The El Salvador-Honduras War Of 1969

Clayton C. Mamele
4889-8901
“The Football War” In Brief The El Salvador-Honduras War of 1969, referred to also as the Football War or Soccer War, was an armed conflict between the Sanchez Hernandez regime of El Salvador and the Lopez Arellano regime of Honduras. The war began on July 14, 1969 when El Salvadoran Armed forces launched air raids and a ground invasion of the main highways connected El Salvador and Honduras. Fighting ended 4 days later when a ceasefire was negotiated on July 18th. It is titled the “Football War” because it's initiation is widely attributed to a series of soccer matches between the two countries. While participating in the 1970 FIFA World Cup qualifying round the two national teams met 3 times with El Salvador winning the series 2-1 in the playoff match held in Mexico City. Each of the 3 games was followed by a wave of riots, fights, and open hostility between crazed fans. Over 300,000 Salvadorans were living illegally in Honduras at the time of the Mexico City playoff. El Salvador had a population of over 3 million people in 1969, nearly double that of Honduras. Honduras, however,
encompassed over 5 times the land mass of El Salvador. Provoked by national media propaganda and fueled by their loss in Mexico City, Hondurans took to the streets brutalizing and murdering many Salvadoran immigrants while displacing thousands more. The Salvadoran government deemed the act a genocide and accused the Honduran government of harboring such actions with their lack of response. All relations were abruptly ended and the path to conflict became certain. After a series of aircraft border incursions, the El Salvadorans initiated the war (Mallin 1970). Explaining the War: Causes, War Aims, Termination, and Outcomes. The soccer matches were merely the triggering event for a conflict that had been brewing for many years. This paper will examine the many factors that led to the formation of hostilities, the reasoning for starting the war, and the decisions made that brought about its swift end. The Football war is especially unique for its abrupt beginning, unexpected combat results, and even more abrupt end. For these reasons, I have divided my analysis into the causes that led to conflict, the primary directives and strategy utilized by each side, the events that contributed to its short duration, and the results achieved by all parties involved. Causes: Territory The core issue at contest in the Football War was territory. El Salvador was vastly overpopulated in the late 1960's. In order to find workable land, Salvadorans crossed the border into rural Honduras where they squatted on farm land. Land ownership in Honduras was severely uneven. Large corporations owned most of the cultivatable land; 5% of farms owned 80% of the viable land (Cable 1969). Honduran President Arellano was under increased pressure from the Federacion Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos de Honduras (FENAGH), The National Federation of Farmers and Ranchers of Honduras. FENAGH saw the immigrants as a threat to their profits and put pressure on the government to protect their land rights. In the early 1960's, FENAGH successfully convinced Arellano to institute a strict agrarian reform that constituted the expulsion of all persons whom had acquired property without being Honduran by birth. The Honduran government began a wave of propaganda demonizing the Salvadoran immigrants to gain national support for this law. They blamed the failing economy and lack of employment on the Salvadorans, calling them a “filthy infestation” (Mallin 1970). The Salvadoran government knew it could not sustain the return of the 300,000 peasants living in Honduras. Until the Honduran military coup of 1963, the Salvadoran had an agrarian agreement with Honduras. The Arellano regime had refused to renew this agreement, and so the Salvadorans began their own propaganda campaign to spread a corrupt and belligerent perception of the Honduran administration. Ultimately, the Salvadoran government believed that any land it's people inhabited was it's land, as the borders had never been truly demarcated (Cable 1969). El Salvador's revisionist ideology helps us explain why the war began so abruptly. It is abundantly clear from our knowledge of population and land use at the time that El Salvador needed to expand its borders. For years it had relied on its agreement with the Honduran government to access the land it needed. When that agreement was no longer available, the Salvadorans had to search for a new avenue to meet its needs. The spike in jingoism brought on by the football match provided it's administration with an opportunity to begin a nationally supported war aimed at challenging the territorial boundaries of Honduras. Causes: Regime In studying the democratic peace theory, scholars recently have suggested the idea that the inverse “autocratic peace theory” may also exist (Bennett 2006). This theory suggests that rather than democracy states of similar political structure are less likely to fight. Why then were these two autocratic states led to war? The Lopez Arellano Regime came to power in Honduras after a successful coup d'etat in 1963. By 1968, a struggling and political unrest due to allegations of widespread corruption had put the regime in hot water ( Wars of the World 2000). The Sanchez Hernandez regime came to power in 1960 by overthrowing President Jose Maria Lemus in a non-violent coup d'etat. In this respect both regimes were identical. They came to power around the same time and were led by military councils. One of the major tenants of the autocratic peace theory is that similar states do not fight because they understand each other (Bennett 2006). I believe in this dyad, the governments did understand each other, and knew that one another could not be trusted.; each had risen to power through deception. Without any history between the two young regimes, they viewed each other as unpredictable. An analysis of data on peace between politically similar dyads would show that dyads at the extremes of autocracy and democracy are less likely to fight, but that those that are similar in the transitional “grey area” are prone to fighting more (Bennett 2006).
This could help explain why El Salvador, a country attempting to democratize, and Honduras, a faux democracy, were led to war. El Salvador had for years attempted to democratize only to be met with blatantly rigged elections and overthrown leaders (Merrill 1995). Likewise the Arellano regime had rigged multiple elections, and seemed to make no real progress towards a democratic society. Neither however made vast steps in the autocratic direction either. The obscurity of their political structures likely contributed to the unpredictable nature of their foreign policies and their path to
war. The militaristic make-up of both nations leaders also had a large part in their decision to go to war. One of the major tenants of democratic peace theory is that democracies compromise with one another because they are forced to compromise on a daily basis within their own government (Vasquez 2009). Asserting that internal processes affect external decisions, militaristic regimes are more likely to respond to situations with military options. In 1969 the military regime of Sanchez Hernandez was under increased domestic pressure because of its liberal policies and oppressive nature (Almeida 2005). From studying autocratic dictatorships, we have learned that military regimes need military victory to legitimize their existence (Vasquez 2009). President Hernandez may have seized the moment of popular support against Honduras in order to demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of his army; legitimizing his power. Causes: Capabilities The armies of El Salvador and Honduras were poorly funded. Each side utilized WWII era weapons and vehicles. The Football War was in fact the last conflict in which piston engined fighters fought one another. Despite the US Arms Embargo due to the Cold War, both countries were able to obtain large stockpiles of outdated weaponry. It is believed that much of El Salvador's military build up was facilitated by the US and Israel (Bahbah 1986). Israel was the largest seller of arms in Central America during that period, and it supported El Salvador against the pro-Castro regime of Honduras.
In the 1960's the El Salvadoran Army grew larger and better equipped than the Honduran defense forces. Honduras compensated for it's disparity on the ground by building an air force that was two and a half times larger than El Salvador's ( Wars of the World 2000). Salvadoran Generals knew they could win the ground war handily and believed that their makeshift bombers, passenger aircraft fitted with bombs, would be able to deal an effective first strike against the Honduran Air Force ( Wars of the World 2000). I list capabilities as a cause for the Football War because the decision to attack was made easier for the Salvadoran Generals due to Honduras' poor ability to significantly counter. The risks associated with this war were minimal, as neither country truly had the munitions necessary to achieve total victory. The forces of Honduras and El Salvador were relatively symmetric in 1969. A study of force capability has shown that non-nuclear symmetric dyads are more likely to engage in armed conflict than non-nuclear asymmetric dyads (Vasquez 2012). A conflict is initiated in a symmetric dyad when the initiator calculates that the cost of going to war will not exceed the cost of negotiating. As we will see later in this analysis, underestimating your opponents capabilities will lead to the initiation of an unfavorable conflict. The El Salvadoran believed their force to be superior and thus decided to attack. The Hondurans “allowed” the dispute to reach armed conflict because they believed they could dominate the air and make up for their poorly trained ground forces (Unknown 2000). War Aims and Outcomes: A Coercive Objective In studying asymmetric wars, it has been shown that the primary objective of the campaign directly effects its success (Sullivan 2007). Campaigns aimed at attaining tangible goals such as the removal of a leader or capture of a certain piece of land were found to be more often successful than those aimed at coercive objectives such as instilling a policy change. As stated, Sullivan's study was focused on asymmetric conflict but I believe its principles are not only relevant but their effects multiplied in symmetric conflict. When decided to wage a war, a state will constantly compare its losses to its loss-tolerance threshold. When a states losses exceed its loss-tolerance for the objective at stake, it will seek to terminate the conflict (Sullivan 2007). In asymmetric conflict, achievement of Brute force attainable objectives occur often because the more powerful state can overpower the weaker army regardless of how motivated it is to defend the objective. Coercive objectives are difficult to obtain because no matter how many losses the major state inflicts, achievement of the goal is reliant on the weaker state complying to its demand. A weak state with an extremely high cost tolerance could then in theory hold out on complying until the major state has surpassed its cost tolerance and terminates the conflict (Sullivan 2007). Translating this to symmetric conflict, the difference is in ability to inflict losses. Assuming both sides have an equal ability to deal damage, The entire achieve-ability scale of brute force to coercive objective shifts to the right. Meaning, Brute force objectives become a matter of pure resolve, while coercive objectives requiring compliance become even more difficult to obtain. If the aggressor seeks a coercive objective to which the defender has an extremely high cost tolerance, the rate of success would be near negligible. Without the military capability to inflict substantial losses to the defender while also sustaining similar losses, the aggressor would theoretically always surpass their cost-tolerance before the defender exceeded theirs; thus failing to achieve the objective. Applying this theory to the Football War, El Salvador was aiming at changing agrarian reform policies in Honduras. Policy reform is a highly coercive objective and the use of force only strengthened the Hondurans resolve against the El Salvadorans. The outcome is as the theory would predict. The El Salvadorans attempted to achieve a coercive objective by invading Honduras. The Hondurans were galvanized by the defense of their homeland. The aggressing army had a target of low resolve, policy, while the defending army had an objective of extremely high resolve, defending their territory. The El Salvadorans made early advances into Honduras but soon began bogged down in the rural countryside (Cable 1969). After just 100 hours of fighting, no further advances were made. With no definitive end in sight and mounting pressure from the international community the El Salvadoran Army was forced to withdraw ( Wars of the World 2000). The Hondurans had sustained more casualties but that had successfully defended their objective. War Aims and Outcomes: Strategy & Duration The Football War is unique not only for its bizarre origin but also its abrupt duration. Our study of warfare has shown that the strategies employed have a significant effect on the outcome and duration of armed conflicts (Sullivan 2007). In such a limited war, strategy choice is key as it is difficult and costly for poorly equipped armies to change strategy once they have already committed resources towards. In the Football War, the Salvadorans initially implemented an offensive maneuver strategy, attempting to destroy the Honduran air force with a first strike. However, due to their limited bombing capacity and experience their first strike was largely unsuccessful (Wars of the World 2000). As a result of their failure, the larger Honduran air force quickly gained air superiority. Implementing a defensive maneuver strategy, the Hondurans targeted El Salvador's fuel storage facilities (Wars of the World 2000). Wars of maneuver versus maneuver are the shortest in duration as highly mobile forces are given the opportunity to quickly attack vital logistic targets and cripple the enemies ability to wage war (Bennett and Stam 1996). Unable to advance any further due to lack of fuel, the Salvadorans sacked many occupied cities and killed an estimated 2000 Honduran civilians (Cable 1969). This was a meager attempt to employ punishment against the Hondurans, whom had already displaced thousands of Salvadorans from their land. Lack of alliances and limited military capability also greatly contributed to the wars short duration. After just 4 days of fighting, the Salvadorans were beginning to experience ammunition shortages (Wars of the World 2000). If a major state had supported the Salvadoran cause, the conflict could have been significantly elongated as it was likely that the Soviet Union would come to the aide of Honduras (Cable 1969). The lack of joiners is the greatest factor limiting war duration, as political objectives remain unobscured, and military capabilities not increased (Vasquez 2009). War Aims and Outcomes: Regime Type We have already discussed how regime type can lead to conflict, but it can also effect duration.
Similar to the scale of autocracies and democracies initiating wars, highly repressive and highly democratic regimes tend to fight shorter wars. Repressive regimes select themselves into wars with low probabilities of success and potentially high amounts of gain because they know they can maintain their power through repression even if they lose the war (Bennett and Stam 1996). In the case of the Football War, both regimes involved were highly repressive. The Sanchez regime was on the ropes because of growing social unrest due to overpopulation (Cable 1969). President Hernandez selected to fight when members of the opposition parties appeared more outraged by the Honduran action than his own party. He likely knew that the war would not achieve any significant advantage other than to redirect the unrest of the Salvadoran people away from domestic problems and towards Honduras. His actions temporarily reaffirmed the El Salvadoran people of his military's strength and displayed his willingness to take action in the defense of the peasant immigrants. Termination and Results: Battle Data In the first three days of the war, the Salvadoran Army advanced quickly across western Honduras and captured the regional capital of Nueva Ocotepeque (Wars of the World 2000). They quickly learned that their ground forces, though only slightly more numerous, were far better trained than the Hondurans. The Salvadoran army seemed poised to reach the Honduran capital city of Tegucigalpa. Their advance would cease on the 4th day as the Honduran air force decimated the smaller Salvadoran air force to the point where the Salvadoran were forced to hide their aircraft in the forest rather than dogfight the enemy (Mallin 1970). With the skies secured, the Salvadoran ground forces were forced to take up defensive positions while the Honduran air force destroyed logistic trains and El Salvador's petroleum storage units. These battles helped both armies learn something about each other. Pre-war analysis simply indicated that both armies were roughly similar in size and weaponry. Actually fighting the battles helped resolve information asymmetries that led to the initiation of the war in the first place (Ramsay 2008). The Salvadorans expected to have some early success due to their first strike and element of surprise. Their blunder was in completely underestimating the effectiveness of the superior Honduran air force. Termination and Results: Intervention El Salvador and Honduras pleaded for the assistance of the United States in the Soccer War. Neither would receive it. Instead both sides received pressure from the international community to form a ceasefire; this was in large part due to the majority of casualties being civilians (Mallin 1970).
The Organization of American States (OAS), the regional peace and collaboration organization, put heavy diplomatic pressure on El Salvador to withdraw immediately from Honduran land, but President Hernandez promptly refused on the grounds that no guarantee was made for the safety of the immigrants still living in Honduras. OAS set a 72 hour time limit for a ceasefire to be reached which El Salvador violated without repercussion. On July 18th , a ceasefire was finally agreed upon but Salvadoran forces refused to leave Honduran land until the immigrants safety was guaranteed (Mallin 1970). It was not until OAS threatened economic sanction against El Salvador that President Hernandez gave the order to withdraw. The OAS proved an effective peace maintaining tool at the end of the conflict. However, it's primary purpose and charter is not to settle armed disputes but to prevent them. The OAS was highly scrutinized by several of its members for its poor handling of the El Salvadoran immigrant situation. El Salvador felt the OAS had treated it with disfavor throughout the whole incident. President Hernandez wanted to know why the OAS was so quick to threaten sanction against them for their attack after no action had been taken by OAS to prevent the Honduran's brutalization of the immigrants (Mallin 1970). Termination and Results: Formation of Rivalry The Soccer War was not the result of a political rivalry but the beginning of one. The borders between Honduras and El Salvador were sealed. The Soccer war dealt a major blow to the Central American Common Market, eventually leading to its disintegration (Cable 1970). Border skirmishes and minor territory infractions would stain the next decade of relations. The war's deflection of attention away from El Salvador's domestic issues did not last long. The country soon fell into a state of civil war which only further increased the Honduran's distrust of their neighbor. The political situation in the 1970's was so bad that an official peace treaty ending the Soccer War would not be signed until 1980.

Conclusion Reviewing all of elements leading up to the war and contributing to its outcome provides a seemingly clear view of the conflict. The reality of the situation was anything but clear. A largely illiterate and uneducated group were angered over a series of soccer matches. The anger led to increased levels of hostility between a people who are otherwise incredibly similar culturally. The regimes of both countries fed into the fire by launching propaganda campaigns aimed at gathering traction for domestic policy. On one side you had a corrupt regime fearing it may lose public support, and on the other a regime that bowed in to the demand of massive corporations seeking security for their profits. Misinformation was abound. The public was being led to believe that their neighbors were the problem when in reality the problem lie at home. The Salvadoran government believed it could break the Honduran resolve and the Hondurans believed they could violate the human rights of thousands of immigrants without repercussion. The result of this mass mis-communication was a costly war that claimed thousands of lives, displaced thousands more, and had no clear victor. The Salvadoran had proven themselves a strong opponent but failed to achieve their goals. The Hondurans had suffered greatly and weaknesses in their military had been exposed. The war greatly damaged the already struggling economies of both countries. Had the OAS been a proper peacekeeping body, I believe a peaceful resolution to the conflict could have been reached long before tensions reached the level of war. The Soccer War ultimately solved none of the issues it had set out to resolve. Instead it left a deep rift between the Central American peoples and plunged both countries into a downward spiral.

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