Word: guatemala
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...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...
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...
...Guatemala. Administration officials said last week Washington wants to revive military aid that came to a halt four years ago. 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...
...Fruit, then, remains to be written Like the result of a scary time warp, the Reagan Administration is taking up right where Allen Dulles and his CIA left off. As Schlesinger and Kinzer so effectively argue, this type of policy has no victors--only victims. Eventually, the people of Guatemala, after much senseless bloodshed, will rise up as they did in 1945 and rid themselves of whichever dictator happens to be in power. Then the United States, rightly perceived as the ally of repression, will lose another potential friend to the Soviet camp. The bitter fruit of 1954 is already...