Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency conference report, dated October 1995, contains the proceedings of a conference on ethnic conflict held 30 September to 1 October 1993. The CIA's Geographic Resources Division sponsored it. Academic geographers, anthropologists and US Government officials presented papers on ethnic and territorial conflict in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and South Asia. They also discussed what these conflicts mean for US policy. The document contains no UFO material.
“Nevers”25 pages
C00123268 States over any substate group politico-territorial variety of additional factors need to be considered identity's claim to part of the State's territory; to do when examining potentials for ethnic or national con- otherwise would "dismember or impair, totally or in flict (Kliot, 1989; Gosar, ed., 1993), it is necessary to part, the existing State" (UN General Assembly Reso- appreciate the importance of the essential concepts lution 2625 (XV), cited in Knight, 1985, p. 259). and processes discussed here to more fully appreciate There is an out, for under international law, as cur- why certain conflicts are due to ethnic and national rently written, secession may occur if the majority of tensions, bounded as they are within certain territorial the people of the total State-or the government, structures and influenced by-or which cause-cer- which claims to speak in their name-agrees to the tain territorial processes. dismantlement of governmental authority in part of the State and to its secession. Pressures are mounting for territorial (and other) alter- ations to the existing international system of States. The concern for the territorial integrity of States has Some of the pressures are now severe, as evidenced by recently been severely challenged by three things. savagery in parts of the former USSR and Eastern First, by the development of human rights expecta- Europe, where many distinct group politico-territorial tions that are said to apply to all States. Second, by the identities have sought or are seeking to establish their disintegration of the former USSR and the claiming of own States separate from the politico-territorial units self-determination by numerous formerly sub-State in which they now find themselves. Is the day far off groups-some of whom find themselves to be still before similar pressures mount elsewhere-in Africa, sub-State groups but now within different or restruc- Asia, or even the Americas-for secession, with or tured States. Third, by US-led UN interventionist without violence? Not all claims for self-determina- actions in several States. Perhaps we will soon see a tion need involve secession, as suggested above, rewriting of international law. Any application of self- because accommodations are often reached within determination implies change, whether change within existing State structures. Nevertheless, secession as a a territory or change as a consequence of-the splitting recourse to discord remains-and, indeed, has become of a territory into at least two parts. In each case, peo- increasingly-an option. ple, with distinctive identities, seek change. Conclusion The linked concepts of identity, territory, self-determi- nation, and numerous territorial processes give power and meaning to the actions of many group politico-ter- ritorial identities who seek to better their lot. While a 20
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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.