Word: separatist
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Aitor Elizarán Aguilar, the political leader of the Basque separatist group ETA, and a top aide were captured in France on Oct. 19 amid a crackdown against the organization. The arrests followed the detention earlier this month of 10 accused members of a banned, ETA-linked political party; three military leaders have also been snared in the past year. Authorities have intensified their pursuit of the Spanish group since a 2006 bombing at Madrid's airport. ETA has been blamed for more than 820 deaths since...
...Lankans, Lieut. General Sarath Fonseka is a bit of a hero. Now the equivalent of the U.S. military's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Fonseka was the former army commander who helped strategize and lead the campaign that put a decisive end to the quarter-century-long separatist war of the Tamil Tigers. The intensity of the onslaught raised criticism around the world, including a 68-page State Department report to the U.S. Congress that took to task the conduct of both government forces and the Tigers. Now, what appears to be an attempt by the Department...
...untapped, yield revenues from which the Baluch feel excluded. Successive generations have waged armed rebellions against Pakistani rule - in 1948, 1953, through the 1960s and 70s, and now. According to analysts, continued abuses at the hands of security forces and Pakistan's shadowy intelligence agency, the ISI, have intensified separatist feeling to an unprecedented scale. "Baluch nationalism is more broad-based, is a more serious phenomenon than at any time in the past," says Selig Harrison, a leading authority on the Baluch and director of the Center for International Policy in Washington. (See pictures of Pakistan's vulnerable North-West...
...Baluchistan alone. The 2006 killing of Akbar Bugti - at the time, the emotive figurehead of Baluch separatism - in a firefight with Pakistani troops gave the current wave of Baluch nationalists a martyred hero to latch onto. "The continued atrocities all over Pakistani Baluchistan has kindled a very strong separatist feeling that will have to be answered," says Harrison of the Center for International Policy...
...grievances would go a long way toward securing stability for Pakistan in general. The Baluch disturbances have put on hold plans to build a lucrative gas pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan - a link that would enhance regional cooperation as well as boost the nation's wealth. Calming separatist passions would also serve as a lesson to the Pakistani military, which, as seen during the traumatic and bloody independence of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan), has a habit of trying to brutally stomp out secessionist movements. At a moment when there are so many hearts and minds...