Yearbook 2006
Honduras. According to
CountryAAH, the rise in violence in H. led President Manuel Zelaya to decide on the establishment of a special military
unit specialized in the fight against organized crime. It
will be based in H's second and most important industrial
city of San Pedro Sula but will be deployable anywhere in
the country.
While a 26-year-old border dispute with El Salvador came
to an end through a border agreement and an energy
cooperation agreement between the two countries' presidents
on April 18, H's plans to build a new air base on the
Mosquito Coast created a diplomatic dispute with neighboring
Nicaragua. The project was prompted by the H government
declaring that the Palmerola airbase, which was built in the
1980s as part of US support for the Contras guerrillas in
Nicaragua and where US troops still exist, is to be
converted into a civilian airfield. The Nicaraguan
government regarded the air base, which will be close to the
border, as an offensive act. The reason was that Honduran
military repeatedly violated Nicaragua's territory on the
Coco River, where both countries dispute maritime rights.
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