Jorge Ubico Castañeda (10 November 1878 – 14 June 1946), nicknamed Number Five or also Central America's Napoleon, was a Guatemalan military officer, politician, and dictator who served as the president of Guatemala from 1931 to 1944.
A general in the Guatemalan military, he was elected to the presidency in 1931, in an election where he was the only candidate. He continued his predecessors' policies of giving massive concessions to the United Fruit Company and wealthy landowners, as well as supporting their harsh labor practices. Ubico has been described as "one of the most oppressive tyrants Guatemala has ever known" who compared himself to Adolf Hitler. He was removed by a pro-democracy uprising in 1944, which led to the ten-year Guatemalan Revolution.
Jorge Ubico was the son of Arturo Ubico Urruela, a lawyer and politician of the Guatemalan Liberal Party. Ubico Urruela was a member of the legislature that wrote the Guatemalan Constitution of 1879, and was subsequently the president of the Guatemalan Congress during the government of Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1898–1920). Jorge Ubico was privately tutored, and attended some of Guatemala's most prestigious schools, as well as receiving further education in the United States and Europe.
By 1897 Ubico received his commission into the Guatemalan army as a second lieutenant, a commission which was largely due to his political connections. He rapidly established himself in the army and rose through the ranks, and, after a military campaign against El Salvador, held the rank of colonel at the age of 28. A year later, he was made the governor (jefe politico) of the province of Alta Verapaz, followed four years later as governor of Retalhuleu.
During his tenure, he oversaw improvements in public works, the school system, public health, and youth organizations. In 1918, he drained swamps, ordered fumigation and distributed free medicine to combat a yellow fever epidemic, and won the praise of Major General William C. Gorgas, who had done the same in Panama. However, most of his reputation came from his harsh but effective punishment of banditry and smuggling across the Mexican border.
He returned to Guatemala City in 1921 to participate in a coup that installed General José María Orellana into the presidency, after the sitting president Carlos Herrera refused to ratify the concessions that Estrada Cabrera had made to the United Fruit Company. Under Orellana he was appointed Secretary of War in 1922, but quit a year later. In 1926, after the death of President Orellana, Ubico ran unsuccessfully for president as the candidate of the Political Progressive Party. He temporarily retired to his farm until the next election.
In December 1930, President Lázaro Chacón González was forced to resign after having a stroke. By that time, Guatemala was in the midst of the Great Depression and bankrupt; Chacón's successor, Baudilio Palma, was deposed by a coup d'état after only four days in office and was replaced by Gen. Manuel Orellana. The United States opposed the new government and demanded Orellana resign; he was forced to leave the presidency in favor of José María Reina Andrade.
The Liberal Party allied with the Progressives to nominate Ubico as Andrade's successor, in an election where Ubico was the only candidate on the ballot. In February 1931 he was elected with 305,841 votes. In his inaugural address, he pledged a "march toward civilization". Once in office, he began a campaign of efficiency which included assuming dictatorial powers.
Ubico's rule has been characterized as totalitarian; John Gunther, who visited the country during 1941, described Guatemala as "a country 100 per cent dominated by a single man." Added Gunther: "He [Ubico] has spies and agents everywhere, and knows everyone's private business to an amazing degree. Not a pin drops in Guatemala without his knowing it." Guatemala under Ubico was likened to "a modern jail."
He militarized numerous political and social institutions – including the post office, schools, and symphony orchestras – and placed military officers in charge of many government posts. He frequently traveled around the country performing "inspections" in dress uniform followed by a military escort, a mobile radio station, an official biographer, and cabinet members.
The United Fruit Company and relations with the US
Ubico considered Guatemala to be the closest ally of the United States in Central America. Adopting a pro-USA stance to promote economic development and recovery from depression, Ubico permitted the United Fruit Company to become the most important company in Guatemala. It received import duty and real estate tax exemptions from the government and controlled more land than any other group or individual. It also controlled the sole railroad in the country, the sole facilities capable of producing electricity, and the port facilities at Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic coast.
Railways and ports: the United Fruit Company
The United Fruit Company (UFCO) supported General Ubico's rise to power, and the president subsequently became closely aligned with the multinational corporation. The national railway system and the port facilities of Puerto Barrios operated under a concession granted to the International Railways of Central America (IRCA), which was controlled by the UFCO. IRCA imposed very high transportation rates and did not generate profits for the Guatemalan government.
The UFCO effectively became a state within a state as a result of extensive concessions of plantation land along Guatemala's Pacific coast, particularly in Tiquisate, as well as tax exemptions, duty-free importation of necessary goods, guarantees of low wages for its employees, and concessions over public services such as the railway system.
The Guatemalan writer and playwright Manuel Galich—who served as Minister of Education and ambassador under the revolutionary governments of Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Árbenz—described the operation of the railway and Puerto Barrios concessions granted to IRCA and the UFCO as follows:
On 7 May 1934, the Reglamento de Jornaleros ("Day Laborers Regulation"), which had been instituted during the administration of Justo Rufino Barrios and had become one of the principal economic mechanisms benefiting liberal landowners, was repealed. Three days later, Decree 1996 established the Vagrancy Law and the Road Service Law in its place. Under the legislation, indigenous day laborers who could not demonstrate having completed between one hundred and one hundred and fifty days of labor on landed estates were classified as "vagrants" and assigned to road-construction work without pay. As a result, landowners no longer needed to retain workers on their estates by force, since many laborers volunteered for agricultural work in order to avoid compulsory labor on public roads.
Toward the end of his administration, after deciding to resign, Ubico paid the debt incurred with the United Kingdom following the failure of the Central American Exposition of 1897 during the government of José María Reyna Barrios. The debt had been a major factor behind the efforts of the government of Manuel Estrada Cabrera to secure military and political support from the United States, partly as protection against a potential British intervention to collect it. Ubico delayed payment until the final stage of his presidency because he did not trust that his successor, whoever it might be, would settle the obligation.