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Decree 900
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===Conflicts over implementation=== Various sources (including Árbenz and the government) reported conflicts over implementing the law. Decree 900 triggered domestic opposition from landowners and some elements within the military.<ref>Bowen, "U.S. Foreign Policy toward Radical Change" (1993), p. 91. "Domestic resistance to the Arbenz regime became more violent after Decree 900 became law, with incidents of antigovernment violence tripling between the first and third quarters of 1952. While nearly all violent antigovernment incidents (bombings, assassinations, etc.) before the reform occurred in the capital, two-thirds of the incidents after the reform were outside the capital.</ref> The reforms were also opposed by the Catholic Church and the business class.<ref name=Wittman>Hannah Wittman with Laura Saldivar-Tanaka, "[http://ruta.org:8180/xmlui/handle/123456789/708 The Agrarian Question in Guatemala] {{Webarchive |url=https://archive.today/20130416000202/http://ruta.org:8180/xmlui/handle/123456789/708 |date=16 April 2013 }}"; in ''Promised Land: Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform'', ed. Peter Rosset, Rajeev Charles Patel, Michael Courville, New York: Food First Books (2006).</ref><ref name=Davis/> Landowners complained of unfair practices, but so did others who felt excluded or that they were getting a bad deal. Some peasants seized land without going through the legal channels, believing that the law provided them with a mandate.<ref>Gleijeses, ''The Agrarian Reform of Jacobo Arbenz'' (1989), p. 464.</ref><ref>Handy, ''Revolution in the Countryside'' (1994), pp. 146–147.</ref> Sometimes the expropriators fought each other over who would get a certain piece of land.<ref>Handy, ''The Most Precious Fruit of the Revolution'' (1988) p. 694.</ref> Other violent incidents among peasants were self-defense or retaliation against landowners who sought to disobey the law or intimidate them. In some places, peasants organized groups for self-defense and requested (usually without success) arms permits from the government.<ref name="Handy 1988 p. 693">Handy, ''The Most Precious Fruit of the Revolution'' (1988) p. 693.</ref> According to Neale Pearson, there were instances where "peasants illegally occupied lands and a few in which they burned pastures or crops in order to have land declared uncultivated and subject to expropriation. But these cases were isolated and limited in number".<ref>Pearson, "Confederación Nacional Campesina", p. 180; quoted in Gleijeses, ''The Agrarian Reform of Jacobo Arbenz'' (1989), p. 464.</ref> Sometimes legal councils had difficulty measuring land, or determining how much land on an estate was really unused.<ref>Handy, ''The Most Precious Fruit of the Revolution'' (1988) p. 691.</ref> Union representatives began to travel through the countryside, informing people of the new law. Landowners closed private roads going through their property in order to prevent peasants from becoming informed of the changes. The government announced that all road would become public.<ref>Gleijeses, ''The Agrarian Reform of Jacobo Arbenz'' (1989), p. 462.</ref> Some local police forces (and other government officials) initially sanctioned some landowner retaliation. These groups, too, responded to government pressure to implement the reforms.<ref>Gleijeses, ''The Agrarian Reform of Jacobo Arbenz'' (1989), p. 473.</ref>
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