SLAVE LABORERS BELIEVED LAYING SOVIET PIPELINE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150057-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 29, 2012
• Sequence Number: 57
• Publication Date: September 16, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT .. ..
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150057-6
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE ^- /S_
ave Laborers -an exploitation. The ?., controlled . , The pay is very low i
State Department has been the most :''and living conditions in this in?a
? ? cautious about acre tin th : ' i
t
TV ASHI~IGTO:; POST
16 SEP'i'!3ER 198?
I trait -, f h
F g W. an
e - mous area are cruel
e ieved Laving . ligence findings. Its Bureau of Intel. here i
s se er
ays o escape,-and closes with thjs
sions--that the Soviets are, using. poignant plea: "Can
you spare som
Secret inks ' e-n- reports portray slave labor to construct +1,
t
"gence
fiesearch pu ' hed a harsher than in Vietnam."
Soviet. Pipeline classified summary a few_months ago He tells of dreaming, vaigly. p
citing reports-with no co- ' w t -
an awesome human epic unfolding in. versial pipeline. con ro- money. Can you send me a few
Siberia. A long'. clothes? I tell you truly, I hade just:
lonely stream of But the Human Righta Bureau, two sets of. clothes and two pairs; of',
slave laborers--tens of thousands of insiders say, is convinced of the ter- shoes and one woolen sweater and-
faceless men, existing on starches Ole", truth. Pentagon.,, intelligence, one nylon coat and one fur hat..Just'
and water-are working, from dawn experts also believe t ie evidence is that to get me through the winter.:'
to dusk, laying the Siberian pipeline: compelling. Those-:Were the.Day's_: Now'that'
The reports describe the workers Intelligence sourcto1d my asso- the fighting in Beirut has died down,
as Soviet prisoners sentenced to cia uce to Lagnado that the So- authorities are fondly recalling the-
forced labor and Vietnamese "volun- viets don't even hide the .fact that friendly arrangement that existed.
teers" shipped to Siberia to help pay Vietnamese "volunteers" are working between . Israel and Lebanon before,
off Vietnam's debts. They reportedly in the Soviet Union.. The' precise the civil war erupted in 1975. ,+
are working artier grim conditions number could be as high as 100,000. Until then, a to secret CIA,-do 4'
for bare subsistence- , The sources insist, however, that cement recor s, t ere was ari L.un.
Our European allies are supplying the youths are not volunteers at all, wri en ement etween m
vital quro ent for the pipeline con- but.are sent to Siberia against their forces facet eac other on the, bor i
vital ion, which makes them indi- wi U to work in the harsh environ- er ` to deliberately ire o -tar et-
rest partners ;, this massive crime - ment. According to one report, many wen srae patro s enetrat
against human : ighta ~. are children of families that opposed anon to rai nests. .?
Of course, the Kremlin doesn' the Viet Cong during the war. '.The Lebanese reaction to Israeli'
permit the Moscow Evening News t t to, Sen. William L. Armstrong (R- patrols [was] normally limited to two;
film the brutal conditions for all the Colo.) has received several letters rounds of artillery fire deliberately-
world to see. So hard proof is lacking from Vietnamese emigres who have intended to miss a target by about,
heard from relatives about the vic- 500 meters. If the rounds [came]. too,.
to bring forma; charges, against the timization of the laborers. Some let- cl {
ose, the Israelis return[ed],,.tpe
Soviet taskmasters. tersF.have actually slipped through fire-also deliberately inaccurate.
But letters ftm the- Vietnamese the Iron Curtain.
laborers, potib-, rked in the Soviet " as a 'reminder.' " ; . :
Union, - have reached - the outside he Iron C
is already two mon& since I. The report also sd urfrom my family, in Vet. -- ment allowed Lebanon this i - to " grae-..
world. U.S. intelligence agencies nam," wrote one desolate captive. "I the, politically expedient fiction ?t t,
have also put together other jigsaw, do not know what the future has in it'wag] reacting to the Israeli incur,
pieces that form an appalling per- store forme .... I am being tightly sion."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150057-6