Word: arbenz
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Dissolved all the leftist parties that supported the Communist-line administration of ex-President Jacobo Arbenz...
...these measures there was little sign of the major social overhaul that Guatemala's newspapers and churchmen were hopefully talking about. Making his first speech as president, Castillo Armas concentrated on attacking the old government. He did promise that peasants who have received plots under the Arbenz land-reform law will get their titles outright; until now the government has retained the deeds, both to prevent resale and to keep political control over the farmers.* But the general reaction, even among Castillo's warmest backers, was one of sharp disappointment. They were hoping for a bold, positive program...
...last, desperate days of his government, President Jacobo Arbenz summoned Finance Minister Raúl Sierra Franco to the presidential offices and told him: "I must have 2,000,000 quetzales* right away; a friendly government has agreed to sell us fighter planes for cash." Sierra Franco, a dutiful and upright functionary, replied that there was probably only a million in cash available, but offered to get that...
Castillo Armas also announced that his "determination in general is not to allow the departure of any refugee guilty of common crimes," and said he thought he could show that Arbenz was the "author of a common crime." But to deny safe-conducts, at least for the important refugees, would be to defy both the generous interpretation of the right of asylum that Guatemala has traditionally held, and the government of Mexico. Guatemala's traditional friend. Worse, seizing Arbenz might enable him to pose as a martyr...
...Kremlin's play for Guatemala had been some inexplicable practical joke, sending useless arms to Arbenz would indeed have been the cream of the jest. But members of the U.S. military mission in Guatemala, who have had a preliminary look at the Red arms, say that they were entirely usable. They included thousands of standard Mauser rifles, machine guns and machine pistols, hand grenades, mortars, 37-mm. antitank guns (deadly against trucks), 75-mm. howitzers suited to the local terrain, plus antitank and anti-personnel mines. All were in shooting condition. Not for lack of weapons, but because...