Foreign Determination and Self Support: The Fate of Independence Movements & their States
Foreign Determination and Self Support:
The Fate of Independence Movements & their States
By Collin Mattis
Introduction:
Over 90% of countries celebrate an independence day of some form, engendering the most visible demonstrated patriotism of the year.[i] Prompted by the popularization and codification of self-determination and colonial autonomy after World War II, a renewed wave of decolonization movements in the mid-twentieth century led much of Africa and Asia to break colonial ties in a bid for individual sovereignty, producing today’s quotidian reality of patriotism. In the process the world's politically geography was radically transformed, with its total number of states increasing from 50 states to 200.[ii] Yet despite the sense of renewal brought on by the outburst of post-war independence movements, authoritarian regimes simply replaced the old colonial regimes and sluggish development continues to plague these nations.
While few colonies exist today, a number of separatist movements, primarily in Europe, continue to attract broad bases of support. Indeed, in spite of their significant degrees of autonomy, regions like Scotland and Catalonia continue to host some of the most prominent separatist movements. These have resulted in close referendums within the last decade, producing results with only slim margins of defeat.[iii] Likewise in Africa, several regionalist movements have spurred violence, with the recent example of the self-declared Federal Republic of Ambazonia splitting off from Cameroon.[iv] Though the demand for independence has not ceased since the time of decolonization, the rate of success certainly has, with the number of new nations appearing having slowed down significantly since the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the 1990s.[v]
What then, beyond the innate desire from the people to seek a state of their own, determines whether a movement is able to generate enough momentum to achieve independence, and what factors are at play when observing how successfully a state is able to emerge from this independence? Despite the complex web of factors involved in independence movements, such as popular support, economic resources, and geography, a few key variables stand out as being consistently impactful. Though not representative of all, an analysis of two of the globe’s youngest nations demonstrates the decisive role international factors, namely foreign support, play in their independence movements, while the internal features of the movement—such as leadership, corruption, and economic management of resources—have the biggest long-term impact on the government and economy of these new states.
South Sudan:
After years of foreign rule and violent conflict, South Sudan finally earned its independence in 2011, becoming the youngest country on Earth. Yet despite this revolutionary success, the nation continues to hold one of the lowest standards of living—with a Human Development Index of 0.433—burdened by rebel groups, mass displacement, and famine.[vi] Prior to Sudanese independence from the British Empire in 1956, South Sudan was already alienated by the colonial government, who catered to the already commercialized “Arab” north; such policies restricted southern development to forestall the “African” portion of the colony from acquiring political power. The imbalance-induced internal tension at last materialized in 1955 with the Anyanya Insurgency, and after a long civil war, the south was granted regional autonomy by the central government, codified by the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement. This victory was achieved via military support from Ethiopia, Uganda, and Israel with a coup d’etat that weakened the central government. The insurgency had achieved little progress before acquiring these military allies and would have struggled to ever earn a seat at the negotiating table if not for the coup rearranging the central government.[vii] This demonstrates that prior to independence, the early movements towards greater autonomy were reliant on external factors, such as foreign military support and unstable regional politics.
The autonomy, however, came to an abrupt end when, in 1983, President Jaafar Nimeri declared Sudan an Islamic state and stripped the south of its autonomy, provoking a second Civil War, now between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). The outcome was once again heavily influenced by international actors. Initially, the SPLM was supported by Ethiopia, then led by a Soviet-backed regime. This prompted the Americans to ally with Nimeri’s regime against the SPLM, and consequently Ethiopia and the Soviet sphere. When Ethiopia’s government was overthrown and the Soviet regime dissolved in 1991, their support for the SPLM too ended, all while the Khartoum government began supporting international terrorism. In conjunction with this geopolitical shift, lobbying efforts that long accused the Sudanese central government of engaging in slave raids led Washington to offer the SPLM humanitarian and security assistance, all while new regional allies also began to side with the SPLM. Owing to this new geopolitical shift, the Sudanese government was forced into negotiations and the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, offering a referendum to the South Sudanese at the end of a six-year interim period.[viii] In the end, more powerful and self-interested foreign actors such as the United States became the decisive forces in determining the outcome of the South Sudanese independence movement within the broader Cold War context.
The new nation’s honeymoon period did not last long. Unlike the nation’s road to independence that was largely aided by foreign support, South Sudan’s descent into violence and stagnation can be more directly attributed to the internal actions taken by the SPLM and the government it formed. The predominant blame for these failures lies with the poor leadership of the SPLM. Being Dinka-dominated and exclusionary towards the Nuers and Shilluks, the SPLM was unable to unite the different ethnicities of South Sudan, culminating in an absent national South Sudanese identity. Moreover, the young nation’s government did little to provide essential services that would have built their legitimacy, instead fully relying on international donors to provide aid. At the same time, the inaugural president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, a leader within the SPLM during the Civil War and the first South Sudanese president, was directly responsible for many of South Sudan’s failures. He was autocratic, ethnically exclusive, and built deep patronage networks that alienated all opposition. His rivalry with Vice President Riek Machar and the Nuers he represented culminated in the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) to split off from the SPLM, and for seven ensuing years a brutal Civil War raged on.[ix] Throughout the course of the conflict, attempts made by the US, the UN Security Council, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development to mediate the conflict were consistently ineffective due to a lack of incentive for both parties to comply with their terms.[x] Despite peace agreements mediated by regional powers leading to the creation of a new unitary government, reports of violence continue to mount, demonstrating the internal destruction caused by this crisis.[xi] The SPLM and its leadership allowed all of the corruption, rivalries, and inequalities that defined it to inhibit their ability to make effective decisions for their country. While state formation is an arduous process in and of itself, further complicated by ethnic diversity, absence of foreign aid, and lack of development within South Sudan, the incredibly ineffective and autocratic leadership only accelerated the nation’s collapse into civil war.[xii] This demonstrates how the internal factors and leadership that define an independence movement play a more defining role in determining the success of the state after independence, rather than the achievement of independence itself.
While South Sudan’s economic failures can be attributed to a number of historical factors, including undeveloped infrastructure and a massive pool of uneducated labor, the legacy of the brutal conflict that led to the nation’s independence encouraged its leaders to make poor economic decisions that prevented potential recovery. One of the greatest economic obstacles for the young country was an extreme overreliance on oil, which accounted for 98% of the new government’s revenue.[xiii] Yet in spite of the need for change, SPLM elites continued many of the same practices of former Sudanese ruling elites, stealing large amounts of oil revenues and leaving the heavily populated rural areas of the country neglected. Additionally, the new border between Sudan and South Sudan remained in a static dispute over key oil regions that had been incorporated into northern Sudan back in the 1970s through gerrymandering, sustaining a rift that led South Sudanese officials to invest oil revenues into the military rather than their faltering economy, despite there being value in cooperation.[xiv] Indeed, South Sudan produces three-fourths of the oil between the two countries, while Sudan’s export pipeline was critical for successful trade for both countries. Out of frustration with the proposed cost to utilize the export pipeline, South Sudan shut down their entire production of oil in order to bargain for a better price, leaving the country bankrupt.[xv] Such internal management decisions only further devastated the economic situation within the nascent state, ones made out of spite for Sudan rather than to promote the well-being of the economy, perpetuating the conflict-mentality of the independence movement and the war that preceded it.
East Timor:
In 2002, East Timor declared independence from Indonesia, after hundreds of years of colonization and domination by foreign powers. Similar to South Sudan, the young country struggled with an oil-reliant, lagging economy and a diverse population, but unlike South Sudan, it has managed to offer a stable and democratic government for its people to rely upon. While East Timor’s path to independence was also aided by foreign actors, the country’s long-term success was a result of stronger internal leadership and resource management. The nation first achieved freedom after a military coup in Lisbon overthrew the Portuguese government in 1974, allowing the Marxist Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) to capitalize and seize control during the resulting power vacuum. However, within days, the then vastly superior Indonesian National Armed Forces (ABRI) invaded and annexed the infant state. Viewing the organization’s leftist ideology as a dangerous threat, by 1979, the occupying Indonesian government had captured every Fretilin base and less than 5% of their original forces survived, subsisting only through guerilla tactics and civilian intelligence. The resulting Indonesian occupation was economically exploitative and corrupt, creating a resentful populace. Wary of the growing presence of communism in Southeast Asia, the United States simply reaffirmed their support for Suharto’s Indonesia and their occupation of East Timor.[xvi] With a strong occupying force supported by the United States and Australia, who feared a potential independent, Communist East Timor, the independence movement’s hopes for success were slim. Despite the population’s overwhelming desire for independence and an organization ready to lead them, the lack of either regional or international support prevented them from generating any momentum.
An aspect of Indonesia’s occupation that had a particularly prominent impact was their Pancasila state philosophy, which among other things, promoted religious toleration to ease ethnic tensions.[xvii] This official religious attitude and the colonial imprint of Portuguese Catholicism resulted in a population that was 90% Catholic by 1990, offering East Timor a distinct identity from the Muslim-majority Indonesia while eliciting support from the Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II’s 1989 visit to Dili, the capital of East Timor, reinvigorated the population and sparked a wave of civil disobedience that reached its climax with the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre. The deaths of 270 peaceful protestors at the hands of the ABRI were broadcasted across the world, inspiring international civil society organizations to pressure their governments to support independence, particularly in Portugal, Australia, and Indonesia. This coincided with the end of the Cold War and Indonesia losing relevance in the American fight against Communism in Southeast Asia. After visiting East Timor in 1993, the US ambassador to Indonesia reported extreme human rights violations, and the US began conditioning its military aid to Jakarta on its human rights performance, while some European nations cut aid altogether. With mounting international pressure and East Timor’s economic downturn, Indonesia finally agreed to a popular consultation on the question of East Timor in 1999, stipulating either autonomy or full independence as the two choices. With 78.5% of the Timorese rejecting autonomy, pro-Jakarta militias responded violently, murdering and removing people from their homes while also engaging in scorched earth tactics, violence that was only put to rest by a UN Security Council peacekeeping force.[xviii] At last, East Timor earned its official independence in 2002, yet the new country was essentially forced to start from scratch as a result of the massacre.[xix] In the end, tracing the timeline of East Timor’s independence from Portugal to its freedom from Indonesia offers a rather strong connection between international support and prospects for independence. Before receiving the Catholic Church and the US government’s support, East Timor’s only concrete movements for independence were conducted by guerrilla fighters, echoing the experience of South Sudan. Only after this shift in foreign support did the East Timorese get their shot at freedom, once again demonstrating how, in order to be fully successful, independence movements are dependent on foreign actors whose decision-making may only be partially influenced by their actions.
Although independence was achieved with foreign support, East Timor was only able to restabilize after the catastrophic attacks owing to the effective internal leadership established by the resistance groups that fought for independence in the first place. The hierarchies within these paramilitary groups consisted of secret leaders who worked across villages, with many of them holding customary genealogical roles. This allowed for a strong sense of cohesion and accountability between the people and leaders. The creation of the Timorese National Resistance Council (CNRT) consolidated these groups and allowed for a legitimated structure of future governance, nurturing many of the current political elites. While there were several impactful leaders who emerged from the CNRT to compete for power within the new government, future Prime Minister and President, Xanana Gusmao, enjoyed the greatest public support through his charisma and background within the resistance. Though some have argued his political domination and tactics were somewhat authoritarian, he continued to advocate for democratic principles and effectively unified the new country.[xx] In comparison to the leadership established by President Kiir’s government in South Sudan, East Timor’s leadership was able to define a national identity, build public legitimacy, and create stability within the traumatized nation, illustrating the decisive importance of domestic leadership post-independence. This demonstrates how internal factors within an independence movement, such as leadership and structural hierarchies, can make a decisive difference to ensure the health of a nation after independence.
After the devastation of the post-referendum attacks, East Timor’s only hope for any economic stability lay within their considerable offshore oil deposits. Much like South Sudan, the nation was at tremendous risk of faltering to the resource curse, with 97% of government revenues coming from oil. Unlike South Sudan, however, the government did not allow the burdens and tensions leftover from their battle for independence to hamper their economic management. Several donors, including the World Bank, IMF, and foreign experts, assisted in drafting legislation and establishing the best practices, accountability, and transparency within the oil sector. While the economy remains largely undiversified, it has remained stable and has been able to outpace other Southeast Asian countries due to increasing oil revenues and increased public expenditure.[xxi] While East Timor’s economic management remains in the rudimentary stages, decisions to prioritize stability and economic optimization allowed for a greater degree of economic development than in South Sudan. Even after suffering horrible violence following independence, the government moved on from these scars and was able to stabilize their economy due to effective internal management.
Analysis and Implications
An analysis of the young nations of South Sudan and East Timor’s path to independence and the quality of statehood enjoyed by each of them post-independence suggests that whether or not they gained independence owed in large part to broader geopolitical forces at play, while subsequent state formation hinged upon internal decision-makers. Surely, however, this general finding is not nearly as rigid in practice as it is described here. In Sudan, regardless of whether or not regional and foreign actors wanted the south to be independent is irrelevant without the South Sudanese people and those that led the SDLM taking the fight to the central government in the first place. And while the leaders of the SDLM offered themselves little favors, they were tasked with an extraordinarily difficult set of circumstances to build a nation within, and their failure could certainly be blamed on weak foreign intervention and support. Similarly, in East Timor, for all of the religious, economic, and Cold War geopolitics that eventually coalesced into the international pressure necessary for independence, none of it would have come to fruition without the relentless battle waged by the Fretilin insurgents. Having a more cohesive internal structure filled with charismatic leaders has offered East Timor an optimistic path forward, though one could certainly argue that pre-established factors presented a more favorable set of circumstances for the nation to work with.
In the end, the purpose of this case study is not to make overgeneralized, all purpose conclusions about the factors that lead to independence and the prosperity of resulting nations. Rather, the patterns it discovers partially suggests an uncomfortable reality about the current state of self-determination and nation building: the people within a nation or region can rarely determine if they are to be a part of an independent country, but more often than not, a select group of powerful foreign actors do. Additionally, young nations with underdeveloped institutions and economies are not offered nearly enough foreign support or mediation needed to ensure they are able to progress and find stability. What we are left with is a system of foreign determination followed by self-reliance, in which specific powerful actors select which nations are worthy of independence and then leave them to sink or swim with minimal support. This directly contradicts many of the stated goals set by the United Nations: namely self-determination and international support. Self-determination has thus been manipulated to contain a dangerous conditional requirement: not only must a majority of the region determine that they want independence, but they must also convince certain segments of the international community that it is advantageous for them to make it so. While this has, to an extent, always been a reality, it is especially true today given the increased power held by the international order. The effectiveness of foreign aid has been in question for some time now, though it is also clear that an alternative method of international state-building guidance is critical. At the very least, the nations that helped play a role in a country’s achieved independence should feel a stronger sense of obligation to ensure that that new state is able to succeed.
Illustration by Oscar Martinez
[i]“List of Independence Days by Country,” WorldAtlas, accessed April 26, 2021, https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/list-of-independence-days-by-country.html.
[ii] Frederick Cooper, “Decolonization: A Brief History of the Word,” in Beyond Empire and Nation: The Decolonization of African and Asian Societies, 1930-1970s, 2012, 23–37, http://proxy.library.cornell.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bas&AN=BAS894200&site=eds-live&scope=site; “Self Determination (International Law),” Legal Information Institute, accessed April 27, 2021, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/self_determination_(international_law).
[iii] “Catalonia’s Bid for Independence from Spain Explained,” BBC, October 18, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29478415; Solly Meilan, “A Not-So-Brief History of Scottish Independence,” Smithsonian, January 30, 2020, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brief-history-scottish-independence-180973928/.
[iv] Dirke Köpp and Silja Fröhlich, “Who Are Cameroon’s Self-Named Ambazonia Secessionists?,” Deutsche Welle, September 30, 2019, https://www.dw.com/en/who-are-cameroons-self-named-ambazonia-secessionists/a-50639426.
[v] Matt Rosenberg and Geography B. A., “The World’s Newest Countries Since 1990,” ThoughtCo, July 11, 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/new-countries-of-the-world-1433444.
[vi] United Nations Development Programme, “Chapter 7 - Towards a New Generation of Human Development Metrics for the Anthropocene,” Human Development Report 2020 (United Nations, 2020), 243, https://www.un-ilibrary.org/content/books/9789210055161.
[vii] Richard Downie, “South Sudan: The Painful Rise And Rapid Descent of the World’s Newest Nation,” in Independence Movements and Their Aftermath: Self-Determination and the Struggle for Success, ed. Jon B. Alterman and Will Todman (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), 100–116, https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/alterman_independencemovements_FULL_WEB.pdf.
[viii] Downie, “South Sudan.”
[ix] Downie, “South Sudan.”
[x] Leben Nelson Moro, “South Sudan: Post-Independence Dilemmas,” in Oil, Economic Development, and Community in South Sudan (Routledge, 2018), 38–56, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315162638-3.
[xi] Cara Anna and Maura Ajak, “UN Report Says South Sudan Has Healed Little since Civil War,” AP NEWS, accessed May 2, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-south-sudan-sudan-united-nations-civil-wars-fc6fc694cd6da41e00f8227dde3d0dc6.
[xii] Downie, “South Sudan.”
[xiii] Downie, “South Sudan.”
[xiv] Moro, “South Sudan.”
[xv] Downie, “South Sudan.”
[xvi] Miks Muizarajs, “Timor-Leste: A Nation of Resistance,” in Independence Movements and Their Aftermath: Self-Determination and the Struggle for Success, ed. Jon B. Alterman and Will Todman (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), 53–80, https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/alterman_independencemovements_FULL_WEB.pdf.
[xvii] David Bourchier, “Pancasila,” in The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History (Oxford University Press, 2009), http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195134056.001.0001/acref-9780195134056-e-606; Hyung-Jun Kim, “The Changing Interpretation of Religious Freedom in Indonesia,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 29, no. 2 (1998): 358.
[xviii] Muizarajs, “Timor-Leste: A Nation of Resistance”; Jean A. Berlie, ed., East Timor’s Independence, Indonesia and ASEAN (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
[xix] Muizarajs, “Timor-Leste: A Nation of Resistance.”
[xx] Muizarajs, “Timor-Leste: A Nation of Resistance.”
[xxi] Muizarajs, “Timor-Leste: A Nation of Resistance.”
