Military Influence - and The Football War
In October 1963 a second coup installed Colonel Oswaldo Lopez Arellano as provisional president. Though elected constitutionally in 1965, Lopez remained a ranking officer - eventually rising to Brigadier General - forging an unhealthily close alliance between the military and the National Party, in effect his personal political vehicle. During twelve years in power he decimated the Liberal opposition and reversed most of his predecessor's social reforms. Free-market economic policies led to an increase in unemployment and landlessness, while the profits which were creamed off government development projects fuelled unprecedented corruption. In an attempt to counter growing unrest over land, Lopez introduced limited agrarian reform in 1967, in the shape of rural co-operatives, though these were far more acceptable to the fruit companies than the trade unions. Above all, however, his first period of office is remembered for one of the more bizarre conflicts in modern Central American history, the so-called " Football War ". On July 14, 1969, war broke out on the Honduras-El Salvador border. Ostensibly caused by a disputed result in a soccer match between the two countries, the conflict stemmed from tensions generated by a steady rise in illegal migration of compassions from El Salvador into Honduras in search of land. In April 1969 the Honduran government gave settlers thirty days to return to El Salvador and began forced expulsions; sporadic violence broke out, with cynical manipulation of the situation in the press by right-wingers on both sides of the border. In June, the two countries began a series of qualifying matches for the 1970 World Cup, the first of which, held in Tegucigalpa, was won 1-0 by Honduras. At the second game, won 3-0 by El Salvador, spectators at the San Salvador ground booed the Honduran national anthem and attacked visiting Honduran fans. The third and deciding match was pre-empted by the El Salvadorean army bombing targets within Honduras and advancing up to 40km into Honduran territory. After three days, around two thousand deaths and a complete rupture of diplomatic relations, the Organization of American States (OAS) negotiated a ceasefire, establishing a three-kilometre-wide demilitarized zone along the border. Tensions and minor skirmishes continued, however, until 1980, when a US-brokered peace treaty was signed. Only in 1992 did both sides accept an International Court of Justice ruling demarcating the border in its current location. An experiment in democratic government, under Ramon Cruz in 1971-72, was marked by economic chaos and civil unrest, and ended abruptly with a second coup restoring Lopez to power in December 1972. A new programme of industrialization, with the government responsible for investment and accumulation of capital, was - given the by now endemic corruption at senior levels of government, in the military and in business - a recipe for disaster. Millions of dollars of national and international loans and aid money were siphoned off to private bank accounts, and while limited agricultural reform succeeded to a degree in redistributing under- utilized land, it was not enough to contain rural unrest. The "Bananagate" scandal, the payment of US$1.25m to government officials by United Brands (previously United Fruit) in return for reducing the taxes on fruit exports, eventually forced Lopez to leave office in April 1975. Under his successors, Colonel Juan Melgar Castro (1975-78) and General Policarpo Paz Garcia (1978-81), agrarian reform slowed to a trickle, repression of civil rights and freedom of speech increased, and corruption among military and government personnel grew to almost laughable levels. In a society sharply divided between rich and poor, almost seventy percent of rural households were unable to meet essential consumption costs, while five percent of the population controlled over half the land.
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