Death hour passes

Press, 20 September 1982, Page 8

Death hour passes

NZPA-Reutef ■ Tegucigalpa The deadline set by Leftist guerrillas holding two Honduran Cabinet Ministers and some 84 other hostages at the Chamber of Commerce building at San Pedrb Pula has passed without any of the threatened killings. They set a deadline of 1 p.m. • yesterday for the authorities to free 80 political prisoners and comply with other demands, but the deadline passed with no reported action taken on either side.

An. Army spokesman. Colonel Roberto Martinez Avila, said that the Government was willing to negotiate with the terrorists, but added: “There are no political prisoners in Honduras."

He also announced that four hostages had managed to escape from the building on Saturday and said the gunmen had freed 15 others. That left the guerrillas holding 86 hostages, according to counts given by the captives. Two United States citizens were, reported to be among the hostages taken when at

least a dozen heavily armed men led by a rebel calling himself Commandante Uno — "Chief One" — burst into the chamber headquarters during an economics conference on Saturday afternoon (N.Z. time). ■ The Economics Minister. Mr Gustavo Alfaro, the Finance Minister, Mr Arturo Corleto, and the central bank governor, Mr Gonzalo Carrillo. were at the meeting. One guard was killed and two businessmen wounded in the take-over. The wounded men were freed later and were not among those reported released by Colonel Martinez Avila. The chamber president. Mario Belot. urged soldiers surrounding the building to stop shooting because they were angering the guerrillas. They had been firing sporadic warning shots into the air, as well as occasional shots at the one-storey building. In a telephone interview with the Associated Press. Commandante Uno said: “If the Government does not

grant our demands, we will begin to execute our hostages.” . * President Roberto Suazo Cordova and Colonel Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, the Armed Forces commander, were said to be meeting the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Tegucigalpa, the capital, which is 180 km south-east of San Pedro Pula.

Two mediators, Bishop Jaime Braffau and a Venzuelan diplomat, Hugo Alvafez Pifano, spent about 50 minutes inside the building and then told reporters that the guerrillas’ demands were unacceptable to the Government because it does not consider the 80 prisoners political detainees. The mediators said that the guerrillas had asked for food, but the authorities would allow only cigarettes and medicine to be sent in.

Honduras, the poorest country in Central America, has been plagued by intermittent guerrilla attacks since January, when a civilian Government replaced a 10-year-old military regime.