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The decision to establish the military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK-Spear of the Nation, also known as Umkhonto), was a somewhat complex process. It was a decision that involved a major departure in the policy and practice of the organisation. Many of the leaders of the ANC and its allied organisations questioned whether they had really exhausted the limits of non-violent action. Above all, it was a decision taken in conditions where the organisations were prohibited from operating peacefully.

• Year 2008
• Author(s) Mac Maharaj

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) launched an armed insurrection movement, the People’s War, on February 13, 1996. Six years earlier, this Himalayan kingdom had experienced a major political change. In April 1990, after nearly thirty years of direct rule by an autocratic monarchy, the Nepali people re-established multi-party democracy with a constitutional monarchy through a street movement lasting 50 days. On the left, the political landscape was divided into various communist factions, which went through a major phase of restructuring, leading to the formation of the CPN (United Marxist-Leninist), the biggest communist party in Nepal, as well as the CPN (Unity Center) and the United People’s Front Nepal (UPFN), both of which were formed by more radical groups. In the first general election held after 1990, the Nepali Congress (NC) party gained a majority in the House of Representatives and formed a government, while the CPN (UML) and UPFN became the second and third largest parties. Following several years of intra-party debates, two radical factions of the CPN (Unity Center) and its open political front, the UPFN, led respectively by Prachanda and Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, formally changed their party name to the CPN (M) in March 1995, with the primary objective of launching an armed rebellion: the People’s War.

• Year 2008
• Author(s) Kiyoko Ogury

The conflict in Sri Lanka is one of the world’s most protracted and multi-faceted. It has been aptly described as a conflict “where economic, political and cultural deprivation and grievances of a minority have provoked a violent rebellion against a state that has come to be seen as representative of only the majority ethnic group” (Orjuela 2003:198). Since long-simmering tensions between the island’s Tamil community and the Sinhala-dominated state erupted into open confrontation between several militant groups and the Sri Lankan armed forces in the early 1980s, the conflict has grown in intensity and complexity. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which emerged as the dominant Tamil protagonist following a number of early confrontations within the broader Tamil resistance movement, has since developed both a conventional military force and a substantial civil administrative apparatus in the parts of the island it has established control over. Since the conflict began, there have been five formal attempts to resolve it through negotiations. All, including the Norwegian-facilitated peace process which began in 2002, have proved abortive, with the fighting resuming with greater ferocity each time.

• Year 2008
• Author(s) Suthaharan Nadarajah, Luxshi Vimalarajah

The Acehnese and the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Acheh Merdeka, GAM) have always described the nature of their rebellion against the Indonesian state as ‘politics, not guns’. According to the GAM leadership, they decided to take up arms because it was the only language that was available to them in order to make the central government in Jakarta understand the situation in Aceh, an Indonesian province located at the northern tip of Sumatra Island. It was a political action to counterbalance the language of the enemy. The GAM leadership, both in Aceh and in exile, has maintained that the conflict was never about violence per se, but rather a political conflict that required a political solution. Consequently whenever the other party to the conflict, the Indonesian central government, has shown the political will to negotiate a political solution, GAM has always responded positively.

• Year 2008
• Author(s) Agus Wandi, Wolfram Zunzer

The history of resistance to English/British interference in Ireland over eight centuries has gone through many different phases: passive resistance, agrarian unrest, armed uprising, setbacks, defeats and regroupings, temporary victories, mass movements and political agitation, language and cultural struggles, democratic gains, and constitutional and parliamentary engagement. The last is often the most challenging phase to any revolutionary movement.

• Year 2008
• Author(s) Bairbre de Brún

The objective of the present study is to analyse the evolution of the conflict between the Spanish state and the Basque Country, from the creation of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA - Basque Country and Freedom) in 1958 to the present, from the point of view of the pro-independence forces. We will start with a quick overview of the origins of the conflict, before presenting the formation and development of the so-called “abertzale left” (Ezker Abertzalea) – which could be translated, and will be at times referred to here, as the patriotic left, nationalist left or pro-independence left. We will also look at the various phases of the search for a solution to the conflict through dialogue and negotiation. Although we will mention the relationship between the northern territories of the Basque Country and France as part of the historical analysis, we will not be studying the development of the nationalist and identity movement in the north. Instead, we will focus here on the conflict between the Spanish state and the Basque Country.

• Year 2010
• Author(s) Urko Aiartza Azurtza, Julen Julen Zabalo

The recent conflict in Kosovo is often referred to as a unique case study for several reasons: the factors that contributed to the sudden rise of the Albanians’ armed insurgency movement in the mid- to late-1990s; the heavy involvement of the international community, climaxing in the armed intervention of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) against a sovereign state – Serbia/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY); and the subsequent establishment of the international protectorate in Kosovo, led by the United Nations (UN) in concert with the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) and the widest array of international organisations to date. These unique circumstances, so the argument goes, have followed Kosovo’s political path, leading up to its declaration of independence. Along this path, international norms of self-determination and human rights versus those of national sovereignty and non-interference in internal matters have been invoked, tested and have even clashed repeatedly. The recent deliberations at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague as to whether or not Kosovo’s declaration of independence is legal bear testimony to this clash.

• Year 2010
• Author(s) Armend R. Bekaj

In the context of an authoritarian regime, controlled by the military in alliance with a powerful landowning oligarchy, Salvadoran political-military organisations sprung up throughout the 1970s. Political and economic exclusion were the basis from which a wide popular movement arose – one that was to be almost immediately confronted with massive and indiscriminate repression. Faced with the closing of arenas for political participation, huge numbers of activists joined the ranks of the guerrilla army during the late 1970s. The five Salvadoran revolutionary organisations1 created the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, FMLN) in October 1980, with the joint aim of both procuring the government’s defeat as well as creating a socialist project.

• Year 2010
• Author(s) Alberto Martín Álvarez

The civil war sparked by the assassination of President-elect Melchior Ndadaye in October 1993 pitted a variety of mostly Hutu rebel movements – principally the National Council for the Defence of Democracy and the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (identified by its French acronym, CNDD-FDD) – against Burundi’s regular army. The principal demands of the rebel groups were the return to constitutional law, the institution of democratic majority rule and, most especially, the reform of the Tutsi-dominated army that was viewed as the centre of power. The peace negotiations initiated in June 1998 in Arusha (Tanzania) led in August 2000 to a peace and reconciliation agreement without a ceasefire – mainly because of internal dissent within the main rebel groups and the virtual exclusion of the real belligerents from the negotiation table. Eventually, the ceasefire agreement signed in November 2003 between the CNDD-FDD of Pierre Nkurunziza and the Transitional Government led by President Domitien Ndayizeye enabled peace to return to most of the territory – with the exception of the zones where the remaining rebel group, the Party for the Liberation of the Hutu People and National Forces of Liberation (PALIPEHUTU-FNL), which was hostile to any peace agreement with the government, continued to operate.

• Year 2012
• Author(s) Willy Peter Nindorera

La guerre civile déclenchée en octobre 1993 par l’assassinat du président élu Melchior Ndadaye a opposé essentiellement divers mouvements rebelles majoritairement hutu, dont principalement le Conseil National pour la Défense de la Démocratie et Forces de Défense de la Démocratie (CNDD-FDD), et l’armée régulière. Ces groupes rebelles avaient pour principales revendications le retour de la légalité constitutionnelle issue des élections de 1993, la mise en place d’une démocratie majoritaire, et surtout la réforme d’une armée dominée par les Tutsi et considérée comme le cœur du pouvoir. Les négociations de paix initiées en juin 1998 à Arusha en Tanzanie débouchèrent sur un accord pour la paix et de la réconciliation en août 2000 en l’absence de cessez-le-feu, du fait notamment de dissidences internes au sein des principales rébellions et de l’exclusion de fait des véritables belligérants. Ce n’est qu’à la faveur de la signature d’un accord de cessez-le-feu en novembre 2003 entre le CNDD-FDD de Pierre Nkurunziza et le gouvernement de transition dirigé par le président Domitien Ndayizeye qu’on a pu observer un retour de la paix sur la majeure partie du territoire, en dehors des zones d’opération de la rébellion du Parti pour la Libération du Peuple Hutu et Forces Nationales de Libération (PALIPEHUTU-FNL) réfractaire à tout accord de paix avec le gouvernement.

• Year 2012
• Author(s) Willy Peter Nindorera