ABSTRACT
Ethno-national disputes may initially be presented to the mainstream society, or interpreted internationally, as issues of human or civil rights like oppression or injustice. In Ulster, an ethno-national movement developed from a civil rights campaign, reinforced by religious sectarianism. An optimism at variance with reality is that negotiation will peacefully resolve ethno-national disputes, often articulated by diplomats as "ultimately the conflict will have to be resolved by negotiation or a political settlement." The setting up of national boundaries by the early Western imperialists, encompassing differing but sizeable cultural groups, has often postponed the eventual ethno-national conflict—hence the post-colonial civil wars in Africa. The collapse of Communism and the break-up of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its satellites, which has resulted in the re-emergence of independent nation-states in the Baltic/Belarus/Ukraine/Caucasus and of the Islamic states of its former Central Asian republics.
