Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency conference report, numbered RTT 95-10039 and dated October 1995, presents the proceedings of a conference held 30 September to 1 October 1993. The CIA's Geographic Resources Division sponsored the conference. In it, academic geographers, anthropologists and US Government officials examined ethnic conflict by region, covering Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and South Asia. The report also discusses what these conflicts mean for US policy. It does not deal with UFOs or unidentified aerial phenomena.
“Nevers”25 pages
Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268 I and cultural distinctions. National borders inevitably demarcate major ethnic distinctions marked by unique linguistic, religious, and historical traditions. Of course there is no reason why the existence of national distinctions as demarcated by the borders of neighbor- ing states should necessarily induce conflict. Yet a closer look at a few key border regions should at least occasion cause for reflection. Indonesia-Papua New Guinea. Indonesia, fourth- most-populous nation on earth_, presents a generally positive example of national integration in a multieth- nic, geographically fragmented state. Indonesian nationalists in this century have successfully promul- gated a national language, wrested independence from an intransigent Dutch metropole, welded a disparate archipelago of 5,000 inhabited islands into a coherent national entity, and confronted and contained a host of regional insurrections and irredentist rebellions. Nev- ertheless, several problem regions continue to trouble policymakers in Jakarta. The Indonesian state extends deep into the cultural heartland of Melanesia on the island of New Guinea. Here a low-level transnational conflict has festered for years. The issue is not one of border demarcation. It relates, more specifically, to the future of the indige- nous Melanesian population of the Indonesian prov- ince of Irian Jaya—populati0n, 1.6 million. This area was not ceded to Indonesia by the Netherlands at the transfer of sovereignty in 1949. Indeed, only after Indonesia threatened to invade in 1962 did US pres- sure and UN administrative machinery facilitate Dutch withdrawal in 1963. Since that time the local population has become increasingly marginalized in Irian urban areas as thousands of entrepreneurial migrants from central Indonesia have poured into the resource-rich province. The languages and cultures of the indigenous population are distinct from those of central Indonesia. Rebel forces have frequently found refuge across the border in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Both Indonesia and the PNG national government have worked hard to minimize border incidents. Still, this border area could pose serious problems in the future, problems that arise from fundamentally dis- tinct perceptions of interest of the indigenous Irianese population on the one hand and the government in far- off Jakarta on the other. A subtext on the Irian border problem is that of East Timor. The world was shocked to learn of the Santa Cruz cemetery massacre there in 1991. There is every indication that during the 1975-80 period when Cam- bodia was wracked by the autogenocidal policies of the Khmer Rouge violations of human rights on an equal scale were underway in EastT1mor. The armed Timorese independence movement has been largely quashed. The aspirations, identity, and yearning for dignity and self-govemance of the people of East Timor clearly remain strong. Hopefully the current international pressure being brought on Indonesia may result in a reasonable compromise, perhaps facilitating the establishment of the region as an autonomous area within the Indonesian Republic. Administrative prece- dents for such action-—Aceh in northernmost Sumatra, Yogyakarta in central Java——have worked reasonably well. If the current military repression continues, rebel forces there may in the future successfully regroup. The case of East Timor is a clear example of selective Western interest in human rights abuses (Dunn; 1983). The Indonesian invasion of the area occurred shortly after the fall of Saigon. Jakarta was concerned that the leftist Fretilin independence forces would prove to be a major security risk to the republic. Washington assisted the Indonesian military with significant equipment sales-—OI-I-10 Bronco aircraft directed specifically toward the counterinsurgency require- ments of the Indonesian armed forces in Timor. China- Vietnam. The China—Vietnam border wit- nessed a major military conflict in early 1979. The history of Vietnam is essentially that of a relatively small country defending national territory against an aggressive colossus to the north. The wars with France and the United States are fundamentally subtexts on the unique cultural and politicomilitary relationship between China and Vietnam. Because both states are currently ideologically consistent, ancient animosities and contemporary trade and territorial disputes-—the Spratly and Paracel Islands—most probably will remain muted in the near future. Chinese military expansion and internal armament procurement are of concem throughout Southeast Asia. This is particu- larly true in Vietnam, where disputes over the South China Sea islands have broken out in fierce, if abbre- viated, conflict in the recent past. 123 Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 205 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.