Latin American Terrorism: The Cuban Connection

November 9 1979 LA TIN AMERICAN TERRORISM THE CUBAN CONNECTION INTRODUCTION The fall of the Somoza govern ment in Nicaragua to the Sandi nista guerrilla forces (FSLN, Sandinista Front for National Liberation) and their foreign collaborators in July, 1979, has raised concern throughout the Western hemisphere that similar insurgency movements in other Latin Ame rican countries could lead to the weakening or overthrow of their governments as well.

Increasing awareness of the role of Communist Cuba, the Palestine Liberation Organization.(PLO and various Soviet surrogate forces in assisting the FSW through arms, tra hing, and moral support has also created concern that the Nicaraguan and other Latin American insurgency movements are not merely indigenous protests1' or spontaneous rebellions against oppressive regimes but are part of an internationally orchestrated ca mpaign of subversion and terrorism to increase Soviet and Cuban influence in Latin America at the expense of the U.S.

Since the U.S. depends on Latin America in a number of ways international cooperation in the UN and OAS, international trade and investmen ts, and general diplomatic and political support this concern for the internal security of Latin American states is especially relevant to the national security interests of the U.S.

South American state would seriously compromise U.S. geopolitical securi ty is the "soft underbelly of Europe so Latin America is the soft underbelly of the United States recent remarks about exaggerating the role of Cuba in destabiliz ing friendly governments and supporting armed rebellions, the evidence is clear throughout L a tin America that the Castro regime 1s responsible for widespread support for terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and political subversion, that Cuba has long been involved in such activities, and that the Soviet Union itself supports the Furthermore, Communist i nfluence in any Central or Just as, in Winston Churchill's phrase, North Africa Despite President Carter's Note: Nothing written here is Io be construed as necessarily reflecting the views ol The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the p a ssage of any bill before Congress. 2 1 disruptive and revolutionary policies of Cuba. In view of the i. fall of the Somoza government, the escalation of internal violence in other Latin American states, and the recent controversy over the Soviet military presence in Cuba, the Cuban connection with international terrorism in Latin America is especially relevant.

BACKGROUND Terrorism and guerrilla warfare are certainly not new pheno mena in Latin America. Continued warfare with Indians, periodic slave rebell ions, and internal political wars in the region have caused terrorism to persist in Latin American political culture In recent history since.1960 left wing (i.e., Marxist-Leninist Trotskyist, Castroite, or Maoist) ideologies and strategies have predominat ed among Latin American terrorists, but terrorism from right wing (i-e., ultra-nationalist or anti-communist) groups and counter-terrorism from ruling authorities have also been prominent.

Some of the ideological content of terrorist groups, such as the Ar gentine Peronists, has been ambiguous in terms of having left right identity In 1977, the CIA found that, of fourteen Latin American terrorist groups, only one could be described as "Extreme Right and that the current status of its activities was unknown O f the other thirteen groups, all but one, described as IfPopulist Left," were IIRadical Left The fourteen groups were known or suspected to have been responsible for eighty-two transnational or international terrorist acts (including abductions, bombings hi] ackings, and assassinations between January 1, 1968, and December 31, 1975 this count does not include terrorist fcts committed entirely within the borders of a single state).

A more recent CIA study has found that, of a total of 3043 international ter rorist incidents between 1968 and 1978 808 incidents (26.6 percent) occurred in Latin America, which'was second only to Western Europe (with 1130 or 37.1 percent) in the incidence of international terrorism. Perhaps of more direct significance'for America n s, the study also found that of 1271 international terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens or property from 1968 to 1978, 474 (37.3 percent) occurred in Latin America the were 19 international terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens or property in Latin AmeZica out of a total of 123 such attacks throughout the world. The following tables show the incidence of terrorism chronologically and by catc lory of attack region in which such attacks were most common. In 1978, there 1. Research Study: International and Transna t ional Terrorism: Diagnosis and 2. International Terrorism in 1978: A Research Paper (Washington: Central Prognosis (Washington: Central Intelligence Agency, April, 1976 App. C Intelligence Agency, March, 1979 App Table I, p. 7; Table VII, p. 10 Table ViII , p. 11. 3 1968 1969 19 70 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 Table 1 International Terrorist Incidents (ITI 1968-1978 Total IT1 on IT1 in Total IT1 UiS. Citizen or Property Latin America 111 166 282 216 269 275 382 29 7 413 279 353 51 93 188 153 109 1 02 139 104 125 84 123 41 71 113 70 49 80 124 48 105 46 61 Total 3043 1271 808 Source: CIA Table 2 ITI, 1968-1978, by Category of Attack On U.S. Citizens Total In Latin America Property Kidnapping Barricade, Hostage Letter Bombing Incendiary Bombing Explos i on Bombing Armed Attack Hijacking Assassination Theft, Break-in Sniping Other Actions 243 60 162 437 1473 162 92 199 76 63 76 133 11 69 388 33 22 56 44 28 15 9 95 13 12 266 655 54 34 54 41 28 19 Total 3043 808 127 1 Source: CIA Thus, of a total of 808 Lat in American international terror ist incidents in the last decade, over half (474 or 58.7 'percent represent attacks on Americans or their property. Latin American international terrorism has increased since 1968 but appears to have diminished since 19

74. With the successful terrorist and guerrilla operations against Somoza, however, it is likely that there will be an upsurge in such operations in the future, and it is possible that they will enjoy more success than they have in the last decade. 4 In the m iddle and later part of the 1960s, a number of terrorist organizations were founded and became active in South America. These were such groups as the Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP, Revolutionary Army of the People) and the Monto neros in Argenti n a; the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN Army of National Liberation) in Bai-c-tadora National (ALN, National Liberation Action) and the Vanquardia Popular Revolucionaria (VPR, Popular Revolutionary Vanguard) of Brazil; the Movimiento de Izquierda Revo l ucion'aria (MIR, Movement of the Revolutionary Left) of Chile; and the Movimiento de Libera cion Nacional (MLN, Movement of National Liberation) or Epamaros of Uruguay. These and similar groups in other countries were often so successful in destabilizing their respective societies that they sometimes provoked authoritarian reactions from the governments, which in recent years have made considerable progress in the suppression of terrorist activities within their countries.

Unfortunately, however, generally democratic political cultures were sometimes destroyed or retarded in their development in the reactions against the terrorism and subversion of the left. Yet terrorism has not been destroyed completely, and the leaders of many terrorist movements have g one into exile in Western Europe Communist states, or Third World countries.

Some of the above-named groups had their origins in Trotsky ist revolutionary organizations. Thus, the ERP of Argentina, the ELN of Bolivia, and the MIR of Chile, as well as the F rente Izquierdista Revolucionaria (FIR, Revolutionary Left Front) of Peru, led by convicted terrorist Hugo Blanco-Galdos, all origina ted in the various branches of the Fourth International and have received assistance from within this international Trots kyist organization. However, the ERP, under the leadership of Mario Roberto Santucho Juarez, split with the Fourth International in 19

73. Prior to the split, the ERP had sought to recruit its members from Argentine urban youths and by 1972 had about 500 m embers in 17 cells in 6 Argentine provinces. By 1974 the ERP had about 2000 active and 12,000 secret members. The Tupamaros of Uruguay are said to have originally been composed of sugar plantation workers from the northern part of the country, but they in c reasingly attracted middle class intellectuals and stu dents and provoked the military reaction against the terrgrists by The Uruguayan Communist Party penetrated the Tupamaros instigating Tupamaro attacks on military personnel 3. Lawrence P. McDonald, Tr o tsk-ism and Terror: The Strategy of Revolution Washington: ACU Education and Research Institute, 1977 ch. iv passim hereafter cited as McDonald, Trotskyism Albert Parry, Terrorism from RobesDierre to Arafat (New York: The Van2 A uard Press, Inc 1976 pp. 2 6 2-63, 277 (hereafter cited as Parry, Terrorism Brian Crozier, ed. Annual of Power and Conflict, 1977-78: A Survey of Political Violence International Influence (London: Institute for the Study of Conflict 1978 p. 151 (hereafter cited as APC 9 and 5 Many o f these terrorist organizations received support from each other as well as from Cuba. On February 13, 1974, a clandes tine meeting was held in Mendoza, Argentina, and the Junta de Coordinacion Revolucionaria (JCR, Junta of Revolutionary Coordina tion) was formed. The JCR consisted of four groups: the ERP of Argentina, the ELN of Bolivia, the MIR of Chile, and the Tupamaros of Uruguay. Also in attendence at the Mendoza meeting was Alain Krivine, the leader of the French Trotskyist organization, the Lime Com m uniste. The manifesto of the JCR declared that Itarmed struggle is the only possibility for victoryit and that '!The continental character of the struggle is fundamentally determined by the presence of a common enemy. North American imperialism carries ou t an international strategy to hold back the socialist revolution in Latin America from the ransom of an Exxon Corporation official for the joint operations of the JCR and in effect became the dominant group within it. Buenos Aires became the headquarters of the JCR. The other member-groups were already in decline, and, in July, 1976 Santucho himself was killed in a battle with Argentine authorities.

However, the JCR became the central organization for Latin American terrorism, and its members received arms and training from Cuba.

The JCR maintained a guerrilla warfare training school, an arms factory, and a false documentation center all of which wer e closed down in 1975 by Argentine security forces. However, the JCR, mainly through the ERP, sponsored and cooperated with a Bolivian support group for the ELN, with Colombian terrorist groups, and with a Paraguayan guerrilla group called Frepalina.

Members of the JCR received training from Cuba, Iraq, and Libya.

As of 1976, Cuba was providing training for the JCR on an 1800 hectare (7 square miles) estate near Guanabo as well as at another site in Pinar del.Rio. The course lasted at least three months a nd included the use of translated manuals of the U.S. Special Forces. Training concentrated oil the use of explosives, weapons tactics, operations against regular forces, survival in rugged terrain, tank warfare, and the techniques of clandestine warfare.

The JCR maintained front organizations in Western Europe as well as a secret documentation center in Paris where fabricated identi ty papers are manufacture The.JCR now calls itself the Southern Cone Revolutionary Junta The ERP in 1974 provided $5 million RECENT TERRORISM XN LATIN MRICA Latin American terrorism is so complex that it is impossible to give a full account of its organizational and operational 4. Robert Moss Soviet Ambitions in Latin America" in Patrick Wall, ed The Southern Oceans and the Se c urity of the Free World: New Studies in Global Strategy (London: Stacey International, 1977 pp. 197-206 (hereafter cited as Moss Soviet Ambitions Parry, Terrorism, p. 261; the passage from the JCR manifesto is quoted from Terrorism: A Staff Study Prepared by the Committee on Internal Security, U.S. House of Representatives 93rd Congress, 2nd Session (August 1, 1974 p. 11 (hereafter cited as Terrorism McDonald, Trotskyism, p. 46; Information Digest, August 24 1979, p. 265. 6 background without an extensive t reatment. Moreover, many of the organizations active in the late 1960s and early 1970s have been suppressed, disrupted, or forced into exile by the rigorous measures adopted.by Latin American governments especially in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Uruguay. However terrorism continues to threaten Latin America and U.S. citizens and property there, and many currently active terrorists are related to the terrorist groups of the recent past.

Argentina The most important terrorist groups of the recent past in Argentina were the ERP, originally a Trotskyist group, and the Montoneros, which developed partly from the splintering of the Argentine Trotskyists in 19

73. In 1962, Trotskyist terrorists received training in Cuba. The military regime of General Videla since 1976 has been generally successful in the fight against Argentine terrorism, although at a fearful cost. The Em, as discussed above, became the dominant group in the JCR. The Montoneros, led by Mario Firmenich, were virtually crushed by the end of 1977, and Firmenich fled to Europe. He has admitted to the murder of the Provisional President of Argentina, Pedro E.

Aramburu, in 19

70. Soon after the fall of the Somoza government, Firmenich arrived in Managua, were he announced that his followers will again seek to take over Argentina this year. The Montoneros have the support of the PLO and the Baader-Meinhof Gang (Red Army Fraction). In 1973, the Montoneros merged with the Cuban-oriented FAR (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias or Armed Re v olutionary Forces) and by that time had already absorbed most members of the Peronist revolutionary groups. In the spring of 1975, the Monto neros kidnapped Juan and Junge Born, sons of the founders of Bunge and Born, one of Argentina's largest multinatio n al corpora tions. The Born brothers were released on June 20, 1975, after the firm paid a ransom of $60 million, the largest ransom for a kidnapping in history. According to Firmenich, this money was to be used for the financing of further terrorism by th e Montoneros.

In April, 1977, Firmenich and other Montonero leaders formed the Movimiento Peronista Montonero (MPM, Montonero Peronist Movement with a Marxist ideological base number of European and Third World socialist parties. According to a chronology of significant terrorist incidents compiled by the'State Department, there were 72 such incidents involving Americans or American inst5llations in Argentina between June MPM sought the support of a 1963, and September, 1978 5. Parry, Terrorism, p. 269 pp. 117-20; Intelligence Digest, September 5, 1979; Stefan T. Possony and L. Francis Bouchey, International Terrorism The Communist Connection (Washington: American Council on World Freedom 19781, p. 51 (hereafter cited as Possony and Bouchey, International T e rrorism Trotskyite Terrorist International: Hearing before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 94th Congress, 1st Session (July 24 , 1975 pp. 34, 208-9 I I I 7 Bolivia Ernest0 IIChe" Guevara founded the ELN in 1967 as a rural guerrilla movement. Seventeen Cubans, some of them.members of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, fought with him in Bolivia, and the ELN receive d arms and training from Cuba and included some Bolivians and Peruvians. The Soviets, however frowned on Guevara's strategy for revolution in Latin America and, using the pro-Soviet Bolivian Communist Party, sabotaged his movement. The Bolivian Party had l ured Guevara to their country by reporting that it was ripe for a guerrilla insurgency, but after Guevara's arrival, the Party did nothing to assist him.

Furthermore, Guevara's mistress, Tania Bunke, was a KGB agent who helped betray him to the Bolivian au thorities in 1967, when he was killed Soon after Guevara's death, the ELN was refounded as a Trotskyist group, the armed branch of the Partido Obrero Revolu cionario (POR, Revolutionary Workers Party), led by Hugo Gonzales Moscoso In 1974, the ELN adhered to the JCR, discussed above.

In 1972, the Bolivian government expelled 49 Soviet diplomats who had'been involved with the ELN, indicating that the Soviets came to have a more favorable attitude toward terrorism and insurgency once they had more influence over it. One of the group's princi pal commandos was Monica "Irmilla" Ertl, who assassinated the Bolivian consul in Hamburg, Germany, on April 1, 1971, using a weapon provided by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who was deeply involved with European terrorism. an d with the Cuban Tricontinental, the publication of the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America OSPAAAL Ertl was killed in a gunfight with Bolivian police on May 13, 1973:. Terrorist activi ties in Bolivia have been61ar gely curtailed by the military regime of General Banzer.

Brazil Carlos Marighella, a former member of the Executive Committee of the Brazilian Communist Party, was a principal leader of and theoretician for two Brazilian terrorist groups, the ALN and the V PR. These groups were originally Maoist and rural-based in ideology and strategy, but became urban-based in 19

68. Both received arms and training from Cuba. Marighella's Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla was published in Havana in November, 1970, in Tricontinental, no.

56. In October, 1968, the VPR murdered Captain Charles Chandler.of the U.S. in Sao Paulo and o n September 4, 1969, the ALN kidnapped U.S. Ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick who was released fter 78 hours in exchange for 15 political prisoners, most of whom soon went to Cuba. Marighella was killed by police in Sao Paulo in November, 1969, but both te r rorist 6. Terrorism, pp. 16-17; Possony and Bouchey, International Terrorism, pp 47-48; McDonald, Trotskyism, pp 46-47; Peter Kemp Left Against Left in Latin America Spectator, April 9, 1977, p. 7 I I I 1: I! 8 I i groups survived him. In 1970, they kidna p ped the West German and Swiss ambassadors to Brazil and released them in exchange for political prisoners, who were flown to Cuba. The military regime of General Geisel was successful in suppressing terrorist activi ties in Brazil in the mid 1970s, but re c ent reports indicate that international terrorist groups consisting of the United Red Army URA which carried out the Lod Airport massacre on behalf of the PFLP in 1972), the Montoneros, and the ERP of Argentina may have joined together to attack U.S. targ ets in Brazil in retalia tion for the U.S. role in the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement In April, 1979, the Japanese consulate in Sao Paulo is said to have given police informatjon on 15 URA members reported to have been present in Sao Paulo.

Chile The pri ncipal terrorist group in Chile is the MIR, also a MIR was member of the JCR and an active force in the support of Salvator Allende Gossens's Popular Unity government of 1970-73 founded in 1965 and became a terrorist.movement after its takeover in 1967 by Bautista von Schouwens (condemned to death in 1973 by the Pinochet government), Andres Pascal Allende (nephew of Presi dent Allende), and other extreme elements. MIR went underground in 1969, but later emerged in 1970 after Allende's amnesty of political c riminals. During the Allende years, MIR served as shock troopsvf or Ilstorm troopsvf for the leftist government and received'clandestine arms shipments from Cuba. MIR went under ground again in 1973 after the coup d'etat that overthrew the Allende governm e nt, and in December, 1974, joined in the formation of the Revolutionary Party of the'chilean Proletariat. MIR has never been as active or as successful in its terrorism as some of its allies in the JCR were e.g., the Tupamaros or the ERP and the Pinochet g overnment has maintained a tight lid on its activi ties. Nevertheless, MIR remains active. On October 16, 1977 MIR exploded 10 bombs in Santiago ment arrested several MIR leaders and killed August0 Carmona Acevedo, a former MIR editor of Punto Final. In 1 979, about 40 bombing incidents were attributed to MIR in April-June.

August, the Chilean government announced that it was searching for Andres Pascal Allende, who was believed to have returned to Chile, and stated that it expected an escalation of.MIR terrorism.

In that month also, the Chilean security services raided a MIR base in El Arrayan and arrested Pascal's fiancee, Ana Maria Penailillo, and a leftist journalist. Documents captured in the raid showed that MIR was planning a series of bombings and r obber ic a propaganda campaign against the Chilean government in the UN and OAS, reprisals against I1traitorslf and lftorturers,I1 and a reorganization of MIR into an underground action cadre and an aboveground support unit. Salvator Allende, when he pard o ned Later in the year, the govern In 7. Parry, Terrorism, pp. 257-60; Tricontinental, no. 56 (November, 1970 Information Digest, August 10, 1979, p. 246. 9 5 B the Miristas in 1970, stated, "All those young men who, prompted by a lofty desire forgsocial c h ange, attacked a number of banks are granted amnesty If Colombia One of the most important terrorist groups in Colombia.is the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC, Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia), fGnded in '1966 and led by Manuel Ma r ulanda Velez (also know as Tirofijo FARC is pro Soviet in its sympathies, and Marulanda is a member of the Central Committee of the Colombian Communist Party. Another terrorist group in Colombia is the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN National Liberat ion Army), a Castrxte group founded in 19

64. In 1974, FARC and ELN came to an agreement whereby the former opera ted in rural areas and the latter in urban areas. Another active Colombian group is M-19 (April 19 Movement In April, 1979, the Colombian mili tary completed a crackdown on terrorism by arresting 714 persons linked to M-19, 162 linked to FARC, and 70 others linked to the Colombian Trotskyists In June several Castroite terrorist groups announced a union of FARC, M-19, and a Maoist group, Ejercito Popular de Libercion (EPL, Popular Liberation Army in December, 19

78. ELP exploded a bomb at the residence of the U.S. Embassy Marine guards in Bogota on May 1, 1979, wounding a marine and two women In July, the Colombian government revealed that M-19 ha s Cuban and Swedish advisers, that it works with the FSLN in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and with Castroite groups in El Salvador, Uruguay, and Guatemala. M-19 also is reported to have a coordinating support group in Paris, and a leading spokesman Carlos To leda Plata, was in Costa Rica as of August, 1979.

According to the U.S. State Department, there have been about 20 significant terrorist attacks on U.S. citizgns or installations in Colombia between 1973 and January, 1979 M-19 claims to hGe retained most o f 7000 weapons stolen Peru Castroite groups practiced terrorism in Peru, as did the Trotskyist Frente Izquierdista Revolucionaria (FIR, Revolutionary Left Front), founded in 1962 by Hugo Blanco Galdos. Blanco, a self-confessed murderer of three policemen, was sentenced to a 25-year prison term in 1963, but was released in 1969 in an amnesty. Arrested again shortly afterwards, Blanco was deported 8. Information Digest, August 10, 1979, p. 246; Robert Moss, Chile's Marxist Experiment (London: David and Charl e s Newton Abbot, 1973 pp. 106-11 Terrorism, p. 18; Possony and Bouchey, International Terrorism, p. 50 NAP, pp. 127-28; Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Latin America August 10, 1979, V1 (hereafter cited as FBIS/LA Intelligence Digest September 26, 1 9 79 1979, p. 187; August 10, 1979, p. 248; FBIS/LA, September 24, 1979, F1 9 APC pp. 128-29; Information Digest, April 20, 1979, p. 118; June 15, 10 to Argentina and later found refuge in Allende's Chile. In 1975-76 the Socialist Workers Party (the Trotsky i st affiliate of the Fourth International in the United States) and its front group, the U.S. Committee for Justice to Latin American Political Prisoners, tried to sponsor a speaking tour for Blanco in the U.S but the convicted terrorist was denied a visa b y the U.S government. The left wing authoritarian government of General Velasco was successful in repressing terrorism in Peru, but in December, 1977, a leftist front called the Democratic Unity of the People (UDP) was formed to participate in the 1978 el ections.

The UDP contained both Maoist and Trotskyists, and in June, 1979 the Peruvian Maoist Party, Patria Roja (PR, Red Fatherland announced its cooperation with the UDP and the Trotskyist FOCEP Popular Student, Peasant, and Worker Front) in a "revolutio nary coalition1' for forthcoming elections. Blanco is a leader of FOCEP and was arrested in Lima two days after this announcement.

Uruquay The Tupamaros, or MLN, the last of the original cooperating groups of the JCR, were founded as a Castroite group in 1962.

Perhaps the most successful terrorist group in Latin America, the Tupamaros were infiltrated by the Communist Party of Uruguay PCU although the Communists posed as a party of "law and order as they have in Italy under the terrorist campaign of the R ed Brigades). Mauricio Rosencoff, a member of the PCU, received financial assistance from Castro and orders from the DGI (Cuban intelligence and after the arrest of Tupamaro leader Raul Sendic in 1970, Rosencoff assumed operational command of the Tupamaro s. By 1972, however, the Bordaberry government of Uruguay had begun to destroy the Tupamaro cells, but their operatives in Europe murdered the Uruguayan military attache in Paris on December 19, 19

74. The Colombian M-19 claims the support of the Tupamaros who still exist. Many Tupamaro leaders live in exile in Havana East Berlin, and Paris. Underground Tupamaro cells have sought to revive ttfir activities in collaboration with the PCU in Montevideo I I CENTRAL AMERICAN TERRORISM I While terrorism in South America has been in decline in recent years, due to the restrictive measures of several Latin American governments, in Central America terrorism shows every sign of increase after receiving substantial support from Cuba, overthrew the The obvious case is Nicaragua, where the FSLN 10. McDonald, Trotskyism, p. 48; Terrorism, p. 26; Apc, p. 147; Information 11.

Digest, June 15, 1979, p. 1

87. Terrorism, p. 26; m, p. 151; Moss Soviet Ambitions p. 201; Peter Xemp Russia Against the Tupamaros Spectator, April 16, 1977, pp. 8-9 Parry, Terrorism, pp. 274-81; FBIS/LA, 26 July 1979, F3 11 e Somoza government in July, 1979. supported terrorist mov e ment against one of the key U.S. allies in Latin America opens the door to similar strategies throughout the subcontinent The triumph of a Communist Many foreign guerrillas fought with the FSLN, and some have announced their intention to continue their st r uggle against other Latin American governments and against U.S. presence and influence. Thus, Plutarco Elias Hernandez, a.commander of the FSLN and an organizer of the Simon Bolivar Brigade, a 2000-man guerrilla force of various nationalities that fought w ith the Sandinistas, announced in Costa Rica on July 27 that international brigades will cooperate with other revolutionary movements Other people require my assistance in their struggle for libera tion.Il Although a member of the Sandinista junta denied t hat Hernandez was authorized to make such statements, another guerrilla Hugo Spadafora, former minister of health in Panama and leader of the Victoriano Lorenzo Brigade, a Panamanian force that fought with the FSLN announced in Managua at the same time th a t his men "are ready to go to any country where the people are opposing injustice and tyranny.Il In late August a delegation of the PLO in Managua expressed solidarity and cooperation with the Sandinista junta, and PLO delegate Fares Melhem stated, Itour common enemy is American imperialism and we must always be united to fight it AS of early July, 1979, 50 Colombians and several dozen Venezuelans Mexicans, Costa Ricans, and19ther Latin Americans and Spaniards had joined the Sandinistas.

Costa Rica This co untry has been one of the few in Central America to have a genuinely democratic government, but its freedom has not saved it from terrorism. Plutarco Elias Hernandez, mentioned above, led an attack on a Costa Rican garrison in 1969 that resulted in the fr eeing of Sandinista Carlos Fonseca Amador, now deceased. Hernandez was pardoned, but he was arrested again for directing an illegal military school. He founded the Simon Bolivar Brigade (SBB) in 19

79. The Costa Rican government in 1974 lifted its 1949 ban on the Communist Party, and both a pro-Soviet and Trotskyist party exist.

Commandos of Solidarity attacked U.S.-owned companies in Costa Rica. In August, 1979, the C'osta Rican government expelled the first and second secretaries of the Soviet Embassy fo r their involvement in organizing and financing labor disputes in Puerto Limon in which over 100 persons were injured, and the government was considering the expulsion of about 15C foreigners, many of whom were wanted for terrorist acts in their own count r ies. The government did expel several members of the SBB, who ,had already In 1977 the Revolutionary 12. FBIS/LA, 30 July 1979, P8; 11 September 1979, P7; 9 July 1979, P1. I 12 I r E been expelisd from Nicaragua when they began to organize Trotsky ist cel l s. I El Salvador At the present time, El Salvador suffers from terrorism more than any other Latin American country. Several terrorist orqani zations- have been active the Fuerzas Populares de Liberation Faribundo Marti (FPL, Faribundo Marti Popular Liber a tion Forces the Fuerzas Armadas de Resistencia Nacional (FARN, Armed Forces of National Resistan the Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo Em, Revolutionary Army of the People and the leros Proletario (EGP, Guerrilla Army of the Pro1 are all left wing groups , but the Union White Fighting Union) is a right wing g Guerrera roup that Ejercito Guerril etariat These Blanca (UGB specializes in I attacking Jesuits. Of all these groups, the oldest and probably the most active is the FPL. Faribundo Marti was a contemp orary and collaborator of August0 Sandino (the namesake of the Sandinis tas) and was killed in 19

42. In 1978, the FPL began attacking foreign interests (especially those of the U.S in El Salvador bombing of a Coca Cola bottling plant and a McDonald's Restaurant and a machine gun attack on the U.S. Embassay in September, 1978.

In 1977 the FPL kidnapped the Foreign Minister of El Salvador and killed several party leaders and government personnel. In 1979 the FPL has been responsible for the assassination of the Minister of Education (May 23) and of the brother of President Romero Jose Javier Romero (September 6 In September also, the FPL announced that it would cooperate with the ERP and already had ties to the FSLN in Nicaragua. According to a recent study FARN, EGP, and FLP "are believed to be essentially made y40f many of the same people operating under different names."

According to a CIA memorandum of May 2, 1979, Cuba has maintained its clcsest contacts with FPL, and 50 members of the group are said to have received training in ideological and military techniques in Cuba. Cuba has also had links to FARN. Still 13 Ibid., 9 July 1979, P1; 30 July 1979, P8; see also Information Digest August 24, 1979, p. 266; according this this account, the Simon Bolivar Brigade was founded by .the Colombian Socialist Workers Party of the Fourth International under the leadership of Hugo Bressano, aka Nahuel Moreno, a founder with Santucho of the Argentine Trotskyist group, PRT the parent group of the ERP. For Moreno, see McDonald, Trotskyism, p. 44 et seq e, pp. 133-34; FBIS/LA, 22 August 1979, P5, and 27 August 1979, P2 14. Martin Arostegui, "Revolutionary Violence in Central America," International Security Review IV, (Spring, 19791, 95; idem, "Will El Salvador Be Next T o Fall Human Events, August 11, 1979, p. 10 pp. 147, 150 FBIS/LA, 11 September 1979, P3 13 F 3 another violent political group in El Salvador is the Popular Revolutionary Bloc, dominated by the FPL, whichl$n May seized the embassies of Costa Rica, France, and Venezuela.

Guatemala The Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (FAR, Rebel Armed Forces).was founded in 1963 as a Cuban-style rural guerrilla group. On August 28, 1968, FAR assassinated U.S. Ambassador-John G. Mein the first U.S. ambassador ever assassinated) and in 1973 kidnap ped Roberto Galvez, an executive of an American-owned company who was later released for 50,000 ransom. With the assistance of the U.S. government and U.S.-trained counter-insurgency forces the Guatemalan qovernment virtually destroyed FAR. However in 1975, the Ejercito Guerrillero de Pobres (EGP, Guerrilla Army of the Poor) emerged as a serious terrorist threat. One of the leaders of FAR, C&ar Montes, was also the leader of the EGP as well as a member of the PGT, the Guatemalan Labor Party ( the illegal, pro-Soviet Communist Party of Guatemala Both FAR and another terrorist group, M-13 (Movimiento del 13 de Novembre, 13 November Movement) were founded by Yon Sosa. However, during 1978, about 40 percent of Guatemalan terrorist incidents were a t tributed to the EGP. On January 1, 1978, the EGP kidnapped the Guatemalan Foreign Minister, and on January 26, 1979, it murdered the Nicaraguan ambassador to Guatemala charged in January, 1978, that Be EGP obtains all its support and some instructors from Cuba. While this charge may be an exaggeration, its substance is corroborated by the CIA memorandum cited above. According to this source President Laugerud Havana's closest links are to the [EGP], and the Cubans have used it as a link to broaden their ti e s with other insurgent groups. According to a reliable Guatemalan source, on 12 January [1979] a Cuban official met in Guatemala with leaders of the EGP, the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), and the dissident wing of the Guatemalan Communist Party (PGT), tolLfrg e these three action oriented groups to unify.

The Cubans also implied that greater cooperation would lead to greater financial and material assistance. Cuba has trained EGP guerrillas for some years, and has reportedly offered the services of three expert s to work with FAR and PGT to coordinate the assassinations of several government officials. In September 1979, the PGT destroyed two planes and damaged twenty-four others 15. Arostegui Revolutionary Violence," p. 94; e, pp. 147, 150; CIA Memo 16. Washing t on Post, May 5, 1979, p. A1 and September 27, 1979, p. A24 randum, p. 9 Terrorism, p. 22; m, p. 135; Arostegui Revolutionary Violence pp 98-99 17. CIA Memorandum, p. 7. 14 I in the sabotage of a hangar in interior Guatemala, and the EGP and FAR also were i nvolved in bombing fgcidents about the same time, according to unofficial reports w Mexico In 1963, Fabricio Gomez Sousa approached the Soviet Embassy in Mexico and offered his services to the KGB. The Soviets trained Gomez and several other Mexicans at P a trice Lumumba University $n.Moscow, and they later received special guerrilla training in North Korea. The Mexicans formed a group called Movimiento de Accion Revolucionaria (MAR, Movement for Revolution ary Action). About 40 members of MAR returned to Me x ico in September 1970 and added about 50 recruits courier of $84,000 in December, 1970, and planned an extensive series of sabotage actions. However, the group was arrested before these plans could be carried into operation. The Mexican government recalle d its ambassador from Moscow and expelled 5 members of the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City in March, 19

71. A more recent terrorist group in Mexico is the 23rd of September Communist League (LC-23 which in January, 1977, assassinated U.S. businessman Mitchel l'Andreski, President of the Duraflex Corporation, and in August, 1978, kidnapped the son of the Mexican ambassador to the United States, who died of wounds received in the abduction. The LC-23 has concentrated on bank robberies and has sometimes taken re f uge in U.S. territory. It has links with Guatemalan terrorists and is Marxist in ideology activities in 1972 suggested a link with North Korea MAR robbed a bank Itfgearly Puerto Rico Although Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, its culture is Latin American a nd it has been the source of some of the most active terrorist groups with Cuban links of 1967 and 1974, the FBI counted over 400 terrorist bombings or incendiary attacks by Puerto Rican independence groups 135 Puerto Ricans were trained in Cuba in guerri lla warfare.

Puerto Rican terrorists have been active in the U.S. as well as in Puerto Rico itself group in recent years has been the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (FALN, Armed Forces of National Liberation which began its operations in 19

74. Ab out 75 actions and at least five deaths resulted from FAL"s terrorism, the most significant being the Fraunces Tavern bombing in New York City on January 24, 1975 in which four died. In 1977-78, FALN carried out nineteen bombing actions in the continental U.S. and three in Puerto Ric FALN is believed to have contained about 50 members in early 1978, and both Senators Moynihan and Javits as well as Congressman Larry Between the referendum About The most significant Puerto Rican terrorist 18 Ibid p. 8; FBIS/ L A, 18 September 1979, P2 19. John Barron, KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents (New York Readers' Digest Press, 1974), ch. xi passim. e 15 McDonald have pointed to.its ties with Cuba. In 1977, a former member of FALN was interviewed in Time and st a ted that he had received guerrilla training in Cuba, that friendly contacts in Cuba and the Dominican Republic provided FALN with arms and explosives, and that funds for the terrorist group cy6 from wealthy radicals, bank robberies, and drug smuggling 3 L A TIN AMERICAN TERRORISM: LINKS WITH COMMUNIST STATES Almost every significant Latin American terrorist group of left wing orientation has had or has today links with Cuba or the Soviet Union or with both In the 1960s Cuban links did not necessarily imply a connection with the Soviet Union, although since the early 1970s the Cuban connection almost certainly implies the approval, if not the actual cooperation, of the Soviets. Prior to the effective satellization of Cuba by the USSR in 1969-70, the Soviets di d not approve of revolutionary insurgencies as effective tools in Latin America mainly because the Soviets did not themselves control such insurgencies. Thus the Soviets and their supporters in the Communist Party of Bolivia lured Che Guevara to that count ry and may have helped betray him to the Bolivian authorities.

In Uruguay, the pro-Soviet Communists also contributed to the destruction of the Tupamaros through their clandestine penetration and manipulation of the terrorist group. Since the early 1970s, however, the Soviets have effective ly controlled the Cuban Direction General de Intellisencia (DGI General Directorate of Intelligence), the Cuban secret service which has been largely responsible for the Cuban support for Latin American terrorist groups . However, in the case of at least one group the MAR of Mexico the Soviets, through the KGB, were responsible for the training of terrorists and the direct support of their activities, and Soviet involvement with the successor of Guevara's ELN of the same n ame indicates that the Soviets supported this group also As discussed above, the DGI has provided extensive training for the JCR and its constituent groups as well as for the Sandi nistas and other Central American terrorists. Since 1970, the DGI has been under the direct control of the Soviet KGB. Vassiliy Petrovich Semenov, a KGB .general, and his staff are actually in charge of the DGI in Havana. In 1970, Raul Castro, brother of the Cuban dictator, purged all anti-Soviet personnel from the DGI. This ama l gamation of the DGI with the KGB proceeded at about the same time that Cuba was being transformed into a complete satellite of the Soviet Union through its integration into Comecon and its public assumption of a pro-Soviet posture at the2first Congress of the Cuban Communist Party in December, 1975 20. Terrorism, pp. 162-63; Congressional Record, August 5, 1977, p. E5162 and August 4, 1977, pp. S13766-67; Possony and Bouchey, International Terrorism, p. 68 21. Moss Soviet Ambitions pp 195-96. 16 The "Trico n tinenta1,Il or the Organization of Solidarity of Founded in 1966 the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (OSPAAAL serves as an institution for international coordination for terrorism and guerrilla activities throughout the world. with 513 delegate s from 83 organizations meeting in Havana on January 3-16, OSPAAAL acquired headquarters in Havana, and Osmany Cienfuegos Gorriaran, then Minister of Construction in the Cuban government and a member of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, b e came Secretary General. The Executive Secre tariat of OSPAAAL publishes a bi-monthly'journal, entitled Tricon tinental, in several languages. OSPAAAL serves as a kind of umbrella group for Illiberation movementsll in the three continents and as a means of control, coordin2tion, and propaganda for non-orthodox revolutionary forces In addition to its support of terrorism in Latin America and throughout the world, Cuba has also been involved with support for violent, extremist, and terrorist groups in the Uni t ed States itself. Cuban involvement with FALN has been mentioned, but other terrorists have received aid from the Castro regime as well. Members of the Cuban Mission at the UN in New York were involved in financing black militant groups such as the Black Panther Party and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee SNCC) and in giving propaganda materials for fund-raising to Mark Rudd and Jeff Jones, members of the violent Weather Under ground Organization (WUO), in August, 19

69. Julian Torres Rizo the Director of the Venceremos Brigade, which consisted of young American leftists who visited Cuba in 1969 and following years was First Secretary of the Cuban Mission and had extensive contact with Orlando Letelier, former Chilean ambassador to the United States from the Allende government and later a principal focus of left-wing anti-Chilean activitis2 in Washington, who was murdered in Washington in 1976.

Brigade (VB) trips to Cuba was handled by leaders of the SDS who became Wea thermen. According to Julie Nichamin, a principal organizer of the VB trips to Cuba and a member of SDS as well as of the WO, interviewed in Grama, December 10, 1969 We want people to understand that the battle of the Cuban people, like the battle of the Vietnamese people is the same battle to which to which we are committed, a battle against American imperialism.

According to a declassified FBI report on foreign contacts of the Weathermen The ultimate objective in the DGI's participat,ion with the VB is t he recruitment of individuals who are politi cally oriented and who someday may obfain a position elective or appointive, somewhere in tne U.S. government The initiation of the Venceremos 11 24 22. Alfonso L. Tarabochia, Cuba: The Technocracy of Subversio n, Espionage and Terrorism (International Association of Chiefs of Police, 1976 pp 30-33 (hereafter cited as Tarabochia Cuba).

Federal Bureau of Investigation, Foreign Influence Weather Underground Organization (WUO August 20, 1976, p. 121 23. Ibid pp. 15-19. 24 G 17 which would provide the Cuban government with qgcess to political, economic and military intelligence.

However, the report continued The DGI had provided various forms of special training to a few persons from each VB contingent A very limited number of VB members have been trained in guerrilla warfare techniques including use of arms and explosives. This type of training is given only to individuals who specifically requested it and only then to persons whom the Cubans feel 9gre are not penet ration agents of American intelligence.

According to Larry Grathwohl, an FBI informant in the WUO in recruiting for the VB, he and others were to find persons who llcould benefit from a trip to Cuball and "They were referring to insurgency type training, g uerrilla type training, and this is point blank exactly what was told to me [by Dionne Donghi, a leaderZqf the SDS and member of the WUO who was in Cuba in July 196

91. Grawthwohl also knew of several individuals who had received training in the use of th e AK-47, grenades, or infra-red scopes (used for sniper shooting in darkness). Naomi Jaffe Dionne Donghi, and Corky Benedict we58 members of the WUO who had received guerrilla training in Cuba. WUO leader Bill Ayers told Grathwohl in February, 1970, that c ontact with other WUO members could be made through the Cuban Embassy in Canada and that a sgde system for communications had been established by the Cubans. The FBI Report also quoted a column by Georgie Anne Geyer and Keyes Beach of October, 1970, which discussed contacts between SDS and the Cuban UN Mission in New York in 19

69. The column cited the case of Two mission diplomats Alberto Hidalgo Gato and Lazar0 Eddy Espinosa Bonet [who were declared persons non grata last year [1969] because of what is d escribed by intelligence agents as l'problems over contacts with the radicals and with explosives.'I There was highly placed speculation at the time that th$ocase involved an alleged plot against President Nixon 25 26 27 28 Ibid p. 125.

Ibid p. 126 Terror istic Activity Inside the Weatherman Movement: Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, U.S. Senate, 93rd Congress, 2nd Session, October 18, 1974, p. 137.

Ibid pp. 108, 109, 139-40, 141 Ibid p. 125.

Ibid D. 126 r Terroristic Activity Inside the Weatherman Movement: Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws U.S. Senate, 93rd Congress , 2nd Session, October 18, 1974, p. 137.

Ibid pp. 108, 109, 139-40, 141 29 30. Quoted, FBI Report, pp. 138-39; see also Tarabochia, Cuba, pp. 16-17, for New York Times, October 9, 1977 pp. 1 and 24 further information on this incident I 18 I In the first and second VBs, 28 members of WUO were present in Cuba, and, according to some authorities, Wendy Yoshimura, later a member of the terrorist Symbionese Liberation Army SLA) who was arrested in company with Patty Hearst in Septeeer, 1975, was a member of t he second Venceremos Brigade in 1970.

The WUO, however, is not the only U.S. terrorist group'with which Cuba has had contact. A former member of the Emiliano Zapata Unit (EZU), a terrorist group on the West Coast that was associated with the New World Libe ration Front (NWLF), which is composed of the survivors of the SLA, identified a man known as Andres Gomez as a Cuban adviser to the EZU. The EZU was effective ly disrupted when most of its members we32 arrested in February 19

76. Gomez is known to be a DGI agent.

North Korea is another Communist state that has had signifi cant links with Latin American Terrorism. In 1966, North Korea gave $50,000 to the Venezuelan Forces for National Liberation and since that year, North Korea "has lent practical and moral support to guerrilla groups fighting in or operating from Chile, Brazil Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina,g5uyana, Peru and Guatemala in South and Central America alone. It LATIN AMERICAN TERRORISM: LINKS WITH THE TERRORIST INTERNA T IONAL Since the late 1960s there has existed, mainly in Western Europe and the Middle East, an extensive but loosely organized network of cooperating terrorist groups that has come to be known as the Itterrorist international.It This network consists of s u ch infamous terrorist organizations as the PLO and its constituent groups (e.g., PFLP and Black September), the Baader-Meinhof Gang or Red Army Fraction in West Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy the ETA in Spain, and the IRA in Northern Ireland and Engla n d, as well as other groups and individuals. The network has received extensive assistance from such Arab states as Syria, Iraq, Libya and South Yemen and its operatives have received training, arms, and assistance from the Soviets directly through Moscow, but also through East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and other Eastern Bloc states. The terrorist international is not limited to Western Europe, however, but.also extends to Latin America, the terrorist groups of whicgqhave received considerable aid from their European collaborators 31. FBI Report, pp. 131-32; for Yoshimura as a member of VB-2, see Tarabochia Cuba p. 23; Vin McLellan and Paul Avery, The Voices of Guns (New York G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1977 p. 392; Robert Morris, Self Destruct: Dismantl ing America' s Internal Security (New Rochelle, N.Y Arlington House 1979 p. 79.

Possony and Bouchey, International Terrorism, p. 81. 32 33. To The Point, October 20, 1978, p. 19 34. For the Terrorist International, see Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No 47, "The Terro rist International and Western Europe Revised, April 18 1978), and Claire Sterling "The Terrorist Network," Atlantic (Novembkr 1978 pp. 37-47. ii 4 One of the principal operatives of the terrorist network in Western Europe has been Illich Ramirez Sanchez, better known as ilCarlos,il who has been responsible for such terrorist actions as the kidnapping of the OPEC ministers in Vienna i'n December 1975, and who is today probably the most wanted terrorist in the world. Carlos is a native Venezuelan whose fath e r was a member of the Venezuelan Communist Party who named his three sons'after Lenin (Wladimir IIllich, I! and IlLeninIl Carlos himself received guerrilla training in Havana under General Semenov, discussed above as the KGB control of the DGI, and engage d in a terrorist raid in Venezuela under DGI supervision. He was also trained at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow and later in Palestinian training camps in the Middle East. A recent report claimed that the Shiite regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini in Ir a n had recruited Carlos for the missiongsf the assassination of the deposed Shah then living in Mexico international and Latin America terrorism was Giangiacomo Feltri nelli, a left wing Italian publisher who had extensive contacts with the Italian and Pal e stinian terrorists. Feltrinelli was the publisher of the Italian edition of Tricontinental and may have given money to Salah Khalef of A1 Fatah and the Black September Organization. The gun used by Monica Ertl to murder the Bolivian consul in Hamburg on A pril 1, 1971, was provided by Feltrinelli, as was the gun used in the terrorist murder of a Peruvian citizen in Lima in 19

72. On March 15, 1972, Feltrinelli died while trying to sabotage a power line in Milan. Regis Debray, an associate of Castro and Che Guevara, spoke at Feltri nelli!s funeral and used the occasion to blame his death on the CIA a tactic that has been used more recently by Italian leftists in accounting for Red Brigagg terrorism himself recently arrived in Managua Another link between the terrorist Debray 19 Although Latin American terrorists have not been centrally involved with European terrorists, they have had considerable contact with and support from them. The Red Brigades, responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Mor0 in Ma r ch-May, 1978 have links with the MIR in Chile. The FSLN, described by a recent writer a5?l1a member in good standing of the terrorist international signed a joint communique with the PLO on February 5, 1978, in Mexico. In 1970, A1 Fatah trained Pedro Arau z Palacios of the Sandinistas and in 1974-76 trained more Sandinistas in its Mid-Eastern training camps. In March, 1979, a group of Sandinistas met in Havana with the PDFLP, an affiliate of the PLO, which has offered to fight for the FSLN. The PLO has also allied with the Montoneros and the Tupamaros, and, according 35. Ovid Demaris, Brothers In Blood: The International Terrorist Network New York: Scribner's Sons, 1977 pp. 23-25; Intersearch, July 31, 1979 p. 3 36. Possony and Bouchey, International Terrori sm, pp. 141-45; Demaris, Brothers In Blood, p. 197; Tarabochia, Cuba, p. 32; FBIS/LA, 7 August 1979, P7 37. Arostegui Revolutionary Violence p. 90. 20 1 D to Israeli intelligence, has provided arms and training for them.

Mario Firmenich, the leader of the Montoneros, has links with Iraq and Libya as well as with the Spanish terrorist group ETA-Militar bases in Libya and South Yemen as well. On February 1, 1979, a meeting was held in Benghazi, Libya, of lfprogressive revolutionary organizations of Latin Ame r icatf which included Argentine, Uruguayan and other Latin American terrorist groups this conference was that of the Montoneros, who have issued with the PLO a joint declaration that they have formed a tactical alliance to attack Israeli and Argentine targ e ts. The Colombian terrorist group, M-19, which includes Tupamaros from Uruguay, has had strong ties with Arab terrorists for some years as have many Brazilian guerrilla leaders. In July, 1979, a planeload of 30 tons of Chinese Communist military.equipment fSgm the PLO was discovered en route to the FSLN in Costa Rica Argentine terrorists are receiving training at The key delegation at CONCLUSION The Strategy and Purposes of Latin American Terrorism Several common features are widely shared by many terroris t groups in Latin America and appear to form a pattern from which the strategy of terrorism can be inferred 1) a widespread degree of mutual support among the terrorists of each country and wide support from the Cuban government and intelligence apparatus, regardless of ideological content 2 Marxist ideological orientation, whether Marxist-Leninist, Trot skyist, Maoist, or neo-Marxist (i.e., the ideas. of Fanon, Debray Marighella, etc 3) a rhetoric that is specifically anti American, targeting the U.S. as t h e source of lfimperialismll through capitalist domination and lfexploitationil; and 4) in accordance with this rhetoric, the concentration of terrorist attacks on targets associated with the U.S. and especially with U.S. capitalism (U.S.-owned businesses, businessmen, and foreign employees or managers of U.S. businesses Given these character istics, then, it may be said that the principal purpose of Latin American terrorism is,the destruction of the U.S. economic and political connection in Latin America. T he immediate purpose is not so much the take-over of specific states (although with the fall of the Somoza government, this goal may loom larger in the near future), as it is the attempt to drive out U.S. foreign investments in and U.S. assistance to Lati n American governments.

Thus, the Soviets and the Cubans are, at this point, less concerned with supporting o:.thodox Marxists or loyal pro-Soviet agents than they are with destabilizing the political and economic environment of the targeted regimes, depri ving the governments of U.S. support and the U.S. of the resources, revenues, and, eventually, the These features include 38. Foreign Report, No. 1583, 23 May 1979, and No. 1584, 30 May 1979; Intelli gence Digest, 21 March 1979 21 e political support of i t s allies. The disciplining of the revolu tionary movement itself can come later, after the common enemy has been overthrown already to have begun in Nicaragua with the expulsion of the growing Trotskyist cells formed by the units of the Simon Bolivar Brig a de and the disarming of the Proletarian faction of the FSLN This post-revolutionary disciplining appears The "strategy of denia1,Il whereby the U.S. is denied needed resources available to it through the Third World, is already evident in Arab oil prices, the use of which as political weapons was long advocated by Soviet theoreticians before they were actually so used in 1973 .and since. The "strategy of denialit is in accordance with the Leninist doctrine of imperialism as "the highest stage of capitalism t t and plays a significant role in the Soviet strategy for influence in the Third World. According to Lenin, advanced capitalist states dominate the less developed countries in the form of economic imperialism. This %eo colonialismll is supposedly necessar y .for the capitalist states because their own internal economies become more unstable and because ltexploitationlt of the Third World allows the capitalist ruling class to provide material benefits for their own exploited workers and thus de-activate their revolutionary potential. Thus the Soviets see the Third World.as an essential prop of the advanced capitalist states and the proletariat of the Third World as an ally in the final struggle against the forces of world capitalism. This doctrine (which has b een widely criticized and refuted by Western scholars) is summarized in a recent study published by the Congressional Research Service.

For the Soviets, the Third World is an integral part of their ideological design of the world as they now perceive it an d as they theoretically expect it to be with the unfolding of history; it is a vital component in the correlation of world forces that in the Soviet view implies a shift in the balance of world power in their favor I]t has become the instrumentality for e xpanding and globalizing Soviet influence and power and for reducing or denying th36 of the United States the West, and Communist China.

Recent Soviet thought has applied similar analyses to Latin America in particular.

Soviet theoreticians in 1972 predic ted that the U.S. would soon face shortages of raw materials'available from Latin America and essential t I advanced strategic industries. Despite early Soviet optimism over the Allende government, the fall of Allende 39. The Soviet Union and the Third Wo rld: A Watershed in Great Power Policy?

Report to the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives by the Senior Specialists Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress (Washington, 1977),,p. 3 22 c P J in 1973 was a ser ious setback to the Soviet strategy and led to a far-reaching reappraisal of the tactics for revolution in the Third World. While emphasizing that Allende had tried to move too far, too fast," before he had adequately neutralized opposi tion in the armed f orces, the economy, and the opinion media, the Soviets by the mid 1970s had come to believe that "wars of national liberationll (i.e., guerrilla war and terrorism) would be vital instruments for the destruction of "North American imperialism in Latin Amer i ca. According to Brian Crozier, Director of the Institute for the Study of Conflict in London By supporting groups or governments that are overtly critical of the USSR, the subversive apparatus of the Soviet Union creates a dependency and need for further support. In time, the Soviet Union may hope to bring such groups or governments undegOtheir influence, and eventually under their control I Mr. Crozier further pointed out that, although the Soviets identi fy themselves only with groups that can be labele d %ational liberationI1 movements, they have given clandestine support to terrorist groups, especially,when it is important for the Communist Party of a particular country to criticize revolutionary violence.

Mr. Crozier cited the Allende government in Chi le as an example of this tactic as well as the case of the Tupamaros, but another instance might seem to be the Communist Party of contemporary Italy tionary process is Boris N. Ponomarev, head of.the International Department of the Central Committee of t h e Communist Party of the Soviet Union and thus in charge of relations with all non-ruling Communist Parties. In an influential articgf of 1974, Ponomarev analyzed the lessons of Allende's downfall. While emphasizing the need to !'broaden the base" of the r evolution through infiltra tion and propaganda, Ponomarev also emphasized the "tremendous importance of being prepared to promptly change forms of struggle peaceful and non-peaceful, of the ability to repel the counter revolutionaF violence of the bourgeo i sie with revolutionary violence. This emphasis on the necessity for violence is of course inherent in Marxism, but its applicability to the Third World in general and to Latin America in particular has been echoed by many Soviet writers One of the most im portant Soviet theoreticians of the revolu 40. Brian Crozier, "Soviet Support for International Terrorism," Unpublished 41 42 Paper at the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism, 1979, p. 1.

See Boris N. Ponomarev, "The World Situation and the Revolutionary Process,"

World Marxist Review, no. 6 (June, 1974).

Quoted in Leon Goure and Morris Rothenberg, Soviet Penetration of Latin America (Washington: Center for Advanced International Studies, 1975 p 16. c 23 It is in the context of this ideological and political strategic matrix that Soviet-Cuban support for L a tin American terrorism must be understood. In the future, Americans can expect that terrorism and guerrilla warfare will escalate in Latin America, that the U.S. and its businessmen and diplomats will be the targets of Latin American terrorists, and that both the Soviets and Cubans will seek to destabilize and overthrow pro-American governments in Latin American in support of a long term and well-planned campaign to reduce even further the U.S political and economic influence in Latin America.

Samuel T. Francis Policy Analyst