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TINY ISLAND, BIG CONSEQUENCES FOR HONDURAS AND EL SALVADOR.

Article Excerpt
Isla Conejo is a tiny island in the Gulf of Fonseca. The little island, scarcely 600 meters off the shore of Honduras and measuring no more than 1,000 sq meters, could hardly be less imposing. But for El Salvador and Honduras its strategic value belies its size. It has been the subject of a territorial battle between the two states for many years, a battle that has brought the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Organization of American States (OAS) into the fray. At stake for Honduras is access to the Pacific--for El Salvador, the security of one of its main ports.

In 1992, the ICJ ruled on the delimitation of bolsones (see NotiCen, 2002-09-19), disputed areas between El Salvador and Honduras, but the ruling failed to identify Conejo specifically. The court ruled again in 2003, but still insufficiently to resolve the conflict, even with the intervention of the OAS. All the while, the countries have been in negotiations, sometimes intense, sometimes on a back burner. "The court overstepped, demarcated zones that hadn't been in dispute by any of the parties," said El Salvador's Foreign Minister Maria Eugenia Brizuela in July.

The court ruling may have made matters worse, because without ceding Honduras the island, it did affirm the country's right to access to the Pacific, thereby bringing Nicaragua into the situation. Nicaragua also claims parts of the Gulf of Fonseca, but prior to the ruling had no part in the conflict. The countries will have to tread lightly in this dispute; they have gone to war for less, and they could upset the balance of powers a world away.

Honduras nevertheless has treated the island as its own, and has placed it under the protective guard of four soldiers,...

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