THE WORLD ATLAS

Chapter · Post-Cold War Era

After the Cold War

The world in 1994

The Cold War is over: the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 into fifteen independent states, and the United States stands as the world's only superpower. Hopes run high for a new era of democracy and open markets.

Nelson Mandela becomes South Africa's first Black president after the country's first all-race elections, the Channel Tunnel links Britain and France, the North American Free Trade Agreement takes effect, and Israel signs peace with Jordan as Palestinian self-rule begins. Yet 1994 is also a year of horror: in Rwanda, extremists murder an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 people, mostly Tutsi along with moderate Hutu, in about a hundred days, while war rages in Bosnia and Russia invades breakaway Chechnya in December. China's economy is booming under market reforms, India is liberalising, and the internet and mobile phones are starting to spread. Boris Yeltsin's Russia struggles with economic collapse, and North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung dies in July.

Open the map in 1994

The great powers

Region by region

Southern Africa

South Africa's first democratic elections on 27 April 1994 end apartheid, and Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as president on 10 May. In Rwanda, a genocide from April to July kills an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 people before Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front takes power, sending a million Hutu refugees into Zaire, still ruled by Mobutu Sese Seko. Mozambique holds its first multiparty elections after its civil war, Malawi votes out its dictator Hastings Banda, and Angola's government and Jonas Savimbi's UNITA sign the Lusaka Protocol. Robert Mugabe rules Zimbabwe and Sam Nujoma leads newly independent Namibia.

Northern Africa

Algeria is in a savage civil war between the military government of Liamine Zeroual and Islamist insurgents. Egypt is ruled by Hosni Mubarak, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi is under UN sanctions, and Sudan's Islamist military regime under Omar al-Bashir hosts Osama bin Laden. Somalia has collapsed into clan warfare after the failed UN and US intervention, Eritrea became independent from Ethiopia in 1993, and Nigeria is ruled by the dictator Sani Abacha. Civil wars ravage Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Europe

Europe is reuniting after the Cold War: Germany has been one country since 1990, the European Union was created by the Maastricht Treaty (1993), Austria, Finland and Sweden vote to join, and the last Russian troops leave Germany, Estonia and Latvia in August 1994. The Channel Tunnel opens in May. But Yugoslavia's breakup has brought war to Bosnia, where Sarajevo is under siege, and Russia, under President Boris Yeltsin, invades Chechnya in December. Helmut Kohl leads Germany, Francois Mitterrand France, John Major Britain, and the IRA declares a ceasefire in Northern Ireland.

Middle East & South Asia

The Oslo peace process brings Palestinian self-rule to Gaza and Jericho, Yasser Arafat returns from exile, and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin signs a peace treaty with Jordan's King Hussein in October. Saddam Hussein's Iraq is under heavy UN sanctions, Iran is led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Rafsanjani, and Yemen fights a short civil war. Afghanistan is torn by warring mujahideen factions, and the Taliban movement emerges in Kandahar late in 1994. India, under P. V. Narasimha Rao, is opening its economy, and Benazir Bhutto is prime minister of Pakistan.

Northern & Central Asia

Five Central Asian republics have been independent since 1991, mostly ruled by former Soviet Communist bosses: Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan, Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan, Saparmurat Niyazov in Turkmenistan, and Askar Akayev in Kyrgyzstan, while Tajikistan is in civil war under Emomali Rahmonov. Kazakhstan has agreed to hand its Soviet nuclear warheads back to Russia and leases the Baikonur Cosmodrome to Russia. Siberia remains part of Russia, and Mongolia has been a democracy since 1990.

East Asia

China, under President Jiang Zemin with Deng Xiaoping still the paramount elder, is booming after market reforms, and construction of the Three Gorges Dam begins in December. Hong Kong (British until 1997) and Macau (Portuguese until 1999) await handover to China, and Taiwan is democratising under Lee Teng-hui. North Korea's Kim Il-sung dies in July and is succeeded by his son Kim Jong-il, whose government signs a nuclear freeze deal (the Agreed Framework) with the US in October. Japan, under Emperor Akihito, has three prime ministers in 1994 as its economic bubble deflates, while South Korea is led by Kim Young-sam.

Southeast Asia

The US lifts its trade embargo on Vietnam in February, as Vietnam pursues market reforms under Communist rule. Cambodia, after UN-run elections in 1993, is again a kingdom under Norodom Sihanouk, though the Khmer Rouge still fight on. Indonesia is ruled by Suharto, who occupies East Timor, and Myanmar's military junta keeps democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. Mahathir Mohamad's Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Fidel Ramos's Philippines are fast-growing 'tiger' economies.

Northern North America

Canada, under Prime Minister Jean Chretien, joins the North American Free Trade Agreement on 1 January 1994, and Quebec elects a separatist government under Jacques Parizeau, setting up a 1995 independence referendum. An agreement to create the Inuit territory of Nunavut (1999) has been signed. Greenland governs itself under Danish home rule, and Alaska is a US state.

Southern North America

Bill Clinton's America is the sole superpower and enjoying an economic boom, but Republicans win Congress in the November 1994 midterms. NAFTA takes effect on 1 January, the same day the Zapatista rebels rise up in Chiapas, Mexico; presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio is assassinated, Ernesto Zedillo is elected, and a peso crisis strikes in December. A US-led force restores Haiti's elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in October, and thousands of Cubans flee Castro's island on rafts.

Northern South America

Brazil introduces the real currency to tame hyperinflation and elects its architect, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, as president, and wins the football World Cup. Alberto Fujimori rules Peru with strong powers after his 1992 'self-coup' and the capture of the Shining Path's leader. Colombia elects Ernesto Samper amid the power of drug cartels, and Venezuela is led by the veteran Rafael Caldera.

Southern Cone

Democracy has returned across the region: Argentina, under Carlos Menem, keeps its peso pegged to the dollar and reforms its constitution, but suffers the deadly AMIA bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in July. Chile is led by Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, though former dictator Augusto Pinochet still commands the army. Paraguay has its first civilian president in decades, Juan Carlos Wasmosy, and the Mercosur trade bloc agrees a customs union in December.

Australasia & Oceania

Australia, under Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating, debates becoming a republic and has recognised Aboriginal land rights in its Native Title Act (1993). New Zealand is led by Jim Bolger, and Papua New Guinea struggles with a separatist war on Bougainville. Palau becomes independent in October 1994, ending the last UN trust territory, and France has paused its nuclear tests in French Polynesia, which it will resume in 1995.

Events

  1. Berlin Wall falls; Tiananmen Square crackdown in China
  2. Gulf War; the Soviet Union dissolves
  3. European Union created; Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO
  4. NAFTA takes effect; Zapatista uprising in Mexico
  5. Rwandan genocide (April-July)
  6. Nelson Mandela elected president of South Africa; Channel Tunnel opens
  7. Kim Il-sung dies; Israel-Jordan peace treaty signed
  8. Russia invades Chechnya (December)

Moments of this period

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Sources