UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON THE SITUATION WITH REGARD TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DECLARATION ON THE GRANTING OF INDEPENDENCE TO COLONIAL COUNTRIES AND PEOPLES, VERBATIM RECORD OF THE ONE THOUSAND AND FIFTEENTH MEETING, HELD AT HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK, ON FRIDAY, 15 AUGUST 1975, AT 3 P.M., CHAIRMAN: MR. SALIM (UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA)
 

SPECIAL COMMITTEE DECISION OF 1 NOVEMBER 1974 CONCERNING PUERTO RICO

The CHAIRMAN. I understand that a draft resolution is ready for submission, and I call on the representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to introduce it.

Mr. AL-HUSSAMY (Syrian Arab Republic). We have worked hard to have a final, text to submit to the Committee, and on behalf of the delegations of Congo, Cuba, Iraq, Mali and my own delegation I have the honour and the pleasure to present to the Committee a draft resolution on the item before us. As the text is very clear, I shall simply read it to the Committee:

"The Special Committee,

"Having considered the question relating to its resolutions of 28 August 1972 and 30 August 1973 concerning Puerto Rico, as approved b y the General Assembly in its resolutions 2908 (XXVII) of 2 November 1972 and 3163 (,XXVIII) of 14 December 1973, respectively,

"Taking note with appreciation of the report of the Rapporteur submitted in accordance with its resolution of 30 August 1973,

"Having heard the statements of representatives of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, the Puerto Rico Peace Council and the Puerto Rican Independence Party,

"Reaffirming that, in conformity with General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960, all peoples have the right to self-determination and independence and that by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development,

"Taking into consideration the relevant documents and resolutions on Puerto Rico approved by non-aligned Governments and countries during the Ministerial Meeting held at Georgetown in 1972, the Fourth Summit Meeting at Algiers in 1973, the Conference of Developing Countries on Raw Materials held at Dakar in February 1975, and the Third Ministerial Meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Nations held at Havana in March 1975,

"Conscious of the need to accelerate the study of all pertinent aspects of the situation with respect to the procedure for the implementation of resolution 1514 (XV) concerning Puerto Rico,

"1. Reaffirms the inalienable right of the people of Puerto Rico to self-determination and independence in accordance with General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960;

" 2. Reaffirms its resolutions of 28 August 1972 and 30 August 1973 concerning Puerto Rico;

" 3. Urges the Government of the United States of America to abide, unconditionally and without reservations, by the provisions of resolution 1514 (XV) in order that the Puerto Rican people may be able to exercise their right to self determination and independence, and to refrain from taking any measure which might obstruct the exercise of, or endanger, the right of the Puerto Rican people to self-determination and independence;

"4. Requests the Government of the United States to refrain from carrying out, directly or indirectly, through the Territory's administration, any act of political persecution against persons, parties, organizations and/or institutions of the Puerto Rican people active in the liberation of their country, or any actions that might weaken the full development and national integrity of the Puerto Rican people;

"5. Recognizes the national liberation movement of Puerto Rico as representing the legitimate aspirations of the Puerto Rican people struggling for independence, in accordance with paragraph 1 above;

"6. Considers it advisable to send a fact-finding mission to Puerto Rico as soon as possible and preferably in early 1976 and requests the Government of the United States to extend its co-operation in order to facilitate the dispatch of a mission;

"7. Decides to keep the question under continuous review."

That is the text of the draft that we agreed upon after thorough consultations with most of the representatives in this Committee. I hope and believe it will have the support of all of them.
 

UNITED NATIONS Consideration OF THE STATUS OF PUERTO RICO, A CHRONOLOGY: 1953-1975

[Prepared for the Library- of Congress, Congressional Research Service by Marjorie Ann Browne, Analyst in International Organization, Foreign Affairs Division, August 22, 1975.]

SUMMARY

Chapter 11 (articles 73-74) of the United Nations Charter contains the teat of the Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories which established a principle of accountability of states for the administration of dependent territories under their jurisdiction. Between 1946 and 1953, the United States, pursuant to article 73(e) of the Charter, transmitted information to the U.N. Secretary General on Puerto Rico. A General Assembly resolution in 1953 removed Puerto Rico from the list of non-self-governing territories to which article 73(e) applied, due to its new commonwealth or associated status with the United States.

The adoption in 1960 by the U.N. General Assembly of a Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples marked the beginning of a new U.N. role with regard to non-self-governing territories. A Special Committee to implement the Declaration was created by the General Assembly in 1961 and has acted to stimulate more rapid movement toward independence and self-determination for non-self-governing territories.

More recent consideration of the status of Puerto Rico within U.N. forums did not occur until 1964, after the Cairo Declaration by Non-Aligned Countries called on the Special Committee of 24 on Decolonization to consider the situation in Puerto Rico in relation to the 1960 Declaration. The Committee of 24 took note of the Declaration in its report to the General Assembly. Cuba's Foreign Minister in October 1965 requested that the question be placed on the agenda of the Special Committee. This request was forwarded to a Working Group of the Committee in 1965 and again in 1966 when the Committee failed to consider it due to lack of time. In 1967 the Committee. held a brief debate on the issue as a part of the Working Group's report. Between 1967 and 1971 the issue did not come under consideration in any form.

In 1971 Cuba requested that the question be placed on the agenda of the U.N. General Assembly at its 26th session. The General Committee's rejection of this request was upheld by a General Assembly vote.

1972 marked the start of more substantive consideration within the Special Committee of the question of Puerto Rico. The Committee decided for the first time to discuss the question. A resolution was adopted recognizing

the inalienable right of the people of Puerto Rico to self-determination and independence in accordance with General Assembly resolution (XV) of 14 December 1960

and instructing its Working Group to submit a. report relating to the procedure to be followed by the Special Committee in implementation of the 1960 Declaration.

In 1973 the Special Committee, for the first time, granted a hearing to two Puerto Rican groups during its consideration of the application of the 1960 Declaration with respect to Puerto Rico. The debate ended after approval of a resolution which called on the Committee's Rapporteur to collect information on the question and called on the U.S. Government to refrain from any measures which might obstruct full and free exercise by Puerto Ricans of their right to self-determination and independence.
 

Only a brief consideration of the question was held in 1974 when the Committee heard from representatives of two Puerto Rican groups and from the Cuban representative. It adjourned further consideration until 1975, when it heard from representatives of three Puerto Rican groups. After several days of discussion, the Special Committee voted to postpone further consideration of the question until 1976.
 

Chronology
 

September 1, 1953. The U.N. Committee on Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories, by a vote of 12 in favor to none against, and 3 abstentions, adopted a resolution which tools note (1) that the people of Puerto Rico had achieved a new constitutional status with internal self-government; (2) that the information before it indicated that Puerto Rico may be considered as falling outside the scope of article 73(e) of the U.N. Charter; and (3) that the U.S. Government considered that it is no longer necessary or appropriate for it to transmit information on Puerto Rico under article 73(e). This resolution was passed in the light of information transmitted by the United States with respect to the establishment of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. (General Assembly. Official Records: Eight Session. Supplement No. 15 (A/246:i))

November 5, 1953. General Assembly Committee 4 (Trusteeship, including Non-Self-Governing Territories), by a vote of 22 in favor to 18 against, with 19 abstentions, adopted a draft resolution on the cessation of the transmission of information under article 73 (e) on Puerto Rico. (A/2 556)

November 27, 1953. The U.N. General Assembly, by a vote of 26 in favor, to 1(i against, with 18 abstentions, adopted Resolution 748 (VIII) which 1) considered that the Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories in Chapter 11 of the U.N. Charter no longer could be applied to Puerto Rico and 2) considered it appropriate that the transmission of information under article 73(e) should cease with the regard to Puerto Rico. (U.N. Yearbook, 1953)

Those voting in favor: Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Greece, Haiti, Honduras, Iran, Israel, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, United States, Uruguay.

Those voting against: Australia, Belgium, Burma, Byelorussia SSR Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mexico, Poland, Ukrainian SSR Union of South Africa, USSR, Yugoslavia.

Abstentions: Afghanistan, Argentina, Denmark, Egypt, France, Iceland, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Syria, United Kingdom, Venezuela, Yemen.

November 27, 1961. The U.N. General Assembly created a Special Committee of 17 members to examine the application of the 1960 General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (G.A. Res. 1:114 (XV)) and to make recommendations on the progress and extent of its application. The Committee was enlarged to 24 members in late 1962 and has frequently been referred to as the Special Committee of 24. The functions of the Committee on Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories were transferred to the Special Committee of 24 by the 1953 General Assembly.

October 10, 1964. The Second Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, held in Cairo, adopted a Declaration on a Program for Peace and International Cooperation which drew "the attention of the Ad hoc Decolonization Commission of the United Nations to the case of Puerto Rico and calls upon that commission to consider the situation of these territories in the light of Resolution 1514 (XV) of the United Nations." (A,/5763)

November 18 and 29, 1964. The Special Committee considered a report of its Working Group which took note of the Cairo Declaration. The U.S. representative opposed approval of the report because it referred by inference to a territory on which the General Assembly had already taken action. Sentence 2 of Paragraph 4 of the report read as follows

Reference was also made by members of the Working Group to the Declaration adopted by the Conference of Non-Self-Aligned Countries, which has been circulated as a document of the General Assembly (A/5763), and which in the last paragraph of section I, entitled "Concerted Action for the Liberation of the Countries still dependent; elimination of Colonialism, Neo-Colonialism and Imperialism", draws the attention of the Special Committee to certain territories. (A/AC.109/L.172)

November 20, 1964. A U.S. amendment to delete the above cited sentence was rejected by the Committee by a vote of 16 votes against to 7 in favor, with 1 abstention.

In favor: Chile, Denmark, Italy, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Australia.

Against: Cambodia, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mali, Poland, Sierra Leona, Syria, Tunisia, USSR, Tanzania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria.

Abstaining: Uruguay.

The Report as a whole was approved by a vote of 15 in favor to 3 against, with 6 abstentions. (A/AC.109/SR.317; A/5800)

In favor: Iraq, Ivory Coast, Mali, Poland, Sierra Leone, Syria, Tunisia, U ,14S I; , Tanzania, Uruguay, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Ethiopia, India.

Against: United Kingdom, United States, Australia.

Abstaining: Italy, Madagascar, Venezuela, Chile, Denmark, Iran.

October 1, 1965. Cuba's Minister for Foreign Affairs requested the Special Committee to place the question of Puerto Rico on its agenda.

October 7, 1965. There was a brief discussion in Special Committee over the circulation of the Cuban letter as an official document. The U.S. representation

indicated that the letter should not have been circulated since in accordance with the 1953 Assembly resolution the territory to which the letter referred was n„r within the competence of the Committee. The Committee did not discus the Cuban request which had been forwarded to the Working Group for its future consideration. (A/6000 A/AC.109/SR. 389)

October 10, 1966. The Special Committee approved proposals in paragraph 10 of the Working Groups report, subject to the reservations which had been expressed during debate. The Working Group in paragraph 10 had agreed that the question of inclusion of Puerto Rico, as requested by the Cuban letter of October 1, 1965, "required further detailed study and that in view of the lack of time at this session, it should make such a study at an early date during the next session of the Special Committee." (A/AC.109/L.355; A/AC.109/SR.471)

April 19, 1967. The Special Committee took up a report of its Working Group which had referred to it the question of including Puerto Rico and the Comoro Archipelago on the list of territories to which the Declaration is applicable. After some debate the Special Committee decided, by an unrecorded vote of 19 in favor to 8 against, with 1 abstention, to adjourn further debate sine die. (U.N. Yearbook, 1967; /6700 (Part 1)). The proposal had been sponsored by Syria, supported by Tanzania., and opposed by the United States and Australia.

January 11, 1971. The United States and the United Kingdom withdrew- from membership on the Special Committee.

August 17, 1971. The Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations submitted a request for inclusion on the agenda of the 26th session of the General Assembly of an item: "The colonial case of Puerto Rico". Attached to the letter was an explanatory memorandum stating that the people of Puerto Rico had an inalienable right to independence and that the United Nations had the unavoidable duty to take all necessary steps to ensure that those people achieved the full exercise of their national rights. (A/8441).

September 23, 1971. The General Committee of the General Assembly, by a vote of 10 in favor to 5 against, with 8 abstentions, recommended to the Assembly that "The colonial case of Puerto Rico" not be included in the agenda of the 26th session. (A/BUR/SR.192).

The vote was unrecorded but a survey of the statements made on the item indicates the following positions:

In favor of rejecting the request: United States, Costa Rica, Finland, Philippines, France; United Kingdom, Japan, Greece, China, Belgium (according to press reports).

Opposed to rejection: Bulgaria, Hungary, People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, Sierra Leone; USSR (according to press reports).

Abstentions: Jamaica, Ireland, Zambia, Venezuela, Cyprus;

Absent for the vote: Sudan (opposed rejection)

September 24, 1971. The General Assembly, by a vote of 57 to 26, with 38 abstentions, adopted the recommendation of the General Committee not to include the item on its agenda. (U.N. Yearbook, 1971)

In favor: Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Brazil, Canada., Ceylon, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ethiopia,, Fiji, Finland, France, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, Iran, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Khmer Republic, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia,

Luxembourg, Madagascar, 'Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Morocco, Netherlands,

New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United Mates, Uruguay, Zaire.

Against: Albania, Algeria, Bulgaria, Byelorussia SSR, Chile, Congo, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Hungary, Iraq, Libyan Arab Republic, Mali, Mongolia, People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, Poland, Romania, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Syrian Arab Republic, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia.

Abstaining: Argentina, Bahrain, Barbados, Bolivia, Burma, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Cyprus, Dahomey, Egypt, El Salvador, Gabon, Gambia, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, Kuwait, Laos, , Mexico, Nepal, Panama, Peru, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Uganda, Upper Volta, Venezuela, Yugoslavia.

June 6, 1972. The Special Committee, without objection, agreed to discuss the question raised by the letters of Cuba and of the United States concerning the inclusion of Puerto Rico in the list of Territories to which the 1960 Declaration is applicable. (A/AC.109/PV.783; A/AC.109/L.795)

August 18, 25, and 28, 1972. The Special Committee discussed the question as a<,reed in June. (A/AC.109/PV.883; A/AC.109/PV.884; A/AC.109/PV.888)

August 25, 1972. Iraq introduced a draft resolution in which the Special Committee recognized the inalienable right of the people of Puerto Rico to self-determination and independence in accordance with General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960, and instructed its Working Group to submit to it a report, at an early date in 1973, relating specifically to the procedure to be followed by- the Special Committee for the implementation of General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) with respect to Puerto Rico. (A/AC.109/L.837)

August 28, 1972. The Special Committee, by a vote of 12 in favor to none, against, with 10 abstentions, adopted the above draft resolution. The vote was:

In favor: Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, China, Czechoslovakia, Ecuador, India, Iraq, Haiti, Sierra Leone, Syrian Arab Republic, USSR, Tanzania.

Abstaining: Venezuela, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Fiji, Indonesia, Iran, Ivory Coast, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia.

November 2, 1972. The Cuban U.N. representative, in explanation of the General Assembly vote on the question of the Implementation of the 1960 Declaration, indicated that a vote in favor of the resolution was a vote recognizing the inalienable right of the Puerto Rican people to independence.

General Assembly resolution 2908 (XXVII) contained 18 operative paragraphs none of which referred to Puerto Rico by name or to inclusion of certain entities on the list of Territories. Operative paragraph 3 approved the report of the Special Committee on its work in 1972 and its program of work for 1973. Only three of the five pages devoted to the work of the Committee in the lengthy report dealt with the question of the inclusion of Puerto Rico on the list of Territories. (General Assembly. Official Records. Twenty-Seventh Session. Supplement No. 23 (A/8723/ Rev.l)) General Assembly resolution 2908 (XXVII) was adopted by a vote of 99 in favor to 5 (U.S.) against, with 23 abstentions. The roll call vote can be found in the U.N. Yearbook for 1972.

November 6, 1972. The Cuban representative submitted a letter to the U.N. Secretary-General on the question of Puerto Ricans held as "political prisoners" is the United States. (AC/.3/631)

November 27, 1972. U.S. Representative Jewel Lafontant replied in Committee III (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) of the General Assembly to the November 6letter from Cuba. She indicated that those individuals identified in the Cuba letter were in fact in prison "after trials by jury and with careful attention to due process of law" for "specific criminal acts, including murder, arson and armed assault". (U.S. Mission to the U.N., Press Release USUN-144 (72))

February 23, 1973. The Special Committee referred the question of "Special Committee resolution of 28 August 1972 concerning Puerto Rico" to its Working Group for consideration and recommendations.

August 16, 1973. The Special Committee began consideration of the report of the Working Group which referred the question back to the Committee, along with requests for two groups to be heard. The Committee, without objection, decided to tale up the item. (A/AC.109/PV.938)

August 22, 1973. The Special Committee, by a vote of 12 in favor to none against, with 12 abstentions, granted the request of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and the Puerto Rican Independence Party for hearing. Statements in explanation of vote on the resolution which was introduced by Chile and supported by Iraq, Mali, and Syria, identify the following pattern of votes.:

Abstentions: India, Iran, Ethiopia. (A/AC.109/PV.942)

August 30, 1973. The Special Committee by a vote of 12 in favor to 2 against, with 9 abstentions, adopted a resolution introduced by representatives of the Congo and the Syrian Arab Republic, and supported by representatives Iraq and :Mali. The operative paragraphs of the resolution follow:

1. Reaffirms the inalienable right of the people of Puerto Rico to self-determination and independence in accordance with General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960;

2. Requests the Government of the United States of America to refrain from taking any measures which obstruct the full and free exercise by the people of their inalienable right to self-determination and independence, as well as of their economic, social and other rights, and in particular to prevent any violation of these rights b

y bodies corporate under its jurisdiction;

3. Requests its Rapporteur, with the assistance of the Secretariat, to collect all pertinent information on the question, including the views of all the parties concerned, for the purpose of facilitating its consideration of the question in 1974;

4. Decides to keep the question under continuous review. The note on the resolution follows

In favor: Bulgaria, Chile, China, Congo, Czechoslovakia, India, Iraq, Mali, Syrian Arab Republic, USSR, Tanzania, Yugoslavia.

Against: Ethiopia, Iran.

Abstaining: Afghanistan, Australia, Fiji, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Venezuela. (General Assembly, Official Records: Twenty-Eighth Session. (Supplement No. 23 (A/9023/Rev. 1))

October 30, 1974. The Special Committee began consideration of the report of its Rapporteur on the question of Puerto Rico, as requested by its August 30, 1973 resolution. The first part of the report, according to the Rapporteur, related to previous action taken by the United Nations in relation to Puerto Rico. The second part contained information relating to the constitutional and political development of Puerto Rico. Part three contained views on the question, as received from the parties concerned. (A/AC.109/L.976)

The Special Committee, on October 30 and November 1, received oral statements from representatives of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and of the Puerto Rican Independence Party. (A/AC.109/PV.983-984)

November 1, 1974. The Special Committee, without objection, agreed to "resume consideration of the item during its first session in 1975." (A/AC.109/ PV.985)

August 13, 1975. The Special Committee renewed for 1975 consideration of the question of Puerto Rico. It adopted, without objection, the petitions of three groups to be heard.

August 14, 1975. Representatives from the Puerto Rican Independence Party, the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, and the Puerto Rican Peace Council began their statements to the Special Committee.

August 15, 1975. Representatives of Cuba, supported by the Congo, Iraq, Mali, and Syria, introduced a resolution which would recognize the small movement for the independence of Puerto Rico as "representing the legitimate aspirations of the Puerto Rican people." The text also recommended sending a fact-finding mission to the island, preferably early in 1976, and requested the U.S. Government "to extend its cooperation."

August 20, 1975. The Special Committee, by a vote of 11 in favor, to 9 against, with 2 abstentions, voted to postpone further consideration of the Puerto Rico question until 1976.

In favor: Afghanistan, Australia, Chile, Denmark-, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Tunisia.

Against: Bulgaria, Congo, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Iraq, Mali, Syria, USSR, Tanzania.

Abstaining: Trinidad and Tabago, Yugoslavia.

Not Participating: China.

Absent: Ethiopia.
 

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON THE SITUATION WITH REGARD TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DECLARATION ON THE GRANTING OF INDEPENDENCE TO COLONIAL COUNTRIES AND PEOPLES: MEMBERSHIP LIST, 1962-74
 

[Prepared for the Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, by Roslyn D. Roberts, Research Assistant, Foreign Affairs Division, August 19, 1975.]
 

MEMBERSHIP IN 1962
 

Australia. Representative: Sir James Plimsoll. Alternate: J. D. L. Hood.

Cambodia. Representatives: Koun Wick, Nong Kin-my, Soon Vocunsai. Alternate: Caimerom Measketh.

Ethiopia Representative: Tesfaye Gebre-Egzy. Alternates: Kifle Wodajo, Girma Abebe.

India Representative: C. S. Jha (Chairman). Alternates: A. B. Bhadkamkar, M. Rasgotra, K. Natwar Singh.

Italy. Representatives: Livio Tbeodoli, Paolo Tallarigo. Alternatie: Ludovico Carducci-Artensisio, Vittorio Ivella, Vincenzo Zito.

Madagascar. Representative: Louis Rakotomalalo. Alternates: Remi Andriamahoro,Henri Jux Ratsimbazzfy, Gabriel Rakotoniaina.

Mali. Representative: Sori Coulibaly (Vice-Chairman). Alternate: Mamadou Traore.

Poland. Representative: Bodhan Lewandowski. Alternate: Kazimierz Smiganowski.

Syria. Representative: Najmuddine Rifai (Rappcrteur).

Tanganyika. Representatives: V. K. Kyaruzi, A. Z. Nsilo Swai. Alternate: Christopher P. Ngaiza, John S. Malecela, Abbas Skyes.

Tunisia. Representative: Taieb Slim. Alternates: Mahmoud Mestiri, Chedly Ayari.

USSR. Representative: A. V. Zorin. Deputy Representatives: P. D. Morozov, V. I. Oberemko.

United Kingdom. Representatives: Sir Patrick Dean. Alternates: C. T. Crowe, Sir Hugh Foot.

United States. Representative: Jonathan B. Bingham. Alternate: Robert O. Blake.

Uruguay. Representative: Carlos Maria Velizquez. Alternate: Aureliano Aguirre.

Venezuela. Representative: Carlos Sosa Rodriguez. Alternate: Ignacio Silva Sucre.

Yugoslavia. Representative: Miso Pavicevic. Alternates: Miroslav Kreacic,
 

During 1962, the Special Committee established: a Sub-Committee on the questionnaire, a Sub-Committee on Petitions, a Sub-Committee on Southern Rhodesia, and a number of drafting sub-committees.
 

Subcommittee on the questionnaire

Members in 1962: India, Mali, Syria, Hungary, Yugoslavia.

This Sub-Committee ceased to exist after the draft questionnaire prepared by it had been adopted by the Special Committee on 29 March 1962.
 

Subcommittee on petitions

Members in 1962: Australia, Ethiopia, India, Madagascar, Poland, Tunisia, Venezuela.
 

Subcommittee on Southern. Rhodesia

Members in 1962: India Mali, Syria, Tanganyika, Tunisia, Venezuela.
 

On 17 December 1962, the General Assembly decided to enlarge the Special Committee by seven new Members, to be nominated by tile President of the Assembly. Those nominated were Bulgaria, Chile, Denmark, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone.
 

MEMBERSHIP IN 1963
 

Australia. Representative: D. O. Hay. Alternates: J. D. L. Hood, Dudley McCarthy.

Bulgaria. Representatives: Detcho Stambolicv, Malin Molcrov, Barouch M. Grinl>erg.

Cambodia. Representative: Voeunsai Sonn (Second Vice-Chairman).

Chile. Representatives: Daniel Schweitzer, Humberto Diaz Casanueva. Alt rnate: Hiss Leonora Kracht.

Denmark. Representative: Aage IIessellund-Jcnsen. Alternates: Kjeld l~c~nensen, Poul Boeg.

Ethiopia. Representative: Tesfaye Gebre-Egzy. Alternates: Kifle 1Vod:ij.,, Girma Abebe.

India. Representative: B. N. Chakravarty. Alternates: A. B. Bhadkaml<:,r, K. Natwar Singh (Rapporteur, after 16 September 1963).

Iran. Representative: :VIchdi Vakil. Alternates: Hassan Za hedi, Mohied 7 >iu Nabavi.

Iraq. Representative: Adnan M. Pachacbi. Alternates: Burhan M. Nouri, Miss Faiha Ibrahim Kamal, Anis Zaki Hassan.

Italy. Representatives: Vittorio Zoppi, Paolo Tallarigo. Alternates: LudoN ico Carducci-Artenisio, Vincenzo Zito.

Ivory-Coast. Representative: Arsene Assouan Usher. Alternates: Simeon Ake,

Julien kacou.

Madagascar. Representatives: Louis Rakotomalala, Gilbert Ratsitohlra, Remi Andriarnaharo, Mrs. Lucile Ramaholimihaso.

Mali. Representative: Sori Coulibaly (Chairman). Alternates: Mamaclc,cl Traore, Ahmadou Baba Dicko.

Poland. Representative: Bohdan Lewandowski, Alternate: Kazimierz Smig;cnowski.

Sierra Leone. Representative: Gershon B. O. Collier. Alternate: Donald 1;. George.

Syria. Representatives: Salah El Dine Tarayi, Najmuddine Rifai (Rapportcur, until 16 September 1963), Izzet Oubari Hassan Muraywid, Tarek Jabri.

Tanganyika. Representatives: Chief Erasto A. M. Mang'enya, A. K. E. Shab:c, Sebastian Chale. Alternates: C. Y. Mgonja, J. B. Mkatte.

Tunisia. Representatives: Taieb Slim, Mahmoud Mestri, Chedly Ayari, Sadc~lc Bouzayen.

USSR. Representative: N. T. Fedorenko. Alternate: V. A. Brykin.

United Kingdom. Representative: Sir Patrick Dean. Alternate: C. E. Kin,.

United States. Representative: Sidney R. Yates. Alternates: Richard F. Pedc rsen, Robert O. Blake.

Uruguay. Representative: Carlos Maria VelAazquez (First Vice-Chairman Alternates: Auerliana Aguire, Matao Marques Serc.

Venezuela. Representatives: Carlos Sosa Rodriguez. Alternate: Leonardo Di:iz Gonzalez.

Yugoslavia. Represenataive: Miso Pavicevic. Alternates: Miroslav Krcacic, Sreten The, Alexandar Bozovic.

During 1965, the Special Committee re-established its Sub-Committee ( cl Petitions and established a Working Group and Sub-Committees on Southern Rhodesia, Aden and British Guiana.
 

Subcommittee on Petitions
 

Members in 1963: Australia, Ethipoia, India, Madagascar, Poland, Tuni-ire (Chairman), Venezuela, (Vice-Chairman).
 

Working Group
 

The Working Group in 1963 consisted of a 4-member Bureau (the officer of the Special Committee) and the representatives of Bulgaria, Iraq, Italy, and Sierra Leone.
 

The Bureau consisted of the following officers of the Special Committee: the Chairman (representative of Mali), the First Vice-Chairman (representative of Uruguay), the Second Vice-Chairman (representative of Cambodia), the Rapporteur (the representative of Syria until 16 September 1963 and thereafter by the representative of India who was elected Rapportcur in place of the representative of Syria).
 

Subcommittee on Southern Rhodesia
 

Members in 1963: Mali (Chairman), Sierra Leone, Syria, Tanganyika, Tunisia:, Uruguay.
 

Subcommittee on Aden
 

Members in 1963: Cambodia (Chairman), Iraq, Madagascar, Venezuela, Yugoslavia.
 

Subcommittee on British Gwiana

:Members in 1963: Chile, Iran, Mali (Chairman), Sierra Leone, Syria.
 

MEMBERSHIP IN 1964
 

Members and representatives in 1964:

Australia. Representative: D. O. Hay, Alternate: Dudley McCarthy.

Bulgaria. Representative: Milko Tarabanov, Matey Karasimeonov, Ivan Peinirdjiev.

Cambodia. Representative: Voeunsai Sonn (Second Vice-Chairman). Alternate Thoutch Vutthi.

Chile. Representative: Carlos Martinez Sotomayor. Alternates: Javier 111anes, Miss Leonora Kracht.

Denmark. Representatives: A. Hessellund-Jensen, IIans R. Tabor. Alternates: Kjeld Mortensen, Skjold G. Mellbin.

Ethiopia. Representative: Tesfaye Gebre-Egzy. Alternates: Girma Abebe, Avelework Abebe.

India. Representative: B. N. Chakravarty. Alternate: K. Natwar Singh (Rapporteur).

Iran. Representative: Mehdi Vakil. Alternate: Mohieddin Nabavi.

Iraq. Representative: Adnan Pachachi. Alternates: Alauddin 11. Aljubouri, Abdul Hussein Alisa.

Italy. Representative: Piero Vinci. Alternates: Ludovico Carducci Artenisio, Vincenzo Zito.

Ivory Coast. Representative: Arsene Assouan Usher. Alternates: DIoise Aka, Julien Kacou.

Madagascar. Representative: Louis Rakotomalala. Alternates: Gabriel Rakotoniaina, Rene G. Ralison.

Mali. Representatives: Sori Coulibaly (Chairman). Ahmadou Dicko, Mrs. Jeanne Rousseau.

Poland. Representative: Kazimierz Smiganowski. Alternate: Jan Slowikowski.

Sierra Leone. Representative: G. B. O. Collier. Alternate: George ColeridgeTaylor.

Syria. Representative: Rafik Asha. Alternate: Adnan Omran.

Tunisia. Representatives: Taieb Slim, Mahmoud Mestiri, Sadok Bouzay en, 1lohamed Gherib.

U.S.S.R. Representative: N. T. Federenko. Alternate: P. F. Shakhov.

United Kingdom. Representatives: Sir Patrick Dean, Lord Caradon. Alternate: C. E. King.

United Republic of Tanzania.' Representatives: Chief E. A. Mang'enya, C. Y. Mgonja, Mohammad Ali Foum, A. B. C. Donieli, E. P. Plwaluko.

United State. Representative: Sidney R. Yates, Mrs. Marietta P. Tree. Alternates: Dwight Dickinson, Christopher Thoron.

Uruguay. Representative: Carlos Maria Veldzuquez (First Vice-Chairman). Alternate: Mateo Marques Sere.

Venezuela. Representative: Carlos Sosa Rodriguez. Alternate: Leonardo Diaz GonzAlez.

Yugoslavia. Representative: Danilo Lekic. Alternate: Milos Mclovski.

During 1964, the Special Committee continued its Sub-Committee on Petitions and its Working Group. It re-established its Sub-Committee on Southern Rhodesia and its Sub-Committee on Aden. It established a Sub-Committee of Good Offices on British Guiana. It also established three other Sub- Committees (SubCommittees 1, II and 111) to examine conditions in other territories and certain other items.
 

Subcommittee on petitions

Members in 1964: Australia, Ethiopia, India, Madagascar, Poland, Tunisia (Chairman until 20 May 1964), Venezuela (Vice-Chairman until 20 May 1964 and Acting Chairman thereafter).
 

Working group
 

The Working Group in 1964 consisted of a 4-member Bureau (the officers of the Special Committee) and the representatives of Bulgaria, Iraq, Italy and Sierra Leone.

The Bureau consisted of the following officers of the Special Committee: The Chairman (the representative of Mali), the First Vice- Chairman (the representative of Uruguay), the Second Vice-Chairman (the representative of Cambodia), the Rapporteur (the representative of India).
 

Subcommittee on Southern Rhodesia
 

Members in 1964: Mali (Chairman), Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Syria, Yugoslavia.
 

Subcommittee on Aden
 

Members in 1964: Cambodia (Chairman), Iraq, Ivory Coast, Venezuela, Yugoslavia. Subcommittee of Good Offices on British Guiana
 

Members in 1964: Mali (Chairman), Tunisia, Uruguay.
 

Subcommittee 1
 

Members in 1964: Denmark, Ethiopia (Chairman), Mali, Syria, Tunisia, USSR, United Republic of Tanzania, Yugoslavia (Rapporteur). Subcommittee II
 

Members in 1964: Australia, Cambodia (Chairman), Chile, India (Rapporteur); Iraq, Poland, Sierra Leone, United States. Subcommittee III
 

Members in 1964: Bulgaria, Iran (Rapporteur), Italy, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Uruguay (Chairman), Venezuela.
 

MEMBERSHIP IN 1965
 

Members and Representatives in 1965:

Australia. Representative: Patrick Shaw. Alternate: Dudley McCarthy.

Bulgaria. Representatives: Milko Tarabanov, Matey Karasimeonov, Barul Grinberg, Ivan Peinirdjiev.

Cambodian Representative: Huot Sambath (Second Vice-Chairman). Alternates, Thoutch Vutthi, Chhuan Samber.

Chile. Representative: Javier Illanes. Alternate: Hermon Sanchez.

Denmark. Representative: Hans R. Tabor. Alternate: Skjold G. Mellbin.

Ethiopia. Representative: Tesfaye Gebre-Egzy. Alternates: Girma Abebe, Ayelework Abebe.

India. Representative: Cs. Parthasarathi. Alternates: Brajesh C. Mishra, K. Natwar Singh (Rapporteur).

Iran. Representative: Medhi Vakil. Alternate: Moshen S. Esfandiary.

Iraq. Representative: Adnan Pachachi. Alternates: Alauddin H. Aljubouri, 5, Saleem.

Italy. Representative: Piero Vinci. Alternates: Ludovico Carducci-Artenisio, Vincenzo Zito.

Ivory Coast. Representative: Arsene Assouan Usher. Alternates: Moise Aka, Julien Kacou.

Madagascar. Representative: Louis Rakotomalala. Alternate: Gabriel Rakotoniaina.

Mali. Representatives: Seri Coulibaly (Chairman), Mamadou Moctar Thiam, Mrs. Jeanne Rousseau.

Poland. Representative: Bohdan Lewandowski. Alternate: Jan Slowikowski,

Sierra Leone. Representative: G. B. O. Collier. Alternates: George Coleridge Taylor, G. E. O. Williams.

Syria. Representative: Rafik Asha. Alternates: Adnan Nachebe, Rafic Joucjati

Tunisia. Representatives: Taieb Slim, Sakok Bouzayen, Mohamed Gherih.

USSR. Representative: N. T. Fedorenko. Alternate: P. F. Shakhov.

United Kingdom. Representative: Lord Caradon. Alternate: F. D. W. Brown.

United Republic of Tanzania. Representatives: J. W. S. Malecela, Mohammad Ali Foum, A. B. C. Danieli, E. P. Mwaluko.

United States. Representatives: Mrs. Marietta P. Tree, Mrs. Eugenic M. Anderson. Alternates: Dwight Dickinson, Christopher Thoron.

Uruguay. Representative: Carlos Maria VelAsquez (First Vice-Chairm: n). Alternate: Mateo Marques-Sere.

Venezuela. Representative: Carlos Sosa-Rodriguez. Alternate: Leonardo Diaz Gonzdlez.

Yugoslavia. Representative: Danilo Lekic. Alternate: Miles Melovski.
 

The Special Committee has a Sub-Committee on Petitions and a Working Group. In addition to these it has a Sub-Committee on Southern Rhodesia, a Sub-Committee on Aden, a Sub-Committee of Good Offices on British Guiana and Sub-Committees I, II and III which examine conditions in other territories and certain other items.
 

Subcommittees on petitions

Members in 1965: Australia, Ethiopia, India, Madagascar (Vice-Chairman), Poland, Tunisia, Venezuela (Chairman).
 

Working group

In 1965, the Working Group of the Special Committee of 24 consisted of the Bureau (the officers of the Special Committee) and the representatives of Bulgaria, Iraq, Italy and Sierra Leone.

The Bureau consisted of the following officers of the Special Committee: The Chairman (the representative of Mali), the First Vice-Chairman (the representative of Uruguay), the Second Vice-Chairman (the representative of Cambodia), the Rapporteur (the representative of India).
 

Subcommittee on Southern Rhodesia

Members in 1965: Mali (Chairman), Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Syria, Yugoslavia.
 

Subcommittee on Aden

Members in 1965: Cambodia (Chairman), Iraq, Ivory Coast, Venezuela, Yugoslavia.
 

Subcommittee of good offices on British Guiana
 

Members in 1965: Mali (Chairman), Tunisia, Uruguay.
 

Subcommittee I
 

Members in 1965: Denmark, Ethiopia (Chairman), Mali, Syria, Tunisia, USSR, United Republic of Tanzania, Yugoslavia (Rapporteur).
 

Subcommittee II
 

Members in 1965: Australia, Cambodia (Chairman), Chile, India, Iraq, Poland, Sierra Leone, United States.
 

Subcommittee III
 

Members in 1965: Bulgaria, Iran, Italy, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Uruguay (Chairman), Venezuela.
 

MEMBERSHIP IN 1966
 

Members and Representatives in 1966:

Afghanistan. Representative: Abdul Rahman Pazwak. Alternates: Ghulan Ghaus Waziri, Mohammed Mirza Sammah.

Australia. Representatives: Patrick Sahw, Dudley McCarthy. Alternate: B. B. Hickey.

Bulgaria. Representatives: Milko Tarabanov, Matey Karasimconov, Dimiter Sabev.

Chile. Representative: Jose Pinera, Vice-Chairman. Alternate: Javier Illanes.

Denmark.3 Representative: Hans R. Tabor. Alternate: Skjold G. Mellbin.

Ethiopia. Representatives: Tesfaye Gebre-Egzy (until May 1966), Lij Endalkachew Makonnen (from July 1966). Alternates: Girma Abebe until May 1966), Berhane Deressa, Miss Kongit Sinegiorgis.

India. Representative: G. Parthasarathi. Alternates: Brajesh C. Mishra, K. Natwar Singh (until March 1966), C. R. Gharekhan.

Iran. Representative: Mehdi Vakil. Alternate: Mohsen S. Esfandiary.

Iraq. Representative: Kadhim Khalaf. Alternate: Ala'uddin H. Aljubouri, Rapporteur.

Italy. Representative: Piero Vinci. Alternates: Ludovico Carducci-Artenisio, Vincenzo Zito (until June 1966).

Ivory Coast. Representative: Simeon Ake. Alternates: Julien Kacou, JeanMarie Kakou Gervais, Joseph Laga (until September 1966).

Madagascar. Representative: Louis Rakotomalala. Alternates: Gabriel Rakotoniana, Andviranampy Ramaholimihaso, Mrs. Lucile Ramaholimihaso.

Mali. Representatives: Seri Coulibaly (until 1966), Moussa Keita (from May 1966), Mrs. Jeanne Rousseua (until June 1966), Mamadou Moctar Thiam.

Poland. Representatives: Bohdan Lewandowski (until July 1966), Bohdan

Tumcrrowicz (from September 7S>(~Gi). Alteriiates: Eugeniusz Wyzner, Jan Slowikowski, Wladyslaw Nenentan.

Sierra Leone. Representative: Gershon B. O. Collier, Chairman. Alternates: G. E. O. Williams, Frank P. Karefa-Smart.

Syria. Representative: George J. Tomeh. Alternates: Rafic Jouejati, Adnan Nachabe.

Tunisia. Representatives: Taieb Slim, Mongi Sahli, Amor Fezzani, Hamdan Ben Aissa, Mohamed El Memmi.

USSR. Representative: N. T. Fedorenko. Alternate: P. F. Shakhov.

United Kingdom. Representative: Lord Caradon. Alternate: F. D. W. Brown.

United Republic of Tanzania. Representatives: J. W. S. Maleccla, Vice-Chairman, Ali Mohammad Foum, Idi Mtwinga.

United States. Representative: Mrs. Eugenie M. Anderson. Alternate: Richard h:. Johnson.

Uruguay. Representative: Pedro P. Berro. Alternates: Mateo Marques-Sere F elipe Montero.

Venezuela. Representative: Pedro Zuloaga. Alternates: Leonardo Diaz Gonzalez (until July 1966), Tulio Alvarado (until October 1966), Gilberto I. Carrasquero Miss Clemencia Lopez.

Yugoslavia. Representative: Danilo Lekic. Alternate: Dimitar Janevski.

During 1966 the Special Committee held meetings between 8 March and 18 May and between 6 July and 30 November at United Nations Headquarters, New York; and between 23 May and 22 June at the following cities in Africa: Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania; Mogadiscio, Somalia; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Cairo, United Arab Republic and Algiers, Algeria.

The Special ommittee has a Sub-Committee on Petitions and a Working Group In addition to these it had Sub-Committees in 1966 on: Aden South West Africa; Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland; and Equatorial Guinea. Sub-Committees I, II and III, which examine conditions in other territories and certain other items,4 were maintained in 1966.
 

Subcommittee on petitions
 

Members in 1966: Australia, India, Madagascar (Vice-Chairman), Poland, Syria,

Tunisia, Venezuela (Chairman).
 

Working Group of the Special Committee of Twenty-Four
 

In 1966, the Working Group of the Special Committee of Twenty-four consisted of the Bureau (the officers of the Special Committee) and the representatives of Bulgaria, Ethiopia, India and Italy-.

The Bureau consisted of the following officers of the Special Committee: the Chairman (the representative of Sierra Leone), the Vice-Chairman (the representatives of Chile and the United Republic of Tanzania), the Rapporteur (the alternate representative of Iraq).
 

Subcommittee on Aden
 

Members in 1966: Afghanistan, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Venezuela, Yugoslavia

(Chairman).
 

Subcommittee on South West Africa
 

Members in 1966: Denmark, Ethiopia (Chairman), India (Rapporteur), Ivory

Coast, Poland, Tunisia, Venezuela.
 

Subcommittee on Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland
 

Members in 1966: Afghanistan, Bulgaria (Rapporteur), Iraq, Italy, Madagascar,

Mali, Uruguay (Chairman).
 

Subcommittee on Equatorial Guinea (Fernando Poo and Redo Muni)
 

Members in 1966: Chile, Denmark, Mali, Poland, Sierra Leone (Chairman).

Syria (Rapporteur), United Republic of Tanzania.
 

Subcommittee I
 

Members in 1966: Denmark, Ethiopia, Mali, Syria (Rapporteur), Tunisia, USSR, United Republic of Tanzania (Chairman), Yugoslavia.
 

Subcommittee II
 

Members in 1966: Afghanistan, Australia, Chile, India (Rapporteur), Iraq (Chairman), Poland, Sierra Leone, United States.
 

Subcommittee III
 

Members in 1966: Bulgaria, Iran (Rapporteur/Acting Chairman), Italy, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Uruguay, Venezuela (Chairman).
 

MEMBERSHIP IN 1967
 

Members and Chief Representatives in 1967:

Afghanistan. Representative: Abdul Samad Ghaus. Alternate: Mohammad Mirza Sammah.

Australia. Representative: Patrick Shaw. Alternates: Kenneth Henry Rogers; B. B. Hickev.

Bulgaria. li'epresentatives: Milko Tarabanov; Dimiter Sabev.

Chile. Representative: Jose Pinera. Alternate: Javier Illanes.

Ethiopia. Representatives: Lij Endalkachew Makonnen; Ato Kifle Wodajo. Alternate: Miss Konjit Sinegiorgis.

Finland. Representatives: Max Jakobson; Matti Cawen; Paavo Keisalo.

India. Representative: Gopalaswami Parthasarathi. Alternates: B. C. Mishra; C. R.. Gharekhan.

Iran. Representative: Medhi Vakil. Alternates: Mohsen S. Esfandiary, Rapport eur: Farrokh Parsi.

Iraq. Representatives: Kadhim Khalaf (until July 1967), Vice-Chairman; Adnan Pachachi (from August 1967). Alternate: Salim A. Saleem.

Italy. Representative: Piero Vinci. Alternates: Ludoviei Cardueei-Artenisio; Massimo Castaldo; Alessandro Grandi.

Ivory Coast. Representative: Simeod Ako. Alternate: Kouanie Koffl.

Madagascar. Representative: Louis Rakotornalaha. Alternates: Gabriel Rakotoniaina; Raymond Raoelina.

Mali. Representatives: Moussa L6o Keita; Mamadou Moctar Thiam; Yaya Dialdt6; Mamadou Diarra.

Poland. Representatives: Bohdan Tomorowiez; Jan Slowikowski.

Sierra Leone. Representative: C. O. E. Cole. Alternates: Gustavus 1;. O. Williams; Ambrose P. Genda (until March 1967) ; M. O. Cole (from September 1967) ; F. P. Karefa-Smart.

Syria. Representative: George J. Tomeh. Alternates: Rafic Jouejati; Adnan Nachabe; Abdallah El-Attrash.

Tunisia. Representatives: Mahmoud Mestiri; Ahmed Chtourou; Mahamed Fourati (from May 1967) ; Hamdan Bed Aissa (until July 1967) ; Hadi Drissi.

USSR. Representative: N. T. Fedorenko. Alternate: P. F. Shakhov.

United Kingdom. Representative: Lord Caradon. Alternates: C. P. Hope; J. D. B. Shaw.

United Republic of Tanzania. Representatives: J. W. Malecela, Chairman; M. A. Foum; Idi Hamisi Mtingwa (until July 1967).

United States. Representatives: Mrs. Eugenie M. Anderson: Seymour M. Finger (until 9 February 1967); H. Garcia (from 5 December 1967). Alternate: Richard E. Johnson.

Uruguay.s Representative: Pedro P. Berro. Alternates: Mateo Marques Sere (until August 1967) ; Felipe Montero.

Venezuela. Representatives: Manuel Perez Guerrero, Vice Chairman; German Nava Carrillo. Alternate: Gilberto I. Carrasquero.

Yugoslavia. Representatives: Anton Vratusa (from July 1967); Danilo Lekic (until June 1967). Alternate: Dragoslav Pejic.

During 1967, the Special Committee held meetings between 9 February and 19 April at United Nations Headquarters, New York; from 29 Mav to 1 June at Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo; from 3 to 9 June at Kitove, Zambia; from 12 to 21 June at Dares Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania; and from 22 August to 5 December at United Nations Headquarters, New York.

The Special Committee has a Sub-Committee on Petitions and a Working Group. In addition to these, Sub-Committees I, II and III (see below) were maintained in 1967. Matters pertaining to certain other Territories, not referred to in Sub-Committees I, II and III, were taken up at plenary meetings of the Special Committee.
 

Subcommittee on petitions
 

Members in 1967: Australia, Chile, India, Madagascar (Vice-Chairman) , Poland, Syria (Chairman), Tunisia.

Working Group of Special Committee of Twenty-Four

In 1967, the Special Committee of Twenty-Four decided to enlarge the Working

Group's membership by one. The Working Group, therefore, consisted in 1967 the Bureau of the Special Committee (the officers of the Special Committee) at

the representatives of Bulgaria, Ethiopia, India, Italy and Mali.

The Bureau consisted of the following officers of the Special Committee: t

Chairman (the representative of the United Republic of Tanzania), the Vice Chairmen (the representatives of Iraq and Venezuela), the Rapporteur (t

alternate representative of Iran).
 

Subcommittee I
 

Members in 1967: Ethiopia (Chairman), Finland, Mali, Syria (Rapporteur Tunisia, USSR, United Republic of Tanzania, Yugoslavia.
 

Subcommittee II
 

Members in 1967: Afghanistan, Australia, Chile, India (Chairman), Ira Poland, Sierra Leone (Rapporteur), United States.
 

Subcommittee III

Members in 1967: Bulgaria, Iran (Chairman), Italy, Ivory Coast, Madagascar Uruguay, Venezuela (Rapporteur).
 

MEMBERSHIP IN 1968
 

Members and Chief Representatives in 1968:
 

Afghanistan. Representatives: Abdul Rahman Pazhwak; Abdul Samad Ghau Rapporteur (from 10 June 1968); Aman-Ullah Hasrat (from September 1968 Mohammad Mirza Sammah (until August 1968).

Australia. Representatives: Patrick Shaw; Kenneth Henry Rogers; J. R. Kels Alternates: W. G. T. Miller; M. J. McKeown; J. A. Benson.

Bulgaria. Representatives: Milko Tarabanov; Dimiter Sabev.

Chile.e Representative: Jose Pinera. Alternate: Jorge Huneeus.

Ecuador.e Representatives: Leopoldo Benites; Teodoro Alvarado Garaicoa.

Ethiopia. Representatives: Lij Endalkachew Makonnen; Kifie Wodaj Alternate: Miss Konjit Sinegiorgis.

Finland. Representatives: Max Jakobson; Matti Cawen; Tapani Brotheru Paavo Keisalo (from June 1968).

Honduras. Representative: Humberto Lopez Villamil. Alternate: Mrs. L Bertrand de Bromley.

India. Representative: G. Parthasarathi. Alternates: B. C. Mishra; S. M. Chadha- C. R. Gharekhan Rapporteur (until June 1968).

Iran. Representative: Mehdi Vakil. Alternate: Mohsen S. Esfandiary.

Iraq. Representative: Adnan Pachachi. Alternates: Adnan Raouf, Vic Chairman; Salim Abdelkader Saleem (until September 1968).

Italy. Representative: Piero Vinci. Alternates: Massimo Castaldo; Alessand Quaroni.

Ivory Coast. Representatives: Simeon Ake; Koffi Kouam6; Julien Kacou (from September 1968).

Madagascar. Representatives; Louis Rakotomalala (until June 1968); Blai Rabetafika; Raymond Raoelina.

Mali. Representatives: Mamadou Boubacar Kante; Mohamed Mahmoud Ou Aly (from October 1968); Mamadou Diarra. Alternates: Oumar Ba; Issag COUI1baIV.

Poland. Representatives: Bohdan Tomorowicz; Jan Slowikowski.

Sierra Leone. Representatives: Christopher O. E. Cole (until August 1968 M. O. Cole.

Syria. Representative: George J. Tomeh. Alternates: Rafic Jouejati; Dia-All El-Fattal; Abdallah El-Attrash; Issa Awad; Miss Bushra Kanafani (from September 1968).

Tunisia. Representatives: Mahmoud Mestiri, Chairman; Ahmed Chtourou; Mohamed Fourati; Hichem Ayoub; Hedi Drissi; Radwan Foudhaily.

USSR. Representative: Y. A. Malik. Alternate: P. F. Shakhov.

United Kingdom. Representative: Lord Caradon. Alternates: D. H. T. Hildyard; J. D. B. Shaw.

United Republic of Tanzania. Representatives: Akili B. C. Danieli; M. A. Foum.

United States. Representative: Seymour Maxwell Finger. Alternates: Richard E. Johnson (until September 1968) ; John Eaves, Jr.

Venezuela. Representatives: Manuel Perez Guerrero, Vice-Chairman; German Nava, Carrillo, Alternate: Gilberto Carrasquero (until March 1968).

Yugoslavia. Representative: Aston Vratusa. Alternates: Zivojin Jazic; Dragoslav Pejic.

The Special Committee has a Sub-Committee on Petitions and a Working Group. In 1968, in addition to these, Sub-Committees I, II, and III and the Sub-Committee on Fiji were maintained, and another, the Sub-Committee on Oman, was established. Matters pertaining to territories which were not referred to its Sub-Committees were taken up at plenary meetings of the Special Committee.
 

Subcommittee on petitions

Members in 1968: Chile (until October 1968) (Vice-Chairman), Ecuador (from

25 October 1968), India, Italy, Madagascar (Chairman), Mali, Poland, Syria.
 

Working Croup of Special Committee of Twenty-Four

In 1968, the Working Group of the Special Committee of Twenty-four consisted of the Bureau of the Special Committee (the officers of the Special Committee) and the representatives of Bulgaria, Ethiopia, India,7a Iran, Italy, and the United Republic of Tanzania.

The Bureau consisted of the following officers of the Special Committee: the Chairman (the representative of Tunisia), the Vice-Chairmen (the alternate representative of Iraq and the representative of Venezuela) and the Rapporteur 7. (the alternate representative of India until June 1968; the representative of Afghanistan from June 1968).
 

Subcommittee 1

Members in 1968: Chile (until October 1968), Mali, Sierra Leone (Chairman), Syria (Rapporteur), Tunisia, USSR, United Republic of Tanzania, Yugoslavia.
 

Subcommittee II
 

Members in 1968: Afghanistan, Australia,, Ethiopia, Honduras, India, Iraq (Chairman), Poland, United States.
 

Subcommittee III
 

Members in 1968: Bulgaria, Finland, Iran (Chairman), Italy, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Venezuela.
 

Subcommittee on Fiji
 

Members in 1968: Bulgaria, Chile (until October 1968) (Chairman), Finland, India, United Republic of Tanzania.
 

Subcommittee on Oman
 

Members in 1968: Iran, Iraq, Mali, United Republic of Tanzania, Venezuela.

The Sub-Committee did not meet in 1968.
 

MEMBERSHIP IN 1969
 

Members and Chief Representatives in 1969:

Afghanistan. Representatives: Abdur-Rahman Pazhwak; Adbul Samad Ghaus,a Rapporteur; Mir Abdul Wahab Siddiq; Abdul Ahad Nasser-Ziayee.

Australia.

Bulgaria. Representatives: Milko Tarabanov; Luben Penteheve (from May 1969); Dimiter Sabev (until March 1969); Dimitar S. Stanoev (from March 1969).

United Republic of Tanzania. Representatives: Salim A. Salim (from 2 June 1970) ; C. S. M. Mselle; Ismat Abdulwahid Steiner.

United States. Representative: Seymour Maxwell Finger. Alternate: Frederick II. Sacksteder. Jr.

Venezuela: Representatives: Andres Aguilar; Germdn Nava Carrillo. Alternate Pedro E. Coll.

Yugoslavia. Representatives: Lazar Mojsov; Zivojin Jazic; Aleksander Psoncak; Radomir Zecevic.

On 17 December 1970, the President of the General Assembly nominated Fiji. Sweden and Trinidad and Tobago to fill three of four existing or imminent vacancies on the Special Committee.

The Special Committee has a Sub-Committee on Petitions and a Working group. In addition to these Sub-Committees I, II and 111 and the Sub-Committees on Fiji and on Oman were maintained in 1970. Territories which were not referred to its sub-committees were taken up at plenary meetings of the Special Committee.
 

Subcommittee on petitions
 

Members in 1970: Ecuador, India, Italy, Madagascar, Mali, Poland (Chairman), Syria.
 

Working group
 

In 1970, the Working Group of the Special Committee consisted of the officers of the Special Committee and the delegations of Bulgaria, Iraq, Italy, Madagascar, the United Republic of Tanzania and Venezuela.

The Bureau consisted of the following officers of the Special Committee: the Chairman (the representative of Sierra Leone), the Vice-Chairman (the representatives of Ecuador and Iran) and the Rapporteur (the representative of India).
 

Subcommittee I
 

Members in 1970: Ecuador, Mali, Sierra Leone, Syria (Chairman), Tunisia, USSR, United Republic of Tanzania, Yugoslavia (Rapporteur).
 

Subcommittee II

Members in 1970: Afghanistan (Rapporteur), Ethiopia (Chairman), Honduras, India, Iraq, Poland, United States.
 

Subcommittee III
 

Members in 1970: Bulgaria, Iran (Rapporteur), Italy, Ivory Coast, Madagascar (Chairman), Norway, Venezuela.
 

Subcommittee on Fiji
 

Members in 1970: Bulgaria, Ecuador, India, Norway (Chairman), United Republic of Tanzania.
 

Subcommittee on Oman
 

Members in 1970: Iran, Iraq, Mali, United Republic of Tanzania, Venezuela.
 

MEMBERSHIP IN 1971
 

Members in 1971: Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Fiji, India, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mali, Poland, Sierra Leone, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, USSR, United Kingdom United Republic of Tanzania, United States, Venezuela, Yugosalvia.

Chairman: German Nava Carrillo (Venezuela).

Vice Chairman: Barouh Grinberg (Bulgaria), Rafic Jouejati (Syrian And) Republic).

Rapporteur: Yilma Tadesse (Ethiopia).

On 20 December 1971, the President of the General Assembly nominated China, Indonesia, and Czechoslovakia to fill three of the four existing vacancies on the Special Committee, with immediate effect.

The Select Committee has a Sub-Committee on Petitions and a Working Group. In addition, Sub-Committees I, II, and III were maintained in 1971. Territories not referred to Sub-Committees 1, II, ar III were taken up at plenary meetings of the Special Committee.
 

Subcommittee on petitions
 

Members in 1971: Ecuador (Chairman), India, Madagascar, Mali, Poland, Syrian Arab Republic.
 

Working group
 

In 1971, the Working Group of the Special Committee consisted of Ecuador, India, Madagascar, Sweden, and the United Republic of Tanzania, and the officers of the Special Committee.
 

Subcommittee I
 

Members in 1971: Mali, Sierra Leone, Syrian Arab Republic (Chairman), Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, USSR, United Republic of Tanzania (Rapporteur), Yugoslavia.
 

Subcommittee II
 

Members in 1971: Afghanistan (Chairman), Ethiopia, Fiji, India, Iraq, Poland.
 

Subcommittee III
 

Members in 1971: Bulgaria, Iran, (Chairman), Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago (Rapporteur).
 

Special Committee on Apartheid.
 

Members in 1971: Algeria, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Hungary, India, Malaysia, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukranian SSR.

Chairman: Abdulrahim A. Farah (Somalia).

Vice Chairman: M. D. Polyanichko (Ukranian SSR); Raoul Siclait (Haiti).

Rapporteur: Uddhav Deo Bhatt (Nepal).

On 19 January 1971, the President of the General Assembly informed the Secretary-General that he had appointed Guatemala as the fifth of seven new members authorized by an Assembly decision of 8 December 1970 enlarging the Committee. Two of the seven authorized seats remained unfilled in 1971.
 

Subcommittee on petitions
 

Members in 1971: Algeria (Chairman), Guatemala, India, Nepal, Nigeria, Philip-

pines, Somalia, Ukrainian SSR.
 

Subcommittee on information on Apartheid

Members in 1971: Ghana, Guinea, Haiti, Hungary, Malaysia (Chairman), Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Trinidad and Tobago.
 

Working Group
 

Members in 1971: Abdulrahim A. Farah, Chairman of the Special Committee (Somalia); M.D. Polyanichko, Vice-Chairman of the Special Committee (Ukrainian SSR) ; Raoul Siclait, Vice-Chairman of the Special Committee (Haiti); Uddhav Deo Bhatt, Rapporteur of the Special Committee (Nepal); Ahmed Oucif, Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Petitions (Algeria); Yeop Adlan-Rose, Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Information on Apartheid (Malaysia).
 

MEMBERSHIP IN 1972
 

Members in 1972: Afghanistan, Bulgaria, China, Czechoslovakia, Ecuador, i6 Ethiopia, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Madagascar,l6 Mali, Sierra Leone, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, USSR, United Republic of Tanzania, Venezuela, Yugoslavia.

On 8 December 1972, the General Assembly confirmed the nomination of Chile and the Congo to fill two of the three existing vacancies on the Special Committee.

Chairman: Salim A. Salim (United Republic of Tanzania).

Vice-Chairmen: Frank O. Abdulah (Trinidad and Tobago), Ilja HuHnsky (Czechoslovakia).

Rapporteur: -Mohammed Hakim Aryubi (Afghanistan).

The Special Committee has a Sub-Committee on Petitions and a Working Group. In addition, Sub-Committees I, 11 and III were maintained in 1972. Territories not referred to Sub-Committees I, 11 or III were taken up at plenary meetings of the Special Committee.
 

Subcommittee on petitions
 

Members in 1972: Bulgaria, Ecuador (Chairman), India, Indonesia, Mali (vice-chairman), Sierra Leone, Syrian Arab Republic.
 

Working Group
 

In 1972, the Working Group of the Special Committee consisted of Ecuador, Ethiopia, India, Sweden and Tunisia, and the four officers of the Special Committee.
 

Subcommittee I
 

Members in 1972: China, 111ali, Sierra Leone (Rapporteur), Syrian Arab Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia (Chairman), USSR, United Republic of Tanzania, Yugoslavia.
 

Subcommittee II
 

Members in 1972: Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, Fiji (Rapporteur), India (Chairman), Indonesia, Iraq.
 

Subcommittee III
 

Members in 1972: Bulgaria, Iran (Chairman), Ivory Coast, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela.
 

MEMBERSHIP IN 1973
 

Afghanistan

Australia

Bulgaria

Chile

China

Congo

Czechoslovakia

Ethiopia

Fiji

India

Indonesia

Iran
 

MEMBERSHIP IN 1974
 

Iraq

Ivory Coast

Mali

Sierra Leone

Sweden

Syrian Arab Republic

Trinidad and Tobago

Tunisia

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

United Republic of Tanzania

Venezuela

Yugoslavia
 

Iraq

Ivory Coast

Mali

Sierra Leone

Sweden

Syrian Arab Republic

Trinidad and Tobago

Tunisia

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

United Republic of Tanzania

Venezuela

Yugoslavia
 

[From Puerto Rico Libre, January 1975]
 

A YEAR OF COLONIAL CRISIS
 

Below are highlights of news published in Puerto Rico Libre! during 1974. This I bird's-eye-view shows a colony in the throes of increasing economic crisis and the response to that crisis from the workers movement and independence forces. 1974 also stands out as a year of growing support for Puerto Rican independence from all over the United States.

January: Energy Crisis Hits Puerto Rico-fuel prices skyrocket. Despite major shortages, Public Law No. 4 authorizing ELA to regulate export of oil is ignored. Students at Inter-American University at Hato Rey On Strike after riot police launch brutal attack on San German campus, injuring 80 students.

February: 4,400 Truckers On Strike for higher wages, solidarity strikes throughout the island. Federation of Teachers on Strike for the first time on the island, demanding higher wages and collective bargaining rights for all public employees. General Strike in Department of Transportation and Public Works, demand higher wages, collective bargaining. Police Intervention at University of Puerto Rico, five wounded in demonstration against Rector. Inmates Seize La Princesa Prison, penitentiary stormed by police three days later.

March: Claridad attacked by Terrorists, five wounded. Hernandez Colon Announces West Coast Site for Superport, U.S. Navy wants Mona; New Penal Code Submitted to Legislature calling for institutionalized repression; Puerto Rico Office at U.N. Opened.

April: Sen. Jackson Terms Puerto Rico "War Booty" belonging by "right of conquest" to U.S. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Leaks Chlorine Gas, hospitalizing five.

May: AMAX, Kennecott, to Sign Deal for Puerto Rican Copper, say sources close to Governor. Puerto Rican Solidarity Day Committee Issues Call for National Demonstration at Madison Square Garden, October 27, in support of Puerto Rican Independence. U.S. Environmentalists, including Barry Commoner, Oppose Puerto Rican Superport.

June: Super-Sellout Revealed by independence movement, show plans for takeover of entire island by U.S. heavy industry; 97 Indian Tribes Support Puerto Rican Independence at International Indian Treaty Council.

July: Dept. of Resources Chief Cruz Matos Fired for opposition to mining contract with ADIAX, Kennecott.

August: E LA Monitoring Independence Activities, reveals Gov. Hernandez; Cuban Unemployment in P.R. Zero, reveals Puerto Rican Labor Department, while island official rate hits 12%.

September: Light-Bill Boycott Becomes Island-Wide, protesting high electricity rates for Puerto Ricans, low rates for U.S. corporations. National Black Support Committee for Puerto Rican Independence Formed. Leading Congressional Black Caucus Members Support Puerto Rican Independence.

October: 20,000 Demand Independence for Puerto Rico at Madison Square Garden-6,000 from all over country; 5,000 Rally in San Francisco and Los Angeles for Puerto Rican Independence. Independence Leaders Speak at U.N., accuse U.S. of genocide. ILWU, Local 6, Supports Puerto Rican Independence.

November: Workers Strike Against AAA, leaders jailed then released; National Guard mobilized against strikers. Pro-Independence Daily Starts Publication Claridad becomes daily after 15 years of uninterrupted weekly publication. FOMENTO Announces Plan to Begin Superport Construction by end of next year.

December: Bombings Against U.S. Corporations during AAA Strike; Puerto Rican Socialist Party Member Arrested on Bombing Charges in attempt to link independence movement with bombings, 75 more arrests to conic say police.
 

CARLOS FELICIANO JAILED AFTER FOUR-YEAR FIGHT
 

NEW YORK, December 13.-After years of fighting what the Committee to Defend Carlos Feliciano terms "a government frame-up", Carlos Feliciano, leading member of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico was forced to begin serving a four-year sentence today for alleged possession of a pistol and explosives.

Judge Fraiman, the presiding Judge of Feliciano's 1973 trial, refused to delay sentence and sent Carlos to prison after Feliciano's petition to have his appeal heard by the New York State Court of Appeals was turned down. In remanding Carlos to custody, he ignored the 17 months Carlos had already served awaiting trial because of excessive bail.

Attorney William Kunstler announced that he would file an immediate appeal on the inequality of Carlos' sentence under the discriminatory bail system.

"Although Carlos did go to jail, his sentence must be seen as a victory" said a representative of the Defense Committee. "Originally up on charges that would have jailed him for life, Carlos was declared the victim of a police conspiracy and declared innocent in one trial, and declared innocent of major charges in another. The sentence he is serving now is the result of a compromise verdict, and is minimal."
 

Observers feel that the political defense of Carlos Feliciano by thousands across the country was instrumental in this victory.
 

FBI ARRESTS PSP MEMBER ON BOMBING CHARGE
 

PONCE, Dec. 14: In an attempt to discredit the independence movement which has been actively supporting the controversial strike by workers of the Waterworks and Sewer Authority (AAA), a member of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP), Delfin Ramos, was arrested here today by the FBI on charges of possessing explosive material and is being held on $100,000 bail.

The FBI and the local police agency have been searching the homes of PSI' members in the Ponce area during the last 11 days to find evidence which would link the PSP with the bombing of U.S. companies and military installations which occurred during the strike of the AAA workers.

Although a search of the Ramos house earlier this week found no explosives and constant vigilance has been maintained since that day, FBI agents claim to have found explosive material when they entered the house during the absence of the Ramos family today.

The complaint against Ramos cited seventy-five others involved in the bombings and police say more arrests are pending.
 

[From World Magazine, May 3, 1975}
 

WORLD FOCUS ON FREEDOM FOR PUERTO RICO
 

[Following is the text of remarks by Anthony Monteiro at the Preparatory Meeting in Solidarity with Puerto Rican Independence, held in Havana, Cuba, March 30-31. Monteiro, executive secretary of the National Anti-Imperialist Movement in Solidarity with African Liberation, was a member of the U.S. delegation, which included Helen Winter and Roque Ristorrucci, American Committee of the World Peace Council; and Arthur Kinoy and Frances Beal, Committee of Solidarity with Puerto Rico. The International Conference of Solidarity with the Independence of Puerto Rico is scheduled for September 5-7 in Havana.]
 

(By Anthony Monteiro)
 

Allow me, first, on behalf of the delegation of the United States Peace Council, to express our gratitude to the Cuban Movement for Peace and the Sovereignty of the Peoples, and the Cuban people for the extraordinary hospitality extended to us in these past days. Their cordiality has made possible this truly historic meeting.

Comrades: The U.S. colonial domination of Puerto Rico attests to the barbaric character of the present ruling circles in our country. The facts-which I need not repeat-shatter the demagogy of U.S. imperialist propaganda to the effect that the imperialism rooted in the U.S. is somehow different, somehow democratic and peaceful. The Puerto Rican case is without question that of a classical colony. here the world's peoples witness examples of perhaps the most savage oppression in our hemisphere. This shameful oppression originates in our country, is carried out by the imperialism based in the U.S. For this reason, comrades, we of the U.S. delegation wholeheartedly endorse this preparatory meeting and the proposed Congress for Solidarity with the Independence of Puerto Rico. This meeting and the proposed Congress which place the independence of Puerto Rico on the top of the agenda of humanity's aspirations is evidence of the universality of the struggle which is now being waged by the Puerto Rican people. Also created is the opportunity for the broadest popular opinion of our planet to express itself for Puerto Rican independence. Therefore, we are today initiating a tremendous worldwide mass movement which can enrich and speed the implementation of UN Resolution 1514, and the UN Resolution calling for the de-colonization of Puerto Rico. The decisions of governments can now become the property of the peoples.

But we welcome, and recognize as quite appropriate, the initiative of the World Peace Council. For, in oily opinion, the global struggle for peace is the point of intersection of the most noble aspirations of all the people. The struggle for and attainment of détente and peaceful coexistence are strategic to the process of liquidating the remaining remnants of colonialism, of defeating fascism and militarism, of creating a positive international environment for the acceleration of the struggles for democracy and social progress. It is however, also true that the realization of détente as an irreversible process leading to peaceful coexistence between states with differing social systems is possible only as colonial oppression is terminated. Hence, national freedom and global peace are parts of a single whole. Colonization, and the colonial domination of Puerto Rico in particular, is therefore a threat to world peace, as well as a violation of international law and contemporary norms guiding the relationships between peoples.

The new correlation of world forces, which is made possible in the first place by the strength and growing unity of the world system of socialist states, headed by the mighty Soviet Union, creates extraordinarily favorable circumstances for the independence struggle within Puerto Rico and building international solidarity with the Puerto Rican people. U.S. imperialist domination of Puerto Rico is today incompatible with this new global correlation of forces. Moreover, the elevation of the Puerto Rican independence struggle further weakens U.S. colonization of Puerto Rico and is providing the decisive link that will break the chain of U.S. colonial oppression of Puerto Rico. The world embraces the just and noble struggle of the Puerto Rican people.

Comrades, allow us to be quite frank. This meeting is decisively important to the people of the United States. The actions of the U.S. people are important. Because it is U.S. imperialism that imposes colonial domination on the Puerto Rican people, the fulfillment of our responsibility is fundamental.

U.S. imperialism seeks to preserve colonialism in Puerto Rico as a strategic beachhead in the policy of neo-colonial containment of the Latin American liberation process. In fact, this neo-colonial aggression is an attempt to roll back the historic gains of the Latin American peoples, and in the first place, to liquidate socialism in Cuba, the first land of freedom on our hemisphere. This policy orients upon the militarization of Puerto Rico as a step to the militarization of the entire continent, as a base for counter-revolution, reaction and anti-Communism. U.S. imperialism plans to utilize Puerto Rico as a staging area for the liquidation of popular democratic governments of the continent as in Santo Domingo. This policy is evidenced in its most criminal and brutal expression in the overthrow of the Popular Unity Government in Chile, and the murder of Dr. Salvador Allende.

The Ford-Rockefeller-Kissinger Administration is proposing to the Congress a criminal $105 billion "defense" budget. This proposal has outraged the overwhelming majority of the people of the United States. This new budget is proposed at a time of deep economic crisis in our country, of the quickening deterioration of the standard of life of the working people. Therefore the opposition is intense. The hatred of the proposed war budget will he mobilized at a Conference to be held this coming weekend in Chicago, Ill. called by the National Conference for a Drastic Cutback in the Military Budget.'

But it is obvious that a significant portion of the war budget is for the deepening of colonialism in Puerto Rico and to strengthen the military presence there of U.S. imperialism. In this sense, then, the U.S. people's intense opposition to thin war budget is objectively a special point of opposition to U.S. colonialism and aggression against Puerto Rico. The opposition to the military budget must become a conscious opposition to colonialism in Puerto Rico. The peace demands of the U.S. people therefore must embrace the independence demand of the Puerto Rican people.

In our country two million Puerto Rican people share with 40 million Black, Chicano, Native American and Asian American people a. common racial and national oppression inside the U.S. These two million, who suffer the worst exploitation and racist oppression in our country, are there because they were driven from Puerto Rico. However, 42 million racially and nationally oppressed are united in a. common struggle against racism and for national freedom. This anion of aspiration creates a brotherhood and sisterhood that links itself to the quest for the independence of Puerto Rico. This lays the basis certainly for a common struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico.

The working people of the United States are experiencing an historic economic crisis. A corporate monopoly imposed crisis. The same corporations that are ravaging the Puerto Rican nation burden the U.S. people with an economic depression. Here lies the objective basis for the U.S. working people to embrace the cause of Puerto Rican independence. The $9 billion investment in Puerto Rico is a direct manifestation of this crisis as well as a manifestation of the effort to maintain the super-exploitation of the workers of the USA. In fact, this investment which today burdens Puerto Rico with a crisis of horrific dimensions is a two-edged sword. It exploits and is the basis of the oppression of the working people of other countries, as well as of the super-exploitation of the Puerto Rican workers on the island of Puerto Rico and those in the barrios of the major U.S. cities. It is also the source of the terrific unemployment and degradation of the Puerto Rican people on the island and in the U.S. It is the source of the growing unemployment and inflation which is being experienced by the entire U.S. working class.

Today, a vast movement of women has emerged in our country. A movement in which the women of the nationally oppressed Black, Chicano, Native American, Asian and Puerto Rican peoples play a mounting role. These nationally oppressed women recognize through their real life experience the effects of genocide and sterilization.

Just as there is forced sterilization of Puerto Rican women in Puerto Rico, so in the Black communities, the Puerto Rican barrios and the Indian reservations of the United States, sterilization is a policy of the government. It is a hated, racist. policy which is genocidal and geared to the oppression, in particular, of non-white women in the U.S.

Just as the women and men of our country oppose it in the U.S., they must and do oppose it in Puerto Rico.

The crisis of capitalism in the U.S. leads to the rapid corrosion of the political system of our country, releasing a terrific wave of repression which is symbolized by Watergate that is the attempt by neofascists in the top echelons of government to destroy bourgeois democracy in the U.S. Many whose only crime is to struggle for justice are placed in jail. Many in our country learned the true nature of our government through the case and struggle for the freedom of Angela Davis. Those lessons are today applied to the struggle for the freedom of the nationalist political prisoners of Puerto Rico. The struggle that freed Angela Davis and other political prisoners in our country is a base for mounting a struggle to free the Puerto Rican nationalist prisoners, for ending political repression in Puerto Rico.

As we approach the 200th anniversary of the Revolutionary War of Independence of the U.S. from England, we are demanding an end to U.S. colonization of Puerto Rico.

Comrades, our people are quickly coming to recognize that freedom is indivisible. The indivisibility of freedom and justice is a fundamental law of our age. This recognition is becoming part of the consciousness of the U.S. people. For this reason, many today recognize the cause of Puerto Rico as our cause, as the basis for the extension of our liberty. In fact, many see the organic character of our peoples struggles.

We are certain that the independence movement in Puerto Rico will be successful. We are certain that the peoples of Puerto Rico and the people of the USA will be joined in a common struggle for Puerto Rican independence.

Let us say, comrades, the U.S. people and the U.S. working class are quite capable of fulfilling its duty to the people of Puerto Rico and of the world.

We assure you we will quicken the pace of our efforts to meet our historic responsibility. To our comrades and to the people of Puerto Rico, of Chile, Cuba, and all of Latin America, to the fraternal peoples of Vietnam and Cambodia, of Korea, to the peoples of the Mid East, Africa and to the peoples of all continents, we, the U.S. peace movement, pledge our enhanced activity in our common cause of liberation, these actions, our dear comrades will be our common witness of the death of U.S. imperialism.
 

COLONIALISM'S LEGACY
 

[Following are excerpts of remarks by Juan Marinello, president of the Movement

for Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples.]
 

My mission this morning will be limited to expressing, on behalf of the Movement for Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples, the satisfaction and gratitude with which we, in liberated Cuba, welcome the representatives of international entities of the greatest importance and personalities of outstanding prestige, congregated for the most noble of purposes, that of proclaiming the right of the people of Puerto Rico to its full and true independence and of working in close union in order to achieve it.

The struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico, dream and hope of Sim6n Bolivar and Jose Marti and the task of men like Betances, Hostos and Albizu Campos, has shown as no other the unchangeable malignity of an anti-human regime and the immortality of the popular will destined to defeat it.

As the best witnesses, the Puerto Rican comrades, shall be the ones to offer us the somber picture of their stricken country. They shall tell us about an economic structure which has been advancing, with no respite, towards the miserable exhaustion of the whole of the Island's population.

They will inform us that in a country of nine thousand square kilometers, imperialism has invested nine thousand million dollars, that is, one million per square kilometer; they will tell u5 that in such a small territory Yankee monopolies have invested more capital than in all of Latin America and only less than in Canada; they will show us, with bulky evidence, that such a modest space occupies fourth place among U.S. export markets. And as the main strategic line, that of turning the island-occupied territory-into the great bridge for their trade supremacy on the continent.

The ruthlessness of foreign domination in Puerto Rico reaches such a point that the oil companies have carried the industrial processes that cause mass intoxication to the island, while transferring the non-polluting operations to the United States. To this monstrous lack of sensitivity we must add the campaign to sterilize Puerto Rican women, which has already reached an enormously high percentage. The systematic attack against health and life offers us the latest measure of the perverseness attained by imperialist actions.

We have always believed that the Puerto Rican case is the final proof of how closely the struggle for peace is linked with the struggle for national independence. There it can be seen that the subjection of an entire people is for the sole purpose of dominating all the peoples by means of economic penetration or war, which are two different faces of the same policy.

Undeniably, and in the face of all hindrances, detente and peaceful coexistence progress and succeed. The growing peace consciousness which wins more and more supporters every day, the liberation struggle of the colonized peoples and the firm and clear peace policy of the socialist camp, with the Soviet Union in the vanguard, have produced the change toward detente. This breakthrough in our efforts impels us to fight harder than ever against the remaining war threats and dangers.

If all the peoples have an equal responsibility in the task of defeating the warmongering oppressors, decisive collaboration is to be expected from the peoples of the United States. The day will come, when the magnitude of the effort carried out there in support of the Vietnamese people will be measured with precision and justice. We are sure that, continuing this beautiful task, our brothers and sisters in the United States will carry out decisive action for the liberation of Puerto Rico.
 

WORLD SOLIDARITY AGAINST COLONIALISM
 

[Following are excerpts from a message of the World Peace Council to the solidarity conference.]
 

The World Peace Council has struggled ceaselessly, on the basis of its principles, for the elimination of all forms of colonialism and racial discrimination.

The World Peace Council, together with the support of the National Committees in more than a hundred countries throughout the world, has been giving special attention to the Latin American peoples' struggle for their full sovereignty and for the retrieval of their natural resources in the hands of transnational companies, and it condemns the existence of colonies under the domination of the United States, Great Britain and Holland, such as Puerto Rico, Surinam, Belize, Aruba, Curacao, Malvina Islands, Martinique, Guyana, Guadeloupe, Santa Lucia, Antigua, Bermuda, Virgin Islands and others, and also calls for the elimination of the colonial enclave called the Panama Canal Zone.

In the particular case of Puerto Rico, the World Peace Council has offered and continues to offer its support of the Puerto Rican people's struggle for their independence.

It has been pointed out how Puerto Rico, as a national entity, has been deprived juridically, politically, economically, socially, culturally, and territorially, of its legitimate right to self-determination, and as a sovereign country, of the right to be a part of the world's community of nations.

We have censured the manner in which, through the fiction of a "Free Associated State," it is being deprived of the few rights it had as a nation.

We have indicated how imperialism has tried to erase its aboriginal cultural elements by penetrating the culture through the imposition of foreign educational systems which do not adjust to their idiosyncrasy.

Figures have clearly shown how the U.S. companies sack the country's riches, distort its economy and exploit its workers by maintaining them under a colonial status in which their wages ore inferior to those of U.S. workers.

The World Peace Council has denounced the violation of human rights and demands the freedom of Latin America's oldest political prisoners, Lolita Lebron, Andros Figueroa, Irvin Floras and Rafael Cancel Miranda, Puerto Rican patriots who fight for their country's independence.

We are now firmly convinced that the time has come to extend this solidarity to higher levels, uniting it in a huge world public opinion movement that will make effective the implementation of the decolonization demands approved by the U N with regards to the colonial situation of Puerto Rico.
 

PUERTO RICAN ADDRESSES CONFERENCE OPENING SESSION
 

[Speech made by unidentified Puerto Rican, introduced as president of the Puerto Rican Observer Delegation, at opening session of Nonalined Countries coordinating bureau conference held at Atlantic Hotel, Santa Maria del Mar, Havana Province.] The speaker may be Fermin Arraiza

Mr. President, members of the Nonalined Movement executive bureau. First of all we again express our gratitude for the hospitality and courtesy of the fraternal revolutionary Cuban people and we reaffirm our gratitude for their consistent attitude in the fraternal revolutionary struggle of our peoples which goes back more than a century.

On behalf of the martyrs and heroes of that joint struggle and of the heroes and martyrs from the joint struggle in all the countries of the world represented here, and the national liberation movements in all continents, we want to make a solemn call on this conference, as a solemn beginning in the agenda of the Nonalined Movement, for the immediate future: Puerto Rico today requires with increasing urgency the active solidarity of the world's anticolonialist forces.

Our liberation struggle is growing in all sectors of revolutionary action for independence and recovery of our national patrimony. But U.S. imperialism, defeated economically and militarily in its different fronts of aggression against the world, wants to deploy toward Latin American by consolidating fascism in Chile and colonialism in Puerto Rico. Fascism in Chile is the base of operations of U.S. imperialism against the southern cone countries, just as colonialism in Puerto Rico-with military, economic and political control-is, along with the colonial enclave in the Panama Canal Zone, the strategic base of operations for Yankee imperialism against all of Latin America.

The Washington government plans to consolidate a militarized police in the Puerto Rican colonial administration. It expands the presence of its armies and military bases. It introduces new forms of political espionage through the CIA and the FBI. It is getting ready to implement a depopulation plan in Puerto Rico by expanding the forced exile of Puerto Ricans to U.S. ghettos and to U.S. feudal farms. At the same time, it develops plans for massive sterilization of the female population as a method of colonialist genocide. And finally, it seeks by all means to defeat the people's resistance in order to folly carry out the plundering of the big mineral deposits such as copper, nickel, manganese and others in the hands of transnational companies.

Our anticolonialist struggle is more than a century old, first against Spanish control and then against U.S. control. In Puerto Rico, just as in any colony, there is an institutionalized state of war. We, as all the peoples in colonies, have exercised our historic right to a liberation war. However, the specific details of the brutal colonial domination of our people have forced us to develop a struggle strategy in which victory of the liberation war goes hand in hand with the fundamental survival of our political and revolutionary organization in all sectors.

If U.S. imperialism has attempted to do anything, it has been to break the balance of the Puerto Rican liberation forces in order to be able to break the balance of the people, the working class, the nationality. That is why there is continuous provocation to break the balance of political mass action which we develop within the precarious colonial legality. At the same time, terrorist attacks are undertaken by the colonial extreme rightists against our militants and our political and labor work centers. These attacks are led by fascist mobs which are fronts for the CIA and the U.S. Army. While all this is happening with impunity, attempts are being planned against the principal leaders of the liberation movement and against the principal labor and political leaders in the vanguard actions of the masses.

So far we have survived all the imperialist plots to defeat our struggle. Our commitment with out people and with the world liberation movement is unconditionally sealed at the risk of our own lives. But the liberation of Puerto Rico, which is our task and one which we proclaim as our exclusive right to carry it out, requires the active, firm and determined solidarity of all of mankind's progressive and liberating forces.

The existing brutal disproportion between the colonial forces of aggression and our national liberation forces requires the rest of mankind that are in solidarity with liberation of peoples to compensate for this imbalance with their material support and militant effort to help develop the national liberation war in Puerto Rico with all the possible physical and material means of each country.

The elemental action of historic justice for condemning the Yankee colonial crime against Puerto Rico in all of humanity's forums is becoming increasingly imminent. Each day the political states which now are free and defeated colonial control have the commitment, along with the political and revolutionary states in the entire world, to make theirs the demand for independence of Puerto Rico as a matter of inviolable, unrenounceable and unavoidable principles. It is becoming increasingly urgent to openly defeat the blackmail which the Yankee government wants to impose on the rest of the world's countries, threatening with some sort of sanctions if the colonial domination of Puerto Rico is discussed or denounced.

That Washington desperation in its obsession with imperialist domination of Puerto Rico responds to the real fact that the independence of Puerto Rico will violently shake the bases of U.S. economic, political and military domination over the Caribbean and in Latin America and the internal basis of economic exploitation which the United States employs against its own people. In the face of that blackmail which Yankee imperialism wants to impose on the rest of the world's countries trying to buy silence with threats, mankind's commitment is to raise Puerto Rico's independence to the top of the agenda of world liberation, without lessening solidarity with the fraternal peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America who still suffer from the colonial aggression, but equalizing assistance to Puerto Rico along with that provided to the rest of these fraternal peoples. Because just as the independence of these peoples will help ours, our independence also will help the other fraternal peoples.

Puerto Rico's independence is, perhaps, one of the strategic objectives of the world liberation force and of the world'. anti-imperialist forces, because the proclamation of our independence could be the spark that will start the victorious struggle for the second and true independence of the exploited and discriminated people of the United States of America.

Cuba has been a vanguard in the international struggle of solidarity for independence of Puerto Rico. The Nonalined Movement, the United Nations, and the movement of the forces for peace and sovereignty of peoples have reiterated on several occasions the Puerto Rican people's inalienable right to independence, to the release of their political prisoners, to the preservation of their natural resources and to the demilitarization of their territory and protection of their territorial and national integrity.

We now must demand internal inspection of Puerto Rico by the international community to see the situation of colonial domination and exploitation which our people are suffering. We must develop, based on that internal inspection of the colonial illegality, a decolonization program which must begin with a direct and concrete demand from the Washington government to make an immediate and unquestionable transfer of sovereign powers to the Puerto Rican people.

We must draft a detailed and broad plan on concrete decolonization measures which must begin with a demand for demilitarization of the Puerto Rican territory, dismantling of all the U.S. military and nuclear bases, and of all types-bases of aggression against Latin America, Indochina, the Mideast and Africa; and ordering the removal of its intervention troops and its repressive agencies such as the CIA and the FBI; and guaranteeing the necessary measures for indemnization and control of capital that are indispensable for the transition from colony to republic.

We now must raise solidarity with the independence of Puerto Rico to a superior level, to a new phase. It is imperative that declarations of solidarity with independence for our people from this and other progressive forums in the world become part of the foreign policy of each political, independent, liberated, progressive and revolutionary state. Cuba has done it that way fulfilling the historic mandate of Marti and Betances and responding with honor to the solidarity of Puerto Rican patriots who gave their lives in the Cuban independence war, with the liberation of the Caribbean as the immediate objective and then continue their program for liberation of Puerto Rico.

Cuba has done it for the brotherhood of the Caribbean, for the socialist and revolutionary brotherhood which makes Cuba in solidarity with the liberation of the world's peoples. Cuba has done it on principles. Amid the blockade and isolation which imperialism has tried to impose on it, Cuba has responded with David's sling against Goliath, with the accurate blow of unconditional solidarity with the independence of the Puerto Rican people.

This, among all the great achievements of this revolution, has earned for Cuba the respect of even U.S. imperialists. Today we request the rest of the world's countries to follow the example of Cuba, to make theirs the cause of independence of Puerto Rico, to assume the political commitment at the level of state and government to help our struggle, to make real the right to help, to make a declaration of solidarity and promise of support.

We assume, on behalf of our people in legitimate representation of the Puerto Rican National Liberation Movement, the historic commitment of responding, before and after our independence, with the same solidarity that today we request, within the capabilities of our people.

Once more we want to cite at this conference, as we have done in other progressive forums of mankind, the historic judgment of the immortal commander Guevara: Puerto Rico is the acid test for antiimperialists. He understood in his profound historic vision-as an unswerving revolutionary, man without faults, and citizen of the world-that the struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico raises for the other antiimperialist peoples and governments the challenge and the threat of the haughty Yankee imperialists as a decisive test of the principles which define the fighters for independence of peoples.

Once more we want to call attention to the significant fact that there is not a single area in the problems to be discussed here and there is not a single topic here which is not dramatically represented and in existence in the colonial situation of our people. There is no foreign trade law more unequal than the ones Washington has imposed on Puerto Rico and the same holds for its coastal shipping laws, imposition of its merchant marine, and all its commercial laws. There is no greater risk for the preservation of the natural resources of a people than the risk Puerto Rico is facing with the threat of exploitation of its mining and marine resources, including oil near our coasts.

There is no greater indiscriminate commercial speculation on the part of transnational companies than the speculation by these monopolies with the economic life of our people, to the point that a working people like ours is maintaining in constant production a direct Yankee capital investment of $9 billion. We do the work and the Yankees take the benefits. We are their second biggest market in America and fifth in the world, all this makes us think increasingly more deeply on how the struggle of our people must be backed and the struggle of other peoples against colonial oppression.

We, and all national liberation movements represented here, must be part of all groups and structures of this Nonalined Movement-such as the solidarity fund-so that its benefits can be extended to all members of the Nonalined Movement in proportion to the needs of each state and each national liberation movement.

Once more we express our brotherhood and unconditional solidarity with the fraternal Palestinian, Indochinese, South African peoples, and all who at this time are waging in Latin America and in the entire world a heroic struggle against colonialism, apartheid, Zionism, fascism and neocolonialism. In the hope that the independence of our people also will be your historic patrimony and that this is increasingly shown more firmly, we reaffirm our reciprocal solidarity and our will to fight as the legitimate representatives of the national liberation movement of our people. Fatherland or death. We will win.
 

PUERTO RICAN SOCIALIST: COLONIAL GOVERNMENT IN CRISIS
 

The Puerto Rican colonial state is going through a total crisis as a result of the worsening effect of the world capitalist crisis, aggravation of that crisis in the United States, and the colonial relationship of Puerto Rico with the United States. Fermin Balthazar Arraiza, head of the Puerto Rican Socialist party observer delegation to the third nonaligned countries coordinating bureau meeting has made this statement during a press conference.

He said the economic bases upon which the Puerto Rican colonial government was established and the new version made in 1902 through the so-called associated free state are now going through a process of social, political and economic decomposition of every type. He charged that the Puerto Rican colonial government plans, and is already carrying out, a speed-up consolidation of the repressive apparatus and expansion of U.S. military detachments on the island.

He explained that in his country an institutionalized colonial war exists as in any- world colony and there is also a liberation war. Arraiza stressed that the international community has the duty of bringing to the forefront the decolonization agenda in the case of Puerto Rico.

Referring to the fact that the recently concluded nonalined countries coordinating bureau meeting was held in Cuba, the Puerto Rican revolutionary leader said: [begin recording] Cuba has been vanguard for the national liberation movements, the first socialist state in this hemisphere and truly the (?first) free state in this hemisphere. And it is really symbolic that it was selected [for the meeting] and it was about time. We believe that after this experience all nonalined countries always will understand that Cuba will be a bastion of defense for their demands and objectives. Specifically in our case in the case of Puerto Rico's national liberation movement and of all the world's national liberation movements, Cuba has been one of the [words indistinct] which sets an example for the nonalined movement, and I believe this is an act of justice that will help to the development of the nonalined movement in all its objectives.
 

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF SOLIDARITY WITH PUERTO RICO
 

A preparatory meeting for the International Conference of Solidarity with the Independence of Puerto Rico will be held in Havana 30 and 31 March to form an international preparatory committee and outline the lines of work of the conference. Representatives of international organizations and national peace committees of different countries of the world will begin arriving in Havana this week.
 

DELEGATIONS ARRIVE FOR PUERTO RICO SOLIDARITY MEETING
 

The first delegations have arrived in Havana to participate in the international conference of solidarity with the independence of Puerto Rico to be held 30-31 March.

Alfredo Varela, vice president of the Argentine Council for Peace Roberto Prieto, member of the permanent council of the Latin American Workers Trade Union Unity Organization; and Oscar Alamanera representing the Peruvian Movement for Peace, have arrived in an Aeroflot flight from Lima, Peru. (Georges Pellet), member of the national politburo of the French Movement for Peace, also arrived in a Cubana de Aviacion plane at the Rancho Boyeros air terminal.

These delegates were welcomed at the international airport by Comrades PCC Central Committee Members Clementina Serra and Sara Pascual, both secretariat members of the Cuban Movement for Peace and Solidarity with Peoples.
 

PUERTO RICO SOLIDARITY MEETING CONTINUES IN HAVANA
 

The preparatory meeting of the International Conference of Solidarity with the Independence of Puerto Rico today continued holding its working session at the Atlantico Hotel of Santa Maria del Mar, Havana Province.

The event, which is being attended by representatives of diverse international democratic organizations and committees for peace of countries of all continents, has, among its objectives, the task of establishing the international committee charged with organizing the conference of solidarity with Puerto Rico which will be held next September in Havana at the initiative of the World Peace Council.

In today's morning session, the representatives of the continental organization of Latin American students, the Afro-Asian-Latin American Peoples Solidarity Organization, Spanish Committee for Peace, the Movement for the Peace and Sovereignty of Korea, the Guyanese Committee for Peace and the Pan-Indian Council for Peace addressed the participants. In their speeches, all the delegates referred to the situation of brutal colonial domination to which Yankee imperialism is subjecting the fraternal Puerto Rican people, and expressed the disposition of their respective organizations to do their best in making the international conference of solidarity- with the Puerto Rican people a success.

In his opening speech, Comrade Juan Marinello, member of the PCC Central Committee and president of the Movement for Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples, stated that Puerto Rico is an example of the insensible and insatiable nature of North American imperialism, as well as a lesson and warning to all peoples; and referred to the failures of the imperialist plans in Puerto Rico. Closing, he pointed out that socialist Cuba offers its fraternal hand to Puerto Rico in the attainable dream of a free Puerto Rico in a free America and in a free world.
 

THE VENCEREMOS BRIGADE
 

The continuing investigation of the Communist Threat to the United States through the Caribbean brought to light a facet of activity involving United State and foreign nationals which may affect the internal security of the United States for many years to come.

Specifically, it dealt with the degree of involvement of the General Directorate of Intelligence (D.G.I.), the Cuban equivalent of the Soviet KGB, in the infiltration of deep-cover agents into the United States, and the establishment of a vast network for the collection of intelligence of military, political, industrial, and economic nature directly affecting the security of the country.

As previously reported, the subcommittee had followed with great interest the activities, in the United States and Cuba, of the members and veterans of the "Venceremos" Brigade. The investigation has been a continuing one. It was begun at the time of the Brigade's inception in 1969 for the alleged purpose of helping the Communist regime of Cuba in its sugar harvest by bringing in U.S. volunteers.

There had been good reason to believe that the Venceremos Brigade had been created for the purpose of acting as a screen and tool of the Cuban intelligence apparatus. This has now been confirmed by a careful analysis of much new evidence, based on a variety of sources. This evidence points to the conclusion that the Venceremos Brigade is one of the most extensive and dangerous infiltration operations eAr undertaken by a foreign power against the United States.
 

Genesis
 

The Venceremos Brigade was brought into being through the clever manipulation of a small group of U.S. leftist radicals, prominent among whom were some of the leaders of the SDS "Weatherman" faction. The creation of the Brigade stemmed from three basic priorities of the D GI:

1. The need for factual and current information on every asps t of activity in the United States. This was deemed essential in guiding the D GI in its long range plans to infiltrate a number of Cuban "illegals" into the United States in response to pressure from the Soviets.

2. The desire of the Cubans to turn to their own advantage any manifestation of dissent toward the established order in the Free World, especially when directed against the United States. This entailed exposure of selected individuals, representing a broad spectrum of revolutionary-terrorist groups in the United States, to carefully staged meetings with leaders of international revolutionary movements brought to Cuba under the auspices of the African-Asian-Latin American Peoples Solidarity Organization, commonly known as the "Tricontinental."

3. A show of solidarity toward North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, acting not only as a conveyor belt for anti-war propaganda but actually using the Brigade as a means to collect information useful to the North Vietnamese.
 

DGI Involvement
 

The involvement of the D GI in the genesis of the Brigade was so blatant that the name of one of its UN Center officers was openly mentioned in a letter to the leadership of the SDS Weatherman faction. When active recruiting for the Brigade began in the fall of 1969, the DGI had to rely on a cadre formed mainly by New Left activists who had made one or more trips to Cuba. The results of the interviews were then reviewed by the D GI United Nations Center, which gave final approval. This procedure is still followed whenever a Brigade is being recruited.

Those selected for the Brigade undergo preliminary indoctrination at the hands of the cadre who, under the guise of assessing the involvement of the recruit, elicit information on a variety of subjects that are of great interest both to the DGI and the KGB.

Brigade members usually are transported to Cuba by passenger aircraft or converted freighter. The return trip is usually by converted cattleboat to Canada, although the 7th Brigade broke with this precedent and returned to the United States by air via Barbados. Every time a Brigade traveled to or from Cuba on a freighter, the D GI placed a number of its officers on board in order to take advantage of any situation that might allow them to manipulate and establish control over the Americans.

Venceremos Brigade activities are of such great importance to the DGI that they are controlled by a special section of the Political and Economic Intelligence Division, ranking on a par with similar sections on the UN, the U.S. Department of State, and U.S. political parties. The Brigade section is under the direct supervision of the Deputy Director of the DGI, Ramon Oroza Naveran, known under the nom de guerre of "Demetrio."

Demetrio personally supervised the creation and subsequent activities of the Brigade, and he assigned such priority to the project that all other DGI operations were held to be subordinate to the collection of intelligence from the members of the Venceremos Brigade.

Practically every Cuban national attached to the Brigade camps, right down to the food service and maintenance personnel, is a member or a co-opted member of the DGI. These DGI operatives are so skilled in their impersonations that few Brigade members are aware of their true identities. In fact, so many DGI personnel are needed to staff these camps that nearly all other operations must be suspended when the camps are active. Even maintenance and clerical personnel of the Directorate are pressed into service, as numerous photographs obtained by the Subcommittee indicate.
 

DGI Subservience to KGB Directives
 

However extensive the involvement of the Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence may be in this and other operations, one needs to bear in mind the underlying factor of the subservience of the DGI to its supervisory organization, the KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) of the Soviet Union.

Early in 1969, as revealed in testimony before the Subcommittee by Orlando Castro Hidalgo, a former DGI officer stationed in Paris, the Directorate issued new directives regarding relations with the Soviet Union. This stemmed from the fact that the Soviets had used oil as a blackmail weapon to bring the Cubans to heel. (Evidence of this is to be found in a lengthy philippic delivered by Raul Castro on January 24, 1968, during a secret session of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party.)

Ironically, the details of the whole affair are contained in a booklet, published by the Cuban government and brought to the United States by a returning member of the Brigade. The booklet is entitled "Information from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba on Microfaction Activities"Instituto de Libro-Ediciones Politicas, Havana 1968.

As a result of a new agreement, the DGI was ordered to collect intelligence which was of little intrinsic value to Cuba but of very great interest to the Soviet Union. Immediately afterward, the number of DGI personnel stationed in Cuban embassies in Western Europe was increased sharply.

It was in this context that the KGB advisor to the DGI, Vitalyi Petrovich Semionov, insisted on the priority of establishing a good network of illegals in the United States instead of confining the Directorate's interest to the activities of the anti-Castro exiles. The DGI was eager to comply.
 
 
 

Cuban Illegals in the United States
 

At this point, it is important to go into some detail regarding the need of the Communists for factual and current information for the purpose of training "illegals" and situating them in the United States.

At the outset, the DGI infiltration candidates were handpicked members, well prepared, of long standing party allegiance, with extensive experience in intelligence matters. For better security, they had not been allowed to travel outside Cuba, and, as an additional precaution, they had never had personal contacts with prisoners. All were college trained and virtually all of them were fluent in English. To round out their training, they were to receive an 11 month training course in the Soviet Union. The initial group of illegals consisted of approximately 30 officers selected in 1970.

In addition to the extensive training that an illegal, who is to establish residence in the United States, has to undergo, there are other needs to be considered. Most important of all is establishing a new identity with corroborating evidence as to his person, family background, education, business, etc. The period of "incubation" can take 5 or 6 years or even longer.

Soon after the Soviets made the proposal, the DGI found out that it was totally unprepared, because of a lack of the necessary data, to embark on this operation. To furnish covers for illegals entailed a monumental task of collection and analysis of information that its agents attached to the UN Center in New York could not accomplish without inside assistance.

To remedy this, Demetrio, after having observed the attitude of American left-wing visitors to Cuba, came to the conclusion that the young Americans were an easy and accessible source of the information needed. Consequently, a plan was devised and the Venceremos Brigade was brought into existence.
 

The Venceremos Brigade in Cuba
 

As stated before, the Directorate was able to obtain the information needed through a program that brought the young students into constant contact with DGI agents working under cover.

In fact, every waking moment of the Brigade members while in Cuba was supervised and controlled by the Cubans, who used physical labor to soften resistance, criticism and self-criticism sessions, minority caucuses, and rap sessions skillfully directed in order to assess the political attitude of the Americans and at the same time collect the necessary- intelligence.

To this should be added the fact that the Cubans used various means such as questionnaires, diaries, recorded interviews, speeches, and others to build individual files on each member of the Brigade. Among other things, the DGI formed a committee of Brigade members for the collection and transmission to Cuba of telephone directories from a variety of areas in the United States. A telephone directory can be a simple and ready source of corroborating evidence, even in a cursory background investigation. The importance of a telephone directory in intelligence operations is such that it is a crime in Cuba to mail a telephone directory out of the country.

Another committee was formed to collect technical books on industrial research, with heavy emphasis on university departments working under a contract for the Department of Defense. Other committees were to report on the Latin community in the United States, the Cuban community in the United States, and the activities of U.S. citizens overseas. This last committee was to report the type of business, duties of embassy personnel, and other related matters.

In addition to the military-university research contracts, the DGI expressed interest in the University structure as related to its connections with the government and private corporations. Even the financial aspects of the contracts appeared to be of interest to the Cubans.

A committee was formed to report on the University of California (Berkeley) research programs relating to nuclear weapons; Los Alamos proving grounds; the Lawrence lab; a new biological lab near the naval base the research on storing of bacteria, and survival in case of plague; an other related topics.

DGI agents showed interest in information on the ABM system instruments, MIRV, and the missile guidance systems of our Polaris submarines, the NASA Apollo program, and the NASA center near the university, a moving target indicator, a tunnel detector, and a helicopter project to be used in Vietnam.

The thoroughness of the Cubans was such that in addition to the few subjects described above, they also collected information on the Brigade members, including rumors, accusations, degree of intoxication when alcohol was served at parties, sexual relations, and other intimate data.
 

The Cubans were thus able not only to assemble a complete profile of a potential agents but gathered enough intelligence to satisfy both their own needs and those of their Soviet mentors.
 

Recruitment of Potential Agents
 

Usually out of a 200-member Brigade, 30 to 40 individuals were thought worthy of special consideration. Of these, 4 or 5 were recruited as contacts and, if future proficiency was consistent, they were developed as agents.

The questions submitted to Brigade members about trips to Europe and the need to know about the activities of U.S. citizens overseas were based on an immediate and real need: contact with potential agents. With a false U.S. passport, the recruited agent travels to Europe and then to Cuba for a 2 to 3 month training period, and then returns to the United States by the same route.

The contact in Europe is usually made after a lapse of a year or more, and after careful observation of the recruited agent by Soviet KGB agents to weed out U.S. counterintelligence agents.

Since the Cubans did not want the Brigade members to know that one of their number had been selected for a clandestine operation, it was necessary to isolate the individual for training and instructions. For short-term training, the selected Brigade member would be hospitalized and later spirited out of the hospital or, if this was not possible, kept in isolation for the length of time needed to impart the necessary instructions.
 

Targets in the U.S.

There are good reasons to believe that the D GI considers Operation Venceremos a highly successful venture in practically every respect. There were serious problems, mainly in the disciplinary field, but these were offset by the wealth of information gathered and the objectives attained. The self-perpetuating structure of the Brigade is an indication that the Cubans intend to keep a tight control on the organization, especially in view of the recent moves to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Again, it is most interesting to note that the D GI has had an extremely keen interest in the legislative and executive branches of the United States government. One of its objectives is to obtain not only information but also a base of influence.

Of paramount importance to the DGI is the influence that can be brought to bear on the matter of resuming relations by political and economic groups which favor such resumption.

In this context, the DGI, ever ready to exploit any available source to advance its objectives, has sought to enlist the help of the National Lawyers Guild to create a pressure group in the United States. A letter to members of the Washington, D.C., chapter announcing the names of the selected delegates for a trip to Cuba contained the following statement:
 

The recommending committee was overwhelmed by the number of qualified and desirable applicants. The process used to select the delegates and alternates was difficult, and of course, subjective to some degree. The first criterion was determined by the Cubans themselves. They asked that the Guild send men and women who would be able to serve them as contact and resource people in Washington during the upcoming period of transition in Cuban-U.S. relations; they desired a delegation which would have a broad background in governmental, professional and legal work. They (sic) Cubans stressed that the delegates should have a solid history of professional experience in the legal field, which is the reason why the selection was weighted towards lawyers rather than legal workers or students.
 

The letter closed with the word "Venceremos."
 

Conclusion
 

As the 8th contingent of the Venceremos Brigade prepares to leave for Cuba sometime in March of 1975, the number of veteran Brigade members who came under IJGI control totals nearly 2,000. Although many of the members have dropped out completely, there is enough overt activity in the United States to indicate that the National and Regional Committees are determined to have a hand in directing the movement for "political and social change."

In Marxist jargon "political and social change" is a euphemism for revolution. The veterans of the Brigade left no doubt as to their intentions when they printed a leaflet in California to recruit new members. It stated:
 

We call ourselves Venceremos Brigade. Senator Eastland calls us "Human Missiles" because the message we bring with us is a call for solidarity among all the people who are fighting the common enemy: U.S. Imperialism.

The struggle in the Cuban canefields, on the front lines in Vietnam; in the world communities at home and against the war machine in our country is the same.
 

In view of the inherent danger to the security of the United States engendered by the activities of the "Venceremos Brigade" and its mentor and director, the Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence, the staff of the subcommittee is in the process of preparing a comprehensive report on the Brigade to be released in the near future.
 

PROPOSAL OP CUBAN REVOLUTION
 

Shortly before his death in battle, Jose Marti (leader of the Cuban independence movement) wrote that he embraced the chance to give his life in the struggle, and "with the independence of Cuba, to prevent the United States' extending itself throughout the Antilles and pouncing with this added force upon the countries of our America."

Marti died, and his hopes for true Cuban independence remained unfulfilled for sixty years, as United States' imperialism relentlessly carried out Marti's prophecy in Cuba and the entire Latin American continent. The United States rapidly became the center of world-wide imperialism, all the while increasing its economic penetration and domination of Third World countries, particularly those in Latin America. Cuba is the first Latin American country to break out of U.S. domination and control. Since our movement to destroy American imperialism from the inside is inextricably linked with Third World liberation movements, we should understand in what ways the Cuban Revolution serves as an example for these struggles, and we should be prepared to offer it the most concrete support possible. This proposal contains a position on the Cuban Revolution, a call