The Military: Willing to Deal
Meza, Victory
LATE 1979 FOUND HONDURAS TRAPPED IN a high tide of revolution. On one side, the euphoric and victorious Sandinistas launched an ambitious transformation of the social order; on the other, the...
...He was handcuffed and with a pistol trained on him, they demanded that he sign a pre- pared letter of resignation...
...But the U.S...
...Led by Gen...
...They know, however, that free contra deployment from Honduran territory is a permanent provocation, and could ignite war at any moment...
...many chose the complicity of silence, daring to share fears and opinions only with close friends...
...The new team that replaced Alvarez, headed by Gen...
...When investigating the fate of the infamous $27 million in "humanitarian" contra aid, the U.S...
...Senate Appropriations Committee, April 6, 1987, Washington, D.C...
...COSUFFAA, dubbed "the parliament of the Honduran military," is a sort of general assembly which meets periodically to discuss basic problems of the country in general and of the armed forces in particular...
...5 Battalion 3/16, a special counterinsurgency force which many considered a kind of death squad, was formed in 1980...
...Southern Command in Panama, observed: Honduras has been induced to show extraordinary generosity toward its old enemy, El Salvador, training Salvadorean troops in Honduras and patrolling its border areas where Salvadorean insurgents have their sanctuaries...
...According to an unwritten law of Honduran society, strengthening the military apparatus almost inevitably brings a proportionate weakening of civil institutions...
...Each seeks greater autonomy, while attempting to reduce the jurisdiction and influence of the other two...
...But the Honduran officer negotiating the purchase quickly set the record straight: "Who told you we wanted tanks to fight in Honduran territory...
...military support as El Salvador...
...Alvarez' fall allowed the armed forces "parliament" to return to business as usual...
...But in the first five years of the 1980s, the figure hit $169 million...
...Support for development projects dropped from 80% of total aid in 1980 to 16% in 1985.2 But this massive flow of U.S...
...The decision to permit the counterrevolutionaries to deploy freely in Honduran territory and maintain a network of encampments along the Nicaraguan border is the armed forces' exclusive responsibility...
...Days later, a witness offered this account: Gen...
...2 2 On the night of March 17, 1986, when Sandinista troops crossed the border in hot pursuit of the contras, Honduran soldiers were conspicuously absent...
...The ensuing tension, combined with the young officers' fear of being dragged by Alvarez and the North Americans into a war with Nicaragua, came to a head on the morning of March 31, 1984, when the general was taken prisoner and packed off to Costa Rica...
...troops through Honduras...
...Boletin Informativo No...
...The impunity with which the state's repressive forces acted made the population feel defenseless...
...COSUFFAA meetings are the stage on which political struggles are played out, influence and control won and alliances formed amidst constant plotting...
...But the officer corps has found other ways to make the point...
...Third-and this is very important-they know that in the unlikely case of a victory over the Sandinistas, the victors would not be the Honduran military, but the contras and North Americans...
...General Accounting Office discovered that between October 1985 and February 1986 the contras' local suppliers had received $5.4 million in return for goods and services actually or supposedly delivered to the anti-Sandinistas.2" Business flourished, soon arousing the ambitions of certain top brass interested in a piece of the pie...
...Conversations were held in Panama City in October and November 1986, and it appeared the Sandinistas would have a green light to pursue the contras into Honduran territory without reprisal...
...And the U.S...
...Thomas Said Speer and H6ctor Aplicano, respectively chief of the Tank Corps and ex-chief of intelligence, both closely linked to contra operations and to Zelaya...
...the military, the country's most powerful force...
...Almost all were junior officers during the 1969 Soccer War and directly confronted the Salvadorean Army on the battlefield, a deeply formative experience...
...In an institution as unique as the Honduran Armythe "only parliamentary Army," as some analysts call it-the rise of new promotions and displacement of the old can have extraordinary importance...
...ambassadors during that period...
...On the night of May 30, 1987, this contempt led the Hondurans to prevent the contras from crossing the border...
...economic and military aid mushroomed...
...During congressional debate on June 25, 1986, Rep...
...Thus, they conclude, a war against Nicaragua would be so peculiar that the Hondurans would lose even if they win...
...Alvarez' growing authoritarianism, his almost total submission to Washington's will and his Messianic vocation to lead "the war against communism in Central America" bred internal discontent, and young officers began plotting his overthrow...
...In 1980 security monies-in the form of Economic Support Funds and direct military aid-represented 7% of the total package...
...61, May 1986, p. 14 (Tegucigalpa: Centro de Documentaci6n de Honduras, CEDOH...
...and later as ambassador to India...
...One need only survey the military installations housing U.S...
...6. Diario de la Tribuna (Tegucigalpa), May 4, 1987...
...Paul Gorman, former chief of the U.S...
...References The Military: Willing to Deal 1. See U.S...
...diplomats tried to attract and co-opt some young Army officers, they also induced purges-by retirement-of officers considered less docile...
...A provocation to the Army's nationalist sentiments, the CREM helped generate a crisis of stability continuing to this day...
...66, October 1986, p 3. (Tegucigalpa: CEDOH...
...Ricardo Zuiniga, May 1984...
...Both scenario and actor were now different...
...But there was more...
...One of those was Maj...
...Second, they understand that it is a difficult war, perhaps impossible to win...
...troops, especially the central base at Palmerola, where the 1,200 soldiers of Joint Task Force Bravo are permanently stationed...
...H6ctor Aplicano, to hear out the Sandinista emissary...
...Once norms and procedures violated by Alvarez were restored, the COSUFFAA regained its former importance, and the personal power of the new head of the armed forces was substantially reduced and subordinated to the will of the council majority...
...These tendencies are not yet strong enough to prevail or change the course of events...
...This dangerous equilibrium allows them to extract the maximum benefits in U.S...
...Spurred by the possibility of taking over the lucrative contra business, some officers took the opportunity to upstage colleagues who were Zelaya's business partners and protectors...
...On June 25, 1986 Congress President Carlos Montoya announced that the legislature would ask the armed forces to explain the contra presence...
...aid rose almost five times from 1980 to 1985-from $57 to $283 million...
...Human Rights in Honduras: Signs of "The Argentine Method" (New York: Americas Watch, December 1982) p.5-6...
...However, on the night of December 4 a mysterious incident occurred: a Sandinista contingent attacked an observation post, killing two Honduran soldiers...
...Agency for International Development (AID), a contra plane loaded with weaponry, medicine and food which had landed at Tegucigalpa's Toncontin airport was sent back to the United States...
...Reports leaked to the press some time later confirmed that the Honduran military had previously talked to the Nicaraguans about the operation, and set up a means of communication...
...Testimony of Paul Gorman before the Military Construction Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, April 6, 1987, Washington, D.C...
...Whenever Washington appears reluctant to increase aid or satisfy other demands, contra movement within Honduras is restricted...
...details of these talks remain secret...
...Ricardo Ziniga Morazin, while U.S...
...We want them to fight in El Salvador...
...3 It is as if each military chief had his corresponding political chief in the person of the U.S...
...Alvarez meant a serious setback to U.S...
...Salvadoreans, the traditional enemies, should now be seen as important allies in the struggle against communism in Central America...
...On October 30, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1988 15 1980, Honduran Foreign Minister Col...
...It was even asserted that the Hondurans agreed to the Sandinista incursion on the condition that they would not advance beyond a certain point and would use neither heavy artillery nor helicopters within Honduras...
...During Alvarez' reign the anti-Sandinista contras operated freely within Honduras and openly maintained offices in the capital...
...military presence may yet provoke nationalistic officers into demanding substantial change in the politico-military alliance with Washington...
...on the other, the perhaps overconfident Salvadorean guerrillas announced their final offensive...
...military presence in Honduran territory has been a topic of great debate, above all in the U.S...
...Note that in official U.S...
...There the power of each officer is tested on the personal, group and factional level...
...Furthermore, constant joint military maneuvers allow for an endless and sizeable flow of U.S...
...There is no different ideological or political attitude, but rather a new military structure to attempt to do things in a more correct manner...
...Author's interview with Maj...
...pockets of well-known local politicians.24 The corruption fostered by the contra money has joined the graft that for years has characterized the Honduran political scene...
...Some 130 Hondurans "disappeared" as a result, and the Honduran government has won the distinction of being the defendant in the first case brought before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of the Organization of American States.' Hondurans gradually submitted to collective fear and paralysis, while the civilian government yielded ground to the impetuous, authoritarian Gen...
...To a great extent, however, the short-term future will depend on Washington's ability to co-opt young Honduran officers and neutralize their nationalist impulses...
...In one of the most dangerous incidents between the two countries, the Honduran Air Force retaliated, bombing two Nicaraguan villages, Wiwilf and Murra, on December 7. T HE CONTRAS ARE ALSO A SOURCE OF juicy commissions for officers and civilians...
...8. Excelsior (Mexico City), September 1, 1982...
...Congressional Record, June 26, 1986...
...Gen...
...helicopters laden with C-rations provided by the Pentagon...
...by 1985 this had risen to 76...
...Alvarez, in his zeal to consolidate power, stepped on the toes of one of the military's most basic institutions, the Superior Council of the Armed Forces (COSUFFAA...
...Michael Barnes (D.-Md...
...and the civilian government, representing Honduras' political elite...
...See Victor Meza, "Una historia para John Le Carre," Tiempo (Tegucigalpa), April 25, 1986...
...This reasoning has led the military to a policy which many describe as "cynical pragmatism"maintaining the latent threat of war without letting it become reality...
...intelligence network, a secret plot had incubated, developed and succeeded in overthrowing "Washington's man in Honduras...
...The new head of the High Command, Col...
...While the three claim to co-exist in harmony, in practice the relationship is rather tumultuous...
...7 Paz Barnica did not know that Pastora had already met twice with Gen...
...Humberto Regalado, the current chief of the armed forces, defined it in May 1987 as "a technical and professional squadron that processes information and whose strategic conception is to support each of the brigades comprising the National Army...
...Alvarez, sidestepping civilian immigration authorities...
...Professional scorn for the contras runs high...
...When the general refused they threw him on the ground, kicking and hitting him all over his body except for the face...
...Ricardo Zdiniga, May 1984...
...civilian authorities can do little but reinforce the military strategy with diplomatic activity...
...In Honduras, on the other hand, very few have doubted its permanence...
...military and instruction from Argentines, this new policy of domestic repression was preventative, selectively applied and clandestine...
...Many Honduran officers understand the grave risk of that presence and are concerned about the prospect of Nicaragua's war ending in defeat for the contras, who would likely remain in Honduras...
...Congress...
...12 Significantly, Alvarez' successors did not dismantle repressive units such as Battalion 3/16, but merely "froze" them-lowered their semi-public profile, keeping them hidden and inactive until they might again become indispensable...
...the traditional enemies, now imDortant allies in the struaale aaainst communism...
...Although they are generally not in uniform, and do not identify themselves in any way, these men are able to stalk their victims in crowded places,and to enter houses and places of business without ever being intercepted by regular police forces...
...But the officer corps' nationalism is motivated by deep-seated animosity toward El Salvador...
...Rapidly modernizing and professionalizing, the Hondurans sought to ensure success in any new confrontation with their adversary...
...But it is increasingly clear that their numbers are growing...
...Four main reasons for the Honduran military to avoid war with its neighbor stand out: First, the officers know well that this war is not theirs, so why get mixed up in it...
...In June 1982, when Ed6n Pastora was expelled from Costa Rica and hurriedly sought temporary refuge in Honduras, he appealed directly to Gen...
...La Tribuna, June 11, 1983...
...FAMILIAR WITH THE COUNTRY'S PRECIPItous terrain, Washington was surprised when Honduras decided to acquire tanks for its arsenal...
...This group controls almost half of the Superior Council of the Armed Forces...
...Policarpo Paz Garcia (1975-1982), Gen...
...And not all of the military agree with the presence of armed anti-Sandinista groups...
...Unable to expel the contras, they reason their best bet is to use them for their own benefit-institutional as well as personal...
...Leonidas Torres Arias, former intelligence chief of the armed forces, publicly denounced the activity of these units and held Alvarez Martinez personally responsible for inspiring and creating them.i But the denunciations came too late for scores of Hondurans and foreigners, especially Salvadoreans, who were subjected to the "Argentine method," disappearing into hidden prisons...
...But certain politicians have also benefitted from the anti-Sandinista funds...
...Reagan Administration with a regional platform for its military policy...
...El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa), July 22, 1985...
...a member of the Nicaraguan United Nations delegation...
...Embassy in Tegucigalpa stepped up efforts to penetrate and control the military structure...
...but not all Nicaraguans, only the Sandinistas...
...7 Caballero, who studied interrogation techniques in Houston in 1980, said the CIA was extensively involved in training squad members, though he claimed the North Americans did not advocate or participate in physical torture...
...Relations were so chummy that some top embassy officials became godparents for officers' children...
...IN FORTIFYING THE MILITARY, WASHington weakened democracy-indeed, rendered it virtually impossible...
...Even this dramatic increase does not tell the whole story, for there was fundamental change in the aid's composition...
...A S THE HONDURAN ARMY BECAME increasingly docile in North American hands, new forces committed to the National Security Doctrine * arose within the ranks...
...Over 80% of REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 14total support for the decade following 1975 was dispersed after 1980...
...Gen...
...The Honduran military privately used this argument as a pretext to reject the shipment and return the plane to the United States, its country of origin...
...Yet the change was only cosmetic...
...Thus, the United States closed the door to political negotiation and democracy...
...What the military could never forgive was Alvarez' willingness to train Salvadorean soldiers in Honduras...
...The military chiefs were as follows from 1980: Gen...
...Honduran law stipulates that each commander-inchief of the armed forces must serve a fixed term of office, yet from 1980 to 1987 there were four chiefs, precisely the number of U.S...
...All this has had considerable repercussions on Honduran society, which no doubt will continue...
...economic and military aid without crossing the demarcation between potential war and real war...
...4. Author's interview with Maj...
...And there has been confusion within the National Congress...
...Tiempo (Tegucigalpa), June 26, 1986...
...HERE IS AMPLE EVIDENCE THAT THE MILitary has come to view the contras as the ultimate trump card in relations with Washington...
...Even some officers became alarmed about 3/16...
...Convinced the armed forces were not anti-American, U.S...
...Gustavo Alvarez Martinez-whose command officially lasted from January 1982 until March 1984-these officers pursued real and imagined enemies, attempting to quell social discontent...
...The prisoner has become a desaparecido, a missing person...
...With Pastora already in Honduras, Foreign Minister Edgardo Paz Barnica said on June 27 that "Ed6n Pastora is not in Honduras, nor has he requested entry into this country...
...Gustavo Alvarez (1982-1984), Gen...
...C6sar Elvir and his Salvadorean counterpart, Fidel ChAvez Mena signed a peace treaty in Lima, Peru...
...The Regional Military Training Center (CREM) would later prove a historic blunder...
...Ambassadors were posted to Tegucigalpa: Jack Binns (1980-1981), John Negroponte (19811985), John Ferch (1985-1986), Everett Briggs (1986...
...In the last five years of the 1970s, military aid amounted to $16.3 million...
...During his official visit to Washington in June 1983, Gen...
...2. Phillip Berryman and Medea Benjamin, Help or Hindrance...
...congressional contacts about death-squad activity...
...It is no accident that after the general's removal the U.S...
...Yet these dissident officers also understand that the high level of dependency on U.S...
...Quienes fueron...
...The same forces who oppose war with Nicaragua and reject the permanent contra presence, are demanding a new Honduran foreign policy, a policy based on effective neutrality and non-interference in the domestic affairs of neighboring countries...
...This conversion could not, however, be carried out without brusque changes in the political and military structures of Honduran society, altering the roles played by traditional actors: the U.S...
...Congress in late June 1987...
...scheme was to meet a temporary setback...
...5 Alvarez' fall was a hard blow to U.S...
...But that was not in the cards, as Washington was quick to grasp Honduras' strategic potential on the new Central American chessboard...
...Honduras received over $1 billion between 1980 and 1987, 27.8% of it in military subsidies.' A study by San Francisco's Institute for Food and Development Policy notes that U.S...
...The country's geopolitical position is extraordinary...
...curity affairs, speaking before a Senate subcommittee, defined the U.S...
...policy in Honduras...
...In a chronology published in September 1985, the Honduras Documentation Center identified more than 100 recent cases of corruption in the Suazo C6rdova Administration inaugurated in 1982.25 Like the mythical Hydra, corruption has slowly invaded every available space in public administration...
...Between October 1981 and August 1987, 58 joint military operations were conducted, from large-scale maneuvers like Ahuas Tara I, II and III, to simple medical training exercises in rural areas...
...This particular incident led to a purge within the armed forces...
...Finally, in late 1986-with the mediation of Panamanian Gen...
...In particular, the repression aimed to break up support networks that Salvadorean revolutionaries had successfully organized in Honduras...
...From 1979 on, the North Americans sought to convince the Hondurans that the situation had changed substantially...
...4 The strategic reassessment of Honduras occurred at a time when the Honduran military was still smarting from the infamous 100-hour "Soccer War" against El Salvador in July 1969...
...This episode serves to illustrate Washington's ignorance about its own ally...
...Zdniga was mysteriously murdered in September 1985, some fear in response to testimony he gave to U.S...
...Washington's pressure to end the virtual state of war prevailing since July 1969 ultimately pushed aside the Honduran officer corps' own agenda...
...JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1988 17legucigalpa hosts the contra's human rights organization...
...3. Until 1985 the constitutional term of the head of the armed forces was five years, one year more than that of the President of the Republic...
...Embassy...
...In April 1985, the training of Salvadorean soldiers at the CREM was banned...
...Policy in Trouble," Report on the Americas, Vol.18, no.4 (JulyAugust 1984...
...Alvarez' succesors were more cautious...
...La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa), June 27, 1982...
...I don't believe in a military victory by the contras," military chief Humberto Regalado said last May...
...But in October 1985 the National Congress ammended the constitution to provide for a three-year term...
...military aid allows the Honduran Army little leverage...
...La Contra: un buen negocio," Boletin Informativo No...
...The armed forces are not about to risk an adventure that could end in extravagant defeat, their second in less than twenty years...
...The point of the exercise was to intimidate Zelaya into abandoning the milliondollar business to military men...
...military presence in Honduras as "appropriate and temporary, although of an indefinite nature," conditional upon the moment when, in his own words, "the Sandinistas cease to be a threat to the true democracies of the region...
...In 1985 at the end of the presidency of Roberto Suazo Cordova, when the North Americans dragged their feet in shelling out $67 million from the U.S...
...Many observers of the Central American political scene are astonished to learn that the Honduran military and the Sandinistas have gradually built a network of underground contacts...
...Although this treaty did not definitively solve the border dispute, a foundation was laid for rapprochement between the two governments and armies...
...According to Maj...
...Gustavo Alvarez now control the main channels of power within the Army, exercising the day-to-day command of the most important battalions...
...ambassador...
...Through the accounts of survivors, it is established that they are taken to clandestine jails, or at least to facilities with very restricted access...
...La Tribuna, May 4, 1987...
...support has been repaid in-kind by Honduran willingness to make territory available and adjust domestic and foreign policies to Washington's directives...
...in alliance with other promotions, chiefly the 8th and 10th, they constitute a majority within the COSUFFAA...
...Americas Watch reported in 1982: The practice of arresting individuals for political reasons and then refusing to acknowledge their whereabouts and status seems to have become established in Honduras...
...The relatives file habeas corpus writs and administrative inquiries, by and large without success...
...La corrupci6n en Honduras 1982-85, Cronologia No...
...Salvadoreans...
...In a February 1987 memorandum to a Senate subcommmittee, Gen...
...It all began on October 18, 1984 when Halima Sirker L6pez arrived in Tegucigalpa.' Trusted by Daniel and Humberto Ortega, she came with a message from "my brother Daniel, future president of Nicaragua" for Gen...
...Thus some commanders killed two birds with one stoneJANUARY/FEBRUARY 1988 19Honduras broadening their influence within the armed forces while gaining entrance to the flourishing million-dollar contra trade...
...And on January 27, 1986, while Honduras' newly elected head of state, Jos6 Azcona Hoyo, was receiving the presidential sash, two high-ranking Honduran Army officers met with Nicaraguan military officials on Honduras' southern border...
...Over the same period the following U.S...
...6 Yet in an extensive interview with The New York Times, Florencio Caballero, a former battalion member now a political refugee in Canada, described a clandestine paramilitary structure for repressing leftists...
...N APRIL 6, 1987, RICHARD ARMITAGE, assistant secretary of defense for international se20 REPORT ON THE AMERICASI C "Constant joint military maneuvers allow for an endless and sizeable flow of U.S...
...One result was the removal of a particularly painful thorn in the officers' side...
...And finally, they can easily deduce that if the contras do win, a large part of the aid Honduras now gets from Washington would be diverted to Nicaragua to reconstruct the economy and strengthen the newly installed contra government...
...The Honduran military has remained tolerant of anti-Sandinista activities, finding room for maneuver as an institution as well as opportunities for personal enrichment...
...This power struggle has formed the backdrop for Honduran politics since 1980...
...2 6 The armed forces consider the rebels a mercenary army, unable to defeat the Sandinistas militarily...
...After 16 years of almost uninterrupted military rule, Honduras was eager for a political opening...
...4 Yet the Pentagon gave the Hondurans points for magnanimity...
...5. Paradoxically, Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, the armed forces' youngest and most professional chief in their short history, did not receive his military education in Honduras...
...Numbering 52 at the time, Alvarez tried to cut membership to 21, and virtually replace COSUFFAA with an eight-person Commanders' Junta where he could REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 16play lord and master...
...A LVAREZ' ABRUPT OUSTER TOOK THE North Americans by surprise...
...Manuel Antonio Noriega-the Sandinistas sought another communication channel to the Honduran military...
...See Christian Science Monitor, November 19, 1985...
...Honduran officers were trained throughout the 1970s in a spirit of revenge...
...Efrain Gonzalez, told the press that "It is important to note that in the armed forces high command there has been no philosophical change...
...On the morning of August 8, 1986, a company of Los Cobras anti-riot police stormed the residence of Congressman Rodolfo Zelaya, owner of the Hermano Pedro Supermarket, chief contra purveyor and civilian beneficiary of contra-destined dollars...
...2 0 A ND THERE HAVE BEEN UNDERthe-table negotiations with the Sandinistas...
...Included in the total are the $59.75 million approved as additional aid by the U.S...
...Directly or through intermediaries, these contacts have on several occasions served to defuse tensions, averting war between the two countries and facilitating personal communication which on any public or official level would seem virtually impossible...
...3 And during the celebration of the 21st anniversary of the First Infantry Battalion, Col...
...Zdniga, who would be retired from the Army in August 1984.'6 But although the removal of Gen...
...With copious aid from the U.S...
...OMMENSURATE WITH THE STRATEGIC role Washington had assigned Honduras, U.S...
...United States Economic Aid in Central America (San Francisco: Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1987) p. 16...
...9. In April 1986 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights filed three cases against Honduras in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights...
...Humberto Regalado (1986...
...A contingent of 500 Hondurans showed up a week later in U.S...
...The men felt that greater advantage could be extracted in exchange for continuing to provide the *See "Breakdown in Honduras: U.S...
...And they blame the contras' Somocista leadership for having lost power in the first place...
...At one point a list was circulated of 21 officers whom the embassy deemed 18s "unreliable...
...Distancing themselves from his political style, they suggested that the counterrevolutionaries keep a low profile and stick to their camps along the border, avoiding the press as well as the country's urban centers...
...And, powerless to stop it, Hondurans watched as thousands of defeated Somocista guardsmen crossed the border, seeking the protection of the Honduran military...
...presence is not in question...
...Alvarez' ideological ways, however, had deeply affected the behavior and attitudes of many of his colleagues...
...Alvarez...
...troops through Honduras...
...After the initial arrest, the authorities steadfastly deny the prisoner's presence in any detention center...
...In case after case, the pattern is the same: persons who are politically active are taken, in full view of eye-witnesses, by heavily armed men in plain clothes and moving in unmarked cars...
...A large part of ESF goes to finance the state's growing deficit, which increases yearly due partly to the high costs of militarizing the country...
...Despite a sophisticated U.S...
...3 (Tegucigalpa: CEDOH, September 1985...
...reports military aid totals are notoriously understated, so that Economic Support Funds (ESF) are listed as "economic aid...
...They are the Lieutenant Colonels of the 6th Promotion, including Alvaro Romero, Mario Amaya, Ren6 Fonseca, Ram6n Rosa and Reynaldo Andino...
...The Zelaya case illustrates the form sometimes taken by internal Army squabbles...
...Alvarez didn't sign the resignation despite the blows and insults...
...Diario La Tribuna, October 13, 1984...
...Sirker later retired from the diplomatic corps and lives in the United States...
...He studied at the Military College of Argentina from 1958-1962, where junta leader Jorge Rafael Videla was among his most admired instructors...
...Further, this policy was framed completely outside the law, with its own secret prisons and methods of killing and "disappearing...
...Agency for International Development, Congressional Presentations, various years (Washington, D.C...
...All these factors would complicate domestic politics during the 1980s...
...Walter L6pez, almost immediately sought to renegotiate the military alliance with the United States, to tailor agreements and commitments to Honduran interests...
...See also Human Rights in Honduras: Central America's Sideshow (New York: Americas Watch, May 1987) pp.126-143...
...Honduran collaboration with El Savador's counterinsurgency war reached its zenith on June 14, 1983, when 120 U.S...
...They know that defeat on the battlefield would immediately be followed by complete loss of their waning prestige, and the consequent weakening of their enormous influence in Honduran society...
...The cases seek to hold the government responsible for the 1981 and 1982 disappearances of four persons, two Hondurans and two Costa Ricans...
...Young officers who participated in the March 1984 overthrow of Gen...
...Halima Sirker served as Nicaraguan Consul in Houston, Texas...
...Alvarez and his closest military advisers...
...And the Nicaraguans, the old peaceful neighbors to the south, were now the new enemies...
...While in Mexico in August 1982, Col...
...plans for Honduras-especially with regard to Nicaragua-the essence of Honduras' political and military collaboration with the Reagan Administration remained unaltered...
...L6pez authorized his chief of military intelligence, Col...
...Alvarez made it known that the military needed "at least $400 million over a period no greater than three years...
...The others, the anti-Sandinistas, would become allies in a common cause...
...OF COURSE NOT ALL OF THE MILITARY benefit from the contra business...
...When the contras, fleeing Sandinista attacks, hastily retreat to their bases across the border, the Honduran military is openly contemptuous...
...And also, of course, on the region's peace process in the months ahead...
...The government's detached attitude toward the conKIP'OUKI UN TLE, AIVCIMA- ^"""'"^' utras has at times bordered on the absurd...
...Its decisions normally become official military policy...
...Cashing in on traditional Honduran political subservience, Washington proceeded to turn the country into a staging ground for its regional strategy...
...Bribery, buying and selling influence, fraud and simple robbery of public funds have become an indispensable lubricant without which state machinery does not turn...
...Traveling in the plane were Mario Calero, brother of Adolfo Calero, chief of the contra Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), and two NBC television journalists...
...7. New York Times, May 2, 1987...
...De*The doctrine of the national security state is associated with the Brazilian and Argentine military dictatorships, which believed that by suppressing "internal enemies" they were in fact waging war against international communism and Soviet subversion.Honduras o e Amcas Honduras "I nousanas or bomocista guaras crossed mne Doroer.-' signed to "prevent" the upsurge of a strong revolutionary movement, its targets were those the security forces considered "potentially subversive...
...said that $75,000 was apparently paid to the wife of the Honduran officer known to be the contras' chief Tegucigalpa contact, while $40,000 landed in the Palmerola: The U.s...
...The case is still pending, and the first ruling is expected in mid-January...
...Alvarez was captured at the San Pedro Sula Air Base...
...Their chief-who they had ceremoniously awarded the "Legion of Merit" in June 1983-had been most unceremoniously overthrown...
...Zelaya sold out, and sought refuge in Miami...
...Testimony of Richard Armitage before Military Construetion Subcommittee of U.S...
...Bordering Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, Honduras also has two coasts, the western on the pivotal Gulf of Fonseca...
...La Prensa (Tegucigalpa), April 6, 1984...
...The proportion of Salvadorean soldiers trained at the Regional Military Training Center (CREM) was three Salvadoreans for each Honduran...
...Yet that same day Congress deputies defeated such a motion.'" In exchange for tolerating the contras, the Honduran brass continually demand more military aid from Washington, both quantitatively and qualitatively...
...Leonel Riera, one of the Honduran Armed Forces' three strong men at the time, reminded his comrades in arms that " . .. the original causes of the war with El Salvador still persist and could bring about a repetition of that episode...
...One of their highest aspirations, many Hondurans believe, is to obtain as much U.S...
...Walter L6pez (1984-1986), Gen...
...diplomats headed by then Ambassador John D. Negroponte, quickly concluded that neither were they nationalistic...
...Green Berets landed at Puerto Castilla on Honduras' northern coast to open a school for Salvadorean soldiers...
...Two casualties were Cols...
...The armed forces' greatest concern is to avoid a large-scale confrontation with Nicaragua...
...2 7 The permanent nature of the U.S...
...Walter L6pez and other Honduran military men...
Vol. 22 • January 1988 • No. 1
