6 Bloody Civil Wars That Brought New Nations Into Existence

Lt Gen Niazi signing the Instrument of Surrender under the gaze of Lt Gen Aurora,signalling the end of the Pakistani Civil war and the birth of  Bangladesh as a sovereign nation. (Photo: Wikipedia)

History is riddled with accounts of civil wars and conflicts that cost thousands, if not millions of lives. Some drained the economy of the countries and entities involved and some like the world wars, and the cold war threatened to tear apart civilization and end the existence of the human race on the planet for good. This post focuses on civil wars out of which new sovereign states came
to existence. A good example is the 2nd Sudanese civil war that took hundreds of thousands of lives and at its end forced the breakup of Sudan and ultimately the creation of the sovereign state of South Sudan. In this list, 6 of the bloodiest of such civil wars are listed.

6. The 2nd Sudanese Civil War

This war was largely a continuation of the 1st Sudanese civil war. The first was sparked mainly by the marginalization of the peoples of the periphery by the Sudanese central government. Some scholars/historians point to the Muslim central government's pursuit to impose sharia law on the non-Muslim southerners, as it causes. Sudan's 2nd civil war happened mainly because of disputes between northern and southern Sudan concerning natural resources, especially the oil fields that lie between them ( I.e the north and south). The conflict was one of the most devastating in history. It was marked by a large number of human rights violations including and mass killings. The struggle ended with South Sudan's secession from Sudan.

5.  Serbian and Grecian independence

Serbia and Greece's departure it from the Ottoman empire in the early 1800s was viewed by many people as a civil war rather than a struggle to put over a foreign oppressor. The two nations had been a part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries. Their struggle against the Ottoman empire has often cast in a negative light. Serbia got her independence in 1867 and Greek hers on 25 March 1821.

4. The Belgian Revolution

The United Kingdom of Netherlands was brought into existence after the 1815 Vienna conference. The two countries Belgium and the Netherlands fused to form a new state, and King William 1 was appointed ruler. In spite of his good rule, the Belgians raised protestations against his rule. The main reason for the protest was the denial of Catholic bishops in the south of participation in the new government, which caused an underrepresentation of southerners in the new kingdom in the government and the army. This protest against marginalization brought about the Belgian revolution which ended with the setting up of the independent kingdom of Belgium

3. The Ethiopian Civil War

The sovereign state of Eritrea was born of the roughly 17-year conflict between Ethiopian military junta Communist governments and anti-government rebels. It all began with the overthrow of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie on September 12, 1974, by the DERG, who had the support of the USSR, while the rebels were backed by the US. This included the Eritrean separatists who had a long time been in the struggle for Eritrean independence. Factors such as famine economic decline and other after-effects of the DERG policies turned the conflict situation in favor of the rebel forces. The DERG was changed to the PDRE in 1987 and subsequently lost the support of the soviet union, ultimately resulting in the PDREs defeat, the fall of the Ethiopian empire and the establishment of the Eritrean sovereign state.

2. Pakistani Civil War

This civil war was waged between the central government of Pakistan and the people of Bangladesh ( then East Pakistan). Barbaric acts of genocide accompanied this struggle, carried out by the Pakistani army on the Bengali population. Bangladesh won the war mainly because of India's participation in the struggle. The conflict lasted 13 days, one of the shortest wars in history, and the new nation of Bangladesh was born.

1. East Timor And Indonesia

Following the 1974 Portuguese revolution was a civil war between East Timorese political parties. This happened after the Portuguese had had effectively abandoned its colony on Timor.
The Revolutionary Front For An Independent East Timor declared East Timor an independent state, following their resistance of a Democratic coup attempt in August 1975.The new state is on this list even though it existed less than a month and may not have been recognized by a large part of the international community. It was invaded by the Indian military soon after who proclaimed it the 27th province of Indonesia in July 1976.