This thesis is a comparative case study of ethnic violence and civil conflict resolution in the
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and Kashmir, India. I treat the Macedonian
and Kashmir issues as two separate, but similar ethno-national phenomena. Both countries
involve the study of two state-level conflicts with ethno-religious, local implications: the
Kashmiris within the greater South Asian backdrop, and the ethnic Albanian minority in
Macedonia (and more widely in the Balkans). Within my approach, I compare and contrast peace
negotiations in each region, guided by the initial research question of whether some aspects of
the Macedonian peace resolution might be helpful in developing new approaches for Kashmir.
Within this analysis, I investigate the viability of Macedonia’s 2001 Ohrid Agreement, following
the country’s ethnic Albanian insurgency, and analyze the resolution’s creation of an
autonomous geographical zone for ethnic Albanians that is tacitly accepted by neighboring states
and territories including Albania and Kosovo, which in practice, sustains peace. I examine this
resolution by discussing numerous elements existent within both the agreement and its
implementation.
I am interested in whether peace proposals might be developed in Kashmir by modeling
the Ohrid Agreement, and whether the above mentioned elements may be useful for developing a
suspension of conflict in Kashmir from its frozen state. Human rights abuses and violence,
including state, militant political and structural have been ongoing since the Partition of India
and Pakistan in 1947, albeit with periods of lesser and greater intensity. Since both conflicts
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developed from pre-existing ethnic cleavages, an analysis of the political and geographical
recognition acquired by the Macedonian Albanians following the 2001 insurgency within
FYROM is tantalizing: might Macedonia’s ability to placate Albanian grievances provide a
model for solving the Kashmir puzzle? Though these cases differ in scale and severity,
comparative examinations of the proposed resolutions in Kashmir compared to those in
Macedonia will be academically and potentially practically valuable.