Into the Central American Maelstrom
In a region where the fires of revolution burn white hot, Honduras is a model of stability, a bizarre anomoly. If Honduras' wealthy landowners, ranchers and industrialists have not been loath...
...Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), World Armaments and Disarmament Yearbook, 1980 (London: Taylor & Francis Ltd., 1980), p. 97...
...Aid and Elections Paz Garcia kept his part of the agreement when he returned to Honduras...
...I, No...
...Its Air Force, long referred to as the best in Central America, boasted Israeli-modified French Super-Mystere jets, Yugoslav-modified Canadian F-86 sabre jet fighters, A-37 combat planes from the United States as well as training and reconnaissance planes from Britain and the United States...
...The military junta formally handed over power to the newly-elected constituent assembly, but the Liberals, lacking an absolute majority, were stymied in their attempts to form a government...
...First, he pressured strenuously for General Paz to keep his pledge of holding elections...
...The Administration apparently has chosen Honduras to be our new 'Nicaragua'-a dependable satellite bought and paid for by American military and economic largess...
...59, No...
...See also LeMonde, May 7, 1981...
...Their talks were obviously positive...
...The U.S...
...6. Latin America Weekly Report, March 7, 1980...
...See Table 3.) In September 1979, Carter dispatched special envoy William Bowdler to Tegucigalpa to meet with General Policarpo Paz Garcia who headed that country's governing military junta...
...He argued that if Honduras were to play a key geopolitical role in the region by halting the flow of arms into El Salvador, it had to be well equipped...
...Embassy spokesperson in Honduras, the United States had 37 military advisers in that neutral, peaceful country in 1980...
...True to form, Reagan seemed more concerned with the latter goal...
...Perceptions vs...
...In short...
...But it did allow the Salvadoreans full access to the bolsones territoriales, demilitarized zones along the border which had been patrolled by the OAS since the end of the war...
...8. Latin America Weekly Report, Aug...
...XV, No...
...See Table 4.] If the Carter-Reagan objective of building Honduras into a regional contender carried with it the danger of drawing that country headlong into neighboring wars, by strengthening the Honduran military the United States also ran the risk of undermining its goal of returning civilian rule to that country...
...3 (May-June 1981), p. 23...
...To nearly universal amazement, the Liberal Party won a slim victory over the National Party in very heavy 27NACLA Report Table 3 U.S...
...22, 1980...
...The Carter Administration had been pressing Table 4 U.S...
...Besides apparent differences in the way the world is perceived, there is the likelihood that Latin America will be the sector of foreign policy in which there are the largest differences in perceptions and premises between the old and new Administrations...
...Yet, shortly after Paz Garcia's return from Washington, this decadeold open wound was suddenly sutured...
...Support for Authoritarian Regimes Abroad (Washington, D.C.: IPS, 1981), p. 51...
...Most observers had expected the Nationals to parlay their control over the national electoral tribunal and their historic alliance with the military into an impressive, if fraudulent, victory...
...Washington Post, May 5, 1981...
...Front of Honduras, and the Lorenzo Zelaya Popular Revolutionary Command...
...He reduced the level of economic aid to Honduras from FY 1980 levels, but sharply increased military aid, arms sales and the use of military advisers...
...On May 14, 1980, in a joint action with Salvadorean troops, Honduran soldiers prevented hundreds of Salvadorean refugees from crossing the Rio Sumpul into Honduras...
...Miami Herald, April 2, 1980 and Gregorio Selser, "Tambien a Honduras refuerza Carter con armas pesadas," El Dia (Mexico), Dec...
...Nowhere is this as evident as in the case of Honduras...
...As Honduras became more involved in the Central American struggles, its military officials increasingly discussed and developed strategy with the military leaders of El Salvador and Guatemala...
...Indirectly rebuffed in the polls, Paz Garcia was not so easily turned out of office...
...4, 1980...
...Philip E. Wheaton, The Iron Triangle: The Honduran Connection (Washington, D.C.: EPICA, 1981), pp...
...26Nov/Dec 1981 counterrevolutionary activities in Central America...
...Similarly, if the Honduran military has been repressive in the past, it has also led reform movements...
...8, 1980...
...Proceso (Mexico), Dec...
...67-8...
...Carter's advisers, for example, were much more likely to see the context of Central America's struggles as "that of authoritarian systems eroding under the pressures of demands for reform which they cannot or will not accomodate.''2 Those vying for Reagan's attention, on the other hand, discount internal factors and, instead, blame the Soviet Union...
...4 Carter's envoy had pushed two themes with Honduran leaders...
...We predict that the conflict with El Salvador will diminish quickly," he added, blinded by the light at the end of the tunnel, "and that, when this happens, the helicopters will be returned to the United States...
...If Honduras' wealthy landowners, ranchers and industrialists have not been loath to use violence to maintain their privileges, neither have they unleashed a war of genocide against their own people...
...Furthermore, while the Honduran Left has spawned at least four guerrilla organizations* as well as many popular movements, these cannot compare to the revolutionary armies of Guatemala, the FMLN-FDR of El Salvador or the victorious FSLN in Nicaragua...
...Latin America Weekly Report, Aug...
...According to a U.S...
...But it was not necessarily to be taken as a mandate for progressive government, for the Liberals were often as conservative as their traditional rivals...
...13...
...As a way out of this crisis-which many observers claim was engineered by Paz-they asked the general to stay on as interim president until the installation of a new elected leader in early 1982...
...3. Latin America Political Report, Sept...
...Carter and Reagan have grounded their policies in different assumptions...
...Yet, ironically, it is U.S...
...7. Latin America Weekly Report, April 25, 1980...
...Michael T. Klare and Cynthia Arnson, Supplying Repression...
...Michael Sheehan, Green Berets, confers with Honduran officer...
...He asked that Congress approve a oneyear loan of ten UH-1H (Huey) gunship helicopters to Honduras to patrol the border with El Salvador...
...Not content to let well enough alone, U.S...
...According to a number of reliable sources, top brass from the three countries met secretly in Honduras twice in early 1980...
...2 1 As a Washington Post reporter wrote, ex-National Guardsmen "regularly cross from Honduras into Nicaragua to stage small-scale attacks on Nicaraguan farms and, occasionally the army of the Sandinistas...
...That the two countries should want to settle an old conflict was not surprising...
...Sources: Department of Defense, Security Assistance Agency, "Congressional Presentation: Security Assistance Programs, FY 1982," pp...
...Uno Mas Uno (Mexico), June 30, 1980 and El Dia (Mexico), April 16 and 17, 1980...
...aid than any other Central American country...
...After all, since the 1969 war, Honduran soldiers and their counterparts in El Salvador shared nothing but enmity...
...policy-makers are attempting to build Hounduras into a regional reactionary powerhouse and a staging base for *These are the Cinchoneros Popular Liberation Movement, the Padre Ivan Betancourt Popular Revolutionary Command, the Morazanista Liberation Capt...
...The political parties must recognize that they have a common interest in making democratic reforms work...
...Honduras, according to Vaky's 1979 policy statement, must play a key role in preventing "regional conflicts and [the] potential infiltration" of supplies and guerrillas to other struggles...
...strategy of encouraging mild reform (particularly in the guise of elections) in order to avoid a revolution had arrived too late in Nicaragua and was made a mockery of in El Salvador and Guatemala...
...3 (1981), p. 645...
...2 2 (The January-February 1982 issue of the Report on the Americas will discuss further the border incidents between Honduras and Nicaragua...
...See Judy Butler, "The Wider War," NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol...
...And, if this policy carries any guarantees at all, it is that, before long, Honduras too will be embroiled in the regional conflagration...
...623-4...
...Paz, who in the meantime had sacked some 25 high-ranking officers, mostly reformers, agreed.' Satisfied that Paz Garcia had kept his part of the bargain, Carter actively lobbied for the increased aid for Honduras he had requested...
...SIPRI, Yearbooks 1980 and 1981, and Washington Post, May 5, 1981...
...29NACLA Report hard for a resolution of the conflict which would give Salvadoreans access to the bolsones so that they could pursue the guerrillas.' 9 Instead of breaking bread with guerrillas, Honduran border troops were now instructed to cooperate with Salvadorean troops in attacking them...
...With the blessings of the President, he was sent off to the hustings, to visit the Council on the Americas (the major organization of multinational corporations investing in Latin America), a trade fair in New Orleans, and the International Monetary Fund, where the general sacrificed his country on the altar of high finance...
...For now, the military would be content to exercise its prerogatives from the sidelines...
...In Honduras, though, it was not too late...
...policy itself which presents the greatest threat to Honduras' relative stability today...
...4. Miami Herald, April 13, 1979...
...8, 1980...
...14, 1979...
...Above all, the Hondurans seemed genuinely anxious to stay out of the regional conflicts...
...Aid and Arms Sales to Honduras FY 1981 - 1982 (Millions $) FY 1981 (est...
...To consummate his new marriage with Honduras, Jimmy Carter invited Paz Garcia to the White House in March 1980, where the general was again glowingly praised...
...facilities, nearly double the number of Hondurans trained in the 1951-1970 period...
...voting...
...The treaty actually resolved few of the outstanding problems between the two countries...
...4 Higher-level Honduran officers received special attention...
...Under President Carter, the Honduran military leaders were courted, cajoled and showered with loans and grants...
...FY 1982 (authorized) Economic Aid 33.4 38.8 Military Aida 8 .8b 10.7 Arms Salesc 6.0 12.0 alncludes FMS Financing Program and International Military Education and Training Program (IMET) bln August 1981, the Reagan Administration raised the FY 1981 FMS Financing grant to Honduras from $5 million to $8.4 million...
...As opposed to the original team, the 1981 crop patrolled the border with El Salvador, carried M16s and dressed in camouflage...
...INTO THE CENTRAL AMERICAN MAELSTROM 1. Viron P. Vaky, "Hemispheric Relations: 'Everything is Part of Everything Else,' " Foreign Affairs, Vol...
...8 The contents of that meeting remain confidential, but hardly a mystery...
...New York Times, Aug...
...policy-makers to worry about in a region filled with seemingly insoluble problems...
...Between 1975 and 1979 Honduras was the fourth largest arms importer in the entire Central AmericanCaribbean region (after Cuba, Mexico and the Bahamas) and the largest importer in Central America proper...
...On the level of "perceptions and premises," Vaky was quite correct...
...A few days later, Assistant Secretary Vaky, in a policy address on the region, noted that the Administration was "impressed" by democratic progress in Honduras...
...pressure for clean elections...
...9. Washington Post, March 23, 1980...
...Concludes FMS Cash Agreements and Commercial Exports...
...1 7 Under the care and oversight of the United States, Honduras had been prepared for the Central American wars...
...Aid levels to the country were the highest in Central America, except for Panama, in 1978, and second to none in 1979...
...Nearly 100 Honduran officers attended the "Command and General Staff" courses at the U.S...
...The basis of Carter's generosity was obviously not the simple selfless desire to aid the poorest country in Central America...
...2. Ibid., pp...
...The proposition was simple: you legitimize yourselves by calling elections and beef up your military in order to play a role in the region, and we'll pay for it...
...1980), pp...
...22, 1980...
...The vital thing is that no one be able to question the legitimacy of the next government," one foreign diplomat in Tegucigalpa noted...
...Economic and Military Aid to Central America (FY 1978 - 1980) (Millions $) Country Economic Aid Military Aid Three-Year Total 1978 1979 1980 1978 1979 1980 Honduras 17.1 29.1 53.1 3.2 2.3 3.9 108.7 El Salvador 10.9 11.4 58.3 - - - 86.5 Nicaragua 14.0 18.5 38.7 .4 - - 71.2 Panama 23.1 21.2 2.0 .5 1.4 .3 48.5 Guatemala 10.6 24.7 13.0 - - - 48.3 Costa Rica 9.0 17.9 16.0 - - - 42.9 Source: Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office), February 2, 1981...
...Approximately 600 refugees were killed, trapped between the Hondurans who wouldn't let them step on shore and the Salvadoreans who shot them down as they struggled back.'" The Rio Sumpul massacre was only the first in a string of grizzly mass murders of Salvadorean refugees trying to flee to Honduras...
...Not only did the ruling military junta allow constituent assembly elections in April 1980 and presidential elections in November 1981, but, to general surprise, these were honest and well attended...
...diplomats, it seems, preferred to overlook what Honduran labor unions called a "wave of repression" which had swept the country since Paz Garcia assumed power...
...the loan has been extended to five years and the conflict "with" El Salvador is far from resolution...
...1 It had British tanks, Israeli patrol boats and U.S...
...While there were only 27 in 1981, they included Green Berets from a Special Forces battalion based in Panama...
...19, 1981...
...The Arms Escalation The Hueys were just one part of a significant arms build-up which began in the late 1970s 28Nov/Dec 1981 and continued into the 1980s...
...1 ' History sometimes repeats itself as tragedy...
...They were sent with the Hueys in late spring.'" Under the Reagan Administration, the role of military advisers would expand...
...The United States provided smaller equipment as well, sending M16 and M14 rifles, side arms, grenade launchers, mortars, recoilless rifles, and communications equipment...
...Department of Defense, Security Assistance Agency, Foreign Military Sales and Military Assistance Facts (Dec...
...3 The United States also played a leading role in the training of Honduran officers...
...See Table 3.) Two days after the Anderson column, Assistant Secretary of State John Bushnell asked Congress to grant Honduras the $3.9 million in military aid which Carter had requested...
...Miami Herald, Oct...
...John A. Bushnell, "La polftica de los Estados Unidos en El Salvador y Honduras," Relaciones Internacionales [Costa Rica] Vol...
...Into the Fray Honduran soldiers patrolling the border with El Salvador in early 1980 often would share a drink and some small talk with Salvadorean guerrillas who had crossed the border...
...Because if they don't, all the parties will be swept away.''5 Second, Carter's policy demanded that the Hondurans no longer stand apart from the regional crisis...
...and Los Angeles Times, September 30, 1981...
...What was remarkable about the treaty was the fact that El Salvador dictated the terms at a moment in which it was exceptionally weak in relation to Honduras...
...9 In fact, in 1980 the country received $53.1 million in economic aid and $3.9 million in military aid...
...Policy Writing in Foreign Affairs shortly after Ronald Reagan's election, Viron Vaky, President Carter's Assistant Secretary of State for InterAmerican Affairs from 1978-1980, predicted that: "The change in Administrations in Washington may well turn out to be a significant benchmark in the history of U.S.-Latin American relations...
...On March 23, 1980, with Paz Garcia still touring the United States, columnist Jack Anderson had written: "The President seems determined to add still another sorry chapter to the chronicle of Yankee imperialism in Central America...
...But if the men in olive drab didn't fancy the results of the November 1981 elections, one could be sure that they were equipped to do something about it...
...Honduras was one country less for U.S...
...Army School of the Americas in the Canal Zone from 1976-1980, three times more than any other Latin American country.Is And then there were the military advisers...
...2 3 Thus, by the time the Reagan entourage encamped in Washington, Honduras was already guided by a policy which would lead it both to elections and (presumably) legitimation, and to increasing military participation in the Central American conflicts...
...In late 1980 and early 1981 the Nicaraguans reported 96 incursions' by Nicaraguan exiles and others based in Honduras...
...If the premises are different, policy nevertheless has often been the same...
...Barricada (Managua), April 30, 1981...
...5. New York Times, April 16, 1980...
...Then, on October 30, after 11 years of bickering, Honduras and El Salvador penned their acceptance of a peace treaty, formally ending the 1969 war...
...3 The U.S...
...Finally, it was on to Connecticut where General Paz Garcia lunched with General Alexander Haig, Jr., then president of United Technologies Corporation, and high-ranking executives of the Sikorsky helicopter company, a United Technologies'subsidiary...
...trucks and jeeps...
...This meant that during the important 1978-1980 period, Honduras received more U.S...
...While the Honduran military moved against Salvadorean guerrillas on their southwestern border, they cast a blind eye on the activities of Somoza's former National Guardsmen who were camped on their southeastern border...
...433-435...
...Between 1971 and 1980, the United States trained 2,259 military personnel in Honduras and U.S...
...1 (1980), p. 72...
...That they didn't was an indication both of popular repudiation of military rule and of U.S...
...On April 23, 1980, elections were held for a 71-member constituent assembly which would pave the way for a return to civilian rule...
Vol. 15 • November 1981 • No. 6
