ABSTRACT
Just a small handful of post-World War II separatist movements have, as earlier noted, been successful. Prior to British colonialism, what broadly became Bangladesh was at different times independent, divided among smaller polities or subsumed under regional powers. Eritrea is one of just two independence movements that have succeeded in breaking away from a parent state without external intervention; in Eritrea’s case it was a withdrawal of foreign support for the parent state that precipitated its departure. The independence of Kosovo is a further clear illustration of a national/ethnic group within a particular territory achieving independence as a result of external intervention, in this case by what was claimed to be humanitarian intervention. North Sudan and South Sudan had been administered as separate territories under colonial UK. The Indonesian province of Aceh has twice bid for independence, between 1953 and 1962 and again between 1976 and 2005.
