Football War

"100 Hour War" redirects here. This term may also refer to the Gulf War.
Football War

Map of Honduras, where most of the fighting took place
Date14–18 July 1969
LocationEl Salvador-Honduras
Result

Status quo ante bellum

Ceasefire by OAS intervention
Belligerents
El Salvador El Salvador Honduras Honduras
Commanders and leaders
El Salvador Fidel Sánchez Hernández Honduras Oswaldo López Arellano
Strength
30,000 (Ground forces)
1,000 (Aerial forces)		 23,000 (Ground forces)
600 (Aerial forces)
Casualties and losses
900 (including civilians) 2,100 (including civilians)

The Football War (Spanish: La guerra del fútbol), also known as the Soccer War or 100 Hour War, was a brief war fought by El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. The cause of the war was economic in nature, namely issues concerning immigration from El Salvador to Honduras.[1] These existing tensions between the two countries coincided with rioting during a 1970 FIFA World Cup qualifier. The war began on 14 July 1969, when the Salvadoran military launched an attack against Honduras. The Organization of American States (OAS) negotiated a ceasefire on the night of 18 July (hence "100 Hour War"), which took full effect on 20 July. Salvadoran troops were withdrawn in early August.

Despite a formal peace treaty, a decision by the International Court of Justice, the support of the OAS, and more than forty years having passed, the dispute remains active.

Context

Although the nickname "Football War" implies that the conflict was due to a football match, the causes of the war go much deeper. The roots of the war were issues over land reform in Honduras and immigration and demographic problems in El Salvador. Honduras is more than five times the size of neighbouring El Salvador, but in 1969 the population of El Salvador (3.7 million) was some 40% higher than that of Honduras (2.6 million). At the beginning of the twentieth century, Salvadorans had begun migrating to Honduras in large numbers. By 1969, more than 300,000 Salvadorans were living in Honduras. These Salvadorans made up twenty percent of the peasant population of Honduras.[2] 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 owned ten percent of the land, 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 anti-campesino as well as anti-Salvadoran. This group put pressure on the Honduran president, General Oswaldo López Arellano, to protect the property rights of wealthy landowners.[3]

In 1962, Honduras successfully enacted a new land reform law.[4] Fully enforced by 1967, this law gave the central government and municipalities much of the land occupied illegally by Salvadoran immigrants and redistributed it to native-born Honduran peoples as specified by the Land Reform Law. The land was taken from both immigrant farmers and squatters regardless of their claims to ownership or immigration status. This created problems for Salvadorans and Hondurans who were married. Thousands of Salvadoran laborers were expelled from Honduras, including both migrant workers and longer-term settlers. This general rise in tensions ultimately led to a military conflict.

Buildup

Honduras and El Salvador met in a 1970 FIFA World Cup qualifier. There was fighting between fans at the first game in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa on 8 June 1969, which Honduras won 1–0. The second game, on 15 June 1969 in the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador, which was won 3–0 by El Salvador, was followed by even greater violence.[5] A play-off match took place in Mexico City on 26 June 1969. El Salvador won the decisive third game 3–2 after extra time. That same day, El Salvador dissolved all diplomatic ties with Honduras, 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 Salvadorians".[6]

War

Late in the afternoon of 14 July 1969, concerted military action began. San Salvador City was put on a black out and the Salvadoran Air Force, using passenger airplanes with explosives strapped to their sides as bombers, attacked targets inside Honduras. Salvadoran air-raid targets included Toncontín International Airport, which left the Honduran Air Force unable to react quickly. The larger Salvadoran Army launched major offensives along the two main roads connecting the two nations and invaded Honduras. The invasion phase was perpetrated by three main contingents. The Chalatenago Theater, the North Theater and the East Theater. The Chalatenango Theater was based on the Northwest side of El Salvador, including the departments of Santa Ana and Chalatenango, across the mountain range close the border, and the river known as Sumpul. This was a strategic region due to the its rich soil and climate. The North Theater was composed of a small unit of armored vehicles and a large amount of manpower, The Chalatenango Theater did not see fighting as it was to deploy only in case of Honduran penetration into El Salvador. The East Theater was to deploy in the department of La Union and Morazan. This Theater was composed of a large mechanized division, armored fighters such as the M3 Stuart and a large amount of artillery such as the 105mm M101.

Initially, rapid progress was made by the Salvadoran army. By the evening of 15 July, the Honduran army had been pushed back over eight kilometers. The departmental capital of Nueva Ocotepeque fell shortly after along with eight other cities, placing the Salvadoran army within striking distance of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa. The momentum of the advance did not last, however.

The Honduran air force reacted by striking the Salvadoran Ilopango airbase. Honduran bombers attacked for the first time in the morning of July 16. When the bombs began to fall, Salvadoran anti-air artillery starting firing, repelling some of the bombers. The bombers had orders to attack the Acajutla Port, where the main oil facilities of El Salvador were based. Honduran air-raid targets also included minor oil facilities such as the ones in Cutuco. By the evening of July 16, huge pillars of smoke arose in the Salvadoran coastline from the burning oil depots that had been bombed. The effectiveness of the attack on Ilopango has been called into question but it is generally accepted that the bombing of oil facilities and depots severely disrupted the logistics of the Salvadoran army.

Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle helped Honduras by providing weapons and ammunition.

Cease-fire

The Honduran government called on the OAS to intervene, fearing that the nearing Salvadoran Army would invade the capital Tegucigalpa. The OAS met in an urgent session on 15 July 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.

Withdrawal

F4U Corsair, one of the piston types flown in the war

El Salvador finally withdrew its troops on 2 August 1969. On that date, Honduras guaranteed Salvadoran President Fidel Sanchez Hernandez that the Honduran government would provide adequate safety for the Salvadorans still living in Honduras. Sanchez had also asked that reparations be paid to the Salvadoran citizens as well, but that was never accepted by Hondurans. There were also heavy pressures from the OAS and the debilitating repercussions that would take place if El Salvador continued to resist withdrawing their troops from Honduras.

The war was the last conflict in which piston-engined fighters fought each other, both sides deploying some World War II era design aircraft.[7] Cavalier P-51D Mustangs, F4U-1, -4 and -5 Corsairs, T-28A Trojans, AT-6C Texans and even C-47 Skytrains converted into bombers saw action.[8]

Consequences

Both sides of the Football War suffered extensive casualties. Some 300,000 Salvadorans were displaced, many had been forcibly exiled or had fled from war-torn Honduras, only to enter an El Salvador in which the government was not welcoming. Most of these refugees were forced to provide for themselves with very little assistance. Over the next few years, more Salvadorans returned to their native land, where they encountered overpopulation and extreme poverty.[9]

El Salvador suffered about 900 mostly civilian dead. Honduras lost 250 combat troops, and over 2,000 civilians during the four-day war. Most of the war was fought on Honduran soil and thousands more were made homeless. Trade between Honduras and El Salvador had been greatly disrupted, and the border officially closed. This damaged the economies of these nations tremendously and threatened the Central American Common Market (CACM).

Aftermath

Eleven years after the war the two nations signed a peace treaty on 30 October 1980[10] and agreed to resolve the border dispute over the Gulf of Fonseca and five sections of land boundary through 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. The total disputed land area given to Honduras after the court's ruling was around 374.5 km2 (145 sq mi). In the Gulf of Fonseca the court found that Honduras held sovereignty over the island of El Tigre, and El Salvador over the islands of Meanguera and Meanguerita.[11]

The dispute continued despite the ICJ ruling. At a meeting in March 2012 President Porfirio Lobo of Honduras, President Otto Pérez of Guatemala, and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua all agreed that the Gulf of Fonseca would be designated as a peace zone. El Salvador was not at the meeting. However, in December 2012, El Salvador agreed to a tripartite commission of government representatives from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua that was to take care of territorial disputes through peaceful means and come up with a solution by 1 March 2013. The commission did not meet after December, and in March 2013 stiff letters threatening military action were exchanged between Honduras and El Salvador.[11]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Uppsala Conflict Data Program Conflict Encyclopedia, El Salvador, http://www.ucdp.uu.se/gpdatabase/gpcountry.php?id=51&regionSelect=4-Central_Americas, viewed on 24 May 2013
  2. ↑ Acker, Allison. Honduras: The Making of a Banana Republic. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1988.
  3. ↑ Anderson, Thomas P. The War of the Dispossessed: Honduras and El Salvador 1969. p.64-75 Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981.
  4. ↑ "La Gaceta Dec. 5, 1962(Library of Congress)" (PDF). Content.glin.gov. Retrieved 2013-07-19.
  5. ↑ Goldstein, Erik (1992). Wars and Peace Treaties, 1816-1991. Routledge. pp. 195–6. ISBN 978-0-203-97682-1. Retrieved 4 July 2010.
  6. ↑ Anderson, Thomas P. The War of the Dispossessed: Honduras and El Salvador 1969. p.105 Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981.
  7. ↑ Spencer C. Tucker (ed.), A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East, ABC-CLIO, 2009, p. 2463
  8. ↑ Overall, Mario The Hundred Hour War: Honduras versus El Salvador Air Enthusiast magazine article No.118 July/August 2005 pp8-27
  9. ↑ Anderson, Thomas P. The War of the Dispossessed: Honduras and El Salvador 1969. p. 145-155 Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981.
  10. ↑ "Diario Oficial Nov. 13, 1980(Library of Congress)" (PDF). Content.glin.gov. Retrieved 2015-02-24.
  11. 1 2 Kawas, Jorge (18 March 2013). "El Salvador: Sovereignty issues over Gulf of Fonseca". Pulsa Merica.

References

External links

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