WORLD DIRECTORY OF MINORITIES

The United Nations has now recognized that intercommunity tensions and conflicts are serious threats to the peace and stability of a region and go beyond the exclusive concern of the state in which the communities in question reside. [...] Examples include hydroelectric dam projects such as the Sardar Sarovar in India and others in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, in Sri Lanka and in Iraq; oil extraction projects in the Caucasus, in the delta coastal region of Nigeria, in Siberia and Ecuador; population transfers in the name of development in Tibet, Kurdish Iraq and Turkey, Kalimantan, West Papua, East Timor and Ethiopia; n. [...] One of the most intractable land-and-minority issues has been redressing the problems of the past, particularly the repressive policies of population movement into and out of an area to strengthen the control of a state by central government. [...] The experiences of the deported peoples of the former Soviet Union, including the Crimean Tatars, and the presence of Russians in the periphery of the former Soviet Union today both create animosity that provides opportunities for exploitation by politicians. [...] Additionally, there can be minority programmes to strengthen the formal institutions of the state, such as the composition of the legal system and its sensitivity to minority communities, and the access of minorities to, and their participation in, governmental programmes and institutions.