Politca Environment

At my school we have had weekly conferences on the economy, political structure and immigration. Its been incredibly interesting. I’ve also been reading the newspaper here (which may explain why I did not have the blissful ignorance I enjoyed in Mexico)

Of what I find to be really interesting is US involvement in other countries (and we still haven’t learned!). In the 1940s and 1950s was considered Guatemala’s ‘Golden Age‘, the Presidents were very democratic and they were instituting work codes (standards to protect workers), education for all, healthcare for all and the government started to work on land rights.

United Fruit Company (Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita) had a big stake in Guatemala as they had taken the land to grow bananas, mangos, pineapples, etc. When the government started addressing land reform as UFC was the largest owner and the government wanted a small portion of the unused land to be used for the local farmers. However, UFC had 2 major shareholders: John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower’s Secretary of State and his brother CIA Director, Allan Dulles. As you can imagine the US helped overthrow the democratic president Jacobo Arbenz in ‘Operation Success’ deeming him to be socialist. The country them erupted into 30 years of messy civil war with the majority of the Professors and intelligencia being killed or fleeing.

The civil war was officially over in 1996 and there is still a lot of tension as power is centralized in 35 families that control all business, agriculture and they are rather conservative. The problem is now Guatemala has high unemployment which has lead to increased crime, social problems and migration. Interestingly enough, the government minimum wage which is 48 Quetzals for a man and 47Q for a woman - the equivalent of $6 a day. Of course UFC, who is still around, won’t pay even the minimum wage, instead paying between 18Q (2$) and 24Q ($3) for an entire day of work.

But I’m happy to report everyone here loves Obama since he came down to Central America and met with all the Presidents and has promised to work on immigration, more than his predecessor. So there’s hope!