LATIN POLICE AID FACES CUT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870048-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 48
• Publication Date: December 4, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870048-9
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WASHINGTON POST
4 December 1985
Latin Police Aid Faces Cut
!Move Seeks to Avoid Hill Defeat of Proposal
By Joanne Omang
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Reagan administration, in order to
avoid virtually certain defeat today of its
$54 million military and police aid proposal
for Central America, has agreed to cut the
request in half by eliminating all military
aid, according to Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-
Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Re-
lations Committee.
In a letter to committee members made
public yesterday, Lugar said he would offer
a compromise at the committee markup
session today that would authorize $24 mil-
lion to help police in El Salvador, Honduras,
Costa Rica and Guatemala deal with terror-
ist threats. It also would authorize $1 mil-
lion for a witness-protection fund.
The proposal would ban Central Intelli-
gence Agency funding and handling o aid in
t o program, but would lift restrictions on
"intelligence sharing and the rovision o
intelligence-related equipment, according
to u ar s description. It would restrict "le-
thal" arms aid to 10 percent of the funding,
and all aid would stop if any were used for
torture.
The original proposal included Panama
and sought $26 million for the police coun-
terterrorism program, $1 million for the
witness fund and $27 million for counter-
terrorism training for the nations' armed
forces.
Critics objected that the region's armed
forces have received massive amounts of
assistance this year, and that the Panam-
anian National Guard should not be helped
after ousting President Nicolas Ardita Bar-
letta in September.
"There's been no interest on either side
of the Hill in military aid," a House Foreign
Affairs Committee staff member said.
Lugar's proposal "would reflect attitudes
over here as well as the Senate side" on
what kind of assistance might be approved,
he added.
However, the compromise measure faces
stiff opposition from some Democrats on
grounds that police have used U.S. training
and equipment in past abuses of human
rights, particularly in Guatemala and El Sal-
vador.
"We will continue to oppose this whole
idea," an aide to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-
Mass.) said.
Sen. Lugar said he would offer a compromise.
Administration officials agreed to kill the
military aid after "Lugar explained to them
that it was either this or nothing," a Senate
staff aide said. An amendment to restore
some military aid to El Salvador may be
offered as a test vote, he said.
In his letter, Lugar said failure to give
any aid "runs the risk of not furnishing the
region's emerging democracies with the
necessary tools to counter a new and ag-
gressive terrorist challenge."
Abuses by police and security forces re-
sponding to urban guerrilla movements in
the late 1960s led Congress to impose a
genera! ban on U.S. aid to police forces in
1974. Exceptions have been made for Costa
Rica and Caribbean nations that have no
armies, as well as for Salvadoran security
forces, but this would be the first official
U.S. aid to police units in a decade.
The measure would require the president
to report on the receiving nations' progress
in reducing human rights violations and cre-
ating effective law enforcement and judicial
systems. The president would also have to
certify that Guatemala had an elected civil-
ian government in power and was taking
steps to curb human rights abuses.
The bill would lift the 30-day limit on con-
sultant visits to the region and permit civil-
ian and State Department trainers to oper-
ate there, although training should be with-
in U.S. borders "to the maximum extent
practicable."
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870048-9