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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Individuals often retain their allegiance to an ancestral What can be done? We have to reconsider sovereignty
group, but Americans probably misread what that alle- and the relationships of what goes on in states. When I
giance is. My reading of Nigerians and of other West am optimistic, I look at the European Community as
Africans is that it is not an ethnic allegiance-rather it the model to address some problems that Africans
is a more diverse allegiance to the ancestral place. The face. In Europe there is a multitiered, flexible sover-
Yoruba of southwest Nigeria are clearly the major eignty that allows the movement of people and trade
group, yet little Yoruba consciousness exists except within the larger area but maintains local autonomy
for such cases as the recently aborted election, in for cultural issues.
which a Yoruba was elected president but not allowed
to take office. The Yoruba fight among themselves as The colonial boundaries are a continuing problem.
much as they fight with other groups, and the same The peoples of Africa never chose what their bound-
thing holds true for the Ibo. They are only pulled aries should be-they were imposed by outsiders. The
together when they go up against the other groups. borgandaries that essentially says he boundaries are
In Nigeria. one major factor in modern political life fixed and should not be reconsidered; what would
has been the hegemony of the north. Every Nigerian happen if that policy got turned upside down? How
president has been a general or a Muslim ahajiA In can we formulate some kind of political process so
most cases, they have been both. that Africans can choose it without killing each other?
That presents a problem in terms of self-
In Nigeria, there has been a politicization of ethnic determination; and without self-determination, how
identity and of ethnicity, even to the point of creating a do ethnic groups have rights? If ethnic groups do not
new ethnic group. According to a Nigerian colleague have rights, then conflict will occur in those groups,
of mine, the major ethnic group of the country, the and it is in out interest to take a look at that and see
Hausa-Fulani of the north, is something very new. what kinds ofthings can be done and how we can be
Within Nigeria there has recently been a reemergence involved. I do think that important questions remain in
of the national question: is Nigeria a given? Professor terms of what the United States can do alone, which is
de Blij was right; Nigeria's continued existence is in not nserting our forces over theremal simpl exc
jepad.tainetnoufocsoethrmasimply
exac-
erbate the problem.
The power of the state, of the current state, is
extremely important. The state is the source of money;
international money gets funneled into countries pri- General Discussion
marily through the.state apparatus, as do the revenues UESTION What of a role do you see the
from the country's major source of income-the QUETO:Wa type o oed o e h
petroleum sector. The preeminence of the state in the United Nations playing in Rwanda and Liberia?
formal economy has been important, and, in looking
at how the economy works, we need to recognize that. DR DE BL: The UN's policy has been either to
The power of the state to coerce has also increased. have a massive presence with a clear direction toward
a particular goal or to have no presence at all. It is one
What are the prospects? Clearly, economic depression of the tragedies of the New World Order that this con-
leads to violence; that occurs in a lot of places. Part of flict has to be allowed to run itself out as West Europe-
Africa's problem is that, in immediate terms, much of ans are allowing it to do in Bosnia. Political scientists
Africa is not crucial to the West. South Africa is more say that, when a situation like this occurs, an average
crucial, given that country's wealth. That is not to say
that we should not pay attention but that we do not pay
attention.
I One who has made the haj to Mecca.
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