Oswaldo López Arellano

Oswaldo López
Sketch of Oswaldo López Arellano
President of Honduras
In office 3 October 1963 – 7 June 1971
Preceded by	Ramón Villeda
Succeeded by	Ramón Ernesto Cruz
President of Honduras (Head of State of Honduras)
In office 4 December 1972 – 22 April 1975
Preceded by	Ramón Ernesto Cruz
Succeeded by	Juan Alberto Melgar
Personal details
Born	Oswaldo Enrique López Arellano (1921-06-30)30 June 1921 Danlí, El Paraíso
Died	16 May 2010(2010-05-16) (aged 88) Tegucigalpa
Political party	National Party
Occupation	General, Statesman

Oswaldo Enrique López Arellano (30 June 1921 – 16 May 2010) was a two-time President of Honduras, first from 1963 to 1971 and again from 1972.

He was born in Danlí in the department of El Paraíso to an influential family, son of Enrique López and Carlota Arellano. He joined the Army at eighteen, graduated as a pilot from the Honduran Air Force School, and spent 1942-1945 in the U.S. state of Arizona studying mechanical aviation. López served as a colonel for a long time and eventually rose to the rank of general. He married Gloria Figueroa and they had five children: Gloria Carolina, Oswaldo, Enrique, Leonel, and José Luis.

Military Career

López served briefly on a military junta during 1957, which resigned after elections were held. He served as president for the first time from 3 October 1963 until 7 June 1971. He then allowed further elections (Honduran general election, 1971) to take place in April 1971 that saw Ramón Ernesto Cruz come to power. On 4 December 1972, López again seized power, in the 1972 Honduran coup d'état.

Land Reform Policies

López oversaw a major land reform bill that sought to diffuse tensions among peasants over their forced removal from uncultivated lands owned by landed elites or by US fruit companies. This plan was called the National Development Plan and went through two stages, the first in 1965 and the most significant ones between 1972 and 1975.^[1] The Agrarian Reform Law of 1972, a Minimum Wage Act in 1973, and a Land Reform Act in 1975 came in response to the peasant union pressure, such as the CTH, Confederación de Trabajadores Hondureños and the ANACH Associación Nacional de Campesinos Hondureños.^[2] The most important unions clamoring for reform, however, were the United Fruit and Standard Fruit unions SITRATERCO and SUSTRAFSCO, respectively, that included industrial workers as well.

Bananagate Scandal and Forced Resignation

In 1975, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission exposed a scheme by United Brands Company to bribe President López with US$1.25 million, with the promise of another $1.25 million upon the reduction of certain banana export taxes. Trading in United Brands stock was halted, and on 22 April 1975 López was ousted in a military coup led by his fellow General Juan Alberto Melgar, in the 1975 Honduran coup d'état. This scandal is known in Honduras as "Bananagate."

López was a businessman. He owned several businesses in Central America. His eldest son, Oswaldo, died in 2003. He was the owner of TAN-SAHSA, the now defunct Honduran air carrier.

Lopez died on May 16 2010 at the age of 89 while undergoing surgery for prostate cancer.^[3]

Cultural references

• The Cold War fact based autobiographical journal, Beyond Enkription by Bill Fairclough, makes extensive references to an alleged CIA sponsored investigation into Lopez's involvement in siphoning funds from the relief efforts following Hurricane Fifi which devastated Honduras in September 1974. Beyond Enkription was the first book to be published in 2014 in The Burlington Files series of six autobiographical journals.

References

• Pauly, David and Thomas, Rich (1975) "The Great Banana Bribe" Newsweek 21 April 1975, p. 76;
• Obituary (in Spanish)
• Acker, Alison. Honduras: The Making of a Banana Republic. 1988.
• Morris, James. Honduras: Caudillo Politics and Military Rulers. 1984.

Notes

1. ↑ del Cid and Posas, Rafael, Mario (1980). ""Honduras: los limites del reformismo castrense, 1972-1979". Revista Mexicana de Sociología. 42: 607–648. 
2. ↑ Acker, Alison (1988). Honduras: The Making of a Banana Republic. South End Press. pp. 84–86. 
3. ↑ "Oswaldo López Arellano fallece a los 89 años". www.laprensa.hen. 17 May 2010. Retrieved April 5, 2017. 

See also

• Union of Banana Exporting Countries