-Caveat Lector-
"Col. Raul Escoto, head of Honduran military intelligence, denied that
his country's troops were involved in torture at El Aguacate.
"Only Nicaraguans and American officers who were training the Contras in
war tactics occupied the base. No Honduran was allowed to enter without
permission.''
Questions Remain From Ex-Contra Base
By FREDDY CUEVAS
.c The Associated Press
EL AGUACATE, Honduras (AP) - What remains of the El Aguacate military base is
a weed-covered airstrip, six dilapidated buildings, memories of some friendly
blond-haired men and wrenching questions about torture and killings.
For five years the base, used by U.S. allies in their Cold War fight against
communism, had been abandoned and seemingly forgotten by everyone but
residents, who wanted the government to let them farm the land.
Now authorities are questioning what went on at the U.S.-built base. Honduran
officials have discovered graves on the site, and they said they believe
political prisoners may have been tortured, killed and buried there.
Forensics experts from Germany and the United States are due in September to
examine bodies found at the site - one of several in Honduras being searched
on the basis of witnesses' testimonies or records.
If the accounts are confirmed, they may give rise to some uncomfortable
questions: Who were the killers - Honduran soldiers fighting a dirty war
against the country's leftists, or Contras from neighboring Nicaragua trying
to topple their own country's leftist Sandinista government?
And what did U.S. officials know about what was going on there?
The United States built the 3,100-acre base in 1983, just 80 miles east of
the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. It was used to train and supply
Nicaragua's Contra rebels, 14,000 of whom were based in Honduras.
The Contras left Honduras in 1990 after a peace agreement was signed and the
Sandinistas were voted out of office. The Honduran Army took over one-third
of the base, using the farm land to feed its troops. But they abandoned the
base in 1994 when the agricultural project failed. Since then, the government
said, drug traffickers have been using the airstrip.
Human rights groups have said the base was used for interrogation and
torture. Honduras' attorney general for human rights, Sandra Ponce, said last
week that the base contained burial sites and cramped metal cells, which may
have been used by the Honduran military to kill political prisoners.
The government began searching the base after relatives of leftists who
disappeared in the 1980s came forward and said that torture and killing had
taken place at the base.
The head of intelligence for the Honduran military, Col. Raul Escoto, denied
that his country's troops were involved in torture at El Aguacate.
``That's false,'' he told The Associated Press. ``Here there were only
Nicaraguans and U.S. officers that were training the Contras in war tactics
... no Honduran soldier or civilian was allowed to enter without
permission.''
The extent of U.S. involvement at the base is also not clear; the Pentagon
has declined to comment on the issue.
The CIA during the mid-1980s helped train both the Contras and a Honduran
military unit, Battalion 316, which was accused in the of kidnapping,
torturing and killing Honduran leftists.
Following a report by the Baltimore Sun in 1995 about CIA involvement with
the unit, the CIA conducted an internal investigation that found its
officials had underplayed abuses by the Honduran military in their reports to
U.S. lawmakers. But the CIA inquiry found no evidence to support allegations
that CIA officials had been present at torture sessions.
Escoto said the Honduran military acted in accordance with U.S. wishes at the
base because it feared losing economic aid.
``Honduras did what the United States wanted because it had no choice,'' he
said.
At least one resident remembers seeing foreigners at El Acuacate.
Antonio Martinez, a 70-year-old peasant who lives in La Sosa, a nearby
village, said ``the base was frequently visited by many men with blond hair
and dark glasses that spoke English ... and were kind with the people.''
Ponce's office will look for answers when it begins digging at the site,
possibly as early as this week. She said there may be more than 48 graves,
some containing several bodies.
Ponce wants to see if the El Aguacate base could help solve the disappearance
of 184 people - mostly leftists - that have been attributed to the Honduran
military. Among the missing is a Chicago-native priest-turned-guerrilla,
James Francis Carney, who disappeared in 1982.
So far, the identity of only one person at the site is known - Francisco
Guzman Davila, a Contra shot down while dropping supplies to his comrades.
``That man was a Contra hero,'' Escoto said. ``The Contras took him to and
buried him in El Acuacate after he died in a plane shot down in Nicaragua by
the Sandinista army.''
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