MIDDLE EAST AFRICA SOUTH ASIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00865A000700170002-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 1, 2001
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: April 7, 1975
• Content Type: NOTES

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Confidential
No Foreign Dissem
Middle East
Africa
South Asia
Confidential
123
No. 0651/75
April 7, 1975
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 Approved For Release 2001/07/30 : CIA-RDP79T00865A000700170002-6
No Foreign Dissem
Warning Notice
Sensitive Intelligence Sources and Methods Involved
NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION
Unauthorized Disclosure Subject to Criminal Sanctions
Classified by 005827
Exempt from general declassification schedule
of E. 0. 11652, exemption category:
? 5B (1), (2), and (3)
Automatically declassified
on: Date Impossible to Determine
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MIDDLE EAST - AFRICA -- SOUTH ASIA
This publication is prepared for regional specialists in the Washington com-
munity by the Middle East - Africa Division, Office of Current Intelligence,
with occasional contributions from other offices within the Directorate of
Intelligence. Comments and queries are welcome. They should be directed to
the authors of the individual articles.
Egypt: Arafat Pays a Visit . . . . . . . . . . 1
Seychelles-UK: Results of Constitutional
Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Pakistan: Identification of Alleged "Assassins"
in North-West Frontier Province . . . . . . 5
Apr 7, 1975
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Egypt
Arafat Pays a Visit
Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman
Yasir Arafat is in Cairo, after an absence of several
months, attempting to repair recently strained re-
lations with Egypt. In meetings with President Sadat,
Arafat almost certainly is arguing against Egyptian
participation in another round of step-by-step
negotiations and seeking assurances that Egypt will
insist on a role for the PLO if the Geneva talks
resume.
The Palestinians were pleased at the breakdown
of indirect negotiations between Egypt and Israel,
and probably believe that the Egyptians are now more
likely to accommodate the needs of the other Arabs,
including Palestinians. Arafat, who conferred briefly
with Sadat at the funeral of King Faysal late last
month, may have received some indication that Cairo
would now be more receptive to Palestinian desires.
Sadat, who within a few months must face an
Arab summit and the prospect of a Geneva conference,
wants to reduce the level of Palestinian opposition
to his negotiating tactics, but this will not prompt
him to make major concessions to the PLO. Sadat
will probably seek Arafat's agreement that the other
Arabs should be allowed to negotiate the terms and
timing of the Palestinians' attendance at Geneva.
Sadat is also likely to refuse to defend actively the
Palestinians' preferred strategy of an independent PLO
delegation. The Egyptians will probably repeat--at
least for bargaining purposes--their earlier suggestion
that the Palestinians could be represented by the 20-
member Arab League.
Arafat and other PLO leaders most likely would
not agree to be represented by the Arab League, or
to the incorporation of Palestinian representatives
into the delegation of a single Arab state. The
(Continued)
Apr 7, 1975
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relatively moderate leaders of the PLO would, however,
probably be willing to endure the wrath of their radical
colleagues by accepting a formula that designated the
PLO as one of several members of a single, joint Arab
delegation.
The two parties are unlikely to settle the
representation issue--or much else--during Arafat's
visit. The visit, however, probably will reduce some
of the friction in Egyptian-Palestinian relations,
thez'eby relieving Arafat of the need to rely so
heavily on Syria for political support.
Arafat's aim, during the current period of
diplomatic uncertainty, is to get on good terms with
all of his traditional backers. He has visited six
Arab states in the past week, and reportedly plans
an early trip to the USSR. (CONFIDENTIAL)
Apr 7, 1975
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CONFIDE"ITIAL
Seychelles-UK
Results of Constitutional Conference
The two-week conference of UK representatives
and leaders of the Seychelles islands' two major
political parties ended in London on March 27 with-
out a final agreement on a constitution for the
Indian Ocean island chain, expected to become
independent sometime before late June 1976. The
participants did agree, however, on the elements
of an interim constitution; it will go into effect
probably within a few months. Another conference
will be held next January to resume drafting of an
independence constitution for the 60,000.Seychellios.
Under the interim constitution, James Mancham,
the islands' chief minister and head of the Seychel-
les Democratic Party (SDP), and Albert Renee,
leader of the opposition Seychelles Peoples United
Party (SPUP), agreed to form a coalition cabinet
of eight SDP and four-SPUP ministers. They-also
agreed that each party will name five new members
to the current legislature; this will make a party
balance of 18 SDP and 7 SPUP deputies. These seem
to have been concessions by Mancham, perhaps.
designed to avert a walkout from the London con-
ference by the leftist SPUP. Renee had been demand-
ing new legislative elections prior to inde-
pendence. He is upset by the fact that his party
received 48 percent of the vote in elections last
year, but was awarded only 2 of 15 legislative
seats.
Renee is determined to prevent a repeat of the
1974 election. As a result, the London talks were
dominated by a battle between the two Seychelles
parties over the post-independence electoral system
and the size and composition of the legislature.
Apr 7, 1975
(Continued)
3
CONFIDENTIAL
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O
The thorny issue of the disposition of some
disputed islands in the British Indian Ocean Terri-
tory (BLOT) was mentioned by the Seychelles'
leaders, but never fully discussed. In his opening
speech, Renee made the point that Seychellois want
independence for all of the country, including the
three island groups--Farquarhar, Aldabra, and Isles
Ides Roches--detached in 1965 and joined with Diego
Garcia and other islands to become the BIOT. The
;three island groups, Renee demanded, must be handed
back to the Seychelles government in Victoria, the
capital. Mancham, who has gradually been forced
by Renee's hardline to be more assertive, still sounded
a less strident tone, noting the need "to consider
Ithe future of those Seychelles islands now 25X6
f incorporated in BIOT."
Apr 7, 1975
CONFIDENTIAL
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Pakistan
Identification of AZZeged "Assassins"
in North-West Frontier Province
After a two month investigation, the government
claims it has identified the persons who carried out
the murder on February 8 of Hayat Mohammad Sherpao,
Prime Minister Bhutto's main lieutenant in the politi-
cally sensitive North-West Frontier Province on the
Afghan border. According to the authorities, a five-
man group plotted Sherpao's murder. The alleged
leader was Nisar Mohammad Khan, a prominent landowner
who, prior to his ouster from Bhutto's Pakistan
People's Party in 1973, had been Sherpao's main rival
in the party's frontier provincial branch. The alleged
co-conspirators include three members of an anti-govern-
ment student group and Asfandyar Wali, a son of Wali
Khan, the chief of the opposition National Awami Party.
The government says two of the students escaped to
Afghanistan; the rest of the alleged conspirators are
\.in custody.
US officials in Pakistan, as well as many Pakistanis,
are skeptical about the validity of the charges against
the five. Some people are claiming,, moreover, that the
government brought Wali Khan's son into the case only
to lend credence to its contention that the National
49-
Awami Party was involved in Sherpao's death. The
government all along has been blaming Sherpao's murder
on the Awami party, despite an apparent absence of hard
evidence. Shortly after the murder, the party, which
is the largest political group in Pakistan's frontier
provinces, was banned and hundreds of its leaders and
adherents were arrested.
The government may hope to obtain guilty verdicts
by submitting the case to a special tribunal responsible
for sabotage matters. In this tribunal,rules of evidence
are more relaxed than in the regular courts. The
apparent absence of any major threat to the government's
authority in the North-West Frontier Province since the
(Continued)
Apr 7, 1975
CONFIDENTIAL
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CONF I DEBIT I AL
crackdown in February against the National Awami
Party may have led Islamabad to conclude that it can
now take the further unpopular step of convicting the
alleged conspirators on flimsy evidence, without
jeopardizing its ability to maintain control in the
province. The latest Pakistani actions are likely
to stimulate further verbal carping
from Afghanistan, long a supporter of Islamabad's
opponents in the frontier area. (CONFIDENTIAL)
Apr 7, 1975
CONFIDENTIAL
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Confidential
Confidential
Approved For Release 2001/07/30 : CIA-RDP79T00865A000700170002-6