Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, President of Guatemala since 1951, wanted to give fallow land to landless farmers. This reform hit the US banana company United Fruit Company (UFC) in particular. He knew how to fight back.
Why was land reform so threatening to the United Fruit Company? At that time, it operated huge banana plantations in Guatemala for export, controlled the country’s only Atlantic port and had large additional areas that were not (yet) used for agriculture. The reform that made sense for the host country weakened her comfortable position, and she did not consider accepting it.
What followed is an example of the way in which the United States linked politics and economic interests in its power politics in the 1950s. The result was a coup in 1954 that drove Árbenz out of office. In this Central American drama, several components mix into a cocktail that is typical of the Cold War era: an almost panicked fear of communism, a public already trapped in hysteria that willingly accepts disinformation, a corporation that is well networked with politics and political Personnel who are willing, with the help of the CIA, to enforce US interests regardless of the rule of law.
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