Ethnic conflict and the journey to peace: a comparative analysis of Macedonia (FYROM) and Kashmir

This thesis is a comparative case study of ethnic violence and civil conflict resolution in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and Kashmir, India. I treat the Macedonian and Kashmir issues as two separate, but similar ethno-national phenomena. Both countries involve the study of two state-level conflicts with ethno-religious, local implications: the Kashmiris within the greater South Asian backdrop, and the ethnic Albanian minority in Macedonia (and more widely in the Balkans). Within my approach, I compare and contrast peace negotiations in each region, guided by the initial research question of whether some aspects of the Macedonian peace resolution might be helpful in developing new approaches for Kashmir. Within this analysis, I investigate the viability of Macedonia’s 2001 Ohrid Agreement, following the country’s ethnic Albanian insurgency, and analyze the resolution’s creation of an autonomous geographical zone for ethnic Albanians that is tacitly accepted by neighboring states and territories including Albania and Kosovo, which in practice, sustains peace. I examine this resolution by discussing numerous elements existent within both the agreement and its implementation.\ud ! I am interested in whether peace proposals might be developed in Kashmir by modeling the Ohrid Agreement, and whether the above mentioned elements may be useful for developing a suspension of conflict in Kashmir from its frozen state. Human rights abuses and violence, including state, militant political and structural have been ongoing since the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, albeit with periods of lesser and greater intensity. Since both conflicts developed from pre-existing ethnic cleavages, an analysis of the political and geographical recognition acquired by the Macedonian Albanians following the 2001 insurgency within FYROM is tantalizing: might Macedonia’s ability to placate Albanian grievances provide a model for solving the Kashmir puzzle? Though these cases differ in scale and severity, comparative examinations of the proposed resolutions in Kashmir compared to those in Macedonia will be academically and potentially practically valuable