U.S. Documents Iraqi, PLO Support to Guerrilla Movement in Salvador

Documentation was made public at the State Department today that Iraq and the Palestine Liberation Organization have supported the guerrilla movement in El Salvador.

According to the documentation, the guerrilla leaders received $500,000 in cash from Iraq and selected Salvadorans received training from the PLO. The State Department said it assumed weapons had been provided by the PLO to the guerrillas.

The documentation on “Communist interference in El Salvador” was presented to buttress the Reagan. Administration’s contention that there is military support from the outside against the government of El Salvador which is backed by the United States.

A summary said that the Unified Revolutionary Directorate (DUR), representative met with PLO head Yasir Arafat in Managua, Nicaragua on July 22, 1980. “Arafat promised military equipment, including arms and aircraft,” the summary said. It also said “A Salvadoran guerrilla leader met with Fatah leaders in Beirut in August and November and the PLO has trained selected Salvadorans in the Near East and in Nicaraguan.”

Regarding Iraq, the documentation said that last Sept. 24, Salvadoran guerrillas received and distributed $500,000 in a “logistic donation” from

Iraq. It said that those funds were distributed to the Nicaraguan revolutionary movement and “within El Salvador.”

Reporters were briefed on the documentation by John Bushnell, acting Assistant Secretary for Latin American Affairs, and Jon Glassman, a U.S. foreign service officer, who had previously served at the American embassies in Mexico City, Moscow and Havana.