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
Under this development, foreign companies could set up plants within 100 miles of the United States/Mexico border. These were known as maquiladoras (Broughton 5). Maytag and other manufacturing companies took advantage of this opportunity for the cheap labor, land, resources and thus ability to be more profitable. Maquiladora employment tripled to 1.3 million in 2001, since 1990 (Broughton 142). Maytag’s plant was called Planta III and required less jobs and less skilled labor than what was required in Galesburg. This was good for the company’s bottom line, but bad for employees. The employers had complete control since labor was so easily replaceable. The workers began to be looked at as machines; interchangeable and dispensable and thus were not getting a fair wage. In Mexico the average cost for one week of food was $81 but maquiladora employees would only get paid $36 per week (Broughton 152). Maquiladoras also hurt the local and national Mexican economies. Locals would say that “the only thing maquiladoras have done is occupy the workforce … they don’t resolve any of the problems they generate…overpopulation, lack of social services, school and health care. All of this is what the maquiladoras have brought” (Broughton 153). These companies were simply there to make a profit and provide jobs, not to enrich the employee’s or communities lives. The profits from
Even after the strong pressure by US Secretary of State, the Organization of American States resolves to condemn what they believed was communist infiltration in the Americas. Under the control of Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, he received a strong financial and logistic support from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to prepare his Army in Honduran territory to attack Guatemala. The CIA's involvement had been approved by Eisenhower as a way to stop what they considered a spread of Communism in the Americas. In June, 1954 the troops of Carlos Castillo crossed the Honduran-Guatemalan border and began their attack against Arbenz government. By this time not only was Arbenz internationally isolated but he had also lost much support from his own army and peasant population. Most of the Guatemalans felt they were in a very weak position compared to the invading army, after they heard from an ally radio that reported a larger invading army and the bomber that dropped some bombs around Guatemala City. The demoralized population simply resigned to be defeated by Castillo. Arbenz himself was hard hit when the invasion began. When he realized that any kind of resistance would only bring more deaths and very little success for his movement he decided to do what was best and decided to announce
All throughout the 20th century we can observe the marked presence of totalitarian regimes and governments in Latin America. Countries like Cuba, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic all suffered under the merciless rule of dictators and military leaders. Yet the latter country, the Dominican Republic, experienced a unique variation of these popular dictatorships, one that in the eyes of the world of those times was great, but in the eyes of the Dominicans, was nothing short of deadly.
John Soluri 's Banana Cultures Agriculture, Consumption and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States, (Which for spatial and repetitive purposes, I will refer to as Banana Cultures for the remainder of the paper), introduces the reader to a world of corporate greed, consumption, and environmental change using the history of the common, everyday, fruit, the banana. He explores the various political occurrences, health problems, and changes in mass media through the rise of the consumption of the banana in the United States, and around the globe.
By 1927, Ford was a very successful industrialist, who had made a fortune out of manufacturing cars and displayed a new model of industrial production. He paid his workers much higher than average wages and offered various other incentives to encourage them to live the lives he thought they should. However, he was not a totally honest employer. He was violently anti-union and employed thugs to intimidate anyone who tried to organize and represent his workforce. Ford's generosity as a boss was dependent on letting the company make decisions for the workers, not just in the factories but in the way employees lived their lives, spies were actively out and about observing workers' off duty lives. Ford thought he could create a vast rubber plantation in Brazil, thus ensuring a reliable supply of latex for his new Model A as well as for his Ford trucks and tractors. In the process, he intended to show the world that his system of production would also elevate the lives of his workers.
I intend to outline the background of the political circumstances that lead to the coup. This will include Guatemala, the US and the world scene at the time, when anti-communism contended with communism as state ideologies. I will contend that the coup was all but inevitable in the prevailing political climate of 1954. But that still doesn't make it right. We have been finding out for nearly half a century how wrong it was. Opinions have always varied with the positions of their adherents, but I believe there is one thing that can no longer be disputed: the CIA catalyzed a turn for the worse, even to the inhuman, for many Latin American governments by its actions in managing the Guatemalan coup. They provided the essential weapon for the modern national security state, the knowledge of how to organize an efficient apparatus of state repression and terror.
Solaún, Mauricio. U.S. intervention and regime change in Nicaragua. Lincoln, Neb. [u.a.: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2005
The Nicaraguan revolution of 1979 is an event that many American citizens may not know about. What is likely less understood is the United States’ role in the cause of this revolution. The US actually played a very important role in causing the Nicaraguan revolution. The US did three major things that strongly influenced the revolutionaries to revolt against the government. The US helped create the National Guard of Nicaragua, a group that abused citizens and blatantly disregarded for human rights. The US was also complicit in the assassination of Augusto Cesar Sandino, a citizen who fought against US Marine occupation in the 1930’s. Finally, the US supported the Somoza family, a series of three dictators who held Nicaragua from 1939 until 1979 when the revolution occurred. The United States involvement is not limited to these three occurrences, but these three examples are important causes of the revolution. To provide a better understanding of the revolution and the United States’ involvement in Nicaragua, the historic setting is necessary.
During the second half of the twentieth century, when the Cold War was on its midst, the United States played an important role in world affairs. The increasing military power that the United States had during the Cold War, allowed it to influence the political decisions that many countries had during this time. The United States directly opposed the idea of communism, which the Soviet Union promoted. This conflict between this two great powers, lasted for five decades, and it tremendously affected the political ideologies of the world. Both countries tried to push their political and economic interest to as many nations as they could, especially those close to their borders. During this time, Guatemala was undergoing a social revolution with communist ideas. The revolution happened as a response to the social injustice committed by the United Fruit Company. The United Fruit Company started to lose land, due to a land reform passed b...
The “Panama Deception,” directed by Barbara Trent of the Empowerment Project and narrated by actress Elizabeth Montgomery, observes a distinct failure to implement 20th-century democracy in Latin America in the late '80s and early '90s. More specifically, the film documents the U.S. invasion of Panama under "Operation Just Cause” during this period, showing how the cause was anything but just. Rather, the film shows how the Operation intended to impose a biased renegotiation of the aforementioned treaties.
Guatemala held democratic elections in 1944 and 1951, they resulted in leftist government groups holding power and rule of the country. Intervention from the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) backed a more conservative military minded regime. A military coup took place in 1954 to over throw the elected government and install the rule of Carlos Castillo Armas. Carlos Armas was a military general before the coup and with the CIA orchestrated operation he was made President from July 8th 1954 until his assassination in 1957. Upon his assassination, similar militant minded presidents rose to power and continued to run the country. Due to the nature of military dictatorship, in 1960, social discontent began to give way to left wing militants made up of the Mayan indigenous people and rural peasantry. This is the match that lit Guatemala’s Civil War, street battles between the two groups tore the country and pressured the autocratic ruler General Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes to fight harder against the civilian insurrection. Similar to the government Abductions th...
From the time of its colonization at the hands of Spanish Conquistadors in the early 1500’s, Guatemala has suffered under the oppression of dictator after dictator. These dictators, who ruled only with the support of the military and only in their own interests, created a form of serfdom; by 1944, two percent of the people owned 70 percent of the usable land.
However, this does not necessarily mean colonizing Latin America, but rather having it allied and influenced by the United States' mentality and agenda. The book describes the tactics used by the United States to align these countries' policies and politics with its own. The book effectively portrays the role of the United States in the political affairs of Latin American countries. Higgins examines the Eisenhower administration's invasion of Guatemala, which resulted in a revolt to remove the leftist President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. The Arbenz administration posed a threat to the dominance of American companies in Guatemala, particularly the United Fruit Company.
McCuen, Gary E. The Nicaraguan Revolution. Hudson, Wisconsin: Gary E. McCuen Publications, Inc., 1986. Print. The.
Relations with Panama grew even worse. Noriega named himself “Maximum Leader”. And on December 15 1989 a state of war was declared with the United States. Not many people know this but Noriega actually declared war on the United States. A Panamanian soldier shot three American officers. On December 17, after reviewing the Facts, President Bush decided to act. Operation Just Cause began first thing December 20. Special forces attacked key installations in Panama that day. U.S. troops moved in to Panama City, to secure the U.S. Embassy and other strong holds. A battle between the Panimanian Defense Force and U.S. troops erupted in the city. The U.S. captured the Panimanian Defense Force (PDF) headquarters within three hours. As Noriega went into hiding and the PDF headquarters was overtaken the PDF collapsed. The remaining PDF were only in small pockets witch were taken out with little if any problems.