Clinton Extols Mitch Relief Efforts by GIs

Here in the heart of Central America, where connections to repressive regimes stigmatized the U.S. military for decades, President Clinton on Tuesday saluted one of the largest humanitarian missions performed by American troops since the Berlin Airlift.

A rebirth that has brought democracy and free-market economies to a region long racked by civil wars formed the subtext of the president’s 7 1/2-hour visit to Honduras. His stop at this air base shared by U.S. and Honduran forces came on the second day of a four-day, four-nation visit to inspect the damage caused in October by tropical storm Mitch and to laud relief efforts.

“I know Hondurans are determined not just to rebuild but actually to create something better out of this tragedy,” Clinton said at the base, which now serves as the logistical center of the United States’ $300-million aid effort.

But in the early 1980s, the base--known by its other name, Palmerola--served as what one Reagan administration official called “an unsinkable aircraft carrier,” a reference to its use as a staging area.

Situated near the geographical center of Central America, the base received supplies destined for Contra guerrillas who launched raids on Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government from southern Honduras. GIs at the base helped build roads intended not so much to move commercial goods as to move military materiel.

Now the base is a clearinghouse for U.S. storm aid, from iodine tablets used to purify water to school supplies, medical equipment and construction material to rebuild houses. By this summer, about 29,000 GIs, including large contingents from Reserve and National Guard units, will have deployed to the region to help rebuild after the deadly storm.

Mitch, the most destructive storm to strike Central America in 200 years, killed 9,000 people, 5,600 of them in Honduras.

Recent reconstruction work by Army and Marine engineers, in addition to markedly improving the lives of Mitch victims, has rebuilt the image of the U.S. military in this region.

To the cheers and whoops of GIs at an open-air hangar here--and one definitive shout of “Yes, sir!”--the president said Tuesday, “You have shown the people of Central America the true colors of our men and women in uniform.”

Speaking to about 500 U.S. Air Force troops and Hondurans, Clinton said the runway just beyond him had served as a “lifeline to countries all over the world.”

“Over 47 million pounds of supplies came through here,” the president said. “Helicopters performed daring rescues and delivered food. Engineers repaired roads, medical teams gave treatment and comfort, relief workers provided clean water, built schools and shelters, and restored faith in a future that nearly washed away.”

Eugenio Chicas, a former rebel commander who is now a deputy in El Salvador’s National Assembly, which Clinton will address today, said of the American efforts, “Clearly, this has improved the image of the U.S. armed forces here.”

U.S. funding and training of anti-Communist forces during the Central American civil wars of the 1980s left many in the region angry, and suspicious of any American military presence in their countries.

Just over a year ago in Honduras, demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. Embassy to protest the American presence in a regional military training exercise. Such exercises “had no point at a time when Honduras and the region are living in peace and democracy,” said Salvador Zuniga, an Indian leader who was one of the protest organizers.

Chicas, the Salvadoran legislator, said he is not convinced that the recent U.S. actions have been completely altruistic.

“There is the nagging worry that, with the [impending] U.S. pullout from Panama, behind these good works there is the intention to establish bases in El Salvador to replace those in Panama,” he said.

The last U.S. military base in Panama will close at the end of December, when the United States completes the transfer of the Panama Canal to that country’s government.

But U.S. military bases are not the primary concern of Central Americans who have faced massive traffic jams because Mitch washed out bridges and roads.

During his visit Tuesday, Clinton went to the Juan Molina Bridge, rebuilt by U.S. Marines. It links Tegucigalpa, Honduras’ capital, with Comayagua, across the Choluteca River. Its collapse in the floods spawned by Mitch--as much as 84 inches of rain fell in five days--plunged both cities into chaos.

In the months before the military engineers installed the replacement, hours-long lines of traffic snaked around a soccer stadium into the narrow, congested streets of downtown Tegucigalpa.

Sandra Cruz, whose family runs a small hotel on the Tegucigalpa side of the river, was caught in a two-hour traffic jam returning from a trip to a doctor in Comayagua in mid-January. Desperate, she got out of her taxi and walked home.

“It was,” she recalled Tuesday, “just awful.”

Gerstenzang reported from Honduras and Darling from San Salvador.