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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general sense, these two areas equate with the geo- views ethnic issues as an extension of the class strug-
graphic concepts of core and p eriphery.2 gle. For this reason guerrilla groups normally do not
include ethnic concerns in their programs, which lim-
Highland Indians its their appeal to Indians. One recent example is
The highlands have been core areas since well before Peru's Sendero Luminoso, which has Indian members
the Spanish conquest. Highland Indians are the mod- and which recruits in Indian communities but has no
ern descendants of the population of Indian states with explicitly ethnic elements in its revolutionary agenda
relatively well-developed political organizations, such and has been guilty of mistreating Indians who are not
as the Aztec, Inca, and Maya who were the focus of cooperative. It may be that Sendero Luminoso has
Spanish colonization beginning in the 16th century. driven as many or more Indians to support the Peru-
Spanish colonial interests focused their efforts in areas vian Army as it recruited.
that possessed large numbers of Indians who were
easily mobilized for employment in the mines and Where Indians make up a large share of the population
agricultural estates that supported the colonial econ- they may work toward the establishment of regional
omy. As a result of as much as 450 years of contact or national political control. In Bolivia and Peru-
with and exposure to Hispanic culture, these Indians where they account for more than 50 percent and as
are heavily acculturated and have developed more or much as 25 percent of the population, respectively 3-
less stable relationships with the state and its represen- Indians represent a potentially crucial element in
tatives; nevertheless, they still retain strong Indian national politics if they can be induced to vote as a
identity. In the highlands, clashes often center around bloc. Moreover, they have the potential to create con-
a growing sense of "Indian consciousness," which is flict if they are denied the right to vote or if their votes
expressed in demands by Indian communities for the are negated by fraud and corruption. In Bolivia's
state to grant greater collective rights to political and recent presidential election one non-Indian candidate
economic self-determination, ran a "pro-Indian" campaign, and the winning vice-
presidential candidate was an Indian.
Core area Indians-often peasant farmers who work
marginal lands-are very sensitive to change in the If political gains are not translated into achievement of
status of their land or in any subsidies or other benefits Indian agendas such as access to land, employment,
they may receive from the state. When these issues and some level of self-determination, more violent
affect mestizo peasant farmers and laborers, as they forms of conflict are possible.' Exploitation and
often do, Indians may unite across ethnic lines with repression of highland Indians has triggered conflict in
them to defend their common interests. Core area
Indians may unite with lowland Indians to promote 3These estimates of Indian population fall at the high end of a wide
ethnically related agendas such as the establishment of range. Because the identification of Indians is somewhat subjec-
autonomous areas, bilingual education, or defense of tive, national policies such as those which favor integration of Indi-
ans into the national culture may influence estimates of Indian
Indian cultural heritage, as they have in Ecuador. population. Another factor is that increasing numbers of Indians
adopt mestizo culture and cease to self-identify with their cultural
Guerrilla movements have taken advantage of indige- origins. Furthermore, many Latin American countries do not col-
lect information on ethnic affiliation in their national censuses.
nous hostility to national governments by recruiting Thus, estimates of the percentage of Indian population in Latin
Indians to their cause. However, leftist guerrilla orga- American countries varies greatly, depending on the source of the
nizations are often steeped in Marxist theory, which " o Guatemala is especialy instructive as an example of
how Indian demands for greater participation in the economic and
: The core-periphery concept has two distinct senses. Their early political life of a country may be met with a violent reaction from
use was in reference to central, developed areas of a country in the state. For details of this process, see the articles contained in
contrast to those places that lie outside of them and do not share the Robert M. Carmack, ed., Harvest of Violence: The Maya Indians
same levels of infrastructuredevelopment or other inputs from the and the Guatemalan Crisis, University of Oklahoma Press, 1988.
national government. Recently, the terms core and periphery have
been applied to international distinctions in economic develop-
ment, as between the "developed world" and the "underdeveloped
world." In this paper the terms carry their earlier meaning.
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