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Honduras Central America
Honduran national hero Francisco Morazán was a
prominent leader
of the United Provinces Central America in the 1820s and
1830s, but
his vision of a united Central America was never fully
realized
because of divisiveness among the five original member
nations--
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and
Nicaragua--each
of which went its separate way in 1838 with the official
breakup of
the federation. Subsequent hopes of restoring some type of
political union were unsuccessful until the 1960s, when
economic
integration efforts led to the formation of the Central
American
Common Market (CACM). In December 1960, the General Treaty
of
Central American Integration was signed by El Salvador,
Guatemala,
Honduras, and Nicaragua, and the CACM became effective in
June
1961. One year later, Costa Rica acceded to the treaty.
The objectives of the CACM are to eliminate trade
barriers among
the five countries and institute a common external tariff
(CET).
Two important institutions were established as a result of
CACM
economic integration efforts in the 1960s. One was the
Secretariat
of the General Treaty on Central American Economic
Integration
(Secretaría Permanente del Tratado General de Integración
Económica
Centroamericana--SIECA), based in Guatemala City, which
serves as
the CACM's executive organ. The other was the Central
American Bank
for Economic Integration (Banco Centroamericano de
Integración
Económica--BCIE) headquartered in Tegucigalpa, which is
the CACM's
financial institution that lends funds to its member
nations,
particularly for infrastructure projects. The CACM
integration
process was somewhat successful in the 1960s, but by the
end of the
decade essentially fell into disarray because of the 1969
border
war between Honduras and El Salvador, the so-called
"Soccer War"
(see War with El Salvador
, ch. 1). Honduras officially
suspended
its participation in the CACM in December 1970, and
relations with
El Salvador remained tense in the 1970s, with border
hostilities
flaring up in 1976.
A peace treaty between Honduras and El Salvador was
finally
signed in 1980, reportedly under significant pressure from
the
United States. According to political scientist Ernesto
Paz
Aguilar, the treaty allied the Honduran and Salvadoran
government
in a campaign against the leftist Salvadoran insurgents,
as
evidenced by the Honduran military's participation in the
Río
Sumpul massacre of Salvadoran peasants in April 1980, when
hundreds
of Salvadoran peasants were reportedly killed as they
attempted to
cross the river into Honduras.
Given the historical animosity between the two nations,
this
military alliance was indeed surprising. As noted by
Victor Meza,
United States policy demanded "ideological and operational
solidarity with a country [El Salvador]" with which there
existed
"a territorial dispute and an historic antagonism." For
Honduras,
United States military assistance would benefit Honduras
not only
in case of conflict with Nicaragua, but also, perhaps most
importantly, in case of conflict with El Salvador. One
example of
United States disregard for Honduran sensitivities was the
establishment of a Regional Center for Military Training
at Puerto
Castilla in 1983, primarily to train Salvadoran soldiers.
The
center was eventually closed in 1985 after General
Álvarez
Martínez, who had agreed to the establishment of the
center, was
ousted by General López Reyes. The official
Salvadoran-Honduran
bilateral relationship gradually improved in the 1980s.
In the early 1990s, there was considerable movement
toward
integration in Central America, in part because of the
good
personal relations among the Central American presidents.
The
semiannual Central American presidential summits became
institutionalized and were complemented by numerous other
meetings
among two or more of the region's nations. The so-called
northern
triangle of Central America, consisting of Guatemala, El
Salvador,
and Honduras, made consistently stronger efforts toward
integration
than did Costa Rica or Nicaragua. At the tenth Central
American
summit held in San Salvador in July 1991, the presidents
decided to
incorporate Panama into the integration process, although
the
method by which this would occur had not been spelled out
as of
mid-1993. Belize has also attended the semiannual summits
as an
observer. Although Honduras actively participated in
Central
American summits since 1986, it officially rejoined the
integration
process in February 1992, when the Transitional
Multilateral Free
Trade Agreement between Honduras and the other Central
American
states came into force.
The rejuvenation of economic integration began in June
1990 at
the eighth presidential summit held in Antigua, Guatemala,
when the
presidents pledged to restructure, strengthen, and
reactivate the
integration process. The presidents signed a Central
American
Economic Action Plan (Plan de Acción Económica de
Centroamérica--
Paeca) that included a number of commitments and
guidelines for
integration. These included such varied measures as
elimination of
intraregional tariff barriers; support for commercial
integration;
tightening of regional coordination for external trade,
foreign
investment, and tourism; promotion of industrial
restructuring;
formulation and application of coordinated agricultural
and science
and technology policies; and promotion of coordinated
macroeconomic
adjustment processes.
At the eleventh presidential summit held in December
1991 in
Tegucigalpa, the presidents signed a protocol for the
establishment
of the Central American Integration System (Sistema de
Integración
Centroamericana--Sica) to serve as a governing body for
the
integration process. The protocol was ratified by the
Central
American states, and Sica began operating in February
1993. The
main objective of Sica is to coordinate the region's
integration
institutions, including SIECA and the BCIE, which were
established
in the 1960s.
Further progress toward economic integration was
achieved in
January 1993, when the five Central American states agreed
to
reduce the maximum external tariff for third countries
from 40 to
20 percent. In April 1993, a new Central American Free
Trade Zone
went into effect among the three northern triangle states
and
Nicaragua. The new grouping reduced tariffs for
intraregional trade
to the 5-20 percent range for some 5,000 products, with
the
intention of lowering the tariff levels and expanding the
scope of
product coverage. The northern triangle states agreed to
create a
free trade area and customs union by April 1994.
As regards political integration, the Central American
presidents in 1987 signed a Constituent Treaty to set up a
Central
American Parliament (Parlamento Centroamericano--Parlacen)
to serve
as a deliberative body that would support integration and
democracy
through consultations and recommendations. With the
exception of
Costa Rica, the other four Central American countries
approved the
treaty, and Parlacen was approved in September 1988. Each
country
was to have twenty elected deputies in the parliament, but
by the
date of its inauguration in October 1991, only three
nations--
Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala--had elected
representatives.
Nicaragua planned to elect deputies by early 1994. Costa
Rica's
participation in Parlacen was impeded by domestic
opposition. Since
February 1993, Parlacen has formed part of Sica. Other
political
organizations under Sica are the Central American Court of
Justice
and the Consultative Committee, consisting of
representatives from
different social sectors.
As illustrated by the integration process, Honduras's
relations
with El Salvador and Nicaragua were close in the early
1990s. In
September 1992, after six years of consideration, the ICJ
ruled on
the border dispute with El Salvador and awarded Honduras
approximately two-thirds of the disputed area. Both
countries
agreed to abide by the decision. The ruling was viewed as
a victory
for Honduras, but also one that provided Honduras with
significant
challenges in dealing with the nearly 15,000 residents of
the
disputed bolsones who identified themselves as
Salvadorans.
Residents of the bolsones petitioned both
governments in
1992 for land rights, freedom of movement between both
nations, and
the preservation of community organizations. A
Honduran-Salvadoran
Binational Commission was set up to work out any disputes.
The ICJ
also determined that El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua
were to
share control of the Golfo de Fonseca on the Pacific
coast. El
Salvador was awarded the islands of Meanguera and
Meanguerita, and
Honduras was awarded the island of El Tigre.
In 1993 political conflict in Nicaragua was again on
the rise,
with the government of President Chamorro struggling to
achieve
national reconciliation between conservatives of her
former ruling
coalition and the leftist Sandinistas. Conservative
critics of
Chamorro charged her with caving in to Sandinista demands
and
complained that the Sandinistas still controlled the
military and
policy. Rearmed former Contras were forming in northern
Nicaragua,
with reported support from Nicaraguan and Cuban
communities in the
United States. Memories of the early 1980s led some
observers to
fear a flare-up of hostilities in the Honduran-Nicaraguan
border
area, as well as the prospect of another flood of
Nicaraguan
refugees into Honduras. Political observers and most
Hondurans were
hopeful, however, that even should turmoil break out in
neighboring
countries, Honduras would be able to follow the course
laid out in
the 1980s and continue to strengthen its democratic
traditions.
* * *
In the 1980s, Honduras was the subject of several good
political
analyses in English. Most prominent among these works is
James A.
Morris's 1984 study, Honduras: Caudillo Politics and
Military
Rulers. Other important studies in the 1980s were
Honduras
Confronts Its Future: Contending Perspectives on Critical
Issues, edited by Mark B. Rosenberg and Philip
Shepherd;
Honduras: The Making of a Banana Republic, by
Alison Acker;
and Politics in Central America: Guatemala, El
Salvador,
Honduras, and Nicaragua, by Thomas P. Anderson, which
includes
several insightful chapters on Honduras's historical
political
development and dynamics.
In the 1990s, two notable studies in English on
Honduras were
Donald E. Schulz's How Honduras Escaped Revolutionary
Violence, a report published in 1992 by the United
States Army
War College; and Inside Honduras, authored by Kent
Norsworthy with Tom Barry, which presents comprehensive
analyses of
politics, the economy, the multiplicity of Honduran social
forces
and institutions, and United States-Honduran relations.
Several other studies on Central or Latin America
contain
notable chapters on Honduran politics. Mark B. Rosenberg
has
written an important chapter on the nation's historical
political
development in Howard J. Wiarda and Harvey F. Kline's
Latin
American Politics and Development, and Ronald H.
McDonald and
J. Mark Ruhl's 1989 study, Party Politics and Elections
in Latin
America, has an insightful article on Honduran
elections. In
addition, Charles Brockett's Land, Power, and Poverty:
Agrarian
Transformation and Political Conflict in Central
America covers
the politics of agrarian reform in Honduras. The 1992
study,
Political Parties and Democracy in Central America,
edited
by Louis W. Goodman, William M. Leogrande, and Johanna
Mendelson
Forman, has several chapters touching on various aspects
of
Honduran politics.
Two human rights organizations, Americas Watch and
Amnesty
International, have periodically published reports on the
human
rights situation in Honduras. In 1991 Americas Watch
published
Honduras: Torture and Murder by Government Forces
Persist
Despite End of Hostilities, and Amnesty International
published
Honduras: Persistence of Human Rights Violations.
Valuable up-to-date information on Honduras is provided
by
several United States government agencies that publish
annual or
biannual reports on Honduras, covering such issues as
human rights
practices, economic trends, the investment climate, labor
practices
and trends, and cooperation with the United States on
antidrug
matters.
Several studies in Spanish are valuable sources of
information
on Honduran politics. Leticia Salomón's Política y
militares en
Honduras, published by Victor Meza's Centro de
Documentación de
Honduras (CEDOH), provides a wealth of information on the
Honduran
military and its role in the political system. Also
published by
CEDOH in 1992 was Mario Posas' Puntos de vista: temas
políticos, which examines a broad range of political
issues
since the country's return to civilian democratic rule in
1982.
CEDOH also publishes the valuable monthly, Boletín
Informativo, which provides details and analysis of
political
and economic events in Honduras, and a magazine of
political and
social analysis, Puntos de Vista, in cooperation
with the
Sociology Department of UNAH. (For further information and
complete
citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1993
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