“Tiempos recios” (tough times) Mario Vargas Llosa
Guatemala became independent in 1839. Since then it had 51 presidents. On average, therefore, each president lasted for 3.5 years. In 1994 the president was Ramiro de León Carpio (1942-2002). After finishing law school De León Carpio had been involved in several official positions and was involved in a non-violent coup against president Efrian Elias Montt in 1983. In 1985 he was involved in the drafting of a new Guatemalen constitution, which in the basis is still in force today. He then supported his cousin Jorge Carpio de León in his unsuccessful attempt to become president in 1985.
“I'd never heard of this bloody place Guatemala until I was in my seventy-ninth year.” Winston Churchill
Between 1960 and 1994 Guatemala was in the grip of a civil war between the government and various left wing organizations with acronyms like PGT, URNG, MR-13, FAR, EGP or ORPA. The underlying reason for the conflict was the distribution of land. The guerrilla was supported by the ethnic Maya population and the poor ladino peasants in the countryside. Material and financial help not surprisingly came from Cuba and Nicaragua. On the other side, the Guatemalen army was helped by Chile, Taiwan, Israel, Argentina, South Africa and of course the United States. The regular army had assistance by paramilitary up to 500.000 strong. In the 1980ies the military had assumed unlimited power in Guatemala the Guerrilla activities were used as justification for unlimited terror and human rights violations against the ethnic population and the peasants in the countryside. Massacres on the Maya population went so far that they were considered as genocide. Up to 200.000 people were killed in the civil war before a peace agreement could be established in 1996.
In 1994, naive as we were, we had no idea how dangerous the county really was. On bicycles we cycled through the hills of the province Alta Verapaz at the same time while the army was massacring civilians in the bush (corona story number 11). Nobody hurt us.
Back in Antigua, the old capital of Guatemala, I wanted to see one of the indian markets for which Guatemala is famous. I decide to go to Solalá, a town scenically located on a plateau above Lago Atitlan, a big crater lake surrounded by volcanoes. There is no direct bus. I have to change in Chimaltenango. This is the Panamericana, the main road, and a lot of people wait at the side of the road for the next bus. And we don’t have to wait for long until one pulls up in a cloud of dust.
Street view in Antigua
The bus is already full before we even get in. I will have to stand for 2 hours next to a worn out seat occupied by a Norwegian girl. Little kids bump into my knees and lower legs which have lost all feel after a short while. Somehow the bus boy still manages to get through and sell tickets for 6 Quetzal to everybody. To minimize the waiting time at stops he climbs up to the roof during the ride to get the luggage of departing passengers. At every stop some of the peddlers manage to pass the boy and get on the bus to sell some of their stuff. It is a winding mountain road. The bus driver wants to loose as little time as possible and so he tries to be the fastest. When the bus boy is not busy selling tickets or climbing to the roof he hangs out of the front door to whistle and point out at the vehicles we pass to slow down and pull to the side. I see myself falling down a ravine or hit by an oncoming vehicle when he passes in one of the sharp bends. Meanwhile the kids try to be noisier than the radio. The norwegian girl and myself agree on a nickname for the driver: el Bruto.
Bus station, Guatemala City
Of course the bus breaks down, but is repaired quickly only to have to stop again at a long traffic jam at a road construction site. But regardless the dangerous way of driving we eventually arrive in Solalá.
Lago Atitlan and the volcano Tolimán
I take a room in a guesthouse called Santa Ana with a nice and quiet courtyard. It is hot. I want to stretch my legs and go for a walk but only the market place of Solalá is paved and along the road it is walking in a cloud of dust. Outside the town are huge barracks. Their emblem is a huge helmet on even bigger boots. A boy throws little pebbles at me from above and shouts something like “Fuck off, fucking bitch”. Back in town I notice that a lot of Indians start arriving for the market tomorrow. Some arrive by truck, but others carry their goods in bundles on the head or on their backs with a ribbon as support around the forehead. Some carry an incredible amount of wood that way. People reserve a spot on the ground, others set up a plank on wooden trestles as table. Like everywhere in the country there seems to be a lot of police in blue and green around. Some wear the ridiculous, fortress like helmet, which is the emblem of the barracks. These are the same police who man the many checkpoints at the entrance to the cities and at every important road intersection. Although the town seems to have an indigenous municipal administration none of the police seems to be Indian. Maybe the Indians don’t need any police?
Street view in Solalä
After several tries in eateries which show me empty fridges I find a hotel which serves a decent pollo frito. Then I retire to the courtyard and spend my evening chatting to the hotel boy, who has spent the last years working in Belize and a farmer who wants to sell his produce at the market tomorrow. Their main topic is how to find work and earn money. They cannot understand that I come from a faraway place and keep asking me how many hours it will take to go there by bus. And if, compared to the US in my home country there would be better chances to find work. Another guy works for the city and is responsible for the road maintenance. However, there is no money. His dream is to open a company doing the maintenance for the city.
Comedor in the main street of Solalá
I have to stop the conversation because at night it gets bitter cold in the courtyard. I now understand why the boy was wearing a pointy bonnet. But even in bed in my room I wear all my clothes and use the blanket of the second bed and it is still fresh. The lake at 1562 m is overtopped by the volcán Tolimán at 3158 m.
Usually markets allover the world start early in the morning. So I wait at 6.30 at the locked front door of the guest house together with the merchant, his bundle and the city official until the boy comes to unlock the door. He still wears his bonnet. It is still very cold and that is probably the reason that the market has not started yet.
Today the tower is painted in Disney colors
I go to an eatery to have breakfast. It seems to have just opened and they do not really know what to do with me. I wait while the television blasts out news of murder and homicide in Mexico and bad weather and flooding in Europe. Eventually a big group of the omnipresent police arrives and we get all the same: a soup of undefinable content, eggs, beans and coffee with milk. It is interesting to observe the physionomy of these law enforcement specialists. Almost all miss some of their incisors. The other teeth are repaired badly. While the group seems to be quite relaxed and chatty when coming in, the spirit changes when a fat guy walks in. He is served with preference and seems to be the boss. He’s got a bad cough and regularly gets up to waddle outside to spit in a corner on the pavement. While I pay 6 Quetzal the police seems to eat for free.
Outside the market eventually has started. Indian women sell their produce, vegetables, fruit, bread, eggs and chicken which are tied up with a rope on one leg and lifted up by the wings. Meat is sold in solid shops in the market hall. Dried fish on sale adds to the general stench. Others sell household gear, buckets, noddles, garment and sewing stuff. All the women and most of the men wear the traditional clothes. It is not so easy to lake pictures because there are so many people in close space. Miraculously indian women with their bundles balanced on the head manage to maneuver through the crowd. The shopping, even unpacked eggs, disappears in the bundles. Next to the bundle on the head many have a bundle with a baby bound to the side or back. With their harsh faces many of them look much older than they supposedly are, judging from the babies they have got.
When the first tourists start to arrive from the resorts along the shore of the lake I get on a bus together with a load of indian women and their shopping bundles. The bus driver with his fashionable sun glasses and long hair looks more like a hippie who got stuck here. But the first impression deceives. The guy is worse than el Bruto. He sticks to the lane of the oncoming traffic and tries to break his previous speed record by blowing all other traffic from the road with his horn. He stops only when large groups are waiting. The peddlers are hard handedly kept out of the bus. On the windscreen the slogan guiding life in entire spanish south america: dios me guia. I am solidly convinced that bus traffic is the fasted way to heaven in this part of the world.
The political situation in the years preceding 1994 resembled the situation after WWII. Until 1944 Guatemala endured a military dictatorship under general Jorge Ubico Castañeda. After 13 years and 138 days he had to resign after increasing protests. The attempt of the military to stay in power under two short interim presidents was not successful and a civil government under Juan José Arévalo took over control.
This is the time when Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel “tiempos recios” sets in. One of Arévalo reforms was the introduction of unions. This caused the alarm bells ring at the headquarters of the United Fruit Company, that enterprise called “the octopus” that owned 140.000 sqkm of land and plantations, property, railroads, electricity, post and telegraph networks and ports all over the small countries between Panama and Guatemala in Central America. In Guatemala the octopus was the single biggest land owner. That was the time when the concept of the banana republic was born.
President of the time of United Fruit was Sam Zemurray, “Sam the banana man”, a Russian jew and refugee immigrant to Selma, Alabama, in the United States, adventurer and entrepreneur who had ruthlessly invested his starting capital of 150 $ to become the leader of one of the world’s biggest companies. Zemurray had experience with governments not acting according his will. Already in 1912 he had paid for a mercenary army to steam down to Honduras and replace the president who was about to impose tax regulations unfavorable for his businesses. He succeeded and installed new president Manuel Bonilla, who did not hesitate to give him favorable tax conditions and land concessions.
“Only a handful of his compatriots enjoyed the privileges of civilization, and in understanding that it was necessary to go to the root of the social problem for that situation to change and the privileges of the minority to extend to all Guatemalans. The key was the Agrarian Reform ….. The Agrarian Reform would fundamentally change the economic and social situation of Guatemala” Mario Vargas Llosa
The octopus became even more alarmed when Arévalo’s successor, Jacobo Árbenz, added a couple of points to the agenda, which so far had been unheard of in the world of unlimited third world country exploitation: he announced plans for a land reform and of fair taxation. Up to that point, and like many of the big international trusts today, United fruit did not pay a cent of tax in Guatemala.
“The 20th century would be the one with the advent of advertising as the primary tool of power and the manipulation of public opinion in both democratic and authoritarian societies” Mario Vargas Llosa
In the novel, Sam Zemurray hired Edward L. Bernays, the self declared father of public relations and commercial propaganda. In the United States this was the time of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy and an irrational fear of communist subversion. For the benefit of the octopus Bernay, in a campaign unheard of before but in a precedent to present day plot theories and fake tweet assaults, Bernay convinced the biased american political establishment under president Eisenhower, his secretary of state John Foster Dulles, and brother Allen Dulles, head of the CIA, that the Soviet Union was at their doorstep. Both brothers Dulles had done legal work for the United Fruit Company before turning to government duties.
“Don’t you have unions in the united states?” Arbenz replied, “It is the Soviet Union where they don’t have free and independent unions” Maria Vargas Llosa
“The anti-communism that had taken hold of the country resembled one of those plagues that drove the European cities of the Middle Ages mad with fear” Mario Vargas Llosa
However, it now is proven historical evidence that Árbenz maybe was a bit naive, but he was not a communist. There were no links to the Soviet Union and there were no Russians in Guatemala. Árbenz’ sincere hope was to establish a functioning democracy along United States lines in Guatemala. His agricultural reforms aimed to end the feudal system and give unused land held by big land owners to the poor peasants. Productive land would not be redistributed. The government was ready to pay that price for the land which the owners had entered in their tax declarations.
Countryside in the Guatemala mountains
“His inordinate love for democracy represents a serious threat to United Fruit. This, gentlemen, is good to know, not to say” Mario Vargas Llosa
Small scale agriculture
Bernays’ campaign was successful. The CIA started a campaign involving the dominican dictator Trujillo and the dismissed colonel of the guamalteken army Carlos Castillo Armas to revolt against the government under Árbenz. With the help of mercenaries from all over south america and secret bomb attacks of US air force planes operating from Nicaragua and El Salvador the revolt succeeded. Árbenz declared his resignation and took refuge in the mexican embassy in Guatemala City, from where he, like his predecessor Arévalo, was forced to start the restless life in exile under the permanent threat of attacks on his life from enemies like Trujillo.
“What had worked very well was the radio and press campaign accusing the Árbenz government of having turned Guatemala into a beachhead for the Soviet Union and of planning to seize the Panama Canal” Mario Vargas Llosa
Small settlers cottage
Against all promises given to convince Árbenz to resign, the next president, Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, reversed the land reform and started a relentless campaign against union members, supposed left wing supporters and political opponents. During his term of office he was basically the secretary of the american ambassador, John Emil Peurifoy, nick name “the cowboy”, who gave the orders he had to carry out.
-The United States has sent us a chimpanzee as their ambassador.
-Why not? she replied. Aren't we a kind of zoo for the gringos?
Mario Vargas LLosa
Water well in an indian village
The intervention of the United States was disastrous for Guatemala, disastrous for Latin America and certainly harmful for the United States. In Guatemala, the campaign basically fueled a civil war which would last for 36 years. It led to chaos, violence and undemocratic political systems not only in Guatemala, but also had consequences for the revolution in Cuba. During the coup against Árbenz a poor future revolutionary had to go from door to door to sell encyclopedias to earn a living. His name was Che Guevara. The anticommunist massacres after the coup by Castillo Armas had increased the anti-US sentiments and shifted not only the Cuban, but various other Latin American liberation movements towards communism.
Leaving the central american countries in a kind of pseudo colonial state eventually stopped their development, caused widespread poverty and finally the wave of immigration to the United States happening in the 21st century.
“History was racing back toward tribe and ridicule. "Will slavery be reestablished soon?" Mario Vargas Llosa
In 1994, the US embassy in the Honduran capital of Tegucicalpa was bigger than any government building.
Prensa libre, the newspaper of Guatemala
The influence of the military on guatemalen politics had lasted all the years of the civil war until end of the 1980ies. Meanwhile, after his cousins futile attempt to become president, Ramiro de León Carpio had become the national defender of human rights. He did not have any power, but became a threat for the incumbent president, Jorge Serrano. On May 25, 1993, Serrano led an autogolpe, a form of putsch in which a nation's leader, despite having come to power through legal means, puts out of function the national legislature and assumes dictatorial powers. Serrano abrogated the constitution, dissolved the National Congress, and gave order to arrest Ramiro de León Carpio. The latter escaped over the roofs of the adjacent houses, condemned the coup and Serrano was forced into exile. Although the army wanted to install the conservative vice president as new president, the National Congress swore in de León as President until the end of the term of rebellious Serrano in January 1996.
But the country had not come to rest. Jorge Carpio, the president’s cousin was murdered in 1994 by conservative forces. In 1995 the chief of the supreme court was murdered. The army continued to massacre civilians in the countryside. Nevertheless, Ramiro de León Carpio succeeded in reducing the influence of the military, continue the peace talks with the guerrilla and organize free elections which were won by Álvarú Arzú, the following president.
Abandoned tank and fruit box cars of the United Fruit railway in Golfito, Costa Rica, and Tela, Honduras
The remainders of the presence of the United Fruit company are visible everywhere in Central America. In Honduras the company owned big areas of the lowland along the coast between La Ceiba, Tela and San Pedro Sula. A railroad was built along the coast to serve the plantations and in Tela a long pier was constructed. In 1994, railroad and pier were in a state of utter disrepair. The huge shunting yard in Tela was filled was box cars not used for a long time. Similarly, the company owned big tracts of land along the pacific coast at the border of Costa Rica and Panama. A railroad was built across the border. Remainders of the station and the huge loading pier in the bay of Golfito were still present.
Loading piers in Tela, Honduras, and Golfito, Costa Rica
In many places United fruit built company compounds to accommodate their (expat) employees. The characteristic airy wooden buildings on poles had overhanging roofs, verandas and balconies. Some buildings in the towns were built in a similar style.
United Fruit employee compound buildings in Tela, Honduras, and Golfito, Costa Rica
Their policies in Guatemala did not benefit the United Fruit Company for very long. Its profit and stock market value declined. Already in 1958 the Eisenhower administration proceeded with antitrust action against the company. In 1972, the company sold off the last of its Guatemalan possessions after a long era of decline. Eventually the company ended up as part of Chiquita Brands International. But the legacy of United Fruit persisted. Chiquita has paid 1.7 million $ to AUC, the united self defense forces of colombia, to protect their interests. The company was accused of supporting an acknowledged terrorist organization and fined $ 25 million in compensation payments to the victims of AUC. Chiquita was also guilty of smuggling at least 3000 AK-47 aussualt rifles to the AUC in Colombia. Although the colombian government requested extradition of the US citizens responsible for that incredible act, the US government refused.
“I no longer even knew whether or not I believed in something” Mario Vargas Llosa
Link to the previous post
Sources
"Ramiro de Leon Carpio, 60; Former Guatemala Leader", Associated Press, April 17, 2002
Mario Vargas Llosa “Bittere Tijden”
"Chiquita Brands Part III-C: Of Bananas, Money, Guns, and Drugs: What Did Chiquita Really Do?". Colombia Law & Business Post. 2007-07-23
