Three New Countries?

An article in the Sunday Post-Dispatch newspaper for June 29, 2003 begins with the sentence: “Three new countries have joined the world’s stage!”

The article was in the Travel section and was written by Gig Gwin, the CEO of Gwin’s Travel. While he states that these countries have declared their independence and separated themselves from their “mother countries,” that does not make them certified, sovereign states in the world family of countries. No claim was made that the United Nations or any other sovereign states had recognized them as truly independent, sovereign nation-states. Nevertheless, this article adds two new names to the list of areas seeking political separation from their mother countries. Everyone should be aware of Kosovo, so it is not new to the list. The other two are probably new to most people: Srpska (pronounced Serb-ska) and Trans-Dniester.

Every educated American should be aware of Kosovo. U.S. troops are still stationed there (June 2003). Until recently, Kosovo was still recognized as part of Serbia and Montenegro.  In 2008, Kosovo was recognized as an independent coutnry by the U.S. and other major countries - Serbia has not recognized its independence, however.  Between 2003 and 2008, Montenegro separated from Serbia and declared its independence as a separate country.

Many sites can be found with information on Kosovo on the Internet. This one is interesting: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/10/kosovo/ and so is this one: http://www.osce.org/kosovo/.

Srpska is the part of Bosnia in which the majority of residents are Serbian. Whether Srpska becomes a true nation-state may not be clearly decided until after the NATO peace-keeping forces leave Bosnia. So, keep your eyes peeled and your ears open for more news about Srpska.

Many reference can be found to Srpska on the Internet. The official site is http://www.srpska.org/.

Trans-Dniester literally means across the Dniester River. It is the part of Moldova between the Dniester river and the Ukrainian border. Though the article didn’t mention the ethnicity of the people there, my guess is that they are Ukrainians. Moldova was formerly part of Romania. The boundaries were redrawn after World War II by the Soviet Union.

Many references can be found to Transdniester on the Internet. This one is good too: http://www.osce.org/moldova/.

 Updated July, 2008