The Political, Social, and Economic Situation Prior to the Coup

Prior to the coup, Guatemala was a poor, undeveloped country. Jacobo Arbenz was Guatemala's first president elected under universal-suffrage. In 1954, Arbenz proposed a social and economic reforms including redistribution of underutilized land holdings. Most of the land ownership was concentrated by the wealthy and the United Fruit Company of the United States. For example, "it is estimated that 2% of the country's population controlled 72% of all arable land in 1945, but only 12% of it was being utilized." (wikipedia.org). There were a number of attempts to redistribute the land more equitably, especially land that was not being utilized by existing land owners. These land redistribution efforts were popular with the peasant class, but were against the interests of the land owning classes and certain U.S. corporate interests including the powerful United Fruit Company.
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U.S. Goals and Actions Leading to the......

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Title: Coup In Guatemala
Approximate Word Count: 649
Approximate Pages: 3 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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