Hubris of intervention in Guatemala

There was something I found both fascinating and disturbing about this week’s reading. There was something about the hubris of intervention in Guatemala that was particularly humbling, and yet all too familiar given the recent shenanigans of the Bush administration.

Eisenhower and his crew could see only one objective – the removal of Arbenz and the protection of United Fruit, which was important at least in the symbolic sense that it provided a stern warning to other countries in the region not to experiment with national sovereignty at the expense of American regional hegemony.

However, Chapter 15 (The Aftermath) the situation quickly sprialled out of control, leading Guatamala down a path towards civil war and the creation of a security state. The CIA could simply not see further than Arbenz’ downfall and Armas’ rise. They could not understand that Arbenz rise was merely the effect of a growing tension between sectors of Guatemalan society and the growing demand for redistribution of wealth. By removing a popularly elected leader and putting in it’s place a unrepresentative junta, America quickly lost control of the situation – leading to a constant succession of coups, short lived junta’s and escalating counterinsurgency wars.There was simply no understanding that removing a leader like Arbenz would in no way remove the social pressures and tensions that had brought a man like him (by all means uncharismatic and unremarkable in himself) to power. By disrupting the process of democratization and redistribution of wealth and power, the US had unwittingly unleashed a chain of events that soon seemed beyond their control, though they attempted, rather unsuccessfully, to contain it. What shocks me is that only 50 years later the US has committed the same era, albeit in another region and for oil instead of bananas.

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