With two hundred thousand deaths and hundreds of thousands of people homeless, what did the United States do to get Guatemala?
Speaking of banana republics, I believe some friends may have heard of it. It refers to countries that are politically unstable and economically extremely dependent on resource exports. The more representative of these are: Honduras and Guatemala. It may be because the words Banana Republic sound milder, so you can't feel the history of blood and tears behind it. For example, today's protagonist: Guatemala, after being poisoned by the title of banana republic, triggered a 36-year-long civil war. The civil war killed 200,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. So, how did the country of Guatemala degenerate step by step into a "banana republic"? What "efforts" has the United States made in this regard?
Let's start with a general look at the country of Guatemala. It is located in central America, the so-called Central American region. It has an area of 108,000 square kilometers and a population of about 17 million. GDP in 2020 was $76 billion.
In terms of economic exports, agriculture accounts for more than 40%, service industry 24%, textile industry 12%, chemical products 9%, in general, Guatemala is a country dominated by agricultural product exports. However, because the six or seven countries in Central America are very similar in terms of geographical environment and climatic conditions, they are also relatively similar in agricultural products: mostly banana coffee. This leads to a vicious circle in which products are exported overseas. Take banana exports as an example, because the conditions are similar, so the bananas produced in Guatemala are similar to those in Honduras, and since the things are similar, who will the buyer buy? Therefore, it can only be found in terms of price. In the words that are more popular now: rolled up. An inner volume will lead to a decline in profits, but the profits will fall, and bananas must be exported normally, otherwise what work do you mean? So the money could only come out of the workers and peasants. So in 2009, more than half of Guatemala's population lived below the poverty line. The less money there is, the less it can be industrialized, the less it can be industrialized, and the more it depends on low-end agricultural exports. The main culprit in the situation in Guatemala today is the infamous legacy of the Banana Republic. So how did Guatemala step by step be trained by the United States to become a banana republic? Come, take out the melon seeds, prepare the fruit and the small bench, and listen to me.
In the previous issue of Texas, Di Qiu mentioned that one of the important reasons why Texas has the courage to become independent is that there are many warlords in Mexico, which has just established the First Republic. Moreover, in the following year, the countries of central America became independent from the first republic and established the Federal Republic of Central America, but since the establishment of this republic, the federations have been fighting among themselves, and after the struggle, they naturally split, and after the split, they want to reconcile. Why get back together? In order to fight again, to split again, and then to rebuild. This cycle, it repeats over and over again for more than a hundred years. Imagine: in such an atmosphere, what can the development of these countries in Central America be? So we can see that since the establishment of Guatemala's independence in 1847, various warlords have begun to take turns to sit on the throne. This phenomenon has finally improved after more than 50 years. In 1898, a lawyer without any military background: Estrada Cabrera became the new president of Guatemala. Because he is a civilian president, Cabrera pays more attention to people's livelihood issues than warlords. For example, the construction of basic livelihood facilities such as highways, railways, and ports. After all, with better means of transportation, Guatemala's fist product: coffee can go abroad. So Cabrera took over his predecessor's work of building the railway. The railway connects the natural deep-water port in the northeast corner: The Port of Barrios with the capital, Guatemala City.
But the problem is: the previous warlord melee has left the Guatemalan government with huge debts, and these debts naturally fall on the new president Cabrera, plus the capital Guatemala City itself is in the mountains, so the money for the construction of the railway is a hundred kilometers. So Cabrera made a decision: sell her soul to the devil! The word soul can be understood as the sovereignty of the country of Guatemala, and the devil is the infamous one: the United Nations Product Company. That is, the initiator of the Banana Republic! In order to complete the railway, in 1904 Cabrera signed a contract with the vice president of The Union Fruit at the time. The contract provided for tax exemptions, land transfers and ownership of part of the railways to be granted to the United Fruit Company in exchange for funds to build the railways. It can be said that it was this contract that completely reduced Guatemala to the banana republic. With this contract, The Union Fruit began to annex land on a large scale, which bankrupted the local planters, and after there was no competitor, the next step was naturally to exploit workers and squeeze consumers. Then there is the manipulation of the government to expand its own power. Soon, The Union Fruit had nearly 2,300 square kilometers of fertile land in Guatemala. So what is this fertile land for? In addition to coffee, the more important nature is bananas! There are probably two reasons for growing bananas: one is that after bananas were introduced to the United States as a fruit in 1870, they were highly praised by the public, and on the other hand, in the late 19th century and early 20th century, the United States was engaged in infrastructure construction, and bananas became a natural ration for workers. Taken together, these two main factors give the joint fruit a huge incentive.
Cabrera
And the previous annexation of land, the oppression of workers and consumers, it is natural to repeat itself in several other Central American countries. Remember the vice president who contracted Cabrera? Both his son and father-in-law were former presidents of Costa Rica. Then, under the joint squeeze of the domestic government and the capitalists, the heavenly macho men belonging to Guatemala should appear. He was: former Defense Secretary Abens.
Abens
In 1950, after winning the presidential election, Albans chose land reform as soon as possible. The decree stipulates that idle land owned by large landowners and foreign companies in the country and leased land with an area of more than 180 hectares shall be expropriated by the State. It was then distributed to the landless peasants. During this land reform, the 230,000 hectares of land for the joint fruit were almost expropriated, and the large landlords also contributed 220,000 hectares. Although the subjects of expropriation were also compensated by guatemalan national debt, which of the joint fruits that were accustomed to expropriation in the Americas suffered from this anger? But Albans was a well-deserved, democratically elected president, and he should find some reason to subvert the regime. After much deliberation, the Massachusetts legislator, where the Joint Fruit headquarters is located, came up with a perfect plan. This would be 1952, at the beginning of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and that congressman began: trafficking in Soviet anxiety! He said: Where is the land expropriated by Guatemala for joint fruit? This is clearly punching me in the face of America! If there is no further action, the Soviet stronghold will be built at the door of the White House. However, in the more than fifteen thousand relevant documents later collected by the CIA, no evidence of Guatemala's ties to the Soviet Union was found. Of course, it didn't really matter to the United States whether Guatemala had anything to do with the Soviet Union, what mattered was that they had finally found a legitimate reason to overthrow The Arbens regime. So in 1953, the CIA developed a complete plan. The plan can be roughly divided into the following steps:
First to pressure the Arbans government, and then to smear the Arbans government everywhere: the Soviet Union invaded the outpost of the United States, and then in order to isolate Guatemala, it also signed military assistance agreements with its neighboring countries such as Nicaragua and Honduras. Then there is the imposition of economic sanctions. After the people's hearts were shaken, they used radio and leaflets to portray the crisis and create chaos in Guatemala.
After the above preparations, the military operation of the final strike seemed logical. The last item of the plan, of course, is to prop up Guatemala's government-in-exile abroad as the new regime. In 1954, amid a great deal of chaos, Abens was forced to announce his resignation. It can be said that this subversive plan is still quite successful for Americans. But for Guatemala, it is the beginning of a civil war for the next 36 years. From 1954 to 1990, nearly two hundred thousand Guatemalans lost their lives, hundreds of thousands of people were left homeless, and billions of dollars in economic damage. And the U.S. doesn't seem to have to pay for it. Oh yes, that's not the case. The elaborate subversion program mentioned earlier is called the 9/11 Memorandum. On September 11, 47 years after the 9/11 memorandum was drawn, two planes crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. From this point of view: Americans are indeed punished. Although the Americans were punished, the United Fruit Company, the culprit of the Banana Republic, has become a Golden Jeddah today and is still active in the US market.
When I finish this history of Guatemala, you must have a sense of déjà vu in your heart. Yes, The Chile I talked about before has suffered from it. So the question arises: What other similar stories do you know? In the face of this peaceful evolution of subversive regimes, what can we ordinary people do? Maybe the next issue is the story you share in the comments section!