Ethnic and Religious Tensions:

An Analysis of Multiple Perspectives

PART II OF XIII

Northern Ireland

• Ireland won its independence from Britain in 1922.

• However, Britain kept control of the six northern counties, which had a mostly Protestant population.

• The southern portion of Ireland was mostly Roman Catholic.

• In Northern Ireland, In Northern Ireland, violence increased in violence increased in the 1970s because of the 1970s because of extremists in both extremists in both Protestants and Protestants and Roman Catholic Roman Catholic communities. communities.

• Until 2005, the Irish Until 2005, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) Republican Army (IRA) used violence against used violence against the British and the British and Protestant Irish.Protestant Irish.

• Their goal was to Their goal was to drive out the British drive out the British and join with Ireland.and join with Ireland.

• Protestant groups retaliated and the Protestant groups retaliated and the violence and divisions continued until violence and divisions continued until 2005, when the IRA ended its call for 2005, when the IRA ended its call for violence.violence.

• In 2007, a new power-sharing government In 2007, a new power-sharing government took control from the British government.took control from the British government.

The Balkans and

Ukraine

• Yugoslavia was a multinational state created after World War I.

• In it lived Orthodox Christian Serbs, Roman Catholic Croats, Muslim Albanians, and other ethnic groups.

• Some areas were home to predominantly one ethnic group, while several groups shared other regions.

• By 1991, several of Yugoslavia’s regions had declared independence.

• Some, like Slovenia, had only brief fighting.

• In more ethnically mixed areas, tensions flared.

• In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbs practiced ethnic cleansing which is the policy of removing or killing people of a certain ethnic group.

• In 1992, the Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, leader of the Yugoslavian government, encouraged or ordered brutal campaigns of ethnic cleansing against non-Serbians, such as the Albanians in Kosovo.

• In order to restore peace, NATO and the UN took military action in the region.

• In 2001 Milosevic was arrested and tried for war crimes and genocide by the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal.

• He died in 2006 before its verdict could be reached.

• In 2003, the country changed its name to Serbia and Montenegro.

• Montenegro gained its independence in 2006.

• In Kosovo, ethnic battles continued, but it remained under Serbian control until 2008, when it gained its independence.

• In nearby Ukraine, a vicious campaign for president included the poisoning of the more pro-western candidate.

• A new election put him into power, but disagreements between factions continued to divide the government.

South Asia and

Southeast Asia

Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs

• Both Muslims and Sikhs believe they are discriminated against by India’s Hindu majority.

• Incidents of violence between these groups continue to disrupt India today.

Indonesia

• Indonesia’s population is mostly Muslim, but in East Timor most people are Catholics.

• In 1999, when East Timor demanded independence, Indonesia’s army responded with force, destroying much of the area’s homes, roads, electric supply, and schools.

• No less than a month later, international peacekeepers arrived to allow East Timor to plan its independence.

• Despite its free elections in 2007, Timor-Leste remains Asia’s poorest country.

• In 2002, Muslim extremists bombed civilians in other Indonesian areas.

• These extremists are suspected of working with al Qaeda.

• Their goal is to create an Islamic government in Indonesia.