'EVIDENCE' BARED TO SHOW CUBA'S ROLE IN SALVADOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450051-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 51
• Publication Date: February 24, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450051-5 STAT
O ?AGA
?EvidJrice"
To S ow Cuba'
,
Role in Salva4or.
. By- Jo 1!.4: Goshko - ?
Washington Port Stan Wriest
The Reagadidnrinistrittiod yester-
day made publiewhat it Called "defm-
itive evidence,. thatthe Soviet Union'
and its communist allies principally_
Fidel Castro's Cuba have-been act-,
mg as tutors andirias suppliers MI
th0 leftist guerrillae seeking to-j.
throw the U.S.-supported goverrunent,
in El Salvador
release of the evidence marked thea
latest 'step in the administration's
calating campaign to. tase El Salvador'.
as a test cash pf its efforts to halt
coMmunist support,Jor leftiat insur-
gency movements lite* Third World.'
O'er the weekend, the admillistration;
warned that it might reaort"to dime
action against Cuba -if the :flow of
arms to the guerrillas isn't halted.
Informed sources said yesterday.
that Thomas O._ Enders, a career for-'
eign 'service officer currently serving as
ambassador to the European Eobnom-
ic Community, has been selectid by
President Reagan and Secretary; of
State Alexander M. Haig Jr. as-the
new assistant secretary of state for in=
ter-American affairs -- a posttthat.--
will make him the operating hiss of, ?
the administration's high-priority' ef-
forts in Central America. ?
Enders has no previous experience
in,Joatin American affairs. lioweve_rOn';',
-the' early 1970she voted as deputy,
.chief of the US. Embassy in Phnom'
, Penh - and Played a, key role- in the
Vietnam War effort to halt_ the supply
of 'arms to the Vietcong through Cam.;
bodia. The sources said- his appoint1
ment to the Latin American job has
the approval of Sen. Jesse Helms (lt:
? N.C.),. the iionservative chairman -of
the Senate subcommittee on hemis-
pheric affairs and a strong advocate of
. a tough anticommtmist stance in the
region. '
The evide ce drawn from Ca thred
guerrilla documents and inteffigence
reports, contained no big surprises,
since most of its mn..".uhave be-
come public through press team in re-
- cent days.
.
THE WASHINGTON POST
24 February 1981
Essentially, it depicts what appears
to be an attempt by communist and
'radical leftist countries around the
? world to collaborate in providing
;large-scale arms assistance to the Sal-
vadoran insurgents, with most of the
weapons and materiel moving first
through Cuba and then Nicaragua. -
, A. narrative SIMIMAry prepared by
the State Department and entitled
"Communist Interference in El Sal-
vador" states that sympathetic regimes
on four continents pledged to supply
the'guerrillas with "nearly 800 tons of
the'most modern weapons and equip-
ment" and that nearly 200 tons of
these arms were smuggled into El Sal-
? vador for the unsuccessful "final offen-
sive" attempted by the insurgents last.
month.
-In an effort to whip up internation-
al support for its stance, the adminis-
tration last week sent high-level teams
to present its evidence to West Euro-
pean and Latin American govern.;
meats. The first public comment in
Washington came yesterday from
French Foreign Minister Jean Fran-
cois-Poncet, who is here for talks with
Haig.
However, his, remarks to reporters
following their meeting were much
more restrained and hedged than US.
officials reportedly would have liked.
Francois-Poncet said the evidence ap-
peared to indicate "external interfer-
ence" in El Salvador and added that
France has "always condemned exter-
nal interference." - c, --t-J -
According to the evidence, the guer-
rillas' biggest arms suppliers appeared
to be Vietnam and Ethiopia, with
other countries, -including the Soviet
Union and various of its East Euro-,
pean allies, collaborating in a cam-
paign "to cover their involvement by`
providing mostly arms- of western
manufacture." The evidence also de-
scribes a donation _to the guerrillas of.
$500,000 from Iraq and a promise
from Palestine Liberation Organi-
zation leader Yasser Arafat to provide
weapons and training
However, the biggest role is as-
cribed to Cuba. The State Depart-
ment's narrative says that in late 1979
and early 1980 Cuba played "the di-
'rect tutelary role" in bringing the pre-
viously feuding Salvadoran guerrilla-
factions into a united front, subse-,
quendy provided the guerrillas with
_ . _
-
assistance- and advice in planning their
military operations and eventually be-
came the major agent in collecting the-
arms and passing them to the insur-
gents through Nicaragua.
Although the evidence does not es-
,tablish clearly a direct link to the So-
viet Union, the documents describe
how Shafik Handal, leader of the El
Salvador Communist Party, allegedly
yisited Moscow last summer during an
around-the-world trip to ? solicit help
that also took him Vietnam, East
? Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria,
Hungary and Ethiopia. ?
In Moscow, Handal reportedly met
.with MikhRIl Kudachin, a central
committee official dealing with Latin
America, who suggested that he visit
Vietnam since the Vietnamese had
large amounts of American weapons
' captured during ? the Vietnam war.
The documents quote Handel as say-
? ing the Soviets paid for his trip to
Hanoi. ' ' "
! At a briefing on the evidence yes-
terday, John A. Bushnell, acting assis-
tant secretary for Latin America, cited
that point as an indication that the
Soviets gave "coordinating assistance"
to HandaPs mission? Noting that
Handal visited Moscow before and af-
ter his trips to Vietnam and Ethiopia,
Bushnell said, "It appears that his
friends in Moscow were maldng calls
in advance on his behalf."
The State Department narrative
said that by last September substan-
tial quantities of the arms promised
Handal were in Cuba and being trans-
ferred to Nicaragua, whose leftist gov-
erment contains Marxist elements
sympathetic to the Salvadoran guerril-
las. In the captured documents, Cuba
, is referred to by the code name "Es-
meralda" and Nicaragua by "Lago.".
The-narrative-said that, after -a'
, pause brought about by US. protests,
shipments from Cuba to ,Nicaragua
resumed in October- and and November
and by December had reached a vol-";
ume sufficient for the guerrillas to be- -
gin planning their offensive. According
to the narrative; the arms moved from
-Nicaragua to El Salvador by air, by'
sea on small launches and overland
through an adjoining border area of
? .
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450051-5
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450051-5
? As evidence of these shipments, the
narrative cited a truck loaded with
arms-that was seized hi Honduras at
tar leaving Nicaragua, and two planes
from Nicaragua that were. disabled in
El Salvador. In one case, the pilot was
captured and admitted being an em-
ploye of the Nicaraguan national air-
line who had flown earlier arms deliv-
ery missions.
The. United States has been putting
.heavy 'pressure on Nicaragua to cut
'off the deliveries, using as a spur the
threat of ending the ,U.S. aid that the
country needs to stay afloat financial
ly.*Bushnell, 'noting that all U.S.
to Nicaragua - is currently suspend
also- confirmed reports that there
been "a lull" in the arms' flow from
.Niairagati during the lase: couple
weeks, but addedthat it is too ear
to telll-twhether the: Movement
equipment has ended- -
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302450051-5