ConflictBarometer_2016

EUROPE
population of the city Vukovar, whose siege by the Yugoslav
People's Army became symbolic for the war of independence.
Orepic claimed that without false registrations, the Croat Serbian
population would drop below 30 percent and consequently
lose its right to official usage of the Cyrillic script. Serbia
criticized the statement, which led to further deterioration
of the Serbian-Croat relations. Throughout the year, the conviction,
acquittal, or rehabilitation of supposed war criminals
from the 1991-1995 war by Croatian courts caused tensions.
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CYPRUS (TRNC / NORTHERN CYPRUS)
Intensity: 2 | Change: | Start: 1963
Conflict parties:
Conflict items:
TRNC / Northern Cyprus vs. government
secession, resources
The conflict between Cyprus and TRNC/Northern Cyprus on
resources and TRNC's secession from Cyprus continued on a
non-violent level.
Nikos Anastasiadis, President of the Republic of Cyprus, and
Mustafa Akinci, Turkish Cypriot leader, continued discussing
the terms of a Cypriot reunification in UN-brokered peace
talks. On January 14 and 29, and March 11, April 18 and 25,
and May 9 the two Cypriot leaders held deliberations on remaining
issues and were optimistic about reaching a settlement
by the end of the year. They intensified negotiations
and started meeting twice a week from June 17 onwards. After
meetings on July 1 and 8, Anastasiadis reported significant
progress concerning internal cooperation in the future federal
state with agreements reached on citizenship and basic freedoms.
The Cypriot leaders started discussing difficult issues
of territory, security, and guarantees on July 29, and in another
seven sessions, from August 23 on, discussed matters
of contention-security and Turkish troops on the island.
Various Greek Cypriot officials, including Anastasiades, had
already demanded a withdrawal of Turkish troops from Northern
Cyprus [->Cyprus-Turkey], on January 18 and 31, and
February 11.
On November 2, Akinci criticized the Greek Cypriot side for
demanding a withdrawal of all Turkish soldiers and not accepting
any Turkish guarantees. In turn, on November 4, Anastasiadis
reiterated his refusal to maintain any Turkish interventions
rights, whereas Akinci insisted that temporary Turkish
guarantees were crucial to the security of Turkish Cypriots.
From November 7 to 11 and on November 20, the two leaders
discussed the course of borderlines within the future federal
state. The talks however, ended without agreements, neither
on the two communities' future shares of territory and coastline,
nor upon rights of return for Greek Cypriot refugees. On
December 2, the two parties announced the resumptions of
negotiations next year from January 9 to 11, before entering
in multi-party talks with guarantor states on January 12. jra
FRANCE (FLNC / CORSICA)
Intensity: 3 | Change: | Start: 1975
Conflict parties:
Conflict items:
FLNC, Corsican regional government
vs. government
secession
The conflict over secession between the Corsican National
Liberation Front (FLNC) and the regional government, on the
one hand, and the government, on the other, escalated to a
violent crisis.
On May 4, the ''FLNC du 22 octobre”, a splinter group of
the FLNC, announced to lay down their weapons, assuring
the new regional government to refrain from violence. After
Prime Minister Manuel Valls had denounced Corsican independence
in December 2015, President of the Executive
Council of Corsica Gilles Simeoni and the President of the Corsican
Assembly Jean-Guy Talamoni reiterated the rights of the
Corsican nation on January 19.
On June 30, Simeoni claimed in a letter to Valls that Corsicans
convicted for terrorism would be detained as political prisoners
in France. One week later, Valls denied the existence of
political prisoners.
On October 5, the Magistrat's Court of Paris sentenced Nicolas
Battini, Joseph Verdi and Stéphane Tomasi to eight, six, and
five years of prison for terrorism, referring to a 2012 bomb
attack in Corte, Haute-Corse district. Afterwards, several
thousand people demonstrated peacefully in Bastia against
the verdict, among them Talamoni. Subsequently, up to 20
masked rioters torched garbage cans and threw stones and
Molotov cocktails at police forces, wounding four. csc
FYROM (OPPOSITION)
Intensity: 3 | Change: | Start: 2014
Conflict parties: opposition movement vs. government
Conflict items:
system/ideology, national power
The violent crisis concerning national power and the orientation
of the political system between a broad opposition
movement, on the one hand, and the VMRO DPMNE led government,
on the other, continued.
On January 15, Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski resigned and
Emil Dimitriev was appointed as head of the interim government,
in accordance with last year's EU-brokered agreement.
On February 24, several hundred people protested
in the capital Skopje against the Constitutional Court's decision
to enable pardoning former officials suspected of electoral
fraud. On March 15, anti-government protesters rallied
against the planned legislative change, while government
supporters staged a counter-protest. The next day, the
Constitutional Court approved the controversial law change.
On April 12, President Gjorge Ivanov pardoned 56 politicians
facing crime probes, most of whom were being investigated
by the Special Prosecution, including Gruevski and members
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