Guatemala: Who Was Juan Jose Arevalo, Father of New President Who Led “Guatemala Revolution” 80 Years Ago

Now, at the age of 65, he recognizes that – despite the difficulties that he himself defined as a “coup d’état” preventing him from coming to power – his father’s name opened doors for him. Either way, try to chart your own path.

“I am not my father. I am following his path, like the revolutionaries of 1944. Jacobo ArbenzBut I’m not that,” he said at the end of the campaign that allowed him to win the presidential election in the second round on August 20.

Juan Jose Arevalo managed the first six of Call’s ten years “Democratic Spring.” A period in Guatemalan history that began with the revolution of 1944 after years of military rule and ended with the overthrow of Jacobo Árbenz.

In last year’s campaign, his son emphasized the “new spring”, the revolutionary process his father led 80 years ago. “My father appears in everyone who talks to me about the benefits of that spring that he still feels,” he recalled in the speech.

This is the journey of A A key figure in Guatemala’s political history, Which explains part of the identity of the country’s new president.

Coll “October Revolution” of 1944.In which the streets of Guatemala became the scene of a series of protests that called for the end of long decades of military rule, Juan José Arevalo’s victory explains.

On July 1, 1944, social pressure from the protesters – many of them students, intellectuals, workers and the armed forces sectors – forced them to resign. Jorge UbicoA military man who suppressed democratic freedoms and stayed in power for 13 years.

Ubico’s absence led to the formation of a military triumvirate with Federido Ponce Vaides appointed president with the aim of calling elections.

But four months later, there were still no elections in Guatemala.

Hence, on the morning of October 20, 1944, protests forced Vaides to resign. With the resignation of Vaides, the resignation of Ubico buried and gave way to the era of authoritarian rule. First free elections in Guatemala In December 1944.

Arevalo was in exile in Argentina when he was called by the National Renewal Party and the Popular Liberation Front, two formations that emerged after the coup, to be the next candidate for president.

Already in Guatemala, in the December 1944 elections, Juan José Arevalo was elected president of that country.

Antonio Collom Argueta, grandfather of anthropologist Alejandra Collom, a professor at the Universidad del Valle in Guatemala, was a deputy of the Revolutionary Action Party when Arevalo became president.

For him, it was a time when “ordinary citizens began to steer the direction of the country after years of dictatorship.”

“Revolution meant freedom. The powers that dictator Jorge Ubico had given him were locked away from the entire police force. That’s how Juan José Arevalo became the person with whom all these changes are identified,” the anthropologist tells BBC Mundo.

At that time, the American company in Guatemala United Fruit Company She owned more than 50% of all arable land in the country, although according to the books of the time she planted only 3%.

There were no cars but they traveled in mule-drawn carts, there were only a few schools and the economy was supported almost exclusively by the export of bananas and coffee.

Arevalo marked a break with that past in Guatemala.

It was signed by Arevalo himself Labor Code of 1947 which ended the so-called “vagrancy laws”, which forced peasants to work 50 days a year on the estates. These included a maximum of eight hours, a minimum wage, rest on Sundays and competent unions.

Child labor was banned, the government created the Guatemalan Social Security Institute, legalized the right to strike, and the right to vote extended to all men of legal age and women with the ability to read and write.

“It is remembered for the time Extension of Citizens’ Rights“Julita Rostica, coordinator of the Central American Studies Group at the University of Buenos Aires, tells BBC Mundo.

“Ending forced labor means the destruction of the hacienda as the longest-lasting social matrix that has persisted since the colonial period.”

These changes were noted in (Constitution of 1945The legal basis that made the transformation process possible.

The concept of the “social function” of property enshrined in the Magna Carta was the basis upon which the agrarian reform promoted by Jacobo Arbenz in 1952 proceeded.

For Laura Sala, a researcher at the Institute of Latin American Studies, the country’s recent history cannot be understood without looking at the revolutionary process.

“The revolutionary process is a moment in history that is present in today’s society,” Sala says, making it clear that the meanings of the past are part of current controversies.

Six years after Arevalo, Arbenz came up with more radical ideas than his predecessor and resigned under his pressure. A military coup against him With the support of the United States.

Agrarian reform was a limitation supported by the country’s conservatives, who, with the support of the military, began to plot against the new government, and wanted to implement socialism in the country.

Sala explains, “The Guatemalan revolution can be read as a failed revolution because the process of radical change it promoted was disrupted and reversed following a covert CIA operation in 1954.”

Besides being a politician, Juan José Arevalo was a reference in the world of ideas.

After graduating as a teacher from the National Central Institute for Men, Arevalo was part of this “Intellectuals of 1944” Who led the revolutionary process of the country.

He worked as a teacher and began his literary career with books such as “Traveling is Living” (1933), “Political Writings” (1945) and “The Shark and the Sardine” (1956) in which he reflected on his time.

“Arevalo A A busy intellectual With his time, who set out to consolidate democratic institutions in a country where nothing like democracy existed,” says Sala.

In that sense, Arevalo a A series of educational reforms who became the focal point of his government.

He continued with literacy campaigns, reopened Guatemala’s popular university and night schools for workers, and advanced rural education and teacher training.

At that time, Congressman Antonio Colomb Argueta approved several laws related to education in Congress, including this “Ladder Law” between teachers.

“My grandfather gave a speech in favor of including all teachers on the same scale, so that they would not be discriminated against by the benefits offered by the new system,” recalls the anthropologist.

In those years, Arevalo’s presidency brought together hundreds of artists and intellectuals who had lived in exile before his electoral victory and represented the intellectuals’ first step into government.

Arevalo’s abolition of forced labor, then promoted by Arbenz’s agrarian reform, represented United Fruit Company Threat to their interests in Guatemala.

“This was achieved in a very complicated situation with the beginning of the Cold War, which led to Arevalo being accused of being a communist,” Rostica explains.

A powerful American company, linked to local conservative sectors, began a campaign to overthrow the government, until on June 18, 1954, about 500 troops under the command of Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas arrived from Honduras to Guatemala to finish off Árbenz.

A military advance began to move from the border towards the capital. So it was that, after nine days, Arbenz resigned.

“I have taken a very important decision for our country in hopes of stopping the aggression and bringing peace back to Guatemala. I have decided to leave power,” he said in his last speech as president.

Arevalo, who was in Chile at the time, decided not to return to his country. Due to his father’s years of exile, the new president of Guatemala was born in Montevideo in 1958.

For analysts, the depression of the revolution marked the beginning of a period marked by political violence that led to it 200,000 people were murdered and disappeared in 1978 and 1990.

It took 24 years from his departure until former President Arevalo was able to return to Guatemala in 1978, where he remained until his death in 1990.

For Bernardo Arevalo there is no doubt that His father’s story explains its present.

“The fact that I am here is not because I have been elected by the people of Guatemala to rule, it is not because there was a sense of projection towards me from my father, but there is no doubt that my father’s name and his principles carry weight.” President. Elected to CNN the day after the election.

For Colom, his father’s story was present in Arevalo’s victory. “Especially among older adults and among the center-left who see it as one A symbol of democracy” says the anthropologist.

According to Laura Sala, a researcher at the Institute of Latin American Studies, it is clear that the revolutionary process in today’s society is “among the peasants and indigenous peoples, among the workers, but also among the conservative forces.”

Those years are the memory of time “Significant Extension of Rights” For an important part of the population, according to Julieta Rustica of the University of Buenos Aires.

“Juan José was responsible for building a real democracy, Bernardo will be responsible for its reconstruction,” he added.

Bernardo Arevalo thus became the country’s first progressive president since the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954.