The 'Football War' and the Central American Common Market Author(S): Vincent Cable Source: International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol
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The 'Football War' and the Central American Common Market Author(s): Vincent Cable Source: International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 45, No. 4 (Oct., 1969), pp. 658-671 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2613335 . Accessed: 28/07/2011 10:32 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Blackwell Publishing and Royal Institute of International Affairs are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-). http://www.jstor.org THE ' FOOTBALLWAR ' AND THE CENTRALAMERICAN COMMON MARKET Vincent Cable OVERSEAS reactionsto theJuly hostilities between El Salvador and Honduras varied between indifferenceand amusement. Indeed,a war betweenthe original'banana republic', Honduras, and what looked like anotherobscure Central Americanmilitary dic- tatorship,over issues that could not be easily labelled as racial, religious,ideological, linguisticor anticolonial and which had their immediateorigin in a soccer match,appeared to deserve this lack of interest.However, quite apart fromthe serious matterof the 1,000 or more dead and up to 100,000 refugees,'the war has broader implica- tions of considerableimportance. First, it has put to test the peace- keeping machineryof the Americas in what could be the forerunner of more serious disputes betweenLatin American states. Second, the CentralAmerican area is one of considerableimportance to the United States, both commerciallyand politically,as evidenced by its past interventionin the affairsof Panama, Nicaragua and, more recently, Guatemala. Third,the two protagonistsare participantsin one of the veryfew examplesof successfuleconomic integration amongst develop- ing countries,which as such,has been held up as a prototypeof thekind of arrangementwhich could well be emulatedby the large and growing numberof verysmall states. It is the effectof the war on this Central American Common Market (consistingof Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica) which is of particularinterest here. * * Ironicallythe originsof the war can be dated back to a phenome- non which in a commonmarket of advanced marketeconomies, such as the EEC, would be regardedas generallybeneficial-the mobility of labour between partnerstates. For almost half a century,over- crowdedEl Salvador (3 millionpeople on 21,393 square kilometres-all of it utilised)has been exportinglabour to Honduras (21 millionpeople 1 Estimates vary but the range 1,000-2,000 dead is supported by several sources. The refugees consist of 75,000 approximatelydisplaced by the war and about 25,000 precedingit. For corroborationof details of the events of the war the author has drawn on field reports of The Economist (Latin American Edition), Le Monde, and the Economist Intelligence Unit (Central American Review, No. 3, 1969). 658 'FOOTBALL WAR AND THE CENTRAL AMERICAN COMMON MARKET 659 on 112,000square kilometres,much of it uncultivated),though attempts have been made to controlthe intake in recentyears. Three hundred thousandhave settledthere-over 12- per cent. of the total population of Honduras. While Salvadorianimmigrants may have had a beneficial effectin a macro-economicsense, providing cheap, hard-working labourersfor the banana plantations,and a general infusionof skill, businessacumen and manpower,their presence has aroused resentment amongst the Hondurans who have faced competitionon their own labour market. Animositybetween El Salvador and Honduras is longstandingand certainlypredates the formationof the Common Market in 1958. Several factorshave recentlycombined to make it worse. First, Hon- duras has begun to experience unemployment,mainly amongst the semi-educatedschool leavers and urban dwellerslooking for employ- ment in the manufacturingsector and the serviceindustry: in 1964 the officiallyregistered rate of unemploymentin Honduras had risen to 7 per cent.2and the urban population is increasingat well over twice the rate of the labour force(6 per cent.v. 2-5 per cent.). The plantation sector has stagnated,and because of disease affectingthe banana in Honduras the major banana companies (Standard and United Fruit) have turnedtheir attention to Ecuador. The Salvadoriansin Honduras are consequentlyheld responsiblefor depressingthe wage level and limitingopportunities for employment-grievances voiced by the power- ful tradeunions. Second, land hungerand the frightening3-8 per cent. birthrate in Salvador have caused growingnumbers to cross the border illegallyand squat on unoccupiedland in the isolatedfrontier regions. of Honduras. Their periodic discoveryhas given rise to angryoutbursts fromthe Honduras authorities.Third, the Honduran Governmenthas been forcedto accept land reformby pressurefrom the peasants,most of whom are outside the money economy and are overcrowding certain areas while others are under-utilised.The Agrarian Reforin Law, however,pointedly excludes Salvadorians,and any squattershave been evictedfrom the areas selectedfor colonisation. Tensions in the countrysidehave thusbeen aggravated. In addition to these economic and demographic factors, both governmentshave, in their differentways, done little to help. The Salvadorian Governmenthas been criticisedfor exportingits social problemsrather than solvingthem, and Honduran propagandistshave drawn attention,for propaganda purposes, to a feudal oligarchyof 'fourteenfamilies' who supposedlyown most privateproperty in El Salvador. These accusationsdo have an elementof truth,and certainly the contrastbetween the living conditionsof the small elite and the 2 DevelopmentPlan-Honduras 1964-69. 660 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS labouringmasses in El Salvador is as jarringas anywherein the region, which is sayinga greatdeal. Distributionof land ownershipis highly uneven. Five per cent. of farmsoccupy 70 per cent. of the cultivated land.3 Almost 80 per cent. of landholdingsare under 3 acres: 200,000 peasants are estimatedto be landless. Studies of rural incomes have shown how 75 per cent. of rural familieslive on under ?2 a week. Wage levels are about one-thirdof Costa Rica's and substantiallyless than elsewhere. Nevertheless,the Salvadorian Governmenthas made some effortsat land reform,though the 'willing seller-willingbuyer' principleblunts its effectivenessin a situationwhich calls for confisca- tion or at least compulsorypurchase. The Salvadorianelite is also by now quite broadlybased economically;its membersare certainlynot all upper-classabsentee landlords; many of themare noted for dynamism and a successfulentrepreneurship which (togetherwith the availability of cheap labour) have helped to build up a relativelypowerful manufac- turingsector under local control,especially in the textileindustry. The Honduran traditionis ratherdifferent: one in which the large concentrationof wealth has been in foreignhands-notably the U.S. banana producers-ratherthan in those of a local elite, a situationper- haps less conducive to social divisivenessbut more favourableto the developmentof nationalism. El Salvador has complained about the mannerin which this nationalisticfervour was whipped up, especially afterthe June15 soccer match,by officialspeeches and by the press and radio whichclosely reflected the Honduran Government'sviews. It has been argued that this fervourwas carefullyencouraged to help the Governmentovercome its immediatepolitical problems-a strike of teachers,labour troubles generallyand student disorders (Honduras faced a riotduring the Rockefellervisit when a studentdied). Certainly thehighly intemperate language used immediatelyafter the firstrumours trickledin fromEl Salvador of the defeatof Honduras on the football field was directlyresponsible for the anti-Salvadorianriots (or 'mas- sacre' dependingon one's point of view) whichwere the main pretext forthe invasion by El Salvador. There are two other factorswhich may have aggravatedrelations betweenthe two countries.First, Honduras runs a consistentand rela- tivelylarge paymentsdeficit with El Salvador. Salvador's exportsare largelymanufactured goods, while Honduras exports mostly agricul- tural products. As is shown below in the discussion on 'unbalanced growth', Honduras derives some benefitfrom the Central American Common Market, but there are some who find it easy to justifythe descriptionof the relationshipas 'unfair' or 'colonial'. Second, there was