Guatemala in Transition:

...The Company says it un?successfully offered such revision several times during the Arevalo and Arbenz administrations...

...The Communists had succeeded in con?trolling the unions from above, though the party had only 3,000 members and the masses of workers were not Communists...

...Antonio Mendez, a democratic journalist who has been observing developments in Guatemala City for a decade, finds it hard to tell...

...journalists who toured the country at the begin?ning of November were told that only 100 politicals remained in prison...

...in August), they were attacked by regular Army cadets and the capital garrison and forced to surrender...

...The regime also has strong friends abroad...

...Anti-union elements definitely have control in certain provinces...

...The company says that this land should never have been touched and that, in any case, the $600,000 compensa?tion was inadequate...

...The Committee's method was first to seize anyone suspected of Commu?nism, then to pass judgment on him at its leisure...

...Guate?malan officials believe that United Fruit will give up half its lands and will grant the Government 30 per cent of its profits...

...Conflict among the various ele?ments is difficult to avoid...

...But the Code has been ham?strung on the administrative end by judges, inspectors and bureaucrats...

...Now conflict has begun to break out...

...The most unfortunate aspect of all this is that the anti-Communist laws on which this repression is based never define what a Communist is...

...The economic situation is marked by considerable unemployment, offi?cially estimated at 20,000...

...it claims the land was worth $15 million...

...Within this context, Guatemalan unions have had tough going...

...labor organiza?tions, which aided greatly in re?building the unions...

...a court doctor con?firmed the charge...

...Following its precedent in Costa Rica, the United Fruit Company offered to revise its contract with the Govern?ment, though it has several decades to run...

...capitalists has awakened great interest among the Guate?malans, although they are waiting to see its tangible advantages...

...Its supporters have moved to return the remains of Ubico to Guatemala, and also to re?turn the $80 million worth of Ger?man property confiscated during World War II to its former owners...

...Instead of competing de?structively, as had been feared, these two groups have joined in energetic protests to the Government...

...Will this be Guatemala's Thermidor or its Third Republic...

...Antagonism between the two is natural...

...It has also fined certain landlords who "took justice into their own hands," but the fines have sel?dom exceeded $100...

...The dissolution of Guatemala's Masonic lodges can be considered a Conservative tri?umph...

...The San Salvador agreement, which ended the civil war last summer, was a compromise between Castillo's "Liberation Army" and the regular Army, which had deserted Arbenz...

...Fortunately, the Guatemalan work?ers found strong allies in the ORIT, the hemisphere free-labor confedera?tion, and in the U.S...

...But the National Army leadership continued to support Castillo Armas himself, enabling him to shed first two members of the Junta with which he had returned from San Salvador and, finally, the other two members of the surviving triumvirate...

...When 600 "Liberation" troops came to Guate?mala City two months later (that is...

...Nevertheless, the regime can count on all the forces generally re?garded as "anti-Communist.'' These include old Liberal politicians I con?servative but anti-clerical...

...Under Arbenz, there were 3,000, many of whom were absorbed by the Agrarian Reform...

...The AND has met with adverse ser?mons by the Archbishop and vigor?ous attacks by the students...

...The Assembly was elected by an open vote, and thus the official list got more than 90 per cent of the votes...

...GUATEMALA IN TRANSITION Anti-Communists' now in control are disunited By Antonio Mendez GUATEMALA has been in furious transition ever since the over?throw last summer of the Commu?nist-infiltrated regime of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman...

...And, it should be noted, the mass trial of Military School cadets for their attack on the "Lib?erators" has not yet come to an end...

...An anti-union terror was let loose which made the reor?ganization of the unions virtually impossible, and employers began firing workers en masse...

...The meaning of such elections without a secret ballot is only too familiar in the twentieth century...

...The Con?servatives, for example, controlled the Government until the Liberal Revolution of 1871, which saw the enacting of much anti-clerical legis?lation, including confiscation of the Church lands...

...It has been urged to give priority to the Pan-Ameri?can Highway, which has strategic and tourist value, and to defer the Atlantic Highway, a move toward economic liberation much demanded...

...What about the men who governed Guatemala during the last decade...

...The Party of Anti-Communist Unification (PUA) is led by General Idigoras Fuentes, who helped plot the overthrow of Arbenz with Castillo in exile...

...firms has placed any obstacles to the rebuilding of Guatemalan trade-unionism...

...A supreme effort was made to unite the various "anti-Communist" forces during the elections for the Constituent Assembly in the form of a National Anti-Communist Front...

...The originally great influence of the Anti-Commu?nist University Students Committee and of the small tradesmen has re?ceded, and power has been shifting in the direction of the old Liberal politicians, many of whom were col?laborators in the sinister dictatorship of General Jorge Ubico (1930-44...

...Two prison?ers, accused of distributing anti-Government throwaways, charged that they had been beaten with rub?ber truncheons...

...Two policemen were jailed, but the Director of the Secret Police, Bernabe Linares (whose violent activities in the same position under Ubico have not been forgotten), was confirmed in his post...

...As a re?sult, many big landowners have re?acquired lands which had been di?vided among the peasants...

...Anti-Communist repression" so complicates ordinary life that one cannot say there is real civil liberty in Guatemala...

...The Front lost in only one province and lost seats in only two others...

...City where there are about 500 prisoners, most of them peasants...

...aid has been well received, though the average Guatemalan re?members that it was not extended till (1) Castillo Armas's regime was "legalized" by the plebiscite, and (2) the regime raised $5.5 million through a special capital levy...

...But the malice of the employers, a general lack of political maturity, and the schemes of some of those who arrived with the "Liberation" have served to con?fuse Communism with trade-union?ism...

...Two workers' organizations were established, the National Committee on Trade Union Reorganization (CNRA) and the Autonomous Trade Union Federa?tion, which has a Christian Socialist orientation...

...In the plebiscite confirming Castillo Armas's power, which was also an open vote, the count was 500,000 votes to 500...

...The next day, newspapers carried a protest from political pris?oners which included 118 signatures from Escuintla province alone...

...The strong?est unions??United Fruit Company workers, railwaymen, teachers...

...Economically as well as politically, the nation's problems require not only her own resources but the sympathy of the entire hemisphere...

...As throughout the hemisphere, the opposition in Guatemala speculates on discontent in the Army...

...The PUA now operates more or less in the shad?ows, along with the PIACO, the Anti-Communist Party of Western Guatemala...

...But, a few weeks later, all Guatemalan unions were deprived of legal recognition and forced to ob?tain new clearance from the National Committee for Defense Against Communism (about which we will say more in a moment...

...To be sure, the modern and pro?gressive Labor Code has not been altered, in spite of the demands of certain employers and part of the press...

...At the same time, Guatemalan economists believe that the present depression cannot be overcome un?less coffee prices are maintained...

...Only then did Washington extend $6.4 million, indicating that U.S...

...Early in July, Castillo Armas pro?claimed that he was a friend of the workers and would support their gains...

...This "new deal" from U.S...

...Conservative chiefs (Catholic), the Church hierarchy, the industrialists, merchants, rural landlords and some of the university students...

...U.S...

...Many representative 1944 revo?lutionaries have already publicly repudiated Arbenz's collaboration with the Communists...

...President Carlos Castillo Armas achieved his present power through the gradual elimination of his rivals...

...In re?sponse, the Government established the Sub-Secretariat of Labor in the Ministry of Economy and Labor...

...Adding to the confusion are new splinter parties...

...But, after Jacobo Arbenz Guzman became President, Com?munists acquired more and more influence in the regime until, last summer, it was destroyed in a series of coups...

...Its present realities are hard to define, because (1) what is said and what is done often have no relation, (2) methods are modi?fied so often that the same problem frequently is attacked from two con?tradictory viewpoints, and (3) or?ders given in the National Palace at Guatemala City are often unrecog?nizable by the time they are "car?ried out" in the provinces...

...Although there has been a general tempering in the severity of the repression since the first days of "Liberation," this has been obscured by the denunciation of police tor?tures in Guatemala City...

...Like any organization whose members are well paid, it continually needs additional income...

...The names of its members are secret, though it has a numerous bureaucracy and its own armed forces...

...In this connection, the regime has hesitated to embark on a public-works program...

...A very strong element supporting Castillo Armas is the small merchant class in the village...

...Recently, Coronado Lira, a close associate of Castillo, formed the Na?tional Democratic Action (AND), which has attracted the most fanati?cal of the Liberals...

...and, to justify its large budget, it must "find" the necessary new victims...

...Nevertheless, whereas last May there were 500 recognized unions in Guatemala, today there is only one with legal recognition, that of the white-collar workers...

...Many others are fighting for recognition in the face of employer opposition...

...aid will be on a quid pro quo basis...

...The supreme tribunal in this field is the aforementioned National Committee for Defense Against Communism, which can jail anyone indefinitely and seize his pos?sessions...

...Apart from the emigres in Mexico, who appear to be following the lead?ership of Arbenz, most of them will probably regroup around the princi?ples of the original 1944 Revolution, in a new movement devoted primar?ily to democracy and nationalism and careful to exclude all Commu?nists...

...Guatemala's relations with foreign business seem promising...

...The International Railways of Central America and the Electric Light Company of Guatemala have also indicated that they intend to renegotiate their contracts with the Government...

...Lately, it has become a bit more prudent...

...were dissolved...

...This writer knows of a single prison in Guatemala...

...In other words, the President has few mili?tary forces which are, strictly speak?ing, his own...

...At first, these disparate elements worked together...

...With the Agrarian Reform Law suspended, the Government permits the return of land which, in the landlords' judg?ment, was seized unjustly...

...Therefore, a Communist is anyone who is so labeled by the Defense Committee, which must pass on all trade-union leaders and public em?ployes and which receives thousands of individual denunciations, many the result of personal spite...

...United Fruit has also now presented a legal claim for the return of those of its lands which were expropriated under the Agrarian Reform Law, lands which have already been divided, cultivated and harvested by the peasants...

...In 1944, when Juan Jose Arevalo led the forces that overthrew Guatemalan dictator Jorge Ubico, Guatemala seemed to be embarking on a revolution much like Mexico's...

...In addition, none of the U.S...

...The Government has, to a certain extent, combated the system of obligatory personal service which was reintroduced in certain Indian regions...

...Colonel Elfego Monzon, in command of the National Army, dealt with Castillo as an equal, and the latter entered the capital with the toler?ance of the regulars...