Galician Separatist Force (Cinco De Mayo)

The Galician Separatist Force (Ukrainian: Сепаратист Примушують Галичина; Separatyst Prymushuyut' Halychyna ; Polish: Siły separatystów Galicji), commonly known in Poland as SsG and in Galicia and Ukraine and SPG, is a currently inactive paramilitary force that claimed the legal authority of the defunct Republic of Galicia in 1955 following the First Copenhagen Conference and fought to separate the Ukrainian-majority East Galicia from Polish control, specifically Stanislawów Voivodeship and Tarnopol Voivodeship. The SsG rallied popular Ukrainian support in 1968 following the riots and civil unrest in Tarnopol and brutality against civilians carried out there by first the police and later the Polish Home Army. The SsG became a full-fledged terror group that carried out assassinations, car bombings and became the paramilitary wing of the banned Ukrainian Minority Union (UUMN) political party, which was legalized in 1993 and immediately swept elections in Tarnopol.

The SsG was weakened by the formation of the large splinter group Galician Unity Army (JAG) in 1982, which advocated exclusively and explicitly for assimilation with Ukraine as opposed to the more nebulous anti-Polish, anti-Catholic sentiment of the SsG. This event led to the losses of nearly two-thirds of it's members and the loss of material and financial support from Ukraine. After hunger strikes in 1986 and 1987 failed to turn public opinion to their side and they failed to kill Polish President Ryszard Kaczorowski in a hotel bombing in 1988, the SsG's campaign of violence became more sporadic. The legalization of the UUMN in 1993 led to its absorption by the legal, minority-rights party Alliance for Galicia (Galicji Sojusz, or GS) and the GS condemned political violence, declaring all SsG militants expelled from party ranks.

A new fringe party, Alliance for Independence, was formed by the remaining partisans while the GS and Polish government negotiated a bill of rights for Galicia, leading to the 1995 Devolution Act, in which the Polish government granted special home-rule priviliges to minority-majority voivodeships. The Devolution Act led to a SsG-declared ceasefire later that year and the SsG negotiated the Stettin Accord for Nonviolence with the GS and Polish government in 1997. After the People's Party (SL) lost the 1997 Polish elections, there was some concern in Galicia that the Stettin Accord would be renegotiated, but the center-right coalition government that replaced the SL-led coalition swore to uphold the agreement. In 2010, the SsG swore of all violent activities and turned over their remaining arsenal to the Polish government.