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.
“Terry”13 pages
Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268 ongoing Inkatha-ANC violence has ethnic overtones, but given the circumstances in‘ the country, interethnic violence has been limited. This is undoubtedly due to the multiethnic, indeed multiracial, character of the ANC leadership. Just as Inkatha does not represent all (or even most) Zulu, so the ANC is not an all-Xhosa organization. Still, in the popular image, the Inkatha- ANC political struggle often is seen, in the final analy- sis, as a Zulu-Xhosa clash, a continuation of historic rivalries, and the preamble to another round between ancient adversaries. 1 This is not to suggest that interethnic conflict is not latent and potentially explosive. The assassination of Communist Party leader Chris Hani was done by a white killer, but what might have happened had the assassin been an African? So much now depends on the lives of Mandela and Buthelezi. The ultimate question, of course, is whether ANC dominance of government will be followed by a strug- gle among the victors in which, for example, those supporting Winnie Mandela might play a crucial role. In Kenya, the ouster of the colonialists was followed by an interethnic struggle that relegated the Luo to lesser standing in the Kikuyu-dominated state. But that conflict claimed comparatively few lives, cer- tainly as compared to what happened in Zimbabwe after its independence. There, the Mashona-dominated Mugabe regime ruthlessly suppressed the Nkomo-led Matabele in regional/ethnic conflict of enormous cost in lives and property. Since then, Bulawayo and Matabeleland have been the disadvantaged corners on Zimbabwe’s map. ' Observers argue that South Africa’s considerable eth- nic integration would be likely to mitigate such events; there is so much ethnic mixture, the argument goes, that regional conflict is unlikely. But in other countries, such mixture also has led to chronic strife (for example among Muslims and numerous Christian minorities in Nigeria’s North). ‘Much will depend on the political campaign now in progress and on the ANC’s ability to avoid factionalization along ethnic lines. . The April 1994 elections that brought the ANC to power also produced a delicate regional balance. As early as February 1995, the Inkatha members of par- liament grew restive under the new system and walked out of the assembly, underscoring the potential weaknesses of the system. The growing risk is that not only Inkatha but also other components of South Africa’s polity will feel that the new order disadvan- tages them. Should the South African transition collapse into vio- lence, that conflict will resonate in the United States as perhaps no other could. The notion that economic sanctions would hasten the end of apartheid led to some voluntary and much involuntary adherence in this country; those who argued that they would lead to economic disaster that would doom a postapartheid transition were branded as racists. In the streets and on campuses, the prosanction movement generated marches and demonstrations. One must therefore con- template the impact in this country of ethnic and/or racial conflict in South Africa: such conflict would resonate in the United States, possibly with the feroc- ity of Northern Ireland’s conflict in Britain. Interracial conflict in Zimbabwe could be ignored; interethnic strife in Bosnia, complete with hundreds of thousands of casualties and concentration camp honors, barely roils American society. But South Africa has the ingredients to force the issue: a growing link between the US black community and ANC leadership; a latent sympathy for the white plight in a revolution-tom South Africa on the part of political conservatives in this country; and the recent history of involvement, first by businesses adhering to the Sullivan principles, then by sanctions advocates in driving them out. For the United States, there is more at stake, perhaps, in South Africa’s difficult transition than there is in the ethnic conflicts of all other African countries com- bined. 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 above. 205 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.