Elections and Beyond
Santana, Nelson
The Honduran press called it "election fever," and it was certain that what the populace lacked by way of practice in the electoral process, it made up for in enthusiasm. The excitement had...
...6. Interview with Hernmn Corrales Padilla, the Christian Democratic presidential candidate, San Pedro Sula, November 1981...
...This translated into one sure seat and one possible additional seat for PINU, one possible seat for the PDC, and nothing at all for the independents...
...ELECTIONS AND BEYOND 1. Latin America Weekly Report, October 9, 1981...
...1 ' The sector of the military which is seeking more of a regional involvement for Honduras is quite aware of a number of sobering precedents...
...By the time of the 1980 constituent assembly elections, the National Party's only hope rested with blind obedience to tradition, or outright fraud...
...But they have failed in certain ways...
...There was bound to be a shift in the balance of power, all the more so as the Superior Council and the Liberal Party, among others, sought a new alliance...
...In the late 1970s, ALIPO began to shed a little of its "limosine liberal" image under the dynamic leadership of two brilliant brothers, Secretary General Jorge Arturo Reina, a former rector of the National University, and Carlos Roberto Reina...
...Under the Honduran voting system, parliamentary seats are allocated on the basis of a complex formula...
...As it happened, Modesto Rodas did not live to see the triumph of his party over its arch rivals...
...It was a fullfledged member of the Front, a legal coalition of three illegal parties, until it amicably parted and slid into electoral legality in 1981.6 For the Patriotic Front itself, the elections represented more of a dilemma than an opportunity...
...The other condition imposed by the military was that the armed forces would have access to certain cabinet posts and veto power over others...
...The Nationals' strongholds were in the 32NovlDec 1981 underdeveloped south of the country where the average literacy rate was 50%, the lowest in Honduras...
...There is another sector of the Honduran military, composed of junior officers from captain-major up, that came of age in the aftermath of the 1969 war with El Salvador, passionate in its loathing of the Salvadorean Army and repulsed at the gory excesses of the Guatemalans...
...FPH, 3,938...
...and Manuel Gamero, editor of El Tiempo, a lively newspaper published in San Pedro Sula with the most sophisticated political coverage in the country...
...For the creaky old Paz administration, the land scandal was merely the coup de grAce...
...Other Latin American governments that feel their influence over Central America slipping away with the destablization of El Salvador and Guatemala have followed the U.S...
...How would life be different in Honduras following Suazo'sJanuary 26 inaugration...
...Estimates of ALIPO strength within the Liberal Party varied from 10 to 35%, but its unlikely mix of university leftists, mildly progressive business people, and a strong presence in the national press gave it an influence disproportionate to its size...
...Paz, knowing when he was beat, slunk off to his offices to wait out his term, and elections proceeded...
...Given Honduras' reliance on a variety of foreign imputs, the tax resulted in a lowering of Honuran production, less income from exports, and a wave of insolvencies...
...This had led a group of U.S...
...standards, this was the equivalent of heading the National Guard, FBI, CIA and all local police forces simultaneously...
...Its statements intentionally clouded the distinction between foreign exiles and local activitists, and presented the impression that Honduras was on the brink of its own dread cycle of "subversion and repression...
...As the international terms of trade continued to favor petroleum and manufactured goods over agricultural commodities, this meant that, each year, the Hondurans could afford fewer imports from the same level of exports...
...In 1961, Honduras' Swan Island, off the Atlantic coast, was the communications center for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba...
...Old money was abandoning the country, frightened by the regional conflicts, and new money, in the form of huge infusions of economic and military aid, poured in...
...2. Financial Times [London], April 18, 1980...
...The Limits of Electoral Freedom With the Liberals favored to win, the best that the two minority parties, the Christian Democrats (PDCH) and PINU could hope for was the lack of a simple majority in the 85-seat Chamber of Deputies, which would allow them to put together a swing-vote coalition...
...ALIPO (Popular Liberal Alliance) was a wing of the party dating back to the 1950s with Social Democratic sentiments, though it avoided affiliation with the Socialist International...
...The United States, for one, had found that the sorry image of military dictatorships had been one of the biggest obstacles to its Central American policies abroad...
...1, 1981): Liberals, 633,365...
...For example, in 1972 Honduras could buy a barrel of oil with three pounds of exported coffee...
...The speed of the victory of the popular struggle in El Salvador and the amount of blood to be spilled-all of this will be determined by the degree of neutrality Honduras will maintain," stated one Salvadorean revolutionary spokesperson recently...
...Roberto Suazo C6rdoba, press conference, La Paz, Honduras, November 28, 1981...
...His campaign rhetoric had not been particularly impressive, proposing to combat endemic corruption by "making sure every public servant puts in an eight-hour day," to relieve the economic crisis "by increasing production and productivity," and responding to the U.S...
...Stolid, utterly uncharismatic, slow of speech, thought and action, with a bad habit of extend30ing his "provisional" presidency, General Paz never amassed much of a fan club...
...Names were checked and rechecked against master lists and, once having voted, electors were required to dip their pinkies into indelible red ink...
...Despite his association with Castle & Cooke, he is among the few high-ranking military men in the country who are regarded as unblemished by charges of corruption...
...The Christian Democrats garnered some 19,000' votes, PINU, 30,000 and the Patriotic Front's independents, a scant 4,000...
...No matter how many times power appeared to change hands in Honduras through the century, there was one symbiotic relationship which didn't change: those who controlled t!e wealth of the country needed those with the guns to guarantee "political stability," while the military needed moneymen, in the form of the traditional oligarchy, the financiers, or the new industrialists, to guarantee there would be an economy to skim...
...Shortly afterwards, the aggressive minority party investigators were removed from the commission...
...Christian Democrats, 18,785...
...PINU was a relatively new party based on middle-class professionals, while the Honduran Christian Democratic Party began as a peasant-student movement in 1963, incorporated as a political party in 1968, and participated in its first election in 1981...
...The elections are just a diversion...
...From the outset it was apparent that the Liberal Party and the National Party would smother the smaller opposition parties, with the Liberals the odds-on favorite to win the election...
...And this was precisely the message sent to Washington in mid-1981 by the Honduran military high command...
...policy-makers and the reactionary forces of Guatemala and El Salvador pull Honduras into the Central American wars, they may find that they have momentarily strengthened their forces in the region...
...Long-term financing totaled $257 million in 1980, bringing the foreign debt to $1.2 billion...
...Before the elections he was the object of attention from various groups in quest of a coup, ranging from military hardliners to ALIPO malcontents...
...His followers in the party mainstream, still known as the "Rodistas," chose a folksy, small-town doctor, Roberto Suazo C6rdoba, as his successor...
...Economic Basket Case In Honduras, unlike El Salvador and Guatemala, the business community was disgusted with the cupidity and mismanage- ment on the part of the military which had brought the country to the brink of financial ruin...
...By U.S...
...to the Rescue Suazo and his military backers immediately faced a major financial crisis...
...Moreover, as everyone from politicians to sportscasters stressed, Honduras was earning the attention it deserved as the obedient child in a region of troublesome, if not barbaric, juvenile delinquents...
...9. Interview with Hernin Corrales Padilla...
...They argued that the leadership of the leftist parties had little to do with grassroots organizing, which they said was reflected in their meager vote...
...7. Interview with Anibal Delgado Fiallos, San Pedro Sula, November 1981...
...The stakes, of course, were regional...
...Informed U.S...
...In the days of the Romans they had bread and circuses...
...lead in Honduras and have supported this sector...
...Although the military government of General Policarpo Paz Garcia had officially acquiesced to the idea of elections by the end of the Carter Administration, there were increasing indications that he was getting cold feet as the date approached...
...the ballot was an eight-by-five inch paper divided into columns headed simply by the names and symbols of the five parties...
...The government brought in the International Monetary Fund in early 1981 as a condition demanded by foreign lenders for the granting of future loans...
...But IMF policies, above all a 10% tax on most imports, created even more havoc...
...1 0 Is There Hope after Elections...
...But, ultimately, they will only prolong the conflicts and produce yet another crisis for the region, this time in Honduras itself...
...While the Liberals received approximately $1.25 million, PINU only got $350,000...
...Nationals, 486,092...
...3. Central America Report [Guatemala], August 22, 1981...
...Information from Department of Defence sources...
...He had also been a chief minister under Ram6n Cruz and L6pez Arellano, unofficial adviser to Paz Garcia, and a civil judge...
...If you lose your lenders' confidence, you lose the lifeblood of the economy," noted one interested observer...
...the difference here is that they don't give out the bread, they just hold the circus...
...The PDCH also played an interesting mediator role between the sector of the country's Left represented by the Patriotic Front (FPH), and the traditional electoral parties...
...The Liberal Victory Despite a last minute flurry of charges, the elections took place as scheduled on November 29...
...It is currently being refurbished for future use...
...In the farther reaches of the Honduran countryside, many voters would state that they were voting "blue" (National) or "red" (Liberal) without even being able to name the candidate in question...
...Their first recommendation was that he leave off wearing his general's uniform in public, advice the president has studiously ignored...
...The Honduran Christian Democrats tend to be more radical than most of their Latin American counterparts, largely because of their association with the militant peasant union, UNC, and their inroads in the labor movement, rivaled only by the Honduran Communist Party (PCH...
...It was often hard to tell the Liberals from their National opponents...
...After nearly 20 years in power, the military had not been able to shake Honduras' reliance on agricultural exports, which still represented 75% of all exported goods (principally bananas and coffee and, to a lesser extent, refrigerated meat, wood and cotton...
...By the time it was over, the Liberals had won a stunning victory, polling more than 640,000 votes to the National's 490,000...
...At the same time the government began a wave of crackdowns on Salvadorean and Guatemalan exiles living in Honduras...
...They added that Honduras was the tapdn natural-the obvious plug-to "Soviet-Cuban expansionism" in Central America, but one that should not be taken for granted...
...Should Honduras be pulled into, or gladly enter, the fray, there is no doubt that it will only protract the struggle in neighboring El Salvador...
...Jamie Rosenthal Oliva, president of the Banco Continental...
...The built-in biases of the Honduran electoral system supported the claims of the disaffected 33NACLA Report Left in Honduras, which tended to scorn the electoral efforts of the FPH and the Christian Democrats without offering a concrete alternative...
...In 1954, Honduras served as the staging ground for the CIA-sponsored coup that overthrew Guatemalan presidentJacobo Arbenz...
...As his wife and children looked on, the DNI searched Delgado and ransacked the union offices from which he was running his campaign, taking lists of party supporters, equipment and campaign funds...
...If the elections were to proceed, the two majority party candidates would be obliged to sanction the reconstitution of the commission...
...4 The wretched state of the economy began ta strain one constant of Honduran political life...
...Suazo mayhave been an unlikely candidate, but his National Party opponent, Ricardo ZGfiiga, was downright unsavory...
...5 Quite a statement from a spokesperson whose party traditionally hasNACLA Report been tied to the armed forces...
...Marco Virgilio Carias, an FPH candidate from the Socialist Party and a university professor, was kidnapped several days before the registration deadline...
...Embassy officials referred to him in private as a "Mayor Daley" type, and there was even something of a physical resemblance...
...This gave them not only the presidency, but also an expected 44-46 seats of the 85-seat Chamber of Deputies, better than a simple majority...
...The Liberals had warned that the nefarious Nationals would be attempting to recycle their supporters by passing around bottles of acetone...
...4. Central America Report, June 27, 1981...
...Delgado was taken into custody, but soon released...
...By all accounts, the voting itself was honest...
...presence in El Salvador with the bald statement that, "We believe that the United States is the defender of democracy and liberty in the world...
...The U.S...
...Low-interest, long-term loans from international lending institutions had dried up, as they had for the rest of Central America and the third world, forcing the country to forage for short-term, highinterest loans from reluctant private foreign banks...
...Instead, more than 80% of the electorate turned out to vote, as opposed to less than 50% in 1971...
...Prior to the April 1980 elections, the leaders of the parties that constituted the Patriotic Front-the pro-Moscow Honduran Communist Party (PCH), the Maoist MarxistLeninist Communist Party of Honduras (PCMLH) and the Honduran Socialist Party (PASOH)-called for an electoral boycott...
...The constituent assembly elections of April 1980 indicated that the Liberal Party had a strong edge on the National Party, which was traditionally identified with the country's military...
...Cynics maintained that the Liberals had a "cleaner" reputation than the Nationals simply because it had been longer since they had access to the public till...
...Jorge Bueso Arias, former economics minister and Liberal presidential candidate (who was probably defrauded of his victory in the March 1971 elections by Ram6n Ernesto Cruz...
...But the key position in the military, and 'o for the government, is that of head of the Superior Council of the Armed Forces, and Col...
...But even the party's supporters admitted that it failed to gather much steam through the 1970s under the lackluster leadership of Modesto Rodas Alvarado...
...What we need are structural changes...
...The excitement had been building for weeks before the November 29, 1981 polling date and Hondurans were deeply aware that the elections gave them a rare moment in the world spotlight...
...By September 1981, the Nationals were pushing for another postponement of the elections (already moved back from their original date of August 23), while Paz was entertaining proposals for a new civilianmilitary government that would allow him to retain a central role.' The opposition, linked to the Liberals, moved in for a quick checkmate: news of a land scam involving the Finance Minister, Valentin Mendoza, a close associate of Paz, was leaked to the press with the strong suggestion that the scandal could be extended to the Presidential Palace if need be...
...Paz Garcia's abrupt dismissal of 25 liberal young officers in 1980 was a blow to the latter group, yet it remains active and has just launched a "Movement of Patriotic Renovation" (MRP) under the leadership of 39-year-old Col...
...In 1980, the PDCH startled the Christian Democratic movement by issuing a statement at its national convention which was highly critical of its Salvadorean counterpart and which called for a political settlement of the Salvadorean conflict...
...1 4 Honduras is also one of the Latin American partners in the rapidly advancing proposal to send an inter-American "peace-keeping" force into El Salvador, in which Honduras would provide some air cover, a contingent of its TESON counterinsurgency troops and logistical support...
...1 2 Under such doleful circumstances, a few eyebrows were naturally raised when Finance Minister Prtxedes Martinez returned triumphantly from New York a few days before the November 1981 elections to announce a new $100 million loan package from the United States-including a $50 million advance on the national coffee crop after a year of the lowest coffee prices in recent history.'" Honduras, a country with less than 1% of Latin America's total population, was to reap more than 17% of AID funds destined for the region...
...Divisions in the Military To speak of "the military" in Honduras has always been misleading, for the strains range from the traditional old officer corps to "modern" Yankee-boosters, to the "military youth," deeply influenced by the reformist officers of Peru...
...Finally, the election was weighted toward the traditional parties because of a law which made campaign funds available on the basis of votes amassed in previous elections...
...Suazo, 55, hailing from a rural department on the Salvadorean border, was known as "El Brujo de La Paz" for his reputation for dabbling in santeria...
...Mario Maldonado, the progressive director of the INA in 1975 who was later forcibly retired from the military...
...Yet the press for elections, as we have seen, was much more than a simple urge to be rid of "Inca-Paz" ("incapable"), as he became known...
...Conservative Liberals, Liberal Liberals...
...In the end, the would-be renegades backed down, partly mollified by the promise of major cabinet positions if they agreed to lend their support, and partly sobered by the prospect of a National Party victory if they chose to withhold it...
...He was released two weeks later, shaken but unhurt-and out of the running...
...Furthermore, it had a new faction of fiery young upstarts to contend with...
...Exact but early figures from Tiempo (Dec...
...Efforts to overcome this problem had ranged from the promotion of the Christian Democrats in El Salvador to acquiring a pricy Madison Avenue "PR" firm to advise Guatemalan president, Lucas Romero, on how to present himself as a democratic public servant...
...The elections don't have any importance here," noted one defector from the PCH who has since become a leader of the illegal Popular Revolutionary Union (URP...
...There is a strong sector within the Honduran military that is eager to play a role in the regional Central American drama, in full collaboration with the military regimes of Guatemala and El Salvador, acutely aware of the short-term and long-term personal benefits it could reap...
...Should U.S...
...Given the abysmal performance of the Honduran economy, the relationship was breaking down...
...The combination of Honduras' internal stability and the surrounding turmoil of the region left a power vacuum in the military itself in the last months of Paz' reign...
...In a detailed report, they pointed out that Honduras, like Guatemala and El Salvador, was in the throes of an economic crisis "caused by the Sandinista revolution," and that massive infusions of U.S...
...These objections were put aside in 1981, and the party was allowed to participate...
...As a final blow, there was the failure of the Banco Financiera Hondurefia (Banfinan), the second-wealthiest bank in Honduras, which collapsed due to corruption and mismanagement in late 1980...
...5. Interview, San Pedro Sula, November 1981...
...PINU, 29,133...
...By 1980, the Honduran economy was something of a basket case...
...An active commitment by the Hondurans would generate increased sums of U.S...
...banks to take punitive steps against Honduras, affecting more than half the country's foreign credit...
...They soon found that Honduran electoral freedoms were freer to some than to others...
...The PDCH had been barred from the 1980 election on the grounds that it was a "friend of violence," and that it received funds from outside sources (namely, the international Christian Democratic organization...
...government sources predicted that Honduras' allocated economic aid for FY 1982, some $39 million, would actually be closer to $60 million when all was said and done...
...Tiempo, November 24, 1981...
...They questioned me for 15 minutes and then the comandante apologized and said they had made a 'terrible mistake'," he reported the following day.' Yet those responsible were never disciplined nor was the party compensated for its losses...
...The coalition decided to avoid a gratuitous defeat in the presidential race and concentrated its efforts and resources on four candidates in its four strongest departments...
...Argentina, Uruguay and Chile provide military assistance to the country, though additional assitance from Brazil and Peru, and officer training in Venezuela, could conceivably have a moderating influence...
...By 1980 it needed 24 pounds.' This meant that the balance of trade deficit had the nasty habit of doubling each year in the late 1970s.3 To pay for this, Honduras turned to foreign loans...
...aid-and the opportunitites that would open for graft-as well as a likelihood that the military would again assume direct political power...
...His secret for success has been his extreme flexibility...
...According to one Honduran entrepreneur, only 45 days after the economic plan was initiated, more than 200 industries already were on the edge of bankruptcy...
...Not all the military are bad, but there's been some dishonesty among them, so the whole country has been urging them to resign...
...Then, a week before the elections, Anibal Delgado Fiallos of the PCH was violently seized by the Department of National Investigation (DNI), by far the most loathed and feared branch of the country's armed forces...
...He graduated from the 34NovlDec 1981 progressive officers' academy in Peru, but also studied with the military in Argentina and at Fort Benning, Georgia...
...Prior to the elections, Suazo and Zifiiga, accompanied by their advisers, were called in for meetings with military authorities at which they were told that the ongoing investigation of corruption by a civil commission only "played into the hands of the enemies of the country...
...Z6fiiga, 66, spent much of his career serving as a legal counsel to certain sectors of the military...
...The minority parties were as shattered as the Nationals, particularly the PINU and PDCH, who hoped that together they would draw 10% of the vote...
...The Patriotic Front had no choice other than to analyze the new appeal of the elections and find a way to fit in...
...1 Much would depend on who ended up in key cabinet and advisory positions...
...Alvarez was at the time head of the Public Security Forces (FUSEP), which also encompassed the Department of National Investigation (DNI), giving him more access to damaging information than anyone in the country...
...In the months before the elections, there was a bitter struggle between ALIPO and the party regulars, in which some of the ALIPO threatened to bolt the party and work towards a swingvote coalition of Christian Democrats and the PINU (National Innovation and Unity Party) in the Chamber of Deputies...
...Among its promoters were Edmond L. Bogrin, president of the Banco Sogerin...
...Over the last 20 years we've been having military governments in and out, due to the fact that the civilians were not able to control their ambitions," complained industrialist Rafael Pastor, leading Nationalist and head of COHEP...
...8. Interview with Miguelangel Rodesno, Local Electoral Tribunal, San Pedro Sula, November 1981...
...The land scandal that was his downfall was clearly leaked from within the Superior Council of the Armed Forces, a body of military officials that fluctuates in number from 31 to 34 and is the effective, if not necessarily unified, seat of power in Honduras...
...He was widely recognized to have close links to the "Mancha Bravo" goon squad, and in 1975 he was publicly denounced by the Honduran director of customs for abusing his diplomatic passport to run a small-scale contraband operation out of Miami...
...The Christian Democrats were promised $15,000 (of which they received only $5,000), and the FPH received nothing at all, being forced to rely on public appearances and local radio talk shows for exposure...
...While these officers may be incapable of preventing an "Iron Triangle" military alliance with El Salvador and Guatemala, they will most certainly be capable of delaying it, especially since many of them will rise to more influential posts in a routine round of promotions soon after the inauguration...
...Alvarez is a short, muscular man who looks a little like Sal Mineo as a Marine and wears civilian suits as though his biceps were about to burst the seams...
...Gustavo Alvarez, Castle & Cooke's man at Las Isletas, was undisputed favorite...
...It was a classic move...
...Wall Street Journal, November 23, 1981...
...Honduras' involvement in this effort is one of the sorest points of contention within the nation's military...
...Israel has been responsible for much of Honduran arms purchases in the past, and Guatemala and Argentina have recently launched large-scale training programs for Honduran officers at their military schools, including Guatemala's infamous Polytechnic Academy...
...The military was in a state of flux as well...
...aid would be necessary to avert a similar result...
...There was no such thing as a split ticket...
...By the time of the election, Pastor's disenchantment with the military's economic mis-administration had reached the point where he said he would even prefer the Liberals to the military: "I really don't think they are Communists...
...And, three years later, then-Major Policarpo Paz Garcia led a contingent of Honduran troops as part of the 35NACLA Report "Inter-American Peace-Keeping Force" that invaded the Dominican Republic...
...Information confirmed by Honduran military sources...
...Capital flight and a huge trade deficit had cut Honduras' foreign reserves from $150 million in 1980 to under $40 million at the end of 1981, less than necessary to cover two weeks' imports...
...Still, it seemed highly likely that the deals which the Liberals struck with the military would outweigh any agreement they had with ALIPO, their own reform sector...
Vol. 15 • November 1981 • No. 6
