Chiquita

Waterdawg says on Mar 14, 2007, 17:20:

Why Would this come as some big surprise ?????

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goin_south says on Mar 14, 2007, 18:01:

Oh, Shit!!! Well, I guess it's too late now to go on the BANANA DIET, in the name of saving $$$,.... what, 3 or 4 bananas usually, for about 78 cents? TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS!!!! NOW THE PRICE OF BANANAS IS SURE TO SKYROCKET! WOWOWWWW!

'what does it mean, when one of you (colombians) tell another: YOU WERE NOT/ARE NOT. 'COLOMBIAN ENOUGH'?? jejeje..a mixture, I think, of stupidity mixed with a false sense of arrogance.. How 'colombian' do you have to be? to be 'colombian enough

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goin_south says on Mar 14, 2007, 18:03:

I was figuring,...10 to 12 bananas a day,,... what's that? 3 or 4 dollars? times 30 days. I mean, how else can you get buy on jus $100 a month food bill??? Oh, well. Too late. Their goes all my savings to the FARC AND THE ALVARO URIBE CORPORACCIONE ;)

'what does it mean, when one of you (colombians) tell another: YOU WERE NOT/ARE NOT. 'COLOMBIAN ENOUGH'?? jejeje..a mixture, I think, of stupidity mixed with a false sense of arrogance.. How 'colombian' do you have to be? to be 'colombian enough

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goin_south says on Mar 15, 2007, 00:47:

oh, good. I was worried, they might go outta business; WITH ONLY STILL ABOUT $100 MILLION IN PROFIT... I think I can sleep soundly tonight ;)

'what does it mean, when one of you (colombians) tell another: YOU WERE NOT/ARE NOT. 'COLOMBIAN ENOUGH'?? jejeje..a mixture, I think, of stupidity mixed with a false sense of arrogance.. How 'colombian' do you have to be? to be 'colombian enough

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juancegomez says on Mar 15, 2007, 06:26:

Well... Chiquita's commercial fortunes, bad as they may be, don't excuse such behavior.

Apparently they also paid off the FARC and ELN, according to press reports. Not just the AUC.

We don't know if those payments were equal, but even in that rare case...I'm completely glad that there's an effort to discourage them.

The less people feel inclined to resort to those payments (whether simple extortions or voluntary contributions), the better.

In some cases they may seem necessary for "protection". But not only is that "protection" a rather thin guarantee, it's also something that can eventually lead to complacency, over time, becoming a sustained contribution to the coffers of criminal organizations.

So the good outweighs the bad, in this decision.

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bhill says on Mar 15, 2007, 06:56:

What were they supposed to have done? Everyone seems a bit down on Chiquita. But what should they have done - allowed their workers to be killed to make some kind of point? That does not really sound like the moral high ground. Beg the Colombian government for help that would not have been provided?

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juancegomez says on Mar 15, 2007, 07:08:

bhill I wouldn't want to be in their position, but I do know that doing what they did isn't going to solve the problem, and in fact promotes further extortions against others or maybe even themselves further down the line. Again, it can even create a permanent relationship.

We don't even know for sure if this really stopped all violence against Chiquita's workers and assets either.

So anything that contributes to discouraging such practices is positive, in my view.

Plus, I don't know if this applies to Chiquita or not, but I'm sure that in some cases the payments are not make under pressure but actually either preemptively or simply voluntarily, in order to promote certain activities. And that is completely criminal, both morally and legally.

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Mr. Hollywood says on Mar 15, 2007, 16:54:

The problem with paying $2 million to the AUC in "protection" is that the AUC then turns around and massacres leftists and others they don't like to "protect" you. The logic behind the fine is actually quite sound: fund terrorism, pay a fine. If only it were that clear when governments do it.

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Mr. Hollywood says on Mar 16, 2007, 10:36:

Boxes? We don't need no stinkin' boxes...

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tiopw says on Mar 16, 2007, 11:27:

chiquita should leave the country Chiquita should be kicked out of the country right now.

What were they supposed to do? well... the honorable thing would be to leave from the beggining. Oh no!... god forbid they loose profit, its way better to pay paramilitary so they can keep on killing and kidnapping. all those death caused by AUC are completely acceptable comapred to the loss of millions right?

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Mr. Hollywood says on Mar 16, 2007, 15:45:

Hard to do that How can you kick someone out who already left?

The fundamental problem is that those same banana plantations are STILL probably paying protection to any number of bad characters. So it ultimately isn't that important if it's Chiquita or Dole or Juan Valdez, as long as they're continuing to support the protection racket.

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goin_south says on Mar 17, 2007, 11:24:

I haven't read all these posts above but just wondering: WHO CHIQUITA BANANA WAS PAYING FARC AND ELN TO PROTECT :::from whom::: ??? Sounds like they were paying guerrillas to 'not steal'.

'what does it mean, when one of you (colombians) tell another: YOU WERE NOT/ARE NOT. 'COLOMBIAN ENOUGH'?? jejeje..a mixture, I think, of stupidity mixed with a false sense of arrogance.. How 'colombian' do you have to be? to be 'colombian enough

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Tinto (Moderator) says on Mar 19, 2007, 08:00:

Crappy reporting in the NY Times This article repeats the spurious claim that "thousands" were slaughtered by United Fruit in 1928. Someone should remind the reporter that Garcia Marquez was writing fiction, that the Colombian government never officially reported the number of people slain and that the academics think the true figure was between 15 and 30.



http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/world/americas/19colombia.ready.html



"Newspaper of Record," my arse.

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aztec says on Mar 19, 2007, 08:56:

Do like most people nowdays. Stop reading that rag.

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Mr. Hollywood says on Mar 19, 2007, 11:56:

El Feliz Just rent some back episodes of "The Sopranos" and it will all become clear.

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Desideria (Moderator) says on Mar 19, 2007, 12:28:

Yep, tinto , it's true There were three thousand people out there, had been on strike for a while and United Fruit brought in the Colombian army.

"The troops set up their machine guns on the roofs of the low buildings at the corners of the main square, closed off the access streets[4], and after a five minute warning[1] opened fire into a dense Sunday crowd of workers and their wives and children who had gathered, after Sunday Mass[5], to wait for an anticipated address from the governor[6].


[edit] Number dead
General Cortés Vargas, who commanded the troops during the massacre, took responsibility for 47 casualties, but the exact number of casualties has never been confirmed. Herrera Soto, co-author of a comprehensive and detailed study of the 1928 strike, has put together various estimates given by contemporaries and historians, ranging from 47 to 2,000.[1]

Among the survivors was Luis Vicente Gámez, later a famous local figure, who survived by hiding under a bridge for three days. Every year after the massacre he delivered a memorial service over the radio." (Wikipedia)

The number of the dead was never confirmed. It may have been as high as 2000.

Cheers,
Desi




"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe
they are free." —Johann Wolfgang van Goethe

"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them."-President George W. Bush

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Mr. Hollywood says on Mar 20, 2007, 12:01:

Maybe it's Hard to find the mass graves that have been buried under all the subsequent mass graves in the banana region.

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juancegomez says on Mar 20, 2007, 12:51:

Sigh... We probably will never know the real figure.

But as long as we can speculate...

Personally, I would tend to think that the number of dead was probably relatively small (somewhere less than, say, a hundred), but the number of those wounded could have greatly exceeded it (say, from dozens to several hundreds).

I do sometimes doubt, though, that more than 1000 people were *killed* in this single event, given both the limitations of the technology at the time (as barbaric as the subject is, that has to be looked into) and the fact that death tolls from later incidents of violence (such as the average paramilitary massacre, although those have been rarer lately) and repression haven't approached it. Doesn't make it impossible...just unlikely.

In the end, the real number per se is relatively meaningless at this point in time. The horror and barbarism of a massacre, any massacre, is what matters and remains unchanged.

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