(Estimated Pub Date) the Challenge of Ethnic Conflict to National and International Order in the 1990S: Geographic Perspectives- October 1995

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general sense, these two areas equate with the geo-
graphic concepts of core and periphery.’
Highland Indians 1
The highlands have been core areas since well before
the Spanish conquest. Highland Indians are the mod-
ern descendants of the population of Indian states with
relatively well-developed political organizations, such
as the Aztec, Inca, and Maya who were the focus of
Spanish colonization beginning in the 16th century.
Spanish colonial interests focused their efforts in areas
that possessed large numbers of Indians who were
easily mobilized for employment in the mines and
agricultural estates that supported the colonial econ-
omy. As a result of as much as 450 years of contact
with and exposure to Hispanic culture, these Indians
are heavily acculturated and have developed more or
less stable relationships with the state and its represen-
tatives; nevertheless, they still retain strong Indian
identity. In the highlands, clashes often center around
a growing sense of “Indian consciousness,” which is
expressed in demands by Indian communities for the
state to grant greater collective rights to political and
economic self-deterrnination.
Core area Indians—often peasant farmers who work
marginal lands—are very sensitive to change in the
status of their land or in any subsidies or other benefits
they may receive from the state. When these issues
affect mestizo peasant farmers and laborers, as they
often do, Indians may unite across ethnic lines with
them to defend their common interests. Core area
Indians may unite with lowland Indians to promote
ethnically related agendas such as the establishment of
autonomous areas, bilingual education, or defense of
Indian cultural heritage, as they have in Ecuador.
Guerrilla movements have taken advantage of indige-
nous hostility to national governments by recruiting
Indians to their cause. However, leftist guerrilla orga-
nizations are often steeped in Marxist theory, which
1 The core-periphery concept has two distinct senses. Their early
use was in reference to central, developed areas of a country in
contrast to those places that lie outside of them and do not share the
same levels of infrastructure development or other inputs from the
national government. Recently, the terms core and periphery have
been applied to intemational distinctions in economic develop-
ment, as between the “developed world" and the “underdeveloped
world.” In this paper the tenns carry their earlier meaning.
views ethnic issues as an extension of the class strug-
gle. For this reason guerrilla groups normally do not
include ethnic concerns in their programs, which lim-
its their appeal to Indians. One recent example is
Peru’s Sendero Luminoso, which has Indian members
and which recruits in Indian communities but has no
explicitly ethnic elements in its revolutionary agenda
and has been guilty of mistreating Indians who are not
cooperative. It may be that Sendero Luminoso has
driven as many or more Indians to support the Peru-
vian Army as it recruited.
Where Indians make up a large share of the population
they may work toward the establishment of regional
or national political control. In Bolivia and Peru-—
where they account for more than 50 percent and as
much as 25 percent of the population, respectively3—-
Indians represent a potentially crucial element in
national politics if they can be induced to vote as a
bloc. Moreover, they have the potential to create con-
flict if they are denied the right to vote or if their votes
are negated by fraud and corruption. In Bolivia’s
recent presidential election one non-Indian candidate
ran a “pro—Indian” campaign, and the winning vice-
presidential candidate was an Indian.
If political gains are not translated into achievement of
Indian agendas such as access to land, employment,
and some level of self-detemiination, more violent
forms of conflict are possible.‘ Exploitation and
repression of highland Indians has triggered conflict in
3 These estimates of Indian population fall at the high end of a wide
range. Because the identification of Indians is somewhat subjec-
tive, national policies such as those which favor integration of Indi-
ans into the national culture may influence estimates of Indian
population. Another factor is that increasing numbers of Indians
adopt mestizo culture and cease to self-identify with their cultural
origins. Furthermore. many Latin American countries do not col-
lect information on ethnic afflliation in their national censuses.
Thus, estimates of the percentage of Indian population in Latin
American countries varies greatly, depending on the source of the
information.
‘ The case of Guatemala is especially instructive as an example of
how Indian demands for greater participation in the economic and
political life of a country may be met with a violent reaction from
the state. For details of this process, see the articles contained in
Robert M. Carmack, ed., Harvest of Violence: The Maya Indians
and the Guatemalan Crisis, University of Oklahoma Press, 1988.
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