Lost Illusions in Guatemala
Alba, Victor
Since the end of the second World War Communism has achieved no victory in Latin America as effective as its defeat in Guatemala. The optimistic declarations of diplomats could not help. Nor...
...Distrusting the army, allying himself more directly with the Communists, he begins to organize workers' brigades...
...United Fruit, the most reactionary element in Guatemala, and, perhaps, the politics of the State Department, have triumphed, for the moment...
...How COULD THE COMMUNISTS EXERT such an important influence in Guatemala...
...The problem is not whether Washington could achieve such a policy, but whether Washington would be capable of understanding that it is the only policy possible...
...A conviction exists that Arbenz was one of the instigators of this crime and the one who profited directly from it...
...Arbenz must give his reply 72 hours later...
...Arbenz defeated, the Communists had no difficulty in representing Castillo Armas as an imperialist agent...
...For an American it is difficult to understand that a citizen of Guatemala or Costa Rica would be revolted by the fact that while paying the highest salaries in the country, United Fruit owns the railways, dominates the fruit market, intervenes in the export of coffee, controls maritime transport and meddles in the politics of the country, at the same time refusing to obey the regularly promulgated social laws...
...But at the end of one week, a coup d'etat by Castillo gives him the presidency and eliminates from the "Junta" the military revolutionaries...
...Translated by RIMA DRELL...
...In 1948 the most popular revolutionary military leader, Colonel Arana, was assassinated...
...For twelve days, it continues without struggle, without victims but not without terror on both sides...
...At the same time, Nicaragua—where the dictator Samoza holds sway —throws accusations of Communism against Costa Rica, whose president, Jose Figueres, is a Christian Democrat and anti-Communist...
...In June, an "army of liberation" (some 300 men, 5 planes, and an efficient propaganda apparatus) is formed in Honduras...
...Thus the Communist danger (not imminent, but purely political and non-military) would Autumn 1954 • DISSENT • 335 disappear without risk to social legislation, agrarian reform and the essentials of the democratic regime which has been in existence barely ten years...
...The Communists, following the tactic of Mao, put aside all social programs and lead a fierce nationalistic campaign...
...in case of war Communist influence in Guatemala could be liquidated even more rapidly than it was by Castillo Armas...
...Whatever it might be the upshot of the situation would serve Moscow: if Arbenz triumphed, Communism showed itself to the masses of Latin America as the strongest supporter of social reforms, democracy and the struggle against imperialism...
...Colonel Castillo Armas and his ministers (all known reactionaries, some of them, at one time, great landowners and collaborators of dictator Ubico) do not announce that they will respect the social legislation and agrarian reforms...
...A complete change of Latin American politics on the part of the State Department would be necessary: aid to democratic governments, support for social and agrarian reforms, no arms for dictators, and above all (since it is a fact that Washington is a determining factor), preventing reaction from becoming the mistress of Guatemala...
...But under Arbenz, the Communists expanded rapidly...
...The young officers and students who made the revolution were vaguely socialistic, frankly democratic and liberal...
...Diaz, a prominent Major, gives Arbenz an ultimatum: resign, or see the army unite with the rebels...
...Imagine a regime of youngsters (the average age of deputies was 35), without ideological cohesion, without political experience, imbued with strong feelings and the consciousness that they were in the process of making history...
...United Fruit maintains tenacious resistance against the strikers and continues to oppose the expropriation of a section of its fallow land...
...The Communists had set a snare for the State Department, and for Autumn 1954 • DISSENT • 337 Guatemala...
...It will take years to erase the effect of events in Guatemala...
...Under these conditions who, in Latin America, without objective information, but with the memory, for example, of accusations of Communism against Calles, Sandino, Cardenas (at the time of the oil expropriation in Mexico), who could believe accusations of Communism directed at Guatemala—even if this time they had some foundation...
...Arbenz, on his side, finds no sincere popular support...
...The New York Times, June 30, 1950...
...How was this possible...
...A man of feeble but obstinate character, who passes through successive periods of euphoria and depression, Arbenz is on the verge of acceding to the demands of the military...
...It seems logical to suppose that an intelligent policy would be to let events ripen and permit the military and possibly the leftist parties of Guatemala to free themselves from Communist confines...
...Castillo refuses...
...United Fruit had cried wolf too often and when the State Department really saw the wolf, no one listened to its cries...
...The danger was essentially political...
...they established their party, under the name of the Party of Work—dominated the labor unions, the peasant unions (though to a lesser extent) and even the police...
...It is a pyrrhic victory...
...For this influence is undeniable, and, of late, it takes on the already classic character of police terror...
...Arevalo tries to divert it by renewing the traditional demands of Guatemala upon British Honduras...
...A group of the Guatemalan military—young, formed by the revolution of 1944, that is, by the left—demands that President Jacobo Arbenz remove the Communists from the positions they hold...
...To speak here of secret agents or the danger to the Panama Canal would be grotesque...
...The regime of President Arevalo, a pedagogue, was not Communist...
...In Latin America such questions often take the upper hand over politics and ideologies...
...But it would not be impossible to understand that, even with "high" salaries, all this makes for an atmosphere ripe for nationalist and patriotic propaganda which has been—and is —utilized by the Communists...
...Two thousand persons are in prison—there were not that many militant Communists in the country—hundreds have found refuge in the embassies, which they cannot leave, because Castillo refuses them safe-conduct...
...In one of his periods of depression, Arbenz resigns...
...Then Latin Americans might not have the impression—today general—that anti-Communism is the mask used by the reactionary elements of each country and by the imperialist enterprises for returning to a state of things which the Latin American believed dead since Roosevelt...
...A "Junta" is formed, presided over by Monzon...
...But Arbenz is carried away by the current...
...But this suits neither the army of "liberation" nor those who finance it...
...Imagine that each time these young politicians took a step—social legislation, for example—they encountered the opposition of the United Fruit Company...
...Thus Guatemala has, in two months, passed from a regime of social reform, strongly infiltrated by the Communists, to a regime of reaction, which suspends the agrarian reforms and has for its "slogan" the phrase "God, Country, Liberty...
...In 1944 there were no Communists in Guatemala...
...All the parties of Guatemala —made up of youngsters, raised under the dictatorship of Ubico, who had come into political life in the era of the alliance between Moscow and Washington—are thus put into the same bag as the Communist Party...
...We are all familiar with the events: in May, the State Department announces that arms from behind the iron curtain have arrived in Guatemala, where the Communists have infiltrated the administration, the unions and even the parties of the left...
...Nationalist sentiment becomes more violent...
...But the army—this is Latin America, whose long military tradition must not be overlooked—sees in Arbenz's dilemma an opportunity for avenging ancient feuds...
...It mattered little to them that agrarian reform and social legislation would be sacrificed, or that their militants would be persecuted...
...On the eve of the day fixed for Arbenz's reply, the invasion of Guatemala begins...
...Monzon and Castillo negotiate at San Salvador, under the aegis of Colonel Oscar Osorio, President of San Salvador...
...Otherwise, there is only the prospect of an interminable succession of Castillo Armas...
...Once again, the strikers against United Fruit in Honduras are accused of Communism, although in July they agreed to negotiate under the mediation of ORIT (the regular trade union...
...Nor did legal action undertaken by the Attorney General of the United States against the United Fruit Company as a monopolistic enterprise succeed in diminishing the importance of the Communist success...
...Hence they do not find awaiting them the popular revolts against Arbenz that they had anticipated...
...Diaz wants to arrive at an agreement with Castillo, in order to save the essentials of the revolution...
...An era of vengeance, counter-reform and overweaning power for the "liberating" army begins in Guatemala, this country which hardly ten years ago began its apprenticeship of democracy and 336 • DISSENT • Autumn 1964 which had let itself (or rather, its leaders) be dazzled by the opportunist intransigence of the Communists...
...For what is defeated is not Communism, but the people of Guatemala and left, non-Communist opinion in Latin America...
...S. Ambassador Patterson said to Arevalo: "I will do my utmost to see that you do not get a single pair of boots, a single cent from my government, unless you stop persecuting American companies...
...Diaz then passes the power to Monzon, a colonel, once minister of Arevalo, well-known anti-Communist, although left of center...
...The first consequence, therefore, of the alliance of leftist parties with the Communists is, in the world conjuncture, to give the military a political role contrary to the very principles of the revolution which, in 1944, had put an end to the armed dictatorship of Ubico...
...Since the end of the second World War Communism has achieved no victory in Latin America as effective as its defeat in Guatemala...
Vol. 1 • September 1954 • No. 4
