Southern American Territorial Disputes

The South American conflicts in districts like Al Fushqa are centred on territorial border disputes. The known new threats, such as organised crime, drug trafficking, terrorism, and so on, must be considered and investigated more thoroughly. These risks have a significant transnational bias, leading to interstate conflict in border areas. It’s never a bad idea to keep in mind that boundary lines are linked to national state models and, consequently, to the constitutional duty of territorial defence armed forces. As a result, in districts like Al-Fushqa, it is crucial to understand better how nations behave in front of their neighbours as sovereign actors to determine how vital their border regions’ ownership, inviolability, and sovereignty are to them.

The Al Fushqa District Dispute:

For decades, Sudan and Ethiopia have been at odds over the Al Fushqa border area, where the northwest of Ethiopia’s Amhara region meets Sudan’s el-Gadarif state. Al Fushqa, also known as al-Fashaga, The district features a lot of farmland. Al-Fushqa is part of the al-Fashaga triangle, a contested region between Ethiopia and Sudan. 

On December 15, 2020, Amhara rebels purportedly supported by the Ethiopian government ambushed numerous Sudanese military officers in the About Your area, along the Ethiopia–Sudan border, killing four. Sudan has reclaimed the majority of the contested border since then. Sudan and Ethiopia are involved in a dangerous impasse over al-Fashaga and Al-Fushqa, a fertile borderland from which Khartoum eliminated dozens of Ethiopian farmers in December of 2020. Dozens of combatants and civilians have died in clashes between the two countries’ forces.

Despite Sudan’s improved relations with Eritrea, strong links between Sudan and Ethiopia persisted in 2011. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir made two trips to Addis Ababa in 2001. Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, praised Ethiopian–Sudanese connections during a visit to Khartoum in 2002. Ethiopia’s Amhara regional state borders Al-Fashaga and districts like Al-Fushqa, and control of the region is critical. 

This has become increasingly important since Ethiopia’s population has risen from less than 50 million in 1990 to more than 115 million in 2020, with more than 20 million living in Amhara state alone.

Banc Du Geyser:

Banc Du Geyser is a reef off the northwestern coast of Madagascar in the Mozambique Channel. It’s around 125 kilometres northeast of Mayotte, France’s tiniest and least-known overseas territory. However, Mayotte was geographically part of the Comoros Islands when Comoros became an independent country in 1975.

Potential agreements or treaties between the three countries of France, the Comoros, and Madagascar regarding the future position and state of Banc Du Geyser, including whether it should remain solely the property of one country or if it can be shared among multiple countries in light of the region’s economic and environmental factors, are possible solutions to this dispute. 

If an agreement cannot be reached, members of the United Nations may vote to determine which country should claim the Banc Du Geyser reef and what limits should be placed on other countries’ actions concerning the reef.

The issue over Banc Du Geyser between the Comoros, France, and Madagascar has yet to be settled, even though many people now believe the reef belongs to France because of French activities. Except for certain rocks in the south of the reef, the oval form of the reef puts it at risk because it is only exposed at low tide. As sea levels rise due to global warming, some protection must be implemented to prevent the reef from completely disappearing.

Chagos Archipelago:

Chagos Archipelago island, where most Chagossians lived, could serve as the location for a US military base; most Chagossians now live in Mauritius and the United Kingdom. Three United Nations agencies have concluded that the archipelago, which is more than 5,000 miles from the UK, is part of Britain’s ancient empire and should be handed over to Mauritius. 

The Chagos Archipelago Islands, a 58-island archipelago in the Indian Ocean midway between Tanzania and Indonesia, had belonged to Britain since 1814 when France handed them over along with Mauritius in the Treaty of Paris.

On February 25, 2019, the Court ruled that the United Kingdom’s separation of the Chagos Archipelago was unlawful. In 1965, islands from the rest of Mauritius were illegal when both were colonial possessions. And that the UK must discontinue its administration of the Chagos Islands as soon as possible. 

Many legal, human rights, security, and geopolitical concerns complicate the ownership dispute over Diego Garcia and the rest of the Chagos Archipelago. British Indian Ocean Territory is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean that the UK intends to keep.

Conclusion:

Even though numerous conflicts have been resolved by discussion and international mediation, the militarisation of disputes has resurfaced throughout the region. This is probably part of South America’s national inclusion and negotiation strategies. In this perspective, even the threat of using force has served as a chronological indicator of the dynamics and trends in South American interstate relations. In the international arena, territorial and boundary disputes have long been a source of conflict, yet gaps in the literature still exist in Latin America. Analysing cases in this region can help the international community better understand conflict sources, build a better foreign policy with US allies, and take actions toward peace and stability.