This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
The Weirdo: On Honduras: Not a democratic election when it's executed under a government that culled several freedoms, including freedoms of expression. Accepting the coup and "happy ending" as "good things" would have the nasty side effect of making Honduras an example of a coup "working" with those who staged it getting away scot-free. From where I'm standing, Brazil, the country that was a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1984, not a pretty picture.
Sukeban: FWIW, in Spanish this type of country is called a república bananera, not a "República del Plátano". Just googlesearch these two terms to check it or see the osh: Plus anyone into spanish cooking would not call a plantain a banana.
Silent Hunter: I just stuck the words 'banana republic' into Babelfish. Feel free to change it to a more accurate name.
Silent Hunter: It won't let me change the name of the entry. It says it doesn't exist.
Seven Seals: In the interest of easy linking, I humbly suggest not to use accented characters for entries unless it's part of a proper name. Banana Republic may not have the same foreign flavor, but it's easier to remember for those of us who don't speak Spanish.
arromdee: Is it still impossible to change the name?
Silent Hunter: You'd have to make a new entry and delete this one.
Does Moon over Parador qualify?
Fast Eddie: Sure, Anonymous Person. Nothing would be closer.
mkearns: I have removed from the second paragraph the sentence: Venezuela is as close as you get, and even that's a lame imitation of Cuba. Venezuela is a liberal democracy(1), it's not close at all to a military junta (though if the 2002 coup had succeded...). Cuba is a dictatorship, but it's a communist party dictatorship, not a military junta. And saying that Venezuela's political system is some sort of imitation of Cuba's, besides being false, is irrelevant to the question of whether any current day Latin American countries are ruled by military juntas. So qualifying the statement that no military juntas as per the República Del Plátano trope are currently to be found in Latin America, with the sentence about Venezuela and Cuba which I have removed, is misleading and unnecessary. (1)Not that I think liberal democracies actually deserve to be called democracies, though of course they are a big step up from neo-fascist military juntas, communist party dictatorships, etc.
Chavez as a Marxist makes Venezuela Commie Land not a Banana Republic
L-chan: with due respect to this anonymous without handle, as a fellow Venezuelan I must say that Chavez is making us a mix of both places, a Ruritania/Banana Republic mishmash. Nightmare Fuel all ahoy. Just for your information.
- I personally refer to left-leaning versions of this trope as Tomato Republics. Though the only country that I've ever heard anyone else describe as a Tomato Republic was Cold War-era Albania.
Nohbody: Methinks the troper who put in the USA entry has something of an axe to grind, and the sparks from grinding that axe made them miss the "ruled by a military junta" part of the trope definition. And, besides, aren't there already more than enough other places on the internet to grind political axes?
(I'm not going to get into my disputes with the claims of that entry, because like I said above, there are other places for it than a tropes website.)
Cucolla Think the country of Costa Luna from Princess Protection program qualify? If have not a Junta yet but if a dictator can take the power that easy is not a stable pilitical system beside it have American intervention.
Sam Curt: There's something to change in the lead— Although United Fruit, etc, did control several Central American countries over the years, they started that in the 1860s—long, long before there was CIA.
