Ever heard of the term "banana republic " used to describe South American countries? It’s used as a pejorative for a country to say that it’s poor, driven by political chaos, controlled by wealthy elite or foreign corporations, and one that’s usually dependent on the export of a single item — bananas in the case of many South American countries. And Guatemala was one of them. In the early 1900s, a company called the United Fruit Company (UFCO) found an ingenious way to gain a monopolistic foothold in the banana business. It negotiated deals with governments such as the one in Guatemala to help the country with their debt in return for land to conduct banana farming. The UFCO set up roads, rails, schools, hospitals, and everything needed to improve connectivity for its own gains, too. I say that because quite often the infrastructure was designed just to transport its own fruit. And it didn’t allow other companies to compete. But in 1954, the newly elected government decided to take the uncultivated land of the UFCO and redistribute it to the local landless peasants. You can imagine this posed a problem to the company. The socialist reform threatened a massive chunk of land held by UFCO. So, it went to the US government and lobbied for support. The end result? The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) orchestrated a coup, one that overthrew the government in favour of military dictatorship. A dictatorship favourable to UFCO and America. It was government interference just to protect private capital. It took many years to understand the term ' Banana Republic ' ( As read in the Book & Blogs )