Guatemala Case

Guatemala

• Tourist Destination

• Booming Economy in Central America

• 5-10% Entrepeunarship

• 36 Year Civil War

• Export: Coffee, Sugar, Impearl Industry, and Tourism

• Illiteracy 40%

• Patend Area : Discovery of Oil and Mayan Ruins

• The Carga System: Served Gods and you did your civil obligations. For every tribal group of fruit and food portion, the rest of the tibal group can support them. Evened out the wealth for the tribe.

• Reduction: Many towns set up for Indians. Moved them there, and now the Indians were too far away from land and lost them to the local Spanish hacienda owners.

• Indian workers; Mistrust among them. Had to be solemn and not good worker and Spanish looked at them like beasts and treated like animals with brutality.

• 1830's: Taxes on Indians who had land.

• 1890's: Coffee was found to grow very well and required much labor. Indian villages were forced to provide labor ¼ of men per week (accustomed to providing this)

• United Fruit Company: Control the shipping of Honduras and controlled railroads. The banana's provide 10k jobs.

• 1930's: Jorge Ubico becomes dictator. Said: Any Indian who does not own land is expected to work 150 days on the field (coffee or banana or both). CHEAP LABOR.

• FInica Law: Gave land owners unrestricted authority over the Indian. No system of justice or legal reprieve.

• WW2: First early years (1942) there were some 30,000 Germans who migrated into Guatemala and patrolled coffee plantations (semi-independent existence in it)

• 1944: First Real Election in History. Juan Arevalo elected (democratic reformer) looked at Roosevelt's deal as a major concept that ought to be copied and used in Guatemala. Pushed reforms, declared economy would be Capitalist. 1945 new Constitution. Full utilization of land. People got the right to vote, rural education, social security laws, labor courts set up (hacienda owners and workers) , labor strikes took place, workers wages went up. All hacienda owners hated him.

• Col Jacabo Arbenz elected as president. Try to pull of Agrarian Reform, taking land that isn't being used well as well as United Fruit Company and get them out to the farmers aides. (Called subversive revolution)

• Commnism very important.

• Dulles Brothers lawyers for the United Fruit Company.

• Arbenz wants to have small class of Capitalist Farmers, diversify the products (sugar cane, oil, vegetables, rice). If he can get land to the Indians, he can improve the country. Families received 15 acre of land. Bank Loans to run a farm.

• 1954: Almost 1 million acres given.

• Free and Open Country with Laws and everybody counts. Probably best reform in all of Latin American.

• CIA supports an invasion of Guatemala. 300 men and boys

• Got rid of Arbenz and he goes to exile. Guatemala would never recover from 10 years of freedoms and laws.

• Corn. Rice, Beans imported , social life has declined. (Sufficient)

• Escuela Politecnica: Civilians are disorganized. WE-THEY attitude, Indians as social class