Right, Wrong, and Greed

            After World War II and during the onset of the Cold War the United States foreign political agenda was focused on limiting the worldwide spread of communism. The phrase “domino effect” was the hot button phrase of American politicians.   Americans saw communism as a cancer spreading across the world and the American government would do almost anything to protect itself from the "evil" communists.

            After World War II, Europe lay in ashes and The United States' concern was that the Soviet Union would expand its communist influence further and become a formidable opponent to the United States.  At the time most of the United States’ international efforts were focused on rebuilding European economies. During this time the Latin American economy was dwindling at an alarming rate.   Latin American postwar nationalists faced issues such as social inequality, dwindling internal markets and a resurgent pre-war oligarchy. The United States had its main focus on its efforts in Europe but maintained a close watch on South America and particularly Guatemala.  And when situations arose the United States was there to deal with them; by supporting rebellion, training proxy forces,  or installing a dictator. 

Beginning in the early 1900’s Guatemala became the home to enormous banana plantations owned by the United Fruit Company, Guatemala’s largest landowner and employer.  Dictators, some of which were backed by United States, traditionally governed Guatemala.  Change happened in 1945 with the election of the first democratic president Juan Jose Arevalo.  Arevalo, a former university professor, described his philosophy as “spiritual socialism”.  Arevalo immediately sought an increase in pay for the Guatemalan workers.  American politicians in Washington, many holding interests in the United Fruit Company, began raising their concerns about this "communistic” behavior.

The second reformist president, Jacobo Arbenz, was a young army officer who truly believed that change was needed and wanted to improve the situation of his people.  Arbenz “tried to institute agrarian reforms that would hand over fallow land to dispossessed peasants, thereby creating a middle class in a country where 2 percent of the population owned 72 percent of the land” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/opinion/04schlesinger.html?_r=0.). The Guatemalan government expropriated land from United Fruit Company as part of the reform. The reaction from the U.S. was a dramatic one. Politicians in Washington cried “communism” as did American backed landowners in Guatemala.  The United States government supported the claims of the United Fruit Company. When revolutionaries within the Arbenz government decided to arm a people’s militia to counter the conservative military, the United States geared into action.  The United States government trained a proxy force in Honduras and invaded Guatemala. The Guatemalan military joined them.  As a result Arbenz denounced his presidency and left the country. The United States State Department “then announced a landmark victory for democracy in Guatemala (Born in Blood and Fire, 266)".  This announcement commemorated the beginning of decades of bloody rule by various dictators and a thirty-six year long civil war in Guatemala. History has shown that the actions taken in Guatemala were unjustified and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalan citizens. Today, the United States government has “acknowledged its responsibility for wrongdoing..." (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/world/americas/24guatemala.html?_r=0).

Source of image: http://subjunctive.net/klog/images/2009/diego-rivera-glorious-victory.jpg