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 baijanis and the Azeri language was not created in Azerbaijan. It also came from Moscow. So, to speak of a federal structure is difficult. In the decolonization Discussant: Ronald Wixman policy, the people of the former republics are saying, "our people, our language, and our culture are not I would like to discuss the region from a slightly dif- dominant." As in all other colonial areas, what hap- ferent perspective. I think it is a grave error to view pens to those people who are not members of this the former Soviet Union as a unitary state. It never majority? Should the leftover colonials learn the was. It might be useful, instead, to view the Soviet national language? Should the French in Algeria have Union as a colonial empire that is now, as other colo- learned Arabic? They did not have to become Muslim, nial empires have, going through the various stages of but should they have sworn allegiance to Algeria decolonization. The former Soviet Union is the Rus- rather than to France? Who comes to the United States sian empire, and the Russian empire is falling apart. and keeps their allegiance to their old country and cannot speak English? The situation is not unique, as evidenced by the situa- tion of the Germans in Eastern Europe after World The Russians are dealing with the issues of what they War I. After Germany lost its holdings and the Austro- can and cannot keep and of what belongs and does not Hungarian Empire fell apart, Germans were left in belong to the state. For example, Moscow claims the such places as Moravia, Slilesia, and the Banat. In Black Sea Fleet because the government built it. fact, in the Banat, there were more Germans than Ukrainians say the fleet does not belong to Moscow Romanians or Serbs. In many areas, they were in the because they believe they built it as much as the gov- majority. But just as the Russians did in the outlying emient did. When Russians say that the Crimea is republics, the Germans went from having majority Russian, Ukrainians say, "only because Moscow status to minority status. never let Ukrainians move there." The process of nativization of the republics has gone The West needs to see the former Soviet republics not through phases. The initial stage was not to produce a only in the context of people finding a new national- Ukrainian Ukraine or an Uzbek Uzbekistan or an ism but also in that of the people directing anger Estonian Estonia. Instead, the Russians co-opted the against the colonial state for having forbidden them elites in the same way that the British co-opted the their rights in their own territory. Rajas of India. The next generation is ambivalent, and after that a shift occurs in which many of these elites Similarly, the minorities in these republics have found produced by the state, and for the state, turn on it. The themselves in the same position that minorities have Soviet Union went through this process of decoloniza- found themselves in all other newly independent tion, when the native elite turned away from serving former colonial states. The West has been viewing Moscow and decided to serve their own peoples' East Europeans and the former Soviet peoples in a dif- interests. This is what happened throughout Eastern ferent light than it has viewed everyone else in the Europe after World War I, when the co-opted elite world, and I think we should recognize this and turned against Austria, Hungary, and the Ottomans. change the view. The former Soviet Union and Yugo- slavia have been suffering from a majority problem What does all this mean? We are seeing the newly cre- for many years, not so much a minority problem. ated republics in borders that did not exist before. The borders of the Soviet republics were constructed spe- cifically by the central government. Uzbekistan did not create its borders, Armenia did not create its, and you can be sure neither the Abkhaz nor the Georgians created Abkhazia. These were created in Moscow, by Moscow, and for Moscow. The policy toward Azer- 70
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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.