THE SOVIET PLAN FOR PERU
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Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP87-00462R000100100014-0
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K
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11
Document Creation Date:
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date:
December 10, 2009
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Publication Date:
February 4, 1985
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THE DIRECTOR OF
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
National Intelligence Council 4 February 1985
FROM: Herbert E. Meyer
VC/NIC
FYI.
Herbert E. Meyer
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Confidential
EARLY WARNING
Volume III, No. 1, February 1985
The Soviet Plan for Peru
Overshadowed by events to its north and east - the guerrilla
wars in Central America and the transition to democracy in
Brazil and Argentina - Peru is emerging as one of the most
vulnerable targets in Latin America for Soviet-Cuban
expansionism. Close to bankruptcy and racked by a savage
terrorist campaign, Peru is now gearing up for presidential
elections in which the leading contenders represent rival
factions of the left. The Soviets, who maintain extensive links
with "progressive nationalists" in the officer corps, are hoping
that the changed situation after April 14 will provide them with
new opportunities to establish a base in the Andes.
More than 200 Soviet military advisers have been seeking to
exploit Peru's prevailing statist philosophy and the defensive
paranoia of some military men derived from a history of conflict
with hostile neighbors - Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador - to which it has
been obliged to cede territory in past wars whose memory is
kept alive in schools and cadet courses. And it is no accident that
the irruption of a major guerrilla campaign that has served to
undermine both the economy and public confidence coincided
with the inauguration of a moderate democratic government
after a period of dictatorial rule by leftist generals broadly
sympathetic to Moscow and Havana.
Peru rarely occupies a prominent place in Western reporting
on the Latin American debt crisis. Yet, with a public sector debt
of $10.5 billion and a private sector debt of $1.9 billion, it is
Latin America's sixth-largest debtor nation; and in terms of
debt per capita, it ranks as one of the top four. To be sure,
Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela and Chile, all have
heavier debt burdens. Unlike these countries, however, Peru
distinguished itself just six months ago by ceasing to service its
foreign debt; and there is little prospect that interest payments
will be resumed any time soon. One reason for this is the
envenomed political campaign now under way in the run-up to
the April polls.
Anti-Americanism is becoming one of the guiding themes in
that campaign. Uncle Sam is being flayed for all the familiar
reasons and for some that are more idiosyncratic. For example,
many Peruvians think the United States is partial to its tradi-
tional adversaries, Chile and Ecuador. More important, the
anti-drug campaign that is being pursued with increasing deter-
mination by the Reagan administration, is less than welcome
in rural areas whose economies have become geared to coca
production. Indeed, some U.S. experts believe that for the past
two years Peru has been producing up to half of the raw mater-
ials for international cocaine production.
Resurgence of the left
The brightening prospects for the Marxist left - and
its foothold in the Peruvian armed forces - must be understood
against the backdrop of a long tradition of revolutionary
activity. In the 1930s, the Peruvian idealogue, Jose Carlos
Mariategui, was one of the standard-bearers for Marxism-
Leninism in South America. Another Peruvian writer,
Eudocio Ravines, the author of The Yenan Way and
later famous as an apostate, also was highly influential in
spreading Marxist doctrine. The Peruvian armed forces were
among the first in the continent to establish senior war colleges
(escuelas superiores de guerra) to provide nationalist-oriented
courses in geopolitics and international economics. From
the beginning (and to the present day) many instructors were
orthodox Marxists drawn from a heavily left-politicized
university environment.
Peru is also the birthplace of APRA, the acronym for the
Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana [American Popular
Revolutionary Alliance]. Founded by the exiled Victor Raul
Haya de la Torre, a first-hand observer of Mexico's revolution-
ary convulsions in the 1920s, APRA always has been on the
margin of political power - largely thanks to the (pre-
"progressive") armed forces, which robbed it of election after
election. But today, the APRA candidate is the favorite to
succeed centrist President Fernando Belaunde Terry.
Of the nine contenders for the presidency, only four have any
real chance of winning the job. APRA's candidate, Alan
Garcia, is a federal deputy who models his personal and
political tailoring - on his hero, Spanish Socialist Premier
Felipe Gonzalez, with whom he is in frequent contact by
phone and personal emissary. Garcia, now in his late thirties,
has a good chance of winning the election. His party won a
majority of the vote in the muncipal polls in 1983.
CONTENTS
The Soviet Play for Peru ...................... 1
Anti-NATO Terror in Europe ................. 3
Power-Struggle in Portugal ................... 5
Freeze Campaign's 1985 Agenda .............. 6
Rajiv's Raj ..................................... 7
Middle East Update: .......................... 9
1. The Saudis and falling oil prices
2. PLO help for Shi'ite assassins
3. The Libyan-Moroccan "union"
4. Algerian-Moroccan conflict
Flashpoints: Japan and Pacific defense; Angola;
Soviet analysis of Brazil; IPS scares
the Allies ................................ 10
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On Garcia's left is the popular Mayor of Lima, Alfonso
Barrantes, who is running for the presidency as the candidate
of the United Left (IU), a radical coalition dominated by the
Peruvian Communist Party (PCP). Federal Senator Jorge del
Prado, the PCP secretary-general, has been strident in his
support for Barrantes, who is self-avowedly a disciple of
Mariategui. Barrantes' critics claim that he is a Communist. He
denies current Communist Party membership, but not that he
may have belonged at some time in the past. He has made at
least two trips to Havana.
Centrist candidates
Non-left contenders for the presidency include the govern-
ment candidate, Javier Alva Orlandini, the personal choice
of President Fernando Belaunde, who will run on the Popular
Action (AP) ticket, and Luis Bedoya Reyes, who is being
fielded by a recently-formed grouping, the Democratic
Alliance, whose orientation could be broadly described as
Christian Democrat. On present indications, Orlandini has
slumped to third place in the contest, after APRA candidate
Garcia and Christian Democrat Bedoya. As the choice of the
incumbent, Orlandini is suffering the combined effects of
economic hardship, recurrent power shortages, violent guerrilla
incursions, and the controversy over "arbitrary" actions by the
security forces.
While the government's man loses ground, Alan Garcia has
been seeking to maximize his support on the left by calling for
Cuba's re-integration into the Organization of American States
(OAS) and by attacking U.S. economic and foreign policy. His
current line, often reiterated, is that the United States is to
blame for driving Fidel Castro into the Soviet camp. Some of
Garcia's lieutenants have made private overtures to members of
the American business community, seeking to reassure them
that their candidate's campaign rhetoric should not be mistaken
for policy. However, EW's sources in Lima believe that
Garcia's election victory would be followed by the further
extension of state control over the economy.
Would the high command intervene, as it has done in
the past, to prevent APRA from taking power? Informed
sources believe that the armed forces most probably will stay
on the sidelines after April - unless the hard-left candidate,
Barrantes, were to emerge the victor. The newly installed
Defense Minister, General Julian Julia Freyre - a moderate -
recently announced to a gathering of the general staff that
he intended to respect the election results. The armed forces
already have a lot to contend with in the Sendero Luminoso
[Shining Path] guerrillas.
"Maoist" terrorism
The most aggressive Peruvian guerrilla movement, Sendero
Luminoso, like the other components in the country's Marxist
spectrum, derives much of its ideology from Jose Carlos
Mariategui. It is routinely - but confusingly - described in the
Western press as a "Maoist" organization. This should not be
taken to mean that it is pro-Chinese; still less, that it is anti-
Soviet. On the contrary, intelligence sources believe that
Sendero Luminoso is being backed clandestinely by the Soviets
and the Cubans as part of a "two-track" strategy in Peru. It is
true that the orthodox pro-Soviet Communist Party of Peru has
rejected Sendero Luminoso and its terrorist methods. But it has
been standard practice for many decades for Latin American
Communist parties to condemn "extremist" guerrilla groups
unless instructed otherwise by Moscow. Witness the Cuban
Communist Party's initial rejection of Castro's July 26
Movement, or the Bolivian Communist Party's cold-shoulder-
ing of Che Guevara's guerrilla expedition. For the moment,
there are two compelling reasons for Peru's orthodox
Communists to divorce themselves from the Senderistas:
1. The Peruvian Communists are trying to exploit the electoral
process, both by suborning Barrantes and by infiltrating
Aprista circles. Open PCP identification with the terrorist left
would explode this tactic.
2. Communist Party backing for the Senderistas would help to
swing the government and the high command against the large-
scale Soviet presence in Peru.
From the perspective of the KGB and Cuban DGI experts
tasked with dealing with Sendero Luminoso, the organization's
main function is to contribute to the social and political
decomposition of Peru, and to do so in such a way that Soviet
military aid will be received with increased, not lessened,
gratitude by the authorities.
Sendero Luminoso was conceived in large part by Abimael
Guzman, a Marxist academic who taught at the University of
Ayacucho and was a long-term associate of Argentina's Cuban-
backed Montoneros terrorist movement. According to intelli-
gence sources, the Peruvian group has some 2,000 members.
Financing comes from criminal extortion and robbery
(including participation in the profits from the drug traffic), and
from subsidies from romantic elements of the European left,
from Colonel Qaddafi, who uses West European foundations
as cut-outs, and from the Soviets, via the Cubans.
Moscow and the high command
Peru was the scene, in the early 1970s, for an ambitious
Soviet experiment: an attempt to suborn the military
establishment. With the overthrow of the Allende government
in Chile by right-wing officers in 1973, Moscow's strategists -
starting with Boris Ponomarev, the head of the International
Department of the CPSU - concluded that it was essential to
work for "two-stage" revolutions in Latin America in which the
"first stage" would be accomplished by nationalist military figures.
General Vladimir Kryuchkov, the head of the Kontora (the
First Chief Directorate of the KGB), ordered closer
cooperation with representatives of the Third Department of
the GRU (Soviet military intelligence) in efforts to infiltrate
and manipulate the Peruvian military. The existence, at the
time, of rightist military regimes in both Chile and Ecuador fed
Peruvian paranoia and provided a favorable climate for KGB
recruiters as well as Soviet arms salesmen. General Juan
Velasco Alvarado, Peru's military strongman who was ousted
in 1975, catered to Soviet interests. (In a more recent
incarnation, Velasco has been active in "peace" initiatives that
favor Moscow's plans). In the name of "cultural exchange,"
many bilateral programs were set up with the USSR that have a
legacy that is evident today in the fact that more than 1,500
Peruvians are currently studying in the Soviet Union and East
European countries.
Even more important is the flow of Soviet arms and instruc-
tors that continues to the present day. There are some 200 Soviet
military personnel stationed in Peru in the guise of training and
maintenance crews. They are not formally designated as
"advisers," but this is their role. Furthermore, the GRU officers
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among them, a high proportion, function as intelligence
recruiters as well. On any given day, some 400 Soviet officials
are in Peru. Regular Aeroflot air service to Lima from Moscow,
via Havana, facilitates their comings and goings.
EW previously detailed the scope of Soviet military hardware
supplies to Peru (see Vol. II, No. 10). A further point is that
Soviet "training and maintenance personnel" have accom-
panied the equipment to many parts of the country, especially
to the southern border with Chile, in the area near Tacna.
The Cuban role
At Moscow's request, the Castro regime also has been
expanding its activities in Peru. In recent months, the Cubans
have invited a large number of Mayors and other local
officials from southern Peru (notably from areas where the
Shining Path guerrillas are most active) to visit Havana. One of
the latest Peruvian visitors to Cuba was Cuzco mayor Daniel
Anti-NATO
Estrada, an Aprista, who was given a gold medal in
appreciation of his support for the Cuban revolution. The
Cubans have not neglected the Peruvian military. The air force
chief, General Cesar Enrico Praeli led a high-level Peruvian
military delegation to Havana last fall. Lower-level military
visits are commonplace.
Perhaps in belated acknowledgement of their Soviet-Cuban
competition, the Chinese recently put their oar in, inviting
Defense Minister Freyre, the Lima district commander and
other army brass to Beijing for a two-week visit. But in the
opinion of seasoned intelligence observers, there is no
sufficient countervailing influence, at present, to that of the
Soviets and their surrogates. While the Peruvian navy remains
staunchly pro-Western, Soviet Bloc subversion among the
other services proceeds apace, and may help to present the
Soviets with an extraordinary opportunity in Lima after the
April elections.
Terrorism in Europe
Belgium has become the focal point for political action
campaigns designed to sabotage further "Euromissile" de-
ployment. Belgium's young Prime Minister, Wilfried
Martens, has emerged as one of the most vigorous and de-
termined Western European leaders in his commitment to
withstand Soviet blackmail; but strains within his coalition
government have forced him to temporize on the planned de-
ployment of 48 land-based cruise missiles in his country. Mean-
while, Soviet "active measures" programs aimed at dividing the
Alliance and exploiting European fears are being stepped up in
parallel with Soviet-U.S. arms talks. Security experts believe
that the KGB is involved in a new wave of anti-NATO
bombings, sabotage and assassination that has wracked West
Germany, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and France, as
well as Belgium.
Five-page letters arrived at the Paris offices of several news
media on January 15 which claimed that two of Europe's
principal terrorist organizations, the Rote Armee Fraktion
(RAF) of West Germany and the French Action Directe had
united to form a joint "political-military front in Western
Europe" for the purpose of attacking NATO. Before the month
had ended, General Rene Audran, a senior official in charge
of arms exports at the Defense Ministry, had been shot
and killed. Action Directe claimed responsibility for the
suburban Paris assassination.
The "Combatant Communist Cells" (CCC), which bombed
a U.S. Army facility in a Brussels suburb that day, may be part
of the same terrorist coalition. The 55 pounds of plastic
explosives used in a December 18 attempted RAF bombing
of a NATO facility in Oberammergau were traced to a stock of
explosives stolen in Belgium and used in a Paris bombing last
August of the West European Union building byAction Directe.
The CCC has been involved in attacks on U. S. corporate offices,
defense contractors and the political parties that support the
coalition government in Brussels. The attacks spread to the
Netherlands on January 22, when the previously unknown
Nordic Terror Front attempted to firebomb the Groningen
police headquarters and announced it would attack NATO
"and its accomplices." The Dutch police were singled out as
"the slaves of imperialism."
The RAF had been decimated by the West German counter-
terrorism programs in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A brief
flurry of attacks on U.S. military-related targets in 1981 -among
them a rocket attack which damaged the car in which General
Frederick Kroesen, then U.S. Army Commander, Europe, was
riding - ended with the arrests of several RAF fugitives, among
them Christian Klar. Last year, West German officials
estimated that the number of hard-core terrorist fugitives at
large had dwindled to some ten people. Now the authorities
estimate there are twenty in the hard-core collective leadership
(many of whom never met Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof or
Gudrun Ensslin), who are supported by a group of some 400
active "sympathizers" who provide safe-houses, transportation,
weapons and other services, including direct participation in
terrorrist actions. Beyond the active terrorist core lies another
group of several thousand supporters scattered in more than
twenty cities. Recent demonstrations in Berlin, Giessen,
Gottingen and Hamburg drew 3,000 to show their "solidarity"
with the Red Army Fraction.
On December 4, Klar and Brigitte Mohnhaupt (both on
trial for murder) announced the start of a strict "water-only"
coordinated hunger strike by 39 imprisoned RAF terrorists if
their demand that they all jailed in the same prison was not met
immediately. Failure to accept the demand, they claimed,
would undermine their status as "political prisoners." Several
of the hunger strikers were subsequently reported being force-
fed, a procedure mandated under German law should a
prisoner's health be endangered by fasting. Klar's condition is
reported to be deteriorating fast.
The hunger-striking terrorists have been supported by
segments of the Green Party, including Berlin's "Alterna-
tive List," and local Green Party deputies in Stuttgart, Cologne
and the southern state of Baden-Wiirtemberg. In a letter to the
Stuttgart Minister of justice, three Green deputies wrote that
the "RAF prisoners and those of the resistance movement are
political prisoners."
Bombings and other attacks on U. S., British, French, Turkish
and other NATO targets including the giant German elec-
tronics company, Siemens, began on December 17 with arson
at a Siemens warehouse in Frankfurt that caused more than $3
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million in damages. Some of the attacks indicate increased
expertise and sophistication on the part of the terrorists in
selecting targets (often related to security and military intelli-
gence) and in gaining access to NATO facilities through the use
of military uniforms and identification papers. Here in brief is a
chronology of major incidents in terrorist campaign in the
West Germany:
December 18: Oberammergau. A terrorist dressed in a
U.S. Marine uniform and flashing U.S. military identi-
fication papers drove an Audi station wagon containing more
than 55 pounds of high explosives and detonators to the
officer training school, and abandoned the vehicle 10 yards
from the front door. The vehicle, with American plates, had
been stolen a few days earlier in Augsburg, some 55 miles
north of Oberammergau. A faulty detonator prevented an
explosion. Buckets of nails had been packed around the
bomb. According to West Germany's Federal Prosecutor,
Kurt Rebmann, authorities had known the school was a
potential target since last July when sketches of a complex
prepared by Eva Haule-Frimpong, a fugitive, were found
in a house raided by police in Frankfurt. Seven suspected
RAF terrorists were seized at that time. In a telephone call to
a Munich newspaper editor, the RAF claimed responsi-
bility for the attempt.
December 20: Osnabruck. An incendiary device was deto-
nated in a police garage, causing slight damage.
December 21: Frankfurt. Two U.S. Army trucks were set
afire near a barracks.
December 24: Osnabruck. A small home-made incendiary
device was detonated at a British army barracks.
December 25: Munster. A bomb exploded early on
Christmas morning at the Turkish consulate, causing an
estimated $5,000 in damage. Responsibility for the explosion
was unknown until January 2, when letters sent to the news
media by the RAF terrorists took reponsibility for this and
other bombings.
December 25: Rutlingen. A regional computer center south
of Stuttgart was bombed on Christmas morning, causing
more than $160,000 in damage. A letter signed with the
RAF's five-pointed star and taking responsibility was sent to
a local newspaper.
December 25: Wertheim. Firebombs were thrown into the
vestry of the chapel at the U.S. Army's Peden barracks at
Wertheim, some 50 miles southeast of Frankfurt. The fire
caused some $26,000 in damage before being put out.
December 28: Wiesbaden. An incendiary bomb of gasoline
plus detonator which was concealed in a plastic bag that had
been placed in the adminstrative building at Lindsey Air
Station was dismantled. U.S. Air Force security authorities
did not begin searching for the bomb until notified by two
West German news organizations who received a letter
claiming that a bomb had been planted at the air station,
which is the administrative center for a number of U.S. Air
Force facilities in southern Germany. The letters had been
mailed a day earlier in Frankfurt.
December 29: Heidelberg. In a field of U.S. and NATO
radio antennas located along the autobahn between Heidel-
berg and Mannheim, a bomb destroyed a U.S. Army radio
antenna reportedly used in connection with military
intelligence. Damage was estimated at some $100,000.
December 29: Dusseldorf. A bomb concealed in a fire ex-
tinguisher was thrown through the window of a building
housing office of the U.S. Army's 527th Military Intelli-
gence Battalion, located in a British Army housing and
shopping area. Damage was estimated at more than $16,000.
In a letter received by German news media on January 2, the
RAF took responsibility for this and other bombings.
December 31: Bonn. Shortly after midnight, a bomb ex-
ploded in a French Embassy annex housing electronic and
security equipment. Shortly before the explosion, a woman
telephoned a warning to the building's janitor and the
residents of nearby houses. The building was located three
miles from the main French Embassy compound. Damage
was estimated at $35,000. The RAF took responsibility in a
letter received by the news media on January 2.
January 2, 1985: Frankfurt. Seven terrorists threw fire-
bombs at the home of U.S. consul William Bodde, causing
serious damage. The attack came late in the evening
while the consul was at home. The terrorists also threw red
paint on the door of his neighbor, French consul Jacques
Simon. Letters taking responsibility were left in the gardens
of both houses signed with the RAF's five-pointed star
symbol. The letter stated, "Our action is part of the anti-
imperialist front in Western Europe," attacked U.S. policy
in Central America and expressed solidarity with the RAF
hunger strikers.
January 2: Heidelberg. At 2:30 A.M., terrorists drove up to
an unoccupied guardhouse at the U. S. Army's airfield, broke
a window and threw two firebombs inside.
January 7: Hohenahr. Bombing of the NATO fuel pipe-
line. Letters received by news media two days later took
responsibility on behalf of supporters of the RAF hunger-
strikers. One the same day, the Federal Criminal Investiga-
tion Department in Wiesbaden issued arrest warrants for six
alleged RAF members: Annelie Becker, 30; Sabine Elke
Callsen, 23; Wolfgang Werner Grams, 31; Karl-
Friedrich Grosser, 28; Eva Sybille Haule-Frimpong,
30; Birgit Elisabeth Hogfeld, 28; and Thamas
Somon, 31.
January 13: Wiesbaden. An incendiary time bomb similar in
construction to that placed at the Oberammergau NATO
officers training school was defused outside the regional
FRG Army headquarters. Hidden in a plastic sack and
placed at the front entrance, the bomb was spotted by a
security guard at 7:00 A.M.
January 20: Stuttgart. A powerful bomb, concealed in a
baby carriage, exploded prematurely outside the IBM data-
processing center as its fuse was being set. Blown to bits in
the explosion was Johannes Thimme, 28, a friend and fol-
lower of Klar and Knut Folkerts. Thimme had been con-
victed twice (for soliciting followers for, and membership in
a terrorist organization) and had been sentenced in 1981 to
an 18-month prison term. His bombing activities had not
been detected although his police file designated him a "PB-
07" category suspect (one subject to police surveillance be-
cause of his known contacts with a terrorist organization).
His gravely wounded accomplice, Claudia M. Wanners-
dorfer, 23, a native of Karlsruhe, had been regarded as on
the fringes of the terrorist movement for the past four years.
EW sources in West Germany believe that the RAF hunger-
strike is not sufficient to account for the widespread
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campaign of sabotage and bombings. The new campaign
of sabotage against U.S. military and NATO targets
actually commenced last autumn in Portugal; spearheaded by a
terrorist group closely related to the slavishly pro-Soviet
Portuguese Communist Party. The sabotage spread to Spain
and Belgium where the "Combatant Communist Cells" have
taken responsibility.
The RAF hunger strike is a ruse intended to mobilize support
for violence against NATO targets by the militant left, and to
distract public attention from the fact that there are groups in at
least five West European countries practicing sabotage against
NATO. It is no coincidence that the latest attacks coincide
with the revival of U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations.
The Soviets can hope for the double satisfaction of stepping
up anti-NATO pressure through terrorist surrogates at a time
when Western governments - hoping for a revival of detente -
have even less appetite than usual for exposing Moscow's
terrorist connections. (Witness the political pressures being
applied in Rome to tone down the charges against Bulgarians
involved in the plot to kill the Pope, and continued silence on
the part of the U.S. administration on that front.)
Terrorist actions against NATO facilities elsewhere in
Europe in recent months include:
November 25: Lisbon. Four 60-mm mortar grenades were
fired at the U. S. Embassy, causing minor damage. Respon-
sibility was claimed by the April 25 Popular Forces (FP-25),
in protest against "imperialist U.S. interference in Portugal."
Three weeks earlier, a bomb consisting or rocket shells,
detonator and a timing device had been dismantled near the
U.S. Embassy. The FP-25 took responsibility for the
attempted attack.
December 9: Lisbon. Three grenades were fired at NATO's
Iberian Atlantic Command headquarters eight miles out-
side Lisbon. After the 2:30 am attack, the FP-25 left a com-
munique in a Lisbon garbage can stating the attack was "to
defend national independence, fight against the NATO pre-
sence and against American imperialism." The explosions
smashed windows and damaged a private automobile.
December 11: Belgium. Six bombs were set along a NATO
fuel pipeline. The explosions shut down the pipeline for
several hours. The Combatant Communist Cells took credit.
December 18: Spain. Three bombs were detonated along a
488-mile pipeline that carries aviation fuel from Zaragoza in
northeastern Spain to the U.S. base at Rota, near Cadiz. The
pipeline also serves the Spanish air bases used by U.S. forces
at Torrejon near Madrid, and at Zaragoza. The first
explosion took place at a pumping substation 120 miles east
from Madrid, the second at a substantion some 35 miles
east of Zaragoza, and the third some six miles further
along the pipeline, near Valfarta. No organization
claimed responsibility.
January 15: Brussels. A car bomb exploded at 3:30 A.M.
outside a U.S. Army building housing a chapel, theater,
snack bar and administrative offices. Two U.S. military
policemen guarding the building saw a car drive up, two
people get out and get into a second car which left the scene
promptly. The car bomb exploded almost at once. A letter to
Belgian newspapers from the Combatant Communist Cells
stated that this was their first attack "able to wound or kill
Yankee soldiers," and part of their "war against NATO and
military imperialism." Damage was estimated at a $500,000.
January 25: Paris. General Rene Audran, 56, director of
international affairs in the arms sales division of the Defense
Ministry, was shot six times and killed as he got out of his car
after driving to his suburban home. In telephone calls to the
media, Action Directe took responsibility.
January 28: Lisbon. Three mortar rounds were fired at three
NATO frigates (British, Dutch and Norwegian) at anchor in
Lisbon harbor, but fell short by 100 yards. Following the
3 A.M. attack, the FP-25 took responsibility in telephone
calls to news agencies.
Power-Struggle in Portugal
An EW source in the Portuguese government reports that
President Antonio Eanes is planning to dissolve Parliament
this spring. A major political crisis seems to be in train in this
small but strategic NATO ally, as the forces of the left, center
and right prepare for the presidential elections already scheduled
for the end of this year. Since the "Revolution of the Carna-
tions" in 1974, Portugal has survived the loss of an African
empire, a Communist takeover attempt actively assisted by
Moscow, and a determined left-wing terror campaign. It has
emerged as a fragile but enduring democracy - contrary to the
predictions of many Western observers, including Henry
Kissinger who, according to a knowledgeable source, was
ready to write the country off when he was Secretary of State.
However, Portugal's democratic institutions will be severely
tested in the year ahead, and the possibility of either a return to
military rule or a new Communist power-grab cannot be ruled
out. There are systemic problems that include:
1. The long term economic and psychological effects of
the loss of Portugal's African possessions, which reduced
Portugal from a seafaring empire with an essentially
19
mercantilist pattern of trade to a backward, largely agricultural
province of Europe, with a population of scarcely 10 million
in search of a collective self-image.
2. The pro-Communist government of Colonel Vasco
Gongalves nationalized the country's major financial and
industrial groups in 1975 and expropriated the biggest land-
holders. No subsequent government has been ready to reverse
the situation.
3. The country has had 15 governments in the space of a decade
- a measure of its instability and a reason for public skepticism
about those in power.
4. Successive governments have been living on credit. The
foreign debt has mounted to more than $15 billion, or $1,500
per capita - equivalent to four-fifths of the gross domestic
product. Some of the government spending has gone to treble
the number of civil servants. But it has not prevented
unemployment from rising from 40,000 in 1973 (1.7 percent of
the working population) to an estimated 550,000 (15 percent)
today. Inflation is running at about 25 percent.
5. Corruption and black marketeering are rife, and the rapid
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expansion of state control over the economy has produced a
socialist nomenklatura of high-ranking bureaucrats.
Even Socialist Prime Minister, Mario Soares has admitted
that Portugal's political system may be on the brink of collapse.
The presidential elections could produce a mandate for much
needed reforms; but a survey of the leading candidates does not
encourage much optimism on this score.
Presidential contenders
Soares himself will run as the Socialist candidate for the
presidency. But he is having difficulty in signing up his Social
Democrat partners in the governing coalition. Strong rank-and-
file opposition has so far prevented Social Democrat chief
Mota Pinto from formally pledging his support to Soares.
Reports of corruption and personal scandals involving leading
Socialists have contributed to a recent slump in the party's
popularity (from 36 percent electoral support in 1983 to 23
percent now) as evidenced by the opinion polls; it is doubtful
whether Soares will be able to reverse the trend before
the elections.
On his left, the most serious challenger is Maria de Lourdes
Pintassilgo, a "progressive Catholic" with close links to
radical officers, the New Left and "liberation theology" buffs.
She briefly functioned as prime minister after President Eanes
installed her in the job. She is flexible and articulate enough to
win some support from middle-class voters and disenchanted
Socialists. Her trump cards are that she can expect the blessing
of President Eanes and probably also of the hardline pro-Soviet
Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) whose support among the
electorate has been expanding (from 16 percent to above 23
percent, according to one survey) almost as fast as that of Soares
Socialists has been falling.
On Soares' right, it is doubtful whether a credible centrist or
conservative civilian candidate will emerge. Alberto Joao
Jardim, the Social Democrat president of Madeira's regional
government, is a decisive personality with a certain following,
but it is doubtful whether he can build a sufficient national
powerbase to ensure his party's nomination.
Challengers in uniform
There is a chance that the Social Democrats and other
parties of the center right will seek to sponsor a military
challenger for the presidency. Two names are currently
being canvassed, according to EW's Lisbon correspondent.
They are General Firmino Miguel, Deputy Chief of the
Army Staff, who ranks number two in the army hierarchy;
and General Lemos Ferreira, former Air Force commander
who, as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, is Portugal's top
professional military man.
Firmino Miguel first came to political prominence as an aide
and loyalist of General Antonio Spinola, the figurehead for
the 1974 coup whose revolution was quickly stolen from him by
younger, Marxist-oriented officers. In the period of radical
ascendancy, Miguel was eclipsed but emerged again, in 1976, to
serve as defense minister in several governments. He is
essentially a professional soldier, highly respected by his
subordinates and peers, who has demonstrated a capacity to
build bridges to the major political groups with the exception of
the Communists. Some of the Social Democratic "barons"
would like to back him as the successor to Eanes.
General Lemos Ferreira is an even more intriguing
candidate. He displayed both resoluteness and persuasiveness,
in high measure, when he sat in the leftist-controlled Conselho
da Revolucao as representative of the Air Force. He is no
friend of the left. The Communists distrust and fear him as their
most formidable internal adversary. Soares is wary of him too;
and it took solid pressure from the joint service chiefs to confirm
Ferreira in his present job.
Ferreira is bound to weigh his options carefully before
deciding to jump into the presidential race. He would be
obliged by law to resign his present post, which makes him, at
least potentially, the supreme arbiter of the country's politics.
Sources close to the general say that he will run only if two
preconditions are met:
a. Ferreira would wish to present himself as the "institutional"
candidate of the armed forces as a whole.
b. Rather than running on a party (or coalition) ticket, the
general would seek to present himself as an "independent"
and "national" candidate, with his own program, campaign
organization, and "kitchen" cabinet. This demand creates
real difficulties for centrist and conservative leaders who
would like to support him, since they are nervous of paving the
way for a presidentialist system that would leave them
very much on the sidelines.
Still, General Ferreira may decide that if the country's
social and political problems deepen, he will be as powerful
as armed forces commander as he could hope to be as
an elected president.
The Forcas Populares 25 de Abril (FP-25 April) is expected
to intensify their urban terrorist campaign. In addition,
labor unrest is expected to accompany the economic crisis and
rising unemployment. There is an active network of
Communist cells in the army and navy. Extremists on both the
left and the right may hope to profit from increased economic
disruption as the government prints money to meet its
obligations, creating the conditions for skyrocketing inflation.
10
Nuclear Freeze Campaign's 1985 Agenda
Some 750 nuclear freeze activists gathered at the Bel Aire
Hilton in St. Louis from December 7-9 to debate their protest
agenda for 1985. The organizing group was the Nuclear
Weapons Freeze Campaign (NWFC). Among the most visible
participants were the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS),
Mobilization for Survival (MFS), the War Resisters League
(WRL), the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC),
and the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA) and a variety of
its front organizations.
The 1985 "strategy paper" circulated at the conference
stressed grassroots organizing "to bring overwhelming pressure
to bear on our locally elected Congress to initiate a de facto
bilateral freeze by suspending funds for nuclear weapons
activities." On the freeze movement's calendar for the year
ahead are the following dates:
* April 20-22: A rally in Washington, accompanied by a
"lobby-in at local Congressional offices until the time of the
floor vote on freeze legislation."
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* August 6-9: Demonstrations to mark the 40th anniversary
of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, in concert
with organizations abroad. The program calls for "nationally
coordinated local activities" at nuclear weapons facilities
and renewed pressure on Congress to cut off funding for all
U.S. nuclear testing.
* Sometime in the Fall: A "Moratorium Day to Stop the
Nuclear Arms Race."
Origin of the Freeze Proposal
Proposals for a "freeze" on the production of nuclear weapons
have circulated, in one form or another, since 1945. They were
rejected by the Soviets and failed to catch fire with the protest
movement in the West until Leonid Brezhnev espoused the
idea of a "moratorium" on nuclear weapons production in his
February 23, 1981 address to the 26th Congress of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
A freeze proposal drafted by Randall Forsberg, a former
intern at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
(SIPRI), by that stage had been circulating for two years. But
the American left was only mobilized for action on this issue on
a major scale after March 20, 1981, when a congress of "peace"
activists was assembled at Georgetown University in
Washington. Two invited Soviet participants were Oleg
Bogdanov, an "active measures" specialist in the Interna-
tional Department of the CPSU in Moscow, and Yuri
Kapralov, who has been identified as a KGB officer operating
under diplomatic cover at the Soviet Embassy in Washington.
The CPUSA contribution
Both directly and through fronts like the U.S. Peace Council
(which is the American affiliate of the Soviet-run World Peace
Council), the Communist Party, USA has sought to play a
guiding. role in the freeze campaign. On the eve of the May,
1982 nuclear freeze rally at the United Nations, the internal
CPUSA publication, Party Organizer, carried a number of
highly practical articles on the techniques of "freeze"
campaigning. In one of the most revealing, Joelle Fishman, a
member of the party's Central Committee and its Connecticut
disrict organizer, described how to mount a petition drive and
use it to force a town meeting on the issue. It is worth nothing
that the individual who took the lead in organizing passage of a
nuclear weapons freeze resolution by the Connecticut
legislature, Irving Stolberg, was elected Speaker of the
Assembly in January, 1983. He was also, at the time, a council
member of the World Peace Council, a fact apparently
unknown to other Connecticut legislators, as to the electorate as
a whole.
Today, Jesse Prosten, a veteran Chicago-based labor
activist with old CPUSA connections, is a member of the
twelve-man strategy committee of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze
Campaign. Other members of the NWFC's strategy
committee include Daniel Ellsberg, of "Pentagon Papers"
fame and Betsy Taylor of SANE, an "Old Left" disarmament
lobby. Ms. Taylor has been involved in a number of IPS spin-
offs, including the National Conference for Alternative State
and Local Public Policies which has supported the idea of
"nuclear free zones" on the municipal level.
Ignoring Russia's real peace activists
The NWFC's friends and guests in St. Louis evinced little
interest in the plight of Soviet peace campaigners who have
been incarcerated in psychiatric asylums and labor camps.
According to recent reports, 27 members of the "Group to
Establish Trust Between the USSR and the USA," an inde-
pendent Soviet peace movement, are currently serving jail
terms of between three and 17 years. One of them, Alexander
Shatravka, recently managed to smuggle a letter out of his
labor camp in Kazakhstan in which he detailed the torture and
beatings to which he has been subjected.
The US "peace" movement, however, prefers to devote its
energies to challenging the Reagan administration on every
conceivable front. Thus the NWFC is one of the organizations
involved in the so-called "Emergency Response Network,"
whose raison d'etre is to "mobilize thousands to engage in acts of
nonviolent resistance if the United States invades, bombs,
sends combat troops, or otherwise significantly escalates its
intervention in Nicaragua or El Salvador."
Rajiv's Raj
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the latest member of the Nehru
dynasty to rule India, has already scored notable success in
pulling his country together after the multiple shocks of the
closing months of 1984. These included the assassination of his
mother, Indira Gandhi, in the wake of the army assault on Sikh
separatists in the Golden Temple at Amritsar; the subsequent
slaughter of Sikhs by Hindus; the chemical disaster at Bhopal;
and an election campaign that was marred by violence. EW's
observers credit Rajiv with a keener commitment to expanding
the private sector and India's world trade than either his mother
or grandfather. They also caution that he is naive about the
Soviets, who are actively seeking to exploit his inexperience and
whose "active measures" specialists may have helped to
promote a current scandal involving alleged West European
and CIA spy rings in New Delhi - a scandal that is being used to
neutralize anti-Communists in key posts and to confirm Rajiv's
suspicions of the West.
The arbitrary way Rajiv was sworn in as interim Prime
Minister after his mother's death smacked of a coup d'etat more
than any constitutional procedure. But he legitimized
his authority dramatically in December, when his Congress-I
Party captured 400 of the 508 seats in Parliament and won
half the popular vote, compared with a maximum of 40 percent
plurality in Indira's time. The extent of Rajiv's victory
reflected the size of the sympathy vote and a desire for national
unity rather than a mandate for any specific policies. Rajiv
has since been issuing mixed signals, reassuring to private
business but less so for those concerned about Soviet influence
in New Delhi.
Rajiv has conceded that "the public sector has spread into
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too many areas where it should not be," and has promised to
"open up the private sector so that it can expand and the
economy can grow freely." Some of his closest advisers have
been recruited from private business. His cousin, Arun
Nehru, the secretary-general of Congress-I and now junior
minister responsible for power, and Arun Singh, his old school
chum, who has been made one of the Prime Minister's three
chief parliamentary assistants, are both former employees of
British companies. Both men are noted for their energy and
drive, and do not fit the familiar bureaucratic mold.
Bribes and Maharajahs
Rajiv campaigned heavily on promises to curb corruption.
He dropped nearly a quarter of the Congress-I's 339 incumbent
Members of Parliament before the elections, in many cases be-
cause of alleged financial improprieties. He also sacked more
than half of Mrs. Gandhi's 45-member cabinet. The victims
included Railways Minister A.B. Ghani Khan Chowdhury,
a West Bengali who had frequently clashed with senior civil
servants in his department and was accused of pumping large
sums into his home constituency, and former Finance Minis-
ter Pranab Mukherjee, who had made the additional mistake
of joining a Congress-I faction critical of Mrs. Gandhi. The new
intake of Congress-I MPs includes a number of individuals
close to Rajiv whose independent wealth and princely status
place them virtually above suspicion of the corruption that has
been so rife in the party. They include Amitabh Bacchan, the
country's highest-paid film star; Madhav Rao Scindia, the
Maharajah of Gwalior; K.P. Singh Deo, former ruler of the
princely state of Mayurbhanj in Orissa; Sri Datta Wodeyar,
son of the last maharajah of Mysore; and former diplomat
Kunwar Natwar Singh, a member of the Bharatpur royal
family of Rajasthan.
Foreign Minister Rajiv
Two of Rajiv's most interesting cabinet appointments are
those of K.R. Narayanan, the former Ambassador to Washing-
ton, as Minister of Planning, and of Kunwar Natwar Singh,
formerly India's Ambassador to Paris, as director of the steel
industry. Both men were successful in their diplomatic posts
and are Western-oriented. However, they have been
shepherded away from direct responsibility for foreign affairs.
Following his mother's example, Rajiv has retained the foreign
affairs portfolio for himself.
It is worth recalling the fact the Rajiv made something of a
speciality of hawkish anti-Pakistan diatribes before his mother's
assassination and publicly charged that the United States is
seeking to "encircle" India. He appears to regard Moscow as
India's staunchest ally. In November, shortly after Rajiv's
succession, the head of the Soviet trade delegation in New
Delhi, I.I. Semenov, announced his optimism about the new
Indian leader. Semenov stated that he expects Indian-Soviet
trade to double between 1986 and 1990.
A special relationship between New Delhi and Moscow is, of
course, nothing new. But while Indira Gandhi had the
experience and intellectual formation to deal with the Soviets
while protecting her own interests, Rajiv is more likely to be the
used than the user. Soviet use of India as a convenient place for
poaching Western high technology will continue apace, despite
a recent understanding between Washington and New Delhi on
technology transfers. The U.S. has been seeking to promote
warmer relations; witness the recent visit by a U.S. navy
detachment and the trip to Washington by India's army chief.
The Western education and life-style of many members of the
ruling Indian elite - including Rajiv himself, whose wife is
Italian - may also allay concern about Soviet inroads. But the
Moscow-New Delhi entente is strong, and is reinforced by
Indian fears of China and Pakistan, as well as by Soviet backing
for India's pretensions to hegemony in South Asia.
India's relations with neighboring Sri Lanka and Pakistan
have not improved during Rajiv's brief tenure of power, and
military hostilities on either front cannot be ruled out. India is
providing tacit support for separatist terrorism by minority
Tamils in Sri Lanka, and has refused to crack down on guer-
rilla training camps in the southern Tamil Nadu state. In fact,
India still refuses to acknowledge the existence of these terrorist
bases, despite the capture by the Sri Lankan security forces in
mid-January of extensive guerrilla documents confirming the
extent of the clandestine infrastructure in India.
On the western front, tension seemed to be building almost
inexorably towards an Indian-Pakistani war prior to Indira's
assassination. President Zia's gesture in attending Mrs.
Gandhi's funeral-helped to repair relations, and Zia and Rajiv
seem to have been able to establish some degree of personal
dialogue. Here the potential role of the Soviets as spoilers could
be critical. Determined to cut off Pakistani bases for rebel
Afghan mujahideen, the Soviets are also engaged in long-range
plans for the dismemberment of Pakistan, leading to the
formation of a series of smaller client-states (Baluchistan,
Pakhtoonistan, etc.) and the elimination of U.S and Chinese
influence in the region. Maintaining maximum friction be-
tween India and Pakistan is central to these schemes.
Security shake-up
In the wake of Mrs. Gandhi's assassination, the Security
Unit of the New Delhi Police is in disgrace, and has been
deprived of responsibility for the physical protection of the
Prime Minister. The Special Frontier Force (SFF), an elite
commando unit attached to the Research and Analysis Wing,
has been charged with protecting Rajiv, although its expertise
lies mainly in less passive areas, like hostage rescue and sabotage
behind enemy lines. There has been a purge of Sikh security
personnel and police constables, leaving the Special Unit in
New Delhi seriously short of manpower.
The foreign intelligence agency, the Intelligence Bureau
(IB), also has been purged. The government's Chief Adviser on
National Security, R.K. Rao, resigned immediately after the
assassination. Intelligence Bureau Director R.K. Kapur was.
promptly fired, as was his deputy director for security, Rattan
Saigal. The new head of the IB is the service's surviving senior
deputy director, H.A. Barari; S.D. Trivedi took over as chief
of the security division. A senior deputy director in the new
dispensation, M.K. Narayanan, is regarded by informed
sources as one of the IB's most capable officers. However, the
new witchhunt against "CIA spies" must raise doubts about the
possible politicization of the service.
10
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Middle East Update
1. The Saudis and falling oil prices. For all their riches, the
Saudis are now obliged to make painful adjustments to falling
revenues because of the slump in world oil prices, which is likely
to go further. Nervous that Muslim fundamentalists and
Shi'ites sympathetic to the Khomeini regime in Iran will seize
the opportunity to initiate mass agitation, the authorities have
been cracking down. Anyone who wishes to speak in a mosque
must obtain permission from the Ministry of Interior; the
Saudis have not forgotten that the organizers of the assualt on
the Great Mosque in Mecca in 1979 used religious meetings to
incite political passions. Shia dissident leaders in the oil-rich
Eastern Province have been told bluntly that they are free to
leave for Iran, but must forfeit their Saudi passports if they do
so. Saudi security has installed closer checks on the movement
of Shi'ite employees from one oil installation to another. The
Saudis have also asked for the help of Western agencies in
monitoring the efforts being made by dissident Saudis and
radical Arab organizations to recruit oil engineers who are
studying abroad. On a number of occasions, according to EW
sources in Riyadh, efforts have been made by radical organizers
to maintain pressure on Saudi students after their return home
by means of long-distance phone calls.
The long-term problems for the Saudis include the prospect
of a rash of bankruptcies: many troubled businesses are current-
ly being kept afloat artificially by banks that are anxious to pro-
tect their initial loans. This may produce disillusionment
among younger members of the elite if they find that their
expectations of wealth and prestige will have to be trimmed
back severely. An influential Saudi professional told EW re-
cently that, in order to contain the growth of an opposition
movement, the regime will have to mandate greater popular
participation in the political system. King Fahd's announce-
ment that some kind of consultative body may now be
established may be a step in this direction, but local observers
are skeptical about whether it goes far enough.
2. PLO help for Shi'ite assassins. While new reports of
covert Iranian support for the Sandinista regime in Managua
have created a stir in Washington, EW's intelligence sources say
that Abu Iyad, the PLO's intelligence chief has entered into
another marriage of convenience: with the Iranian-backed
fundamentalist Shia group, al-Amal al-Islami [Hope of Islam].
Headed by Hussein Mussawi, and operating with the support
of both Iranian and Syrian intelligence, this Lebanese Shi'ite
group has been responsible for successive tragic acts of ter-
rorism against U.S. military and civilian personnel. Given the
fact that the Syrians are at daggers drawn with Abu Iyad's boss,
Yasir Arafat, it may seem an unlikely ally for the PLO. But
there are practical benefits for both sides. EW has learned that
in one exchange, shortly before Christmas, Abu Iyad supplied
35 fake passports to Mussawi's group in return for $ 150,000.
The passports, prepared by Al Fatah's well-equipped forgery
factory in Cyprus, purport to be from Morocco, Jordan, Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
and are presumably intended to facilitate international travel by
al-Amal al-Islami hitmen. There are further reports that the
Shi'ite group has been helping Abu Iyad's teams to move
around the Syrian-dominated Bekaa valley - supplying them, in
some cases, with Amal passes. If these reports are confirmed,
they may indicate that Abu Iyad has found a means to re-assert
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Fatah's presence in Lebanese areas that were lost in the conflict
between the Syrians and their proteges and the rump of the
PLO - and so to strengthen his personal position within the
Palestinian movement.
3. The Moroccan-Libyan "union". The word "union" has
less force in French than in English, as Morocco's King
Hassan recently observed in private discussion with an EW
source on the subject of his strange alliance with Libya. He also
revealed that he checked in advance with Saudi Arabia's King
Fahd and received his blessing. The news might not have ex-
ploded as a bombshell in Washington last summer (according to
a U.S. intelligence source) had not a technical intercept of dis-
cussions between Libya's Colonel Qaddafi and Hassan's
close adviser and confidant, Ahmed Reda Guedira, been
neglected during weekend doldrums.
The desire to contain the Saharan POLISARIO guerrillas
(see below) was a key element in Hassan's consent to a "union"
of fundamentally opposing regimes that seems more cosmetic
than real. Morocco also is hoping for increased Libyan eco-
nomic assistance - and access to the Libyan labor market - at a
time of deep recession and unpopular austerity programs.
But despite private assurances from King Hassan that his
basic allegiances remain unchanged, U.S. officials are worried
about mutual security arrangements that may be emerging be-
tween Morocco and Libya. There is a disturbing report that two
Libyan dissidents in exile in Morocco were deported to Libya -
despite the fact that they had had dealings with U.S. officials
and might therefore be exceptionally vulnerable to Qaddafi's
vengeance. There is another report that twenty forged Libyan
passports vanished from a safe in the Moroccan Embassy in a
West European capital - perhaps turned over to Qaddafi as a
gesture of goodwill. However, U.S. Ambassador Joseph Reed
did manage to convince Hassan to rescind an agreement where-
by Libyan planes bound for Havana would have been per-
mitted to refuel in Morocco. (Areoflot's Moscow-to-Havana
flights continue to stop over in Casablanca.)
4. Algeria's proxy war with Morocco. Morocco's
improbable "union" with Libya has alarmed the Algerians,
who are supplying intensified support to the POLISARIO
guerrillas. On January 12, POLISARIO forces launched a
major attack, using T-55 tanks and jeep-mounted recoilless
rifles, on a position in the tri-border area (between Morocco,
Algeria and Mauritania) where the Moroccans are working on a
"Saharan wall" to contain the rebels. In private discussions,
King Hassan admitted not only that 29 Moroccans were killed,
but that a Moroccan F-1 fighter plane was shot down with a
SAM-6. The tank-mounted rocket was fired from inside
Algerian territory, from a location about 15 miles south of
Tindouf. The Moroccans have communicated the details to
Algeria's President Chadli Bendjedid, but there is suspicion
in Rabat that the attack was licensed by the Algerian government
at the highest level. Algerian money was also responsible, in no
small degree, for the recent decision by the Organization of
African States (OAU), to seat a delegation representing the
Western Saharan rebels.
While tension between Morocco and Algeria builds, the odds
for the Moroccans in the protracted war with POLISARIO may
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have been improved not only by the cut-off in Libyan support,
but by the recent coup in neighboring Mauritania, which has
produced a government that is less pro-Algerian than its
predecessor. Suspicions that the French had a hand are en-
couraged by the fact that, shortly before it took place, France's
chief of staff, General Lacaze, travelled to Nouakchott and
took four-high-ranking Mauritanian officers - men who might
have stood in the way of the coup - back to Paris with him on a
friendship visit.
FLASHPOINTS
^ Japan's growing role in Pacific defense. Whenever one
of the 30 Soviet nuclear submarines attached to the Pacific Fleet
based at Vladivostok leaves port, it is tracked by a Japanese P3
Orion aircraft for the first' 18 hours, before U.S. surveillance
planes operating from Subic Bay in the Philippines take over.
Japan's naval forces took part in the latest annual "RIMPAC"
exercise with Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. And under
the joint defense plan recently signed by Japan's Self-Defense
Force commander General,' Keitaro Watanabe, and the chief
of U.S. forces in Japan, General Edward Tixier, American
forces will help to Japanese to repel any invasion attempt. This
agreement was the first successful attempt in 32 years to add
real muscle to the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.
Japan's expanding role in; regional defense was near the top of
the agenda during Prime; Minister Nakasone's meetings
with President Reagan in'California and then with Australian
Prime Minister Hawke in Canberra in mid-January.
Hawke is due in Washington this month. Erosion of the
ANZUS defense pact by a left-wing government in New
Zealand which is promoting unilateral disarmament and the
merits of a closer relationship with the Japanese are likely to be
key topics. It is a sensitive issue for Australians, still influenced
by memories of Japanese behavior during World War II. In
current propaganda efforts intended to sow suspicion of Japan,
Soviet "active measures" specialists are advancing the line that
Nakasone is rearming in order to revive old-style Japanese
imperialism. Reports to this'effect have surfaced recently in the
Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and
various South Pacific island states.
^ Savimbi's threat to the multinationals. Dr. Jonas
Savimbi, leader of the anti-Soviet UNITA movement in
Angola that has been waging successful guerrilla resistance to
the 30,000-strong Cuban army of occupation, has threatened to
launch direct attacks on multinational companies operating in
the north of the country. Gulf Oil, Elf-Aquitaine and the
Brazilian state oil corporation, PETROBRAS, have apparently
been singled out. Savimbi has long complained that revenue
from Western oil companies is propping up the Marxist MPLA
regime in Luanda. He says that the companies' failure to protest
recent executions of UNITA sympathizers by firing squad is
the reason he is making them targets.
Despite private assurances from King Hassan that his
alliance with the world's most notorious terrorist leader,
Colonel. Muammar Qaddafi, has left his basic pro-Western
policies unchanged, there is nervousness in Washington, and
especially in Congress, where moves can be expected to cut off
the limited U.S. aid program. The nervousness will increase if
Hassan pursues new overtures to Moscow, as he has hinted
strongly to well-placed sources that he intends to do.
^ Soviets analysis of Brazil. The victory of civilian
opposition candidate Tancredo Neves in Brazil's indirect
elections last month (as predicted long before byEW) may have
Moscow's Latin American experts turning to a para-academic
study, Brazil: Economic and Socio-Political Trends, recently
published in Moscow under the auspices of the Institute of
Latin America of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The authors
include a number of consultants to the CPSU's International
Department and the KGB. They express satisfaction with "the
relative weakening of U. S. positions in Brazil, as manifested in a
reduction of the U.S. share in capital investment" and with
"the growth of nationalism and the aspiration to conduct an
independent foreign policy." Heavy stress is placed on the
growth of "progressive" and "nationalist" sentiment in the
church and "units of the military" and on the size of the state-
controlled sector of the economy which is seen as "the focus of
the struggle between imperialism and its accomplices ... and
the forces which favor national development independent of
imperialism." An estimated 15,000 retired army officers are
currently employed in state-owned companies.
One signal of the direction Tancredo Neves intends to steer
will be gleaned from how he moves to control (or dismantle) the
powerful internal security apparatus headed by the military-
run Servico Nacional de Informagoes (SNI). With the
exception of the Foreign Ministry, all government ministries
have a military-run Security and Intelligence Department
(DSI); and state-run companies and foundations each have a
similar Security and Intelligence Advisory Office (ASI).
^ Scaring the Allies. Researcher William Arkin of the
radical Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington has
come up with a novel charge that seems sure to provide slogans
for anti-U.S. protesters abroad. According to Arkin, the U.S.
is ready, in time of war, to move nuclear depth charges
to locations as varied as Iceland and Diego Garcia, Canada
and the Philippines, to deal with the threat of Soviet nuclear
submarine. In a recent interview, he further bemoaned
the fact that the peoples of non-independent territories such as
Puerto Rico "are not in a position to do anything about it."
His apparent conclusion is that U.S. strategic contingency
plans should be determined by a popular vote in every
country on which the shadow of an American plane might fall.
Until 1982, Arkin taught a course at the Defense Intelligence
School while concurrently working for the European Nuclear
Disarmament (END) organization and helping IPS to set up its
"exchange" program with George Arbatov's Institute of
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Editor: Robert Mosa. Chief Foreign Editor: Arnaud de Borchgnvc, National Affairs Editor: John Rees. Copyright L~JI1985.
Approved For Release 2009/12/10: CIA-RDP87-00462R000100100014-0