Background
Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was born on 14 Sepember in 1913 in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. The son of a Swiss druggist and a Salvadoran woman.
government official politician
Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was born on 14 Sepember in 1913 in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. The son of a Swiss druggist and a Salvadoran woman.
He compiled an impressive academic record at Guatemala's national military academy where he later returned as instructor and director.
In 1944 dictator Jorge Ubico y Castaneda turned the government over to a military triumvirate which continued his political repression. Arbenz, by then a captain, resigned in protest and joined with Major Francisco Javier Arana and businessman Jorge Toriello to oust the triumvirate. They then supervised the December 1944 elections that resulted in the triumph of Juan José Arévalo Bemejo.
Under Arévalo, Arbenz and Arana emerged as Guatemala's leading political figures. Arévalo and liberal factions endorsed Arbenz, while the right wing rallied behind Arana. Four months before the election of 1950, Arana was assassinated. With his main rival eliminated, Arbenz received 65 percent of the vote.
At an Inter-American Conference in Caracas, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles introduced a strong resolution designed to isolate Arbenz, which did not identify the Guatemalan government as Communist but repudiated Marxist ideology in principle.
Arbenz attempted to organize a militia. The army refused to supply the civilians with weapons. When Arbenz obtained a shipment of Czech small arms for the militia, the United States termed this an intolerable step on the road to Communism.
The Central Intelligence Agency organized, trained, and equipped a small invasion force in Honduras under the command of a former Guatemalan army colonel, Carlos Castillo Armas. When the group crossed the border into Guatemala in May 1954, the armed forces refused to oppose the invaders and the president resigned.
Arbenz lived in various European countries (including Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union) after his overthrow. He later moved to Uruguay, Cuba, and, finally, Mexico City, where he died of natural causes.
The centerpiece of Arbenz’ legislative program was the 1952 Agrarian Reform Law. Compensation for expropriated land became a bitter issue. The United Fruit Company demanded market value of its land ($15.8 million), and Arbenz offered the figure which the company itself had declared for tax purposes. Opponents of land reform soon labeled it a Marxist program. There was no question that the Communist Party (reorganized as the Guatemalan Labor Party) had gained considerable influence under Arbenz, and decision makers in Washington were soon describing Guatemala as a Soviet satellite.
