Malaysia, 58–78 New Guinea, 7, 34–57
Malpasse/Jimani border crossing, 166 demarcation of border, 25
Maluku, Indonesia, 35 languages and population, 24
Malvinas (Falkland Islands), 198, 200, name, 35
202, 204, 206 Nissology (study of islands), 19
Manzhouli-Zabaikalsk border region, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation,
223 106
Maori Kiki, Albert, 46 Northern Ireland, secession from Irish
Märket Island, Finland, 9 Free State, 128
Massey, Doreen, 234, 240 North Korea, 217
Matbob, Patrick, 34–57
Mayotte, 2, 5–6 O’Connell, Daniel, the Liberator, 124,
May, Ronald J., xvii, 34–57 125
Melanesian Spearhead Group, 41 Oecusse, exclave of Timor Leste, 8, 10,
Mercantile capitalism in Timor, 81–2 79, 81, 83, 90, 97
Mieliński Canal, 139 Oil well in Pudaglia, Usedom, 151
Militarised borderland in Hispaniola, O’Neill, Peter, 42, 43
165 ‘One island, two countries’ slogan,
Military and commercial border 224
iconographies in Hispaniola, Only ten divided islands, 1–17
164–5 Orange Order, 124
Military Research Institute, 140 Organisation of American States, 158
Mindanao as de facto divided island, 4 Ouanaminthe/Dajabón border
Mongolia, 217 crossing, 166
Morauta, Mekere, 44
More, Thomas, 3 Pacific Islands Countries Trade
Moro Islamic Liberation Front, 4 Agreement, 45
Moscow, 218, 224 The Pale, around Dublin, 121
Murphy, Dervla, travel writer, 132 Pan-island culture along Haiti-DR
The Mysterious Island, viii, x, xii border, 13
Papoutsaki, Evangelia, 34–57
Nairn, Tom, 231 Papua New Guinea, 10, 34–57
National Agency for Border citizenship provisions of
Management, 71 constitution, 46–7
Nationaldemokratische Partei coalition governments, 42
Deutschlands (NPD), 152 creation of Border Development
Nationalism inside Indonesian border, Authority, 50
70–2 economic growth, 43
252 Index
Papua New Guinea – continued Porvenir, Chile, 202, 203

land tenure, 44 Potsdam Conference, 141
liquid natural gas project, 44 Préval, Réné, 167
national constitution, 42 Primorsky region, Russia, 218
Organic Law on the Integrity of Pringle, Maura, xvii
Political Parties and Puerto Deseado sub-prefecture, 201
Candidates, 42 Punta Arenas, Chile, 198, 200, 206,
Ramu Nickel project with China, 45 209
and refugee camps, 53 Putin, Vladimir, 219
smooth transition to independence, Putussibau, district capital, 65
41–2
sympathies for Melanesian Qiliqin/Kirkinskii Island, 217
neighbours, 47 Qing Dynasty, China, 214
trade relations with Indonesia, 45 Queen Elizabeth II, 207
trans-border trade, 49–50 Queensland, 36
Papua New Guinea Defence Force, 43 Queen’s University Belfast, Northern
Papuan People’s Assembly, 39 Ireland, xv, xvii, 133
Papuan Presidium Council, 39
Papuan special autonomy, 39 Ramu Nickel Project in PNG, 45
Papuan Traditional Council, 40 Redon, Marie, 157–75
Paradigm of fracture and flow, 25 Republic of Cyprus, creation of, 106
Paraguay, 200 as bi-communal federation, 106–8
Partition of Ireland, 11 conception of, 115
Patagonia, 195–210 Revolutionary Front of Independent
Pearse, Pádraig (Patrick), 125, 126 Timor Leste (FRETILIN), 91
Peking Treaty, 214 Rio de la Plata, Viceroyalty, 200
Penfui, battle of, 83 Rio Gallegos sub-prefecture, 201
Peru, 201 Rio Grande, 206
‘Pessimism of the intellect, optimism Robinson, Peter, 130
of the will,’ 244 Roti island, 83
PHARE cross-border cooperation Royal Irish Academy, 132–3
programme, 149 Royle, Stephen A., xv, xvii, 119–36
Philippines, 4 Russia, 14, 212–26
Piast bridge, 144
Piast Canal, 137, 139, 144 Sabah, Malaysia, 58–78
Picton, Nueva and Lennox Islands, St Kitts, St Kitts-Nevis, 4
202 division of, 179
Plantation policy in Ireland, 121 Saint-Martin/ Sint Maarten, xv, 7, 8,
Poland, 12 13, 176–94
Political borders as bounded state attempts at reunification, 179
space, 26 border dynamics, 188–91
Political rule in Hispaniola, 169 as borderland, 191
Pomerania, 149 budget deficits, 188
West Pomerania, 141 building spree, 186
Popeye the Sailor Man, 2, 15 constitutional development, 180
Population exchange agreement in context, 176–7
Cyprus, 109 and crime control, 190
Port-au-Prince, Haitian capital, 158 crowding, 177
Portolan charts, xi declaration of intent, 191
Index 253
development of tourism, 185–6 Skate, Bill, 44

division, 178 Skouw-Wutung official border
economic development, 184–6 checkpoint, 48, 49, 50
independence for, 179 Smuggling along border in Borneo,
joint inspection of ‘at risk’ flights, 67–8
190 Smuggling along border in Hispaniola,
referendum, 181 165–6
and unregistered aliens, 177 Smuggling along border in Ireland,
St Victor chapel, 221 132
Sakhalin, Russia, 4 Soares, Anthony, 79–101
Salazar, António de Oliveira, Solor island, 82
Portuguese dictator, 86, 88 Somare, Michael, 42, 43, 44, 46, 48, 49
Salmond, Alec, 236 Southern Sandwich Islands, 204
Samuelson, JoDee, xvii South Georgia Islands, 204
Santa Cruz, province of, 205 South Pacific Forum, 45
Santo Domingo, as UNESCO World Sovereign people as nation, 25
Heritage Site, 161 Sovereignty, 24–5
Saramago, José, 15 Soviet Union, 141, 142, 143, 216
Sarawak, Malaysia, 58–78 Sözen, Ahmet, 102–18
Scotland and independence Spain and Portugal as ‘single
referendum, 4, 18 country,’ 15
leaving the United Kingdom, 130 Special Customs Area, 203, 205
Scotland, as stateless nation, 229, 232 Spratly Islands, South China Sea, 2
Scottish National Party, 232, 233, 234, Sri Lanka as de facto divided island, 4
235, 243 Statehood sought by islanders, x
Sea of Japan, 214 State and island, ix
Sebatik Island, Borneo, 2, 10, 58–78 Stateless nations, 23
border tensions, 64 States of exception, 23
cross-border activities, 70 Steinberg, Philip E., vii–xiv
Second World War, 86, 140, 147, 152, The Stone Raft, 15
179, 180, 204 Stopford Green, Alice and Irish
aftermath in Timor, 88–90 identity, 125
and Japanese Occupation, 4, 10, 35, ‘Stop the Polish invasion’ posters, 152
36, 62, 88 Store Norske coal company, 5
Shakespeare, William, 228 Straits of Magellan, 197, 198, 200,
Shaw, Tim, xvi 201, 203, 209
Sicily, Italy, 3–4 Suharto (President of Indonesia), 48,
Singirok, Jerry, 44 93
Sinn Féin, 126 Suifenhe-Pogranychnye border region,
Sino-Kazakh agreement, 220 223
Sino-Kyrgyz agreement, 220 Sukarno (President of Indonesia), 63,
Sino-Russian border, 226 89
trans-border cooperation, 225–6 declared independence of
Sino-Russian relations, stabilisation of, Indonesia, 88
213 and liberation of Portuguese Timor,
Sino-Soviet border, 217 90
Sino-Tajik agreement, 220 Sungari river, 214
Sipadan and Ligitan islets, disputes Svalbard/Spitzbergen, 5
over, 64 Swift, Jonathan, 2
254 Index
Świnoujście/Swinemünde, 12, 137–54 border as foreign fiction, 83

and liquefied natural gas terminal, and case of Maternus Bere, 98
151 civilising mission, 86
Symeonides, Klitos, xv and cold war logic, 91–2
Szczecin, Poland, 12 cross-border invasions, 87
distrust of ‘outsiders,’ 88
Tacitus, Roman historian, 229 division by external powers, 79, 81
Taksim (division) of Cyprus, 105 Dutch insertion in local political
Tamil Eelam, 4 economy, 84
Tanasaldy, Taufiq, 58–78 and exclave of Oecusse, 8, 10, 79,
Tarabarov/Yinlong Island, 212, 215, 81, 83, 90, 97
218, 220 free trade zone along border, 96
Tasmania, 4 land border and vulnerability, 95–6
Tawau, Sabah, 70 Portuguese insertion in local
Ternate, Indonesia, 4 political economy, 83
Territorial nation state, demise of, pre-emptive coup and civil war, 92
25–6 territorial disputes, 84
The ‘territorial trap,’ 22–3 traditional networks of exchange,
Territory, and constitution of political 82
identity, 23 World Bank mission, 98
as device for state control, 24 Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), 91
Tertre, Jean-Baptiste, French Timorese Popular Democratic
missionary, 178 Association (APODETI), 91
‘Thatcherism,’ 232 Timor Leste (East Timor) and
Thirty Years’ War, 139 independence, 10, 41
Tibet Government in exile, 23 anti-colonial sentiment, 91
Tierra del Fuego, 4, 13–14, 195–211 ASEAN membership bid, 98
archaeological evidence, 195–6 Indonesian invasion, 92–3
democratisation of institutions, referendum on status, 94–5
207–8 Tobago, Trinidad & Tobago, 4
fatal confrontation, 197 Trade on divided islands, 7
independence from Spain, 199 Treaties of Westphalia, 3, 22
industrialisation, 206 Treaty of Concordia, 13, 178, 179, 192
migration, 205 Treaty for Good Neighbourliness,
mining activity, 202 Friendship and Cooperation, 212,
population, 204, 206 219
presence of Western powers, 196–8 Treaty of Limerick, 122
rapid colonisation, 202 Treaty of Mutual Respect, Friendship
rationale of border, 198 and Cooperation, 48
regional integration, 208 Treaty of Nerchinsk, 214
settlement at Ushuaia, 197 Treaty of Peace, Friendship,
social formation, 206–7 Commerce and Navigation, 200
state formation, 199–202 Treaty of Utrecht, 179
tourism, 209 Treaty of Zgorzelec, 142
wool production, 202 ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, 11,
Timor, 4, 7, 10–11, 79–101 129, 131, 133
absence of homogenous Trujillo, Rafael, 169
community, 80–1 Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,
border and armed incursions, 96–7 108, 111
Index 255
Turkish Resistance Organisation intra-island traffic flows, 150

(TMT), 105 and railway service, 140, 146
The ‘Tuvalu Effect,’ 6 tourism, 147, 153
Tuvalu (former Ellice Islands), 6 Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, 197, 203,
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the 204, 206
Sea, xii installation of naval base, 204
US Obama Administration, 6, 99
Ulster, 121–33 Ussuri/Heilongjiang river, 212, 214,
six counties of, 128–9 216, 217, 220, 221
Ulster Covenant, 128 Ussuriiskii village, 216
Ulster, Northern Ireland, 11 Utopia, 3
Ulster Volunteer Force, 128
Unilateral Declaration of van Aert, Peter, 195–211
Independence in Cyprus, 111 Vanimo town, PNG, 49, 51–3
Union of the Crowns (England and Vanuatu, Republic of, 41
Scotland), 230 ‘Varieties of capitalism’ discourse,
United Nations and East Timor, 94 241–3
United Nations Force in Cyprus, 102, Verne, Jules, viii, ix, xii
108 Von Braun, Werner, 140
United Nations Stabilisation Mission
in Haiti, 167 Waldheim, Kurt, UN
United Nations Temporary Executive Secretary-General, 109
Authority, 38 Wallerstein, and capitalist world
United Peoples Party, Sint Maarten, system, 82
187 Warsaw Pact, 143
United States of America, x, 6, 190 Wartislaw I, Duke of Pomerania,
and airport in Sint Maarten, 185 139
and geo-politics, 98 Wathey, Claude, 184, 185, 187
and ‘manifest destiny,’ 134 Wellesley, Arthur, Duke of Wellington,
and Marshall Plan, 204 123–4
policy in South-East Asia, 92–3 West Kalimantan, 58–78
and terrorist detention, 6 West Papua, 34–57
Uniting Cyprus with Greek autonomy provisions, 39
‘motherland’ (enosis), 105 Batas market, 51–3
University of Prince Edward Island, border incidents, 52–3
Canada, xvi control by Netherlands after 1949,
University of Tasmania, Australia, xvi 36–8
Unsettling the fragmented island and cooper mines at
polity, 28 Grasberg, 40
Uruguay, Republic of, 200 emigration of Papuan elite, 38
US Civil War, x local newspapers run by Army and
Usedom/Uznam, 4, 12, 137–56 politicians, 41
cross-border traffic liberalisation, 47 military repression, 39
and development of geographic Operation ‘Sunset Merona,’
space, 148 52–3
division and migration, 142 refugees in PNG, 53
early history, 138–41 and resource wealth, 40
familiarity with language, 151 take-over by Indonesia, 38
future scenarios, 153 trans-border trade, 49–50
256 Index
West Sepik province, PNG, 50 Yñigo Ortiz de Retez, 35

William the Conqueror, Young, Peter, British Major-General,
120–1 102
Williams, Stewart, 18–33 Yudhoyono, Susilo Bambang, 48
Wutung border post, PNG, 51
Zhenbao/Damanskii Island, 14, 212,
Yaboisembut, Forkorus, 40 216, 217, 218
Yalta Conference, 12, 141 clash, 212

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International Political Economy

Series Editor: Timothy M. Shaw, Visiting Professor, University of Massachusetts

The global political economy is in ﬂux as a series of cumulative crises impacts

Hans Löfgren and Owain David Williams (editors)

Timothy Cadman (editor)

Ian Hudson, Mark Hudson and Mara Fridell

Andrés Rivarola Puntigliano and José Briceño-Ruiz (editors)

Godfrey Baldacchino (editor)

Kristian Stokke and Olle Törnquist (editors)

International Political Economy

List of Maps and Tables vii

Preface and Acknowledgements xv

List of Acronyms xviii

Notes on Contributors xxi

1 Only Ten: Islands as Uncomfortable Fragmented Polities 1

2 Coherent Unity or Fracture and Flow? The Problematic

4 Borneo (Including Sebatik) 58

10 Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten 176

11 Tierra del Fuego 195

12 Bolshoi Ussuriiski/Heixiazi 212

13 Britain: The Fractured Island 228

P.1 The World’s Only Inhabited Divided Islands: Names and

3.1 Comparing West Papua (Indonesia) and Papua New

‘Island or continent?’ This is the ﬁrst utterance of the engineer

political institutions and social technologies that will enable survival

to degrees of islandness, and that they can be manufactured. The tem-

can indeed draw a through-line from the representations of islands in

To explore the power of the divided island as a destabilising counter-

In the fashion of colonial conquerors, they name most features after

apparently self-evident dividing line between land and sea is used to

Ruggie, J. G. 1993. Territoriality and beyond: problematizing modernity in

To even think about editing a book on such a quirky and specialised

I kept the idea on the proverbial backburner, but would habitually

IFJ International Federation of Journalists

TMT Türk Mukavement Teşkilatı

Godfrey Baldacchino is Canada Research Chair (Island Studies) at

Ray Burnett is Honorary Research Fellow at the Scottish Centre for

Steven Hillebrink is a legal ofﬁcer at the Directorate for Constitutional

Akihiro Iwashita is Professor of the Slavic Research Center (SRC),

and Regional Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland; and Editor-in-Chief

Patrick Matbob is Lecturer in Journalism at Divine Word University

Ronald J. May is an emeritus fellow of the Australian National Uni-

Evangelia Papoutsaki is Associate Professor at the Department of

Marie Redon is a geographer and Assistant Professor at the University

Stephen A. Royle is Professor of Island Geography at Queen’s Univer-

Anthony Soares is Co-Director of Queen’s Postcolonial Research Forum,

Ahmet Sözen is Professor of International Relations and Chair of the

Philip E. Steinberg is Professor of Geography at Florida State Univer-

Tauﬁq Tanasaldy is Lecturer in Indonesian and Asian Studies at the Uni-

Peter van Aert is a Dutch anthropologist residing in Argentina since

Stewart Williams is Lecturer in Human Geography at the University

The existence of multiple jurisdictions on distinct continental spaces

Islands as absolute spaces

But an island is a naturally closed entity. Its shoreline is the bound-

Islands and idiosyncratic governance practices

Recent history continues to throw up examples of political exceptional-

The uninhabited island continent of Antarctica is one such place:

independence. As the British colonial administrators introduced rep-

An island’s boundary – where it meets the sea – is self-evident and