HONDURAS REPORTED RELUCTANT TO AID NICARAGUAN REBELS ALONE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403790066-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 66
• Publication Date: January 28, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403790066-0
THE NEW YORK TIMES
28 January, 1985
Honduras' Reported Reluctant to Aid
Nicara an : Rebels Alone
1 Western officials who have motu-
tored the rebels' efforts say the Hondu-
rans have good reason to be worried.
They contend that more than 100,000
Nicaraguan-refugees who sympathize
with the guerrillas could enter Hon-
duras if lack of money makes the rebel
campaign collapse.
The officials also point out that the
estimated 10,000 to 12,000 armed Nica-
raguan?guerrIllas who now operate out
of Honduras are more than a match for
the 14,000 soldiers in the Honduran
Army, and thatthis sharply limits the
Hondurans' ability to remove the
rebels by force if that should prove nee
Spedel to The New Yot1c 2Sms
'.TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, Jan. 26
- The Honduran Government may de-
cide to stop supporting Nicaraguan
anti-Government guerrillas if the
.United States Congress votes not to
renew funding for the rebels later this
year, according to several Honduran
,and Western officials here.
Senior Honduran Army officers and
Government officials are waiting to see
hew congress votes before deciding on'
their policy toward the rebels. But the'
subject is already the source of emo-
?tional debate within the Honduran mill-
tazy and of sensitive negotiations be-
tween Honduras and the United States,
.according to officials here.
?The Hondurans say they fear they
would be left alone to pick up the pieces
if the program to create a guerrilla war
inside Nicaragua fell apart.
? "Who trained these people? Who led
.them?" a Honduran professional with
close contacts in the Government
asked, contending the rebels' future
was the responsibility of the United
States.
By JAMES LeMOYNE
Honduras May Limit Rebels
Government officials here say that if
American support is renewed, Hon-
duras will almost certainly allow the
rebels to continue operating from their
bases on the eastern border with Nica-
ragua, but if funding is permanently
ended, Honduras may decide that it is
too isolated politically to continue sup-
porting the rebels-
The Government might then either 1
try t- o end the covert ro or limit it I
to a oint w ere are el are no
Ionizer a s an cant orce. Western offi-
.
cials here said.
-If ,ot~' tg~ess votes against further aid
to the rebels, the Reagan.Administra-
lion, according to Western officials,
will shift to a long-term policy of con-
taining Nicaragua by building up the
armed forces of its neighbors and by
maintaining a constant American mili-
tary presence in Honduras.
Honduran officials are openly wor-
ried by the difficult decisions they must
make in the months ahead. Speaking in
interviews several officials said Hon-
duras counted on a continuing Amer-
ican commitment when. in 1981 and
198'1 it allowed the Reagan Adminis-
tration to pim a central intelligence.
A2Pncv P ort to fund and train Nicara-
guan exiles an the Honduran border.
Honduran officials say they fear that
the Nicaraguan rebels will dissolve
into uncontrollable marauding bands
dedicated to smuggling, extortion and
a warlord-style fight against the San-
dinistas that lacks political direction.
"The problem is just too big for the
Hondurans to handle," said one official
here who keeps track of aid to the guer-
rillas.
Rebel Future in Doubt
Western officials expressed doubts
that the rebels could continue without
renewed American aid. They said that
the guerrillas have managed to keep
the war going by appealing to Nicara-
guan exiles, third countries and private
American corporations for help, but
that they had sought such support as a
stopgap measure until Congressional
funding was renewed.
? The United States is believed to have
given the rebels almost $80 million be-
fore aid was cut off by Congress. In Oc-
tober, Congress did approve $14 million
for the rebels in the current fiscal year,
but tied release of the money to a sea
' -ond vote, to be taken after February.
. Senior Nicaraguan guerrilla officials
and the American officials who advised
them had easy access to the highest
levels of the Honduran Army when it
was led by General Gustavo Alvarez
Martinez, .a determined anti-Commu-
nist and close confidant of the Amer-
ican Embassy here.
But the younger officers who deposed
General Alvarez last March have been
less- pliant as allies '-of the. United
States. In recent months the army high
command has demanded a bilateral se-
curity pact with the United States while
distancing itself from the guerrillas.
Army and Government officials now
openly criticize. the Administration's
policy towards the Nicaraguan guerril-
las, saying it is poorly planned and does
not define what the rebels are supposed
to achieve.
At first, Administration officials said
the guerrillas' purpose was to cut off
arms supplies from Nicaragua to El
Salvador. Today, they suggest that the
goal is to force Nicaragua's Sandinista
Government to accept major changes
in its military and political policies.
Senior Western officials involved in
the effort here to support the rebels ex-
pressed personal bitterness at the pos,
sibility thatthe United States might not
fund the rebels. They said such a deci-
sion would amount td-abandonment- of
the guerrillas. - -_ `.
But, from the start, American offi-
cials have treated the rebels as an in-
strument of. American policy toward
Nicaragua rather than as participants
in an insurgency that has the right to
define its own goals..; e.
Robert C. McFarlane, President.
Reagan's National Security Adviser,
made a visit to Honduras last week to
tell the Government that the Admir,-
stration would do all it could to con-
vince Congress to renew support for the
Nicaraguan rebels. The Hondurans,
however, did not seem to be reassured.
Asked what guarantees Mr. McFar-
lane had offered, the Honduran For-
eign Minister, Edgardo Paz Barnica,
suggested the meeting had been diffi-
cult, and then `replied: "He said the
Reagan Administration would never
abandon its friends in Central Amer-
ica."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403790066-0