1954 - CIA Kill Off Popular Land Reform In Guatemala

Fri Jul 9 01:24:53 BST 2010

The Agrarian Reform of Jacobo Arbenz
by Piero Gleijesesa
Piero Gleijeses is Associate Professor of 
American Foreign Policy and Latin American 
Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Washington

The cry for land is, without any doubt, the 
loudest, the most dramatic and the most desperate 
sound in Guatemala. So wrote the Guatemalan 
bishops in 1988. In their country's long history, 
the bishops stated, only one president  Jacobo 
Arbenz  had addressed the issue of land reform.1 
Inaugurated in 1951, Arbenz presided over the 
most successful agrarian reform in the history of 
Central America. The reports of the US embassy 
bear testimony to the fact that within eighteen 
months land was distributed to 100,000 peasant 
families, amid little violence and without 
adversely affecting production.2 Praise for 
initiating the reform does not belong, however, 
solely to Arbenz. As his wife observed, Alone, 
he could not have done it. Praise should also be 
given to the Communist party of Guatemala, whose 
leaders were Arbenz's closest personal and political friends.3
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=2E103DB442FE80BD6296148DE0BE72F9.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=3147432

Decree 900
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_900

Decree 900 was a Guatemalan land reform law 
ordered on June 27th 1952 by President Jacobo 
Arbenz Guzmán. This decree redistributed unused 
lands of sizes greater than 223 acres (0.902 km²) 
to local peasants. Proponents of the law stated 
that is was intended to eliminate all feudal 
type property...especially work-servitude and the 
remnant of slavery. 1 It expropriated the unused 
lands of large plantations (estates with lands 
fully in use were exempted from the law), paying 
the oligarchs whose lands were expropriated through government bonds.

Because of the Agrarian Reform Law, the Wm. 
Wrigley Jr. Company in August 1952 announced that 
it would no longer purchase Guatemalan chicle. 
Since Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company had been the sole 
buyer of the product, the Arbenz government 
suddenly had to provide a massive aid program for chicle harvesters. 2

In 1953 Arbenz announced that under the Agrarian 
Reform Law Guatemala was expropriating 234,000 
acres (947 km²) of uncultivated land from the 
United Fruit Company. United Fruit owned 550,000 
acres (2,200 km2) in Guatemala, 42% of the 
nations (arable) land.3 The United Fruit Company 
had reduced its tax burden in Guatemala by 
declaring a low value for its land, much lower 
than it would later claim it was worth. The 
company was compensated with $627,572 in bonds 
for the expropriation of their holdings, the 
amount United Fruit had claimed the land was 
worth for tax purposes. United Fruit continued 
its lobbying campaign for US intervention. The US 
State Department, on behalf of the United Fruit 
Company, claimed to Guatemala that the land was worth $15,854,849. 4

By 1954, 100,000 families had received land as 
well as bank credit and technical aid for sowing 
and marketing. The countrywide union block which 
ran the program was under non-communist leadership until 1954.[citation needed]

In 1954 the CIA-organized covert operation 
Operation PBSUCCESS overthrew the 
democratically-elected President of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán.
[edit]
Footnotes
Note 1: La Feber, Walter (1993). Inevitable 
Revolutions The United States in Central America. 
Norton Press. ISBN 0-393-03434-8., pg 118, Citing 
Blanche Wiesen Cook, The Declassified Eisenhower 
(Garden City, N.Y., 1981), page 224; Neale J. 
Pearson, "Guatemala: The Peasant Union Movement, 
1944-1954," in Latin American Peasant.Wovements 
ed. Henry A. Landsberger (Ithaca, 1969), page 224
Note 2: La Feber, Walter (1993). Inevitable 
Revolutions The United States in Central America. 
Norton Press. ISBN 0-393-03434-8., pg 119, Citing 
Donald Dozer, Are We Good Neighbors? Inter 
American Relations 1930 1960 (Gainesville, Fla., 1959), page 264
Note 3: La Feber, Walter (1993). Inevitable 
Revolutions The United States in Central America. 
Norton Press. ISBN 0-393-03434-8., pg 120; Citing 
Graham H. Stuart, and James L. Tigner, Latin 
America and the United States, 6th ed. (Englewood 
Cliffs, N.J., 1975), page 519-520; Blanche Wiesen 
Cook, The Declassified Eisenhower (Garden City, N.Y., 1981), page 221-225
Note 4: Kinzer, Stephen and Stephen Schlesinger 
(2005). Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American 
Coup in Guatemala. Harvard University David 
Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. ISBN 0-674-01930-X., pg 76

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