United States Foreign Relations Central America

U.S. and Honduran troops began their latest round of joint military maneuvers Saturday in this country's tense southern border region not far from the scene of recent fighting between Nicaraguan troops and anti-Sandinista rebels. About 220 soldiers from the 27th Engineers Brigade of the U.S. Army's 20th Combat Airborne Force based at Ft. Bragg, N.C., parachuted from C-141 transport airplanes for an exercise that will upgrade the U.S.

If anyone could shed light on the controversial history of U.N. ambassador nominee John D. Negroponte, it is Honduran Gen. Luis Alonso Discua Elvir. Discua helped form a U.S.-trained intelligence unit, Battalion 316, blamed for the torture and killing of more than 100 Hondurans during Negroponte's tenure as ambassador to the country in the 1980s. And while Negroponte may not have known Discua, the general claims he knows plenty about the extent of the U.S.

President Reagan's White House staff, rekindling the rancor of the 1980 election campaign, denounced former President Jimmy Carter on Friday for criticizing Administration policy in a speech in Cairo. "We are deeply disappointed by his comments," White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. "If he wants to be helpful in the area of foreign affairs, he might want to forgo criticism of U.S. leaders while he's on foreign soil."

In the 1990s, the U.S. presence in Central America faded like the paint that demonstrators had sprayed on walls during the previous decade: "Yankee Go Home." The Cold War ended; the leftist guerrillas that Americans had helped fight signed peace agreements and turned themselves into political parties. The isthmus was no longer of much military interest. Now the Yankees are back. In what critics call a militarization of the drug war, U.S.

President Reagan ordered 3,200 additional U.S. troops to Honduras on Wednesday as a show of force in response to a Nicaraguan incursion into the country, the White House announced. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said units of the 7th Infantry Division based at Ft. Ord, Calif., and the 82nd Airborne Division based at Ft. Bragg, N.C., are leaving for Honduras today on "an emergency deployment readiness exercise."

Nicaragua proposed on Saturday that the cease-fire to be negotiated in its war with U.S.-backed contras require the insurgents to surrender their arms at once and consider an offer of amnesty. The proposal differs sharply from that of the Nicaraguan Resistance, as the contras formally call themselves, which seeks to freeze the battlefield positions of armed guerrillas and the Sandinista army until international supervisors verify Managua's compliance with promised democratic reforms.

President Oscar Arias Sanchez said Thursday that the Sandinista rulers in Nicaragua are "bad guys" who have "unmasked themselves" as anti-democratic and deserve to be punished for breaking the Central American peace agreement. In his harshest criticism of the Sandinistas, the author of the peace accord said he was prepared to urge non-military pressures on them to resume peace talks with U.S.-backed Contras and end political repression. He did not spell out any proposed sanctions.

A newly declassified CIA training manual details torture methods used against suspected subversives in Central America during the 1980s, casting doubt on agency claims that no such methods were taught there. "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual--1983" was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The CIA also declassified a Vietnam-era training manual that also taught torture and is believed to have been a basis for the 1983 manual.

The Salvadoran general was implicated in the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests. He was accused of ripping off U.S. supplies for the Nicaraguan Contra guerrillas during the 1980s. During this country's brutal civil war, he gave the orders to bomb civilian neighborhoods. A few months ago, Gen. Juan Rafael Bustillo decided to run for president.

In a major address before El Salvador's Legislative Assembly, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher on Monday called for stronger ties between the United States and Central America to expand trade and strengthen still-struggling democracies in the region. He also pledged greater U.S. support on crime and counter-narcotics programs, immigration issues and environmental problems to consolidate recent political and economic gains.

Drug enforcement officials Wednesday unveiled the results of what they called the biggest international effort ever to stem the tidal wave of Colombian drugs flowing through the Caribbean to U.S. shores. Dubbed "Operation Conquistador," the 17-day crackdown that ended Sunday involved 26 Caribbean and Central and South American countries, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said.

President Clinton, the leaders of six Central American nations and the head of the Dominican Republic agreed Thursday on the need to find "humanitarian solutions" to the problems posed by migration to the United States and pledged to work together to eliminate remaining trade barriers.

The United States is sending an additional $45 million in equipment and services to Central American nations devastated by Hurricane Mitch, President Clinton said Saturday. "A storm shows no respect for boundaries, and we should respond the same way," Clinton said in his weekly radio address. "The United States will spare no aid to the people of Central America--our fellow Americans."

Whether poring over ancient artifacts, singing Spanish tunes with Mexican children or touring a tropical rain forest during a steady shower, President Clinton has managed to escape the pressures of the issues facing him on his Latin American journey and relax. The president's enthusiasm for his travels was especially evident in Mexico, the first stop of his weeklong journey.

A newly declassified CIA training manual details torture methods used against suspected subversives in Central America during the 1980s, casting doubt on agency claims that no such methods were taught there. "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual--1983" was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The CIA also declassified a Vietnam-era training manual that also taught torture and is believed to have been a basis for the 1983 manual.

In a major address before El Salvador's Legislative Assembly, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher on Monday called for stronger ties between the United States and Central America to expand trade and strengthen still-struggling democracies in the region. He also pledged greater U.S. support on crime and counter-narcotics programs, immigration issues and environmental problems to consolidate recent political and economic gains.

U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III offered Monday to orchestrate an international search for financial aid to Central America's impoverished civilian democracies and their newly formed economic community.

An advisory panel will recommend to Congress next month the use of foreign aid to curtail illegal immigration from parts of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, according to a New York Times report. The 12-member Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development, headed by Diego Asencio, a former ambassador to Brazil and Colombia, concluded that some U.S.

Mexico and all seven Central American countries have carried out what a U.S. official Friday called the biggest multinational counternarcotics blitz in history. The 10-day operation enlisted the Mexican army, navy and police forces to seize more than five tons of cocaine, nearly 40 tons of marijuana, two aircraft, six ships and more than 650 suspected drug traffickers in Mexico alone. In unveiling the operation, confirmed Friday by Mexican authorities, U.S.

The turmoil in this region in the last decade propelled hundreds of thousands northward to form part of the largest influx into the United States since the turn of the century. Central American exiles flooded sweatshops and factories, bought property, joined political movements in Miami and changed entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles and Washington. American immigration policy often reflected who the U.S.