Rotten Fruit Dreams
Jacobo never dreamt of becoming involved in politics, let alone be a political figure whose efforts echoed throughout the following generations as the man who tried to save Guatemala. Son to a Guatemalan woman and drug addicted Swiss immigrant who committed suicide when Jacobo was a young boy, his options were few (Bibliography: Jacobo Arbenz 2006). It was only natural that he joined the military and it is here he encountered the real Guatemala under the harsh dictatorship of Jorge Ubico, one of the most infamous dictators in Central America. However, it was upon meeting the love of his life Maria Cristina Vilinova that hurtled him down the path of political involvement (Bibliography: Jacobo Arbenz 2006). Despite her traditional family values and extreme wealth, Vilinova could not accept social inequalities and injustices she encountered in her native land of El Salvador (Bibliography: Jacobo Arbenz 2006). After becoming Mrs. Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, she enlightened him towards the economic and social failures in Guatemala. By the mid 1940’s, her ambitions and passion led Arbenz to join the fight for Guatemala.
Following the turmoil of an anti-Ubico movement, revolt against his successor Ponce, and an assassination thrown in the mix, Arbenz democratically took power on March 15, 1951 (Bibliography: Jacobo Arbenz 2006). Wanting to address inequalities in Guatemala, he began to push for reforms, all which attempted to counteract the non-governmental entity that had the true power in Guatemala, Minor Keith’s United Fruit Company (UFCO). The company was infamous for bribing government officials in exchange for getting out of a country what they needed at the least cost to themselves. This resulted in their involvement in worker exploitation, tax evasion, and creating monopolies over industry. The company was often referred to as “El Pulpo” (the octopus), who’s tentacles penetrated every aspect of the society in which they were present. The company operated as neo-imperialists and Arbenz was not going to tolerate it.
What the UFCO wanted from Guatemala was their banana industry. To gain control they monopolized transportation via the railroad, the major Caribbean ports at Puerto Barrios and the electricity companies to make it abundantly clear that they were needed in Guatemala. Arbenz began by lobbying for projects that would compete with these monopolies, including the construction of a highway, a locally controlled port and a national hydroelectric plant to provide cheaper energy for the Guatemalan people (Bibliography: Jacobo Arbenz 2006). Monopolies suppressed the quality of life in the country, creating a poorly functioning society which immensely benefitted the UFCO. Less competition and cohesion made an easily exploitable society where they would accept poor treatment and miniscule wages.
When necessary, the UFCO turned to violence to take control. Upon first entering Guatemala, they seized the lands of the people and instated “vagrancy laws” which required the newly ‘homeless population’ to work for the big plantations (Jorge Ubico 2009). Land distribution was the golden key to inequality in Guatemala. With a largely rural based indigenous population, taking away land was taking away a livelihood and impacting an entire culture. Therefore, the centerpiece of Arbenz’s government was land reforms as the current situation presented an obvious barrier to any national economic progression stating that “an agrarian reform which puts an end to the latifundios and the semi-feudal practices, giving land to thousands of peasants, raising their purchasing power and creating a great internal market favorable to the development of their domestic industry” (Bibliography: Jacobo Arbenz 2006).
The reform was approved in 1952, at which time the Arbenz government attempted to expropriate unused lands from the large plantations to be redistributed to landless peasants at a small rental fee. Initially these reforms were effective, giving 1.5 million acres to 100 000 families, and another 46 to groups of peasants who formed cooperatives (Bibliography: Jacobo Arbenz 2006). However, detecting these reforms as a potential threat to the UFCO there was a rapid backlash since the company had existed in Guatemala since the beginning when Minor Keith, a main founder of the company took control lands and built railways to take control over banana exports. The UFCO was used to compliance by the Guatemalan government; however what Arbenz was proposing was surely going to make the future of the company in the country questionable. At the time, UFCO owned 550 000 acres in Guatemala of which 85% was uncultivated, an obvious target for Arbenz’s purchasing rampage (Bibliography: Jacobo Arbenz 2006).
Indeed Arbenz did approach the company to purchase these lands. He did so at the rate that UFCO was claiming it was worth on tax forms, $2.99/ acre. However, the American government truly valued this land at $75/ acre which the Guatemalan government refused to pay (Bibliography: Jacobo Arbenz 2006). Seeing that Arbenz would be unwilling to make the same sort of concessions to the UFCO which allowed them to control the Banana trade in Guatemala, an anti-Arbenz campaign ensued. Samuel Zemurray, a dominant UFCO shareholder backed the campaign using Arbenz’s ties to the communist party as a means to show that Arbenz posed a communist threat in the Western Hemisphere (Bibliography: Jacobo Arbenz 2006). Under the Eisenhower administration, a CIA backed operation infiltrated the government, forcing Arbenz to resign. Using the sentiments of the Guatemalan elites and negative propaganda, the Guatemalan population was demoralized leaving Arbenz few options. In his resignation statement he reminded the people of the fruit company’s financial interests and their fear that the well being of Guatemala would hurt their enterprise (Bibliography: Jacobo Arbenz 2006).
UFCO knew exactly how to keep control of the country, and that is why it was one of the company’s most precious treasures. “Guatemala was chosen as the site for the company’s earliest development activities,” a former United Fruit executive once explained, “because at the time we entered Central America, Guatemala’s government was the region’s weakest, most corrupt and most pliable” (Kurtz-Phelan 2008). Minor Keith the “Uncrowned King of Central America,” created an empire, an empire that until its demise controlled as much as 90% of the market, bringing bananas to regions where they were unknown before (Biography: Minor Cooper Keith (1848-1929) 2006). It can be debated whether the company brought more bad than good to the country. Where on one hand it came with a plethora of jobs, infrastructure and opportunity for national economic progression; it also is accused of destroying a way of life and feeding off corruption and injustices in the country with countless human rights violations to supporting a coup that could have possibly saved Guatemala.
Sources
Biography: Jacobo Arbenz (1913-1971). United Fruit Historical Society, 2006. Web. 01 Dec. 2009. http://www.unitedfruit.org/arbenz.htm
Biography: Minor Cooper Keith (1848-1929). United Fruit Historical Society, 2006. Web. 01 Dec. 2009.
Jorge Ubico. In Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Web. 03 Dec. 2009 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/612337/Jorge-Ubico
Kurtz-Phelan, Daniel. "Big Fruit." Big Fruit. 02 Mar. 2008. Web. 02 Dec. 2009.
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