|
El Salvador The 1969 War with Honduras
Like many other conflicts in Salvadoran history, the 1969 war
with Honduras, sometimes referred to as the Football War, was
rooted in economic disparity. El Salvador is a small country with
a large and rapidly growing population and a severely limited
amount of available land. Honduras is a larger country with a
smaller population and a less-developed economy. By 1969 some
300,000 Salvadorans had drifted over the border and taken up
residence in more sparsely populated Honduras. The vast majority
of these Salvadorans were squatters, technically illegal
immigrants whose sole claim to the land they worked was their
physical presence on it. For Hondurans, the land itself was not
so much the issue. What rankled them was the image of being
pushed and potentially enveloped by the Salvadorans. Throughout
the 1960s, the mechanisms of the
Central American Common Market (see Glossary)
worked to the advantage of the more developed
economies of the region, particularly those of Guatemala and El
Salvador. The growth of Salvadoran-owned businesses in Honduras--
shoe stores were the most visible of these enterprises--
underscored for Hondurans the relative economic disparity between
the two countries. The issue of the Salvadoran squatters, despite
its lack of real economic significance, became a nationalistic
sore point for Honduras, a question of adding territorial insult
to perceived economic injury.
The border situation became increasingly tense during the two
years preceding the outbreak of hostilities. In early 1969, the
regime of Honduran president Oswaldo Lopez Arellano (1963-71)
invoked a dormant agrarian reform law as a pretext to evict
Salvadoran squatters and expel them from the country. The Lopez
government was experiencing economic and political difficulties
and saw the Salvadorans as convenient scapegoats. Stories and
images of displaced refugees filled the Salvadoran press and the
airwaves. Tales of violent displacement by the Honduran military
began to circulate throughout El Salvador. Tension between the
two countries continued to build. The incident that provoked
active hostilities--and lent the conflict its popular designation
as the Football War--took place in San Salvador in June 1969.
During and after a soccer match between the Honduran and
Salvadoran national teams, the Honduran team members were
vilified and harassed by Salvadoran fans. The reportage of this
incident brought matters to a fever pitch.
Beyond national pride and jingoism--which was expressed by
Duarte and the PDC with a fervor equal to that of Sanchez and the
PCN--the Salvadorans had other motivations for launching a
military strike against Honduras on July 14, 1969. The influx of
displaced Salvadoran squatters was placing a burden on services
and threatening to provoke widespread social unrest. The
situation was undermining the political support of the Sanchez
government; action against Honduras became the most expedient
option to turn this situation around. Although war with Honduras
almost certainly would lead to the breakdown of the CACM, the
Salvadorans were willing to pay that price. In their estimation,
the CACM was already close to a breakdown over the issues of
comparative advantage; war with Honduras would only hasten that
outcome.
The actual fighting was brief. Despite early Salvadoran air
strikes, the Hondurans eventually dominated in that area,
destroying most of the Salvadoran Air Force. The Salvadoran Army,
however, clearly bested the Hondurans on the ground. The
Salvadorans pushed rapidly into Honduran territory before fuel
and ammunition shortages and diplomatic efforts by
representatives of the Organization of American States (OAS)
curtailed their progress. As many as 2,000 people, mainly
civilians, were killed in the action.
The war had a number of immediate repercussions. The
Salvadorans had expended large quantities of ordnance,
necessitating heavy military expenditures to replenish depleted
stocks. Trade between the two countries was disrupted completely,
and the CACM ceased to function as anything more than a paper
entity. El Salvador lost the economic "safety valve" formerly
provided by illegal emigration to Honduras; land-based pressures
again began to build. Although the vast majority of Salvadorans,
including all the legal political parties, had united in support
of the war, this unity did not last long.
Data as of November 1988
|
