The U.S. role in creating “banana republics”, the United States learned to love bananas, they were even portrayed as a weapon of war against Communism:
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Latin American governments were characterized by economic policies that allowed for liberal foreign investments from wealthy countries like the United States. Military dictators led a number of these Latin American governments. The United Fruit Company (UFCO), an extremely successful American owned and run company, profited greatly from investments it made in Guatemala. The business of United Fruit was bananas, and from bananas it had built a business empire in the Central American nations of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.
The United States government was also interested in bananas, and had sponsored initiatives to promote the fruit in the American diet. Guatemala became known as a “banana republic,” a disdainful term for poor, developing countries that relied on a single cash crop, such as bananas, and were ruled by corrupt governments. Under the Guatemalan dictator Jorge Ubico, the United Fruit Company gained control of 42% of Guatemala’s land, and was exempted from paying taxes and import duties. Seventy-seven percent of all Guatemalan exports went to the United States; and 65% of imports to the country came from the United States. The United Fruit Company was, essentially, a state within the Guatemalan state. It not only owned all of Guatemala's banana production and monopolized banana exports, it also owned the country's telephone and telegraph system, and almost all of its railroad track.
The United Fruit Company was well connected to the Eisenhower administration. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his New York law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, represented the company. Allen Dulles, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and brother of John Foster Dulles, had served on UFCO's Board of Trustees and owned shares of the company. Ed Whitman, the company's top public relations officer, was the husband of Ann Whitman, President Eisenhower's private secretary. Ed Whitman produced a film, Why the Kremlin Hates Bananas, which depicted UFCO fighting on the front line of the Cold War. The company’s efforts paid off. It picked up the expenses of journalists who traveled to Guatemala to learn its side of the crisis, and some of the most respected North American publications, including the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, New York Herald Tribune, and New Leader, ran stories that pleased the company.
www.umbc.edu/…
The revolutions began in 1944, first in El Salvador:
The authoritarian and eccentric General Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez became president of El Salvador after a military coup overthrew the freely elected government of Arturo Araujo in 1931. After ordering the killing of thousands of peasants and political dissidents during his first two terms, Martinez suspended the constitution in early 1944 and declared he would serve a third without an election. An armed revolt by dissident military and other elite elements that April was quickly crushed, but, on May 5, students organized a general strike that crippled most of the economy and civil society. Mass rallies formed spontaneously and nonviolent protesters stormed the National Palace. Humiliated and isolated, Martinez fled to Guatemala on May 11.
www.nonviolent-conflict.org/…/
And spread to the United Fruit domain in Guatemala:
UFCO had its fingers in almost every pie in Guatemala. UFCO had the unconditional support of right-wing dictators who maintained their power by terrorizing the people and arresting prominent citizens who were either killed on the spot or tortured in prison to extract confessions. During one wave of repression under Jorge Ubico, hundreds were killed in just two days.
In 1944, the people of Guatemala overthrew the right-wing dictator then in power, Jorge Ubico. Guatemala held its first true elections in history. They elected Dr. Juan Jose Arevalo Bermej to the presidency. A new constitution was drawn up, based on the U.S. Constitution. Arevalo was a socialist and an educator who built over 6,000 schools in Guatemala and made great progress in education and health care.
rozylowicz.com/…
I utterly hate the Dulles Brothers and their nasty legacy of U.S. interference in the Middle East, the coup deposing democratically elected Mohamed Mossedegh in Iran; Africa, the coup deposing democratically elected Patrice Lumumba in Congo, the Dulles brother interference in Central America, their close interlinking with Sullivan & Cromwell.
Why am I kicking up a fuss about this old American history? A little news clip of the latest from the Trump administration, it involves the SEC:
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chief Jay Clayton is expected to name Steven Peikin, a partner from his former law firm, to help lead enforcement at the agency, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Clayton worked with Peikin at Sullivan & Cromwell, noted for its representation of financial institutions, until the former left to become SEC chair. He was confirmed earlier this month.
www.reuters.com/…
Given its history with the Dulles Gang, I cannot like Sullivan & Cromwell. It seems that Sullivan & Cromwell has a little problem with fiduciary responsibility, as well:
wallstreetcrusader48.wordpress.com/…
It figures!