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14TH APRIL 2009

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DECOLONIZATION

Table of Contents
DECOLONIZATION.........................................................................................03 DECOLONIZATION as defined IN BROAD SENSE....03 EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF DECOLONIZATION.04 PROCESS OF DECOLONIZATION05
1) REDISCOVERY AND RECOVERY..06 2) MOURNING .....07 3) DREAMING...08 4) COMMITMENT.09 5) ACTION..10
METHODS AND STAGES OF DECOLONIZATION.11

CAUSES OF DECOLONIZATION.. 12
DECOLONIZATION OF OTTOMAN LANDS IN THE 19TH CENTURY..13

EGYPT. .13 GREECE 13 BULGARIA ..13 ROMNIA ..13 SERBIA ....13 MONTENEGRO ..14
DECOLONIZATION AFTER 1918... ...14 WESTERN EUROPEAN COLONIAL POWERS... ...15 THE UNITED STATES ... ..15 THE SOVIET UNION AND ANTI-COLONIALISM ... .16

BRITISH DECOLONIZATION.........16 FRENCH DECOLONIZATION...................................... ...17 DECOLONIZATION AND FRENCH SOCIETY......18 DECOLONIZATION OF THE OTHER IMPERIAL POWERS ......................................................................................21

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CONSEQUENCES ......22

DECOLONIZATION AFTER 1945 ...23

END OF THE EUROPEAN COLONIAL EMPIRES26
THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 26 FRANCE 26 PORTUGAL ..26 SPAIN . 27

THE MOVEMENT ANTICOLONIALIST...27

A MOVEMENT ON THE LEFT27 INTERNAL WARS ... .27 NEOCOLONIALISM.. 27

DECOLONIZATION OF AFRICA...........................................................................................................28
BACKGROUND...................................................................................................................... ............28 CAUSES................................................................................................................................. ............28 EFFECTS................................................................................................................................. ...........29

THE WAR OF ALGERIA (1954-1962) ...30

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WAR OF ALGERIA FRENCH SIDE........30 ALGERIAN SIDE.....30
A nationalist revival. ....30 A decreased confidence.31

The war an International Dimension...31 Involved Forces..32

French generals...32 The FLN....32

THE POLITICAL CONFRONTATION THE IV E REPUBLIC IN DIFFICULTY.. .32

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BIRTH OF THE O C REPUBLIC.. 33 A PUBLIC OPINION IN RUPTURE.. 33 THE ENGAGEMENT OF THE INTELLECTUALS33 SELFDETERMINATION34 CONSEQUENCES IN ALGERIA AND FRANCE. ..35 UNITED NATIONS, DECOLONIZATION, AND SELF-

DETERMINATION IN COLD WAR SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, 1960-1994..........................................................35 THE UN'S FIRST TEST: DECOLONIZATION, THE CONGO CRISIS, AND THE COLD WAR, 19601964.......................................................................................36 AFRICAN DECOLONIZATION AND THE ERA OF DAG HAMMARSKJOLD........................................................................................................3 7 THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE COLD WAR STRUGGLE FOR SELF-DETERMINATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA...............................................................39 CHALLENGES IN THE POST-COLD WAR PERIOD: "SECOND GENERATION" PEACEKEEPING AND HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS..................................42

MODERN APPROACHES TO DECOLONIZATION...45

POST-COLONIAL ORGANIZATIONS.. ....46 DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES... ..47 DECOLONIZATION AND POLITICAL INSTABILITY. .48
ECONOMIC EFFECTS... ...48 SETTLED POPULATIONS ........49

CHARTS OF THE INDEPENDENCES........................................... ....49

18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES ...... ...49 INTER-WORLD PERIOD..51 FROM WORLD WAR II TO THE PRESENT ...............53

BIBLIOGRAPHY... .61

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Decolonization is literally an antithesis of colonization/colonialism. The term generally refers to the achievement of independence by the various Western colonies and protectorates in Asia and Africa following World War II. Decolonization was among the most significant phenomena of the 20th century. Indeed, it helped shape the history of the past century, and in one way or another, either directly or indirectly, affected the lives of nearly everyone, all across the globe. In its shape and duration, decolonization varied from place to place. Furthermore, it has been evaluated in many different ways. But in any case, its importance is beyond question.. It is basically a process which refers to form of regime shift, the new and changed relation between the colonizing power and colony, from the colonial settler minority to locally legitimized government. This conforms to an intellectual movement known as postcolonialism. Decolonization can be achieved by attaining independence, integrating with the administering power or another state, or establishing a "free association" status. The United Nations has stated that in the process of decolonization there is no alternative to the principle of self-determination. Decolonization may involve peaceful negotiation and/or violent revolt and armed struggle by the native population. It may be intramural or it may involve the intervention of foreign powers or international bodies such as the League of Nations. It is a Process by which colonies become independent of the colonizing country. Decolonization was gradual and peaceful for some British colonies largely settled by expatriates but violent for others, where native rebellions were energized by nationalism.

DECOLONIZATION as defined IN BROAD SENSE

Stretching the notion further, internal decolonization can occur within a sovereign state. Thus, the expansive United States created territories, destined to colonize conquered lands bordering the existing states, and once their development proved successful (often involving new geographical splits) allowed them to petition statehood within the federation, granting not external independence but internal equality as 'sovereign' constituent members of the federal Union. Even in a state which legally does not colonize any of its 'integral' parts, real inequality often causes the politically dominant component. Often the largest and/or most populous part (such as Russia within the formally federal USSR as earlier in the czar's empire), or the historical conqueror (such as Austria, the homelands of the ruling Habsburg dynasty, within an empire of mainly Slavonic 'minorities' from Silesia to the shifting Ottoman border) to be perceived, at least subjectively, as a colonizer in all but name; hence, the dismemberment of such a 'prison of peoples' is perceived as decolonization. To complicate matters even further, this may coincide with another element. Thus, the three Baltic republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania argue that they, in

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contrast with other constituent SSRs, could not have been granted independence at the dismemberment of the Soviet Union because they never joined, but were militarily annexed by Stalin, and thus had been illegally colonized, including massive deportations of their nationals and uninvited immigration of ethnic Russians and other soviet nationalities. Even in other post-Soviet states which had formally acceded, most ethnic Russians were so much identified with the Soviet 'colonization' that they were made to feel so unwelcome that they migrated back to Russia.

EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF DECOLONIZATION

The desire for exploration, the spread of religion and imperialism led to the geographical discoveries in the 15th and the 16th decades. These geographical discoveries helped the process of colonization. Colonialism has been associated mostly with European nations. Great Britain, France, Holland, Portugal etc. were involved in this process. Colonialism refers to a system of government of one particular nation that exercises control over peoples of other nations weaker than the governing nation. The colonial nation dictates terms to the residents of the colonized areas. They exercise control over every field of socio-cultural, political and economic activity. They also exploit the natural resources of the colonized lands. In the mid of fifteenth century, European nations had already created their colonies in the African, Asian, American and Australian continents. For more then 4 centuries the colonies endured the command of the colonizers. It was only in the 20th century that the process of decolonization started. The reasons for decolonization were in a way mainly economic. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the colonizing powers realized their incapacity to exert control over the colonies. Their coffers were drained by the War. Also the colonies had started agitating for freedom. Therefore Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, Germany etc. transferred power to the colonies. By the 1980s only a few colonies were still to be given their freedom. Hong Kong is one such British colony that will be returned to its mother nation China in a few months time. It was seen from long before that colonization was never happily accepted by any nation. The governments of colonial nations had always faced heavy opposition against the colonial policies. European colonies in Australia, New Zealand and Canada got Dominion status between the years 1800-1990. By this they controlled their own government and they remained part of the British Empire. New Zealand was given a responsible government in 1856 and in 1907 it was granted full dominion. Colonies of Australia were also granted responsible governments between the years 1853 to 1890. In 1910 a union of South African States was formed. South Africa became an independent republic. Egypt got independence from the U.K. in 1922, and they withdrew in 1952. India won independence in 1947. The British also divided it on the basis of religion. Burma and Sri Lanka became independent in 1948.

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In West Africa, Ghana got independence in 1957. Nigeria in 1960 and Sierra Leone in 1961 became free. Zimbabwe and Namibia also became independent in 1980 and 1990 respectively. Tunisia and Morocco became free when the French gave them independence in 1954. After the Second World War Portugal was the only European colonial power to resist the trend of decolonization. Only when government changed in Portugal, Mozambique, Angola and Guinea got independence in 1975. A particularly active period of decolonization occurred between 1945 to 1960, beginning with the independence of Pakistan and the Republic of India from Great Britain in 1947 and the First Indochina War. A number of national liberation movements were established prior to the war, but most did not achieve their aims until after it. Decolonization can be achieved by attaining independence, integrating with the administering power or another state, or establishing a "free association" status. The United Nations has stated that in the process of decolonization there is no alternative to the principle of self-determination. Decolonization may involve peaceful negotiation and/or violent revolt and armed struggle by the native population. Although examples of decolonization can be found from ancient times forward, in modern times there have been several particularly active periods of decolonization. These are the breakup of the Spanish Empire in the nineteenth century, of the Austrian and Ottoman Empires at around the time of World War I, of the British, French, German, Italian and American Empires in the wake of World War II, and of the Russian Soviet Empire following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

PROCESS OF DECOLONIZATION
Professor Virgilio Enriques defined five distinct phases of decolonization for people. These are: 1) Rediscovery and Recovery 2) Mourning 3) Dreaming 4) Commitment 5) Action. Each phase can be experienced at the same time or in various combinations.

1. REDISCOVERY AND RECOVERY

This is the first phase of process of Decolonization which sets the foundation for the ultimate decolonization of the society. People who have undergone colonization are inevitably suffering from concepts of inferiority in relation to their historical cultural/social background. They live in a colonial society which is a constant and overwhelming reminder of the superiority of the colonial society over that of the underlying indigenous one. Many different causes may bring a person or a society to

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enter the stage of rediscovery and recovery. It may be curiosity, accident, desperation, escape, coincidence, or fate. The societies which come in this phase include: The Hawaiian society has been in this phase since the late 1960's as greater sensitivity for racial identity and pride as well as the growth of distrust for the government of the United States of America developed. The black struggle for equality in civil rights and the American Indian struggle for fundamental freedoms and recognition as the first people of the land, even the growing challenge to the righteousness of the U.S. war in Viet Nam played a major part in bringing home to Hawaii since the 60's this recovery and rediscovery stage. Those challenges to the U.S. government and the operation of its society showed to us in Hawai`i that this great American society was not so great after all. Information of agents of the United States in the latter 1800's conspiring with residents in Hawaii, many of whom were American citizens, of American military spying all the while pretending to have no interest in grabbing Hawaii, of the landing of U.S. troops and acting as the military support for a puppet governments overthrow of the Hawaiian nation, began to appear in Hawaii. The disbelief and yet the complete inability to overcome the information stunned the general society. This is reflected in an interruption by Circuit Court Judge John Lanham in the first criminal case in modern time challenging the courts jurisdiction over a Hawaiian citizen. While the defense counsel read from the U.S. Congressional Record President Clevelands message to the U.S. Congress confessing to a litany of aggressive acts, the judge said this was the most fantastic story he had ever heard, yet he could not deny the events having happened, especially when these are words taken out of the Congressional record, coming from the President of the United States. Lanham was no neophyte to Hawaii, having married a native Hawaiian woman, served in the State legislature for many years, and at the time, sitting as a judge in the State Circuit Court. This phase has continued, not only in the historical and political awareness of the U.S. armed invasion and overthrow of the Hawaiian nation. New vigor in Hawaiian music and literature, both traditional and modern, added substantially to this recovery. Social and political activities took on new momentum. Hawaiians were now willing to stand up against members of Hawaii Supreme Court in their appointment of trustees to the Bishop Estate Trust, a non-profit entity designed to educate native Hawaiian students, with extensive assets of land throughout Hawaii. This phase of rediscovery and recovery has not ended. Many people are still "getting up to speed", not knowing much of the details, but generally acquiescing to the overall theme of a grand illegality having occurred in Hawaii 100 years ago - the theft of the Hawaiian nation. This phase of rediscovery of ones history and recovery of ones culture, language, identity, etc. is fundamental to the movement for decolonization. It forms the basis for the further steps to follow. One of the dangers can occur in this phase is the elevation of form over substance, of dealing with a traditional culture from the perspective of a foreign culture. Indigenous people themselves can abuse their own culture, especially when they have been so long and completely separated from the practice or appreciation of their traditional culture that they now see and treat this culture from the perspective of the foreign one. This danger may include those who have taken on the trappings of

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their "traditional" culture, wearing forests of leaves and flowers on their heads, speaking the indigenous language which they learned at colonial colleges, and otherwise playing the foreigner's concept of the indigenous person. Theatrics which make good media clips could eventually be mistaken for substance. The difference, therefore, between the final stage of colonization exploitation, and the initial stage of decolonization rediscovery & recovery, must be carefully distinguished. Caution must be taken in letting media select for the colonized people the leadership or the identification of their cultural root

2. MOURNING
A natural outgrowth of the first phase is the mourning. It is a time when people are able to mourn their discrimination. This is an essential phase of healing. Even in individual tragedies where one is a victim of some crime, has experienced death of a close loved one, the victim must be permitted a time of mourning. In Hawaii, the symbolic mourning of the loss of the Hawaiian nation has taken place in the centennial observation of the overthrow at Iolani Palace in the gathering of over 10,000 people. The observations over the week-end of January 16 and 17, 1993 in which people came from all parts of Hawaii and returned from parts of the world served as a focal point for mourning of most of those touched in one or another way by the overthrow. Many more remained at home but were tied to their radios, televisions or newspapers as reports were made of the Palace events. It is difficult to generalize how long a people remain in the mourning phase. Like individual responses to tragedies, societal mourning depends on the circumstances. Perhaps, when there does not seem to be any alternative to the present condition, the mourning seems to be the only thing to do. Thus, an extended period of mourning may be experienced. The mourning stage can also accelerate the earlier stage of rediscovery and recovery. People in mourning often immerse themselves totally in the rediscovery of their history making for an interesting interplay between these two phases, both feeding upon one another. This phase may also be expressed in great anger and a lashing out at all symbols of the colonizer. A sense of justified violence, either in words or action, can lull some into remaining in this phase, milking every advantage of the innocence of one's victimization. This abuse of the mourning phase can turn into an attempt to entrench the colonization in order to continue the mourning, the anger, the hating and the division of people. Some people are happy to go no further than the mourning, finding sufficient satisfaction in long term grumbling.

3. DREAMING
This phase is the most crucial for decolonization because here the full scene of possibilities are expressed, considered through debate, consultation, and building

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dreams on further dreams which eventually becomes the flooring for the creation of a new social order. It is during this phase where people colonized are able to explore their own cultures, their own aspirations for their future, considering their own structures of government and social order which encompass and expresses their hopes. So crucial is this phase that it must be allowed to run its full course. If the dreaming is cut short by any action plan or program designed to create a remedy meeting the perception of the issue at a premature stage, the result can prove disastrous. An examination of the Pacific as well as the world's decolonization pattern may be helpful. There are many instances in which people who underwent "decolonization" merely underwent a change in position of the colonizer. e.g: the constitutions of the newly emerged Pacific island nations as well as African nations. Do they reflect more closely the social and legal culture of the immediate preceding colonizer or of the indigenous culture? Are those documents truly reflective of the hopes and aspirations of the people previously colonized? Or do they represent the colonial mentality which pervades the society at the time of foreign departure? Were they written or advised by colonial experts coming from a mindset of Western political structures or were they drafted by the people themselves? True decolonization is more than simply replacing indigenous or previously colonized people into the positions held by colonizers. Decolonization includes the reevaluation of the political, social, economic and judicial structures themselves, and the development, if appropriate, of new structures which can hold and house the values and aspirations of the colonized people. In Hawaii, the dreaming is now vibrant. One on-going process is called the Native Hawaiian Convention, where delegates elected only by native Hawaiians, are convening to review all aspects of self determination and will make recommendations to the native Hawaiian population. This convention will explore the full range of choices from remaining integrated within the United States of America to complete independence from the United States. Other organizations are also attempting to address the self-determination question as well. Some have gone so far as to declare themselves the government pro tem pending success in achieving international recognition as an independent nation. Others are gathering and forming coalitions to promote continuing discussion on Hawaiis future. Still others are dedicated to remaining part of the United States but having the indigenous people given formal recognition and equivalent treatment as many American Indian tribes, a nation within a nation approach. As the intensity in the debate of Hawaii's future gains greater momentum, there is a matching hunger for solid background information and new visions upon which the dreaming can be built. Some of the areas now being explored include: 1) Ramifications of Hawaiian Sovereignty upon the following: - Tourism, -Population control - Military presence, -International trade & business - Diversified Agriculture -Control over ocean resources

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- Taxation -Land relationship 2) International legal principles which apply to the Hawaii case, in particular, the principles of decolonization, indigenous peoples' rights, and ocean governance seen from new economic, environmental and political world arrangement perspectives. 3) Review of other cases in which people have exercised self-determination, both as indigenous people's movements and as broader movements of decolonization. 4) Identification and description of various models of nationhood. 5) Methods and processes by which non-indigenous concerns and contributions can be incorporated into the overall study of Hawaiian sovereignty. Hawaii however, continues to face the threat of rushing the dreaming. Now that the topic of Hawaiian Sovereignty has "caught on" as one of the foremost political issues of the day, many are demanding immediate action, with a belief that reflection and introspection are not worth the time and effort in the development of a new social order. Those expressing impatience and even ridicule over the dreaming process often call for very short-sighted goals, measured generally by materialistic gains. Thus, there is an immediate call for lands, dollars and a "sovereign" nation whose jurisdiction and powers are fully within the United States Congress or Supreme Court. Long term planning for the future of Hawaii in relation to the Pacific and the world is not included in such plans for an immediate remedy.

4. COMMITMENT
In the process of dreaming, the people will have the opportunity to weigh the voices rather than becoming caught up with counting votes or bullets. They will be able to wade through the cult of personalities, family histories, and release themselves from shackles of colonial patriotism. They will now be ready for commitment to a single direction in which the society must move. This phase will culminate in people combining their voices in a clear statement of their desired direction. There is no single "way" or process for a people's expression of the commitment. In fact, over time, the commitment will become so clear that a formal process merely becomes a pro forma expression of the people's will. It can be difficult to distinguish between an early termination of the dreaming phase from the start of the commitment phase. In Hawaii, we hear the call for a Hawaiian convention to create a founding document of the Hawaiian nation. In several corners of the society, this call is being made by bodies that include the Hawaii legislature, semi-autonomous organizations such as the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and even the umbrella organization supporting Hawaiian sovereignty education, All such calls for a process must be carefully scrutinized and questioned as to whether these calls are consistent with the desire to allow the full process of decolonization to take place or to cut the dreaming short and force a premature resolution of historical injustices, thus limiting the losses of those whose interests are threatened in the decolonization process.

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In recent years, the Hawaii legislature and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs put up funds to conduct a vote among Native Hawaiians on whether or not to elect delegates to a Native Hawaiian Convention to propose a form of Hawaiian governance. Suspicion was raised over the fact that funding for this process came from the State of Hawaii and that the process was therefore tainted and not truly a self determining process contemplated in international law. The international policies well established by the United Nations, however, do call for governments to provide necessary resources to assist the people in their exercise of self-determination. The vote was taken in which any person over the age of 18, irrespective of their residence, regardless of whether incarcerated or under other civil disabilities, were permitted to participate. Among native Hawaiians throughout the world, 22,294 voted yes and 8,129, no, a 73% response in favor of electing delegates to a convention. A second step was taken in January 1999 electing such delegates to a Native Hawaiian Convention. That convention is now proceeding. Several organizations claim they individually represent the Hawaiian Nation. They have gone forward and formed their National organizational structure, put in place their national leaders, and now proceed to speak for the nation. They try to be a first in the action phase. Such elitists substitutes for a quick solutions for the decolonization process deprives the people a participatory role in the formation of their own social order.

5. ACTION
This phase can be properly taken only upon a consensus of commitment reached in the last phase. Otherwise, the action taken can not truly be said to be the choice of the people colonized. But the reality of many situations does not allow for such a methodical, patient, time consuming process of the four earlier phases. When a people are under physical attack, when a people are finding their children torn from their homes for reeducation in colonial societies, when people are being removed from their traditional lands in droves, action may be called for prior to the society completion of the dreaming phase. But that kind of responsive action to colonization onslaught is not the action spoken of here. The responsive action is one for survival. The action called for in the 5th phase of decolonization is not a reactive but a proactive step taken upon the consensus of the people. The 5th phase action may incorporate the full spectrum from a call to reason on one end to a resort to arms on the other. Under appropriate times and in the appropriate manner, all of such actions are sanctioned by international law. But the decolonization environment has so drastically changed in the last 30 years that the action phase today must include consideration beyond what has been historically undertaken to achieve independence. While the first thought for independence would have been to grab the rifle and march against the colonizer, it seems the new weapons are dictated by technological development. The fax machine, computer, television, radio and newsprint are perhaps more effective in executing the long battle plan. Those new weapons notwithstanding, the rifle, it's been argued, may still be necessary to defend those other media of expressions. Not only have the methods of executing upon these commitments changed, but the arenas of contests are now not as geographically defined as before. To speak before a national congress or an appropriate body of the United Nations may be far

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more effective than to storm a mountain top within one=s homeland in an armed battle.

METHODS & STAGES of decolonization

Decolonization is a political process, frequently involving violence. In extreme circumstances, there is a war of independence, sometimes following a revolution. More often, there is a dynamic cycle where negotiations fail; minor disturbances ensue resulting in suppression by the police and military forces, escalating into more violent revolts that lead to further negotiations until independence is granted. In rare cases, the actions of the native population are characterized by non violence, India being an example of this, and the violence comes as active suppression from the occupying forces or as political opposition from forces representing minority local communities who feel threatened by the prospect of independence. For example, there was a war of independence in French Indochina, while in some countries in French West Africa (excluding the Maghreb countries) decolonization resulted from a combination of insurrection and negotiation. The process is only complete when the de facto government of the newly independent country is recognized as the de jure sovereign state by the community of nations. Independence is often difficult to achieve without the encouragement and practical support from one or more external parties. The motives for giving such aid are varied: nations of the same ethnic and/or religious stock may sympathize with oppressed groups, or a strong nation may attempt to destabilize a colony as a tactical move to weaken a rival or enemy colonizing power or to create space for its own sphere of influence; examples of this include British support of the Haitian Revolution against France, and the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, in which the United States warned the European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the newly independent states of the Western Hemisphere. As world opinion became more pro-emancipation following World War I, there was an institutionalized collective effort to advance the cause of emancipation through the League of Nations. Under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, a number of mandates was created. The expressed intention was to prepare these countries for self-government, but the reality was merely a redistribution of control over the former colonies of the defeated powers, mainly Germany and the Ottoman Empire. This reassignment work continued through the United Nations, with a similar system of trust territories created to adjust control over both former colonies and mandated territories administered by the nations defeated in World War II, including Japan. Empires have expanded and contracted throughout history but, in several respects, the modern phenomenon of decolonization has produced different outcomes. Now, when states surrender both the de facto rule of their colonies and their de jure claims to such rule, the ex-colonies are generally not absorbed by other powers. Further, the

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former colonial powers have, in most cases, not only continued existing, but have also maintained their status as Powers, retaining strong economic and cultural ties with their former colonies. Through these ties, former colonial powers have ironically maintained a significant proportion of the previous benefits of their empires, but with smaller costs thus, despite frequent resistance to demands for decolonization, the outcomes have satisfied the colonizers' self-interests. Decolonization is rarely achieved through a single historical act, but rather progresses through one or more stages of emancipation, each of which can be offered or fought for: these can include the introduction of elected representatives (advisory or voting; minority or majority or even exclusive), degrees of autonomy or self-rule. Thus, the final phase of decolonization may in fact concern little more than handing over responsibility for foreign relations and security, and soliciting de jure recognition for the new sovereignty. But, even following the recognition of statehood, a degree of continuity can be maintained through bilateral treaties between now equal governments involving practicalities such as military training, mutual protection pacts, or even a garrison and/or military bases. There is some debate over whether or not the United States, Canada and Latin America can be considered decolonized, as it was the colonist and their descendants who revolted and declared their independence instead of the indigenous peoples, as is usually the case. Scholars such as Elizabeth Cook-Lynn (Dakota) and Devon Mihesuah (Choctaw) have argued that portions of the United States still are in need of decolonization.

CAUSES OF DECOLONIZATION
From 1945 engages the process of decolonization, which will be completed only in 1975. Several factors explain this phenomenon:

The Second World War showed that the colonizing countries were not invincible. The colonized countries profit from the support of the United States and the USSR. UNO, formed in 1945, proclaims the equality and the freedom of the people. Nationalist movements are constituted among colonized people. They claim their independence.

DECOLONIZATION OF OTTOMAN LANDS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

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The people who were conquered by Ottoman Empire were able to get freedom in the 19th decade. This is a process that peaked at the time of the Ottoman defeat in the Russia Turkish War of 1877-78. The countries who got freedom from Ottoman Empire are discussed below.

Egypt
In the wake of the French Invasion of Egypt led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798, and the subsequent expulsion of the French in 1801 by Ottoman, Mamluk, and British forces, the commander of the Albanian regiment, Muhammad Ali (Kavalali Mehmed Ali Pasha) was able to gain control on Egypt. Although he was emerged acknowledged by the Sultan in Istanbul in 1805 as his pasha (viceroy), Muhammad Ali was in reality monarch of a sovereign state.

Greece
The Greek War of Independence, (18211829,) was fought to liberate Greece from a centuries-long Ottoman occupation. Independence was secured by the intervention of a combined British-French fleet at the Battle of Navarino.

Bulgaria
At the end of the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-1878, in which the Russian army together with a Romanian expeditionary force and volunteer Bulgarian troops defeated the Ottoman armies, the Treaty of Berlin (1878) established a Bulgarian state in Moesia and the region of Sofia. Alexander, Prince of Battenberg, was created Prince of Bulgaria.

Romania
Romania fought on the Russian side in the Russo-Turkish War and in the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, Romania was recognized as an independent state by the Great

Powers.

Serbia
Decades of armed and unarmed struggle ended with the recognition of Serbian independence form the Ottoman Empire at the Congress of Berlin in 1878.

Montenegro
The independence of the Principality of Montenegro from the Ottoman Empire was recognized at the congress of Berlin in 1878.

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DECOLONIZATION AFTER 1918

Western European colonial powers
The New Imperialism period, with the scramble for Africa and the Opium Wars, marked the zenith of European colonization. It also marked the acceleration of the trends that would end it. The extraordinary material demands of the conflict had spread economic change across the world (notably inflation), and the associated social pressures of "war imperialism" created both peasant unrest and a burgeoning middle class. Economic growth created stakeholders with their own demands, while racial issues meant these people clearly stood apart from the colonial middle-class and had to form their own group. The start of mass nationalism, as a concept and practice, would fatally undermine the ideologies of imperialism. The Great Depression, despite the concentration of its impact on the industrialized world, was also exceptionally damaging in the rural colonies. Agricultural prices fell much harder and faster than those of industrial goods. From around 1925 until World War II, the colonies suffered. The colonial powers concentrated on domestic issues, protectionism and tariffs, disregarding the damage done to international trade flows. The colonies, almost all primary "cash crop" producers, lost the majority of their export income and were forced away from the "open" complementary colonial economies to "closed" systems. While some areas returned to subsistence farming (British Malaya) others diversified (India, West Africa), and some began to industrialise. These economies would not fit the colonial strait-jacket when efforts were made to renew the links. Further, the European-owned and -run plantations proved more vulnerable to extended deflation than native capitalists, reducing the dominance of "white" farmers in colonial economies and making the European governments and investors of the 1930s co-opt indigenous elites despite the implications for the future. The efforts at colonial reform also hastened their end notably the move from non-interventionist collaborative systems towards directed, disruptive, direct management to drive economic change. The creation of genuine bureaucratic government boosted the formation of indigenous bourgeoisie. This was especially true in the British Empire, which seemed less capable (or less ruthless) in controlling political nationalism. Driven by pragmatic demands of budgets and manpower the British made deals with the nationalist elites. They dealt with the white Dominions, retained strategic resources at the cost of reducing direct control in Egypt, and made numerous reforms in the Raj, culminating in the Government of India Act (1935). Africa was a very different case from Asia between the wars. Tropical Africa was not fully drawn into the colonial system before the end of the 19th century, excluding only the complexities of the Union of South Africa (busily introducing racial segregation from 1924 and thus catalyzing the anti-colonial political growth of half the

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continent) and the Empire of Ethiopia. Colonial controls ranged between extremes. Economic growth was often curtailed. There were no indigenous nationalist groups with widespread popular support before 1939.

Japan
As the only Asian nation to become a colonial power during the modern era, Japan had gained several substantial colonial concessions in east Asia such as Taiwan and Korea. Pursuing a colonial policy comparable to those of European powers, Japan settled significant populations of ethnic Japanese in its colonies while simultaneously suppressing indigenous ethnic populations by enforcing the learning and use of the Japanese language in schools. Other methods such as public interaction, and attempts to eradicate the use of Korean and Taiwanese among the indigenous peoples, were seen to be used. Japan also set up the Imperial university in Korea (Keijo Imperial University) and Taiwan (Taihoku University) to compel education. World War II gave Japan occasion to conquer vast swaths of Asia, sweeping into China and seizing the Western colonies of Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Burma, Malaya and Indonesia among others, albeit only for the duration of the war. Following its surrender to the Allies in 1945, Japan was deprived of all its colonies. Japan further claims that the southern Kuril Islands are a small portion of its own national territory, colonized by the Soviet Union.

The United States

At end of the Spanish-American War, at the end of the 19th century, the United States of America held several colonial territories seized from Spain, among them the Philippines and Puerto Rico. Although the United States had initially embarked upon a policy of colonization of these territories (and had fought to suppress local "insurgencies" there, such as in the Philippine-American War), by the 1930s, the U.S. policy for the Philippines had changed toward the direction of eventual selfgovernment. Following the invasion and occupation of the Philippines by Japan during World War II, the Philippines gained independence peacefully from the United States in 1946. However, other U.S. possessions, such as Puerto Rico, did not gain full independence. Puerto Ricans have held U.S. citizenship since 1917, but do not vote in federal elections or pay federal taxes. Puerto Rico achieved self-government in 1952 and became a commonwealth in association with the United States. Puerto Rico was taken off the UN list of non-sovereign territories in 1953 through resolution 748. In 1967, 1993 and 1998, Puerto Rican voters rejected proposals to grant the territory statehood or independence. Nevertheless, the island's political status remains a hot topic of debate.

THE SOVIET UNION AND ANTI-COLONIALISM

The Soviet Union sought to effect the abolishment of colonial governance by Western countries, either by direct subversion of Western-leaning or -controlled

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governments or indirectly by influence of political leadership and support. Many of the revolutions of this time period were inspired or influenced in this way. The conflicts in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Congo, and Sudan, among others, have been characterized as such. Most Soviet leaders expressed the Marxist-Leninist view that imperialism was the height of capitalism, and generated a class-stratified society. It followed, then, that Soviet leadership would encourage independence movements in colonized territories, especially as the Cold War progressed. Because so many of these wars of independence expanded into general Cold War conflicts, the United States also supported several such independence movements in opposition to Soviet interests. During the Vietnam War, Communist countries supported anti-colonialist movements in various countries still under colonial administration through propaganda, developmental and economic assistance, and in some cases military aid. Notably among these were the support of armed rebel movements by Cuba in Angola, and the Soviet Union (as well as the People's Republic of China) in Vietnam.

BRITISH DECOLONIZATION
As World War II approached, Britain had already granted independence to the white dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. This experience made it acceptable for the Colonial Secretary, Malcolm MacDonald, to state in December 1938 that Britains ultimate aim was to bring its colonies to selfgovernment. By then, India, the largest and most-prized British possession, had already moved significantly towards this with the Government of India Act of 1935. The act transferred power at the provincial, as opposed to the national, level to elected Indian bodies. World War II, and the need for Indian support against the Japanese in the face of groups like the Indian National Army which were actually prepared to fight with Japan against British rule, led the wartime coalition government to promise India dominion status as soon as possible once the war ended. That this was granted as early as August 1947 was due essentially to the situation in India and to the determined efforts of the British prime minister Clement Attlee to proceed rapidly with the transfer of power. In India, not only was opposition to British rule significant, but the prospect of receiving political power heightened the divisions between the Hindu and Muslim communities in the subcontinent. In 1946 serious communal violence erupted, which added to Britains problems. The economic and political costs of continuing to govern India were too high for most Labour Party politicians to contemplate. The natural tendency of many Conservatives to cling to the imperial status of earlier years was also muted in the immediate post-1945 period, and British decolonization, although sometimes arousing opposition at home, never created the same kind of bitter divisions as occurred in France. With India independent (and partitioned) in 1947, Burma (now Myanmar) and Sri Lanka quickly followed suit in 1948, despite the different nature of the political

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groupings in those two countries that could claim to have popular support. The more radical Burmese groupings who gained power from the British were not, however, seen to be as threatening as the Communist Chinese in Malaya who instigated the Malayan Emergency in 1948. In Malaya the fear of Communism was accompanied by the hope that more moderate political leaders could be encouraged to collaborate with Britain during and after the transfer of power, which was completed in 1957. As under colonial rule, collaborators were an essential part of decolonization, and closely involved throughout the empire in the establishment of elected legislative bodies that were intended to be precursors of Westminster-style parliaments. The transfer of power in British Africa occurred somewhat later than in Asia, with Sudan leading the way in 1956, and Ghana, the first black African colony to attain independence, following in 1957. Initially, in the aftermath of World War II, the British expected that it would be several generations before their African colonies gained independence. They were forced to move much quicker than anticipated in order to try to keep control of the process. In this they were not entirely successful, but the transfer of power was much smoother in West Africa than in East and Central Africa. In the Central African Federation (formed in 1953 from Nyasaland and Northern and Southern Rhodesia, and broken up in 1963) and Kenya, the presence of white settlers led the British to try in vain initially to establish a representative system of government based on the concept of multiracialism, rather than straightforward African majority rule. Fighting rebels in Kenya from 1952, the British nevertheless abandoned multiracialism and moved rapidly to transfer power in Africa in the early 1960s. Fear of multiracial conflict, growing opposition to colonialism, the radicalization of African politics, and the economic and political importance of Europe (Britain applied to join the European Economic Community in 1961) contributed to an extremely rapid decolonization. Nigeria led the way in 1960, followed by Sierra Leone (1961), Tanganyika (now Tanzania, 1961), Uganda (1962), Zanzibar (1963), Kenya (1963), Nyasaland (now Malawi, 1964), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia, 1963), and The Gambia (1965). The newly independent African states were not prepared as originally envisaged, and decolonization left them with many problems.

FRENCH DECOLONIZATION
The nature of French colonial rule influenced the process of transferring power. In the 20th century the French had no tradition of preparing their dependencies for selfgovernment. The French preferred to aim at the assimilation of individual colonial subjects into the French Republic by according them the same legal and political status as the citizens of metropolitan France. After World War II the new constitution of the Fourth Republic created the French Union. Overseas territories would be part of a single indivisible republic, freely consented to, and citizens of the Union would receive greater representation in the French National Assembly in Paris; local assemblies in the colonies would only be advisory bodies. Qualifications for French citizenship were, however, subject to controls and the number of representatives from overseas France was strictly limited. The first challenge to the French Union came in 1946 in Indochina, where Vietnamese nationalists led by the Communist Ho Chi Minh seized power in the north of Vietnam. After a long and bloody war to incorporate the territories of Indochina into the French Union, the French were defeated in 1954.

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France was then immediately involved in another large-scale conflict, the Algerian War of Independence. Algeria was an emotive issue for many of the French as it had been regarded as part of France in the same way as metropolitan departments. It had a large settler population, who were determined to remain part of France. As the conflict became more intense, with the use of torture on both sides, the first stage of French decolonization of black Africa took place in 1956. The passing of the loi cadre, an enabling law to permit constitutional change, led to the first moves towards selfgovernment, with the establishing of territorial assemblies with real power. This abandonment of the centralization entailed in the French Union stemmed from the growing African realization that real power could not be obtained in Paris but only in the territorial capitals. Pressures for change from within Africa were accompanied by the growing belief in France that the French Union could not be maintained without arousing international opposition. These changes in black Africa led in 1958 to the creation of the French Community, the replacement for the French Union under the Fifth Republic. The French Community invested control of defence and foreign policy in France, but gave internal self-government to its other members. All black African territories were offered membership or independence, but any territory choosing the latter would forfeit French assistance. Only Guinea chose independence. The establishment of the Fifth Republic followed a military coup dtat in Algeria which, with the prospect of an army takeover in Paris, led to the constitutional transfer of power to General Charles de Gaulle. It took de Gaulle nearly four years to bring the fighting in Algeria to an end with the Evian Accords in 1962 that promised Algeria independence. By then the survival of an independent Guinea had led to demands from other black African states for independence outside the French Community. With de Gaulle keen to strengthen Frances role in Europe and the modernization of French industry under way, the economic and political attractions of formal empire were no longer so strong. All French black African possessions became independent in 1960, though the Franc Zone maintained a measure of economic control.

Decolonization and French Society

On the eve of World War II, France controlled a colonial empire second in size only to that of Britain. It was an empire over twenty times as large as the home country, and it contained one and a half times as many inhabitants. By 1962, only scattered remnants were left. The French had fought long and hard to prevent the loss of their colonies, and the process of decolonization in the French Empire was violent and brutal, especially in Algeria. Why, then, was the French extraction from Algeria so difficult? France's actions were to a great extent the consequence of the imperialist ideas that persisted among the political elite and the public. They believed that France had a humanist colonial vocation and that empire was part of the nation's greatness. After France was decolonized, French society and politics had to readjust their ideologies according to France's new international role. The impact of decolonization of French politics and society was profound. After WWII, there was a wide spread belief in the value and legitimacy of the French Empire. The French, after all, had strong ties with their colonies and saw many of them as a part of France. Bets, Clayton and Sorum all argue that the decline

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in France's stature in the world, culminating in its collapse in WWII and its impotence in the immediate postwar period, added a non-rational force to the belief in the legitimacy and value of France's empire. The movement for colonial liberation was seen as another external threat to France. In other words, in the aftermath of WWII, France wanted to secure its position in the international arena and be respected as a legitimate global power. Indeed, opinion polls reveal that when WWII ended, the French people who were used to possessing an empire, expected that it would remain French, and wanted to keep it. In the words of one observer, while public opinion was "ready to accept any transformation, even a radical one, of the colonial system," it was "absolutely not disposed to allow the slightest attempt at secession." Even as late as 1958, a poll showed that 52% of the French people wanted integration, while only 41% wanted Algerian independence. Even though the public did value the French Empire, Sorum argues that "the elite were more imperialist than the mass of the public." He argues that the public was more concerned with fuel and food shortages, inflation, strikes and political instability than the empire as such. He argues: "the underlying reason for the agony of decolonization, therefore appears to have been the imperialist convictions of the small politically influential segment of the French public." Smith also argues that it was so difficult for France to decolonize not because of French economic interest in Algeria, or even a faulty system of government, but mainly because of a "common perception ... of the French political elite in regard to colonial issues." The French political elite believed that their empire was legitimate because they believed that the West must pacify and educate the "backward" natives, and develop the untapped resources of the world for the benefit of mankind (a.k.a. the white man's burden). After WWI, both the Catholics and the rationalist intellectuals argued that colonization was legitimized by the right of humanity to use for its well-being the material and moral riches of the whole world. Also the spread of the idea of social evolution indicated to them that the industrial civilization of the west was not only the most advanced stage of mankind but also a natural goal of all societies. This was, after all, part of the Jacobean tradition of citizenship. It dictated that France has a mission to spread their civilization not only to Europe, but also to the whole world. Sorum argues that "Jacobean nationalism differed from other brands of nationalism in the intensity of its missionary zeal. This zeal expressed, as well as reinforced, a fundamental vision of France that underlies the divisions and conflicts that have clouded French history." Obviously, economic factors also influenced metropolitan politics by both direct and indirect means. Business influenced the course of events indirectly by shaping political debates in Paris on the economic value of empire. Perceptions of the costs of a thorough economic disengagement were weighed against a calculation of political benefits and liabilities. All in all, the French sense of global importance was rooted in their idea of Empire. Smith argues that "the major stake the French had in Algeria was ... their sense of national identity." It therefore can be argued that the French stake in Algeria was at once economic, moral, strategic, and certainly psychological. For eight years, beginning in 1954, the Algerian War dominated French society and public life. On more than one occasion, the war seemed to threaten the nation with civil war. Although the 4th Republic tried to make various reforms, most historians agree that the reason why it was so difficult for France to give independence to its overseas possessions was because of its faulty system of government. The leaders of the 4th Republic did not have the kind of stability or autonomy that was needed to execute a coherent feasible colonial policy. The French

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political system was weak, and it divisions badly complicated the reaction to colonial nationalism. The political elite were divided and there differing opinions as to how to end the conflict -- the left and the right were decisively split. The prolongation of the war deepened the tensions within France itself. It led to a worsening of political disagreements and to the weakening of the image of the executive administration. Thus, De Gaulle came back to power and helped establish the 5th Republic. It is beyond doubt that De Gaulle owed his return to power to the Algerian war. Everyone waited for him to put an end to the conflict. Many French-Algerian supporters believed that de Gaulle was on their side when he came into office, but they were to be proved wrong in the long-term. As de Gaulle wrote in his memoirs, even when he came into office he felt that "there was in his opinion no other solution than that of Algerian selfdetermination." In the meantime, though, he skillfully blurred the issues and bewildered his opponents. His seemingly incomprehensible zigzagging policy gratified and discouraged each side in turn. Some historians concluded that initially, De Gaulle probably did not have a certain goal for Algeria in mind when he came into office, but instead adjusted his policies according to public opinion. In the late 1950s, it started to come to light that the French military was using torture against the Algerian rebels. The army officers, like the police, had been resorting to torture as an effective, indeed essential, means of fulfilling their mission. Intellectuals in the late 50s published numerous pamphlets that described graphically the various forms of torture the French soldiers were using against the Algerian rebels. The French population was horrified. Claude Bourdet, editor of France Observateur asked, "is there a Gestapo in Algeria?" At that time, the words "Gestapo" and "Nazi" were not to be used lightly. They abraded wounds that had not yet had time to heal and revived an all too recent past, when Frenchmen had chosen sides against each other and sold each other out. Painfully aware that French troops were behaving like Nazis, they wanted at least to prevent the French people from being guilty, as the German people had been, of silent complicity with these crimes. The French population was upset at the torturer's violation of the humanist principles of the West and at his betrayal of their concept of France. The international criticism France started to get in the late 50s did help to shorten the war, however. De Gaulle saw that the situation in Algeria was doing damage to France's international position. In the fall of 1959, the UN was set to discuss Algeria, and the commonwealth, and the Commonwealth countries had decided to abstain or vote against France. Even President Eisenhower planned an official visit to France. International opinion was moving steadily against war in Algeria. By June 1961, France was criticized by the socialist and Arab states, held in suspicion by the UN, and enjoyed only tepid support from the US and the UK. De Gaulle realized that if France wanted to secure its position in the international arena and be respected as a legitimate global power, it had to give Algeria its independence. Thus, De Gaulle granted Algeria its independence in order to secure his own political authority. He took the initiative and acted as a strong executive in control of foreign policy. This is, therefore, the lasting and most important political impact of the war in Algeria: it is the idea of the president as a autonomous executive who is able to maneuver in the international arena without being bonded to fickle domestic politics. DeGaulle set the precedent for this kid of executive and helped to define the role of the president within the 5th Republic. After all, it sometimes is NOT in a nation's best

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interest to have a weak executive whose foreign policy is dictated solely by domestic forces. Especially in this century, the political development of most societies has been deeply marked by international politics -- war, imperialism. A strong executive who is able to maneuver somewhat freely in the international arena is the best answer for today's world. After the French had failed to prevent the loss of their empire, they needed to adjust their vision of France and the world to the fact of decolonization. Kahler argues that "decolonization seemed for the European states the last precipitous act in their decline from world preeminence, leaving doubts about their place in an international world order." (9) This is especially true because the countries were acted upon and were not entirely in control of their situation. What had begun as a riot in a colonial capital had transformed into a change of political regime. Even though the French viewed decolonization as defeat, the intellectuals helped to minimize some of the potentially unpleasant consequences of this view. The humanist intellectual's stress of France's continuing overseas mission hindered the spread of the view that the former subjects were ungrateful people who deserved no further aid from France. It prepared the public to accept de Gaulle's linking of aid to the former colonies with the reassertion of France's "grandeur." Sorum claims that ultimately the French population tried to forget about the war in Algeria as quickly as they could. It wasn't until the early 1970s, a decade after Algerian independence, that the French were willing again to think seriously about the war and its meaning. The French Algerians who had fled to France brought to public attention the injustices done to them at the end of the war by the FLN, the Gaullist, and the French people. By the late 60s, France had a new identity. The idea of Empire is not as important anymore to the French population as France now sees itself as an essential part of European Integration. After decolonization, France started to form new economic links with the rest of Europe and other nations. But the impact of decolonization can still be seen in French society and French politics. The president is still an autonomous political executive. The French still see themselves as an international upholder of human rights and peace. France therefore, has successfully been redefined politically, economically, and socially.

DECOLONIZATION POWERS

OF

THE

OTHER

IMPERIAL

World War II was important for Dutch decolonization, as the Dutch were unable to regain effective control of the Dutch East Indies. Their attempts to do so while negotiating with Sukarno and the other Indonesian nationalists were accompanied by two resorts to the use of force that were opposed by the United States. In 1949, nationalist resistance and fear of losing American economic assistance for post-war reconstruction led the Dutch to grant independence to Indonesia. The United States had in the inter-war years made a commitment to grant the Philippines independence, which was fulfilled in 1946 and held up to the Europeans as an example. The end of Belgian rule in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1960 was the most rapid transfer of power, and the lack of an effective state apparatus was more noticeable than elsewhere. It was a factor in the civil war which

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broke out within weeks of independence. Spanish decolonization in Latin America had been largely accomplished in the South American Wars of Independence in the first quarter of the 19th century and in the liberation of Cuba in the Spanish-American War of 1898. In Africa, Spanish Ro Muni and Fernando Poo were united and granted autonomy in 1963; they became independent as Equatorial Guinea in 1968, and the Spanish Sahara (now Western Sahara) followed in 1976. The end of the Portuguese Empire was more protracted and bloody, with large-scale wars of liberation taking place in Angola from 1961, in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde from 1962, and in Mozambique from 1964. The winning of independence by these territories in 1974 and 1975 followed a military coup dtat in Portugal in 1974 that destroyed the willingness of the Portuguese forces to continue fighting. The territory of Portuguese Timor was seized by Indonesia in 1975.

CONSEQUENCES
The imperial powers believed decolonization would help them gain economic benefits outside their formal empires, while retaining informal influence with their former dependencies. Yet they did not have the economic or military influence to achieve these goals. Even where apparently orderly and successful, decolonization has often left a legacy of difficulties. These ranged from civil wars between different ethnic groups, as in Zare and Nigeria, to conflicts between successor states, as in East Africa and South East Asia. To some extent, internal conflicts can be attributed to the nature of decolonization and to the legacy of colonialism. Although the imperial powers tried to create viable and powerful states, as with the federations in the West Indies and Central Africa, decolonization often failed to produce a sense of common, national identity. Many of the colonial boundaries divided people of the same ethnic group, and brought together others who had no racial, linguistic, or cultural ties. It frequently proved difficult to create a national identity and a civic consciousness based on loyalty to the state or nation. Successors to the imperial rulers have often put the needs of kinsmen, clients, or interest groups before the needs of their new nation states. Decolonization has often helped make ethnic and regional conflicts more common. Few former dependencies in Africa have prospered after decolonization, as their weak position within the international capitalist economy has worsened. The failure of too rapid a modernization process has added to the difficulties created by market forces that tend to work against those who are reliant on the export of basic commodities. Yet how significant decolonization, or indeed the imposition of colonial rule, was in the economic development of the developing world remains an unresolved question. The significance of the colonial legacy in the development of countries like Malaysia and Indonesia remains unclear. The impact of colonial rule was itself only a brief phenomenon for many African and Asian societies, and its ending part of a broader shift in world politics. The rise of the United States and the Soviet Union was significant, and as the colonial world became the developing world, international trade patterns were also changing. The ending of formal empire produced the mass return of settlers from the Portuguese, French, and Belgian empires. Also, emigration to the overseas dependencies has

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been replaced by the immigration of former subjects to the metropoles of the decolonizing powers, which has had a cultural impact on a global scale. Most of Britains former dependencies have become part of the Commonwealth of Nations, whereas France has tended to preserve links with its former overseas possessions through close military ties. In addition the French have incorporated their Caribbean and Indian Ocean possessions into metropolitan France as dpartements doutre mer (DOMS). Their Pacific islands are also legally part of France, but as territoires doutre mer (TOMS) they have more administrative autonomy. French attempts to make provision of educational aid in Cambodia and elsewhere conditional on use of the French language are typical of many former colonial powers efforts to maintain their colonial legacy. Even without the problems of Hong Kong, Gibraltar, Timor-Leste, and the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), decolonization remains incomplete.

DECOLONIZATION AFTER 1945

In 1945 the Second World War ended, the next thirty years were to see rapid disintegration of the European empires and the creation of many new independent states. At the beginning of end of the Second World War Britain had the largest empire, which spanned the whole of the globe. But in the next thirty years this was dramatically reduced in size. The first country to seek independence from Britain at the end of the Second World War was India. India was seen as the Jewel in the crown of the British Empire and was of key significance to Britain. The Indian desire to decolorize had gather momentum at the end of the First World War and by the beginning of the Second World War Britain was forced to recognize Indian independence in return for her support in the Second World War. At the end of the Second World War a Labor government came to power in Britain. They had a different outlook upon the issue of Decolonization. Whereas the conservative government before them were unwilling to decolorize India the Labor government supported Decolonization in the right circumstances. The reasons for this policy were their disapproval of the exploitation of the Indians and also the fact that Britain could not afford to keep India. However there were a number of problems with decolorizing India the major one of which was the religious hostilities that existed between the Hindus and the Muslims. The two religions could not agree on the federal system of government so it was decided that there should be a partition of India. This would create a new independent state Pakistan. The British method of partition was to set a date for British withdrawal 1947, and then work up until this date to achieve a peaceful partition. When the partition was created making India a Hindu state and Pakistan a Muslim state many people found themselves in the wrong area and there was a lot of mass

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movement of people between the two areas. The method with which Britain decolorized India met respects worldwide and was regarded as the best way to decolorize. With Indias declaration of independence it became apparent that it was only a matter of time before Britain's other colonies demanded their own independence. By 1957 only two of Britain's colonies in Africa had gained their independence they were the Gold Coast and Sudan. The rest were to quickly receive their independence between 1957 and1964. The characteristics of these independences were the methods with which they carried out by the British. They followed the same plan in each colony, which was to prepare the colony for self-rule by training people for the new positions within government and in other sectors which the British settlers had dominated in. This meant the new independent country would be able to support her. It also meant that the likely hood of a power vacuum would be reduced after the British left. The British Prime Minister captured the mood of the age with his speech made whilst on a visit to South Africa in 1960 in which he commented The wind of change is blowing through Africa and whether we like it or not, this growth of political consciousness is a fact. This speech showed that the Labor Government was perfectly aware that they could not keep their African colonies forever because of the increased political realization the part of the Africans. France was another great imperial power who decolorized after the Second World War although her reasons and methods were quite different from Britons. Unlike Britain France had been occupied during the Second World War and a number of her colonies had also they meant they had a different view on the colonies. Whereas the British realized the colonies were beginning to become a burden they French believed they had to re-assert their national prestige by keeping control of their colonies. This may explain why the French experience of Decolonization was so different to Britain's. French Decolonization was bloody and bitter whereas Britain's was quite peaceful and quite painless. France fought two costly and bloody wars over her colonies. The first of these was in Indo-China, which had been under French rule since the 19th Century. During the Second World War with France occupied the French colonies were open to attack and Indo-China was invaded and occupied by the Japanese. During this time a group called the Vietminh led by Ho Chi Minh fought a guerrilla war against the Japanese. At the end of the Second World War the French intended to retake control of Indo-China but before they could the Vietminh declared independence. Fighting broke out in 1946 and continued for eight years before the French suffered a massive defeat at Dien Bien Phu. This was the decisive point of the war with an armistice being signed soon after. France had lost much in the war including 91,000 men and their colony.

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Frances African Empire started to decolorize after the humiliating defeat at Dien Bien Phu as riots spread across the French African states. France realized she could not hold her empire together anymore and begun decolorizing. All the French African colonies were granted their independence between 1956 and 1960 with the exception Algeria. Algeria held a unique place within the French Empire as it had been formally integrated into France thus making it not a colony but a part of France itself. At the end of the Second World War the Arab majority of Algeria who had experienced no political rights in the past were promised a full share of political rights. The French speaking settlers and their descendants the Colons met this with opposition. Frustration at the lack of progress towards political reforms an armed rebellion led by the F.L.N. (Front dLiberation National) begun in 1954. The war was bloody and a one point threatened to cause civil war in France as the right wing military officers threatened to stage a coup detat against the government if they agreed to Algerian independence. This was due to the sense on the armies part that they had a duty to maintain the French rule in Algeria after the humiliation of Dien Bien Phu and the Decolonization. In 1958 General de Gaulle was persuaded to come out of retirement to end the conflict in Algeria. Initially French nationalists who believed he would not give Algeria independence greeted him. But De Gaulle realized that France could not win the war and that it would be a major strain on the economy to continue it. He begun talks for independence and he and the F.L.N. leader signed a settlement in 1962. The major differences between the British and French Decolonization was the method with which they were carried out. The British accepted that they could not keep control of their colonies indefinitely and therefore went about trying to give them independence. The French on the other hand refused to give their colonies independence easily and there had to be major bloodshed before they would consider it. In conclusion it can be said that Decolonization occurred for a number of different reasons. These reasons included they cost of maintaining colonial ties with countries out weighed the benefits of those ties. This was realized by Britain soon after the war but wasnt realized by France until De Gaulle came back into power in 1958. Another reason for Decolonization was the people in the colonies. These people were demanding their own independence and this was the reason for giving it to them. The outcomes for the former colonies were mixed many were unprepared for independence and suffered many changes in government from democracy to military dictatorship. However there were some India is one example which prospered through independence. The outcome of the colony seems to have depended greatly on the way in which they were decolorized. As has been mention before India prospered from independence whereas Indo-China particularly Vietnam spent many years at war with the USA after the were granted independence.

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END OF THE EUROPEAN COLONIAL EMPIRES

The British Commonwealth
Weakened exit of the Second world war, Great Britain draws the first the conclusions from the new international power struggle: since 1947, she recognizes the independence of India, involving the loss, not without dramas, of Indonesia for the Netherlanders (in August 1945, independence is proclaimed; in 1949, the agreements of $the Hague recognize this independence). The role of released Asia increases quickly in the international relations. Since 1957, Gold Coast, in its turn, is independent and takes the name of Ghana; there too, the example shakes the colonial building in Africa, more especially as the popularity of the Ghanaian leader Nkrumah is immense.

France
France has much more problems than Great Britain; it must give up, in 1945, its mandates on Syria and Lebanon; it engages, against the Republic of Viet-Nam (1945), in a war of reconquest of Indo-China after having missed the occasion by an agreement with the Face of the independence of Viet-Nam (Vietnamese soldierminh), created in 1941 by Ho Chi Minh. Nearly ten years later, the conference of Geneva, where the appearance on stage of communist China marks the deep change of the power struggles, leads to the provisional independence of the countries of ex-Indo-China and to the partition of Viet-Nam. In Africa, the conference of Brazzaville of 1944, held on the initiative of the de Gaulle general, promises a broad autonomy with the colonies but independence refuses to them. In 1946, IVe Rpublique believes to find an answer by creating the French Union, formed by the French Republic and the territories and States associated with overseas. Deeply renovated by the law Removes iron of 1956, the French Union becomes in 1958 the Community, but Guinea refuses to join it and Algeria is in full war of liberation, asserting the independence, obtained by Morocco and Tunisia in 1956. Algerian independence, in 1962, devotes the collapse of the French colonial empire.

Portugal
In 1974, after hard wars in Angola, Guinea and in Mozambique, Portugal yields in its turn; in 1976,

Spain

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Spain gives up, by assent, except for some something to lean on (Ceuta, Melilla) the fragments of empire which remain to him. If the decolonization, almost completed today, were fast - about thirty years - it deeply marks the interior political life as well of the colonizing countries as of the colonized countries and will have introduced many contradictions there.

THE MOVEMENT ANTICOLONIALIST

A Movement on the Left
The ant colonialists, very active in France in particular, gathered, in spite of strong internal tensions, trade unionists, politicians, writers; all more or less claimed left obstructed by gravity of the USSR and the ideology which it spread. Much was in favor, in the public opinion, of a pure and simple abandonment of expensive colonies, to which it was a question of granting a statute of full equality.

Internal Wars
The dissensions less obvious at are not colonized fighting for the release. In certain cases, charismatic leaders - such Gandhi, assassinated in 1948, then Nehru in India, Kenyatta, large victorious of the elections of 1963 in Kenya, after the terrible sudden starts of the years 1950, Nyerere in Tanganyika, Senghor in Senegal, Houphout-Boigny in Coast-in Ivoire have, at least for a time, dissimulated the gravity of the internal situations. It was not always thus. Hardly independent, Angola saw to clash (1975) in a long civil war three coalitions of interests and political options opposed, main of three territories. The release of Zimbabwe was not done without movement between acknowledged partisans of the United States or the USSR and white colonists eager to maintain the old state of the things. In Zaire, in Nigeria, in Indo-China, religious or political realities led to spectacular secessions or internal conflicts.

Neocolonialism
One of the characteristics of the period after 1950 is that the former colonizers more or less released ballast on the political plan to preserve important economic advantages. An example especially striking is that of Iran, where the nationalization of Anglo-Iranian Company in March 1951 caused, three years later, the fall of Mossadegh, intransigent leader. Other examples can easily be given in connection with the control of the production of rubber, copper, cotton, the coffee, the cocoa, the tea. The forms most durably persistent of the neocolonialism are of economic order and financier.The decolonized countries held, in April 1955, a conference with Bandung, in Indonesia: the final act affirmed the equality of all the races and the

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equality of all the nations, small or large. One is far today still to have seen being carried out the dream of Bandung.

DECOLONIZATION OF AFRICA
The decolonization of Africa followed World War II as colonized peoples agitated for independence and colonial powers withdrew their administrators from Africa.

Background
Cecil Rhodes: Cape-Cairo railway project. Founder of the De Beers Mining Company, one of the first diamond companies, Rhodes was also the owner of the British South Africa Company, which carved out Rhodesia for itself. He wanted to "paint the map red," and once famously declared: "all of these stars. these vast worlds that remain out of reach. If I could, I would annex other planets." During the Scramble for Africa in the late nineteenth century, European powers divided Africa and its resources into political partitions at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85. By 1905, African soil was almost completely controlled by European governments, with the only exceptions being Liberia (which had been settled by African-American former slaves) and Ethiopia (which had successfully resisted colonization by Italy). Britain and France had the largest holdings, but Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Portugal also had colonies. As a result of colonialism and imperialism, Africa suffered long term effects, such as the loss of important natural resources like gold and rubber, economic devastation, cultural confusion, geopolitical division, and political subjugation. Europeans often justified this using the concept of the White Man's Burden, an obligation to "civilize" the peoples of Africa.

Causes
World War II saw the colonies help their colonial masters fight against an unknown enemy, but with no mention of independence for African nations. Future Prime Ministers Henrik Verwoerd and B.J. Vorster of South Africa supported Adolf Hitler while most French colonial governors loyally supported the Vichy government until 1943. German wartime propaganda had a part in this defiance of British rule. Imperial Japan's conquests in the Far East caused a shortage of raw materials such as rubber and various minerals. Africa was therefore forced to compensate for this shortage and greatly benefited from this change. Another key problem the Europeans faced were the U-boats patrolling the Atlantic Ocean. This reduced the amount of raw materials being transported to Europe and prompted the creation of local industries in Africa. Local industries in turn caused the creation of new towns, and existing towns doubled in size. As urban community and industry grew so did trade unions. In addition to trade unions, urbanization brought about increased literacy, which allowed for pro-independence newspapers.

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In 1941, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met to discuss the postwar world. The result was the Atlantic Charter. One of the provisions in this document that was introduced by Roosevelt was the autonomy of imperial colonies. Therefore after World War II, there was pressure on Britain to abide by the terms of the Atlantic Charter. When Winston Churchill introduced the Charter to Parliament, he purposely mistranslated the colonies to be recently captured countries by Germany in order to get it passed. After the war, African colonies were still considered "children" and "immature" therefore democratic government was only introduced at the local levels.

Effects
In most British and French colonies, the transition to independence was relatively peaceful. Some settler colonies however were displeased with the introduction of democratic rule. In the aftermath of decolonization, Africa displayed political instability, economic disaster, and debt dependence. Political instability occurred with the introductions of Marxist and capitalist influence, along with continuing friction from racial inequalities. Inciting civil war, Black Nationalist groups participated in violent attacks against white settlers, trying to end "white minority rule" in the government.

Further violence occurred with disagreements over the partitions made during the colonization. Despite widespread acceptance of these partitions, border disputes such as those between Chad and Libya, Ethiopia and Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and Nigeria and Cameroon are nursed even today. Decolonized Africa has lost many of its social and economic institutions and to this day shows a high level of informal economic activity. In another result of colonialism followed by decolonization, the African economy was drained of natural resources with no opportunity to diversify from its colonial export of cash crops. Suffering through famine and drought, Africa struggled to industrialize its poverty stricken work force without sufficient funds. In an attempt to influence the Third World to adopt the ideology of either capitalism or Communism, the United States and the Soviet Union loaned food and money to Africa. To feed, educate, and modernize its masses, Africa borrowed large sums of money from various nations, bankers and companies. In return, the lenders forced the African countries to devalue their currency and attempted to exert political influence within Africa. The borrowed money, however, did not rehabilitate the devastated economy. Since the massive loans were usually squandered by the mismanagement of corrupt dictators, social issues such as education, health care, and political stability have been ignored. The by products of decolonization, including political instability, border disputes, economic ruin, and massive debt, continue to plague Africa to this present day. Due to on-going military occupation, Spanish Sahara (now Western Sahara), was never fully decolonized. The majority of the territory is under Moroccan administration; the rest is administered by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. DECOLONIZATION Page 31

THE WAR OF ALGERIA (1954-1962)

The war of Algeria, carried out by France of 1954 to 1962 against the Algerian freedom fighters, in particular takes seat in the movement of decolonization which affected the Western empires after the Second world war, and largest of them, the French and British empires. When the insurrection is started, on on November 1st 1954, the independence of Vietnam has just been torn off the French forces were defeats at Din Bin Phu, which constitutes an encouragement for all the colonized people. As for the independence of two Maghrebian protectorates, Morocco and Tunisia, it is being negotiated. This war - that, until 1999, the French State was obstinated not to call officially that by the terms of operations of maintenance of law and order - was going to traumatize the French company durably: the rising of the Algerian nationalists struck a hardly given country of the cold war; it to go to last eight years and to end up carrying the IV E Republic.

Significance of the War of Algeria French Side

For France of the years 1950, the possible loss of Algeria would represent an attack with its row of great power, symbolized since the end of the XIXe century, by its colonial presence in the world. Algeria, in the middle of the Maghreb, between Black Africa and the Middle East, is the showpiece of its device. The contribution of the Algerian colony to the nation's economy, limited a long time to a dynamic commercial agriculture, changed thanks to the gas and oil discoveries which multiply after 1951. Algeria also constitutes the only French colony of settlement, with a million Europeans in 1954 (of the French, but also of the Italians, Spanishs and of the Malteses, who profit from the automatic naturalization), whose advantages are to be opposed to the under-administration and the under-equipment of the Muslim population. This one, of Koranic statute, in demographic strong growth, is partly reduced to misery by the agrarian crisis.

Algerian Side
A nationalist revival
In 1954, the Algerian nationalist movement, already old, is in full change. The Association of the oulmas (doctors of the Islamic law) guard an especially moral authority. The democratic Union of proclamation of the Algerian people (UDMA), founded in 1946 by Ferhat Abbas, raised the hopes of the Moslem middle-class, but it is the main victim of the policy of the general governor. The Algerian Communist party hesitates between autonomy and assimilation. The Movement for the triumph of democratic liberties (MTLD) of Messali Hadj, founded in November 1946, is the spearhead of Algerian nationalism. It is essential thanks to its program - the total independence -, with its 25' 000 militants hardened by clandestinity, and with the revolts carried out by the Algerian Popular party - to which the MTLD is the heir -, in

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Constantinois, in 1945. However, the authority of the leader of the MTLD is disputed by those, whose Hocine Has Ahmed and Ahmed Ben Bella, who recommend the immediate action to start again the movement. In October 1954, nine personalities among which Ahmed Has, Krim Belkacem, Ben Bella, Mohammed Boudiaf, who will cross all the war - found the Face of national release (FLN), equip it with an Army of national release (ALN), and fix the insurrection for All Saints' day 1954.

A decreased confidence
For the Algerians, the armed struggle expresses a real disillusion with regard to the French promises. In 1937, the Blum-Violet project extending the right to vote to a minority of Moslems was pushed back. In 1947, a new organic statute is granted, creating an Algerian Parliament of which the half of the representatives are elected by a college of 522' 000 French citizens, and other half by a college of 1' 20' 0000 Moslems not citizens; but, since 1948, the vote of the Moslem college is faked by the Naegelen general governor supported by the pied-noir opinion, and gives the majority to the Moslem candidates of the administration.

The war an International Dimension

In spite of the attempts of the French governments to present the war of Algeria like a problem of internal order, the international dimension of the conflict will not cease growing, which will benefit the FLN. Arab help is decisive. The Delegation external of the FLN gathers around Ferhat Abbas in Cairo, sits of the Arab League. The two adjoining countries, Morocco and Tunisia, are used as arsenal, basic back and of training camp for the combatants. Each attempt of the French Army to break the solidarity of these Sovereign states raises international protests, that it is during the interception, in 1956, of a Moroccan plane transporting of the historical leaders of the FLN, or during the bombardment of the Tunisian village of Sakhiet Sidi Youssef on on February 8th, 1958, which causes American reprobation. The two Large ones indeed condemn the French policy in the name of the right of the people to lay out of themselves, but for contrary interests: the USSR sees in its support measured for the FLN the means of establishing its influence in the Maghreb; the United States sees in the French intransigence the best means so that the USSR reaches that point. The non-aligned countries, while allowing the Algerian delegation to sit in their movement like member except for whole at the time of the conference of Bandung, give an international dimension to the FLN. As from September 1955, the repeated diplomatic offensives of the Afro-Asian countries will force France to initially justify its policy before the General meeting of UNO in 1956, then again the following year.

Involved Forces
French generals
Military operations mobilize, as from 1956, where it is called upon the quota, 450' 000 French soldiers against 25' 000 Algerian combatants. The weight of the military command does not cease growing; he is entrusted to raftered officers, like the Salan general, commander-in-chief in November 1956, then acting general of the government in May 1958, with all the civil and military powers; his successor, the

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general Shawl (December 1958 - April 1960), and the Massu general, who expresses his strength at the time of the battle of Algiers in 1957, are popular among the piednoir ones. Certain younger officers engage completely in the cause of French Algeria.

The FLN
On the side of the FLN, internal competitions, bloody purgings and disappearances with the combat cause a replacement partial of the leaders (Houari Boumediene becomes chief of the general staff of the ALN in 1960). The carried out operations concern the guerilla: attacks, attacks of detachments, sabotages, initially in Kabylie and in Constantinois. On August 20th and 21st, 1955, of the riots burst in Morocco (on on August 20th is the date birthday of the deposition of the sultan Sidi Mohammed Ben Youssef) and in Algeria. It is a question of proving the solidarity of the Algerian combatants with the other fights of the Maghreb, but also of showing the capacity politico-soldier of the FLN. The assessment of the riots of 123 died, including 71 Europeans, but the repression which follows is disproportionate, with a number of victims perhaps higher than 10' 000 (the official figure being of 1273 deaths). This drama cuts in an irreducible way the bonds between the two communities, and brings the Soustelle general governor, posts some since February 1st, to leave free hand to the army. As from 1956, the armed struggle proceeds on all the territory, big cities understood. The ALN lays out in each wilaya, or military region, of a double command, soldier and politico-administrative, under the direction of a colonel. Tensions appear with the combatants of outside, but the principle of a collegial direction is acquired at the time of the congress of Soummam, in August 1956; in 1958 is created outside a Provisional government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA), chaired until 1961 by Ferhat Abbas. France ends up gaining the war without to restore the order. As from 1957, control is included in the big cities, on the borders (1957-1958), then in the campaigns, by stages, until in Kabylie (1959-1960), thanks to the practice of the camps of regrouping. On the other hand, France loses the war near the opinion, international and metropolitan. Near the Moslems, the psychological action failed: the forced regroupings, the exactions of the French Army and the terror maintained by the FLN make any cohabitation impossible.

The Political Confrontation the IV E Republic in Difficulty

The impotence of the IV E Republic to restore peace is exploited by the provisional coalition of the political clouts which are hostile for him and leads to the collapse of the mode. Indeed, vis-a-vis the failure of the policy of integration carried out by Soustelle as from 1955, and vis-a-vis the refusal of the French proposals (cease-fire, elections, negotiations) by the FLN, the governments hesitate between the negotiation despite everything and the war excessively. They leave more and more political initiative with the army and the street: on February 6th, 1956, of tomatos are launched on the president of the Guy Mollet Council, which points out the general governor, the Catroux general, and names in its place Robert Lacoste minister resident. Divisions tear the parties, cause the rupture of the majority of republican

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Face to the power January 1956, and the return to the ministerial instability of the preceding legislatures (falls of Guy Mollet on on May 21st, 1957).

Birth of the O C Republic

This impotence is exploited in Algiers, among the colonists, by activists who seek to cause a putsch which would force Paris to continue the war. They thus join the concerns of many officers, more and more being wary with regard to the civil government, and who assimilate negotiations and treason of the combatants. On May 13th, 1958, of the demonstrators, animated by the president of the students of Algiers, Pierre Lagaillarde, invest the seat of the general government and indicate a Committee of Public Safety directed by the Massu general, with the agreement of the Salan general. In Paris, the news of the rebellion of Algiers bursts as a bomb: the new president of the Council, Pierre Pflimlin, tries to preserve legality. But as of the following day, Massu launches a call to the de Gaulle general, crossing a new step in the rupture with Paris. On May 15th, de Gaulle says himself ready to assume the powers of the Republic, but without specifying more which policy it intends to implement in Algeria. The arrival of Soustelle to Algiers the 17 gives a political leader to the movement born of May 13th, while worsening the disagreement with the metropolis. In Algiers always, emissary semi-official gaullists contact the factious ones. The executive power is paralyzed by the threat at a stretch military State. Pflimlin resigns the 28. President Ren Coty calls upon the de Gaulle general then. On June 1st, the National Assembly invests it with all powers to work out a new Constitution. On June 3rd, de Gaulle obtains the special powers for six months in order to solve the Algerian crisis. The following day, in Algiers, it launches its I understood you!

A Public Opinion in Rupture

The French public opinion, initially favorable to the war, slips towards the research of peace, even at the cost of independence. The use for the war of Algeria of soldiers called of the quota installed the conflict in the middle of the families; the FLN intensifies the attacks, the metropolis is not saved more. Repression does not weaken however, as at the time of the manifestation of the Algerians in Paris on on October 17th, 1961, which makes more than 200 deaths according to the official sources revealed in 1997. Moreover, the economic costs of the war shake part of the political community and the mediums of business, which sees with concern the competitor countries being modernized and knowing a strong growth. Lastly, the moral cost of the war and the contempt for republican freedoms that the army and the government seem to have push various actors to enter in action.

The Engagement of the Intellectuals

The intellectuals mobilize themselves, the ones for freedoms, the others for Algerian independence (Proclamation of the 121 in favor of insubordination, September 1960). In Algiers, some isolated preach the bringing together of the communities, such Andre Mandouze or Albert Camus. Rare are those which help, clandestinely, the FLN, such the carriers of bag of the Jeanson network. Some newspapers - France-Observer, Christian Testimony, the World -, facing the censure and the legal proceedings, denounce torture. The studied trade unionism (UNEF)

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passes from the refusal of the war to the support for independence. Part of the trade unions and left-wing policy militants (Communist party as from 1956, autonomous socialist party, mendesists, then unified socialist party) express against the continuation of the engagements, then for the support for the negotiations. A demonstration against the OAS is violently repressed, which will cause eight deaths with the subway Charonne in February 1962.

Self-determination
The rupture of the French public opinion with the pied-noir ones and the army of Algeria are a time masked by the policy of the de Gaulle general (at the end of 1958, the plan of Constantine suggests a policy of integration). But, on on September 16th 1959, the advertisement of self-determination makes assemble in first line the partisans of French Algeria. In a decisive speech, de Gaulle proposes three ways, between which the Algerians will have to choose: secession, Francization or association. It is the first time that independence can be, in fact, considered. Remain however the problem of the pacification of Algeria, without which self-determination is improbable. The trial of strength bursts at the time of the week of the barricades (January 24th - February 1st, 1960), with the complicity of certain units of the army, but the Challe general, commander-in-chief, blocks the insurrection. However, as of the following year, the prospect for the result of the negotiations started with the autumn 1960 with the FLN and of the recognition of a sovereign Algerian State makes rock Challe as well as the generals Salan, Zeller and Jouhaud in the rebellion. The putsch of the generals (April 22nd, 1961) fails, fault of rejoining the quota and the French public opinion. The factious officers then join the secret armed Organization (OAS), founded to be opposed to the negotiations of Evian. Impotent to prevent independence, the OAS multiplies the attacks (in Algeria and metropolis), the destruction systematic and the massacres, like the shooting of Bab-el-Wadi in March 1962. The violences made by the OAS will cease only after agreement FLN-OAS of June 17th, 1962. In such a climate of hatred and fear, 900' 000 French of Algeria decide to leave the country, to be made repatriate in France. The agreements of Evian, signed on on March 18th, 1962, give sovereignty at the Algerian State, the Sahara understood. The principle of a financial assistance (integration at the free zone), cultural and technical (development of hydrocarbons) is adopted. Part of the agreements will not be applied, in consequence of the orientations taken by the Algerian government after independence (occupation of military bases, nationalization of the goods of the colonists, then hydrocarbons in 1971). The independence of Algeria is solemnly proclaimed on on July 3rd, 1962. The cost of the war as men is still discussed. Uncertainty comes less from deaths to the combat than of the semi-official victims of tortures of the French Army or the assassinations due to the FLN, including among Moslems. The figure of 300' 000 to 400' 000 deaths on the Algerian side is most probable. One counts 27' 500 killed French soldiers and a thousand of missings, and at the killed European civilians 2800 and 800 missings.

Consequences in Algeria and France

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Today, the links of Algeria with France remain close, thanks to the men (2 million stays per annum in France, 820' 000 immigrants), with the trade agreements (a third of Algerian gas exports at price guaranteed since 1982), with technical collaboration and cultural. The spirit of the war of independence however remained a long time long-lived in the Algerian diplomacy, faithful to the non-alignment and which militated in international authorities (UNO, OAU, OPEC) in favor of a new world economic order. The mode of the sole party, inherited the war and the fights for the power, however caused an increasing hostility in the Algerian public opinion, which ends up obtaining the introduction of the multi-party system in February 1989. In France, the trauma caused by the war of Algeria is exceeded by the pied-noir ones, without being however forgotten. On the other hand, the case of the harkis, these back-up troops of the French Army, remains the last vestige, painful, of the war of Algerian independence, in spite of a beginning of recognition by the French State, in 2001, of these combatants who were tens of thousands to being massacred by the soldiers of the new Algerian Republic.

UNITED NATIONS, DECOLONIZATION, AND SELFDETERMINATION IN COLD WAR SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, 1960-1994
The history of the United Nations since 1960 is very much a history of Africa's postcolonial struggles. Prior to 1960, the UN played little role in sub-Saharan Africa (as separate from many General Assembly resolutions critical of the white-ruled state of South Africa), and until 1960 it could count only four members from the subSaharan region: Liberia, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Guinea. After 1960, increasing African representation enlarged the General Assembly, so much so that by 1965 the United Nations had 29 members from sub-Saharan Africa. Africa has engaged the UN more than any other region, and since 1965, African representatives to the UN have comprised the largest bloc from any continent. The UN's involvement with Africa grew parallel to the process of decolonization. In sub-Saharan Africa, the United Nations would face some its greatest Cold War-era challenges and endure several stunning failures. It would struggle with the consequences of colonial maladministration, underdevelopment, and exploitation, beginning in 1960 in the former Belgian Congo, where the United Nations embarked upon a massive, unprecedented, undertaking of peacekeeping in the midst of heightened Cold War tensions, amidst weak state institutions, in the face of a violent, unforgiving, secessionist crisis, and a predatory former colonial overseer. In South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, and South West Africa (now Namibia) the United Nations confronted the ongoing legacy of white colonial settlement and the struggle for selfdetermination during decades of white minority rule and Cold War geopolitics. In Angola and Mozambique, the UN faced the challenge of reconstituting societies shattered by the Cold War and, in post-Cold War Somalia, the United Nations sought to respond to a massive humanitarian crisis, but soon confronted the limitations of peacekeeping and nation-building in the face of a meltdown of local civil institutions. In Rwanda, perhaps the UN's greatest failure to date, the international community's

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passive response, attributed to the "humanitarian fatigue" spawned by Somalia, resulted in the deaths of an estimated 800,000 people, damaging the UN's credibility in Africa and beyond. And, finally, in the Great Lakes region of Africa, the unhappy precedents of the Congo, Somalia, and Rwanda impeded an international response to a crisis involving multiple states and resulting in the deaths of perhaps as many as 2 million people - one of the worst examples of human suffering since World War II.

THE UN'S FIRST TEST: DECOLONIZATION, THE CONGO CRISIS, AND THE COLD WAR, 1960-1964
The Congo, during its short history as an independent state, has twice been a focal point of the United Nations. The UN's 1960-1964 intervention became a major test of so-called "first-generation" peacekeeping, one of the earliest and most complex, and certainly one of the largest, challenges the UN faced over decolonization. The first Congo intervention confronted the UN with a monumental crisis, one leading to the death of its secretary General and, ultimately, to a financial crisis from which it has never fully recovered. The second Congo crisis, also known as the Great Lakes crisis of 1997-2001, the first large-scale African regional war of the postcolonial and post-Cold War era, drawing in the forces of nine nation states and at least twelve rebel factions, presented the United Nations with a different set of challenges. Coming only a few years after crises in Somalia and Rwanda, the international community's timid response, and the international community's almost total neglect of the conflict, underscored the sense of "humanitarian fatigue" that plagued discussions of sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s. When the Congo became independent on June 30, 1960, little had been done to prepare the path to independence and the prospects for its postcolonial future remained bleak. Colonialism utterly failed to prepare the Congo for eventual independence and self-rule. The Belgians repressed the emergence of an indigenous elite, fearing it might challenge their rule. Beyond the obvious lack of economic or political development, the Congo remained at independence little more than a large conceptualized state, more a collection of unintegrated ethnically diverse regions than anything even remotely resembling a nation state. When fighting broke out between the new Congolese Army and its Belgian officers, Brussels swiftly dispatched 10,000 Belgian paratroopers, an event, similar to the Anglo-French intervention in Egypt in 1956, many suspected had been planned well in advance as part of Belgium's neocolonial strategy. Within days, a secessionist movement, backed by Belgian mercenaries and supported by Belgian-owned mining companies, declared the independence of the resource-rich Katanga province. The Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba appealed to the United Nations for assistance. secretary General Dag Hammarskjold arranged for the security Council to call upon Belgium to remove its troops and, at the request of Lumumba, Hammarskjold launched the United Nations Operation in the Congo to keep the peace and restore order. The UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo soon grew into a large multinational force of 20,000, but disagreement arose between Lumumba and Hammarskjold. Whereas the secretary General, seeking to remain within the mission's mandate, sought to focus on the maintenance of peace and avoid having the UN play an overtly partisan role, the Congolese Prime Minister, his leadership increasingly under duress, saw Hammarskjold as too responsive to western economic

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and Cold War objectives in the Congo and not sufficiently interested in the removal of the Belgians or stopping the secession of Katanga. Lumumba's position became increasingly difficult after he split with his erstwhile counterpart, President Joseph Kasavubu, and was placed under house arrest, under UN protection, by Army Chief of Staff Joseph Mobutu. In New York, Hammarskjold faced his own crisis, perhaps the greatest of his tenure. In the midst of the Congo crisis the USSR became increasingly contentious on the Security Council, resulting in the General Assembly holding an emergency session on the Congo and the Soviet Union subsequently withholding a portion of its UN dues and calling for the removal of the Secretary General and his replacement with a committee of three, or troika. Hammarskj old's problems mounted when Lumumba was subsequently assassinated and Hammarskjold, facing mounting criticism after Lumumba's murder, the further disintegration of state institutions, and the emergence of multiple factions laying claim to civil authority, responded by announcing that United Nations peacekeepers would seek to remove the Belgians by force. But the Secretary General, increasingly absorbed in the crisis in the Congo, lost his life in September 1961 when his plane crashed en route to a meeting with the Katangan secessionists. The United Nations peacekeepers departed the Congo in 1964, leaving behind a fractured nation increasingly dominated by the brutal kleptocratic regime of General Mobutu, who maintained the Belgian model of exploitation and repression and provided the West for the next three decades with the Congo's resources and an important Cold War ally in strategic central Africa. The Congo debacle demonstrated the ease with which UN operations could be hijacked by the politics of the Cold War and called into question the very efficacy of peacekeeping. It also demonstrated the complexity of the process of decolonization when multiple outside powers had interests in its outcome. For these reasons, and others, the Congo intervention would be the last large UN peacekeeping operation during the remaining decades of the Cold War. Four decades later the United Nations returned to the Congo. The end of the Cold War removed the West's remaining rationales for supporting Mobutu, who was subsequently overthrown in 1997 by a coalition of neighboring states utilizing forces led by the former Lumumba ally, Laurent Kabila, who proceeded to follow Mobutu's and, reaching farther back, Leopold's - model of extraction and exploitation. But several of the neighboring states who had aided in "liberating" the Congolese from the grip of Mobutu had their own designs on the resource-rich region and, after falling out with Kabila, launched a coordinated attack on the Congo.

AFRICAN DECOLONIZATION AND THE ERA OF DAG HAMMARSKJOLD

The long term problems stemming from colonial domination in Africa, the complicated nature of decolonization, and the devastating consequences of the Cold War ensured that sub-Saharan Africa would become the United Nations' major area of involvement after 1960. The slave trade and the violent exploitation with which the European powers dominated Africa contributed to Africa's postcolonial crisis on a number of levels. The European presence in Africa was a brutal example of imperial

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violence, as the colonial powers often ruled Africa through the harshest of means, employing strategies of enslavement, economic exploitation, social engineering, and, at times, genocide. This violence became integral to the process of human exploitation and resource extraction employed by the European powers. Forced labor and the destruction of indigenous societies became commonplace in the quest for riches and arable land. To maintain their hold on Africa, the colonial powers created exploitative hierarchical social systems and Europeans encouraged a rigid ethnic categorization among Africa's many peoples. These systems of control persisted well after decolonization, providing many postcolonial African regimes with institutionalized systems of repression and exploitation, and many postcolonial regimes merely maintained these exploitative legacies.1 Decolonization in sub-Saharan Africa confronted the United Nations with unique problems, as the end of colonial power came relatively late to most of the region. By contrast, much of colonial Asia and the Middle East had already enjoyed at least a decade of independence when Africa began to emerge from colonialism. By the time the "winds of change" swept through Africa, the European powers had already abandoned most of their colonial enterprises elsewhere. In Asia and the Middle East, the Europeans departed after decades of repressing well-organized indigenous societies and political elites. In sub-Saharan Africa, by contrast, European colonial power often began to recede before the emergence of organized indigenous political movements. In many areas the resulting postcolonial chaos occurred because the European powers did little to prepare the local populations for independence. Furthermore, colonial contact often exacerbated African problems, leaving behind legacies of arbitrary borders, underdeveloped infrastructure, economic exploitation, ethnic and racial divisions, and over-dependence on the production of raw materials. At the time of African decolonization, the Cold War was already in the process of being thoroughly globalized. Throughout Africa, decolonization frequently became entangled with the East-West conflict, further contributing to the already heavy burdens of the post-colonial development. Considering the violence with which the Europeans long pursued their colonial aims in Africa, and the relative lack of benefits Africans accrued from contact with Europeans, the process of decolonization would have been difficult under even the best of circumstances. That much of Africa became a focus of superpower competition shortly after independence further exacerbated an already difficult process of decolonization and state building. African decolonization had a profound impact on the United Nations. During its first decade, the UN was largely western-dominated. The security Council reflected the views and interests of the western world, with its permanent membership consisting of four largely white states with European cultural ties and one Asian state, Nationalist China, or Taiwan, essentially a western-created client. Of the original 51 member states, only two, Liberia and Ethiopia, came from sub-Saharan Africa (excepting white-ruled South Africa). At the end of the UN's first year, 39 of the 51 member states, or 75 percent, came from western, European, or Latin American cultural backgrounds.3 At its tenth anniversary in 1955, UN membership stood at 60, with only Liberia and Ethiopia still representing sub-Saharan Africa. Roughly 42 of the 60 member states, or 70 percent, came from western, European, or Latin American backgrounds. Thus, despite the East-West Cold War divide, the western powers, their

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allies and client states, could still depend upon healthy majorities in the General Assembly to promote their interests at the UN. The freeze on UN membership was lifted in 1955 and, in the years after, a massive increase - particularly of African members - occurred throughout the tenure of secretary General Dag Hammarskjold.5 By 1965, the beginning of the UN's third decade, the General Assembly was undergoing a transformation. In the preceding decade membership had nearly doubled, to 118, with a majority of 63 states from non-European backgrounds - including 30 from Africa. The West was losing control of the General Assembly and, with it, many of the other institutions of the UN. In 1970, as a sign of things to come, the United States cast its first veto on the security Council, the first of what would subsequently total more than 70 over the next two decades. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, as newly liberated peoples of Africa joined the United Nations, a sense of optimism grew that the international community would begin to address many of the problems of those societies held back by colonialism. But, rather than resolving these, decolonization brought with it a host of new problems the United Nations would have to contend with in the decades ahead. The arbitrary boundaries of many African colonies, often bearing little relationship to underlying cultural, societal, or linguistic patterns, frequently contradicted historical relationships and economic realties, making the prospects for postcolonial progress bleak. In part because of their pursuit of Cold War aims, both the United States and the USSR missed opportunities to build relationships at the United Nations with African representatives necessary to muster support for their international objectives. From the emergence of the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) in the mid-1950s, the United States remained uncertain about how to approach the decolonizing world. Meeting for the first time at Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955, delegations from 29 nonaligned nations, including six from Africa, gathered to discuss matters of common interest and concern. The Bandung conclave resulted in the establishment of the nonaligned caucus, which became the largest caucus at the UN and increased the pressure on the United Nations to expand its membership. In 1960 alone, seventeen newly independent states joined the UN, sixteen of them from Africa. By the end of 1960 it had become clear that the decolonizing world would soon be ascendant in the General Assembly. Hammarskjold's whirlwind tour of Africa that year, where he visited 21 nations, seemed to further demonstrate the growing importance of that continent in a rapidly decolonizing world.

THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE COLD WAR STRUGGLE FOR SELF-DETERMINATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
The persistence of white-dominated settlement colonies in southern Africa provoked a crisis over self-determination during the first four decades of the United Nations. White minority-ruled states such as Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, and the South African-controlled territory of South West Africa (Namibia), seemed increasingly out of place in an Africa swept by the currents of independence, self-

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determination, and black majority rule. Majority black populations in the region found themselves exploited and denied political, civil, economic, and human rights, as white minorities imposed institutionalized systems of segregation known by the Afrikaans word "apartheid." The General Assembly grappled with the issue of white minority rule in southern Africa for more than four decades. The matter devolved to the Assembly because the white-ruled regimes in southern Africa had powerful western allies on the security Council, such as Britain and the United States, who threatened to veto action against them and did so on more than 20 occasions. Like elsewhere in Africa, the selfdetermination question in Southern Rhodesia, South Africa, and South West Africa became entangled in the Cold War struggle. The western powers backed white minority rule in southern Africa as a bastion of anticommunism in the region, skirting sanctions, dispatching economic and military assistance, at times cooperating with policies of coercion against the black population, and branding as "terrorist organizations" those groups struggling against white oppression. The British colony of Southern Rhodesia had, since 1953, been part of a federation including Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, where white settlers from all three components ruled over increasingly restive black majorities. After Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland achieved independence in 1964 as the black majority-ruled states of Zambia and Malawi, pressure increased on Southern Rhodesia to end white rule prior to its own independence. Instead, the white regime broke with Britain in 1965 and declared an independent state, modeled after the apartheid regime in neighboring South Africa. The United Nations took the innovative step of imposing economic sanctions on Rhodesia in 1966, the first time the UN had taken such action. Rhodesia, increasingly isolated and under the pressure of international sanctions, ultimately signed the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979, ending white rule, but granting protected status to whites and seeking a guarantee of continued white influence throughout the political and economic structure of the new state, Zimbabwe, through a system of quotas designed to give whites privileges well beyond the proportion of the population. In neighboring South Africa a bitter clash between British imperial aims in the region and Afrikaner, or Boer, nationalism, had given way to an equally violent struggle between blacks, who constituted the vast majority of the population, and whites, who comprised a small minority but ruled through the brutal system of apartheid. Few issues received more attention from the United Nations during its first five decades, and the urgency of its condemnations increased as the composition of the General Assembly changed in the wake of decolonization. The brutality of the apartheid system led the General Assembly to address the controversy during more than 200 debates since first addressing the question, at the request of India, in 1946. The South Africa controversy also exposed the disagreements between the West and the developing world at the United Nations. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s a majority of the General Assembly sought to impose stricter sanctions against South Africa but found that path frequently blocked by the United States, Britain, and France who, concerned with South Africa's pivotal role in Cold War Africa, argued that sanctions violated South African sovereignty. Of the more than 75 vetoes by the United States from 1970-today, 20 were deployed to block resolutions critical of white-

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ruled South Africa or Rhodesia (1973-88) (several of these vetoes sought to block sanctions on the grounds that sanctions violated South African sovereignty). Britain has cast 32 vetoes, of those 25 were to block resolutions critical of white-ruled regimes in South Africa or Rhodesia between 1963 to 1988. By the late 1980s intense international focus on the controversy had made South Africa an isolated pariah and in 1990 President F.W. de Klerk allowed the release of African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela - who had long been proscribed as a terrorist in the West after almost three decades of confinement. The UN's role in South Africa expanded in 1992 with the dispatching of an observer mission to oversee the ongoing process of peace and reconciliation and to aid in the transition leading to the first open elections in South Africa in 1994, which resulted in a sweeping victory for Mandela and his party. The crisis in neighboring South West Africa was linked to the question of South Africa. Germans began colonizing the region as German South West Africa in 1884, reducing the local population - made up mostly of the Herero and Nama peoples - by an estimated seventy-five percent. After the World War I the region became a class "C" League of Nations mandate administered by neighboring South Africa which, after many decades of rule, introduced its repressive apartheid measures and sought to formally incorporate South West Africa into its territory. The UN General Assembly responded by accusing South Africa of maladministration, calling for an end to South African rule, and declaring Namibia to be the direct responsibility of the UN. In 1971 the International Court of Justice declared South Africa's occupation of South West Africa illegal. Its future became a hostage to the broader regional crisis during the Cold War, with strife in the territory exacerbated by South Africa and neighboring Angola. After the shattering defeat of South African forces at Cuito Cuanavale in Angola (a victory for Cuban forces introduced to the region by Fidel Castro) in May 1988, Pretoria relented, opening the way for the establishment of the United Nations Transitional Assistance Group (UNTAG) in Namibia. UNTAG became an early example of the new era - or "second generation" - of peacekeeping operations, as its mission expanded well beyond traditional peacekeeping to monitoring the 1989 elections, aiding refugee populations, and repatriating 40,000 exiles. Having accomplished this mission, UNTAG departed Namibia in March 1990. The Cold War confrontation impacted other parts of Africa with ruinous effects which persist to this day and had profound implications for the role of the United Nations in Africa. Independence came late to the former Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, for example, where both emerging postcolonial states immediately became entangled in the geopolitical struggle of the Cold War. In Portuguese, or Lusophone, Africa the crisis of decolonization became inseparable from the Cold War as nowhere else, spawning civil wars in both nations with profound humanitarian consequences and challenging the United Nations on numerous levels. Angola's experience of European contact and colonialism helped set the stage for its postcolonial crisis. Europeans subjected Angola to one of the most disruptive of slave experiences, the consequences of which are still felt today. Even by the standards in Africa, the Portuguese colonial experience was particularly harsh and backward, so much so that Portugal refused to ever report to the UN on the status of its colonies. Portugal left behind a colony in economic and political turmoil when independence was achieved in 1975, precipitating a civil war which became a theater

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of the ideological objectives of the superpowers. The divisions of tribal society in Angola were intensified by the politics of the Cold War, with the three largest tribal groups allying with various factions backed by either the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa, or the United States. The United Nations mounted four missions to Angola in the 1990s to verify the departure of foreign troops, monitor the implementation of peace accords, and promote reconciliation. But, by 1999, with the UN's work only partly accomplished, Angola asked the United Nations to depart, leaving behind only a rudimentary UN presence to liaise with the various combatants. Angola remains one of the most tragic legacies of Cold War Africa. In Mozambique, civil war erupted only a few years after independence in 1977, when a postcolonial Marxist government faced a growing resistance movement backed by the white regimes in neighboring Rhodesia and South Africa. The war raged for more than a decade but, by 1992, much progress toward peace had been achieved when the security Council authorized the deployment of more than 7,000 military and civilian personnel as part of an effort to implement a peace agreement, monitor a ceasefire among the factions, oversee the withdrawal of all foreign forces, and establish and observe the fragile electoral process.

CHALLENGES IN THE POST-COLD WAR PERIOD: "SECOND GENERATION" PEACEKEEPING AND HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS
The end of the Cold War fundamentally changed international politics, but also offered the possibility of a new role for the United Nations in Africa, one removed from the zero-sum framework of the East-West conflict. The paralysis which had plagued the Security Council seemingly disappeared overnight, inspiring much optimism for the UN to play a greater role in a new, post-Cold War, Africa. But, this initial optimism was not completely justified. The United Nations would indeed face new opportunities, but also a host of new challenges, as the end of the Cold War provoked unanticipated crises, new demands, and a reprioritization of the many missions of the UN in Africa. Although the East-West conflict had receded, the UN would confront new challenges and a resurgence of nationalism, separatism, and ethnic conflict, which would demand innovative responses, particularly in the area of conflict prevention, peacekeeping, and nation building. Furthermore, NorthSouth tensions over trade and economic development continued as before and in some ways were exacerbated by globalization and the breakdown of the Cold War international order. Africa would not top the post-Cold War agenda. With the end of the Cold War there would be new regions of UN concern, including parts of the world where the UN had been largely excluded previously, such as the Balkans, Central America, the Caribbean, and the former Soviet republics. There would be new challenges thrown up by globalization and, after 2001, an increasing trend in the United States in favor of unilateralism and intervention would threaten once again to marginalize the United Nation's role in the world. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet empire and the revolutions in Russia, central Europe, and much of Latin America,

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ushered in a new era in the relations among states. But the opportunity to utilize the UN to address African problems subsequently passed. With the dissolution of the USSR no other power remained but the United States to lead the way, and Washington met the challenge with remarkable shortsightedness. The 1990s nevertheless witnessed an explosion of United Nations activity throughout Africa, including peacekeeping, humanitarian relief, and conflict prevention. The UN's seventh Secretary General, Kofi Annan of Ghana, sought to focus the world's attention on poverty, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and child combatants in Africa. As the former head of UN peacekeeping, and the first secretary General from sub-Saharan Africa, he has articulated an "Annan Doctrine" positing that states cannot commit atrocities while hiding behind a veil of "sovereignty" and that outside powers should reconsider humanitarian intervention in Africa. Throughout the post-Cold War era, UN peacekeeping operations have become most active in Africa, achieving successes in places such as Namibia and, to a lesser extent, Mozambique, but also suffering several well-publicized failures, most notably in Somalia, which had a profound impact on thinking about the capabilities of UN peacekeeping operations and contributed to the UN's more muted response to both the Rwandan genocide and the subsequent Great Lakes crisis. UN peacekeeping has nonetheless expanded into areas such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Western Sahara, and the dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The crisis in post-Cold War Somalia, for example, engaged the United Nations like nothing before. In this, the first large-scale African crisis of the post-Cold War era, the UN confronted the challenges of providing humanitarian relief on a massive scale compounded by the widespread collapse of the institutions of state. The UN found itself overwhelmed by the anarchic conditions in Somalia, where as many as 15 armed factions vied for power, and by the difficulty of coordinating a multinational peacekeeping force of nearly 40,000 from more than 20 nations, the largest and most expensive UN operation to date. That the United States began to evolve different priorities and aims once in Somalia further complicated the UN's mission. One factor in the Somali crisis of the 1990s lay in the legacies of the geopolitics of the Cold War on the horn of Africa. The postcolonial state became entangled in the politics of the Cold War, as both Washington and Moscow sought control of the region with its strategic location on the Horn. Both superpowers contributed to making Somalia's army the largest in Africa. The colonial-era effort to create a modern nation state proved disruptive to traditional society, where most Somalis looked to their clans for political identity, not a centralized state. Africa would not top the post-Cold War agenda. With the end of the Cold War there would be new regions of UN concern, including parts of the world where the UN had been largely excluded previously, such as the Balkans, Central America, the Caribbean, and the former Soviet republics. There would be new challenges thrown up by globalization and, after 2001, an increasing trend in the United States in favor of unilateralism and intervention would threaten once again to marginalize the United Nation's role in the world. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet empire and the revolutions in Russia, central Europe, and much of Latin America, ushered in a new era in the relations among states. But the opportunity to utilize the UN to address African problems subsequently passed. With the dissolution of the

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USSR no other power remained but the United States to lead the way, and Washington met the challenge with remarkable shortsightedness. The 1990s nevertheless witnessed an explosion of United Nations activity throughout Africa, including peacekeeping, humanitarian relief, and conflict prevention. The UN's seventh Secretary General, Kofi Annan of Ghana, sought to focus the world's attention on poverty, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and child combatants in Africa. As the former head of UN peacekeeping, and the first secretary General from sub-Saharan Africa, he has articulated an "Annan Doctrine" positing that states cannot commit atrocities while hiding behind a veil of "sovereignty" and that outside powers should reconsider humanitarian intervention in Africa. Throughout the post-Cold War era, UN peacekeeping operations have become most active in Africa, achieving successes in places such as Namibia and, to a lesser extent, Mozambique, but also suffering several well-publicized failures, most notably in Somalia, which had a profound impact on thinking about the capabilities of UN peacekeeping operations and contributed to the UN's more muted response to both the Rwandan genocide and the subsequent Great Lakes crisis. UN peacekeeping has nonetheless expanded into areas such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Western Sahara, and the dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The crisis in post-Cold War Somalia, for example, engaged the United Nations like nothing before. In this, the first large-scale African crisis of the post-Cold War era, the UN confronted the challenges of providing humanitarian relief on a massive scale compounded by the widespread collapse of the institutions of state. The UN found itself overwhelmed by the anarchic conditions in Somalia, where as many as 15 armed factions vied for power, and by the difficulty of coordinating a multinational peacekeeping force of nearly 40,000 from more than 20 nations, the largest and most expensive UN operation to date. That the United States began to evolve different priorities and aims once in Somalia further complicated the UN's mission. One factor in the Somali crisis of the 1990s lay in the legacies of the geopolitics of the Cold War on the horn of Africa. The postcolonial state became entangled in the politics of the Cold War, as both Washington and Moscow sought control of the region with its strategic location on the Horn. Both superpowers contributed to making Somalia's army the largest in Africa. The colonial-era effort to create a modern nation state proved disruptive to traditional society, where most Somalis looked to their clans for political identity, not a centralized state. The consequences of the Somalia operation were immense. While the UN had scored a number of successes on the humanitarian front, the loss of more than 140 peacekeepers received most of the attention and had debilitating aftereffects, leading to a reassessment of peacekeeping and particularly nation building. Among other unhappy consequences, the United Nations had little success establishing even the most basic of Somali state institutions, provoking a debate over the UN's role in nation building beyond rudimentary peacekeeping. Somalia also undermined U.S. support for UN operations, as American public opinion, in the face of a hysterical firestorm of media coverage critical of the operation, began to question the necessity of U.S. forces being used in areas not considered vital to American interests. Somalia delivered a blow to those who had advocated that the United Nations should increasingly take an interest in humanitarian interventions.

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The debacle in Somalia was felt beyond the horn of Africa. In Rwanda, the consequences of Somalia contributed to paralysis and the phenomenon of "humanitarian fatigue" which resulted in the UN standing aside as 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered in one of the worst acts of genocide since World War II. The commander of the previously established UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) repeatedly called for international support, but the United States, fearful of another Somalia, blocked further action, and the Security Council avoided the use of the word "genocide" which, under the provisions of the Genocide Treaty, might have automatically committed the Security Council to take action. In an unprecedented move, the Secretary General established an independent inquiry to investigate why the UN remained paralyzed as the Rwandan genocide unfolded. The inquiry concluded that a lack of will, compounded by diminished resources and ignorance about the ferocity of the violence, resulted in the UN's passive response. The flood of Rwandan refugees into the area around Goma, Zaire, provoked the 1997 crisis in that neighboring country, which resulted in the accession to power of Laurent Kabila, and Rwanda has been a major participant in the ghastly Great Lakes crisis which has claimed the lives of millions of Africans. Although the initial era of decolonization has passed, the consequences of the colonial period, the Cold War, and their aftermath continue to challenge the institutions of the United Nations. The Cold War struggle suspended the vision of an international effort on behalf of Africa for almost half a century, but today, with the potential for a greater degree of cooperation among the permanent five, multilateral approaches to peacekeeping and cooperative approaches to nation-building are more likely. However, a number of potentially destabilizing African hotspots remain where UN peacekeepers have been excluded and, in all likelihood, will continue to be excluded into the foreseeable future. Recent collaborative peacekeeping endeavors between the United Nations and the Organization of American States, the Organization for security and Cooperation in Europe, NATO, the Organization of African Unity, and the Economic Community of West African States, have demonstrated the renewed potential of regional approaches to peacekeeping and nation building, not only for Africa, but for much of the world, as well.

MODERN APPROACHES TO DECOLONIZATION

Though the term "decolonization" is not well received among donors in international development today, the root of the emerging emphasis on projects to promote "democracy, governance and human rights" by international donors and to promote "institution building" and a "human rights based approach" to development is really to achieve decolonization. In many independent, post-colonial nations, the systems and cultures of colonialism continue. Weak Parliaments and Ministerial governments (where Ministries issue their own edicts and write laws rather than the Parliament) are holdovers of colonialism since political decisions were made outside the country, Parliament were at most for show, and the executive branch (then, foreign Governor Generals and foreign civil servants) held local power. Similarly, militaries are strong and civil control over them is weak; a holdover of military control exercised by a

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foreign military. In some cases, the governing systems in post-colonial countries could be viewed as ruling elites who succeeded in coup d'etats against the foreign colonial regime but never gave up the system of control. In many countries, the human rights challenges are to empower women and reverse the legacy of proselytism that promoted patriarchy and to empower individuals and civil society through changes in education systems that were set up by colonial governments to train obedient servants of colonial regimes. Often the impact of colonialism is more subtle, with preferences for clothes (such as "blue" shirts of French officials and pith helmets), drugs (alcohol and tobacco that colonial governments introduced, often as a way to tax locals) and other cultural attributes remain. Some experts in development, such as David Lempert, have suggested an opening of dialogues from the colonial powers on the systems they introduced and the harms that continue as a way of decolonizing in rights policy documents for the UN system and for Europe. First World countries often seem reluctant to engage in this form of decolonization, however, since they may benefit from the legacies of colonialism that they created, in contemporary trade and political relations.

POST-COLONIAL ORGANIZATIONS
Five international organizations whose membership largely follows the pattern of previous colonial empires. Due to a common history and culture, former colonial powers created institutions which more loosely associated their former colonies. Membership is voluntary, and in some cases can be revoked if a member state loses some objective criteria (usually a requirement for democratic governance). The organizations serve cultural, economic, and political purposes between the associated countries, although no such organization has become politically prominent as an entity in its own right.

Former Colonial Power Britain

Organization Commonwealth of Nations Commonwealth Realms Associated states

Founded 1931 1931 1967 1946

France

French Union

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French Community Francophonie Spain & Portugal Latin Union Organization of Ibero-American States Community of Portuguese Language Countries Russia United States Commonwealth of Independent States Commonwealths Freely Associated States European Union The Netherlands ACP countries De Nederlandse Taalunie

1958 1970 1954 1991 1996 1991 1934 1982 1975 1980

DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES
There is quite a bit of controversy over decolonization. The end goal tends to be universally regarded as good, but there has been much debate over the best way to grant full independence.

DECOLONIZATION AND POLITICAL INSTABILITY

Some say the postWorld War II decolonization movement was too rushed, especially in Africa, and resulted in the creation of unstable regimes in the newly independent countries. Thus causing war between and within the new independent nation-states.

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Others argue that this instability is largely the result of problems from the colonial period, including arbitrary nation-state borders, lack of training of local populations and disproportional economy. However by the 20th century most colonial powers were slowly being forced by the moral beliefs of population to consider the welfare of their colonial subjects. Henning Melber argues that the ways in which liberation movements use the same repressive methods as their colonial predecessors, may also reflect the "rough surivival strategies" they adopted during the armed struggle for independence. Examples of this development can be seen in the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe and to a lesser extent in the inner-party rivalries of South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC).

ECONOMIC EFFECTS
Effects on the colonizers
John Kenneth Galbraith argues that the post-World War II decolonization was brought about for economic reasons. In A Journey Through Economic Time, he writes, "The engine of economic well-being was now within and between the advanced industrial countries. Domestic economic growth as now measured and much discussed came to be seen as far more important than the erstwhile colonial trade... The economic effect in the United States from the granting of independence to the Philippines was unnoticeable, partly due to the Bell Trade Act, which allowed American monopoly in the economy of the Philippines. The departure of India and Pakistan made small economic difference in Britain. Dutch economists calculated that the economic effect from the loss of the great Dutch empire in Indonesia was compensated for by a couple of years or so of domestic post-war economic growth. The end of the colonial era is celebrated in the history books as a triumph of national aspiration in the former colonies and of benign good sense on the part of the colonial powers. Lurking beneath, as so often happens, was a strong current of economic interest or in this case, disinterest." Part of the reason for the lack of economic impact felt by the colonizer upon the release of the colonized was that costs and benefits were not eliminated, but shifted. The colonizer no longer had the burden of obligation, financial or otherwise, to their colony. The colonizer continued to be able to obtain cheap goods and labor as well as economic benefits (see Suez Canal Crisis) from the former colonies. Financial, political and military pressure could still be used to achieve goals desired by the colonizer. The most obvious difference is the ability of the colonizer to disclaim responsibility for the colonized.

SETTLED POPULATIONS
Decolonization is not an easy matter in colonies where a large population of settlers lives, particularly if they have been there for several generations. This population, in general, may have to be repatriated, often losing considerable property. For instance, the decolonisation of Algeria by France was particularly uneasy due to the large European and Sephardic Jewish population (see also pied noir), which

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largely evacuated to France when Algeria became independent. In Zimbabwe, former Rhodesia, president Robert Mugabe has, starting in the 1990s, targeted white farmers and forcibly seized their property. In some cases, decolonisation is hardly possible or impossible because of the importance of the settler population or where the indigenous population is now in the minority; such is the case of the British population of the Cayman Islands, the Russian population of Kazakhstan, the Chinese population of Singapore as well as the immigrant communities of USA and Canada.

CHARTS OF THE INDEPENDENCES

In this chronological overview, not every date is indisputably the decisive moment. Often, the final phase, independence, is mentioned here, though there may be years of autonomy before, e.g. as an Associated State under the British crown. Furthermore, note that some cases have been included that were not strictly colonized but rather protectorate, co-dominium, lease. Changes subsequent to decolonization are usually not included; nor are the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

18th and 19th centuries

Year Colonizer Event The 13 original colonies of the United States declare independence a year after their insurrection begins. The British Crown recognizes the independence of the United States. Via the Louisiana purchase, the last French territories in mainland North America are handed over to the United States. Haiti declares independence, the first non-white nation to emancipate itself from European rule. Brazil, the largest Portuguese colony, achieves a greater degree of authonomy after the exiled king of Portugal establishes residence there. After he returns home in 1821, his son and regent declares an independent "Empire" in 1822. United Provinces of the River Plate and Chile. First declaration of an autonomous government within the Spanish Crown. Full independence would be finally achieved in 1816. (see below)

1776 Great Britain

1783 Great Britain

1803 France

1804 France

1808 Portugal

1810 Spain

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1813 Spain 1816 Spain

Paraguay becomes independent. Chile and the United Provinces of the River Plate (former Argentina and Uruguay) declare independence. The latter would then secede and gain independence in 1828 after periods of Brazilian occupation and of federation with Argentina) Second and final declaration of independence of Chile New Granada attains independence as Gran Colombia (later to become the independent states of Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela). The Dominican Republic (then Santo Domingo), Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica all declare independence; Venezuela and Mexico both achieve independence. Greece declares independence. After a long struggle independence is finally granted by the Treaty of Constantinople in July 1832. Ecuador attains independence from Spain (and independence from Colombia 1830). Peru and Bolivia attain independence. Texas attains independence, Texas would be annexed by the United States in 1845 Liberia becomes a free and independent African state.

1818 Spain 1819 Spain

1821 Spain

1821 Ottoman Empire

1822 Spain

1824 Spain 1836 Mexico

1847 United States 1865 Spain

The Dominican Republic gains its final independence after four years as a restored colony. Cuba declares independence and is reconquered; taken by the United States in 1898; governed under U.S. military

1868 Spain

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administration until 1902. 1877 Ottoman Empire 1878 Ottoman Empire 1898 Spain Romania declares independence. Its independence is finally recognised in July 1878. Bulgaria and Serbia achieve independence.

The Philippines declares independence but is taken by the United States in 1899; governed under U.S. military and then civilian administration until 1934. Albania declares independence. Recognized in Treaty of London.

1912 Ottoman Empire Inter-War Period Year Colonizer

Event Finland declares its independence.

1917 Russian Empire 1918 Russian Empire

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania declare independence in 1918. The three Baltic states are subsequently occupied by the Soviet Union (1940-1941, 1944-1991). The three Baltic nations re-declare their independence between 1990 and 1991, and their independence is recognized by the Soviet Union on September 6, 1991. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Poland become independent.

1918 AustriaHungary 1919 United Kingdom 1921 China

End of the protectorate over Afghanistan, when Britain accepts the presence of a Soviet ambassador in Kabul. The China loses all control over Outer Mongolia but retains the larger, progressively sinified, Inner Mongolia), which has been granted autonomy in 1912 (as well as Tibet), and now becomes a popular republic and, as of 1924, a de facto "satellite" of the USSR. Recognition of Mongolia is recognized in 1945.

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1922 United Kingdom

In Ireland, following insurgency by the IRA, most of Ireland separates from the United Kingdom as the Irish Free State, reversing 800 years of British presence. Northern Ireland, the northeast area of the island, remains within the United Kingdom. End of the de facto protectorate over Nepal which was never truly colonized. The United Kingdom returns the leased port territory at Weihaiwei to China, the first episode of decolonisation in East Asia. The Statute of Westminster grants virtually full independence to Canada, New Zealand, Newfoundland, the Irish Free State, the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Union of South Africa, when it declares the British parliament incapable of passing law over these former colonies without their own consent. Ends League of Nations Mandate over Iraq. Britain continues to station troops in the country and influence the Iraqi government until 1958. Makes the Philippine Islands a Commonwealth. Abrogates Platt Amendment, which gave it direct authority to intervene in Cuba. Lebanon declares independence, effectively ending the French mandate (previously together with Syria) - it is recognized in 1943. Ethiopia, Eritrea & Tigray (appended to it), and the Italian part of Somalia are liberated by the Allies after an uneasy occupation of Ethiopia since 1935-36, and no longer joined as one colonial federal state; the Ogaden desert (disputed by Somalia) remains under British military control until 1948. Following a plebiscite, Iceland formally becomes an independent republic on June 17, 1944.

1923 United Kingdom 1930 United Kingdom 1931 United Kingdom

1932 United Kingdom

1934 United States 1941 France

1941 Italy

1944 Denmark

From World War II to the present Year Colonizer Event

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1945 Japan

After surrender of Japan, North Korea is occupied by the Soviet Union and South Korea is occupied by the United States. The government of Republic of China flees to Taiwan and becomes the de facto government of that island. Vietnam declares independence, but France does not recognize it until 1954. Indonesia declares independence, which Netherlands does not recognize until December 1949. Following the Philippine Independence Act, impeded by the occupation of the islands by Japan, the Commonwealth of the Philippines was granted independence as provided by the aforementioned act. The former emirate of Transjordan (present-day Jordan) becomes an independent Hashemite kingdom when Britain relinquishes UN trusteeship. The British government leaves British India, which is partitioned into the Hindu-majority Republic of India and the Muslim-majority Pakistan (the eastern half of which will later become independent as Bangladesh). In the Far East, Burma and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) become independent. In the Middle East, Israel becomes independent less than a year after the British government withdraws from the Palestine Mandate; the remainder of Palestine becomes part of the Arab states of Egypt and Transjordan. Republic of Korea is established in the southern part of the Korean peninsula. Democratic People's Republic of Korea is established in the northern part of the peninsula. Laos becomes independent.

Japan

France

Netherlands

1946 United States

United Kingdom

1947 United Kingdom

1948 United Kingdom

United States

Soviet Union

1949 France

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The Netherlands The Netherlands recognises the sovereignty of Indonesia following an armed and diplomatic struggle since 1945. 1951 Italy 1952 United States Libya becomes an independent kingdom. Puerto Rico in the Antilles becomes a self governing Commonwealth associated to the US. France recognizes Cambodia's independence. Vietnam's independence recognized, though the nation is partitioned. The Pondichery enclave is incorporated into India. Beginning of the Algerian War of Independence The United Kingdom withdraws from the last part of Egypt it controls: the Suez Canal zone. Anglo-Egyptian Sudan becomes independent. Tunisia and the sherifian kingdom of Morocco in the Maghreb achieve independence. Spain-controlled areas in Morroco become independent. Ghana becomes independent, initiating the decolonisation of sub-Saharan Africa. The Federation of Malaya becomes independent. Guinea on the coast of West-Africa is granted independence. Signing the Alaska Statehood Act by Dwight D. Eisenhower, granting Alaska the possibility of the equal rights of statehood

1953 France 1954 France

United Kingdom

1956 United Kingdom France

Spain 1957 United Kingdom

United Kingdom 1958 France

United States

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United Kingdom

UN trustee Britain withdraws from Iraq, which becomes an independent Hashemite Kingdom (like Jordan, but soon to become a republic through the first of several coups d'tat). Nigeria, British Somaliland (present-day Somalia), and most of Cyprus become independent, though the UK retains sovereign control over Akrotiri and Dhekelia. Benin (then Dahomey), Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso), Cameroon, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Cte d'Ivoire, Gabon, the Mali Federation (split the same year into present-day Mali and Senegal), Mauritania, Niger, Togo and the Central African Republic (the Oubangui Chari) and Madagascar all become independent. The Belgian Congo (also known as Congo-Kinshasa, later renamed Zaire and presently the Democratic Republic of the Congo), becomes independent. Tanganyika (formerly a German colony under UK trusteeship, merged to federal Tanzania in 1964 with the island of Zanzibar, formerly a proper British colony wrested from the Omani sultanate); Sierra Leone, Kuwait and British Cameroon become independent. South Africa declares independence. The former coastal enclave colonies of Goa, Daman and Diu are taken over by India. Uganda in Africa, and Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, achieve independence. End of Algerian War, Algeria becomes independent. Rwanda and Burundi (then Urundi) attain independence through the ending of the Belgian trusteeship. The South Sea UN trusteeship over the Polynesian kingdom of Western Samoa (formerly German Samoa and nowadays called just Samoa) is relinquished.

1960 United Kingdom

France

Belgium

1961 United Kingdom

Portugal

1962 United Kingdom

France Belgium

New Zealand

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1963 United Kingdom United Kingdom

Kenya becomes independent. Singapore, together with Sarawak and Sabah on North Borneo, form Malaysia with the pensinsular Federation of Malaya. Singapore was evicted from Malaysia by Kuala Lumpur two years later. Northern Rhodesia declares independence as Zambia and Malawi, formerly Nyasaland does the same, both from the United Kingdom. The Mediterranean island of Malta becomes independent. Southern Rhodesia (the present Zimbabwe) declares independence as Rhodesia, but is not recognized. Gambia is recognized as independent. The British protectorate over the Maldives archipelago in the Indian Ocean is ended. In the Caribbean, Barbados and Guyana; and in Africa, Botswana (then Bechuanaland) and Lesotho become independent. On the Arabian peninsula, Aden colony becomes independent as South Yemen, to be united with formerly Ottoman North Yemen in 1990-1991. Mauritius and Swaziland achieve independence. After nine years of organized guerrilla resistance, most of Guinea-Bissau comes under native control. Equatorial Guinea (then Rio Muni) is made independent. Relinquishes UN trusteeship (nominally shared by the United Kingdom and New Zealand) of Nauru in the South Sea. Fiji and Tonga are given independence; Bangladesh achieves independence from Pakistan with the military help of India.

1964 United Kingdom

1965 United Kingdom

1966 United Kingdom

1967 United Kingdom

1968 United Kingdom Portugal

Spain Australia

1971 United Kingdom

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United Kingdom

Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and seven Trucial States (the same year, six federated together as United Arab Emirates and the seventh, Ras al-Kaimah, joined soon after) become independent Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf as the British protectorates are lifted. The Bahamas are granted independence. Guerrillas unilaterally declare independence in the Southeastern regions of Guinea-Bissau. Grenada in the Caribbean becomes independent. Guinea-Bissau on the coast of West-Africa is recognized as independent by Portugal. The Comoros archipelago in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa is granted independence. Angola, Mozambique and the island groups of Cape Verde and So Tom and Prncipe, all four in Africa, achieve independence. East Timor declares independence, but is subsequently occupied and annexed by Indonesia nine days later.

1973 United Kingdom Portugal

1974 United Kingdom Portugal

1975 France

Portugal

The Netherlands Suriname (then Dutch Guiana) becomes independent. Australia Released from trusteeship, Papua New Guinea gains independence. Seychelles archipelago in the Indian Ocean off the African coast becomes independent (one year after granting of selfrule). The Spanish colonial rule de facto terminated over the Western Sahara (then Rio de Oro), when the territory was passed on to and partitioned between Mauritania and Morocco (which annexes the entire territory in 1979), rendering the declared independence of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic ineffective to the present day. Since Spain did not have the right to give away Western Sahara,

1976 United Kingdom

Spain

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under international law the territory is still under Spanish administration. The de facto administrator is however Morocco. 1977 France French Somaliland, also known as Afar & Issa-land (after its main tribal groups), the present Djibouti, is granted independence. Dominica in the Caribbean and the Solomon Islands, as well as Tuvalu (then the Ellice Islands), all in the South Sea, become independent. Returns the Panama Canal Zone (held under a regime sui generis since 1903) to the republic of Panama. The Gilbert Islands (present-day Kiribati) in the South Sea as well as Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Saint Lucia in the Caribbean become independent. Zimbabwe (then [Southern] Rhodesia), already independent de facto, becomes formally independent. The joint AngloFrench colony of the New Hebrides becomes the independent island republic of Vanuatu. Belize (then British Honduras) and Antigua & Barbuda become independent. Saint Kitts and Nevis (an associated state since 1963) becomes independent. Brunei sultanate on Borneo becomes independent. Namibia becomes independent from South Africa. The UN Security Council gives final approval to end the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific (dissolved already in 1986), finalizing the independence of the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, having been a colonial possession of the empire of Japan before UN trusteeship.

1978 United Kingdom

1979 United States

United Kingdom

1980 United Kingdom

1981 United Kingdom

1983 United Kingdom

1984 United Kingdom 1990 South Africa United States

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1991 Soviet Union

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldavia, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Turkmenistan become independent from the Soviet Union. U.S. forces withdraw from Subic Bay and Clark Air Base in the Philippines ending major U.S. military presence, which lasted for almost a century. Palau (after a transitional period as a Republic since 1981, and before part of the U.S. Trust territory of the Pacific) becomes independent from its former trustee, having been a mandate of the Japanese Empire before UN trusteeship. The colony of Hong Kong is given back to China. Macau is given back to China. It is the last in a series of coastal enclaves that militarily stronger powers had obtained through treaties from the Qing or Manchu Empire which ruled China. Macau, like Hong Kong, is not organized into the existing provincial structure applied to other provinces of the People's Republic of China, but is guaranteed an autonomous system of government within the People's Republic of China as a "Special Administrative Region" or S.A.R. East Timor formally achieves independence after a transitional UN administration, three years after Indonesia ended its violent quarter-century military occupation of the former Portuguese colony. Gibraltar achieves decolonisation following acceptance in an act of self determination (referendum) of a new Constitution, which removed all trappings and vestiges of colonialism, and accepted by the UK & Gibraltar as starting a new non-colonial relationship between them, while still fully under British sovereignty.

1991 United States

1994 United States

1997 United Kingdom 1999 Portugal

2002 Indonesia

2006 United Kingdom

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BIBLOGRAPHY
Defined by richard gunde for decolonization: a postcolonial

perspective Encyclopedia britannica articles

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 http://www.pinkmonkey.com/studyguides/subjects/euro_his/c

hap6/e0606301.htm
Professor of psychology and advocate for the integrity of

native wisdoms, virgilio enriques, a native son of the philippines, on the process of decolonization Sources from wikipeadia Sources from about.com Sources from anwers.com

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