CIA and USA Involvement in the Guatemalan Revolution

Throughout the centuries, the United States has created barriers to social revolutions in Latin American. With CIA involvement, they have managed to over throw and prevent neo-populist government from coming into power. The United States claim that provoking any form of revolution in Latin America would result in a threat to their national security. Nevertheless, revolutions came and went and social, communist, neo-populist governments geared closer to empowerment.

Guatemala has benefited from its relationship with the United States through contributions to developing its farming communities and transportation facilitates, depended on the U.S. as a market for its exports, and encouraged U.S. investments and aid. It has also suffered from CIA involvement in a 1954 Guatemalan coup that proceeded decades of military rule and human rights atrocities.

Background
The Guatemalan Revolution began in 1944 due to the riising unhappiness of the people under the dictatorship of Jorge Ubico. Students, the middle class, and young military officers were unstaified with not only his dictatorship but also with control that the United States and Great Britain had over Guatemala. As result, the Guatemalan revolution commenced with the overthrowing of Ubico and the stepping up of Juan Jose Arevalo; who was later succeeded by Jacobo Arbenz. It was a long and bloody civil war which took place primarily on the countryside between the national military and scattered rebel forces. The revolution came to a sudden collapse in June of 1954 when the president, Jacobo Arbenz, resigned from office and turned the government over to the leadership of armed forces, though the fighting did not stop but rather continued with CIA interference for another thirty-seven years.

American Interest and the CIA in the Guatemalan Revolution
The United States C.I.A.'s actions in Guatemala in the early 1950s are among the most well-known and documented. Similarly to other Central American republics, the government of Guatemala was and continues to be made up of a banana republic. In other words, American interest groups such as the United Fruit Company had purchased several acres of land within Guatemala in order to produce banana plantations. These interests were deeply imbedded into the Guatemalan’s economy and allied with a small aristocracy of government-connected landowners. When a nationalist and populist revolt occurred in 1950s the C.I.A. set up an air force to attack Guatemala. The Arbenz nationalist government was overthrown and a military dictatorship took over. Thus, increasing friendly relations with the United States at the cost of its people. For decades the United States has assisted the succeeding dictatorship to preserve the status quo. As result, thousands of Guatemalan Indians were murdered at the hands of the Guatemalan dictatorship in the 1980s. In recent years, the Guatemalan government appears to be circulating slightly towards a democratic system.

CIA Operation PBSUCCESS
In more detailed, Operation PBSUCCESS, a CIA operation to overthrow the government of Arbenz and instate an American influenced dictatorship, was the CIA's most successful and ambitious project ever. It used an intensive paramilitary and psychological campaign to overthrow the popular, elected government of Arbenz and replaced it with Castillo Armas

Please note that Operation PBSUCCESS was partly the result of false suspicion. The CIA believed that the Soviets where using the democratically elected government of Guatemala as a communist beachhead into the Americas. Recently declassified reports have proven this untrue. However, this was during an era of false suspicion, which led to the break of numerous battles.

The so-called successful CIA orchestrated operation, PBSUCCESS in 1954, to overthrow the Guatemalan ruler Jacobo Arbenz produced long term problems for the United States. For instance, the overthrow of the Arbenz regime led to a 36 year Civil War in Guatemala, which produced more than one hundred thousands casualties and over a million refugees. Despite countless mistakes made during the operation, the CIA argued that this operation should be a model for future ventures, a belief that led to disastrous results in Cuba seven years later. Furthermore, Operation PBSUCCESS resulted, “from the CIA's erroneous belief that the Soviets were using the democratically elected government of Guatemala as a communist beachhead into the Americas.” America's role in overthrowing the Arbenz regime created a political condemnation worldwide and damaged the United State’s reputation throughout Latin America. In addition to, it annoyed American allies and drew criticism from the United Nations.

Guatemala Civil War
During the civil war, Guatemala suffered through countless dictators. The CIA established leader, Castillo Armas, was assassinated in 1957, three years after gaining control of Guatemala. During his tenure as the leader of Guatemala, he overturned many of the progressive reforms that Arbenz had implemented to help the Guatemalan people. Following Armas's assassination, there was a period of political unrest before the legislature appointed, General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes, presidency of 1958. In the 1960s, Fuentes faced a rebellion sponsored by Fidel Castro. Although the rebellion was unsuccessful, the rebels escaped into the mountains and formed the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR). Fuentes was overthrown in March 1963 and was replaced by General Enrique Peralta Azurdia, who held power until 1966. During Azurdia's reign, right-wing terror groups were formed to wage war against the FAR guerillas. The military allowed a civilian led government ruled Guatemala from 1966 to 1970, on the condition that the military utilized, “…free reign in the tactics used against FAR.” Furthermore, in1966, military advisers of the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) came to Guatemala to train police and paramilitary groups. The Green Berets transformed the state police into a modern counter-insurgency force, forerunners of the infamous "Death Squads."From 1970 to 1982, various military leaders controlled Guatemala as rebel forces, including the FAR and PGT (communist party), whom joined together to form the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG). In 1982, a military coup installed General Efraín Ríos Montt as the Guatemalan leader. Montt initially offered the URNG amnesty, but upon refusal, he launched the most intensive military campaign against them to date. This intensified the Civil War, requiring the forced service of indigenous labor and the destruction of more than 400 indigenous villages. Montt was exciled by the military in 1983 and in 1985, the military permitted a civilian leadership of Guatemala. This was not enough to end the civil war. In 1990, the United States limited the military aid to Guatemala for so-called civil rights issues. A year later, Jorge Serrano Elías became president. With the support of the army, Serrano seized dictatorial control of the government in May of 1993, but civilian protests forced him to resign. Nearly, thirty-six years later, the Guatemala government and the rebel forces signed a peace treaty putting an end to the civil war.

CIA’s Errors
The CIA's classified report, published in 1992, was the first in-depth look at all of the factors that contributed to the success and near failure of operation PBSUCCESS.

Error number one: "The operation in Cuba relied heavily on civilian uprisings to overthrow the Castro government. Bissell expected the mass amphibious landing of Brigade 2506 to inspire a string of uprisings and defections that would lend paramilitary support to the exile brigade and force the overthrow of the Cuban leader. Bissell believed this was one of the successful components of PBSUCCESS and that it would work again in Cuba. CIA reports indicate that although recruits did join the rebel forces in Guatemala, it was only in areas where they met no military resistance. When the rebels engaged in combat, there is no evidence of recruits joining the rebel forces. In contrast, the exile forces in Guatemala had high desertion rates in combat. Bissell's apparent disregard for this knowledge played a large role in the military defeat of Brigade 2506."

Error Two: "The CIA's inability to keep secret its involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion proved counterproductive to the operation. It gave Castro credibility for withstanding an American attempt to overthrow his government. Castro's spies knew about the training of anti-Castro exiles in Guatemala as early as November 1960. On 9 April, eight days before the Cuban invasion, the New York Times ran a front-page story proclaiming "Anti-Castro Units Trained to fight at Florida Bases." Bissell's overconfidence of his operational security may be attributed to similar instances in Guatemala. During PBSUCCESS, a double-agent gave near-complete details of the operation to Jacobo Arbenz. However, when Arbenz published detailed papers of PBSUCCESS in Guatemalan newspapers, it was treated by the Guatemalan people as a ploy to improve Arbenz's reputation."

For further information please visit, http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/9/211325/2048

The United States Implications
America's role in overthrowing the Arbenz's regime resulted in political condemnation worldwide, damaging the United State's reputation in Latin America, angering American allies and drawing criticism from the United Nations. The CIA's failed attempt at keeping the Guatemalan operation covert led to enduring American resentment throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. It directly damaged the stability of not only Guatemala but all of Latin America. According to historian James Dunkerly, "The Guatemala intervention shaped the attitudes and stratagems of an older generation of radicals, for whom this experience signaled the necessity of armed struggle and an end to illusions about peaceful, legal, and reformist methods."17
Internationally, the US was condemned by enemies and allies alike. Newspapers in Britain and Germany published scathing attacks on America's "modern forms of economic colonialism." The United Nation Secretary General charged that the United States actions went against the UN charter.18
In Cuba, the CIA's attempt to repeat PBSUCCESS aided Castro’s regime from borderline communism to a full alliance with the Soviet Union.

Timeline of Recent Events:
2005 October - Hundreds of people were killed by tropical storm Stan.
2006 July - A Spanish judge issued a warrant for the arrest of former military leader Efrain Rios Montt and other former government officials over atrocities committed during the civil war.
2006 December - The Guatemalan government and the UN agreed to create a commission (CICIG) to identify and dismantle powerful clandestine armed groups.
2007 August - A Guatemalan mayor was shot dead in an apparent political attack, taking to more than 40 the number of people murdered in the bloodiest election race since the country's civil war ended a decade ago. Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu's party has suffered at least three gun attacks that same month. International election monitors say they are worried about the high murder rate among political candidates and activists in the run-up to the 9 September polls.

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