ABSTRACT
On Friday, 30 March 1984 Gustavo Alvarez accompanied by Oswaldo Ramos Soto, his close adviser and the rector of the National University, boarded a plane for San Pedro Sula to attend a meeting of the ultraconservative Association for the Progress of Honduras. Alvarez's flirtation with Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church had caused no small discomfort to both his Catholic business allies and some high-ranking officers. During 1983, the Honduran press had repeatedly drawn attention to Alvarez's connections with Moon and Bo Hi Pak. Government intervention in the internal affairs of opposition parties and interest groups was, of course, a long-standing tradition, firmly rooted in the Honduran political culture. Bueso Rosa was in a position to have named Honduran military officers and contras involved in the narcotics business. Zuniga had made his views known both in military circles and in public, in the process making powerful enemies. Honduran nationalism had collided head-on with the constraints of dependency.
