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 States over any substate group politico-tenitorial identity’s claim to part of the State’s territory; to do otherwise would “dismember or impair, totally or in part, the existing State” (UN General Assembly Reso- lution 2625 (XV), cited in Knight, 1985, p. 259). There is an out, for under international law, as cur- rently written, secession may occur if the majority of the people of the total State—or the govemment, which claims to speak in their name—agrees to the dismantlement of governmental authority in part of the State and to its secession. The concern for the territorial integrity of States has recently been severely challenged by three things. First, by the development of human rights expecta- tions that are said to apply to all States. Second, by the disintegration of the former USSR and the claiming of self-determination by numerous formerly sub-State groups—-some of whom find themselves to be still sub-State groups but now within different or restruc- tured States. Third, by US-led UN interventionist actions in several States. Perhaps we will soon see a rewriting of international law. Any application of self- determination implies change, whether change within a territory or change as a consequence of"the splitting of a territory into at least two parts. In each case, peo- ple, with distinctive identities, seek change. Conclusion The linked concepts of identity, territory, self-determi- nation, and numerous territorial processes give power and meaning to the actions of many group politico-ter- ritorial identities who seek to better their lot. While a variety of additional factors need to be considered when examining potentials for ethnic or national con- flict (Kliot, 1989; Gosar, ed., 1993), it is necessary to appreciate the importance of the essential concepts and processes discussed here to more fully appreciate why certain conflicts are due to ethnic and national tensions, bounded as they are within certain territorial structures and influenced by—or which cause—cer- tain territorial processes. Pressures are mounting for territorial (and other) alter- ations to the existing international system of States. Some of the pressures are now severe, as evidenced by savagery in parts of the former USSR and Eastern Europe, where many distinct group politico-territorial identities have sought or are seeking to establish their own States separate from the politico-territorial units in which they now find themselves. Is the day far off before similar pressures mount elsewhere—in Africa, Asia, or even the Americas—-for secession, with or without violence? Not all claims for self-determina- tion need involve secession, as suggested above, because accommodations are often reached within existing State structures. Nevertheless, secession as a recourse to discord remains—-and, indeed, has become increasingly——an option. 20 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.