C.I.A. ACCUSED OF TOLERATING KILLINGS IN HONDURAS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000201160001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 12, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 14, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/13: CIA-RDP91-00587R000201160001-3
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NEW YORK TIMES '
14 February 1986
C.I.A. Accused of Tolerating Killings in How
By JAMES LeMOYN1?
Special to The New York 73ma
knew were responsible for having
killed a number of people they detained
for political reasons between 1981 and
1984, according to two American offi-
cials and a Honduran military officer.
The C.I.A. agents did not directly
take part in actions by the Honduran
Government units, the two American
officials said. The help, they provided
included training and advice in intelli-
gence collection as part of a program to
cut off arms shipments from Nicara-
gua to leftist rebels in Honduras and El
Salvador.
"The C.I.A. had nothing to do with
picking people up," said one of the
American officials, who has intimate
knowledge of American policy in Hon-
duras. "But they knew about it and
when some people disappeared, they
looked the other way."
Abuses Appear to Stop
An American official said the politi-
cal killings troubled some members of
the American Embassy and the C.I.A.
Although embassy human rights re-
ports at the time mentioned abuses,
they minimized the extent and seeming
systematic nature of the killings, offi-
cials said.
As many as 200 people, almost all of
them suspected leftists, may have been
killed or made to disappear for politi-
cal reasons in Honduras between,1981
and 1984. It is not clear how many were
killed by the units in question.
Since a new Honduran military com-
mander ordered an end to the practice
a year and a half ago, the abuses ap-
pear to have virtually stopped.
According to the two American offi-
cials and to Congressional sources, the
C.I.A. used intelligence collected by
Honduran security forces to cut the
flow of arms sharply. The officials,
both of whom served in the American
Embassy at the time, said the pro-
gram, strongly backed by the Reagan
Administration, was considered a
major success. The officials asked that
they not be identified in order to protect
their careers.
Honduran and Salvadoran leftists
conceded in recent interviews that
most of the victims were involved in
arms trafficking.
Two Honduran sources and an Amer-
ican official said Argentine military
advisers, as well as Nicaraguan anti-
Government guerrillas, were also re-
sponsible for a number of the killings
and disappearances of leftists.
Asked to comment on reports of kill-
ings by Honduran units that were aided
by the C.I.A., Michael O'Brien, a
spokesman for the United States Em-
bassy in Honduras, issued a prepared
statement drafted with the aid of State
Department officials in Washington.
The statement said:
"There is no connection between spe-
cific professional training which may
have been provided by the United'
States Government to Honduran se-11
curity forces and charges that Hondu-
ran security personnel subsequently
may have engaged in improper activi-
ty. At no time has there been any
United States Government involve-
ment in supposed death squad activi-
ties."
Silent on Inquiry
Asked to comment on a report that
there may have been a secret United
States Government investigation of
abuses by the Honduran security
forces, Mr. O'Brien declined to do so.
"This is an intelligence issue on which,
as a matter of policy we do not com-
ment," he said.
A spokesman for the Central Intelli-
ence Agency in Washington, Patti
Vol;, denied any C.I.A. involvement
wt any group that may have killed or
caused the disappearance of people it
detained. The Honduran Army issued a
report last year absolving itself of
blame for most of the reported abuses.
The United States Ambassador in
Honduras at the time of the killings,
John D. Negroponte, declined to com-
ment on the embassy's knowledge or
concern about such abuses.
A Honduran military officer who is
now dead reportedly told Congres-
sional staff members in 1984 of C.I.A.
involvement with a Honduran Army
unit that the officer charged was guilty
of abuses.
Accounts of the meeting were given
by Dick McCall, a foreign policy aide to
Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of
Massachusetts, and Bruce Cameron,
former legislative director of Amer-
icans for Democratic Action. They said
in telephone interviews from Washing-
ton that the officer, Maj. Ricardo Zuni-
ga, had charged that the C.I.A. helped
set up a secret Honduran intelligence
unit known as the 316 Battalion. Major
Zuhiga contended the unit was guilty of
killings and disappearances, they said.
The accounts of Major Zilniga's
statements could not be further con-
firmed because he was killed last year
by a business associate who owed him
money.
Killings Are Selective
Unlike the mass slayings carried out
by the Guatemalan and Salvadoran
armies in recent years, the political
killings in Honduras appear to have
been highly selective. A number of
Honduran political analysts view this
as further evidence that the killings in-
volved trained units under tight super-
vision.
When asked recently what had be-
come of suspected leftists in Honduras,
an officer in the Honduran Public Se-
curity Forces said they might be qui-
etly regrouping for new attacks. Or
maybe we already cut all their heads
off," he said, drawing a finger across
his throat.
The killings began, according to
American and Honduran sources, when
it was discovered that safehouses in
Honduras were being used to supply
leftist rebels there and in El Salvador
with arms from Nicaragua and after a
number of guerrilla bombings and kid-
nappings between 1980 and 1982.
The Reagan Administration and the
head of the Honduran Army, Gen. Gus-
tavo Alvarez Martinez, declared at the
time that they were determined to cut
these supplies and, according to sev-
eral American officials, the Adminis-
tration began an arms interdiction pro-
gram.
More Active C.I.A. Role
General Alvarez, who was ousted in
1984 and went into into exile in the
United States, worked closely with the
C.I.A., several American and Hondu-
ran sources said. A graduate of the Ar-
gentine military academy, the general
was strongly anti-Communist.
He brought Argentine experts in
counterterrorim to Honduras in 1980 to
train Honduran security forces and
Nicaraguan anti-Government guerril-
las, according to rebel, American and i
Honduran sources. The Argentines said
they had previously helped run govern-
ment death squads in Argentina that
eliminated thousands of leftists there.
according to a Honduran military ofti-
cer who met them.
According to one American official.
the C.I.A. may have helped finance
some of the Argentine training. The
C.I.A. later took a more active role, di-
rectly helping Honduran intelligence I
units, he said.
According to both an American and a
Honduran official, the C.I.A. also had
contacts with a Nicaraguan guerrilla
counterintelligence unit. Senior Hondu-
ran Army officers charged last years
that the Nicaraguan rebels were re-
sponsible for a number of the killings
and disappearances of leftists.
The killings eventually became a
political issue in Honduras. Such kill-
ings had been commonplace in neigh-
boring El Salvador for years but had
never been the custom in Honduras.
After General Alvarez was deposed,
the army conducted an internal investi-
gation in which it acknowledged that
abuses had occurred, but blamed Nica-
raguan rebels for almost all of them.
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/13: CIA-RDP91-00587R000201160001-3