RESPONSE TO HONDURAS WORKING GROUP QUESTIONS

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0001338914
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: June 23, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2010
• Case Number: F-2001-01650
• Publication Date: February 7, 1996

MEMORANDUM FOR:
FROM:
SUBJECT:
REFERENCE:
1e , Honduras Working Group
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
7 February 1996
Response to Honduras Working Group Questions
Your memo of 31 January 1996
1. The following general qualification applies to my
responses to each of the questions asked: my responses below are
based on my memory of events between ten and thirteen years ago,
which are documented in files in the possession of the Honduras
Working Group to which I have not had access. Because memory is
imperfect, selective, and subjective, my responses necessarily
have the same defects. No representation to the contrary is
being made; the only claim that I make regarding the accuracy of
the bel 71
responses is that they reflect events as I now remember
them.
2. As requested, the following responses are keyed to the
questions attached to your memo:
Section I, question A: Do you recall the late 1983 Olancho
operation...? Yes. This refers to the first and largest of
three armed incursions into Honduras from Nicaragua by Honduran
nationals who had been trained for this purpose in Nicaragua and
Cuba. These incursions were intended to establish the basis for
an internal insurgency against the Honduran government (following
the Cuban "foquismo" approach). These were distinct from the
armed incursions into Honduras by Nicaraguan regular troops, of
which there were also three principal episodes, but which began
later and were directed against Nicaraguan Resistance support
facilities in Honduran border areas. My recollection is that the
guerrilla incursions were on a relatively short cycle (about 4-6
months apart) starting in mid-1983 (late 1983 was when the first
APPROVED FOR RELEASE^ DATE:
29-Jun-201 0
r)
 /E T
SUBJECT: Response to Honduras Working Group Questions
one ended), and the regular Nicaraguan Army incursions were.on an
approximately annual cycle starting around Easter of 1984.
The recruitment in Honduras of participants in the guerrilla
incursions took place in 1980 and 1981, well before there was any
organized anti-Sandinista activity in Honduras, and in some
instances was conducted under false pretenses-- at least some
potential recruits were told by their recruiters, who I recall
were in some instances Communist Party of Honduras members and in
others peasant and labor organizers, that they were being offered
schooling in the Honduran capital to learn a trade, for example
auto mechanics. Upon arrival in Tegucigalpa, they were told that
the mechanics training course (or whatever) had been moved to
Nicaragua, and when they arrived there, that it had been moved to
Cuba, where they eventually found themselves in a military
training course. This had two consequences: first, because of
their origins in remote rural areas, poor communications, and the
intentional arrangements made by the organizers, many of the
recruits (of whom there were in total probably several hundred,
many of whom for one reason or another never participated in the
incursions) were unable to inform relatives of their changes in
plans, and were eventually reported by relatives as "disappeared"
after going to Tegucigalpa to attend a trade school. I do not
recall the number of instances in which this happened, but recall
that while it happened to a limited extent with the Reyes Mata
group, it was more common among the subsequent groups (among whom
"b
i
"
a
t and switch
recruitment tactics were more common,
presumably reflecting later recruitment after the supply of
ideologically committed potential recruits was exhausted).
The second consequence was that even in the initial (Reyes
Mata) group, there were participants who had no intention of
being there, and who defected to Honduran authorities virtually
as soon as they set foot back in Honduras. In each of the
instances of guerrilla incursion, the first notice of the
incursion came from defectors from the group in question, rather
than from armed activities of the group or other intelligence
sources. While the Reyes Mata group was the largest (about 100)
of the incursions and the only "purely" military one (in the
sense of a uniformed armed group marching across the border in
formation), reaction to it was the slowest of the three, because
it was the first, it was kind of implausible and at first
Honduran authorities did not take the defector accounts
SE ET Pj
 SUBJECT: Response to Honduras Working Group Questions
seriously, and because of the remoteness of their chosen
operating area in western Olancho department, even the defectors
had a hard time getting out. In fact, had there been no
defectors, the group (had they succeeded in obtaining food) could
have remained there for months before anybody noticed. Both
because of the differences in ideological commitment between
initial and later recruits and the sheer physical difficulty of
defecting from their Olancho location, the defection rate for the
Reyes Mata group was relatively low (I recall it being well below
10 percent), while those of the two subsequent groups were much
higher-- very high, in the last group, perhaps on the order of 70
to 80 percent.
I recall considerable speculation as to why the Reyes Mata
group chose the western Olancho area for their "foco," but no
definitive explanation as to why they did so or what went wrong
with their planning. In general, I recall that they in fact were
aware that they were entering a depopulated area where there were
no food supplies, but expected food deliveries either by internal
supporters in Honduras or the Sandinista Air Force which either
failed to happen or they never found. In any event, the
subsequent two groups were considerably less adventurous, and the
second one (numbering about 50 people) infiltrated across the
border individually and in small groups, dressed in civilian
clothes (but carrying military paraphernalia in their packs) in
more populated areas generally in El Paraiso Department, while
the participants in the third incursion (about 30 people) crossed
the border as legal travelers in El Paraiso and Choluteca
departments, headed for rally points in Te uci alpa where they
were to pick up their military equipment.
Regarding Reyes Mata's death, I am now aware of subsequent
reporting that he was captured and executed by members of the
Honduran armed forces, but do not recall any contemporaneous
reports to that effect. I no longer recall the specifics of
contemporaneous reporting, but in general, my recollection of the
situation is that before any encounters with Honduran
authorities, the members of the insurgent group broke up into
smaller parties seeking to reach more populated areas where they
could find food. They were described as being in a very weakened
condition, and for the most part surrendering at the first
opportunity. I do recall, however, descriptions of relatively
minor instances of combat in which the more ideologically
 SUBJECT: Response to Honduras Working Group Questions
committed members of the group did offer resistance, and in-which
some were killed. I do not recall any specific descriptions of
Reyes Mata's death, but do recall that he was included among
those who resisted and were killed._ Regarding Father James Carney AKA Padre Guadalupe, my
recollection is that his presence with the group was reported
from the outset. He was not, however, "an American priest." He
was either a Honduran or Nicaraguan citizen, and had, I believe,
formally renounced his American citizenship. I am also not
certain he was still a priest. He was, I believe, in his late
50's, by far the oldest of the group (I recall Reyes Mata to have
been in his late 40's, and virtually all the others in their late
teens and 20's) and I recall that for this reason I considered
plausible the reports that after the guerrilla group split up in
search of food, he had become too weak to proceed, and had been
left in his hammock on the bank of the Patuca river by the others
traveling with him, where he presumably died of starvation. I am
not aware that his remains were ever found. I believe other
starvation deaths were reported in the Reyes Mata group, and am
aware of subsequent verified instances of death by starvation
among Nicaraguan Resistance members in a similar area on the
Nicaraguan side of the border, and have never had any reason to
d
oubt this account of Padre Guadalupe's death.
6
Section I, Question B: ...Honduran Special Forces soldier
of officer named :ra-*quez...? I have no recollection of a
Honduran soldier or officer by that name.
Section I, Question C: tasking/response on Carney?
I have no recollection of specific special tasking regarding
Carney. All that we knew of him was reported as it was obtained,
and any special tasking would have told us to continue doing what
we were already doing, and would thus not have been of particular
note. The importance of the subject was self-evident.
Section I, Question D: What
I have no specific recollection
ask/what did they say?
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SUBJECT: Response to Honduras Working Group Questions
Olancho incursion was a large-scale overt militar lo~eration~ a-cne
nd
thus came under th
e purview of reporting
officers,
e scene an the Honduran ms. nary units which w
r
visited
e
e
participating, and their reporting concentrated on the Honduran
rec. r..... .. ..
The
""""ii J1t-ua~1~i1,
was on the nature of the threat.
Section I, Question E: Embassy role in investigation of
Carney disappearance...? I do not recall a formal investigation
of Carney's fate (which, despite the lack of remains, I do not
consider a "disappearance," because there was a plausible and
official Honduran account of his fate)
situation at the time, "`Y ?1111'.cuyG UL WiU
there did not appear to be anything to
investigate-- while the importance of Carney's participation in
the incursion and reported death was self-
id
ev
ent (as was that of
the incursion itself), so was the plausibility of the reported
outcome. Since, as noted previously, we reported everything we
knew about Carney when we knew it, it is possible that I have
forgotten the existence of an "investigation" because it was
unexceptional-- there was nothing new to report or to
investigate. I subsequently (1995) became aware of the 1988
Inspector General investigation from press reports, but do not
recall contemporaneous knowledge of that investigation into
Carney's fate either-- perhaps for the same reasons. F I
Section I, Question F: U.S. Military operations in Olancho;
-
ac
do
t
-~-
-- .
no
recall whether
there was a U.S. military role in supporting Honduran operations
in Olancho or not. There often was a U.S. military role in
Honduran operations requiring troop mobility, but I do not recall
whether that was the case in this instance or not. As noted
previously, personnel visited the scene of Honduran
operations in Olancho and were the primary reporters on the
Honduran effort. F-1
AqE -,S
 SUBJECT: Response to Honduras Working Group Questions
guaca e a previous een
a an one y e on uran rmy, but when it was reoccupied its
formal status was that of Honduran army base, and the official
custodians were personnel of the Honduran Army's 16th Battalion,
which stationed a platoon under the command of a lieutenant
there. The lieutenant was the base commander; neither Honduran
nor U.S. military personnel engaged in joint operations with
their Honduran counterparts would have felt that they needed CIA
permission to conduct operations from Aguacate..
SAI-i-i nn TT
rol
d
n
e a coordination
of State Department Human Rig s Reports? The Embassy submission
for the State Department human rights report was prepared by the
Embassy political section, which had a designated Human Rights
officer, based on information available to the Embassy. Since
the report was unclassified, it could draw on reporting
(which was ava; ab
t
4-1-- r-_,_ - -
o
a
Coordination was through V `"yY LL, "1I yCi1CL-d1 ways.
1LL v W Lne
Washington-level process or coordination of the reports
ultimatel
bli
y pu
shed by th Dt
eeparment of State.
Section II, Question B: Human ri
hts
g
report lead
information/any disagreements? See reply to question II-A. I
recall no disagreements with the Embassy on issues related to
human ri
ht
g
s reportin
g.
Section II, Question C: Classification issues? See above
replies. I recall no instances of classification or sensitivity
being an issue with
regard to humaiht
n rgs reporting.
Section II, Question D: Read draft? Fair? Reason to
believe/personal knowledge of pressures? i probably read at
F11 I It/
 SUBJECT: Response to Honduras Working Group Questions
least portions of the draft reports prepared during my time in
Honduras, but do not recall the content, so I could not state
without reviewing them whether I considered them fair or not. I
recall no personal knowledge of or reason to believe that there
were pressures applied to the Ambassador or the Embassy regarding
human rights reporting during my tenure (S)
Section III, Question A:
assigned in 1989. (S)
Section III, Question B:
assigned in 1988. (S)
Not applicable; not
Not applicable; not
abuses and do not have Ls-xno~rr~ageunowi.u