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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There is some relationship to the well-being of a state that the world wants to emulate and, yet, this indeed is
that has chances of overcoming ethnic disrepair and happening all the time. It is the redundancy of this
the economic downturn that might presage it. This pathology that I find so depressing.
relates a little bit also to what Dr. Fuller said earlier. It
might also mean that we ought to think twice before QUESTION: If this policy of nonrecognition is a key
we use sanctions and economic destruction to achieve aggravating factor, can you identify the flip side of
our aims in a foreign country. I still feel that, had sanc- that? Can you put a name on a key ameliorating factor
tions not been imposed on South Africa, the democra- that is helping to contain that?
tization process might have taken longer but would
have cost far fewer lives and have had a more satisfac- DR. MIKESELL: That would involve cases where
tory outcome. there seems to be accommodation, such as the extraor-
dinary examples of Finland, where a minority group
DR. MIKESELL: I would say of all national policies, was made a partner from the beginning. In this case,
the one that is most likely to result in violence is non- the Finns anticipated the needs of the Swedish minor-
recognition; to say simply, "Ypu don't exist. Your lan- ity, rather than waiting until the Swedes were shouting
guage is merely a dialect. Your religion is a and demonstrating. Unfortunately, there are very few
heterodoxy." It drives people crazy to be told that they examples of this enlightened policy.
do not exist. It hardly seems conceivable that Musso-
lini's policy toward South Tyrol would be the model
r
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