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 Summary of Discussion Discussant: Ronald Wixman I would like to discuss the region from a slightly dif- ferent perspective. I think it is a grave error to view the former Soviet Union as a unitary state. It never was. It might be useful, instead, to view the Soviet Union as a colonial empire that is now, as other colo- nial empires have, going through the various stages of decolonization. The former Soviet Union is the Rus- sian empire, and the Russian empire is falling apart. The situation is not unique, as evidenced by the situa- tion of the Germans in Eastern Europe after World War I. After Germany lost its holdings and the Austro- Hungarian Empire fell apart, Germans were left in such places as Moravia, Slilesia, and the Banat. In fact, in the Banat, there were more Germans than Romanians or Serbs. In many areas, they were in the majority. But just as the Russians did in the outlying republics, the Germans went from having majority status to minority status. The process of nativization of the republics has gone through phases. The initial stage was not to produce a Ukrainian Ukraine or an Uzbek Uzbekistan or an Estonian Estonia. Instead, the Russians co-opted the elites in the same way that the British co-opted the Raj as of India. The next generation is ambivalent, and after that a shift occurs in which many of these elites produced by the state, and for the state, turn on it. The Soviet Union went through this process of decoloniza- tion, when the native elite tumed away from sewing Moscow and decided to serve their own peoples’ interests. This is what happened throughout Eastern Europe after World War I, when the co-opted elite turned against Austria, Hungary, and the Ottomans. What does all this mean? We are seeing the newly cre- ated republics in borders that did not exist before. The borders of the Soviet republics were constructed spe- cifically by the central govemment. Uzbekistan did not create its borders, Armenia did not create its, and you can be sure neither the Abkhaz nor the Georgians created Abkhazia. These were created in Moscow, by Moscow, and for Moscow. The policy toward Azer- baijanis and the Azeri language was not created in Azerbaijan. It also came from Moscow. So, to speak of a federal structure is difficult. In the decolonization policy, the people of the former republics are saying, “our people, our language, and our culture are not dominant.” As in all other colonial areas, what hap- pens to those people who are not members of this majority? Should the leftover colonials learn the national language? Should the French in Algeria have learned Arabic? They did not have to become Muslim, but should they have sworn allegiance to Algeria rather than to France? Who comes to the United States and keeps their allegiance to their old country and cannot speak English? The Russians are dealing with the issues of what they can and cannot keep and of what belongs and does not belong to the state. For example, Moscow claims the Black Sea Fleet because the govemment built it. Ukrainians say the fleet does not belong to Moscow because they believe they built it as much as the gov- emment did. When Russians say that the Crimea is Russian, Ukrainians say, “only because Moscow never let Ukrainians move there." The West needs to see the former Soviet republics not only in the context of people finding a new national- ism but also in that of the people directing anger against the colonial state for having forbidden them their rights in their own territory. Similarly, the minorities in these republics have found themselves in the same position that minorities have found themselves in all other newly independent former colonial states. The West has been viewing East Europeans and the former Soviet peoples in a dif- ferent light than it has viewed everyone else in the world, and I think we should recognize this and change the view. The former Soviet Union and Yugo- slavia have been suffering from a majority problem for many years, not so much a minority problem. 70 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.