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Human rights was also an issue in Guatemala, where a succession of often harsh military regimes has been waging war against leftist guerrillas. Nevertheless, following meetings with officials in the government of Chief of State Brigadier General Oscar Mejia Victores, Kissinger announced that, although the Guatemalans had made no direct request for military aid, "one couldn't help but be impressed by their need."
The need for U.S. help was even more pressing in Honduras, Central America's poorest nation and the U.S.'s key military staging area in the region at present. In Tegucigalpa, ailing Roberto Suazo Cordova, Honduras' first elected President after ten years of military rule, made an eloquent appeal for U.S. aid to a nation that "with much sacrifice has constructed a democratic government in exceptionally difficult circumstances."
On the eve of the commission's visit to Nicaragua, Junta Coordinator Daniel Ortega Saavedra charged that an attack by U.S. or Honduran troops was "imminent." Earlier in the week, U.S.-backed contras opposed to the Sandinista regime had ignited eight oil storage tanks at the port of Corinto, 80 miles northwest of Managua, causing huge fires that raged out of control for nearly three days and forced some 25,000 people to evacuate the town. On Friday, an oil pipeline at another major port, Puerto Sandino, was damaged by contra fire.
The commission's visit followed that of Assistant Secretary of State Langhorne A. Motley, the highest-ranking U.S. official to travel to the country in almost two years. He had arrived to reopen high-level communications between the Reagan Administration and the Sandinistas and to discuss, in Motley's words, "the whole waterfront" of regional problems. There was no evidence that either visit had helped ease tensions between the two countries.
After six days of fact finding, the commission seemed to have reached agreement on what some of the facts mean. Said an aide: "The testimony on the military threat has been so impressive that there is now something of a consensus that the U.S. has to take steps against the Sandinistas." Maybe so. But two commission members, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Robert Strauss and San Antonio Democratic Mayor Henry Cisneros, have said they should not be counted on just to rubber stamp the policy of a Republican Administration. For its part, the Administration has never said it will take the commission's advice. Facts in hand, even Kissinger may still find it hard to influence U.S. policy.