FOR the first half of the 20th century, Guatemala was the fiefdom of the United Fruit Company. The United Fruit Company grew to virtually own Guatemala. By the time of the second war it controlled transport the United States through Great White Fleet.
It monopolised railroad transport within Guatemala, as well as the maAtlantic port Puerto Barrios, through BILS subsidlary, the InternaRailroads of Central America (IRCA): and OCHE Guatemalan lands on which it grew chiefly bananas.
United Company through its board of directors and its DallACIs brought together LIC {OD families of the American ruling class - the Rockefellers, the Morgans and others.
The struggles of the Guatemalan people against imperialist domination culminated in the election in 1950, of Jacabo Arbenz with the support of organised labour, peasants, the more radical sectors the When he took office in 1951, Arbenz clearly stated his objectives: ... first, to convert (Guatemala) from dependent Hallull with a colonial economy to an economically independent second, transform our nation from a backward nation with a predominantly feudal modern capitalist country; and third, to accomplish inis transtormaton in manner that brings the greatest possible elevation of the living standard of the great masses of the people.
But to carry out Arbenz's modest programme, er an conning he much further confronting. United Fruit Companv and the land. ed oligarchy, left intact by Arévalo.
Arbenz tried. He promoted the construction of a government-run hydroelectric plant, a highway to the Atlantic, and an Atlantic port, proJects almed al breaking ine loreign monopolies' control of energy, transportation, and exports. Gult of Mexico Quezaltenanyo GUATEMALA organisers on UFCo's plantations, and Indian leaders. Scores of peasants were murdered.
The US Embassy provided lists of communists to be eliminated. Peasant and labour unions were disbanded. Belize Honduras Social and economic measures that Tavoured ine workers peasants were uprooted. The United Fruit Company got its land back But between 1963 and 1966 left wing guerrilla organisations launched a struggle to overthrow the dictatorbourgeois democratic revolution with neithe the capacity nor the desire to defenc itself. They concluded that what was needed was an armed struggle aimed at developing and peasants Thev were convincec that to tight against imperialism in Latin America meant to fight for socialism.
responded bruta counter-insurgenev campaigr in the middle and late 1960s guidance of US Ambassador Mein, the occupied village and executed peasant leaders. Tactics develoned in Vietnam. including thi designation of target areas for bomb. ing and the use of US Special Forces (Green Berets) as advisers to forces, were rapidly implemented.
Entire villages were obliterated by bombing and napalm. US Air Force planes based in Panama participatec in tnese operations It was in this period that the in famous death squads appeared Guatemala Guatemala became in the 1960s the laboratory for the use of paramilitary ConHer insurgency tactic. It would be employed later like Argentina and Brazil, and is today being employed in El Salvador.
The guerrila movement 1960s was crushed, Turcios Lima anc Yon Sosa killed. But it was not gone forever. The surviving cadre and the masses assimilated lessons, movement would soon reappear stronger and even greater political clarity.
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bourgeoisie, and the not yet legalised Transform