Honduras HONDURAS IN THE MIDDLE: UNITED STATES POLICY AND THE CENTRAL AMERICAN CRISIS
President Roberto Suazo Córdova and General Gustavo
Álvarez Martínez at inauguration, January 1982
Courtesy Jorge Majin/El Tiempo
A demonstration celebrating the return to democracy,
January 1982
Courtesy Jorge Majin/El Tiempo
President Suazo Córdova assumed office at a time of
extreme
political ferment in Central America. The United States
government
was seeking to halt or roll back the advances of what it
considered
to be pro-Soviet forces on the isthmus. The leftist
insurgency
launched by the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
(Frente
Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional--FMLN) in El
Salvador had
been underway for some two years, and the outcome of the
struggle
in that country was in doubt. In Nicaragua, the FSLN--with
close
ties to Cuba, the Soviet Union, and other communist
states--ruled
repressively and continued a military buildup
unprecedented for the
region. Honduras--a country poor in resources, lacking in
democratic traditions, and strategically located between
these two
revolutionary governments--almost inexorably drew the
attention and
involvement of Washington.
Data as of December 1993
|