Arbenz

===

plantation crop plunder bk:
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Life of banana laborers -- Worker unrest and revolt 1910 gute uprising by 600 jamaicans...UFC broke strike Panama ...
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> -- Great White Fleet -<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- War between Cuyamel and United Fruit -- Don't underestimate Sam -- Banana marketing routes -- The banana republic 
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">46 Banana<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">copious applications of pesticides, sickening and sterilizing field workers<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and causing cancer and birth defects in children of the women in the<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">packing sheds. The more complex intercropping systems of the Caribbean<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">required far less pesticide application and in many cases the growers could<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not afford them at all. As a result, many fields in the Caribbean were pesticide<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">free and aerial spraying was simply not used. Because the acreages were<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">so much smaller, there was considerably less deforestation in the Caribbean,<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">resulting in far less soil erosion and siltation. The farmers in the Caribbean<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">had to work long, brutally hard hours, but unlike the farm workers in Latin<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">America, the profits gained from their labor were their own.
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The banana republic
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By the turn of the twentieth century, Guatemala was essentially owned by<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">United Fruit <span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Schlesinger and Kinzer 1990; Chapman 2007; Koeppel 2009).<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At least half of the Guatemalan economy was bananas and United Fruit had<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">75% of that business. At its peak, United Fruit owned four million acres<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of the country, which was 70% of the arable land. Most of that land was<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">uncultivated forest, being held in reserve for future expansion as United<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fruit fled from land infested with Panama disease.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over a span of forty-five years, a series of Guatemalan dictators were more<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">than happy to allow United Fruit full run of the country in return for financial<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">backing,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a stable economy and infrastructure development. The first of these<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">despots was Manuel Estrada Cabrera who began his rule in 1898, allowing no<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">freedom of the press and keeping power by murdering anyone who opposed<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">him. When he was finally deposed in 1920, a revolving door of five dictators<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">followed over the next decade, all ruthless and all married to United Fruit.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">General Jorge Ubico took power in 1931<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and held it for over a decade.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like all his predecessors, he ruled with an iron fist, being particularly harsh<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">on the native Mayan peoples of Guatemala. He required them to work for<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">landowners at least 100 days a year. He maintained a secret police force<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and declared that any Indian workers who didn’t follow orders on a farm<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">could be summarily executed. Ubico was obsessed with communism and<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">outlawed the use of the words – “trade union,” “strike,” “petition” and<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">even “worker.” He also was a great friend of United Fruit, allowing them to<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">undervalue their vast landholdings and pay no taxes.
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By 1944, the people of Guatemala had had enough of Ubico’s repressive<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">regime and began protesting in the streets<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Ubico tried to halt the strikes by<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">having his soldiers fire indiscriminately into the crowds, but the protests<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">continued and grew until the outrage reached such a crescendo that Ubico<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was forced to resign.<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> He tried to hold on to power by putting his loyal crony<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">General Juan Federico Ponce in charge. This move failed when two junior<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">officers,<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Captain Jacobo Arbenz<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and Major Francisco Arana, orchestrated<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a military takeover and all the top generals were killed. Arbenz and Arana<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Banana 47
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">called for<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> free elections, and in 1945 a university professor named Juan José<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arévalo took charge of the country.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then came what Guatemalans called “Los Diez Años de la Primavera”<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(“Ten Years of Springtime”). During his term in office, Arévalo allowed<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">political parties, gave the press its freedom, started social welfare programs<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and even allowed workers outside of the banana plantations to form<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">unions. He left the sweetheart deals with United Fruit intact, preferring<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to hold the giant at bay. Arévalo miraculously survived numerous assassination<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">attempts and coups and finished his term of office in 1950. He<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was succeeded by Jacobo Arbenz, one of the men responsible for Ubico’s<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overthrow.
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arbenz became the hated enemy of United Fruit.<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> He was appalled by how<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">much of Guatemala was owned by the company and became a staunch supporter<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of land reform.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> He originally came from the Indian highlands where<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">he had learned firsthand about the dismal living conditions of the native<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mayans. He wanted to make Guatemala much more independent economically,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and in his inaugural address he railed against private ownership of<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">farms. His old partner Francisco Arana, now the military leader of Guatemala,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">did not share his zeal for reform and was mysteriously murdered.
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The giant growls
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Soon after Arbenz took office, officials of United Fruit visited him to demand<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that their special relationships with Guatemala remain unchanged (Schlesinger<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and Kinzer 1990; Chapman 2007; Koeppel 2009). Arbenz was not<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">receptive and suggested instead that export duties would be imposed and<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that all new land acquisitions would be priced according to real value. <span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">United Fruit officials left in a huff, appalled that they would be required to<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">share a piece of their massive profits.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zemurray and United Fruit decided that they had no alternative but to<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">get Arbenz removed from office, using whatever dirty tricks <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">were necessary<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to achieve that goal. They began by hiring the famous public relations giant<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Edward Bernays, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">whose assignment was to persuade America that Arbenz<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was a communist and an enemy of the United States. He took journalists<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(on United Fruit’s ticket) to Guatemala on “fact-finding missions,” which<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">resulted in dozens of anti-Arbenz exposés being published in leading newspapers<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and magazines. United Fruit produced a slick documentary called<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Journey to Banana Land,” which showed scenes of happy workers and<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">described all the wonderful things United Fruit had done for Guatemala.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The movie became a <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">staple of US classrooms.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arbenz held his ground and in 1952 made his “Decree 900.” In it, the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">government would take over all unplanted, private farms that were larger<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">than 223 acres and redistribute the land to peasants. The original landowners<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">were to be compensated for the stated value of their land. This action
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">..<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">48 Banana<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">resulted in over a quarter of a million acres being transferred to 100,000<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Families.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Decree 900 hit United Fruit particularly hard, as they were holding most<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of those unplanted acres. Adding salt to the wound, they were given only<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$600,000 in compensation – the value reported on their own tax returns!
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They howled in protest, and even got the US State Department to demand<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">payment of $15 million, but the Arbenz government turned a deaf ear.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Enraged Zemurray decided that they had no alternative but to start<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">another publicity campaign, this one being directed to US government officials.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arbenz would be sold as a communist, in a country now embroiled<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in the throngs of anti-communist McCarthyism. They hired the newspaperman<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">John Clements to produce a “report” that linked Arbenz to the Soviet<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Union and claimed he was planning to take control of the Panama Canal.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This largely fanciful “Report on Guatemala” was sent to 800 governmental<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">legislators and aides on the right.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The US government was predisposed to accept Clements’s propaganda, as<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">many of its high-ranking officials had strong ties to United Fruit. The Secretary<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of State, John Foster Dulles, had been a partner in the New York law<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">firm of United Fruit. His brother Allen, the head of the CIA, was a former<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">board member of United Fruit. United Fruit’s head public relations man, Ed<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whitman, was married to President Eisenhower’s personal secretary.
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ugly American takeover
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To prove his administration was tough on communism, President Eisenhower<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">decided that Arbenz had to go and ask the CIA to do the job (Schlesinger<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and Kinzer 1990; Chapman 2007; Koeppel 2009). A team was soon<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">assembled with E. Howard Hunt at its helm<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The plan was to select and<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">train a small invasion force and use psychological warfare to shatter the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">resolve of Arbenz and his military. United Fruit would pay the bills. Colonel<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Carlos Castillo Armas was chosen to led the revolutionary army. He<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">had been a part of a previous plot to overthrow Arbenz and was readily<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">available, now selling furniture in Honduras.
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> A group of 400 soldiers was<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">recruited in the United States and sent to Honduras for training by the CIA.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arbenz got wind of the plan and was convinced his forces would be<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">crushed unless he could buy sufficient weapons to arm them. He tried Denmark,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mexico, Argentina and Switzerland before finally obtaining a boatload<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of old German World War II weapons from Czechoslovakia. The CIA<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">found out about the deal and allowed the boat to dock in Guatemala, offering<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">its arrival as proof of Arbenz’s communist ties.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The “revolution” began with a blockade of the ports of Guatemala by the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">US Navy.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Arbenz appealed to the Organization of American States and the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">United Nations to no avail. US planes began to fly low and harass the capital<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and military bases, dropping propaganda leaflets all across the country.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">United Fruit beamed pro-revolution propaganda over the airwaves from<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">..
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Miami, calling it “La Voz de la Revolución” (“the voice of the revolution”).<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fake reports of Arbenz committing suicide were circulated and published<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by local papers.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The invasion itself turned out to be a dismal failure.<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> In the first confrontation<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in Zacapa<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, 122 revolutionaries were routed by thirty Guatemalan soldiers,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with only twenty-two surviving. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A rebel force of 170 was defeated by<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">dock workers <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">when they tried to take the major port of United Fruit, Puerto<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Barrios. The survivors of these battles limped back to Nicaragua.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, the airways and rumor mill told a different story to the world<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and an increasingly agitated Arbenz. Reports circulated that thousands of<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Guatemalans were joining the revolution, and thousands more were seeking<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">refuge in Nicaragua. There were fake accounts of pitched battles that the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">revolutionaries won, complete with sounds of rifles, bombs and screams.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Huge numbers of Guatemalan soldiers were said to be switching sides. To<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">keep US public engaged, the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">US ambassador fed them fake photographs of<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">widespread atrocities being conducted by Guatemalan soldiers.
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arbenz became convinced that Eisenhower would soon send American<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">soldiers and initiate an all-out invasion. There were even rumors that US<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">soldiers had already landed on shore. Depressed, obsessed and confused,<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arbenz asked his military leaders to arm the peasants in a last-ditch effort<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to save the country. Almost paralyzed with fear, they refused.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arbenz roamed the halls of his palace for seven more sleepless, drunken<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">days until he decided to resign on June 27, 1954, and get out of the country<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to save his life. Without the military’s support, he felt he could no longer go<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">on. In a final indignity, he was stripped to his underwear and searched at<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the airport before fleeing to Mexico with his family. Cameras clicked and<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the images were shared across the world. Mighty United Fruit had control<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of the country back.
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Demise of Big Mike

===

dtr suicide, he died in bathtub scalded, no one takr in, //JFK young pretty pwr couple

===

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz</a>

Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán (Spanish pronunciation: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Spanish" title="Help:IPA for Spanish">[xaˈkoβo ˈarβenz ɣuzˈman]</a>; 14 September 1913 – 27 January 1971), nicknamed also The Big Blonde (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language" title="Spanish language">Spanish</a>: El Chelón) or The Swiss (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language" title="Spanish language">Spanish</a>: El Suizo) for his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss" title="Swiss" class="mw-redirect">Swiss</a> origins, was a Guatemalan military officer and progressive politician who served as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Guatemala" title="President of Guatemala">President of Guatemala</a> from 1951 to 1954. He was previously the Minister of Defense from 1944 to 1951. He was a major figure in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemalan_Revolution" title="Guatemalan Revolution">Guatemalan Revolution</a>.

Árbenz was born in 1913 to a middle-class family, son of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_German" title="Swiss German">Swiss German</a> Jakob Arbenz Gröbli and wealthy Guatemalan Octavia Guzmán Caballeros, and graduated with high honors from a military academy in 1935. He served in the army until 1944, steadily rising through the ranks. During this period, he witnessed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States">United States</a> backed dictator <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Ubico" title="Jorge Ubico">Jorge Ubico</a> use the military to brutally suppress agrarian laborers. As an officer in the army, Árbenz himself was required to escort chain-gangs of prisoners. This process greatly radicalized him, and he began to form links to the labor movement. In 1938 he met and married his wife María Vilanova, who was also a great ideological influence on him. Another strong influence on him was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Fortuny" title="José Manuel Fortuny">José Manuel Fortuny</a>, a well-known Guatemalan communist, who was one of his main advisers during his government.

In 1944, Ubico's highly repressive policies resulted in a popular revolt against him, led by students which led to his resignation on July 1, 1944. He left general <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Ponce_Vaides" title="Federico Ponce Vaides" class="mw-redirect">Federico Ponce Vaides</a> in charge of the military junta heading an interim government. However, Ponce Vaides remained in power by force, and this led to a general revolt by several civilian groups and progressive military factions led by Árbenz on October 20, 1944. In the elections that followed, widely seen as free and fair, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Jos%C3%A9_Ar%C3%A9valo" title="Juan José Arévalo">Juan José Arévalo</a> was elected president with 85% of the vote. Árbenz was appointed Minister of Defense, and played a crucial role in putting down a military coup in 1949, a situation that resulted in the death of colonel <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Javier_Arana" title="Francisco Javier Arana">Francisco Javier Arana</a>, the other major military figure in the government. The Arévalo government began a highly popular program of social reform, aimed at ending Guatemala's feudalistic labor system, which had been in place since the government of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justo_Rufino_Barrios" title="Justo Rufino Barrios">Justo Rufino Barrios</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMart.C3.ADnez_Pel.C3.A1ez1990842-1">[1]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTELaFeber199377-79-2">[2]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEForster200181-82-3">[3]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEFriedman200382-83-4">[4]</a>

After the death of Arana, Árbenz contested the presidential elections that were held in 1950 without any major opponent, and defeated <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Yd%C3%ADgoras_Fuentes" title="Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes">Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes</a>, his nearest challenger, by a margin of over 50%. He took office on March 15, 1951, and continued the social reform policies of his predecessor. These reforms include an expanded right to vote, the ability of workers to organize, legitimizing political parties, and allowing public debate.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-5">[5]</a> The centerpiece of his policy was an agrarian reform law that granted cultivable land to poverty stricken peasants in an attempt to end the system of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage" title="Debt bondage">debt peonage</a>.

His popular policies ran afoul of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company" title="United Fruit Company">United Fruit Company</a> (UFCO), which had major investments in Guatemala thanks to the generous concessions granted to it by the governments of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Estrada_Cabrera" title="Manuel Estrada Cabrera">Manuel Estrada Cabrera</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEAr.C3.A9valo_Martinez194555-123-6">[6]</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Ubico" title="Jorge Ubico">Jorge Ubico</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEDe_los_R.C3.ADos1948-7">[7]</a> The UFCO lobbied to have him overthrown, and Árbenz was ousted in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat" title="1954 Guatemalan coup d'état">coup d'état</a> engineered by the United States <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_State" title="Department of State" class="mw-redirect">Department of State</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency" title="Central Intelligence Agency">Central Intelligence Agency</a>. It was led by the brothers <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Foster_Dulles" title="John Foster Dulles">John Foster Dulles</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Dulles" title="Allen Dulles">Allen Dulles</a>, both of whom had major interests in UFCO. Árbenz was replaced by a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_junta" title="Military junta" class="mw-redirect">military junta</a> which eventually handed power to Colonel <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castillo_Armas" title="Carlos Castillo Armas">Carlos Castillo Armas</a>. Árbenz went into a painful exile through several countries, where his family was gradually destroyed, his daughter committed suicide, and he descended more and more into alcoholism. He eventually died in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico" title="Mexico">Mexico</a> in 1971.

<h2>Contents</h2>

</div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Early_life">1 Early life</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Military_career">2 Military career</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Presidency">3 Presidency</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Historical_background">3.1 Historical background</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Government_of_Juan_Jos.C3.A9_Ar.C3.A9valo">3.2 Government of Juan José Arévalo</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-6"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Initial_meeting_with_Jos.C3.A9_Manuel_Fortuny">3.2.1 Initial meeting with José Manuel Fortuny</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-7"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Death_of_Colonel_Arana">3.2.2 Death of Colonel Arana</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-8"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Elections_1950">3.3 Elections 1950</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-9"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Inauguration_and_Policies">3.4 Inauguration and Policies</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-10"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Land_Reform">3.5 Land Reform</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-11"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Effects">3.5.1 Effects</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-12"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Construction_of_Atlantic_Highway_and_Santo_Tomas_de_Castilla_Harbor">3.6 Construction of Atlantic Highway and Santo Tomas de Castilla Harbor</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-13"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#National_Hydroelectric_Jurun_Marinal.C3.A1">3.7 National Hydroelectric Jurun Marinalá</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-14"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Catholic_Campaign_national_pilgrimage_against_communism">3.8 Catholic Campaign national pilgrimage against communism</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-15"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Arrival_of_John_Peurifoy_to_Guatemala">3.9 Arrival of John Peurifoy to Guatemala</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-17"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Later_life">5 Later life</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-18"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Humiliation_and_exile">5.1 Humiliation and exile</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-19"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Seeking_shelter">5.2 Seeking shelter</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-20"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Death_of_Arabella_Arbenz_Vilanova">5.3 Death of Arabella Arbenz Vilanova</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-21"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Death">6 Death</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-22"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Guatemalan_government_official_apology">7 Guatemalan government official apology</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-25"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Notes_and_References">10 Notes and References</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-26"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#References">10.1 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-27"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Bibliography">10.2 Bibliography</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-28"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Further_reading">11 Further reading</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-29"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Books">11.1 Books</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-30"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#Government.2FNGO_reports">11.2 Government/NGO reports</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-32"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#External_links">12 External links</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

<h2>Early life</h2>

Árbenz was born in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzaltenango" title="Quetzaltenango">Quetzaltenango</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala" title="Guatemala">Guatemala</a>, the second largest city in the country, in 1913. He was the son of a Swiss German <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacist" title="Pharmacist">pharmacist</a> who immigrated to Guatemala in 1901. His family was relatively wealthy and upper-class; his childhood has been described as "comfortable".<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses1992134-137-8">[8]</a>

His father became addicted to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphine" title="Morphine">morphine</a> and began to neglect the family business. He eventually went bankrupt, forcing the family to move to a rural estate that a wealthy friend had set aside for them "out of charity". Jacobo had originally desired to be an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist" title="Economist">economist</a> or an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer" title="Engineer">engineer</a>, but since the family now had no money, he could not afford to go to a university. He did not want to join the military, but there was a scholarship available through the Escuela Politécnica for military cadets. He applied, passed all of the entrance exams, and entered as a cadet in 1932. Two years later, his father committed suicide.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses1992134-137-8">[8]</a>

<h2>Military career</h2>

Árbenz excelled in the academy and was deemed "an exceptional student". He became "first sergeant", the highest honor bestowed upon cadets, that only 6 people received from 1924 to 1944. His abilities earned him an unusual level of respect amongst the officers at the school, including Major John Considine, the U.S. director of the school, and of other U.S. officers who served at the school. Árbenz graduated in 1935.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses1992134-137-8">[8]</a>

After graduating, he served a stint as a junior officer at Fort San José in the capital <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_City" title="Guatemala City">Guatemala City</a> and later under "an illiterate Colonel" in a small garrison in the village of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juan_Sacatep%C3%A9quez" title="San Juan Sacatepéquez">San Juan Sacatepéquez</a>. While in San José, Árbenz had to lead squads of soldiers which were escorting chain gangs of prisoners (including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_prisoners" title="Political prisoners" class="mw-redirect">political prisoners</a>) to perform <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor" title="Forced labor" class="mw-redirect">forced labor</a>. The experience traumatized Árbenz, who said he felt like a capataz (i.e. a "foreman").<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses1992134-137-8">[8]</a>

In 1937, Árbenz was asked to fill a vacant teaching position at the academy. Árbenz taught a wide range of subjects, including military matters, history, and physics. In 1943, he was promoted to captain and placed in charge of the entire corps of cadets. His position was the third highest in the academy and was considered one of the most prestigious positions a young officer could hold.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses1992134-137-8">[8]</a>

In 1938 he met his future wife María Vilanova, the daughter of a wealthy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Salvador" title="El Salvador">Salvadoran</a> landowner. They were married a few months later. Árbenz stated that his wife had a great influence on him.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses1992134-137-8">[8]</a> It was through María that Árbenz was exposed to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism" title="Marxism">Marxism</a>. María had received a copy of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto" title="The Communist Manifesto">The Communist Manifesto</a> at a women's congress and left a copy of it on Jacobo's bedside table when she left for a vacation. Jacobo was "moved" by the Manifesto, and he and María discussed it with each other. Both felt that it explained many things they had been feeling. Afterwards, Jacobo began reading more works by Marx, Lenin, and Stalin; and by the late 1940s was regularly interacting with a group of Guatemalan communists.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses1992141-9">[9]</a>

<h2>Presidency</h2>

<h3>Historical background</h3>

<div role="note" class="hatnote">See also: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Carrera" title="Rafael Carrera">Rafael Carrera</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Estrada_Cabrera" title="Manuel Estrada Cabrera">Manuel Estrada Cabrera</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Orellana" title="José María Orellana">José María Orellana</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Ubico" title="Jorge Ubico">Jorge Ubico</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Jos%C3%A9_Ar%C3%A9valo" title="Juan José Arévalo">Juan José Arévalo</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company" title="United Fruit Company">United Fruit Company</a></div>

After the 1871 revolution, the liberal government of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justo_Rufino_Barrios" title="Justo Rufino Barrios">Justo Rufino Barrios</a> escalated coffee production in Guatemala, which required vast land extensions and a lot of workers; to find the people need for the work, Barrios established a Settler Rule Book, which forced then native population to practically work for free for the landowners -liberal <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criollo_people" title="Criollo people">criollos</a>- and later German settlers.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMart.C3.ADnez_Pel.C3.A1ez1990842-1">[1]</a> Barrios also confiscated the common native land, which had been protected during the Spanish Colony and during the conservative government of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Carrera" title="Rafael Carrera">Rafael Carrera</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGonz.C3.A1lez_Davison2008426-10">[10]</a> and distributed to his liberal friends, who became important landowners.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMart.C3.ADnez_Pel.C3.A1ez1990842-1">[1]</a>

In the 1890s, the United States began to implement the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine" title="Monroe Doctrine">Monroe Doctrine</a>, pushing out European <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_colonialism" title="European colonialism">colonial powers</a> and establishing U.S. hegemony over resources and labor in Latin American nations. The dictators that ruled Guatemala during the late 19th and early 20th century were generally very accommodating to U.S. business and political interests; thus, unlike other Latin American nations such as Haiti, Nicaragua and Cuba the U.S. did not have to use overt military force to maintain dominance in Guatemala. The Guatemalan military/police worked closely with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.military" title="U.S. military" class="mw-redirect">U.S. military</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.State_Department" title="U.S. State Department" class="mw-redirect">State Department</a> to secure U.S. interests. The Guatemalan government exempted several U.S. corporations from paying taxes, especially the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company" title="United Fruit Company">United Fruit Company</a>, privatized and sold off publicly owned utilities, and gave away huge swaths of public land.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEStreeter20008-10-11">[11]</a>

<div class="thumbcaption">President Manuel Estrada Cabrera official portrait for his last presidential term. During his government, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company" title="United Fruit Company">United Fruit Company</a> became a major economic and political force in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala" title="Guatemala">Guatemala</a>.

Museo Nacional de Historia de Guatemala</div>

</div>

In 1931, the dictator General <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Ubico" title="Jorge Ubico">Jorge Ubico</a> came to power, backed by the United States, and initiated one of the most brutally <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_repression" title="Political repression">repressive</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_junta" title="Military junta" class="mw-redirect">military juntas</a> in Central American history. Just as Estrada Cabrera had done during his government, Ubico created a widespread network of spies and informants and had large numbers of political opponents tortured and put to death. A wealthy aristocrat (with an estimated income of $215,000 per year in 1930s dollars) and a staunch anti-communist, he consistently sided with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company" title="United Fruit Company">United Fruit Company</a>, Guatemalan landowners and urban elites in disputes with peasants. After the crash of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Stock_Exchange" title="New York Stock Exchange">New York Stock Exchange</a> in 1929, the peasant system established by Barrios in 1875 to jump start coffee production in the country<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMarf.C3.ADnez_Pel.C3.A1ez1990842-12">[12]</a> was not good enough anymore, and Ubico was forced to implement a system of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_slavery" title="Debt slavery" class="mw-redirect">debt slavery</a> and forced labor to make sure that there was enough labor available for the coffee plantations and that the UFCO workers were readily available.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMart.C3.ADnez_Pel.C3.A1ez1990842-1">[1]</a> Allegedly, he passed laws allowing landowners to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment" title="Capital punishment">execute</a> workers as a "disciplinary" measure.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEStreeter200011-12-13">[13]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEImmerman198334-37-14">[14]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTECullather20069-10-15">[15]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTERabe198843-16">[16]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMcCreery1994316-317-17">[17]</a> He also openly identified as a fascist; he admired <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini" title="Benito Mussolini">Mussolini</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Franco" title="Francisco Franco">Franco</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler" title="Adolf Hitler">Hitler</a>, saying at one point: "I am like Hitler. I execute first and ask questions later."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTELaFeber199377-79-2">[2]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEForster200181-82-3">[3]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEFriedman200382-83-4">[4]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEShillington200238-39-18">[18]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEKrehm199944-45-19">[19]</a> Ubico was disdainful of the indigenous population, calling them "animal-like", and stated that to become "civilized" they needed mandatory military training, comparing it to "domesticating donkeys". He gave away hundreds of thousands of hectares to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company" title="United Fruit Company">United Fruit Company</a> (UFCO), exempted them from taxes in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiquisate" title="Tiquisate">Tiquisate</a>, and allowed the U.S. military to establish bases in Guatemala.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEStreeter200011-12-13">[13]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEImmerman198334-37-14">[14]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTECullather20069-10-15">[15]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTERabe198843-16">[16]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMcCreery1994316-317-17">[17]</a> Ubico considered himself to be "another <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Bonaparte" title="Napoleon Bonaparte" class="mw-redirect">Napoleon</a>". He dressed ostentatiously and surrounded himself with statues and paintings of the emperor, regularly commenting on the similarities between their appearances. He militarized numerous political and social institutions—including the post office, schools, and symphony orchestras—and placed military officers in charge of many government posts. He frequently travelled around the country performing "inspections" in dress uniform, followed by a military escort, a mobile radio station, an official biographer, and cabinet members.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEStreeter200011-12-13">[13]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEImmerman198332-20">[20]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGrandin2000195-21">[21]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBenz199616-17-22">[22]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTELovemanDavies1997118-120-23">[23]</a>

On the other hand, Ubico was an efficient administrator:<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTESabino20079-24-24">[24]</a>

<ul>

<li>His new decrees, although unfair to the majority of the indigenous population, proved good for the Guatemalan economy during the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression" title="Great Depression">Great Depression</a> era, as they increased coffee production across the country.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTESabino20079-24-24">[24]</a></li>

<li>He cut the bureaucrats' salaries by almost half, forcing inflation to recede.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTESabino20079-24-24">[24]</a></li>

<li>One of his last administrative decisions was to pay the English Debt, which he inherited and was originally generated when president <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Reyna_Barrios" title="José María Reyna Barrios" class="mw-redirect">José María Reyna Barrios</a> tried to promote his interoceanic railway in 1897 through a major Centralamerican Fair, which failed miserably when the railway was not finished on time: at that time, the Panama Canal had not been built yet, and the interoceanic railways would have been a major investor attraction for Guatemala. After the fair failed, the Guatemalan government was left with a large debt with the British bankers and the new president, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Estrada_Cabrera" title="Manuel Estrada Cabrera">Manuel Estrada Cabrera</a> feared those bankers would use the British Navy to invade Guatemala to force it to pay the debt.</li>

<li>Kept the peace and order in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_City" title="Guatemala City">Guatemala City</a>, by effectively fighting its crime.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEDe_los_R.C3.ADos1948-7">[7]</a></li>

</ul>

After 14 years, Ubico's repressive policies and arrogant demeanor finally led to pacific disobedience by urban middle-class intellectuals, professionals, and junior army officers in 1944. On 1 July 1944 Ubico resigned from office amidst a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_strike" title="General strike">general strike</a> and nationwide protests. Initially, he had planned to hand over power to the former director of police, General Roderico Anzueto, whom he felt he could control. But his advisers noted that Anzueto's pro-Nazi sympathies had made him very unpopular, and that he would not be able to control the military. So Ubico instead chose to select a triumvirate of Major General Bueneventura Piñeda, Major General Eduardo Villagrán Ariza, and General <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Ponce_Vaides" title="Federico Ponce Vaides" class="mw-redirect">Federico Ponce Vaides</a>. The three generals promised to convene the national assembly to hold an election for a provisional president, but when the congress met on 3 July, soldiers held everyone at gunpoint and forced them to vote for General Ponce rather than the popular civilian candidate, Dr. Ramón Calderón. Ponce, who had previously retired from military service due to alcoholism, took orders from Ubico and kept many of the officials who had worked in the Ubico administration. The repressive policies of the Ubico administration were continued.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEStreeter200011-12-13">[13]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEImmerman198339-40-25">[25]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-26">[26]</a>

Opposition groups began organizing again, this time joined by many prominent political and military leaders, who deemed the Ponce regime unconstitutional. Among the military officers in the opposition were Jacobo Árbenz and Major <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Javier_Arana" title="Francisco Javier Arana">Francisco Javier Arana</a>. Ubico had fired Árbenz from his teaching post at the Escuela Politécnica, and since then Árbenz had been living in El Salvador, organizing a band of revolutionary exiles. On 19 October 1944 a small group of soldiers and students led by Árbenz and Arana attacked the National Palace in what later became known as the "October Revolution".<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-27">[27]</a> Ponce was defeated and driven into exile; and Árbenz, Arana, and a lawyer name Jorge Toriello established a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_junta" title="Military junta" class="mw-redirect">junta</a>. They declared that democratic elections would be held before the end of the year.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEStreeter200013-28">[28]</a>

The winner of the 1944 elections was a teaching major named <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Jos%C3%A9_Ar%C3%A9valo" title="Juan José Arévalo">Juan José Arévalo</a>, PhD, who had earned a scholarship in Argentina during the government of general <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1zaro_Chac%C3%B3n" title="Lázaro Chacón" class="mw-redirect">Lázaro Chacón</a> due to his superb teaching skills. Arévalo remained in South America for some years, working as a University professor in several countries. Back in Guatemala during the early years of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Ubico" title="Jorge Ubico">Jorge Ubico</a> regime, his colleagues asked him to present a project to the president to create the Faculty of Humanism at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_San_Carlos" title="University of San Carlos">National University</a>, to which Ubico was strongly opposed. Realizing the dictatorial nature of Ubico, Arévalo left Guatemala and went back to Argentina. He returned to Guatemala after the 1944 Revolution and ran under a coalition of leftist parties known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Action_Party" title="Revolutionary Action Party">Partido Acción Revolucionaria</a> ("Revolutionary Action Party", PAR), and won 85% of the vote in elections that are widely considered to have been fair and open.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEStreeter200014-29">[29]</a> Arévalo implemented social reforms, including minimum wage laws, increased educational funding, near-universal suffrage (excluding illiterate women), and labor reforms. But many of these changes only benefited the upper-middle classes and did little for the peasant agricultural laborers who made up the majority of the population. Although his reforms were relatively moderate, he was widely disliked by the United States government, the Catholic Church, large landowners, employers such as the United Fruit Company, and Guatemalan military officers, who viewed his government as inefficient, corrupt, and heavily influenced by Communists. At least 25 coup attempts took place during his presidency, mostly led by wealthy liberal military officers.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEStreeter200015-16-30">[30]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEImmerman198348-31">[31]</a>

<h3>Government of Juan José Arévalo</h3>

Árbenz served as defense minister under President Arévalo. He was the first minister of this portfolio, since it was previously called the Ministry of War.

<h4>Initial meeting with José Manuel Fortuny</h4>

In the fall of 1947, after Árbenz as defense minister objected to several workers' deportation after they had been accused of communists, the known communist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Fortuny" title="José Manuel Fortuny">José Manuel Fortuny</a> was intrigued by this action, and decided to visit him. Fortuny discovered during that visit a man different from the stereotype of the Central American Military. That first meeting was followed by others until Árbenz invited Fortuny to his house, where discussions and conversations became common and usually extended for hours. Like Arbenz, Fortuny was inspired by a fierce nationalism and a burning desire to improve the conditions of the Guatemalan people; and like Árbenz, he sought answers in Marxist theory. It was a relationship along with that of his wife, María Vilanova that would strongly influence Árbenz.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTESabino20079-24-24">[24]</a>

<h4>Death of Colonel Arana</h4>

In 1947 Dr. Arévalo, in company with a friend and two Russian dancers who were visiting Guatemala, had a terrible car accident on the road to Panajachel: fell into a ravine and was seriously injured, while all his companions were killed. The official party leaders signed a pact with Lieutenant Colonel Arana, in which he pledged not to attempt any coup against the ailing president, in exchange for the revolutionary parties as the official candidate in the next election. However, the recovery of the sturdy president was almost miraculous and soon he was able to take over the government. Arana had accepted this pact because he wanted to be known as a Democratic hero of the uprising against Ponce and believed that the Barranco Pact ensured his position when the time of the presidential elections came.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTESabino200742-52-32">[32]</a>

Arana was a very influential person in Arévalo government, and had managed to be nominated as the next presidential candidate, ahead of Captain Arbenz, who was told that because of his young age he would have no problem in waiting until the next election for his turn.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTESabino200742-52-32">[32]</a>

Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Javier Arana died in a gun battle against military civilian who wanted to capture him on July 18, 1949, at the Bridge of Glory, in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amatitl%C3%A1n" title="Amatitlán">Amatitlán</a>, where he and his assistant commander had gone to check on weapons that had been seized at the Aurora Air Base a few days before. There are different versions about who ambushed him, and who ordered the attack; Arbenz and Arévalo have been accused of instigating an attempt to get Arana out of the presidential picture.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTESabino200742-52-32">[32]</a>

The death of Lieutenant Colonel Arana is of critical importance in the history of Guatemala, because it was a pivotal event in the history of the Guatemalan revolution: his death not only paved the way for the election of Colonel Arbenz as president of the republic in 1950 but also caused an acute crisis in the government of Dr. Arévalo Bermejo, who all of a sudden had against him an army that was more faithful to Arana than to him, and elite civilian groups that used the occasion to protest strongly against his government.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTESabino200742-52-32">[32]</a>

<h3>Elections 1950</h3>

Before his death, Arana had planned to run in the upcoming 1950 presidential elections. His death left Árbenz without any serious opponents in the elections (leading some, including the CIA and U.S. military intelligence, to speculate that Árbenz personally had him eliminated for this reason). Árbenz got more than 3 times as many votes as the runner-up, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Yd%C3%ADgoras_Fuentes" title="Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes">Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes</a>. Fuentes claimed that electoral fraud benefited Árbenz; however scholars have pointed out that while fraud may possibly have given Árbenz some of his votes, it was not the reason that he won the election.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEStreeter200016-33">[33]</a> In 1950s Guatemala, only literate men were able to vote by secret ballot; illiterate men and literate women voted by open ballot. Illiterate women were not enfranchised at all.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses199284-34">[34]</a>

For the campaign of 1950, Arbenz asked Fortuny to write some speeches. The central theme of these was land reform, the "pet project" of Arbenz. They shared a comfortable victory in elections in late 1950 and, thereafter, the tasks of government. While many of the leaders of the ruling coalition fought hard for proximit to the president seeking personal benefits, the leaders of the Guatemalan Labor Party, and especially Fortuny, were the closest advisors.

The election of Árbenz alarmed U.S. State Department officials, who stated that Arana "has always represented the only positive conservative element in the Arévalo administration", that his death would "strengthen Leftist[sic] materially", and that "developments forecast sharp leftist trend within the government."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses1992124-35">[35]</a>

<h3>Inauguration and Policies</h3>

</div>

<div class="thumbcaption">Colonel <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz_Guzm%C3%A1n" title="Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán" class="mw-redirect">Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán</a> inauguration as President of Guatemala in 1951.</div>

</div>

In his inaugural address, Árbenz promised to convert Guatemala from "a backward country with a predominantly feudal economy into a modern capitalist state."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEStreeter200018-36">[36]</a> He declared that he intended to reduce dependency on foreign markets and dampen the influence of foreign corporations over Guatemalan politics.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEFried198352-37">[37]</a> He also stated that he would modernize Guatemala's infrastructure and do so without the aid of foreign capital.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses1992149-38">[38]</a>

Based on his plan of government, he did the following:

<ol>

<li>Promulgated the Decree 900, to expropriate idle land from UFCO.</li>

<li>Began construction of the Atlantic Highway</li>

<li>Began construction of the Santo Tomas de Castilla port where port Matías de Gálvez used to be, to compete with Puerto Barrios, UFCO's port.</li>

<li>Began studies for Jurun Marinalá generation plant to compete with the electric company in the hands of Americans.</li>

</ol>

Árbenz was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_socialism" title="Christian socialism">Christian socialist</a> and governed as a European-style <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialist" title="Democratic socialist" class="mw-redirect">democratic socialist</a>, and took great inspiration from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D.Roosevelt" title="Franklin D. Roosevelt">Franklin Delano Roosevelt's</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal" title="New Deal">New Deal</a>. According to historian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Schlesinger" title="Stephen Schlesinger">Stephen Schlesinger</a>, while Árbenz did have a few communists in lower-level positions in his administration, he “was not a dictator, he was not a crypto-communist.” Nevertheless, some of his policies, particularly those involving agrarian reform, would be branded as "communist" by the upper classes of Guatemala and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company" title="United Fruit Company">United Fruit Company</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-39">[39]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-40">[40]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-Chomsky_1985_154.E2.80.93160-41">[41]</a>

<h3>Land Reform</h3>

</div>

<div class="thumbcaption">Route Map of the Great White Fleet of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company" title="United Fruit Company">United Fruit Company</a>, which had the monopoly of freight and passenger maritime transportante to and from Puerto Barrios in Guatemala since 1903.</div>

</div>

Prior to Árbenz's election in 1950, a handful of U.S. corporations controlled Guatemala's primary electrical utilities, the nation's only railroad, and banana cultivation, which was Guatemala's chief agricultural export industry.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEStreeter20008-10-11">[11]</a> By the mid-1940s, Guatemalan banana plantations accounted for more than one quarter of all of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company" title="United Fruit Company">United Fruit Company</a>'s production in Latin America.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-42">[42]</a>

Land reform was the centerpiece of Árbenz's election campaign.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses199249-43">[43]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-44">[44]</a> The revolutionary organizations that had helped put Árbenz in power put constant pressure on him to live up to his campaign promises regarding land reform.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-45">[45]</a> Árbenz continued Arévalo's reform agenda.

Árbenz set land reform as his central goal, as only 2% of the population owned 70% of the land.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEPaterson_et_al.2009304-46">[46]</a> On 17 June 1952 Árbenz's administration enacted an agrarian reform law known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_900" title="Decree 900">Decree 900</a>. The law empowered the government to create a network of agrarian councils that would be in charge of expropriating uncultivated land on estates that were larger than 672 acres (2.7 km2).<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEStreeter200018-36">[36]</a> The land was then allocated to individual families. Owners of expropriated land were compensated according to the worth of the land claimed in May 1952 tax assessments (which they had often dramatically understated to avoid paying taxes). Land was paid for in twenty-five year bonds with a 3 percent interest rate.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTERabe1988-47">[47]</a>

The program was in effect for 18 months, during which it distributed 1,500,000 acres (6,100 km2) to about 100,000 families. Árbenz himself, a landowner through his wife, gave up 1,700 acres (7 km2) of his own land in the land reform program.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-48">[48]</a>

In 1953, the reform was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, however the democratically elected Congress later impeached four judges associated with the ruling.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses1992155.2C_163-49">[49]</a>

<h4>Effects</h4>

Decree 900, for the Agrarian Reform in Guatemala created the possibility for previously landless workers to raise their own crops. The effect of this law was similar to what occurred in Europe after the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages: after the plague, which killed one third of Europe's population at the time, the number of landowners decreased, which freed land for others, increased supply and lowered land price. At the same time, many farmers also died from the plague, so that the labor force declined; this shift in supply of workers increased wages. The economic effects of the plague are very similar to those caused by the land reform in Guatemala: During the first harvest after the implementation of the law, the average income of farmers increased from Q225.00/year TO Q700.00/year. Some analysts say that conditions in Guatemala improved after the reform and that there was a "fundamental transformation of agricultural technology as a result of the decreased labor supply." Rising living standards also happened in Europe in the fifteenth century, while large-scale technological advances occurred. The reduced workforce after the plague was "the mother of invention."

The benefits from the reform were not limited solely to the agricultural workers. There were increases in consumption, production and domestic private investment.

....

After the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, CIA case officer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wisner" title="Frank Wisner">Frank Wisner</a> organised Operation <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBHistory" title="PBHistory" class="mw-redirect">PBHistory</a>, meant to find and secure Árbenz government documents that might prove that the Soviet Union <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemony" title="Hegemony">controlled</a> Guatemala; and, in so doing, PBHistory meant to provide usable intelligence regarding other Soviet connections and Communist personnel in Latin America. Wisner sent two teams of document analysts who gathered 150,000 documents with the help of the Guatemalan Army and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_junta" title="Military junta" class="mw-redirect">junta</a> of Colonel <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castillo_Armas" title="Carlos Castillo Armas">Carlos Castillo Armas</a>, whom the U.S. installed as President of Guatemala. Ronald M. Schneider, an outside researcher who examined the PBHistory documents, reported that the documents did not indicate that the Republic of Guatemala was controlled by the USSR, and found substantial evidence that Guatemalan Communists acted independently, without orders or support from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union" title="Communist Party of the Soviet Union">Communist Party of the Soviet Union</a>, in Moscow.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTECullather1997-55">[55]</a> The contacts between the Soviet Union and the Árbenz government consisted of a Soviet diplomat negotiating an exchange of bananas for agricultural machinery; the business deal failed because neither party had refrigerated freight ships with which to transport the perishable fruit. The other evidence of Soviet–Guatemalan contact, found by the CIA after the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat" title="1954 Guatemalan coup d'état">1954 Guatemalan coup d'état</a> were two invoices, for a total of $22.95, to the Guatemalan Party of Labour, from a book shop in Moscow.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGaddis1997178-54">[54]</a> However, Arbenz read and admired the works of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin; officials in his government euologized Stalin as a "great statesmen and leader....whose passing is mourned by all progressive men".<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses1992141-181-56">[56]</a> The Guatemalan Congress even paid a "minute of silence" tribute to Stalin.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses1992181-379-57">[57]</a>

Árbenz took refuge in the Mexican embassy and resigned in favor of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Enrique_D%C3%ADaz" title="Carlos Enrique Díaz" class="mw-redirect">Carlos Enrique Díaz</a>. Two days later, the army, under Colonel <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfego_Monz%C3%B3n" title="Elfego Monzón" class="mw-redirect">Elfego Monzón</a>, deposed Díaz and established a military junta. On July 2, 1954, Carlos Castillo was invited to join the ruling junta. Six days later, on July 8, he succeeded Monzón.

Castillo Armas was given a ticker parade in NYC in the fall of 1954 for his coup. Columbia University gave him an honorary degree.

Military Government Board (1954)

<ul>

<li>Colonel H. Elfego Monzón (As Interin president)</li>

<li>Colonel Enrique Trinidad Oliva (As Premier)</li>

<li>Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas</li>

<li>Colonel Mauricio Dubois</li>

<li>Colonel José Luis Cruz Salazar</li>

</ul>

<h2>Later life</h2>

<h3>Humiliation and exile</h3>

After resigning, the Árbenz Vilanova family remained for 73 days at the Mexican embassy in Guatemala, which was crowded with almost 300 exiles.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGarcia_Ferreira200856-58">[58]</a> When they were finally allowed to leave the country, Jacobo Arbenz was publicly humiliated at the airport because the liberationist authorities made the former president strip before the cameras claiming that he was carrying jewelry he had bought for his wife, María Cristina Vilanova, at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffany%27s" title="Tiffany's" class="mw-redirect">Tiffany's</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City" title="New York City">New York City</a>, using funds from the presidency; no jewelry was found but the interrogation lasted for an hour.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-59">[59]</a> Th family then initiated a long pilgrimage in exile that would take them first to Mexico, next then to Canada, where they went to pick up Arabella, and then to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland" title="Switzerland">Switzerland</a> via the Netherlands.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGarcia_Ferreira200860-60">[60]</a> The former president completed the forms required by the Swiss government, but the Swiss authorities asked him for the renunciation of his Guatemalan nationality. The ousted president did not accept this requirement, as he felt that such gesture would have marked the end of his political career. Furthermore, he could not benefit from political asylum because Switzerland had not yet ratified the 1951 Agreement of the newly created High Commissioner United Nations for Refugees, which was designed to protect people fleeing from communist regimes in Eastern Europe. Perhaps the fate of the ousted president would have been different if his country of origin had allowed him in exile: it would also have been the first major political asylum in Latin America character in Switzerland.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-61">[61]</a> However, Árbenz and his family were instead the victims of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA" title="CIA" class="mw-redirect">CIA</a>-orchestrated and intense defamation campaign that lasted from 1954 to 1960, after the Cuban revolution had triumphed in 1959.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGarcia_Ferreira200854-62">[62]</a> A close friend of Árbenz turned out to be a spy working for the CIA, Carlos Manuel Pellecer.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGarcia_Ferreira200855-63">[63]</a>

<h3>Seeking shelter</h3>

After being rejected in Switzerland, the Árbenz family moved to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris" title="Paris">Paris</a>, then to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague" title="Prague">Prague</a>. Czechoslovak officials were uncomfortable with his stay, afraid he would demand the government repay him for the low quality of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World_War" title="Second World War" class="mw-redirect">Second World War</a> arms they had sold him in 1954. After only three months, he moved to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow" title="Moscow">Moscow</a>, which was a relief from the harsh treatment he got in Czechoslovakia.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGarcia_Ferreira200868-64">[64]</a> He tried several times to return to Latin America, and was finally allowed to move to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay" title="Uruguay">Uruguay</a> in 1957<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEKoeppel2008153-65">[65]</a> (Arbenz joined the Communist Party that year),<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGleijeses1992379-66">[66]</a> living in Montevideo from 1957 to 1960. Uruguay had watched with intense optimism the Guatemalan revolutionary process, and attended helplessly at the end of the Arbenz government. For this and for being a hospitable country, it received and hold for a while the two former presidents of the so-called Guatemalan Democratic Spring. Arévalo arrived at Montevideo on several occasions before, establishing himself there between 1958 and early the following year, when he accepted a university position in Venezuela; he enjoyed some freedom and could express himself through newspaper articles.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGarcia_Ferreira200870-67">[67]</a> By contrast, Arbenz and his family, who arrived in mid-1957, had a very different experience: his friendship with the communists, especially with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Fortuny" title="José Manuel Fortuny">José Manuel Fortuny</a>, and forced passage through Czechoslovakia, the USSR and China, aroused suspicion.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGarcia_Ferreira200869-68">[68]</a> When the National Party took power in Uruguay in late 1958, Arbenz's situation worsened.

In 1960, after the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Revolution" title="Cuban Revolution">Cuban Revolution</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro" title="Fidel Castro">Fidel Castro</a> asked Árbenz to come to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba" title="Cuba">Cuba</a>, and Guzmán readily agreed to.

<h3>Death of Arabella Arbenz Vilanova</h3>

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabella_Arbenz" title="Arabella Arbenz">Arabella Árbenz Vilanova</a>, decided not to accompany her father in exile in Cuba, and instead remained in Paris studying acting and working as a model. Later, she moved to México, where she had romances with the Guatemalan journalist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jorge_Palmieri&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Jorge Palmieri (page does not exist)">Jorge Palmieri</a> and with the future owner of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Televisa" title="Televisa">Televisa</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilio_Azcarraga_Milmo" title="Emilio Azcarraga Milmo" class="mw-redirect">Emilio Azcarraga Milmo</a>, who helped her begin her acting career.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-palmieri-69">[69]</a>

During this time, she began having serious drug abuse issues that affected her behavior and personal life, and Azcarraga petitioned the Mexican government to expel her in October 1965. At that time, Arabella met the Mexican bullfighter <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Bravo" title="Jaime Bravo">Jaime Bravo Arciga</a>, who at that time was at the height of his career and was to start a tour of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_America" title="South America">South America</a>. Arabella left with him to Colombia. In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogot%C3%A1,Colombia" title="Bogotá, Colombia" class="mw-redirect">Bogotá</a> on October 5, 1965, Arabella tried to convince Bravo Arciga to stop working as bullfighter because she feared for his life. In a luxurious gentlemen's club in the Colombian capital, she pulled out a gun from her purse and committed suicide in a dark corner, while Bravo Arciga ignored her after a terrible day bullfighting. Arabella's death was a huge blow to both the bullfighter and Jacobo Arbenz, as both would die within five years of her death.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-palmieri-69">[69]</a>

After her suicide, Bravo Arciga contacted <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jorge_Palmieri&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Jorge Palmieri (page does not exist)">Jorge Palmieri</a> in Mexico, and asked him to take charge of the funeral. Palmieri, who had strong influence in the Mexican government at the time, received permission to bury Arabella in the Pantheon of the National Association of Actors of Mexico, as she had briefly worked in the Mexican film industry. Palmieri also obtained permission from the Mexican government allowing Arbenz, his wife, his son James and his other daughter Leonora to go to Mexico to be present at the funeral.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz#cite_note-palmieri-69">[69]</a>

<h2>Death</h2>

On 27 January 1971, Árbenz died in his bathroom in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City" title="Mexico City">Mexico City</a>, either from drowning or scalding.

<h2>Guatemalan government official apology</h2>

==

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