High Stakes

The U.S. military buildup in Honduras is part of the Reagan administration's commitment to enlarge the U.S. military presence worldwide in support of its global anti-communist drive. U.S. bases are under construction or expansion in the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, as well as the Caribbean Basin. According to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger's annual report to Congress for fiscal year (FY) 1985, military construction budgeted through 1989 includes air- and sea-lift capabilities that will "move us considerably closer to our goal of being able to deploy major forces and sustain combat operations in two or more theatres simultaneously."

The Reagan administration has portrayed Nicaraguan Sandinistas and the Salvadoran guerrillas as the communist enemy in Central America and has instituted an elaborate military campaign against them, with strategically located Honduras as the logistical base. The administration's massive military buildup in Honduras has been thinly veiled as joint U.S.-Honduran military exercises. The exercises are part and parcel of growing arms transfers and extensive military training, but are immune to congressional review since they are financed from the Pentagon's operations and maintenance budget.

The exercises have run almost continuously since they began in earnest in February 1983 with Big Pine I, following the installation of a new U.S. ambassador, John Negroponte, and the inauguration of the CIA-sponsored, not-so-secret war against Nicaragua. Simultaneous naval maneuvers complemented the U.S.-Honduran exercises during summer 1983 and spring 1984. In April and early May 1984, two sets of war games—Granadero I in Honduras and Ocean Venture '84 in the Caribbean—brought a total of 33,000 U.S. troops into the region.

U.S. troops with giant earthmovers are leveling the Honduran landscape, building or improving airstrips and roads, digging wells and tank traps, and erecting radar stations, piers, and barracks. In little more than a year, the logistical and support structures to sustain a major U.S. deployment have been put in place.

Palmerola Air Base, just north of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, is the center of U.S. military operations. The JTF A (Joint Task Force Alpha), provided by the Readiness Command based at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, is set up at Palmerola. It coordinates Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force participation in the exercises, and would direct any U.S. combat operations in the region.

The airstrip at Palmerola has been upgraded and lengthened to accommodate U.S. fighter attack aircraft; U.S. reconnaissance flights over El Salvador now operate from this base. The base also has a 60-bed mobile hospital, which can be doubled or tripled in size within a few days, with the capacity of performing any medical procedure except neurosurgery. While accommodations at Palmerola have been so far rather Spartan, current plans include improved living quarters and dining facilities, as well as fuel storage tanks and an ammunition dump for rockets and bombs.

All told, seven airstrips have been upgraded or constructed, four on the Honduran border with Nicaragua, a fifth on the border with El Salvador, a sixth on the Atlantic Coast, and a seventh at centrally located Palmerola. All are capable of handling C-130s, the primary transport aircraft used to supply U.S. troops by the U.S. Southern Command in Panama, which directs all U.S. military operations in the region. C-130s now deliver supplies daily, sometimes making as many as four flights in a day. Aguacate, near the border with Nicaragua, like Palmerola, is capable of handling sophisticated fighter aircraft.

Two radar facilities, one on Tiger Island in the Gulf of Fonseca bordering Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador, and the other just south of Tegucigalpa, have turned Honduras into a regional U.S. listening post. The radar facilities monitor air and sea traffic, not only in Honduran territory, but also over El Salvador and Nicaragua. Ostensibly set up to assist Hondurans in the detection and interdiction of the flow of arms and supplies from Nicaragua to the guerrillas of El Salvador, these facilities could direct any U.S. aerial operation in the region.

The exercises that have been carried out simultaneously with the military construction enable U.S. troops to test a number of procedures: naval interdiction, aerial targeting, artillery and anti-armor practice, parachute drops, and amphibious landings like the Grenada invasion. Ocean Venture '84 complemented this practice with mock evacuations, air assault operations, live-fire training following an amphibious landing, and mining waters. The exercises are the first Third World experience for many U.S. troops too young to have fought in the Vietnam War and are a mechanism through which the U.S. military is able to develop, use, and evaluate its capabilities in Central America and, more generally, in a Third World conflict area.

At San Lorenzo on the Gulf of Fonseca and at the U.S.-established Regional Military Training Center on the Honduran Atlantic Coast, U.S. Green Berets conduct military training, including counterinsurgency techniques. This training is one way to ensure that the Honduran armed forces can absorb U.S. arms transfers.

For example, following graduation of a Honduran unit from the Regional Military Training Center, the United States sold Honduras 12 105-mm howitzers; 12 more are due to arrive in FY 1984. A U.S. military spokesperson describing the sale said the howitzers will "bring the Honduran army into the modern military age."

U.S. military assistance to Honduras increased tenfold between FY 1980, when it was $4 million, and FY 1983, when it reached $45 million. The administration is proposing to almost double military assistance for FY 1984 to $78.5 million.

Another aspect of the training exercises is practice of logistical support for Honduran troops by U.S. troops, as in the aerial targeting exercises during Big Pine II. U.S. spotter planes identified and marked moving objects on the ground, and the Honduran air force with its U.S. A-37s and Israeli Super Mysteres simulated dropping the bombs.

A widespread but little publicized aspect of the military exercises is the civic action program, which I observed during a visit to Honduras in December 1983, four months into the Big Pine II exercises. This civic action program enables U.S. troops to become familiar with the Honduran countryside and people and enables rural Hondurans to become acquainted with U.S. troops. Captain Robert S. Perry of the U.S. Southern Command wrote: "Civic actions build an important people-to-people reservoir of trust and confidence in their government and the U.S." and "cast the military in the role of a positive social agent." The civic action program illustrates the thoroughness with which the U.S. military is preparing Honduras as a theater for U.S. interventionary forces.

Civic action is the application of military resources to civilian needs: the delivery of medical services, food, and educational supplies, and the digging of wells. Hundreds of U.S. troops participate in the civic action programs held three or four times every week. In an orientation session at Palmerola, from which many medical civic action programs, or "med-caps," originate, a military spokesperson described the program as designed to "win hearts and minds," pre-empting possible support for some future guerrillas.

When an area is targeted for a medcap, a village leader is identified—a school teacher or store owner, perhaps—who helps find an appropriate location for a "clinic." The time and place are publicized by radio and word of mouth. By 7 a.m. on the day of the medcap, helicopter crews are flying teams of medical, dental, veterinary, and pharmaceutical personnel and communications and logistics support staff to the site. Honduran counterparts accompany the U.S. teams and conduct parallel activities. A military photographer takes film footage of the village and surrounding area.

About 9 a.m. "office hours" begin. Typically, hundreds of Hondurans from surrounding villages line up for medical attention. Doctors see a new patient every three or four minutes, dentists pull several hundred teeth in a few hours, veterinarians inoculate livestock, horses, burros, and dogs against rabies and encephalitis. The pharmacy-for-a-day dispenses aspirin, vitamins, anti-lice shampoo, de-worming medication, and antibiotics. Large pharmaceutical firms like Johnson and Johnson have donated medicines to supplement U.S. medical stores.

Despite the claim of U.S. military spokespeople that "people love the care, and it's great for U.S. military carrying good will," many Hondurans told me that even though the medcaps are widely attended, many may not be grateful. In a country where medical care is virtually non-existent in rural areas and life expectancy is 58 years, a few minutes of a doctor's attention and some vitamins and aspirin that run out in less than a month constitute an insultingly inadequate program of assistance.

It is not difficult to see the value to the U.S. military of the civic action program. U.S. troops gain familiarity with the climate, terrain, and people of rural Honduras. They practice the complex tasks of transporting equipment and personnel. They locate helicopter landing pads, identify village leaders willing to cooperate, take a census of patients and their family members. A U.S. participant told me while we waited for the helicopters to take us back to Palmerola that while many U.S. participants hope they are doing some good, the real reason for medcap operations is, "We want them to remember us when the troops come over the hill."

In their rush to make Honduras a suitable base for U.S. interventionary forces, U.S. policy-makers have overlooked Honduran national pride and aspirations, the corrosive effect of militarization on democratic institutions, and the burden on the economy. Since 1981 the economy has rapidly deteriorated: Foreign debt is $1.3 billion, or 65 percent of the gross national product, and unemployment is 20 percent, with underemployment at 60 percent. In the hemisphere's second poorest nation, worsening economic conditions are leading to widespread suffering. Despite numerous pleas by the government, private visits to the United States by high-level business delegations, and shameless government begging before the Kissinger Commission, the response of the United States to Honduras' desperate economic plight is a few bucks to help close the budget gap and some food to stave off widespread starvation.

In a pastoral letter in October 1982, the Honduran bishops warned: "The critical economic problem, continuing with no effective solutions in sight, could lead into a very grave political crisis ..." Teachers and other service workers and peasant groups have protested the worsening conditions. Even the government has voiced objections to U.S. militarization plans in the face of limited economic support. President Dr. Roberto Suazo Cordova wrote to President Reagan in July 1983: "The strategic interests of the United States are being protected at very low costs to your country ..." In 1984 the theme was taken up again by Jose Azcona Hoyo, president of the ruling Liberal Party: "We are trying to operate a war economy when we are broke."

Militarization has also been at the expense of the development of democratic institutions. In 1981 Honduras held its first elections in 18 years. The victory of the Liberal Party was considered a vote by the Honduran people to move away from military rule, but in actuality the military, with U.S. backing, has maintained its iron grip on the reins of power.

Efrain Diaz, a Christian Democratic member of the Honduran congress, explains that the congress has been undermined by an alliance of the executive, the military, and the United States. The Honduran congress was circumvented by a decision to set up the Regional Military Training School to train members of the Salvadoran armed forces and by the decision to host U.S. military exercises. Both these decisions violate the Honduran constitution, which forbids foreign troops in Honduras except in transit.

Another voice linking militarization with the deterioration of democracy has been that of Dr. Ramon Custodio, president of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras. Custodio monitors human rights violations and the weakening judicial system. In 1981 nine Hondurans disappeared; in 1982, 23; and in 1983, 26, as well as 12 persons of other nationalities. Since 1981 more than 100 Salvadorans have disappeared in Honduras. Witnesses accuse military security forces of the disappearances, and family members of Hondurans who have been detained or who have disappeared find they have no recourse because the judiciary is powerless to confront the violations.

The commander in chief of the Honduran armed forces, Gen. Gustavo Alvarez, worked closely with the U.S. military, Ambassador Negroponte, and the Honduran president until a coup within the military sent him into exile on March 31,1984. Alvarez had been the voice of the U.S. anti-communist crusade in the region. He smoothed the way for U.S. troops to come to Honduras and called for a joint military organization of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

With U.S. support he might have hoped to become a powerful leader in Honduras and within the region. But Alvarez's greed and ambition overstepped the bounds of military conduct. Reasons for ousting him included corruption, political ambition, disregard for traditional military procedures, and willingness to cooperate with the Salvadoran armed forces, with whom the Honduran military has had hostile relations for the past 15 years.

Alvarez was forced to sign a document taking responsibility for human rights violations in Honduras before being sent into exile. His ascendancy paralleled the U.S. military buildup and the dramatic increase in U.S. military assistance. He has been succeeded by a U.S.-trained officer Brig. Gen. Walter Lopez. U.S.-Honduran relations are not expected to be significantly altered by the change. Lopez is said to be, however, a different type of leader than Alvarez—one with greater respect for the limits of military conduct.

The U.S. presence and the threat of war are leading to internal strife and protest in Honduras. In December 1983, 150 U.S. and Canadian women were expected in Honduras to pray for peace at U.S.-built military bases. Twenty-eight Honduran groups ran a paid ad in the Honduran daily, La Tribuna, calling on Hondurans to join the women. The government prevented the women from carrying out their plans and succeeded for the moment in silencing public protest.

While once only a few, like Diaz and Custodio, had been brave enough to raise public objections to the compromising of democratic institutions, now discontent and opposition are growing. In April 1984 two out of four Honduran daily newspapers commented on the presumptuous role Ambassador Negroponte has assumed in Honduran political life. In La Tribuna a reporter wrote: "More than one Honduran writer has denounced Mr. Negroponte's assiduous participation in formulating our domestic and foreign policy. He reads and hears these denunciations with Olympian disdain." And by spring of 1984, thousands were demonstrating in Honduras, linking human rights violations and the worsening economy with the presence of foreign troops.

U.S. policy-makers and the U.S. public need to know the full cost of U.S. policy in Honduras and Central America. As Efrain Diaz told me, the challenge before Hondurans is to "create enough political space to avoid the necessity for armed struggle." It should come as no surprise if the Reagan administration's enormous anti-communist efforts were to boomerang and end up fueling both a movement against foreign domination and internal repression in Honduras and a regionwide war.

Eva Gold was on the staff of NARMIC (National Action/Research on the Military Industrial Complex) a research, publications, and audio-visual unit of the American Friends Service Committee, when this article appeared.