Blood-flavored bananas
Once upon a time, there was a company called United Fruit Company. It became famous for the fact that it began to import bananas to the U.S. en masse. Back in the mid-19th century, bananas were in America like black caviar - expensive, prestigious, and eaten only by millionaires. But "United Fruit" built a hundred ships with refrigerators, and flooded the entire American market with bananas that cost 2 cents. Behind the scenes of this action there were some pretty cool squabbles, and American buyers didn't know about them. For example, in 1911, the president of Honduras gave United Fruit all the best banana plantations. But competitors from the company "Cuyamel" (also Americans) did not slumber: they overthrew the president, replacing him with their puppet, who gave the banana plantations to them.
In 1928, Colombian banana pickers demanded that United Fruit give them at least one day off a week. The Colombian police, paid for with company money, were brought in to quell the strike, and they killed up to 2,000 people. The rest of them shut up and went quickly to pick bananas. In 1929, United Fruit bought its main competitor, Cuyamel, and began controlling 60% of banana exports to the US. They murdered union leaders in South America, bribed politicians and police, and paid almost no taxes anywhere. In some countries (like Costa Rica or Colombia) it was United Fruit that was the main power, not the local government.
In 1953, Guatemalan President Arbenz turned over United Fruit's unused banana plantations to local impoverished peasants, and offered compensation. The company demanded 25 times as much money; it was sent packing. Then United Fruit simply ordered a coup at a similar price: negotiated a deal with the CIA, and financed a military invasion of Guatemala. The main motivation was that bananas on the shelves for Americans should not rise in price, they have become a favorite treat of millions. CIA mercenaries overthrew Arbenz, and put dictator Armas on the throne. This led to a 36-year civil war and the subsequent deaths of 200,000 people to Guatemala. But bananas didn't go up in price for Americans. It was a successful democratization, one to behold.
Since then, all the presidents of Central and South America were afraid to make a sound, and gave bananas for nothing. "United Fruit paid the banana pickers a pittance and did not give a penny to the budgets of the banana republics. For the slightest dissatisfaction the pickers were killed and the corpses were dumped into the sea. The American public happily bought bananas at a discount. But times have changed. "United Fruit was told it had lost its fucking mind and was bribing officials in Honduras to lower taxes on banana exports. In 1975, the military overthrew the company's protégé in Guatemala, dictator Lopez Arellano. In the same year, the head of the company, Eli Black (the company was by then called United Brands), threw himself out of a skyscraper in New York.
The company was quietly renamed Chiquita. And I still see bananas from this company in our supermarkets. Somehow everything has already been forgotten: how this corporation overthrew presidents, introduced slave labor, and people died by the hundreds of thousands because of it: we owe it the valuable term "banana republic".
They're lucky here: bananas pumped full of blood don't taste like blood.
They are so nice and sweet.
© Zotov
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8910257.html#
USA #
us #
America #
history #
american #
anglo-saxons #
capitalism #
slavery #
military #
CIA #
vassalage #
war #
civil-war #
Guatemala #
Honduras #
fruits #
bananas #
Chiquita
