Carlos Castillo Armas


          Before the coup of 1954, Castillo Armas was a retired military officer working in Honduras as a furniture salesman. He was chosen by the CIA to lead the National Liberation Movement (MLN) into Guatemala to overthrow the Arbenz regime.

With the resignation and flight of Arbenz, Castillo Armas was flown into Guatemala on the personal plane of U.S. Ambassador John Peurifoy. He was installed as President and given some $80 million from Eisenhower over the next three years to boost his government. As president, he re-instituted the mechanisms of repression, including the MLN's Committee Against Communism, which compiled lists of thousands of union members and Arbenz supporters who were suspected subversives.

In 1957 Castillo Armas was assassinated by military rivals.

 

John Foster Dulles and Alan Dulles


          Under the Republican Administration of Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles and his brother Alan were placed in positions of great influence. John Foster was the Secretary of State and Alan sat as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Both were essential Cold Warriors, convinced of an international conspiracy to increase the communist sphere of influence and construct a beach-head in the Western Hemisphere. This virulent anti-communism and their own personal ties to United Fruit made them perfect connections in the U.S. government to implement an ouster of Jacobo Arbenz.

 

Jacobo Arbenz Guzman

Jacobo Arbenz was a nationalist military officer elected as president in 1951. In addition to continuing the progressive reforms begun under Arévalo, he set out to challenge the monopoly held by United Fruit in the Guatemalan economy.

Though he was not himself a communist, his wife was and he accepted the support of other communist intellectuals. Additionally, the newly legal Communist Party won some 4 of the 50 seats in the National Legislature. These facts, along with limited land expropriations he enacted, were enough to convince Washington that he was 100% "Red" and a threat to American hegemony in the region.

 


United Fruit Company


United Fruit Company (now known as Chiquita) has long exerted enormous influence throughout Central America and within the United States Government. It had grown to be the most important corporation in Guatemala. United Fruit controlled roughly 40% of the most fertile land, owned a railroad, held a monopoly on electricity production and ran the port facilities in Puerto Barrios, Atlantic Coast.

Though United Fruit owned huge tracts of land, it paid little in the way of property tax in Guatemala in part because they claimed their land was only worth a fraction of it's real value on tax receipts. When Arbenz expropriated 400,000 of their 500,000 acres, he offered them the $1.2 million they had claimed it was worth. United Fruit demanded $16 million.

    When Arbenz refused, they turned to their friends in the United States Government to assist. Some, like Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs John Moors Cabot had family ties to the company. Others, such as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Henry Cabot Lodge, were major stockholders. The Dulles Brothers had both worked as lawyers for United Fruit's legal firm. With connections such as these, it was not difficult for UFCo. to convince the U.S. Government of the need for action against Arbenz.


 

Copyright © Jean-Marie Simon

Model Villages


          In order to bring communities in guerrilla territory under government control, "model villages" were constructed, often on or close to the ruins of villages destroyed by military counter-insurgency. Though the government promised water, electricity, a school, a church and so on, these facilities and services often went unprovided. Meanwhile, military detachments kept a close eye on the activities of everyone, as no person was above suspicion of "subversion".

 

Copyright © Vince Heptig

 

Civil Defense Patrols

          The so-called Civil Defense Patrols were an integral part of military's counter-insurgency plans. All able-bodied males in a given village were forced to go on patrol for 24 hours, once each week. Ostensibly, this was to protect the villages from guerrilla attack. Often, civil patrollers were forced to beat or kill neighbors, for fear of themselves being branded a "subversive". Some of the worst human rights violations, including massacres of entire villages, were committed by civil patrol members.

Though the Guatemalan Constitution of 1985 declared that un-paid, forced military service is illegal, civil defense patrols have persisted, even through the present period.


 

 

 Copyright © Jean-Marie Simon


Vinicio Cerezo

 

 

Back to first page

Back to syllabus