U.S. Pledges Assistance, Protection as Rift With Honduras Ends

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras â€”  A short period of discord between the United States and Honduras, a major U.S. military partner in Central America, appears to have ended.

Gone, apparently, are Honduras’ worries about the political and economic costs of cooperating in U.S.-planned war games and about construction of military bases for U.S. use. Fears here that the United States might abandon Honduras in the event of an invasion by one of its neighbors seem to have evaporated.

Moreover, this country no longer frets about U.S.-supported Nicaraguan counterrevolutionaries--the so-called contras-- operating from Honduran territory.

A second honeymoon, sweetened by aid and reassurances from Washington, has begun.

Satisfied for Now

“There have been substantial advances,� Foreign Minister Edgardo Paz Barnica said recently.

“Honduras is satisfied for the moment,� a U.S. official said.

The United States has taken several steps to patch up relations.

In May, President Reagan signed a joint statement with President Roberto Suazo Cordova covering several areas of military and economic cooperation. The U.S. government made an “unwavering commitment� in the communique to protect Honduras against invasion, although it stopped short of entering into a specific bilateral treaty, which the Hondurans wanted.

The statement said that the two governments will share the cost of maintaining new airfields and other bases here and that the United States will pay for fuel used in joint military exercises.

No Immunity for Troops

Also, U.S. troops serving in Honduras were put under the jurisdiction of Honduras’ courts. Previously, they were protected by a kind of immunity that is usually granted only to diplomats.

Recently, the United States released about $25 million in aid that had been withheld because Honduras failed to meet a precondition--to devalue its currency. Honduras had refused, fearing that devaluation would cause inflation.

In an effort to pry the money loose, Honduran military men withheld their cooperation in the war games. The tactic worked. Honduras did not devalue its currency but got the money anyway. And the war games have been resumed.

For some time, Honduras has been worried that the contras might fail in their drive to bring down the Sandinista government in Managua and that, as a result, Honduras would find itself burdened with thousands of armed men with no place to go. This worry was relieved when Congress appropriated $27 million for non-lethal aid to the contras.

New Signals Helped

“The contra money was the big question,� a U.S. official here said. “The change of signals in Washington helped.�

One major question is still to be resolved. Washington wants to have a camp in Honduras for training soldiers from El Salvador, a neighbor of Honduras and, like this country, a military ally of the United States. But the two Central American countries have been at odds for years. They went to war briefly in 1969, and sporadic clashes continued into the 1970s.

The Hondurans permitted the Americans to operate such a camp for two years, on the northern coast of the country. But then, in June, they sent the Salvadorans home.

U.S. relations with Honduras began to cool in April, 1984, after a group of officers deposed the armed forces commander, Gen. Gustavo Alvarez. Alvarez had cooperated in virtually every U.S. project in Honduras, and it was he who allowed the Salvadorans to be trained here.

Change in Style

Alvarez was sent into exile, and the new central armed forces command, headed by Air Force Gen. Walter Lopez, pressed for changes in the government’s relations with the United States.

In some ways, the change to Lopez from Alvarez was one of style rather than substance. Lopez does not make decisions unilaterally; he consults with his fellow officers, and he is seen by them as safeguarding Honduras’ sense of nationalism. But the armed forces’ relationship with the United States is essentially what it was in the Alvarez period.

The American-built airfields and radar installations are still operating. U.S. reconnaissance planes continue to fly out of Honduras into Nicaraguan and Salvadoran air space. The contras still have their bases on the border with Nicaragua and their office in Tegucigalpa.

In return, Honduras gets considerable U.S. assistance. In 1985, for the second year in a row, military and economic aid to Honduras will exceed $200 million.