JPRS ID: 9207 NEAR EAST/NORTH AFRICA REPORT

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• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82-00850R000200100038-7
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• Content Type: REPORTS

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JPRS L/9207 =
23 July 1980
~e~r Ea t/ '
s North A~rica R~ ort
p
CFOUO 26/80)
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~ aPRS L/9207
23 July 1980 ~
NEAR EAST/NORTH AFRICA REPORT
(FOUO 26/80)
CONTENTS
INTE~t-ARAB AFFAIRS
Possibility of Reopening Golan Front to PLO Discussed
(AL-WATAN AL-'ARABI= 28 Mar 80) . 1
_ _
- Arabs Said To Be Fully Active in Armaments Race
~AI,-WATAN AL-'ARABI, 28 Mar 80) S -
Basis, Operation of Palestinian Na*ional Council Discusaed
� (AL-WATAN AL-'ARABI, 2 May 80) 11
AFGHANISTAN
Afghan Crisis Analyzed in 'God, the Gold and the B~.ood'
(Jean Larteguy; PARIS MATCH, 30 May 80) 19
MAURITANIA
Official Discusses Nation's Industrialization Policy
(I~YARCHES TROPICAUX ET MEDITERRANEENS, 30 May 80) , 32
SYRIA
Details of al-Asad Assassination Escape Reported
(AL-WATAN AL-'ARABI, 5 Jun 80) 34
TUNISIA ~
Fate of Students, Trade Union Detainera Examined
- (Souhayr Belhassen; JEUNE AFRIQUE, 28 May 80) 36
WESTERN SAHARA ~
~ Briefs
Swaziland Recognizes SDAR 39
- a - CISI - NE & A- 1.21 FOUO]
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INTER-ARAB AFFAIRS
POSSIBILITY OF REOPENING GOLAN FRONT TO PLO DISCUSSED
Paris AL-WATAN AL-'ARABI in Arabic 28 Mar 80 pp 22-23 -
[Article:, "The Golan Heights: Pathway for the Palestinians Before the
1967 War"J
[Text] Has Damascus decided to open the Golan Front for the Palestine
Resistance Movement? If so, why? If Syria has indeed made such a mili-
tary decision, why was that decision made public? What will be the reac-
- tion of the ~'alestinians and the Lebanese to such a decision? What are
_ the political implications of tr.e decision?
In his book, "The Great Defeat," the late Mr Ahmad al-Shuqayri, dis- _
cusses some of the sacret events that directl;~ preceded the June 1967 -
War, when he was still the chairman of the PLO Executive Committee.
A1-Shuqayri reiates his recollection of the series of ineetings between
him and a number of Syrian officials. Heading the list, are Dr Ibrahim
_ Makhus and Maj Gen Ahmad Suwaydani, respectively Syria's foreign minister
and chief of staff of the armed forces.
At that ti.me, tension between Syria and Israel had reached the breaking _
_ point. Levi Eshkol's government was accusing Syria of encouraging
_ Palestinian commando activity across the Golans and of provocative acti.ons
against Israeli border settlements and in the area around Lake Tiberias
[Galilee]. Syria's response was that it was not responsible for reining
in the Palest~nians, coupled w3th a demand that the United Nations Truce
~ Supervision Commission should expel the Israelis from the no-man's-zone
separating the combatant5 into which the Israelis had infiltrated. Syria
'accused Israel, further, of illegally farming some parts of the no-man's-
~ land and establishing fortifications in others. ~
- The increasing tension gradually led to nearly daily land and air clashes, ~
~ most notably the Israeli air attack on Syrian construction sites, where _
a Syrian project for diverting the course of a number of Jordan River
tributaries was underway, and the April air battle which preceded the _
third Arab-Israeli war by 2�months.
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According to al-Shuqayri, Dr Makhus had this to tell him in a meeting
between the two at the Foreign Minlstry: "Thanks ta God, all is going -
well. Commando activity is increasing daily. We shall continue to sup-
port it with men, money and arms. The important thing is to drag the
Arab nations into the battle. It is not right that Syria should remain
alone in the field." When al-Shuqayri suggested that Syria ought to co-
ordinate things with the Unified Arab Command, then under Lt Gen 'Ali 'Amer,
Dr Makhus reportedly remarked that 'Amur was senile, that he did not be-
lieve in a people's war, and, furthermore, that Syria was not prepared
to take orders from him. According to al-Shuqayri's account of the
meetin~, Dr Makhus had added that Israel would not dare declare war then
or soon thereafter. His reason: America would not permit it for fear of
endangering its interests; and Russia would come to Syria's aid to main- -
tain friendship between the two countries.
The war soon broke out and what happened is now history. Just over .
- 3 years later, President Hafiz al-Assad's 1970 reform movement put an
end to Salah Jadid's party leadership and removed Dr Makhus from the
Foreign Ministry.
Pr.ior to tre 1973 Arab-Israeli [October] war, the Golan Heights witnessed
- a very small number of Palestinian guerrilla activities. A number of
PLO organizations, however, maintained several bases behind the Syrian
front lines.
After the war, and in accordance with the Golan disengagement agreement,
a S-kilometer wide neutral zone was established. The zone extending from .
the foot of Mt Harmon in the north to the Syrian-Jordanian-Palestinian
border in the south was manned by a 1200 man United Nations force. This
- arrangement made it nearly impossible to carry out guerrilla activity in
the area. Palestinian bases were restricted to the Syrian zone.
_ Furthermore, Syria imposed restrictionson the movement of Palestinian
guerillas on the Syrian side of neutral zone. ~
Today, in the midst of new developments on the international, Arab, Leban-
ese, Syrian and Palestinian scene, there is renewed talk of the Golan
front. News agencies have attributed a statement to a Syrian official
purporting that his government has given the Palestine Resistance per-
mission to resume its operations in the Golan Heights, and that Presi- .
dent al-Assad had informed guerrilla leaders that "the Golans were and
continue to be open for commando activities against Israel." The reports
add that President al-Assad had also indicated Syria's readiness to support
and aid such operations.
Palestinian reaction in Beiru~ to these reports has been very reserved. ,
There was, after all, no official Syrian announcement to that effect.
It was not possible to verify the rumor attributed to the Syrian offi-
cial by the media. Military decisions of this nature are highly impor-
tant and kept secret. Palestinian resistance circles were reluctant to
discuss the matter.
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In view of the fact that such a decision is ultimately a Syrian-Palestinian
- . concern, Palestinian caution and reluctance to discuss the matter is
understandable. Decisions of this nature are made on the highest level
and kept secret.
Political observers here showed a great deal of interest in what the media
had reported from Damascus. Should the report be true, it would represent
an important turning point in the Myrian strategy, one that sooner or
later could spell the difference between peace and war in the region. _
- Its direct consequences would be felt in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Israel,
and possibly, Jordan.
Observers here are certain that President al-Assad would be the first to -
recognize these implications. He is known as a car.eful planner. Further-
more, the Palestinian resistance, which has consistently demanded that all
barriers to its freedom of action imposed by Arab countries be removed, -
undoubtedly understands the implications of such a turning point in the
Syrian strategy. _
Based on this analysis, observers in Beirut are convinced that the PaS.es-
tinians will not take the rumored report seriously unless'they can verify -
it. If the report proves to be true, then tlhey would want to know how
the new decision is to be implemented and what measures the Syrians
would take to facilitate Palestinian commando aetivity. They would want
to discuss:with Damascus the possible reaction in Israel, the Arab world, -
and on the international scene to a resumption of guerrilla activity in
_ the Golans.
Observers inclined to believe the report wonder whether Syria's decision
would extend to Lebanese territory under Syria's military control. In
particular, they wonder whether the Palestinians would be permitted to
use the Baqa'a region, which leads directly or indirectly to the
Israeli-occupied territory in the Golans and upper Galilee. Another
point of interest is whether Syria would facilitate the passage of
guerrillas across its neighboring Jordanian border.
At any rate, observers in Beirut feel that, should the x�umored raport
be true, then it had come at a moment when European diplomatic and poli- _
tical activity on the Middle East issue is at its apex. There is little
doubt that the intense diplomatic activity in Europe at this time is
attracting a good deal of Palestinian interest.
Political observers in Beirut are also wondering whether Syria's goal
is to nip in the bud any new [Middle East] initiative. Has Syria, they
ask, decided to embark on a new strategy similar to that of Salah Jadid's
government [1965-1970), based on waging a people's war of liberation
against Israel and the United States, and premisecl on assistance from
the Sciviet Union and on dragging the Arab nations int~ the fray? Is
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- Syria returning to the pre-1967 War strategy described by Dr Makhus in
= his meeting with al-Shuqayri?
"Lebanese Front" sources opposed to the Assad Governm~nt insist that
_ there has been no change in the Syrian president's strategy. They claim
that opening up the Golans for guerrilla operations is a ploy to divert
attention from the worsening internal situation in Syria. They cite
'recent Syrian incidents to support their claim. The same circles insist
that Damascus has no other option, especially if Carter were to succeed
' in convincing Israel to make some concessions to Egypt in the [Palestin-
ian] autonomy negotiations before the expiration date of 26 May estab-
lished by the Camp David accords.
One other question remains: What happens should the limited war of
attrition explode into a full blown war between Israel and Syria? ~
The predominant feeling in the Lebanese circles is that internal develop-
ments in Syria will influence to a great extent the next moves of the _
_ Arabs and the Israelis. The best way to describe the present situaCion _
is to characterize it as a wait-and-see attitude.
COPYRIGHT: 1980 AL-WATAN AL-'ARABI
_ 9063
- CSO: 4802
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= INTER-ARAB AFFAIRS
ARABS SAID T~ BE FULLY ACTIVE IN ARMAMENTS RACE -
Paris AL-WATAN AL-'ARABI in Arabic 28 Mar 80 pp 40-42
[Article: "The Middle East: 66 Divisions, 15,000 Tanks, 3,000 Planes"]
[Text] While the Arabs and Israel are engaged in an open arms race in
the Middle East, there is a second, clandestine, but equally contested
race among the major powers over the billion-dollar contracts for the sale
of arms and military equipment. The region has b~en transformed into a _
field bristling with armies, arms and equipment, with a power punch
rivaling that of NATO.
1980 will.be the "year of the gun." Tt?is is the unanimous view of stra-
tegic and arms experts who keep tabs on arms exports, particularly to -
the world's tense and troubled regions.
As an example, preliminary studies show that, as a result of the Afghan
and Iranian crises, as well as other entangelements in the Middle East and
Africa, American arms exports in 1980 will reach nearly $25 billion,
exclusive of spare parts, training and maintenance contracts, which, at
the very least, will triple the original sales figure..
The preceding estimate does not include sales to China, which has been
recently percnitted to purchase a variety of American arms, equipment and
aircraft. The vast Chinese market will provide an additional, unprece- -
dented opportunity for American and European arms sales.
_ Commenting on these developments, Wolfgang Malman, director of the Stock-
holm based International Arms Research Institute, says that indications
_ that the major powers would exercise self-control in their arms sales
~ policies have all but disappeared. In the wake of the Afghan crisis,
he claims, all ef.forts to solve problems by negotiations have collapsed,
making 1980 an ominous year, and signalling the beginning of an extremely
dangerous era, an era of conflict among the major powers over the earth's
natural resources, advanced behind a veil of doc~rinal and ideological
_ disputes. -
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A recent report from the Institute for Strategic Studies had this to say
about military balance in the Middle East in 1979-1980:
There has been a major increase in the number of heavy armaments in the
Arab world and Israel ~uring the past decade. The region has 66 divisions,
an increase of 60 percent; the number of military aircraft of all sizes
and capabilities has risen to 3,066, an increas~ of 61 percent over the
corresponding figure of 10 years ago.
The report goes on: The danger of the Middle East arsenal lies in the
fact that it is not a temporary phenomenon, but a long-range affair.
This conclusion is inescapable when one contrasts the Middle East and NATO
arsenals. NATO, with 75 di~i~ions, has only 9 divisions more than the _
Middle East nations combined. In tanks, NATO falls short by 175. NATO's -
2,450 aircraft fall short by nearly 616 from the number fielded by the
Middle East nations. ~
The report pays special attention to Iraq's military forces. Iraq,
according to the report, has 12 divisions, 2,200 tanks, and 450 modern -
aircraft, givtng it a clear numerical superi~rity over any other country
in the region. _
_ The preceding figures perhaps provide the best explanation for America's
aggressive and rabid attempt t~ prevent the transf er of nuclear technology
to and the development of nuclear research in Iraq, and this despite the
fact that Iraq was one of the signatories of the 1968 Nuclear Arms
. Nonproliferation Treaty and has agreed to open its nuclear research
center to inspection by the Vienna-based Nuclear Energy Agency.
The American campaign against Iraq's program of using nuclear technology ~
- to generate e~ectric power stands in vivid contrast to the protective
attitude assumed toward Israel, which opposes international inspection
of its nuclear facilities, and which actively produces nuclear weapons
- at its Damona Research Center.
- The United States worked feverishly to cover up the experimental nuclear
explosion jointly conducted by Israel and South Africa in the South Pole
region a few months ago. Similarly, the United States worked hard to
cover up the theft of nuclear fuel by Israeli agents from a large number
of American nuclear research facilities. The stolen fuel was exported to
Israel. ~
Commenting on the anti-Iraq American campaign, the FINANCIAL TIMES [of _
London] said that Britisn nuclear scientists doubted that the equipment
supplied to Iraq by Italy could be used to produce nuclear weapons. This
reaction was prompted by American claims that the Italian equipment could
be used to produce plutonium, a fissionable material to fuel at~~mic bombs.
The American furor over the export of Italian "hot cells" was ,3 scare
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tactic to prevent the transfer of nuclear technology to the Arz~ world.
The "hot cell" is in fact a protective shield necessary in all research
_ involving radioactive substances. It is, consequently, a primary compo- ~
nent for the Iraqi nuclear research program.
At any ra*_e, the open and often secret American pressure campaign to handi-
cap the development of the Iraqi nuclear research program has failed.
- Iraq has recently obtained a sizeable shipment of 90 percent eiiriched
uranium from France, whose government is convinced that the uranium would
not be used for atomic weapons production. Informed sources have disclosed
that the American scare campaign against the Iraqi-Italian deal has been
fostered by Zionist groups, whose goal is to prevent the U.S. Defense and
State departmen~s from selling to Italy a number of electric motors and
generators to power four naval vessels destined for Iraq. It is well
known that the nuclear research equipment deal between Italy and Iraq
is the result of a 4-year old agreement for scientif ic cooperation, in-
cluding the nuclear field. The agreement is similar tn one concluded '
- earlier between France and Iraq.
- The American campaign indicates that nuclear research equipment has now
, been added to the list of export armaments. The overriding American con-
cern, however, is to limit the export of nuclear technology to countries
in tha American orbit, with particular emphasis on protecting Israel ~
- from the possible consequences of letting the technology reach any Islamic -
or Arab hands. -
Behind all this is an important development in the armaments trade
business: the American armaments industry has regained control of the U.S.
Government. What gives credence to this view is that the weapons trade
has become an essential and unprecedented conponent of American foreign
policy. When Carter won the presidency he declared--on religious grounds--
that he would limit American weapons exports, particularly to [politically]
tense regioits. He did, for example, stop the sale to Bahrain of F-S
airplanes and Hughes antitank missiles. Furthermore, Mr Carter canceled
t-
a deal to supply Pakistan with A-7 attack planes as well as Textron-made
Bell helicopters. The weapons deals ordered cancelec: by Mr Carter in 1978
had a value in excess of one billion dollars. Most of them were destined -
- for Africa and the Arab countries. This American restraint, however,
revitalized the European weapons market which was capable of offering
substitutes to anyone able to pay.
The ~eterioration of Soviet-American relations following the Iranian
. crisis made the weapons trade a fundamental element in America's foreign
policy, reopening the way wide open for a resumption of the arms race
and for unrestricted weapons exparts either through direct sales or through
strategic military aid agreements similar to those between the U.S. on the
oiie hand and Egypt and Israel on the other.
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The weapons export race centers chiefly on the sale of fighter and bomber
- ai.rcraf t by the U.S., the USSR and France. The race is made all the -
more sp irited by studies indicating that the international market
can absorb in the next decade nearly 5,000 more airplanes valued at more _
than $50 billion. This enormous amount of money gives an idea of how _
f ierce the competitlon will be among the airplane ieanufacturers wl'?ich
include the U.S.,the Soviet Union, France, Italy, Br itain, and, ta some
extent, West Germany. Since France has entered the market in a big way, _
the competition will not center chiefly on the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
1'n view of the expected 3-nation competition, three American companies
are now engaged in a race for producing tomorrow's most advanced fighter
plane. These are Northrup with its F-18L, McDonald Douglas with its F-18~i,
; and General Uynamics w ith its F-16. As of now, General Dynamics appears
to be the winner, with preliminary sal~s orders of nearly $10 billion =
over th E next S years from Spain, Canada, Australia, Israel and Egypt.
To the extent that Northrup Corporation has been most responsive to the
requirements of the U.S. military aid program by r educing the effective-
ness of its export warplanes, it has won President Carter's approval for
~ developing the F-X, a warplane of limited capability to replace the F-5,
which is of ten referred to as "the poor nations' warplane." As of last
year, Northrup has sold approximately 3,500 F-5's through direct sales
or through the U.S. military aid program. This f igure represents one-
- half of Northrup's ~ales during the past decade. Last year alone,
Northrup's sales were $1.60 billion compared with Lockheed's $1.40 biI-
lion, McDonald Douglas' $638 million, and General Dynamics' $918 million.
Tanks and armored vehicles come next in the f iPrce internationalarms
trade. Among the Western manufacturers the comp~tition has-been narrowed
down to a contest between Chrysler's X-M1, now und er development, and
the German-French tank being developed to replace the German Leop.ard 2
and the French M-X30. In a bid to promote the sale of their jointly-
- developed tank, Germany ~.nd France have ordered 2,000 tanks each.
' The jointly-developed German-French tank is equipped with laser devices,
~ an inf rared optical system to impx�ove night vision, and a special computer
to direct its missiles and artillery fire. It is b eing jointly produced
- by the ~rossmaffei Company, the largest German manufacturer of armored
_ vehicles, Maschinenfabrik, a subsidiary of Krupp, and G~at, France's
largest organization for the production of armaments.
,
To the extent that fixed and movable missiles have b ec~me an essential
component of tank warfare and modern air defense systems, Gercnany and _
France have aoreed to develop jointly a new generation of Milan, Haute,
and Roland missiles. The twu companies involved in this project are
Messershmitt of Germany and Ae.rospecial of France, the latter of which
sold $690 mi'~iion worth of missiles last year alone.
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In the Arab world, the sale of French missiles, especially of the Crotale
and mofified Shahin variety, has increased signif icantly.
a American manufacturers are anxious about the growing French competition.
They claim that one of the chief reasons for President Giscard d'Estaing's
- recent tour of the Arab world was to promote the sale of French armaments,
_ especially warplanes. Based on reports from American sources, $10 billion
worth of French warplanes ~~ill be sold to the Arab world by 1985 under -
- the terms of existing contracts and others under negotiations. The deal
- is expected to enhance the competitive edge of Dassault-Breguet, the
French pldne manufacturer.
Weapons experts claim that France exported nearly $6.10 billion worth of
armaments in 1979, approximately one-half the amount exported by the
United States. This, they point out, makes France the third largest arms
supplier after the United States and the Soviet Union. Italy, following
the recently concluded contracts with Iraq and a f ew other Arab countries,
is expected to move up to fourth place, pushing Britain to fifth place.
� According to published reports, France produces 3 times as many warplanes
- as it purchases for its armed forces. Revenue from the sala of warplanes
reportedly covered approximately 20 percent of France's expenditures for
imported oil in 1979. F'urthermore, statistical reports indicate that the
Dassault Company has Arab orders for 450 Mirage-2000 planes worth $6 billion.
The planes will go prima.rily to Iraq, followed by Saudi Arabia and the � -
United Arab Emirates. It is reported that Abu Dhabi has also dPCided to
order French warplanes, following President d'Estaing's recent visit to -
that country. -
There are additional unconfirmed reports that Saudi Arabia is negotiating
the purchase of >j0 more Mirage-2000 planes to be distributed among
Pakistan, Morocco, and Jordan. The cost of each 100 planes is reportedly -
$2.4 billion.
Experts expect Arab demand f or Mirage planes to continue growing through
1985. The heavy demand reportedly may lead to Arab participation in
- projects to develop a future generation of Mirage planes. There are
' reports that certain Arab quarters are negotiating with Dassault for par- -
ticipation in the development of the Mirage-4000, a plan~ slated for
export. Dassaulthas reportedly spent $700 million on the development
- of a prototype, but needs an additional $1.5 billion to finance large-
scale production.
Other countries are beginning to enter the armamen ts f ield. Among these
is ~razil, which last year accounted for $800 million in exports. Brazil
has successfully marketed its tank, the Caseavel, which is noted for its
speed and ability to operate in rough and desert terrain. Brazil is -
particularly interested in the Arab market.
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Israel is anot~ier newcomer into the ai-mament business. Its joinr produc- _
= tion agreements, both public and secret, with American companies, azd with
the approval of the U.S. Stat~ Department, are cause for concern in the
Arab world. Last year alo:ie, Israel exported nearly $1 billion worth of
miliC~ry equipment moGtly to South Africa, Kenya, and some Latin American
countries. There ar~ indications that Israel has reached an agreement
with the United States for the production of the Zafi (Lion) plane.
The plane will be powered by the ueneral Electric F-44 engine, the same
~ one used on American F-18 planes.
The most ominous development, however, is the current effort by the Ame?: i-
can armaments industry to establish a joint Egyptian-Israeli weapons -
industry under American control. Toward this end, Egypt's defense
minister visted Israel 2 months ago to discuss ~_he possibility of a joint
~ enterprise for the production of helicopters, in cooperation with some
- British c~~mpanies.
It is also expected that Japan may soon join the armaments trade competi-
tion. In view of the Japanese Government's ban on the production of arms
, fo r export and the limitation of that country's armament industry to
. supply the needs of its defense forces only, Japanese arms remain costly _
- and noncompetitive. 'The potential developments of th e current confronta-
tion between the United States and the Soviet Union, however, are begin- ~
ning to change the picture. Washington is pressing Tokyo to resume
- unrestricted armament production, and to build 4 aircraft carriers before
1985, something from which Japan was prohibited by the [World War II] .
peace agreement. Should Japan resume large-scale armament production, it
' will resort to exports to cover part of the cost. The first Japanese
_ military export is likely to be the Mitsu-Bishi-74 tank, which is noted ,
for its innovations.
In light of these d~sturbing developments in the arc?aments business, the
strategic "Crescent of Crisis," extending from Morocco, across North
Af rica, the Middle East, the Gulf region, Pakistan, India to Southeast
Asia, will continue, for the foreseeable future, to be the ma~or market-
place for international armaments. ,
COPYRIGHT: 1980 AL-WATAN AL-'ARABI � ;
- 9063
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INTER-ARAB AF~AIRS
BASIS, OPERATION DF PALESTINIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL DISCUSSED ,
Paris A.L-WATAN AL-'ARABI in Arabic 2 May 80 pp 22-23
[Article: "On the Occasion of the 15th Session of the National Council:
Members of Palestinian Parliament Are Not Elected, but Democracy Is Basis
of Dialogue and Decision-Making"]
[Text] The time for the next session of the Palestinian parliament (the
National Council) has not yet been precisely determined, and it is not
known whether the council will be convened in Damascus or in Beirut. At
any rate AL-WATAN AL-'ARABI reviews below the most important achievements -
of the Pilestinian parliament since it was formed.
~ As this 15th session of th e Palestinian National Council gets under way,
~ 16 years will have elapsed since the estati.lishment of the PLO. During
these years the council convened 15 regular sessions and 2 emergency
sessions. The Arab League in Cairo hosted all these sessions except the
first o~ie, whi.ch was held in Jerusalem; the third, which was held in
Ghaza; ~n emergency session in Am~an; and the 14th session which was
held in,Damascus. -
The Fal~stinian National Council is in fact the parliament of the
Palestir~ian people and the body which represents their various,fundamental
sectors~ their political parties and their popular, professiona~_ and -
guerilla organizations. Therefore, the council does exemplify the supreme
authority among the estab lishments of the PLO, and it is responsible for
drawing up the PLO's general policy, its plans and its programs.
~ Although the by-laws of the organi~zation stipulate that council members
be chosen in general elections, the overpowering circumstances under
~ wh ich the people of Palestine are living have prevented this so far.
Suffice it to point out that half of these people are living under the
control of Zionist occupation and the other half are dispersed and living
in more than one country.
~ It is worth noting~here that all the members who represent professional
and popt~lar organizations are elected'in the context of these ~rganiza- _
tions.. .
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It may, therefore, be said that this council is considered the body that
exemplifies Palestinian national unity. It includes all the powers and
the persons who are qualified to express the will of the people of
Palestine. After 16 years, and this is how old the organization is, the
- council's experience provides material evidence of the seriousness and
~ the depth of democratic practices within the counci.l.
But it is the first session of the National Council, which was held in
Jerusalem between 28/5/1964 and 2/6/1964, that remains one of the coun-
ci].'s most important sessions. It was the session which proclaimed the
establishment of the PLO, after the National Palestinian Charter was
adapted. It proclaimed the by-laws of the organization, and the by-laws
_ of the Palestiniar~ National Fund. It was the session which undertook [to
overseej the opening of training camps and the formation of regular mili-
tary militias as a nucleus for what later became the Palestinian Libera-
tion Army.
AccomF.Xishing all this was no easy matter if we recall that the people
of Palestine h ad spent about 16 years in a miserable state of loss and
fragmentation; they`had been without leadership and without role models.
We also have to remember the conflicting positions of the Arab cauntries
on the.question of reorganizing the Palestinian people and stirring up
- their national and political existence.
During its first session, however, the National Council was ab le to bene-
fit from the revolutionary movement.in popular Palestinian circles and '
from the onset of the secret movement for armed struggle and guerilla
activity. Although some Arabs or Palestinians tended to view the organi-
- zation in this stage as a possible vehicle for containing and controlling
Palestinian rebellion, others saw in the organization a possible vehicle -
for exploding this rebellion and turning it into a continuing revolution
that would be governed by the laws of struggle and will power.
Therefore, the National Council reflected these two contradictory trends
for a period that extended until 1967 and the June War which occurred
that year. This war altered the course of the area, and its effects are
still quite distinct today.
During its second session which was held in Cairo from 31/5/19b5 to -
4/6/1965 the National Council experienced the distinct activities of
the various Palestinian organizations despite the fact that the represen-
~ tation of these organizations in the council was small. We must remember ~
that this session was convened only a few months after Fatah was esta- '
blished and after its first military initiative. There was a vicious
struggle between supporters of these organizations and those who were
expressing their fears of the consequences of a unilateral armed struggle
that was not coordinated with the Arabs and with the common Arab defense
strategy.
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This session ended with the adoption of a popular organization law and
with a request that the task of the liberation army in choosing and trans-
ferring officers be made easier; that mi.litary conscription be imposed on
a11 Palestinians; and that attention to the irregular guerilla forces be
increased.
In addition to the fact that the leadership of the organization, which
was headed by the late Ahmad al-Shuqayri, was suffering on the Palesti-
nian scene, this leadership was engaged in a number of conflicts and
battles on the Arab scene, and especially with Jordan and Tunisia, be-
tween the second and the third session. This third session was held in ~
the city of Ghaza between 20/5/1966 and 24/5/1966.
- At that time the Arab situation in general was moving away from the
spirit of the summit which had begun in 19f~3. The Arab Solidarity Treaty
had collapsed, and the fourth Summit Conference which was to have been _
held in September 1966 was not convened. Egyptian-Saudi relations
deteriorated, and the policy of alliances between what was called revolu-
tionary regimes and conservative regimes was expanded. There was almost =
a total blackout on guerilla activity, and there'was collective pursuits
of those who were working under that banner.
Therefore, the resolutions of the third s~ssion of the National Council
were inspired by this general political scene: they affirmed the freedom
of Palestinian action, the unity of Palestinian revolutionary action;
and the unity of Arab action. These resolutions also called for the
necessity of preparing for battle; using oil as a political weapon; and _
f.acilitating the m:i.ssion of the liberation army. They also called upon
the Arab countries to fulfill their financial obligations towards the
Palestinian people.
But these resolutions failed to accomplish what they were adopted to
confront, and the crisis be~ween the PLO and the Jordanian government
persisted. It reached its peak when the Jordanian authorities closed
and sealed the offices of the organization in Jerusalem. The Jordanian
government th~n withdrew its recognition of the organization in a memoran-
dum it submi.tted to the Arab League. President 'Abd-al-Nasir was then
able to restore relations between Jordan and al-Shuqayri 5 days before
the June War.
On the local scene, likewise, relations between al-Shuqayri and the gue- _
rilla organizations deteriorated, just as they deteriorated between him
and many of those who were working with him in the organization. This
forced him to make more unilateral decisions and to go beyond his consti-
tutional authority, and tliis finally led to his resignation on 24/12/
1967.
- Thus began a new stage in the life of the organization. Mr Yahya Hammudah
became the acting chairman until a new National Council was to be convened.
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c va. vr c iv a.cw v.aa:. v?~i. ? ~
This council would represent the will of the people in the light of the
new ~~ctors that were created by the June War.
- This was not an easy task. Negotiations between all the Palestinian par- .
ties that are concerned with the matter went on for approximately 7 months
until an agreement was reached on the format of the new council.
The new National Council, which was made up of 100 members, was convened
in Cairo. In its fourth session it adopted a group of extremely important
resolutions that reflected to a 14rge extent its new structure. Organiza-
Cions acquired 68 seats; the unions acquired 3; and the independents
acquired 29 seats. This took place between 10/7/1968 and 17/7/1968.
One of the most important accomplishments of this session was the fact that
the chairmanship of the National Council was separated from the chairman-
ship of the Executive Committee. In other words, the legislative autho-
rity was separated from the ex~cutive authority. The council also approved _
an amendment to the National Charter sa as to make it consistent with the
requirements of the stage. The by-laws of the organization were also
- amended so as to give the council [the authority] to select the Executive
Committee and to give or deny it confidence. Other changes that ~vere
necessary were also made. -
In spite af this qualitative leap in the resolutions that were issued by
this fourth session, the problem of national unity remained difficult.
The problem of duplication between the PLO and all the guerilla organiza-
tions also remained [to be solved] despite the differences that existed
among the.latter.
These prob lems had to wait until the .fifth session of the National. Coun-
cil convened in Cairo from 1/2/1969 to 4/2/1969 where the basic change -
~ in the makeup of the organization took place. A new executive committee
was elected; it included representatives from Fatah, al-Sa'iqah and the
independents. Yasir 'Arafat was one of the~members who was elected to
the Executive Committee. He later became chairman of the Executive Com-
mittee, and he continues [in this position] until today.
' In its final communique the council announc~ri that it had achieved a .
- basic, alliance step on the road towards building national unity in com-
bat. This later came to be known as the leadership of the Palestinian
armed strnggle. The communique called upon a11 the organizations to rally
around the Liberation OrganizationG
Politically speaking, one of the most prominent and the most significant
resolutions that came out of this session was the council's condemnation
of Security Council Resolution 242 and its proclamation that it would
struggle "to establish a democratic society in Palestine that would in- -
clude a:}.1 Palestinians: Moslems, Christians and Jews."
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There were some organizational development:s after the fourth and the
fifth sessions. The most important of these was the bir.th of the Demo-
- cratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The national leadership
of the Arab Socialist Ba'th Party in Iraq announced the formation of
the Arab I~iberation Front on 10/4/1969. The Popular Frant--the general
~ leadership--had split from the PFLP late in 1968, and the Arab Organiza-
tion of Palestine had also split in the same year. On 23/5/1969 the
National Struggle Front split from Fatah after it had worked with it for
_ about a year. However, all these organizations began to notice the impor-
tance of the PLO as the qualified framework for achieving national unity.
It was this realization that made the sixth session less violent than the
_ sessions which preceded it.
It was also in Cairo that the syxth session of the National Council was
- convened between 1/9/1969 and 6/9/1969. The crisis of relations between
the resistance and the Lebanese government dominated the agenda of this
- session. There was a lengthy discussion about turning the eastern front _
into a Hanoi for the resistance. At that time the war of attrition was
flaring up on the Egyptian front. The final communique of this session
- stated that "the Palestinian people are determined to continue their
revolution until victory is achieved and a democratic state that would
be removed from all forms-of religious and racial discrimination is es-
tablished."
When the council adjourned, its members had no knowledge of the surprises
the following year would~have in store. Circumstances decreed that Jordan
be the scene of these surprises. The seventh session of the council was
convened between 30/5/1970 and 4/6/1970 as disputes on the Jordanian
scene escalated. The formation of a central commi.ttee was approved, and
the military solution, achieved~by means of a popular war of liberation,
was considered to be the only solution to the Arab-Zionist struggle.
The council rejected all peaceful solutions and affirmed the solidarity
of the Palestinian and Jordanian peoples.
But conditions soon be~ame tense very quickly, and especially after Egypt
and 3ordan accepted William Rogers' initiative. This required that an
emergency session of the council be convened, and the council met in
Amman on 27/8/1970.
The most important proclamation ma.de by the National Council during that
session was that wh ich regarded the PLO as the sole, legitimate represen- _
tative of the people of Palestine on the basis of the organization's
natural right of being the revolutionary body which expresses the hopes
and aspirations of the Palestinian people for the full liberation of
Palestine.
The eighth regular session of the National Council, and the first that
was held after the events of September 1970 in Jordan, was convened in a
climate that was naturally filled with different opinions, trends and
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rutc urrl~itu. u~n v?vLi
positions. Everybody was in a state of confusion and felt torn. It was
said then that the National Council had never seen a session where so
- many maneuvering was going on. Council members who were out~ide the con-
ference hall outnumbered those inside. Their talks centered around how
= a minimum of results can be achieved.
During this eighth session the council adopted a political action program
on the Palestinina, the .Tordanian, the Arab and the world scenes in the
context of the National Charter. This program was adopted as a guide for
action in the coming stage. The council also decided to form a new
National Council that would be made up of 150 members. Then the council
charged the leaders to continue their work until the [new] council, which
was~:approved by the current council, is formed by a committee which is to _
include the Executive Committee, the chairman of the National Council,
the commander of the liberation army and those members of the National
Council whom the Executive Commni.ttee wishes to add.
The new council was formed, and it convened its ninth session in Cairo -
' between 7/7/1971 and 13/7/1971. The council came close to suspending its
agenda because conditions between Jordan and the resistance had worsened
in the jungles of Jarash and 'Aj lun. Events continued without interrup-
tion, and Jordan announced the plan for a United Arab Kingdom. Thi.s
required that an emergency session be convened--that was the lOth ses-
sion. This lOth session coincided with a popular convention that was
held between 6 and 12 April 1972. -
During that session the council approved the recommendations of the
National Unity Committee, and it apporved the expansion of the Narional
Council so that 50 percent of the new members would be from the unions. -
A preparatory committee made up of the chairman of the council and the
Executive Committee was charged with the task of [carrying out] this expan-
s ion .
But the resolutions of the llth session of the National Council, which
was convened between 16 and 12/1/1973 [sicJ were overshadowed by the
October War, which took place months later, and by the Security Council
- Resolution, which this time bore the number 338. Arab diplomacy, and
especially Egyptian diplomacy began to work more actively for a peace
conference and for establishing a comprehensive and a final settlement
for the question of the Middle East.
It was in this general framework that the 12th session af the National -
Council was convened between 1/~~/1974 and 8/6/1974. The council unani-
mousJ.y approved the political c;~mmunique that was known as the 10-Point
Program. This happened at a tifne when foreign correspondents were betting
that the council would break uFjfrom the inside and that the Palestinian
rank would be split forever. ~
t
,
t
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It is true that the formulation of these points was the product of Pales-
~ tinian intelligence for a simultaneous "retrogression" and "a non-response"
to the new challenges [on the scane] wnile waiting for the general poli- `
tical picture to be comp:leted.
One of the most important points that attracted attention in these 10
points was the text of the second article which pertained to "establish-
ing a national government on any part of Palestinian territory that is
liberated." To put it more clearly, this meant that there was a willing-
- ness to accept a Palestinian state over part of Palestinian soil. -
After an executive committee of 14 members.was elected, the council deci-
ded, because the end of its term was approaching, to form a preparatory
committee from the chairman's office and from the Executive Committee.
- This preparatory committee would form a new council that would take into
account the relationship of confrontation between the groups of the revo-
- lution. The existing council had assumed its responsibilities on 7/7/1971,
- and [its term] was supposed to expire on 7/7/1974.
The 13th session, which was called tne session of the martyr Kamal
Jumblatt and was convened in mid March of 1976, was concerned, as its
name suggests, with the consequences of the painful Lebanese events and
with the new pan-Arab and international burdens which befell the struggle
of the Palestinian people. The council issued a political statement that
included the following points among others:
1. An emphasis on the fa~t that the question of Palestine was the core
and the basis of the Arab-Zionist struggle and on the fact that Security
Council Resolution 242 ignored the people of Palestine and their rights.
~ Therefore, the council was rejecting this resolution.
2. An emphasis on the fact that the armed struggle and the complementary
political and popular struggle that would accompany it will be continued
so that the national rights of the Arab people of Palestine which can-
not be disposed of can be achieved.
3. Al1 forms of capitulatory U.S. settlements are to be rejected; any
settlement that would be achieved at the e~cpense of the rights of the
people of Palestine is to be opposed so it can be scuttled; and the Arab
nation is to be called upon to bear its pan-Arab responsibilities.
4. The council expressed its concern for the right of the Palestinian ~
Revolution to e_:ist in Lebanon in the context of the Cairo Agreement.
The council co~ended the people of Lebanon, and the PLO expressed its
concern for the unity of the soil and the people of Lebanon as well as
for their security, their independence and their Arab character.
There are other resolutions~but the most important item tha*_ attracts
one's attention here is the diplomatic language which was adopted by
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_ rvn vrri~.ieu. u~~ vlvt~Z
, -
the political communique and whic?~ was consistent with the international
diplomatic directions for solving the problem in the ccntext of the
` United Nations. At the end of this session a secondary change was made in
the memberahip of the Executive Committee.
After the session of the martyr Kamal Jumblatt, the Houari Boumedienne
session was convened in January 1979 in Damascus. This was a stormy and
a passionate session despite urgent pleas for achieving full national
~ unity. The council had in fact approved a set of recommendations in this
regard on the political and organizational levels. But the climate of the
. council and the fact that conditions in Lebanon were becoming critical
- prevented the session from continuing along the lines that had been hoped
for it. The ~ouncil was adjourned after the term of the Executive Com-
mittee was extended without making any changes in the committee. The com- -
_ mittee promised that it would convene a session as soon as possible. And _
this was the case. And hence comes the call for the 15th session which is
, supposed to convene soon in Damascus or in Beirut. _
COPYRIGHT: 1980 AL-WATAN AL-'ARABI
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AFGHANISTAN
AFGHAN CRISIS ANALYZED IN 'GOD, THE GOLD AND TfiE BLOOD' -
Paris PARIS MATCIi in French 30 May 80 pp 85-90
_ [Chapter by Jean Larteguy fxom his book "God, the Gold and the Blood,"
published by Presses de la Cite (City Press)]
[Text] .The coup in Kab ul has often been represented as a,
stage in a vast Soviet plan to push toward the warm seas
and the Persian Gulf (Peter the Great thought of it first).
- What .7ean Larteguy reveals in one of the chapters in his
book "God, the Gold and the Blood" (Citq Press), which we
are reprinting here, proves that in real~ty the Red Aray,
maddened by the massacre o~ its advisers, co~mnitted its
troops in Afghanistan to force the hand o~ Brezhnev, in
- a way. Moral: that there is a Russian plan for expansion
toward the south 3s entirely certain. That the Kabul coup
did not occur under the con~d3tions and at the date planned
is certain as well.
I did not know Afghanistan. I had only crossed it a very long time b efore.
I remember a frontier post with a cluster of trucks, caravans o~ hairy camels,
thin faces, bushy beards, suspicious customs agents for whose approving
whim one must wait indefiaitely,,and then a desert swept by winds which
raised an ochre dust. 'This was, I was told, the "120-day wind."
- The British embassy was ~elebrating the ~i.rst year in which no diplomat had
- been assassinated.
With nostalgia ~o~ the Khybex ~ass of the "Three Bengal Lancers," and
Kipling's novels, a~ew elderly gentlemen taasted these memories. And packed
their bags. -
With India independent now, England no longer had any interest in remaining
in this borderland o~ an empire which had ceased to eXist.
"The Russians will replace i~s,",one o~ them said. "They have been dying to
- do so for so long. I w~sh.tliem~~ oq of it. In this damnable country there
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is nothing to be gained but blows. Whatever we said, whatever we did, we
remained Kafirs, infidels. The A~ghans cannot reach agreement amon~ them-
selves except aL our ex~ense, and they do not know whexe theix ~rontiezs
are. These vagabonds who think they are the only true Moslems in Islam are
- prouder than the Spanish n~bles. They push the sense of honor and the cult
of virility to the po~nt of madness. Isolated for centuries in their
mountain citadels, or wandering,the icy steppes, they are still living in
the Middle Ages. Yes indeed, I wish them ~oy of the Russians. And that
_ theq may lose as manv feathers as we did."
A Rolls Royce and Bandits on Horseback ~
Helene Carrere d'Encausse told me:
"When the Russians speak of peace, it is not only a propaganda theme, for
peace is a magic word linked with the oldest traditions. Russia is a land
of invasions. The Russians are not invaders hut the victims of invasions.
I believe in the weight of history, whatever the regime may be." And when
I interjected "But what about Afghanistan?" she answered: "A~ghanistan
has traditionally been a part o~ the Russian sphere of interest, and already
in the days of the ~zars there was conflict with the British. This ls an
historic terrain for Russian deployment, and thus a;.phenomonenon requiring
separate analysis. Afghanistan has a common frontier with Russia and is a
part of the area it de~ends."
Unforttmately, by the same token as Afghanistan, Iran too is a part of this
"deployment terrain."
The British have suffered many setbacks in A~ghanistan. In 1840, in the time
of Queen Victoria, when the svn never set on her empire, an army of 23,000
British and Indians was totally destroyed there. There w~s only one survivor,
the surgeon Brydon, who managed to reach the British fort iri Djelalabad,
his strength,exhausted, to report the disaster. All had perished: men, ~
women and chi'idren.
At that time the Russians controlled the North, all of Central Asia. The
British established themselves in Peshawar and Afghanistan was abandoned to
its internal quarrels. The terrible emir Abdurrahman made order prevail
there in his own ~ashion. He had bandits hung along the roads in iron cages
where they slowly starved or ~roze to death.
His successor, known as a bad Moslem, was assassi.nated. Amanullah, who '
came next, undertook to open up h~.s country to progress. Mistzusting both
the British and the Russi.ans, he turned to the French and the Gex`~nans.
Won over~to ~he mania for progress, like the Iranian Reza Khan, he hastened
_ Westernization measures and quadrupled taxes.
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At odds with the tribes and the all-powerful mullahs, Amanullah had to flee _
in his beautiful Rolls Royce, pursued by the horsemen of Batch-Sakao, a
bandit and son of a water carrier who proclaimed himself king.
- Nadir, one of Amanullah's cousins, took Kabul with the aid of tribes to
which he had made wild promises. He had Batch-Sakao shot and became shah.
He was to be assassinated.
Zahir Shah, his son, succeeded him. He was a cautious and efficient man
who tun~ed the power over to his uncle, and then to his cousin and brother-
in-law, Prince Daud.
Daud, on bad terms with Pakistan, with which the United States was allied,
established links with the USSR and in 1955 he welcomed i~?rushchev to Kabul.
The Russians spread out through the country, building roads and even mosques,
but they compensated themselves by claiming rights to all the gas deposits
in Afghan Turkestan.
Worried about the ever-greater dependence of Afghanistan on the USSR,
King Zahir emerged from his passivity, ousted Daud and took the government
in hand. He effected a reconciliation with Pakistan and the United ~tates
and then, in the midst of a~amine, went to take the waters at a spa in
Italy.
Aided by the ar~y headed by Soviet advisers, Frince Daud overthrew the
regime and seized power. This was to be the end of Western and American "
influence. It had lasted 10 years.
A General's Body Mutilated by Machine-Gun ~ire
Daud proclaimed a republic. His ~ate was to be massacre, along with 1,200
members of his powerful family, for daring to make contact with the West to
avoid being left alone against the Russians. There was little talk of it
in the West. A mere palace revolution!
A proverb which might be Afghan says that if one is to dine with the devil,
he sho uld have a long spoon. Daud's was not long enough.
Afghanistan has 10 to 12 million inhabitants, of whom 2 million are nomads. -
They are Tadzhiks, Pashtuns and Hazazas, the desceridants of the hordes of
Genghis Khan. The terrain is extremely rugged and lends itself to ambush.
On 25 December 1979, in the imcomfortable old palace of the old kings of
_ Afghanistan, now a fortress on t?ne outskirts of Kabul, a high-ranking Soviet
t~inister and general, Vi,tor PaF~utin, was shot dead in the middle of the
night. His body was cut in two by a burst from a Kalashnikov weapon in
the hands of one of�the bodyguards of Hafizullah Amin, head o~ the popular
republic and secretary general of the Afghan Co~omunist Party.
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For 10 years Afghanistan had been in the Soviet sphere. Iran would soon be _
incorporated if patience ;.ould be exercised, and it would be. Saudi Arabia,
the emirates on the Gulf and their riches were within reach. Their deposits
co~ild be sabotaged at 3ny time by the People's Lib eration Front headed by
Georges,Habache, who was controlled by the KGB.
On the other side of the world, armed, equipped and advised by the Red Army,
Vietnam digested its ronquests--Laos and Kampuchea. Despite Chinese warnings, _
pro-Vietnamese guerrilla fighters were infiltrating Thailand.
_ The missiles and armored divisions of the Warsaw Pact had Europe by the
throat, a Europe already threatened in Africa where it was in danger of
seeing its supplies of raw materials cut off, and in the Middle East where
its oil was threatened. Missile-launching cruisers, Russian nuclear sub-
marines and spy planes, from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, from the
Atlantic to the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, like a vast game of prisoner's
base, in which each vessel of the United States and its aliies was marked.
- The Kremlin diplomats were speaking out loudly. The chiefs of alined
commt~nist parties, like Marchais, adopted the mannerisms of gauleiters. _
President Carter was suffering the pangs of his good conscience, and electoral
problems. In Tehran, a gang of pseudostudents, as a condition for the re-
lease of the hostages they held, demanded that he b eat his breast and admit
his crimes. They all but asked that he present himself to them, neck bared
and the rope around his neck, like the bourgeois o~ Calais, of whose sad
fate they were fortunately ignorant.
Crowded Prisons Emptied at Night
PRAVDA lectured him like a naive and bumbling child. After his ears had
been properly boxed, detente and the signing of the SALT II agreement, which
would serve Soviet interests above all, were dangled before him as a lure.
But he was forbidden to give NATO the medium-range Pershing missiles
abundantly available to the troops of the Warsaw Pact.
Worried and in the midst of an economic crisis, free Europe was ready for
any sacrifice, any concession if only it could be guaranteed, promised some
years of peace. The only politician who showed evidence of character was
a woman, Mrs Thatcher, who wondered if it was not in England`s interests to
keep its distance from a fragmented, hesitant Europe uncertain in its
diplomacy, and to rema.in an island under the American umbrella.
The fluctuating policy of Giscard d'Estaing reflec ted his electoral concerns.
Overnight, because of the damnable Afghans and their intractable nature,
the conqueror was to find himself in the position of a supplicant. His
formidable army caught in a k~ornets' nest, Brezhnev sought the understanding -
_ of Carter and asked the Europeans to persuade the American president of his
good faith and his peaceful intentions. This was no longer the America of
Watergate. The slap dealt in Tehran caused it to forget its Vietnam complex.
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The leaders in Hanoi, thanks to their pride, their blunderings, their
contempt for the rights of peoples, their savage triumphs and their death
camps, had contrib uted greatly to this healing. After Che assassination
of Daud and the massacre of his family, the Russians hacl installed in power
- a sectarian and narrow-minded teacher, Taraki, a true Ma~rxist-Leninist
trained in the cadre schools of the party.
He was th~ secretary general of one of the two rump communist parties, the
Parcham, and he was controlled through his rival, Hafizullah Amin, who was
the motive force of the Khalq. The Soviet spiritual fathers of these _
parties were not unaware that Afghan nationalism could at any time prevail
over the deepest Marxist faith, and that it was wise to take precautions.
Taraki no longer knew anything about his own country. By his brutal reforms,
his contempt for Islam, his failure to understand the Afghan people, his
massive executions of opponents, he aroused the entire country against him
in j ust a few months. The Russians bore this unpopularity, which went
against their secret plans, with bad grace. They wanted to make of the ~
Afghanistan borderland a Soviet republic like Outer Mongolia. Whatever
they may say today, they let his rival, the impetuous Amin, cut Taraki's
throat. Hafizullah Amin was an ambitious man, a Stalinist, the type of man
needed in difficult times. One could count on him to accomplish certain
tasks, provided 'ne were kept firmly on a leash, if only to get rid of him
later by making him, the new scapegoat, responsible for all the world's sins. _
Amin began to be a cause for worry when he liquidated not just religious
opponents, but supporters of Taraki, by the tens of thousands, installir.g
those faithful to him everywhere. ~
The crowded prisons were emptied at night. Prisoners went directly from the
cells to the firing squad without even a pause for a few minutes before a
people's court. On this subject we have the testimony of a high Afghan
official who, for understandable reasons, prefers to remain anonymous. He
says that at the Foul I Shaki prison, inmates spent almost no time at all.
"They were summoned as of nightfall. A noncoIIm?issioned officer tied their
hands behind their backs and they were taken outside the prison, under the
supervision of two Soviet advisers. The deed was done by a platoon made up -
entirely of noncommissioned and commissioned officers. The men were shot
in front of a ditch dug that very morning by a bulldozer, which then covered
the bodies and filled the hole, using its spotlight." (Francois Missen,
"Le Kabul Syndrome," Edisud.)
If one is to bPlieve Mr Marchais, whose sources are good, the "traitorous
comrade" Amin had 150,000 A~ghans who were "partisans of peace and democracy" ,
executed. Thus there must be no more communists in A~ghanistan, where there
- were several thousand of them. One wonders what role the Red Army played
in this. And who asked it to come, for it cotil.d not have been Amin.
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~
- No hiore Communists in Afghanistan
As his Soviet "friends" reproached Amin for excessively exped3tious methods,
he recalled the precedents of Lenin and Stalin, who had first of all purged
� the party and the army the better to~deal with the counterrevolution.
It was barely possible to rescue a certain Babrak Karmal from his talons.
A good plain communist, industrious and a rather brave man, it was thvught
that he might yet serve as an alternate card. He was not possessed by a
fierce atheism, like Taraki and Amin. He would be told to say his prayers
and the Afghan mullahs would be satisfied. The Russians nonetheless took '
their precautions. To safeguard Amin against any temptation and to warn
Washington that henceforth Afghanistan was the private preserve of the
Soviets, "unruly elements" assassinated the American ambassador, -
Adol.ph Dubs, in Februa.ry of 1979. Under the approving eye of a KGB colonel ~
who, unfortunately, was a bit too visible in the course of the operation.
Which displeased the State Department, resigned though it was to seeing
Afghanistan slide into the Soviet orbit, Amin learned his lesson, but not
as the Soviets saw it. If he wanted to save his skin he would have to act
fast. In order to show that he was not uninvolved in this murder, he sent
a personal message to President Carter to convey to him his "profound
_ ~egret." He packed the A~ghan delPgation to the United Nations with his
men. Through them, he made contact discreetly not only with the Americans
b ut with the moderate Moslem countries on whom he had his eye. Finally, ~
through his brother Abdallah Amin, who is pro-Chinese, he entered into dis- ~
cussions with the agents of ~eking, who were providing support to a guerr311a
force operating on the short 5ino-A~ghan frontier, the Shula Yi Jowed.
Amin made no mystery of his plan. He proposed to expel all the Soviet
advisers and to ask the Americans and the Chinese, the Yugoslavs, the Arab
countries and the UN to guarantee Afghan neutrality.
- Amin is a true communist as savage as Emir Abdurrahman. He is not an agent
of the CIA or of the Chinese revisionists, as we are asked to believe today.
Once rid of the Russlans, whose presence was becoming ever more wnpopular,
and having reached agreement with certain rebel movements against others--and
they were much fragmented--he hoped to create in Afghanistan a sort of
hereditary, family and absolute communist monarchy, such as that in Albania -
' with Enver Hoj da, and in North Korea with Kim Il-sung. Kim Il-sung and Haj da
were his models more than Tito, whose luxurious lifestyle was more like that
of a monarch.
- His tool would ue the A~ghan'~ army, which he strengthened and provided with
modern weapons supplied by the RuRsians. A part of these weapons disappeared
into the neighboring mountains, where the rebellious Moslems determined to be ~
left alone came and went.
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Proud of Their Warrior Past
In Nov~ember of 1979, relations b.e.tween Soviet Ambassador ; 3anov and Amin
reached such a tense point that they engaged in insults and thxeats. Amin
demanded that the amhassador be recalled. Obstinate, vain and impulsive,
very Afghan in this regard, he went on at length about how the Soviets needed
him mare than he needed them.
At Che same time, he was planning a general army rebellion. As an extra
precac~tion, he had weapons distributed to "militia" forces loyal to him.
These were the bands whose ideology was limited to "chasing out the Russians" ~
and hacking the "kafir," or infidel, to bits. Duly warned, the Soviet
goverr~ment sent one of its most eminent representatives, not only an army
gene�r~il but also a high KGB official and ~irst vice minister of internal
affairs, Viktor Paputin.
Officially, his mission was to straighten out Amin's thinki.ng. But as there
were no longer many illusions about this individual, he dropped all pretense.
He organized a counter-putsch much as one organizes counter-~ire, within
_ an Afghan army of 100,00Q men which 6,000 Soviet military advisers kept
well in hand. At least so they believed.
Now relations were very bad between the Soviet military, with their iron -
discipline in the Prussian style, and the traditionally undisciplined Afghans,
~ proud of their past record as indomitable warriors. As to their "political
- awareness," it was nil. Getting Marx into an Afghan head poses insurmount-
able problems.
When Amin learned of the arrival of Viktor Paputin and his assignment, he
decided to cross the Rubicon. Since it was no longer possible to expel the
Soviet advisers, he had them eliminated in a bloody St Bartholomew's
massacre. The muezzins' call to mur.der replaced the striking of the hour.
- Did Viktar Paputin, general, min3.ster, importani: party member and KGB
official, believe his person sacrosanct, as the Roman citizens, whose
status was a passport everywhere, once were? He took his chances in Amin's
i fortified redoubt, and was struck down. At that same moment, Amin launched
a general uprising and proclaimed a cur~ew to allow his troops to operate.
Had he received assurances from the Americans and the Chinese? It appears
that, without really discouraging him, they mistrusted this Pol Pot in power.
On the night of 26 Decemher, a certa~n number o~ Soviet of~icers serving
as advisers were massacred in a horrible way, 3.n some cases with their
families, in Kabul. It was tp be worse still in the distant garrisons,
where the Russians were not numerous enough to rally together and defend
themselves--in I~erat, in Kandahar, and among the units in the field. The
figure of I,OOG dead has been suggested. ~The exact number will never be
- known. The .Red Army had to act on the spot at the risk o~ losing its
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- reputation, of being reduced to the same rank as the bourgeois states which
_ had a'~andoned their soldiers and their diplomats. A powerful and organized
cast~_, it places its safety, that of its members and their "honor" above
- the'imperatives of ma~or policy. In the confueion prevailing on the top
party levels, it had become the leading power in the USSR.
"The army," explained Helene~Carrere d'Encausse, "became a closed circle
which recruits from its own ranks and is self-perpetuating. The military
career is handed down from father to son. The military marry into military ~
= families, and the children go to the same schools. It is more than an army
of tradition.
"The Red Arnry in which the cadres enjoy all sorts of privileges constitutes
a closed and protected world.
"In Stalin's day, the military paid for their privileges by total subordina-
tion to the political power. In 1979, during a period of great international
tension, at a time when it was engaged in foreign theatres of operation, it
became an element in political decisions. It has weight in the choices, and
is tending to become, in the U.S. manner, a Pentagon which has a free hand
with the civilian population. The a~my enjoys even greater weight--it
presents a more serious threat ~o the apparatus, particularly since the
problem of who will succeed Brezhnev is not settled. The army is the mili-
tary but it is also the heavy industry which works for it, a whole ma~or
complex, a whole military and industrial complex whose choices have priority
over the other industries."
= Parties Replaced by Cliques
This army, without consult3ng the civil authorities, took immediate action.
The need was urgent and it is known how long it takes the Krsmlin to make
decisions. With Brezhnev sick and "useful" 2 hours a day, the Soviets
turned again to a kind of collective leadership.
All the troops available on the periphery of Afghanistan, "Asiatic" units
_ made up mainly of T3dzhik, Uzbek and Turkmen suldiers, were also sent by the
tens of thousands to prevent the massacre ~rom spreading and to save the _
advisers' families.
Hafizullah Amin, 3n his ~ortified palace, sought with his supporters to the
l~st cartridge. He was ovexwhelmed by the bombing planes, the artillery
mortars. There were no survivors. He lived and died like a wolf, Afghan
above all.
The leaders of Soviet Russia, because of internal problems--who would succeed
Brezhnev--thus found themselves reduced to the same "electoral" expedients
as the American president. Only the parties were replaced by cliques, and _
public opinion by what the Red Army thought.
I
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And in a se].f-respecting traditional army, it is the o~ficers who
think.
- On 5aturday, 29 December, Radio Kabul announced that order prevailed in the
capital, that the rest of the country was totally calm and that the army
was in full control of the situation.
With 25,000 Soviet soldiers patr~lling Kabul, what army was involved? As to
the prevailing calm, there was no one any longer unaware that except for
some towns, the country had been beyond government control for months.
Then they brought out Babrak Karmal, who had been on Taraki's team. He was
of a princely family, like poor Daud, but a strict follower of Marxism. A
puppet. Again he became secretary general of the communist party of
Afghanistan, the People's Democrat3c Party, of which little remained after
the two factions, the Khalq and the Parcham, were massacred, supreme commander
of an army of which half had deserted while the other half rebelled, chief of
state in a nation which had ceased to exist, and president of a revolutionary
council which had just been invented. The resistance did not allow itself
= to be deceived, denouncing Karmal for what he was--a "direct agent and
mercenary of the Soviet Union."
Carter's Hawkish Cries
Even before the new chief of state was installed, just as he was landing in
an Antonov aircraft thanks to the Soviet airlift, Leonid Brezhnev wished him
"great success in his multiple activities~in the service of the friendly
Afghan people, that people capable of defending the conquests of the revolu-
tion, the sovereignty, independence and national dignity of the new
Afghanistan."
_ It would have been hard to push the farce further. Babrak Karmal, a new
Ub u in the Afghan fashion, was to go one better. As soon as he was in office,
he pointed out his devotion to the s~crcd relibic.-. of Islam and immediately
proclaimed a holy war, Jihad, against the enemy--90 percent of the Afghan
people rising against communism in the name o~ Islam o~ the purest and most
v intransigent sort, and led by theit mullahs!
In this massive intervention, the Soviets took enormous risks--loss of the
benefits of a policy o~ expansion pursued with great mastery, according to a
principle earlier dear to John ~oster Dulles, using the carrot and the stick.
With, to top it all, this ~ine o1d Marxist-Leninist ideology, hroken down in
simplistic slogans ~or Third-Wox'ld use. But they coutd not act otherwise,
and the military had made their dec3.sion.
Tn that Christmas 1979 season, everything advised against such intervention.
- A recent suzvey had revealed that the Ameri.eans, awakened from their apathy,
were ready to accept the risk o~ war. Carter, in the midst of an electoral
campaign, could not be insensitive to this change in the atmosphere.
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_
Abandoning his ;mage as a dove, he had already emitted some sharp hawkish
cries. It meant taking on the Moslem world, destroying the Iranian advantage,
and reawakening opposition in the Moslem republics of the USSR.
To prevent Iran from slipping into the American camp, the Russians had to
take their precautions: those Islamic "students" whom they had controlled
secretly since training them in West Beirut and who opposed the release of ~
the hostages in Tehran.
The economic situation in Russia was catastrophic. Brezhnev himself had
just admitted this. Forty percent of the national product was being ab-
sorbed by the manufacture of weapons, the maintenance of the expeditionary
corps engaged in distant colonial ventures, and the liberation movements -
which sometimes burned themselves out.
Even a Cuban soldier sent to Africa had to be fed and paid.
Tired of working for a paradise which they could not see approaching, the
Soviets abandoned themselves to frenetic absenteeism, negligence, black
marketing atld alcoholism. Even the best-maintained sectors such as
transportation, the railroads, were going downhill.
Plants shut down, others were functioning at only 30 percent capacity. The
only exceptions were the army and the industrial sectors it controlled
directly, and which absorbed all of the sk311ed ma.npower and essential raw
materials. Added to this, an unprecedenteci farm deficit developed. The
USSR had to purchase 40 million tons of wheat that year, which could only :
be supplied to it by America, Canada and Western Europe.
A popular dissatisfaction which was tn no way ideological was openly
manifested. Its source lay 3.n the dearth not only of consumer goods, but ,
of essential supplies as well. Meat could no longer be found. Supplies of
vegetables had to be obta3ned from the black market, where prices had
doubled. The "far-off wars" were blamed.
The intellectuals, the performers, all of those whom the regime was stifling
and who were challenging the elite in power, had given Russia a hateful
image which only the "believers" still ~re~ected.
Finally, the satellites, with the exception of Bulgaria, which had practi-
cally become a Soviet republic, and Cuba, were showing evex-increasing
reluctance to go along in servile ~ashion with the USSR and to follow it in
its African or Asiatic ventures.
It was within this unfavorable context that the A~ghan intervention was
undertaken, at the demand of the mili,tary, to whom the "civilians" in the
Central Committee could only bow, knowing what they risked losing.
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However it was hoped in the Kremlin, and the marshals had promised, that
it would all be settled in 8 days. -
Low-Level Conscripts
One can imagine the scene. Reassured, after having sent Brezhnev off to bed,
for he was badly fatigued, the leaders of the Central Co~mittee proposed a
toast: "To Peter the Great, our genial guide and master. May he rejoice in
his grave. We have honored his legacy. Our cossacks are maintaining order
in Warsaw Beg pardon, the tanks and helicopters of our valiant Red
_ Army have reestablished democratic legality in Kabul."
But this improvised intervention developed badly. It was only possible to
mobilize a single elite divis3on in time--the parachute troops dropped on
Kabul, less than 10,000 meiz. '
The other troops in the area were units recruited from the Asian republics,
conscripts and draftees who proved to be less than brilliant soldiers. They ~
provided proof before alI o� the journalistic and other commentators
gathered in Kabul. They had poor command o~ the equipment they were using,
in particular tanks. The3r liaison work was bad, their electronic mastery
inadequate, and their air-ground coordination poor.
They had no idea of what they had come to A~ghanistan to do. The Turkmen,
Uzbek and Tadzhik troops speak the dialects of the Afghans. They feel a -
moderate solidarizy with the European Russians, but are closer t~ these
Moslems they were supposed to fight. Some deserted.
As soon as it was possible, the Soviet command replaced them with better-
equipped, better-trained troops, taken from the Warsaw Pact reserves. It
cleared out t~e foreign 3ournalists. But meanwhile the rebellion had been
swelled by 60,000 deserters from the Afghan army, who had come over with
their weapons and baggage. The remain~ng 40,000 were stripped of their -
weapons and confined to the3r barracks, with Soviet guns trained on them.
Later, when they were sent into operation, the Soviets would be behind them,
- ready to make them the targets in order to block any temptation to flee or
to turn against them. Nothing was settled ea.ther in a week or in a month.
The Soviet general sta~~ had to settle for reduced capacity. If the
Americans supplied the rebels with small zndividual ground-air or air-ground
type Sam or Milan or Crotal missiles, they would su~fer horrible casualties.
They could no longer supply the troops by air. Their helicopters and their
transport aircraft would be shot down like chickens; their tanks would be
exploded by mines ox would buxn in the Hindu-Kush mountain passes. They
would lose equipment and men. It was necessaxy at all costs to ensure that
Carter abandoned the A~ghan res3.stance or the Red Army would be engulfed for
years in an interminable war.
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Sagging Soviet Capacity
The Soviet advisers were increasingly unwelcome. The image of the "ugly
American" was replaced by that of the ugly Russian. They were shot at in
Syria. The Guardians of the Revolution, whose officers are Palestinians,
had to intervene to prevent the occupation of the Soviet embassy in Tehran.
Without their troops, without their secret police bolstered by East Germans
with fine Nazi features, they would have been chased out of Africa.
They could only supply weapons, guns and tanks which proved on use to be
of poor quality. Only�their military advisers proved valuable. In the -
. realm of the economy or agriculture, the experts from the East proved a
disascer. They supplied neither the grain nor the seed so badly needed, but
only a mistaken method of using them, and no complete medical team.
Wherever the red flag flies in the world, even in the countries which formerly
largely met their own food needs, there are lines outside empty stores and
the people are dying o~ hunger. In A~ghanistan, the formidable Red Army not
only cannot subdue the bands of poorly armed rebels but is suffering ,
reverses, revealing its human and technical weaknesses. To excuse them, the
Soviet Union accuses foreign forces--the Chinese or the Americans, who,
happily for them, have not r-eally become involved. The astounded world ~
wonders if it was not duped, if the Red Army is truly that invulnerable
force of which they are sick and tired o~ hearing. The Soviet soldiers with
their shaved heads, despite their indoctrination and their three years of
compulsory service, are dragging their feet, as ours did in Algeria. They
' are not keen on spilling th~eir blood in Afghanistan.
The Soviet army is supplied with costly, impressive equipment which has its
effect in parades but which is outdated, badly finished, infinitely less
sturdy than is claimed. It 3s above all adapted to broad cavalry deploy-
ments in the steppes. It is not designed to stand up against modern -
weaponry. Missiles which cost only $1,000 apiece and which can be used by
any guerrilla fighter after a half-day's practice, and which can be carried
by a single man over difficult terrain, trans~orm the 40-ton T72 tank, said
to be the most modern in the world, a MIG 27, the armored attack helicopter ~
and the big Antonov into smoking metal. This equipment, on top of it all,
requires gun crews, pilots, and drivers whose training is lengthy and ex-
cessively costly. All of the great names in Soviet diplomacy were mobilized
to come to the aid of the army, the pride of the regime, so that it would
not lose its reputation and its prestige in the passes of Afghanistan,
which would mean the end of Soviet ambitions. It was Dobrynin who was sent
to Washington, be.fore Gromyko, and Chernovenko to ~'aris and Lunkov to London.
In connection with the Olympic Games, an effort was made to set the
Europeans and Americans one against the other. The tone has changed greatly.
In order to "save detente," they say, they propose the neutralization of
- Afghanistan. What do they ask in exchange? No rockets, no individual
missiles for the Afghan rebels. The rest is diplomatic verbiage and
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vague promises. How could it be otherwise, since we know that the
_ Russians would never allow Afghanistan, any more than they would Hungary,
Poland or Czechoslovakia, to move out of their zone of influence.
The Soviets are condemned to win in Afghanistan, where the credibility of
their army and their world policy is at stake. They must carry through to
the end, taking all the risks even if it means exterminating the Afghan
people. Already they are using napalm, and, in contempt of all inter-
national agreements, asphyxiating gases, as in Laos.
What will Carter do?
Nixon made this terrible judgment of him:
"Someone said that Mr Carter is a newly.converted hawk. Well, we are all
familiar with these religious revivals during which the village drunkard
prostrates himself in the dust and claims to be born again. The next
morning he is drinking again." ~
Probing the Wound
One can imagine what Nixon would do in Carter's place. He would probe
mercilessly in the Soviet wound, and make~the Kremlin pay for Vietnam. ~
Then he would negotiate on his conditions, and they would be harsh. �
Will President Carter profit from the opportunity to restore order in this
part of the world, to put an end to any sharing of the costs by Iran and
Afghanistan? -
The USSR hoped to win a world empire, at least to carve for itself the
leading place, without ever having recourse to total war, because it would
lose it, which neither the Russian people nor the old men in the Kremlin
want. Their strategists relied on the3r competence to win the game by
taking the opponent's pawns one after the other, to force him imperceptibly
~ toward defeat, without ever making a direct attack on the key pieces, which
would have led to the atomic cataclysm.
On that night of 26 December 1979, in a mediocre seztlement of accounts,
Russia had to come out in the open and evexything was laid open to challenge.
Sweeping the board with the back o~f its hand, destiny proved that it re-
mains the supreme master of the game, ~or it was subject to no rules, much
less any ideology.
COPYRIGHT: 1980 par Cogedipresse S.A.
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- MAURITANIA
OFFICIAL DISCUSSES NATION'S INDUSTRIALIZATION POLICY
Paris MARCHES TROPICAUX ET MEDITERRANEENS in French 30 May 80 p 1261
[Text] Mr Abdellahi Ould Bah, Mauritania's Director of Industrialization,
recently discussed, with the daily CHAAB, his country's industrialization
policy, which is centered on the "protqotion of small and average-sized
_ business, which should be the work of national, Mauritanian business men,
possibly in association with foreign partners.
- "To that end, we have adopted an investment code in agreement with poli-
tical orientations in the industrial field. This code ma.kes room for small
' and average businesses, to which it gives substantial advantages by way
of exemption from import duties on raw materials and also f inancial
exemptions (BIC, etc.) and other administrative incentive measures, as
- well as financial facilities (lines of credit at the Mauritanian Develop-
ment and Commerce Bank (B1rIDC) with assistance from the World Bank).
"In executing this policy, we are trying to set up some agencies, in
particular, the unit for industrial promotion and study. This unit is
already in existence and is combined with the Ministxy of Industry adminis- _
tration. It offers concrete assistance to developers of industrial
projects. This assistance is for development of feasibility studies and
for management of existing industrial units. ~ -
"It should also be noted that an investment and guarantee fund is to be
established as soon as possible, which will help investors to resolve
some of their f inancial difficulties. The establishment of an improved
industrial area being developed at Nouakchott should also be noted.
Development studies for this pro~ect are .to begin in May.
"In addition, studies have been undertaken to focus on econamic legisla-
t3on, and especially on legislation related to the industrial sector.
The aim of these studies is to bring into line the various legislative
decrees and to improve the legal context in which the industrial promo-
tion operation is developing."
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Mr Bah also pointed out that the "Rosso textile project had to be abandoned
because the studies developed at the time indicated that it was not -
profitable under existing conditions. However, industry leaders are
working hard at the present titne to renew this project. Contacts have
been made with both Mauritanian and foreign investors for that purpose.
Finally, Mr Bah stated that "sugar and oil ref ineries have been constructed
over a period of several years at a total cost of approximately 6 billion
- ouguiyas. Up to the present time, these industrial plants could not be
operated. At the present time, action is being taken to f ind solutions.
As for the sugar refinery, discussions are currently underway with the ~
companies or firms which developed this project. These discussions should
lead to the reopening of the refinery. In the case of the oil refinery, ~
a solution should be reached as soon as possible."
COPYRIGHT: Rene Moreux et Cie., Paris, 1980 �
9174
CSO: 4400
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SYRIA
DETAILS OF AL-ASAD ASSASSINATION ESCAPE REPORTED
JN071147 Paris AL-WATAN AL-'ARABI in Arabic 5 Jun 80 p 18
. [Text] Contrary to what has been reiterated by some news agencies and
radio stations, AL-WATAN AL-'ARABI affirms that Syrian President -
Hafiz al-Asad was not wounded in the assassination attempt to which he
was subjected in Damascus last week. He only suffered bruises and
contusions in the leg.
A well-informed Syrian diplomatic source has given AL-WATAN AL-'ARABI
the details of the assassination attempt from which President A1-Asad
miraculously escaped. He said that an armored presidential car had
driven the president to the Presidential Palace, located on Abu Rummanah
Street in Damascus, where he was sche3uled to accompany his guest, the
Niger chief of state, to the Damascus Airport to see him off following
his visit to Syria.
- The palace guard, composed mainly of military policemen, opened the outer.
iron gate to admit the president's car and his escort, when the car stopped
in the inner lawn of the palace, presidential aide Kahlid al-Husayn
rushed forward to open the car's righthand door. As soon as the president
put his right foot out of the door, rapid fire salvoes were opened in
the direc~ion of the car. The aide immediately pushed the president back
into the car and strongly slammed the door. A1-Asad's right leg was
bruised when he failed to pull it back in time.
The Syrian diplomatic source adds that President A1-Asad's delay by seconds
in getting out of the car was sufficient to save his life. Those who
had fired the shots quickly hurled two grenades at the car, but they did
not explode. One of them threw a third grenade which rolled and came to
a stop near the car. However, one of the guards kiclced it away from the
car. It e~loded at a far distance and wounded several aides.
The Syrian diplomatic source said that it was revealed ttiat the attackers
were four military policemen commanded by a first lieutenant from the
palace guard.
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cvn vrrt~lnl, u~G V1VLI
As a result, a fierce battle ensued between the Syrian president's guards
and the military policemen in wliich machine guns and RPG rockets were
_ used. The battle stretched to the main square in front of the palace
and the Nura Square in th~e middle of Abu Rummanah Street as well as the
squares and streets nearby, including the side-street~on which the
A1-Sharq Club is located. The battle lasted several hours. Reinforcements
arrived and managed to besiege the attackers. The sound of fire and the
explosion of bombs and rockets was heard in the palace vicinity and the
streets leading to it.
The Syrian source said th at four military policemen were killed in the
battle. A fifth, who was trying to escape from the palace, was appre-
hended. The source added that two of President A1-Asad's aides were killed
and six others were wounded in the battle, including Khalid al-Husayn and
'Aziz Skaf. The area in which the battle took place was searched and combed
after a curfew was imposed following the battle.
President A1-Asad was quickly taken to a military hospital to have his leg ~
administered to. He was forced to not attend several public ceremonies
which he was scheduled to p atronize.
The Syrian source said that the investigation revealed that the four military -
policemen zaho were killed come from Aleppo and the districts surrounding it.
It will be recalled that Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria, was
recently subjected to stringent military measures in the wake of disturbances
that have erupted against the regime.
The intelligence service and the investigation quarters have shrouded the
identities and affiliations of the assailants with secrecy. However, it
_ is believed that they belong to armed and violent religious groups that
have recently renewed their activities in the wake of a fierce manhunt
to which they have been subjected. w
COPYRIGHT: 1980 A1-Watan A1-'Arabi
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. TUNISIA ~
FATE OF STUDENTS, TRADE UNION DETAINERS EXAMINED
Paris JEUNE AFRIQUE in French 28 May 80 pp 52-53
_ [Article by our correspondent in Tunis, Souhayr Belhassen]
[TextJ Can any consideration be expected for the 38 �
students and teachers still in prison? And for the
_ trade unionists? When release is being mentioned...
"Our son is thrown into a dark and stifling cell where day cannot be distin-
guished from night, impregnated with the nauseating smell of the toilets,
in a hole set up in a corner. Large ra*_s fight with the flies and mosquitoes
over the refuse which is accumulating. Water is obtained from the outside
and its flow depends on the goodwill of the guard...
"At present our son is fed noodles boiled in salt water, a sort of worms
and strange insects soup, chick peas colored with a little tomato sauce which
he must swallow within an hour for fear that the 'food' would turn sour.
Our son is ill now, he has hemorrhoids due to lack of exercise, and because
of his ill treatment he has a heart condition."
Letter from parents.
"These are the conditions under which our son is living because one day he
dared to exercise his right to liberty of expression and organization. He
waits for our visit, from the far south where we live, to meet him once a
month for 10 minutes separated by a 1.50 m wall and wire netting..."
This is one of the letters from parents of 13 detainees from the clandestine
Chaab group, addressed to JEUNE AFRIQUE. Will this ordeal ever come to an
_ end? In the present political climate marked by the evident official wish
for relaxation from tension (JEUNE AFRIQUE No 1010) public opinion would
like 'to believe in a goodwill gesture. Especially in regard to the 38
"students" (in fact there are also some teachers) who are still imprisoned:
14 members of the Marxist-Leninist group el-Amel el-Tounsi (the Tunisian
worker), 13 affiliated with the Marxist-Leninist clandestine Chaab, three
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= students accused of having provoked the riots at the Bardo II univers~ty
city in 1977, four fromthe PRPT (Tunisian People~s Revolutionary Party),
and four from the FPLT (Progressive ~Yont for Tunisian Liberation).
The oldest, most of the 14 memt~ers of el-Amel el-Tounsi, were arrested in
February 1975. After being placed in solitary confinement for 3 months,
they were tried and sentenced, with 101 of their comrades, in October of -
the same year, to serve for a term from six to nine years of prison without
probation. They are now 27 to 32 years old. Their seniority won them a
chance to be r�egrouped in the Tunis central prison, after having fought for
the improvement in the conditions of their imprisonment (health, food, care),
and for the promulgation of a statute for. detainees. In five years each ~
one of them will ha ve been on strike for more than 150 days, the longest,
22 days, was for assembling in the same prison.
- The 13 members of the Chaab clandestine movement had seen the conditions
of their detention deteriorate on 27 March, the day of the verdict of the
Gafsa trial. But also the epilogue of the Chaab suit under appeal which
was settled by the acquittal of five members of the group, out of eighteen.
This, after 16 months of detention for trial under such conditions that at
the present time one of them has lost his teeth, and another one lost his
mind, The other 13 group members have had their sentences reduced to two
- or three years in prison and to 400 to 250 dinars in fines, and are now
scattered in various penitentiaries: six in Sfax in a room with 40 common
right detainees, two in Sousse with 60 common rights, three in Kasserine .
and finally two in Borj Roumi (Bizerte).
Dampness and cold. ~
- For a whole year their wives, who were working in the interior of the
country, had tried to get transferred to the capital in order to be able
to visit their husbands in prison and to take some food to them twice weekly.
On 27 March they were forced to do the opposite. Only one ten minute visit
instead of twice a week for one hour each visit. The detainees' daily
walk reduced by three-fourths, only lasts 15 minutes. Newspapers are
cancelled.
The three Bardo II students, Samir Abdallah, Ahmed Amara and Tahar Loussaief,
are in the Borj Roumi penitentiary. They were between 18 and 21 years old
when they were sentenced to five years in prison in November 1977. This old
weapons depot, seven kilometers form Bizerte, made up of several isolated
blocks separated by a high tension wire, is sadly known for its cellar cut
out of the stone, 32 steps below ground level and arranged into cells where
the humidity and cold are particularly unbearable due to the proximity of
the sea. In this prison, which is never-cleaned, the smell of the excre-
ments and the total darkness end up by breaking down the "hard heads."
That is whAre can also be found the 18 members of the Gafsa commando con-
demned for a period of six months to 20 years in prison.
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As regards the four members of the PRPT, Brahim Tobal's party, former
yousefist, located in Algeria, they are serving their prison terms with '
the four members of FPLT (pro Libyan) in the civil~pri~con in Tunis. '
In addition to these 38 political detainees there are two member.s of the =
UGTT (General Tunisian Labor Union) administration commission and about ten
union tnilitants. Beyond making the government .repr~senta~ion more credible,
releasing the students, who were arrested, il~ treated and condemned for
their opinions, uiould have the effect of (almost) emptying the prisons of
political detainees. -
. Photo Captions: Three of the 38: Bacheddine .7amoussi (left), Ma.kni Mongi
(center}, a.nd Anis Chouaykh (below), at present in the Sfax prison.
COPYRIGHT: Jeune Afrique GRUPJIA 1980 ~
7993
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-r
WESTERN SAHARA
BRIE~S -
SWAZILAND RECOGNIZES SllAR--On 24 May, the Ministry of Information of the
SDAR (Saharan Democratic Arab Republi:.) issued a communique in which
it announced Swaziland's decision to recognize officially the Saharan
Republic. [Text] [Paris MARCHES TROPICAUX ET MIDITERRANEENS in French
30 May 80 p 1254] 9174
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