The Zamboanga Basilian Jolo Mission

It was only after the end of World War II that most of the South East Asian countries gained their independence from western colonial rulers. After centuries under foreign dominion, these countries have to go through difficult processes of transformation to protect their new found sovereignty and territorial integrity especially against the threat of communism during the Cold War. More significantly, the peoples of the new independent states found greater incentives and opportunities to identify themselves with ethnic groups along common decent, shared experiences and cultural factors. This social dynamics led to the emergence of tensions and conflicts not only between ethnic groups and the state, but also between ethnic groups and other groups of society. The causes of such conflicts are complex and varied, such as discrimination, repression, political disenfranchisement and the like.

Poverty and the maldistribution of land in core areas of developing countries, together with state schemes for the colonization of unruly frontiers, have forced indigenous peoples and settlers into an uneasy co-existence. Presenting material from various Asian and Latin American countries, Frontier Encounters examines factors that make for conflict and accommodation, studies the role of policy frames, and looks at promising mitigation strategies. The range of topics covered by the articles includes the texture of everyday-relations at the settlement frontier and the reconfiguration of ethnic hierarchies in tune with changing conquest cycles; settler land and resource use strategies; anti-settler riots and their politics; peace accords and what they can and cannot achieve as instruments for halting migration-induced violence; communal land titles as a promising avenue for conflict prevention and the empowerment of weak and defenseless groups; and the need for balancing indigenous rights advocacy with support and legal protection for disenfranchised parts of the settler population. Danilo Geiger has an M. A. in social anthropology from the University of Zurich, Switzerland and is a lecturer in political anthropology. His experience includes fieldwork in the Philippines and Indonesia and he is currently coordinating a four-year comparative research project on conflicts between indigenous communities and settlers in South and Southeast Asia.

This volume covers Engineer operations in support of the U.S. Army in the war against Japan. The story begins with the defense build-up in 1939 and ends with the Japanese surrender aboard the battleship Missouri on 2 September 1945. Geographically, Engineer operations extended from the Panama Canal to India and from Alaska to Australia, in actual or potential areas of conflict. The author has attempted not only to depict various types of Engineer operations but also to indicate how Engineer work helped implement Allied strategy. Included are discussions of the Engineer position in the command structure and a general account of both Engineer combat and service missions within a given theater. -- From the Preface.