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FAME-- / Translation from Expressen, Stockholm |  |
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By: Jenny Gamming, Otepää, Estonia We have certainly heard of East Timor, Kurdistan and Tibet. But Chuvas, Mapuche and Acheh. How many of them can you dot in the map? Fifty nations and peoples are gathering in the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO). As they are not represented in the UN, here they have one vote and moral support. Some of the members such as Acheh, Tibet and Cabinda want to become independent nations. But not all. For many peoples such as the Batwa people and the unprobable member of Scania, their goal is to get more cultural freedom and greater autonomy. "Independence is not the main issue for most of the members," said Michael van Walt van Praag, the current Secretary General for the UNPO. "Besides, independence often creates new problems." The differences in objectives depend among others on if a group of people are scattered all over the world or if they live in a well defined geographical territory. Besides, it is not obvious that for example the Buryat people constitute a majority in Buryatia. Forced deportations and removing peoples from one area to another, for example the Russian, Indonesian and the Chinese for some decades have reduced the indigenous peoples to minorities. UNPO is one of the few organizations which is proud of having ex-members. For UNPO, it means that a people has won its struggle. That the peoples have finally got a little more autonomy or a state of their own and even a seat in the UN. One of the UNPO former members is Estonia. Estonia now thanks the organization by hosting the 1997 General Assembly Meeting which was closed recently in the village of Otepää. Estonia has not forgotten those peoples who supported the Estonian struggle for independence, those peoples who are still fighting for their freedom today. "UNPO was the first international organization which accepted Estonia to be its member. We received incredibly tremendous support in our struggle for freedom," said Linnart Mäll who is one of the organizers of the congress. Symbolically, it has not waned the faith of any delegates. Estonia's dream of independence had come true. Perhaps, now it is their turn. NATION AND STATE - NOT THE SAME In Swedish language, the term nation is often used as state. But the
basic meaning of the word nation relates instead to the concept of the
people, that is people who are bound together by a common identity. In
this regard, for example, Kurdistan is a people, but it is not a state.
Former Yugoslavia was however not a nation eventhough it was a state.
The third example is Island, which both a state and a nation.
 Please stop the extremely human right abuses that still going on in front of you now. You as the closest witness in this area can tell the peoples in the world ...
The all-of-sudden decision taken by the Acheh Sumatra National Liberation Front - ASNLF - to pull out the16-18 November talks in Geneva last week, has taken Jakarta aback.
by Timo Kivimäki Achenese independence fighters are not Muslim fanatics, They do not have a quarrel with the United States. They do not target innocent people, but instead defend themselves against military aggression.
Relation with the British, 1760-1824 LEE KAM HING, University of Malaya The British came closest to securing a base in Acheh during this period when he later was looked upon as an invaluable entrepot to support their China trade and as a possible naval base to protect British interests in the region against other European powers.
Teuku Don Zulfahri This is the second political assassination on MP GAM members in Kuala Lumpur within two months. On the tenth of April, 2000, the mercenaries of Malik Mahmud had brutally murdered a member of MP GAM, ...
By: M. Yusuf Daud (The Jakarta Post, November 27, 1999 Editorial and Opinion) STOCKHOLM, Sweden (JP): The struggle of the oppressed peoples of the world for their right to self-determination has often been overshadowed by the notion of so-called "territorial integrity" and the principle of noninterference in the "internal affairs" of a sovereign state. ______________________
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