De Facto Border Research Articles

Transitional African Spaces in Comparative Analysis: inclusion, exclusion and informality in Morocco and Cape Verde

Departing from the idea that the externalisation of the EU's immigration policy has been tacitly accepted and even incorporated in the legal corpus of nations around the Mediterranean basin, this study argues that the southern European boundary has been redrawn, and gradually dislocated southwards to establish a new de facto border in northern and western Africa. The study adopts a comparative analysis evaluating the social effects of this novel geopolitical dynamic in two of Europe's closest neighbours, Morocco and the Cape Verde Islands, and focuses on the quasi-involuntary development of a new migration paradigm in both countries, based on an informal incorporation nexus. This important change in local socio-political contexts primarily derives from a steady inflow of sub-Saharan migrants, and the challenges they pose to civility in two nations where civil society is only nascent. As passage to Europe becomes increasingly difficult, many migrants are transforming what were until recently two eminent migration source countries into ‘transit countries’, increasingly becoming hosts to permanent states of transience and liminality. Current legal categories used to identify these new migration flows, and the lack of adequate asylum discourses, are also problematised. The study further explores the nexus of inclusion and exclusion, and formal and informal modes of incorporation, of the ‘African other’.

Cooperating over Water Issues in the Middle East

It is the nature of nature in the Middle East that, like everything else, all things are political. Even water is laden with politics as raindrops fall either on Jewish or Arab soil. Long before the Israelis described in “Seeking sustainability: Israel's evolving water management strategy” (A. Tal, Special Section: Freshwater Resources, Perspectives, 25 Aug., p. [1081][1]) have a chance to manage water supplies, they must first control the quantity of water that is taken by Palestinians living on the West Bank ([1][2]–[4][3]). Within the scientific community, however, there are some contrasts to the military and political conflicts that are so often the fodder for front-page news. Three examples of teamwork stand out. The first is the award-winning cleanup of the Alexander River ([5][4]), which carries raw sewage from the Palestinian towns of Nablus and Tulkarm across the Green Line demarcating the de facto border between Israel and the Palestinian territories on the West Bank. Israeli and Palestinian planners began working together in 1997 and continued through the worst of the Al Aqsa Intifada (2000–05). Implementation of a master plan to restore the river began in 1998 with removal of pollutants, construction of an “emergency project” to treat raw sewage arriving from the Nablus Stream, and creation of seven river parks with bike and pedestrian paths and streamside picnic areas designed in cooperation with Israeli schoolchildren. ![Figure][5] The Alexander River CREDIT: SHAI GINOTT/CORBIS The second is a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Israeli/Palestinian research project to assess damage and prepare for eventual restoration of water in the Besor/Khalil watershed. The Besor/Khalil's headwaters rise in the West Bank, where it collects the raw sewage of Hebron and the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba before running into Israeli territory. It flows through the northern Negev Desert, gathering yet more sewage, storm water, and agricultural and industrial waste, before becoming the only flowing surface water stream in the Gaza Strip (see also “Running out of water—and time,” J. Bohannon, 25 Aug., p. [1085][6]). Israeli Jewish, Israeli Arab, and Palestinian scientists are preparing a joint quantitative analysis of water quality and watershed impairment from the river's source in the West Bank highlands to its outlet in the Mediterranean ([6][7]). Finally, in a project called Good Water Neighbors spearheaded by Friends of the Earth Middle East, Israelis, Palestinians, and Jordanians are cooperating to share best practices for water conservation. The cooperation of 17 cross-border communities has illustrated how the interdependent nature of water can create the initial trust that provides the basis for cooperative work ([7][8]). For example, Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli mayors have jointly called for policies to rehabilitate the lower Jordan River. 1. 1.[↵][9] 1. S. Schhoenfeld 1. J. Isaac, 2. K. Rishmawi, 3. A. Safar , in Palestinian and Israeli Environmental Narratives, S. Schhoenfeld, Ed. (Centre for International and Security Studies, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2005), pp. 229-245. 2. 2. 1. K. R. Spillman, 2. G. Bachler 1. N. Kliot , in Environmental Crisis: Regional Conflicts and Ways of Cooperation, K. R. Spillman, G. Bachler, Eds. (Center for Security Studies, ETH, Zurich, 1995), pp. 43-56. 3. 3. 1. K. R. Spillman, 2. G. Bachler 1. J. Isaac , in Environmental Crisis: Regional Conflicts and Ways of Cooperation, K. R. Spillman, G. Bachler, Eds. (Center for Security Studies, ETH, Zurich, 1995), pp. 57-74. 4. 4.[↵][10] 1. S. C. Lonergan, 2. D. B. Brooks , Watershed (International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada, 1994). 5. 5.[↵][11] 1. E. Pallant , Sierra , p. 18 (May/June 2004). 6. 6.[↵][12] See [www.watsoninstitute.org/meef/english/docs/ResearchBesor\_project\_proposal.pdf][13] for details. 7. 7.[↵][14] 1. T. Lubarr , Good Water Neighbors (Friends of the Earth Middle East, Amman, Bethlehem, Tel Aviv, 2005). [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1126011 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-4 [4]: #ref-5 [5]: pending:yes [6]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.313.5790.1085 [7]: #ref-6 [8]: #ref-7 [9]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1. in text [10]: #xref-ref-4-1 View reference 4. in text [11]: #xref-ref-5-1 View reference 5. in text [12]: #xref-ref-6-1 View reference 6. in text [13]: http://www.watsoninstitute.org/meef/english/docs/ResearchBesor_project_proposal.pdf [14]: #xref-ref-7-1 View reference 7. in text

Spanish Colonization Literature, Powhatan Geographies, and English Perceptions of Tsenacommacah/Virginia

IN 1612 VIRGINIA COLONIST WILLIAM STRACHEY EXPLAINED THAT HIS Historie of Travell into Virginia Britania depicted in greatest detail that part of the Virginia Company's claims where the English had concentrated their colonizing activities. This area, as Strachey described it, was roughly contiguous with the severall territoryes and provinces which are in chief commaunded by their great king Powhatan, ... comprehended under the denomynation of Tsenacommacoh, of which we may the more by experyence speak being the place wherein our abode and habitation hath now well neere sixe yeares consisted. Ten years later Englishman John Martin wrote, That parte of Virginia wthin wch wee are seated and fitt to be settled on for many hundred yeares: Is wthin the Territories of [Powhatan's successor] Opichakano, ... whoe Comaundeth from the Southermost parte of the first [the James] River to the Southermost parte of the fourth River called Patomeck.... In longitude it extendeth to [the] Monakins Countrie ... west and west and by North.... The two writers used very similar boundaries to demarcate the English colony: the James River, the Atlantic Ocean, the fall line, and (in Martin's case) the Potomac River. (1) Neither the official extent of the Virginia Company's claims nor the actual reach of English settlement, however, explains Martin's and Strachey's descriptions of Virginia's boundaries. The colony's second charter in 1609 granted the Virginia Company land two hundred miles north and south of Point Comfort, and from sea to sea. Virginia's English population occupied only a small section of the James River when Strachey wrote, and more of the James and some of the Eastern Shore when Martin wrote. (2) A half century later the extent of Virginia's population, its dependence on tobacco cultivation and export via Chesapeake waterways, and the establishment of Maryland north of the Potomac would suggest these borders for the English colony, but the 1612 English population of about 500 and the 1622 population of just over 1,200 were not nearly enough to require the area encompassed by Strachey's and Martin's descriptions. (3) The explanation for such English perceptions of the Chesapeake's geography lies, rather, in their readings of Spanish colonization literature, which led some English promoters and colonists to see Virginia in terms of the political, economic, and cultural geographies of the native people they encountered there, the Powhatans. Virginia Company officials and English Virginians understood their colonization project within an American context, for which the Spanish provided the most relevant model--the appropriation and transformation of indigenous political and economic structures to serve the process of colonization. The English realized that colonization by appropriation was not uniquely American (and looked to ancient as well as more recent examples), but they studied the Spanish experience as the most applicable because they believed the specifics of American environments and populations to be comparable. Since Englishmen's readings of Spanish histories taught them that Indian political and economic geographies mattered to Euro-American colonies, early colonists and Virginia Company officials paid careful attention to Powhatan politics and economy. Indeed, their hopes of appropriating indigenous imperial structures encouraged them to overinterpret Tsenacommacah's potential to benefit them. Thus, in part because they hoped to follow Spanish successes, Powhatan Tsenacommacah--and English colonists' correct and incorrect perceptions of it--shaped the way Englishmen approached the Chesapeake during Virginia's first several decades. (4) Thus, through the early 1620s many English Virginians understood colonization to be the process of appropriating Powhatan's paramount chiefdom, Tsenacommacah, an already defined part of English Virginians' New World. (5) Specifically, Spanish models influenced the sequence of English settlement, encouraging the English to center their efforts first on conquering Tsenacommacah's core and to see Virginia's de facto borders as synonymous with their understanding of Tsenacommacah's extent. …

Terrorism and the Funding of Terrorism in Kashmir

The independence of India from the British Empire was marked by its partition into two countries, viz India and Pakistan. As a corollary to independence and partition of India, 500‐odd princely states which had direct relationship with the British Empire were required to integrate with either India or Pakistan — the successor states. The process of integration of princely states was not without its highs and lows. Some of the princely states, like Hyderabad, Junagarh and Jammu and Kashmir, posed quite a few problems at the time of integration for several reasons, namely the inclination of its rulers, the religious component of the local population and the competing interests of the two successor states, India and Pakistan. Hyderabad and Junagarh were favourably resolved in India's favour. Integration of Jammu and Kashmir with India was not a smooth affair. It was only after Pakistan‐aided forces including the Pakistan army had invaded Jammu and Kashmir that the then ruler of Jammu and Kashmir signed the instrument of accession in India's favour. With the instrument of accession, India had a locus standi to protect its territory in Jammu and Kashmir by military means. The salvage operation of throwing the Pakistan‐aided forces and Pakistan military out of Jammu and Kashmir could not be accomplished fully, because India agreed that the United Nations, to which the Kashmir dispute was to be referred, would help in the resolution of the Kashmir issue within the accepted legal framework which was in India's favour. However, India's experience with the United Nations was a great disappointment. In fact India had put so much faith in the United Nations that it even agreed to a plebiscite in Kashmir for resolving the dispute, subject to the condition that Pakistan vacated the illegally occupied areas of Jammu and Kashmir. India need not have agreed to a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir, but it did so because of its abiding faith in democratic principles, notwithstanding the legal framework on the basis of which the integration of other princely states with the successor states was carried out. To date, Pakistan has not vacated what is today called ‘Pakistan‐occupied Kashmir’. On top of that, in 1962 China gobbled up a large part of Kashmir in the north‐east, on the basis of a boundary dispute which it raised with India and which has yet to be resolved. To make matters still worse and more complicated, Pakistan ceded a part of Pakistan‐occupied territory to China. Thus the situation, as of today, is that 45.7 per cent of the 222,336 sq. km area of Jammu and Kashmir is with India, 35.1 per cent is with Pakistan and 19.2 per cent is with China. Apart from a war with China, two more full‐scale wars have been fought with Pakistan over Kashmir; the 1965 war, which was confined to the western theatre, and the 1971 war. The 1965 war was a short one and through the Soviet Union's mediation, an agreement was arrived at which was to no one's advantage and more or less restored the status quo ante. Following the 1971 war with Pakistan, India was in an advantageous position, because East Pakistan had ceded from West Pakistan and emerged as an independent country, the two‐nation theory to which Pakistan subscribed as the basis for partition of India into two successor states of India and Pakistan had been exploded; India had 90,000 Pakistan prisoners of war and it had also made large gains on the western front by occupying certain strategic positions. It was from this position of strength in 1971 that India decided that the Kashmir dispute had to be resolved bilaterally by India and Pakistan without any foreign intervention; a doctrine to which Pakistan subscribed at that point of time. In fact, India approached the bilateral talks between the two countries in a spirit of magnanimity. As a first step, India decided to return to Pakistan 90,000 prisoners of war. It agreed to a fresh demarcation of the Line of Control (including withdrawal from several strategic positions) on the unwritten understanding that this Line of Control, over a period of time, based on good neighbourly relations with Pakistan — supplemented by economic ties — would ultimately result in its becoming a de jure border from a de facto border with Pakistan; though the officially stated position continues to be that the whole of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India. The 1971 agreement with Pakistan, which is also called the ‘Shimla Agreement’, thus constitutes the principal plank for the settlement of the Kashmir issue with Pakistan on a bilateral basis.

Subnational diplomacy: Japan and Sakhalin

The results of an opinion poll published in July 1995 indicate that the residents of the Russian Federation's (RF) Sakhalin Region (SR) (Oblast in Russian) have a high degree of interest in their closest foreign neighbor - Japan. Little wonder that this is so since the SR is the only island border region separating the RF mainland from Japan's Hokkaido District and that the Hokkaido District is the SR's major trading partner. The post-Second World War Russo-Japanese confrontation provides the context in which the recent growth of constructive mutual interaction between Japan's Hokkaido District and the RF Sakhalin Region deserves thorough critical attention. Ever since establishment of Mikhail Gorbachev's political regime in the Soviet Union in 1985, there has been an activization of local interests in the de facto border region that has mainly been a central authority concern. The heavily militarized character of the Sakhalin-Hokkaido borderlands is evidence of both central governments' concern about retaining absolute control over local political and economic activities. One-third of Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) army personnel is stationed on Hokkaido, with half of the SDF firepower being concentrated in the area.