crunchy apples

Jacobo Arbenz was a Guatemalan nationalist and whose reform of the country alienated conservative wealthy landowners and the US, resulting in his removal by the CIA. During his presidential campaign, Arbenz promised to free Guatemala from its dependency on the United States and make it an independent capitalist state. Arbenz continued and expanded many of Arevalo’s reforms. For example: in 1952 he formed a program that would allow the government to expropriate uncultivated land to families.  The people who had part of their land taken were paid the in how much it was worth in taxes. To show how serious he was about land reform he gave a percentage of his own land.  The United State’s problem with Arbenz’s land reform was that he was taking land from the United Fruit Company. The UFC was the largest landowner in Guatemala; most of the land however, was uncultivated. Higher-ups in the American government, like the Dulles brothers, were important shareholders in the company and would suffer if the UFC pulled out or lost money. Arbenz was forced to resign and flee his country because he knew that the USA was sponsoring a coup d’etat.  A US supported military dictator, Colonel Carlos Armas, who replaced him in 1954.  This is just another example of American imperialism and globalization.