Forming minorities in five adjacent countries for 74 years, Kurds have been fighting for independence or autonomy, against governments reluctant to accede either. The Kurdish saga is one of periodic insurrections, partial victories, misfortunes, defeats, betrayal, national repression, clashing personalities, changing allegiances and an unusual mixture of heroism and expendiency. Kurds used governments, and governments used Kurds. A good insight is given into both political and military aspects of the struggle, and of the motives and machinations of major personalities involved.
Forming minorities in five adjacent countries for 74 years, Kurds have been fighting for independence or autonomy, against governments reluctant to ac...
The sixteen-year long civil war in Lebanon was caused by dissatisfaction over the distribution of political power. The system favoured Christians who fought to eject Palestinian armed forces, which sought to use the country as a spring board for attacks into adjacent Israel. Western intervention was repelled by suicide-bombing attacks. Lebanese Christians and Muslims sub-divided to fight each other. Dominated by competing war lords, this civil war was notable for massacres, treachery, atrocities, kidnapping, assassination, changing alliances of convenience, and invasions.
The sixteen-year long civil war in Lebanon was caused by dissatisfaction over the distribution of political power. The system favoured Christians who ...
For many centuries, the mountainous Caucasus region was a strategic backwater, inhabited by insular peoples and tribes, where the raw edges of Christian and Muslim empires rubbed abrasively together. Most of the Caucasus was absorbed into the Russian empire in the 10th century; its 112 recognized nationalities were thus all eventually smothered by the Soviet Union, only to reemerge with a vengeance when the Soviet empire collapsed. In the 1990's, the saga of the Caucasus republics has been one of clashing war-lord militias, coups and international attention of now increasingly focused on...
For many centuries, the mountainous Caucasus region was a strategic backwater, inhabited by insular peoples and tribes, where the raw edges of Chri...
Forming minorities in five adjacent countries for 74 years, Kurds have been fighting for independence or autonomy, against governments reluctant to accede either. The Kurdish saga is one of periodic insurrections, partial victories, misfortunes, defeats, betrayal, national repression, clashing personalities, changing allegiances and an unusual mixture of heroism and expendiency. Kurds used governments, and governments used Kurds. A good insight is given into both political and military aspects of the struggle, and of the motives and machinations of major personalities involved.
Forming minorities in five adjacent countries for 74 years, Kurds have been fighting for independence or autonomy, against governments reluctant to ac...
The sixteen-year long civil war in Lebanon was caused by dissatisfaction over the distribution of political power. The system favoured Christians who fought to eject Palestinian armed forces, which sought to use the country as a spring board for attacks into adjacent Israel. Western intervention was repelled by suicide-bombing attacks. Lebanese Christians and Muslims sub-divided to fight each other. Dominated by competing war lords, this civil war was notable for massacres, treachery, atrocities, kidnapping, assassination, changing alliances of convenience, and invasions.
The sixteen-year long civil war in Lebanon was caused by dissatisfaction over the distribution of political power. The system favoured Christians who ...
Sudan, the largest country in Africa, became independent in 1956, to find it had a foot in both the Arab Muslim and the Black African camps. Almost immediately a sixteen year civil war began, ending with autonomy for the South, which devolved into chaos. A second southern revolution broke out in 1983 when the government introduced the Sharia law, which is still in progress, the impasse halted only by an uneasy cease-fire. Central governments have been mainly military dictatorships, plagued by plots, quarrels with adjacent countries, and involvement in international terrorism.
Sudan, the largest country in Africa, became independent in 1956, to find it had a foot in both the Arab Muslim and the Black African camps. Almost im...
A fascinating account of the Intifada (struggle) by Palestinians in the Occupied Territories against Israeli governments, the first part of which was a mass civil disobedience movement of 'stone against bullets', which Israeli security forces contained only with great difficulty, resorting to doubtful methods that included detention without trial, kidnapping and assassinations. Criticized by human rights organisations and the United Nations, Palestinians and the Iranian-supported Hezbollah operated suicide-bombers, and some Palestinians resumed terrorist activity. America intervened...
A fascinating account of the Intifada (struggle) by Palestinians in the Occupied Territories against Israeli governments, the first part of which was ...
As Soviet Communism dissolved it was replaced in the Caucasus by nationalism enabling the Republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia to obtain independence: Chechenya is still fighting on. War between Armenia and Azerbaijan started immediately over the Azeri administered Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhicheven enclaves within Armenia, which has already cost over 30,000 lives, and displaced a million people. Warlord-ridden Georgia erupted into civil war for central power, while the countryside lay in the grip of ethnic groups and bandit gangs, its Muslim Abkhazia province, aided by Russians, fought...
As Soviet Communism dissolved it was replaced in the Caucasus by nationalism enabling the Republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia to obtain indep...
The Muslim President of Bosnia battled for almost two years in a 'war the West could not stop', against Serb and Croat separatism, to preserve its entity, saving its sovereignty, but losing half his territory. Western rivalries and changes of policy, endless negotiations, broken promises and cease-fires, and ethnic cleansing on a barbaric scale, with the appearance of concentration camps and atrocities, were the hallmarks of the conflict, of seige, bombardment and starvation, with semi-independent war-loards confiscating a proportion of UN and other food aid for themselves. Rival American and...
The Muslim President of Bosnia battled for almost two years in a 'war the West could not stop', against Serb and Croat separatism, to preserve its ent...
