Arabella rbenz Vilanova (January 15, 1940 October 5, 1965) was a
Guatemalan fashion model and actress, and the daughter of Guatemalan
President Jacobo 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.rbenz Vilanova was born in San
Salvador, daughter of Captain Jacobo rbenz and Mara 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, 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 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 Mxico, 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. 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 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 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.rbenz Vilanova was born in San
Salvador, daughter of Captain Jacobo rbenz and Mara 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, 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 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 Mxico, 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. 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 rbenz, who turned out to be a double
agent working for the CIA: Carlos Manuel Pellecer.
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