Honduran Officers Struggle for Power Over Aid Windfall

The prospect of $100 million in U.S. aid for the Nicaraguan rebels based here has touched off a power struggle within the Honduran armed forces for business opportunities that the aid is likely to offer, military and political sources say.

The jockeying for business with the contras, as the guerrillas are known, has accelerated another internal struggle over who will succeed Gen. Humberto Regalado Hernandez as commander in chief of the armed forces when his term ends in December, and who will fill other key army posts.

“This is like Prohibition. There is a big opportunity to make money with the contras,” said a congressman from the ruling Liberal Party. “The United States is putting up a lot of money.”

The congressman added that the officers who come to power in the military “will also get the contra deals.”

The high-level military infighting broke into a public scandal last week when security police raided the house of a supermarket owner who has been one of the principal suppliers of the contras and a possible conduit for payoffs to the Honduran military.

Rodolfo Zelaya, owner of Supermercado Hermano Pedro, charged that the army’s chief of intelligence, Col. Roberto Nunez Montes, ordered the raid because he was trying to take away Zelaya’s business with the rebels. Zelaya accused the colonel of corruption and of responsibility for the deaths of five people in a similar raid two years ago.

In an unprecedented public response, the army late Tuesday announced the suspension of Nunez Montes and of the chief of the public security forces, Col. Wilfredo Sanchez, whose troops carried out the investigation into the event.

The raid and two other recent violent incidents in the capital have increased public uneasiness over the contras’ presence in Honduras, which military and government officials only recently have begun to acknowledge.

Last month, unidentified gunmen using grenades and automatic weapons attacked the house of a former business associate of deposed Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza where contra leaders were meeting. No one was seriously injured, and it is not known who was responsible for the attack.

Bomb Explodes in Car

On Aug. 4, a bomb exploded in the car of radio commentator Rodrigo Wong Arevalo, destroying the car and shattering the front of Wong’s house. No one was injured, and it is not known if the incident is related to the contras, whose presence in Honduras Wong has criticized.

The raid on Zelaya’s house occurred four days later when about 150 security police surrounded the two-story building in the early morning and began shooting, allegedly in answer to gunfire from within the house.

Zelaya’s dog was killed, and Zelaya, his wife, daughter and mother-in-law were briefly detained, as were several armed house guards.

Political observers say that although it is not known if the three events are related to the contras, Hondurans believe that they are linked and fear that they indicate more violence to come.

“People believe (that these events) are a product of the contras’ presence here,” said a local political observer. “People see all of this as the flowering of a wave of terrorism.”

Admitted Only This Year

Although the contras have operated from Honduras since 1982, the Honduran government admitted their presence only this year. Officials still maintain that there are no contra base camps in Honduras but that the rebels enter and leave via the unpatrolled border.

Public debate and criticism of the contras have risen with the government recognition, and graffiti have appeared on downtown walls saying, “Contras and Yankees Go Home.”

The Zelaya raid, meanwhile, has provided a glimpse into the business relationship between the U.S.-backed contras and the Honduran military.

Zelaya’s small food store received $6.6 million of the $27 million in U.S. funds granted to the contras last year, according to a General Accounting Office report.

Checks to the Military

Of that money, paid to a Miami bank account, $1.2 million was found to have been paid in checks made out to the Honduran armed forces.

U.S. officials say they received receipts and are satisfied that the money paid to Hermano Pedro went for supplies to the contras. How the store picks or pays its suppliers, they say, is beyond the control of the U.S. government.

According to military and civilian sources, the contra supply business is lucrative, both in the exchange of U.S.-supplied dollars, which become a commodity on the black market, and in buying inexpensive supplies from local producers and reselling them to the contras at a high markup.

“That’s good business,” said a military source who asked not to be identified. “In a year, you’ve got a couple million (dollars).”

Struggle for Business

The source said that Zelaya was in business at Hermano Pedro with one group of military men and that another group--including Nunez Montes, as Zelaya charged--apparently wanted the business.

After the police raid, Zelaya received protection from the army. The military source identified Zelaya as an army intelligence “agent” since 1975.

“Zelaya was the civilian fellow who made business deals in the street while the payoff was for the fellows in uniform,” the Honduran congressman said.

Zelaya has declined to identify associates and denied that he has military partners. But the military source said that at least one active-duty colonel was in business with Zelaya.

The source said that a member of the joint chiefs of staff approached an unidentified civilian two weeks before the Zelaya house raid to offer him Zelaya’s business with the contras.

‘We Want You in Low Profile’

“He told my friend they were having problems with Zelaya and said, ‘We want you in a low profile,’ ” the military source said.

He said the military may have wanted Zelaya out of the contra supply business altogether after his name and checks to the army became public through the GAO reports.

The military source said Nunez Montes apparently expected to find illegal arms in Zelaya’s house during the raid.

“He was looking for an excuse to get Zelaya in trouble,” the source said. “The idea was to put Zelaya out of business and to take over the business. But they couldn’t find anything in the house to justify the raid. It was a big mistake.”

Zelaya, who is an alternate member of the Honduran Congress, said the raid violated the congressional immunity he is granted by the constitution, and his opposition National Party protested the attack during an open session of Congress.

Zelaya charged in radio interviews that Nunez Montes once gave him 10,000 military gasoline coupons to sell illegally and that when Nunez Montes was head of the Honduran telephone company, he offered Zelaya the chance to broker illegal telephone installation contracts for a shared profit.

“He has proof,” the military source said of Zelaya.

Nunez Montes has called Zelaya “a gangster” and said he would respond in court if Zelaya pressed formal charges against him.