A key State Department official charged that the Palestine Liberation Organization was serving as a proxy for the Soviet Union in fomenting revolution in Central America.
Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, said the PLO was “providing both arms and training to guerilla forces in El Salvador, Guatemala and perhaps Honduras as well.”
Abrams, addressing a meeting of the national Board of Trustees of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations at Stouffer’s Inn here, noted that PLO chairman Yasir Arafat was one of the first foreign leaders invited to Nicaragua after the Sandinista regime came to power there.
He told the 175 people at the board meeting: “PLO military camps in Lebanon and Libya have trained large numbers of Communist guerillas from Central American countries, and are still doing so. PLO arms are also being smuggled into several Central American countries which revolutionary forces are seeking to overthrow.
“Communist leaders in those countries are constantly visiting Lebanon for meetings with Arafat and other PLO chieftains. They are part of the same ideological camp — and proudly proclaim it.”
The two-day meeting of the UAHC trustees ended yesterday.
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