2 years, 10 months ago
Why did land reform fail in Guatemala?
What factors cause land reform in Guatemala to fail?
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M$1 Answer
Guatemala president Jacobo Arbenz 1950 - 1954
President Jacobo Arbenz won the election in 1950 advocating the basic platform of an agrarian reform. Despite Guatemala being the richest country in the region with the highest gross domestic product, with the strongest currency and maintaining regional economic dominance in export agriculture, mining and manufacturing it suffered from a severe misdistribution of land. Approximately 2 percent of the population controlled 72 percent of Guatemala's arable land, while 88 percent of the population held only 14 percent of the land.
On June 17, 1952, the Guatemalan Congress approved Decree 900, Arbenz's Agrarian Reform Law. During its two years of existence, Decree 900 licensed the redistribution of 603,704 hectares of land to an estimated 100,000 Guatemalan families.
In 1953 the Eisenhower administration was pressured by executives of United Fruit Company - much of the vast and uncultivated land in Guatemala had been expropriated by the Arbenz government as part of the land reform program. The company wanted nearly $16 million for their land; the government was offering $525,000, United Fruit's own declared valuation for tax purposes.
United Fruit functioned in Guatemala as a state within a state. It owned the country's telephone and telegraph facilities, administered its only important Atlantic harbor, and monopolized its banana exports. The company had persistently endeavored to frustrate Arbenz's reform programs, discredit him and his government, and induce his downfall.
Arbenz was, accordingly, wary of multinationals and could not be said to welcome them into his country with open arms. This attitude, his expropriation of United Fruit's land, and his "tolerance of communists" were more than enough to make him a marked man in Washington.
The agrarian reform policy was succeeding when it was subverted by a CIA-sponsored coup d’état (Operation PBSUCCESS) in 1954, thus perpetuating Guatemalan social structures and preserving the inequitable land distribution. Despite the way the agrarian reform ended, most authors agree that the policy was succeeding when it was subverted.
In this Diego Rivera painting "Gloriosa Victoria" (Glorious Victory) which portrays the US intervention in Guatemala, we can see coup Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas greeting secretary of state John Foster Dulles, who is holding a bomb with the face of Eisenhower, surrounded by bananas and dead boys; to his side US ambassador John Peurifoy with some military officers and CIA director Allan Dulles whispering to his brother ear; in the other side the archbishop of Guatemala, Mariano Rossell Arellano, can be seeing blessing the act, while Guatemalan people protest.
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M$
"Arbenz was, accordingly, wary of multinationals and could not be said to welcome them into his country with open arms."
Factually incorrect. The 3 major public works undertaken by Arbenz were developed by US companies, the Ruta Atlantico, the hydroelectric power station in Escuintla and the port at Santo Tomas on the Caribbean coast.
The first sentence also looks suspect:
"President Jacobo Arbenz won the election in 1950 advocating the basic platform of an agrarian reform."
I have not encountered the idea that the election platform included land reform, though I would accept primary source as counterevidence. Decreto 900 was developed in secret with the PGT *after* the election victory of Arbenz. Arbenz enjoyed sufficient popularity for having twice 'saved Guatemala' firstly in October 44 and secondly in the putting down of an army rebellion.