(Estimated Pub Date) the Challenge of Ethnic Conflict to National and International Order in the 1990S: Geographic Perspectives- October 1995

Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
In contrast to the largely homogeneous lowland irri-
gated-rice-tilling peoples, the mountain inhabitants
were fragmented into many small tribal groups. A
stability of economy and polity naturally emerges
from irrigated rice agriculture. By contrast, shifting
cultivation in the mountains normally dictated the
cyclical mobility of tribal peoples, offering as well
opportunities for new migrating groups to till South-
east Asian fields in the wake of the unyielding expan-
sion of Han populations in southem China. The
different languages, religions, socioeconomic adapta-
tions, and political loyalties of the lowlanders and
highlanders engendered tension and conflict even in
precolonial times.
Presently the frontier of the Southeast Asian mountain
hinterland seems to be in the ifinal stages of closing.
Until three decades ago, highland slash-and-bum cul-
tivators could always count on another forest or an
additional mountain swidden field to provide subsis-
tence sustenance in the wakeof the exhaustion of old
farming plots. Today, throughout Southeast Asia, pop-
ulation expansion, commercial exploitation of timber
and mineral reserves, and initiatives to conserve the
rainforest constra.in—if not absolutely deny—the tra-
ditional exploitation of the highland farming environ-
ment by minority tribal peoples. In the past
lowlanders were content to conduct barter trade with
upland tribal societies, secure in the knowledge that
the only constraint on the expansion of their irrigated
plains was the lack of available labor. Today the plains
have in many areas reached their absolute carrying
capacity. For the lowland rural poor and landless
laborers, survival strategies include migration to urban
areas or colonization of upland regions that have been
the historic preserve of minority cultivators. With
each passing decade the pressure on tribal peoples to
permanently settle, abandon their claims to wide
expanses of land, and assimilate to national culture
have intensified. Government population-transfer pro-
grams lend the legitimacy of state planning to the shift
of lowland populations to the uplands. Highlander
perceptions of second-class citizenship status (if such
citizenship is recognized at all) clearly pose the threat
of conflict. The role of major powers in the highlands
of Southeast Asia in the recent past clearly deserves at
least passing mention in the context of this confer-
ence. Colonial divide-and-rule policies, perhaps
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refined earlier in other parts of the world, oftentimes
were articulated by the English in Burma, the Dutch in
Indonesia, and the French in Indochina in maintaining
the social and political control of majority lowland
peoples. Highland minorities oftentimes were given
strategically crucial roles to play in colonial armed
forces. Often such tribal groups were the first to be
weaned from traditional religion by Christian mission-
aries dispatched with official sanction from the metro-
pole.
No discussion of ethnic conflict in Southeast Asia
could proceed without direct reference to the conflict
in Indochina. In Laos the highland-lowland geo-
graphic division took on special significance. Here the
handful of French-trained Hmong soldiers were sub-
sequently nurtured by American operatives as the core
cadre of a large, secret army based at Long Chieng
(Hamilton-Merritt; 1993). For nearly l5 years this
superbly motivated, well-armed, amply supplied, and
professionally advised force struck as guerrilla units
along the Ho Chi Minh trail, fought a rear guard
action to try to hold territory in northem Laos, and
assisted in the rescue of downed US airmen. The
“secret army” consisted of not only Hmong but also of
Mien and Lahu peoples of the high mountains of
northern Laos. In the end their loyalty was not recip-
rocated. Some 250,000 highlanders who were aban-
doned in the spring of 1975 eventually fled their
native Laos, while untold numbers fell victim to eth-
nic reprisal inside Laos. Over the past 17 years, at
least 100,000 highland Laotians who qualified as
political refugees have resettled in the United States.
In Laos, low-intensity conflict has persisted to the
present, pitting highland rebels against the central
government.
Highland-lowland geographic distinctions articulated
in conflicts overland, political control, and ideology
are amply demonstrated by the example of Laos. The
fundamental question for the future is the role that
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), multilateral
lending agencies, and national aid programs will play
toward ameliorating these conflicts. In the past,
national intelligence agencies have oftentimes pur-
posefully aggravated extant tensions, the better to win
Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268