Arabella à rbenz Vilanova (January 15, 1940 â€" October 5, 1965) was a
Guatemalan fashion model and actress, and the daughter of Guatemalan
President Jacobo à rbenz. After being sent to Canada to study in a
boarding school, she joined her family in exile after her father was
ousted from power in June 1954. She suffered along with her family the
difficult conditions of their exile, until she decided to remain in
Paris to become a fashion model. After an intense love life and drug
abuse, she killed herself in front of her last lover, Mexican
bullfighter Jaime Bravo, in Colombia.Ã rbenz Vilanova was born in San
Salvador, daughter of Captain Jacobo à rbenz and MarÃa Cristina
Vilanova. Her father was active politically and was involved in the
ousting of president general Jorge Ubico in 1944; he then became the
Guatemalan Minister of Defense in 1945, an office that he would hold
until he became Guatemalan President in 1951.As the beautiful daughter
of a president, Ã rbenz Vilanova, grew up in entitled surroundings.
The well known Guatemalan journalist Jorge Palmieri -who later would
become her lover- described her as follows:After resigning due to the
coup organized by the United Fruit Company and the United States
Department of State, the à rbenz family remained for 73 days at the
Mexican embassy in Guatemala, which was crowded with almost 300
exiles. When they were finally allowed to leave the country, Jacobo
Arbenz was publicly humiliated at the airport because the
liberationist authorities made the former president strip before the
cameras, claiming that he was carrying jewelry he had bought for his
wife at Tiffany's in New York City, using funds from the presidency;
no jewelry was found during the hour-long interrogation. The Arbenz
family embarked into exile, going first to México, then to Canada,
where they went to pick up Arabella who was attending school there,
and then on to Switzerland via the Netherlands. In Switzerland, the
Swiss authorities requested that Arbenz renounce his Guatemalan
nationality, so as to prevent him from conducting resistance
activities. The ousted president refused this request, as he felt that
such a gesture would have marked the end of his political career.
Furthermore, Arbenz could not seek political asylum, because
Switzerland had not yet ratified the 1951 agreement of the newly
created United Nations Refugees Convention, which was designed to
protect people fleeing from communist regimes in Eastern Europe.
à rbenz and his family were instead the victims of a CIA-orchestrated
defamation campaign that lasted from 1954 to 1960, which only abated
when the Cuban revolution triumphed in 1959, and that included a close
friend of à rbenz, who turned out to be a double agent working for the
CIA: Carlos Manuel Pellecer.
Guatemalan fashion model and actress, and the daughter of Guatemalan
President Jacobo à rbenz. After being sent to Canada to study in a
boarding school, she joined her family in exile after her father was
ousted from power in June 1954. She suffered along with her family the
difficult conditions of their exile, until she decided to remain in
Paris to become a fashion model. After an intense love life and drug
abuse, she killed herself in front of her last lover, Mexican
bullfighter Jaime Bravo, in Colombia.Ã rbenz Vilanova was born in San
Salvador, daughter of Captain Jacobo à rbenz and MarÃa Cristina
Vilanova. Her father was active politically and was involved in the
ousting of president general Jorge Ubico in 1944; he then became the
Guatemalan Minister of Defense in 1945, an office that he would hold
until he became Guatemalan President in 1951.As the beautiful daughter
of a president, Ã rbenz Vilanova, grew up in entitled surroundings.
The well known Guatemalan journalist Jorge Palmieri -who later would
become her lover- described her as follows:After resigning due to the
coup organized by the United Fruit Company and the United States
Department of State, the à rbenz family remained for 73 days at the
Mexican embassy in Guatemala, which was crowded with almost 300
exiles. When they were finally allowed to leave the country, Jacobo
Arbenz was publicly humiliated at the airport because the
liberationist authorities made the former president strip before the
cameras, claiming that he was carrying jewelry he had bought for his
wife at Tiffany's in New York City, using funds from the presidency;
no jewelry was found during the hour-long interrogation. The Arbenz
family embarked into exile, going first to México, then to Canada,
where they went to pick up Arabella who was attending school there,
and then on to Switzerland via the Netherlands. In Switzerland, the
Swiss authorities requested that Arbenz renounce his Guatemalan
nationality, so as to prevent him from conducting resistance
activities. The ousted president refused this request, as he felt that
such a gesture would have marked the end of his political career.
Furthermore, Arbenz could not seek political asylum, because
Switzerland had not yet ratified the 1951 agreement of the newly
created United Nations Refugees Convention, which was designed to
protect people fleeing from communist regimes in Eastern Europe.
à rbenz and his family were instead the victims of a CIA-orchestrated
defamation campaign that lasted from 1954 to 1960, which only abated
when the Cuban revolution triumphed in 1959, and that included a close
friend of à rbenz, who turned out to be a double agent working for the
CIA: Carlos Manuel Pellecer.
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