CENTRAL AMERICA
In the US spy agency, the CIA, this whole operation goes under the name "Pegasus."
A future American invasion of Nicaragua could very well follow this pattern.
It was also with an eye to the future that the US and Honduras recently car-
US continues preparations for war ried out "simulated air attacks" along the Nicaraguan border against proposed Nicaraguan targets.
The other secret document that has recently come to light, a Pentagon re port prepared by the southern military operational zone command, discusses the financing of the US's military involve-
"We have to prevent the Sandinistas from consolidating their rule in
They are now providing a base for insurgency in Central
Nicaragua. If we can't prevent that, we have to prepare for a partition of the region. We would have to establish a new front line between East and
Then we could be forced to send our own American troops into countries in Central America as we did before in Korea or West Germany." (1)
This statement was made by Fred C. Ikles. He is undersecretary of defense in the Reagan administration.
Tom GUSTAFSSON
Take another look at the five points
The US's aims in Cenin this statement.
tral America could not be expressed more clearly.
And it is precisely in pursuance objectives that Washington is of these now preparing for a massive escalation of military operations against the Sandinista government and the Salvadoran liberation fighters.
This involves making Honduras more and more into a staging area for the US military, increasing support for the Salvadoran regime and stepping up attacks against Nicaragua.
As more information comes out about
Washington's military investments in the area, the clearer it becomes how deeply the US is already involved in war in Central America, in the war of the "contras"
against Nicaragua and in the war of repeople in El Salvador and Guatemala.
Recently, two secret documents have been published by the American and the
French press. One is a report to a congressional committee and the other is a memorandum from the Pentagon.
In the first document, General Paul
Gorman describes how Honduras is being more and more transformed into a military base against Nicaragua and Cuba.
This well-known military strategist and expert in "intelligence" calls for a permanent American military presence in
Central America.
The report expains that the joint
American-Honduran military maneuvers, entitled "Big Pine II," and which lasted from September 1983 to February this year, have to be seen in the context of
3,200 soldiers were brought in at the start of the maneuvers, and another 2,000 in
In all, the US now has more than 5,000 troops stationed in Honduras.
Washington has a treaty with the regime in Honduras that gives it access to dollar joint investment plan has been lemmational Viewpoint 12 March 1984 adopted to improve the two local air-
The next project, the report explains, will be an expansion of the US military
Puerto Castilla, which will involve 160 million dollars in invest-
In addition, it is planned to put 32 million dollars into a training camp. It is to be located on Honduras' Caribbean coast, and will accomodate 1,200 elite troops, 200 military instructors and an 800-man security force.
This training camp will serve the countries in Condeca, that is, the Central American Defense Council. tary pact was revived suddenly in October 1983; it had been kept on ice since war between Honduras and El Salvador in 1969. The Grenada invasion model
The Condeca treaty was renewed at a meeting of representatives of the governments of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, plus the chief of the Panamanian National Guard and the commander of the US army's "southern operational zone for Latin America."
At a meeting in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on October 27, that is, two days after the US invasion of Grenada, military chiefs from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador discussed a possible invasion of Nicaragua and the area outside the control of the government in El
This was supposed to take place in the framework of the Condeca treaty, in the same way as the US invaded Grenada "at the request of the Caribbean Defense Council."
An invasion of Nicaragua under the cover of the Condeca treaty would not have been directed toward take over all of Nicaragua immediately." The objective would have been rather to "liberate" a smaller area and set up a "provisional government" there. from Nicaraguan territory, this government would have appealed to "friendly powers" (i.e. the US) to send help.
ment in Central America. In particular, the report deals with building up the fire power of the Salvadoran army.
In the same sort of language that was used in Vietnam, the Pentagon report calls for 200 million dollars more in military aid to the Salvadoran regime. "Only in this way can the guerrillas be defeated before the end of the fiscal year 1985." But in 1985, a total of 1.4 billion economic and military aid will be needed.
This money is supposed to be used to better the economic and social situation and to build up a stronger army. Instead of 32,000 men, the idea is to put 48,000 under arms. And they are supposed to be better armed, better trained is no accident that the so-called Kissinger Committee for Central America, which presented its report to President Reagan in mid-January, arrived at exactly the same figures. It was, in fact, based on the secret Pentagon report.
The Kissinger committee, did not seem so certain as the Pentagon report that the Salvadoran government could crush the liberation struggle in 1985 if it only had more US money for that purpose. For safety's sake, it called for a total of 8 billion dollars in aid over six years, extending to 1990.
President Reagan set up the Kissinger committee last summer to achieve two
The first had to do with public opinion.
American people that some progress had really been made in the fight against Soviet-Cuban aggression in Central America," but that a lot more aid to "the friendly regimes" would be needed in order to finally stop this "aggres-
To judge from the new figures, the Reagan administration is from achieving that objective, despite the support of public opinion for the invasion
An American public opinion poll published on January 19 (a week after the Kissinger report) showed that •of those questioned were against the
This quotation is from the Internationa Herald Tribune of September 13, 1983 [it, well as other quotes and references. have been retranslated from Swedish]. The material concerning the two confidential US reports mentioned further on in the article is taken from Le Monde of January 19, 1984.
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commented drily that "under the present of the political course taken by Reagan.
committee's proposal for more military aid to El Salvador (only 17% were
Some 60% opposed the CIA's support for the "contra's" attacks against
The Kissinger committee's second objective was to get the entire American establishment to commit itself to increased military involvement in Central America.
That was why the committee included an
Republicans. It was for that reason also that Lane Kirkland was included.
Kirkland is the president of the American labor confederation, the AFL-CIO.
He was named to the committee in order better to tie the US trade-union movement to Reagan's war policy.
But the committee did not achieve its second objective either. Opposition is continuing to widen among union activists to Reagan's policy. Protests are being voiced at the higher levels of officialdom as well. For example, Jack Sheinkpresident of the American
Clothing and Textile Workers came out in opposition to the committee's conclusions.
The "aid" the US proposes
"The report proposes same policy, it won't work."
The Kissinger report includes some high-sounding phrases about safeguard. ing human rights in El Salvador." It claims that "the government is making progress in this area, despite the difficulties." This assertion, in fact, coincides with reports coming in constantly of new massacres committed by government soldiers against the rural population.
The report also takes up the economic crisis in El Salvador and proposes that the military aid be combined with extensive support to investment and reconstruction.
It was with respect to this "economic side" that Swedish Premier Olof Palme expressed a positive view following his recent trip to Central America.
"The Kissinger report has the advantage that it presents the economic facts and proposes substantial aid. This part is fine. But it is extremely difficult to combine an economic program with a military program." (Dagens Nyheter, February 13, 1984.)
But that is just what the Kissinger committee has proposed. The economic aid measures it calls for are closely tried to the military needs. Road building, development of energy sources, investment in strategic areas — none of this can be separated from the military aims.
This aid, moreover, will be funneled through the present regime. It is in order to reinforce this regime's social base that military investments are being coupled with economic ones.
In fact, a lot of American politicians have taken a more skeptical attitude toward these proposals than Palme.
Walter Mondale, a former vice-president and the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 4 conditions, a good part of the 8 billion dollars proposed could simply disappear or be siphoned off."
Even a former Salvadoran economies minister, Jorge Sol, expressed his skepticism, noting that the American aid program had in fact provided considerable support to the private sector in the past, but that only a thin layer at the top of the society profited from it.
"It may have been very progressive in economic terms, but its were catastrophic, and did not help in the fight against poverty.
The far-right leader Robert d'Aubuisson, who is responsible for the notorious recently accused by the former US ambassador to El Salvador of being behind the murder of Archbishop Romero, expressed a well-founded satisfaction with
"It reflects the political convictions of President Reagan, a man who is a real leader and for whom we hold great admiration and respect."
It is not only in calling for increased appropriations for the reactionary Central American governments that the Kissinger report represents a continuation Mass meeting in front of Salvador cathedral (DR)
EL PUEBLUE XIEE
The Nicaraguan government is to be further punished for failing to dance to Reagan's tune. The US is to continue its support to the "contras." Economi sanctions and pressures will also be put on countries that trade with Nicaragua such as Mexico.
The aim of this economic strangula tion and these constant military attacks is to force the Sandinista regime to make decisive concessions. Washington wants it to end its support for the liberation struggle in El Salvador and to undermine its image as an example of progress in the eyes of the people of Central America.
If the US cannot extract sufficient concessions by this means, and if it finds an opening, it may also resort to direct
It is to prepare for such an eventuality that the US is now stepping up its military involvement against the people of Central America.
One thing is certain, as US Ambassador to Costa Rica, Curtin Windsor, put it so explicitly, "The USA cannot, and will not, live with a Marxist-Leninist regime in its backyard." ernationalen, the paper of the Swedish section of the Fourth International.
International Viewpoint 12 March 1984
North Africa to Malyasia and the Philippines.
It is possible that in order to maintain credibility, a regime based on parasitic petty-bourgeois layers, without any his-