Kissinger report urges $8B aid for C. America

Press, 9 January 1984, Page 6

Kissinger report urges $8B aid for C. America

NZPA ‘New York Times’ Washington President Ronald Reagan’s Commission on Central America gives a warning in a draft of its report that the Soviet Union is threatening a “strategic coup of major proportions” in Central America. The draft calls for a “new alliance for democracy and prosperity” in Central America at a cost of SUSB billion ($12.2 billion) in American aid over the next five years. The commission, led by a former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, recommends, in the draft, "significantly increased” military aid to El Salvador to counter what it depicts as a “direct threat to United States security interests.”

Commission members and aides, in interviews, confirmed that much of the original language in the draft, which was still open to revision as of yesterday would be in the final report scheduled for delivery to Mr Reagan on Thursday. The draft also proposes increased military aid to Honduras “to build a credible deterrent” and the resumption of military aid and direct arms sales to Guatemala that were cut off during the Carter Administration in response to human rights violations.

The commission’s draft calls for the repeal of 1974 legislation in the Foreign Assistance Act barring the use of American aid for the training or support of police forces and also prohibiting United States support for internal surveillance activity. It depicts the legislation as being “counter-produc-tive” in American efforts to promote human rights in El

Salvador, as well as preventing American aid to other nations, such as Costa Rica, which it says have heightened need for police protection and border patrols.

The recommendations are in the draft of two complete chapters of the report obtained by “The New York Times.” The draft comprises more than 130 pages of text dealing with security issues in Central American and economic recovery programmes for the area. Additional chapters are said to deal with diplomatic proposals and possible means of neutralising what the draft report calls “external support for the insurgency.” The total report is said to cover about 200 pages. The Kissinger commission was appointed in July last year at a time of growing public and Cognresional concern about the intent and scope of Reagan Administration policies in El Salvador and Nicaragua. In El Salvador the Reagan Administration supports the Government against a rebel force, and in Nicaragua, through the Central Intelligence Agency, it covertly supports a rebel force in an attempt to overthrow the Sandinist regime. The final report, according to the draft chapters, primarily will call for increased military and economic aid, as well as a new “national consensus” on foreign policy as the fundamental means of combating what is depicted as the global nature of the Communist threat in Central America.

The report says “the concerting of Soviet and Cuban power to extend the influence and expand the pres-

ence of those nations in vulnerable areas of the Western hemisphere is a direct threat to United States security interests. This is happening in Central America today, and it makes the crisis there a crisis for the United States.”

The report, in language that some commission members acknowledged would cause controversy when made public, emphatically argues that the issue is strategic for the United States because “a critical factor in the ability of the United States to sustain a tolerable balance of power on the global scene at a manageable cost has been the inherent security of its land borders, which have not required frontier defences.” “The advance of Soviet and Cuban power on the American mainland threatens this balance,” it says.

“From the standpoint of the Soviet Union, it would be a strategic coup of major proportions to impose on the United States the burden of landward defences,” the report says. “If they succeeded in doing so, they would have out-manoeuvred us on a global scale.” The draft depicted the successful revolution in Nicaragua in 1979 as a “decisive event,” , in terms of Communist • expansion, matched only by the accession of Dr Fidel Castro to power in Cuba in 1959. “Nicaragua is an indispensable stepping-stone for the Cuban and Soviet effort to promote armed insurgency in Central America,” it says. “With both an Atlantic and a Pacific coast, Nicaragua is uniquely wellplaced” to become a new

base for the Russians in Central America, giving them the ability to subvert the entire region, including Panama.

“With stakes so high it is extraordinary how polarised the debate over Central America has been in the United States.”

American power “to influence events world-wide” would be significantly eroded, the report asserts, “from the perception that we were unable even to influence events close at home, when we ourselves had a vital interest in those events.”

In calling for sharp increases in military aid to El Salvador and a new national attitude towards that war, the draft also evokes the debate over Vietnam. It argues that American policy-makers cannot be content with a military stalemate, the situation that it says now exists. The commission gives a warning that the current levels of military aid “are not sufficient to preserve even the existing military stalemate over a period of time.” Without drastic action, the draft report says, “a sudden collapse is not inconceivable.”

To prevent that, the commission draft outlines what it says are basic requirements. These include.— @ More soldiers and training to create units capable of more flexibility and greater firepower.

• Increased!, air and ground mobility to reinforce ambushed troops and otherwise counter widespread guerrilla activity. • A “much larger” stock of equipment and supplies to make possible a consistent war effort.

• Improved medical evacuation ability to reduce the fatality rate.

© Funds to permit the Salvadorean Army to retain trained personnel for additional tours of duty.

As a short-term measure the draft recommends an immediate infusion of funds and material to create an elite rapid-reaction force of 1000 men with a 1000 more soldiers in training and reserve.

The basic assumption of the commission’s draft chapter on security issues is that social, political, and economic changes, no matter how thoroughly financed, would not be effective until security improves throughout Central America. Such programmes, the report says explicitly at one point, “do not by themselves defeat these insurgencies.”

' In late November Mr Reagan provoked a Congressional outcry by vetoing legislation that would have made continued American military aid to El Salvador conditional on a certification of progress there in human rights, democratisation, and land redistribution.

Respect for human rights was described by the draft as “also of vital importance to improved security in Central America, as well as to the self-respect of the United States.” But it adds: “We recognise, however, that how the problem is addressed in this regard is vital. If Central America is as crucial to our national security as the commission believes, conditionality must take a form that does not prove self-defeating.”