ABSTRACT
In the early 1980s the central bank conducted a revealing study on the development of the nation's economy. Foreign interests proved unwilling to invest in an area torn by civil strife and economic crisis. Honduras increasingly came to rely on US aid—especially economic support funds—to finance its balance of payments deficits. Honduran society is art alphabet soup of acronyms, and the labor movement is no exception. If demoralization, passivity, and fatalism were major components in the Honduran social equation in the 1980s, one should not make the mistake of assuming that all Hondurans were submissive. The hallmarks of social decay were everywhere. As with so many other Honduran social and political movements, bureaucratized anarchy had ravaged the revolutionary left. Between 1978 and 1981 Matta, with the help of Torres Arias, penetrated the Honduran armed forces. Subsequently, military involvement grew rapidly as the Medellin cartel channeled massive amounts of narcotics northward to the United States.
