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Honduras War with El Salvador
By 1968 the López Arellano regime seemed to be in
serious
trouble. The economic situation was producing growing
labor
conflicts, political unrest, and even criticism from
conservative
groups such as Fenagh. Municipal elections were held in
March 1968
to the accompaniment of violence and charges of open
fraud,
producing PNH victories but also fueling public discontent
and
raising the concern of the United States Embassy. Efforts
at
opening up a dialogue were made in mid-1968 but had little
success.
Later in the year a general strike was kept brief by
government
action that helped break the strike and exiled the leader
of the
major Caribbean coast labor federation. Unrest continued,
however;
in the spring of 1969 new strikes broke out among teachers
and
other groups.
As the political situation deteriorated, the Honduran
government
and some private groups came increasingly to place blame
for the
nation's economic problems on the approximately 300,000
undocumented Salvadoran immigrants in Honduras. Fenagh
began to
associate Salvadoran immigrants with illegal land
invasions, and in
January 1969, the Honduran government refused to renew the
1967
Bilateral Treaty on Immigration with El Salvador that had
been
designed to regulate the flow of individuals across their
common
border. In April INA announced that it would begin to
expel from
their lands those who had acquired property under agrarian
reform
without fulfilling the legal requirement that they be
Honduran by
birth. Attacks were also launched in the media on the
impact of
Salvadoran immigrant labor on unemployment and wages on
the
Caribbean coast. By late May, Salvadorans began to stream
out of
Honduras back to an overpopulated El Salvador.
Tensions continued to mount during June 1969. The
soccer teams
of the two nations were engaged that month in a three-game
elimination match as a preliminary to the World Cup.
Disturbances
broke out during the first game in Tegucigalpa, but the
situation
got considerably worse during the second match in San
Salvador.
Honduran fans were roughed up, the Honduran flag and
national
anthem were insulted, and the emotions of both nations
became
considerably agitated. Actions against Salvadoran
residents in
Honduras, including several vice consuls, became
increasingly
violent. An unknown number of Salvadorans were killed or
brutalized, and tens of thousands began fleeing the
country. The
press of both nations contributed to a growing climate of
near-
hysteria, and on June 27, 1969, Honduras broke diplomatic
relations
with El Salvador.
Early on the morning of July 14, 1969, concerted
military action
began in what came to be known as the Soccer War. The
Salvadoran
air force attacked targets inside Honduras and the
Salvadoran army
launched major offensives along the main road connecting
the two
nations and against the Honduran islands in the Golfo de
Fonseca.
At first, the Salvadorans made fairly rapid progress. By
the
evening of July 15, the Salvadoran army, which was
considerably
larger and better equipped than its Honduran opponent,
pushed the
Honduran army back over eight kilometers and captured the
departmental capital of Nueva Ocotepeque. Thereafter, the
attack
bogged down, and the Salvadorans began to experience fuel
and
ammunition shortages. A major reason for the fuel shortage
was the
action of the Honduran air force, which--in addition to
largely
destroying the smaller Salvadoran air force--had severely
damaged
El Salvador's oil storage facilities.
The day after the fighting had begun, the OAS met in an
urgent
session and called for an immediate cease-fire and a
withdrawal of
El Salvador's forces from Honduras. El Salvador resisted
the
pressures from the OAS for several days, demanding that
Honduras
first agree to pay reparations for the attacks on
Salvadoran
citizens and guarantee the safety of those Salvadorans
remaining in
Honduras. A cease-fire was arranged on the night of July
18; it
took full effect only on July 20. El Salvador continued
until July
29 to resist pressures to withdraw its troops. Then a
combination
of pressures led El Salvador to agree to a withdrawal in
the first
days of August. Those persuasive pressures included the
possibility
of OAS economic sanctions against El Salvador and the
dispatch of
OAS observers to Honduras to oversee the security of
Salvadorans
remaining in that country. The actual war had lasted just
over four
days, but it would take more than a decade to arrive at a
final
peace settlement.
The war produced only losses for both sides. Between
60,000 and
130,000 Salvadorans had been forcibly expelled or had fled
from
Honduras, producing serious economic disruption in some
areas.
Trade between the two nations had been totally disrupted
and the
border closed, damaging the economies of both nations and
threatening the future of the Central American Common
Market
(CACM). Up to 2,000 people, the majority Honduran
civilians, had
been killed, and thousands of other Hondurans in the
border area
had been made homeless. Airline service between the two
nations was
also disrupted for over a decade.
After the war, public support for the military
plummeted.
Although the air force had performed well, the army had
not.
Criticism of the army was not limited to the public;
junior
officers were often vocal in their criticism of superiors,
and a
rift developed between junior and senior officers.
The war, however, led to a new sense of Honduran
nationalism and
national pride. Tens of thousands of Honduran workers and
peasants
had gone to the government to beg for arms to defend their
nation.
Local defense committees had sprung up, with thousands of
ordinary
citizens, often armed only with machetes, taking over
local
security duties. This response to the fighting made a
strong
impression on a sector of the officer corps and
contributed to an
increased concern over national development and social
welfare
among the armed forces
(see
Consolidation and Organizational Maturity
, ch. 5).
The internal political struggle had been briefly
suspended
during the conflict with El Salvador, but by the start of
1970 it
was again in full swing. The government was under pressure
to
initiate administrative and electoral reforms, allow open
elections
in 1971, reorganize the military, and adopt new economic
programs,
including a revision of Honduran relations with the CACM.
Labor,
peasant, and business organizations were meeting together
in what
were known as the fuerzas vivas (living forces).
Their
representatives met with López Arellano and proposed a
Plan of
National Unity, calling for free elections, a coalition
cabinet,
and a division of government posts and congressional
seats. These
proposals failed to elicit immediate response, but
discussions
continued. Meanwhile, a general political amnesty was
decreed, the
creation of the Honduran Christian Democratic Party
(Partido
Demócrata Cristiano de Honduras--PDCH) was announced, and
a decree
was issued calling for presidential and congressional
elections on
March 28, 1971.
After considerable discussion and debate, the PHL and
PNH
parties responded to pressures from labor, business, and
the
military. On January 7, 1971, they signed a political pact
agreeing
to establish a national-unity government after the March
elections.
The purposes of the pact were twofold. The first was to
present a
single slate of congressional candidates that would divide
the
Congress equally between the PLH and PNH (each party would
run its
own candidate for the presidency, however.) The second
goal was to
promote the Minimum Government Plan (Plan Mínimo de
Gobierno),
which included achieving agrarian reform, increasing
technical
education, passing a civil service law, attempting to
resolve the
conflict with El Salvador, restructuring the CACM, and
reforming
government administration. A later agreement between the
parties--
the "little pact" ("pactito")--agreed to a division of
government
posts, including those in the Supreme Court of Justice.
The 1971 elections were relatively free and honest.
Both parties
offered presidential candidates who were compromise
choices of the
major party factions. The PLH ran Jorge Bueso Arias, and
the PNH
nominated Ramón Ernesto Cruz. Most observers anticipated a
PLH
victory, but the PNH ran a more aggressive campaign,
making use of
the mass media and of modern campaign techniques for the
first time
in Honduran history. On election day, Cruz scored an
impressive
victory, gaining 299,807 votes to 269,989 for Bueso Arias.
However,
a disturbing note for the PNH was that popular
participation in the
election had declined significantly from 1965. Only
slightly over
two-thirds of those registered to vote had done so,
although the
constitution made voting obligatory.
At first, Cruz appeared to be living up to the terms of
the
agreements between the parties. He appointed five PLH
members, five
PNH members, and one military officer to his cabinet.
López
Arellano remained as chief of the armed forces. As time
passed,
however, the split between PLH and PNH widened steadily.
In order
to deal with the budget crisis, Cruz pushed through a
reluctant
Congress a bill that cut tax benefits and import
exemptions. This
bill produced opposition from both business and labor
sectors. In
the area of agrarian reform, the president soon removed
INA's
dynamic director, Roberto Sandoval, and replaced him with
a PNH
member, Horacio Moya Posas, who slowed the pace of reform.
The PLH
protested this action and also argued that the appointment
of PNH
supporters to the Supreme Court of Justice violated the
agreement.
Finally, in March 1972, the president dismissed two of the
PLH
cabinet members. By mid-1972, the government had lost most
of its
non-PNH support.
Data as of December 1993
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