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US’ exploitative strategy rife in third world
By Udo W. Froese in Johannesburg, South Africa.
A popular American evangelist, Pat Robertson, called on one of the American television networks for the assassination of the president of the sovereign Latin American country, Venezuela.
Robertson wants president Hugo Chavez assassinated by covert American forces, as he is not towing Washington’s Christian civilized line of allowing the US to exploit Venezuela’s natural oil resources the way Washington’s oil giants want it to be done.
In Zimbabwe, the Catholic church’s little bishop, Pius Ncube, prays for the death of President Robert Mugabe.
Bishop Ncube recently received some hero’s award for his “brave Christianity and civil approach to life” award in Scotland.
The Caucasian interpretation of Christianity and its civilization seems to be in contrast to Bible principles. Could it be that Africa’s “pagans” and Latin America’s “Latino’s” are perceived by the Caucasian civilization as “merely lesser people”?
Well, this column will again outline, how Washington and “international big business monopolies” go to work in “countries of lesser importance”, a repeated strategy, which has become more brutal and sophisticated, but less “Christian civilized”.
Chiquita, formerly the United Fruit Company, America’s huge banana empire, aggressively and unscrupulously reduced independence and sovereign Central and Latin American countries to ‘banana republics’.
The popular German magazine, STERN, published an article on Chiquita’s brutal political insults towards banana producing countries.
This form of exploitative conquest did not stop in Central and Latin America, but was copied onto Africa, the Mid East and the Pacific Rim. Hence, Washington’s endeavours in its foreign policies need to be understood by example.
The business ethics of Chiquita were highlighted in the mid-seventies when one of its chief executives, Eli Black, committed suicide. However, his suicide seemed to have had no influence on the dealings of that banana monopoly.
It was then that United Fruit, today Chiquita, had been involved in a bribery scandal.
The serious allegation was then that the president of Honduras was to arrange a favourable customs agreement for United Fruit, for an amount of US$2,5 million.
But Black’s suicide did not mean much, as it seemed to be the order of the day that the largest American banana company, which is also a world leader in the production and trade of bananas, was involved in bribery and corruption. It seemed business as usual.
Three colonial opportunists founded United Fruit in 1899.
In 1871 a certain Minor copper Keith had planned to build a railway line through Costa Rica. Along the railway line, his construction company planted bananas to feed its labour force “cost effectively”.
However, the railway line was not profitable, but the banana plantations certainly were. Keith together with two other opportunists, a captain Lorenze Dow Baker and Andrew Preston, founded the United Fruit Company on March 30, 1899.
Today, United Fruit Company operates under the name of Chiquita Brands International Inc. with its head office in New York.
Chiquita Brands International Inc. has always had a reputation of aggressively and ruthlessly interfering in the internal affairs of Central and Latin American countries that it soon acquired the nickname of “El Pulpo”, the octopus.
In the shortest time span, United Fruit controlled over 75 percent of the banana market in the USA.
It had plantations in Columbia, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama and Honduras and soon owned the world’s largest private navy and a huge rail network.
Guatemala’s national post office also belongs to United Fruit Company.
It was then that Minor Copper Keith married the daughter of the President of Costa Rica.
Shortly thereafter, United Fruit Company transferred its head office to Guatemala, as it did not have to pay any taxes, or any customs duties.
Meanwhile, the only port, Puerto Barrios, the telegraphic services as well as the national electricity supply for Guatemala, all belonged to United Fruit Company.
Chiquita’s bananas, now already known in the USA as Chiquitas, received little blue stickers and had achieved some form of an up-market status.
In 1944 a sparsely clad “Miss Chiquita” made the “Banana Song” popular nationwide.
However, in 1950, things went horribly wrong for Chiquita.
Shortly after Guatemala’s new head of state, Jacobo Arbenz, got into power, he nationalized 53 576 hectares of prime land “belonging” to United Fruit Company and handed it over to small farmers.
In return, state president Arbenz offered an amount of US$627 572 – this was the exact amount that United Fruit Company had valued its plantation for Guatemala’s revenue services.
The banana empire then hired the public relations expert, Edward Bernays.
His campaign focused on Guatemala’s head of state and his government, making every effort to undermine them by smearing them as “communists”.
In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower became president of the United States of America. The United Fruit company was over-joyed, as they knew that they had an ally in him. His deputy foreign affairs minister and former CIA-director, Walter Bedell Smith had speculated some time to join the United Fruit Company to land a lucrative, senior position. Finally, he joined the company.
Eisenhower’s personal secretary, Anne
Whitman was the wife of the pr-director of the United Fruit Company. Henry Cabot Lodge, the company’s broker, later became Eisenhower’s UN ambassador.
The CIA started its campaign against Guatemala’s head of state and his government. Within the first year of this campaign, the US intelligence agency had spent US$20 million.
Under the code name “Operation Success” the rebel movement Contras was supplied with arms and ammunition.
In June 1954 president Arbenz was toppled.
The CIA replaced him with the leader of Contras, Castillo Armas.
Armas immediately returned all the land to United Fruit Company, forced the small farmers off the land who already had started to tend the field. Guatemala, a formerly proudly independent and sovereign nation, was finally reduced to a banana republic.
The late Eli Black, a former senior manager of Chiquita, knew the history when he committed suicide on February 3, 1975. however, his death had brought no charges to such “business ethics” at all.
During the height of the banana tradewar between the US and the EU in 1998, Chiquita Brands International Inc. transferred US$1,4 million to political parties in Washington.
Could the above not reflect a similar situation in independent, sovereign African states such as Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Great Lakes District of Central Africa, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan and Zimbabwe – countries with agricultural, strategic minerals and oil resources, important for the manufacturing industries of the Christian-civilised, Western, industrialized G8 countries?
Is it not therefore those naturally wealthy African countries that are exposed to so-called tribal and civil wars, economic destabilization, abject poverty, starvation and subsequent killer diseases?
Does the pattern of destabilization and genocide not repeat itself throughout the Third World without hope for any change for the future in sight, including uncountable public sermons from certain obviously Western-leaning “leaders” without a real support base at home, or respect on this continent and the G8 benefactors, together specializing in blowing hot air?
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