Blood and Bananas: The United Fruit Company in Latin America

Bananas are a miraculous fruit. Unable to grow outside the tropics, their prevalence in European supermarkets today is thanks to the United Fruit Company’s (UFCO) monopoly over the banana trade, forged through its corruption of Latin American governments and collaboration with right-wing paramilitaries. The story of UFCO’s brutality continued long after the company dissolved and rebranded as Chiquita, using the same ruthless tactics to sell bananas.

Before the Fruit United (1871-1899)

The UFCO story begins in 1871 with entrepreneur Minor Keith being contracted to partially build Costa Rica’s railway to connect the country to the Atlantic coast. The railway project faced financial difficulties until President Guardia offered one million dollars from Costa Rica’s national exchequer. Keith used his new position as the sole contractor of the railway to purchase land along the tracks to start banana plantations. The railway was eventually completed in 1890, but it was severely over budget and behind schedule.

The next development in Keith’s rise to dominance over Central America was a series of mergers among banana companies following the 1893 market crash, reducing their number from around 100 to a dozen. To survive these mergers, Keith entered into a partnership with Andrew Preston and Lorenzo Baker, owners of the Boston Fruit Company. With this partnership, UFCO emerged in 1899 and, from the outset, controlled 75% of the banana trade. UFCO used this dominance to decimate rival companies by driving banana prices so low that competitors could not make a profit. Keith also undercut local peasant planters to buy their land. UFCO’s goal was clear: to absorb as much of the banana market as possible, regardless of workers' wellbeing.

“Sam the Banana Man” (1900-1933)

Despite Keith, Baker, and Preston founding UFCO, it was Sam “the Banana Man” Zemurray who shed the most blood for the company. Under Zemurray’s leadership, UFCO grew bold enough to remove governments it did not approve of. Before joining UFCO, Zemurray had orchestrated a coup in 1911 against the Honduran government with mercenaries, right-wing rebels, and former conservative president Manuel Bonilla, all of whom were transported and armed at his own expense. With the successful coup, Bonilla returned to the presidency, granting Zemurray the tax breaks and plantation land he desired.

In 1930, Zemurray’s company was bought out by Keith for shares in UFCO, making him the largest shareholder with 300,000 shares. In 1933, he used this position to become managing director. Under Zemurray, UFCO worked ever more closely with the U.S. government to protect its interests in Latin America.

Blood in Guatemala: Arbenz vs ‘Operation Success’ (1951-54)

Guatemala was a highly profitable stronghold for UFCO until 1951, when the election of Jacobo Arbenz threatened this dominance. Arbenz took a stand against UFCO’s control over his country, starting with the expropriation of 209,842 acres of UFCO’s land, which was redistributed to landless peasants. The reason for Arbenz’s action was that UFCO accountants had valued the land as worthless to avoid higher tax rates. This expropriation posed a disastrous financial loss for UFCO if Arbenz were not deposed quickly.

Zemurray approached Edward Bernays, the author of Propaganda, and appointed him as "counsel on public relations" for UFCO. From 1951 onwards, Bernays worked tirelessly to sway public and government opinion against Arbenz’s government. He urged major U.S. newspapers to publish fear-mongering stories about communist infiltration in the Guatemalan government, with journalists being sent to the country by UFCO to witness supposed ‘proof’ of communism as land redistribution began.

UFCO then enlisted its most influential ally, CIA Director Allen Dulles, to persuade the US government to remove Arbenz. Howard Hunt, a deputy agent, was tasked with creating a fictitious ‘liberation’ movement through staged ‘terror’ radio broadcasts. This staged uprising continued through 1954, with the ‘liberation’ army supposedly advancing towards the capital and securing consecutive victories against Arbenz’s forces. This was all disinformation disseminated by the CIA’s own radio. Eventually, this psychological warfare forced Arbenz to flee the country, leaving Castillo Armas as UFCO’s new strongman.

Blood in Colombia: Same Dog Old Tricks (1989-present)

UFCO initially entered Colombia in the 1870s when Keith acquired the Santa Marta banana plantation. However, in 1989, the dissolution of the USSR led Chiquita (formerly UFCO) to expand its land holdings in anticipation of rising demand. This expansion occurred during a highly unstable period in Colombian politics, with the left-wing FARC targeting plantation managers and the right-wing EPL assassinating union leaders.

Amid this instability, Chiquita made payments to the ‘United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia’ (AUC), a right-wing paramilitary group that targeted and killed anyone suspected of being left-wing. Between 1994 and 2007, the AUC received $1.7 million from Chiquita to protect the company's expanding operations in Colombia. It was only in 2024 that Chiquita was compelled by a US court to pay $38.3 million to the families of eight men killed by the AUC. The chaos and destruction caused by the AUC cannot be undone, and no amount of compensation can bring back those who were lost.

Will Latin America recover?

Chiquita prefers to keep its bloody history out of the public eye. A quick glance at their “Chiquita Story” webpage reveals no mention of their involvement in Guatemala’s coup or Colombia’s civil war. Countless people have been murdered by UFCO and its puppet leaders, severely undermining trust in political authority. Moreover, the wealth extracted from Latin America by UFCO has left the region struggling to manage its domestic affairs. However, the 2024 lawsuit suggests that Chiquita may be beginning to face the consequences of its actions.

Bibliography

Bucheli, Marcelo, Bananas and Business: The United Fruit Company in Colombia, 1899-2000 (New York: New York University Press, 2005).

Chapman, Peter, Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World (Edinburgh: Canongate Books Ltd., 2007).

Schlesinger, Stephen, and Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, 1999).

Chiquita Brands International S.à.r.l., ‘The Chiquita Story’, n.d., https://www.chiquita.com/the-chiquita-story/ [accessed 1 August 2024].

Buschschlüter, Vanessa, ‘Banana Giant Held Liable for Funding Paramilitaries’, BBC News, 11 June 2024, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pprpd3x96o [accessed 31 July 2024].