THE WIDER WAR: Honduras
The president seems determined to add still another sorry chapter to the chronicle of Yankee imperialism in Central America. The Administration apparently has chosen Honduras to be our new...
...They are also allowed, and actively encouraged, to launch nighttime raids across the border, attacking frontier posts and Sandinista patrols...
...5 And it now ap23NACLAReport pears that Honduras may be willing to do more than support slaughters on and within its own borders...
...A propaganda blitz, making particular use of the Army's weekly TV program, plays up the border incidents and makes urgent appeals to defend the territorial integrity of Honduras...
...But even for those who make it to Honduras alive, the peace treaty has meant continued persecution and death...
...Its present ruling General, Policarpo Paz Garcia, has what's politely referred to as "a drinking problem," and corruption is notoriously rife within the military High Command...
...Honduras almost outdoes the stereotype of a banana republic...
...If a common enemy can erase a few memories, "a common benefactor can arrange a quick deal...
...According to the New York Times, Pentagon officials are already worried that the ratio of Salvadorean soldiers to guerrillas, at four to one, is insufficient...
...But the victims of the joint attack several days later were refugees-mainly women, children and the elderly...
...It has seen 150 governments in 160 years, and spent the last 18 under military rule...
...HONDURAS 1. Department of Defense, Foreign Military Sales and Military Assistance Facts, December 1980, p. 6; State Department information released to Congressional committees...
...The Honduran public is being steadily primed for a confrontation with Nicaragua...
...Salvadorean soldiers and paramilitary squads have conducted tent-to-tent searches in refugee camps, seizing those suspected of guerrilla ties...
...In recent weeks, Honduran and Nicaraguan government officials have been talking to reduce tensions...
...Accordingly, it has already assumed the tasks of supporting the Salvadorean Army in its battles against the guerrillas, and provoking frequent military confrontations along the Nicaraguan border...
...The president of Honduras went on national radio a few days afterward to say the massacre had never occurred...
...3 But the preponderant role of this regional alliance is reserved for Honduras...
...5 (May-June, 1973...
...Dubbed "the magnificent seven," these colonels see a double advantage to an invasion...
...All civilian flights over Marcala are now prohibited...
...economic assistance to Latin America, despite a sparse population of three million...
...0 State Department officials have reiterated that message by stating that U.S...
...2 CONDECA, the Central American Defense Council, has already been reorganized since Nicaragua's withdrawal in 1979, with headquarters in Guatemala...
...But in 1980, it was alleged that the FMLN had established guerrilla bases in the demilitarized zone...
...A new airstrip has been built within the last year, and the area has been declared a military zone...
...plan to rely on proxies and avoid the use of American troops...
...Strategies for Central America," NACLA Report, Vol...
...9. Latin America Weekly Report, May 8, 1981...
...Each side remembers vividly the other's atrocities during that five-day war...
...Its Army sees communism at both doorsteps-a revolutionary offensive in El Salvador to the southwest and Sandinismo in power to the southeast...
...Eyes on the Other Border In stark contrast to the plight of Salvadorean refugees, Nicaraguan exiles have found a hospitable new home in Honduras...
...proxy in a Central American war...
...Actions by the Honduran Army are included within these statistics...
...7. Wheaton, op...
...A war with Nicaragua, moreover, would doubtless be highly unpopular among large sectors of the population that sympathize with the Sandinista cause...
...But one of his Army chiefs admitted that the "incident" had in fact taken place, while denying any direct involvement by Honduran troops.' The massacres of refugees "mistaken" for guerrillas have continued...
...Honduras was to be a showcase of democracy in a sea of revolutionary chaos, and therefore a more palatable ally against regional "subversion...
...It has received $3.5 million in military aid since April 1980, with $10.7 million projected for fiscal 1982...
...In 1980, it was the second largest recipient of U.S...
...And five months later, a peace treaty was signed, with much fanfare, that simply outlined a procedure for future border negotiations while restoring full diplomatic and economic relations...
...Burying the Hatchet Every weekend, rain or shine, Honduran Army officers pack a picnic lunch and set off for the border to break bread with Salvadoreans of corresponding rank...
...6. Editorial, Globe and Mail (Toronto), March 3, 1981...
...An invasion plan that was set to go in December 1979, according to reliable sources, was stopped by last-minute 24MaylJune 1981 pressure from Jimmy Carter...
...The "magnificent seven" do draw courage from Washington, however...
...2. Testimony by Franklin Kramer, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, House Appropriations Subcommittee of Foreign Operations, March 25, 1980...
...Southern Command, visited Honduras in March 1981, and reportedly assured the Hondurans that, "The Pentagon was fully behind their collaboration with the Salvadoreans, and would support them in any confrontation with the Nicaraguans...
...Eleven years of negotiations between the two governments produced no headway toward resolving the festering border dispute...
...6 Honduras is an obvious source of additional personnel...
...According to Nicaraguan Defense Minister, Humberto Ortega, Honduras' reconnaissance planes have violated Nicaraguan airspace and its Army patrols have covered the retreat of somocista raiders.' In the past few months, the exile raids have been overshadowed by direct clashes between Honduran and Nicaraguan troops...
...The decision to carry out the attack on a suspected guerrilla base was made at a meeting of Salvadorean and Honduran military commanders at El Poy, a small border town...
...In short, Honduras is fast becoming the new U.S...
...Remnants of Somoza's National Guard, plus some new converts to their cause, are allowed to train on Honduran soil for the "liberation" of their homeland...
...Congress approved an aid package to Honduras, there was a sudden breakthrough in the deadlocked negotiations...
...First, it would eliminate what they see as an external threat to domestic tranquility...
...The 1,000 mile border has been closed since April, and heavy troop movements have been reported on both sides...
...The Salvadorean Army's "clean-up" operations in the northern provinces were ineffective...
...And the Hondurans, swearing revenge for their military defeat, proceeded to create the strongest Air Force in the region...
...Honduras abruptly dropped its long-standing condition that the border line be finalized before relations could be mended...
...and second, it would provide a convenient pretext for postponing the planned transition to civilian rule...
...This would amount to more military aid in just one year than Honduras received in all the years between 1950 and 1979.' Why the sudden interest...
...advisers in late 1980...
...Done by the book, they say, counterinsurgency calls for an advantage of at least twenty to one...
...Church sources in Honduras now report an unprecedented level of military activity along the Honduran side of the border, and a large foreign presence of the "gringo" variety...
...The Administration apparently has chosen Honduras to be our new "Nicaragua"--a dependable satellite, bought and paid for by American military and economic largesse...
...In May 1980, the first border massacre took place at the Sumpul River...
...Latin America Regional Report, March 20, 1981...
...8. New York Times, April 30, 1981...
...Diplomatic and trade relations remained broken and a demilitarized zone, three kilometers deep into each country, stayed under OAS supervision...
...8 The Nicaraguan government has documented 37 attacks to date, 44 air space violations and 15 infiltrations from Honduran territory...
...Salvadorean soldiers fired on them from helicopter gunships, forcing the refugees to seek cover in the river...
...Not all sectors of the Honduran Army agree with what appears to be a conscious plan to bait the Nicaraguans into a border war, and then use the Honduran Air Force to sweep the country and overturn the Sandinista revolution...
...More than 100 Nicaraguans have been killed in these raids, including many young brigadistas teaching literacy classes in remote areas near the border last year...
...military aid to Honduras would not be cut off in the event of a war with Nicaragua...
...For Honduras, militarization of the border area has led to a plan, announced in February, to remove all Salvadorean refugees-estimated at 46,000-to tightly controlled camps in the interior...
...At "a meeting in Miami in April 1980, shortly after the U.S...
...The Honduran government has already threatened foreign priests-the most outspoken witnesses to the massacres to date-with expulsion...
...3. For more information on the origins and role of CONDECA, see, "U.S...
...And the Honduran Army seems undecided about where to commit the bulk of its resources-to counterinsurgency alongside the Salvadorean Army, or to counterrevolution in Nicaragua...
...The town of Marcala, fifty kilometers from the Salvadorean border, is being used as a major center for Honduran counterinsurgency forces, newlytrained by U.S...
...But many dissidents within the military have been purged in recent months, and the Honduran Army High Command is dominated by a clique of right-wing colonels who favor the plan...
...Coordinated actions between the armies of Honduras and El Salvador were seen as the urgent answer to FMLN expansion...
...Jimmy Carter started the process by tying military and economic aid to 22MaylJune 1981 pressures for a return to civilian rule...
...interests...
...No More Witnesses Honduran cooperation in the Salvadorean war is critical to the U.S...
...The absence of these independent observers, according to priests involved in refugee work, could lead to much more direct Honduran involvement in "Operation Sandwich," an attempt to trap the Salvadorean guerrillas between two lines of fire...
...Elections were in fact held, in April 1980, and a new Constituent Assembly chose to retain Policarpo Paz as interim president while it paves the way for presidential elections in November 1981...
...In addition to resistance from younger Army officers, the High Command is nervous about committing troops to a foreign war when domestic unrest is on the rise...
...cit., p. 20...
...The plan would also remove all international relief agencies from the zone, as well as journalists interested in the refugee angle of the crisis...
...Now, with a new man in charge, Honduran officials see a green light for their plans...
...Cooperation between the two armies might not be unusual, had these countries not gone to war in 1969, over a border conflict that involved complicated economic and demographic issues...
...Back in the barracks, Honduran soldiers listen to weekly lectures on the need for cooperation with El Salvador-lest the communist menace cross the border to Honduras itself...
...But the domestic risks of an invasion are still quite high...
...Meanwhile the military aid keeps flowing, justified by the need to cut supply routes to El Salvador's guerrillas and to prevent Honduras from becoming the "next target" of communist aggression...
...VII, no...
...5. Washington Post, January 7, 1981...
...4. London Times, February 22, 1981...
...Those who made it across were pushed back into the blood-red waters by Honduran soldiers...
...The vast plantations run by United Fruit (now United Brands) envelop the countryside, while Honduras is second only to Haiti in per capita poverty...
...The Honduran Army is deeply divided over the planned elections and military retreat, and some sectors feel there will be less pressure from Reagan's White House to carry through with the plan...
...Honduras has allowed Salvadorean Air Force planes to fly raids over its territory...
...Much will depend on how the High Command perceives the FMLN challenge, and how willing they are to risk a foreign adventure that might well bring in Cuba and Mexico as staunch allies of the Nicaraguan revolution...
...In the post-Somoza era, the United States is urgently trying to create a new balance of forces in Central America, with Honduras in the lead as the new "regional guardian" of U.S...
...Yet Honduras is being taken very seriously in Washington these days...
...New York Times, June 8, 1981...
...Jack Anderson, The Washington Post March 23, 1980...
...General Wallace Nutting, chief of the U.S...
...Coordination between the two armies is now chillingly precise, and thousands of refugees have died as a result...
Vol. 15 • May 1981 • No. 3
