UN Sanctions Reform - The Watson Institute for International Studies

Workshop on UN Sanctions 16-17 July 2004
In spite of cultural similarities, rival political factions within Arcadia have maintained
conflictual relations for most of its history. However, conflict has not always led to
violence, as opposing groups have exchanged roles of domination and subordination.
The earliest roots of conflict lie in opposing movements to overthrow or maintain British
colonial rule. The anti-colonial movement eventually prevailed, as the United Kingdom
granted independence to Arcadia on 1 January, 1970. Robert Zimmer, leader of the anticolonial
movement, assumed the office of President in Woonsocket. Although prior to
independence Robert Zimmer supported a draft constitution for Arcadia, once in power,
President Zimmer suspended further work on the document and pursued an autocratic
regime with a hand picked Parliament, rewarding those that had supported his movement
and its home-grown leftist ideology.
In the mid 1970s, President Zimmer sought to profit from Cold War rivalry. He turned to
the Soviet Union to support the implementation of his collectivist policies. Soviet aid to
Arcadia was maintained for more than a decade, finally ceasing in 1989. However, levels
of assistance began to decrease in 1985 as Arcadian Economic Minister and Zimmer’s
presumptive successor, Rutherford Simmons, privately (and later publicly) began
exploring ways in which to open the Arcadian economy to the West. The growing
disagreement between Simmons and the aging Zimmer was resolved in 1993 when
Simmons orchestrated a coup, overthrowing Zimmer.
On assuming the Presidency, Simmons elaborated a less radical platform. With the
guidance of the international financial institutions, Simmons undertook the reform of
both Arcadia’s political and economic systems, launching an “enrichment initiative” to
encourage international investment in Arcadia and granting large logging concessions to
multinational corporations. In doing so, Simmons, his family, and his close associates in
the Woonsocket bureaucracy are known to have benefited personally from their
investments in these MNCs. But Simmons also endeavored to institutionalize democratic
processes and in 1995 presided over the nation’s first Presidential and Parliamentary
elections (in which he was re-elected).
Simmons’ ascent soon precipitated resistance. In line with historical divisions, the
elections illuminated a growing rift between supporters of Simmons’s pro-West reforms
and its opponents in the South. Especially in the province of Tiverton, opposition
coalesced around Andries van Dam. The van Dam family had been prominent supporters
of Zimmer and the anti-colonial movement. Building on this legacy, van Dam now
mobilized the rural poor against Simmons’ reforms, inflaming already tense relations
between the government and the outlying areas. It was in these areas that local
economies were most affected by the reforms, as local farmers were once again forced
into laboring jobs in resource extracting industries, especially in the timber sector. For
many Tivertonian villagers, this mirrored the experience of their parents, who had been
similarly displaced following the establishment of the colonial timber companies.
Van Dam’s anti-Simmons, populist rhetoric precipitated violent confrontations. In 1998,
van Dam formed the Revolutionary Brotherhood of Liberation, or RBL, which pursued
21