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 ratio of 10 UN forces to l rebel force is needed to con- tain the anarchy; with the UN’s current resources, that is not feasible. Furthermore, countries that participate in the UN peacekeeping operations, as in Somalia, and that experience casualties, will develop a great reluc- tance to participate in support of this kind of policing action. Perhaps there ought to be standing regional forces in Africa, South America, and Central America for emergencies of this kind so that imperialist powers do not get involved in the kind of peacemaking that get soldiers killed. I am encouraged that ECOMOG, the West African force, has achieved as much as it has. I still believe that, with the UN’s limitations, having standing regional forces is the way for regional prob- lems to be solved. I am a great believer in UN inter- vention, butl am not sure that the United Nations has the resources to intervene at the level it should have. DR. HONEY: I think what really needs to be done is to formulate a UN policy that provides a generic, rather than ad hoc, structure for intervening. I think the difficulty we have now is that we are building a house without a blueprint. Obviously, the world is not going to stop, but, if we reallyare going to have suc- cessful interventions, we need ito figure out institution- ally how they will work. Then I think we will have a chance of some successes. QUESTION: You had mentioned the need for interna- tional intervention in South Africa—potential UN intervention. I know that, currently, we’ re talking about election monitors. Is that sufficient to tide South Africa over until the election and afterwards? DR. DE BLIJ: In the case of South Africa, I think a massive intervention that might keep the peace there, should it be needed, would pay for itself for a century to come, whereas that might not be the case in, say Somalia or Rwanda. _ DR. HONEY: I am more optimistic about South Africa’s future than Professor de Blij. We do not have a crystal ball, but I have a hunch that pragmatism is going to prevail. Clearly the ANC leadership, despite its at least titular Marxist past, understands that it is going to have to run that economy well to be able to make it work. I think that there is going to be a tre- mendous effort by the leadership to hold things together. There are so many incentives in terms of the potential for South Africa that I think the possibility that people will actually get together and make things work is every bit as high as the possibility that we will have a conflagration. DR. DE BLIJ: I think that Professor Honey might be right except for the effect of sanctions. Those of us who supported the sanctions helped create in South Africa an ungovernable minority of hundreds of thou- sands of young, uneducated Africans who said “liber- ation before education.” These youths will now be Nelson Mandela’s major problem and are the major source of violence in the townships. Those people are not retrievable. Unemployment in South Africa is 48 percent, not because there are not people to employ but because they have no skills to employ them with. These people are going to have a revolution of rising expectations, and, believe me, a revolution South Africa will get. Another problem will be the integration of the armed forces. QUESTION: Regarding your point that US forces should not be in Somalia, is that a reflection of what’s happening now or would you never have sent them there in the first place? DR. DE BLIJ: I never would have sent them in the first place. I thought our job was to feed people. It could have been done from the air. It could have been done with the help of the agencies already there. I think our tactics in Somalia were wrong. Frankly, it is going exactly the way I though it would go. It is a quagmire, and it may, in fact, lead to a fragmented Somalia in the end, that is not what we had in mind. If feeding the population is the objective, it ought to be done from a distance. What is now happening——the policing action that you can see coming--builds resentment to the presence of a large foreign force and is not acceptable. 85 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.