Guatemala union heads killed despite US trade deal

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Guatemala union heads killed despite US trade deal
Thu Oct 18, 2007 2:32pm EDT

powered by Sphere(Corrects name of company in last two paragraphs from Del Monte Foods Co (DLM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) to Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc (FDP.N: Quote, Profile, Research))

By Mica Rosenberg

MORALES, Guatemala, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Masked gunmen dumped a Guatemalan banana picker's bullet-ridden corpse yards from fields of fruit bound for the United States, a grim reminder of the risks of organizing labor in the Central American country.

Marco Tulio Ramirez, killed last month, was the fifth Guatemalan labor leader murdered this year.

Activists say the deaths show promises to protect labor rights under a U.S. trade pact have changed little at a time President George W. Bush is pressing for similar deals in other Latin American nations with bad labor records.

The Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, was approved by the U.S. Congress in 2005 after a tough battle with Democrats who argued that worker safeguards in the agreement were too weak.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN17372849

[bluerum]

1. Being a friend of the criminal bush gang is bad for your health. eom

[aquart]

2. Are we sure BushCo didn't kill them?

Because they like out of town tryouts.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Far easier to believe. The Republican Party controlled Guatemala through the United Fruit Company,

down to violently overthrowing the democratically elected populist President Arbenz in 1954:

A "killing field" in the Americas:
US policy in Guatemala

~snip~
United Fruit, Eisenhower and the end of reform

United Fruit was a state within the Guatemalan state. It not only owned all of Guatemala's banana production and monopolized banana exports, it also owned the country's telephone and telegraph system, and almost all of the railroad track. In addition to redistributing United Fruit land, the government also began competing with United Fruit in the production and export of bananas.

Important people in the ruling circles of the US, involved with United Fruit Company, used their influence to convince the US government to step in. (Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' law firm had prepared United Fruit's contracts with Guatemala; his brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles, belonged to United Fruit's law firm; John Moors Cabot, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, was the brother of a former United Fruit president; President Eisenhower's personal secretary was married to the head of United Fruit's Public Relations Department.)

In 1954, Eisenhower and Dulles decided that Arbenz finally had to go, and the US State Department labeled Guatemala "communist". On this pretext, US aid and equipment were provided to the Guatemalan Army. The US also sent a CIA army and CIA planes. They bombed a military base and a government radio station, and overthrew Arbenz Guzmán, who fled to Cuba.

The coup restored the stranglehold on the Guatemalan economy of both the landed elite and US economic interests. President Eisenhower was willing to make the poor, illiterate Guatemalan peasants pay in hunger and torture for supporting land reform, and for trying to attain a better future for themselves and their families. In order to ensure ever-increasing profits for an American corporation, the US State Department, the CIA, and United Fruit Company had succeeded in taking freedom and land from Guatemala's peasants, unions from its workers, and hope for a democratic Guatemala from all of its people.
(snip/...)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/US_Guat.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's a hideous history, and something anyone who hasn't heard about should research as soon as possible whenever the time allows.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Similar to Colombia--where Bush foreign policy, "free trade" and the murderous

"war on drugs" have also completely corrupted the government, with well-armed, rightwing death squads free to torture, murder and 'disappear' union organizers, small peasant farmers and political leftists, in the thousands.

50 leftist candidates, their campaign workers or family members have been assassinated in the current election campaigns in Guatemala--a further result of Bush foreign policy, "free trade" and the murderous "war on drugs." And the drugs keep coming, and our jobs and services and lives keep deteriorating here as well.

Time to CONNECT THE DOTS.

[noel adamson]

5. 'Twas ever thus. That's why they are called Banana Republics

Smedly Butler, Medal of Honor winning Marine Corp General, was approached by members of America's industrial elite who wanted him to lead a 500,000 veteran march on Washington to take military control of the (hated) FDR government on the pretense, as usual, of a "national emergency". He refused saying he would have nothing to do with anything that smacked of fascism. He blew the whistle on them and should have received another medal of honor for doing so in my opinion; He understood what fascism meant, and how dangerous it was/is having been involved at the forefront of it's murderous enforcement mechanism.

"I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers* in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras "right" for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.... Looking back on it, I felt I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents. " -Smedley Butler

*The same Brown Brothers that later owned Prescott Bush as Brown Brothers Harriman when he managed their front company Union Banking Corporation which financed much of Hitler's military machine in the '30s and 40s.</div>

[Omaha Steve]

6. It seems the same few only care about this issue

What a shame.

[NYC]

7. If by "the same few" you mean the people who respond,

you should not be disheartened. Some people read without responding.

For instance, I often recommend your labor threads, but rarely respond to them.