Talk:Banana massacre

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[edit] The Death Toll

There are plenty of conflicting claims about the number of strikers killed. Even though the U.S. telegrams could presumably be more authoritative (though they do little more than present the statements and opinions of the personnel involved, without giving any further details), that still doesn't constitute the final word on the subject. Some quotes that illustrate that a variety of interpretations exist (sorry for the Spanish):

1. Gabriel García Márquez, aka "Gabo", (admitting that he had to exaggerate the number, whichever it was, for the purposes of his novel):

"No podía ceñirme a la realidad histórica. No podía decir que hubo 3, ó 7, ó 17 muertos. Con ellos no llenaría ni un vagón pequeño. Así que me decidí por tres mil muertos porque esto se acomodaba a la dimensión del libro que estaba escribiendo."[1] Juancarlos2004

Babel fish: in his novelada version when he wrote in One hundred years of solitude that the corpses occupied whole wagons of an interminable train. Many continue believing the version of Gabo today, although he himself confessed his own exageración: "it could not fit me to the historical reality. It could not say that there were 3, either 7, or 17 dead ones. With them it would not fill nor a small wagon. So I was decided by three thousand dead ones because this complied to the dimension of the book that was writing." Travb 10:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

2. Elsa Cajiao Cuéllar (claims that the number was closer to 80)...

"Tal es el caso de la Masacre de las bananeras: en Cien años de soledad el número de muertos asciende a tres mil, cuando en realidad estos fueron alrededor de ochenta. Esta última cifra de por sí no disminuye la gravedad del suceso, pero sí pone de manifiesto a dónde puede llevar el "todo vale" de algunos críticos. Juancarlos2004

Babelfish: So it is the case of the Massacre of the bananeras: in One hundred years of solitude the number of deads ascends to three thousands, when in fact these were around eighty. This last number of by himself does not diminish the gravity of the event, but it shows to where it can take the "whole is worth" of some critical. Travb 10:53, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

...and in turn quotes another part of the above "Gabo" statement...

'[...]Fue un problema para mí cuando descubrí que no se trató de una matanza espectacular. En un libro en el que las cosas se magnifican, tal como en Cien años de soledad… necesitaba llenar todo un tren con cadáveres. No podía ceñirme a la realidad histórica. [...] Así que me decidí por 3.000 muertos porque esto se acomodaba a la dimensión del libro que estaba escribiendo. La leyenda ahora se ha aceptado como historia.' Juancarlos2004

Babel fish: (....) It was a problem for me when I discovered that one was not a spectacular slaughter. In a book in which the things are magnified, as in One hundred years of solitude... it needed to fill to everything a train with corpses. It could not fit me to the historical reality (...) So I was decided by 3,000 dead ones because this complied to the dimension of the book that was writing. The legend now has been accepted like historia.Travb 10:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

...plus also mentions the Carbó article (in order to point out that there is a lack of investigative rigor in literary critics that take GGM's version as fact):

En su artículo Fiction as History: the Bananeras and ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ (1998), Posada Carbó demuestra que esa cifra de tres mil muertos es hoy aceptada comúnmente por los críticos literarios como un dato histórico. Y es que tras muchas interpretaciones aparentemente fenomenológicas lo que hay de verdad es falta de rigor en la investigación y excesiva confianza del crítico en su propia intuición."[2] Juancarlos2004

Babel fish: In its Fiction article ace History: the Bananeras and ` One Hundred Years of Solitudé (1998), Carbó Inn demonstrates that that number of three thousands died today is accepted commonly by the literary critical like an historical data. And it is that after many apparently fenomenológicas interpretations what there is really is lack of rigor in the investigation and excessive confidence of the critic in its own intuition. Travb 10:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

3. Germán López Velásquez (claims no more than 50):

"La imaginación exacerbada, la hipérbole y la fantasía, se metieron a narrar la masacre de las bananeras, que a decir verdad, no pasó de más de cincuenta muertos."[3] Juancarlos2004

Babel fish: Although it is certain that the violence in anyone of its forms has been spine of the Colombian sorts, also is it that ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE it presented/displayed a novel methodology to count it. The exacerbada imagination, hipérbole and the fantasy, put to narrate the massacre of the bananeras, that to tell the truth, did not happen of more than fifty dead ones. Travb 10:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

4. 1928 Colombian press sources (There was enormous confusion early on, and claims of "a few dead" or "thousands of dead" co-existed. The quote below is from a 2005 EL TIEMPO article, via Google):

"Hubo enorme confusión en las primeras versiones. Los despachos periodísticos hablaban en unos caos de “miles de muertos” y en otros de “unos pocos muertos y heridos”"[4]

5. David Bushnell in "The Making of Modern Colombia", page 180:

"This proved to be just the start of an all-out campaign of repression that led to an indeterminate number of deaths and to the arrest of the principal strike leaders...The novelist's account need not be taken as literal truth: from sixty to seventy-five seems to be the most authoritative estimate of the death toll. That was certainly bad enough."

Marco Palacios in "Entre la Legitimidad y la Violencia. Colombia 1875-1994", page 120 (points to the fact that the numbers are contradictory: 47 from the Colombian Army General, 1000 from the American consulate in Santa Marta, and 1500 from one of the strike leaders):

"Como casi siempre ocurre en estas tragedias, los números son contradictorios: el general que dirigió la matanza contó 47 muertos en la plaza de Ciénaga y la línea del ferrocarril; el informe del cónsul norteamericano en Santa Marta estimó los muertos en un millar y Alberto Castrillón, uno de los dirigentes de la huelga, en 1.500."

Signed: Juancarlos2004 23:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

thanks for calling me on this Juancarlos2004, after I added the thousands number, I realized that this number may be incorrect, but forgot to go back and correct this. I did not have this page on my watch list either, so I didn't see your message until today.

If you want, you can add these sources to the main page, I simply added a link to the talk page for now. Travb 11:10, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Truth or fiction

I can't read the Spanish - sorry. Are we basing our accounts of the number of people killed and the reasons the army killed them, on a novel or on eyewitness accounts, or what?

I'm not defending US corporations or their stockholders. "People before profits" is my personal motto.

But I'm also not willing to assume the worst about American or Central American businessmen, politicians or military leaders. I want facts, not guesses or prejudices. Most of our readers probably do, also.

Let's clear this up, please. --Uncle Ed 02:43, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Use babelfish to translate: http://babelfish.altavista.com/translate.dyn Travb 10:33, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Huh?

Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas (American Encounters/Global Interactions) by Steve Striffler on Page 219:

"... from the beginning of company operations there calls Tiquisate "the Macondo of Guatemala" in reference to the fictionalized town of Santa Marta, Colombia, immortalized by the writer Gabriel Garda Márquez in One Hundred Years of Solitude.

I think the author doesn't know what he is talking about:

p 219: the novel, despite its studied lunacy, accurately portrays the historical experience of United Fruit abuses and has reached millions of people

Here is another blatant contradiction, from another author:

Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 30, No.2. (May, 1998), pp. 395-414. Fiction as History: The bananeras and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude *:

There is indeed some naivete in the way Cortes Vargas described his decision in taking such a ruthless step. He did not question his course of action: he received news of the decree conferring on him state of siege powers on the night of 5 December; he prepared the troops to face the crowd; at 1:30 in the morning, after some drum beatings, one of his officers gave the crowd five minutes to leave the plaza; then he ordered' Fuego!'.52

1:30 in the morning? Didn't it occur in the afternoon?

Here is another two contradictions:

The Making of Modern Colombia: A Nation in Spite of Itself by David Bushnell, p 194

Matters came to a head on December 6, when in the town of Ciénaga soldiers fired into a mass of strikers, killing by official admission some thirteen people. ..

• The town of Cienaga? why is it called the Santa Marta Massacre?

• 13 dead? when "Fiction as History", which I quoted on the actual page says that the commander who order the killing admitted to killind 47 people.

signed: Travb 10:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)