U.S. Will Shut Honduras Base : Permission for Training of Salvadorans Refused

A controversial military training base staffed by the U.S. Army on the north coast of Honduras is scheduled to close soon because this country will no longer allow troops from neighboring El Salvador to be trained at the base.

The United States told Honduras earlier this month that $18.5 million in U.S. funds, allocated by Congress in 1984, is no longer available for the Regional Military Training Center, which is near the city of Puerto Castilla on the Caribbean. An American official here said that the base will close as soon as training being given Honduran troops there is completed sometime in April.

Nationalists Grumbled

The center once played a key role in preparing Salvadoran army units for combat against Marxist-led guerrillas fighting the U.S.-backed regime of President Jose Napoleon Duarte. But Honduran nationalists grumbled about the presence in this country of soldiers from El Salvador because the two countries have still not settled the remnants of a border dispute between them that dates back to the last century.

Since September, 1984, Honduran authorities have refused permission for Salvadoran troops to come for training at the center.

The U.S. Embassy in Honduras plans to reprogram the $18.5 million for other military training, some of it in Honduras but most of it in El Salvador. If a March 31 deadline for reprogramming the funds is not met, the appropriation will be lost.

Whether congressional guidelines will permit reprogramming all of the funds is uncertain. Some of the $18.5 million has been earmarked for moving the center from its current location, the ownership of which is under dispute.

An additional $18.5 million was allocated for the training center in the fiscal 1985 U.S. budget. American Embassy officials said that money will be held in abeyance for use if an agreement can be reached on re-establishing a regional center in this country.

New Discussions Possible

The embassy does not rule out the possibility of new discussions with Honduras on the base, one U.S. official said. But he added that it is unlikely the Americans will be the first to resurrect the issue.

Ambassador John D. Negroponte said that, out of respect for Honduran sovereignty, the United States does not insist on training Salvadoran troops on Honduran soil. “We deal with this country on the basis of mutual respect,” the ambassador said in an interview.

One advantage to training Salvadorans in Honduras is that more U.S. trainers can be used. To cope with criticism of U.S. involvement in the Salvadoran war, the Reagan Administration has limited the number of American military advisers and trainers in that country to 55. The training center in Honduras has had about 150 U.S. instructors.

Project Rammed Through

The Regional Military Training Center was opened in June, 1983, at the request of the United States and with the approval of Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, then chief of the Honduran armed forces. Alvarez was criticized for ramming the project through the Honduran Congress after it was already under way.

A colonels’ coup within the armed forces deposed Alvarez a year ago and replaced him with Gen. Walter Lopez. Lopez soon began complaining that the number of Salvadoran soldiers graduating from the training center was proportionally too great. In its first year of operation, the center trained about 4,000 Salvadorans and about 2,380 Hondurans.

The United States agreed to change the proportion, but then Honduras suspended all training of Salvadorans at the center.

The Honduran government had said that the training would not be resumed until El Salvador showed some sign of movement toward a settlement of the border dispute between the two countries.

Fought 1969 ‘Soccer War’

Honduras and El Salvador fought a brief and inconclusive war in 1969 over their simmering border dispute. It was called the “Soccer War” because the spark that touched it off was an episode of violence at a heated soccer game between their national teams.

Since that war, the two countries have been deadlocked over six small pockets of territory along their common frontier and over islands and sea rights in the Gulf of Fonseca on the Pacific Coast.

According to a postwar treaty, the dispute will go to the World Court at the end of this year if it has not been settled by then.

Honduras wants to settle out of court. It accuses El Salvador of stalling.

‘Absolutely No Movement’

“There has been absolutely no movement,” said Carlos Lopez Contreras, a Honduran Foreign Ministry adviser.

Lopez Contreras said the Honduran government felt it was exposing itself to justified criticism by collaborating in the training of an army that it might have to fight if the border dispute erupts again.

The government is especially sensitive to criticism from Honduran nationalists now that campaigning has begun for presidential elections scheduled for late this year.