<P> In the event, the U.S. dollar became the legal - tender currency of Honduras; the mercenary Gen. Lee Christmas became commander of the Honduran army, and later was appointed U.S. Consul to the Republic of Honduras . Nonetheless, 23 years later, after much corporate intrigue among the American businessmen, by means of a hostile takeover of agricultural business interests, Sam Zemurray assumed control of the rival United Fruit Company, in 1933 . </P> <P> Guatemala suffered the regional socio - economic legacy of the banana republic: inequitably distributed agricultural land and natural wealth, uneven economic development, and an economy dependent upon a few export crops--usually bananas, coffee and sugar cane . The inequitable land distribution was an important cause of national poverty, and the concomitant sociopolitical discontent and insurrection . Almost 90 per cent of the country's farms are too small to yield adequate subsistence harvests to the farmers, while two per cent of the country's farms occupy 65 per cent of the arable land, property of the local oligarchy . </P> <P> During the 1950s, the United Fruit Company sought to convince the governments of U.S. Presidents Harry Truman (1945--53) and Dwight Eisenhower (1953--61) that the popular, elected government of President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán of Guatemala was secretly pro-Soviet for having expropriated unused "fruit company lands" to landless peasants . In the Cold War (1945--91) context of the pro-active anti-communist politics exemplified by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy in the years 1947--57, geo - political concerns about the security of the Western Hemisphere facilitated President Eisenhower's ordering and authorizing Operation Success, the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état by means of which the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency deposed the democratically elected government (1950--54) of President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán and installed the pro-business government of Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas (1954--57), which lasted for three years until his assassination by a presidential guard . </P> <P> A mixed history of elected presidents and puppet - master military juntas were the governments of Guatemala in the course of the 36 - year Guatemalan Civil War (1960--96). However, in 1986, at the 26 - year mark, the Guatemalan people promulgated a new political constitution, and elected Vinicio Cerezo (1986--91) president; then Jorge Serrano Elías (1991--93). </P>

Where did the name banana republic come from