Football War

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Football War
DateJuly 14-July 18,1969
Location
El Salvador-Honduras border
Result Negotiated Cease-Fire by intervention of the OAS
Belligerents
El Salvador Honduras
Commanders and leaders
Fidel Sánchez Hernández
Salvador Henríquez		 Oswaldo López Arellano
Oscar Colindres
Strength
20,000 (Army)
1,000 (Air Force)		 12,000 (Army)
1,200 (Air Force)
Casualties and losses
700 (including civilians) 1,200 (including civilians)

The Football War, the Soccer War (La guerra de fútbol, in Spanish) or the 100-hours War, was a six-day war fought by El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. Though tensions between the two nations may have been somewhat elevated by a football competition, the war was primarily caused by political differences between Hondurans and Salvadorans, including immigration from El Salvador to Honduras. The name is derived from the timing of the war, which overlapped with rioting from a series of soccer (fútbol, in Spanish) matches.

Context

The social situation in both countries in the run-up to the war was explosive, and their military governments were looking for a convenient cause towards which to direct their nationals' political concerns. National media in both countries encouraged hatred towards citizens of the other, eventually provoking the expulsion from Honduras of thousands of Salvadoran labourers, including both temporary harvest workers and longer-term settlers.

This general rise in tensions ultimately led to a military conflict that served to direct the attention of the citizenry of both countries outward rather than in on their own internal affairs, leaving both armies rearmed, and destroying the Central American economic integration that had been expressed in the Central American Common Market (Mercado Común Centroamericano or MCE), under whose trade rules the richer Salvadoran economy gained much ground relative to Honduras.

Rich landowners controlled the majority of arable land in El Salvador, which over time resulted in the migration of poor Salvadoran peasants to regions of Honduras near the border of El Salvador.

In 1969, Honduras decided to redistribute the land to Honduran peasants, thereby evicting the Salvadoran peasants who had lived on the land for generations. This triggered a mass return of peasants to El Salvador resulting in social upheaval as social conservatives in El Salvador were concerned that the returning peasants would strengthen calls for land reform, and military leaders were concerned that if the peasant demands for reform were not met guerrilla movements would arise.

The War

These existing tensions between the two countries were inflamed by rioting during the second North American qualifying round for the 1970 FIFA World Cup. On July 14, 1969, the Salvadoran army launched an attack against Honduras. The Organization of American States negotiated a cease-fire which took effect on July 20, with the Salvadoran troops withdrawn in early August.

Eleven years later the two nations signed a peace treaty on October 30, 1980 to put the border dispute before the International Court of Justice.

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. As of the beginning of 2006 demarcation had not yet been completed, but Honduras and El Salvador maintain normal diplomatic and trade relations.[1]

The War in the Air

The war is often cited as the last occasion on which piston-engined fighters fought each other - both sides deploying former World War II American types. P-51 Mustangs, F4U Corsairs, T-28 Trojans and even C-47 Skytrains converted into bombers saw action. The Salvadoran Air Force was so out of shape that they reverted to dropping bombs by hand from the windows of their planes[citation needed]..[2]

Football results

Results of the war

  • Essentially both sides 'lost' the war; neither gained a decisive military victory and the death toll of approximately 4,000 was shared approximately equally between the two.
  • The war led to a 22-year suspension of the 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.
  • The political power of the military in both countries was reinforced. In the Salvadoran legislative elections that followed, candidates from the governing National Conciliation Party (Partido de Conciliación Nacional, PCN), were largely drawn from the ranks of the military. Having apologised for their role in the conflict, they proved very successful in elections both at the national and local levels. However, these elections were considered fraudulent and part of the military dictatorship that in effect ruled El Salvador.
  • The social situation worsened in El Salvador as the government proved unable to satisfy the economic needs of citizens deported from Honduras. The resulting social unrest was one of the causes of the civil war in El Salvador that followed.

Trivia

Bibliography

  • Anderson, Thomas.The War of the Dispossessed: Honduras and El Salvador, 1969. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981.
  • Durham, William H. Scarcity and Survival in Central America: Ecological Origins of the Soccer War. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979.
  • Ryszard Kapuściński, a Polish journalist, wrote a book called Wojna futbolowa (published as The Soccer War in the United States) in 1978 on his experiences of this conflict.
  • Skidmore, T., and Smith, P. (2001) Modern Latin America (5th edition). New York: Oxford University Press, pg. 343.

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