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General Who Helped Set Up Contras Is Slain

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From Associated Press

The former armed forces chief who helped organize the Nicaraguan rebel movement in Honduras was assassinated Wednesday by six men who riddled his car with gunfire, officials said.

Former Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez died of gunshot wounds near his home in the capital’s Florencia district, said Salvador Lobo, director of emergencies at the State Hospital School.

Radio America, a local station, said anonymous callers claimed responsibility on behalf of the Popular Liberation Forces, a leftist group, but police said they had no evidence to confirm the claim.

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It was the third assassination in Honduras in the last three weeks. The previous killings involved a Nicaraguan rebel commander and a reputed drug lord’s lawyer.

As head of the national police in 1981, Alvarez became the “godfather” of the Contras by telling CIA Director William J. Casey that anti-Sandinista forces could operate from Honduran territory.

In subsequent years, until his ouster by fellow officers annoyed at his high-handedness, the passionate anti-Communist continued to develop and promote the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan guerrillas, who became known as Contras.

Witnesses said six gunmen waited for Alvarez outside his home and poured machine-gun fire into his car. The driver also was killed and Alvarez’s son-in-law was wounded, police said.

Alvarez, 56, was chief of the armed forces from 1982 to 1984 under the government of President Roberto Suazo Cordova. Trained in the United States and Argentina, he was once considered the most powerful figure in Honduras.

Alvarez often denounced Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government. He presided over the beginning of U.S.-Honduran military exercises in Honduras designed to intimidate the Sandinistas.

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