<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>Dan Koeppel&#039;s Blog &#187; Banana Latin America</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/tag/banana-latin-america/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress</link>
	<description>Bananas, Los Angeles, and Transit Geekery</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 01 Sep 2011 20:59:35 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1</generator>
		<item>
		<title>Chiquita and the Strongmen: An Historical Perspective</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1032#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1032#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:51:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=1032</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Marcelo Bucheli &#8211; of the University of Illinois at Urbana and Champaign College of Business &#8211; published a fascinating paper on the relationship between the United Fruit company (Chiquita) and Latin American dictatorships. Here&#8217;s the abstract: &#8220;The US multinational United Fruit Company has been considered the quintessential representative of American imperialism in Central America. Not only did the company enjoy enormous privileges in that region, but also counted on authoritarian governments in dealing with labor unrest. The literature assumes that United Fruit and the dictators were natural allies due to their opposition to organized unionism. This paper shows that this alliance could only survive as long as the multinational provided the dictators with economic stability for the country. However, when the multinational proved to be incapable of doing that, the dictators allied with the working class to confront the multinational and extract higher rents from it.&#8221; Bucheli is one of the most respected and thoughtful banana scholars out there. His work was primary source material for my book. You can read the whole paper (PDF download) here. (Thanks to Steven Kinzer, another primary source, for the link.)]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1032/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Special Report: A Concrete Plan for Banana Justice</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/919#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/919#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:44:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Special Report]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=919</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For decades, there have been calls for justice on the industrial plantations &#8211; and in the nations that support them &#8211; for banana workers. Progress has been spotty, at best, mostly because of a disconnect between those laborers and consumers of the world&#8217;s most popular fruit. The Banana Land Campaign is a new effort to create that connection, and &#8211; unlike some others &#8211; it offers very concrete steps toward that goal. The Campaign is focusing on Colombia, where Chiquita (and possibly Dole) have made payments to terrorists, and where there&#8217;s a long history of banana-related bloodshed (see earlier posts on that topic.) Here&#8217;s a video from Jason Glaser &#8211; director of an in-progress documentary called &#8220;The Affected&#8221; &#8211; and one of the organizers of the campaign. These are the campaign&#8217;s &#8220;Six Things You Can Do&#8221; to help make the changes that just about anyone who knows banana history need to happen: 1. Sign a petition, here. 2. Write or call Dole and Chiquita&#8217;s (Chiquita doesn&#8217;t provide a email but you can write them on here) Corporate Social Responsibility Departments and ask them to make meaningful compensation to the victims of AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) violence in the [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/919/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Special Report: Why Dole sues filmmakers</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/848#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/848#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:50:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Latin America]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=848</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The following is the original English text of an article I wrote for Dagens Nyheter, the largest daily newspaper in Sweden. The story is about Dole&#8217;s attempt to stop the distribution of &#8220;BANANAS!*&#8221;, a documentary made by Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten that the banana company believes to be untrue. The film is about lawsuits filed against Dole by Nicaraguan workers claiming to have been injured by the company&#8217;s use of a pesticide called Nemagon, or DBCP. In 2007, those workers achieved a partial victory against the banana company &#8211; but a follow-up suit was dismissed earlier this year after lawyers for the fruit giant offered evidence that the lawyer for the laborers had falsified information (here&#8217;s one of many news accounts about the trial&#8217;s denouement.) Here, I explain why I find that &#8220;evidence&#8221; unconvincing &#8211; and why Dole&#8217;s suit has roots not just in a century of  banana industry history, but also in a business model that persists to this day. For background on the issue, have a look at the filmmaker&#8217;s timeline or at Dole&#8217;s entire page on Nemagon. More links below. THE BURNING OF THE LA CEIBA, HONDURAS TOWN HALL in 1903 was the work of more than an ordinary [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/848/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Chiquita connection to Honduras crisis?</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/831#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/831#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:37:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Latin America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=831</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Democracy Now radio program interviewed Nicholas Kozloff, who argued that there&#8217;s a Chiquita connection in the current Honduran political crisis, which saw President Manuel Zelaya deposed in either a coup or a constitutional emergency, or both, depending on which side you&#8217;re on, in June. The banana industry once made Honduras its largest exporting nation; that changed with Hurricane Mitch, in 1986, which devastated the crop, but there&#8217;s still a huge plantation network there. Here&#8217;s what Kozloff had to say: &#8220;&#8230;there’s this revolving door of Washington insiders that are supporting companies like Chiquita banana. I just wrote an article about Chiquita, formerly known as the United Fruit Company. And, you know, throughout history, Chiquita banana has had enormous sway and power over Central American nations. And we know that prior to the coup d’état in Honduras, Chiquita was very unhappy about President Zelaya’s minimum wage decrees, because they said that this would cut into their profits and make it more expensive for them to export bananas and pineapple. And we know that they appealed to the Honduran Business Association, which was also opposed to Zelaya’s minimum wage provisions. And we also—and what I find really interesting is that Chiquita is [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/831/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

