CIA-RDP96-00788R001900530011-3

Board confirmed that Thomas' wife,
See MEESE, All, Col. 1
WASHINGTON POST
17 MAR 84
Disappearances
Plague Probe of
Aquino Murder
By William Branigan
Washington Post Foreign Service
MANILA, March 16-A fact-
finding board investigating the as-
sassination of opposition leader
Benigno Aquino Jr. is debating
whether to travel to the United
States to interview prospective wit-
nesses as fears mount that a sus-
pected military cover-up of the mur-
der has taken a violent turn, accord-
ing to people working on the inves-
tigation.
The board also expects to place
more witnesses under protective cus-
tody in light of a trail of deaths or
disappearances that followed the
murder of Aquino at Manila Inter-
national Airport Aug. 21 while he
was in the custody of military
guards. So far at least six other per-
sons have died or disappeared as, a
result of that assassination, lawyers
sajd.
Testimony about the disappear-
ances has shifted attention away
from questions about the actual as-
sassination to suspicions about a
subsequent cover-up, and the need
to protect witnesses who can further
the investigation.
The trail begins with Rolando
Galman, a purported professional
gunman who the government claims .
shot Aquino on the airport tarmac
on behalf of communist rebels before
being gunned down himself by se-
curity guards.
Two weeks later, according to tes-
See MANILA, A21, Col. 1
....
west, and Mise Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001900530011-3
rates may inch higher in the next
See ECONOMY, A12, Col. 1
See BUDGET, A9, Cel. 1
Gunmen Seize U.S. Political Officer on Street in West Beirut
By Herbert H. Denton
Washington Post Foreign Service
BEIRUT, March 16-A U.S. dip-
lomat was kidnaped by unknown
gunmen in front of his west Beirut
apartment building as he set out for
work at the embassy this morning.
According to witnesses, William
Buckley, first secretary of the polit-
ical section, tried to escape his ab-
ductors but two carloads of gunmen
blocked his auto. An armed man
leaped from a car, put a pistol to
Buckley's head, forced him into one
of the cars and sped off.
Robert Pugh, first deputy at the
U.S. Embassy, said late today there
had been reports that the car was
seen south of the capital but there
were no hard leads nor indication of
why Buckley was kidnaped.
"We are handicapped," Pugh said,
"because as is the case with any em-
bassy, we would deal with the legally
constituted authorities, of which
there are none in west Beirut."
"What we have is what I would
call a precariously balanced anar-
chy," he said.
For help in finding Buckley, the
embassy turned to the two dominant
militia in west Beirut, the Shiites'
Amal and the Druze of the Progres-
sive Socialist Party. Pugh said the
embassy had also asked the militia
to provide protection for American
diplomats at their homes.
Buckley was the third American
to disappear under mysterious cir-
cumstances since the Feb. 6 militia
takeover that aggravated lawlessness
in west Beirut. Shoot-outs on the
streets, daylight holdups, break-ins
and car and boat thefts are recur-
rent.
Unlike the random shelling of res-
idential neighborhoods by warring
· sectarian factions, these crimes are
often without any political dimen-
sion but appear to be the work of
young toughs taking advantage of
the chaos.
[In the civil war Friday, the As-
sociated Press reported, Christian
and Moslem militiamen traded mor-
tar and rocket-propelled grenade fire
from midnight until midmorning.
The firing resumed at nightfall.]
As of this evening, no group had
claimed responsibility for Buckley's
kidnaping. There was speculation
that it might have been carried out
by a shadowy group calling itself
Islamic Jihad that has claimed re-
See BEIRUT, A22, Col. 1
Mozambique, S. Africa
Sign Detente Accord
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
ON THE MOZAMBICAN-SOUTH AFRICAN BOR-
DER. March 16-The leaders of South Africa and Mc-
zambique signed an accord today pledging "nonaggres-
sion and good neighborliness" in the first such pact ever
signed between one of Africa's independent black nations
and its sole remaining white-ruled one.
The Komati Accord, signed by South African Prime
Minister Pieter W. Botha and Mozambican President
Samora Machel in a colorful ceremony in a no-man's
land on the bank of the Kometi River between the two
countries' borders, commits each to respect the sover-
eignty of the other and to refrain from supporting insur-
gents seeking to overthrow the other government.
For both nations, the treaty marks a dramatic reversal
of policy following nearly a decade of hostile relations
that in recent years led to cross-border raids into Mo-
zambique by South African commandos and warplanes.
Bonnte and Bruce Olover .
Popular Couple Died
At Edge of 2 Cultures
By Ken Ringle
Washington Fost Staff Writer
It is also the first formal step toward what American
diplomats, who helped orchestrate the negotiations that
In many respects, Bruce and Bonnie Glover
were a couple right out of their time: young
and possibilities of Washington and the personal
led to the pact, hope will be a region-wide detente that
will result in indepApproved thersBalease/2000/08/08 "OfA-Profesisrgb7Bgreed doo yo presures
trolled territory of Namibia and end a series of bush wars
Hughes Gets Bi !!
Md. Votes to Limit Pensions
By Saundra Saperstein
and Michel McQueen
Washington Post Staff Writers
ANNAPOLIS, March 16-The
Maryland House of Delegates re-
versed its vote of two days ago and
passed legislation today that will re-
strict pension benefits of 80,000
state employes and teachers. Then,'
with extraordinary speed, the State
Senate approved the bill, sending it
to Gov. Harry Hughes, who is ex-
pected to sign it.
4
Reversing its dramatic 70-to-70
tie of Wednesday which had de-
feated the measure, the House ap-
proved the bill on a 71-to-68 vote
after House Speaker Benjamin L.
Cardin (D-Baltimore) secured the
victory margin with a deal for in-
creased state aid to schools.
Then, amid cries of foul play from
the pension bill's stunned oppo-
nents, the measure was rushed
across the marble hallway to the
Senate chamber and introduced
there. Employing a series of proce-
dural maneuvers, the Senate cut
short a process that usually takes
days or even weeks and in less than
seven hours approved the bill, 29 to
18.
Today's action provided an unex-
pectedly swift climax for the issue
that had turned the General Assem-
bly into a battleground between the
pension bill's teacher-opponents and
legislative leaders, who made it the
linchpin of the 1984 session. The bill
became critical when the Senate
threatened to kill a huge aid-to-ed-
ucation package, particularly prized
by Baltimore, if the House failed to
pass the pension bill.
Tonight, the Senate Budget and
Taxation Committee held up its end
of the bargain by approving, 11 to 2,
See PENSIONS, A10, Col. 3

WEUN Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-0078R001900530011-3
BEIRUT, From A1
sponsibility for the suicide bomb
explosion of the U.S. Embassy last
April, the bombings of U.S. Marine
and French military headquarters in
October and the assassination in
Jemery of Malcolm Kerr, the pres-
ident of the American University of
Beirut.
Buckley, 55, a native of Medford,
Mass, arrived in Beirut last July
after joining the State Department
only last year. The department said
he worked previously as a civilian
employe of the Army. He has no
bodyguard, nor do others living out-
side the official compound. A bach-
elor, he lives six blocks from the em-
bassy in a 10th-floor penthouse of a
.
once fashionable neighborhood that
is now bomb-scarred and slightly
seedy.
-
.
The Druze militia operates in the
neighborhood, as do two smaller
Sunni Moslem militias, the Green
Muscateers and the Mourabitoun
(pronounced mow-ra-bee-toon).
According to Mohammed Moussa,
concierge at Buckley's building,
when the diplomat got into his car to
go to work shortly before 8 a.m. a.
Renault with three gunmen inside
blocked him after he had driven a
few yards.
A second car with two more gun-
men blocked the street further
down, other witnesses said. They .
said Buckley threw his car in reverse
but was trapped in the dead-end
street. He did not put up a struggle
when a gunman jumped from the
Renault and forced him inside, the
witnesses said.
The two other missing Americans
are Frank Regier, an American Uni-
versity of Beirut professor, who was
abducted at gunpoint from his home
on the school's campus on Feb. 10,
and Jeremy Levin, bureau chief for
Cable News Network, who has not
been seen since his wife left home to
go to work March 7.
French diplomats said a French
engineer living in west Beirut disap-
peared two weeks ago, after telling a
hotel clerk he was going out to take
photographs.
The embassy's diplomatic staff
now numbers about 50, haif of its
normal size. Many U.S. Embassy
employes have moved into buildings
used by the embassy on the seafront
that are guarded by about 100 ma-
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rines. But there is no guarantee of
security even in that area. On March
5, Marine Col. Dale Dorman was
shot in the chest and arm as he was
walking along the seafront near the
embassy.
Marine embassy guards who have
ventured a few blocks out of the
compound said they have been
threatened by carloads of young men
and warned that if they go into town
wear civilian clothes.
One marine said one of the car-
loads threatening him appeared sur-
prised that not all of the contingent
from the former multinational
peace-keeping force had withdrawn
to ships at sea.
But Americans are not the only
targets.
A Lebanese contractor, a Shiite
related by marriage to Amal militia
head Nabih Berri, was stunned when
he and his wife were held up around
noon Sunday by a gunmen who took
their identification papers and car.
Last Friday, two groups of mili-
tiamen fought for several hours with
semi-automatic weapons and rocket-
propelled grenades in a densely pop-
ulated neighborhood two blocks east
of the prime minister's office.
According to neighbors, the shoot-
cut stemmed from an eight-year-old
dispute between the owner of a small
shoe shop and a service-station car
washer across the street. In the past,
the two men had merely shouted at
· one another, but this time each got
militia friends for backup.
Residents feit some relief when
three armored trucks carrying Leb-
anese Army soldiers came, but the
soldiers merely observed the fighting
and continued on. Only when mili-
WILLIAM BUCKLEY
.. . forced from car on way to work
tiamen of Amal's "police unit" ar-
rived did the fighting end.
"What we have is a state without
instrumenta of power and militias
without strategies," a university pro-
fessor here lamented the other day.
He and others worry that factional
leaders meeting in Switzerland do
not appear to be attempting to find
any compromise for a security force.
Without such agreement, these
sources fear, political decisions will
be rendered meaningless.
The Progressive Socialist Party
and Amal "have tried very hard to
be cooperative and supportive" of
U.S. Embassy personnel, said Pugh.
"But they are not equipped to gov-
ern or to carry out those functions of
government that are important" in
something like Buckley's kidnaping.
A European diplomat said he had
been told that Amal and the Social-
ists had killed 10 petty criminals in a
show of force against the lawlessness.
"It wasn't enough," he added.
Washington Post Foreign Service
BEIRUT, March 16-A S.
destroyer trailing the U.S. 6th I
off the Lebanese coast came clos
colliding recently with five Amer
ships conducting maneuvers.
According to Capt. Robert
Cooper, commander of the amp
lous landing ship USS Trenton,
incident occurred a few days :
the Feb. 26 completion of the tr
fer of U.S. Marines from Beirut
the five ships.
Cooper said the Soviet Kas
type destroyer bore down on the
umn end only turned away at
last minute under the bows of
lead American ship, the Fort S
ing, about 700 yards away.
"It looked awfully close," Co
Lebanese Hol
During Pau
LAUSANNE, Switzerland, M
16 (AP)-Specialists worked t
to draft final political proposals
mediators hope might win appi
Saturday from the rival Moslem
Christian factions at the Lebz
peace talks.
Informal talks between facti
leaders were reported making h
way as Syria pressed both side
reach a compromise on plans
post-civil structural reforms.
"Let's face it, it's Syria's sh
said one West European diplc
who dropped in at the luxury }
where the conference began Mon
Two committees of experts se
by the National Reconciliation
BAR & GAME TABLE CLEARANCE