PROPER SKEPTICISM ABOUT US COUNTERTERRORISM AID

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000402940005-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: December 4, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402940005-1
,"qT Ci `..'rGr\r?1;v CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITO
4t+ AGc4 December 1985
Proper skepticism about US counterterroriRn aid
By Pat M. Holt
T HE administration wants $54 million for counter-
terrorist activities in Central America, and
Congress is rightly skeptical.
Counterterrorism sounds good. Who could possibly
be in favor of towrism7 But we've been down this road
before, and it leads to trouble.
Twenty-five years ago, counterterrorism was called
counterinsurgency, and the Kennedy ? administration put
much emphasis on it. A big part of it and a big part of
what the Reagan administration now wants to do in Cen-
tral America - was a public safety program for training
police. The idea was to make good police forces out of
bad ones, to teach police how to interrogate a witness
without resorting to torture. There was also a large ele-
ment of equipment - such items as radios, patrol cars,
and tear gas.
The trouble was that some foreign police forces took
the training courses, gladly accepted the equipment, and
kept right on beating people up. Through the public
safety program, the United States was inevitably linked
to these activities in the minds of many foreigners.
The problem was especially acute in Latin America.
In Brazil the military seizure of power in 1964 was fol-
lowed by a period of Draconian repression. In Uruguay
am American public safety adviser was kidnapped and
murdered by terrorists, an incident which provided the
plot of the box-office hit movie "State of Siege," More
complaints of police brutality came from Guatemala, the
Dominican Republic, and other countries. In every case,
the United States was accused of-collusion with the for
Curers, even of teaching them how to do it and supplying
some of the torture devices.
Congress investigated. It found no evidence to sup-
port the charges of police brutality. Nevertheless, the
damage to the American image was so severe that Con-
gress eventually abolished the program.
One of those who had supported the program but who
later played a key role in ending it was Hubert Hum-
phrey, back in the Senate after having served as vice-
president. Humphrey was fond of saying that in politics,
what's important is not what the facts are but what peo-
ple think they are. People in Latin, America were
unshakable in thinking that American advisers were en-
gaged in torture.
This old public safety program was very much like
what the Reagan administration is now proposing to
reinstate in Central America. The old program did not
work. It not only created a political problem for the US; it
did very little to control terrorism, or insurgency as it
was then called. There is little reason to think the pro-
gram will work any better now
There are difficulties beyond that of the American im-
age. ):,xcept in Costa Rica, Central 'American police
forces are subject to none of the political and judicial re-
straints which app too US police forces. In Central
America. ccmvk uta are brushed off. The judicial
system simply does not work: It neither punishes the
guilty nor protects the innocent. Most Americans find a
police presence in their neighborhoods reassuuing; most
Guatemalans find it threatening.
There is another problem. Once techniques are trans-
ferred through training courses, or once equipment is de-
livered and installed, the US loses all control over how
the techniques and equipment are used. One of the more
troublesome Guatemalan insurgents in the 1960s learned
how to do it in an American course on counterinsurgency.
A sophisticated police communications system can be
used to capture common criminals, or to track down ter-
rorists, or to keep tabs on opponents of the government.
There is a tendency among Central American govern-
ments to think someone is a terrorist if he is also a politi-
cal opponent.
This end-use problem goes far be counterter-
rorism. Some of a to bundars had been to t
their trade by the CIA. The 4LeeV use of can
equipment has made several igmaLl wars r -
the Turkish invasion of rus and the Israeii invasion
of anon amon rs.
Notwithstanding history, Congress seems likely to
give the administration at least part of what it wants.
Congress has trouble resisting the argument that we can-
not simply do nothing. But there should be no illusions
about the consequences of doing this. The next time the
Guatemalan Army shoots up a village, people all over
the hemisphere are going to see the hand of Uncle Sam -
even if the hand is not there.
Pat M. Holt, former chief of staff of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, writes on foreign af-
fairs from Washington.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402940005-1