Word: guatemala
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...little Central American countries, El Salvador and Guatemala, struggled in freedom's toils last week. Both had recently overthrown tyrants. Both had discovered that the seeds of tyranny did not vanish with the tyrants...
Unsmiling General. When Guatemala's hated Dictator Jorge Ubico resigned the presidency, he delegated power to a junta of three generals. The leader, hard and unsmiling Federico Ponce, promptly convoked Ubico's hand-picked Congress, over awed it by stationing troops at the doors. Obediently, the deputies elected him Provisional President. Five young lawyers who protested were slapped into jail. Ponce's government won astonishingly prompt U.S. approval...
Shopkeepers closed their doors. Railroad workers quit. The people used little or no violence, for this was a strike of "brazos caidís" ("arms down"). The life of long terrorized Guatemala slowed to a deathly standstill...
Before leaving Guatemala for Mexico City, Ubico delegated his power to a military junta. But the people wanted real self-government; they had at least a chance to start their climb toward democracy...
...Ubico's downfall reduced the "Dictators' Club" of Central America to half its former membership. Dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez of El Salvador fell last May before a popular strike which set the pattern for Guatemala. The two survivors, Dictator Tiburcio Carías of Honduras and Dictator Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua, were seriously threatened by the wave of unarmed strikes sweeping Latin America...