Word: bananas
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...million United Fruit Co., biggest business in the Caribbean. Under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the Department of Justice charged the company with operating a monopoly. In a civil suit it demanded that United Fruit 1) break up its present structure, and 2) give competitors a chance in the banana business...
Economy. Though legendarily a "banana republic," Guatemala actually grows six times as much coffee ($70 million worth a year) as bananas ($12 million yearly). Other exports: chicle, mahogany, essential oils. The U.S. buys 76% of Guatemala's products, sells Guatemala 64% of all that she buys. By paying high prices for coffee, the U.S. helps Guatemala keep the currency at par with the dollar, and the government budget healthy. Communist agitation has ruined a flourishing tourist trade once worth $2,500,000 a year...
...already sent destroyers to scour the seas off Guatemala, shadowing and photographing ships and challenging them for identification. Only vessel so far stopped (by a comic misunderstanding) was the United Fruit Co.'s banana-freighter Choluteca...
Actually, Toriello and his boss seemed to realize that a good deal more than a truce on the banana front was needed to take the heat off. Calling a press conference, the Foreign Minister dealt out reassurances in all directions. No more munitions ships were on the way, he said. "Guatemala does not menace anyone, especially our sister republics. Our army will never serve as an instrument of aggression." The Guatemalans pulled back troops from the Honduran border and offered the astonished Hondurans, who had just recalled their ambassador, a mutual-assistance and nonaggression pact...
...general strike, the first in its history, last week paralyzed Honduras' north coast, home of the banana industry. More than 40,000 workers were out, and 40 million bananas a week were ripening and rotting. At one banana company compound, strikers switched locks on the gates and made U.S. managers ask permission...