STAFF NOTES: MIDDLE EAST AFRICA SOUTH ASIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86T00608R000400010029-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 18, 2001
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: February 11, 1975
• Content Type: REPORT

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`Middle ~~ Ec,st; ~`Afr~ica,, ,5.outh Asia
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Secret
No Foreign Disarm
gulp~ KOU~50
Middle East
Africa
youth Asia
State Dept. declassification & release instructions on file
Secret
No. 0428/74
February 11, 1975
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Background Use OnZb/ControZZed Diseem
Warning Notice
Sensitive Intelligence Sources and Methods Involved
NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION
Unauthorized Disclosure Subject to Criminal Sanctions
Classified by 005827
Exempt from general declassification schedule
of E. 0. 11652, exemption category:
s 5B (1), (2), and (3)
Automatically declassified
on: Date Impossible to Determine
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MIDDLE EAST - AFRICA - SOUTH ASIA
This publication Is prepared for regional specialists in the Washington com-
munity by the Middle East - Africa Division, Office of Current Intelligence,
with occasional contributions from other offices within the Directorate of
Intelligence. Comments and queries are welcome. They should be directed to
the authors of the individual articles.
Kuwait: New Cabinet Named . . . . . . . . . 1
South Yemen: Political Activity Prior to
National Front Congress . . . . . . . . . 3
Iran: Labor Problems ?; .. 5
Angola: Holden Roberto and the FNLA . . . . . . 8
Feb 11, 1975
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9ECRET
New Cabinet Named
The new cabinet announced this week by Prime
Minister Sheikh Jabir al-Ahmad al-Sabah, whu is
also the Crown Prince, has important implications
for the line of succession to the amirate. More-
over, the oil portfolio is no longer in the hands
of Abd al-Rahman Atiqi, long prominent as Kuwait's
spokesman on petroleum policy.
Named to the newly created post of deputy
prime minister was the ambitious, Sheikh Jabir al-
Ali al-Sabah, long at odds with many of his rela-
tives in the ruling Sabah family, including Crown
Prince Jabir al-Ahmad. For years, Jabir al-Ali has
been trying to get the family to recognize him as
the number three man in the country, after the Amir
and Jabir al-Ahmad.
Jabir al-Ali's appointment as deputy prime
minister indicates he has apparently smoothed over
differences with the Amir and the Crown Prince and
now has a leg up on royal competitors for the
position of crown prince, when the job becomes
vacant. The Amir has serious cardiovascular prob-
lems and may be forced at any time to relinquish
power to Jabir al-Ahmad.
When Jabir al-Ali's campaign for the deputy
prime ministership failed in 1971, he left the
government, refusing to serve in a lesser capacit
Jabir al-Ali was also given the information ministry.
The other significant cabinet change was the
splitting of the oil and finance ministry. The
present minister, Abd-al-Rahman Atiqi, retained
only the finance portfolio. He has been a key
figure in the Ozganization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC), as well as the. Organization of
Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries,(OAPEC) that he
helped establish in 1968.
in
addition to his assignment as deputy prime minister,
Feb 11, 1975
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(Continued)
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The prime minister has reportedly been feuding
with Atiqi for some time and has been looking for a
way to reduce his influence. For the-time being,
Atiqi will remain Kuwait's representative-at inter-
national oil conclaves.
New oil minister Kazami is'a member of the
national, assembly and formerly held high posts in
the finance and oil ministry.- He attended graduate
school in the US.
The present Kuwaiti ambassador -to the US,
Salim al-Sabah who is a son of the Amir, is to be
minister of social affairs and labor. According to
the US embassy in Kuwait, ipformed sources specu-
late that Salim al-Sabah is being groomed for the
foreign minister's post. (CONFIDENTIAL)
(143-7228)
Feb 11, 1975
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South Yemen
Political Activity Prior to National, Front Congress
25X6
Some South Yemeni exiles
sixth congress of the ruling National Front--sche-
duled for early March--does not provide evidence
of a change in the regime's leftist policies and
personnel.
South Yemeni President Ali reportedly has
promised Egypt that in exchange for political and
economic support, he will reduce Aden's ties with
the Soviet Union, moderate South Yemen's foreign
policy toward other Arabian peninsula countries,
and change the country's domestic policies. If
Ali intends to make good on his promise, the
first signals of these changes will probably be
manifested at the .'party
meeting.
Meanwhile, North Yemen's foreign minister,
Abdallah Asnag, a former South Yemeni nationalist
leader and head of the exile community in North
(Continued)
Feb 11, 1975
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Yemen, has voiced doubts about r:~hances for change
in Aden's policies. Asnag contends that President
All has made a number of promises in order to obtain
economic assistance from Saudi Arabia and other
Arabian Peninsula states, but that he does not intend
to carry them out.
Asnag believes that Egypt has overstated its
concern with Soviet influence in Aden and will not
make any real effort to force a South Yemeni policy
shift. He says Cairo is more interested in gaining
a foothold on South Yemen's Perim Island, which lies
athwart the southern entrance to the Red Sea, as .a
tool in its negotiations with Israel. Asnag also
believes the often postponed National Front `congress will probably
not be held as scheduled. (SECRET'NO FOREIGN DISSEM/
NO DISSEM ABROAD/BACKGROUND USE ONLY/CONTROLLED DISSEM)
(143-7228)
Feb 11, 1975
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Labor Problems
The Shah has launched a massive program to
recruit and train workers from rural Iran and to
import large numbers of foreign workers.in an
effort to overcome a shortage of skilled and semi-
skilled labor, which the government has labeled
"the greatest single bottleneck to the economy."
The economic development under way creates
the need for an additional 1,000 workers a day,
outstripping the normal additions to the labor
force by about 20 percent. The gap is even'
larger, however, because most of the new jobs
require skills that the average Iranian entering
the labor force does not have. The need for
skilled workers is projected to rise to 720,000 by
early 1978.
Unemployment is a scant 1.2 percent, but
there is heavy underemployment in both the rural
and urban areas. Tehran is hastily trying to up-
grade the skills of these underemployed. A num-
ber of training centers are being set up.throughout
Iran and teams are being sent to rural areas to
recruit and train workers.
Efforts on the home front, however, will take
time to produce results and will solve only a
fraction of Iran's needs. The major thrust in
Iran's worker recruitment effort will have to be
directed abroad. The government has indicated
that its near term objective is to import 75,000
to 80,000 foreign workers, but this goal will
probably have to be revised upward.
Since late last year, Iranian recruiting mis-
sions have scouted manpower in the US and in five
European and three Asian countries offering high
salaries and allowances. Iranian recruiters are
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are making a special effort to attract skilled..
labor from the US, which already has a contingent
of about 16,000 nationals resident in Iran. About
3,000 of them are working under defense, contracts,
which alone could swell the US community by at
least 10,000 workers plus dependents by 1980. .The,
British and West German communities in Iran--cur-
rently numbering about 5,000 each--sho.uld.also
grow substantially in the next few years along with
the smaller communities of French, Japanese, and
Italian nationals.
The massive influx of both foreign workers
and rural Iranians to the industrial centers of
Iran poses immediate economic difficulties and
conceivably could lead to social or political
problems as well. Some 700,000 additional workers
anticipated by 1978--equal to about 20 percent of
total urban employment in 1972--will strain the
short supply of housing and services and probably
accentuate already serious inflationary pressures.
Grumbling among Iranian workers could easily
develop over the housing differentials paid.to their
foreign counterparts. There already is some appre-
hension over the introduction of foreign workers
fostered by inaccurate newspaper reporting on the
number of Asian workers likely to be imported.
Although the government may be able to dis-
pel.. that concern, a wider and.more concerted Iranian
reaction may develop if the need for foreign workers
is greater and extends longer than the government's
initial projections. The adverse reaction probably.
would come from Iranian traditionalists, who are
deeply religious, largely conservative, and
generally anti-foreign in outlook. Resentment prob-
ably would be directed at the government as well
as at the foreign community.
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Apart from the impact of the foreign workers,
problems could result from cultural differences
among the Iranians--especially between the.former
rural workers and the established , urban.. residents.
Although initially the former -rural workerswould probably
better their lot, they could soon become aware they.
are at the lower end of the urban wage scale and
they could become resentful over their inability
to satisfy their "rising expectations."
Organized outlets for economic and political
discontent are denied by laws and effective action
by the secret police. The government, however,
may find it increasingly difficult to restrain dis-
content that is likely to follow its drive to
expand quickly the supply of workers for economic
development. (CONFIDENTIAL/NO FOREIGN DISSEM)
(143-5741)
Feb 11, 1975 7
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Angola
Holden Roberto and the FNLA
Holden Roberto and the National Front for the
Liberation of Angola were given a new lease on life
by the coup in Lisbon last April. Prior to the coup,
the Front's military effort had been seriously
stalled for several years and Roberto had become a
virtual recluse in Kinshasa, Zaire, existing on hand-
outs from President Mobutu. Roberto has not yet
appeared in Angola.
Following the outbreak of insurgency in 1961,
the National Front quickly became the front running
Angolan insurgent organization. Operating in the
northwestern part of the territory not far from
Luanda, the capital, it bore the brunt of Portuguese
counterinsurgency efforts and by the late 1960s had
lost much of its momentum. Meanwhile, Agostinho
Neto's rival Popular Movement for the Liberation of
Angola was making significant gains in eastern Angola.
The National Front has been held back by its
practice of recruiting mainly from refugees in Zaire
belonging to the Bakongo tribal group of northern
Angola rather than from within Angola. Roberto's
refusal to broaden his support base prompted his
foreign minister Jonas Savimbi, to leave the National
Front in 1966 and eventually establish his own
organization, the National Union for the Total
Independence of Angola. Now Roberto's group must
share the leadership of the transitional government
with the two other nationalist organizations.
Roberto has had closer ties with Zaire over
the years than with Angola and reportedly speaks
better French than he does Portuguese. He is close
to Zairian President Mobutu, but Mobutu's support
has been limited, initially because of the Zairian
leader's preoccupation with securing his own power
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and later by his desire not to provoke the
Portuguese into denying Kinshasa access to trans-
portation facilities through Angola that are neces-
sary for Zaire's copper exports. -'Nevertheless,
Roberto's reliance on Mobutu put him out of favor
with the African and Communist states that provided
the bulk of assistance to the insurgents in Portugal's
African territories. Moreover, in 1971 the Organi-
zation of African Unity withdrew its material sup-
port, although the OAU continued to recognize
Roberto's group as a liberation movement.
By the time of the coup, however, the National
Front's fortunes were beginning to improve.
With encouragement from Mobutu, who was attempting
to improve his credentials as an African nationalist
and develop Zaire's relations with China, Roberto
visited Peking in January 1974 and secured a pledge
of military assistance. Mobutu increased his
assistance to the Front, especially in logistical
support and training.
Because of this support, the National Front
was able to move troops quickly into Angola,
particularly Luanda, following an agreement last
fall between the insurgent groups and the
Portuguese that allowed the nationalists to
establish offices in the territory in exchange
for a suspension of hostilities. To date, the
Front has been the most effective of the three
groups in establishing its presence in northern
Angola, largely because of its strong tribal ties
there.
Since ending its guerrilla operations, the.
National Front has assumed a "law and order" role
in Luanda and northern. Angola. In recent months it has been
able to capitalize on that image and win support
even among some whites in rural.' areas of northern
Angola, a region long plagued by banditry and a high
crime rate. On numerous occasions it has used its
"law and order" posture to harass its major opponent,
the Popular Movement. Roberto's organization
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controls the agriculture, interior, and health and
social affairs portfolios in the transitional govern-
ment and clearly intends to use these to its advantage.
The Front has ambitious plans for repatriating perhaps
as many as 750,000 pro-Front refugees currently living
in Zaire in time for them to vote in the constituent
assembly elections that are scheduled to be held
sometime before independence next November.
Meanwhile, the National Front may be strengthened
by the early adherence of Daniel Chipenda, the former
vice president of the Popular Movement who split with
Neto in 1.973. Chipendo controls some 2,000-3,000 well-
trained troops in eastern Angola. Since his break with
Neto he has obtained modest support from Roberto and
Mobutu and he may now be on the verge of ;Joining the
National Front.
The National Front is operating under certain
disadvantages, however. It has less support in Luanda
than does the Popular Movement or even the National
Union; it has virtually no following south of Luanda--
an area that includes about three-fourths of the country.
Moreover, the Front is not likely to gain significant
new support from whites in the near future. Unlike
its rivals, the Front has never sought to attract a
broad racial base of support. As a result, it has
been tagged with a racist image that will be difficult
to overcome.
The Front's close relations with Mobutu are
a political liability for Roberto in competing with
the other two groups. The latter accuse the Front of
being a tool of Mobutu, who, they suggest, has terri-
torial designs on Angola, particularly the oil-pro-
ducing exclave of Cabinda. The Roberto-Mobutu connec-
tion is viewed with particular suspicion by Agostinho
Neto.
The ideological and personal differences between
Roberto and Neto appear irreconcilable at present.
Their organizations are likely to clash more than once
during the political campaigning ahead as the Front
campaigns in urban areas and the Popular Movement seeks
to expand into the countryside. A major effort on
the part of both men will be required to avert open
warfare between the two groups. (CONFIDENTIAL)
Feb 11, 1975 SECRET _W
(143-4380)
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