The call for increased rights and freedoms was a challenge to United Fruit, which depended on compliant governments and cheap labor. What’s more, with the start of the cold war, the struggle on the isthmus got tangled up with the global battle between capitalism and communism, which turned even the smallest feud into a test of ideologies. The region was flooded with fears of implication and precedent. If you wanted to open the gates of hell, all you had to do was point and say, “Communist.”
