Answers: Banana and the Americas
Centre-right incumbent Daniel Noboa was re-elected as Ecuador’s president, with a majority of voters counting on his promise to crack down on drug gangs and end a wave of violence. Noboa is the son of a banana tycoon and used to head his family conglomerate’s shipping division. The 37-year-old’s rise to power is the latest reminder of the economic and political influence of bananas in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Questions:
1) Which country is the top exporter of bananas in the world?
2) This businessman oversaw a state-backed banana export project, giving him the nickname ‘Banana Man’. He successfully campaigned for president, promoting his nickname heavily on the campaign trail. He was assassinated in 2021. Since then the country has descended into chaos and violence, with gangs controlling most of the capital. Who and which country?
Jovenel Moise, Haiti. More here, here and here. I had published a quiz on Haiti after Moise’s assassination.
Answers: Haiti's Long History of Instability
The assassination of President Jovenel Moise is the latest development in Haiti’s seemingly unending trail of woes over the past two centuries, for a country that was a trailblazer as the world’s first Black-led republic and the second-oldest republic in the western hemisphere after the United States.
3) Chlordecone was a pesticide banned in the U.S. in 1975. In 1979 it was classified as potentially carcinogenic by the World Health Organization. But France officially approved the pesticide in 1981 and it was extensively used by banana plantations in two of its overseas island territories. It was banned in mainland France in 1990 but was allowed in the islands until 1993. Rates of prostate cancer, which are linked to chlordecone, in the islands are among the highest in the world. Name the islands.
Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean. This question was earlier part of my quiz here on France’s Colonial Legacy.
4) Which term for a politically unstable country that relies on exporting natural resources was first used by the American writer O. Henry in a story about the fictional country of Anchuria in the early 20th century?
5) O. Henry conjured up Anchuria based on his experiences in which Central American country? He had fled there to avoid prosecution in Texas for embezzling money from the bank he had worked for.
6) Which phrase describing U.S. military interventions and occupations in Central America and the Caribbean from 1898 to 1934 was popularised by a 1983 book by Lester D. Langley? (the phrase was also the title of the 1983 book)
Banana wars. More here. The ‘banana wars’ began with the end of the Spanish-American war in 1898 and the U.S. taking control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Nicaragua was occupied from 1912 to 1933, Haiti from 1915 to 1934 and the Dominican Republic from 1916 to 1924. The U.S. backed Panama’s secession from Colombia in 1903, sending warships to Panama City. While Panama declared independence, it gave the U.S. control of what became the Panama Canal Zone. The U.S.-built canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was completed in 1914.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt ended the ‘banana war’ era by outlining a ‘good neighbor’ policy in his inaugural address in 1933.
7) The United Fruit Company had become this Central American country’s largest landowner and employer. The government began expropriating its land in 1952 with the aim of redistribution to the landless. By 1954, the leftist government was overthrown by a Washington-backed coup. Which country?
8) American Sam Zemurray set up the Cuyamel Fruit Company in a Central American country and orchestrated a coup with the help of mercenaries in 1911 to further his business interests. Which country?
Honduras. More here. The Cuyamel Fruit Company was merged with the bigger United Fruit Company. Sam Zemurray ended up heading the United Fruit Company and the New York Times in its obituary called him ‘the fish that swallowed the whale’. He became known as the ‘Banana Man’.
9) Which bloc signed an agreement with 11 Latin American countries in 2012 that committed to reducing tariffs on bananas and opening up market access? The bloc had restricted banana imports from outside Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific for two decades. Several Latin American countries and the U.S. had complained to the World Trade Organization.
European Union. The 20-year-long dispute was the longest in the history of multilateral trade. More here, here and here.
10) This country has been taking in nearly a quarter of Ecuador’s banana output. In early 2024 Ecuador agreed to ship old military equipment it had from this country to the U.S. The country responded by sharply limiting Ecuadorian banana imports. Ecuador climbed down, scrapping its plans and its exports resumed. Which country?
Russia. Ecuador had agreed to ship old Russian-made equipment to the U.S., which would then send it to Ukraine. In exchange, the U.S. was to provide Ecuador with gear to fight drug gangs. After Russia sharply limited banana imports, Ecuador backed down.
11) Which country is the top producer of bananas in South America?
My intended answer was Brazil, but Ecuador appears to have overtaken Brazil in production in 2023. Globally, India is the largest producer of bananas, but only a small proportion is exported.
12) This novel by a Nobel Prize winning author draws on a real-life crackdown known as Colombia’s Banana Massacre. In 1928, the Colombian military gunned down several employees at the United Fruit Company striking for better working conditions. In the fictional retelling, there’s only one survivor. Name the book and author.
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
13) One for Tintin fans. In which book does Herge mention that one of the warring fictional generals is backed by the ‘International Banana Company’?