Word: arbenz
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That a popularly elected government in a distant nation should be deposed for the sake of a bunch of banana salesmen may seem absurd and even comical. Mostly though, it is terrifying. Arbenz's policies--essentially the legalization of labor unions and a modest land reform that expropriated only unused fields, including much of United Fruits holdings--were hardly those of a Marxist revolutionary Nor did they pose a lethal threat to United Fruit's interests, its fruit-producing lands remained untouched But America, caught up in the hysteria of McCarthysim and the Cold War, flinched. The reflex to react...
...their engrossing book Bitter Fruit, Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer tell the previously untold tale of the American coup in Guatemala. Using government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the authors recount in a straight forward but not simplistic manner the details of Arbenz's overthrow For an American. Bitter Fruit makes agonizing reading: the arrogance. Callousness and stupidity of our countrymen is hard to swallow...
...than just the haphazard act of a virulently anti-communist administration. As Schlesinger and Kinzer tell it, the United Fruit Company, which had been well-entrenched in Guatemala since the turn of the century and profited enormously from a succession of anti-labor right wing dictators, felt threatened by Arbenz's reforms. So United Fruit called on its many friends in Washington--including Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen, director of the CIA--to take action. Thanks to an impressive public relations campaign, the company managed to paint Arbenz as an anti-U.S. communist bent...
Ironically, while the coup achieved its initial goal of ousting Arbenz, it did not keep United Fruit in Guatemala. Plagued by anti-trust suits from the American government of all places--specifically the Justice Department--the Boston-based company gave up its hold...
BITTER FRUIT, an invaluable historical narrative, also sounds a timely warning. The parallels between American perceptions of Arbenz's Guatemala and present day Nicaragua are striking. Only this time, the Administration itself is playing the role of United Fruit. Concerned that the Sandinista are best on exporting revolution to neighboring Central American countries, Washington is apparently considering financing a paramilitary group to destabilize the Nicaraguan regime through economic sabotage--and eventually overthrow it. In charge of the group would be--surprise, surprise...