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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 99-4-182
TITLE:             Soviet Union Plans Greater Role for AAPSO
BY:                
DATE:              1974-4-17
COUNTRY:           (n/a)
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  CAA/X

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RUSS -- SOVIET UNION PLANS GREATER ROLE FOR AAPSO	F-66

MUNICH, 17 APRIL 1974 (CAA/X).

Moscow is currently making a determined bid to bolster
the Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organization (AAPSO), which
originated in a conference in Cairo, held in 1957, with the
encouragement of what is now the foremost Soviet international
"front"  organization, the World Peace Council (WPC). AAPSO's
relations with the WPC have become considerably closer since
1967 when the Chinese - who shared control of the AAPSO with
the Russians and Egyptians - boycotted a Council meeting and
later withdrew from the  organization.

The greatly expanded work program of the AAPSO approved at its
11th Council Meeting in Baghdad 6n March 24-28, 1974, indicates that the
Soviet Union has some important new tasks for the  organization over which
it has had increasing influence in the last few years.

During 1974-75, the AAPSO will hold 13 conferences and meetings
including an international seminar on the Indian Ocean (in Colombo in May,
1974); a conference "in support of the Zimbabwe people" (Mogadishu,
November); the first session of the AAPSO Executive Committee (Brazzaville
or Freetown, October), and a women's conference some time in 1975 at a
venue to be arranged. And the AAPSO Council has further recommended that
the Permanent Secretariat go ahead with plans for an additional ten seminars
and conferences including a second seminar on oil and energy to be held in
Baghdad.

Visits to the "liberated areas" of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea
Bissau are planned; and the  organization will also participate in three.
conferences, including a WPC-sponsored "Conference on Peace and Justice in
the Middle East" in Rome in September this year.

Although the  organization has never published its accounts, it
does not seem likely that so ambitious a program could be approved unless
considerable extra funds had been made available by the Soviet Union. It
is thought that the Russians have four main objectives in giving the AAPSO
a new lease of life:

First they may be seeking to increase the influence of the AAPSO
in an attempt to infiltrate the non-aligned movement by the "back door",
particularly after Moscow's apparent failure to win support for its
policies at the Fourth Summit Conference of Non-Aligned States held in
Algiers in September, 1973.

Second, they appear to see the AAPSO as a useful vehicle for
gaining a firm foothold in the liberation movements, and third, they may be
seeking to line up the militant anti-Israel/US Iraqis, Syrians and
Palestinians against Egypt whose recent: policies have been viewed with
growing concern by the Soviet leadership. Finally, the strengthening of
the AAPSO can also be seen as a bid to pre-empt China from gaining support
in the non-aligned movement, especially as the Chinese found many defenders

[page 2]

RUSS (1) -- SOVIET UNION PLANS GREATER ROLE-FOR AAPSO	F-67

at the Algiers Conference - although not represented - and the Russians
suffered several setbacks.

The Soviet Union is known to be unhappy about changes of emphasis
in Egypt's economic and foreign policies and the rapid improvement in
Egypt/US relations as evidenced by the re-establishment of diplomatic links
between the two countries. Liberalization in Egypt's economic sector has
apparently given the Russians doubts about the Soviet Union's place in
Egypt's future plans.

The fact that the AAPSO's Egyptian Secretary-General Yusuf El Sebai -
who has held that office since the  organization's formation - was pushed
"upstairs" to the position of President by the recent Council meeting may
have been a possible first step towards moving the AAPSO headquarters from.
Cairo to a more "friendly" venue - Baghdad being the most likely choice.

Although no new Secretary-General was announced, Nuri Abdel Razzaq
Hussein, an Iraqi Communist, must be considered a strong contender for the
post. A former Secretary-General of another Soviet "front", the International
Union of Students (IUS), he was loaned to the AAPSO Permanent Secretariat in
August, 1972. Another possible successor is an AAPSO Secretary, Om Prakash
Paliwal (India), a former WPC Secretary who represented the AAPSO. at the
Steering Committee meeting of the World Congress of Peace Forces in Moscow
on February 9-10 this year.

The importance of the role being assigned to the AAPSO was underlined
by what was an exceptionally high turn out for a Council Meeting; the
attendance at the 11th session of over 400 delegates representing 79 "world
solidarity  organizations and liberation movements" from 67 countries was
comparable to that for the AAPSO's 5th Conference held in Cairo in January,
1972.

Acceptance of seven new member  organizations* is a further sign of
the strengthening process going on within the  organization.

-------------------------

*The Council of Solidarity and Peace (Ghana); the National and Liberation
Congress (Swaziland); the Seychelles People's United Party; the Social
Development Movement of Black Africa MESAN; the Afro-Asian Solidarity
Committee (Upper Volta); the liberation movement of Sao Tome and Principe,
and the Democratic Party of Botswana.

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