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

C00123268
battle between the MPLA and UNITA began. Eventu- Other plural African societies, from Sierra Leone to
ally this conflict became internationalized with Cuban South Africa, contend with potential ethnic conflict as
troops in support of the MPLA and South African and a matter of course.
other external assistance to UNITA. The role of Zaire
in the issue was significant. After the FNLA went into Nigeria
oblivion, Zaire moved its support to UNITA; this was Nowhere are the risks as great, the stakes as high, or
a natural move, given Mobutu's dependence on the the divisions as deep as they are in Nigeria, Africa's
United States. Zaire's taking sides in Angola's civil most populous country. Nigeria's arid north lies
war had the effect of creating behind-the-back secu- deeply embedded in Islamic Africa, and its palm-
rity for Savimbi's UNITA. fringed southern coastlines are part of Africa's Chris-
tian and animist world. British colonialism threw a
After the withdrawal of Cuban troops, the collapse of lasso around some 200 ethnolinguistic groups scat-
the MPLA's sponsor-the Soviet Union-and the tered across a wide range of environmental and cul-
withdrawal of South African support for UNITA, tural zones. The survival of Nigeria (despite a bitter
mediation by Herman Cohen and his staff produced an war of secession) is an African achievement of nota-
agreement for a multiparty election in 1992. In that ble proportions. Now Nigeria's unity is threatened.
election, the Dos Santos-led MPLA was victorious,
winning 128 seats in the legislature to 71 for UNITA. Nigeria's population may number 100 million or
Neither Dos Santos nor Savimbi received 50 percent more; the issue of census accuracy has roiled its poli-
of the vote, however, creating the need for a presiden- tics for years. Among more than 200 ethnic groups,
tial runoff election. Savimbi charged that the election three are dominant: the Hausa-Fulani of the North, the
had been fraudulent, and, on 30 October 1992, fight- Yoruba of the Southwest, and the Ibo (Igbo) of the
ing broke out in Luanda and the civil war resumed. Southeast. These major nations (for such they are)
have considerable disdain for each other. Muslim
Neither side appeared capable of vanquishing the Hausa say that Yoruba are godless and uncultured. Ibo
other completely, at least not without external, mas- describe the Hausa as backward and uneducated. To
sive help. The question arose whether it should be US Northerners, the Ibo are money-mad merchants who
policy to promote a partition of this large country; the will do anything for a price. Nigeria was born an
latitudinal morphology of the territory might make uneasy federation with three states centered on these
such a solution the sole alternative to endless ethnic dominant nations; today it is a country of 30 states try-
strife. In 1994, renewed international efforts to medi- ing to emulate not Westminster's system but Washing-
ate the Angolan conflict again appeared to have suc- ton's.
cess, and a government was installed in Luanda. But
the fundamental divisions of Angola remain. The religious composition of the Nigerian population
is estimated as follows: Muslims, 50 million; Chris-
tians, 37 million; others (chiefly animists) 12 million.
Potential Ethnic Conflicts (The much disputed 1991 census of Nigeria did not
require Nigerians to answer questions about religion.)
Latent ethnic conflict exists in many African coun- A substantial number of Yoruba, perhaps 2 million,
tries. In Southern Africa, Mozambique has just are Muslims, but Islam in Nigeria long has had a mod-
emerged from years of ethnic strife, but the situation erate tone. Some geographers have described the
remains fragile, and many thousands of refugees have Yoruba as "middlemen" between Christian Easterners
not yet returned home. In Zaire, the inevitable politi- and the more dogmatic Muslim Northerners, defusing
cal transition may yield an explosion of long-sup- tensions that might have led to religious conflict.
pressed ethnic conflict. In long-stable Kenya, the risk
of ethnic strife has risen in recent years, apparently
stoked by official actions. In Chad, major conflict has
recurred for decades and is likely to take place again.
79