All language subtitles for When.Banana.Ruled.2017.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

(upbeat music)

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♪ I'm Chiquita banana
and I'm here to say ♪

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- [Narrator] This is the story
of a fruit, a simple fruit,

available all year round
all around the world.

It's the story of a fruit on
which an empire was built,

one of the first modern multinationals,

the United Fruit Company.

♪ I get the blues in the morning ♪

♪ I get the blues in the night ♪

♪ But when I eat a banana sundae ♪

♪ Mmm, it's just right ♪

This is the story of a fruit
which altered the destiny

of Central America and
gave its name to republics.

- It became notorious.

It became the symbol of all that's wrong

with American capitalism.

- [Narrator] This is an
economic and political tale,

a little story about globalization.

This is the story of a fruit,
a simple fruit, the banana.

(upbeat music)

It all began in 1871, when
the government in Costa Rica

asked a certain Minor
Cooper Keith from New York

to construct a railway.

It was to link the Caribbean coast

to the high plateaus through the jungle.

(explosion blares)

But nothing went as planned.

The jungle was pitiless,
accidents, scorpions, malaria.

4,000 men died for just
40 kilometers of railway.

And when a stock market crash
dragged the world economy

into a depression, credit disappeared.

Costa Rica could no longer pay.

The railway remained unfinished.

Minor was ruined.

He did not yet know
that fortune was in fact

right there at his feet, in
the humid soil of the jungle,

in these unpretentious rhizomes

which he had planted to feed his workers,

in this fruit, this simple fruit
of the tropics, the banana.

The simple food of Costa Rican workers,

the banana appeared at
the turn of the century

in northern markets in the United States.

It was a prized delicacy,

expensive because it
was rare and perishable.

Whoever managed to
transport it quickly enough

before it could ripen and
rot could turn it into gold,

and Minor recognized that.

Very soon, he was exporting bananas.

They saved him from ruin.

He struck an agreement with Costa Rica.

He would finish work on the railway.

In return, he asked for just two things,

the right to operate the
line for his own profit,

and land, lots of it,

land for producing bananas,

trains for transporting
them quickly and cheaply.

This was the start of his fortune.

In 1899, Minor joined forces
with two Boston wholesalers.

He put in his plantations and
his Central American railways.

His associates provided a fleet of ships

and a distribution network
across the United States.

On the 30th of March 1899,

together, they founded
the United Fruit Company.

- My working definition of
a multinational is a company

which owns and controls assets
in more than one country.

I would say it's among the
first of the multinationals

in this kind of like primary
commodity type of business.

And it's really taking the
process of vertical integration

to quite an extreme extent,
including constructing

what's gonna become one of
the biggest shipping fleets

actually in the world and
integrating right down

through to distribution
in the United States.

So it's really quite,
quite extreme at this time.

But they're pioneering
in a more fundamental way

because this company is
actually creating the market

for bananas as well as
pioneering how to deliver

the product to their consumer.

So in 1890, nobody in the United States

really knew what a banana was basically.

By 1914, you can buy bananas

in virtually all big American towns.

- [Narrator] Delicious,
nourishing, full of vitamins.

The United Fruit Company had
a flare for promoting bananas.

Mothers of families were the target.

They published recipes,
solicited pediatricians

who sang their praises.

- Ah.

- [Narrator] Very soon,
Americans could no longer

do without them.

(upbeat piano music)

Imported by the ton, reasonably priced,

they were accessible to everyone.

♪ We have no bananas ♪

Bananas were fragile.

Tempests, flooding, and heatwaves

regularly devastated the plantations.

Bananas could become scarce.

♪ But yes, we have no bananas ♪

♪ We have no bananas today ♪

For Minor and his
associates, it was obvious.

They needed to produce
more, ever more bananas

over a much larger area
right across Central America.

- [Male Narrator] Today's
fast white steamship

travels across the Caribbean with cargoes

more valuable than pirate's gold.

And officers in trim
white uniforms pick up

their golden cargoes from a
place we call Banana Land.

- [Narrator] Banana Land,

this was the Central American nations.

Former Spanish colonies, they
had won their independence

at the beginning of the 19th century.

But the United States
regarded them as its private

hunting ground, a natural
extension of their market.

For the United Fruit Company,
this was one single territory

completely given over to
the production of bananas.

The United Fruit Company kept on growing.

It needed ever more land.

In Panama and Costa Rica, Indian farmers

who had no property rights were evicted.

By cutting the price of
bananas, it threatened to ruin

any small producers who refused to give up

their banana plantations.

Little by little, it took
over hundreds of thousands

of hectares of Central
America's best land.

(Gael speaks in foreign language)

- [Translator] It's exactly what happened

during the land reforms in
Great Britain which began

in the 16th century and carried
on until the 18th century.

You had poor British land workers

who were expropriated in the same way.

There's no other word for it.

The land which they cultivated

started to have fences put up around it.

And by the 18th century,
they had been obliged

to give up their
workforce to the factories

which were beginning to appear.

So in reality, this
movement is at the origin

of contemporary industry and
economy as we know them today.

It was the founding act of
contemporary capitalism.

Did the United Fruit Company

introduce capitalism to Central America?

In any case, it brought in very early on

a certain vision of
development and progress.

The train was at the origin

of the good fortune of Minor Cooper Keith,

the founder of the United Fruit Company.

For the young nations of Central America,

it was synonymous with modernity.

Guatemala wanted its own,
but the country was in debt.

And when the price of coffee,

its primary resource, collapsed,
it could no longer pay.

Their railway was abandoned.

In 1903, Guatemala
turned to the one person

able to save it, Minor Cooper Keith.

Minor agreed to take over the work.

In exchange, as usual, he asked for land

for banana plantations
and the right to operate

the new train for his own profit.

He also acquired control
over the country's main port

as well as the telegraph lines.

And that is how in order to gain a train,

Guatemala gave away to
the United Fruit Company

its infrastructures, its
economy, and its future.

And thus, the company's empire grew

to the detriment of these new
states in search of progress

but with no resources and in debt.

- [Translator] In other
words, more often than not,

the debt of the poor helps
line the pockets of the rich.

Here, you had an attempt
to privatize the totality

of the public sphere
through the debt mechanism,

which reiterated the
fundamental act of expropriation

of common property to pick the land

for the profit of a very small number.

- [Narrator] The banana-producing
countries of the Caribbean

and Central America in
this way bound themselves,

one after the other, to the company.

Each time, it obtained the
right to pay little or no taxes

to the countries in which it operated,

draining their resources even more

and assuring their dependence.

Thousands of letters have been found

on a plantation in Panama, a
massive internal correspondence

which illustrates the
daily life of the company

and its long history of tax avoidance.

A letter from a United Fruit
Company head to his manager.

Panama, October 26th, 1918.

"Dear Mr. Kyes, while having
a chat with the President

"the other day, he asked me
why we were so unfair to Panama

"as to pay her only one
cent per bunch export taxes.

"We talked over the matter
frankly at some length,

"and he finally told me, 'Don't worry,

"'you always have gotten
what you want, my friend.'"

"Signed, Carson McFarland."

Republic of Panama, Presidential Offices,

December 17th, 1918.

"To Mr. McFarland, my dear
friend, I have received

"the draft legislation
concerning tax increases.

"I have sent it to some
deputies who are friends of mine

"so they can introduce the modifications

"which you suggest and
which I have accepted.

"Your friend, Belisario
Porras, President of Panama."

- In the case of the United Fruit,

it had these wonderful tax-free
concessions and things.

But honestly, practically
every Western company

all over Latin America and
Asia had the same conditions.

Basically, they had the bargaining power.

They had the technological
advantage and the money.

These places wanted them,

and the deal was very little taxes.

In our age, tax avoidance,
or tax planning as its called

in business course, has
become a central feature

of business globally, and that's
a quite different situation

from when developing fragile
states in the 19th century

were offering low taxes.

Now it's the core of business.

- [Translator] Obviously, a
multinational may be tempted

to avoid fiscal legislation
in the sovereign countries

where it is set up.

To do this, they employ a method
which is well-known today,

which is the policy of transfer pricing,

which consists of making
profit show up in the accounts

in the most favorable
places in terms of taxation.

This is a political issue.

Do we want these sums of
money to be given back

to the public authorities, to
be used for the common good?

Or do we continue to allow
states' fiscal revenue

to be siphoned off by multinationals?

It's a social issue which
affects the entire planet.

- [Narrator] What a
destiny the banana has,

a simple fruit capable of
conquering a Central American

empire and securing a place
as an exemplary multinational

with a long future ahead of it.

An American writer, O. Henry,
crowned it for posterity.

In his 1904 novel, Cabbages and Kings,

he describes an imaginary state

totally under the thumb
of a fruit company.

And for the occasion,

he crafted the expression banana republic.

Wherever you came across them,
the United Fruit plantations

were in a world apart, a closed world

governed by the laws of the company alone,

a segregated world.

On one side, the white
managers and foremen,

the former, graduates of the
best East Coast universities,

the latter, recruited from the
south of the United States,

bringing with them their
knowledge of slave culture.

The banana plantations were their domain,

an American enclave in the tropics.

They formed an exclusive social entity

with a certain way of life.

Telegram dated the 29th of May, 1919

to the United Fruit Company head office.

"Last lot of laborers
are bad, mostly criminal.

"Cannot use Puerto Rican,
Panama, Nicaragua laborers.

"Continue sending Jamaican laborers."

The laborers on the plantations
constituted the workforce,

a stock which required organizing.

Jamaicans were prized

for their reputed strength and endurance.

They were imported in
their tens of thousands

from the island of Jamaica.

They were herded around from
plantation to plantation.

Amongst the native population,

Indians were relegated to domestic chores.

The Hispanic people aroused suspicion.

The workers which the company preferred

were those who were uprooted,
isolated, and docile.

Unions were forbidden.

A letter from a foreman
to his head office,

the 17th of June, 1924.

"I have been in Bocas del Toro, Panama

"with the United Fruit
Company since June 1911.

"I am familiar with these
laborers and their habits,

"and I know that the least
these Negroes and natives know

"about organization, the
better off they are."

- [Male Narrator] Entire
towns had to be built

by the company to house these workers.

Sometimes large swamps had to be drained.

- [Narrator] The company
avoided taxes but prided itself

on creating whole villages in the jungle.

It housed the laborers and their families,

built dispensaries and hospitals,

opened schools for the
children of its workers.

Salaries were often paid in vouchers,

which laborers could only spend
in the company's own shops

which sold food, clothing,
furniture, and tools.

(Cecile speaks in foreign language)

- [Translator] The United
Fruit way of doing things

was completely in line with the practices

of a lot of directors
of Western companies.

With practices concerning
employees, which at best

were paternalistic, social
protection was privatized.

But not allowing people to form
unions to have a voice means

that from an anthropological
point of view,

you don't recognize the freedom,

the fundamental rights of the person.

You basically deny them part
of what is the human condition.

And perhaps most importantly,
you deny them the capacity

to contribute to the political community

in which they are implicated,

not only because they
receive a certain amount

of material gain but also
because they're an active

participant who takes part
in its transformation.

- [Narrator] Despite the
company controlling every moment

of its employees' lives,
demands started to be made.

For a six-day week and an eight-hour day,

unemployment benefit and
salaries paid in cash.

Throughout Banana Land, anger was growing.

The company became alarmed.

Circular number B21 from
the United Fruit Company

general officers to
banana division managers.

"I am joining a photograph

"for the purpose of familiarizing you

"with the appearance of
Manuel Calix Herrera.

"This man is an agitator
of the worst type,

"anti-American, extremist,
given to writing and preaching

"Red, Bolshevist, and
Communistic propaganda.

"Be on the lookout."

In October 1928, workers at
the Santa Marta plantation

in Colombia went on strike.

Negotiations failed.

Strikers attacked buildings
on the plantation.

The Colombian government sent in the army.

Over 1,000 died.

The suppression of the Santa
Marta strike became known

as the banana massacre, a
fundamental point in history

for Colombia and Central America,

the symbol of state submission
with use of its public forces

to support the interests
of a foreign company.

From then on throughout the Caribbean,

everybody spoke of the Octopus,

the new name for the United Fruit Company.

(upbeat music)

In June 1929, Minor Cooper
Keith, the banana pioneer,

the uncrowned king of Central
America, died in Costa Rica.

The empire he left behind was immense,

100,000 employees, 1,200,000
hectares of plantations.

In 1910, buying up the
British wholesaler, Fyffes,

had opened the doors of Europe to him.

At the time of Minor's death,
the United Fruit Company alone

represented three quarters
of the world's banana trade.

A few competitors survived in the shadows.

The United Fruit Company tolerated them.

They allowed it to avoid
the American anti-trust laws

which forbade monopolies.

The Cuyamel Fruit Company

was the company's principal competitor.

At its head was Samuel Zemurray.

He was tall and gruff, with
a strong Russian accent.

He was seen as a visionary,

capable of making bananas
grow on the most hostile land.

In 1910, he had overturned
the government of Honduras,

which had tried to get in his way,

and he didn't hide the fact.

In Banana Land, this man was a legend.

His was an American destiny.

His story began like so many
others on Ellis Island in 1892.

Samuel Zemurray was 15.

He had left his whole family
in a shtetl in Bessarabia

to try his luck in America.

They say that he tasted his
first banana in Selma, Alabama,

a revelation.

He started out in the docks of Mobile,

a port in the Gulf of Mexico.

That's where he saw the
white ships of United Fruit,

the unloading of bananas,

the wheeling and dealing of the traders.

Samuel learned to spot the
fruit which no one else wanted,

the bananas which were already ripe

and which it was impossible to transport

quickly enough to far off markets.

He made a bulk purchase
for next to nothing.

He hired a wagon, and over
the following three days,

he sold his entire stock on the platforms

of the southern stations
which he passed through.

With this first trip, he earned $40.

(upbeat music)

Sam the Banana Man had arrived.

Samuel Zemurray stood up to
United Fruit for a long time

until his competition became
too troublesome for them.

In November 1929, he accepted a merger.

United Fruit bought out
his company, Cuyamel.

Samuel received $30 million worth

of United Fruit Company shares.

This made him one of the
richest men in the United States

and also United Fruit's
biggest shareholder.

In 1933, he dismissed the
company's Board of Directors

and took single-handed control of affairs.

One magazine of the time ran the headline,

A Jonah Who Swallowed the Whale.

At 56 years of age,

Samuel Zemurray was the
uncontested czar of bananas.

(upbeat music)

An empire cannot stand still.

If it doesn't grow, it falls.

The Second World War
froze international trade,

but with the end of the
war came the promise

of reconstruction, of growth,

of new markets for United Fruits bananas.

To conquer them, Samuel
Zemurray found the right person,

a pioneer of his own kind,
the prince of public relations

and publicity, Edward Bernays.

He was a man with the gift of
being able to fashion reality

according to his clients' wishes.

In the 1920s, it was
this man, Edward Bernays,

who had got American women smoking,

convincing them that the
cigarette was a torch of liberty,

the instrument of their emancipation.

This was during his time

working for the powerful
American Tobacco Company.

In his book entitled Propaganda,
Edward Bernays defended,

in his own words, the conscious
and intelligent manipulation

of the organized habits
and opinions of the masses

by an enlightened minority.

Could it have been his uncle,
Sigmund Freud, who led him

to understand so early on
that in a consumer society,

publicity was the key to
desire, and that consumer desire

could be created, maintained,
and stimulated ad infinitum?

- [Male Narrator] Bananas are
a favorite breakfast fruit

in every home, sliced
over hot or cold cereal,

a way to top off any dish
and help start the day right.

- [Narrator] Samuel Zemurray
was to turn the banana

into the fruit of American dreams.

- [Male Narrator] We
know you like bananas.

♪ I'm Chiquita Banana
and I've come to say ♪

♪ Bananas have to ripen in a certain way ♪

♪ And when they're flecked with brown ♪

♪ And have a golden hue ♪

♪ Bananas taste the bed
and are the best for you ♪

- [Narrator] Miss
Chiquita Banana burst onto

the radio waves and television screens.

She was everywhere.

♪ The way you're looking means
that you are ripe for cooking ♪

♪ I'm Chiquita Banana
and I've come to say ♪

♪ That I rarely use
refrigerators up this way ♪

♪ I'm Chiquita Banana
and I've come to say ♪

♪ That you really shouldn't
treat a fellowman this way ♪

♪ If you like to be
refined and civilized ♪

♪ Your eating habits really
ought to be revised ♪

Her tone of voice and
curvaceous form was similar

to those of the a star of
the time, Carmen Miranda,

the Brazilian in the Tutti-frutti hat

who featured in Hollywood comedies.

This was not by chance.

Carmen Miranda was South
America as the United States

wished to portray it, exotic, eccentric,

but close by, a continuation of itself.

♪ The lady in the Tutti-frutti hat ♪

In the ideal world of
Miss Chiquita Banana,

each banana was calibrated
both by form and by taste.

The company only produced
one variety, the Gros Michel,

tasty, fleshy, resistance,
and therefore, exportable.

Ever more needed to be produced.

- [Male Narrator] But it is not enough

to have the right conditions
for the bananas to flourish.

It is also necessary to fight constantly

the diseases that can
ruin whole plantations.

- [Narrator] On the plantations weakened

by intensive monoculture,
two virulent parasites

were spreading, Panama
disease and Yellow Sigatoka.

Miss Chiquita Banana's swaying hips

couldn't hide the reality.

The empire was rotting from the inside.

Samuel Zemurray had tons
of pesticide poured over

the banana plants relentlessly,
up to 30 times a year.

Those who volunteered
received the best pay.

They were known as the
veneneros, the poisoners.

Very soon, their skin took on a blue tint.

They fell ill.

Dozens died.

- [Male Narrator] See how each bunch

is dipped several times.

Great care is taken to see
that the bunches are clean

before they leave the plantation.

- [Narrator] From 10 years,

the lifetime of a
plantation fell to three.

The infected ones were abandoned.

The jungle was cut down to
create new ones, always more,

as though Central America could be totally

given over to United Fruit.

- [Translator] It's
impressive, because you realize

that it's also a parable
of the perverse effects

of capitalism and the
logic of accumulation.

After all, the logic
intrinsic to capitalism

is the accumulation of
capital, of which there is no

foreseeable end, with the idea
that the resources being used

are available in indefinite,
not to say infinite quantity.

What is sadly wonderful
in this example is seeing

how the company should have
realized that it was not at all

in their interests, and that
it was indulging in completely

criminal practices with regards
to those who were losing

their lives, to carry on
feeding a machine which,

quite apart from the
environmental implications

and consequently, future profits,

from an economic activity
point of view, was useless.

In the end, this self-perpetuating
logic requires someone,

be it a board, an
institution, or a leader,

to step in and say, "Stop everything.

"We need to find another
way of doing things."

(male narrator speaks in foreign language)

- [Narrator] In 1944,
revolution came to Guatemala.

It put an end to the 14-year
reign on the dictator, Ubico,

the best friend of the
United Fruit Company.

Ubico saw himself as the
reincarnation of Napoleon

and was so protective of his
power that he banned the use

of the word strike, petition, and union.

He believed in forced
labor for the poorest

and in the lowest possible salaries.

The agreements which he
signed with United Fruit

were highly favorable for them.

- Multinationals like United Fruit

sought stability for its investments.

Democracies can be very unstable.

I mean there's a reason why
multinational investment

is very low in India, and the
reason is it's a democracy

where there are multiple parties

always sort of checking
deals, negotiating everything.

And that's a veritable
nightmare for multinationals,

and they prefer as they
operate in China, for example,

where provided the Communist Party

approves of your activities,
you'll have a high degree

of stability and things will basically,

you won't run into any sort of trouble.

So I think that's what
multinationals are after,

some sort of security and
stability, and tin pot dictators

or the Communist Party can give you that.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] With its
promise of labor laws,

union rights, and minimum
wage, the Guatemalan revolution

certainly offered no reassurance

concerning the company's business affairs.

In 1951, free elections

brought Colonel Jacobo Arbenz to power.

Despite his Germanic
origins, he had grown up

in the poverty of a high plains village.

He was a white man brought up

amongst Guatemala's underprivileged,
Indians of Maya origin.

Jacobo Arbenz set about
putting into practice

the first promise of the
revolution, land reform

which would redistribute
the land of the large owners

to the small farmers.

But at the top of the list of large owners

with more than two thirds of
the country's agricultural land

was the United Fruit Company.

- [Male Narrator] Almost
two thirds of its population

is of Indian descent living primitively,

barely getting sustenance from the soil

in a nation of many large,
efficiently run plantations

geared to produce maximum profit.

- Arbenz dared to take them on.

By decree, he confiscated
hundreds of thousands

of hectares of land which
the company kept in reserve.

The indemnities were derisory.

They were based on the
company's tax declarations

which had always underestimated the value.

United Fruit had never before
been defied in this way.

In his youth, Samuel
Zemurray had had no qualms

about overturning a
troublesome government.

This time, with no mercenaries
at hand, he once again

turned to the public relations
genius, Edward Bernays.

It was up to him to deal with Arbenz.

Bernays was to employ a technique

of which he was the master,
transforming reality.

He set about turning the
protection of United Fruit's

private interests in
Guatemala into a cause

for the United States, making
the banana a strategic pawn.

Edward Bernays was to create a fiction

for 1950s America
submerged in the Cold War.

- [Male Narrator] In this
Guatemalan town of Esquipulas,

just occupied by anti-government forces--

- [Narrator] Social democrat,
nationalist, reformer,

Jacobo Arbenz was depicted as
a communist pledged to Moscow,

the face of the red peril

which threatened America
versus the free world.

Edward Bernays needed to
win over public opinion.

He opened a Central
American information bureau,

organized press visits, and
suggested themes for articles

to newspaper owners who he was close to.

- So Bernays really understood
it's not what is happening.

It's the story you tell about

what is happening that is the reality.

And that's something he was
greatly admired and studied

in Nazi Germany who
carried (mumbles) truth

to another level, and now
we see in our present world

with social networks and much
else, the story intensifying

with all its severe
consequences for democracy.

But we could already see
where it was going to lead

with episodes like
Bernays and United Fruit.

- [Narrator] The context was right

for Edward Bernays' power play.

In November 1952, the
Republican Dwight Eisenhower

was elected president
of the United States.

- So help you, God.

- [Eisenhower] So help me, God.

- [Narrator] After years
of policies designed

to contain communism, he
advocated a frontal offensive.

He placed two brothers in key posts.

John Foster Dulles became
Secretary of State.

Alan Dulles was put in charge of the CIA.

Both of them had been close legal advisers

to the United Fruit Company.

As for the new Ambassador
to the United Nations,

this was none other than
the flamboyant senator,

Henri Cabot Lodge, a faithful lobbyist

for the company's interests,

whose family were
longstanding shareholders.

These were all people tuned
in to Edward Bernays' message.

- Mr. Dulles, I know you've
heard of this many times,

that there are people who say that we,

with regard to the CIA,
are waging a secret war

with an invisible government.

- We are obviously engaged in many facets

of what is generally called the Cold War

which the communist
policies forced upon us.

But may I say this, and I
do it with all solemnity,

at no time has the CIA engaged

in any political activity
or any intelligence activity

that was not approved
at the highest level.

- [Narrator] In August 1953,

Alan Dulles' CIA began
a new means of attack.

In Iran, it overturned the
government of Mohammad Mosaddegh

who had nationalized his
country's petrol industry.

He was accused of communist collusion.

Petrol before bananas?

The success of the Iranian operation

convinced the Eisenhower administration.

The CIA was given the green light

to take action in Guatemala.

The operation was named Success.

The patient lobbying by
Edward Bernays had born fruit.

(upbeat music)

The CIA chose an opponent

for the Arbenz regime,

Colonel Castillo Armas.

It placed him at the head of
a national liberation army

which it was training.

The plantations of the
United Fruit Company

were used as rear guard bases.

In June 1954, the capital,
Guatemala City, was bombed.

Overpowered, Jacobo Arbenz stood down

on the 27th of June in
a radio announcement.

(Jacobo speaks in foreign language)

Having become president with
support from the United States,

Castillo Armas canceled the measures

taken by the Arbenz government.

Land reform was abandoned.

United Fruit had its lands given back,

but neither stability
nor security returned.

Following the coup de etat,

Guatemala was thrown into civil war

which continued until 1996,
leaving more than 100,000 dead,

a million displaced, and
tens of thousands missing.

The Maya Indians were
the principal victims

with talk of genocide.

- So United Fruit built a highly
successful business model,

and it could not care less

what kind of damage it did to Guatemala.

The Arbenz coup destroyed the country,

ruined it for 50 years.

Now we have a bunch of tech
firms now who have developed

extremely successful business models,

but there is almost no evidence
that they are thinking about

the societal consequences
of what they're doing.

So we know from the last
US presidential election

that Facebook was a massive driver

of fake news, big, big, big time.

So these are really big, really,

really big societal
consequences you can see,

and companies are just
doing their business model

very successfully and have
no way of incorporating,

I think, into their
thinkings the so whats,

what does that mean for society.

And that's what United Fruit
and its equivalents did.

(Gael speaks in foreign language)

- [Translator] The development
of countries of the south

cannot be conferred exclusively
upon private multinationals

who, as long as their
mandate remains to maximize

shareholders' profits,
represent a potential threat

for a number of southern
populations in the sense

that they are always tempted
to privatize all the resources

which communities depend
upon for their livelihood.

This doesn't mean to say
that these multinationals

are not also a part of the solution.

It means they need to be
reorganized with a social objective

as opposed to just maximum
stock market value.

Of course, there are initiatives

which lean in this
direction within the context

of what we might call social
and solidarity economics.

But on the whole, it has to be remarked

that many multinationals still have

a lot of progress to
make in these matters.

- [Narrator] So as not to
jeopardize either its functioning

or its fortune, the United Fruit Company

blocked any reform in Guatemala.

As a result, it became
a focal point for anger.

In January 1959, Cuban
revolutionaries took Havana

and overthrew the Batista regime

supported by the United States.

Ernesto Guevara, the Che,

the lieutenant of Fidel
Castro, was in Guatemala.

He had been radicalized by the
overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz.

He no longer believed in reform.

Revolution needed to be total.

In 1960, Fidel Castro nationalized

all North American businesses.

(Fidel speaks in foreign language)

This time, both Edward Bernays

and Samuel Zemurray were powerless.

The czar of bananas died in 1961.

His empire did not outlive him.

The United Fruit Company disappeared

in successive takeovers and mergers.

It was replaced by Chiquita brands.

Overpowered by disease,

the Gros Michel bananas
which had made its fortune

disappeared at the end of the '60s.

Another banana emerged,

the Cavendish.

It had been developed
by a small competitor,

soon to become an agricultural giant,

the new leader of the banana market, Dole.

(woman vocalizing)

- [Male Narrator] The Dole banana.

If you feel it, peel it.

- [Narrator] According to latest reports,

the Cavendish banana may, in
its turn, be on the way out.

Workers for Dole tried in vain
to have the company condemned

for poisoning by pesticide.

As for Chiquita brands,
the heir to United Fruit,

it was recently in a legal
battle concerning the financing

of paramilitary groups in Colombia.

That was the story of a
fruit, a simple fruit.

(upbeat music)

♪ I'm Chiquita Banana
and I've come to say ♪

♪ Bananas have to ripen in a certain way ♪

♪ When they are flecked with
brown and have a golden hue ♪

♪ Bananas taste the best
and are the best for you ♪

♪ You can put them in a salad ♪

♪ You can put them in a pie-aye-aye ♪

♪ Any way you want to eat them ♪

♪ It's impossible to beat them ♪

♪ But bananas like the climate ♪

♪ Of the very, very tropical equator ♪

♪ So you should never put
bananas in the refrigerator ♪