The country of Transdniestria?

countries & regions — By Bob Riel on June 5, 2006 at 11:22 am

What is a country? That’s a more difficult question than it first appears, as we saw in the wake of Montenegro’s recent vote in favor of becoming an independent state. Now, the Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article about “The Coming of the Micro-States.”

Experts fear that many “frozen conflicts” around the world … could reignite as ethnic minorities demand the same right to self-determination that many former Yugoslav territories have been offered by the international community. … The United Nations Charter mentions both the right of “self-determination” of peoples and the “territorial integrity” of states as bedrock principles of the world order. But these principles come into conflict when a separatist minority threatens to rupture an existing country.

O.K., so Montenegro wants to be independent. So does Kosovo, an Albanian-speaking province of Serbia. Apparently, so does Transdniestria, a Russian-speaking region of Moldova. And maybe Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian territory in Azerbaijan. The Monitor covers these situations in today’s story. Left unsaid is that, if these small provinces are worthy of independence, then what about the Catalonia and Basque regions of Spain, or the Canadian province of Quebec, to name just two examples? Or, more explosively, the territory of Kurdistan that now spreads across Turkey, Iraq and Iran?

Then there is the unique case of Somaliland. This former British territory in northeastern Africa became independent in 1960, but soon merged with the neighboring territory that had been governed by Italy. The two lands became Somalia. Frustrated by the anarchy in Somalia, the territory of Somaliland re-declared its independence in 1991. It has maintained autonomy since then but has still not been recognized as a state by either the United Nations or the African Union.

What is a country? A difficult question. One thing is sure, though – there could soon be a lot more members of the international community.