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Dynamics within individual conﬂicts

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Dynamics within individual conﬂicts

As in the past years, approx. two thirds of all conﬂicts,

i.e. 257 out of 363, remained on the same level of in-

tensity from 2009 to 2010. While a total of 54 conﬂicts

deescalated by at least one level of intensity, 48 conﬂicts

escalated. Among the escalating cases, 31 crossed the

threshold to violence: Most of them, i.e. 26 cases, es-

calated by one level from manifest conﬂicts to crises, in-

cluding the interstate conﬂict between the USA and Pak-

istan [

→

USA - Pakistan]. The remaining ﬁve conﬂicts

escalated by two levels. Four escalated from latent con-

ﬂicts to crises, among them the confrontations between

the Islamic opposition and the government in Tadjikistan

[

→

Tadjikistan (opposition)] and the territorial conﬂict be-

tween Thailand and Myanmar mentioned above. One

escalated from a manifest conﬂict to a severe crisis: In

Kyrgyzstan, tensions between ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic

Uzbeks resulted in clashes and ethnic cleansing, leaving

an estimated 400 to 2,000 people, most of them ethnic

Uzbeks, dead [

→

Kyrgyzstan (Uzbeks - Kyrgyz)].

Change of intensity

Number

Escalation by four levels

Escalation by three levels

Escalation by two levels

Escalation by one level

No change

257

Deescalation by one level

Deescalation by two levels

Deescalation by three levels

Deescalation by four levels

In contrast to the escalating cases, 54 conﬂicts deesca-

lated. Thereby, 23 cases went from a violent to a non-

violent level. Two of them deescalated by two levels,

each from a crisis to a latent conﬂict, and one by three:

Last year’s war in Sri Lanka deescalated to a manifest

conﬂict, as 2009 had seen the military defeat of the LTTE

in Sri Lanka [

→

Sri Lanka (LTTE/northern and eastern

Sri Lanka)].

Conﬂict Items

As in previous years, the most frequent conﬂict item

was system/ideology with 117 cases.

This item sig-

niﬁes that the respective conﬂicts were conducted in

order to change the political or economic system, e.g.

striving for democracy in an authoritarian state, seek-

ing theocracy as opposed to a secular state, or aiming

for a socialist economic order, or concerned other ide-

ological or religious differences. As in the years before,

resources ranked second with 80 cases, closely followed

by national power with 75 cases. As conﬂicts very often

involved more than one item, many conﬂicts featured

in this analysis two or more times. Common combina-

tions were national power and system/ideology, national

power and resources, territory and resources, regional

predominance and resources, autonomy and resources,

international power and territory, as well as international

power and system/ideology. The three most frequent

items were all quite prone to violence with more than

half of the system/ideology as well as the national power

conﬂicts being fought out with the use of sporadic or

even massive violence.

Resource conﬂicts were vio-

lent in 44 percent of the cases. Nevertheless, the item

most prone to violence was secession with two thirds

of the cases being conducted violently. Regional pre-

dominance ranked second with 58 percent, closely fol-

lowed by system/ideology.Concerning the frequency of

the items, there were remarkable differences between

the various world regions, indicating varying regional

patterns of conﬂict.

Conﬂict Barometer 2010

Global Frequency of Conﬂict Items in 2010 by

Intensity Groups

low Intensity

medium Intensity

high Intensity

18

29

100

110

120

130

140

frequency

terr

itor

secession

decolonisation

autonom

system/ideology

national

regional

predomi-

nance

inter

national

resources

other

In Europe, the prevalent item was secession with 19

cases, followed by autonomy and system/ideology with

15 each.

This high share of self-determination con-

ﬂicts was unique among the regions. In addition, Eu-

rope had a relatively high number of cases featuring ter-

ritory (12 cases) or international power (11 cases), indi-

cating a comparatively large share of interstate conﬂicts.

In contrast, resources as well as national power were

contested in only six cases each, and regional predom-

inance in just one single case. As opposed to this, re-

sources with 32 cases, regional predominance with 27

and national power with 25 cases were the prevalent

items in Sub-Saharan Africa. As these items were prone

to violence, the ﬁrst item might be seen as an indication

of the ambiguous role of abundant resources, the latter

two as indications of defective statehood. In the Amer-

icas, Asia and Oceania as well as the Middle East and

Maghreb, system/ideology was the prevalent item with

21 out of 45 conﬂicts featuring this item in the Americas,

39 out of 114 in Asia and Oceania, and even 33 out of 55

in the Middle East and Maghreb. Nevertheless, while re-

sources ranked equal with system/ideology in the Amer-

icas, they were of minor importance in Asia and Oceania

with 14 cases and in the Middle East and Maghreb with

seven. In addition, regional predominance ranked sec-

ond in Asia and Oceania with 23 cases, while ranking

ﬁfth in the Middle East and Maghreb with six cases.

Coups d’ ´etat

After last year’s six attempted or successful coups d’ ´etat,

ﬁve failed or successful attempts to overthrow the gov-

ernment were observed in 2010. Except for one in Asia

and Oceania, all of them were observed in Sub-Saharan

Africa. In Niger, military forces led by Colonel Salou

Djibo toppled President Madaou Tandja on February 18

[

→

Niger (opposition)]. Two coup attempts, on April 18

and November 17, respectively, were staged in Mada-

gascar against President Andry Rajoelina, who himself

had taken power in a military-backed coup in March

2009 [

→

Madagascar (TGV - TIM)]. Guinea-Bissau wit-

nessed the fourth coup attempt in three years, when

military forces arrested the army chief as well as Prime

Minister Carlos Gomes Junior on April 1. However, the

civilian government was reinstated the same day [

→

Guinea-Bissau (coup plotters)]. Asia’s coup attempt was

staged in Kyrgyzstan, where government forces clashed

with some 2,000 supporters of Urmat Baryktobasov, a

former presidential candidate and businessman near

the capital, Bishkek, on August 6. Baryktobasov had

returned from exile some days earlier and, according to

the government, demanded to be named prime minister.

Riot police and army dispersed the demonstration using

tear gas and ﬁring in the air, while the government con-

ﬁrmed Baryktobasov had been arrested.

Coups d’ ´

Etat and Attempted Coups d’ ´

Etat 1945 to

2010

Coups d’ ´

Etat

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umber

coups

1945

1950

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

In addition to the coups or coup attempts mentioned

above, governments in various countries accused civil

or military oppositional forces of plotting coups. In Bu-

rundi, eighteen soldiers were arrested in late January,

on charges of planning to stage a mutiny and coup.

On February 6, two other soldiers attacked an army

base where the detainees had initially been held, killing

one sentinel. Opposition parties dismissed the alleged

plot as a government attempt to create a pretext for

a crack-down on the opposition [

→

Burundi (opposi-

tion)]. In Niger, on October 16, coup leader Djibo ar-

rested two ofﬁcers on charges of plotting to overthrow

him. In Panama, on January 17, police forces arrested

two members of the presidential guard and a Puerto Ri-

can national accused of plotting to kidnap President Ri-

cardo Martinelli. In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa

was attacked with teargas by police ofﬁcers protesting

against austerity measures. He was treated in a nearby

police hospital.

Correa accused the police of an at-

tempted coup d’ ´etat and declared a state of emergency

on September 30, while unrest ﬂared up throughout the

country. Altogether, ﬁve people were killed, among them

two police ofﬁcers, and 16 injured before the situation

calmed down. The national police chief resigned two

days after the attack. In Turkey, on January 20, a news-

paper published parts of an alleged 2003 plan for a mil-

itary coup called ”Balyoz”. The plan comprised assaults

on mosques as well as a Turkish ﬁghter jet being shot

down over the Aegean Sea in order to stir unrest. On

February 22, 49 ofﬁcers were arrested and charged with

attempting to overthrow the government.

The defen-

dants denied the accusations, stating the plan had been

part of a planning exercise at a military seminar.

Global Conﬂict Panorama

5

Terrorism

Also in 2010, terrorist attacks played an important part in

the conduct of conﬂicts in all regions. As terrorist mea-

sures were employed for various goals, differing patterns

could be observed. Firstly, terrorist attacks were com-

mitted by domestic actors aiming for self-determination,

national power, or to change the political system. For in-

stance, the Real Irish Republican Army and the ´

Oglaigh

na h ´

Eireann in Northern Ireland [

→

United Kingdom (Na-

tionalists/Northern Ireland)] and the Euskadi Ta Askata-

suna in Spain [

→

Spain (ETA, PNV/Basque Provinces)]

continued their ﬁghts for secession, although the latter

showed willingness to turn to a diplomatic path in the

second half of 2010. In the Russian North Caucasus,

Islamist terrorism aimed at the establishment of an in-

dependent Caucasian Emirate, shifted its ﬁeld of action

further and was marked by an increase of suicide bomb-

ings [

→

Russia (Islamist militants/Chechnya) et al.]. The

second pattern referred to actors committing terrorist as-

saults not only in their respective home country, but also

abroad. For instance, Greek leftwing militants not only

staged a series of bomb attacks in Greece, but also were

responsible for a series of mail bombings against Eu-

ropean and South American ofﬁcial persons and build-

ings [

→

Greece (leftwing militants)]. But most acts of

transnational terrorism in 2010 could again be assigned

to militant Islamist groups. The Somali Al-Shabaab not

only conducted attacks in Somalia, but also claimed re-

sponsibility for two simultaneous bomb attacks in the

Ugandan capital Kampala on July 11, killing more than

80 people [

→

Somalia (Islamist groups)]. Furthermore,

the transnational terrorist network al-Qaeda and its af-

ﬁliated groups were still a major security threat to many

countries. The conﬂict between Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI)

and the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), on the one hand, and

the government, on the other, remained a severe crisis

in which suicide bombings were a key means of both

militant groups [

→

Iraq (AQI, ISI)]. While no further vi-

olent measures by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

(AQAP), formed by merger in 2009, were reported for

Saudi Arabia [

→

Saudi Arabia (AQAP)], the conﬂict be-

tween AQAP and the Yemeni government turned highly

violent, mainly due to AQAP’s involvement in a failed ter-

rorist attack on the US by a Nigerian citizen on 12/25/09.

The young man tried to detonate a bomb on a ﬂight with

280 passengers from Amsterdam as it came into land

in Detroit. Additionally, a suicide bomber attempted to

kill the British ambassador to Yemen on April 27. AQAP

in Yemen also claimed responsibility for mail bombs ad-

dressed to synagogues in Detroit, USA, which had been

intercepted at airports in Dubai and Great Britain [

→

Yemen (AQAP)]. The Algeria-based Al-Qaeda in the Is-

lamic Maghreb (AQIM) continued to be active in sev-

eral countries in 2010 [

→

Algeria (AQIM); Mauritania

(AQIM); Mali (AQIM)]. Additionally, the Abdullah Azzam

Brigades, an al-Qaeda linked militant group, damaged a

Japanese oil tanker by an explosion in the Strait of Hor-

muz on July 28. Throughout the year, links between dif-

ferent militant Islamist groups were constantly reported,

e.g. between AQIM, Somali al-Shabaab and Nigerian

Boko Haram [

→

Nigeria (Boko Haram)].

Furthermore, a car bomb attack on New York’s Times

Square was foiled by the US police on May 1. The al-

leged bomb planter, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, was

arrested three days later when trying to leave the USA. In

addition, several further suspects were detained in Pak-

istan, as Pakistani Taliban were supposed to be behind

the attack [

→

Pakistan (various Islamist militants)].

Due to repeated terror threats and defeated attempts,

most countries of the Global North intensiﬁed their se-

curity arrangements. On March 4, a German court sen-

tenced four alleged members of the Islamic Jihad Union,

a group linked to al-Qaeda, to prison terms ranging from

ﬁve to twelve years. In mid-March, an Irish court pressed

charges against two suspected Islamist militants in con-

nection to an alleged plot to murder a Swedish car-

toonist involved in the 2007 Muhammad cartoons. On

May 10, eight Islamist militants were convicted to an

eight-year prison term by a Belgian court for leading

a group that recruited militants to ﬁght in Afghanistan.

On August 9, German police closed down the Hamburg

mosque where the 9/11 plotters had met before carry-

ing out their suicide attacks on the World Trade Center

in 2001. On September 16, France raised its terror alert

to the second highest level. In early October, the US, the

UK, Sweden and Japan issued travel warnings concern-

ing travelling in Europe after the US State Department

had warned of possible al-Qaeda attacks, especially in

France, Germany and the UK. France arrested 17 peo-

ple on terrorism charges in October and November. On

November 17, Germany tightened its security measures

at railway stations and airports in response to concrete

indications of possible attacks in late November.

Measures of Conﬂict Resolution

Negotiations and Treaties

In at least 54 of the current 363 conﬂicts, some or all

of the conﬂict parties met in order to hold talks, ne-

gotiations, or conferences. Altogether, the number of

successful and unsuccessful talks amounted to at least

164. Among these, at least 19 rounds of talks were held

in severe crises or wars, 73 in conﬂicts marked by the

sporadic use of violence, and 72 in non-violent conﬂicts.

With 130, the majority of these talks did not result in the

conclusion of a formal agreement. For example, despite

numerous rounds of negotiations, Flemish and Walloon

parties in Belgium could neither agree on a state reform

nor on the formation of a government coalition [

→

Bel-

gium (Flemish parties/Flanders)].

In Cyprus, dozens of UN-led reuniﬁcation negotiations

between the presidents of the de-facto Turkish Republic

of Northern Cyprus and the government of the Republic

of Cyprus, respectively, did not lead to a breakthrough.

In Israel, US-mediated proximity talks between the Is-

raeli government and the Palestinian National Authority

were resumed after a stalemate in negotiations of 17

months. However, the conﬂict parties failed to reach an

agreement. In the inter-state crisis between Pakistan

and India, Indian Foreign Minister Somanahalli Malla-

Conﬂict Barometer 2010

iah Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Makhdoom

Shah Mehmood Quereshi met on July 15. However, the

talks ended without the conclusion of any binding agree-

ments.

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