Cia Demands Cloak Back

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Mr. William Colby, Director the CIA, demanded at the d of last week that the curin should be brought down ice more on the activities of se who expose any of its indestine activities.

Colby's arrogant request - made evidence to the US Senate ComItee on government operations nich includes the CIA as an arm ! the Presidency) - comes after a refully orchestrated international mpaign by politicians and pressen to resurect some measure of blic 'sympathy" for imperialism's ast violent and sinister defender. Among the measures Colby prosed was a return to the situation here the CIA was answerable only • the armed services committees in • Senate and the House of presentatives - committees which r years have been the creatures of E military chiefs and the weapons mufacturers.

At present eight different Conessional committees have been king evidence on the CIA's secret trations. "Every one of the new Djects that were subjected to this Doess has leaked into the public ¡ain', complained Colby, and at on to request that new laws bald be passed making it a crim• offence for staff members wicing committees of Congress to tak their oath of secrecy. But the obvious explanation ty these committees have been king like sieves is that the CIA livities revealed to them have ocked even their conservative umbers and officials, propelling em to give 'off the record' details The abatement of the Lel e cease-fire and agreement temporary hold-up in the +face in this focal point fensive in the Middle East.

The state of Lebanon is a joint cation of French and British perialism from the period after • fall of the Ottoman Empire hen they were in a position to aw the state boundaries of the ba. It was delineated in the 1920s lowing the predominance of a aristian bourgeoisie, specitically • provide a buffer against the Arab itionalism of Damascus.

Its independence was agreed in 146 and has been maintained since a necessary commercial centre r the Arab world while there is a parate Zionist state to the south. die bast proomperialist point ALSO focus in ine il movements. One of these 1s the alange, which was first founded ¡ 1936 (on the model of the polIcal organisation which provided i basis for Franco's rise to power (Spain).

The Maronite Christians of banon have thus adopted both • religious beliefs of the Western aquerors in the Crusades, and any facets of twentieth century tre ideology of fascism and forms racialism.

The Guardian correspondent in brut the other day was shocked • hear the Phalangists after they il shot down some refugees in Id blood, say that Palestinian fugees were "all thieves. And if sy are poor it is their own fault. zy breed like rabbits' Such phrases are the filthy stock i trade of every right-wing demague irom Wolverhampton to nich and Madrid. : In Lebanon as elsewhere. such At the aracter th the c ! gIOUD: to the liberal press.

And the sense of "responsibility' felt by bourgeois journalists for the CIA's state secrets has been further eroded by the revelation that at least eleven news organisations, including Reuter's, contained journalists planted by the CIA to gather information and plant false news stories to their advantage.

Colby also backed moves in Congress to bring in laws which would make it a serious criminal offence for former CIA employees to publish anything - such as the names of CIA officials - that they learned in the course of their work, classified anasted inneration restine to the CIA.

This demand for blanket protection of the CIA flows directly out of the world-wide campaign nounted against those publishing the names of CIA officials in US embassies abroad - on the grounds that they were endangering the lives of the innocent!

After the shooting of American Phillip Agee -publishing CIA Addresses CEASE FIRE NO ANSWER anon's murderous civil war following of 22nd. January can be nothing but bitter conflicts that lie beneath the of imperialist intrigue and countersmokescreen for the agents and friends of US imperialism and its local supporters.

DIVISIONS

In Lebanon the carefully designed 'sectarian' constitution has maintained and intensified religious and other divisions, and was enforced in 1958 when it was last threatened by the arrival of US marines on the beaches of Beirut.

Such political arrangements, however, are of necessity unstable. The movement of Palestinian refugees into the country over the years (particularly after the military advances of the Israelis in 1967 and the massacre of the Palestinians in Jordan in 1970), has built up a population burning with hatred of national and class oppression.

The growth of commercial, academic and other organisations in an artificial Lebanese society has at the same time caused the growth of various left-wing political organisations such as the Progressive Socialist Party of Kamal Jabiatt, the Communist Action Organisation of the Lebanon and a number of small groups claiming to be Trotskyist. Most of these groups are members of a 'Front of Progressive Parties and National Forces' which has played a major role in defending the Palestinians and poor Lebanese agaubst the Phalangists.

BALANCE

same time, the special of the Lebanese state, ¡reful balance of c ampet• has resuited in a very embassy official Welch in Athens, following his being named as a CIA agent in a Greek newspaper, capitalist newspapers from London to Tokyo have spoken in chorus. Subsequent press revelations of the identities of CIA agents. in Paris, Madrid and London have brought unanimous denunciations in their editorials.

"Hero"

Welch was treated as a national hero and martyr by the US government, being buried with full military honours in Arlington National Cemetry, with President Ford in attendance. He has unquestionably been much more use to the CIA dead than alive.

This, plus the fact that the Greek police (backed presumably, by the full resources of the CIA), have made scant progress in tracing those who killed him, has raised in a new and sharp form the question who was responsible for his death?

The CIA's well-deserved reputation for devious and skillful handling of its public-relations problems has led to the suggestion Sir Maurice Oldfield 1s usually Christian but whose rank and file is often Muslim.

Thus the army has been useless to maintain the status quo. Instead the government has built up largescale armed militias, not just of the Phalangists, called "National Liberal Party, of which the leader is Caille Camoun, who is one of the major right-wing figures in Lebanese politics and who also happens to be the Interior Minister.

MILITANCY

These forces could not just march up and down in the face of the growing militancy of the Palestinians and the politicisation of the Lebanese masses themselves.

On the 13th April last, the Phalangists gunned down a busload of Palestinians, murdering twenty seven. Tension grew throughout the month with the first steps of US sponsored Arab-Israeli detente.

As Le Monde correctly described the momentum of events on 22nd January:

If the Lebanese civi war was effectively set in motion on 13th April last, the hostilities only assumed their devastating scope in September, a few days after the signiature of the Israeli-Egyptian agreement at Sinai".

The internal developments of social and political forces in the Arab world were as always intimately tied up with the changing balance of forces as between proand anti-imperialist forces in the area as a whole.

The Phalangists aim was to finish the job started by the Americans and their Zionist friends, to hold back and defeat all those who in any way threatened the international power of capital.

Over the weeks since September, the battle has smouldered on from week to week with fighting mostly in the seafront area of Beirut between Phalangists and various left wing groups including Palestinians from the Popular Front organisapress campaign in defence of the CIA must be rejected with contempt by the international workers movement. Colby admitted on television only last week that the CIA had prepared detailed plans for the murder of Fidel Castro and Patrice Lumumba, the nationalist leader killed during the civil war in the Congo.

Murderers

What the demands for the 'protection' of CIA agents abroad amounts to is a demand that murderers, hooligans and their accomplices should not be identified, lest anyone should be outraged by their activities!

The demand by Labour MPs and left-wing organisations to Wilson that he put a stop to CIA activities in Britain points up the need for a struggle by the labour movement against all forms of spying and provocation by the ruling class and their 'intelligence' agencies.

According to recent press stories Wilson has been considering a secret report which recommends the setting-up of a single intelligence body in Britain, the "National Security Agency' ', based in many respects on the CIA.

It would have access to the files and operations of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), MIS (the counter-espionage service), all sections of the police and of the military intelligence departments.

The scheme, in that form, has been shelved mainly as a result of rivalries among the parties involved. One result has been the resignation of SIS chief, Sir Maurice Oldfield, who had hoped to head the NSA. The SIS, the most clandestine and reactionary section of the British "security' apparatus, has had a hand in some of the most vicious conspiracies in post-war politics.

In 1970 they have a free hand to a plot organised from Britain for a military coup to overthrow the nationalist Gaddafi government in Libya and restore the oilfields there The significance for the Arab world as a whole was made clear by Le Monde:

"To tell the truth, the Arab leaders do not see the Lebanese conflict as a religious war...most Arab governments can be seen, in effect, as sympathisers, friends and general allies of the Christian militias of the Lebanon"

It was as if to confirm this assessment that after a number of days of bitter fighting, right-wing groups over-ran the Christian Palestinian refugee camp called Dbayie on 14th January, massacring the women, children and old men who still remained there.

This event transformed the situation, forcing the intervention of the right-wing Palestinian forces and the mobilisation of left-wing militia forces in all parts of Beirut and the rest of Lebanon.

On 16th January, left-wing forces achieved some successes at the Christian village of Dumori to the south of Beirut, and on the same day, units of the Lebanese air force attacked Palestinian and leftwing groups.

This provoked a crisis that within two days led to the resignation of Muslim Prime Minister Karami, the man who a few short months before had been described as the last hope for unity in Lebanon.

It was at this point that the Phalangist forces began to move into areas of shanty huts and slums in Beirut in order to kill large numbers of the inhabitants, level out their houses, and drive whatever people and their possessions remained into the Muslim quarters.

ZIONIST

Such techniques of course are the bread and butter of Zionist conquest and it is not surprising that a Guardian correspondent in Beirut found Phalangist militiamen engaged in their grisly slaughter who claimed to have been involved in the Zionist murders of Palestinian leaders in Beirut. they collaborated with the CIA in a plot to invade Albania, removing the Communists and restoring King Zog to the throne.

The SIS, which provided much of the initial training and guidance for the CIA in the period immediately after the war, is just as willing as its big brother to intervene against the labour and socialist movenent in this country.

Oldfield's likely successor as head of SIS is K.R.C. Pridham, Director of Communications at the Foreign Office - a pointer to the close relations that exist between the intelligence services and the "public' departments of the capitalist state.

Colby Another warning comes from the year-long fillibuster waged by senior civil service officials in many departments to obstruct the - extremely timid - proposals of the Labour government to relax the Official Secrets Act.

At present the Act makes it possible to prosecute anyone who publishes any classified information whether or not it is important or genuinely 'secret' The police-state legal powers which the civil service chiefs are struggling to preserve in Britain are, in fact, even stronger than those that Colby is demanding on behalf of the CIA.

wrote:

"The hatred of the Palestinians by the Phalangists is extreme and expresses itself in other ways that do not bear repeating".

In this situation, with the threatened partition of the country and even of Beirut itself by the rightwing forces, the Arab bourgeoisie was forced to intervene.

CEASE-FIRE

The settlement and cease-fire announced on 22nd January was not in any sense a simple victory for. 'Syrian national interests' as portrayed in the capitalist press.

it was an attempt, (by no means certain to succeed) to preserve a part of the Middle East state structure that at this time is considered necessary to maintain the existing social and political relationships of the area, including some kind of modus vivendi with the Zionist settler state.

The Palestinians and their allies in the socialist movement of Lebanon have fought many heroic actions over recent weeks. In order to carry this struggle they will have to fight now not only for the Palestinians to obtain their national rights, but also for the poor and displaced of Lebanon to be allowed to return to their homes.

SOCIALIST

In order to do this, they will have to develop socialist policies aimed above all to separate themselves from the treacherous varieties of nationalism which have held back the struggle of the Arab masses, the Baathists, the Nassertes and the supporters of Arafat.

They will have to develop the power of the camp militias and in the poor quarters of Beirut much beyond that provided by the newly arrived Palestine Liberation Army It is through the fight for socialist policies and the independent action of the masses that a defeat of Zionism and all those forces in the Arab world prepared to compromise with it and its imperialist

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Blas Roca (black jacket) with other Cuban leaders.

FALSIFIE The Congress has been prepared over the last three months by a campaign of gross falsification of Čuba's recent history in which the main participants have been Blas Roca and Fidel Castro.

A Communist Party was first established in Cuba in 1925. In a speech to mark the 50th anniversary of this occasion Castro delivered a eulogy of a member of the Central Committee of this party, Julio Antonio Mella. Mella has frequently been praised by the Cuban leadership for his indicidual acts of heroism, in particular when in 1925 he went on hunger strike while imprisoned by the Machado dictatorship and forced Machado to release him. It is only recently that Castro's eulogies of Mella have emphasised his role as a founder of the Cuban Communist Party.

HEROIC In fact Mella was continuously criticised by the party for exactly the heroic deeds for which he 1s now remembered in Cuba. Mella left Cuba in 1927 and, after a visit to Moscow, lived in Mexico and joined the Mexican CP. As far as can be judged from limited sources, he was expelled from the Mexican CP as a Trotskyist in 1928, though one report says he was readmitted to the party in 1929, two weeks before being assasinated, almost certainly by an agent of Machado. His expulsion and conflict with the party are of course never mentioned.

Villena is another hero of the PSP praised by Castro. He was in fact forced out of the leadership of the party by Stalin through the delegate of the Comintern in Cuba with the help of the man who succeeded him as general secretary, none other than Blas Roca!

The First Communist Party, said Castro, 'played a key role in the general strike of August 1933 that put an end to Machado's tyrannical regime. Indeed it did! In fact it made a deal with Machado to call off the strike in exchange for the granting of certain limited economic demands. The CP was unable to fulfill its side of the bargain since it failed to control the mass movement which was determined to oust the dictatorship and Machado fell against the wishes of the CP.

The party, said Castro, "consistently applied in practice the principles of Marxism-Leninism' and implies plainly that this meant leading the struggle of the working class against all Cuba's bourgeois governments including that of Batista. In fact when Batista first gained effective power after a junior officers' coup in 1934, Blas Roca described him as fascist. Within 3 years he had become a INTERNATIONAL NEWS democrat. Roca later wrote: 'When Batista found the path to democracy, the Party helped him'. In 1938 the party formed an informal alliance with Batista; in 1940 it supported him in the presidential election; and in 1942 two leaders of the CP (Marinello and Carlos Raphael Rodriquez) became for 2 years members of Batista's cabinet!

MYTH

Castro also develops in his speech, as he has done for years, the myth that his movement was from the beginning Marxist-Leninist. This now includes the myth that he was always close to the PSP. He talks of 'ouT admiration for the Communists' conduct when he was in the university. In fact the movement to which Castro belonged in the University (The Revolutionary Insurrectional! Union) was openly anti-communist and helped the trade union leaders of the Authentic party in the 1940s to expel the PSP from the major trade union federation.

In the present contest of falsification in Cuba, Blas Roca runs Castro a very close second. In a speech in October he described Castro's 1953 assault on the Moncada barracks as 'an extraordinary feat ... an example of organisation, revolutionary valour and courage'; though it ended up in a tactical military defeat' this became *an Mella extraordinary strategic political victory. Many people may have forgotten, but Blas Roca certainly has not, what the PSP said of the assault at the time:'We repudiate the putschist methods, peculiar to bourgeois political factions ... the heroism displayed by the participants in this action is false and sterile ... The PSP counterposed to the action a policy of 'civil liberties, general elections and the establishment of a National Democratic Front government'.

LIES

This chorus of lies from the Cuban leadership shows that the context in which the first Congress of the present Cuban CP takes place is not some renewal of political life; instead it represents the culmination of ten years of attempts to erase political memories in the interests of cementing the bureaucratic control of the Cuban leadership.

PART 3:

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