POLITICS-HONDURAS/NICARAGUA: Border Calm Hesitantly Returns

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejía

GUASAULE, Honduras, Dec 6 1999 (IPS) - Calm returns to the southern Guasaule region in Honduras as the presence of troops, mobilised on the Nicaraguan side of the border, diminishes after several tense days of bilateral diplomatic crisis.

Trade timidly began again at the customs crossings in the area, despite Nicaragua’s increased for Honduran products, imposed in retaliation for Tegucigalpa’s ratification of a border agreement with Colombia that affects maritime territory claimed by Managua.

Guasuale residents interviewed Sunday by foreign press in the border area said that last week they had seen some military movement on the Nicaraguan side, but that little by little it “had disappeared.”

Nicaragua accused Honduras of damaging its claims on the San Andres archipelago, in the Caribbean Sea, by ratifying a treaty that recognises Colombian sovereignty over the islands. The Honduran-Nicaraguan conflict was later moved to the jurisdiction of the Organisation of American States (OAS).

Meanwhile, at the border, the local population seeks ways to jump- start trade and requests an immediate solution to the crisis that has directly affected them.

Raúl Antonio Laínez, a Guasaule trucker who hauls fruit and vegetables, has been stuck with his merchandise at the border since Saturday, due to the 35 percent “patriotic tax” Nicaragua ordered for all Honduran products – the same tax it applies to goods coming from Colombia.

The tariff “affects us because we don’t have the money to pay it, profits fall and we have to find somewhere to sell the merchandise before it rots,” explained Laínez.

The trucker was worried because he was hauling perishable products, while truckers carrying electrical appliances were able to avoid application of the tariff over the weekend. “If things continue like this, maybe we will be able to get the same treatment,” Laínez said.

Nelson Fiallos, another trucker, said that at mid-week he had observed troop movement in Nicaraguan territory, but that it had ended and “today we haven’t seen a single soldier.”

“At the moment, everything here is calm, and though they say many things, so far nothing has been confirmed. The customs office is operating normally,” stated Fiallos. “If there are Nicaraguan military personnel, I think they would be hidden in the hills or at sites with little visibility, but close to the customs office here, there isn’t anything.”

Honduras and Nicaragua accused each other this weekend of concentrating soldiers along their common border, near the Honduran communities of Guasaule, Las Manos and Trojes.

But the two governments denied the mutual accusations. And a climate of normalcy persists at the two Honduran infantry brigades quartered at the southern border. Over the weekend, the soldiers were visited by their family members without added security measures.

“Our instructions are to maintain a peaceful stance at the border,” colonel Romeo Vásquez, Armed Forces spokesman, told the press in Guasaule.

“That does not mean we have our eyes and ears shut. If there were any kind of abnormal movement, we would obviously investigate and communicate with high command to receive instructions,” stated Vásquez. “But you can be sure that it won’t be Honduran military officers who provoke bellicose acts at the border.”

The Honduran government received reports of troop movement in the Nicaraguan border area of Potosí and even the reactivation of civil defence committees that operated in the 1980s, under the Sandinista regime.

Nicaraguan foreign affairs minister Eduardo Montealegre denied the reports and this weekend, president Arnoldo Alemán sent a message to the Vatican asking for Pope John Paul II’s intervention in the conflict with Honduras.

The treaty with Colombia grants Honduras a 30,000 square km maritime territory and facilitates its future border negotiations with other Caribbean countries.

But Nicaragua says the protocol infringes on its rights to the maritime continental platform by setting the 15th parallel as the border between Honduras and the San Andres archipelago, which has been in Colombian hands since 1928.

Nicaragua maintains that the border between the two is the 17th parallel. The Alemán government follows the line of its Sandinista prdecessors, who in 1980 protested its 1928 border treaty with Colombia, arguing that their country signed the accord under pressure from the U.S. troops occupying Nicaragua at the time.

The controversy was transferred to the OAS, which called an extraordinary session Monday for its Permanent Council.

Merchants along the border, and the fishing community that trolls the Honduran-Nicaraguan waters, demand a quick diplomatic solution. They fear the crisis jeopardises their livelihood and lead to food shortages in the area.

Small-scale fisherfolk from the two countries met over the weekend “to seal a pact of non-aggression and good faith,” reported Jorge Varela, a Honduran from the Flora and Fauna Defence Committee for the Gulf of Fonseca, a border area between Honduras and Nicaragua on the Pacific Ocean.

“Since the conflict erupted, our fishing boats have not gone to sea and we are being left without food,” warned Varela.

“This worries us because small-scale fishing not only provides sustenance for the border towns, it’s a form of employment, and if fishing is paralysed because we don’t know where the bullets might fly…, we’re going to die of hunger,” he added.

At the Guasaule border area, Hondurans and Nicaraguans seek a way to “soften” the restrictive trade measures imposed by Managua, hoping to supply themselves with normal products and return to their normal activities.