RadioRote

The rest is silence.
(Hamlet V.ii. 367)

RadioRote #2

News of  Note

News  Flash 

Table of Contents

Contact Us

White Rose

    Reagan Directs "Battalion 316".

"Bueso will start singing songs nobody wants to hear.”                                            --The quote is taken from Ollie North's 1986 e-mail to Reagan's National Security Advisor, John Poindexter, urging the White House to scuttle the judicial process in favor of their recently sentenced ‘associate’, the Honduran narco-terrorist Bueso Rosa. North believed a slap on Bueso’s wrist would prevent Bueso from          "spill(ing) the beans" about his professional relationship with the Reagan Administration.

      Précis:

To state that the Reagan-Bush intervention into Honduras during the 1980’s was one of the most egregious chapters of that administration may appear far-fetched — considering many of the other dark moments that occurred during both of their Presidential terms in office. However, at the very least, the Honduran episode truly represents what the former US Ambassador to Honduras, Jack Binns (1980-81), called the Reagan-Bush “pathology of foreign policy”. [i] If one was a US government employee in Honduras and opposed this form of pathology, one was fired. If Honduran, one disappeared.

However, for some key players who supported the plan, a job would await them in the newest Bush administration.

In this RadioRote series, we will explore the history of the Reagan-Bush administration’s heavy handedness in creating and sustaining the Honduran Intelligence Unit turned Right Wing Death Squad, known as ‘Battalion 316.’ We will also cite examples of their Human Rights abuses and the administrations' lukewarm response to these reports -- as well as present primary documents as to how the Reagan-Bush administration worked hard in distancing themselves from the active roles they undertook in the Honduran scandal they assisted in designing.  

Report: 

During the Iran-Contra war in the 1980’s, the Reagan Administration created a base in Honduras used to stockpile arms and contraband for their self- described “freedom-fighters” who were waging a war in other parts of Central America. There were so many bases created in that small nation that the country was sometimes referred to as the “USS Honduras”. [ii]  In order to cleanse the population of ‘suspected Communists,’ the Honduran government, with the approval of the Reagan-Bush White House, created what became a paramilitary Right Wing Death Squad known as ‘Battalion 316’. However, the Honduran civilians that Battalion 316 sought were not merely Communists or revolutionaries. The ensuing crisis in Honduras created a blanket sweep for the Death Squad to pursue “many (who) were … exercising the same freedoms that the United States said it was fighting for in Latin America. Victims included students demonstrating for the release of political prisoners, union leaders who organized strikes for higher wages, journalists who criticized the military regime and college professors demanding fair tuition for the poor, [iii] and religious leaders. [iv] 

Battalion 316 was created through Reagan’s urging towards implementing a Honduran National Security Doctrine that focused not on external threats, but from those that may occur from within that small country. [v] According to the Baltimore Sun investigative report (see ensuing footnotes), Battalion 316 was trained by the Argentines, through the auspices of Honduran General Gustav Alvarez, who was in charge of managing the Battalion 316 Death Squad.

Oscar Alvarez, nephew of General Gustav Alvarez and a Special Forces officer explained how the Battalion 316 Intelligence Unit turned Death Squad was created:

The Argentines came in first, and they taught how to disappear people. The United States made them more efficient.
The Americans ... brought the equipment... They gave the training in the United States, and they brought agents here to provide some training in Honduras.
They said, 'You need someone to tap phones, you need someone to transcribe  the tapes, you need surveillance groups.' They brought  in special cameras that were inside thermoses. They taught interrogation techniques. [vi]

  Those squad members who participated in the kidnapping and disappearances of Honduran citizens say that although the CIA did not directly tell them to physically torture and murder Hondurans, the Agency was aware of the fact it was happening, and continued to supply Battalion 316 with training and logistical support. One such interrogator, Florencio Caballero claims to have been trained by the CIA in Texas on the use of psychological torture, and explained his job to the New York Times this way: 

(The CIA)  taught us psychological methods - to study the fears and weaknesses of a prisoner. Make him stand up, don't let him sleep, keep him naked and (in) isolation, put rats and cockroaches in his cell, give him bad food, serve him dead animals, throw cold water on him, change the temperature.[vii]

Caballero told the New York Times in the same article that he believed the psychological torture methods taught by the CIA would have worked fine, but things quickly got out of control. Caballero should know firsthand. He admitted to personally torturing and murdering 120 Hondurans or other Central Americans.  It is interesting to note that Caballero’s above statement refers only to males. The females were treated, in many ways, far worse.  

There were no exceptions to gender when Battalion 316 kidnapped a person. Further, since there was no civil trial or due process involved, many disappeared without a trace. There were some notable exceptions who remained alive to tell of their experience. One such person was 24-year-old Ines Murillo who was detained in 1983. Caballero describes Murillo’s experience in prison this way: 

Murillo was a prisoner in a secret army jail in Honduras, and Caballero interrogated her and watched her get tortured. For 80 days, Murillo was beaten, electrically shocked, burned, starved, exposed, threatened, stripped naked, and sexually molested. …To keep her from sleeping, her captors poured water on her head every ten minutes. While in jail, Mr. Caballero and other interrogators gave her raw dead birds and rats for dinner, threw freezing water on her naked body every half hour for extended periods of time and made her stand for hours without sleep and without being allowed to urinate…. Murillo survived her torture experience, mostly due to the intervention of her father, who formerly served in the Honduran military. [viii]

One of the leveraging points Murillo’s father had in freeing his daughter was the fact that he discovered who the CIA operative was who handled her case, the one who had visited Ines Murillo on several occasions, but not during the times she was being tortured by her interrogators. Mr. Murillo threatened to expose the CIA operative if his daughter was not released. [viiii]  

Ines Murillo was released. Thirteen months later, she was allowed to go into exile. [x]

From 1981-1982, the 316 Battalion went from an Intelligence Gathering Unit into a full fledged Right Wing Death Squad. This transition was due, in most part, to the pressure the Reagan-Bush Administration brought down upon the government of Honduras as well as upon the Pentagon and CIA. The Reagan-Bush "fast-track" approach of turning Honduras into a US military base used to support their 'drugs-for-guns' war (euphemistically known as 'Iran-Contra'), throughout Central America created an environment which soon "got out of control," for those like Ines Murillo who were to endure much suffering. However, "out of control" the situation appeared to some, the brutality that came out of it was a normal  consequence that was 'right on target' for the Reagan-Bush plan.

However, in order to carry on this tempo of fear and terror, the administration needed to find team players who could participate more fully in this action and keep their mouths shut about it. What the White House should have realized was that their allies were sometimes more of a threat to their plans, than those they assisted in torturing. 

Next Installment:  Reshuffling Priorities and Appointees

---

[i] Cohn, Gary and Thompson, Ginger. Unearthed: Fatal Secrets. . When a wave of torture and murder staggered a small U.S. ally, truth was a casualty. Baltimore Sun.  06/11/95 Cited hereafter as:  “Unearthed. Balt. Sun”.

[ii] Ibid.

iii. Unearthed. Balt. Sun

iv. Peacock, Susan C.  Battalion 316, Declassification and the Struggle to End Military Impunity in Honduras. National Security Archives.

v. Peacock, Susan C.  Battalion 316, Declassification and the Struggle to End Military Impunity in Honduras. National Security Archives.

vi. Unearthed.. Balt.Sun

vii. LeMoyne, James.  Testifying to Torture New York Times, 06/05/88, as cited by The Report on the School of The Americas: U.S. Policy in Central America: 1980-1991 03/06/97

viii. Ibid

viiii. LeMoyne, James.  Testifying to Torture New York Times, 06/05/88, as cited by The Report on the School of The Americas: U.S. Policy in Central America: 1980-1991 03/06/97

x. Ibid

 

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE  

                            
RadioRote® allows distribution of information from its site, as long as RadioRote® is cited or given credit.   You may not use the RadioRote® logo, or alter it, unless citing it as a source.  ©2001
For problems or questions regarding this website contact radiorote.
Last updated: March 22, 2002