CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00975A023300050001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 1, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 1, 1972
• Content Type: REPORT

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DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Central Intelligence Bulletin
State Department review completed
NAVY review(s) completed.
Secret
N? 42
1 December 1972
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No. 0288/72
1 December 1972
Central Intelligence Bulletin
SOUTH VIETNAM: Saigon continuing preparations for
cease-fire. (Page 1)
BANGLADESH: Awami League officials attack CIA.
(Page 2)
ECUADOR: Quito forcing showdown with foreign oil
inter erects. (Page 3)
YUGOSLAVIA-US-CANADA: Croat emigre demonstrations
may include violent acts. (Page 5)
ICELAND-UK: No progress in fishing rights talks.
(Page 6)
FEDAYEEN: Broad front group beset with divisions.
(Page. 7 )
SOUTH AFRICA: Vorster may offer seaports to quasi-
autonomous "bantustans". (Page 8)
NORTH VIETNAM: Two coastal merchant ships leave
Haiphong harbor (Page 9)
PANAMA: Bus hijacking controversy still unsettled
(Page 9)
JAPAN: Pressure on yen slackens somewhat (Page 9)
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SOUTH VIETNAM: Government military and civil-
ian security officials are continuing preparations
for a cease-fire.
In almost every province, the South Vietnamese
have been conducting meetings recently at various
administrative levels to explain the government's
position and to prepare for a cease-fire. Direc-
tives have been sent to regional and provincial secu-
rity commands prodding officials to strengthen their
units before the announcement is made. In addition,
cadets from the military schools are being sent into
the countryside to explain the cease-fire and to try
and bolster popular support for the government during
the period of intense political competition expected
to follow.
Central Intelligence Bulletin
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BANGLADESH: Americans suspected of being in-
volved-with the CIA are coming under increasing at-
tack by officials of the governing Awami League.
In the last few days leaders of Prime Minister
Mujib's party, including his nephew, have repeatedly
accused an American Foreign Service officer of being
a CIA agent and have demanded that he be expelled
from the country for holding "secret" meetings with
a leftist opposition leader. Yesterday the League's
senior vice-president charged that the CIA and other
foreign agents, aiming to cripple the economy, were
responsible for a recent spate of fires in jute
warehouses. The fires were probably set by jute
shippers who, failing to meet shipment deadlines,
frequently resort to arson to obtain insurance
money.
The League seems likely to continue and even
to intensify its attacks in the hope that opposi-
tion leaders can be linked with foreign "subversive"
elements and discredited prior to national elections
scheduled for next March. Additionally, foreigners
in Bangladesh are handy targets to blame whenever
undesirable events, such as the fires, occur.
1 Dec 72 Central Intelligence Bulletin
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ECUADOR: Quito is forcing a showdown with
foreign oil interests while simultaneously attempt-
ing to resolve an internal dispute over its petroleum
policy.
Minister of Natural Resources Jarrin has ordered
foreign companies to pay rentals on concession areas
by 30 November. Texaco-Gulf, the largest investor,
is not involved because it has already made. the pay-
ments. Although most companies are expected to ac-
cede to the ultimatum, the US-owned Minas y Petroleos
Cia may risk an annulment of its concession contract
rather than pay the rentals. If the contract is an-
nulled,.the company is likely to claim expropriation
and seek recourse in the US against the Ecuadorean
Government.
Quito has nullified a concession in the Gulf
of Guayaquil, granted to a consortium of US com-
panies in 1968. The consortium, which has invested
some $25 million to date, is hopeful that its con-
cession can be converted into a service contract,
in accordance with a new Ecuadorean. petroleum law.
Negotiations apparently will be conducted with the
more conciliatory manager of the state oil company,
Colonel Duenas, who is Jarrin's main opponent in a
struggle for control over Quito's oil policy.
An unsatisfactory resolution of these separate
conflicts could jeopardize new foreign participation
in developing Ecuador's petroleum resources. Most
of the companies have been less successful than
Texaco-Gulf in exploratory drilling, and the threat
of more stringent contractual terms could prompt
many to abandon their concessions.
Central Intelligence Bulletin
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YUGOSLAVIA-US-CANADA: Croat emigre demonstra-
tions in the US and Canada--planned for today and
tomorrow--will draw sharp protests from Belgrade
if there is violence or excessive harassment of
Yugoslav consular personnel.
The Chicago-based emigre journal Danica has
called for demonstrations to commemorate the na-
tionalist student strike in Zagreb last year. Pro-
testers are expected at Yugoslav consulates in New
York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, and San Fran-
cisco as well as in Toronto.
On 28 November, the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry
called in a US Embassy officer to ask that the
demonstrations be discouraged, if not prohibited,
by local officials. Belgrade is'aware of the legal
impossibility of meeting such a request, and is
probably laying the groundwork for a strong protest
if there is violence or disorderliness. The Yugo-
slavs specifically warned that some of the expected
participants also took part in violent acts against
their consular personnel in New York last month.
Unlike similar situations in the past, the
Yugoslavs will expect Washington to act if the
emigres violate the new federal law on protection
of foreign diplomats.
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SECRET
ICELAND-UK: High-level talks with Britain
early this week made no progress toward resolving
the fishing rights dispute, and incidents at sea
may escalate.
Principal figures from all three parties in
the Icelandic Government participated in the talks,
apparently to ensure that Foreign Minister Agustsson
adhered to the cabinet's hard-nosed policy. They
did offer the British residual fishing rights un-
til late 1974, but only in restricted areas, with
trawlers of limited size, and with a specific catch
limit. The British negotiators believed the re-
strictions would reduce their catch to unacceptable
levels.
The talks are technically adjourned while
Reykjavik studies British counter-proposals. Al-
though the door to further talks is thus still open,
there is no sign that Iceland wishes to resume them
any time soon. At a press conference following
the adjournment, the Icelandic ministers stressed
that the coast guard will continue to enforce the
50-mile limit. British trawlers have not been har-
assed for over a month, but Reykjavik may now end
the truce in an attempt to increase its bargaining
power.
Reykjavik may also try to bargain separately
with the West Germans, who have been working with
the British. The atmosphere is not good, however;
the Icelanders cut the cables of a West German
trawler on 26 November, and Bonn lodged a formal
report with the International Court of Justice.
The fishing rights dispute probably will still
be virulent when Agustsson visits the US early
next year to begin talks on the US-manned NATO
base at Keflavik. Although Agustsson is prepared
to be reasonable, Icelandic hostility generated
by the fishing dispute with other NATO members
could spill over into the base negotiations.
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FEDAYEEN: A Palestinian congress held in
Beirut on 27 and 28 November has established a
broad pro-fedayeen front, but it is already beset
with serious divisions.
Organized by several fedayeen groups and Arab
political parties, the conference was attended by
representatives of a variety of "progressive" po-
litical groups, including a Viet Cong delegation.
Uruguay's Tupamaros were invited but did not come.
Deep divisions quickly emerged among the con-
ferees. Led by a Palestine Liberation Organization
representative, most fedayeen rejected a peaceful
settlement of the Middle East conflict and demanded
that the conferees denounce UN Resolution 242.
Less radical conferees--placed in a delicate posi-
tion because of their governments' acceptance of
negotiations and specifically the UN resolution--
urged the formulation of a platform which would not
rule out a peaceful solution. This was ultimately
accomplished by the adoption of a front platform
rejecting "all capitulatory plans."
The front, dubbed the "Arab Front for Partici-
pation in the Palestinian Revolution," will have a
46-man central committee composed of Arab partici-
pants in the congress, as well as an 11-man perma-
nent secretariat headquartered in Beirut. Kamal
Jumblatt, a leftist Lebanese politician who was
largely responsible for engineering the compromise
platform, has been elected secretary-general.
The idea for the front was originally con-
ceived at conferences of the Lebanese Communist
Party and of the fedayeen early this year and is
one of several attempts, so far largely futile, to
unite the fedayeen.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Prime Minister Vorster has pri-
vately held out the prospect that his government
will cede seaports to two of South Africa's eight
bantustans. He apparently intends to make the offer
as an inducement for the leaders of these quasi-
autonomous "African homelands" to negotiate "in-
dependence" without fully realizing their demands
for additional land.
During an off-the-record interview with foreign
correspondents last week, Vorster said that he had
told Chief Matanzima of Transkei and Chief Buthelezi
of Kwazula that independence settlements might in-
clude the cession of white-occupied ports on the
Indian Ocean. The first, Port St. Johns, is a tiny
white enclave in Transkei territory. The second,
Richards Bay, is situated amid several Kwazulu re-
serves; Pretoria is pursuing extensive plans to con-
struct modern industrial port facilities there for
industry. Vorster told the journalists that he
definitely offered Port St. Johns to Matanzima, but
merely suggested to Buthelezi that Richards Bay
might be negotiable.
Both Matanzima and Buthelezi have repeatedly
asserted the need of their respective homelands for
a seaport and also for additional land. All the
homeland leaders also expect considerable economic
aid from Pretoria. Vorster's government has not
hitherto shown much responsiveness to such demands.
The area now allotted to eight bantustans amounts
to some 13 percent of South Africa's total terri-
tory, and lifting the bantustans out of their sub-
sistence economy would be prohibitively costly.
Independence for the black "homelands" is basic to
the ruling National Party's policy of apartheid,
and the government is anxious to persuade at least
one bantustan leader to ask for independence.
(continued)
1 Dec 72 Central Intelligence Bulletin
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Substantial concessions to either chief would
reinforce similar demands from hitherto less articu-
late bantustan leaders. There would also be bitter
outcries from whites who oppose any "giveaways" to
non-whites.
It is doubtful that cession of the seaports
would dissuade Matanzima or Buthelezi from insisting
that additional land be included in an independence
settlement. In any event, Vorster would be hard
pressed to persuade his white constituents that he
had not paid too high a price for inducing Matanzima
and Buthelezi to begin negotiations for independence.
Perhaps for that reason, Vorster's comments may be
only a trial balloon.
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C NORTH VIETNAM: Two North Vietnamese coastal
merchant ships have eluded the mines around Haiphong
and have been recently seen by the US Navy in Chinese
waters. Both were photographed in Haiphong harbor as
late as 20 November. These are the first two merchant
ships to depart Haiphong since the harbor was mined in
May. Both ships are relatively small and, if they
left the port empty, could have taken advantage of
high tides in late November to skirt the minefields.
The main channel into Haiphong is still mined and
could not be used by ocean going ships.
PANAMA: The seizure of 17 Canal Zone buses last
week remains a problem, although the government, in
an apparent gesture of good will, has returned seven
of the buses. The government appears to have tied
its settlement of the issue to a US agreement pro-
viding immunity from prosecution for the men involved,
including those accused of using arms in the hijacking
of two buses on 21 November. The US-owned bus company,
meanwhile, has agreed to sell out to a Panamanian firm.
Details of that agreement may depend in part on the
prior settlement of the immunity issue.
JAPAN: Although Tokyo's foreign exchange re-
serves increased by $600 million during November to a
record $18.4 billion, pressure on the yen slackened
somewhat. Dollar inflows during the month remained
fairly. heavy, but did not reach the near crisis pro-
portions of October. At that time, the Bank of Japan
purchased $1.6 billion in the Tokyo money market to
prevent the yen from exceeding its upper exchange rate
limit. Central bank purchases totaled $800-$900 mil-
lion in November, following further tightening of
capital controls designed to help slow "speculative"
inflows. Although this may give Tokyo some breathing
space until after the 10 December Diet elections, the
volatile monetary situation could flare up again at
any time.
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