The Russian Far East: Russia’s Far Flung Territory in North-East Asia 1

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Inter-ethnic relations, Politics, Regional History, Social History

Vladivostok, the principal city and port of Far Eastern Russia, is nearly 4,000 miles from the Russian Federation’s capital, Moscow, yet it is only some 830 miles from China’s capital, Beijing. That stark fact of geography goes a good way to explaining the Russian Far East’s destiny. The inhospitable remoteness of the wild East from the capital of Russia, be it under empire, union or federation, has in its history never been until very recently❉ in the forefront of the minds of the country’s political leaders.

RFE today: the demographics
Russian: Дальний Восток России/ Dal’niy Vostok Rossi (trslit. Russian), literally “The distant East of Russia”.

Where exactly is it? The Russian Far East is a vast region within the world’s largest single-state political entity; roughly RFE extends from Eastern Siberia and Lake Baikal through to the Pacific coastline.
Area: 6,952,000 kms (comprising 40.6% of all the Russia territory)
Population according to the 2010 Census: 6.3 million (constituting a population scarcity of less than one person per square kilometre).
Composition: the majority are ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, with traditional indigenous and other ethnic minorities – including Mongols and Buryats, Aleuts and Inuits, Chukotko-Kamchatkan peoples, Koryats, Turkic peoples, Korean people (Koryo Saram).
Political division: RFE comprises four oblasts, three krais, an autonomous okrug (Chukotia) and the Sakha Republic⚛️.

Historical background
The Russian Empire, emerging out of its tentative, early Moscovy origins, was not quick to explore (and eventually conquer) the regions to the east of the Russian heartland. Exploration of the area got its impetus and propulsion under the rule of Ivan the Terrible (Tsar Ivan IV) in the late 16th century. Cossack Hetman Ermak’s 1581 victory over the Khanate of Sibir led to other eastern expeditions by other Russian atamans and ultimately to the defeat of the other khanates (the Golden Horde) and the incorporation of their lands under the Russian imperial banner. Aside from empire-building, the Russians were motivated by the mystique that had attached itself to the Asian hinterlands to the east, the reported vast quantities of wealth thought to be on the other side of the Kamen (a traditional name for the Urals)[‘Meeting of Frontiers: Siberia, Alaska and the American West’, (Library of Congress project), www.frontiers.loc.gov].

The image many hold of Sibir

Once the explorers and the conquerors had established the territory in the name of the tsar, the trappers, traders and merchants followed in their footsteps, populating the enormous reaches of Siberia. The promyshelenniki typified these pioneers, the frontiersmen who harvested and distributed the lucrative fur trade, much sought after by the European market. Finally, in 1639, the Russians reached the Pacific at the Sea of Okhotsk with Ivan Moskvitin’s expedition [ibid.].

Yakutsk (capital of Yakutia)

Yakutia, a land with a grim past to match its climate
Yakutia in RFE’s north, today the Sakha Republic (Coordinates: 66°24’N 129°10’E), (not to be confused with the Sakhalin Oblast comprising the Sakhalin and Kuril Islands) achieved legendary notoriety during the Soviet era. Described as “a prison without bars”, Yakutia was the location of somewhere in the region of 105 to 165 of Stalin’s Gulags. Between 1930 and 1950 the Soviets operated brutal forced-labour camps where many victims of Stalin’s autocracy were tasked with building the USSR’s infrastructure in conditions that were intolerable harsh and unbearable cold (arctic permafrost, frozen tundra, etc)⊙.

Contemporary Yakutia typifies the dilemma of RFE. The present government’s commitment to developing RFE is viewed with cynicism by most in the Sakha Republic. The town of Mirny (37,000 inhabitants) is the unofficial diamond capital of Russia, 25% of the world’s commercially mined diamonds are found here❂. In addition the region is blessed with ample deposits of gold and coal. Another more niche commodity found below ground in the republic are the bones of prehistoric woolly mammoths – many of which find a ready home on the black market [‘Left Behind in Russia’s Far East’, (Dmitriy Frolovskiy, The Diplomat, 24-Jul-2019, www.thediplomat.com].

Yakutia locals see the development priorities and benefits accruing from the new emphasis on the RFE differently to that of Moscow. In their eyes the increased wealth extracted from the region goes one way only – back to the centre. This has deepened Yukutians’ sense of isolation from “the mainland” (as the locals sometimes call the rest of Russia). Notwithstanding that the Republic of Sakha is critically underpopulated (around 1M residents in an area of 3,103,200 sq km), many locals also express dissatisfaction with the federal government’s recent attempts to bolster the depleted population of RFE with new intakes of migrants, largely from the ‘Stans’ of Central Asia’ [ibid.].

Norilsk, another ‘Gulagtown’ trying to live down its past
Current day Norilsk is overshadowed by a similar back story to Yakutia’s gulag towns…a remote location in Krasnoyarsk Krai, also supra-Arctic Circle, with no roads or rail lines into the city. Norilsk-Talnakh contains the largest-known deposits of nickel-copper-palladium in the world. In the days of Stalin’s “campaign of terror” Norilsk was “a node in the network of similar camps that Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (described) in the Gulag Archipelago” [‘Norilsk: The remote Russian mining town uneasy about its gulag past’, (Tom Parfitt), The Times, 06-May-2018, www.thetimes.co.uk].

Norilsk Golgotha, a monument to the city’s gulag prisoners

Repopulating RFE with Eastern Ukrainians
Ukrainians have been (forcibly) resettled in Siberia and RFE since the 17th century. In the formative years after the Russian Revolution of 1917, Ukrainians resettled in the area known as Zeleny Klyn◚ (sometimes also called Transcathay) tried to secede from the newly established Bolshevik Far Eastern Republic and create their own Eastern Russian entity, Green Ukraine. Fast-forward to 2016, President Vladimir Putin, in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, launched a Ukrainian resettlement program, voluntary this time with inducements of free land in underpopulated northern towns like Igarka for refugees from East Ukraine [‘Green Ukraine’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org; ‘Meeting of Frontiers’, loc.cit.]. The free land carrot had already been offered to Russians living in the Federation to migrate to the Far East.

The follow-up second part of my Russian Far East blog piece will deal in more detail with contemporary developments in RFE including Putin’s desire and strategy to turn the region into an economic powerhouse, and the vexing question of foreign investment in RFE, especially that of China.

_____________________________________________

❉ the current and greatly enhanced interest shown by the ultra-nationalistic Putin government in Russia’s Far East will be more thoroughly addressed in Part 2 of this blog

⚛️ oblasts, krais and okrugs are terms for administrative divisions with a fair degree of elasticity, although okrug is sometimes rendered as ‘district’ (raion)

⊙ known to get down to temperatures of -70° Celsius

❂ the ALROSA group of companies accounts for 95% of the country’s diamond production and dominates the Russian Far East’s economy

◚ literally “the green wedge”

Marsha Hunt, Century Call for an American Progressive and a Global Humanitarian

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Cinema, Performing arts, Politics

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.

~ Søren Kierkegaard

㊗⎋㊙⎋㊗

On the 17th of this month US film actress with a social conscience Marsha Virginia Hunt turned 100, joining the illustrious company of Olivia de Havilland and Kirk Douglas – a trio of Hollywood film centenarians all still alive! (Libby and the dimpled Kirk both reached their triple figure milestones during 2016).

(Photo: Mansfield News Journal)

Adulation for Marsha’s momentous achievement haven’t reached the stratospheric fanfare, the hype and media attention of Kirk Douglas’ 100th bash last December or of that of another Hollywood mainstay, Bob Hope. Of course it would not be expected, Marsha has never achieved the limelight that those other centenarian luminaries demanded in their Hollywood careers. She was a serious actress but never got the star ‘creds’ that others in the business did☸…but the elusiveness of stardom for Marsha wasn’t down to a shortfall in her acting ability – rather the explanation for this lay in the intervention of external factors which were to impact on her career.

Marsha does Jane Austen

Ms Hunt’s film career from its start in the Thirties looked promising, but in the super-charged, competitive stakes for the glamour female roles she came close without ever quite clasping the big prize…especially in 1939 when she tested impressively for the much sort-after part of Melanie in Gone With The Wind but narrowly lost out to (fellow centenarian) Olivia de Havilland. The following year Hunt did score a supporting role in the prestigious period movie Pride and Prejudice starring Laurence Olivier.

After World War II the grubby, gutter politics of McCarthyism dealt a savage blow to Marsha Hunt’s career…as it did to numerous other Hollywood liberals during that time when it was the fashion de jour in America to go full-throttle after citizens who were merely alleged or implied to be communists (truly a “Dark Age of guilty until proven innocent” witch-hunts!) For a fuller account of Hunt’s story see my earlier blog on this site (June 2014) Marsha Hunt, Lifelong Social Activist: Not your Average Hollywood Role Model .

With her reputation unfairly besmirched (tantamount to no more than implicit guilt by association!), Hunt was punished by being inexorably squeezed out of the Hollywood film mainstream. Potential parts in A-movies disappeared and the public saw her relegated to B-pictures and eventually to television and theatre (few good roles in theatrical movies came her way after 1947, the 1948 film noir Raw Deal and the much later Johnny Got His Gun (1971) were rare exceptions for the Chicago-born actress).

Marsha Hunt today

After being blacklisted by HUAC in 1950 after having made around 50 films since 1935, Hunt only featured in three films during the next eight years [‘Marsha Hunt (actress, born 1917)’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. By the Fifties and Sixties Hunt was finding work only easy to find in television – in a minor-note series Peck’s Bad Girl and in numerous guest roles on Zane Grey Theater, The Twilight Zone and so on ad infinitum.

Marsha Hunt: Life lived forwards…
After her semi-retirement in 1960 Hunt stepped up her active involvement in progressive causes including support for same-sex marriage, ending global poverty, raising awareness of climate change and promoting peace in Third World countries [Memos, Roger C. (October 17, 2014). “Honoring Actress – Activist Marsha Hunt on her 97th Birthday!”. Sherman Oaks, California: Patch.com. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017. Retrieved May 14, 2016]

In a series of interviews last week in honour of her 100th birthday Miss Hunt reflected on her career and on the missed stardom, which seemed to have touched her but only lightly. Hunt merely remarked of her Hollywood years that she was grateful for being allowed to be an actress and show her versatility on the screen✳…or as she put it in her characteristically humble, unassuming way, she is “a grateful girl of 100!” [J Kinser, ‘Marsha Hunt at 100: The Actress Recalls the Blacklist, Film Noir and Being Cast in Gone With a The Wind‘, Movie Maker, 13-Oct-2017, www.moviemaker.com].

JE Smith seems to have summed up the essence of Marsha Hunt and the paradoxes in her movie persona and career fairly well in the title of his interview with the centenarian, “American girl, Un-American woman, upstanding centenarian” [JE Smith, ‘Marsha Hunt: American girl, Un-American woman, upstanding centenarian’, Sight & Sound, 17-Oct-2017, www.bfi.org.uk].

(Source: Alt Film Art)

Once vilified by HUAC along with other progressive Hollywood actors as “Un-American”, Hunt’s longevity and achievements are testimony to all that is good about American society – an authentic patriot but also a defender of freedoms for all citizens – whilst repudiating all that is bad about American society. At the same time we have Hunt’s unceasing activism as a humanitarian concerned for the world as a whole and its future well-being, a tireless advocate for peace and progress, and for a more fair distribution of resources and safeguards for the environment.

๑๑~๑๑~๑๑~๑๑~๑๑~๑๑~๑๑~๑๑~
☸ IMDB proffers an interesting take on why she never scored the plum roles that other lauded Hollywood female stars were given: “Perhaps her work was not flashy enough, or too subdued, or perhaps her intelligence too often disguised a genuine sex appeal to stand out among the other lovelies” [Marsha Hunt biographical entry, www.imdb.com]

✳ the unstated inference is clear…rather than being factory-made into (an overhyped) star!

A Tale of Two Enclaves: Contested Sovereignty in the Mediterranean – Gibaltrar and Ceuta

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
International Relations, Politics, Regional History

They lie on different continents, just a shade over 28 kilometres from each other, on either side of the Straits of Gibraltar, and the common denominator for both is Spain. Their situations are in some ways the mirror image of each other – one, Gibraltar, is a tiny piece of the United Kingdom within the natural geography of Spain, and the other, Ceuta, is a tiny piece of Spain within the natural geography of Morocco. Geologically, both landscapes are physically dominated by a large chunk of limestone rock, viz. the Rock of Gibraltar and Monte Hacho (both probably are heavily fortified). Another thing they have in common is that the sovereign state in possession of each enclave is fiercely determined that its unilateral hold over the territory is not negotiable.

href=”http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/image-18.jpg”> Spain’s Places of Sovereignty[/
In discussing the tiny, controversial entities of Ceuta (known as Sebta in the Arab world) and Gibraltar, it is necessary to introduce a third entity into this binary equation – Melilla, because this territory located 225km east of Ceuta is linked to it by circumstance. Melilla, although overshadowed by the higher profile of Ceuta, shares its peculiar status – both are minuscule Spanish territories incongruously appended to the Moroccan state, which in turn claims sovereignty over both enclaves. And certainly, when it comes to advocating sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla, both sides treat them as a “job lot”❈.

The following table is a snapshot of the comparative basic data on the three enclaves:

🌐 🌐 🌐

Gibraltar
Walking through the streets of Gibraltar it’s hard to miss the very visible signs of ‘Britishness’ or ‘Angloness’ in the territory … red telephone boxes, Leyland double-decker buses, fish-and-chips shops, “English atmosphere” pubs, British bobbies, Union Jacks and the like. It is after all a BOT, a British Overseas Territory – and there are scarce few of those left on the world map! To the residents of the Rock these trappings are an unequivocal testimony to the loyalty of Gibraltarians to the United Kingdom and the British Crown.

Brexit for Gibraltar?
The vote last June by Britain and Northern Ireland to leave the EU was nowhere more momentous in the United Kingdom than in Gibraltar. Gibraltar, in contrast to most elsewhere in Britain, voted 96 per cent to stay in the Common Market[1]. Energised, the Spanish government seized on the Brexit opt-out to push the Gibraltar sovereignty issue again, calling for joint sovereignty of the two countries. With the unpalatable prospect for Gibraltar of being denied vital access to a single European market thanks to the British decision, Madrid believe (or hope) that they can leverage Gibraltarians into a rethink of their future options.

Like Ulster (Northern Ireland), Gibraltar is bracing itself to feel the full impact of what Brexit means for it, once the separation takes effect. Gibraltar for its part has argued for a special relationship post-Brexit with the European Union (as has Scotland)[2]. Madrid however has turned up the heat on Britain and its Iberian BOT, initiating tighter border controls, a deliberate go-slow affecting all vehicles and persons crossing into the British Overseas Territory from Spain. Already in 2013 the Spanish government threatened to charge motorists €50 to cross the border, restrict flights as well as investigate the tax status of 6,000 Gibraltar residents who own investment properties in Spain[3].

Gibraltar Chief Minister Picardo stressed that the implementation of a ‘hard’ border by Madrid would impose hardships on both sides, pointing out that 12,000 workers cross daily to work in the construction and services industries on “the Rock”[4]. But the stalemate persists and border-crossers continue to endure (up to) six-hour delays into and out of Gibraltar⊛.

The simmering tensions have aggravated underlying issues between the two European disputants in recent times … the Brits in 2014 asserted that there had been over 5,000 unauthorised incursions of Spanish ships into Gibraltar’s waters during 2013[5]. Local fishermen from Spain have complained that the construction of an artificial reef in Gibraltar in 2013 has imperilled the livelihoods of Spanish fishermen by depleting local fish stocks[6]. Spain has also objected to the presence of British warships in Gibraltar’s port as an unnecessary provocation[7].

The Rock-cum-Fortress
A minor incident involving a US nuclear submarine and warning flares in the Port of Gibraltar in April 2016 also drew Madrid’s displeasure (notwithstanding the fact that the port is a frequent maintenance stop for US subs)[8]. Some suspicions seem to be fed by prolonged antagonisms. Spaniards have expressed disquiet about the 1,400 foot high limestone Rock, a fortress-like structure in itself, hinting darkly at the possibility that the Gibraltarians may have fortified it[9]. Another point of Spanish aggravation on the frontier has been the issue of smuggling. A recurrent problem since the 1990s, Spain sees Gibraltar as the conduit for an estimated 1½ billion contraband cigarettes as well as drugs, mainly hashish (from Morocco) coming into Spain each year … resulting in a massive loss of customs revenues for Madrid who accuse the British and Gibraltarian authorities of turning a blind eye to the illicit activities[10].Gibraltar – the historical issue
❝The Catholic King (Philip V of Spain) … yield to the Crown of Great Britain the full and entire propriety of the town and castle of Gibraltar together with the port, fortifications and forts thereun belonging … the said propriety to be held and enjoyed absolutely with all manner of right for ever❞.
[Article X of the Treaty of Utrecht, 13 July 1713]
(Note no reference in the legal document of Spain ceding the territorial waters of Gibraltar to the English victors).
Bay of Gibraltar, 1704
(source: www.revolvy.com)

The British secured the tiny enclave of Gibraltar during the Spanish War of Succession, having (with the Dutch) captured the peninsula from Spain early in the war and then been granted ownership of it as part of the spoils of war in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The longevity of Britain’s occupation of Gibraltar is one the arguments used to validate possession of this remote, non-contiguous part of the UK. Spain counters that the English takeover in 1704 was as interlopers in a conflict provoked by a Spanish dynastic dispute, and the English claims on Gibraltar were limited by the Treaty and did not include the isthmus, the area of the current airport and Gibraltar’s territorial waters[11].A choice of principles: Self-determination Vs territorial integrity
Britain argues that its right to retain Gibraltar rests primarily on the issue of self-determination, pointing to the fact that the citizens of Gibraltar twice voted by massive majorities to remain part of the UK (1967 and 2002)¤. Despite being embedded in an Hispanic milieu, the people of Gibraltar culturally self-identify as British.The Spanish counter-argument has been that the validity of its sovereignty lies in the realm of territorial integrity. In support of this Spain has cited UN Resolution 1514 (XV) (the UN principle of territorial integrity): “any attempt✥ at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations”. Spain also argues that the passage of UN Principles of Decolonisation resolutions in the 1960s [2231 (XXI) and 2353 (XXII) ‘Question of Gibraltar’] affirms that the principle of territorial integrity prevails over Gibraltar’s right to self-determination[12].Ceuta y Melilla
As already mentioned the parallels between Britain’s Gibraltar and Spain’s Ceuta in particular, are stark … two small but strategically positioned enclaves, one almost on the southernmost tip of Europe and the other on the north-western point of Africa, both tacked on to the end of a foreign state. The seeming irony of Spain’s passionate advocacy of its right to absorb Gibraltar into the nation-state is not lost on Morocco who has pointed out that the presence of Spanish military on Ceuta and Melilla poses a threat to Moroccan national security (and territorial integrity), and argues that its existence contravenes the UN principle of decolonisation[13].

Faro de Ceuta

Spain’s basis for retaining its hold over Ceuta and Melilla rests on a number of criteria – longevity of occupation, right of conquest, the doctrine of Terra Nullis (historical justifications); national security and the territorial integrity of the state. As well Spain, like the UK, contends that the great bulk of its residents want to retain their Spanish status[14].

North Africa: Boundary disputes the way of the world
In North Africa, and in Africa generally, disputes between neighbouring states are legion (a 2015 estimate put it at close to 100 (active or dormant) border conflicts across the continent). And Morocco has had its fair share of them … with Spain over control of Western Sahara until Spain withdrew in 1975; and subsequently over the same territory embroiled together with Mauritania in a conflict against the Polisario Front (militaristic pro-independence group representing the Sahrawi people); in the 1960s contesting its border with Algeria[15].

(image: www.geo-ref.net)

A Spanish double standard?
Spain has gone to great pains to play down any perceived similarity that might be drawn between the situation of Gibraltar and that of its North African enclaves. Madrid portrays Gibraltar (officially a British Overseas Territory) as no more than a colonial remnant (“ripe for decolonisation”) … Gibraltar it argues should rightfully be politically reunited with Spain which it was part of until taken by force three centuries ago.

Map of Melilla (note neutral zone encircling city)

Ceuta and Melilla on the other hand, Madrid says, are integral parts of Spain and have been since the formation of the modern Spanish state, long predating the existence of modern Morocco as an independent, sovereign political entity (1956). The enclaves are semi-autonomous with the same status as the mainland (described by Madrid as “autonomous cities”), and under pressure Spain has hinted that it will offer Ceuta and Melilla greater autonomy[16]. Spain’s longevity argument could be countered by Moroccans who can point to an Arab presence in Ceuta and the other North African enclaves since the 8th century[17].

Melilla (photo: www.lonelyplanet.com)

UN Committee 4: Non-Self Governing Territory status
Morocco’s claim on the Plazas, from a legal standpoint, is generally thought to be a weaker case than Spain’s on Gibraltar. Whilst the UN includes Gibraltar in a list of non-self governing territories (international entities whose eligibility for decolonisation the UN investigates each year), Ceuta and Melilla is not. This is because of the Barajas Spirit (Espiritu de Barajas), an agreement reached in 1963 between Spain’s General Franco and Morocco’s King Hassan II … Morocco agreed to deal with the Ceuta and Melilla issue bilaterally, with Spain separately, rather than submit it to the UN to be raised with other territorial disputes of the day such as Gibraltar. And because Morocco was preoccupied in the 1960s and ’70s with the recovery of southern territories (Sidi Ifni and Western Sahara), it delayed any action on Melilla and Ceuta and missed its chance to register them on the NSGT territories list for the UN to debate their future[18].

Ceuta/El Tarajal, border fence
Spain, without pressure from a third-party, unsurprisingly, has played a straight bat to any attempts by Morocco to pursue the question of Ceuta and Melilla sovereignty. Spain fortified both enclaves and constructed razor wire border fences in the 1990s designed to stop illegal immigration and smuggling from Morocco. Impoverished Moroccans and other, mainly sub-Saharan Africans have long sought an entry point into Europe and the EU through the two Spanish autonomous cities. Because of the ongoing attempts to breach the border, authorities later reinforced the walls with a 6m high double fence structure and a “no man’s land” strip (a neutral zone) separating the Spanish outposts from Moroccan territory.
Border wars
The enhanced security hasn’t stopped desperate African migrants from trying to scale the border walls of Ceuta and Melilla (many have been shot and a number killed by unfriendly fire from security forces on both sides of the fence[19]) … since 2015 there has been an increase in the number of break-in attempts. As recently as January 2017 1,100 African migrants tried to storm the border in a violent confrontation with Spanish border guards[20].
Other incidents in recent years have kept the disputed territories issue on the boil. In 2002 a potential flash point erupted when a handful of Moroccan soldiers captured a tiny, uninhibited rocky outcrop named Perejil Island (near Ceuta and part of the disputed Plazas), leaving five cadets in charge of it. The cadets were summarily and peacefully ejected by elite troops and Spanish sovereignty swiftly reinstated[21]. The visit of King Juan Carlos I to Ceuta and Melilla in 2007 (the first reigning Spanish monarch to visit the Plazas) succeeded in stirring up further ill-will between Morocco and Spain over the territorial dispute[22].

PostScript: Gibraltar, Mission seemingly Impossible – what gain is there for Spain?
In the context of the United Kingdom’s commitment to Gibraltar and its people’s unwavering determination to stay subjects of the British Crown, the likelihood of Spain regaining its former territory in the foreseeable future is exceedingly slim✜. Why therefore does Spain persist in what seems to all appearances to be a futile exercise against such odds?[23]

1967 Gibraltar Poll: endorsement of UK rule

Madrid’s objections to ‘British’ Gibraltar derive from a mixture of motives – that Gibraltar continues to be (in the words of former Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzáles) “a pebble on the bottom of Spain’s shoe” is an impediment to the country’s sense of national pride. Gibraltar’s existence as the only colony remaining in Europe is an affront to Spanish nationalists, and its continuation in the hands of a historic foe a reminder of the loss of Spain’s once great power status. A further driver for Spain in its quest is the perception that Britain has breached the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht. Article X states that if ❝ the Crown of Great Britain (decides to) grant, sell or by any means to alienate therefrom the propriety of the said town of Gibraltar, it is hereby agreed and concluded that the preference of having the sale shall always be given to the Crown of Spain before any others❞. When the UK offered the people of Gibraltar the opportunity to determine their own future by referendum in 1967, it was (according to Spain’s interpretation) reneging on its 1713 agreement to allow the Spanish government the “first right of refusal” if Britain were to renounce its own claim to the enclave. Furthermore, Spain contends that Britain’s expansion of its territory in Gibraltar on land and sea also contravenes the Treaty[24].

Aside from these matters, the status quo in Gibraltar represents financial disadvantages for Spain, obstacles that regime change in the enclave could potentially provide a windfall for Madrid, eg, Gibraltar’s long-time role as a “smuggler’s paradise” (principally narcotics), which as Spain expert Gareth Stockey of Nottingham University states, continues to be “a drain on Spanish resources”. Similarly, Spain have sought to draw international attention to Gibraltar and its reputation as a tax haven (OECD “Grey List” of countries lacking fiscal transparency). Low-taxing Gibraltar has had negative spin-offs for its Hispanic neighbour’s revenues both in the collection of taxes for individual citizens and for companies. Madrid has tried to turn the spotlight on to the Rock’s company tax dodges … Gibraltar has had over 30,000 registered businesses (roughly parity with the territory’s population!) and only a 10% corporate tax rate (until 2011 it charged no company taxes for many businesses), compared to a 30% tax in Spain[25].

⊢────────────────────────────────────⊣
❈ there are three other minor Spanish territories in North Africa, which together with Ceuta and Melilla are known collectively as Plazas de soberanía (“Places of Sovereignty”)
⊛ an even more disturbing prospect for Gibraltarians is the closure altogether of the border – many of them are old enough to recall the closure by President Franco in 1969, a blockade that ensued until 1982
¤ the 1967 referendum asking if the Gibraltarians were in favour of replacing British sovereignty with Spanish, returned a resounding 99.64% ‘no’ vote; the 2002 referendum with the question rephrased as “Do you approve of the principle that Britain and Spain should share sovereignty over Gibraltar?” again definitively said ‘no’, 98.97%
✥ ie, in this instance the UK’s insistence on self-determination for the enclave
✜ especially when you take into account the total lack of an irredentist impulse from within the Gibraltar community

[1] ‘Gibraltar: 96% vote to stay in EU’, Euobserver, 24-Jun-2016, www Euobserver.com
[2] B Reyes, ‘EU parliament hears contrasting views on Gibraltar and Brexit’, Gibraltar Chronicle, 31-Jan-2017, www.chronicle.gi
[3] V Barford, ‘What are the Competing Claims over Gibraltar?’, BBC News Magazine, 12-Aug-2013, www.bbc.com
[4] B Hague, ‘Gibraltar caught between a rock and a hard place after UK’s Brexit Vote’, ABC News, 13-Oct-2016, www.abc.net.au
[5] ‘Gibraltar profile – Timeline’, BBC News, 16-Mar-2015, www.bbc.com
[6] R Booth, Gibraltar frontier conflict causing frustration for locals’, The Guardian,
[7] Barford, loc.cit.
[8] R Faith, ‘Spanish-UK Dispute over Gibraltar Flares Up Again after Warning Shot Incident with US Nuclear Sub’, Vice News, 10-May-2016, www.news.vice.com.
[9] Barford, op.cit.
[10] R Aldrich & J Connell, The Last Colonies (1998)
[11] Barford, op.cit.. The tiny Balearic island Minorca also fell to Britain in the wash-up of the Treaty of Utrecht – though unlike Gibraltar it was returned to Spain via the Treaty of Amiens (1802)
[12] ibid.
[13] Morocco takes the view also that Spain’s determination to pursue its claim to Gibraltar adds substance to Morocco’s argument in respect of the Plazas, G O’Reilly & JG O’Reilly, Ceuta and the Spanish Sovereign Territories: Spanish and Moroccan Claims, (1994). This uncomfortable comparison was not lost on King Juan Carlos either – documents declassified in 2014 reveal that the Spanish monarch conceded to the British ambassador in 1982 that Spain was reluctant to push too hard on Gibraltar for fear of encouraging Moroccan claims on its territories, F Govan (1), ‘Spain’s King Juan Carlos told Britain: “we don’t want Gibraltar back” ‘, The Telegraph (London), 06-Jan-2014, www.telegraph.co.uk
[14] O’Reilly, loc.cit.
[15] G Oduntan, ‘Africa’s border disputes are set to rise – but there are ways to stop them’, The Conversation, 14-Jul-2015, www.theconversation.com
[16] F Govan (2), ‘The Battle over Ceuta, Spain’s African Gibraltar’, The Telegraph (London), 10-Aug-2013, www.telegraph.co.uk
[17] ‘International Court of Justice – Morocco/Spain’, (Rumun: Rutgers Model UN), www.idia.net
[18] S Bennis, ‘Gibraltar, Ceuta and Melilla: Spain’s unequal sovereignty disputes’, The New Arab, 28-Jun-2016, www.alaraby.co.uk
[19] N Davies, ‘Melilla: Europe’s dirty secret’, The Guardian, 17-Apr-2010, www.theguardian.com.
[20] ‘Migrants storm border fence in Spanish enclave of Ceuta’, BBC News, 01-Jan-2017, www.bbc.co.uk
[21] though it was summarily repulsed, the would-be coup was seen as testing Spain’s resolve to defend Ceuta and Melilla, ‘Perejil Island’, Wikipedia, en.m.wikipedia.org
[22] Govan 2, op.cit.
[23] if the highly improbable were to happen and Spain recover its long-lost province, an interested observer might be Barcelona … the Catalans lost their autonomy in the aftermath of the Utrecht Treaty and it has been speculated that the restoration of Gilbratar might trigger a new call for Catalonian independence, ‘The Economist explains … Why is Gibraltar a British territory?’ (T.W.) The Economist, 08-Aug-2013, www.economist.com
[24] ‘Four reasons Gibraltar should be Spanish’, The Local (es), 08-Aug-2013, news@thelocal.es
[25] ibid.; L Frayer, ‘Once a Tax Haven, Gibraltar Now Says It’s Low-Tax’, (NPR Parallels), 17-Apr-2016 (broadcast), www.npr.org

Moscow’s Baltic Enclave: Potential Flashpoint for Cold War Redux?

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
International Relations, Politics, Regional History

The Curonian Spit is a distinctive geographical feature on the Baltic Coast, a narrow spit of sand-dune covered land some 98km in length. UNESCO describes it as a “unique example of a landscape of sand dunes under constant threat from (the) natural forces of wind and tide”[1]. Recently the Spit has been the scene of a different, human-produced threat, one evoking memories for locals of a past Cold War conflict.

Curonian Spit Curonian Spit

Curonian Spit bridges the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad❈ with eastern Lithuania, thus being a landform shared by the two countries. The normally tranquil seaside atmosphere has in the last two years been replaced by a tense mood, especially on the Lithuanian side. The seeds of the tension has its origins in Russia’s military incursions into the Ukraine in 2014 and the ensuing conflict over the control of the Crimean Peninsula. The Lithuanian government interpreted the brazen nature of Moscow’s military intervention in that sovereign state as a warning to the possibility of it being next on President Putin’s takeover list[2].

In the aftermath of the events in Crimea in 2014, the bitterly learnt lessons of history (the 50 year Soviet occupation of the Baltic States) gave the Lithuanians and the other Balts cause to fear that a new invasion might be on the cards. Since then there has been immediate and tangible evidence of the perceived threat from Russia. Moscow has undertaken a renewed military build-up in Kaliningrad, adding an Air Force detachment and early warning system (Voronezh radar) to the land forces already on the ground[3].

Geopolitics plays a part in heightening the threat to the Baltics. Lithuania’s safeguard (as well as that of Latvia and Estonia) is membership of NATO, however the location of this chunk of Russian territory (Kaliningradskaya Oblast) cuts the Baltic States (henceforth BS) off from the rest of western Europe. Adding to these concerns is the fact that Russia’s Baltic fleet is stationed at Kaliningrad. NATO’s countermove has seen it propose sending battalions of 1,000 (mostly US) troops each to the BS and Poland.

The Vilnius government’s reaction to the Crimea crisis in military terms was several-fold – forming a Rapid Response Force (RRF); reintroducing a national draft to bolster Lithuania’s paltry regular force (8,000 troops); mobilising volunteer partisans (eg, the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union). The motivation is the possibility of direct military intervention by Russia, but the more immediate worry is the sense that the Kremlin could well employ the same tactics as in Ukraine, using pro-Russian (Udijan) separatist insurgents within Lithuania to destabilise the country[4].

imageBoth sides claim that their militarisation of the Kaliningrad/ Baltic region is a necessary counter to the actions of the other, recreating in miniature the standoff scenario of the Cold War. NATO’s take on Russian intentions is that it wants to use Kaliningrad to strategically position surface-to-air (Iskander) missiles to block NATO access to BS and northern Poland in the event of an attack on these member states[5].

(Source: www.dailymail.co.uk)

Lithuania’s and the other Baltics’ concerns about Russia extend to the possibility of hybrid war. Russia has also adopted a soft power approach to undermining the BS governments through a variety of means, eg, influencing electoral results by fuelling social tensions within the Russian minorities (less effective in Lithuania than in the other, more Russian populated countries); harming BS economies through economic and energy blockades, wilfully destroying infrastructures; trying to weaken BS faith in the security structure provided by NATO[6].

(Photo: www.washingtonpost.com)

Both NATO and Russia have stepped up their displays of “muscle flexing” in Kaliningrad in an attempt to intimidate the other side. During August 2016, a large contingent of NATO ground troops fired artillery and mortars close to the border with the Russian province. At the same time Russian troops drilled close by the oblast’s capital. In September the Russian Baltic Fleet undertook exercises off the coast as a demonstration of the Republic’s naval power. Both sides have extensively conducted war games in Kaliningrad … all part of an ongoing tit-for-tat jockeying for advantage in the Baltics. Russia and NATO both claimed to be reacting to border encroachments which had put at risk its national security[7].

The thousands of NATO forces on the ground are clearly intended to provide a deterrence to any plan by the Russians for aggression against BS. The deliberate execution of large-scale army manoeuvres in Kaliningrad on the borders with Lithuania and Poland by Russia are aimed at destabilising the border area and shaking local confidence in the Alliance[8].

It should not be overlooked that the militarisation of the Baltic area cuts both ways! Earlier this year NATO’s “Anaconda-2016” operation was comparably large in scale to anything the Kremlin has engineered in Kaliningrad. A 10-day exercise involving 31,000 troops from 24 countries … a blatant power-play that was criticised by the German foreign minister for being a Western show of “sabre-rattling and warmongering”[9].

Most commentators play down the likelihood of the tense stand-off in the Baltic region between NATO and Russia escalating into an open war, however it remains a critical hotspot in international circles. There have been recent “close-call” incidents between US and Russia military personnel, two such in April 2016 involved Russian fighter planes and US warships.

The Baltics’ concerns as to what the Russians might do in Kaliningrad are matched by other members of the Alliance, not least of which the US. The Pentagon and military think tanks, in the light of Moscow’s readiness to intervene in Ukraine and more recently in Syria, are not optimistic about their prospects in a military conflict with Russia in Kaliningrad, were it to eventuate. US military analysts concede that the US/NATO would be no match for the Russian forces given the level and quality of Moscow’s military installations in the oblast[10].

президент Putin inspects the oblast’s troops (Photo: www.neweasterneurope.eu)

From the Kremlin’s viewpoint, Kaliningrad is integral to Russia’s western defence system, eg, Kalingrad’s location allows it to give advance notice to Moscow in the event of an attack on Russia from Western air power. In ‘Putinspeak’ Kaliningrad is part of the “Russian World” – moreover the Baltics as a whole are part of that world, which in Putin’s thinking are “lost lands (that Russia) has a historic right to”[11]. Often, Putin observers have drawn a link between the image portrayed by the Russian president (autocratic strongman, ex-KGB, ultra-nationalist) with his supposed designs on a more expansive role in the region. Putin has justified any extra-border aggression on Russia’s part as being consistent with his unwavering commitment to protect ethnic Russians anywhere outside in the world[12].

Unequivocally Putin’s aggressive forays into Georgia (2008) and the Ukraine (2014) underscore that urge for Russian expansionism, psychologically perhaps revealing a desire to regain the leadership role of the former USSR. Many in the West are quick to pounce on Putin’s public pronouncements about Russia asserting or defending its rights in the world as proof of an aim on his part to establish a Pan-Slavic empire, the notion of one people (Slavs), one single political entity (supposedly a hankering back to the glory days of either the Tsarist era or the Russian-dominated Soviet Union)[13].

Although speculation has been rife in the international media that Putin will launch a full-scale attack on the Baltics (à la Crimea), replete with dire warnings that WWIII is imminent, there is no consensus that this is a likely outcome. Rather, most commentators see a persistence of the tension that has been building up, an environment in Kaliningrad which is highly weaponised and therefore continues to be unstable and dangerous.

A more likely scenario than outright invasion of BS by Russia is that Moscow will try to foment separatism, inflame the local radicals and militants to rebel against the Baltic governments – an objective that may be more attainable in Latvia and Estonia with ethnic Russian populations of 27% and 24% respectively, than in Lithuania (less than 6% ethnic Russians). Russia may also ‘parachute’ in Russian activists and volunteers over the border to act as “fifth columnists”[14].

For the Baltic countries membership of both the EU and NATO seems to offer reassurance, its citizens by and large simply get on with their daily lives, neither panicked or pessimistic about the shadow of Putin’s Russia on their doorsteps. An air of edgy uncertainty, a tenseness nonetheless prevails as everyone waits and watches for Putin’s next move⍁.

Suwalki Gap Suwalki Gap

┄┅ ┈ ┉ ┄ ┅ ┈ ┉┄ ┅ ┈ ┉ ┄ ┅ ┈ ┉┄ ┄ ┅ ┈ ┉ ┄ ┅ ┈ ┉┅ ┈ ┉ ┄ ┅ ┄
❈ the city of Kaliningrad, incorporated into the USSR at the end of WWII, was previously Königsberg, a German city (before that it was part of East Prussia). Originally, the area was called Sambia, after an Old Prussian tribe by that name
⍁ See also the following, related blog ‘Kaliningrad Oblast: Withering of the Russian Connexion?’

[1] ‘Curonian Spit’, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, www.whc.unesco.com
[2] The Curonian Spit is not the only hotspot in Russia’s western sphere, another identified by Western strategists and carefully watched by Poland, Lithuania and the US is Suwalki Gap. The Gap is a thin corridor of land separating Poland and Lithuania and stretching for about 100km in length. The NATO allies worry that it could be relatively easy for Russia to capture the Gap, and in so doing, connect Kaliningrad directly with Russia’s ally Belarus … at the same time it would cut off the Baltics from all NATO member territory and further encircle Poland to its northeast, M Bearak, ‘This tiny stretch of countryside is all that separates Baltic states from Russian envelopment’, Washington Post, (20-Jun-2016), www.washingtonpost.com
[3] ‘Russian Kaliningrad region poses challenge at NATO summit’, Daily Mail, (Aust.) 7-Jul-2016, www.dailymail.co.uk. The contrary view of Moscow is that the Vilnius government is using the fear of Russia to mobilise its own people, (view of a Russian political scientist), ‘If Russia Gets Crimea, Should Germany Get Kaliningrad?’, The Moscow Times, (21-Mar-2014), www.themoscowtimes.com. Lithuanian officials retorted that Russia was trying to buy off Lithuania soldiers to spy on behalf of the Kremlin, R Emmott & A Sytas, ‘Nervous Baltics on war footing as NATO tries to deter Russia’, Reuters, (13-Jun-2016), www.reuters.com
[4] K Engelhart, ‘Lithuania Thinks the Russians Are Coming – and It’s Preparing with Wargames’, 18-May-2015, Vice News, www.news.vice.com; A Nemtsova, ‘Ground Zero and the New Cold War’, The Daily Beast, (29-Aug-2016), www.thedailybeast.com
[5] L Kelly, ‘Russia’s Baltic outpost digs in for standoff with NATO’, Reuters, 5-Jul-2016, www.mobile.reuters.com
[6] J Hyndle-Hussein, ‘The Baltic States on the conflict in Ukraine’, OSW Commentary,, (25-Jan-2015), www.osw.waw.pl
[7] H Mayer, ‘Putin’s Military Buildup in the Baltics Stokes Invasion Fears’, Bloomberg, (6-Jun-2016), www.bloomberg.com
[8] ‘Lithuania, Poland, NATO Drills Aimed at Rising Tensions on Russian Border’, Sputnik News, (02-Jun-2016), www.sputniknews.com
[9] for a contrary view from a Western source that downplays the destabilising intentions of Putin in the Baltics see P Gleupp, ‘Putin’s “Threats” to the Baltics: a Myth to Promote NATO Unity’, CounterPunch, (12-Jul-2016), www.counterpunch.org
[10] See K Mizokami, ‘How a Russia vs. NATO war would really go down’, The Week, (16-Jun-2016), www.theweek.com; ‘Baltic Conflict Would Spell Defeat for US, NATO Against Russia’, Sputnik News, (04-Feb-2016), www.sputniknews.com
[11] ‘The Invasion of Crimea is Hurting Russia’s Other Enclave’, (Interview with Ola Cichowlas), Forbes, 6-Jun-2014, www.forbes.com;
[12] characterised as the “Putin Doctrine”, R Coalson, ‘Putin Pledges To Protect All Ethnic Russians Anywhere. So, Where Are They?’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (10-Apr-2014), www.rferl.org
[13] or perhaps to an ideological, mythic state, neither East or West but the “otherness” of a multi-ethnic melange of a state, one with Mongol roots, under the hegemony of “Great Russian Nationalism”, P Mishra, ‘Putin’s Eurasian Fantasy’, Bloomberg L.P. (17-Mar-2014). Putin’s use of the term Novorossiya (New Russia) in 2014 in reference to the Ukraine situation is another association with the (Tsarist) past and a manifestation of new-found Russian assertiveness.
[14] ‘Is Russia really a threat to the Baltic States?’, Al Jazeera, 8-Jul-2016, www.aljazeera.com