Taking A Look At The Banana Republic

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The Banana Republic: United Fruit Company's Grip on Guatemala and the Overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz. June 18, 1954. As the day dawned in Guatemala, a plane unexpectedly flew above the sleeping capital, Guatemala City. Suddenly, thousands of leaflets were dropped from the aircraft. Confused citizens and police officers began picking them up, only to be shocked by the ominous message they read. It warned that “if Jacobo Arbenz did not resign by the afternoon, that same plane would return to bomb the city.” These Leaflets were the result of the United Fruit Company’s (UFCO's) initiative to launch an ugly CIA operation aiming to “[dispose of] Arbenz.” The UFCO–a monopolistic banana company–wanted to overthrow a democratically elected president because …show more content…

However, it was clear that the UFCO disapproved of this change, as it posed a risk over time to the company’s continuously expanding profits. However, instead of engaging directly with the Guatemalan government, the UFCO leveraged its influence by visiting the White House and swaying President Eisenhower to greenlight a full-fledged CIA operation. Through manipulative lies, the UFCO implanted the seed within the members of the US Congress that they were the heroes and Arbenz was the villain. The UFCO, initially regarded as a benign fruit company, played a pivotal role in orchestrating the overthrow of Arbenz by favoring their objective over the happiness and comfort of everyday Guatemalans. This prioritization demonstrates that the UFCO initiated the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz because they cared more about their profits than the welfare of their workers. The UFCO underwent a transformation from its original function as a fruit enterprise to assuming a governmental role in Guatemala. This transition was prompted by the necessity to fulfill the demand …show more content…

Recognizing the need for comprehensive control, the company set out to regulate every aspect of the workers' lives. By exerting authority over their living conditions and daily routines, the UFCO ensured the workers' dependency on the company. One way the UFCO went about this was by paying the workers in “vouchers”. This approach made it exceedingly difficult for workers to escape their circumstances, as their very existence became intertwined with the UFCO's operations. Along with owning “a fifth of a farmable land in the country; [they also] owned all the railways and.the radio infrastructure” Additionally, the UFCO controlled “the waterways so they could get all their bananas from Central America to the US before they spoiled” The UFCO started to represent a government figure, so much so that by 1901, the government of Guatemala actually hired [the UFCO] “to manage the.postal service.” This methodology resulted in many happy banana-eating Americans, so they kept going. Now, that the UFCO was producing bananas at a rapid rate, they faced an issue–bananas were still relatively new to the Americas. So, the

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