“Arbenz’s attempt at land reform established his regime’s radical credentials in the eyes of domestic and foreign opponents. Unable to obtain funding from the United States or the World Bank, he hesitated for a year, then on 17 June 1952 released Decree 900, an ambitious program to remake rural Guatemala. US aid officials considered it moderate, “constructive and democratic in its aims,” similar to agrarian programs the United States was sponsoring in Japan and Formosa.”
– pg. 22, SECRET HISTORY: The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954 (second edition), by Nick Cullather, Stanford University Press, 2006
“The Catholic Church opposed land reform and Arbenz … “
– pg. 42, ibid.
“At another level, the Church had been an effective form of ideological domination of the Indians during the Conquest; and it was to the Church that Castillo Armas turned once again, in the name of anti-Communism. In a major shift of policy from that of the previous decade, the country was opened up to foreign missionaries and clergy who eagerly accepted the challenge to eliminate religious practices that were, in the view of many of them, frankly pagan.”
– pg. 32, GUATEMALA, by the North American Congress on Latin America, 1974
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The news that there is now outright and widespread starvation in Guatemala comes as no surprise to anyone who has studied anything about that tragic republic. Malnutrition has been rife in Guatemala for decades and decades. The fundamental problem is that the land of Guatemala has been gobbled up by a neo-European elite which plants it out in coffee, bananas, and other export crops. The majority indigenous people of Guatemala – los indios, have no land to grow food. That is why the pressure is so great on Belize. Starving Guatemalans risk their freedom and their lives to enter Belize and despoil our pristine rain forests in order to grow food. They are hungry.
The vast majority of Belizean people know very little about Guatemala, except that the republic claims Belize belongs to it. The reason Belizeans know nothing about Guatemala is because the exact same Church which is in league with the brutal Guatemalan military and oligarchy, that same Church controls the educational system of Belize. We will say it again, just for the record, that we have no problem with the dogma, ritual and faith of the Church. We have a problem with the Church when it is behaving in a politicized manner. We have a problem with the Church when they bless the generals who murder los indios. We have a problem with miseducation. Shouldn’t we?
Fifty years ago there were three notable pariah states in the world. Guatemala was a pariah state in Central America; Israel was a pariah state in the Middle East; and South Africa was a pariah state in Africa, and afterwards in the entire world. All three of these nation states had governments which practiced racist policies. Guatemala crushed los indios. Israel oppressed the Palestinians. And South Africa had institutionalized a system of racism known as apartheid which had minority whites abusing majority black Africans and coloreds. These three pariah states were the closest of friends. The three of them gave lip service to the famous Judeo-Christian tradition. And the three of them were consistent allies of the United States of America, partly because the three of them hated communism, which was an American bogeyman.
In the early 1990’s, South Africa, under the greatest of domestic and international pressure, dismantled its apartheid regime. Israel remains Israel. Guatemala, roughly between 1966 and 1996, experienced thirty years of “civil war.” The civil war essentially involved the well financed, well armed, well organized and all powerful Guatemalan army taking target practice on indios as an ethnic group of people. International observers estimate that 200,000 indios were killed by the Guatemalan military, which controlled whatever governments were in place in Guatemala during those three decades.
Coming out of the civil war, Guatemala sought to pursue an initiative towards democratic civilian rule. Guatemala, however, maintains its racist claim to Belize, and Guatemala simply refuses to implement any kind of land reform. The super rich in Guatemala remain in absolute First World luxury. The Guatemalan poor suffer, now they starve, and then they die.
Between 1951 and 1954, there was a Guatemalan president who tried to carry out land reform. His name was Jacobo Arbenz, and he, strangely enough, had come out of the Guatemalan military. But it was a time when Guatemala was in a phase which has been described as “revolutionary” – the period between 1944 and 1954 which followed the Ubico years of brutal military dictatorship.
Arbenz’s modest efforts at land reform infuriated both the Guatemalan latifundistas and foreign companies, especially United Fruit. Arbenz was condemned as “communist.” The Church, always supportive of the Guatemalan oligarchy, joined in the condemnation. America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) organized a coup to overthrow Arbenz and install General Carlos Castillo Armas as president. This took place in 1954.
There is a fundamental difference in history between Mexico and Guatemala. The Mexican people fought two revolutions – the Caste War in Yucatan (1847-1903) and the Mexican Revolution (1910-1930), basically over land rights. As Malcolm said, all revolutions are about land. When the Church supported the Mexican latifundistas, the Church was disciplined by the Mexican people. In Guatemala, the big landowners have never, ever given up any land. They finance the military and they are supported by the Church.
If the big landowners in Guatemala continue to refuse to give up land, then the pressure on Belize will become worse. The Church knows this. They know how to involve themselves in politics when it suits them. The Church should not be allowed to hide behind images and vestments on the critical matter of land in Guatemala. Why should a few have so much while the many have so little? Is it because the few are Judeo-Christian and the many are indios? If this is so, then this is nothing less than religious apartheid. And in the twenty first century, at that.
Power to the people.