Honduran civil-military issues

Armed-forces chief

Vice President Walter López responded to a military spokesman who, in remarks a week ago, was clearly dismissive of President Carlos Roberto Reina's call to abolish the position of armed forces chief of staff. López, a retired general and a former occupant of that position, declared that the armed forces have "nothing to fear" from its elimination.

Two weeks ago, Honduran President Carlos Roberto Reina signaled his intention to do away with the armed forces chief, a position created by the military government that wrote the country's 1957 constitution. The holder of this post enjoys ultimate control of the military, and has frequently enjoyed de facto control over the country as well. The current chief, Gen. Mario Raúl Hung Pacheco, is the twelfth since 1957; five of his predecessors were removed by violent barracks coups. Hung Pacheco's term ends in 1999; Reina has said he should not be replaced.

"For the health of the republic," the president said, "the position of chief of the armed forces makes no sense, because at the level of Central America and Latin America it is filled by the minister of defense. ... The decision to do away with the position has been taken by my government in agreement with different political and military sectors ... and it is inalterable."

While a general also serves as Honduras' defense minister (currently, Gen. José Luis Núñez Bennett), this has been a "decorative" position with little real power. "The minister of defense in the next government," Reina added two weeks ago, "will be a civilian, not a military officer, because that is the tendency of modern times."

Last week, however, military spokesman Col. Mario David Villanueva cast doubt on the President's proposal. The replacement of the "chief" with a defense minister "is not going to happen. We respect President Reina's position, but he is at the end of his term and we understand this as a long-term political aspiration." (Reina's term ends next January 27, two months after Honduras' November 30 presidential election.)

"We shouldn't be worried about it [the chief's abolition], nor should it cause any fear," responded Vice President López in statements before the Honduran press. "We are taking the right steps, our country has advanced enough and this will be of great benefit to the armed forces themselves." López added that civilian and military leaders had quietly and informally agreed in 1995 that the post would be abolished.

Bertha Oliva, head of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH), responded more strongly to Col. Villanueva's remarks. The military's position, she told Reuters, "is domineering, excessive, and shows that they resist submitting themselves to civilian power and insist on threatening democratic stability in Honduras."

Legislative Deputy Carlos Sosa, who introduced a bill in Congress that would codify President Reina's proposal, said that "this is an act of historical updating that is needed for both the armed forces and the democratic state of Honduras. ... There is the will to do it among the vast majority of the people, including within the armed forces. It is not something that irritates the armed forces - though it could irritate one or two people who have their own conception of the issue and their own ambitions."

"At this moment," said Sosa, "our army has two commanders, and that is intolerable from the point of view of a democratic state and from the point of view of an army."

"People's tribunals"

Meanwhile the COFADEH's Bertha Oliva proposed that, due to the Honduran justice system's inability to prosecute military officers for past human-rights crimes, the country's human rights organizations should hold "people's tribunals" to hear their cases in public.

According to Oliva the "tribunals," while they would of course have no power to convict, would held in public areas and "be made up of prominent Honduran citizens of proven moral integrity."

"The people's tribunals will publicly judge officers guilty of illegally arresting, torturing and killing many innocent people." According to a 1993 report by the government's human-rights commissioner, at least 184 people died at the hands of Honduras' military-controlled security forces during the 1980s.

Army policing in San Pedro Sula

Meanwhile the army announced it would send 150 troops from its Seventh Infantry Battalion to San Pedro Sula, Honduras' second-largest city, to bolster ongoing anti-crime efforts.

Regular-army troops have been patrolling the streets of San Pedro Sula since May to fight common crime, which had reached epidemic levels due in part to the poor condition of the military-controlled police force (FSP, currently being brought under civilian control). Soldiers are participating in patrols, both with and without members of the police, throughout the city both on foot and in vehicles.

The fresh troops from the seventh battalion replace members of the "Cobra" squadron, which has been patrolling in San Pedro Sula since May. The army's commitment to participate in policing is open-ended; no date has been set for their return to the barracks.

Landmines

While the world's governments met in Oslo, Norway to create a treaty banning the production and use of landmines, a ceremony in eastern Honduras commemorated the completion of another phase in the removal of mines laid there during the 1980s.

The September 19 ceremony closed the fourth phase of a demining program managed by the Inter-American Defense Board, a body of the Organization of American States (OAS). It was held at the headquarters of the Honduran army's 100^th Brigade in the city of Danlí near the Nicaraguan border. This phase involved the demining of 100 square kilometers which, added to the results of earlier phases, adds up to a total of 230 square kilometers "cleaned" so far. Lt. Col. Carlos Alberto Da Cas, the Brazilian officer in charge of the OAS mission, said that Honduras will be completely free of the 30,000 mines laid in its territory in a year or less.

During the latest phase, 120 members of the Honduran army's "task force alpha," advised by experts from the Inter-American Defense Board, cleared 1,807 mines.

The Central American countries, together with the OAS, are seeking US$7 million from international donors in order to clear the region of its remaining mines by the year 2000. A 1996 OAS report estimated that at least 170,000 mines remain in the region as a result of its civil wars - 100,000 in Nicaragua, 35,000 in Guatemala, 30,000 in Honduras and 5,000 in Costa Rica. El Salvador probably has thousands more, though a Belgian company hired after the war managed to clear nearly 10,000. Even though they were not at war, Honduras and Costa Rica feared incursions from Nicaragua because both hosted U.S.-backed Nicaraguan contra rebels on their soil during the 1980s.

"The minefields left by those responsible for the cold war continue to cause pain and death in the hearts of Honduran families many years later," said Honduran President Carlos Roberto Reina at the Danlí ceremony. Only a day before the ceremony, a Honduran campesino was killed by a leftover mine in the border municipality of Concepción.

Opinion in Central America, where governments have already agreed to ban the future use of landmines, was critical of the United States' refusal to sign the treaty which emerged from the Oslo conference. Daniel Camacho of the Commission in Defense of Human Rights in Central America (CODEHUCA) called the U.S. decision "absolutely reprehensible."

Panama: Colombian incursions into Darién continue

The bishop of Panama's remote eastern province of Darién, Msgr. Rómulo Emiliani, reported that heavily-armed men sacked and destroyed a farm owned by the church's Missionary Center, the latest in a series of violent incursions from the Colombian side of the two countries' very porous border. No casualties were registered as the armed group took most of the farm's food supplies.

Msgr. Emiliani said that the incident illustrates the Panamanian police's inability, due to a lack of training, to protect residents of the densely-jungled, sparsely-populated Darién against these incursions. "The police are a little static, staying in different towns, protecting them, but they are unable to enter the jungle to pursue these people."

A week earlier a group armed with AK-47 rifles opened fire on four police agents elsewhere in Darién, severely wounding one.

Panama, which has had no army since 1989, relies on its police to defend border areas; until July, when 2,000 police agents were deployed to Darién, there was almost no police presence in the area.

Interior Minister Raúl Montenegro said that he is asking the Planning Ministry for an emergency infusion of funds to allow the police to buy better weapons for use in the border area. Meanwhile Police Director José Luis Sosa said that a presidential order will allow the recruitment of 500 new police officers in October to replace agents assigned to Darién.

Montenegro said that three types of organized violent groups regularly cross the border into Panama: leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, and - the worst, he said - groups of "dissidents" from the first two groups who engage in freelance violence and theft.

This cross-border spillover from Colombia's civil war has claimed three lives and resulted in four kidnappings on Panamanian soil this year. About 400 Colombian refugees entered Panama earlier this year to escape fighting.

Panama: CMA negotiations

U.S. and Panamanian negotiators held another round of talks September 17-19, this time in Washington, to consider a proposal to establish a "multinational counter-drug center" at U.S. base properties in Panama. Though secrecy again prevented specifics about the talks from being known, negotiators emerged more optimistic than before that an agreement might be reached.

The 1977 Panama Canal accords mandate that all U.S. troops vacate Panama on December 31, 1999. Talks to extend the U.S. presence never got started, as the U.S. side was unwilling even to consider a Panamanian precondition that it agree to pay rent for use of the bases. Instead, informal conversations - and now formal negotiations - have dealt with Panamanian President Ernesto Pérez Balladares' proposal that some U.S. installations be converted into a multilateral center that would support counternarcotics operations.

Under the proposal some or all of Howard Air Force Base - and possibly other existing U.S. bases -- would be converted into a civilian-run "center" manned by military personnel from many countries (including a significant U.S. contingent). Troops stationed at the multinational center (CMA, by its Spanish initials) would not carry out interdiction missions; they would alert individual countries' law-enforcement agencies about the drug transshipment activities that they detect. Further details about the center's operation remain up for negotiation.

Critics charge that the CMA is a "disguised military base" which will allow the U.S. to maintain an armed presence in Panama after 1999 without renegotiating the 1977 treaties.

A State Department communiqué characterized the latest round of conversations between U.S. negotiator Thomas McNamara and Jorge Ritter, his Panamanian counterpart, as "useful and cordial," adding that "all relevant points were discussed and there was progress in identifying areas of agreement in the draft agreements."

"The negotiations are positive and have developed in an atmosphere of friendship and mutual respect," State Department spokesman James Rubin told reporters. He added that negotiations will begin again before the end of September.

Panamanian Foreign Minister Ricardo Alberto Arias said that the round of talks was an "important stage" in the negotiations, but certainly not "the last round." While there have been advances, he said, "no level of urgency exists, just optimism."

Ritter, the Panamanian head negotiator, said that both sides agreed to divide the negotiating teams into working groups to deal with specific questions, such as the CMA's physical infrastructure and the legal status of international participants at the center. They also agreed to meet more frequently: "What has been seen is that prolonged intervals do not help the negotiation process. In other words, it is not productive to sit down together for two or three days and then delay our next meeting."

Guatemala: "Gaspar Ilom" declares about controversial kidnapping

Former rebel comandante Rodrigo Asturias (alias "Gaspar Ilom"), ten days into his return to Guatemala, reported to the offices of the prosecutor handling a controversial kidnapping case involving his rebel faction.

Asturias was called to testify about the 1996 kidnapping of Olga de Novella. The octogenarian Mrs. de Novella was abducted in August 1996 by Rafael Baldizón Núñez (nom de guerre "Isaías") and Juan José Cabrera (alias "Mincho"). Both Isaías and Mincho were members of the Revolutionary Organization of the People in Arms (ORPA), the faction of the URNG rebels which Asturias headed.

On October 20 of last year Isaías was released in exchange for de Novella, and has not been seen since. In a separate scandal that shook the country several months ago, "Mincho" is widely believed to have died in the custody of the Guatemalan military's Presidential General Staff (EMP).

When the kidnapping became public on October 28, the URNG - which was in a latter stage of peace negotiations, with a cease-fire over seven months old - was severely embarrassed, and the government cut off talks for nearly two weeks. They only resumed when Asturias himself -- whose involvement in the kidnapping is suspected but unproven -- stepped down from the negotiating team. Asturias did not attend the signing of the December 29 peace accord and remained exiled in Mexico for eight more months.

While he apparently is in no danger of prosecution for the kidnapping, Asturias was asked to respond to inquiries about developments that have emerged since May, the last time Public Ministry investigators spoke to him (in Mexico City). Among the topics reportedly covered by the interview were Asturias' involvement in the kidnapping, the possible participation of other ORPA members (including, as some have charged, Asturias' son Sandino) and the fate of "Mincho."

Before his four-hour meeting at the Public Ministry on September 16, Asturias stopped to answer reporters' questions, the first substantial access that the press has enjoyed since the comandante's surprising return to Guatemala on the sixth of this month. Asturias continued to insist that he knew nothing about the kidnapping before it happened and that he never knew "Mincho." He acknowledged, however, that Mincho did exist - a point that the URNG, seeking to cover up the incident, had denied for some time earlier this year.

Asturias added that, even though he had nothing to do with the kidnapping, he took "political responsibility" for it and stepped down from the negotiations, which was "very hard" for him.

The former rebel leader otherwise spent his first week back in Guatemala visiting his old neighborhood (La Candelaria in zone 1 of Guatemala City) and a hostel in Quetzaltenango where former ORPA fighters with no place to go are staying temporarily while they look for civilian work.

Panama: Gorriti receives a deportation order

Panamanian immigration officials served Gustavo Gorriti, a Peruvian citizen working since last year as associate editor of the Panamanian daily La Prensa, with a deportation order. The order further escalates a case that has been viewed by international observers as a test of freedom of the press in Panama.

Gorriti, one of Latin America's most well-known and respected journalists, left Peru in 1992 after being extra-judicially detained by the Fujimori government. He lived in the United States for several years, working as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, and a Senior Research Associate at the University of Miami's North-South Center.

In 1996 he moved to Panama, where he took a job as associate editor at La Prensa. During his tenure, the targets of his investigative reporting included many of Panama's powerful; among his "scoops" were revelations that Panamanian President Ernesto Pérez Balladares unwittingly received campaign donations from a capo of Colombia's Cali drug cartel.

On July 31, Gorriti's work permit expired. Labor Minister Mitchell Doens -- a sometime target of Gorriti's reporting -- refused to renew it, requiring Gorriti to leave the country by August 28. The official explanation for the decision was that a Panamanian could do Gorriti's job.

Unnamed officials admitted to the Miami Herald, however, that President Pérez Balladares ordered Gorriti's deportation "because he was angered by a series of critical investigative stories -- including one about how the government was helping Pérez Balladares' cousin to seize a virtual monopoly over Panamanian broadcasting."

Before his visa expired, Gorriti sent his family to the United States and moved into the La Prensa offices -- a strategy that successfully prevented the government from arresting him. He felt safe enough to go home on September 6, where he remained unmolested for a week and a half until delivery of the deportation order.

The order "radically changes everything," La Prensa reporter Rolando Rodríguez told AP. "With a deportation order he can never legally enter the country again."

The Panamanian government, buffeted by international criticism, is now seeking a way to resolve the case quietly. An unnamed Panamanian diplomat told La Prensa that the case "has been an embarrassing issue for the government and an error in calculation. Now they want to find a decorous exit from this problem."

A day before serving the deportation order, Gorriti said, immigration authorities told him he could regain his visa if he returned to Panama as a foreign correspondent and not associate editor of a local paper. "I of course said no," he told AP, "because the only places I know of where governments have the right to dictate which positions journalists could have or have not was the Soviet Union in the past with Pravda and maybe Cuba today with Granma. That was totally not negotiable."

Gorriti remains in Panama, appealing his deportation order both through the immigration department and the Supreme Court.

Briefs

Regional

• As Central America's countries (except Panama and Belize) celebrated their common independence day on September 15, several presidents spoke out in favor of increased political integration between states. The goal of closer union was laid out in a summit in Managua two weeks earlier; only Costa Rica expressed strong reservations.
• As part of this overall effort, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua agreed that as of November 1 each country's citizens can enter the others without a passport - only an I.D. card (cédula) - when arriving by air.
• The United Nations will donate $1.3 million for the U.S. Southern Command to train 400 Central American and Caribbean military officers in peacekeeping methods. The year-long course will begin in May 1998.
  • Costa Rica / Nicaragua: "Unión con antorcha." Por Antonio Jiménez Rueda. De La Nación (Costa Rica).
  • El Salvador: "Presidentes de C.A. reafirman compromiso con integración." De El Diario de Hoy (El Salvador).
  • El Salvador: "CALDERON LLAMA A CONSTRUIR LA UNION POLITICA CENTROAMERICANA." Informe AFP. De La Nación (Costa Rica).
  • "Presidente de Honduras cree que Centroamérica se unirá políticamente en el curso de este año." Por Freddy Cuevas. Informe AP. De La Nación (Costa Rica).
  • Honduras: "Presidente y cuerpo diplomático abogan por unidad política centroamericana." De La Prensa (Honduras).
  • "CA-4 Oficializa libre tránsito aéreo." De Siglo Veintiuno (Guatemala).
  • "Países de Centroamérica acuerdan eliminar el uso de pasaportes." Informe Reuter. De La Nación (Costa Rica).
  • "Sólo con cédula se podrá viajar por avión entre países del CA-4." Por Pedro Rodríguez Castro. De El Diario de Hoy (El Salvador).
  • "ONU capacitará a ejércitos de CA." De La Prensa Libre (Guatemala).
  • "ONU CAPACITARA A EJERCITOS DE CENTROAMERICA Y EL CARIBE PARA LA PAZ." Informe AFP. De La Nación (Costa Rica).

El Salvador

• The U.S. Army Chief of Staff ordered a review to judge whether U.S. soldiers who served as military advisors in El Salvador qualify for combat medals, particularly the Combat Infantry Badge. Though they were officially not in a combat situation, 21 U.S. soldiers died under "enemy fire" during El Salvador's civil war.
  • "Army orders review of soldiers who were El Salvador advisers." By Tom Bowman. From The Baltimore Sun.

Guatemala

• In a report on the incident, the UN Verification Mission (MINUGUA) determined that Guatemalan police used "excessive force" while evicting campesinos from private lands they were occupying in Sayaxché, Petén. Two people were killed during the September 3 action.
• Defense Minister Gen. Héctor Barrios Celada announced two high-level firings in the Guatemalan army. Gen. Eduardo Letona Hora (implicated in a corruption scandal involving the country's customs service) and Col. Julio Roberto Alpírez (an officer on the CIA payroll implicated in the murders of U.S. citizen Michael Devine and guerrilla fighter Efraín Bámaca, the husband of U.S. lawyer Jennifer Harbury).
• 100 wounded former soldiers maintained an ongoing protest in Guatemala City's central square this week, despite preparations for independence day celebrations. They are demanding greater benefits from the army.
  • Guatemala: "Militares supuestamente involucrados en actos anómalos fueron dados de baja." De Siglo Veintiuno (Guatemala).
  • Guatemala: "LISIADOS DE GUERRA MANTIENEN PROTESTA PESE PREPARATIVOS DE INDEPENDENCIA." Informe AFP. De La Nación (Costa Rica).

Honduras

• Attorney-General Edmundo Orellana announced September 19 that he has been receiving anonymous death threats. Orellana said the threats are probably related to one of his office's several ongoing corruption investigations.
• Of Honduras' proposed 1998 budget of $1.177 billion, some 32 percent will go to service the country's external debt.
  • Honduras: "Honduras destinará 32 por ciento de gasto a pago de deuda." Informe Reuter. De La Nación (Costa Rica).

Nicaragua

• Seeking to shore up his base after signing an agreement on property issues with conservative President Arnoldo Alemán, Sandinista opposition leader Daniel Ortega assured a meeting of party faithful in the town of Nandaime that the agreement "does not mean we are making secret pacts with the Somocista government." Meanwhile former dictator Anastasio Somoza's nephew, Alejandro Sevilla, called a press conference to accuse President Alemán of being "an accomplice" to the 1979-90 Sandinista regime's "usurpation" of private land.
• Representatives of Nicaragua's embryonic civilian Defense Ministry traveled to Washington for the opening of the U.S. Defense Department's new Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS). The CHDS is offering courses in security, defense management and civil-military relations to civilian leaders from Latin American countries.
  • Nicaragua: "Daniel Ortega niega pacto secreto con gobierno de Alemán." Informe AFP. De La Prensa (Honduras).
  • Nicaragua: "SOBRINO DE SOMOZA ACUSA A GOBIERNO DE SER "COMPLICE DE SANDINISTAS"." Informe AFP. De La Nación (Costa Rica).
  • "Nicaragua participa conferencia hemisférica sobre defensa en Washington." Informe AP. De La Nación (Costa Rica).
  • "NICARAGUA PRESENTE EN CITA HEMISFERICA DE EDUCACION DE DEFENSA EN EEUU." Informe AFP. De La Nación (Costa Rica).

Panama

• An Interior Ministry report claims that Panama's National Police increased in personnel strength by 2,063 (from 12,404 to 14,467) in the last year. As only 7,538 of the existing police employees are assigned to active crimefighting tasks (others do things like guard prisons or administrate), the report claims that another 4,000 must be hired and trained. The report also claims that Panama's murder rate has decreased by 40 percent in the past twelve months.
  • Panamá: "Polic&iac ute;a aumenta efectivos a 2,063." Por Carlos Vargas. De El Panamá América (Panamá).

Thank you for reading the Central America UPDATE. Please direct all comments to me at isacson@ciponline.org.

-- Adam Isacson, Center for International Policy

The UPDATE is compiled by the Center for International Policy's Demilitarization Program. It is a weekly summary of security-related news in Central America.