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

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Africa, for instance. While they might not necessarily isolated. So that even when the cause of a conflict is
have a great deal of meaning to the local peoples, they not rooted in ethnicity, it can result in ethnic "modifi-
have a tremendous impact in terms of how the interna- cation" of-a region by selectivity of the forced
tional community officially views various popula- migrants.
tions.
Geography of Refugee Populations
Ethnicity and Identity
What can probably be agreed upon in trying to under-
Another concept related to forced migrations, which stand ethnic conflict is the importance of scale and of
Dr. Knight referred to yesterday, is the primacy of having the appropriate approach to investigate events
identity and the inability of people to adjust quickly at the substate or intrastate level. I want to briefly
their primary identity. It is important to understand in present a few maps here to show how different scales
this context the role of a catalyst or a trigger that might operate in terms of attempting to understand the
might cause a nation either to latch more strongly onto ethnic components of forced migration.
a specific identity or to change its primary identity.
Africa is the most turbulent continent in terms of num-
Ethnicity in most of the world, in fact, is quite dor- bers of refugees (see figure 16). Most African refugees
mant most of the time; it is only once ethnic forces are tend to be the economically deprived and, as a result,
activated that they become politicized and can lead to they do not move far across neighboring borders. The
conflict. We can try to understand ethnicity and the African continent is also where the largest number of
relationships between ethnic groups and regions, but internally displaced peoples exists; when they cannot
that alone has little predictive value. That is why when cross the border, they tend to congregate along the
addressing policy options-trying to be proactive as fringes of states, often beyond the limits of central
opposed to reactive-it is not enough to know a authorities. In Africa, there are three or four times as
region and the nature of its ethnic groups. What might many displaced persons as refugees.
be a passive ethnicity can very quickly become acti-
vated if something is denied a particular group or if a In the former Soviet Union, there is a combination of
group perceives a threat to its territorial homeland, short- and long-distance migration (see figure 17).
language, culture, or religion. The interrelationship Most of this movement is based on national conflict in
between ethnicity and territory is quite complex. the non-Slavic south. The economically able groups
can move farther, often before the outbreak of vio-
I want to mention, briefly, the factor of warfare. War- lence.
fare is quite obviously the major cause of forced
migrations in terms of-generating ethnic populations Bringing it down to a larger scale, within the states of
on the move, and national territoriality is frequently Tajikistan and Georgia, for example, one gets below
the underlying cause of much of this fighting. What is the ethnic and into the various historical and factional
important to understand about situations where territo- clan conflicts that are at the basis of-groups attempting
riality acts as a catalyst to politicize ethnicity is that, to reestablish historical regions by pushing people off
even in warfare situations that are not based on ethnic territory and back from whence they came (see figure
conflict, groups are often dislocated because of their 18).
ethnicity. Warfare leads to ethnic-selective disloca-
tions when a particular region that has been overrun
has a concentration of one ethnic group or contains
groups that are economically vulnerable or culturally
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