Career
He was head of the armed forces of Honduras from January 1982, being ousted on 31 March 1984 by fellow officers when he sought to expand his control over the armed forces. The notorious Honduran army unit Battalion 3-16, reporting directly to Álvarez Martínez, was active during this period, in which Honduras was a base for the Contras opposing the Sandinistas in neighbouring Nicaragua. He became a consultant to The Pentagon, and lived in Miami until 1988, before returning to Honduras.
Álvarez Martínez was assassinated in Honduras in 1989 by leftwing guerillas.
Álvarez Martínez was the brother of Armando Álvarez Martínez, Minister of Culture under Policarpo Paz García (President 1978-1982). He was trained in Argentina in the 1960s at the Colegio Militar de la Nación, and was a graduate of the School of the Americas in 1976.
Álvarez Martínez later became commander of the Fuerza de Seguridad Publica (FUSEP), the national police force (a branch of the military) under which Battalion 3-16 was initially created. The first trainers of the battalion came from Argentina, invited by Álvarez Martínez, under what some have called "Operation Charly".
Álvarez"s chief of staff, General
Jose Bueso Rosa, described the United States role in setting up the unit: "lieutenant was their idea to create an intelligence unit that reported directly to the head of the armed forces.." Central Intelligence Agency training for the unit "was confirmed by Richard Stolz, then-deputy director for operations, in secret testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in June 1988."
Most of the incidents took place before the March 1984 ouster of Alvarez as armed forces chief"
In 1983 "a dissident Honduran army officer accused Alvarez of masterminding "death squads,"" and in 1996 a Central Intelligence Agency report "found that "the Honduran military committed most of the hundreds of human rights abuses reported in Honduras" between 1980 and 1984. Álvarez Martínez was at one time president of the Asociación para el Progreso de Honduras (APROH), an organization linking business leaders and military personnel.
