Why Are There So Many People at the Southern Border Trying to Get In?
by John Lawrence
Maybe this had something to do with it: Between 1900 and 1925, the US repeatedly intervened militarily in Latin America. It sent troops to Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924, and 1925; to Cuba in 1906, 1912, and 1917; to Nicaragua in 1907, 1910 and 1912; to the Dominican Republic in 1903, 1914 and 1916; to Haiti in 1914; to Panama in 1908, 1912, 1918, 1921 and 1925; to Mexico in 1914; and to Guatemala in 1920. The only reason it did not intervene more frequently was that it often stayed, occupying countries for extended periods of time: Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933, Haiti from 1914 to 1933, the Dominican Republic from 1916 to 1924, Cuba from 1917 to 1922, and Panama from 1918 to 1920.
Honduras was dominated first by the Spanish, then by the British and then by the Americans. In 1907 the US intervened militarily and installed the supine government of Manuel Bonilla. United Fruit increased its holdings from 14,000 acres in 1918 to 61,000 in 1922, to 88,000 in 1924. In 1929 United Fruit bought up most of the remaining banana plantations. US bankers controlled Honduras' enormous debt, and the people of Honduras have remained impoverished ever since. In 1910 US marines under the command of Major General Smedley Butler intervened in Nicaragua to establish a government friendly to US interests, killing 2000 Nicaraguan rebels in the process. He wrote to his wife: "It is terrible that we should be losing so many men fighting the battles of these damned spigs - all because Brown Brothers (an international banking firm) has some money down here."
In 1922, The Nation ran a scathing editorial titled "The Republic of Brown Bros.," which echoed Butler's assertion that the marines were there to do Brown Bros. bidding. The piece detailed how the bankers had systematically secured control over Nicaragua's customs, railroad, national bank, and internal revenues with "the state department in Washington and the American minister in Managua acting as private agents for these bankers, using American marines when necessary to impose their will." Augusto Sandino was among the many Nicaraguans committed to throwing off the yoke of US tyranny in their country. Sandino was captured and executed by Anastasio Somoza who brutally ran the government until he was overthrown by the Sandinista revolutionary movement triggering another war with the Reagan administration.
In General Smedley Butler's book War is a Racket, he wrote "During (my time in military service) I spent my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped to make Mexico ... safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. During those years I had ... a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do is operate his rackets in three districts. I operated on three continents."
... exerpted from The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick