It was sprung on "unionists" as well as on "secessionists" in a somewhat despotic fashion by two national leaders, energised by electoral success: one a Czech, on the victorious political right, the other a Slovak on the equally victorious left.
An emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers was convened in Brussels to respond to the upsurge in violence in eastern Ukraine, notably last week's shelling of the town of Mariupol by pro-Russian secessionists which left 30 civilians dead and 100 wounded.
They are not secessionists, like the south Sudanese who want full independence.
Likewise, Union fury at secessionists for having started the whole horror show in the first place is understandable.Mr Doctorow's writing here is magnificent, the details he selects unerringly trenchant: "the wagon bumping over dead dogs every hound to be seen was shot through the head".
The new mediators provide the new mechanisms.Many of these contemporary conflicts involve insurgents, secessionists or even "resource-warriors", like those in the oil-rich Niger Delta of Nigeria, who clash with governments.
The West has stubbornly refused to make independence for Kosovo the subject of any discussions, for fear of encouraging secessionists elsewhere.
The war, which pits a motley mix of non-Muslim southern secessionists and Muslim northern dissidents against the government in Khartoum, seems to be spreading.
Secessionists in Aceh and Papua, at the western and eastern extremes of the country, want to follow suit.
ALU ALKHANOV is unusual among ex-presidents of Chechnya, be they secessionists or Kremlin puppets: he is alive.
Sir Julius himself touched off the crisis when he signed a contract in late January with soldiers from a foreign private army to help end a protracted war against secessionists on the island of Bougainville.Since the arrival in February of what were widely described as "foreign mercenaries", PNG has been engulfed by its biggest constitutional and political crisis since independence in 1975.
Quebec secessionists have long expected to have a third go when the party next forms a majority government.That moment looks close.
