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 rule. Western Ukrainians are demanding more cultural and religious autonomy from Ukraine, and this may create some potential for real conflict. As yet, how- ever, it is, merely cultural and not political and territo- rial. Even if it were to bring about open conflict, this is a purely internal matter and not of any concern for the West or neighboring states. Hungarian Minorities. Theborders of current Hun- gary were established after World War I and represent, in the eyes of ethnic Hungarians, a diminished state. Across those borders are a number of regions with sig- nificant Hungarian populations. In some, like parts of southern Slovakia and northern Vojvodina—in north- ern Serbia--the Hungarian population forms the majority of inhabitants. In Romania, Hungarian com- munities exist throughout western Romania and in Transylvania—a region with great cultural and histori- cal significance to the Hungarian people. We must remember that for more than 150 years Hungary was under Ottoman Turkish domination. During that time Transylvania and southern Slovakia, as Hungarian regions, were independent of the Tlurks. Indeed, dur- ing this time Bratislava (Pozsony in Hungarian) was the capital of a free Hungary, and until World War I ethnic Hungarians outnumbered Slovaks in this city, the capital of Slovakia. . The division of Czechoslovakia into two states has changed the sectarianism of living in the area.‘ While Hungarians were not subject to open policies of Slo- vakization under the Czech-dominated Czechoslovak Government, the situation today is different. The posi- tion of the Slovak Government is that the Hungarians are really Slovaks whose ancestors were forced to become Hungarians (Magyars) during the l,000 years of Hungarian rule and therefore should be re-Slovak- ized. The Hungarians consider southern Slovakia as part of the Kingdom of Hungary historically. Indeed Kossuth, the father of modern Hungarian nationalism, was born in Slovakia (in fact he was a Magyarized Slovak). Here we see the use of historical figures and events by ethnic groups as the justification for current demands on both sides. ‘ The Hungarians saw the Czech majority as advanced and civi- lized as themselves. The Hungarian view of Slovaks as a people is quite different. Slovaks are seen as low in levels of civilization, and the Slovaks are also far more anti-Hungarian than the Czechs. At high levels in the Hungarian Government, it has been made clear to the Slovaks that Hungary does not claim territory from Slovakia but that it requests that Hungarians in Slovakia be given full citizenship and rights as a minority. This is the same position held by the Hungarian Government vis a vis Transylvania and Vojvodina. But many ethnic Hungarians and lower level political leaders are demanding the “return” of these “Hungarian lands” to Hungary. As a minimal demand, the Hungarians in Hungary appear to be con- cerned about the rights of their ethnic brethren in neighboring countries but are not demanding border changes. However-—and this is a big however-—-this stance is contingent on fair treatment of Hungarians and a continued moderate position of the Hungarian regime. Persecution of Hungarians in any neighboring country may lead to a severe shift in Budapest’s offi- cial position. This is now being tested in Vojvodina, where the Serbian Government is relocating Serbs from other areas of Yugoslavia into areas dominated by ethnic Hungarians and where young Hungarian males are subject to the draft and are being sent to the war zone in Bosnia. Many Hungarians have fled Vojvodina to Hungary. This is leading to a rise in rightwing Hungarian nationalism that may change the official position of the Hungarian Govemment. The impact of Western inaction in Bosnia on the Hungar- ian issues in Vojvodina, Slovakia, and Romania is dis- cussed later in this paper. Muslim Minorities in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria After the Ottoman Empire withdrew from the Balkans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a number of Islamicized groups remained. Among these were Muslim Bosnians (now called Muslimani), Serbs (mostly in the Sandzak and Kosovo-Metohija regions of Serbia), Macedonians (called Torbesi), Bulgarians (called Pomaks), Greeks, and Albanians.‘ Only among the Albanians did the Muslim converts form 5 These Muslims should not be confused with ethnic Turks who form a distinct ethnic minority in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, and Greece and who are either the descen- dants of Turks or of mixed Turkish and other ethnic backgrounds. Their ethnic identity is with Turkey, and they do not consider them- selves to be of local origin. 29 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.