Honduran Military Chief Resigns; Contra Aid Dispute Seen as Cause

The armed forces chief, Brig. Gen. Walter Lopez Reyes, announced his resignation Thursday, and military sources said the move followed a dispute over aid shipments to U.S.-backed Nicaraguan guerrillas operating from bases in Honduras.

“There is no crisis, nor was there any pressure for me to leave the post,” Lopez said in a radio interview. “It is for totally personal reasons.”

But senior military sources said the decision was precipitated by angry complaints that he promised to allow aid shipments to the rebels, known as contras, without consulting fellow officers in the 48-member Superior Council of the Armed Forces.

The aid is part of a $27-million U.S. package of non-lethal assistance to the contras that expires at the end of March.

In October, 1985, Honduras said it would no longer allow such assistance to be routed through Honduras. But Lopez, the sources said, assured U.S. officials recently that the shipments would be resumed.

The Honduran government has used the issue to press for more generous U.S. aid to Honduras, a staunch ally of the Reagan Administration and bastion of anti-communism in the region.

Honduras allows 15,000 or more of the contras to use bases along the frontier with Nicaragua in their war against the Marxist-led Sandinista government there.