The Sad Tale of the UCFO, A History Lesson

Fifty-four years ago today, the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was overthrown by a CIA-supported military coup d'etat here in Guatemala. Arbenz was the second president during Guatemala's 10 years of Democratic Spring - the only time in the last 500 years during which Guatemalans have had elected leadership that moved forward on land reform.

And the thing is, Arbenz's land reform wasn't especially radical or scary. The United Fruit Company (now known as Chiquita) held more than 70% of the fertile land in Guatemala, all of the railroads, and the one Atlantic port. (Mind you, this is a US company, not a Guatemalan company.) They were using about 6% of the land they had for production and the rest was lying fallow, while millions of Guatemalans suffered from extreme poverty and hunger. Arbenz basically created a "use it or lose it" policy that gave UFCO six months to start using the unused land and what they didn't use would be transferred to campesinos. (And again, the campesinos are almost all Mayans, so it was their land to begin with.)

This was not an option for UFCO and...conveniently enough, the head of UFCO was the brother of US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. So with a bit of CIA help in arms and training, Arbenz was overthrown and a military dictatorship - the first of many - was installed. In 1960, the first guerrilla groups began to organize and the country moved into a 36-year period of civil war. (Not that the military governments hadn't already declared war on the actual lives of the people before that.) This is where we get the term "banana republic."

In the course of the war, more than 250,000 people were killed and more than 1 million were internally or externally displaced. Community infrastructures were destroyed as was the ability to trust one's neighbors and family members. And the violence continues - more people die on a daily basis now in Guatemala than at any point during the war. Before it was death squads and the military; now it is gangs and organized crime. Femicide especially is a growing problem and is rarely investigated.

This is the legacy of the overthrow.

*The title of this post comes from a song in Once on this Island, which is about Haiti (and worth seeing!). But as is the case in much of Latin America and the Caribbean, it is a pretty applicable history throughout the region.

Chichicastenango

The group spent the weekend in a town called Chichicastenango, or Qiche´, about two and a half hours outside of Xela. (As a note, many towns here have multiple names, one Mayan and one Aztec-derived. If it ends in a -tenango, it is the Aztec title for ¨place of the...¨)

We left on Friday and just got back about an hour ago. Our main purposes in going were to visit a sewing cooperative and see the main Catholic church in town. The cooperative was founded during the mid-80s by a Methodist pastor and a group of women whose husbands had been killed as a part of the war. Many of them (the husbands) died when, in 1982, the local Methodist church was locked and bombed with 40-plus people inside. (To note, this was not at all uncommon during ¨la guerra.¨ The notion of the church as sanctuary was completely off the table. A good film, which my class watched last week, was La Hija del Puma. Very heavy movie, not for kids, I would say. But incredibly powerful.)

After this, many of the women needed to find a way to make a living and raise their families. This was combined with the fact that the war was vastly disproportionately focused on indigenous communities to point the women toward a sewing cooperative that produces traditional indigenous woven and sewn crafts. Scarves, shirts, bags, dolls, blankets, wall art, you name it, they make it and make it beautifully. As a cooperative, all of them women contribute and each is assisted in different forms by the money made. (Their crafts, and those of the men´s tailor project associated with them, can be found in the US through Ten Thousand Villages, for those interested.)

This morning was the Catholic church. It was built during the colonial period directly on the site of a sacred Maya area. The intention of squashing the culture by taking this particular piece of sacred land did not directly work out, however. (Obviously in other ways, this idea was incredibly successful. I´m simply talking about this church in Chichicastenango.) The two traditions have been blended in remarkable ways since then. This particular church is one of the only places in Central America where marimbas, an instrument usually identified with ¨pagan¨Mayan traditions, are used in services and the accompaniment for the different parts of the mass. Preaching is also done, by a native speaker, in both Qiche´and Spanish. It was quite impressive to walk through a group of traditional Mayan elders to enter the church only to see similarly-dressed people sitting up next to the altar.

The other amazing (and overhwhelming) thing that happens in Chichi on Sundays is the market. Good heavens, the market. It is, for you Minnesotans, more visually stimulating than the State Fair and, while it takes up less ground, easily packs in as many people. I intentionally left my money at our hotel, because I knew there would be just too many fantastic things available. (I was right.)

I feel like I should say something about Chichicastenango itself, as it is such a lovely town. We had such a good time, despite our limited time there. We found great people to talk to, wonderful restaurants and cafes. We tried to go dancing to marimba music, but it had been canceled unexpectedly. All in all, really a wonderful place.

The ride back was relatively uneventful with one exception. (Mom, you can skip this part; Darlene, you can delete it before showing grandma and grandpa...) Since we were traveling through mountains, the roads were not always terribly wide or actually buffered by anything. I never felt like we were in danger, but about half-way through the trip back here to Xela, we saw a group of people congregated around one of the edges. As it turns out, a car had run over the edge and plumeted into the canyon.

This isn´t to scare, but it really made me (and all of us) reflect a bit on the brevity and fragility of life. I know that to think about that when confronted by the likely death of someone is more than cliche, but it is true nonetheless. So I remain thankful to have the opportunity to take part in a journey like this, in safe hands, and really see so much of a place that I would not otherwise have had the chance to know. I pray for families and loved ones of the people who went over.


This is not much of a note to end on, and I´ve meant to say this anyway: May I just say that the people I´m in this group with are some of the most fascinating, genuine, wonderful people. I feel like we´ve known each other for more than just two weeks, yet we continue to learn so many things about each other. It´s great!