THIRD WORLD IS TRAMPLED AS GIANTS FIGHT FOR MORE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404640012-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 14, 2010
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: February 24, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/14: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404640012-2
ft,
ON PAGE _ / 24 FEBRUARY 1980
giants fight for i
Third WONrld is trx-,% mw
By Hilary Ng'weno
I, The Soviets and the Americans are
uzzled by the Third World's
both
p
evaluation of events in Iran and Af-
ghanistan because each sees the rest
of the world only in terms of its own
national interest. They have divided
the world not as it is, but as they
wish it to be, and in the process they
have misjudged the magnitude of
the Third World's'mistrust of them
NAIROBI - The two superpowers
do not challenge each other in Eu-
rope where the armies of the War-
saw Pact and the NATO alliance
stare down the barrels of each
other's guns. No. the challenge -
and the bloodshed - takes place in
the bushes of Africa, the deserts of
the Middle East, the jungles of South-
east Asia and the mountains of Paki-
g
stan, Afghanistan and Iran..-To quote the Americans and the Russians
two ele
Wh
e
d
en
:
ag
an old African a
have used Third World surrogates in
phants fight, it is the grass that suf- Third World regions like Korea, the
fern. Middle East, Indochina, Angola, the
Still, the Russians are perplexed Horn of Africa. These wars - fi
theit r the intervention World' in s reaction nanced, ergineered and fueled by
Afghanistan. . y
After all, only a few months earlier, the superpowers - have taken the
lives of millions and have caused im-
the Third World leaders praised the
Soviet Union as their natural ally. mense suffering.
Why, then, when the issue of Soviet In Vietnam the United States per-
troops in Afghanistan came up in fected some of 'the most lethal in-
the U.N. General Assembly did over struments of destruction the world
two-thirds of the Third World na: has ever known. The Soviet's ability
tions vote with the imperialist West to move men and materiel quickly in
for the immediate and uncondi- combat was tested in the Ethiopia- 1
I
tionai withdrawal of Soviet troops? - Somalia use li twaa rDf 1978 and1 later put to Soviet
The Kremlin's confusion about { move in' Afghanistan. The Soviets
Third World responses is mirrored M also successful) tested their ability
y
i
P
S
can
mer
.
tates.
in the United
policy-makers cannot' understand
why the Arabs are not running into
their arms for protection against the
atheist Russians. Why aren't the
non-aligned countries unanimously
opposed to Russia's naked aggres-
sion against an independent Third:
World nation?
Hilary Ng'weno, a Kenvad _
who is one of Africa's most. re-
spected journalists, is an- as
sociate editor of the new inter-
both.
That mistrust comes from three
decades of bitter experience. In the
years since World War II, the only
ht between
wars'that have been fou
to coordinate global operations
when they ferried thousands of
troops from Cuba to Angola.
The sense of mistrust is not helped
by the blatant propaganda the super-
powers pour out to justify their rape
of the Third World. When Russian
troops overthrew the Afghan gov-
ernment of Hafizullah Amin and in.
stalled their hand-picked man,. Ba-
brak Karmal, ,their line was that
they had been invited by the Af-
ghans in accordance with a mutual
a defense pact. The propaganda ma-
chinery forgot to explain whX Amin
and his family were summarily exe-
cuted by the soldiers they had
invited into their country. (The Chi-I
nese were more honest when they
invaded Tibet. They told the world
that Tibet had always been part of
China. Although the world may have
been shocked by China's aggression,
there was at least an element of
national. newspaper . sup
plemen t WorldPaper. This arti-
cle will appear in the next
issue of WorldPaper.
In the accompanying two
articles, American and Soviet--.
"spokesmen debate, who's, to.
blame for the upheaval in Af-
ghanistan. Marshall Shulman,
an adviser on Soviet affairs to.
the U.S. secretary of state, is on
leave as head of Columbia
University's Russian Institute..'.:
Vladimir Ostrovsky is a politi-
cal commentator for the Soviet
press agency Novosti. Both -'`
articles are from WorldPaper,. , ,
honesty in its stated intentions.
Nothing remotely similar can be
said of the activities of the super-
Oil vs. Freedom
The current problems in western
Asia stem from American duplicity
in Iran. It was in the name of free-
dom that Washington encouraged or
condoned the shah in his tyrannical
ways. What did it matter that his
dreaded SAVAK detained, jailed and
tortured thousands of Iranians so
long as the oil flowed freely and the
Russians were kept at bay? While it
may be true that the Iranians have
always had an interest in checking
Russia's southward expansion, what
motivated the Americans to give
military and economic assistance to
the shah's regime had to do with
American national interests, not Ira-
nian interests. However great the
cost to the people of Iran in freedom
and political stability, Iran was to be
the local guarantor of American ac-
cess to cheap oil from the Middle
East and Gulf countries. It is little
wonder that, even with the Russians
breathing down their necks, the Ira-
nians still hold the United States to
be the No. 1 Villain. And they do not
need a cantankerous old imam to
egg them on.
Then there is the economic plight
of the Third World. Year after year
Third World people see the eco-
nomic gap widening between them-
selves and the superpowers. It makes
no difference whether the relations
are between the Soviet Union and
her socialist Third World client
states or between the United States
and her capitalist Third World client
states. Nearly two decades of trade
between Cuba and the Soviet Union
have led to the same kind of depend-
ency. for-Cuba as that between, say,
the United States and Somoza's
Nicaragua.
While the Russians shout against
imperialism, they do next to nothing
to help its victims get out of the mess
in which colonialism left them.
Countries that opt for a Marxist-
Leninist way of life do get some as-
sistance. But as Angola, Mozam-
bique, Somalia and Ethiopia in
Africa, Cuba in America, Syria and
Iraq in the Middle East and Cambo-
dia in Southeast-Asia have found out,
Soviet assistance is more likely to be
in tanks and armaments than in
productive or useful commodities.
America may give more economic
aid to its Third World partners, but
the volume of the-aid is strictly
determined by its own strategic
interests, as it has demonstrated in
STAT
CONTI1TUED
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/14: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404640012-2
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/14: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404640012-2
-.Zlorocco, Zaire, Egypt, Pakistan and
Nigeria. And America often directs
its development aid to nations from
which it can extract even more in
minerals and other resources.
Disunity Over Oil
A few countries, mainly the oil
producers, have tried to shake loose
from this one-sided type of relation-
ship, but even OPEC has discovered
that it is not easy to beat the super-
powers at this economic game. OPEC
nations thought they had found an
answer by increasing oil prices, only
to find that increased oil prices
fueled inflation in the industrialized
Western world. That in turn raised
the prices of the manufactured
goods they needed to import from
the West.
Oil producers have been assuming
that they can increase their oil
prices indefinitely in order to force
the industrialized nations to index
the price of their manufactured
goods. But even they realize they are
in a bind. If indexing leads to disrup-
tions in the economies of the West-
ern nations, the OPEC countries'
large oil-surplus investments in the
West will be jeopardized. Further, as
happened with Iran, if the oil,
producers adopt policies that the
United States and its allies do not
like, their assets can be frozen in-
definitely.
Saddest of all, by fighting the
Western powers for a more equitable
distribution of income from oil
production, the oil producers have
nearly ruined the economies of the
rest of the countries in the Third
World. The resulting disunity weak-
ens the Third World's only weapon
against the policies of the superpow-
ers: solidarity among the non-
aligned nations. ,
Non-oil-producing Third World
nations are angry at the oil produc-
ers, at the West for wasteful con-
Superpowers Go Home!
One clear message, however, can
be heard above this confusion:
Superpowers go home! That was the
message in the U.N. General Assem-
bly when the question of the pres-
ence of Soviet troops came to a vote
in January. And it has been the mes-
sage behind earlier U.N. resolutions
that have declared many areas in
the Third World nuclear-free zones.
For the Third World to say "Super-
powers go home" is one thing. It is
quite another to force them out. The
two superpowers often exhibit the
qualities of a rapist, but there is no
i single police force efficient enough
to curb their activities if they are
determined to act out their aggres-
sions. Even when individual rapists
are loose in society, it is sometimes
futile to appeal to their reason. Often
it is much more useful to educate
their potential victims in the art of
self-defense.
"Don't go out in the dark alone" is
one warning. It is good advice, too,
in international affairs. Third World
nations should avoid walking in
dark political alleys alone. Within
the non-aligned movement they
have company and political light to
guide them safe) past the clutches
of the superpowers. Indeed; these
members of the Third World who
have abandoned the non-aligned
path are the ones who have fallen
victim to rape by the superpowers -
Iran, Afghanistan, Zaire, Angola,
Somalia, Cuba, Vietnam.
One other suggestion given to
women who live in dangerous sur-
roundings is to carry some instru-,
ment of self-defense - a knife, mace,
a whistle - or even to take lessons
in karate or judo. Similarly,`Third
World nations must provide them-
selves with some form of self-de-
fense against aggression from the
superpowers. Since aggression need
y
m
ary
nvasion
sumption, and at East and West for' however, self-defense methods
their resistance to importing fin- should be multipurpose. They
ished products from the Third' should include at least one fail-safe
World. i mechanism to keep superpowers
All of this adds up to enormous from involving themselves in the
mistrust of the superpowers and ex- conduct of a Third World country's !
plains the seemingly contradictory I national affairs, however indirect
reaction of Third World nations to that involvement may be.
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
CONTINUED I
not alwa
s be a
ilit
i
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/14: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404640012-2
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/14: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404640012-2
T.S. conniving
stirs trouble
Alliance Sought
f Last August, staff members of the
This was more than idle curiosity.
Chinese military instructors have
long been working in the vicinity of
Chitral, where both rebel units and
Pakistani advisers are being trained.
Hundreds of experts are needed to
prepare an invading army, all the
more so since the rebels are getting
more than small arms.
It is well known that the idea of
establishing a Pamir Islamic Repub-
lic was put forth by Peking as early
as the beginning of last year. The
Chinese leaders hoped to carry out
their plan with the help of the pro-
Chinese separatist organizations
Shoalee Jawid and Setame Meli.
They counted on the Dungans and
Uighurs living in the Badakhashan
Province in northeast Afghanistan.
China made areas in its Xinjiang
Province available as centers to
train rebels. Peking's perfidious
scheme provided for annexing part
of the Afghans' territory, thus deal-
ing a blow at the April revolution.
U.S. officials never mention these
facts. They prefer to spread propa-
ganda about the "Soviet threat" in
Southwest Asia. But people know the
price of Washington's and Peking's
high-flown words about peace.
By Vladimir.Ostrovsky
MOSCOW - High-sounding U.S.
statements concerning Southwest
Asia ring hollow when put side by
side with American activities
against Afghanistan.
For over 18 months, the enemies
of Afghanistan have been trying to
destroy it from within and to put to-
gether an army to, invade the coun-
try from outside. The units of -a
U.S. General Consulate in Peshawar
met with leaders of the Afghan reac-
tionary forces. The Americans at-
tempted to convince them to set up a
single military alliancec.within the
counterrevolutionary movement,
thus uniting the various reactionary
groups of rebels entrenched in Paki-
stan. This was only one of the practi-
cal steps taken to construct an invad-
ing army under the wing of the U.S.
proponents of "democratic" order in
Afghanistan and "peace" in Asia.
A radio station broadcasting to
large audiences was set up in the
hope of attracting more "refugees"
to Pakistan to swell the ranks of the
new army. For many months now
,
30,000-strong invading army are the station has been beaming out
being organized in numerous censubversive programs daily to the
ters-in Pakistan in order to train. . Democratic Republic of Afghanis-
rebels for subversive and terrorist tan. The equipment for the station
operations. The' combat units are was bought with Saudi money.
being formed from the so-called Af- Organized support of the Afghan
ghan refugees,-,who number over counterrevolution involves quite a I
380,000 in that country. CIA agents, few countries. On June 20-21, 1979,
Pakistani officers and reactionaries. the Pakistani vessel Al-Kasum
who have fled from Afghanistan re- entered the port of Karachi; it had
cruit men for the army. They oper- brought from the United States 2,000
ate from the training centers outside tons of weapons and ammunition.
the cities of,Chitral, Cherat, Kohat, Another vessel, the Rustom, came in
Peshawar, Quetta and Nourshera.
Subversive and sterroristgroups in
the camp outside Kohat, for. in-
stance, are trained by officers of
Pakistan's Ninth Infantry Division.
Last spring a hand-picked group of
rebels underwent training directly
in the Pakistani military garrison of
Kharian.
In May 1979. the Americani...t 1li~.
gence men in Pakistan who were gaged in training Afgh rebels
were led by the well-known CIA
operative Louis Dupree. With the
participation of men under com-
ma'ational Liberation Front
from China at-about the same time,
carrying 8,000 tons of weapons and
ammunition. The military cargo
from both vessels was unloaded and
sent on to warehouses in Peshawar,
from which the Afghan counter-
revolutionaries are supplied with
In February and March of last
year, Lt. Gen. Ghulam Jilani; secre-
tary of Pakistan's ministry of de-
fense, had talks in Peking. 1}i March
and April, Zhang Tingfa, com-
mander in chief of China's air force,
of Afghanistan was set last sum- ! paid a return visit, during which he
mer. The leader o the front, Ahmed discussed the coordination of sub-
Bashir Zakhria, immediately left for versive activities against
the United States, where he toured Afghanistan and aid to the rebels.
Cali ornia, Florida an is igan to The Chinese guest familiarized him-'
self with the situation F~t on the
raise money for t ere a s. Washing-
ton must have known about the toUr Afghan-Pakistani border.. k
of the Afghan reactionary. The coun-
terTevo utionay . ron is still,
maintaining close contacts with the
CT`s rou5fi another. of ids Ieaders,
Ziyi Naseri.
COTST `d iJ7ED
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/14: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404640012-2
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/14: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404640012-2
Twisted stories
expose Soviets
Afghan military forces were par-
tially neutralized by Soviet military
advisers purporting to be aiding Af-
ghanistan - an object lesson for
other countries where Soviet mili-
Twisted Story
An even more astonishing allega-
tion o connections was road-
east over Moscow television in rate
By Marshall D. Shulmaii
The Soviet invasion and occupa-
tion of Afghanistan has significantly
altered the international landscape
for the foreseeable future.
For the United States, it is a matter
of regret that U.S.-Soviet relations
have suffered as a consequence of
Moscow's ill-advised course.
- Globally, as the broader implica-
tions of the Soviet resort to force
against its non-aligned neighbor be-
came apparent, it is the stability of
the international system itself that
has suffered. Every country is less
secure when one country loses its
sovereignty and. independence to
Soviet aggression. -
It may never be possible to recon-
struct satisfactorily all the calcula-
tions that went into Moscow's deci-
sion. Clearly there was gross
miscalculation at some stage - or
perhaps throughout the entire
period of several months in which
Moscow prepared its intervention.
What is somewhat surprising to the
student of Soviet foreign policy is its
failure to have available any plausi-
ble justification for the extreme ac-
tion of armed invasion. The Soviet
version of events comes apart at the
seams whenever it is subjected to
scrutiny. This leaves the student and
the policy-maker unable to do. more
than conjecture what really led to-
the Dec. 27 coup against President
Hafizullah Amin and what it por-
tends for future Soviet intentions.
It may be illuminating to examine
some of the inconsistencies of Mos-
cow's explanations measured
against what is known about the
events in Kabul. The gist of Soviet
tary advisers are present.
A further anomaly in the series of
events surrounding the coup was
the unexplained death of Viktor
Paputin, Soviet first deputy minister
.of internal affairs. Paputin's pres-
ence in Kabul was noted in early
December, although no official an-
nouncement was made about his
mission. The next public mention of
Paputin was an obituary in Pravda
in early January. The obituary was
less prominent than would be ex-
pected for an official of Paputin's
rank, and no details of his death
were disclosed - only the date:
28, 1979, the day after the
If the Soviet claim that they Were
invited to invade seems fiimsy,110,
does the aff;ument that Afghan*G+n
was threw ued by outside forces. !
Only weeks alter the invasion and
following votes in the United Na-
tiuaSto censure Moscow (13-2 in the''
Security Council, 104-18 in .tiie
General Assembly), did Soviet propa-
ganda elaborate on this hollow alle-
gation. In a major Pravda article on
Jan. 19, Aleksei Petrov wrote of "tens
of thousands" of mercenaries sup-
posedly involved in Afghan fighting
before the Soviet invasion. Yet the
former Afghan government never
filed any complaint with the U.N.,
and all evidence indicates that re-
sistance to tie Communists led by
Amin was essentially an indigenous,
self-sustaining movement by Islamic
nationalists.
Petrov also claimed to name two
vessels allegedly delivering arms to
Afghan rebels based in Pakistan. His
allegations distort the true state of
affairs: most of the weapons used by
official statements to the United of Soviet: manufacture, captured
States and many other governments
was that their military forces were
invited by the Afhgan government
to assist in a struggle against outside
forces. This flies in the face of over-
whelming evidence that the primary
purpose of the Soviet invasion was to
suppress a popular uprising against
the repressive government.
Advisers-Betrayers
It would be easier to give credence
to the Soviet version if events had
proceeded smoothly on the night of
the takeover. However, Afghan
troops loyal to President Amin put
up a fierce struggle against the Sovi-
ets who attacked him at Durulaman
Palace and caused his death. Hun-
dreds of casualties on both sides
bore witness to Afghan resistance to
a Soviet-installed regime. The resist-
ance might have been even greater
had it not been for Soviet deception:
from -the Afghan army, and, in the
later- stages,. obtained through
wholesale,defection of Afghan mili-
tary units.
No Soviet tale of intrigue is ,com-
ple of without t e ' A. Petrov reck-
lessly applied a CIA label to w- ll-
known American anthro op logist
uis Dupree, who lives in Pakistan
and whose hundreds -orTr-iends. in
the reg o i 4 know is c ar a is false.'
January by Leonid Z a m yatin, i lead-
inIro a aa ism t e oviet~om-
munist arty Centr aIrommittee
ffMa sta myatin asserted that Presi-
dent Amin Had a C,A nt who
intended to betray iTie reroiuti-6n.
He ate o exptau why a Cf?i a gent
would have sought to impose a Marx-
istt re ime upon s country as Tmin
did. Zamyatin also faired fo explain
why a CIA agent would caTT-for a
massive Soviet military interven=
tion, which is what-Soviet-pi opa-
ganda says Amin did just- before his
death. One can only note that it was
President Brezhnev, not President
Carter, who congratulated Amin on
his "election" as president of Af-
ghanistan in September 1979.
The attempts to discredit Amin
and the contrived Soviet charges of
outside forces threatening Afghanis-
tan suggest a hypothesis about the
real reasons for the invasion. The
Soviet Union saw a gradual deterio-
ration in the domestic position of
the Marxist regime that deposed
President Daoud in April 1978, and
lost patience with Amin's group who
refused to take Soviet advice about
governing the country. Unwilling to
let events take their own course, the
Soviets installed a puppet through
armed intervention. The great dan-
ger is that this will succeed and
whet Soviet appetites for similar ag-
gression elsewhere.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/14: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404640012-2