"Sir," said the uniformed US military captain into the telephone. "I'd have to say that this is the most successful publicity operation this command has ever had."
The soldier from the US southern command, the unit responsible for all military operations in Central and Latin America, was speaking to his superior at 2 a.m. in a deserted press room at the Honduras Hotel Maya. Set up by the hotel's Irish-American owner to assist reporters covering the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch, the room has served as a distribution centre for a stream of military press releases and as a co-ordination centre for media transportation to the army and air force relief operations.
This has been pretty exciting stuff for many reporters, mostly men, who have gotten to ride in jazzy toys like CH-47 Chinook helicopters and C-5 cargo planes and MH-60 Blackhawks that were dropping food supplies over villages here.
The military and its anachronistic lingo, its high-tech combat gadgetry that sparkles on camera, its soldiers with their crew-cuts speaking in that abbreviated staccato style, are downright irresistible to some folks. So the US media have been devoting a great deal of coverage of the relief effort in Honduras to the military, flashing nightly camera footage of soldiers giving rice to hollow-eyed peasants.
This limited portrayal of relief efforts presents a skewed picture that does little to illuminate the complex relationship and history of the US to this impoverished region.
Honduras's destiny has been controlled by foreigners since 1919, when the first US-owned fruit companies established a presence here with banana plantations. Dole and Chiquita were the main employers, and according to experts here, the companies ran the banana economy and the country like their personal fiefdoms. Democratic elections were farcical, as the company-sponsored military ran the country.
Things shifted slightly in 1948, when the establishment of Israel forced an exodus of Palestinians. Many settled here with at least enough money to begin building businesses. Today, the two dominant forces in the economic social structure are American and Arab. Three of the country's four newspapers are Arab-owned. President Carlos Flores Facusse's mother is an Arab. His wife, Mary Flake, is an American who has retained her citizenship, making her ineligible to vote in Honduras.
In 1980, beginning with the then president, Ronald Reagan, the US began a covert war against the Marxist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, which shares a border with Honduras. The effort also extended to military operations in neighbouring El Salvador. Honduras was the main staging and training base for US military and CIA operations. At one time, it was rumoured, but not confirmed, that the US had 13 military bases in Honduras. Today, there is still resentment among many of the country's neighbours that Honduras "sold out" its fellow Central Americans in exchange for US dollars. In fact, the sell-out produced little for Hondurans. A corrupt and brutal military tortured and killed hundreds of people.
Just last month, the CIA released a long overdue 248-page report that conceded that the CIA knew of Honduran death squads but failed to report their activities. "The Honduran military committed hundreds of human rights abuses since 1980, many of which were politically motivated and officially sanctioned," the report said.
When the Cold War ended, Central America dropped off the map as far as US foreign policy was concerned. President Clinton, especially during his first term, had little interest in the region. Mrs Violetta Barrios Chamorro, Nicaragua's president elected with an anti-Sandinista coalition, was expecting support from the US after all those years of alliance.
Though her government staggered on for its full term, she was replaced two years ago by Mr Arnoldo Alaman, a right-wing President. And although Mr Alaman's conservatives won the presidency, the Sandinistas won the majority of seats in the National Assembly.
The exodus of US interest has taken its toll. From 1996, Nicaragua's poverty index, a measurement of infant mortality and literacy, has slipped back 27 points. Its current income per capita is $417. Honduras's is only $430.
The country is saddled with a $4.7 billion debt. A quarter of its income is going to pay interest on the debt. Some 82 per cent of the Honduran population live below the poverty line. About 69 per cent of them live below a poverty line that is measured here as the ability to buy or produce 2,000 calories per day per head. This means 69 per cent of the people cannot buy 2,000 calories a day for food.
Why not? Well, aside from the fruit companies, those like Chiquita brands, which simply fired 9,000 workers this week, there are the maquiladoras or sweat shops. Workers there make apparel for US-based retailers like The Gap, Levi's, Reebok, and J.C. Penney. In San Pedra Sula, one of the hardest-hit areas in the northern part of the Honduras, some 74,000 people work in 200 maquiladoras. While conditions there have improved - some factories now have air-conditioning, and children are not legally allowed to work - wages have not. Some young women cut and stitch, sewing 1,500 cuffs a day on cotton shirts, for example, for $20 or about £15 a week.
So now the US military is back, carrying out relief work. However, many people suspect that these humanitarian operations are a cover for what the US has long wanted: a Central American outpost to manage the anti-drugs war in Latin America.
In 1999, the Panama Canal will revert to the Panamanians, and the US has been shopping for a new base of operations. More than a few people noticed this week that the US soldiers were building housing . . . not for the homeless Hondurans but for the arriving US soldiers. Those tent houses, called temporary, are nonetheless being constructed with concrete foundations.
As the cameras roll, Hondurans can only hope that a renewed US presence will have better long-term consequences than the last tour of duty.