Why Immigration Reform Eludes Us, Part Two

"That overthrow was the work of the CIA."

         Herb Rothschild

Political flash point: Central Americans are crowding at our southern border. What makes anyone think that the USA has any responsibility for the mess they have down there?

I asked Herb Rothschild to return with a followup guest post. His comments on Haiti reminded readers of some uncomfortable history at a time when teaching students uncomfortable history regarding slavery and racism is yet another political flash point. Americans won't understand some of the intractable problems we have until we face up to how those problems came to be. 

Rothschild is a retired professor of English. During his working years he was a political activist on behalf of world peace and civil rights for Black Americans. He is still doing that work, advocating for peace and justice. He lives in Talent, Oregon.

Guest Post by Herb Rothschild

Herb Rothschild

Guatemala: Another story of suffering, death, and hypocrisy

In a guest column that Peter published Sunday, I maintained that there cannot be comprehensive immigration reform until the U.S. reforms its conduct in Central America and the Caribbean. In support of that assertion, I argued that for more than 100 years our use of force to guarantee that the wealth of those nations enriches U.S. corporations and banks has created the endemic poverty and violence that the migrants coming to our southern border are fleeing. 

I also said that the list of our invasions, occupations and subversions is far too long to recount in a guest blog, and pointed readers to a website that lists them. (https://yachana.org/teaching/resources/interventions.html). As a relevant example, though, I used our maltreatment of Haiti—relevant because of the large number of people from that country who arrived in Mexico across from Del Rio, Texas this September. Let me now recount our behavior toward Guatemala, another major source of immigrants.

The numbers from Guatemala were especially high between 1983 and 1986. They were fleeing from their government’s violence. From 1981 through 1983, the military, right-wing paramilitaries and death squads killed about 200,000 people, mostly indigenous people living in the highlands (indigenous represent 60% of the population). However, the agitation for justice they were suppressing began in the 1950s, following the 1954 overthrow of democracy and its replacement by a series of military dictators. 

That overthrow was the work of the CIA.  

Until 1944, Guatemala had been ruled by military dictators that the U.S. supported because they made sure that the major portion of Guatemala’s agricultural land was owned by U.S. corporations and the nation’s wealthy elite. That year, Guatemala held its first elections and chose a reform-minded president, Juan José Arévalo. His minister of defense was Jacopo Arbenz Guzman, who played a critical role in foiling an attermpted military coup in 1949. Two years later, after Arévalo died, Arbenz was elected president. He persuaded the Guatemalan congress to pass a law ordering the expropriation of all land larger than 600 acres that wasn't under cultivation. Of the country's 341,000 landowners, only 1,700 fit the law. The owners were to be compensated based on the currently assessed value of their land and paid with 25-year government bonds. The confiscated lands were to be distributed to landless peasants. 

Sam Zemurray

Samuel “Sam the Banana Man” Zemurray was not happy. His corporation, United Fruit Company, owned some 600,000 acres, mostly uncultivated. In 1911, without U.S. government help, Zemurray had overthrown Honduran president Miguel Dávila, installing former president Manuel Bonilla, who had been living in exile in New Orleans, Zemurray’s own place of residence. This time, though, he had a sympathetic ear in Washington. John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower’s secretary of state, and John’s brother Allen, director of the CIA, had been partners in the law firm that represented United Fruit. They persuaded Eisenhower to greenlight the removal of Arbenz. 

The CIA chose Guatemalan colonel Carlos Castillo Armas to lead the coup, armed and trained his rebel army in Nicaragua, and supported the invasion with CIA-piloted airplanes. That was the end of Guatemalan democracy for four decades. It was not the end of U.S. involvement in the repression. We provided arms and training to the Guatemalan military and even helped plan operations against the rebels. During the 1980s, our mainstream media toed the White House line on the repression and wholesale murder in Guatemala by presenting it as a civil war with bad behavior on both sides. The 1999 UN Truth Commission, however, found that 83% of casualties were indigenous Maya, and 93% of the human rights violations were perpetrated by state military or paramilitary forces. 

John Foster Dulles

Since many readers find personal notes of interest, I’ll tell two. I was born and raised in New Orleans, and for a time went to school with Sam Zemurray, grandson of the Banana Man, who was still alive then. In the mid-80s I was close to a teenager from Guatemala who had entered the U.S. illegally. He had fled his country after his parents were murdered. He was a gentle, sweet young man. After two years he left Baton Rouge for Canada on the underground railroad moving illegals. I don’t know what happened to him . . . nothing but good things, I hope.