Are these conspiracies just dry forgotten facts or do they resonate in our age and carry consequences that we are still having to deal with? We now come to one of the more shameful episodes in American foreign policy history.
In the late 19th century the sale of fresh fruit in the eastern US became quite profitable. Ships were loaded in central America and offloaded in New Orleans and New York distributing tons of fresh fruit to American consumers starved for flavor and variety. To meet the demand for fresh produce the United Fruit Company (UFC) was organized and soon bought large plantations in several central American countries. UFC built several large railroads and set up schools for the employees but also received a large measure of control in these countries. Bribing public officials was a recognized company policy as was the use of armed guards to discourage unions.
In 1910 the new Honduran president Miguel Davila refused to give Samuel Zemurray (Sam, the banana man), a competitor of UFC, several key tax concessions. In December of that year a ship laden with men from the New Orleans docks traveled to Honduras with weapons. They kidnapped the president and installed a new president that would give Zemurray everything he wanted. UFC later decided to buy out Zemurray and take over the Honduras operations.
Although a conclusive link can’t be proven, around this time began what would be referred to as the “Banana wars”. The US government routinely sent Marine units into central America and the Caribbean to “protect American interests” The banana wars would last for 30 years and would imprint bitter memories into a generation of central american children.
In 1929 a worker’s strike in Colombia turns bloody as the government sends troops to stop the strike against UFC. Soldiers fire into the crowd and kill several workers. The final death toll is never known.
The corruption did not end in central America. Attempts to tax UFC’s fruit imports are defeated by political lobbies in the US and UFC continued to be able to import fruit, tax-free into the US. This move allowed UFC to pay massive dividends to its shareholders.
In 1944 the most recognizable mascot for bananas is born as Chiquita banana is created to promote banana sales. Consultants for UFC approach several cereal companies and urge them to link bananas to breakfast cereals in the advertising.
In 1954 came the most serious action. John Foster Dulles, the US secretary of state, was a stockholder in UFC. A new left leaning president in Guatemala wanted to take UFC’s lands and redistribute them to the poor peasants. John Foster along with Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA, convinced President Eisenhower that this was the start of a communist plot to takeover central America and needed to be dealt with immediately.
With covert aid from the CIA, a Guatemalan officer was encouraged to topple the government. This was known as operation PBSUCCESS. CIA operatives destabilized the economy, provided arms to a private rebel army, and provided propaganda that finally forced the government to surrender to the rebels. This led to nearly 40 years of civil war in Guatemala and would lead the CIA to try similar actions in Chile, Cuba, and Iran.
UFC finally fell prey to corporate raiders in 1968. The company was slowly but surely broken up, and the name disappears in 1970.
But the US was not done with central and Latin America. If anything the US government’s involvement in the region has deepened in the last half century. We have installed and toppled dictators in several countries. Sometimes we have toppled the same man that we installed. The ongoing “war on drugs” has not only failed but spread the drug trade problem to several countries in the region and now the illicit drug trade not only funds criminal syndicates but also funds regional and international terrorist groups.
What was once a peaceful and relatively stable region of the world that was friendly to US interests has deteriorated into economic stagnation and possible hostility. What were we thinking?
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