GUATEMALA: Tyrant Down

An unarmed, national strike drove President Jorge Ubico, Tyrant of Guatemala, from office last week.

Students began the movement, but it quickly spread through the population.

Shopkeepers closed their doors. Railroad workers quit. The people used little or no violence, for this was a strike of “brazos caidís” (“arms down”). The life of long terrorized Guatemala slowed to a deathly standstill.

Ubico used plenty of violence. His police and soldiers ranged the capital, threatening, killing. But the strike did not lose force. Day by day, like a fangless constrictor, it tightened its coils around the encircled tyrant.

After a week or so, the tyrant yielded slightly and fired his strongest supporter, General David H. Ordoñez, head of his Gestapo. The people were not appeased: they were after Ubico himself. At last, after twelve days, he handed his resignation to Congress, begged that his person and wealth be spared, set out for the frontier.

Before leaving Guatemala for Mexico City, Ubico delegated his power to a military junta. But the people wanted real self-government; they had at least a chance to start their climb toward democracy.

Two to Go. Ubico’s downfall reduced the “Dictators’ Club” of Central America to half its former membership. Dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez of El Salvador fell last May before a popular strike which set the pattern for Guatemala. The two survivors, Dictator Tiburcio Carías of Honduras and Dictator Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua, were seriously threatened by the wave of unarmed strikes sweeping Latin America.

Big-bellied Carías, elected President of Honduras in 1932, twice extended his term without elections. Several times he put down revolts, left his prisons full of political enemies in spite of petitions from other Latin countries. Now he faced a growing storm of popular rebellion. Across the border of newly freed El Salvador, Honduran exiles were eagerly crowding, filling the free Salvadoran press with at tacks upon him.

“Tacho” Somoza of Nicaragua also extended his term illegally, also faced rebellion. Last week he suppressed a demonstration of students and citizens by shooting a few and arresting over 200. Across the Costa Rican border waited thousands of Nicaraguans, eager for a chance to invade their own country. Last week Dictator Somoza received 18 Lend-Lease airplanes from the U.S. They may aid him militarily, but cannot help him against the non-violent but powerful pressure of a brazos caídos strike.