{"id":1491854,"date":"2024-02-09T14:40:30","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T14:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=147962"},"modified":"2024-02-09T14:40:30","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T14:40:30","slug":"the-ghost-of-united-fruit-still-haunts-latin-america-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/02\/09\/the-ghost-of-united-fruit-still-haunts-latin-america-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ghost of United Fruit Still Haunts Latin America (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"
A brief note from the author on the accelerated border crisis: In the few months that I was putting together the information for this article, things have spiraled out of control in Texas which is getting the majority of refugees. Texas Governor Greg Abbott in addition to bussing tens of thousands of refugees to sanctuary cities like New York and Chicago has deployed the state National Guard and other state employees to police the border. In revenge for making a mockery of the Democrats \u2018lets make President Trump look like a racist\u2019\u00a0sanctuary city gimmick, the Biden Administration has used the Supreme Court to over-rule the Governor, remove concertina\/razor wire and other barriers that the state has set up and in addition, and has blocked the export of liquified natural gas from ports in Texas which has exacerbated nations like Germany which is suffering from the results of the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline and the switch to liquified natural gas from cheap natural gas from Russia. In response, 25 state governors have backed Gov. Abbott and have deployed their own state National Guard units to assist Texas. As the Texas AG Ken Packton told Tucker Carlson in a recent interview, \u201cwe\u2019re in uncharted territory\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Ghost of United Fruit Still Haunts Latin America (Part 1)<\/b><\/p>\n
Of all the campaign issues that conservatives like to be overheard talking about, illegal immigration is among the top 6 or 7th in importance behind boycotting Bud Light, 2nd Amendment issues, and trolling abortion fanatics.<\/p>\n
Beyond AOC conducting a staged photo-op crying next to an empty parking lot in order to try and make President Trump look like a racist for separating children from parents, (a policy that was a carry-over from the Obama presidency oddly enough), Democrats tend to avoid discussing the absolute flood of undocumented refugees currently awaiting processing, mostly because they don\u2019t want to upset their sugar daddy George Soros or make President Biden look bad.<\/p>\n
For the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2022, Customs and Border Protection Administration CBP stopped migrants more than 2,766,582 times, compared to 1.72 million times for fiscal 2021, the previous yearly high. The 2022 numbers were driven in part by sharp increases in the number of Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans making the trek north, according to CBP. The major source of immigration is listed as Brazil, Columbia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela with 1,535,492 so far attempting to enter this year and 2,217,141 last year. LINK<\/a><\/p>\n US-run color revolutions and coups, economic warfare, sanctions, narco-terrorism, Communist\/Maoist terrorism, natural disasters, and severe poverty caused by policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank all make up the major reasons that people flee their countries of origin.<\/p>\n However, despite the utterly disgusting record of the United States throughout the 20th Century and the 23 years of this century in imposing grinding poverty, usurious debt payments, and virtual colonial economic conditions, too many Americans parrot the \u201cillegal immigrant\u201d line which is the favorite boogeyman scapegoat now that \u201cMuslim terrorism\/extremist\u201d is not being repeated endlessly on cable news, or worse, state that \u201cit\u2019s not their concern\u201d as one of my taxi customers stated recently when I described the topic of this article.<\/p>\n A surprising opinion given that there is group of 300 refugees being warehoused at an auditorium in Portland Maine from Algeria who are protesting their conditions and discussions are under way to bring refugees to my locality despite there being absolutely no means of supporting them. A brief glance at the latter half of the 20th<\/sup> century shows why such opinions are utterly immoral. After WW1, the US has conducted wars, coups, and other military operations of various kinds in the Western Hemisphere mostly using the cover of \u201cfighting Communism.\u201d Because of the complexity of Communist\/Socialist\/Maoist history, its strange relationship with the old British Empire, and how they fit into the perpetual conflict schemes of various geopoliticans and used to terrible effect on the lives of untold numbers of souls, that subject will be gone over at length in part 2.<\/p>\n For most of the 19th and 20th century up until the passing of statesman James G. Blaine, the assassination of President McKinley, and ascendancy of anglophile freak Teddy Roosevelt, the US policy of support for our \u201csister republics\u201d via the Monroe Doctrine was subverted into a colonial policy.<\/p>\n One company in particular, exemplified exploitation and looting of Central America and the Caribbean, The United Fruit Company, often called \u201cThe Octopus\u201d because of its dominance over entire countries from which the term \u201cBanana Republic\u201d came.<\/p>\n I thought that you should get to see both the approved and sanitized narrative that is generally shown on numerous websites and videos that describe its history and then the ugly reality which brand x historians won\u2019t touch with a hundred foot pole. Birth of the Octopus<\/strong><\/p>\n 1870:<\/strong> The Boston Fruit Company was established by sailor Lorenzo Dow Baker when he started purchasing bananas in Jamaica.<\/p>\n 1899:<\/strong> Minor C. Keith\u2019s company Tropical Trading and Transport Co. merges with rival Andrew W. Preston\u2019s Boston Fruit Co. to form the United Fruit Company. It engaged in the production, transportation, and marketing of bananas, sugar, cocoa, abaca, and other tropical agricultural products. Preston brought to the partnership his plantations in the West Indies<\/a>, a fleet of steamships, and his market in the U.S. Northeast. Keith brought his plantations and railroads in Central America and his market in the U.S. South and Southeast. Within weeks, UFCo acquires seven independent companies that have been operating in Honduras. Preston is made president and Keith is vice-president. Preston\u2019s lawyer Bradley Palmer is made permanent member of the executive committee and director and from a business point of view, Palmer was United Fruit.<\/p>\n 1910:\u00a0 <\/strong>UFCo rival Samuel Zemurray conspires with the newly exiled General Manuel Bonilla and masterminds a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat against Honduran President D\u00e1vila. On Christmas Eve, Samuel Zemurray, U.S. General Lee Christmas, and General Bonilla use Zemurray\u2019s yacht \u201cHornet\u201d with a gang of New Orleans mercenaries and attacks the ports of Trujillo and La Ceiba forcing President D\u00e1vila to step down. Bonilla becomes dictator and awards UFCo tax breaks and huge land grants.<\/p>\n 1928:<\/strong> 25,000 banana workers in Columbia went on strike demanding a 6-day work week, payment with money rather than company coupons, compensation for work accidents, & increase in wages for workers earning less than 100 pesos per month. With the bottom line threatened, the strikers are branded Communists and UFCo gets the U.S. Government to threaten to invade, using the U.S. Marine Corps that were stationed off the shores of Ci\u00e9naga should the Colombian government not act to protect United Fruit\u2019s interests. Dec. 6, 1928, Columbian troops gun down protesters outside of UFCo headquarters. The number killed is disputed, but a month later, the U.S. Ambassador to Bogot\u00e1, Jefferson Caffery, sent a dispatch informing Washington: \u201cI have the honor to report\u2026that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military exceeded one thousand.\u201d 1929:<\/strong> After an unsuccessful price war against Samuel Zemurray\u2019s Cuyamel Fruit Company which he had purchased in 1910, United Fruit decides to buy Zemurray out. He eventually becomes its biggest stockholder.<\/p>\n 1930:<\/strong> UFCo. has absorbed more than twenty rival firms and is the largest employer in Central America. It owned or leased property in Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Cuba, Jamaica, and numerous other Central American, South American, and West Indies countries.<\/p>\n 1933:<\/strong> Members of UFCo\u2019s board of directors vote to name Zemurray general director of the company. 1938:<\/strong> Zemurray becomes President of UFCo.<\/p>\n
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