George Bush: The Company's Man, by Covert Action Information

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Cuba's Policy Against Drug Trafficking
by CovertAction Information Bulletin
Winter 1990

Soon after the triumph of the revolution in 1959, Cuba completely eliminated the U.S.-based Mafia which had made the island a major drug center. Even before taking power, the revolutionary forces issued a proclamation in 1958 stating its objective "to completely eliminate hard drugs and illicit gambling." [1] Making note of the ways in which drug trafficking corrupts social institutions, the revolutionary Cuban government took a very puritanical stance with respect to narcotics. Drug dealing in Cuba today is a rare occurrence and involves almost exclusively small amounts of home grown marijuana. The Cuban criminal justice system has achieved what U.S. law enforcement has not - swift prosecution even for small dealers.

In the area of international drug trafficking, Cuba has played a role in interdicting shipments. Since Cuba lies directly in the path of drug producers and the Florida coast, smugglers frequently use routes through neighboring waters and the country's airspace. According to Cuban reports, its Coast Guard arrested 328 drug smugglers in 83 violations of Cuban airspace and territorial waters between 1970 and March 1986. [2] Most of those captured strayed accidentally onto the Cuban coast, broke down or landed because they were out of fuel.

In 1978 and 1979 the Cuban and U.S. Coast Guard services held two rounds of talks during which they agreed upon cooperative measures in the attempt to interdict drug trafficking. Although no official document was signed, DEA officials have publicly acknowledged the collaboration. Cuba renounced the agreement in 1982 in response to the U.S. federal indictments of four Cuban officials on drug trafficking charges which the Cuban government labelled false. [3] Even so, Cuba continued to arrest drug traffickers caught within its territorial waters or whose planes landed on the island. DEA officials concede that as many as 18 U.S. citizens arrested on drug charges are now in Cuban jails.

The U.S. Propaganda Campaign Against Cuba

More aggressively hostile in its policy toward Cuba than the previous administration, the lies of the Reagan administration were unabashed. Shortly after Reagan's inauguration, U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick told a Washington audience that Soviet submarines were operating out of Cuba. [4] According to Wayne Smith, who was chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana at that time, no Soviet nuclear or missile submarines had docked in a Cuban port since 1974. [5] Similarly, Smith denounced as false Reagan administration accusations that Cuba was arming the Salvadoran rebel forces in 1982. [6] In fact, Smith had informed Washington that Cuba had stopped such shipments in hopes of engaging the U.S. in negotiating an end to the armed conflict. [7]

Accusations of Cuban drug dealing have been part of the U.S. government's claims of Cuban wrongdoing since the 1960s. In 1966, a Senate report charged Castro with smuggling "Red" Chinese heroin into the United States to finance its guerrilla activities. [8] The Reagan administration intensified the accusations of Cuban drug trafficking. In 1982, based on testimony of convicted drug smugglers, four Cuban officials were indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami. The indictment accused the Cubans of making a deal in 1980 with reputed Colombian drug smuggler Jaime Guillot to give safe passage to Guillot's shipments to the U.S. in exchange for the transport of arms to the M-19 guerrillas operating in Colombia. The Cuban government vehemently denied the charges.

Based on the alleged brief arrangement between the then Cuban ambassador to Colombia and Guillot, the Reagan administration along with the extremist anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) began coupling Cuba with both drugs and terrorism. The primary premise of the allegations was that Cuba was engaged in drug trafficking to earn hard currency to support terrorist forces operating in any number of Latin American countries. An even more repugnant allegation repeated ad nauseum in CANF literature was that Cuban officials were given specific orders by Fidel Castro to "penetrate and addict U.S. youths with drugs." [9]

U.S. efforts to prevent drug trafficking through Caribbean air and water routes have failed, in some measure because of its own cooperation with known dealers. When revelations of CIA and contra involvement in drug trafficking surfaced, both Congress and the administration looked the other way and actively removed evidence from public view. Since a substantial portion of V .S.-based drug traffickers and money launderers have been Cuban Americans operating out of Miami, it is advantageous for the CANF and State Department to continue to point the finger at Cuba particularly during election years.

"Is there anything more? I mean ... are we all just running around here shooting ourselves in the foot in terms of having one isolated incident ... "

Further, to avoid some of the embarrassment of the significant involvement of Cuban Americans in illicit drug related activities, rumors were spread in the early 1980s that Castro had infiltrated over 400 agents among the Mariel emigres in order to start U.S.-based drug operations. In response to a Senate subcommittee question regarding such rumors, acting DEA director Francis M. Mullen, Jr. testified in 1983 that no evidence had been uncovered to substantiate such charges. [10] Asked again in 1984, he gave the same reply. [11]

In fact, until 1987 few drug shipments, if any, were reportedly making their way to the United States with the cooperation of Cuban nationals. In hearings before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in February 1984, DEA director Mullen reported two isolated instances of possible drug smuggling allegedly made with Cuban cooperation since 1982. In both instances the evidence was inconclusive as to whether Cuba was in fact involved.

In his testimony, Mullen described two incidents allegedly involving Cuban cooperation. In March 1983, a diary found on a sailboat carrying marijuana showed an itinerary of Florida, the Bahamas, Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas, and finally Florida. The second incident took place six months later in September 1983. According to the DEA, the wreckage of an aircraft which crashed in the Florida Keys indicated that the flight was involved in drug activity. One of the items found was a letdown chart for Varadero, Cuba, and fuel from the wreckage showed it to have a different octane and lead content than aircraft fuels commercially available in the United States and Jamaica. [12]

Searching for more damning evidence, Representative Lawrence Smith (Dem.-Florida) asked "Is there anything more? I mean ... are we all just running around here shooting ourselves in the foot in terms of having one isolated incident here, one isolated incident here, but not enough to really put together something which might be ... some kind of operation to break down?" Mullen replied, 'We are looking for that pattern .... We have not reached that point yet." [13]

Although the harangue of accusations of Cuban drug trafficking continued unabated, drug enforcement officials had no substantial evidence of Cuban involvement until 1987. Investigations leading to the February 1988 indictments of Cuban exile Reinaldo Ruiz and Colombian Hugo Ceballos on charges of smuggling drugs into Florida by way of Cuba, provided the first real evidence that Cuban officials were actually cooperating with drug smugglers. Jack Hook, a spokesperson for the DEA in Miami, was quoted as saying, "This is the first time we've had evidence that Cuba -like other Caribbean countries - is being used as a transshipment base .... Before this, it's only been rumors." [14]

Moreover, statements made by law enforcement officials at the time of the Ceballos trial in Miami in July 1988, suggest that they believed Cuba had not previously been used as a shipment base. Some U.S. officials considered the evidence in the Ceballos case significant because it signalled that cocaine traffickers were turning to Cuba as a transit point as other routes through the Bahamas were choked off. [15]

United States repudiation of Cuban offers of cooperation have hurt efforts to stem the flow of drugs into this country. According to Mullen, only a very small portion of the cocaine, marijuana, and methaqualone coming through the Caribbean was believed to pass through Cuba: "If Cuba were completely neutralized as a transit point, the effect on drug availability would be minimal. On the other hand, if Cuba were to cooperate fully in international drug interdiction efforts, ... a more significant impact could be made on the drug traffic through the Caribbean." [16] The amount of cocaine trafficking in which Cuban MININT officials participated between April 1987 and 1989 was indeed minimal. Now it has been stopped altogether.

_______________

Notes:

1. Provision No. 6 for the Civil Administration of the Free Territory in the Sierra Maestra reads: "It is the responsibility and aim of the Revolutionary Movement and this Administration to completely eliminate hard drugs and illicit gambling, which at present make the real physical, mental and economic development of the Cuban people impossible."

2. These statistics were published by the Cuban government in a document entitled Drug Consumption and Traffic 1986.

3. See CAIB No. 19 (Spring-Summer 1983), pp. 9-11.

4. Introduction by Wayne Smith to Carla Anne Robbins, The Cuban Threat (New York McGraw-Hill, 1983), p. xiii.

5. Ibid.

6. Wayne Smith, The Closest of Enemies (New York:. W.W. Norton, 1987), pp. 258-60.

7. Ibid.

8. See Carla Anne Robbins, The Cuban Threat (New York: McGraw- Hill, 1983), p. 3.

9. The Cuban Monitor. News from the Cuban American National Foundation, Vol. 2, No.3 (August 1989), p. 5 (quoting former Cuban official Manuel de Beunza); see also "The Cuban Government's Involvement in Facilitating International Drug Traffic," Hearings before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, April 30, 1983, p. 389 (testimony of convicted drug smuggler Mario Estevez-Gonzalez in Federal District Court, Southern District of F1orida, February 7, 1983).

10. "The Cuban Government's Involvement in Facilitating International Drug Traffic," Hearings before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, April 30, 1983, p. 76.

11. "United States Response to Cuban Government Involvement in Narcotics Trafficking," Hearings before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, February 21 and 23, 1984, p. 39.

12. These examples which offered only circumstantial evidence, even though the persons involved were taken into custody, were the most concrete the DEA could offer. Ibid., p. 28.

13. Op. cit., p. 40.

14. Washington Past, July 26, 1988, p. A4.

15. Ibid.

16. Op. cit., n. 11, p. 29.

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Chronology
by CovertAction Information Bulletin
Winter 1990

July 1986: Ceballos group infiltrated by DEA undercover agent. Ruben Ruiz buys Cessna aircraft later used in drug operations.

October 1986: Ceballos makes contact with Reinaldo Ruiz re arranging drug shipments from Colombia.

October or November 1986: Reinaldo Ruiz contacts Miguel Ruiz Poo, captain in Cuban Ministry of Interior, to discuss drug trafficking.

December 1986: Ruiz meets with Ruiz Poo and Amado Padron in Panama to discuss arrangements for drug transshipments through Cuba. Ruiz travels to Cuba to firm up deal on arrangements for transshipping drugs through Cuba. Meets with Tony de la Guardia and Amado Padron.

January 1987: Arrangements made for first shipment, but Ruiz never arrives in Cuba with drugs.

April 10, 1987: Ruben Ruiz, with co-pilot Richard Zzie, lands drugs at Varadero. Drugs loaded onto speedboats which are intercepted.

May 8, 1987: Ruben Ruiz, with co-pilot Hu Chang, who is a DEA agent, lands drugs at Varadero packed in computer boxes. Drugs transferred to speedboats.

February 1988: Reinaldo and Ruben Ruiz and two others indicted in Federal District Court in Miami. Ceballos and ten other co-participants are charged in separate indictment in Miami. All are arrested.

March 1988: Tape played at Ruiz pretrial detention hearing in which he and son Ruben Ruiz boast about having a Cuban connection but without naming specific Cuban officials.

July 1988: Hugo Ceballos and ten other defendants convicted on drug smuggling charges. Ceballos sentenced to 30 years. Cuban officials seek information from DEA on Ceballos and Ruiz cases. State Department turns down request to share information.

March 8, 1989: Reinaldo Ruiz and other co-defendants plead guilty.

March 1989: Cuba begins investigation to uncover drug operations in Cuba.

June 12-13, 1989: Fourteen Cuban officials arrested on charges of corruption and drug trafficking.

July 8, 1989: Cuban defendants found guilty and sentenced. Four sentenced to death.

July 13, 1989: Four Cuban officials who directed drug trafficking operations are executed in Havana.

August 1989: Reinaldo and Ruben Ruiz sentenced in Miami.

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5 for 10
by CovertAction Information Bulletin
Winter 1990

Five back issues of CAIB for only ten dollars.

We have an oversupply of issues 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 and we want you to have them. In this issue only, we are offering this five issue set for only $10. That's 50% off the cover price.

We think it is important for readers to have CAIB in their hands. We want you to read our back issues and discover the valuable, enlightening, and shocking expos6s contained in all the issues of CovertAction Information Bulletin. Included in this set is issue number 26 - a special edition which contains an index to CAIBs 13-25.

Order your five back issues of CAIB for only $10 now because we're not sure how long our supplies will last. These five issues are a valuable resource to any person interested in tracking the CIA and U.S. intervention.

***

Dirty Work 2: The CIA in Africa

A classic in the intelligence literature, Dirty Work 2 is a thorough and revealing account of CIA activities in Africa.

Dirty Work 2 provides in-depth analysis of the CIA and trade unions in Africa; the CIA and media manipulation in Angola; Mercenaries in Zimbabwe; the CIA and BOSS (South Africa's version of the Agency); and a great deal more.

The preface to this volume was written by the late Sean MacBride, the only person ever to win both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Lenin Peace Prize. The introduction to Dirty Work 2 was provided by Philip Agee, one of only a few CIA operations officers to ever leave the Agency and become openly critical of U.S. covert operations.

The cover price of Dirty Work 2 is $29.95 but we will offer it to our readers for only $25. Order your copy now - you'll be amazed at the CIA's dirty work in Africa.

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Lies Of Our Times



A Brand New Magazine from the Institute for Media Analysis and Sheridan Square Press, publishers of Jim Garrison's "On the Trail of the Assassins."

Devoted to the exposure of misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda in the major media. With over 150 correspondents, including Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, Alexander Cockburn, Jessica Mitford, Edward Said, Holly Sklar, Jane Hunter, Ben Bagdikian, and many others.

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U.S. Policy: Chile and the National Security Doctrine
by Carla Stea*
Winter 1990

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

United States Ambassador Harry Barnes had been in Santiago since October 1985, officially and stridently espousing the U.S. government's concern for human rights in Chile. Under these circumstances (and considering the enormity of U.S. involvement with, and influence upon Chile's government), how was it possible, ten months later, in July 1986, for an atrocity such as the murder of Rodrigo Rojas to occur publicly and with such impunity? Who signaled the armed forces to proceed? In which ultimate power source did the authorization for such an act originate?

The escalation of repression, torture, and murder committed by Chilean government forces since Ambassador Barnes's arrival presents a disturbing contradiction with avowed U.S. policy. Atrocities committed by the Chilean military culminated during the days of mass protest in early July 1986, with a most shocking crime: the death of Rodrigo Rojas and near-death of Carmen Gloria Quintana. Chilean soldiers forced two innocent and (according to the original testimony of 14 witnesses) unarmed teenagers to lie on the ground, beat them mercilessly, then drenched their bodies with gasoline and set them on fire.

U.S. citizens must confront the odious truth that their tax dollars are being used directly and indirectly to support, in Chile, a government which routinely utilizes the most brutal torture. [1]

Hector Salazar, the lawyer representing the families of Rojas and Quintana in the trial of the soldiers responsible for the atrocity, discussed the impact which news of that crime had upon the conscience and sensibilities of people worldwide. He noted that the event had been shocking to people outside Chile. "But for us in Chile, this was nothing new. For many years, the poorest people, those who have suffered most under this dictatorship, have protested their situation during days of nationwide mobilization, often by placing burning tires at entrances to their neighborhoods to keep police and military traffic out. The army, in punishment, has often used the people themselves to extinguish the flames. The burning alive of Rodrigo Rojas and Carmen Gloria Quintana was just the culmination of this process. The Army always acted with impunity."

Salazar has received countless death threats to himself, his family, and his children. "That is part of the job," he said, and he perseveres, while fully conscious that the possibility of "winning" the case under the Pinochet dictatorship is virtually nonexistent. Witnesses to the murder have also received death threats. One, imprisoned for several months, and kept in an isolated cell, was granted release after stating, contradicting his original testimony, that Rojas carried a Molotov cocktail.

The government, which had originally denied responsibility for the murder, was forced to admit that the crime had been perpetrated by its own soldiers after a western European journalist, in Santiago the day of the murder, had overheard on his walkie-talkie a conversation between the soldiers detaining Rojas and Quintana, and their superiors. The soldiers stated that they were holding two teenagers and asked military headquarters for orders. They were told, "silence them."

The journalist brought a recording of this conversation to his embassy; it was sent by diplomatic pouch to Europe, the details published in a Spanish newspaper, and the Pinochet government, confronted with the proof of its own military's involvement, was obliged to admit the crime. What has not yet, and will most likely never be revealed, is from how high a level, and by whom, the authorization for such a murder was given. Salazar suggests this is where the ultimate responsibility lies. (See sidebar.)

The Pattern of U.S. Support

"In Chile the Americans made a mistake .... They killed the revolution, but, as we can see from recent developments there, they didn't kill the dream. In Nicaragua they're trying to kill the dream." [2]

There is an ugly pattern to official U.S. "interest" in the rights of majorities in its National Security States. There is a consistency in history, motive, and tragic consequences for these majorities when the U.S. government expresses its concern for their "rights." (See sidebar.) The bitter lesson for the dispossessed majorities is evident: Any ostensible gestures of official U.S. or client state concern and support for the welfare of groups outside domestic or U.S. elites must be considered potential Trojan Horses, ploys whose objective is, perhaps inevitably, the detection, repression, and eradication of incipient popular movements.

It is against this background that it is urgent to examine the Reagan and Bush administrations' official concern for human rights in Chile, the more as Washington's ostentatious display of interest in human rights in Chile coincided with the emergence of a formidable popular mobilization against Pinochet, a mobilization which is expanding, encompasses a broad spectrum of socio-economic groups, and whose confidence and militancy is growing. [3]

The murder of Rojas, undoubtedly intended to intimidate the opposition, backfired and became a potent moral bomb in the arsenal of a Chilean opposition predominantly committed to non-violence, and difficult to label "terrorist." Rojas's death sent shock waves throughout the world, became an immense embarrassment for Pinochet, and a rallying cry for the opposition. It therefore became necessary for the regime to attempt to discredit Rojas posthumously. Senator Jesse Helms arrived in Santiago and denounced Rojas as a terrorist. The embarrassed U.S. Embassy officially disclaimed Helms as a "private citizen." Then death threats were made against the witnesses to Rojas's murder, [4] against the Commission lawyers investigating the murder, [5] and inevitably, three months after the murder, it was "discovered" that he had been carrying a firebomb. [6] An apparent assassination attempt, from which Pinochet emerged unscathed, was cynically utilized: The opposition was labelled terrorist and wholesale repression was instituted. [7]

Ambassador Barnes may be sincere in his concern for human rights, but the record of serious contradictions between his official pronouncements and the regular appearance of "private citizens," United States Senators and Generals espousing antithetical policies, is disturbing.8 Considering that the very survival of a National Security State depends on massive and sustained violations of human rights, official U.S. concern must be based on the Prosterman model (See sidebar).

The National Civil Assembly

The various opposition parties had not generally worked together during the first 13 years of Pinochet's dictatorship, and had posed no serious threat to his control. However, during the months immediately preceding the Rojas murder, a new popular organization had emerged, the National Civil Assembly, a broad coalition of large sectors of the population opposed to the regime, a federation of professional groups-doctors, lawyers, teachers, labor organizations, women's groups, student organizations, and artists.

The Civil Assembly began to create what the political parties had failed to: a coherent, unified organization of formidable mobilized resistance to the dictatorship, and organization devoted to non-violence, but encompassing so great a number of Chileans that for the first time the possibility of a major popular uprising existed. A huge and serious popular alternative and threat to Pinochet's control was rapidly developing. And it was under the auspices of the National Civil Assembly that mass protests occurred in early June 1986, pressuring for a prompt transition to democracy and restoration of civil, economic, and social rights.

The Assassination Attempt

The burnings of Rojas and Quintana added international outrage and pressure for change to mounting and effective internal resistance to the dictatorship. Indeed, by late August, many observers agreed that the killing of Rojas, a permanent resident of the U.S., actually threatened the viability of the regime, and that equal and opposing force was essential to restore any legitimacy to the Pinochet government. Perhaps, then, it was not a coincidence that an assassination attempt against Pinochet occurred on September 7, one week later. Pinochet imposed a state of siege which crushed the exposed and conspicuous opposition. The movement toward democracy was paralyzed. [9]

Several core members of the Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez, a small, armed-resistance movement, claimed responsibility for the attempt, and were imprisoned, undergoing unimaginable torture. Other participants escaped arrest, and there are suggestions that members of the CNI, Pinochet's secret police (and an outgrowth of DINA), were also involved. In view of the total failure of the attempt and the devastating effect it had on the opposition, there is a serious question whether the FPMR was infiltrated and used to bolster the regime. [10]

Conclusion

Prospects for an early return of democracy to Chile remain dim. The visit of the Pope in April 1987 strengthened rightwing elements in the church, resulting in pressure to close the Vicariate of Solidarity which, for more than a decade, provided refuge and support for victims of government persecution. After the Pope's visit, a fierce campaign of harassment against foreign journalists occurred, as government supporters claimed that the foreign press exaggerated human rights violations and popular resistance in Chile. [11] Moreover, the United States continued to refrain from serious criticism of Chile. In December 1986 it voted against a United Nations resolution expressing "grave concern over human rights violations in Chile." In December 1988, it abstained from a similar resolution.

Pinochet lost his plebiscite on October 5, 1988, and elections for the presidency were scheduled for December 1989. Because of the continued repression and the many attacks the opposition has sustained, it is no surprise that Pinochet was simply replaced by a center-right candidate who will not affect the status quo. The armed forces (Pinochet will remain Chief of the Army for the next eight years) continue to be central to the stability of any new government and the fundamental structure of a National Security State remains intact.

_______________

Notes:

* Carla Stea is a free-lance writer whose articles have appeared in the major international press.

1. In November 1986, for example, the U.S. government abstained on both World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank loans to the Pinochet government totaling half a billion dollars, thereby virtually guaranteeing that these human rights violations would continue. Had the U.S. opposed the loans, as the Harkin Amendment (Sec. 701 of the International Financial Institutions Act) would seem to have necessitated (requiring opposition of loans to countries which engage in gross violations of human rights), they could not have been made.

2. Statement by a Jesuit priest who had worked in Chile and then in Nicaragua; quoted by John Saul, Monthly Review, March 1985.

3. Moderate leader Gabriel Valdez was quoted in the New York Times (April 4, 1986): "He argued that the Communist Party and the Marxist-Leninist groups had a right to take part in civic life. 'We don't accept the exclusion of ideas.' "

4. New York Times, August 26, 1986.

5. Ibid., September 11, 1986.

6. Ibid., October 21, 1986.

7. "Chile's Democratic Transition is in Question: Attempt to Kill Pinochet May Signal Stronger Left," was the New York Times headline September 14. On September 19, the Times ran a story of the discovery of an enormous "Soviet and Cuban supplied" arms cache. And on November 11, an Op-Ed article in the Times noted that "The U.S. State Department appropriately condemned the attempt to assassinate General Pinochet that provoked the State of Siege. But for several weeks Washington has had nothing to say about the murders, torture, death threats, and mass arrests that General Pinochet is using to punish the non-violent democratic movement." Op-Ed article by Americas Watch.

8. In November 1985, U.S. General Schweitzer arrived in Santiago offering unconditional support to the Chilean armed forces. The U.S. Embassy disclaimed him as another "private citizen."

9. Major opposition leaders agreed that, had the assassination attempt succeeded, it would have resulted not in a restoration of democracy, but in a seizure of power by the military, a slaughter of the entire opposition leadership, and a bloodbath which they termed "another Jakarta." Sergio Bitar, editor of Fortin Mapocho and former Minister of Mines under Allende, said at least 60 leaders would have been immediately murdered in reprisal, "and a large part of the Chilean people thereafter."

10. Jorge Lavandero, publisher of Fortin Mapocho, noted, ''There are seven secret police organizations in Chile. It is virtually impossible that an organization such as FPMR was not infiltrated by agents provocateurs. "

11. The home of a top UPI official, Anthony E. Boadle, was broken into and his files and papers searched and destroyed. Rumors were fabricated that two European journalists were drug addicts.

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George Wald On the Prosterman Land Reform*
by CovertAction Information Bulletin
Winter 1990

Roy L. Prosterman, a law professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, designed the Land Reform Program the U.S. government promoted in the Philippines, Vietnam, and El Salvador. In each place the program was accompanied by a rural terror: In Vietnam, the Phoenix Program that killed 40,000 civilians between August 1968 and mid-1971; in the Philippines, Martial Law; in El Salvador, a "State of Siege."

The Prosterman program was used in each case to indicate rural leadership, and then dispose of it. In the Phoenix Program this process was described as "neutralizing the rural infrastructure." The purpose of the U .S.-client-state-sponsored concern with Land Reform was to identify the peasant leadership; "anyone whose head poked above the commonality was killed." In El Salvador the masses of landless peasants were told: "The great estates are now yours. You'd better hold a meeting and organize how to run them." When the peasants, thus encouraged, occupied the lands, they were immediately surrounded by the army, and whoever was up front was led out and disappeared. The remaining organizations or groups of peasants were decimated.

When confronted with the consistently horrendous consequences of his "Land Reform," Pros term an denied all responsibility. He stated that he had merely advised the governments involved in technical aspects of the program. There was, he claimed, no cause and effect relationship between his land reform policy and the slaughter which ensued when it was implemented.

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Notes:

* George Wald is a Nobel Prize Laureate in chemistry who, for several decades, has been active in the peace movement.

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Hector Salazar Speaks
by CovertAction Information Bulletin
Winter 1990

During the last 20 or 30 years the Latin American armed forces were indoctrinated with an ideology imported from Washington, the ideology of National Security, which maintains that Soviet imperialism is a permanent menace. Thus permanent war against it is non-conventional, because the enemy is any party inside the country or outside, and the enemy can attack at any moment, and that war has to be confronted in the same plane on which one is supposedly attacked.

In this way, all the movements of liberation in Latin America, everything that is revolutionary, especially those that have leftist or Marxist inspiration, are seen as Soviet aggression and confronted with war. In order to confront the enemy, information is necessary, and torture as a method for obtaining information becomes a habitual practice.

The enemy in this case is the Chilean population, which opposed the dictatorship, and is thus classified as part of an international communist movement destined to destroy the Christian, western, democratic system. This ideology comes from Washington, from the State Department and the Pentagon. The product of this indoctrination on this continent was the appearance of the military dictatorships, including Pinochet.

This ideological conception of National Security is taken to a point at which even the church is accused of being communist; everybody who expresses discomfort is considered communist or is falling into the game of the communists. The war is everywhere; so, in the church, in the universities, in the unions, everywhere, the government infiltrates in order to detect the enemy, the subversives, the agents of Soviet communism.

This is the logic under which the police and the military have been used to go into the streets and punish all those who were participating in protests. This is why on many occasions we have known of young people with no weapons who have been attacked by uniformed and heavily armed soldiers, and why, instead of being taken to court, they are directly punished. Often the prisoners have been forced to extinguish burning tires with their own bodies. There has been a spiral of brutality, sanctioned by official impunity.

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"Only a heartbeat away ..."
Back Cover Photo: J. Danforth Quayle, future President? Credit: Nancy Shia.

CovertAction INFORMATION BULLETIN

Back Issues:

No. 1 (July 1978): Agee on CIA; Cuban exile trial; consumer research in Jamaica. Photocopy only.

No. 2 (Oct. 1978): How CIA recruits diplomats; researching undercover officers; double agent in CIA. Photocopy only

No. 3 (Jan. 1979): CIA attacks CAIB, secret supp. to Army field manual; spying on host countries. Photocopy only.

No. 4 (Apr.-May 1979): U.S. spies in Italian services; CIA in Spain; CIA recruiting for Africa; subversive academics; Angola. Photocopy only.

No. 5 (July-Aug. 1979): U.S. intelligence in Southeast Asia; CIA in Denmark, Sweden, Grenada. Photocopy only.

No. 6 (Oct. 1979): U.S. in Caribbean; Cuban exile terrorists; CIA plans for Nicaragua; CIA's secret "Perspectives for Intelligence." Photocopy only.

No. 7 (Dec. 1979-Jan. 1980): Media destabilization in Jamaica; Robert Moss; CIA budget; media operations; UNITA; Iran. Photocopy only

No. 8 (Mar.-Apr. 1980): Attacks on Agee; U.S. intelligence legislation; CAIB statement to Congress; Zimbabwe; Northern Ireland.

No. 9 (June 1980): NSA in Norway; Glomar Explorer; mind control; notes on NSA.

No. 10 (Aug.-Sept. 1980): Caribbean; destabilization in Jamaica; Guyana; Grenada bombing; 'The Spike"; deep cover manual.

No. 11 (Dec. 1980): Rightwing terrorism; South Korea; KCIA; Portugal; Guyana; Caribbean; APIO; NSA interview.

No. 12 (Apr. 1981): U.S. in Salvador and Guatemala; new right; William Casey; CIA's Mozambique spy ring; mail surveillance. Photocopy only.

No. 13 (July-Aug. 1981): South Africa documents; Namibia; mercenaries and gunrunning; the Klan; Globe Aero; Angola; Mozambique; BOSS; Central America; Max Hugel; mail surveillance.

No. 14-15 (Oct. 1981): Complete index to nos. 1-12; review of intelligence legislation; CAIB plans; extended Naming Names.

No. 16 (Mar. 1982): Green Beret torture in Salvador; Argentine death squads; CIA media operations; Seychelles; Angola; Mozambique; Klan; Nugan Hand. Photocopy only.

No. 17 (Summer 1982): History of CBW; current plans; Cuban dengue epidemic; Scott Barnes and yellow rain lies; mystery death in Bangkok.

No. 18 (Winter 1983): CIA and religion; "secret" war in Nicaragua; Opus Dei; Miskitos; evangelicals in Guatemala; Summer Institute of linguistics; World Medical Relief; CIA and BOSS; torture in South Africa; Vietnam defoliation. Photocopy only.

No. 19 (Spring-Summer 1983): CIA and media; history of disinformation; ''plot'' against Pope; Grenada airport; Georgie Anne Geyer.

No. 20 (Winter 1984): Invasion of Grenada; war in Nicaragua; Ft. Huachuca; Israel and South Korea in Central America; KAL flight 007.

No. 21 (Spring 1984): New York Times on Salvador election; manipulation in Time and Newsweek, Accuracy in Media; Nicaragua.

No. 22 (Fall 1984): Mercenaries and terrorism; Soldier of Fortune; "privatizing" the war in Nicaragua; U.S.-South African terrorism; Italian fascists.

No. 23 (Spring 1985): Special issue on "plot" to kill the Pope and the "Bulgarian Connection"; CIA ties to Turkish and Italian neofascists.

No. 24 (Summer 1985): State repression, infiltrators, provocateurs; sanctuary movement; attacks on American Indian Movement.

No. 25 (Winter 1986): U.S., Nazis, and the Vatican; Knights of Malta; Greek civil war and Elent, WACL and Nicaragua; torture.

No. 26 (Summer 1986): U.S. state terrorism; Vernon Walters; Libya bombing; Israel and South Africa; plus complete index to nos. 13-25.

No. 27 (Spring 1987): Religious Right; New York Times and Pope "Plot;" Carlucci; Southern Air Transport; Michael Ledeen. Photo copy only

No. 28 (Summer 1987): Special issue on CIA and drugs: Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, Central America; Nugan Hand; MKULTRA in Canada; Delta Force; special section on AIDS theories and CBW. Photocopy only.

No. 29 (Winter 1988): Special issue on Pacific: Philippines, Fiji, New Zealand, Belau, Kanaky, Vanuatu; atom testing; media on Nicaragua; Reader's Digest; CIA in Cuba; Tibet; Agee on Veil; more on AIDS.

No. 30 (Summer 1988): Special issue on the Middle East. The intifada, Israeli arms sales; Israel in Africa; disinformation and Libya; CIA's William Buckley; the Afghan arms pipeline and contra lobby.

No. 31 (Winter 1989): Special issue on domestic surveillance. The FBI; CIA on campus; Office of Public Diplomacy; Lexington Prison; Puerto Rico; International Freedom Foundation; "Resistance Conspiracy" Case.

No. 32 (Summer 1989): Tenth Year Anniversary Issue: The Best of CAIB. Includes articles from our earliest issues, Naming Names, CIA at home, abroad, and in the media. Ten year perspective by Phil Agee.

No. 33 (Winter 1990): The Bush Issue: CIA Agents for Bush; Terrorism Task Force; El Salvador and Nicaragua Intervention; Rep. Party and Nazis.

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Back issues:
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Dirty Work II [$25]
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Secret Contenders [$7.95]
White Paper? White Wash! [$6.50]

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INFORMATION BULLETIN
P.O. Box 50272
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