Blood and Land

In recent months, the dirt-poor peasants of Honduras have invaded farms and blockaded bridges to force the government to fulfill its promises to redistribute the land. June 25 was a memorable day in their campaign. While the army broke up "hunger marches" in various regions, wealthy ranchers, backed by soldiers, stormed a training center for peasant leaders in Juticalpa, the dusty little capital of Olancho province, and killed six people.

The same day, two Roman Catholic Franciscan missionaries mysteriously disappeared: Fathers Michael Jerome Cypher, 35, of Medford, Wisc., a parish priest who had been in Honduras only eight months, and Ivan Betancourt, 35, of Colombia. Now a special investigating commission set up as a result of church pressure has reported that they too were victims of the ranchers' rampage. The commission has charged Jose Manuel Zelaya (a wealthy landowner), the provincial army commander and two accomplices with murdering the priests.

The investigators' account is grisly indeed. Cypher had been walking into Juticalpa with a man who needed medical treatment. Soldiers arrested and jailed the priest, then took him to Zelaya's ranch. Betancourt was arrested while driving into town and also taken to the ranch. Both priests were interrogated, beaten and shot to death, and their mutilated bodies were thrown down a 120-ft. well in front of Zelaya's hacienda. Seven other victims were found in the well--five who were presumed to be peasant activists, plus two innocent women visitors who had been riding in the car with Betancourt.

Dramatic Proof. The murdered missionaries were not directly engaged in political action or involved in the hunger marches. But their deaths are dramatic proof of the increasing identification of Catholicism in Latin America with the peasants' cause. This is partly due to the influence of "liberation theology," which uses Marxist economic analysis and argues that an important part of salvation is making common cause with the struggles of the poor. The clergy in Honduras deny any link with Marxism; yet virtually all the priests are known to back the peasants' efforts to get land of their own. Since 90% of the priests are foreigners (from France, Spain, Canada, the U.S. and Latin America), the nominally Catholic landowners can more freely accuse them of being Communists, of mobilizing the peasantry and arousing hatred. Said Bishop Jaime Brufau: "These crimes were the result of a carefully planned attack on the church in Olancho."

Despite the murder indictments, the cattlemen are still riding high in Olancho province, a frontier area where they have long held near feudal control. The peasant leaders' training center in Juticalpa is still closed, and the federal government has ordered all priests, brothers and nuns to leave the area for their own safety. Bishop Nicholas D'Antonio, an American who has worked in Honduras for 29 years, has also fled upon orders of the papal nuncio. No wonder. Wealthy ranchers have offered $10,000 to anyone who delivers to them the bishop's head.

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