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
.Appr0ved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268 economic slowdown has also been attended by increasing ethnic strife. Even during the expansion of the 1980s, African economies lagged; with the world economy slowed down, African economies deterio- rate. Economic growth provides opportunities and lessens frustrations. In Africa, the opposite situation prevails. This is not the place to recapitulate the historical geography of black Africa, but its outlines—West Africa’s cultural flowering, that region’s ancient savanna states, the arrival and diffusion of Islam, the European colonial intervention, the imposition of the boundary framework, contrasting colonial policies and practices, and the rise of Afiican nationalism-— must be kept in mind, for they" are etched on cultural landscapes, and they still influence interethnic rela- tions today. No African region has been immune from costly eth- nic conflict. In West Africa, the most destructive con- flict since the Biafra War has ravaged Liberia. In Equatorial Africa, southem Chad and the southern Sudan have been engulfed by war. In the Horn, Soma- lia has become synonymous with ethnic strife, and Ethiopia and Eritrea witnessed years of tribal fighting. In East Africa, Uganda has been a caldron of ethnic conflict, and today Rwanda and Burundi continue to suffer. And in southern Africa, an uncertain truce has quieted decades of war in Angola, while ethnic strife is at least temporarily quiescent in South Africa. This incomplete summary of current and recent ethnic conflict notwithstanding, some African countries have achieved ethnic accommodation against great odds. Africa is divided into more than 1,000 ethnolinguistic domains, creating cultural mosaics that make the former Yugoslavia look uncomplicated by compari- son. Political geographers often point to India as mira- cle of multicultural stability, but Nigeria‘s continuity may be a greater achievement still. Senegal, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, and Namibia are other success stories. ‘ A Typology of Ethnic Conflict in Africa Ethnic conflict in Africa has variable roots, suggesting a typology that may help assess it. Along the Islamicl non-Islamic transition zone in the north, the ultimate -\ cause of conflict often is religious, as is the case in Sudan today and has been in Chad. This should not imply that religion is the sole incentive, but it does dominate here. In the case of Sudan, fear of Khar- toum’s imposition of sharia criminal law upon Chris- tian and animist southerners is a catalyst for conflict. A second form of conflict may be designated as tribal and is exemplified by what is happening today in Liberia. With a population well under 3 million, Liberia incorporates more than a dozen major ethnic groups, including the Kpelle (about 20 percent of the population), Bassa (14 percent), Grebo (9 percent), Gio (8 percent), Kru (7 percent), and Mano (7 per- cent). In 1990 the country collapsed into civil war, in which tribal loyalties were paramount. Tens of thou- sands were killed, and nearly I million refugees streamed across Liberia’s borders. A third kind of ethnic conflict has strategic origins: it may have started as a tribal struggle but has worsened by external interests. In early 1995, one of these con- flicts had recently abated: the war between Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) forces in Angola. A fourth form of conflict p may be categorized as reformist. This has its origins in the political transformation of a state. For example, in Kenya during the runup to independence, the Mau Mau rebellion was essentially a Kikuyu movement aimed not only against whites but also against “collab- orators.” In fact, many more Africans than Europeans lost their lives during that period, and animosities between Kikuyu and non-Kikuyu endured after inde- pendence. The first clashes in Liberia involved the ouster of the Americo-Liberian elite by the so-called aborigines, as the indigenous peoples of Liberia were called. In Zimbabwe, Mashona/Matabele conflict arose in similar context. In Africa today, the geographic dimension of ethnic conflict is this: religious strife affects principally the northern cultural transition zone; reformist conflict prevails in the south; and tribal war not directly related to external influences afflicts the central zone, most severely in Rwanda and Liberia. Persistent stra- tegic conflict has devastated Angola and, while quies- cent at present, still looms in Mozambique. 75 Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
Not linked to a story yet.
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.