-Ariane Goldsmith, Fair Trade Intern 

 

After studying environmental justice for a few years, I have come to understand that the majority of production under capitalism is exploitative and deadly. Learning about so many case studies exposing environmental injustices all over the world has ingrained the "disappointed but not surprised" attitude in my mind. Still, every time I learn about another example of how capitalism and human greed has let us down, I feel even more committed to the movement toward justice. The 2014 documentary Banana Land: Blood, Bullets and Poison exposes the atrocities committed by Chiquita Brands International and other multinational corporations like Dole Food Company and Del Monte Foods. 

 

These corporations create banana republics (countries with economies that rely on the exportation of resources for foreign corporations) in the Global South. The film begins with the story of banana plantations in Colombia in the early 20th century and the consequent Santa Marta Massacre on December 6, 1928. On this day, banana workers were protesting their unjust working conditions when the United Fruit Company (Chiquita's predecessor), the Colombian government, and the United States embassy labeled the protesters as "communists and radicals" and justified murdering over 1000 people in the crowd. This massacre set the stage for the injustices that continue today in banana republics.  

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