ABSTRACT
Twenty-three of the 27 extant wars in the world-at-large are taking place in mountain regions, claimed Jacques Diouf, Director-General of FAO, in his keynote address during the UN launch of the International Year of Mountains in New York on 11 December 2001. This dramatic statement marked the end of a long period during which mention of warfare by mountain scholars and development agency personnel was conspicuous by its absence. The cry to ‘save the Himalaya’ that was made under the auspices of GTZ and UNESCO at Munich in 1974 was basically an environmental plea. During the period from about 1970 until the close of the millennium, despite a few conspicuous exceptions (Allan 1987; Hewitt 1997; Libiszewski and Bächler 1997; Ives et al. 1997), academic and applied mountain research and development personnel barely acknowledged conflict and underlying tensions. It appeared politically indiscreet to bring the unpleasantness of the horrors of warfare and oppression of minority peoples into the mountain agenda. In contrast, a large number of NGOs, and especially Amnesty International, have called attention to disasters brought about by conflict. The same is true of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and UNICEF.
