Without further assistance by February. all the information we have suggests the Contras are going to begin heading into Honduras. The Hondurans will then be faced with some 12.500 armed fighters (whom the Hondurans see as closely allied with Alvarez. thereby potentially unsettling Honduras itself). Flight of the Contras into Honduras will be followed not only by their families but presumably by a second wave of refugees and others who. seeing abandonment of American efforts to force the Sandinistas to alter their regime. will see the handwriting on the wall. determine that their personal futures are in peril and leave the country. It is altogether conceivable that we could be looking at an initial refugee wave from Nicaragua over the first year of 150.000 to 200.000 people (the families of the Contras alone could account for 50OM0). Failure of the United States to provide further assistance to the resistance and collapse of the Contra movement would force Honduras to accommodate to the Nicaraguan regime. One result of this would be the complete reopening of the channels of arms support to the Salvadoran insurgency. thereby reversing the progress made in recent months.
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