<?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 Politics</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/tag/banana-politics/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>Dole backs down, drops suit against filmmaker</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/883#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/883#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:03:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=883</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[PLUS: See the film in New York Wednesday, October 21, at 7:15 PM. Details here. After pressure from the Swedish government  - efforts to boycott the banana company were underway, with a strong chance they would spread to other EU nations &#8211; Dole dropped a lawsuit it had filed against Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten and his film, &#8220;BANANAS!*&#8221;, which tells the story of the company&#8217;s pesticide use in the 1970s and the damage that practice inflicted on Nicaraguan workers. Here&#8217;s the full text of Dole&#8217;s statement: WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CALIFORNIA &#8211; October 14, 2009 Dole Food Company, Inc. today announced that it is dismissing its defamation lawsuit against filmmakers Fredrik Gertten, Margarete Jangård and WG Film AB in the Los Angeles Superior Court, relating to the film BANANAS!*. Dole made its decision in light of the free speech concerns being expressed in Sweden, although it continues to believe in the merits of its case. Dole strongly believes in freedom of speech and expression, which are so important in Sweden and the United States. [Emphasis added. Dole's view of our own First Amendment rights is, apparently, mostly, afterthought.] &#8220;While the filmmakers continue to show a film that is fundamentally flawed and contains [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/883/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>
		<item>
		<title>&#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; updates Chiquita report</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/605#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/605#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:01:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=605</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[CBS&#8217;s &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; reran its May, 2008 segment, called &#8220;The Price of Bananas,&#8221; on Chiquita&#8217;s payments to a Colombian paramilitaries. New information included the extradition of a member of that group to the U.S., confirmation by additional sources, and the expansion of an investigation of similar alleged payments made by Dole. Watch the report. Read a transcript. Related posts: Last year&#8217;s entry is here. Chiquita&#8217;s lawyer is Eric Holder, now U.S. attorney general. Here&#8217;s my March, 2008 entry. 400 Colombian families are suing the banana giant. My November, 2007 entry is here.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/605/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Conglolese Rebel Leader and the Deadliest Banana Disease (Updated)</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/24#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/24#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 18 Jan 2009 11:02:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/conglolese-rebel-leader-and-the-deadliest-banana-disease-updated/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I just got back from a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where I was on assignment for National Geographic. More on that in the coming weeks. We were in the central part of the country. Eastern Congo &#8211; along the borders of Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda &#8211; has been locked in fighting for years now, and the battles have ratcheted up since last August, resulting in a huge humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people being forced into refugee camps, along with thousands of deaths. The region is where people depend on bananas as part of their diet more than anywhere else in the world, and the fruit there is being attacked by what is probably the most virulent banana disease: a fungus bacterium called Xanthomonas wilt. Its spread can be slowed through clean-farming techniques &#8211; making sure tools and clothing are kept free of dirt as they move from village to village &#8211; and there have been extensive informational campaigns designed to carry this information to local families, who would face starvation if the disease hit their crops. The image above is of Laurent Nkunda, the leader of the Congolese rebels. It appeared last year in [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/24/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Dole, Others Sued in U.S for Ecuador Pesticides</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/31#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/31#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:43:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/?p=31</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This exclusive report copyright 2008 www.bananabook.org. Two of the world&#8217;s biggest banana companies, the American chemical companies who supply them, along with several other companies they do business with, are being sued by pilots, ground crew, and residents of the Ecuadorian plantation town of Puerto Viejo for health damage they allegedly suffered during years of spraying of Mancozeb, a fungicide used to combat Black Sigatoka, the most common and costly disease affecting commercial bananas. The suit was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.) on September 18, 2008. It names Dole, Monsanto, Dupont, Dow Chemical and Noboa &#8211; which markets bananas in the U.S. under the &#8220;Bonita&#8221; brand name &#8211; as primary defendants, and accuses them of using the chemical despite knowing that it would cause birth defects, cancer, and respiratory and fertility problems among banana workers and their families. Mancozeb is listed by the Pesticde Action Network as having &#8220;toxicity to humans, including carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and acute toxicity.&#8221; Mancozeb is a fairly common garden fungicide, and the U.S. EPA regards it as safe, but only in small quantities and with proper protective gear and usage. The suit alleges all were [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/31/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama&#8217;s Pick For Attorney General Has Banana Problems</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/33#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/33#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:40:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/obamas-pick-for-attorney-general-has-banana-problems/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<br />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/33/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Banana Companies Rat Each Other Out</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/39#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/39#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:04:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/banana-companies-rat-each-other-out/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The biggest news item I avoid in this blog are banana trade wars. That&#8217;s because it would take me thousands and thousands of words to explain why the U.S., Europe, and the big banana companies have been fighting for years over who gets to sell bananas where. There have been resolutions that have led to no resolutions, problems that have led to more problems, and lots of ugly behavior on both sides. Suffice it to say that the whole thing is corrupt, and that none of it really affects whether or not bananas show up on store shelves (though it does affect where those bananas come from, and prices, as you&#8217;ll see, below.) The problem is that when you enter the labyrinth, you just can&#8217;t find your way back. Sorry. But sometimes, I just have to say something. Last week, Dole and Del Monte &#8211; Dole&#8217;s the second biggest banana company in the world, and Del Monte, depending on how you count, is probably third or fourth &#8211; were fined a total of $83 million by the European Union for conspiring to fix banana prices in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Sweden. These fines were good. [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/39/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>This is not meant to be the Chiquita blog, but&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/83#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/83#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 May 2008 10:23:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/this-is-not-meant-to-be-the-chiquita-blog-but/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You really can&#8217;t help it when you see stuff like this. What does this mean? I can&#8217;t tell, because &#8211; and this is another news flash &#8211; Chiquita has redesigned its website so that it de-emphasizes bananas &#8211; and made it unnavigable in the process (I tried to find some kind of marketing info on the sticker. No luck.) But even weirder, given the company&#8217;s recent history of terrorist payoffs in Colombia &#8211; money which went directly for arms purchases &#8211; is the slogan itself. Fights for you? Does anybody at the banana giant&#8217;s corporate headquarters think about this stuff? I would love to see some normal news come out of Chiquita &#8211; but there doesn&#8217;t seem to be much, other than an announcement of increased profits thanks to higher banana prices in the first quarter of this year. Chiquita&#8217;s bad news leads to a bigger question. As I noted in the post before this one, Dole and Del Monte have also now been accused of paying protection money in Colombia. But it is Chiquita that is getting hammered in the media. I wonder if the company regrets going public. Probably. But the reason it is getting the beat down [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/83/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

