THIRD WORLD IS TRAMPLED AS GIANTS FIGHT FOR MORE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606110001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 24, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606110001-8
ARTICLE APPEAR
ON Pa sr._
By Hilary Ng'weno
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-
stan, Afghanistan and irau.?,v tluo~e the Americans and the Russians
an old African adage: When two ele-.
.? have used Third World surrogates in
f
phants fight, it is the grass that su
Third World regions like Korea, the
fern.
Still, the Russians are perplexed
by the Third World's reaction to
their intervention in Afghanistan.
After all, only a few months earlier,
the Third World leaders praised the
Soviet Union as their natural ally.
WVhy, then, when the issue of Soviet
troops in Afghanistan came up in
the U.N. General Assembly did over
two-thirds of the Third World na-
tions vote with the imperialist West
for the immediate and uncondi
tional withdrawal of Soviet troops?
WASIttNGTON STAR
24 FEBRUARY 1980
The Soviets and the Americans are
both puzzled by the Third World's
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'mistrt:st of them
both.
That mistrust comes from three
decades of bitter experience. In the
.-years-since World War II, the only
wars that have been fought between
.Middle East, Indochina, Angola, the
.Horn of Africa. These wars - fi-
nanced, engineered and fueled. by
the superpowers - have taken the
lives of millions and have caused im-
mense suffering.
In Vietnam the United States per-
fected some of the most lethal in-
struments of destruction the world
has ever known. The Soviet's ability
to move men and material quickly in
combat was tested in the Ethiopia-
war of 1978 and later put to
Somalia
use in the December 1979 Soviet
Third World responses is mirrored
in the United States. American
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
11\V V V 111 fl1Dl1Y,1SJl4ll. all . vv r a.. a.s
also successfully tested their ability
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 Russia
troops overthrew the Afghan gov n
-
''f'-j?ernment of Hafizullah Amin and in-
. stalled their -.hand-picked man.Ba-
Hilary Ng'wen o, a Ken van. ,
who is one of Africa's most-re,.:
spected journalists,..is air as-z.
sociate editor of tine new inter
national. newspaper ; sup-
plement 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 poll ti- i
cal commentator for the Soviet
press agency Novosti. Both
articles are from WorldPaper. ?r
brak Karmal,,their line was that
they had been invited by the Af
gtians in accordance witha mutual
defense pact. The propaganda ma-
chinery forgot to explain wh,vv, Amin
and his family were summarily exe-i
cuted by the soldiers they had
invited into' their country. (The Chi-
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
honesty in its stated intentions.
Nothing remotely similar can be?
said of the activities of the super,
powers in the Third World.)
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release
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 r'rrr ItiLTETJ
.interests, as-it has.. demonstrated int.
2010/08/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606110001-8