Football War

"Football" War
Date 14 July-18 July 1969
Location El Salvador-Honduras border
Result Negotiated Cease-Fire by intervention of the OAS
Belligerents
Flag of El Salvador.svg El Salvador Flag of Honduras.svg Honduras
Commanders
Fidel Sánchez Hernández
Salvador Henríquez		 Oswaldo López Arellano
Oscar Colindres
Strength
20,000 (Army)
1,000 (Air Force)		 18,000 (Army)
1,600 (Air Force)
Casualties and losses
900 (including civilians) 1,200 (including civilians)

The "Football" War (La guerra del fútbol, in Spanish), also known as the 100-hours War, was a five-day war fought by El Salvador and Honduras in 1969.

The tensions between the two nations were reflected by rioting at a football match between them; the war was not caused by a football game, as has been popularly reported internationally. Contrary to popular opinion, the war was caused by political conflicts between Hondurans and Salvadorans, namely issues concerning immigration from El Salvador to Honduras.

Contents

Context

Although the nickname "Football War" implies that the conflict was due to a football game, the causes for the war go much deeper than just sports. The roots of this alarming disagreement turned war were issues over land reform and immigration problems. Honduras is more than five times the size of neighboring El Salvador, even though in 1969, El Salvador had a population that was more than double that of Honduras. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Salvadorans had begun migrating to Honduras in large numbers. These immigrants made the journey to a new land in hopes of decent jobs and escaping their oppressive government. By 1969, more than 350,000 Salvadorans were living in Honduras. These Salvadorans now made up twenty percent of the Honduran peasant population (Acker, 93). Meanwhile, by the 1970s Hondurans began to cry out for land reform as well.

In Honduras, as in much of Central America, a large majority of the land was owned by large landowners or big corporations. The United Fruit Company, in fact, had ownership of ten percent of the country, making it hard for the average landowners to compete. In 1966, the United Fruit Company banded together with many other large companies to create la Federación Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos de Honduras (FENAGH; the National Federation of Farmers and Livestock-Farmers of Honduras). FENAGH was very anti-campesino as well as anti-Salvadoran. This group put pressure on the Honduran President, General Lopez Arellano, to protect the property rights of wealthy landowners via a propaganda campaign. This led to violent nationalism spreading throughout the Honduras state. Hondurans then began targeting Salvadoran immigrants, specifically by means of beatings, tortures, and killings (Anderson 64-75).

In 1969, Honduras successfully enacted a new land reform law. This law took land away from Salvadoran immigrants and redistributed this land to native-born Honduran peoples. The land was taken from both immigrant farmers and squatters regardless of their right to ownership and the status of their immigration. Thousands of Salvadorans were displaced by this law and were forced to emigrate once again. Salvadoran newspapers then heightened the already stressed relationship between the two countries by showing the many atrocities being committed against Salvadorans in Honduras. Hate and dislike towards Honduras began to be displayed all across El Salvador.

The social situation in both countries in the run-up to the war was explosive, and their military governments were looking for a convenient cause towards which to direct their nationals' political concerns. National media in both countries encouraged hatred towards citizens of the other, eventually provoking the expulsion from Honduras of thousands of Salvadoran laborers, including both temporary harvest workers and longer-term settlers. This general rise in tensions ultimately led to a military conflict that served to direct the attention of the citizenry of both countries outward rather than in on their own internal affairs, leaving both armies rearmed, and destroying the Central American economic integration that had been expressed in the Central American Common Market (Mercado Común Centroamericano or MCE), under whose trade rules the richer Salvadoran economy gained much ground relative to Honduras.

War

These existing tensions between the two countries were inflamed by rioting during the second North American qualifying round for the 1970 FIFA World Cup. On 14 July 1969, the Salvadoran army launched an attack against Honduras. The Organization of American States negotiated a cease-fire which took effect on 20 July, with the Salvadoran troops withdrawn in early August.

Eleven years later the two nations signed a peace treaty on 30 October 1980 to put the border dispute before the International Court of Justice.

In 1992, the Court awarded most of the disputed territory to Honduras, and in 1998, Honduras and El Salvador signed a border demarcation treaty to implement the terms of the ICJ decree. As of the beginning of 2006 demarcation had not yet been completed, but Honduras and El Salvador maintain normal diplomatic and trade relations.[1]

In-depth

This war was fought at a time when tensions between the two countries were building due to competition in the infamous qualifying games for the 1970 FIFA World Cup tournament. The first game took place in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, with Honduras winning the game. The second game took place in the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador, with a home team win. The game was in a deadlock with each country gaining a revised sense of pride and legitimacy. The Honduran press exploited existing tensions by creating allegedly false and certainly misleading reports of rapes, beatings, murders, the burning of cars, and riots by Honduran citizens in El Salvador. In the meantime, Honduran citizens and security forces attacked Salvadoran immigrants.

El Salvador dissolved all ties with Honduras on 26 June 1969, stating that “the government of Honduras has not taken any effective measures to punish these crimes which constitute genocide, nor has it given assurances of indemnification or reparations for the damages caused to Salvadorans” (Anderson, 105). This led to regular border clashes occurring between the two nations.

Early on the morning of 14 July 1969, concerted military action began in what came to be known as the Football War. The Salvadoran Air Force (El Salvador lacked sufficient military air equipment, resorting to the use of passenger airplanes with attached vessels strapped to their sides as bombers) attacked targets inside Honduras and the Salvadoran army launched major offensives along the main road connecting the two nations and against the Honduran islands in the Golfo de Fonseca. At first, the Salvadorans made fairly rapid progress. By the evening of 15 July, the Salvadoran army, which was considerably larger and better equipped than its Honduran opponent, pushed the Honduran army back over eight kilometers and captured the departmental capital of Nueva Ocotepeque. Thereafter, the attack bogged down, and the Salvadorans began to experience fuel and ammunition shortages. A major reason for the fuel shortage was the action of the Honduran air force, which--in addition to largely destroying the smaller Salvadoran air force--had severely damaged El Salvador's oil storage facilities. When things became desperate for the Salvadoran Air Force a number of well-known American pilots with current experience on the P-51 Mustang were retained including Chuck Lyford, Bob Love, Lynn Garrison and Ben Hall. Their presence was a stabilizing factor. Their missions against the Honduran Vought F4U Corsairs marked the world's last combat between propeller driven aircraft.

During the war, several ostensible battalions of Honduran soldiers were discovered only to exist on paper. The money for these fake battalions had been collected by allegedly corrupt Honduran army officers. Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle helped Honduran President Oswaldo Lopez Arellano by providing weapons and ammunition.

The day after the fighting had begun, the OAS met in an urgent session and called for an immediate cease-fire and a withdrawal of El Salvador's forces from Honduras. El Salvador resisted the pressures from the OAS for several days, demanding that Honduras first agree to pay reparations for the attacks on Salvadoran citizens and guarantee the safety of those Salvadorans remaining in Honduras. A cease-fire was arranged on the night of 18 July; it took full effect only on 20 July. El Salvador continued until 29 July to resist pressures to withdraw its troops. Then a combination of pressures led El Salvador to agree to a withdrawal in the first days of August. Those persuasive pressures included the possibility of OAS economic sanctions against El Salvador and the dispatch of OAS observers to Honduras to oversee the security of Salvadorans remaining in that country. The actual war had lasted just over four days, but it would take more than a decade to arrive at a final peace settlement.

El Salvador, which had refused to withdraw its troops from the occupied territory in Honduras, withdrew its troops on 2 August 1969. On this date, Honduras also guaranteed Salvadoran President Fidel Sanchez Hernandez that the Honduran government would provide adequate safety for the Salvadorans still living in Honduras. He also asked that reparations be paid for the attacks on the Salvadoran citizens as well. There were also the heavy pressures from the OAS and their debilitating repercussions that would take place if El Salvador continued to resist to withdraw their troops from Honduras.

The war is often cited as the last occasion on which piston-engined fighters fought each other-both sides deploying former World War II American types. P-51 Mustangs, F4U Corsairs, T-28 Trojans and even C-47 Skytrains converted into bombers saw action.

1970 World Cup results

Consequences

In the end, both sides of the Football War suffered extensive casualties. Some 20,000 Hondurans and another 80,000 Salvadorans were displaced due to the battle. Many Salvadorans had been forcibly exiled or had fled from the war-torn Honduras, only to enter a Salvadoran country in which the government was not welcoming. Most of these fleeing people were forced to provide for themselves with very little assistance at all. Over the next few years, approximately 130,000 Salvadorans tried to return to their native land where they were surrounded by overpopulation and extreme poverty (Anderson, 145-155).

In Honduras, about 250 combat troops and around 2,000 civilians had been killed over a four day period due to the majority of the war being fought on Honduran soil. Thousands more had been ultimately made homeless as well. Trade between Honduras and El Salvador had also been greatly disrupted and the national border had been officially closed. This damaged the economies of these nations tremendously and threatened the Central American Common Market (CACM).

See also

References