Sins of the U.S. Empire Part 2 -Guatemala
First Steps
Sins of the U.S. Empire Part 2 -Guatemala
First Steps
As I mentioned in Part 1 I received a very whitewashed version of U.S. history, leaving out the horrors that the U.S. inflicted on the Native Americans, or at best glossing over them, and replacing the atrocities with the story of Thanksgiving. They played up the gold rush rather than discuss the details of the Trail of Tears, and subsequent poverty and depression that persist through to this day on reservations.
But after those initial atrocities the U.S. in more modern times has learned it’s lesson, and doesn’t treat indigenous people that badly, right? We may still basically ignore what’s going on with reservations, but those massacres that were perpetrated, were done by less civilized, earlier Americans. The U.S. isn’t about causing another Trail of Tears, we’re about spreading Freedom and Democracy! We’d never do something as horrible as that again, not in rather modern times…would we?
Guatemala
Let’s rewind back to 1944 and go down south of Mexico to Guatemala. While the U.S was involved in WW2, Guatemala was having a revolution. They had been under the control of a dictator named Jorge Ubico, but the revolution removed him from office and Guatemala had their first democratically elected president Juan Jose Arevalo (Yay democracy! The U.S. must love this right?). He passed reforms like a minimum wage, and universal voting regardless of race/gender, real progressive stuff!
He was succeeded by another democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz in 1951, the first ever passing of power between democratically elected officials in Guatemala.
Arbenz went further with his reforms, the largest of which was a law that helped by giving land to the peasant class, who at this point were living essentially in a feudal system, holding land in exchange for the labor for the landlords. Arben’z bill only affected those with greater than 673 acres of land, if it was undeveloped, and compensated the owner with government bonds for what the landlord stated the land was worth on their last tax report. It then awarded land to peasants, most of whom were indigenous Mayans, so they could develop their own farm. Overall this had a large net positive effect for the country, with more farm equipment being purchased and more agricultural production occurring. I’m sure the American’s up north will be very happy to see how well things are going for the Guatemalans and their new democracy!
The United Fruit Company
The United Fruit Company (having since changed it’s name to Chiquita)
The United Fruit Company (UFC) was not very pleased with these new reforms. You see they had been running a VERY profitable business having previously been bribing lawmakers, and a endless supply of peasants to work for dirt wages (essentially slaves), but now with the peasants owning their own lands, and actually being able to produce for themselves in turn building some independent wealth, as well as a government that wasn’t ok with UFC’s exploitative practices…it was cutting into their profits.
At this point the UFC had double the income of the entire country of Guatemala. It owned huge swathes of land that it hadn’t developed, some of which ended up being seized by the government, and they were compensated for what they claimed it was worth, which they had undervalued to avoid taxation. In addition to this they also owned the only port into the Atlantic, so could profit off of all imports and exports. The new labor reform laws in the country also allowed the workers to strike if their demands weren’t met for higher wages and or better working conditions. The UFC having been used to essentially slave labor wouldn’t negotiate with the workers, and instead decided to spend millions lobbying in Washington to try to get the government of Guatemala overthrown.
They did this in varying ways, they led misinformation campaigns and had fake reports made to show to members of congress, they painted Guatemala as a extreme communist regime with ties to the USSR. Even though the president had made the communist party legal he had stayed within the guidelines of the current capitalist system, just with many reforms to improve the lives of the native people who had been living in feudalism.
Operation PBFortune (1952 Truman Era)
The first coup plot by the U.S. in association with Chiquita (UFC) involved using a man by the name of Carlos Castillo Armas. Armas had been exiled from Guatemala after a previous coup attempt. The CIA reached out to him and decided to supply him with funding and weapons. They contacted some dictator’s in the area and let them in on the plan, the dictators over The Dominican Republic and Venezuela gave the U.S. their blessings, and the plan was set in motion. The CIA decided to fill a freighter with weapons disguised as farm equipment, and were going to load up their rebels to ship down to Nicaragua in preparation to invade Guatemala, but at the last minute the state called it off. They however kept Armas on retainer.
Operation PBSuccess (1954 Eisenhower Era)
Chiquita (UFC) at this point had the ear of the president. Their head public relations manager’s wife was the personal assistant to the president. So when making decisions he often connected the needs of Chiquita (UFC) with that of national security. Beyond this you had McCarthyism and the “Red Scare”, and the president of Guatemala had a few communist close by. Though all investigations after the fact would end up showing that there was no USSR influence in Guatemala (Operation PBHistory). But due to the lobbying of Chiquita (UFC) they convinced the U.S. to fund death squads with CIA approved assassination methods, and list of people to kill. They recruited exiles and people from neighboring countries. They began to run fake news radio to mess with the minds of the citizens of the country, aka “psychological warfare”. They also blockaded the one Atlantic port, and began bombing Guatemala City. Due to these attacks, the psychological warfare, and fear of a full U.S. invasion the Guatemalan army surrendered, and their president (only the second ever democratically elected) resigned. Armas who had been hand picked by the U.S became the dictator, he imprisoner and tortured anyone who he saw as opposition, outlawed other political parties, and reversed the social reforms of the last two president.
The next 40 years would see civil war between leftist guerrilla fighters and the U.S. backed dictators who would commit atrocities including a genocide against the indigenous Mayan people, with a death toll estimated at 200,000 (160,000 killed 40,000 “disappeared”), many of these deaths purposely targeted children. Keep in mind these soldiers were trained by the U.S. CIA in “counter insurgency tactics”, and what would be most efficient to strike fear in a population you are wanting to repress by means of terror. Most of these murders occurred during the 80s, so in the decade I was born in, so this isn’t ancient history.
Summary
So what happened to being the “good guys” and bringing “freedom and justice for all”. Instead what I see here is a government doing the bidding of a multinational corporation, and allowing a smaller scale holocaust to occur to an indigenous people yet again. Meanwhile, propping up a horrendous leader who commits these atrocities. You’d think that the U.S. who takes pride in the fact it freed itself in a revolution from a foreign power, and became a democracy, would be in favor of what the Guatemalans had done. Rather than snuff them out at the start of their democracy, that only lasted 10 years in. Unfortunately, here we have the reality of U.S. foreign policy vs the fantasy that they portray, especially to their own people.
I wonder why none of this is taught in U.S. history classes? I say this kidding of course, I know exactly why. Knowledge like this doesn’t fit the narrative to spark that dewy eyed patriotism they love to exploit in their own poor population, before sending them off to the meat grinder at the behest of whichever corporation is pulling the strings at the time.
Unfortunately we see this same type of scenario play out over, and over in U.S. foreign policy. Yet most of the populace is completely oblivious to it, either willfully or are just ignorant due to the terrible censoring of what is taught in schools. I plan to keep continuing this series of articles, partially to keep exploring and educating myself on what my home country has done, but I also hope to help my readers become more aware of these events, and with that knowledge be able to filter and interpret what they hear in the media, and see the bigger picture.