Arabella Árbenz

Arabella Árbenz Vilanova (January 15, 1940 – October 5, 1965) was a Guatemalan fashion model and actress, and the daughter of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz. 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.

Biography

Árbenz Vilanova was born in San Salvador, daughter of Captain Jacobo Árbenz and María 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, Árbenz Vilanova, grew up in entitled surroundings ^{[citation needed]}. The well known Guatemalan journalist Jorge Palmieri -who later would become her lover- described her as follows:^[1]

President Árbenz asked me one day to take his three children to his mother's house, Octavia Guzmán de Árbenz. Of course, being a youngster, I replied that I would be readily available to do so. But it took me longer than expected to get to the car, which was parked in front of the Official Residency and where the three children we already inside. Arabella kept sounding the claxon and when I got there, she said: If you are not going to take us to our Grandma's immediately, I am going to tell Daddy to get us a new chauffeur right away! I took offense and replied angrily: Look, you (expletive) spoiled little brat, I am not a chauffeur! But this being the presidential family, I drove them to their grandmother's house. That very afternoon, I was called to the presidential office and when I arrived there, Arbenz told me seriously: Little Arabella complained to me that you insulted her this morning!. I frankly replied: I called her a (expletive) little brat because she spoke to me as if I were her chauffeur. Árbenz was not used to smiling, but this time he smiled and said: You are right, boy! Little Arabella is a (expletive) little brat, but do not forget that she is the beloved daughter of the President of the Republic and do not call her that ever again.

— Jorge Palmieri]l^{[1][clarification needed]}

Family humiliation and exile

After resigning due to the coup organized by the

Bravo Arciga contacted Jorge Palmieri in Mexico by phone, and asked him to take charge of funeral arrangements for Arabella. Palmieri, who had strong influence in the Mexican government at the time, received permission to bury Arabella in the Pantheon of the National Association of Actors of Mexico, since she had worked in an experimental film a few months earlier. Palmieri also obtained permission to allow Arbenz and his family to travel to Mexico for the funeral.[1]

Arabella's death was a huge blow to both the bullfighter and Jacobo Arbenz: both would die within five years of her death.^[1]

Settlement with the Guatemalan Government

In 2011, with a written agreement, the Guatemalan State recognized its international responsibility for "failing to comply with its obligation to guarantee, respect, and protect the human rights of the victims to a fair trial, to property, to equal protection before the law, and to judicial protection, which are protected in the American Convention on Human Rights and which were violated against former President Juan

Bibliography

External links

• Arabella Arbenz at
  IMDb