The Fruit Companies Era: Becoming Banana Republics
The Northern Triangle has been a place of interest for the United States since at the end of the 19th Century, when the United and Standard Fruit Companies profited enormously from importing bananas. To facilitate their operations and imports, the company developed an impressive production and distribution network between the tropical Caribbean and the United States that included plantations with health and housing infrastructures, railways, ports, telegraph lines, and steamships.
The fruit companies became dominating forces in Central America, extending their power to the nations’ governments. This is the reason why these countries became known as “banana republics”. The fruit companies kept presidents who eventually became dictators in power for most of the 1930s and 1940s in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. These dictators repressed labor unionism and gave generous concessions in terms of land grants and tax incentives. After decades of regime changes and political intervention the United Fruit Company developed a bad reputation. In the 1940’s, the company hired Edward Bernays, “the father of public relations” as a consultant.
In 1954, Bernays sent contacts to Guatemala to spread news of “communist terror” to lay the psychological groundwork for the destruction of the democratically elected government. During his regime, Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz (1913–1971) attempted to expropriate some of the company’s lands. This event would eventually trigger the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), the conflict was deeply rooted in the longstanding issues of unfair land distribution.
Meanwhile in Honduras, banana workers went on the biggest strike in the country’s history, and the U.S. government sued the company for failing to comply with antitrust legislation. These events made United Fruit’s shareholders think that land ownership in Latin America increased the company’s risks, so in the 1960s the company gradually got rid of its plantations and railroads and concentrated its efforts in the international marketing of bananas.
The United Fruit Company had a long-lasting, deep rooted effect in Latin America’s economy and politics. Critics categorize the company’s influence as exploitative neocolonialism, which opened up the path to multinational corporations influencing governments nowadays.
The Cold War: The Reagan Presidency and the Communist Threat in Central America
“Only five years after the Vietnam War finally came to an end in 1975, the United States would fight a series of counterinsurgency wars, this time in Central America. These would be proxy wars, funded by the United States but fought by Central Americans trained by U.S. advisors.”
Dr. Robin Andersen, Media, Central American Refugees and the U.S. Border Crisis.
The Reagan Administration (1981-1989) produced a White Paper claiming the Soviet Union was “meddling” in “our” hemisphere. This resulted in the U.S. giving itself carte blanche to intervene militarily to save Central America from communism. Even though, geographically speaking, the focus areas of this project are the Northern Triangle and Mexico, we cannot discuss the effects of the Cold War in Latin America without discussing Nicaragua. During this time the military aid given to each country increased by millions.
After the 1979 coup by the U.S. backed Nicaraguan dictator Anastacio Somoza, the Sandinistas with a leftist ideology rose to power. The United States response to this was to provide financial, logistical and military support from 1979 to 1990 to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, who used terrorist tactics in their war against the Sandinista government. During this time, Honduras had a strong U.S. influence and the Soto Cano Air Base became a platform in its war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua and the leftist guerrillas of El Salvador and Guatemala.
Honduras was governed by soldiers from 1972 to 1983. The increasing U.S. presence in the country laid the foundation of the strengthened militarized Honduras that prevails today. Although exempt of civil wars unlike its neighbors, the Honduran army quietly waged a campaign against Marxist–Leninist militias, notorious for kidnappings that included students, professors and visible opponents to the government. The operation included a CIA-backed campaign of extrajudicial killings by government-backed units, most notably Battalion 316, which still operates to some extent in the country.
Towards the end of 1979, the Revolutionary Government Junta (JRG) in El Salvador, deposed then President General Carlos Humberto Romero in a civil-military coup. The coup was intended to bring to power a moderate government composed by civilians and military officials. The civilians of the junta were eventually kicked out. The U.S. backed the coup and wanted the new government in power to prevent El Salvador from igniting another communist revolution.
October 1979 was marked as the beginning of the Salvadoran Civil War (1979-1992) between the Salvadoran military-led government and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (left-winged groups). At this time, the killings of anti-coup protesters by the government and of anti-disorder protesters by the guerrillas started a full-fledged civil war. The Salvadoran Army was heavily armed and trained by U.S. government CIA operatives. U.S. trained government death squads at the time, operated freely terrorizing, kidnapping and murdering civilians, opposition leaders and even clergy from the Catholic Church. Human rights violations, murder and violence during the civil war were largely perpetuated (85%) by the Salvadoran armed forces/death squads and a small percentage (5%) by the FMNL guerrillas.
After Reagan was elected, the U.S. also undertook more active measures to ensure close relations with the Guatemalan government. During his second year as president, Reagan’s national security team agreed to supply military aid to the Guatemalan regime with the purpose of eliminating leftist guerrillas and their “civilian support mechanisms,” according to a document retrieved from the National Archives.
In 1982, General Rios Mott came to power after a military coup and continued to perpetuate war against the indigenous people of Guatemala. The crimes and atrocities committed against the Mayans in Guatemala eventually mounted to genocide. Reagan was fond of the General, he referred to him as “a man of great personal integrity and commitment. I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice. My administration will do all it can to support his progressive efforts.”
The ramifications of the U.S. intervention in Central America during the Reagan Era, created the conditions that forced many to flee their countries. The destabilization of the Northern Triangle in the 1980s caused a surge of Central Americans to emigrate to the United States. Immigration to the U.S during the 1980’s. ended up creating problems which Central America struggles with to this day. One example of this is the high dependence of Central American economies on remittances. Central Americans are sending home billions of dollars, giving poor governments there little incentive to improve social safety nets for the working class leaving for the U.S.
