Honduras This Week Online | Features | Fiction

The Great Honduras - Salvador Soccer War

LORENZO DEE BELVEAL

Soccer may be just a game in other parts of the world, but in Central America it's an endemic form of madness that perennially returns to infect the entire populace for several months. Locally known as "futbol" - there is nothing else in the form of sports that can begin to approach the levels of passion it evokes in the land. It isn't hard to imagine a soccer game serving to start a war in this region, but the fighting that erupted between Honduras and El Salvador in July, 1969, had been building up for a long time before the sporting event that provided the "Futbol War" label.

The underlying issue was - and still is - the matter of living space. Honduras had a population of about three million living in a land area of 43,277 square miles. El Salvador squeezed her four million people into 8,260 square miles. In terms of population density, Honduras had one citizen for each ten acres of its land area. El Salvador had eight people for each ten acres of national territory. The inequality of population pressures is intensified by the fact that thousands of acres of unused Honduras land lies just across a narrow river valley from El Salvador. Small wonder then that the Salvadoranians have trouble resisting the temptation to wade the river and set up housekeeping on the other side.

In 1960 it was estimated that some 60,000 Salvador nationals were in Honduras; 90% of them without permits or residency papers. At that time, a treaty was worked out between the two countries, whereby Honduras gave the illegal visitors five years in which to obtain legal status or get back across the river. In the stated five year period, about a thousand Salvadorans took advantage of the offer.

When Honduras instituted its agrarian reform program, the illegal visitors were not only unable to qualify as recipients, but worse, the land they were occupying was taken from them and given to Hondurans who were being relocated. Needless to say, this caused some bitter reactions among those being evicted. After having spent several years establishing coffee fincas and other crops, the "squatters" decided to fight for what they thought they had earned and had coming to them. Armed resistance was usually limited to isolated machete fights among campesinos, but there were also other incidents that fired passions on both sides of the river.

Inasmuch as the particular boundary dispute has been going an since 1861, charges of territorial violations are familiar refrains. They flew thick and fast. Salvador grabbed a Honduran by the name of Martinez Argueta, and sentenced him to twenty years in prison for illegal entry into Salvador. In retaliation, four Honduran soldiers managed to round up sixty of Salvador's soldiers, took them to Santa Rosa de Copan and locked them up. When L.B.J. visited this area in 1968, the sixty-one people were still being held. President Johnson arranged a deal that traded Honduran Argueta for the sixty Salvadoran soldiers - and everybody finally got to go home. But the stresses were still there. It was against this background that the 1969 soccer championship play-off took place.

The first game of the two-out-of -three championship series was scheduled to be played in Honduras. The Salvador team came to Tegucigalpa looking for scalps, and the local events going on in the host city didn't help anything. When the visitors arrived, a teachers' strike was in progress. The educators had decided that one of the finest methods for calling public attention to their worthy cause was by sprinkling roofing nails in selected thoroughfares throughout the capitol city; a professional approach if I ever heard one. An epidemic of flat tires resulted, and the Salvador futbolistas were prominent among the victims. They considered the nails in the street as being directed against them, and harsh words were exchanged. They entered the stadium the following day chock-full of bitterness. The game was a bare-knuckle classic even by Central American standards. Honduras managed to get a score into the net during the last minute of play to give them the game 1- zip.

The populace went wild. Fights broke out between the respective loyalists, the stadium was set afire; and a good time was had by all. It was easy to tell who had personally attended the game: they were wearing splints and bandages for several days thereafter.

The second game was staged in San Salvador. When the Hondurans arrived in the neighboring capitol, the reception was a lot like the one the lions used to give the Christians in the Roman Coliseum: We're glad you're here, and you will find out why in due course. Among other breaches of etiquette, the hotel where the Honduran team was sleeping was put to the torch during the early hours of the night. Everyone got out unharmed, but arson doesn’t warm human relationships.

Then, after the Honduras team had been moved to another hotel and got back to bed, a group of Salvadorans decided to make it up to their much-abused visitors by serenading them. This misguided or Machiavellian bunch of alleged peace-makers sang under the windows of the Honduran soccer team for most of the rest of the night.

The motives of the songsters might have been the purest, but the Honduran contingent didn't think so. After escaping from a burning hotel and being an unwilling audience for several hours of amateur a-capella entertainment, the visiting team took to the field like a bunch of zombies - under police escort, it should be added. Needless to say, Salvador won the game. After-game festivities took the form of a city-wide battle royal. Cars were set afire in the streets. Store windows were broken. Local hospitals set new attendance records. Miraculously, the Honduran team, by a combination of brilliant maneuvering and professional protection, slipped back across the border without actually losing a single man.

When the futbolistas got back to Tegucigalpa and began recounting their experiences in the sister republic, righteous indignation burst into flame. Goon-squads of Tegucigalpa soccer fans mounted a rumble against resident Salvadoranians that quickly turned into a very heavy scene. In addition to black eyes and cracked heads, bones were broken and people were killed. Honduras officialdom made no attempt to quell the thing at the outset; and later - when it had become a full-fledged bloodletting, they couldn’t stop it. After a couple of days of terror and violence that virtually paralyzed the entire city, the combatants got tired, went home to sleep, and things settled back to some semblance of normal.

With Salvador and Honduras each having won one game, there were no illusions about what was going to happen when they met in Mexico for the final confrontation. Radio, television and newspapers on both sides of the mutual border screamed for blood. Public passions were at a fever pitch and national pride was at stake. The final meeting promised to be a soccer game the like of which hadn't been seen since the Wellingtons squared off against the Napoleons, at Waterloo.

Everything except natural events and bodily functions came to a virtual standstill as national attention was riveted on the upcoming event. Radio stations and newspapers poured forth a continual stream of background information that was piped into the homes, businesses and cars of the total population via radio and TV. One could easily conclude that Honduras was suffering from a pandemic national earache, until you saw that they were little transistor radios that everyone had pressed tightly to the side of his head.

Roatan, which usually manages to ignore most of everything that transpires on the mainland, was equally entranced with the historic play-off. Work came to a standstill.

Everybody who could possibly make it went to Mexico City to view the game in person, provided they could buy, bribe, squeeze and fight their way into the overflowing stadium. The rest of Central America was wired into the action by radio and television, as futbol hysteria gripped the land and all else was utterly forgotten in the madness of the moment. The entire Central American isthmus was "on hold."

After a no-holds-barred contest distinguished by every imaginable form of mayhem and violence that the permissive rules of one of the toughest body contact sports around could countenance, El Salvador squeaked through to win it in the terminal seconds. In the stadium and throughout Mexico City, generally, a full-fledged riot ensued. Partisan spectators mauled each other in the stands; people were trampled in the melee; women were raped and a few persons were killed. Hospitals painted and posted "Standing Room Only" signs. It was really quite a party.

Honduras charged the officials with crooked officiating, and charged the Salvador team with cheating. Personal and national vilifications flew thick and fast, both on and off the field; and within a matter of hours the exchange of unpleasantries were taking place at the highest levels of the respective governments. As sovereign sensitivities surfaced and blossomed, everyone got into the act.

There are two distinct versions of just who started the "Futbol War" between Honduras and El Salvador, depending directly on the nationality of your informant. However, the point is not crucial. Within a few hours following the end of the soccer game, the first armed skirmishes were taking place an the border which separates the two little countries. The competitive fever which attended the athletic event had been transferred intact to the home ground - and escalated to a conflict at arms.

Spanish-speaking countries use the word propoganda to cover the full range of information, advertising - and propaganda. Even the most devoted proponents of free speech and free press are regularly astounded by the modest attention given to facts when Central American radio and newspapers begin dealing with the "news". In a situation like the futbol war, there were no limitations on the zeal or inventiveness of the "news" reporters, nor the purple language in which they set forth their blistering messages. Atrocities of every kind were reported and embroidered upon hourly. Border incidents that involved a few dozen people were reported as "heavy fighting" - while great victories were claimed by both sides in an unending stream of misinformation, half-truths and a bald melange of blatant lies disseminated for public consumption and deliberate arousal.

Notwithstanding the fact that Roaton lies in the Caribbean Sea and the border problems were on the other side of the isthmus, near the Pacific, patriotism came sputtering to life on the island. One could hear solemn declarations that "we will fight to the last man - to the last drop of blood, etc.," from the most unlikely sources. It never became clear as to whom the belligerents might find to fight; but if words were the equivalent of deeds, any invading forces could expect a fierce welcome should they try to storm the beaches of Roatan.

Our first visible connection with the war was in the arrival in Punta Gorda, of a corporal and a private - who had been dispatched to organize our village defense efforts and get us all ready to do our part should the situation require. The private carried an ancient rifle that was so rust damaged that it was probably inoperable. But the corporal had no arm whatsoever, and that’s a tough way to fight a war. He solved this major embarrassment by borrowing a .22 cal. pistol from our friendly, 350-pound storekeeper, Teodoro Castro. I loaned the two soldiers a pair of hammocks which they installed in the ramshackle schoolhouse. Then the commanding corporal announced that there would be a village meeting at 7:00 p.m.

Any out-of-the ordinary event in Punta Garda tends to draw a goodly turnout, whether it be a display of wares by a peddler-man or a dog fight. The combination of war fever and nothing else to do produced a truly record-breaking aggregation for the "preparedness meeting". From an elevated vantage point up on the porch of our temporary home, I watched the villagers congregate. Many men carried machetes and there was an occasional pistol poking out of a back pocket. A good bit of rum had already been consumed and additional supplies of the stuff was brought forth and passed around to bring the local defenders to the proper emotional pitch for protecting the island against all comers. Youngsters raced around and dogs barked incessantly. At last the commanding corporal (he was the Senior Officer Present!) decided the time was ripe. He stood on the top of the schoolhouse steps to address the throng. Warmed by patriotic fervor and a cargo of white lightning, his speech could have served to fire the defenders of Bastogne or Corregidor.

After a scathing review of the great crime that had been committed against the Honduras soccer team, he paid devoted and highly emotional attention to the shabby pedigrees of Salvadorans in general, and their cheating soccer team in particular. From this he moved on to the matter of verbal insults and physical violence lavished on Honduras by the opposing team and their fans - and finally came to the ultimate outrage: the "invasion" of sovereign Honduras territory by the "enemy".

By this time, the clear glass liter bottles of "Torero" were passing from hand to hand like bright bobbins in the moonlight. Each new declaration from the speaker was met with a chorus of shouts, threats and great waves of expectoration (energetic spitting is, among Hondurans, a sign of complete, unequivocal, even violent, agreement with a stated position.) The decibels mounted as everyone sought to verbally underline his own indomnibility and readiness to die in defense of the homeland. The corporal brandished his borrowed .22 caliber pistol in the air, screaming defiance of the enemy and love of La Patria. He pointed out the imminent threat of invasion, and declared that, beginning immediately, we would have a coastal patrol deployed to intercept an enemy amphibious force should one arrive to strike our island.

Likewise, he said, the village would have to maintain blackout conditions against the possibility that enemy planes might decide to fly over and bomb us. Finally, that everyone should sharpen their machetes or otherwise arm themselves in preparation for hand-to-hand combat on the beaches, in the villages and in the hills. But regardless of what it required in the way of human sacrifice, he assured the assemblage, "We will never surrender as long as there is a man left to fight!"

From the sheer volume of shouting and spitting, it seemed clear that the commanding corporal had stated unanimous consensus. Unfortunately, it was at this moment that the private chose to become extremely nauseous and, in his exertions, fell off the top step of the schoolhouse. Whether it was liquor or fear of the impending bloodshed that did him in is open to conjecture. In any case, no one gave him much attention. He laid where he had fallen. There were larger fish to fry.

Two four-man dory parties were immediately organized, with one group to patrol to the east and the other to the west. Armed with machetes and one ax to each canoe, they moved to the dock in the darkness. Getting into a tippy dory cold sober and in broad daylight can take some doing. Accomplishing the same feat in the dark, and drunk, it too much to expect. Soon one of the dories was upside-down, with its potential passengers splashing around in the water and trying to find their machetes and rum bottles in the darkness. In due course, however, they did manage to get both of the patrol parties underway to the accompanying shouts of belligerent encouragement from these remaining ashore.

As the mass meeting broke up, small knots of people stayed on to drain the few bottles that still remained in motion. Several men picked the private out of the sand where he had landed, and laid him inside the schoolhouse door. The corporal disappeared in the company of several other men. Teodoro Castro saw me sitting up on the porch, from which vantage point I had viewed the proceedings, and came up to join me. After a few minutes of conversation, we heard a pair of loud pops that sounded a lot like a .22 pistol being fired.

"Damn it!" Teodoro exclaimed, as he got up and started down the stairs.

"Where are you going?" I asked him.

"To get my pistol," he replied. "I just loaned that corporal my gun! I didn't tell him he could shoot it." After reclaiming his firearm, Teodoro returned to his store that was well lit with kerosene lanterns, and where the beer and rum business was thriving under the spur of all-out-war talk. A few minutes later the commanding corporal arrived on the scene to order Teodoro to blow out the lanterns and his blackout observe the blackout that he had invoked earlier. The big Carib told the soldier that order was damn foolishness; that he had no intention of extinguishing his lanterns because he couldn’t sell rum in the dark; and moreover, if he didn't walk out of the store, he was going to be thrown out through a window. After giving these points a few seconds of careful thought, the corporal staggered off into the night. Nothing further was ever heard about the blackout.

The two dory patrols returned within an hour of their departure, the island’s brave defenders went home to sleep and patrolled no more. The two soldiers stayed on in Punta Gorda for a few days, but the novelty was worn off their war talk. They could never draw a crowd or inspire the people after opening-night. They soon departed out of sheer boredom. I reclaimed my hammocks from the schoolhouse, and village life was to all intents and purposes back to normal once more.

Roatan was not bombed. Neither was it invaded. Nor was it blacked out or patrolled. All things considered, the Futbol War was passing us by. But not so on the mainland. Each day brought a new rash of radio and newspaper reports about heavy fighting, ambushes, atrocities against civilians, (especially "innocent" women and children) and related unpleasantness that more or less fits the total war mode. Hardly anyone believed what they heard and read, since even the most marginal Central American knows that all propaganda must be carefully filtered. And the more official it is, the finer the filter should be. But, still, it’s exciting, in a place where nothing much that’s exciting ever happens.

Although the basic war script could have come from the same sources that gave us the Keystone Cops, Four Stooges and The Marx Brothers, people were nevertheless managing to get themselves killed almost daily, in-sporadic clashes between campesinos and soldiers of the respective sides. The capitol city of Tegucigalpa, bristled with uniforms that ranged from olive drab and mottled jungle camouflage suits, to spit ‘n’ polish dress garbs bedecked with enough medals to bow the legs of a mountain jackass. Everybody that had a uniform - or a single item of a uniform, like a jacket or a pair of pants - put it on and wore it wherever he went. It added a lot of color to the usual drab street scene.

Command vehicles careened through the streets as if the enemy was at the veritable gates of the city. Everybody who had either red lights or a siren on his vehicle used them - incessantly. Policemen who were trying to direct traffic alternately blew their whistles and screamed profanity at the non-conforming drivers. Pedestrians fled for their lives before tidal waves of "emergency vehicles." Predictably, accident figures escalated dramatically. "Observers" from the Organization of American States, the United Nations, International Red Cross and lesser outfits too numerous to mention were everywhere. Obviously, everyone was enjoying the spectacle and attendant excitement to the fullest. Whatever fighting was going on was taking place on the Honduras-Salvador border - at a comfortable remove from Tegucigalpa - and the rest of the country had nothing to do but bask in the fiesta-like atmosphere that pervaded public and private activities alike.

I made a trip to Tegucigalpa, in the middle of the war, against the advice of almost everyone on Roatan. Indeed, to read the newspapers and listen to the radio broadcasts it sounded like pitched battles in the streets could be momentarily expected. Reports of bombings of oil storage facilities in Salvador, and bombing of the Tegucigalpa airport were disseminated by all media, along with details and photos of atrocities that - if true - could discourage even the most stout-hearted traveler. But through it all, the planes came and went on Roatan. The war didn't seem to be interfering with air schedules, so I decided to take the chance.

Arrival at Tegucigalpa's Toncotin airport was something of a disappointment. Having seen some wars, revolutions and popular insurrections here and there, I know what a war is supposed to look like. Quite naturally, I expected to see the broken glass and the piles of rubble that follows an airport bombing. Airport bombings, truth to tell, are pretty messy.