politics of the banana

•1954 Luis Somoza permits Nicaragua to be used as a staging area for the CIA-sponsored coup against President Arbenz, as he attempts to enact land reform to redistribute U.S. banana plantation land to impoverished natives

•1959 Fidel Castro expropriates all Cuban United Fruit Company land holdings, in a land reform program similar to that of former Nicaraguan President Arbenz-the United States responds with the CIA sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion, which is assisted by Nicaraguan President Luis Somoza

•1979 corrupt President Somoza is finally overthrown and over 20% of the nation's agricultural land is distributed to its citizens

•1980 the standard of living in Nicaragua rises greatly and the country's illiteracy rate falls from 50% to 13%

•1981 Reagan suspends all aid to Nicaragua and begins his covert, U.S. funded war against the Nicaraguan government in order to aid the interests of U.S. owned agricultural companies

The banana is a very political fruit; and though it is a staple crop in much of the world, it has been prevalent in the United States only since the beginning of the 20th century. The establishment of the United Fruit Company (UFC) in 1899 began to pave the way for the global distribution of the banana; the history of the banana in this country is intrinsically linked with the history of multinational corporations, like the UFC, and United States involvement and imperialism in Latin America.

Such exploitive policies have been common throughout the history of the United States, but greatly escalated after the Second World War. Directly after WWII, the war-weary American public seemed to favor demobilization and disarmament. Such an occurrence would not serve the needs of large U.S. multinational corporations, so President Truman did his best to create an atmosphere of crisis and cold war. Charles E. Wilson, the president of General Electric Corporation, was so happy about the wartime situation that he suggested a continuing alliance between business and the military for "a permanent war economy." Under the cover of "democracy" the U.S. sought to carve out its own empire of influence throughout he world. The Truman administration, established a climate of fear hysteria about Communism--which would steeply escalate the military budget and stimulate the economy with war-related orders. This combination of policies would permit more aggressive actions abroad and more repressive actions at home. (such as the rise of Mc McCarthyism and blacklisting) Some of these policies and their long-reaching repercussions are clearly evidenced in the following examples in banana growing regions:

•1855 William Walker and 58 other Americans arrive in Nicaragua. Walker declares himself president, re-establishes slavery, and is recognized by U.S. president Pierce. (When Walker is overthrown in 1857, he takes refuge on a U.S. Navy ship)

•1928 a Colombian banana labor strike escalates into a massive slaughter of workers known as "masacre de las bananeras" (this massacre is chronicled in Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred years of Solitude)

•1934 Nicaraguan General Sandino, a vocal opponent of the U.S. imposed government, which was established to primarily serve the interests and assets of a handful of U.S. owned corporations, is assassinated by the U.S.-created Nicaraguan National Guard, headed by Anastasio Somoza García

A simplification of what these examples demonstrate basically goes something like this: a U.S. owned corporation sets up a plantation in a third world country-destroys tens of thousands of acres of virgin jungle to grow bananas (or cotton or coffee or sugar cane or some other cash crop). Thousands of native people are displaced from their homes; their subsistence farming existence is destroyed; they are paid meager wages to be exploited on plantations, which they are now enslaved to, because they can no longer grow their own food to feed themselves. An entire national economy is created based solely on a single crop that is highly vulnerable and easily toppled by a bad harvest or fungus infection. If banana workers' labor unions become too powerful, or if a government opposes this corporate exploitation of its people, and attempts to create agricultural reform, nationalizing land to redistribute among its nation's poorest citizens so they can become autonomous from U.S.-owned business interests and grow something besides a cash crop, a U.S.-sponsored military coup is orchestrated to overthrow the regime and a puppet government who is sympathetic to U.S. corporate interests is quickly installed.

Blah blah blah.
You've heard this all before. But it's not just ancient history.

These policies and ideologies still prevail worldwide today in only slightly different forms. In 2007 Chiquita Brands was fined 25 million dollars for paying Colombian right wing AUC paramilitary groups millions to protect their banana growing operations in Colombia; essentially Chiquita has been funding and supporting terrorist groups that are responsible for some of the most horrific massacres and extensive drug running throughout the region*. Chemically intensive agribusiness monocultures, such as banana plantations, are still the norm throughout most of the world; and many Central American countries still dedicate the majority of their land to unsustainable cash crops like cotton, coffee or sugar cane, while their citizens starve-denied the natural resources to grow their own food. The long-reaching repercussions of destructive American corporations are clearly evidenced by the illegal conduct of corporations like Chiquita, the exploitive trade politics of NAFTA and the WTO, but we can rest assured, however, that throughout all of this the world will continue to be safe for “democracy” and the banana.

*http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1616991,00.html