The Football Warrior Returns

When it comes to staging military coups, Honduras' swarthy Army Commander General Oswaldo Lopez Arellano, 53, has had plenty of on-the-job training. In 1963 he overthrew the liberal government of Dr. Ramon Villeda Morales in order to end what the general described as "flagrant violations of the constitution." Lopez's eight-year rule was notable mostly for the four-day "football war" with its neighbor El Salvador in 1969, a skirmish that started after Honduras claimed that its honor had been insulted during a soccer game between the two countries' national teams.

Lopez stepped aside last year in favor of a hand-picked successor, Lawyer Ramon Ernesto Cruz, 69, who became the country's first popularly elected President in 40 years. Cruz proved to be an ineffectual leader. He allowed the shaky ruling coalition to fall apart, and he was unable to ressuscitate the faltering economy--partly because he failed to restore trade relations with El Salvador or to take an active role in the Central American Common Market.

Last week, Lopez, who had stayed on as army chief after giving up the presidency, effortlessly restored himself to power. Nobody was hurt in the takeover; Cruz was simply sent home, where he announced that he had known the coup was coming all along. As Honduras' new President for "not less than five years," Lopez must contend this week with a threatened peasants' hunger march on the capital of Tegucigalpa. After that, he is expected to seek a conciliatory meeting with El Salvador's President Arturo Armando Molina.

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