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Globalization, Labor, and Violence in Colombia's Banana Zone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2007

Aviva Chomsky
Aviva Chomsky
Affiliation:
Salem State College
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Abstract

This article examines how globalization and violence have shaped workers' organizations in the Urabá banana zone in northern Colombia from the 1960s to the present. Early unions found allies in leftist political and guerilla organizations. The banana growers relied on the neoliberal state and rightist paramilitaries to unleash an extraordinary wave of violence to crush the leftist unions. They also wooed the right within the unions by pleading a set of common interests in reforming the global banana trade to the benefit of Colombian producers. By the 1990s, a newly right-dominated union in Urabá proved adept at labor-management collaboration in the interest of their joint regional stake in the industry, but it also promoted international labor unity aimed at pressuring banana transnationals to accept minimum labor standards.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , Fall 2007 , pp. 90 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © The International Labor and Working-Class History Society 2007

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References

NOTES

1. See Mark Anner, “Forging New Labor Activism in Latin American Export Industries,” in this issue.

2. For a summary of the recent literature, see Roldán, Mary, Blood and Fire: La Violencia in Antioquia, Colombia (Durham, NC, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Introduction.

3. Marcelo Bucheli documents an overall trend to pull out of direct production in the 1960s, due in part to the Guatemalan revolution of 1944--54 and the Cuban revolution of 1959. See Bucheli, , “United Fruit Company in Latin America,” in Striffler, Steve and Moberg, Mark, eds., Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas (Durham, NC, 2003), 80–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In Costa Rica, the company relied on contract farmers from the beginning of the twentieth century. See Chomsky, Aviva, West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870–1940 (Baton Rouge, 1996)Google Scholar.

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10. Martin and Steiner, “El destino de la frontera,” 71; Verificadora, Comisión, “Informe de la Comisión Verificadora de los Actores Violentos en Urabá,” in Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular, Urabá (Bogotá, 1995), 14Google Scholar.

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12. Martin and Steiner, “El destino de la frontera,” 64.

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14. Pearce, Inside the Labyrinth, 251; Botero, Urabá, 81.

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16. Martin and Steiner, “El destino de la frontera,” 63.

17. Botero and Sierra, El mercado de fuerza de trabajo, 150; Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 44.

18. Botero, Urabá, 81.

19. Ramírez Tobón, Urabá, 43.

20. Botero, Urabá, 100.

21. Pearce, Inside the Labyrinth, 252.

22. Pearce, Inside the Labyrinth, 252; Botero, Urabá, 156, 161.

23. Romero, “Los trabajadores bananeros,” 6.

24. Botero, Urabá, 142.

25. Ibid., 161.

26. Ibid., 156.

27. Ibid., 164.

28. Ibid., 163.

29. Ibid., 164–65.

30. Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 40.

31. Pearce, Inside the Labyrinth, 252–253.

32. Luis Asdrúbal Jiménez Vaca, “Communication No. 859/1999” to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva: http://www.unhcr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/O/b8708c80cebeac9ec1256c1b0004c520f?Opendocument.

33. Botero and Sierra, El mercado de fuerza de trabajo, 93.

34. Ibid., 108.

35. Ibid., 116–17.

36. Ibid., 130, 132.

37. See Anner, “Forging New Labor Activism.”

38. Colombian historian Gonzalo Sánchez went so far as to call Colombia a “country without a state.” Gonzalo, Sánchez G., “Introduction: Problems of Violence, Prospects for Peace,” in Bergquist, Charles, Peñaranda, Ricardo, and Gonzalo, Sánchez G., eds., Violence in Colombia, 1990–2000: Waging War and Negotiating Peace (Wilmington, DE, 2001), 3Google Scholar.

39. Botero, Urabá, 35, 50–51.

40. Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 39. Sandoval cites a tax evasion rate of between fifty and seventy percent between 1977–1981, Gloria Cuartas, 181.

41. Sandoval, Gloria Cuartas, 179.

42. Ibid., 183.

43. Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 51–52.

44. Ramírez Tobón, Urabá, 71–72.

45. Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 160-61.

46. Botero, Urabá, 144, 146. Colombia's third major guerrilla group, the Cuban-inspired National Liberation Army (ELN), did not establish a presence in Urabá.

47. Romero, “Los trabajadores bananeros,” 7. The EPL's 1980 Congress concluded that “armed struggle should not be confined to marginal and agrarian zones, but rather linked decisively to the industrial and agricultural proletariat” (Botero, Urabá, 172). The EPL worked to recruit Sintagro leaders, like Argemiro and Hernán Correa. Argemiro joined the EPL in 1983. Villarraga and Plazas, Para reconstruir los sueños, 205.

48. Romero, “Los trabajadores bananeros,” 6.

49. Pearce, Inside the Labyrinth, 136–37, 141.

50. Ibid., 143–144. See also Carlos A. Rodríguez D. and Benjamín Rizzo Madrid, “Retrospectiva del movimiento sindical,” http://www.cut.org.co/pdf/sidicalismomundo.pdf; Rafael Carbonell Blanco Lucy Erazo Coronado, Hacia una central sindical unitaria (Bogotá, 1987)Google Scholar.

51. CUT, “Declaración de Principios,” reproduced in Carbonell Blanco and Erazo Coronado, Hacia una central sindical unitaria, 253–254.

52. Romero, “Los trabajadores bananeros,” 7. On the negotiations, accord and creation of the Patriotic Union, see Pearce, Inside the Labyrinth, 175.

53. Botero, Urabá, 170.

54. Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 52–53; 56–67.

55. Romero, “Los trabajadores bananeros,” 7; Pearce, Inside the Labyrinth, 253.

56. Pearce, Inside the Labyrinth, 253, Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 58.

57. Ramírez Tobón, Urabá, 117, citing local interviews with union leaders.

58. Botero, Urabá, 176–79.

59. Ramírez Tobón, Urabá, 130.

60. Medina, Medófilo, “Violence and Economic Development: 1945–50 and 1985–88,” in Violence in Colombia: The Contemporary Crisis in Historical Perspective, ed. Bergquist, Charles, Sánchez, Gonzalo and Peñaranda, Ricardo, (Wilmington, DE, 1992), 162Google Scholar.

61. Romero, “Los trabajadores bananeros,” 8. Pearce argues that the coincidence of the peace process and union gains led to increased employer recalcitrance and violence. Inside the Labyrinth, 253.

62. Romero, “Los trabajadores bananeros,” 9; Uribe, M.T., Urabá: región o territorio? Un análisis en el contexto de la política, la historia y la etnicidad (Apartadó, 1992), 251–256Google Scholar; Martin and Steiner, “El destino de la frontera,” 76.

63. Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 104.

64. Romero, “Los trabajadores bananeros,” 8.

65. Pearce, Inside the Labyrinth, 253.

66. Medina, “Violence and Economic Development,” 162; Botero, Urabá, 154.

67. Botero, Urabá, 169.

68. Botero, Urabá, 155.

69. Dick Emanuelsson, “Los Mochacabezas se volvieron pacifistas?” La Fogata (November 2003), http://www.lafogata.org/003latino/latino11/co_mocha.htm; Romero, “Los trabajadores bananeros,” 3.

70. Comisión Verificadora, “Informe,” 17; Botero, Urabá, 169.

71. Comisión Verificadora, “Informe,” 17.

72. Pearce, Inside the Labyrinth, 254; “Colombia: Politics and Violence,” Latin American Weekly Report 89–45, November 16, 1989.

73. Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 40.

74. United Press International, “11 die in Medellín weekend violence,” October 23, 1989; “Colombia: Politics and Violence,” Latin America Weekly Report 89–45, November 16, 1989; Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 42.

75. “Colombia: Lower Growth Rates this Year and Next,” Latin America Weekly Report 89–46, November 23, 1989. This article cites an Urabá bishop as identifying seventy political homicides in the previous year; the bishop of Apartadó identified 662 murders in the previous year. Stan Yarbro, Associated Press Dispatch, December 4, 1989.

76. “Banana Strike is Over,” Latin America Weekly Report 89–49, December 14, 1989; Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 40–41.

77. See Anner, “Forging New Labor Activism.”

78. Human Rights Watch, Guerra sin cuartel: Colombia y el derecho internacional humanitario (New York, 1998)Google Scholar, Part V, Part IV.

79. Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 155. For a detailed description of the “banana wars” see Laura T. Raynolds, “The Global Banana Trade,” in Striffler and Moberg, eds., Banana Wars, 23–47.

80. Sandoval, Gloria Cuartas, 179.

81. Ramírez Tobón, Urabá, 59.

82. Villarraga and Plazas, Para reconstruir los sueños, 390–392.

83. Human Rights Watch, Guerra sin cuartel, Part V, Part IV; Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 119.

84. “Social Pact,” Latin America Weekly Report 91–16, May 2, 1991.

85. “Pacto Social, Urabá, Colombia,” Medellín, April 1991, Cited in Ramírez Tobón, Urabá, 65.

86. Ramírez Tobón, Urabá, 64.

87. Villarraga and Plazas, Para reconstruir los sueños, 393.

88. Ibid., 458.

89. Ramírez Tobón, Urabá, 59–60.

90. Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 62; Romero, “Los trabajadores bananeros,” 9–10.

91. Villarraga and Plazas, Para reconstruir los sueños, 393.

92. Ibid., 473.

93. Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 109–110.

94. Ibid., 109–110.

95. María Victoria Uribe A., , Ni canto de gloria, ni canto fúnebre: El regreso del EPL a la vida civil (Bogotá, 1994), 49–50Google Scholar.

96. Cited in Villarraga and Plazas, Para reconstruir los sueños, 486.

97. Comisión Verificadora, “Informe,” 34.

98. Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 61.

99. Comisión Verificadora, “Informe,” 35.

100. Comisión Verificadora, “Informe,” 25; Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 116.

101. Comisión Andina, Informes regionales, 123.

102. Ibid., 130.

103. Ibid., 133–34.

104. Romero, “Los trabajadores bananeros.”

105. Comisión Verificadora, “Informe,” 32.

106. John Otis, “Critics Question Chiquita's Claim that it was Forced to Pay Colombian Paramilitaries,” Houston Chronicle, April 2, 2007; “Bananas, Bungs and Bombs: How Chiquita's Payments to Terrorists Blew Up in its Face,” Lloyd's List, March 28, 2007.

107. Comisión Verificadora, “Informe,” 32.

108. Comisión Verificadora, “Informe,” 39. By the middle of 1995 some 100 demobilized EPL members had become DAS agents (Sandoval, Gloria Cuartas, 189).

109. Sandoval, Gloria Cuartas, 240–241.

110. Ibid., 241.

111. Romero, “Los trabajadores bananeros,” 11.

112. “Finalizó paro bananero en Urabá,” El País (Cali, Colombia), May 23, 2002: http://elpais-cali.terra.com.co/paisonline/notas.Mayo232002/bananeros.html.

113. UITA, “Huelga bananera en Urabá,” May 19, 2004: http://www.rel-uita.org/campanias/uraba-2004/articulos/huelga-uita.htm.

114. Emanuelsson, “Los mochacabezas.” The proreferendum declaration signed by Sintrainagro is reproduced on the Colombian government website. See CNE, “Organizaciones sindicales de Antioquia invitan a votar el referendo,” September 26, 2003: www.presidencia.gov.co/cne/2003/septiembre/26/19262003.htm.

115. Osvaldo Cuadrado Simanca and Luis Guillermo Peña Restrepo, “San José de Apartadó requiere de una solución integral,” press release, April 7, 2005: http://www.rel-uita.org/sindicatos/comunicado_sintrainagro-7-4-2005.htm. See also the February, 2005 press release categorically contradicting Gloria Cuartas's protest that the Army was responsible for the massacre: http://www.rel-uita.org/campanias/sintrainagro-2005/notas/comunicado_sintrainagro.htm.

116. Frank, Dana, Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 63Google Scholar.

117. See “IUF/COLSIBA Agreement on Freedom of Association, Minimum Labor Standards and Employment in Latin American Banana Operations,” June 2001, http://www.usleap.org/Banana/Chiquita/Chiquita-IUF-COLSIBAAgreementText.html.

118. Lone Riisgaard, “The IUF/COLSIBA-Chiquita framework agreement: A case study” ILO Working Paper, Geneva, n.d. (2003 or 2004), 94: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/multi/download/wp94.pdf. Interestingly, this study only evaluates the results of the agreement in Central America, not Colombia. The author does note that left-wing unions in Guatemala (UNISTRAGUA) maintained a comparable suspicion of the IUF because of its history of affiliating with the right, including employer-dominated “yellow” unions (16).

119. See www.bananalink.org.uk; www.usleap.org. Bananalink cites Colombian companies as having “one of the best records” in the world “for negotiating collective agreements with the workers,” www.bananalink.org.uk/companies/companies.htm.

120. See Joint Press Release, “IUF, COLSIBA and Chiquita sign historic agreement on trade union rights for banana workers,” June 14, 2001; “Chiquita tries high road,” at http://www.usleap.org/Banana/bananatempnew.htm.

121. Anne Claire Chambron, “Can Voluntary Standards Provide Solutions?” International Banana Conference 2 Preparatory Papers, 104, 106: http://www.ibc2.org/images/stories/textibc/finadoc.pdf.

122. John Bird, Bill Fairbairn, Carl Hetu, Rick Kitchen, Ken Luckhardt, David Onyalo, Don Smith, Paul Smith, “Report of the Canadian Trade Union Delegation to Colombia,” February 1998: http://www.colombiasupport.net/199802/canadaunion.html.

123. Smith, Alistair, “Growing in Unity: Union Peace Strategy Works in Urabá, Colombia, Banana Industry.” New Internationalist (December 2001), 28–29Google Scholar.

124. Romero, “Los trabajadores bananeros.”

125. Ibid., 15.

126. Ibid., 15.

127. Otis, “Critics question Chiquita's claim.”

128. Reuters, “Colombia ‘good model’ for Afghan drug war, U.S. says,” January 19, 2007: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldnews&storyID=2007-01-20T010936Z_01_N19329346_RTRUKOC_0_US-COLOMBIA-AFGHAN-DRUGS.xml.