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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT August 6, 1979
Page 9
Meanwhile, Cuba is stepping up the training of Conununist guerrillas from
El Salvador and Guatemala, the latter country now left very much exposed
by its open pro-U.S. stance (woe be to any country trusting in America
these days; its a recipe for revolution). El Salvador is considered to
be the ripest plum. Says a priest in El Salvador: "Once the Sandinista's
send arms here, the revolution will be more violent than in Nicaragua."
Cuba's Castro believes furthermore, that the entire Central America isthmus
--from Mexico in the north to Colombia in the south--can be turned into one
string of Marxist states. And, suggested one news source: If Central
America, with its strategic Panama Canal, falls to the revolutionary left,
can Mexico and Venezuela, with their strategic oil supplies, be far behind?
(As he left for exile in Florida, Somoza himself warned that Communist
insurgents could "be on the Rio Grande" in a few years time.)
In the entire revolutionary process, Cuba has been aided by Panama--which
incidentally gets control of the U.S. Canal Zone on October 1. Neverthe
less, most of Panama's National Guard is non-communist in philosophy.
Yet, the United States will be trusting largely in this corrupt force to
guard the canal from now on.
"It is at heart a calculated risk that the
guard ca11 stay in power, and that its corruption will not become so great
as to lead to some new counter-force arising in the crucial next 20 years."
(Los Angeles Times, March 14, 1979).
As U.S. prestige sinks to new lows throughout the hemisphere, that of Cuba
rises. The entire Caribbean area is subject to a great deal of Cuban
influence, especially in that ring of largely weak, independent islands
guarding the eastern rim of the Caribbean Sea--and the entrance to the
Canal sea lanes.
According to a special CIA report prepared for President Carter, the
"Cubans are all over the place in the Caribbean," and what especially
worries such men as Henry Forde, the foreign minister of Barbados and
Prime Minister Eric Williams of Trinidad and Tobago and Premier Lee Moore
of St. Kitts and Nevis is the total lack of an American response.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau