As someone who grew up and lived very close to that area I find this free-state territorial claim attempt deeply disturbing and here are some reasons for that.<p>Probably most important is psychological one since there was a war and violent clash between disputed sides in the 1990s and that land was claimed in very similar manner like this guy is attempting now. Coming there with such claims is very wrong and locals and authorities from both sides will be irritated by such attempts.<p>This guy's sad interpretation of current dispute situation would be something like: there is a free piece of land and everyone is invited to claim it. That is far away from reality.
There is a dispute about that area but that doesn't mean that it doesn't belong to anyone and that it is not controlled. At the moment land part access is controlled by Croatian police and river access by both sides. Legally that land still belongs to Serbia and that comes from last legal border agreement between two sides which is constitution document of Yugoslavia dating from 1974. Borders between countries were defined back then very precisely but that document is subject of dispute from 1990s till now. Dispute and border changes were caused by war, politics and riverbed changes.<p>Both river and land were used for years by locals as a result of agreement between disputed sides in order enable local population to access that area without too much hassle by the border police.<p>Now, thanks to this idiot, locals are banned from using it any more. Besides collecting a lot of money for his agenda from similar people like him around the world, that is the only concrete result of his actions.
From what I know about this guy's project, he is more concerned about PR, going around taking money and talking at circlefriendly libertarian conferences than actually doing anything meaningful.<p>Last I heard him talk at one conference, he was talking about making a Liberland app, that's Uber, AirBnB and ebay in one app, using smart contracts on blockchain. And it somehow connects to Liberland.<p>So yep, I don't see this as a serious attempt.<p>Edit: here is the app, I have no idea what is it actually doing.<p><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.liberland.services&referrer=utm_source%3Dgoogle%26utm_medium%3Dorganic%26utm_term%3Dliberland+mobile+app&pcampaignid=APPU_1_eXcpWLTeG6zKgAacmo7IDQ" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.liberland.s...</a>
For a recent (within the last 100 years) example of Terra Nullius, look at Svalbard and the Svalbard treaty. Any citizen of a signatory to the treaty is entitled to live there. In practice it's kind of hard to do, since there's not much economic activity up there and logistics/transport costs and energy costs makes everything very expensive. But theoretically an Afghan citizen could move to Svalbard freely.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Treaty" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Treaty</a><p>also, no, it does not have any armored polar bears.
The bigger story here seems to be that Croatia is treating the territory of Liberland as its own. I wonder what that means for Balkan relations? Has Croatia now accepted the revised borders?<p>Edit: Actually Wikipedia says that Croatia's position is that the land belongs to either Serbia or themselves, to the exclusion of any third party. Link: <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatia%E2%80%93Serbia_border_dispute" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatia%E2%80%93Serbia_borde...</a>
Makes me think about Ladonia in southern Sweden. Painter built a tower by using wood lying around on the beach, and proclaimed the 1 km2 area the name of Ladonia. Local authorities see it as a crime due to the area being a nature reserve and had plans of taking it down, but at the same time they can't say no to the increasing amount of tourists.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladonia_(micronation)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladonia_(micronation)</a>
Came across Liberland about a year ago and filled a citizenship form on their site (<a href="https://liberland.org/" rel="nofollow">https://liberland.org/</a>) out of curiosity. I occasionally get their newsletter. Altogether i find this a an occasional and nice distraction from my work. Maybe this is how all countries came into existence.
> <i>But in the mind of Vit Jedlicka, its first president, it's the fulfilment of the libertarian dream - a land with no compulsory taxes, no gun control, with Bitcoins as currency.</i><p>Too true: A country that sounds great on paper, but is really an infrastructure-free swamp that no-one <i>actually</i> wants to live in. It is indeed libertarianism at its finest!
I've been following this for a while now - I actually met this guy in a pub a few years ago, a friendly chap. While I don't subscribe to his ideology, I do wish him luck. As long as they are not harming anyone, I encourage people to push the limits of all sorts of established ideas, including big things like starting a country.<p>I'm still not sure - and nobody is I guess - if it's sincere, a PR stunt, or a scam, I guess it will take a while longer for us to find out. In the meantime, let's hope it's resolved in a friendly and peaceful manner and all the best to his new family (both literally and figuratively).
I for one don't see a point in these micro countries - they are philosophically inconsistent, nothing more than a make believe game for adults. What if I came to said Liberland and claimed one of the corners of the island for myself?
> a land with no compulsory taxes, no gun control, with Bitcoins as currency.<p>There's a name for this: "wildlife". Humanity knows it very well. We escaped it as soon as possible.
This is really interesting and reminds me of legal grounds for Lacota Republic in the middle of the US. Lacotas insist that white people did not fulfilled the contract that was with their forefathers, so Lacota current lands use legislation framework is void. However, Lacotas do not have enough nukes to enforce the consequences of white people misbehaviour, so the illegal use of their lands by the self-proclaimed "The United States" continues.
This guy very much reminds me of Dave from the Republic of Dave in Fallout 3. A little quarky but he thinks he can do it. It's interesting to see if he can do this as it would set an interesting geopolitical precedent for the area.
Just applied for the citizen application form :)<p><a href="http://liberland.org/en/request/" rel="nofollow">http://liberland.org/en/request/</a>
Let us not forget Ziqistan!<p><a href="http://www.zaqart.com/zaqistan/zaqistan.shtml" rel="nofollow">http://www.zaqart.com/zaqistan/zaqistan.shtml</a>
"he can build a temporary settlement on houseboats on the Danube"<p>Reminds me of the movie "Crna Macka, Beli Macor (Black Cat, White Cat)"