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| Disputed Territories In Oceania |
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| The entire Wake Island/Atoll, as viewed from above |
image: Public Domain |
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Below is a list of the countries and territories which have serious disputes, with other states, over large parts of their claimed land in Oceania, or over their territory in full. Disputes relating to overseas territories which are claimed by more than one state, are also included. This list includes recognised, partially-recognised and non-recognised states, along with exiled governments, independence-seeking nations, states with major border disagreements and small island disputes.
Whilst disputes over inland areas generally involve minority ethnic groups wanting to be fully independent from a larger power, differences of opinion over small uninhabited islands, or isolated mounds of sand in the sea, or even just a lone rock in the middle of the ocean, often have a completely different set of motives. If a country claims an island, under the Law Of The Sea, an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is granted for 200 nautical miles from it's coast. Only the nation which controls the island, can explore for oil, gas and other natural resources in that geographic area, or can exploit any fish stock which may be present in those particular waters.
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| Territory |
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International Disputes |
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Wake Island
(also known as Wake Atoll, part of the United States Minor Outlying Islands) |
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Wake Island, which is actually three islands surrounding a lagoon, is an unincorporated territory of the United States, administered by the Office of Insular Affairs, which is a division of the U.S. Department of the Interior. There is a US Air Force base on Wake, with missiles ready for launch, and access is strictly limited. The nearby republic, the Marshall Islands, also claims sovereignty over Wake Island, as does another group of independent Marshall Islanders, called the Kingdom of EnenKio. Both claims which originate from the Marshall Islands, involve stories going back centuries, which state that their ancestors had inhabited the island group in ancient times, but no physical proof has been presented by anyone to date. The US took it over as an empty territory in 1899, and it was used as a Pan American Airways stop-off on the US-China route from 1935 until World War II broke out. It was then turned into a permanent military base, was violently taken over by the Japanese during the Battle of Wake Island, and after their WWII surrender, it went back to being a permanent US military base.
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West Papua
(Republic of West Papua) |
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Formerly known as Netherlands New Guinea, after the Dutch colonists pulled out in 1963, it was then suddenly annexed by Indonesia. It declared it's independence in 1974, as the Republic of West Papua, but that was quickly crushed by the Indonesian military, as was the next effort in 1984, this time as the Republic of Great Melanesia. Those currently seeking independence are aiming to set up a Tribal Democracy, meaning an independent confederation of the tribes of West Papua, but they expect Indonesia to be very tough on those who openly look for it, forcing the independence underground. West Papua is currently the combined Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua, Indonesia's most easterly provinces, which form the western half of the Oceanian island of New Guinea. The independent country, Papua New Guinea, which itself operates with a tribal rural system, forms the other half of the island. |
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Geography & Nature
