As in a dream, a few insistent

details keep weaving. in and_
out of the jumbled impressions

ef Guatemala — the advertising
Sign, the streamer strung across
the street, the writing’ on the
Wall, the box of pretzels.

_ 1 stood on the balcony of the
Imposing National Palace in
Guatemala City, admiring the
Spacious square with its well laid
out and immaculately kept lawns
and alleys. There was beauty
and dignity in the scene. But
towering over the square and as
if challenging the very seat of
€0vernment of the Republic of
Guatemala was a huge advertis-
Mg sign reading: Canada Dry.

Then that streamer across the
Width of the street. It was start-

ling because I was not prepared
for it,

Up to that point, on the way
from Guatemala City to the quaint
town of Chichicastenango (the
Rame is too long even for the
Patient Guatemalans and they
Call it Chichi-for short), we trav-
eled through Indian country, and
what with the hairpin curves on

€ winding, mountainous gravel
Toad, the frightening precipices,
We were too much absorbed by
the breath-taking landscape and
the picturesque costumes of the
Maya tribes to think politics.

That is why the streamer strung
cross *the main street of the
Indian village of Solala hit me
hetween the eyes. It read (in

Spanish): Against Foreign Inter-
Yention.

Now, the’ box of pretzels. Ex-
Pecting guests in my hotel room
One evening, I went to the grocery
cross the street to get some-
ane to nibble with the wine.
“ae Packaged food looked very
‘Miliar — it was all from the
‘ie I selected a box of pretz-
ne that sells in the U.S. for 10
ne: The price in Guatemala
ity was 50 cents.

_ Later I complained to my
Suests about the high prices in
; €ir country, citing the box of
Sie as an example. One of

4. Suests knew a good deal about

i €xport-import business and he
: Sured me that more than half

the price of pretzels repre-
ented freight costs.

2 qt Cost more, he said, to carry
th, item from Puerto Barrios on
© Atlantic coast over the only

Tailway line to Guatemala City,’

: distance of 197 miles, than to
ID it from the U.S., or from
Urope for that matter, to Puerto

arrios.
*

oS rail line from Puerto Bar-
oe belongs to the United Fruit
= Mpany, and by the terms of the
et between United and the
Mer dictators of Guatemala,

e Guatemalan government has
mee Voice’ whatever in setting
eight rates over the railroad.
a ith excellent coast lines on both
Reig Guatemala has only one
ri On the Atlantic, Puerto Bar-
Os, and two on the Pacific—San
te and Champerica, and all
“Tee are the property of United.

ay ithout a port of its own, with-
Dr any say in freight rates, with
‘Actically all of its exports (main-
th Coffee and bananas) going to
re and all of its imports
uding food, clothing, ‘oil pro-
Ucts, machinery and manufactur-
fh consumers’ goods) coming
iad the U.S., Guatemala for
air a century has been at the
‘ €rey of U.S. monopoly capital,
Pecifically United Fruit Company
d its subsidiaries.
3 all practical purposes, Un-
Pat Owns Guatemala. Guatemalan
a Tlots never liked this arrange-
€nt, and the democratic regime
dice from 1944, when the last
a ator, General. Ubico, was kick-
thi Out, has decided to do some-
Mg about it. ioe
Pre: is is particularly true of the
Sent government of President
®Cobo Arbenz Guzman; elected

«

in 1951 as. the candidate of a
democratic coalition including

middle class groups, the National

Peasant Confederation, as well as
tlé new and numerically small
Communist (Workers) party.

Immediately upon its election,
the new government proceeded
to deliver on its promises.

*

Overshadowing all other na-
tional plans is the Agrarian Re-
form Law, adopted by Congress
(a one-chamber body where the
Communists have four of the 56
seats) in June, 1952.

It is this reform, aiming at the
abolition of the semi-feudal sys-
tem and the distribution of the
uncultivated land among the
landless peasants, that furnishes
the basis for the charge the pre-
sent regime is “eommunistic” and
“anti-American. ”

If the United Fruit Company

and paintings and drawings by
well-known artists with the Road
to the Atlantic as their theme.

Indeed, this projected highway
of some 200 miles that is to con-
nect Guatemala City with the At-
lantic coast is represented by
Guatemalan poets and statesmen
alike as the road to national sal-
vation, precisely because of what
it represents.

The projected highway may
break United Fruit’s stranglehold
upon Guatemala’s economy and
put an end to decades of extor-
tion amounting to highway rob-
bery. With a road of its own to
the Atlantic, Guatemala would no
longer have to accept the mon-
strously high freight rates Unit-
ed charges for carrying imports
over its railway from Puerto Bar-
rios.

Since Guatemala imports all of
its gasoline (now selling in the
country at 50 cents a gallon), all

Why the ==
nited States

attacks Guatemala

erent

SOUTH |
AMERICA |

is America then the Guatemalan
government is anti-American. The
Agrarian Reform Law applies to
all holders of large and unused
stretches of land. United is the

Jargest single landlord in Guate-

mala, with hundreds of thousands
of acres of uncultivated land.

Like the domestic landowners,
United is compensated. for the na-
tionalized land, not. at an arbit-
rary rate but at the rate of its
tax valuation. For years it has
been paying land taxes at the
valuation of $2 per acre and
whent the government suggested
a higher valuation United pro-
tested that the land wasn’t worth
more. i

ow the US. State Depart-
siete yells blue murder that Un-
ited is being robbed and its prop-
erty confiscated practically with-
out compensation.

The Agrarian Reform is the
main lever to pry the country
loose from the crushing burden
of foreign monopoly domination.
But it is only part of a larger
program that has captured the
imagination and kindled the
hopes of large sections of the
population. Take the fervor gen-
erated by the slogan, “The Road
to the Atlantic!”

In the House of Culture (Casa
della Cultura) I was shown pam-
phlets and poems by prominent
writers dedicated to this project,

U.S. monopoly exploitation and dictatorial regimes have left
Guatemala a heritage of poverty and illiteracy, The present demo-

cratic government is trying to raise living standards by its land
reform program and to wipe out illiteracy by expanding the school

system.

by NATHANIEL BUCHWALD ©

of its machinery, practically all
of its canned and packaged foods,
a good deal of its textiles and
ready-to-wear clothing from the
U.S., the Road to the Atlantic
looms large as a short cut to
lower living costs and improved
living standards. .

In the excited hopes of the peo-
ple it means that the wage-earner
will no longer have to pay from
one-third to one-half of his
meagre earnings as tribute to Un-
ited Fruit. The merchant, no

-longer at the mercy of United,

will be able to sell twice as much
to a much larger buying public
than he can now reach at the pro-
hibitive prices.

*

Still there is among politically
informed people a sober realiza-
tion of the difficulties, obstacles
and dangers attending the pro-
gram of transition from a semi-
feudal to a modern agrarian-in-
dustrial economy and from the
status of a semi-colonial “banana
republic” to economic indepen-
dence and political democracy.

Many of the obstacles and dan-
gers come from without, from
U.S. monopolies and their domes-
tic stooges, but there are also
serious internal obstacles. Not

the least of these are the pre-
vailing illiteracy (72 percent of
the population) and the rigid tra-
ditionalism of the Indians, who
constitute more than a half of

the population and whose cus-—

toms stand in the way of social
and economic progress.

Adherents of the democratic
front say that to integrate the
Indians into national life is one
of the present regime’s goals, but
that as yet hardly a beginning has
been made. I was told there are
no Indians in the national gov-
ernment and very few in the
ranks of the lower government
employees.

Education is something else
again. The annual budget of the
ministry of education, 10% mil-
lion quetzals of a total national
budget of some 70 million, is

higher than that of any other

ministry.

During the 14 vears of Ubico’s
dictatorship not a single modern
school was built and only one
teachers’ training school was in

operation. But in the nine years

of the democratic regime 87 such
schools were built and equipped,
and six teachers’ training insti-
tutes are now functioning in vari-
ous parts of the country.

Before the overthrow of Ubico’s
dictatorship in 1944, a graduate
rural teacher received $12 a
month and the salary of an urban

teacher was $24, Now the salaries
are $60 and $75, respectively. In
1953 alone 400 one-room schools
were built in rural areas.

What is the political complex-
ion of this democratic coalition
government which the U.S. State
Department is widely misrepre-
senting as being “communist-con-
trolled.” :

' Far from being socialistic in
its outlook, the coalition govern-

“ment bases its program upon pri-

vate enterprise. It could . be
characterized as a_ liberal-bour-
geois regime supported by the in-

_dustrial workers (as yet humeric-
_ ally small) and large sections of

the agricultural workers and
landless peasantry.

The land reform is the political
cement that binds the various
elements of the coalition: Indus-
trialization—on the basis of pri-
vate enterprise—is another goal

Shared by all the groupings in

the coalition. ae
But what about the Commun-
ists?
“What is the specific function

_of your party in the coalition?

Wherein does it differ in practice
from the other parties of the de-
mocratic front?” I asked one
Communist leader. °

“We support the common pro-
gram of the coalition and spare
no efforts to help put it into
effect. At the same time we are
on guard against any attempt to
promote the problem of industrial-
ization and other reforms at the
expense of the workers. You
may consider us Communists, if
you wish, as the advocates and
guadians of the proletariat in the
democratic front,’ he said.

Later the same day I visited
the House of Culture, where I
learned among other things that

-at the recent Book Fair held in

the National Palace under the
auspices of the House of Culture,
the two books topping the list of
best sellers were Mao Tse-tung’s
New Democracy and—the Bible.

Perhaps this will give you an
idea of the mood of the reading
public backing the present demo-
cratic regime of Guatemala.

U.S. plotting our overthrow’

HIPMENT of U.S. arms to Nica-
ragua this week, on the pre-
text that Guatemala, to which the
U.S. has refused to sell arms, has
now received arms from Europe,
recalls the White Paper issued by
the Guatemalan government
earlier this year.

The White Paper accused the
U.S. government of endorsing a
plan for the invasion of Guate-
mala from Nicaragua and of re-
tiring a U.S. army colonel to or-
ganize sabotage in Guatemala.

Details of the U.S. plot to over-

throw the Guatemalan govern-

ment were revealed during in-
vestigations into sabotage and the
attempted assassination of Vice-
President Arriola.

Arriola played a leading role in
carrying through the 1952 land
reform program in Guatemala,
which was bitterly opposed by
the United Fruit Company.

Leaders of an attempted revolt
last March stated that they had
received arms! from the ambas-
sador of El Salvador and money
from the United Fruit Company.

This powerful U.S. trust, dom-

inating! the economic life of
Central America, has some $100
million invested in Guatemala,
and lost 400,000 acres of land
which it had deliberately left un-
used in the land reform.

In Mexico, Guatemala’s neigh-
bor, 200 leading figures have sup-
ported a Society of Friends of
Guatemala, having Catholic poet
Carlos Pellicer and industrialist
Jose Domingo Lavin among its
leaders.

The Chilean parliament has con-
demned the planned U.S. aggres-
sion against Guatemala.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 28, 1954 — PAGE 9