Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán

Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán (born September 14, 1913 in Quetzaltenango , † January 27, 1971 in Mexico City , Mexico ) was a Guatemalan politician . He was president of the country from 1951 to 1954. On June 27, 1954, he was overthrown by a planned and organized coup by the US State Department and the CIA and the dictator Carlos Castillo Armas was installed.

Life

Árbenz was born in 1913 as the son of the Swiss immigrant Jacobo (Jakob) Arbenz and Octavia Guzmán de Arbenz, a mestizo . His father was a tiny middle class in Guatemala and killed himself when Jacobo was very young.

As the only possibility for social advancement offered Árbenz service in the army . He joined the Escuela Politécnica on July 27, 1932 as a cadete ( cadet ). He was an excellent student and received the placa de alumno distinguido four times during his training . On December 22, 1935 he was promoted to subteniente (literally: Unterleutnant, actually lieutenant ); at the same time he received the diploma de maestro de caminos . At the military school he sometimes taught Central American military history , world history with a focus on aspects of military history, communications, fortress construction , physics , mechanics , the art of war , geometry and tactics . His promotion to colonel of the army ( coronel del ejército ) took place on September 15, 1952.

He took the opportunity, rose quickly in the military and also taught as a history professor at the university. He married María Cristina Vilanova, daughter of a wealthy family of European descent from El Salvador . She rebelled against the conservative attitudes of her relatives, developed an affinity for socialism, and despised the military dictatorship of Jorge Ubico . It was through her that Árbenz became interested in politics.

Jorge Ubico was deposed from the military in 1944 after massive civil protests, whereupon a junta appointed General Federico Ponce as his successor. Ponce tried to give his government the appearance of a democratic legitimation and held elections. Juan José Arévalo was chosen by the opposition as the opposing candidate. Ponce felt threatened by the popularity of his opponent and had Arévalo arrested a few days after his arrival from exile in Argentina .

Captain Jacobo Árbenz and Major Francisco Arana decided to revolt against Ponce, killed their superiors and had the internal military opponents arm Ponce. After the fall and flight of Ponce and Ubico, Árbenz and Arana seized power together with the entrepreneur Jorge Toriello and formed a junta . The junta adopted a new liberal constitution and held a presidential election, which Juan José Arévalo won. Jacobo Árbenz became Minister of Defense in 1945 .

In the second elections after Arévalo's tenure in 1951, Árbenz went against José Miguel Ramón Idígoras Fuentes , a friend of Ubico, and won with 65% of the vote. After he was appointed president on March 15, 1951, he tried as part of an agrarian reform to expropriate part of the property of the United Fruit Company (UFC). The compensation due to the UFC under international law in the amount of around 600,000 US dollars was calculated on the basis of a land value that was far too low, which the company had stated itself in order to save taxes.

In 1952 the Guatemalan Communist Workers' Party (PGT) was legalized, as a result of which the communists gained some influence over peasant associations , unions and the ruling party. In order to protect their interests in the country, the United Fruit Company convinced the CIA through a campaign by Edward Bernays and the banks that supported them that Árbenz was a communist, or at least a socialist, who was preparing a communist overthrow. The US government under President Dwight D. Eisenhower entrusted the CIA with organizing a coup ( Operation PBSUCCESS ). On June 27, 1954, Árbenz had to flee and Carlos Enrique Díaz de León served briefly as his successor.

Árbenz sought exile for himself and his family in many countries, including Switzerland , France , Czechoslovakia , the Soviet Union , Uruguay and Cuba , but could not stay in any country permanently. In 1970 Mexico granted him permanent asylum. In 1971 he died in his bathtub in Mexico City under unexplained circumstances . The immediate cause of death was either drowning or scalding from hot water.

On October 20, 1995, his remains were transferred from El Salvador, where his wife had buried him, to Guatemala City .

Others

The fate of Árbenz Guzmán as the ousted President of Guatemala is dealt with in Mario Vargas Llosa's historical novel Harte Jahre , published in German in 2020 .

literature

• Mauro Cerutti / CS: Arbenz Guzmán, Jacobo. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Entry Jacobo Arbenz Guzman (1913–1971) , in: José Antonio Mobil: 100 personajes historicos de Guatemala , 2nd edition. Cidudad Guatemala 1991 (first edition 1979, Serviprensa Centroamericana), pp. 358–360. ISBN 978-99922-917-7-1 .
• Carlos Alfonso González Orellana: Coronel Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. El soldado del pueblo , Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Regionales 2008.
• Roberto García Ferreira: La CIA y los medios in Uruguay. El caso Arbenz , Montevideo (Amuleto, Colección Ensayos Orientales) 2007, ISBN 978-9974-80793-8 .
• Manuel Galich: Por qué lucha Guatemala. Arévalo y Arbenz, dos hombres contra un imperio , Buenos Aires (Elmer) 1956.
• Carlos Manuel Pellecer Durán: Arbenz y yo , 3rd edition Ciudada Guatemala (Ed.Artemis & Edinter) 1997, ISBN 84-89766-17-7 .

Movie

• Devils Don't Dream - research on Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán , CH 1994, directed by Andreas Hoessli, broadcast on Arte on July 17, 1998.

Web links

Commons : Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Werner Marti: Putsch against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala , NZZ , Zurich, June 25, 2014 (= 60 years ago ).
• Holdings: Arbenz Guzmán, Jacobo (1913–1971) in the finding aids of the Swiss Social Archives
• Deutschlandfunk Kultur from June 18, 2014 [1]

predecessor	Office	successor
Juan Federico Ponce Vaidez Juan José Arévalo Bermejo	President of Guatemala December 19, 1944–1. March 1945 March 1, 1951-27. June 1954	Juan José Arévalo Bermejo Carlos Enrique Díaz de León