U.S., Honduras Trade Demands Over Rebels

Honduras and the United States, their alliance appearing increasingly strained, have exchanged ultimatums over U.S. aid to Nicaraguan rebels and a regional military training center, U.S. officials said here Tuesday.

The Reagan Administration told the Honduran government Tuesday that it has until March 1 to admit soldiers from El Salvador to a U.S.-financed training center or lose the school’s funding, the officials said.

That ultimatum followed a demand from Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, that the United States move more than 10,000 Nicaraguan rebels, known as contras , out of Honduras.

State Department officials confirmed that the Hondurans officially delivered such a demand last week. However, they added that they considered the Honduran move largely a tactic to pressure the Administration into easing the Hondurans’ worries about the contras’ presence.

“We’ve had some pretty stiff exchanges over the past couple of weeks,” a Defense Department official said. “Officially, we’ll tell you it’s all very cordial, but it isn’t.”

Deep Concern of Hondurans

And a State Department official conceded, “Some of us have been late in recognizing how deeply concerned the Hondurans are about some of these things.”

Honduran army officers complain of “trampled national dignity” caused by the free rein enjoyed by the contras within Honduran territory. In addition, Honduran officials fear the possibility that the contras might flood into Honduras should the U.S. Congress reject further aid to Nicaraguan rebels.

In an attempt to ease the atmosphere and get the alliance back on track, Vice President George Bush plans to visit Honduras next month, and Honduran President Roberto Suazo Cordova is being invited to Washington, one official said.

Honduras, the poorest nation in Central America, is the keystone of the Administration’s military strategy in the area. The Hondurans have allowed the United States to build new airstrips on their territory for U.S. use in case of war and to conduct a series of massive military maneuvers, including one that began Monday.

The largest force of CIA-sponsored contras fighting to overthrow Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista regime is based in three camps in southern Honduras. And the United States has built a major training facility in northern Honduras, intended primarily to improve the performance of El Salvador’s army in its fight against leftist insurgents.

In recent months, however, the Hondurans have increasingly argued that they are taking major political and military risks on behalf of the United States without receiving compensating benefits.

They have complained that the Administration is sending them insufficient economic aid, have asked for written guarantees that the United States will defend them against either Nicaragua or any threat from the contras, a force almost as large as their own army, and have barred Salvadorans from the regional training center because of an unresolved border conflict between El Salvador and Honduras.

A State Department official conceded that Honduras probably will be offered more economic aid than the $137 million proposed in the Administration’s recently submitted budget for fiscal 1986. The budget also includes a proposed $88.2 million in military aid.

The official added that the Administration recognizes the Hondurans’ fear that the contras, whose CIA funding was cut off by Congress last year, could end up stranded in Honduras if they fail to find new sources of support. The Administration has assured the Tegucigalpa government that it will do its best to win renewed funding from Congress but the Hondurans are “worried about our ability to stick to our commitments,” he said.

The Hondurans initially welcomed Salvadoran soldiers to the training facility--despite the two nations’ border war in 1969--but later announced that they were no longer welcome. The Administration has told the Hondurans that they will lose a proposed $14.5 million for the center if they do not readmit the Salvadorans.