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Honduras Honduras and the Nicaraguan Conflict
President Suazo Córdova had foreshadowed the Honduran
ambivalence toward the Contras in a July 1983 letter to
President
Reagan, in which Suazo Córdova stated that "our people are
beginning to ask with greater vigor if it is convenient to
our own
interests to be so intimately linked to the interests of
the United
States if we receive so little in exchange." Although 1983
and 1985
public opinion polls had shown that a majority of
Hondurans
supported United States policy in Central America, there
was still
a growing uneasiness over the country's role as reluctant
host to
Nicaraguan rebel forces. At the height of the conflict
with the
Sandinista Popular Army (Ejercito Popular
Sandinista--EPS), in the
mid 1980s the Contra forces reportedly totaled between
12,000 and
17,000, depending on the source of the estimate. This
force level
rivaled that of the entire Honduran armed forces. This
fact and the
continued close ties between Honduras and the United
States made it
doubtful that the armed forces would expel the Nicaraguan
rebels
from Honduran territory by force. However, the prospect of
an EPS
victory over the Contras, which most observers considered
inevitable, raised the disturbing prospect of a foreign
armed force
trapped on Honduran soil. Most Hondurans believed that,
under such
circumstances, the Nicaraguans would fail to assimilate
well into
the Honduran population and would resort to banditry in
order to
survive. Honduran politicians reflected little faith in
the
willingness of the United States to assist them should
events take
such a negative turn. Most believed that, following a
Contra
defeat, Washington would cut its losses and withdraw all
support
from the group.
Continued and sharply increased United States military
aid to
Honduras was the counterbalance to the prospect of United
States
withdrawal from the Nicaraguan conflict. For the years
1975-80, the
total aid to Honduras had been US$16.3 million. From
1981-85, the
total reached US$169 million. Meanwhile, the percentage of
the
military budget coming directly or indirectly from the
United
States increased from 7 percent in 1980 to 76 percent in
1985.
As the Nicaraguan conflict spread, Hondurans were left
to ponder
the merits of the deal the armed forces had brokered. On
March 22,
1986, approximately 1,500 EPS ground troops crossed the
Honduran
border and engaged Contra forces near the hamlet of Las
Vegas. The
EPS withdrew into northern Nicaragua without making
contact with
Honduran forces. Honduran officials acknowledged the
incursion
publicly, but only after United States spokespersons had
trumpeted
the incident as proof of the Sandinistas' aggressive
intentions
toward their northern neighbor. Shortly thereafter, the
United
States Congress approved US$100 million in military aid to
the
Contra forces. Other EPS incursions into Honduran
territory
followed, notably in December 1986 and June 1987. How much
human
suffering passed in the frontier region without public
notice by
any government remained unknown. As in decades past, the
spillover
of the Nicaraguan conflict into more peaceful Honduras
demonstrated
the interrelatedness of events in all of the states of
Central
America.
Data as of December 1993
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