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 Summary of Discussion A focus on the territorial setting for ethnic conflict can highlight some issues that Dr. Williams did not touch on but that are relevant for our thinking about what is Discussant: Alexander Murphy happening in Europe. First, differences in how States define citizenship is critically important. One need I would like to highlight a few things that I think are only think about the different ways in which the Ger- particularly significant and to raise a couple of related mans, French, or British have defined citizenship his- questions. At the heart of Professor Williams' presen- torically. Second, several different migrant groups tation is a dichotomy between two fundamentally dif- exist: older new migrants, newer new migrants, and ferent kinds of ethnic issues that Western Europe will newer newer new migrants. The most recent come face in the years ahead. One concerns the longstand- from Eastern Europe and look different from earlier ing, regionally specific minority groups, and the other migrants not only in terms of external characteristics concerns the migrants who have come in from North but also in terms of the kinds of skills they bring and Africa and the Middle East over the last 30 or 40 years their potential level of acceptance within West Euro- and more recently from Eastern Europe. It is impor- pean societies. tant to recognize that each of these poses a fundamen- tally different problem for Europe in the 1990s. Most One of the critical contemporary issues is the effect obviously, their geography differs. Longstanding that the new immigrants are having on the old immi- minority groups often operate from a distinct regional grants. The relatively highly skilled immigrants com- territorial base. The migrant groups, on the other hand, ing in from Poland and the former western republics are corcentrated overwhelmingly in cities and do not of the former Soviet Union are likely to be more easily have the same kind of territorial base. The geography integrated within the cultural traditions of the West. If of social disruption associated with each group also this occurs, Turks and other non-Western migrants differs. With longstanding minority and regional will be further marginalized. minority groups, the issues, tensions, and conflicts, in general, tend to be localized, whereas migrant group Finally, Dr. Williams raises two critical questions. The issues tend to be focused for political mobilization at first is that the changing political geography of Europe the national level and are often far reaching in their is affecting ethnicity and ethnic conflict. In my own impact on society. These differences are evident in the view, centralization as a component of European inte- public reactions to them. I agree with Dr. Williams gration has currently gone about as far as it can go. A that we are seeing a greater acceptance of the long- key current issue is the importance of regions and standing minority groups and that the focus of opposi- regionalization. An example of this is a map produced tion politics around the recent migrants is one of the by the Commission of the European Communities that fundamental issues for Europe in the years ahead. illustrates European integration from a geographical perspective. It identifies development zones within Having identified those twin issues, I will move on to Europe. These development zones do not conform to note what I see as the two key geographical perspec- those defined by the European Regional Development tives that Dr. Williams highlighted: Fund; they are not based on political-administrative regions within existing nation-states. Rather, the map . First, ethnic conflicts play out at different scales, and looks at Europe without nation-state boundaries, play- these scale differences have implications for our ing off of some of the transboundary developments understanding. Dr. Williams highlighted the impor- currently underway that are beginning to define a new tance of scale in his discussion of Northern Ireland. kind of European political space. e Second, of course, is the importance of territorial setting for ethnic conflict. Some of the comments about the changing significance of regions were par- ticularly interesting in this regard. 57
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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.