1995-10-01a- CIA Conference Report: THE CHALLENGE OF ETHNIC CONFLICT TO NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER IN THE 1990S GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES 01-Oct-95

C00123268
anything, it antagonizes the government. Most of impression that this is due largely to this ethnic inter-
these governments have laws that any subsurface min- action or to the economic downturn, or is it a combi-
erals belong to the state, nation of both?
DR. WIXMAN: In the former Soviet Union, there is a DR. ELBOW:. I suspect it's a combination of both.
very interesting movement that I think parallels some- Trinidad had, 10 years ago, the highest per capita
thing happening in the United States in the environ- income in Latin America. In addition, local political
mental movement. The preservation of indigenous parties have been built essentially upon an ethnic base.
people, such as the native American and, in the case of Ethnicity is used, or perhaps exploited, as a political
the former Soviet Union, the native Siberian, are por- tool. That is also true in Guyana.
trayed as synonymous with the preservation of the
natural environments. Indigenous people who no one QUESTION: What are the sources of support for
had ever heard of or cared about have become a politi- reform in Central and South America?
cal symbol. Do you see a movement of this type tak-
ing place in Latin America among any of the young DR. ELBOW: That is a difficult question. To the
people in which the survival of a particular indigenous extent that reform is taking place, it comes from a
group symbolizes either the survival of the country as combination of groups and institutions. In the Guate-
a whole or of its environment? Are there young Cen- malan case, it has been a cooperative movement with
tral Americans, let us say among students in universi- inputs from the Catholic Church, the Peace Corps, and
ties, that are beginning to hold up the Indian as the NGOs. Benefits from these efforts include: leadership
symbol of the preservation? training, education, the breaking down of linguistic
barriers so that the Indians can communicate with
MR. CHAPIN: Yes, especially in Mexico but also in each other in Spanish, and the development of Indian
other places to some extent. self-awareness and a sense of Pan-Indian identity.
Ironically, often, it is when it looks like the Indians are
DR. ELBOW: It is occurring in Ecuador. One of the going to begin to have some political power and to
things that I think is an interesting, unexplored topic, make some impact, that the tendency for a backlash
is what causes a green movement to develop in certain begins. In some cases the army has stepped in and
countries and not in others. Why Costa Rica? Why countered the development. If you look at Ecuador,
now an emerging green movement in Ecuador, for you can see this sort of scenario developing. In 1991
example? the Indians had a big sit-in in the National Cathedral.
In 1992 they had demonstrations against the 500th
QUESTION: Professor Elbow, you had mentioned, in anniversary of Columbus's landing. Ecuador is not
general, that there was not much in the way of evi- Guatemala, however. It does not have the same history
dence for the ethnic conflict in South American. You of-violence that Guatemala has, but I could still imag-
.touched on two countries, Suriname and Trinidad and ine the government getting to the point where it feels
Tobago, where there are mixtures of ethnic groups and so squeezed that the military steps in and says it has
a lot of conflicts. The Trinidadian press is quite con- had enough.
cerned with the general upswing in violence. Is it your
98