CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00975A020400020001-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 29, 2003
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 2, 1971
• Content Type: REPORT

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Secret
DIRECTORATE OIL
INTELLIGENCE
Central Intelligence Bulletin
Secret
State Dept. review completed
N9 042
2 November 1971
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No. 0262/71
2 November 1971
Central Intelligence Bulletin
CAMBODIA: Government forces attempting to regain
initiative along Route 6. (Page ].)
AFRICA - MIDDLE EAST: OAU mission opens talks with
Israelis. (Page 37-
FINLAND: Kekkonen appoints caretaker government.
(Page 4)
TUNISIA: New government represents minority faction
of of ruling party. (Page 6)
PHILIPPINES: Rice crop damage (Page 8)
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Konpong Thom
Govern,inerit forces--- it a /oi
encirc
Bridge ~A"~ }Fl
ed
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CAMBODIA: Government forces are attempting to
regain the initiative along Route 6.
Four battalions of reinforcements accompanied
by armored vehicles began moving up Route 6 from
Skoun on 31 October in an effort to relieve eight
Cambodian battalions that have been encircled be-
tween the villages of Prakham and Rumlong. At the
same time, KhmerKrom battalions from Kompong Thmar
have moved down the highway to within a mile of Rum-
long, which has been the object of some of the Com-
munists' sharpest attacks.
All of the besieged battalions reportedly are
running critically short of supplies. South Viet-
namese helicopters attempting to resupply Rumlong's
defenders were driven off by intense enemy ground
fire on 30 October. Some supplies apparently have
since been successfully airdropped, however. Phnom
Penh's efforts to send materiel and reinforcements
overland via Route 6 have been complicated by the
extensive damage the Communists caused last week to
a key bridge on the highway, some 12 miles south of
Skoun.
There is evidence, meanwhile, that the Commu-
nists have committed more of their crack troops to
support their operations against Route 6, suggest-
ing that the campaign represents the beginning of
their dry season offensive in Cambodia.
The current round of enemy attacks along Route
6 probably is motivated in part by the Communists'
desire to re-establish their control over the high-
way to facilitate the movement. of supplies to their
forces west of the road now that better weather is
approaching. They probably also want to undermine
Phnom Penh's morale by inflicting some sharp set-
backs on what has been the Cambodians' best-organ-
ized military operation of the war. It is also pos-
sible that the Communists are seeking to forestall
Central Intelligence Bulletin
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whatever plans the government might be developing
for operations in the direction of important enemy
bases and supply points east of Route 6 or into
Kompong Cham or Kratie provinces.
Central Intelligence Bulletin
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AFRICA - MIDDLE EAST: Four African heads of
state, charged by the Organization of African Unity
to find a way to break the Middle East deadlock,
begin talks today with Israeli officials in Jeru-
salem and will go on to Cairo later this week.
Senegal's President Senghor, chairman of the
delegation that includes Nigeria's Gowon, Cameroon's
Ahidjo, and Mobutu of the Zaire Republic (formerly
Congo-Kinshasa), has said that the mission will be
exploratory. The delegation is scheduled to con-
vene later in Dakar with other African leaders who
together make up the OAU Committee of Ten "Wise Men"
on the Middle East. The African initiative is the
result of an OAU resolution :Last June that repre-
sents the strongest pro-Arab pronouncement so far
adopted by the organization. The Africans, however,
claim that they do not feel bound by the tone of the
resolution, and neither the "wise men" nor the four-
man delegation appears weighted in favor of either
side.
The Israelis feel obligated to cooperate with
the mission but, according to one Israeli official,
his government hopes the commission will do no more
than issue an imprecise formula for a settlement
which skirts important questions such as total Is-
raeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territories and
direct negotiations.
The Egyptians appear hopeful that they can put
the delegation to some use. At the UN last month
Foreign Minister Riyad announced that Egypt would
not push for a special General Assembly debate on
the Middle East until the four African leaders con-
cluded their mission.
The committee is unlikely to make any signifi-
cant contribution to the settlement of the Middle
East problem. The initiative in general appears to
be vaguely formulated and could easily founder on
the bickerin and division that sometimes
activities.
2 Nov 71 Central Intelligence Bulletin 3
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FINLAND: President Kekkonen has had to appoint
a government of civil service experts until elections
can be held on 2-3 January because of intense polit-
ical maneuvering by the country's major parties.
The Social Democrats were the most obdurate con-
testants in the fight that brought down the seven-
month-old coalition government of Prime Minister
Karjalainen. Engaged in a battle with the Commu-
nists for control of Finland's largest trade union,
they were unwilling to agree to a higher level of
agricultural price supports and then would not allow
their ministers to remain in a "caretaker" govern-
ment.
The Center Party, the other major member of the
four-party coalition, pressed for higher price sup-
ports in order to recover support among its constit-
uents, who feel they have suffered disproportion-
ately under the country's ten-month-old economic
stabilization program. The party hopes its stand
will enable it to recover votes lost in the March
1970 elections, when the electorate moved right.
The stabilization program, which must be rene-
gotiated early next year, therefore will be the key
campaign issue. However, Finnish politicians pre-
dict that a Finnish arrangement with the European
Communities, a sensitive issue in Helsinki's all-
important relations with Moscow, also will be sig-
nificant.
Despite the present split between the Center
and Social Democrats, both parties probably will
form the core of the next government, because the
other two sizable parties are unacceptable to the
USSR as government members.
Both the Center and Social Democrats--as well
as Kekkonen--probably prefer that the Communists
participate in the next government. They withdrew
from the last one in March when the party's liberal
leadership, under attack from a strong conservative
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minority, felt unable to accept co-responsibility
for the government?s economic decisions. Although
the Communists often obstruct orderly government,
many Finns probably believe they would be less dan-
gerous within the next government that will have
important economic decisions to make. Although
still badly split, the Communists are participating
in the caretaker government.
2 Nov 71
Central Intelligence Bulletin
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TUNISIA: The government installed last Friday
represents a minority faction of the ruling Destour-
ian Socialist Party (PSD).
The political crisis was forced early last
week by the resignation of several stalwarts of
former interior minister Ahmed Mestiri's liberal
faction of the PSD--a group that is pressing Presi-
dent Bourguiba to proceed with democratic reforms
endorsed by the recent party congress. The liberals
had won a majority in the party's central committee.
Faced with the refusal of most liberals to partici-
pate in the new government, Prime Minister Nouira
put together a government that fails to represent
the new temper of the congress. It is fairly repre-
sentative geographically, however.
The traditionalist faction is strengthened by
the inclusion in the government of Mestiri's bitter-
est enemy, Mohamed Sayah, who apparently master-
minded the recent denigration campaign against
Mestiri. Sayah's cabinet post, however, is a rela-
tively minor one.
Only two partisans of the liberal wing have
accepted governmental posts. Taieb Slim returns
as minister of state, a position second in prestige
to prime minister, while a Mestiri lieutenant,
Ahmed Chtourou, takes over the important portfolio
of youth and sports.
Despite the dominance of the traditionalists,
a Tunisian official close to the prime minister
told the US Embassy that Mestiri had won an impor-
tant victory at the party congress and that his at-
tempts to force changes in the party and government
may indeed accelerate the pace of liberalization.
This official believes that everyone, especially
Nouira, is aware of the genuine ground swell for
reform. Probably as a result, Nouira chaired a
meeting of the party's political bureau on Sunday
2 Nov 71 Central Intelligence Bulletin 6
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to study practical. measures for implementing con-
gress resolutions. Apparently nothing was decided
at the meeting about the status of Mestiri, whom
Bourguiba suspended from party activities nearly
two weeks ago pending consideration of his case by
a disciplinary committee.
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PHILIPPINES: The government's goal of rice
self-sufficiency is even further out of reach be-
cause of disease damage to new high-yielding rice
varieties. Almost two percent of the area devoted
to high-yielding rice has been hit by a virus, and
total rice production for the 1972 crop year is now
expected to run at least three percent below the
poor 1971 level. The Philippine Government had es-
timated earlier that production would increase five
percent. The country was almost self-sufficient in
rice during 1968-70, but shortfalls in the 1971 crop
have forced Manila to import some 200,000 tons so
far this year and arrangements for an additional
260,000 tons have already been made. If the virus
continues to spread, next year's import requirements
will almost certainly be substantially higher.
Central Intelligence Bulletin
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