Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán

Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán (14 September 1913 – 27 January 1971) was the president of Guatemala from 1951 to 1954. He was ousted in a coup d'état organized by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán

Quotes

Appeal to the Nation (19 June 1954)

• Our only crime consisted of decreeing our own laws and applying them to all without exception. Our crime is having enacted an agrarian reform which effected the interests of the United Fruit Company. Our crime is wanting to have our own route to the Atlantic, our own electric power and our own docks and ports. Our crime is our patriotic wish to advance, to progress, to win economic independence to match our political independence. We are condemned because we have given our peasant population land and rights.
  • As quoted in Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala by Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer

• Unfortunately even the President of the United States of America has made little of his high office, and he too, either through lack of information or other reasons, has lent himself to the campaign of pressure and intimidation against Guatemala.
  • As quoted in Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala by Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer