Football War

The Football War (Spanish: Guerra del fútbol), also known as the Soccer War or the 100 Hour War, was a brief military conflict fought between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. 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 cease-fire on the night of 18 July, hence its nickname, which took full effect on 20 July. Salvadoran troops were withdrawn in early August.

The war, while brief, had major consequences for both countries and was a major factor in starting the Salvadoran Civil War a decade later.

Background

Although the nickname "Football War" implies that the conflict was due to a football match, the causes of the war went much deeper. The roots were issues over land reform in Honduras and immigration and demographic problems in El Salvador. Honduras has more than five times the area of neighboring El Salvador, but in 1969 the population of El Salvador (3.7 million) was 40 percent larger than that of Honduras (2.6 million). At the beginning of the 20th 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 more than 10% of the population of Honduras.

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 10% of the land, making it hard for the average landowner to compete. In 1966, United Fruit banded together with many other large companies to create the National Federation of Honduran Farmers and Ranchers (Spanish: Federación Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos de Honduras, FENAGH). This group put pressure on the Honduran president, Gen. Oswaldo López Arellano, to protect the property of wealthy landowners from campesinos, many of which were Salvadoran.^: 64–75

In 1962, Honduras successfully enacted a new land reform law. 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 Hondurans. 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

In June 1969, Honduras and El Salvador met in a two-leg 1970 FIFA World Cup qualifier. There was little to no fighting between fans at the first game in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa on 8 June 1969, which Honduras won 1–0. However, the second game, held on 15 June 1969 in the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador and won 3–0 by El Salvador, was followed by a uptick in violence. A Honduran fan was shot to death soon after the game, resulting in anti-Salvadoran riots occurring across Honduras and further straining of relations.

On 26 June 1969, the night before the play-off match in Mexico City, which El Salvador would win 3–2 after extra time, El Salvador dissolved all diplomatic ties with Honduras, stating that around 12,000 Salvadorans had been forced to flee Honduras in the days following the second match. It further claimed 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 Salvadorans".^: 105

War

On 14 July 1969, at around 6 PM, the concerted military action began; the Salvadoran Air Force, using a combined force of P-51 Mustangs and civilian aircraft hastily converted into 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.^: 662

The invasion was led by two contingents; a third contingent held strategic positions near the Sumpul River, but never saw combat. The first one was meant to secure the prosperous Sula Valley, while the second marched along the Pan-American Highway toward Tegucigalpa.^{: 662 : 20}

Initially, the Salvadoran army made rapid progress, capturing the city of Nueva Ocotepeque and reaching within striking distance of Nacaome. The momentum of the advance did not last, however.

The Honduran Air Force reacted by striking the Ilopango International Airport, using their own fleet of World War II-era aircraft mainly consisting of Corsairs.^: 21 Honduran bombers attacked for the first time in the morning of 16 July. The bombers had orders to attack Acajutla, where the main oil facilities of El Salvador were based. Honduran air-raid targets also included minor oil facilities such as the ones in Port Cutuco. By the evening of 16 July, huge pillars of smoke arose in the Salvadoran coastline from the burning oil depots that had been bombed.

One of the last engagements of the war took place on the afternoon of 17 July, involving 4 Corsairs and 2 Mustangs. Captain Guillermo Reynaldo Cortez, a Salvadoran, was killed in a dogfight by future civil aeronautics director Fernando Soto. The Football War was the last conflict in which piston-engined fighters fought each other.

Cease-fire

Soon after the start of the war, the OAS held a special session, organizing a seven nation committee to oversee negotiations and calling for a cease-fire. While Honduran officials were reportedly willing, El Salvador resisted OAS pressure for several days, with one of the biggest sticking points, according to the CIA, being the time window given for troops to be withdrawn.

A cease-fire was arranged on the night of 18 July, which required Salvadoran troops to withdraw within 96 hours and an end to "inflammatory press, radio, and t.v. campaigns", among other things. It took effect at midnight.

Withdrawal

Soon before the initial 96 hour deadline, the Salvadoran government sent a document to the OAS, stating, while it would continue to hold the cease-fire, it would not withdraw troops until a guarantee of safety for Salvadorans still living in Honduras was given, reparations were paid, and anti-Salvadoran rioters were punished. Honduras only fulfilled the first demand, but El Salvador relented after the OAS threatened sanctions, resulting in troops withdrawing on 2 August 1969.^{: 662–663}

Consequences

Both sides of the Football War suffered extensive casualties. Estimates range from 1,000 to 6,000 dead. Most of the war was fought on Honduran soil and thousands more were made homeless.

Some 300,000 Salvadorans had been 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.^{: 145–155} The resulting social unrest was one of the causes of the Salvadoran Civil War, which followed approximately a decade later in which 70,000 to 80,000 died and a further 8,000 more disappeared.

Trade between Honduras and El Salvador, which had been heavily disrupted pre-war, was outright stopped following it.^: 22 Honduras would go on to leave and thereby further weaken the already ailing Central American Common Market, a regional integration project that had been set up by the United States largely as a means of counteracting the effects of the Cuban Revolution.^: 38

The political power of the military in both countries was reinforced. In the Salvadoran legislative elections that followed, candidates of the governing National Conciliation Party (Partido de Conciliación Nacional, PCN) were largely drawn from the ranks of the military. Having apologized for their role in the conflict, they proved very successful in elections at the national and local levels. In contrast to the gradual democratization process that had characterized the 1960s, the military establishment would exercise increasing control.

Aftermath

Although it had initiated the war, El Salvador played in the World Cup; it was eliminated after losing its first three matches (USSR, Mexico, and Belgium).

Eleven years after the conflict the two nations signed a peace treaty in Lima, Peru on 30 October 1980 and agreed to resolve the border dispute over the Gulf of Fonseca and five sections of land boundary through the International Court of Justice (ICJ). 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.

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.

See also

• Guillermo Reynaldo Cortez
• List of wars between democracies

References

Further reading

• Armstrong, Robert and Janet Shenk. (1982). El Salvador: The Face of a Revolution. Boston: South End Press. ISBN 9780861043774
• Diamond, Jared. (2012). The World Until Yesterday. New York: Viking. ISBN 9780713998986
• Durham, William H. (1979). Scarcity and Survival in Central America: Ecological Origins of the Football War. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Kapuscinski, Ryszard. (1990). The Soccer War. Translated by William Brand. London: Granta Books.
• Skidmore, T., and Smith, P. (2001). Modern Latin America (5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
• Walzer, Michael. (1977). Just and Unjust Wars. New York: Basic Books.

External links

• Salvador-Honduras War, 1969
• Soccer War 1969
• El Salvador vs Honduras, 1969: The 100-Hour War
• Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador/Honduras: Nicaragua intervening), International Court of Justice case registry
• Application for Revision of the Judgment of 11 September 1992 in the Case concerning the Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador/Honduras: Nicaragua intervening) (El Salvador v. Honduras), International Court of Justice case registry

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