Jacobo Arbenz - Guatemalan officer and politician, 2nd President of Guatemala. The full name of Jacobo (Jacobo) is Juan Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. According to the Spanish naming custom, the first surname Arbenz is transmitted from the father, the second - Guzman - from the mother.
Biography
Jacobo was born on September 14, 1913 in Guatemala to a wealthy family. Father is a Swiss of German origin, a pharmaceutical manufacturer who emigrated to Guatemala in 1901. Mother is a native of Guatemala, a teacher.
Gradually, Arbenz's father became addicted to morphine and went bankrupt. The family was forced to move from the wealthy quarter of Quetzaltenango to the village and live on funds allocated by the father's former companions.
In conditions of poverty, Jacobo could not enter the university, but thanks to a military scholarship allocated by the government of Guatemala, in 1932 he was able to enter the military academy. Jacobo's father committed suicide two years before this event.
In 1935, Jacobo graduated with honors from the military academy. Moreover, he was able to become one of the six best students of the academy for the period from 1924 to 1944. Academic success, say goodbye to him in building a career. After 2 years, he became a captain, but Jacobo witnessed the brutal repression directed against the Guatemalan peasants. Jacobo was the chief of prison escorts, and his experience in this matter greatly contributed to the formation of progressive democratic views in him.
After his expulsion, Arbenz lived in several countries as a political refugee. The CIA launched a campaign to denigrate the former President of Guatemala. They lived in Mexico, then in Canada, Switzerland and France. Jacobo's persecution continued until 1960. Even his close friend Carlos Manuel Pelleser was recruited by the CIA and supplied the bureau with information about Jacobo.
His family gradually disintegrated. The wife left for El Salvador to deal with the family business, inherited from her father. Without support from his wife, Arbenz began to drink.
In 1957, Jacobo was able to settle in Uruguay. His wife joined him. But in 1965, a misfortune happened in the family - the daughter of Arbenz, Arabella, committed suicide.
In the last years of his life, Jacobo suffered from alcoholism. In 1970, he became seriously ill. He died in Mexico in 1971, drowning in his own bathroom. It is still unclear whether this was suicide or a heart attack.
In 2011, the Guatemalan government apologized for the overthrow of Arbenz. In an official statement by the government, it took responsibility for the failure to fulfill its obligations to guarantee and protect human rights, to defend it before the law and judicial protection, as well as responsibility for violation of rights in relation to Arbenz and his family members.
Personal life
In 1936, Jacobo met his future wife Maria Vilanova. Maria was the daughter of a wealthy landowner from El Salvador and a wealthy mother from Guatemala.
In 1938, Maria and Jacobo got married in secret, as the bride's parents were against Jacobo. Despite the fact that the young were different people, they were united by the desire for political change in the life of Guatemala. Subsequently, Maria had a strong ideological influence on Arbenz, introduced him to the Guatemalan communists.
During the marriage, the couple had several children: the eldest daughter Arabella, the middle daughter Maria Leonora and the youngest son Juan Jacobo. According to Spanish tradition, they bore the surname Arbenz Villanova.
Political career
In 1944, Jacobo Arbenz, together with Francisco Arana, prepared a number of military and civilian groups, together with whom he carried out an uprising against the dictator of Guatemala, Jorge Ubico. The uprising succeeded, and Guatemala embarked on a course of building democracy.
In 1944, the first democratic elections of the President of Guatemala took place. The victory was won by Juan Jose Arevalo. Jacobo Arbenz became the Minister of National Defense of Guatemala and held this post until 1951.
The new president has carried out a series of social reforms aimed at improving life in the country. But a number of pro-American politicians did not like the new course, and in 1949 they staged a military coup. Arbenz played a decisive role in suppressing it.
In 1951, Arbenz became the second President of Guatemala and held this post until 1954. During his presidency, an agrarian reform was carried out, during which large land plots were expropriated and distributed to poor peasants. More than half a million Guatemalans became the masters of their land. Basically, these were indigenous Guatemalans who lost their lands after the Spanish invasion. Prior to this reform, 2% of the country's population controlled almost all of the land in Guetmala and most of the agricultural land was not cultivated.
The Arbenz era was also marked by a number of other pragmatic and capitalist reforms. He was not a committed communist. Rather, a democratic socialist. Its goal was to build an economically and politically independent Guatemala. He supported the communists and socialists, admired the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism, but he did not join the Communist Party until 1957 and did not introduce the communists into his ministerial cabinet.
The US government, worried about the pro-communist government of Guatemala, staged a new coup in 1954. As a result of the Guatemalan coup of 1954, carried out with the direct and open support of the US State Department and the CIA, Jacobo Arbenz was ousted from the presidency and expelled from the country. Power was seized by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas. Representative democracy gave way to military dictatorship.
War for Democracy
"War for Democracy" is a 2007 documentary film directed by Christopher Martin and John Pilger, which tells about the political history of Latin America and about US intervention in the internal affairs of these countries.
Among others, the film tells the story of Jacobo Arbenz as President of Guatemala, the story of his formation and his exile.
Bowling for Columbine
Bowling for Columbine is a 2002 documentary directed by Michael Moore. The film follows the origins of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
One of the segments of the film titled "What a Wonderful World" shows one of the reasons for the massacre - the history of the United States as an aggressor country. Among others, the events of 1954 are mentioned: the United States overthrows democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala as part of a coup d'état that killed over 200,000 civilians.
