One hundred Hour old war

The war One hundred Hour old , also known under the name of war of Football (even if the Football were only the Catalyseur, and not the fundamental cause of this war) opposed the El Salvador and the Honduras in July 1969.

Causes of the conflict

The unequal distribution of the grounds

In spite of their geographical proximity, the El Salvador and the Honduras, two adjoining countries of the Central America, know very different demographic conditions:

the El Salvador, in the south, has a low surface but is over-populated (four million inhabitants at the time of the war, for 23 000 square kilometers);
the Honduras, in north, larger, is less populated (three million inhabitants for 120 000 square kilometers) and thus much less dense (seven times less) that its neighbor.

In the two countries, the distribution of the grounds is very unequal. In 1960 in El Salvador 0,1 % of the owners have 16 % of surfaces, 2 % of the population 60 % grounds. Whereas half of the farms had a surface lower than a Hectare. There thus existed in El Salvador of many peasants of the South, without ground who migrated according to the seasons. This inequality in the distribution posed also economic problems of choice. Whereas part of the population had difficulties to be nourished, agriculture was turned towards export in order to support the interest of richest. The economic inequality was accompanied by a seizure of the political power by a Oligarchie. Even if the idea of the “fourteen families” directing El Salvador is exaggerated, the Concussion between economic and political elites is clear for the whole of the authors. Especially in the absence of a sufficiently strong middle-class to make counterweight. The absence of grounds and the inequality in the distribution pushed the Salvadorians with the exodus. They were going to populate the cities (the capital passed from 280 000 inhabitants in 1961 with 350 000 in 1969) or emigrated in Honduras to be able to work the ground. It is what did 300 000 of them. This emigration was encouraged by the Salvadorian great landowners who saw a means there of avoiding a Land reform however necessary. It was facilitated by the weakness of the monitoring at the border. Moreover there were at the beginning a need for labor in Honduras for the culture of banana, and a political aiming: the dream to unify the populations of Central America by métissant them. But the things changed little by little.

If the pressure were not also strong in Honduras, the situation started to become worrying. The population growth was there too fast, to which was added a positive migratory balance. The distribution of the grounds started to become as unequal as in El Salvador 8,8 % of the owners had 63,3 % of exploited entire surface. Illegal occupations of the South, sometimes come from El Salvador appeared. In 1952,17 143 squatters occupied 133 561 hectares. The Salvadorian landowners had gathered and created the FENAGH (National federation of the farmers and the stockbreeders of Honduras). It is necessary to underline the big role played by the United Fruit Company, which had a very great influence. The landowners were caught some to the Hondurans violently, as well verbally as physically. To expel would there too allow to save a land reform. However the increase in the inequalities in the distribution of the grounds came especially from the expansion of the commercial agriculture of the land great landowners. But as the claims of the Honduran peasants were done important, the elites preferred to turn the resentment towards the Salvadorians. Thus the land reform made in Honduras in 1968 was not done against the land great landowners but against the Salvadorian immigrants. The FENAGH also did much pressure against the INA, institute charged to distribute the grounds distributed by the agrarian laws. What started an emotion in El Salvador and the opposition of the immigrants who considered to have the right to preserve the ground that they had contributed to emphasize. The Salvadorian migrant workers then became a stake for the elites of the two countries.

The instrumentalisation of nationalism

In addition to the problem of the emigrants and his use by the Honduran landowners, other factors generated tensions between the two countries. There thus was a handling of reality by the political elites, economic, media and soldiers that it is in the questions of trade international or treatment of the refugees.

First of all the Hondurans had the impression to be colonized economically by the Salvadorians. The Hondurans, part of the press and political community propagated a strong resentment against the Common Market (MCCA) inaugurated in 1962. So in 1962 it is Honduras which had a positive balance, as of 1965 the things had been reversed. Indeed, the trade of Honduras towards El Salvador stagnated, whereas in the contrary direction exports had quadrupled in six years. Moreover El Salvador was industrialized more and it is him which exported the most manufactured good. 70% of these products in Honduras came from El Salvador. The Salvadorians also threatened the Hondurans on the urban labor market, because they generally had a better qualification. The image of El Salvador conquering vis-a-vis Honduras dying man nourished the resentment. More especially as this economic “colonization” was added to the immigration of the Salvadorians of the South. However even with these imbalances, it is false to affirm that the Common Market harmed the Honduran economy. First of all one estimates at 1,3 point of growth of Honduran GDP annual the contribution induced by the Common Market (even if this contribution is of 1,8 for El Salvador). Moreover the MCCA allowed the two countries to be more independent with respect to the the United States.

This increasing importance of the role of the Salvadorians in the Honduran economy, that it is on the market of the goods as on the labor market was overexploited by the Honduran press and the government. The exaggerated image of a Fifth column was used in their opposition.

As of 1959, the government used the topic of the Salvadorians invaders to make itself popular in their prohibiting the purchase of the grounds with forty kilometer of the coasts and the borders. The same year three hundred Salvadorian families fled Honduras. The Salvadorians were also excluded from the agrarian law of 1961. The declaration of Marcala of 1965 on immigration, taken by the two countries will be without consequence. Between 1963 and 1967, several hundreds of Salvadorians are maltreated. These movements Xénophobe S were encouraged by the political leader Modesto Rodas Alvarado and by part of the press.

Moreover, political acts come to poke these tensions. The Salvadorian forces stopped on May 25th, 1967 Antonio Martibez Argueta, friend of the Honduran president whom they regarded as criminal and that by violating the Honduran territory. This decision taken with highest would have been a retaliatory measure against the infringements of the rights of the Salvadorians living to Honduras. Less than one month later, on June 5th, 1967, four trucks containing military Salvadorians and weapons entered in Honduran territory. They were stopped by the Hondurans, which started a crisis between the two countries, crisis which will be stopped only by the mediation of the the United States. The soldiers were released semi-68, but the business of the Sleeping Beauties , as it is called, will leave traces.

More especially as the Honduran government played of the Salvadorian resentment to mitigate its unpopularity. Lopez Arellano had arrived at the capacity in 1963 by a coup d'etat, ten days before the elections, by showing its predecessor Villeda Morales of Communism. It gained the elections of 1965 by faking them and will never have popular legitimacy. Moreover, it had to face important inequalities and with a lack of infrastructure worrying: 40 % of the children did not have a school and there were only 1,8 hospital beds for 1000 people. Student's and trade-union agitation threatened its capacity. In May 1969, the visit of Nelson Rockefeller, sent Nixon, had was the pretext for a great anti-American demonstration and procubaine with Tegucigalpa. And the next elections took place in 1970. Under these conditions it is not very astonishing that the government of Lopez Arellano used the resentment anti-Salvadorian as arises political. The pressure against the illegal immigrants was accentuated and on June 1st, 1969, five hundred Salvadorian families were expelled. Several thousands of others will be expelled during this month. El Salvador and its inhabitants reacted vigorously against these expulsions, concerning its nationals. A cycle of hatred settled.

Honduras used nationalism with fine interns. It is not very probable that this government wished the war. But while making use of the Salvadorians like scapegoat to all the evils of the country (immigration, economic colonization) for better hiding the weaknesses of its policy, Lopez Arellano takes a major responsibility in the rise for the tension which led to the war.

Lastly, the media of the two countries played a big role in the rise of tension. Initially later on the Honduran press propagated the erroneous visions described above while speaking about “colonization” of Honduras. And at the time of the crisis, the handling of the facts which was made in both country worsened the situation. Thus the Salvadorian press describes the acts made at the beginning of July like true crimes against humanity. Even if serious acts were made by paramilitary bands, with a certain passivity of the Honduran police force, these violences were not systematic which the press claimed. The press and certain Salvadorian politicians speak about a flood of 250 000 refugees and of hundreds of thousands of expelled and maltreated emigrants. However on July 14th, there was only 20 000 refugees, and if those were hungry and were tired, they had not undergone ill treatments according to the Croix-Rouge. Moreover at the time of the incidents which followed the football games, the presses of the two countries, spoke women violated by sadistic supporters. In the same way, a few days before the conflict they spoke both about military aircrafts which would have violated the airspace. That was not the case even if civil aircrafts have spy the unfavourable positions on the two sides. To explain this handling of the media one can advance the assumption of his collusion with the economic circles to which they belong.

Meetings of football

It is in this surging context that El Salvador and Honduras played the eliminatory matches for the world cup of Football, which was to be held the following year with the Mexico. One of the meetings took place with Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, then disturbed by a strike of the teachers. To draw the attention to their claims, the strikers had sown nails on the roadway of certain districts, of the tires were burst and the Salvadorian footballers visits some in were in particular the victims. Feeling personally aimed, they were spread in insults on the Hondurans. Undoubtedly in reprisals, all the night preceding the test, the team of El Salvador was prevented from sleeping by the partisans of the local team, who encircled the hotel where placed the unfavourable players.

The following day, exhausted by the lack of sleep, the Salvadorians lost by 1 to 0, the Honduran goal having been marked at the last minute of the play. Despaired, Amelia, a young Salvadorian supportrice of her team, drew a ball in the heart. The body of Amelia was repatriated, its funerals were issued national, and were followed by the President and the government of El Salvador.

The match of return, envisaged to El Salvador, was put under the high surveillance of the army. But the team of Honduras saw initially her burnt hotel (there was no victim), and had to move for another hotel. There, it was subjected by the Salvadorians to the same mode of the deprivation of sleep. Escorted by the police force, the exhausted team gained the stage, and lost the match by 3 to 0. Moreover, the Hondurans who had made the voyage to attend the match were molestés, and the scuffles (set fire to cars, broken windows, overflowed hospitals) caused the death of two people. The football team could regain her country without encumber, but the border was closed.

Learning the facts, the Hondurans sought to be avenged and were caught some to the Salvadorian residents. There were deaths and casualties, the government did not do anything at the beginning to prevent the exactions, before violence does not end up paralyzing the capital during two days. Only the tiredness of the rioters put an end to the exactions.

The two countries having gained each one a match, they were to still clash with Mexico City in order to be decided between. On the two sides of the border, newspapers, radios and televisions continued to pour oil on fire, calling upon the national pride. The economic activity had practically ceased in the two countries whereas passion for these facts gained all the Central America.

The match with Mexico City, disputed in an atmosphere of riot, was gained by El Salvador, but the disorders did not cease: molestés men, violated women, some deaths, hospitals once more overflowed. Honduras showed the referees of dishonesty, the unfavourable players of cheating. Calumnies on the two sides were exchanged, and that gained the two governments.

Pressures of the Salvadorian soldiers

A last possible explanation would be the pressure exerted by the Salvadorian soldiers on their president Sanchez Hernandez. This one had been weakened by the business of the Sleeping Beauties , and it feared a coup d'etat. The pressure of the generals was important and those had already envisaged the war, as we shows it the attack carried out by the Salvadorians: the attack had been planned for a long time and was copied on the plan which had used the Israeli generals during the Guerre the Six Day old. It is besides the thesis of Yves Salkin according to which Sanchez Hernandez should have yielded vis-a-vis her generals. “on July 14th, 1969, in the morning, an ultimate phone conversation, whose content was not revealed, takes place between presidents Lopez Arellano and Sanchez Hernandez and following whom the Head of the Salvadorian State asked his troops to be ready to even pass to the action the evening. Who pushed it to cross Rubicon? The desire to dissuade the Hondurans not to more drive out of their ground the unhappy colonists? Not. But rather fear, as he will declare it later, to appear weak in front of his public opinion and to be victim of a coup d'etat. With the passing of time, the objectives of the Salvadorian operation seem clearer today. The political goal, obviously, was to make fall the government from Lopez Arellano” and to put an end to the policy anti-Salvadorian having course in Honduras.

The conflict

In the hours which followed the match, of the skirmishes took place at the border of the two States, followed by an intense propaganda which brought back atrocities of all kinds, generally imaginary. Border incidents bringing into play a few dozen people became “important combat”, and the two sides announced the victory triumphantly.

July 4th, 1969, whereas the number of the expelled Salvadorians is assembled to 20.000 and that the defect Consul of El Salvador with Tela is assassinated, the diplomatic relations between the two States are broken.

All these boastings culminated the shortly after the match, Monday July 14th 1969, when a Salvadorian military aircraft released a bomb on Tegucigalpa. The war started, and was going to last… hundred hours.

The Salvadorian Army was higher of number (8 000 men) and in armament (modern German rifles and parts of Artillerie of 105 mm), whereas its counterpart Honduran, badly organized, was weaker as personnel (2 500 men) and of weapons (old man American rifles). Honduran aviation, on the contrary (23 fighters standard Corsair), was higher than unfavourable aviation (11 fighters standard Mustang and Corsair).

The Salvadorian army, launched offensives along the main roads uniting the two countries and against the Honduran islands in the Golfe of Fonseca. At the beginning it advanced quickly on eight kilometers. In the evening of July 15th the provincial capital of Nueva Ocotepeque was captured. However Honduran aviation was higher and destroying, in addition to its adverse, the fuel and ammunition dumps, which constrained the Salvadorian army with the immobility.

The 20 Chance Vought F4U Corsair of Fuerza Aera Hondurena faced of Corsairs and of the North American P-51 Mustang of El El Salvador successfully, they were the last combat of these planes of the second world war.

The war of the foot because two thousand died and a few thousands of casualties. Nearly fifty thousand people their house and their grounds lost there. Many villages were destroyed, while Salvadorian industry was strongly touched by a crisis.

The war lasted four days (of or the name of One hundred hour old Guerre ). July 29th under the pressure of the international community and the Organization of the American States, the Salvadorians withdrew their troops. The vast majority of the Salvadorian immigrants left Honduras. What with final favoured Lopez Arellano, which could make its land reform without sorrow.

Consequences of the war

It nearly 2000 had died there in each camp

1980 had to be awaited so that a peace treaty was signed. The territorial argument at the origin of the conflict was solved only in 1992 by the the International Court of Justice.

The project of Common Market was stopped during 22 years. The soldiers left reinforced in the two countries.

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