Gustavo Adolfo Álvarez Martínez

Gustavo Adolfo Álvarez Martínez (* 1938 in Tegucigalpa , † January 25, 1989 ibid) was the head of the security forces in Honduras .

Life

His brother was Armando Álvarez Martínez, Minister of Culture and Tourism in the government cabinet of Policarpio Juan Paz García .

Gustavo Álvarez Martínez was fluent in English. 1961 took part in a training event for infantry officers in Argentina . He was accredited to the Honduran military missions in Peru and took part in staff training at the Centro de Altos Estudios Militares (CAEM). In Washington he studied police tactics as part of an Office of Public Safety Program . 1976 Álvarez Martínez took part in a training session at Fort Benning in Joint Military Operation in the SOA . In 1977 he was a part-time broker at Castle & Cooke . At the end of the 1970s, most of the general staff, including Colonel Álvarez, became wealthy through lucrative sideline jobs.

In 1978 he was in command of the IV Military District of La Ceiba and was thus a member of the Consejo Superior de las Fuerzas Armadas (COSUFFAA). In the Caribbean on Las Isleta off La Ceiba, workers laid off by the US company United Fruit Company had founded a cooperative , the Empresa Asociativa Campesina de Isletas (EACI). A member of the cooperative said they wanted to show that you don't need a company to grow bananas. Gustavo Álvarez Martínez, a sideline advisor to United Fruit, ordered the demolition of the agricultural cooperative and an attack on the headquarters of SUTRASFCO , the union of the Standard Fruit Company .

In 1979 Gustavo Álvarez was the commander of the military district of San Pedro Sula , the second largest city in Honduras. Here he was involved in the events at the Bemis-Handal textile factory : workers on strike occupied the factory, and on March 6, 1979 Gustavo Álvarez Martínez gave the order to storm the building. A fire broke out and the strikers were blamed. Three workers were killed, over 100 injured and another 100 arrested.

Álvarez and the death squad

For years Álvarez worked on a network of fascists and ultra-right terrorists who were organized in the World Anti-communist League and its sister organization, the Confederación Anticomunista Latinoamericana (CAL). He coordinated the Honduran death squads . Álvarez collected the National Front for the Defense of Democracy and the Movimiento Anticomunista Hondureño (MACHO). The transition from officially state institutions such as the Departmento Nacional de Investigaciones (DNI) via state-paid Tropas Especiales para Selva y Nocturnas (TESON) to independent criminal groups was fluid.

Honduran Army investigators reported that members of the Contras were involved in killings of death squads in Honduras. At least 18 Hondurans and an unknown number of El Salvadorans and Nicaraguans were murdered by the Contras. In Honduras, from 1980 to 1983 there were members of Battalion 316, a Honduran death squad who had received interrogation training from the CIA in Texas . US Embassy officials stayed in touch with death squad in the early 1980s, visited prison camps while interrogation was taking place, and received testimony from victims of torture. Álvarez is considered a co-founder of Battalion 316, a death squad that was used as a military intelligence service.

US embassy officials worked with Battalion 316 in Honduras during the 1980s, killing political opponents. On June 15, 1995, Sonia Marlina Dubón de Flores, the then Fiscal Especial de Derechos Humanos , Public Prosecutor for Human Rights, sent a questionnaire to then US Ambassador Pryce with 19 questions about the involvement of US Embassy staff in human rights violations. It was asked about partially classified information about John Negroponte , Chris Arcos and other embassy staff who were involved in the disappearances of dissidents in the 1980s.

Argentine method

In November 1979 Roberto Eduardo Viola , who shortly thereafter became head of the Argentine military dictatorship , presented at the XIII. Conferencia de Ejércitos Americanos in Bogotá propose state terrorism as a defense doctrine. At that time, the Argentine military was waging a dirty war against sections of its own population, which killed around 30,000 people. Subsequently, Argentine torture specialists were sent to Honduras under the name Operación Charly . The 316 Battalion was trained by Argentine interrogators. From Argentina 15 to 20 officers were sent to work with Álvarez in the Contras. Among them was Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Osvaldo Riveiro alias Rawson. US personal advisers have been assigned.

In 1980 the Policarpio appointed Juan Paz García Gustavo Álvarez as the commander of the Fuerza de Seguridad Pública (FUSEP), the police force of Honduras. It is a military unit, the Dirección Nacional de Investigaciones (DNI) has the formal mandate to fight crime. Álvarez told US Ambassador Jack Robert Binns in 1981 that "extrajudicial methods may be necessary to deal with the subversives ." Álvarez praised the Argentine method , which Binns interpreted as Operation Condor . Álvarez and Negroponte looked very familiar.

Disappeared in Honduras

Álvarez is held responsible for the disappearances of more than a hundred people. Among them the disappearance of Nelson Mackay Chavarria, whose body was found in December 1994. On March 18, 1984, the chairman of the Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (STENEE) union, Rolando Vindel Gonzáles, disappeared on the orders of Gustavo Álvarez Martínez.

Commander in chief

Álvarez was from January 1982 to March 31, 1984 Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Honduras . In February 1982, at a time when the Reagan administration had pledged to increase military aid to Honduras by 50%, four secret cemeteries were found confirming rumors against left-wing people about death squads or the military. One of these death squads was the Movimiento Anticomunista Hondureño (MACHO). In January 1983, Álvarez became chairman of the Asociación para el Progreso de Honduras (APROH), a right-wing pressure group, members were conservative representatives of high-turnover companies, the elite of latifundists, the trade unions Confederación de Trabajadores de Honduras (CTH) and Asociación Nacional de Campesinos de Honduras (ANACH).

Álvarez signed an agreement to set up a Centro Regional de Entrenamiento Militar (CREM), a US government base in Puerto Castillo to train soldiers from El Salvador and Honduras with the aim of clearing up the agitation.

Colonel Álvarez, supported by members of the Unification Church , was preparing an invasion of Nicaragua, a project that was prevented by pressure from the United States. In September 1983 a Centro de Información de Emergencia (CIE) was set up and the people of Honduras were ordered to report to this organization any attitude that might be suspicious and affect security.

On March 31, 1984, attempts by Colonel Álvarez to extend his control to the headquarters of the armed forces led to his ousting in a coup. John Negroponte stated that the deposed gang embezzled $ 30 million in public funds and that it was an "open book of corruption". The APROH was dissolved and the General Diplomado de Estado Mayor Aereo (DEMA) Walter López Reyes of the Fuerza Aérea Hondureña , a CREM participant of June 1985, was appointed the new head of the armed forces.

According to the Government Accountability Office , Álvarez and López received substantial funding from the CIA. Álvarez owned a home worth half a million dollars. In 1982 the US diplomatic mission in Tegucigalpa was one of the best staffed in Latin America. Also AID and AIFLD had personal generously staffed offices. He was then deported to Costa Rica . From there he went to Miami , became an evangelical speaker and returned to Honduras in 1988.

death

He lived in Colonia Florecia, Tegucigalpa and was shot dead with six projectiles by six Hondutel workers on January 25, 1989 at 10:00 local time . Subsequently, a declaration by the Movimiento Popular de Liberación Nacional , Chinchoneros was issued.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ derechos.org, Honduras: la CIA y los militares argentinos responsables de lareprión
2. ^ ^{A b} Donald E. Schulz and Deborah Sundloff Schulz, The United States, Honduras, and the Crisis in Central America, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994, after Lesley Gill, The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas , Duke University Press, 2004, 281 pp. 86
3. ↑ derechos Notorious Honduran School of the Americas Graduates
4. ↑ James D Cockcroft, América Latina y Estados Unidos: Historia y política país por país , Siglo XXI, Guatemala City, 2001, 875 SS 229
5. ↑ J. Guadalupe Carney , Eric, Marcela Carías, Sólo díganme Lupe: autobiografía del Padre Guadalupe Carney, sacerdote de los pobres , Editorial Guaymuras, 2004, 563 p., P. 492
6. ^ Humanist 1994 Forgetting the general - former Honduran leader Gustavo Alvarez Martinez - Ex Umbris
7. ↑ George Washington University EN BUSQUEDA DE LA VERDAD, QUE SE NOS OCULTA, Un informe preliminar del Comisionado Nacional, de los Derechos Humanos sobre el, Proceso de Desclasificación
8. ↑ Clarín, March 24, 2006, Entre 1978 Y 1984, Videla, Viola y Galtieri exportaron sus técnicas de exterminio. Ahora, se revelan documentos de esa cruzada anticomunista que incluyó tráfico de armas y drogas.
9. ^ The Washington Post , March 21, 2005, Negroponte's Time In Honduras at Issue
10. ^ The Washington Post , June 21, 2004, Ambassador With Big Portfolio
11. ↑ honduraslaboral.org Rolando Vindel Gonzáles
12. ↑ Cockcroft 2001, p.233