Making Themselves at Home

By George Russell

U.S. troops start building a Central American presence

In Panama, he waded through the muddy jungle to watch American infantrymen stage a brisk firing exercise with live ammunition. Off the coast of El Salvador, he was literally lifted off his feet by a salvo from the 16-in. guns of the recommissioned battleship U.S.S. New Jersey. In between, he took a tense helicopter ride, spiraling into a heavily guarded barrio of El Salvador's provincial capital, San Vicente. After he touched down, he expressed his concern and sympathy to residents of a Salvadoran refugee camp.

Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger's three-day tour of inspection to Panama, El Salvador and Honduras last week was intended to make the Defense Secretary a "better advocate," as he put it, for Reagan Administration policy in troubled Central America. It was no accident that the area circumscribed by Weinberger's journey was the scene of the most important new buildup of American military force in the Western Hemisphere.

During his tour, Weinberger met with Salvadoran Defense Minister Carlos Eugenic Vides Casanova, whose U.S.-trained troops had not seen much fighting lately. They soon did. At roughly the same time as Weinberger's visit, a force of between 500 to 600 leftist insurgents suddenly ended a two-month lull in the country's civil war by attacking the center of San Miguel, El Salvador's third largest city. After killing at least 20 members of the local garrison and wounding more than 100 in a seven-hour siege, the rebels began to withdraw as dawn approached. The significance of the attack was that in other areas of the country, U.S. military advisers are encouraging the use of Viet Nam-era pacification tactics to thwart the Salvadoran insurgency; the San Miguel assault was the first major guerrilla response to the U.S. strategy. It was also the first time that the rebels have taken the army head-on and held the upper hand for quite so long. In addition, the guerrillas demonstrated more firepower and better coordination than at any other time in the country's four-year civil war. Rebel leaders described the attack as a "new phase" in the war.

When Weinberger arrived in Honduras, U.S. Navy Seabees were already crashing through the jungle countryside with bulldozers. The task of the Navy workmen: to convert three of Honduras' ungainly airstrips into modern concrete runways capable of handling U.S. C-130 military transport planes. The Seabees and the Army Corps of Engineers are the mechanized advance guard of ambitious U.S. plans for the poor and underdeveloped country. They were laying the groundwork for a much heralded series of U.S. military maneuvers in Honduras, scheduled to last until at least next March. Among the aims of the exercises, known as Big Pine II, is the training of approximately 6,000 local soldiers--about 50% of the Honduran army--in U.S. combat and counterinsurgency tactics.

More important, the operation is intended to give U.S. soldiers fighting experience on Central American terrain. Says a U.S. Army colonel attached to the Big Pine exercises: "It's a marvelous opportunity to bring in troops from the U.S. to a foreign country and learn how to operate on foreign soil."

Even if the colonel's remarks seemed oddly bland, he knew that the stakes are high in the Honduran war games. For one thing, the Big Pine exercises are taking place next door to revolutionary Nicaragua, a country the Reagan Administration considers to be a dangerous Marxist-Leninist force in the hemisphere, with ties to Cuba and the Soviet Union. For another, El Salvador is also in the neighborhood, and although the Administration has consistently ruled out the possibility of sending U.S. troops to fight leftist guerrillas there, American advisers in Honduras have begun training Salvadoran soldiers for the job. As much as anything else, the Big Pine exercises are intended to show U.S. determination to prevent the spread of Communism in Central America.

Big Pine II is also designed to give the U.S. a new form of military permanence in the region. For a time, Honduras was seen as a possible alternative to Panama for the U.S. Army School of the Americas, where, as of June 1983, some 42,200 Latin American soldiers have received additional training; Panamanian permission for the U.S. to continue running the school was granted only this year. Even though the possibility of moving the school to Honduras has been postponed, American strategists still see the country as a bastion for the U.S. in Central America. That prospect troubles some Hondurans. "In the event of a war, the U.S. will supply the money and the guns, but we will supply the dead and injured," says a businessman in Comayagua. Most Hondurans, however, welcome the U.S. influx. Says an influential banker in Tegucigalpa: "There is nothing temporary about the American presence in Honduras. We need the U.S. Army. If we need defending from any outside threat, the U.S. will defend us. We want the American troops here."

In addition to protection, the new U.S. presence in Honduras means something that is even more appreciated by local residents: money. In the towns where U.S.-built airstrips are emerging, for example, there has been a sudden efflorescence of Honduran shopkeepers, motel owners, restaurateurs and others eager for U.S. dollars. Gasoline sales in the Pacific port of San Lorenzo (pop. 20,000), near one U.S. encampment, are up by 25%. Says a Honduran businessman: "If there is money to be made here, we should be the ones to gain."

Along with the three airstrips that are being carved out of the jungle, a number of other installations helpful to the U.S. are under way in Honduras. One is a radar station on Tiger Island, a small outcropping that juts into the critical Gulf of Fonseca. That body of water separates Nicaragua from El Salvador. U.S. military officials are closemouthed about the purpose of the Tiger Island radar station. But the facility will obviously monitor the clandestine arms traffic that the Reagan Administration insists is flowing from Nicaragua to the rebels in El Salvador.

U.S. officials are equally reticent about a new deepwater port in the northern coastal town of Puerto Castilla. The official story is that the port in Puerto Castilla was developed by a private U.S.-Honduran joint venture that, at the point of failure, miraculously found new financial backing. Whatever the case, without the facility the U.S. would not have been able to land equipment for the Seabees, let alone mount Big Pine II.

At the end of his visit, Weinberger wished aloud that Congress would permit the Administration to send more military assistance to the troubled Central American isthmus. Said Weinberger: "What is important is a steady supply of aid, and being able to plan ahead." He also expressed a wish to return to the area. Doubtless, if Big Pine II proceeds according to schedule, Weinberger will have that chance.

--By George Russell.

Reported by Dean Brelis/ Tegucigalpa and Bruce W. Nelan with Weinberger

With reporting by Dean Brelis, Bruce W. Nelan This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.