Tiburcio Carías Andino (5 March 1876 – 23 December 1969) was a Honduran politician and military officer with the rank of major general. He served as the 38th president of Honduras, briefly in 1924 as constitutional president and later in the form of a dictatorial regime from 1933 until 1949. He was elected president of Honduras in the midst of the Great Depression. He strengthened the Armed Forces, maintained the support of the banana companies by opposing strikes, strongly aligned its government with that of the United States, and kept the country in strict adherence to debt payments.
Biography
Early life
Tiburcio Carias Andino was born in the Republic of Honduras on 15 March 1876. His parents were Calixto Carias Galindo and Sara Francisca Andino Rivera. During his childhood Tiburcio Carias Andino is appointed Director of the Boys' School, and professor at the "El Porvenir" institute, where he taught Mathematics classes. After graduating from high school he studied criminal law in the faculty of jurisprudence and political science at the Central University of Honduras. During 15 February 1905. Tiburcio Carias Andino, was part of the Hospital de Occidente Project until the completion of its building. Among the personalities that volunteered to work in the realization of this Hospital Center were: Ramón López Cobos, Ciro Mora, Francisco Bueso Cuéllar, Doctor Filadelfo Bueso, Doctor JJ Jones, Doctor Ramón López Cobos, Doctor Jesús H. Medina, Jerónimo J. Reina, Doctor Vicente Mejía Colindres, Carlos Gauggel, a German citizen, Engineer Manuel Bueso Pineda, Monsignor Emilio Morales Roque, Doctor Julio C. Bueso Cáceres. The Hospital succeeded thanks to activities and economic contributions from both the public and private donors until in 1940 there was a study by the Executive Branch to take charge of health care.
Military career
In 1907, Carias fought alongside the liberal forces and in the "Battle of Lizapa" he was promoted to General. Miguel R. Dávila Cuéllar assumed the presidency of the republic and appointed Carias, as Governor of the Copán Department, in 1907–1908.
On 5 April 1908, the Society of Craftsmen "El Porvenir" was founded by Carias, who served as its president. The co-founders included Ramón Hernández, Salvador Lara, Benjamín Escobar, Juan Castrillo, Antonio Selva, Abraham Mejía, Coronado Ramírez, José Francisco Urquía Tabora, Francisco Barnica, Andrés Ramírez, Manuel Cartagena, Jeremías Cobos, Pedro Martínez, Atilio Sánchez, Albino Santos, Jesús Erazo, Vicente Vega, Vicente Maldonado, Luciano Casaca, Porfirio Santos, Gregorio Bautista, Ramón Tabora, Maximiliano B. Rosales, Manuel Zepeda, Leopoldo F. Orellana, Manuel Chávez, Federico Castro, Francisco González. On 26 May 1912, the said organization was renamed the Copaneca Workers' Society. In 1912 General Manuel Bonilla Chirinos, assumed the presidency of Honduras for the second time, although with identical ideologies they were adversaries with Carias. in 1914, the candidate of the National Party of Honduras was Francisco Bertrand Barahona and the national writer: Alberto de Jesús Membreño, a position he assumed as provisional between 1915 and 1916, upon the retirement of President Barahona.
Carias would become famous as a military leader during the Honduran civil wars of 1919 and 1924. During this time he would be promoted to the rank of general. During the "vindicating revolution" in 1924 he would lead several military offensives. After the Second Civil War had the presidency of Honduras for a very short time, however General Carias Andino would be appointed as "Chief of the revolution" would assume for the second time the brief power between 24 March to 28 April 1924.
Paralero to this Fausto Dávila former minister of the López Gutiérrez government, he would continue with the administration for a week. Later, on the cruise ship "USS Denver" negotiations began between the revolutionaries and the government, after which General Vicente Tosta Carrasco was appointed Provisional President, under whose regime General Gregorio Ferrera took up arms. Once the civil wars were over, he already had a great military experience on the battlefield, this led to an important position in the government of Honduras, he would run for president of Honduras for the rest of the decade without any victory, although that would not stop him from trying to reach power.
Becoming president
Carías became a general during the Second Civil War in 1924. In the 1923 elections, Carías was a candidate for the National Party against the divided Liberals, but only won a plurality of the vote. The resulting deadlock was followed by disturbances, and elections the following year saw Miguel Paz Barahona of the National Party elected, although Carías was able to exercise a degree of influence during Barahona's presidency. In 1928, Carías was the National Party's candidate but lost to Vicente Mejía Colindres of the Liberal Party. He accepted the result, as the election had been comparatively free and fair, marking a then-rare peaceful transfer of power between the two major parties. He was the President of National Congress of Honduras from 1926 to 1929, and from 1930 to 1931.
On 1 February 1933 he became President of Honduras again, this time for 16 years. Despite growing unrest and severe economic strains, the 1932 Honduran presidential elections were relatively peaceful and fair. The peaceful transition of power was surprising because the onset of the Great Depression had led to the overthrow of governments elsewhere throughout Latin America, in nations with much stronger democratic traditions than those of Honduras. Carias was not shy about sending letters to the dictator Adolf Hitler after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Reich and the Republic of Honduras were normalized in 1936. In the same way he did to the Japanese emperor Hirohito in 1937. Similar to fascist movements in the European context, Carias sought to create a national identity based on a mythical and idealized past, in this case extolling the Honduran mestizo identity as heir people of the Mayan civilization. As a result, during his government the excavations of the cities of Copán and El Puente began.
1940s
Despite the fact that the general maintained diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and the Empire of Japan, he had to declare war on the Axis after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Thus, Honduras was known as one of the Latin American countries allied to the United States of America. In 1941 after the Japanese attack on the US bases stationed in Pearl Harbor, the northern country declared war on the "German-Italian-Japanese Axis", as would its Honduran friend, who also contributed soldiers and marines to the ranks, also the Honduran Air Force patrolled the coasts of the Caribbean Sea near Mexico in search of German submarines; Apart from this, the Doctor and General Carías Andino "did not tremble" to expel the German consul Christian Zinsser from Honduras, considering him "the fifth column in Central America and with ties to the Gestapo."
The value of the ties between the Carías government and nearby dictatorial regimes became somewhat questionable in 1944 when popular revolts in Guatemala and El Salvador deposed Ubico and Hernández.
Another aspect was the torture at the hands of the military in the different prisons to prisoners, most of whom were political opponents, who became saturated with prisoners at one point during his mandate. Many of the workers in the plantations and mines lived in subhuman conditions with little electricity, water or enough food and their work was a condition of near slavery and more than plantation centers and miners they were more similar to concentration camps or forced labor. as some prisoners were also sent to these areas to work as an alternative option instead of staying in penal centers. Also, much of the country's infrastructure was built with the labor of prisoners, mostly political and civil opponents.
Legacy
Evaluating the Carías presidency is a difficult task.