America's Dirty Wars

The Banana Wars, 1898-1930
In the banana business
Killing in the name.
(Some articles taken from a foreign website)
It's hard to imagine that this could pass for a moment without condemnation, but times have changed. On December 6, 1928, Colombian soldiers shot and killed banana workers on strike against the United Fruit Company. Jefferson Caffery, the U.S. government's ambassador to Bogota, sent a message a month later, informing Washington that "I have the honor to report that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian army has exceeded one thousand."

Earnings can now recover after a one-month strike. Back in the United States, the elderly and ailing Cooper Keith, the founder of the United Fruit Company, received the news. Years ago, Keith was a restless young man in New York City who abandoned his private schooling at age 17 to try his hand at raising cattle in Texas. But Texas wasn't enough for young Keith. After two years in Texas, Keith's uncle and brothers invited him to come to Costa Rica to build a railroad.
5,000 men, including Keith's brothers and uncles, worked on the first 25 miles of the railway. But Keith - 22 years old. The goal was to go from the Atlantic coast to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. Keith is short on cash. The Costa Rican government has defaulted on payments. So he took a loan to continue building the road. When he finally completed the route, he faced another crisis: not enough passengers. Keith's answer was to arrange for the bananas to be moved instead.
By 1883, Keith ran three banana businesses around the Caribbean, exporting them to starve and industrialize American cities. By 1890 Keith's estates were worth more than the railroads. He spread across Central America and into Colombia, and soon monopolized the region's banana exports. life is good. He entered Costa Rican elite circles and married Cristina Castro, daughter of Costa Rican President José María Castro Madrid. He saved the El Salvadoran government from default by paying off the country's debt. His dream - although never realized - was to build a railway network from North America through South America.
In 1899, Keith's New York City bank collapsed, plunging the banana and railroad barons into crisis. So he approached his competitor Andrew Preston of the Boston Fruit Company and proposed a merger. In a quick deal, Preston agreed to wipe out Keith's debt and the two became partners. In the same year United Fruits Company was born. The two American banana and railroad barons dominated the Caribbean banana market and their wealth soared.
1928 Oct. By early November, about 32,000 workers at United Fruit were on strike. In the first week of December, things got really hectic when workers stopped a train of Keith's bananas. US ambassadors are concerned about the safety of United Fruit American workers. So the Colombian government responded by sending General Carlos Cortés Vargas and 300 soldiers. The army ordered the strikers to disperse. They rejected it. In the early hours of December 6, the soldiers fired their rifles and the workers of United Fruit fell.
"The massacre was marked politically, economically and socially," says Guillermo de la Jose Carbone, a lawyer and economic development professor born in Cienaga. Colombia remains a dangerous place for union leaders, with 3,000 union leaders killed since 1986.
Keith's banana business continues under the Chiquita Brands International banner. So file charges against the company as well. In 2007, Chiquita pleaded guilty to funding paramilitary groups in Colombia and paid a $25 million fine. On December 6 this year, paramilitaries again presented evidence against Chiquita. (Chiquita did not respond to requests for comment.)
Keith died a few months after the 1928 massacre. His obituary boasted a fine list of clubs and societies he was proud to belong to. Then he said: “His wife survives. They had no children. "

Forty years ago, famous Colombian artist Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt created a monument in Chianaga, Colombia. He sculpted a banana worker, jumped into the air, waved his fist defiantly, and wielded a match. He headed north, toward Brooklyn, New York, where Keith was born. and buried.

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