Kumar, R. (1997) “The Troubled History of Partition’

Kumar, R. (1997) “The Troubled History of Partition’, Foreign Affairs 76 (1) (Jan./Feb. 1997), 22-34.

1. 1995 Dayton Peace Accord: a partition agreement with an exit clause for outside powers.
2. Claim that partitions as solutions to ethnic conflicts save lives, safeguard rights of contending ethnic groups through intervention of impartial outside power, and create homogenous territories through population transfers.
3. Instead of doing so, partitions “fomented further violence and forced mass migration” (24).
4. Partition assumes irreconcilable ethnic identities and capacity to separate ethnic groups.
5. Usually, partitions are “driven by considerations extraneous to the needs and desires of the people displaced” and “end up stimulating further and even new conflict” (26).
6. Case studies of Cyprus, Palestine, Northern Ireland, India, Bosnia show that partitions are seen as temporary solutions to crises; however, once implemented “ethnic partitions have never been reversed; their implementation has inexorably driven communities further apart”. (33).
7. Ethnic partition can hamper development of postwar economies.
8. “Divide and Quit” approach rarely works: it turns into “Divide and Be forced to stay” (34).
9. “Investment in reintegration may be discovered as the easier route to withdrawal.” (34)