A small country that is economically dependent on a single export commodity, such as bananas, and is typically governed by a dictator or the armed forces. The term was coined in a 1904 book of fiction by O. Henry, an American writer. Henry (whose real name was William Sydney Porter) was on the run from Texan authorities, who had charged him with embezzlement. He fled first to New Orleans and then to Honduras where, staying in a cheap hotel, he wrote “Cabbages and Kings”, a collection of short stories. One, “The Admiral”, was set in the fictional land of Anchuria, a “small, maritime banana republic”. It is clear that the steamy, dysfunctional Latin republic he described is based on Honduras, his jungle hideaway. Henry eventually returned to the United States, where he spent time in prison before publishing his short stories and then hitting the bottle, leading to an early death.
Henry’s phrase neatly conjures up the image of a tropical, agrarian country. But its real meaning is sharper: it refers to the fruit companies from the United States that came to exert extraordinary influence over the politics of Honduras and its neighbors. By the end of the 19th century, Americans had grown sick of trying to grow fruit in their own chilly country. It was sweeter and cheaper by far to import it instead from the warmer climes of Central America, where bananas and other fruit grow quickly. Giants such as the United Fruit Company—an ancestor of Chiquita—moved in and built roads, ports and railways in return for land. In 1911 the Cuyamel Fruit Company, another American firm (which was later bought by United), supplied the weapons for a coup against the government of Honduras, and prospered under the newly installed president. In 1954 America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) backed a coup against the government of Guatemala, which had threatened the interests of United. (Historians still debate whether the CIA’s motive was to protect United or to nip Communism in the bud as they claimed. Hence the real meaning of a “banana republic”: a country in which foreign enterprises push the government around.
In Honduras that remains the case—but the product in question is no longer fruit. Bananas remain an important part of the economy, and workers still have complaints about their foreign employers. But these days the pushiest businessmen are those who sell another agricultural product aimed at American consumers: cocaine. Honduras’s position on the trafficking route from South to North America means that most of the cocaine bound for the United States passes through its borders. With that trade comes violence and corruption. Honduras may no longer be a classic banana republic, but it is in danger of becoming something far worse.
