Editing Gustavo Álvarez Martínez

{{Villain Infobox|Image=Gustavo Adolfo Alvarez Martinez.jpg|occupation=battalion leader 316|crimes=[[murder]]<br>[[kidnapping]]<br>[[torture]]<br> [[xenophobia]]<br>[[terrorism]]|origin=Tegucigalpa, Honduras|type of villain=military|skills=leadership<br>military skills}}

  '''Gustavo Adolfo Álvarez Martínez''', Tegucigalpa was a Honduran military and political,when he is credited with creating the [[Battalion 316]]

== '''personal information''' ==
The son of Honduran parents, he was born in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, where he would complete his primary and secondary studies. He then entered the Military Academy from which he returned as a non-commissioned officer in the Honduran Army. Later he would move to Argentina, where he would carry out military studies at its Colegio Militar de la Nación, graduating in 1961.
===Warlord ===
In January 1981, the then Colonel Gustavo Álvarez Martínez, who was Chief of Police or Public Security Force (FUSEP) was promoted to Brigadier General. In January 1982, with the beginning of the democratic era, and after having won the Honduran general elections of 1981 the candidate of the Honduran Liberal Party, Dr. Roberto Suazo Córdova; Álvarez Martínez assumes the position of commander of the Armed Forces, given the perception of a revolutionary threat from the left. His appointment represented for some observers the continuity of military power in the political life of the country. Álvarez Martínez had a high professional reputation both in Honduras and in the United States, allied countries in the fight against communism in Central America. He came to form a close alliance with President Suazo Córdova, motivated by his desire to eliminate possible rivals within the Liberal Party. Álvarez Martínez was a fervent anti-communist who had been intensely committed to the overthrow of the sandinista government in Nicaragua, participating directly in assisting and training the Nicaraguan Resistance [[Contras|Contra]]. He also promised to eliminate the small Marxist guerrilla organizations that had formed in Honduras.During his tenure at the head of the Armed Forces, on March 31, 1982, negotiations began with the United States to acquire the rights to the military base in Honduras. In April, Álvarez Martínez was promoted to brigadier general. In May he is given US access to the Palmerola, Golosón and La Mesa air bases. In September 1983 Álvarez signs a secret agreement in Washington to establish the Regional Military Training Center (CREM) in Puerto Castilla. 
===Battalion 3-16===
Álvarez Martínez is credited with creating the 3-16 Battalion, a branch of the army accused of serving as a [[death squad]], in order to combat the spread of communism in Central America and anti-government rebel forces. , including the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front) of Nicaragua and the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) in El Salvador and Guatemala, who helped in one way or another the minority Honduran guerrillas, including the López Zelaya Popular Revolutionary Front and the Francisco Morazán Revolutionary Movement, mostly made up of peasants and students.

When the recruitment of Battalion 3-16 began, 25 Honduran recruits were chosen, who received covert intelligence training in an unidentified location in the southwestern United States of America. There they received instruction in interrogation techniques and supervision, given by American instructors. These men returned to Honduras to work in the 3-16 Battalion, and continued their training with the advice of Argentine and North American instructors. [[Battalion 316|Battalion 3-16]] used a ''modus operandi'' that resembled the tactics of the death squads in Argentina. The Honduran officers who participated in Battalion 3-16 not only received extensive US military training, they were also hard-line officers who shared the US geopolitical vision. Honduran country was integrated into a hemispheric military apparatus controlled by the United States.
===National Security Doctrine===
In addition to this counter-intelligence squad, Álvarez negotiated military aid through the DSNwith the then ambassador of the United States of America [[John Dimitri Negroponte]], organizing himself for it, the joint exercises between the US and Honduran military, which began in Puerto Lempira with an influx of 4,000 local soldiers and hundreds of Americans. These exercises cost between 10 and 30 million US dollars. By 1984 [Washington D.C.|Washington]] economic aid to the military was $4 million in the fiscal year of the 1980s and about $77.5 million in total. Military aid skyrocketed from $3.9 million in 1980 to $77.5 million in 1984, falling to $41.1 million in 1989, $2.7 million in 1993, and just $425,000 in 1997. . To which the United States Department of Defense announced that it would send around 33,000 more elements, at most some 4 airfields, some 450 square miles of military fields, and a special base that served as the operations center for both the "US ARMY" command and the CIA, known as Palmerola, in Comayagua. The downside of all this was that some 12,000 Honduran peasant farmers had been left without land to farm. Apart from that, it was the creation of the "fearsome" military base of El Aguacate, center of operations and torture of US, Nicaraguan and local secret agents, near the border with Nicaragua and used as a training base by the "cons". At the end of the government of Dr. Suazo Córdova, in January 1986, a strong offensive by Nicaraguan guerrillas (5,600 combatants) entered Honduran territory, taking around twenty towns in an area of more or less 279 square kilometers. within the departments of El Paraíso and Olancho. The consequences of the armed confrontations between "contras" and "guerrillas" were devastating for Honduran society as a whole, which lived in fear. Curfews were decreed; citizens could not meet at night, there were secret police and military patrols in the main cities, a civilian could not grow a beard and hair, recruitment for those over 18 years of age was mandatory and minors who fell in raids, they were transferred to the nearby battalions.
===Defenestration===
On March 31, 1984, General Álvarez Martínez was separated from the command of the Honduran Armed Forces by a military coup, arrested and sent to San Pedro Sula, and then to San José, Costa Rica. Shortly after, several colonels from the circle closest to Álvarez were also arrested. General Walter López Reyes, an aviation colonel of the Honduran Air Force, and nephew of former president Oswaldo López Arellano, was appointed in his place.  Under General Walter López Reyes, the brute force employed was replaced by more sophisticated methods, resulting in growing national political opposition.

Former General Álvarez Martínez left with his family for Miami, United States, where he was received by US authorities, who provided him with the required lodging. He lived there for four years, until April 9, 1988, on the one hand, because of a proposal from Washington to return as an investigative advisor to law enforcement agencies, since in Central America, especially in Honduras, The issue of drug trafficking was beginning to intensify and given the great influence that Álvarez had in Central America, it was of vital importance for the United States to have an ally that would help them cut those networks. In addition, things were at peace with the other Central American states and having made democratic changes, the former General made reports on his efforts as commander of the Honduran Armed Forces during those four years of his stay. He had totally changed his life, since he had entered the Church of the Nazarene, which was dissatisfied with his previous life. He said that he would feel better in his country, which he loved, and in Washington his quality of life was no better.
==Murder==
Gustavo Álvarez Martínez arrived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras on April 9, 1988 under intense and strict security measures. The next day he gave his first statement to a journalist from the agency ACAN-EFE, stating that he did not fear for his life because he was a Christian, and that if someone accused him of something, he would prove it in court and not talk "nonsense" in the street: "Just as God took me out of Honduras, because it was by his will that I lost my job and my career, by his own will I return to the country," he affirmed.

On the morning of January 25, 1989, Álvarez Martínez left his residence in the Florencia Norte neighborhood to go to his brother's house so that he could accompany him to buy a Bible. He was in a car, accompanied by his driver and the Costa Rican Adolfo Abreu. They stopped for a moment at Suyapa Boulevard, a moment that was taken advantage of by a group of people who looked like technicians in the repair service of the state electric power company, armed with  submachine guns, who opened fire on the vehicle. Eyewitnesses say that there were five or six men traveling in a green van with Uzi machine guns. The ex-military received several projectiles, dying on the way to the hospital, while his driver died instantly.

Later, the "Cinchoneros" Popular National Liberation Movement issued a statement attributing the action to its "Lempira" command, in an act of vindication "to the Honduran and Central American martyrs who fell in the struggle for the complete liberation" of Honduras
[[Category:Honduras]]
[[Category:Latin American Villains]]
[[Category:Genocidal]]
[[Category:Destroyer of Innocence]]
[[Category:Deceased]]
[[Category:Male]]