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22nd February 2004, 00:44

Well, for all it matters, here's a longish paper I wrote a little while ago on the overthrow of Arbenz. Personally, I'm not so proud of it, but somehow I got an A+++ --- The spacing and the indentations before paragraphs got a little bit messed up when I copied and pasted it, so sorry about that. Maybe this can still help you just a little bit. :)

Operation Success
The CIA overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz

“…We should also like to extend a special greeting to Jacobo Arbenz, president of the first Latin American country which fearlessly raised its voice against colonialism; a country which, in a far-reaching and courageous agrarian reform, gave expression to the hopes of the peasant masses. We should also like to express our gratitude to him, and to the democracy that gave way, for the example they gave us and for the accurate estimate they enabled us to make of the weaknesses which that government was unable to overcome.”

-Ernesto “Che” Guevara, 1960

It all began during the Great Depression. While most of the countries of Central America used the United States’ period of weakness to start their own businesses and grow their own economies, Guatemala stagnated. Guatemalan President-for-life Jorge Ubico refused to create new jobs, despite the rising unemployment levels. He gave huge contracts to the American-owned United Fruit Company and its subsidiary, International Railways of Central America. Under these contracts, these companies virtually controlled Guatemala. Almost all fruit plantations were controlled by UFCo (United Fruit Company), and almost all of the country’s limited transportation was monitored and maintained by IRCA (International Railways of Central America).
The 1930’s began a wave of oppression from President Ubico. He began summary executions of all labor leaders, and executed even his political opponents. But by the 1940’s, pressure on Ubico was growing. American troops coming into Guatemala to defend the Panama Canal spread their anti-Fascist propaganda everywhere. The United States was strongly in support of the Ubico regime, but their propaganda unknowingly added to the people’s dislike for Ubico, who was an admitted Fascist (Jones).
Finally, in June of 1944, the pressure on Ubico resulted in change. Just two months before, popular pressure and demonstrations had ousted a dictator in nearby El Salvador, and the political climate in Latin America was changing. Students at the University in Guatemala City went on strike, demanding University freedom from government control. In response, Ubico’s government denied the students’ demands and ordered them to end their strike. When the strike continued, the government suspended the constitutional guarantees of free speech and press. Finally, as a last resort to keep the protests from going further, government troops fired on the nonviolent demonstrators, killing one (Jones).
The government’s actions not only did not end the strike, but angered Guatemala’s citizens. Quickly, the students’ strike blossomed into a general strike. All of Guatemala City shut down, and the residents of the city refused to stop their strike until Ubico was out of office. Faced with this massive unrest and anger, Ubico was finally forced to step down.
In his place, Ubico appointed a Military Triumvirate. His Triumvirate immediately held controlled “elections.” The elections were only for show, and a hardcore Ubico supporter named Fedrico Ponce easily won. Ponce promised change and won the support of the Guatemalan people, but quickly popular support. He appointed former Ubiquistas to high-ranking cabinet positions, and began a campaign of repression worse than any that Ubico had ever practiced. The people of Guatemala, particularly the lower-class workers and natives, were furious. They protested their low wages and Ponce’s repression, only to be arrested or executed for speaking out.
Ponce’s opposition soon realized that the elections he had formerly promised were never going to occur. They finally decided that the only way to change Guatemala was through armed revolution. On October 20, 1944 armed students and workers joined forces with dissatisfied military officers and ousted easily Ponce from office within the day. An interim government was formed, led by two army officers – Francisco Arana and Jacobo Arbenz – and a businessman, Jorge Toriello (Jones).
Elections for the new Congress and the Presidency were held on March 15, 1945. An intellectual and educator named Juan José Arévalo won easily, with 85% of the literate male vote. Arévalo was a “spiritual Socialist.” He considered himself Socialist only in that he cared about the poor and the working class. He was against the teachings of Marx, and outlawed the Communist Party in Guatemala. As President, he immediately began reforms. He granted the vote to all adults, with the exception of illiterate women (who, at the time, were the majority of Guatemala’s women). Arévalo guaranteed the basic constitutional freedoms of speech and press, regardless of the circumstances. He devoted one-third of Guatemala’s money to a program focused on building new schools, hospitals, and housing for the poor. And finally, he passed laws protecting the workers, something never experienced under the Ubico or Ponce regimes. His government guaranteed all workers the right to create unions, have decent working conditions, social security, and a minimum wage.
In 1949 the campaign for the 1950 election began. The first to announce his candidacy was Francisco Arana, head of the armed forces and former interim leader of Guatemala. Arana was the right-wing’s last hope for turning back Arévalo’s revolution. Then, suddenly and mysteriously, Arana was assassinated. The blame was put on Jacobo Arbenz by some, as he was Arana’s rival in every way, but no evidence of his guilt was ever found. Arana’s assassination angered the military right-wing of Guatemala, and touched off an armed uprising by the military in Guatemala City. Arbenz, who was at that time Defense Minister, gave out arms to Guatemala City’s students and workers, who fought back and defeated the military insurgents (Jones).
After the uprising, the election continued as planned, save for another attempted coup by a Col. Carlos Castillo Armas, who afterwards fled the county. Of the three men running in the 1950 election, Jacobo Arbenz was by far the most popular, backed by organized labor, the peasants, two of Guatemala’s three revolutionary parties, and the Communists. The election was carefully monitored and known to be honest, yet Arbenz still won with a shocking 63% of the total vote.
As the new President of Guatemala, Arbenz (who was against the U.S. corporations infesting Guatemala) decided, instead of nationalizing companies like United Fruit and the new Empresa Eléctrica de Guatemala (EEG, a large electric company), to compete with them. He built a government-run hydroelectric plant to provide cheaper and better service than EEG, a highway to the Atlantic to compete with International Railways of Central America, and a new Atlantic port to compete with United Fruit’s Puerto Barrios.
In 1952 Arbenz made what was possibly the most important and controversial move of his career. He passed the Agrarian Reform Law, a law which he had been championing since his election. The law stated that any idle land part of a holding over 233 acres had to be distributed to other recipients, specifically Guatemala’s many homeless peasants. Arbenz sent troops across Guatemala to enforce the law. By June of 1954, 2.7 million acres had been affected by the act, and more than 100,000 peasant families had received land (Jones). But the decision that doomed Arbenz and his government was yet to come.
United Fruit Company was the single largest landowner in Guatemala, with over 550,000 acres. Of those acres, only 15% were actually cultivated (United Fruit claimed that extra land was needed to “fight banana diseases”). Arbenz’s government, under the Agrarian Reform Law, seized from UFCo almost 400,000 acres. A sum of $1,000,000 was offered in payment to the company. But the UFCo claimed that the land taken had been worth more than $16,000,000. When Arbenz refused to pay more than 1 million dollars, UFCo complained to the State Department, and was assured that something would be done about the issue (Jones).
During Arévalo’s presidency, his relationship with the US had been “cordial”, and U.S. investment in Guatemala had actually gone up. However, when Arévalo suggested to the American ambassador that the United Fruit Company had violated his new labor codes and should be punished, the ambassador ‘suggested’ that the code be altered, as it ‘discriminated’ against the UFCo. The ambassador then told Arévalo that it would be in his best interests to fire several anti-American cabinet members and remove seventeen supposed “Communists” from his government. Arévalo refused both requests, and the Americans became angry.
Arévalo soon found out that U.S. ambassador Richard Patterson was attending secret meetings to plot Arévalo’s overthrow. Arévalo demanded his recall immediately, and for once Washington complied, not wanting to start a crisis. Meanwhile, in Washington and in the American press Arévalo was already being denounced as a “Communist,” a major insult in 1950’s McCarthyist America.
By 1951 Arbenz was president, and relations with America had deteriorated further. The U.S. cut off economic aid to Guatemala, which greatly hurt the Guatemalan economy, and was intended to deliver a message to Arbenz that America would not tolerate him as president of Guatemala.
In Guatemala, Arbenz’s reforms had polarized his country. The Indians, the peasants, and the general poor were highly in support of Arbenz and his reforms. On the other hand, the Catholic Church, the rich plantation owners, and many of the rich urban bourgeois who had led the 1944 revolution were very much against Arbenz. A strong right-wing, anti-Communist movement began to grow in Guatemala as a result of the reforms (Jones).
Meanwhile, the CIA, already firmly opposed to the Arbenz government, was contacting Col. Carlos Castillo Armas. After his attempted coup during the 1950 election, he had left the country and had been busy organizing a “Liberation Army” of Guatemalan exiles in neighboring Honduras and Nicaragua, both run by U.S.-friendly dictators. Castillo Armas, a graduate of an American military school in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, gladly accepted the CIA’s help in toppling Arbenz. Allying with the United States in its efforts to remove Arbenz from power, Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza donated one of his ranches to the army for training. The CIA made sure that the “Liberation Army” was well-stocked with weapons and sent down a group of mercenary pilots and top-of-the-line fighter jets and bombers. In addition, the CIA purchased large amounts of Soviet-issue weapons to plant in Guatemala when the time was right.
At the March, 1954 Inter-American Conference of the Organization of American States (OAS), the American representative (after much “arm-twisting” and bargaining) finally passed a resolution directed at Guatemala, that justified armed intervention in any country in the Americas “dominated by Communism” and thus “a hemispheric threat” (Anderson).
At the conference, the delegates vigorously applauded the speech in defense of Guatemala made by Guatemalan Foreign Minister Toriello, but after the United States officially threatened to withdraw aid from any country that voted against them, every country’s vote was for the resolution, excepting Guatemala’s own vote (Jones).
As all this happened around him, a young, not yet famous medical student waited in Guatemala City for a residency permit. The man’s name was Ernesto Guevara. He had come into Guatemala with his girlfriend (and future wife), Hilda Gadea, to apply for a job as a doctor in the hot, humid area of Petén. The weather and conditions would be terrible for Ernesto’s chronic asthma, but it seemed the perfect place for him to realize his dreams as a “revolutionary doctor.” The young Ernesto had no political orientation, but his girlfriend was a devoted leftist. As Ernesto waited for his permit, he sent a letter to his parents, saying that the Petén would be “a splendid place because that is where the Mayan civilization flourished… and because there are more illnesses than s**t, one can really learn in style (if one wants to, of course)!” (Anderson)
On April 9th, 1954 Guatemala’s Catholic Church issued a “pastoral letter” calling on all Guatemalans to “rise up” against Communism in Guatemala. The letter was read by priests in thousands of churches across the country. What the public, and the priests, didn’t know was that the letter was the direct result of a meeting between the CIA and Guatemalan Archbishop Mariano Rossell Arellano. The CIA was pleased with the letter, and dropped copies of it from planes over rural Guatemala (Jones).
By the end of April, Ernesto was tired of waiting for his residency permit. He decided that if his temporary residency was not granted within fifteen days, he would give up the job opportunity in Petén and leave the country. Hilda was worried and didn’t want him to leave, offering him anything if he would stay. But at the same time, Ernesto received a letter from his friend Alberto, with whom he had journeyed up from Argentina. Alberto was urging Ernesto to come and join him, and Ernesto was planning on it (Anderson).
As Ernesto planned to leave, the new American ambassador, John Peurifoy, was recalled to Washington for “consultations.” Several purposeful news “leaks” were saying that Peurifoy had gone back to Washington for talks on how Arbenz’s government could be overthrown. On April 26th, in a speech before Congress, President Dwight Eisenhower used warlike language, warning that “the Reds” were already in control of Guatemala and seeking to spread their “tentacles” to the rest of Latin America (Anderson).
On May 15th, Ernesto was told that he would have to leave the country and re-enter it at a later time in order to renew his visa and continue to live in Guatemala. Meanwhile, on that same day, an event occurred that would seal Guatemala’s fate.
A month before, a Swedish ship called the Alfhem had set sail from a Polish port loaded down with two tons of Czech arms. The CIA had been tipped off about the ship upon its departure from Poland, and had tracked it all the way to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala (Anderson).
Washington had been looking for evidence of Soviet-bloc involvement in Guatemala since Arbenz had come to power, and this was exactly what they wanted. Czechoslovakia was a Communist, Soviet-controlled country, and the fact that the government of Czechoslovakia was sending Guatemala two tons of arms looked very suspicious. President Arbenz had been forced to buy arms from Czechoslovakia after the United States barred all weapons sales to Guatemala by any “free” countries (Jones).
On May 17th, the State Department issued a release denouncing the arms shipment, and President Eisenhower made a speech, saying that the Czech arms would help to create a permanent “Communist dictatorship” in Latin America. In an effort to gain more popular support against Guatemala, CIA Director Allen Dulles hinted to the press that the arms shipment was larger than Guatemala’s military needed, and that Guatemala may have received the arms so that they could conquer their neighboring countries, or maybe even attack the Panama Canal. While these allegations were completely false, they worked on the people of America and the world. CIA Director Dulles agreed to “security treaties” with the dictators of Honduras and Nicaragua. In these treaties, he agreed to defend the countries in case of “Communist invasion,” and sent down massive cargo planes loaded down with arms for Castillo Armas’s Liberation Army (Jones).
The standoff between the U.S. and Guatemala was coming to a peak. American warships began investigating all suspicious ships in the Caribbean. The CIA’s psychological warfare program was in full swing – leaflets were being dropped across the entire country by American planes, and a CIA “Radio Liberty” station broadcast pro-American propaganda to the people of Guatemala. By June, Guatemala was completely cut off from the rest of the world, diplomatically and physically, and President Arbenz declared a state of siege, taking “strong action” against all known collaborators with the U.S. government (Jones).
On June 5th, a retired Guatemalan Air Force Chief defected and quickly made his voice heard on Radio Liberty, a major coup for the CIA. Finally, on June 6th, Arbenz instated martial law and suspended all constitutional guarantees for thirty days, due to the impending American invasion of Guatemala (Anderson).
On June 17th, American pilot mercenaries began flying bombing missions over Guatemala, hitting military targets and government buildings in Guatemala City. At last, on June 18th, Castillo Armas’s army crossed the border into Guatemala, stopping in the holy city of Esquipulas, alleged home of Guatemala’s black Christ (Anderson).
Meanwhile, as American bombs fell on Guatemala City, the young Ernesto, who had since left for El Salvador and returned in order to renew his visa, admitted to being “thrilled” at being under fire for the first time. In a letter to his sister, he wrote that he was “feeling a little ashamed for having as much fun as a monkey… the magic sensation of invulnerability [makes me] lick my lips with pleasure. (Anderson)”
Ernesto signed up for the local health brigades to help heal the many wounded by the bombs, which often missed their targets and hit homes or other nongovernmental buildings. By night, he helped the youth brigades that patrolled Guatemala City. A nocturnal blackout had been imposed, and it was Ernesto’s job to make sure that no light was showing, for fear of providing bombing targets (Anderson).
The Arbenz government was being very careful not to do anything that the U.S. government could claim was Guatemalan aggression, so it limited its actions to nothing more than a diplomatic protest against Honduras and a presentation to the United Nations Security Council.
On the battle front, the Guatemalan army was defeating Castillo Armas’s army within Guatemala’s borders. Several of the CIA’s mercenary planes had been shot down, and a Honduran ship delivering arms to the Liberation Army was seized at Puerto Barrios. The CIA realized that the invasion might not be a success and, with Eisenhower’s approval, two more fighter-bombers with experienced pilots were dispatched to the field on the 23rd. During that time, they strafed and bombed many important Guatemalan targets, striking a major blow to Arbenz’s government and military (Jones).
As all of this was going on, the United States was trying to block Guatemala from testifying before the UN Security Council; for fear that the UN would intervene and stop the invasion. The head of the Security Council at the time happened to be an American, Henry Cabot Lodge. After arguments with UN Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld, Lodge finally agreed to “convene a session” on June 25th.
On June 24th, the Liberation Army seized the small Guatemalan town of Chiquimula. Castillo Armas declared it the headquarters of his “provisional government.” Radio Liberty exaggerated the Liberation Army’s victory, making it sound as if the Liberation Army was unstoppable, conquering left and right as the government crumbled. The confidence of Arbenz and his cabinet began to falter with every new announcement, and Arbenz was being pressured to step down by his aides and top military men.
In the session before the United Nations Security Council on the 25th, Lodge tried to talk the Council’s other members out of voting to send a United Nations investigative team to Guatemala. The most pressure was put on England and France, with the United States hinting that if London and Paris didn’t go along with them on Guatemala, the US would cease to support the UK and France in their dealings in Cyprus, Indochina, and the Suez.
When a vote was finally taken on June 25th, the U.S. barely won. The vote was 5-4, with Britain and France abstaining. Guatemala was alone (Jones).
On June 27th, under great pressure, Arbenz resigned and turned the government over to three of his most loyal military officers. U.S. Ambassador Peurifoy refused to acknowledge the military officers as Arbenz’s replacements. He began maneuvering for Castillo Armas to be ‘appointed’ president. By July 8th, the military officers had resigned, and the CIA’s operation, officially code-named “Operation Success,” had succeeded. Carlos Castillo Armas flew into Guatemala City on a plane from the American Embassy, with Ambassador Peurifoy at his side (Jones).
On Armas’s return, martial law was declared and the Guatemalan Communist party, in any form, way banned. Foreign embassies were filled with frightened Arbenz supporters seeking asylum. Ernesto took asylum in the Argentine embassy, as he was a native Argentine (Anderson). He was offered free passage back to Argentina, but declined it. Against the Argentine ambassador’s urgings, he left the embassy and moved on towards Mexico, Fidel Castro, and immortality…