Statement on U.S. Intent to Defend Honduras Planned

The United States and Honduras are drafting a joint declaration that will emphasize an American military commitment to defend Honduras if it is attacked.

The declaration--like today’s scheduled visit to Honduras by Vice President George Bush--is intended to help smooth the Reagan Administration’s friendly but frayed relations with this strategic Central American country. Sources close to the negotiations on the declaration say it will be ready for signing in two or three months.

Honduras lies between El Salvador, where the U.S.-backed government is fighting leftist guerrillas, and Nicaragua, where U.S.-backed guerrillas are fighting the leftist government. Honduran territory has served as a useful base for indirect U.S. involvement in both conflicts.

For nearly a year, however, Honduran authorities have been confronting Washington over the terms of their cooperation. Their message has been that Honduras is risking too much and gaining too little.

The planned joint declaration on defense is one of a series of U.S. accommodations to Honduran concerns.

Worried about the growing military strength of Nicaragua and El Salvador, Honduran authorities last year proposed a special U.S.-Honduras security treaty to spell out U.S. obligations to defend Honduras. The United States rejected the idea of such a treaty but has agreed to draft the joint declaration as a compromise.

The United States wants the declaration to be based on the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, which was signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1947. Commonly called the Rio Treaty, it says the Organization of American States may take measures to defend any of its member countries in case of attack.

The Rio Treaty also says that each OAS member country “may determine immediate measures which it may individually take in fulfillment of the obligation” for mutual defense. In negotiations on the joint declaration with Honduras, the United States is emphasizing its readiness to act on that clause of the Rio Treaty if Honduras is attacked.

Bush is unlikely to have time today in Honduras for any negotiations of substance. He is stopping for four hours en route to the United States from Brazil, where he attended the installation of Brazil’s new civilian government.

Bush to ‘Show the Flag’

However, the Bush visit here will “reassure the Hondurans of our concern for them, show the flag,” an American official said.

During his short time here, the vice president will meet with Honduran President Roberto Suazo and visit American troops holding military maneuvers. The maneuvers, called Big Pine III, are part of a series of U.S.-Honduran exercises in which the mock enemy often represents Nicaragua’s Sandinista army.

A peak contingent of more than 2,000 U.S. troops will be participating in Big Pine III when anti-tank maneuvers start April 8 near the Nicaraguan border.

After Big Pine III, the U.S. Navy will conduct amphibious landing exercises on Honduras’ Caribbean coast. Those exercises, called Universal Trek, were approved this week by Honduran authorities. They are part of a series that has been conducted in Puerto Rico in past years.

Of Little Use to Honduras

Honduran military leaders have complained that the level of military skills and technology required for such exercises is too high to be useful for training the Honduran forces. The United States has agreed to design more basic exercises that will be useful to the Hondurans.

Plans for future maneuvers will be made by a new U.S.-Honduran commission that began meeting late in 1984. The same commission is preparing the joint declaration on defense.

Another joint commission reached an agreement this month for the release of $147 million in American economic aid to Honduras that had been frozen because Honduras had not met U.S. conditions for fiscal austerity, export promotion and auditing. That commission soon will start discussing Honduran requests for increased economic aid.