Honduran policy toward Salvadorans and Guatemalans stood in direct contrast to the government's treatment of Nicaraguan refugees. Thirteen thousand five hundred Miskito Indians, regarded as political allies in the US-Honduran Contra War, were allowed to settle on agricultural land or work in internationally funded refugee projects, as long as they remained in the Mosquitia region.108 Nicaraguan ladinos were also more favorably treated: they lived in settlements, but unlike the Salvadorans, were granted freedom of movement. By the end of the decade, government sources showed that the number of official refugees from Nicaragua had increased steadily each year but the number of Salvadorans had not, reflecting Honduras's more generous policies toward the former. However, government sources estimated that as many as 230,000 Central Americans lived illegally in Honduras.109
The Honduran army carried out its separate immigration policy. Honduran families living along the border were warned by the military not to assist any refugees or aid workers, or they would face reprisals. On May 14,1980, when four thousand Salvadorans tried to cross the Sumpul River into Honduras to escape the Salvadoran army's campaign in Chalatenango, they were met by the Honduran military and forced to return at gunpoint. More than six hundred people were then massacred by Salvadoran troops.110 A few months later, in March 1981, seven thousand tried to cross the Lempa River into Honduras to escape the military actions in Cabañas, but as they crossed the river they were shot at by both Salvadoran and Honduran soldiers.
The UNHCR tried to negotiate minimum safeguards for the refugees with local civilian and military authorities, but these agreements were repeatedly violated.111 Relief workers were continually harassed, and refugees were kidnapped, interrogated, and tortured by Honduran army officers, or turned over to Salvadoran authorities. On August 29, 1985, for example, Honduran soldiers entered the Colomoncagua refugee camp and kidnapped, raped, and murdered some of the residents. In February of the following year Honduran soldiers once again entered Colomoncagua, and this time set up machine guns around the perimeter of the camp, including the soccer field, as a means of surveillance as well as psychologically harassing the camp residents.112 Hoping that international pressure would force the Honduran and Salvadoran armies to respect refugee rights, the Evangelical Committee for Development and Emergency in Honduras, working with various international NGOs, created a “visitors program”: hundreds of volunteers from North America and Europe traveled to Honduras to live and work in the camps, serve as bodyguards, and act as witnesses to the human rights violations. Teams of volunteers patrolled the border and accompanied the refugees as they traveled to the various camps. No army incursions occurred in camps or villages where the international visitors resided; but when the program ended at mid-decade, the kidnapping and torture resumed.113
Costa Rica's experience, in turn, demonstrated the difficulties that even stable democracies faced when reconciling national interests with international commitments. Unlike Honduras, no military force patrolled the border of Costa Rica and repatriated refugees at gunpoint.114 Many of the refugees entered the country with tourist visas, which had to be renewed every thirty days. However, Costa Rica had signed the UN Convention and Protocol,115 and in 1980 passed a law outlining the criteria for and benefits ascribed to refugee status. According to Costa Rican law, refugee status was temporary but granted recipients basic rights and protections. Only documented refugees were allowed to seek employment, for example, and could lawfully do so as long as they did not displace Costa Rican workers (90 percent of employees in a given enterprise had to be Costa Rican, and receive 85 percent of the salaries). Documented refugees were also eligible for the same government services as nationals (medical care and education, for example). The government established the infrastructure to provide these services, but the cost was borne by international relief agencies. Thus, the Costa Rican government committed itself to humanitarian assistance while protecting its citizens and national resources. The National Commission for Refugees worked with the UNHCR and other international NGOs to coordinate refugee assistance, but was dependent on the financial support that these agencies provided. In 1985 when the UNHCR cut back drastically on its financial aid, the Costa Rican government was forced to make corresponding adjustments in its refugee assistance programs.
An estimated forty thousand Salvadorans and Nicaraguans were assisted in Costa Rica by 1989.116 According to Hayden some twenty thousand Salvadorans entered the country, most of them arriving between 1980 and 1982, and as many as two-thirds obtained refugee status.117 A dozen camps were established to house the refugees; international NGOS sponsored durable solutions projects, which were designed to make the refugees self-supporting.118 Refugees were allowed to seek employment outside these projects but more often than not found the bureaucracy difficult to navigate—a process made deliberately tedious to discourage competition with nationals.119 Not surprisingly, most refugees who came to Costa Rica bypassed the official refugee network, as they did in other countries; they preferred freedom of movement and economic self-sufficiency in the underground economy, even if it meant forfeiting rights, protections, and services. According to the UNHCR, by 1989, as many as 100,000 Salvadorans and Nicaraguans in Costa Rica lived undocumented. Government agencies placed the number as high as 290,000, 90 percent of which were believed to be Nicaraguan.120
As the strongest economy and democracy in Central America, Costa Rica offered migrants safety and opportunities for advancement regardless of their legal status. Thus, refugees who chose to settle here during the 1980s were among the least likely to return to their homelands once repatriation became possible.121 In 1992, President Rafael Calderón Jr. signed a decree that allowed Central American refugees to legalize their status and apply for permanent residency if they could prove residence in the country for at least two years.122
Refugee-producing nations also became refugee-receiving nations. Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua all signed the UN Convention and Protocol but exhibited different levels of commitment to refugee assistance. An estimated 145,000 Nicaraguans and 70,000 Salvadorans lived in Guatemala by the end of the 1980s, but the government barred UNHCR participation. El Salvador, in turn, did allow the UNHCR to help, and by 1991 the UNHCR had assisted 750 Nicaraguan refugees; however, an estimated 20,000 Central American refugees lived illegally in the country, assisted primarily by the Salvadoran Catholic Church, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and other international NGOs. The Salvadoran Catholic Archdiocese, for example, operated several camps that provided haven for roughly six thousand refugees.123
Nicaragua had the most liberal policy: over seven thousand migrants, most of them Salvadorans, received official refugee status and were granted freedom of movement and work permits. With the assistance of the UNHCR, the Sandinistas resettled some three thousand to cooperatives along the Pacific coast. Even though the Nicaraguan government encouraged refugees to regularize their status and become permanent residents, and granted them a host of benefits unavailable in other countries, one study showed that 77 percent wished to return to their homeland, a rate comparable to refugees in other countries.124 Some twenty thousand lived and worked undocumented during the 1980s, preferring to remain outside the reach of the government.125
By 1989, six nations—Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Belize—reported an aggregate eight hundred thousand immigrants, of which 10 percent were officially documented as refugees and received assistance from local governments and international agencies.
THE CENTRAL AMERICAN PEACE PLAN
Most countries in the Western Hemisphere rejected the Reagan administration's categorization of the political conflict as an East-West struggle, and opposed the administration's emphasis on a military solution. In January 1983, representatives from four Latin American governments—Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, and Colombia—met on the island of Contadora, off the coast of Panama, to try to draft a regional peace plan independent of the United States. In 1984 the so-called Contadora Group offered a twenty-one point proposal for a peace settlement that tried to address the concerns of the various parties involved. Included in its list of recommendations were the removal of foreign
