If I were to label Honduras, I would like to use words like this: beautiful, poor, banana, gangster.
When Columbus led his fleet to the Americas in 1502, he named it Honduras, which in Spanish means 'abyss', which means the secluded and deep sea here. Honduras' natural environment is like paradise, but the coconut breeze blows poverty and the turquoise waves are chaos.
Great view of Honduras
Honduras is drifting away from paradise, Spain is the culprit, and the United States is to blame. In 1524, Honduras became a Spanish colony, and the colonists implemented private ownership of land, with a small number of slave owners owning large tracts of land, which laid the seeds for future chaos. From independence in 1821 to the present, more than 300 civil strife and coups have broken out in Honduras, mainly the United States.
Without exception, the United States controls Honduras through a monopoly company called United Fruits, which is still the world's largest fruit merchant, but it has changed its name to 'Jinjida'. Founded in 1877, the American company controls the cultivation and sale of fruit throughout Central America, and Honduras ranks first among the five Central American countries in banana production, so Honduras is known as the 'Banana Republic'. However, this republic has become an authentic backyard of the United States. Proceeding from its strength and position, United Fruit gradually annexed the former Spanish colonial estates and established numerous new estates, which had their own barracks and prisons, and could set their own laws. If the independent government of Honduras dared to disadvantage the American banana business, the United States would intervene, ranging from organizing a coup d'état to sending troops to suppress it. In the 20th century alone, the United States sent troops to occupy Honduras seven times.
American control did not bring banana-like sweetness to Honduras, but deeper suffering and chaos. In 1998, a rare hurricane 'Mitch' in the Atlantic Ocean plunged Honduras into the real 'abyss', destroying most of the banana plantations and coffee plantations, and collapsing the economy. What is the United States doing after the hurricane? It withdrew, leaving Honduras in a mess. Bananas are gone, coffee is gone, people have no way to live, so they have no choice but to make a living, and this livelihood is drug trafficking.
In the early 20th century, drugs from South America were sold mainly to the United States through Honduras, and drug trafficking gradually became a national business, even involving the president.
Hernandez
The man pictured here is Hernández, the previous president of Honduras, who smuggled at least 500 tons of cocaine into the United States during his time in office. Why did Hernandez do this? In his words: "If the Americans are the source of all suffering in Honduras, take the money back from the Americans." "It has to be said that this may be Honduras' alternative revenge on the United States."
Along with the influx of drugs into the United States were hundreds of thousands of Honduran refugees, who formed Honduran gangs in the United States, so large that even American prisons were full. The Americans were overwhelmed by the fact that Honduras was called the 'country of the cesspool', and their last resort was to repatriate the refugees back to the 'pit country'.
Poor Honduras, a good piece of paradise was 'dug' into a cesspit by the United States, and the Americans did not want it, even the so-called friendly Taiwan. In 2009, Zelaya, then president of Honduras, was arrested by US-backed coup soldiers because he offended domestic pro-American forces, and the president's wife ran to the 'Taiwan Embassy' with her pregnant daughter to seek asylum, which was mercilessly rejected by Taiwanese. The remorseful president's wife had to go to the Brazilian embassy again, and the well-wisher who took them in was the current Brazilian president, Lula.
Castro
That president's wife, named Castro, was elected president of Honduras in December 2021.