America's Splendid Little Wars - Chapter Five

© 1986 Chapter Five
MORE REVOLUTION ON THE CHEAP: GUATEMALA 1954
In 1523, under orders from Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, Pedro de Alvarado took a force of one hundred twenty horsemen and two hundred soldiers with several pieces of artillery to conquer Guatemala for God and the Spanish king, and to acquire gold and silver. The natives of that country, however, had little gold, and offenses against them by the Spanish caused them to rebel, so that Cortes called them warlike and brave.

Alvarado was a handsome, brave, avaricious and cruel man with a reputation for faithlessness to his friends. The history of his time in Guatemala is one of rebellions and massacres[1]. Many thousands of Indians were killed resisting the invaders.

Gradually the country was pacified and the Spaniards and the mixed race they sired held the power and received its benefits in the wealth of the country. Indians were forced off the best land and into settlements where they could be better controlled.

Four hundred years later in the nineteenth century, land-holding was little different in Central America. Indians had few rights as the land was given over to the production of coffee, cotton and bananas for export. The best land was in the hands of very few. Largely illiterate peasants were still the victim of legalized forced labor, and on the great plantations they were paid only a few pennies a day. Most Central American countries were governed by dictators.

SMEDLEY DARLINGTON BUTLER
In 1902 a body of United States Marines was stationed on Culebra Island, Puerto Rico, convenient to respond to anticipated trouble in Panama. One of the junior officers was Smedley Darlington Butler, later major general. In February, 1903 Butler and his Marines were rushed to Honduras "to protect American interests" during a revolution. Two other revolutions occurred there that year, and others later.

Butler had enlisted in 1898 during the Spanish-American War and saw service in Cuba, the Philippines and China. In the next twenty years he participated in many incursions by American Marines into Central American and Caribbean countries. They were sent in ostensibly to "protect American lives and property" but the real reason invariably proved to be political and economic. Youthfully exuberant, and without any thought but to follow orders, Butler and the Marines bulldozed their way about those countries, replacing presidents with men Wall Street approved, and stifling any tendency toward independence.

In November, 1903, in order to aid a United States sponsored and orchestrated "revolution" to separate the isthmus of Panama from Colombia, Theodore Roosevelt dispatched eight warships to Panama. Thereafter the American government became much more active in the internal affairs of the countries of Central America. Some may credit others than Roosevelt with the Panamanian revolution but the Secretary of War put it bluntly. "Have I defended myself?" Roosevelt asked Secretary Elihu Root. "You certainly have, Mr President," Root replied, "You were accused of seduction and you have conclusively proved that you were guilty of rape[2]." Charles and Mary Beard stated it this way: Roosevelt "confessed that he simply `took’ Panama to stop endless talk and get the work done[3]."

GUATEMALA VS NICARAGUA
At the turn of the century two Central American dictators vied for control over the area: Manuel Estrada Cabrera in Guatemala and Jose Santos Zelaya in Nicaragua. Each had visions of ruling the region. The first cunningly flattered the United States and welcomed its businesses while Zelaya preferred doing business with Europeans from whom he received his loans.

In this period Honduras particularly suffered a series of devastating revolutions in which the U S Marines were involved. In 1906 that nation was drawn into a Guatemala/Nicaragua war as an ally of the former. When Theodore Roosevelt attempted to mediate, Guatemala and its allies Honduras and El Salvador ceased fighting while Zelaya (Nicaragua) continued to prosecute the war vigorously. Eventually, combined pressure from Mexico and the United State forced an end to hostilities and a conference in Washington in 1907 established a court to settle their differences. However, any notion that disinterested idealism had inspired the United States in this matter was soon dispelled as she exerted her military and economic might on all parties. Establishment of the court turned out to be a hollow exercise, for in the next few years the United States refused to abide by "decisions that went against its interests in Nicaragua." After the agreement of 1907 "Honduras and Nicaragua endured the most severe upheavals in their history....[4]"

In 1909 President Taft and his Secretary of State Philander Knox decided that the Nicaraguan strong man Zelaya and his liberal party could no longer be tolerated. In December, when that fact became clear to him, Zelaya resigned and went into exile, hoping to assuage American hostility. He left the presidency to another Liberal. The Americans, however, would have none of that; Washington decided that only the Conservatives would be allowed to govern Nicaragua. It fell to Smedley Butler and the Marines to force the government army into passivity while they allowed the Conservative armed rebellion freedom to fight. Butler explained: The American Consul painted a bleak picture of the predicament of the Conservative revolutionary army. It was hemmed in at Bluefields, vastly outnumbered by approaching [Liberal] government forces. The situation was desperate; the revolution might fail. It was clear that the American consul did not want to see this happen[5].

Using the excuse that he was protecting American lives, Butler prohibited the government's troops from firing on the rebels in the town, but allowed the (Conservative) rebels to fire out. Government forces would be allowed to capture the city, Butler told them, but it must be done without shooting!

Juan Estrada and Adolfo Diaz, respectively an executive and a clerk of an American mining company in Bluefields, led the "revolution," and after being allowed to win "several important military victories[6]" by the American Marines, the "Conservatives climbed into the vacant seats of power[7]." Juan Estrada and Adolfo Diaz, of the mining company, became president and vice-president of Nicaragua. Historian Walter LaFeber marveled at the fact that Diaz, whose annual salary was $1,000, had been able to acquire $600,000 for the "revolution."

American commercial interests were now turned loose in Nicaragua and quickly had control of the national bank and the country's customs house.

One of the points of contention the United States used against Zelaya was that he had executed two American mercenary soldiers of fortune, Lee Roy Cannon and Leonard Croce[8]. The (Liberal) government claimed to have caught them laying mines in the San Juan River[9]. Later, other American mercenaries became a big problem for Butler.

The United States-supported Conservative government which replaced the Liberals had little or no popular support. LaFeber quotes the U S Minister in 1911: "The natural sentiment of the overwhelming majority of Nicaraguans is antagonistic to the United States". Conscripts, captured and tied with rope to prevent their escape, American adventurous riff-raff collected in New Orleans, and other mercenaries formed the new Nicaraguan (Conservative) army. A spontaneous revolt in 1912 made it necessary to send an American military force of 2,500 to insure continuation of the Conservatives in power. Arrival of American forces made the troublesome mercenaries superfluous so Butler forced them aboard a steamer and shipped them off to Panama to be rid of these expensive and dangerous rowdies.

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