GUATEMALA: Reformed Land Reform

To Guatemala's backlands, torn by bitter years of a Communist-written land reform that set peasant against landholder, last week came a quietly revolutionary reform of the reform. Going well beyond the vague notion that landless Indians "ought" to have some of the big estates held by a few families, President Carlos Castillo Armas' decree aimed at raising the agricultural health of all Guatemala.

The reform begun in 1952 by Red-led President Jacobo Arbenz actually moved 87,000 peasant families onto plots of their own. Some legally took over uncultivated parts of confiscated estates;...

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