The study is the result of an international collaborative project supported and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. This multi-year venture has involved a research team of some forty chapter authors and commentators. The research has been accompanied by three major workshops on project methodology, initial chapter reviews and final discussions. A point was made of including both scholars and practitioners involved in power-sharing settlements in the review process, in the hope that more would be learned about the actual implementation of the settlements under investigation. The project team was united in its wish to explore whether long-standing secessionist conflicts have been addressed effectively through the significant number of self-determination settlements that were generated in response to the wave of internal conflicts of the 1990s. It was also committed to testing whether consociationalist and integrative techniques of conflict settlement really are as mutually exclusive as is sometimes supposed, or whether they can in fact be mutually reinforcing. Finally, the project derives its impetus from the necessity to critically rethink the doctrine of self-determination. One may question whether its traditional, restrictive interpretation will be adequate in confronting the wide variety of future challenges to the territorial integrity of states.

The civil war in the Islamic Southern Philippines is one of the longest-lasting conflicts in Southeast Asia.This book dates back to a workshop on that conflict at the Department of Political Science of the University of Gottingen, Germany. The particular interest in the Moro conflict in Gottingen is due to the fact that a family from that city was among those tourists who were kidnapped in Sipadan (Malaysia) by the Abu Sayyaf group in spring 2000 and held hostage on the island of Jolo (Sulu) for almost half a year. Although the geographical and cultural backgrounds of most of the contributors to this volume differ from the parties involved in the conflict, the editors hope that this volume offers adequate views, theoretical approaches, and methodologies, which prove helpful in understanding and eventually ameliorating the conditions of the people living in "Moro land".

This book presents the protracted right to self-determination conflict between the Philippine state and the Bangsamoro group in Mindanao, Philippines. In the five decades of attempts to achieve peace, a key element is the Bangsamoros’ search for a kind of development that is compatible with their aspirations for freedom and their future. This book presents a study of the Bangsamoro communities and their social constructions of conflict, peace and development. It examines the viability of the sustainable human development framework for application in their challenging realities. The usefulness of the sustainable human development framework lies not only in its use of human development parameters like the Human Development Index. It also provides an approach towards development that synergizes with the sustainable peace framework – an imperative for Mindanao. At the centre of this approach is the Participatory Rural Appraisal and Participatory Learning and Action methodology for eliciting responses, stimulating discussion, documenting verbal and non-verbal ideas and carrying out small-scale projects to demonstrate community participation. The book concludes with two main points: that (a) both sustainable human development and peacebuilding are mutually reinforcing frameworks aimed at achieving the same human development goals, and (b) the pursuit of the right to self-determination is enhanced, as both frameworks are combined to provide a context for the attainment of peace in Mindanao.

INSPIRATIONAL SOLIDARITY MESSAGE FROM A FULL-BLOODED NATIVE BROTHER Go on dear brother, forward with your traverse! While in partnership I will awaken the learned, the unlearned, devoted readers of books, the untiring users of shovels and axes and the alien bearers of silver, golden and diamond stars. And if and when, you succumb to the natural realm of eternal blissful life, rest assured, great brother, your historic journey shall continue still, to the farthest land our echoes can reverberate and dwell. Still to victory or martyrdom! Sambas S Omar

An annual review of significant developments and trends in the region. Though the emphasis is on ASEAN countries, Developments in the broader Asia-Pacific region are not ignored. Readable and easily understood analyses are offered of major political, Economic, Social, And strategic developments within Southeast Asia. The volume contains twenty articles dealing with such major themes as international conflict and co-operation, Political stability, And economic growth and development.

Asia has undergone strong economic growth since the Second World War. However, it also experiences growing economic and regional disparities brought about by this unprecedented development. This economic growth cannot be considered sustainable without taking into consideration the social development of minority populations, as well as the fundamentals of minority rights. The chapters in this book work from the premise that an environment that favours the emergence of various conditions necessary for the development of minority populations will contribute towards further economic development and prosperity, as well as the social cohesion of the entire country. Bringing together perspectives from Economics, Development and Area Studies, Geography, Anthropology, and Sociology, the contributors provide local narratives that shed light on some of the different needs, situations, and methods of problem solving. This diverse approach gives a nuanced perspective on social, economic and political inequality, and the ways in which people are constructing varied responses to the challenges of modernization. Through the comparison of the characteristics and realities of minority region development among countries in East and Southeast Asia, this book provides a better understanding of the development-related challenges faced by minority regions in the current context of modernization and globalization.

Armed separatist insurgencies have created a real dilemma for many national governments of how much freedom to grant aggrieved minorities without releasing territorial sovereignty over the nation-state. This book examines different approaches that have been taken by seven states in South and Southeast Asia to try and resolve this dilemma through various offers of autonomy. Providing new insights into the conditions under which autonomy arrangements exacerbate or alleviate the problem of armed separatism, this comprehensive book includes in-depth analysis of the circumstances that lead men and women to take up arms in an effort to remove themselves from the state's borders by creating their own independent polity.