Jacobo Árbenz

Jacobo Árbenz, who served as president from 1951, centered his presidency around an ambitious agrarian reform program known as Decree 900. This program aimed to redistribute unused land from massive estates—including those owned by the American United Fruit Company—to impoverished peasant farmers.

Árbenz was overthrown in a 1954 coup d'état orchestrated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The US government, heavily lobbied by the United Fruit Company and driven by Cold War anti-communist paranoia, viewed his land redistribution policies as a direct Soviet threat in the Western Hemisphere.

While Árbenz allowed members of the communist Guatemalan Party of Labour (PGT) into his government and labor unions, he himself was a left-leaning military reformist rather than a strict communist. His land reform policies were democratic capitalist measures designed to modernize Guatemala's economy and reduce extreme poverty.

Following the CIA-backed coup that removed him from power, Árbenz was forced to resign and went into a long, humiliating exile that took him to Mexico, Switzerland, and other nations. Stripped of his citizenship and wealth, he died in Mexico City in 1971.