Waiting Game

A standoff with guerrillas

For a week, Hondurans anxiously watched the stalemate in the northern industrial town of San Pedro Sula There, in the local Chamber of Commerce auditorium, leftist guerrillas held hostage scores of the country's leading businessmen and three top government officials. Outside, the army stood guard holding its fire, but working on the guerrillas' nerves during the long nights by banging garbage-can lids and throwing stones on the auditorium's tin roof. Whether they willed it or not, Hondurans were being drawn more deeply into the political turmoil that plagues so many countries in Central America.

The drama began as some 100 Honduran executives were attending a seminar on their country's economy. Suddenly eight to twelve terrorists (estimates varied) stormed into the building, firing automatic weapons and shouting, "Dogs, everyone on the floor!" The gunmen, their faces covered by handkerchiefs, arranged their 105 hostages in two lines, head to head, face down on the floor. There they remained, silent and motionless, for 3 1/2 tense hours. At one point, apparently as a warning, one of the guerrillas sprayed a volley of bullets just inches over the row of heads. "That was the absolute worst moment," one hostage later recalled.

In the beginning, the guerrillas were less than efficient. Central Bank President Gonzalo Carias Pineda and five other hostages managed to hide in a broom closet for six hours before being forced out by lack of air. One prisoner escaped on the first morning by bolting through the front door; two others climbed out a bathroom window.

The guerrillas identified themselves as members of the outlawed Cinchonero Popular Liberation Movement, a small revolutionary group that was named for the martyred leader of an obscure 19th century revolt. Their leader turned out to be a stocky, thirtyish chain smoker known as Chief 1, who impressed the group of hostages with his relative calm and compassion. He released the wounded and female hostages when the government said it would not negotiate otherwise. As time wore on, the gunmen freed other prisoners in groups of 20 or so.

Government forces quickly sealed off the building and, after some initial exchanges of gunfire, settled in for the long negotiations. At first the guerrillas threatened to kill their prisoners unless the government complied with a list of demands ranging from nationalization of the school system to the release of 80 political prisoners. The government retorted that there were no political prisoners in Honduras. Moreover, it said, many of the people listed 'by the guerrillas were living abroad, and one, a Salvadoran rebel known as Comandante Alejandro Montenegro, was actually in custody in his own country.

As the talks with the government's representatives continued, the guerrillas apparently dropped some of their demands, including a call for U.S. military advisers to leave the country. President Roberto Suazo Cordova, after visiting the scene, predicted a peaceful end to the standoff. So it was. At week's end, the guerrillas released their last 34 hostages and were flown out of the country to an undisclosed destination.

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