Word: guatemala
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...this month, President Carlos Castillo Armas will make a state visit to Washington and reap some of the honor due him as the doughty little warrior who kicked a pro-Communist government out of Guatemala. Since that mid-1954 burst of glory, he has managed to survive in the face of drought, plots and a sputtering of accusations (TIME, Aug. 22). But last week, as he made plans to depart, his prestige was dipping. Main reasons: resentment over ham-handed measures by his police, and a hard-to-ignore smell of corruption...
None of the abundant policemen have set to work on the corn and beans deal; instead, a new food scandal broke. Guatemala's established importers of flour charged that Minister of Economy Jorge Arenales had set up a quota system that virtually handed an import monopoly to a group of businessmen represented by his own former law partner. Arenales tried to defend his move as an encouragement for growing and milling wheat locally. But the press was unconvinced. Columnist José Alfredo Palmieri sighed: "Corn, beans, and now flour-the best profits are always made on hunger . . . Food speculation...
...senior writer in the HEMISPHERE section, bilingual Bill Forbis has written cover stories on Haiti (Feb. 22, 1954), Guatemala (June 28. 1954) and Venezuela...
...money to Mario Bolanos. Bolanos had reportedly made a lot of money out of the severe corn shortage caused by Central America's spring drought. Back in January, it appeared, Insider Bolanos found out that the government, worried about drought forecasts, planned to lift import duties on corn, Guatemala's basic foodstuff. With a Mexican and two Guatemalans as partners, he set up Comercial Guatemalteca to import corn from Mexico. What with import duties suspended and corn retailing for as much as 15? a lb. (normal price: about 5?), it was a highly profitable venture, though merchants...
...available corn to private dealers). But last week the warrant had not been served, Bolanos was at liberty, and Comercial Guatemalteca was still in business. The government even granted the firm a license to import 4,000 metric tons of frijoles (black beans), now selling at scarcity prices in Guatemala, and 100,000 sacks of cement, also in short supply. Plenty of Guatemalans were still willing to give Castillo Armas the benefit of the doubt, but they were waiting and hoping for a somewhat better explanation of why the President had allowed himself to be backed into such an embarrassing...