Word: coupes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...tragedy of the 1954 coup, says Schlesinger, is that left to its own devices. Guatemala would probably now be one of Central America's few democracies. "Some of the CIA people involved in the coup who we talked to look back integrate. Yes, they successfully overthrew a government for their country. But what was the result? Twenty-eight years of military dictatorship. And now, ironically, the threat of a communist takeover is, far more serious than it ever was in the 1950s...
...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...
...course, the CIA coup was more 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...
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...
...Disgusted with human rights violations by the government of General Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia. President Carter had harshly criticized Guatemala, forcing it to renounce U.S. military assistance. President Reagan, in a gesture of "good will" toward the month-old regime of Efrain Rios Montt, who took power in a coup, will send Guatemala some $4 million in spare parts for the American-made helicopters it uses to fight leftist rebels No matter that Rios Montt has so far reneged on his promise to call elections. Or that the new leader, a general himself, has the backing of the historically repressive...