DANGER AWAITS USS HONDURAS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740048-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 48
• Publication Date: January 16, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740048-1
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
16 January 1985
Danger awaits USS Honduras
By Philip Shepherd
The lowest priority for U.S. policy toward Honduras
is Honduras. The Reagan administration's policies
there focus not on goals for Honduras itself but on
interests and objectives the United States has else-
where-particularly in Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Honduras is doing President Reagan's dirty work in
Central America.
The administration neither understands the social
reality of Honduras nor cares about the country
except as it can be used as a springboard for
counterrevolution and U.S. military intervention in
the region. To make Honduras its key geopolitical ally
in Central America, the United States has adroitly
played on Honduras' dependence and friendship,
taking advantage of its tradi-
tional fears about its securi-
ty-particularly vis-a-vis El
Salvador, with whom it
fought a disastrous four-day
war in 1969. Thus pressured,
Honduras' civilian-military
leadership has leased its
weak but strategically
placed nation to the United
States. It has become, in ef-
fect, the USS Honduras, a
sort of land-locked aircraft
carrier. In return, the United
States has promised the
country large-scale economic
and military aid.
U,S. policy in Honduras
has two main objectives.
First, Honduras has been re-
cruited into the Reagan ad-
ministration's effort to in- "ARAwo / El Unwerml. Mexico aty
timidate and destabilize' Q 1985, caw syndicate
Nicaragua-an effort aimed at eventually forcing a
rollback of the Nicaraguan revolution and, by exten-
sion, according to the Reagan logic, checking Cuban
and Soviet power. Honduras' role is to be the geopoli-
tical key to U.S. counterrevolutionary strategy in
Central America.
Filling that role requires. the training of Salvadoran
and possibly other nations' military forces in Hon
duras; providing cover and a logistical base for the
contras' not-so-secret covert action against Nicara-
gua; building up military capability to support these
operations; hosting joint maneuvers with toe U.S.,
Philip Shepherd is assistant professor in the depart-
ment of marketing and environment at Florida Inter-
national University. These comments are drawn from
an article in World Policy .Journal.
neatly bypassing congressional approval for military
aid to the region by accepting large amounts of
military hardware and supplies the U.S. simply never
withdraws; and providing training bases and a start-
ing point for U.S. land, sea and airborne missions to
intimidate Nicaragua and the Salvadoran guerrillas,
essentially preparing for a regional war that seems
more and more probable each.day.
Then there is the second policy objective: Because
of the continued stalemate in the Salvadoran govern-
ment's conflict with the guerrillas, Honduras has
increasingly been drafted into support of the coun-
terinsurgency struggle there. This involves the inter-
diction of supplies allegedly shipped to guerrillas
from Nicaragua through or over Honduran territory,
the ongoing Honduran cooperation with the Salva-
doran army in sealing off the border to prevent
guerrillas from using the rough Honduran countryside
as a staging base, the training of Salvadoran troops in
Honduras by U.S. military advisers and the contain-
ment of refugees.
Ignoring Honduran interests, Reagan policies have
already had a variety of disastrous effects including
i t ne r eizional instability, terrorist attacks on
Honduras pillage by the Q.1A_hqekPd contras. Mar
Ana ization of Honduran civilian
crease interne repression and human
and severe economic deterioration. All these factors
postpone urgently needed socio-economic reforms.
Though these developments have resulted from a
complex interplay among Reagan policies, internal
Honduran political and economic dynamics and
events elsewhere in Central America, ill-advised U.S.
policies have been the most important factor.
More and more, Honduras resembles its neighbors
wracked by violence and crisis. Indeed, what we are
witnessing in Honduras is the early stages of the
"Salvadorization" of Honduran politics. Reagan poli-
cies toward Honduras have contributed significantly
to this closing off of political space and dialogue.
Moreover, by overidentifying Honduras with the U.S.
designs in the region, U.S. policies risk destroying
Honduran governmental legitimacy at home and
abroad as well as inciting a potential nationalist
backlash against the United States.
In sum, these policies threaten not only to under-
mine traditionally close U.S.-Honduran relations but
also create yet another source of instability, turmoil
and violence in Central America.
One cannot expect a small, poor, highly dependent
nation' single-handedly to bring the richest, most
powerful country in the world back to a more respon-
sible course. Time is running out in Honduras; the
sense of urgency that is so palpable there needs to be
conveyed abroad while the worst can still be avoided.
If the Reagan administration will not alter its poli-
cies, it will be up to Congress, the public and other
parties to seize the initiative and prevent still another
Central American tragedy.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740048-1