Comments on: The Price Of Bananas

Steve Kroft On How Colombian Paramilitaries Landed A U.S. Corporation In Hot Water

[jboxton]

I''ll bet Barack Obama is going to make this a top priority as I hear bananas are his favorite food.

[concern21]

The real news in Colombia is not BANANAS but CHAVEZ, who interfering with internal politics and the left wing in this country [OBAMA and CLINTON] not saying anything against the Venezuelan leader.

[dvschorn]

One of our viewers asked about our translation of mayor Gloria Cuartes'' interview in Spanish. Our translation was correct, but there was an error in the way the Spanish audio was edited. As a result, if you were listening carefully to the Spanish, part of what Gloria Cuartes said would not have matched up with the English translation. We just didn%u2019t let you hear the correct portion of her interview in Spanish.

According to our transcript, here is what she said:

....le cortan la cabeza, nos tiran la cabeza. Yo entri en panico...Pasaron cuatro horas. Armas, disparos en los techos. Cien niqas y niqos estaban conmigo. Los niqos no gritaban, era un panico terrible.

Thank you for pointing this out. We''ll fix the Spanish audio in all future versions of the story.

Andy Court
Producer
60 Minutes

[prinzowhales]

And the other, poor little corporations just paid off the goons in Central America to murder union organizers...Poor corporations! Who will help the poor corporations!! They''re only trying to sweat labour to untercut American workers...they''re only trying to make a profit....they''re only trying to bleed labour and gouge you! Its their right! Submit! Submit!

[lochlan-2009]

Who is supplying weapons to this guerrillas?


Posted by RealityToday

Well, how many weapons could you buy with $2million. They were arming the militants (CIA loves to do this).

[samnews]

Has anyone heard of the Gourmet banana? It is soon to be imported into Florida (initially only Florida). Rain Fores Certification, plantation takes care of its workers (clinics, etc.), higher pay, etc. Called a gourmet banana because it will be harvested based on maturity/ripeness...not to meet a giant corporation''s shipping schedule. There is a website soming soon at gourmetbanana.com.

[ponco seno]

Good case were our mighty military can be useful, if they weren''t busy fighting BUShit illegal war.

Who is supplying weapons to this guerrillas?

[iaspire]

The translation of Gloria Cuartes, the mayaor of Partado, contained gross mistatements. As part of her interview, she began to describe a scene in which a 12 year-old child was beheaded.

At oone point, the English translation of her interview stated the following: "100 hundred girls and boys were with me," when in fact, what she said in Spanish was the following, " I saw how the animals ate the bodies of the people."

I am very concerned with the inaccurate translation. I fear it may have been changed because her eyewitness account of what happened may have been too disturbing for viewers. If this was the reason why, it disturbs me to know that a story was not aired in a truthful and accurate manner. I hope 60 minutes and the producer, Andy Court, will issue a correction and an explanaition.

Jose Rene
Hartford, CT

[daabbey]

I am confused%u2026 it%u2019s ok for the United States to pay (bribe) the Iraq militias and the Afghan tribal leaders, but it%u2019s not OK for Chiquita to pay the militia in Columbia. Like I said, I am confused are we hypocrites or just confused.

[honestabe8]

The story on bananas isn''t all that a-peel-ing.

Regarding the Columbian drug trade, this is a natural outgrowth of prohibition.

[juwboy]

closethippy1 asked:

"Do any of you have a clue as to what happened in Latin America?"

Yes. It was no different to what happened anywhere else in the Spanish Empire or even in Spain itself.

Anyone suspected of heresy i.e. any non-Catholic, was hauled before the Inquisition and their wrists were tied together behind their backs. They were then suspended by the wrists via a rope and pulley system and yanked up and down. They were not interrogated, but every word they said was recorded by a scribe.

If they confessed their heresy, i.e. confessed to being a Jew, Moslem or Protestant, they were set free if they agreed to convert to Roman Catholicism.

If they did not convert or did not inform the Inquisitors what their religion was, they were condemned to death by burning.

The burning of heretics was the weekend recreational pastime for Spaniards, analogous to our attendance at a ball game. The burnings took place in stadia dedicated for the purpose. Programs, detailing the order of events were sold as was the medieval equivalent of fast food.

The execution by burning of shipwrecked, Protestant, English sailors, led to war between England and Spain.

[closethippy1]

Do you now see why the FARC is the oldest guerilla group in Latin America and why they have to act in self defense?
Do you now see why Chavez is trying to tell the US and the European Union to remove the FARC from the list of terrorist groups?
Do you have an inlking of what right wing military forces have been doing all across Latin America and not just Colombia?
Do you now understand why people like Chavez and Castro are popular throughout Latin America?
Do you know that when the Spaniards took over Latin America they made it a practice to give huge parcels of lands to few families and make these families the rulers of whatever country they carved out for themselves? And how all you had to do to get hanged by your balls is to ask for better treatment?
Do any of you have a clue as to what happened in Latin America and what''s going on?
Do you even care? Or is it enough for you just to follow whatever the freaking State Department along with the media elite says and to hell with the rest of the world?

[deacon20081]

Eliminate the "NAFTA" agreements and STOP BUYING PRODUCE FROM THE IDIOTS......PERIOD...

I can now see blood dripping from their Bananas in the stores in my minds eye.

[brianbwb-2009]

%u201CEither you pay or your people get killed.%u201D

So when you pay, the resistance gets killed, either way, someone will die for your bananas.

Or you can pull out, and get bananas elsewhere.

[brianbwb-2009]

"Colombian Paramilitaries Landed A U.S. Corporation In Hot Water"

Again blame it on the people who have been corrupted by centuries of European and US hegemony.

The "language of death" was taught to them as it was the only language spoken in answer to those who resisted colonialism.

Had Chiquita pulled out, perhaps we would have a greater variety of bananas in the US due to varied sources, and there would have been no need to hire mercs to murder the resistance, there would not have been any.

[rudy654-2009]

Why don''t they also go after those who supply weapons to these people? Who are the gun manufacturers? Hmmmm? How interesting that they want to chop at the banana people who were getting no help from anyone, but the gun manufacturers and suppliers became pretty wealthy off the blood of campesinos...and not a word.

[justme1123]

It's simple. The government wanted a cut of it and now others are jumping in for their cut as well. If the governments were so concerned where were they when Chiquita employees were being murdered?

[mwaltner1]

Thank you, CBS, for airing this!

It''s about time some of these multi-national corporations received press on this. Coca - Cola, Nike, and more need to be held accountable for this. But people need to know so they can put pressure on these companies as well.

Great job - THANK YOU!

~Mary, Chicago

[faustoduarte-2009]

Gce65:"Isn''''t Chiquita just a successor to United Fruit Co, the old monopoly that''''s enslaved millions and killed tens of thousands across Latin America to maintain their power?"
Yes it is, and in 1929 the Colombian army massacred more than 3000 workers during an strike of the TroCo union. Today the paramilitaries kill union members in Colombia every month. History in Colombia is circular.

[faustoduarte-2009]

Very good article. I have some annotations. First, paramilitaries were right from the beginning supported by drug dealers, including Pablo Escobar. Drug dealers were joined by landowners, bussinessmen, and even some members of Colombian army. Very poweful people has had ties with paramilitaries.For example, many allies of current president, Alvaro Uribes, have been shown to have ties with paramilitaries. About 100 Congressmen, most of them of Uribe''s parties, are now in jail or investigated because of their ties with paramilitaries. The conclussion of many Colombians today is that paramilitaries conquered power through current president Alvaro Uribe. The bad thing is that Bush''s goverment has supported Uribe because Uribe supported fiercely Irak''s war, and because Uribe is opposed to the "left" wave in the continent (Chavez, etc). The good news is that US Democrats are finally paying close attention to what is going on inside Colombia, and they have used the proposed free-trade US-Colombia deal to push Uribe to improve human right conditions in Colombia.

[ontheleft]

"damages our reputation throughout Latin America."

Posted by andylance1 at 10:35 PM


Your way too funny. As if we had a good reputation down there to begin with.