CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00975A023200040001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 15, 2003
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 15, 1972
• Content Type: REPORT

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DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Central Intelligence Bulletin
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Secret
N2 041
15 November 1972
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No. 0274/72
15 November 1972
Central Intelligence Bulletin
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LAOS: Government gets down to serious discussions
with Communists. (Page 3)
ARGENTINA: Bracing for arrival of Peron. (Page 4)
BANGLADESH: Political activity intensifying.
(Page 6)
EC-NORWAY: Oslo faces hard bargaining with EC.
(Page 7)
AUSTRALIA: December elections unlikely to change
basic policies. (Page 8)
ROMANIA: Heavy rains damage crops. (Page 9)
BELGIUM: Cabinet changes set aside (Page 10)
URUGUAY: The military, having plunged into poli-
t.ic s, may go further. (Page 11)
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LAOS: The government got down to serious dis-
cussion at the session on 14 November of the peace
talks in Vientiane.
For the first time since the talks opened five
weeks ago, government spokesman Pheng Phongsavan
addressed the Lao Communist five-point peace pro-
posals directly and offered specific changes for
each point of disagreement. Ample ground for agree-
ment appears to exist on the points dealing with
foreign intervention, Lao neutrality and foreign
policy, and the resettlement of refugees.
The major stumbling block between the two sides
concerns the mechanics of an internal political set-
tlement. Pheng rejected the Communists' contention
that the Souvanna government has outlived its legit-
imacy, but he did advance ideas on how a new gov-
ernment might be created within the existing consti-
tutional framework.
The government's presentation is an invitation
to drop the polemics and get down to the business
of working out the specifics of a Lao settlement.
Any Communist reaction will have to await the re-
turn of Phoumi Vongvichit--the high-ranking "special
adviser" to the Lao Communists' negotiating team--
who left for consultations with Souphanouvong in
Sam Neua prior to the meeting on 14 November.
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ARGENTINA: The Lanusse government is taking
strong security measures to prepare for the expected
arrival of Juan Peron in Buenos Aires on Friday.
The 77-year-old former president arrived in
Rome yesterday on the first leg of a trip that will
end 17 years of exile from his native land. Peron,
who met with Italian Prime Minister Andreotti yes-
terday, reportedly will try to arrange an audience
with the Pope before departing Thursday night on
the last leg of his long-awaited trip home. Peron-
ists hope that the meeting with the Pope will lend
credibility to Peron's statement that his trip is
not intended to stir political violence but rather
to contribute to "national peace and reconstruction."
President Lanusse so far is standing by his
pledge to permit Peron's visit but has ordered elab-
orate security measures to guard against violence.
Radio and television stations as well as telephone
exchanges reportedly have been placed under police
guard, and all permits for carrying arms in the
capital have been canceled. The government is par-
ticularly worried about possible incidents at
Ezeiza Airport, where Peron is scheduled to arrive.
Several thousand troops will be there to deal with
any problems caused by Peronists giving their
leader a hero's welcome or by anti-Peronists sworn
to revenge.
Peronist leaders, too, are worried about
possible violence and have called upon the rank-
and-file to remain calm. The Peronist-controlled
national labor confederation has called for a na-
tionwide work stoppage on Friday, but unless trans-
port workers remain on the job, loyal Peronists
will face considerable difficulty in traveling the
25 miles from downtown Buenos Aires to the airport.
In any event, the government and those Peron-
ist leaders who hope to hold down the size of the
welcoming crowd are faced with a mammoth task. Some
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officials have estimated that the occasion could
bring out as many as a million persons, and even
if this figure proves drastically inflated, the
troops
charged x1ith maintaining order will be se-
verely
tested.
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BANGLADESH: Political activity is intensifying
in anticipation of the parliamentary elections sched-
uled for next March.
The newly formed National Socialist Party, led
by a former student leader and by a prominent in-
dependence fighter, has delivered a scathing attack
on Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman's Awami League,
accusing it--among other things--of negligence in
not foreseeing the Pakistani Army crackdown in March
1971. The Socialist leaders also charge that Mujib
has not even tried to recover Bengali property plun-
dered by India's liberation army. In addition, the
party accuses the government of ineptness, corrup-
tion, and inability to stem increasing political
violence.
The Awami League has countered by organizing
a new youth organization, also led by student and
ex-guerrilla leaders, to compete with the Social-
ists. The Awami League may also engage in harass-
ment of the National Socialists in retaliation for
their criticism--the strongest the League has borne
to date.
The National Socialists are planning a conven-
tion for 23 December to decide whether to participate
in the upcoming elections and to discuss electoral
alliances. Some other opposition groups, including
leftists as well as radicals, have coalesced around
the chairmanship of a venerable peasant leader named
Maulana Bhashani to form a committee "to resist
fascism, secret killings, and intimidation of polit-
ical workers." As such opposition activity increases
and the Awami League responds, the use of violence--
political killings already are commonplace--will
probably increase.
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EC-NORWAY: Hard bargaining lies ahead in Nor-
way's attempt to negotiate a special arrangement
with the EC in lieu of the full community membership
that its people rejected in the September referen-
dum.
During exploratory sessions with the EC Commis-
sion last week, the Norwegians stressed their goal
of an agreement having the "broadest possible scope."
Oslo has in mind cooperation with the community on
shipping policy, the environment, and research and
technology. Moreover, Oslo is interested in an
"evolutionary clause," which presumably would keep
open the possibility for transforming the arrange-
ment into full membership. In light of recent opin-
ion polls in Norway revealing considerable awareness
of the costs of non-membership, Oslo may feel it
runs no political risks at. home by suggesting such
a provision. In addition, the parliamentary major-
ity that favored EC entry believes that Norway must
eventually join the EC.
Despite the communique of the EC summit meeting
last month, which declared a willingness to reach
an agreement speedily with Norway, the EC is not
enthusiastic over Oslo's broad aims. At last week's
meeting, the Commission told the Norwegians that the
agreements with the other EFTA non-applicants--which
are largely limited to free trade in industrial prod-
ucts--set the pattern for an EC agreement with Nor-
way. Oslo's demands for concessions on fish and
fish products and petroleum will make the negotiating
particularly difficult.
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AUSTRALIA: The result of the national elec-
tions on 2 December probably will have minimal
effect on basic Australian policies.
Campaigning officially began this week for
the 125 seats of the House of Representatives, the
larger and more important of the two houses of
Parliament. The outcome will determine whether the
Liberal-Country coalition government will continue
in office or be replaced by the Labor Party, out
of power for 23 years. At present the government
holds a slim majority of seven seats. Labor, cap-
italizing on public sentiment for change, has until
recently been accorded the edge by most observers.
Late polls indicate, however, that the government
is narrowing the gap and that the popular vote will
be close.
Actual differences between the government and
the opposition are not as great as will be suggested
in campaign rhetoric. The Labor Party's position
on domestic economic issues, such as nationalization
of key industries, has softened considerably over
the years. A Labor government might accelerate the
trend already under way toward a more independent
international stance, but both contenders continue
to look on alliance with the US as the cornerstone
of Australian foreign policy.
Defense policies will probably be the main
issue of the campaign. Labor has no quarrel with
the present level of military expenditures. It
takes sharp issue, however, with the government's
doctrine of "forward" defense that resulted in the
commitment of Australian forces to Vietnam and the
current deployment of about 3,0.00 Australian troops
to Singapore and Malaysia. A Labor government might
gradually phase out Canberra's participation in the
Five-Power Defense Arrangement that also includes
the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
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ROMANIA: Heavy rains have caused fall crop
losses a nd now threaten winter wheat output, re-
ducing prospects for next year's domestic supplies
and export surplus.
Romania harvested a record wheat crop this
year, but continuous rains for several weeks in
September and October have caused losses to potato
and other vegetable crops and have made corn fields
too wet for machinery to operate. Harvesting is
also being complicated by inadequate drying, storage,
and transport facilities. Storing corn with a high
moisture content could result in losses in both
quantity and quality. By 9 November, nearly 15 per-
cent of the corn had not been harvested and nearly
20 percent of the winter wheat had not been sown.
As a result of the poor weather and delays,
the area seeded to winter wheat is unlikely to be
as large as last year's. While some of the unsown
area can be sown in the spring, yields from spring
planting would be lower. In addition, since most
of the winter wheat has been sown late, the I'mmaturcm-
plants will be susceptible to frost damage.
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SECRET
NOTE
BELGIUM: Leaders of the Socialist - Social
Christian coalition, who met with Prime Minister
Eyskens last weekend to deal with the legislative
crisis that threatens the government, have tem-
porized. Cabinet changes have been set aside while
a special commission of ten government ministers
attempts during the next two weeks to draft new
legislative proposals. Although the issues are
highly divisive within the coalition, the prospects
for a package agreement are reasonably good. Even
if the commission succeeds, however, the government
will remain in a bind because it needs the support
of opposition deputies to implement certain legisla-
tion. A cabinet shuffle is still expected, robabl
around the end of the year.
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URUGUAY: Military Involvement in Politics
The recent emergence of the army as a major
power bloc in Uruguay is unprecedented in the na-
tion's history in this century. For two decades,
Uruguay has been going from riches to rags, and the
threat of military intervention through some form
of extra-constitutional action now looms as a real
possibility.
During the first half of the 20th century,
Uruguay was a model of development that was unsur-
passed in Latin America. Its highly literate and
homogeneous population, almost entirely of European
rather than Indian extraction, lived well on ex-
ports of meat, hides, and wool. Its two-party po-
litical system functioned smoothly, developing the
philosophy of the welfare state conceived by Jose
Batlle y Ordonez early in the century. It adopted
a plural executive system that appeared to function
adequately in a period marked by few strains.
The ineffectiveness of this government by com-
mittee became apparent during the crisis brought on
in the 1950s when world markets for Uruguay's prod-
ucts dwindled, its bloated social welfare system
began to eat up more than its share of the national
product, and inflation set in. Voters switched from
the Colorado Party, which had ruled continuously
since 1918, to the somewhat more conservative
Blancos. In 1966, they scrapped the plural exec-
utive to return to a single Colorado president.
Like the Blancos, however, the Colorados were nei-
ther willing nor able to make the drastic economic
and social reforms that were needed to stem the
tide of deterioration.
By the mid-1960s, young Uruguayans faced a
country in which the political system was decrepit,
immobile, and discredited, and the economic future
was bleak at best. Encouraged by their underpaid
instructors to'become activists, many of them
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quickly realized their inability to stem the deteri-
oration through normal political channels. Imbued
with a sense of Latin revolutionary mystique, some
chose to try to destroy the system, in hopes that a
better Uruguay would somehow emerge from the ashes.
The stage was thus set for the emergence of the Tupa-
maros, Latin America's most formidable terrorist
group.
The Tupamaros got their start as a break-away
from one of the leftist political parties. They in-
itially attempted to develop a kind of "Robin Hood"
image, directing their operations against wealthy
individuals and large companies, and occasionally
passing out some of the spoils to the poor. They
built up a war chest of funds, amassed a large stock
of guns and vehicles, and attracted a membership
that may have reached 4,000 activists and a substan-
tial number of sympathizers.
In 1969, the Tupamaros shifted into a second
phase of their program to bring down the Uruguayan
system. Kidnapings became more common, and in-
cluded the British Ambassador and several US offi-
cials, one of whom was murdered. The Tupamaros
taunted the government, whose inept police forces
were unable to find the locations of the prisoners
or guarantee protection to the general populace.
In April 1972, in what appeared to be a care-
fully orchestrated move, the Tupamaros gunned down
four government officials, including two police of-
ficers, and a former cabinet member. The new Pres-
ident, Juan Maria Bordaberry, in an uncharacteris-
tically swift move, demanded that a "State of Inter-
nal War" be declared and that the nation's armed
forces, which had done little in the internal secu-
rity field before, lead the battle against the ter-
rorists. Many of Bordaberry's Colorado supporters
in the congress, as well as his Blanco opposition,
expressed serious fears that the suspension of con-
stitutional rights that would have to accompany the
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state of war might seriously curtail the freedom of
the people. They nevertheless gave Bordaberry and
the military a limited period of special powers, in-
cluding a transfer of persons suspected of security
crimes to military jurisdiction and the suspension
of constitutional guarantees. Powers like this had
been granted under the preceding administration, but
for the first time the armed forces were to become
completely involved in the anti-terrorist campaign.
The rapid success of the military in putting
down the Tupamaro guerrillas was astounding to close
observers of the Uruguayan scene. A military force,
which had spent most of its time policing borders
and had not faced an armed enemy in this century,
in less than seven months managed to devastate a
terrorist organization that had earned the envy and
respect of guerrilla groups throughout the Western
Hemisphere. This result was achieved by a push to
capture as many members and suspects as possible,
by rapid and forceful interrogations, and by hunting
down Tupamaro weapons caches and hiding places. The
military was aided by the fact that the vaunted
Tupamaro organization was not nearly as compartmented
as everyone believed--many cell members knew a host
of fellow members and were quick'to talk during in-
terrogation. As the campaign progressed, some Tupa-
maros surrendered without duress, and the organization
came crashing down. Although the Tupamaros retain
some residual capability to harass the government,
it will be a long time before they will again be
equipped or manned to mount a major operation.
The success against the Tupamaros marks a spec-
tacular victory for the armed forces--perhaps the
first really positive step forward by any sector of
Uruguayan society in two decades. In Uruguay's
gloomy atmosphere, this victory may have been blown
a bit out of proportion. Nevertheless, the army is
flushed with success. Its leaders, observing the
deplorable state of the economy, the extensive emi-
gration of talented Uruguayans, and the crumbling
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buildings of once-stately Montevideo, have reasoned
that their victory over the guerrillas might pos-
sibly be translated into a campaign to correct the
many ills that continue to plague the society. They
have but to look around them to see other military
forces already started down that road--in Peru,
Brazil, and Argentina. Unlike those countries, how-
ever, Uruguay has a long and strong tradition of
military non-involvement in politics, an officer
corps that has been generally opposed to overt polit-
ical activity, and a highly sophisticated and polit-
icized population that generally favors the existing
democratic process.
Yet the extensive interrogation of the Tupa-
maros, and the resulting gathering of intelligence
information, have revealed to the military leader-
ship that corruption--or "economic crimes"--was a
factor in the poor performance of the economy and
a major issue on which the Tupamaros had won popu-
larity. More significantly, the "economic criminals"
appear to be some of the leading political figures
.in the nation. Suspects include Jorge Batlle, one
of Bordaberry's major factional leaders in the
Colorado Party; Wilson Ferreira Aldunate, the leader
of the opposition Blanco bloc in the congress; and
Jorge Peirano Facio, a former foreign minister. The
army leaders recently confronted Bordaberry with
their allegations and demanded that Batlle be ar-
rested. This faced the President with the loss of
his congressional majority and the need to restruc-
ture his cabinet, since three of his ministers were
Batlle supporters. What threats were made to force
Bordaberry to "give up" Batlle are unknown, but he
did permit the military to go ahead. Now Bordaberry
has formed a new cabinet, Batlle remains in jail,
and the military, having come this far on essen-
tially ad hoc maneuvers, must sit down and ponder
the next move.
Bordaberry's government, while notable for
quieting the threat of terrorism, has done little
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to solve the problems that are causing Uruguay to
decay. No effort has been made to correct the se-
rious abuses of the welfare system; no moves are
planned to expand traditional exports or to stimu-
late the economy in any direction. It seems clear
that the armed forces are no longer going to be
satisfied to leave the Uruguayan "mess" in the hands
of the politicians, but it is also clear that they
do not, at this stage, have a plan of action. Con-
tinued lack of movement by Bordaberry and the civil-
ian government to correct the economic slide may
stimulate army pressure for action. If the civilian
response is unsatisfactory, the long tradition of
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