Dilemma for Honduras: What to Do About Contras It Agreed to Expel

U.S. Ambassador Everett E. Briggs listened impassively at a banquet last week as the Honduran foreign minister declared his government’s plans to comply with a peace accord that requires it to expel the U.S.-backed contras from Honduras.

What Foreign Minister Carlos Lopez Contreras did not raise with the roomful of diplomats was that, hours earlier, Briggs’ boss, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, had announced the Reagan Administration’s own plans--to seek $270 million in aid to the contras that, necessarily, would flow through Honduras.

In fact, Lopez Contreras did not mention the Nicaraguan contras at all in his speech that night since, despite six years of war, his government still does not acknowledge the rebels’ presence in Honduras or the U.S. infrastructure that has been established here to support them.

A Political Quandary

But in all that was not said, the evening underscored the quandary that Honduras faces as the United States’ closest ally in region: whether to honor a peace accord its president, Jose Azcona Hoyo, signed along with the other four Central American presidents on Aug. 7 or to continue to comply with the Reagan Administration’s policy of support for the contras.

So far, Honduras has leaned toward the latter course, Central American diplomats say. They charge that the Honduran government has been dragging its feet on the peace plan and has isolated itself from its Central American neighbors.

“They are the weak link. . . . They have done absolutely nothing to comply with the plan,” said a Salvadoran Foreign Ministry official.

A Costa Rican official added that Honduran officials “are impeding the advance of the peace process with actions such as not attending meetings or, when they do attend, not participating.”

Toeing the Line

Also, these diplomats complain that the Honduran government has made no move to expel the contras. Instead, they say, Honduras is toeing a Reagan Administration line on the peace plan because of its economic dependence on the United States--Honduras received $260 million in economic and military aid this year. While El Salvador receives far more U.S. aid, Honduras is the poorest country in the region and its needs are acute.

Last year, Costa Rican officials accused the Reagan Administration of holding up aid to their country after then-President-elect Oscar Arias Sanchez expressed his desire to prevent the contras from using Costa Rica as a sanctuary and opposed the Administration’s $100-million aid package to the rebels.

In response to the criticism from other Central American diplomats, Lopez Contreras said that U.S. pressure on Honduras is “a myth” and that the criticism is unjustified.

“If the United States had pressured us, we wouldn’t have signed (the accord). We will comply. . . . The only obligation for Honduras is to impede the use of our territory by insurgent groups, and we are ready to do that,” Lopez Contreras said in an interview.

The peace plan, signed by the presidents of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, calls for cease-fires in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, amnesty programs for insurgents and the adoption of democratic reforms by Nov. 7. It also requires that all foreign aid to insurgent groups be terminated.

President Reagan strongly criticized the plan last week, saying it does not have adequate safeguards for democracy and U.S. security interests. Administration officials and contra leaders say they fear the Sandinistas will make only cosmetic changes necessary to block further aid to the contras.

Under the plan, Nicaragua must lift the current state of emergency and allow political pluralism and freedom of the press, but the Sandinista government is not required to make structural changes such as adopting a new constitution or reorganizing the armed forces.

Honduran officials, as well as the military and the political opposition, are concerned that a cutoff in U.S. aid to the contras will leave Honduras with an unemployed, U.S-trained army in their territory.

They say that even if the political system in Nicaragua becomes more open, many of the ultraconservative contras, who have been at war for several years, are unlikely to return to civilian life as long as the Sandinistas are still in power.

“The most critical problem (for Honduras) is the contras,” said Rafael Leonardo Callejas, leader of the opposition National Party. “We cannot be responsible for them. This problem could cause the plan to fail. Honduras cannot absorb the contras.”

The Reagan Administration reportedly has promised Honduras all along that the United States would take care of the contras if the program failed. The Administration, however, cannot publicly discuss the issue without politically undermining its own program.

When covert U.S. aid to the contras was cut off in 1984, after it was revealed that the CIA had helped mine Nicaraguan harbors, the contras returned to their bases in Honduras for more than a year. What Honduran officials fear is that the same thing will happen again if aid is suspended.

Money Nearly Gone

Contra officials say 12,000 rebels have infiltrated Nicaragua since last October, when the $100 million in U.S. military and economic aid was first made available to them. Political observers estimate that 1,000 to 2,000 rebels remain in Honduras. The contras’ logistical base and CIA-directed aerial resupply network are in Honduras, along with their U.S. advisers and intelligence center.

The contras have been controversial here because, by tolerating a foreign army on its soil, Honduras has seemed to yield some of its sovereignty, in the eyes of some. In addition, the contras and their families have displaced many small farmers along the Honduran-Nicaraguan border. The rebels’ presence in Honduras led to border clashes with the Sandinistas and Honduran military last year--and fears that Honduras could be drawn into a war with Nicaragua.

The signing of the peace accord in Guatemala on Aug. 7 took most of the world by surprise. Political observers say they believe Nicaragua signed after Reagan and House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) proposed a less favorable plan two days earlier and that Honduras felt obligated to sign to avoid being the odd man out.

El Salvador Able to Maneuver

Both Costa Rica and Guatemala had a hand in crafting the plan and internal reasons for wanting it signed. The U.S.-backed government in El Salvador, which sided with Honduras in past peace negotiations, has embraced the accord because it gives the advantage to the current government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte.

Political analysts note that El Salvador has been more able than Honduras to maneuver independently of the Reagan Administration, in part because Duarte has cultivated the Democratic-controlled Congress. Speaker Wright and California Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced) made the same point recently in trying to persuade the Honduran ambassador in the United States, Juan Agurcia, that his country should actively back the peace plan.

Agurcia was told, “Rememberthat Ronald Reagan is only President for 16 more months. Jim Wright is going to be Speaker of the House for the next 10 years.”

Honduras’ reservations about the peace plan quickly became apparent when Lopez Contreras arrived here a day late last month for the first discussion of the peace plan among the Central American foreign ministers.

Honduras has since refused to attend at least three functions with the other foreign ministers, including a prearranged presentation of the plan to the United Nations.

Honduran officials say the reason for that is not opposition to the plan but the fact that Nicaragua has filed a lawsuit against Honduras in the World Court for allowing the contras to use its territory. They say they will not appear in public with the Nicaraguans, except for peace plan negotiations, until the suit is withdrawn.

Nicaragua announced that it suspended the case against Honduras for three months after the signing of the accord, but has not withdrawn the suit though it has dismissed a similar case against Costa Rica.

A senior Reagan Administration official in Central America said that the Honduran strategy on the peace plan appears to be to make no move against the contras until Nicaragua complies with the provisions calling for democratic reforms. If Nicaragua does not fulfill the agreement--and U.S. officials assume it will not--then Honduras’ inaction will become a moot point.

Lopez Contreras said, “One of the parties cannot demand an absolute compliance of the other if it has only complied in part.”

So far, the Sandinistas have formed a National Reconciliation Commission called for under the plan and named one of their harshest critics, Roman Catholic Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, as president. They have allowed the return of three exiled priests to the country and abolished a law allowing the government to confiscate private property after the owners are out of the country for more than six months.

The foreign ministers from the five Central American countries are scheduled to meet in Managua today and Friday. Costa Rican officials said they will urge Nicaragua to allow the opposition media to become active and lift a state of emergency before the Nov. 7 deadline. The Costa Ricans also will press Honduras to confirm its intention to prevent the contras from using its territory before an international verification commission is set up under the plan to monitor compliance.

The commission is made up of the five Central American foreign ministers plus the foreign ministers of eight other Latin American countries, known as the Contadora Group and the Contadora Support Group for their prior peace efforts, and representatives of the Organization of American States and the United Nations.

A technical group will meet in Managua at the same time as the foreign ministers to develop in detail the commission’s duties and authority. Among other things, the commission is expected to have the power to go to Honduras to verify whether or not the contras are operating there.