Oswaldo López Arellano

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.

López served briefly during 1957 on a military junta, which resigned after elections were held. After a violent coup, he served as president for the first time from 3 October 1963 until 7 June 1971. He then allowed further elections (1971 Honduran general election) 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.

During his second tenure as president, López oversaw a major land reform bill that sought to defuse 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.

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 16 May 2010 at the age of 88 while undergoing surgery for prostate cancer.[3]

• 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

• Union of Banana Exporting Countries