file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/me/Desktop/Book%20shelf/Quigley,%20Carroll%20-%20Tragedy%20and%20Hope.txt
Page 1124 World War II, by increasing demand for Latin America's mineral and agricultural products, pushed starvation and controversy away from the immediate present. Latin American boomed: the rich got richer; the poor had more children. A few poor became rich, or at least richer. But nothing was done to modify the basic pattern of Latin American power, wealth, and outlook. Page 1127 Until the 1952 revolution, the Bolivians, mostly of Indian descent, who were treated as second-class persons working as semislaves in the mines or as serfs on the large estates, had a per capita annual outcome of about $100. As might be expected, the majority were illiterate, sullen and discouraged. Page 1128 The Junta was overthrown in 1952. Paz Estenssoro returned from exile to become president. Pressure from the tin miners and from the peasants forced the new regime to nationalize the mines and to break up many of the large estates. Production costs of tin rose above market price thus wiping out their foreign exchange earnings. Worse, the world price of tin collapsed in 1957. The problems could hardly be handled because of popular pressures in a democratic country to live beyond the country's income. The final collapse did not occur because of the efforts of President Siles and assistance from the United States. Page 1129 If any proof were needed that radical reform for sharing the wealth of the few among the many poor is not an easy, or feasible method, Bolivia's hard-working Indians, once hopelessly dull, morose, and sullen, are not bright, hopeful, and self-reliant. Even their clothing is gradually shifting from the older funereal black to brighter colors and variety. Few contrasts could be more dramatic than that between the Bolivian revolutionary government (in which a moderate regime was pushed toward radicalism by popular pressures and survived, year after year, with American assistance) and the Guatemala revolution where a Communist-inspired regime tried to lead a rather inert population in the direction of increasing radicalism but was overthrown by direct American action within three years (1951-1954). Guatemala is one of the "banana republics." The retail value of Latin America's part of the world's trade in bananas is several billion dollars a year but Latin America's gets less than 7% of that value. One reason for this is the existence of the United Fruit Company which owns two million acres of plantations in six countries and handles about a third of the world's banana sales. It pays about $145 million a year into the six countries and claims to earn about $26 million profits on its $159 million investment but this profit figure of about 16.6% is undoubtedly far below the true figure. In 1970, 95% of the land held by United Fruit was uncultivated. Page 1130 Guatemala, like Bolivia, has a population that consists largely of impoverished Indians and mixed bloods (mestizos). From 1931 to 1944 it was ruled by the dictator Jorge Ubico, the last of a long line of corrupt and ruthless tyrants. When he retired to New Orleans in 1944, free elections chose Juan Jose Arevalo (1945-1950) and Jacobo Arbenz Guzman (1950-1954) as presidents. Reform was long overdue and these two administrations tried to provide it, becoming increasingly antiAmerican and pro-Communist over their nine-year rule. When they began, civil or political rights were almost totally unknown and 142 persons (including corporations) owned 98% of the arable land. Free speech and press, legalized unions, and free elections preceded the work of reform but opposition from the United States began as soon as it file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/me/Des...ey,%20Carroll%20-%20Tragedy%20and%20Hope.txt (111 of 129) [14/06/2005 11:42:40]