United Fruit?

[Wiesty]

in some speach or diary, che writes about the United Fruit forget what he said somethign like "the opression that was of it" something along that lines
what was it though?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

It was a large tropical-fruit company that essentially ruled, by its economic clout, and the backing of American military might, several "Banana Republics". It was involved in toppling several governments which refused to cater to its whims, etc. Nasty fuckers,

[cubalibra]

You can read all about how United Fruit helped in the overthrow of the government in Quatemala while Che was there in a book called "Bitter Fruit."

[Agent provocateur]

United Fruit Co.
by poet Pablo Neruda (Nobel Laureate) from Canto General

When the trumpet blared everything
on earth was prepared
and Jehova distributed the world
to Coca Cola Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors and other entities:
United Fruit Inc.
reserved for itself the juiciest,
the central seaboard of my land,
America's sweet waist.
It rebabtized its lands
the "Banana Republics,"
and upon the slumbering corpses,
upon the restless heroes
who conquered renown,
freedom, flags,
it established the comic opera:
it alienated self-destiny,
regaled Caesar's crowns,
unsheathed envy, attracted
the tyrannical reign of the flies:
Trujillo flies, Tacho flies,
Carías flies, Martínez flies,
Ubico flies, flies soaked
in humble blood and jam,
drunken flies that drone
over the common graves,
circus flies, clever flies
versed in tyranny.

Among the bloodthirsty flies
the Fruit Co. disembarks,
ravaging coffee and fruits
for its ships that spirit away
our submerged lands' treasures
like serving trays.

Meanwhile, in the seaports'
sugary abysses,
Indians collapsed, buried
in the morning mist:
a body rolls down, a nameless
thing, a fallen number,
a bunch of lifeless fruit
dumped in the rubbish heap.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/47/043.html

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episo...nterviews/hunt/ (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/18/interviews/hunt/)

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Einstein.htm

http://slate.msn.com/id/2107718

See the chronology:

http://www.unitedfruit.org/chronology.html

http://w3.usf.edu/~lc/MOOs/cuba/martimon.htm

http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/pr.../guevara01.html (http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/guevara01.html)

http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_review.../07/072704.html (http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/2001/07/072704.html)

http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_review.../12/120605.html (http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/2002/12/120605.html)

http://www.adorfman.duke.edu/vaults/donald...eFrameset-5.htm (http://www.adorfman.duke.edu/vaults/donald_duck/templteFrameset-5.htm)

[Knowledge 6 6 6]

United Fruit Company has raped Latin America and the Caribbean.

A good movie on this is 'Life and Debt'...its extremely good.

Basically another corporation that exports the wonderful fruits that Latin America/Caribbean produce, while the locals never see it, and are fed shitty products.

Signs of capitalism.

AMAZING poem by Neruda. He's a friggin genious.

[Urban Rubble]

I reccomend every one read Bitter Fruit, the Untold story of the CIA coup in Guatemala.

It is probably the single most powerful and obvious example of American economic might being used to prop up or bring down governments as they see fit.

[Wiesty]

im almost getting it, so it was a big fruit company, owned by ameica, or capatilists or whatever and was like what stealing from africa, im confuzed, like who ran it, why did it cause opression
i found this in a video me and a guy made

about che and united fruit:
In Costa Rica he learns about the domination of United Freuit and the exploitation and of the misery that is the result of it. In a letter to his aunt Beatriz he writes: " IN el paso i traversed the vast domains of united fruit. Once more i was able to convince myself how criminal the capitilistic octopuses are. On a picture of our old and bewailed comrade stalin. I swore not to rest before these capitalistic octopuses are destroyed.

[Wiesty]

alright so pretty much united fruit was a big capitilist/american organization that went over to africa, took control of the trades and banana exports, and started a company taking advantage of all the workers of africa

[KickMcCann]

United Fruit Company still exists today, only now they are called "Chiquita" And as far as I can tell, they are still resposible for alot of repression and human rights abuses in central and south America.

[STI]

Holy shit, really? Chiquita?

Cheee-rist. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Agent provocateur]

Not Africa. Latin America ---- Colombia, Central America (Guatemala, Costa Rica) Cuba, Dominican Republic etc.

[Urban Rubble]

Yeah, United Fruit wasn't in Africa, mostly in Central America. Honduras and Guatemala have been the biggest targets.

United Fruit was simply a giant fruit importer. In order to have cheap labor, relaxed labor laws and all the other luxuries big business demands, they had to have complicit, subservient governments in place. When the Guatemalan people elected Jacobo Arbenz and he began promising to build a new railroad (United Fruit privately owned to only railway to the sea), change labor laws and take back some of United Fruit's unused land (for 3 times what it was actually worth) they used their clout with the U.S government and eventually the CIA organized a coup and overthrew Arbenz.

Pretty standard stuff.

[Anarchist Freedom]

I think i remember seeing something about this on the history channel is was pretty crazy.

[Wiesty]

uhh just a question, sorry to ask so late

is del monte involved in any forms of explotation, or united fruit or anything like that?

[Guerrilla22]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2004, 03:50 AM
United Fruit Company still exists today, only now they are called "Chiquita" And as far as I can tell, they are still resposible for alot of repression and human rights abuses in central and south America.
Actually that's not true, United Fruit started the Chiquita brand true, but it was sold to another company a long time ago. United Fruit has been defunct for a while now.

[Hate Is Art]

What happened to it? Did it just go bankrupt?

[colombiano]

Gabriel García Márquez a Colombian author writes about this Fruit Company in a few of his books. I highly recommmend his work to everyone!

[Rage Against the Right]

Not bankrupt just bought out. That documentary on the History Channel was pretty good. It, of course, didn't show the extent of the explotation of the people, but did focus on the puppet governemnts it controlled with the US military and how if an American company employed the people of Latin America it would have a weapon against drug trafficking, terrorism, and unfriendly governments.

[Big Boss]

I saw that history channel special and it was amazing. This company was (or still is) responsible for exploitation of indians and poor people in general in the controlled lands of Latin America. Because of this companie's brutal exploitations and abuse, Che became the hero that we all know and love. This company is know to latin people as "La Frutera". That is capitalist oppresion at it's best comrades.

Awesome poem of Neruda by the way! :rolleyes: