This story begins in 1928 with bananas. On the Caribbean coast of Colombia, campesinos who are employed by United Fruit are paid less than $1 per day for backbreaking work. They live in filthy hovels. And they die of malaria and tuberculosis. Then they form a union. Then they go on strike and paralyze the exportation of bananas.
General Carlos Cortez Vargas announces in Aracataca at a dinner put on by United Fruit that he will end the strike.
The workers are told that a manager of United Fruit will arrive to accede to their demands, so they gather together to hear the announcement of their victory. Instead of a United Fruit manager, General Cortez Vargas appears. He doesn’t issue a concession. Not at all. He issues instead an ultimatum: get back to work, end the strike right now. Or else.
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