Number 55: China 1986

Dispatches from a quarantined city: Waiting for Godot 

On January 23rd, 2020, the chinese government reacted to the outbreak of COVID-19 with a total lock-down of the province of Hebei and in particular its capital, Wuhan, where the virus had originally first appeared in the seafood market. In total 57 million people were affected in Hebei, and 11 million in Wuhan. To completely lock away a city of that size was a measure unprecedented in history. The lock-down of Wuhan would last for 76 days. 

Socialist statue at the car ramp to the Yangtse bridge in Nanjing

“the true test of a country’s level of civility has nothing to do with building the tallest skyscraper or driving the fastest car, nor does it matter how advanced your weapons system is or how powerful your military might be; it is also not about how advanced your technology is or even your artistic achievements, and it is especially not related to how lavish your official government meetings are or how splendid your firework displays are, or even how many rich Chinese tourists you have buying up different parts of the world. There is only one true test, and that is how you treat the weakest and most vulnerable members of your society.” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary) 

Party poster in the city center of Chengdu

After the lock-down started, Fang Fang, a renowned 65 year old writer and long time resident of Wuhan started to write daily posts which she published on social media, a diary which would eventually have 60 entries and later was translated into English by Michael Berry and published in book-form under the titel “Wuhan diaries: Dispatches from a quaratined city“. 

„We have closed our doors so that everybody can continue with their lives“ (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary) 

Market hall in Leshan and sale of meat in the streets 

During the 76 days Fang Fang basically stayed in her apartment with her old dog. The first important topic of the diary deals with the consequences of the isolation. How to get supplies while avoiding to go outside. Shops, many supermarkets and even some pharmacies were closed or were out of necessities like face masks. While the masks were mandatory they were not available. Online shopping only gradually became possible. Donations started to come in from other parts of China which were less affected. Neighbourhood comities started to take care of orders and distribution. After people were closed up in their apartments some had to wait until the middle of the night for their turn to pick up their groceries in the courtyard or lift them up to their balcony in baskets. Fang’s dog started to stink and the apartment became messier by the day. 

“During times of stability, our lives are ordinary and routine, and the peace and quiet of the monotonous everyday gradually conceals the great kindness and the horrific evil that humans are capable of.” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary) 

In the streets of Leshan

In the beginning the hospitals and their staff in Wuhan were overwhelmed by the outbreak. People were waiting in long queues at the hospital entrance to be admitted. Some died in the waiting queue or in the hospital after being admitted because there were no doctors to attend them. Hospital staff turned sick and died. The diary gives an insight in the timeline how the epidemic was managed. After the city had been closed auxiliary hospitals were constructed quickly. Since the virus did not get out of control outside Hebei province it was possible to call medical staff from other provinces to assist the overworked staff in Hebei and Wuhan. 

Dumpling kitchen 

“This outbreak has exposed so many different things. It has exposed the rudimentary level of so many Chinese officials, and it has exposed the diseases running rampant through the very fabric of our society. These are diseases that are much more evil and tenacious than the novel coronavirus. Moreover, there is no cure in sight. That is because there are no doctors willing to treat this disease.” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary) 

Street kitchen

Fang Fang never raises any doubts that the measures in their full extent and hardness were justified. However, her doubts increase with every diary entry why the administration was so slow in reacting to the outbreak. Why did it take 20 days until the government reacted? How could they organise a dinner for 40.000 party members without taking any precautions? The management of Wuhan central hospital forbade the spread of information about the seriousness of the outbreak and the situation in the hospital. Staff in the hospital were insufficiently protected. In consequence many specialists, nurses and managers got ill and eventually died. The property of the diseased was disposed of without giving their relatives a chance of retrieving items like mobile phones. Fang Fang does not criticize the measures when they were eventually taken, but the stubbornness of officials who tried to play down and ignore the outbreak initially and then reacted with a severity which did not take into account individual cases of hardship. 

“It’s controllable and preventable” 

“It’s not contagious between people” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary, citing officials after the outbreak of the virus) 

Reading stall in the street

The diary entries become more and more outspoken. This provoked the censorship. Her Weibo account was blocked. However, her posts on WeChat were forwarded faster than the reaction of censors. Some posts were read 20 million times. The posts also reached the outside world, and Michael Berry, professor at the department of Asian languages and Culture, started to translate them into english for publication in a book. This sparked a flood of mails from what Fang Fang calls the left wing boneheads of the chinese administration. But she is not silenced but fights back. She argues that her posts are immortalized by these reactions. They have been read and their content is spread by the boneheads themselves. And she gets help from officials in Beijing. Soon some of the incompetent bureaucrats in Wuhan and Hebei are dismissed. But others stay and they do not flinch. 

“Concealment is the brother of censorship” 

“Nobody ever tells you what rules you have broken to be censored” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary) 

“The core of my philosophy boils down to independent thinking“ 

(Zhu Rongji, chinese premier 1998-2003) 

Finally the first positive news starts to come in. Restrictions are lifted, first in the rest of China outside Hebei, than in other towns of Hebei outside Wuhan. But the severe lock-down in Wuhan continues even after the numbers of infections in Wuhan go down. There are sufficient beds in the regular hospitals and the auxiliary hospitals are closed. The helping hands from other provinces are sent back home. As a gratification they are sent on leave to attractive vacation spots in safe parts of China or get lifetime free admission and accommodation to visit the top scenic attractions in the area. “These were the people who saved our lives”. But still the Wuhanese had to wait for the restrictions to be lifted. Many of the poor people living of their daily income from petty jobs were close to starvation. 

Woman sewing in the streets of Leshan

“When you are in the zone you do not always see all the things around you” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary) 

Old man regulating the traffic at an intersection in Leshan

Wuhan is a town on the Yangtze river about halfway between Shanghai and Chongking. With 6300 km from the Tibetean Plateau to the China Sea the Yangtze is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China, and is home to nearly one-third of the country's population. Under the tributaries of the Yangtse are the Jinjiang river which passes through the megacity of Chengdu and the Min and Dadu rivers which have their confluence at the town of Leshan. Both are in the province of Sichuan. I will recite an extract from the part of my diary about Leshan which I think gives a good impression about the life in china 35 years ago. 

“The place Wuhan has always been referred to as “river town” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary) 

Sampans on the Min river in Leshan

The town of Leshan is famous for what supposedly is the world’s biggest Buddha statue. The statue of 73 m of height was hacked out of the sandstone in the 8th century and guards the confluence of the rivers in the hope it would calm the waters. Indeed, when we arrive, the floods are calm. As is the misty and smoky air above the town, which will not leave us for the rest of our stay in Sichuan. You can smell the air pollution. We read in China daily that even the government is finally aware that that is a problem. They announce that they want to get rid of the 17 yellow dragons around Shanghai…. The 17 big factory chimneys emitting a cloud of brown-yellow smoke. 

“Don‘t leave the world in the hands of the bastards“ (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary) 

Different types of Sampans

We arrive on a bus from the foot of Emei Shan, which is close (corona story number 22). The schedule announced a bus ride of 1.5 h, but the driver, whom we christened “wang the terrible”, managed to do it in an hour. No mercy for the weak. In wavy lines he curves around the obstacles on the road without the slightest reduction of speed. He only briefly stops when a cyclist is hit. Too many of them anyway. The road under construction is terrible and it must even be worse for a cyclist. Road construction means they first deposit a layer of stones the size of a fist on the road and wait until traffic has evenly distributed them. Next is a layer of pebbles witch is distributed in a similar way, then sand and finally the tarmac. Everything is done by hand, there are no machines except of the dangerous looking three wheeled tractors powered by an unsecured transmission belt which can jump into the drivers face any moment. Sometimes these tractors are so overloaded that the only axle breaks. 

Sampan being pulled upriver in Leshan

Leshan is a small town for chinese standards. Streets lined with leafless trees. Mostly buildings with one wooden upper floor. Clothes hang in the trees to dry. Regardless the chill old people sit in bamboo chairs in front of their houses. Most of the little businesses operate on the street in open air. Dumplings are fried or cooked, bicycles repaired. Fried ducks and pig legs hang in the windows or trees. Somebody sells rat poison. Pelts lie on the table, promoting the effectiveness of the poison? In a desolate ruin we meet a painter with a crippled hand. He runs a calligraphy workshop. We buy paintings, brushes and ink pots. People wave at us, smile and point us out to their children. At the street corners old men with blue outfit regulate the traffic which basically is limited to cyclists and pedestrians and shout at everybody though megaphones who does not observe the unknown rules. 

Customers in the teagarden along the river in Leshan

“The head of our thinking has to rest on our own shoulders” (Yang Huang, chinese writer) 

Cook of the teagarden washing her vegetables in the foamy flood of the Min river in Leshan

There is a teagarden above the river. Once we have bought a cup of tea the waitress keeps coming to pour fresh boiling water on the leaves. A pleasant place to watch the life on the river. Next to the bank the greenish brown flood carries a thick layer of foam from a factory upstream. The cook of the teagarden washes her spring onions in the foam. We resist the temptation to order lunch and stay with the tea. We read that fish is getting scarce in the Yangtse because of pollution and overfishing. On the river primitive looking sampans. Those without engines have to be pulled upriver against a considerable current along a kind of dam. Otherwise they are poled upstream. The shippers live under a bamboo cover on the boat. Loading is done with baskets carried over the shoulder on a long pole. 

“Humans are quite tough after all” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary) 

The big Buddha of Leshan

The Buddha across the river can be reached by ferry. A sampan serves as docking pier. A family lives in a wooden hutch on the prow of the sampan. We see four beds and a cooking spot. That is all they have. The area on the other side of the river is overrun by noisy chinese tourists taking loads of pictures. Some are Italian. Besides the giant buddha there are some pagodas and temples. I wonder how this has developed almost 40 years later. There aren’t hardly any tourists in the town proper. 

The foot of the Buddha

In the section about Leshan in my diary of the time I reflect about the live of the ordinary, working class Chinese. There is little pleasure and distraction. No vacation. It is not surprising that people are so curious when they see a foreign tourist. It is one of the few distractions. Few people have any property to speak of. In the few shops which have got them, televisions and stereo sets are surrounded by big crowds. Although all the hotel rooms have a television, few people seem to be able to afford one. Instead they flock to the public reading stands in the streets, sit down and read one of the paperbacks on display. People seem to love reading and even do so while walking in the streets. The teagardens are a recent development and also the drinking hall with chequered plastic table cloths and plastic flowers on the tables, where we sit and have a disgusting milky sweet lukewarm drink. Big loudspeakers connected to a measly cassette deck produce a terrible, distorted sound. On the walls posters promoting cognac with, unthinkable for the prudish chinese society of the time, scantily clad women. Obviously this place is too modern for a little town like Leshan. The locals have a short look inside, then carry on. Or they know how bad the drinks are. 

“We do not want to cause trouble, we want to earn a living” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary) 

Photo masks and a photographer taking pictures with the giant Buddha in the background

But the number of “luxury” items for sale is increasing. There are sweets, cookies, cakes, tee and waffles. The consumption increases. The newspaper announces a 38% increase in average income for the next 5 year plan. 

Street cafe in Leshan

And there is the opulent food. At daytime we frequently stop at one of the foodstalls in the streets to have dumplings, which are especially delicious in Leshan. For dinner we meet a scottish couple working at the british school in Beijing. They know how to order the specialities. Fish, eel with spring onions, chicken with mushrooms and spicy pork with spring onions, vegetable and peanuts. Everything is flavoured with a spice called Mali, new to us. The warm dishes come with sides of “mali-ed” peanuts, seasoned cold slices of beef and a kind of cider which very much tastes like more. 

In the streets of Leshan

To get back to the hotel we have to survive in the sparsely lit streets. The ubiquitous cyclists have no lights. In fact, light on cars was forbidden until recently in china inside cities to avoid to blind the cyclists. The inside of buses is unlit. 

“The prevalent and most fundamental mission of a writer is to vanquish falsehoods, bear testimony to the truth of history and restore dignity to mankind” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary) 

The big bridge across the Yangtse in Nanjing, railway below, road above 

On its way to Shanghai the Yangtse passes the town of Nanjing. The river always was a divide between the northern and southern parts of China. For a long time there were no bridges across the floods of the Yangtse between the town of Yibin in Sichuan and the mouth at Shanghai, a distance of almost 2000 km. Ferries were needed to cross. Eventually, in 1955-1957, with Soviet help, the first bridge across the Yangtse was built in Wuhan and a second in Chongking in 1959. The first, very similar road-rail, bridge over the lower reaches of the river was finished in Nanjing in 1971. The Russians had taken the plans with them after the rift with the Chinese over the doctrinal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism. The railway part of the bridge is 6772 m long. It finally closed the gap between of China’s most important railway between Shanghai and Beijing. Since the bridge was finished without Soviet help it was seen as the first big achievement and success of an independent communist China under Mao Tse-Tung. 

“You need to quarantine the virus, not the people” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary) 

River boats on the Yangtse in Nanjing

The reaction of the Chinese government to the virus was as late as radical. The intention was to get rid of the virus for good, exterminate it. And they did, for the time. Australia and New Zealand followed the chinese approach. This in contrast to most other democratic governments who try to seek a compromise between restrictions, economy and the freedom of the population. After Wuhan reopened on April 8th of 2020, life resumed. The number of reported cases of new infection in china stayed consistently low. While the rest of the world is fighting with a second or third wave, with problems in vaccination campaigns and incredible economic losses due to restrictive measures still ongoing after almost one year, social life and economy in China is thriving. Anybody who has doubts about the usefulness and necessity of restrictive measures should read this diary. Even so Fang Fang never draws any comparison there is absolutely no doubt left that only a consequent and forceful reaction on the outbreak can limit the spread.

“For a strong and acute virus like that nothing short of a complete containment can stop the spread” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary)

Laundry drying on a Sampan

A lot of questions similar to those asked by Fang Fang have to be raised against western administration. Why did they not raise earlier and heavier restrictions even so it was entirely clear from the chinese experiences that was going on​? Why can people still travel freely to and from places like South Africa, Brazil or inside Europe and there are few precautions like a lock-up quarantine in a hotel after return? Why did or even does it take such a long time to make masks compulsory? Why can people just leave quarantine without being checked or fined? In Wuhan everybody, even those with suspected infections were put into forced, guarded isolation. The flaw of the western system is that virus management is more a topic for the profiling of ambitious politicians than the actual taking of the measures which are really needed. The vaccination process will take many years. The shaky reaction of the western society already has and will cause more mutations which eventually will be resistant against the vaccination. It also raises more and more resistance the longer the restrictive measures last. The way how they deal with this crises is bound to lead to the creation of a permanent problem.

While huge amounts of money evaporates in economic losses it could better have been spent in immediate investments in a health care that is suitable to counter a virus attack. What China has done by resorting to resources from other parts of the country the western societies should do by training new staff, buying equipment and building hospitals. Why many of these countries maintain a useless military costing many billions annually, nobody ever has considered a standing emergency health force.

“The lives of 9 million people is more important than some privacy” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary)

Food stalls under the ramp to the bridge in Nanjing

One year after the first outbreak in Germany there is no sign for an end of the epidemic in the western world. This raises a big question mark about the efficiency of the measures taken in the countries of the democratic societies. Maybe even about the ability of the “free world” to cope with great challenges. There is an inherent flaw in the concept of democracy when the government representing the people cannot or is unwilling to take measures good for their voters or part of the voters do not obey the necessary instructions given by the government. Democracy is doomed when freedom, its most characteristic feature, leads to disobedience and destruction, which in a vicious circle will lead to more restrictions of freedom.

“Family planning is of great importance for a socialist country with chinese characteristics” Commercial in the streets of Leshan 

Poster promoting the one child family in Chengdu

However, even in China still today the threat of another wave of outbreak is not averted. To move between sectors the chinese population has to present a health code. While cities in the western world are plagued by riots in China critical voices are silenced. Not everybody is a prominent writer like Fang Fang. Some people have disappeared and nobody knows their whereabouts.

“The only way we can conquer this virus and free ourselves from its grip is for all members of humankind to work together” (Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary)

Link to the previous post 

https://h-s-coronastories.blogspot.com/2021/01/number-54-guatemala-1994.html 

Sources 

Fang Fang, Corona diary, Harper Audio, 2020 

Trouw, Wuhan kent geen slachtoffers, alleen maar overwinnaars, Trouw, 23.1.2021 

NOS online, 13.1.2021, 22.1.2021

Number 54: Guatemala 1994

“Tiempos recios” (tough times) Mario Vargas Llosa 

Guatemala became independent in 1839. Since then it had 51 presidents. On average, therefore, each president lasted for 3.5 years. In 1994 the president was Ramiro de León Carpio (1942-2002). After finishing law school De León Carpio had been involved in several official positions and was involved in a non-violent coup against president Efrian Elias Montt in 1983. In 1985 he was involved in the drafting of a new Guatemalen constitution, which in the basis is still in force today. He then supported his cousin Jorge Carpio de León in his unsuccessful attempt to become president in 1985. 

“I'd never heard of this bloody place Guatemala until I was in my seventy-ninth year.” Winston Churchill 

Between 1960 and 1994 Guatemala was in the grip of a civil war between the government and various left wing organizations with acronyms like PGT, URNG, MR-13, FAR, EGP or ORPA. The underlying reason for the conflict was the distribution of land. The guerrilla was supported by the ethnic Maya population and the poor ladino peasants in the countryside. Material and financial help not surprisingly came from Cuba and Nicaragua. On the other side, the Guatemalen army was helped by Chile, Taiwan, Israel, Argentina, South Africa and of course the United States. The regular army had assistance by paramilitary up to 500.000 strong. In the 1980ies the military had assumed unlimited power in Guatemala the Guerrilla activities were used as justification for unlimited terror and human rights violations against the ethnic population and the peasants in the countryside. Massacres on the Maya population went so far that they were considered as genocide. Up to 200.000 people were killed in the civil war before a peace agreement could be established in 1996. 

In 1994, naive as we were, we had no idea how dangerous the county really was. On bicycles we cycled through the hills of the province Alta Verapaz at the same time while the army was massacring civilians in the bush (corona story number 11). Nobody hurt us. 

Back in Antigua, the old capital of Guatemala, I wanted to see one of the indian markets for which Guatemala is famous. I decide to go to Solalá, a town scenically located on a plateau above Lago Atitlan, a big crater lake surrounded by volcanoes. There is no direct bus. I have to change in Chimaltenango. This is the Panamericana, the main road, and a lot of people wait at the side of the road for the next bus. And we don’t have to wait for long until one pulls up in a cloud of dust. 

Street view in Antigua

The bus is already full before we even get in. I will have to stand for 2 hours next to a worn out seat occupied by a Norwegian girl. Little kids bump into my knees and lower legs which have lost all feel after a short while. Somehow the bus boy still manages to get through and sell tickets for 6 Quetzal to everybody. To minimize the waiting time at stops he climbs up to the roof during the ride to get the luggage of departing passengers. At every stop some of the peddlers manage to pass the boy and get on the bus to sell some of their stuff. It is a winding mountain road. The bus driver wants to loose as little time as possible and so he tries to be the fastest. When the bus boy is not busy selling tickets or climbing to the roof he hangs out of the front door to whistle and point out at the vehicles we pass to slow down and pull to the side. I see myself falling down a ravine or hit by an oncoming vehicle when he passes in one of the sharp bends. Meanwhile the kids try to be noisier than the radio. The norwegian girl and myself agree on a nickname for the driver: el Bruto. 

Bus station, Guatemala City

Of course the bus breaks down, but is repaired quickly only to have to stop again at a long traffic jam at a road construction site. But regardless the dangerous way of driving we eventually arrive in Solalá. 

Lago Atitlan and the volcano Tolimán

I take a room in a guesthouse called Santa Ana with a nice and quiet courtyard. It is hot. I want to stretch my legs and go for a walk but only the market place of Solalá is paved and along the road it is walking in a cloud of dust. Outside the town are huge barracks. Their emblem is a huge helmet on even bigger boots. A boy throws little pebbles at me from above and shouts something like “Fuck off, fucking bitch”. Back in town I notice that a lot of Indians start arriving for the market tomorrow. Some arrive by truck, but others carry their goods in bundles on the head or on their backs with a ribbon as support around the forehead. Some carry an incredible amount of wood that way. People reserve a spot on the ground, others set up a plank on wooden trestles as table. Like everywhere in the country there seems to be a lot of police in blue and green around. Some wear the ridiculous, fortress like helmet, which is the emblem of the barracks. These are the same police who man the many checkpoints at the entrance to the cities and at every important road intersection. Although the town seems to have an indigenous municipal administration none of the police seems to be Indian. Maybe the Indians don’t need any police? 

Street view in Solalä

After several tries in eateries which show me empty fridges I find a hotel which serves a decent pollo frito. Then I retire to the courtyard and spend my evening chatting to the hotel boy, who has spent the last years working in Belize and a farmer who wants to sell his produce at the market tomorrow. Their main topic is how to find work and earn money. They cannot understand that I come from a faraway place and keep asking me how many hours it will take to go there by bus. And if, compared to the US in my home country there would be better chances to find work. Another guy works for the city and is responsible for the road maintenance. However, there is no money. His dream is to open a company doing the maintenance for the city. 

Comedor in the main street of Solalá

I have to stop the conversation because at night it gets bitter cold in the courtyard. I now understand why the boy was wearing a pointy bonnet. But even in bed in my room I wear all my clothes and use the blanket of the second bed and it is still fresh. The lake at 1562 m is overtopped by the volcán Tolimán at 3158 m. 

Usually markets allover the world start early in the morning. So I wait at 6.30 at the locked front door of the guest house together with the merchant, his bundle and the city official until the boy comes to unlock the door. He still wears his bonnet. It is still very cold and that is probably the reason that the market has not started yet. 

Today the tower is painted in Disney colors

I go to an eatery to have breakfast. It seems to have just opened and they do not really know what to do with me. I wait while the television blasts out news of murder and homicide in Mexico and bad weather and flooding in Europe. Eventually a big group of the omnipresent police arrives and we get all the same: a soup of undefinable content, eggs, beans and coffee with milk. It is interesting to observe the physionomy of these law enforcement specialists. Almost all miss some of their incisors. The other teeth are repaired badly. While the group seems to be quite relaxed and chatty when coming in, the spirit changes when a fat guy walks in. He is served with preference and seems to be the boss. He’s got a bad cough and regularly gets up to waddle outside to spit in a corner on the pavement. While I pay 6 Quetzal the police seems to eat for free. 

Outside the market eventually has started. Indian women sell their produce, vegetables, fruit, bread, eggs and chicken which are tied up with a rope on one leg and lifted up by the wings. Meat is sold in solid shops in the market hall. Dried fish on sale adds to the general stench. Others sell household gear, buckets, noddles, garment and sewing stuff. All the women and most of the men wear the traditional clothes. It is not so easy to lake pictures because there are so many people in close space. Miraculously indian women with their bundles balanced on the head manage to maneuver through the crowd. The shopping, even unpacked eggs, disappears in the bundles. Next to the bundle on the head many have a bundle with a baby bound to the side or back. With their harsh faces many of them look much older than they supposedly are, judging from the babies they have got. 

When the first tourists start to arrive from the resorts along the shore of the lake I get on a bus together with a load of indian women and their shopping bundles. The bus driver with his fashionable sun glasses and long hair looks more like a hippie who got stuck here. But the first impression deceives. The guy is worse than el Bruto. He sticks to the lane of the oncoming traffic and tries to break his previous speed record by blowing all other traffic from the road with his horn. He stops only when large groups are waiting. The peddlers are hard handedly kept out of the bus. On the windscreen the slogan guiding life in entire spanish south america: dios me guia. I am solidly convinced that bus traffic is the fasted way to heaven in this part of the world. 

The political situation in the years preceding 1994 resembled the situation after WWII. Until 1944 Guatemala endured a military dictatorship under general Jorge Ubico Castañeda. After 13 years and 138 days he had to resign after increasing protests. The attempt of the military to stay in power under two short interim presidents was not successful and a civil government under Juan José Arévalo took over control. 

This is the time when Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel “tiempos recios” sets in. One of Arévalo reforms was the introduction of unions. This caused the alarm bells ring at the headquarters of the United Fruit Company, that enterprise called “the octopus” that owned 140.000 sqkm of land and plantations, property, railroads, electricity, post and telegraph networks and ports all over the small countries between Panama and Guatemala in Central America. In Guatemala the octopus was the single biggest land owner. That was the time when the concept of the banana republic was born. 

President of the time of United Fruit was Sam Zemurray, “Sam the banana man”, a Russian jew and refugee immigrant to Selma, Alabama, in the United States, adventurer and entrepreneur who had ruthlessly invested his starting capital of 150 $ to become the leader of one of the world’s biggest companies. Zemurray had experience with governments not acting according his will. Already in 1912 he had paid for a mercenary army to steam down to Honduras and replace the president who was about to impose tax regulations unfavorable for his businesses. He succeeded and installed new president Manuel Bonilla, who did not hesitate to give him favorable tax conditions and land concessions. 

“Only a handful of his compatriots enjoyed the privileges of civilization, and in understanding that it was necessary to go to the root of the social problem for that situation to change and the privileges of the minority to extend to all Guatemalans. The key was the Agrarian Reform ….. The Agrarian Reform would fundamentally change the economic and social situation of Guatemala” Mario Vargas Llosa 

The octopus became even more alarmed when Arévalo’s successor, Jacobo Árbenz, added a couple of points to the agenda, which so far had been unheard of in the world of unlimited third world country exploitation: he announced plans for a land reform and of fair taxation. Up to that point, and like many of the big international trusts today, United fruit did not pay a cent of tax in Guatemala. 

“The 20th century would be the one with the advent of advertising as the primary tool of power and the manipulation of public opinion in both democratic and authoritarian societies” Mario Vargas Llosa 

In the novel, Sam Zemurray hired Edward L. Bernays, the self declared father of public relations and commercial propaganda. In the United States this was the time of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy and an irrational fear of communist subversion. For the benefit of the octopus Bernay, in a campaign unheard of before but in a precedent to present day plot theories and fake tweet assaults, Bernay convinced the biased american political establishment under president Eisenhower, his secretary of state John Foster Dulles, and brother Allen Dulles, head of the CIA, that the Soviet Union was at their doorstep. Both brothers Dulles had done legal work for the United Fruit Company before turning to government duties. 

“Don’t you have unions in the united states?” Arbenz replied, “It is the Soviet Union where they don’t have free and independent unions” Maria Vargas Llosa 

“The anti-communism that had taken hold of the country resembled one of those plagues that drove the European cities of the Middle Ages mad with fear” Mario Vargas Llosa 

However, it now is proven historical evidence that Árbenz maybe was a bit naive, but he was not a communist. There were no links to the Soviet Union and there were no Russians in Guatemala. Árbenz’ sincere hope was to establish a functioning democracy along United States lines in Guatemala. His agricultural reforms aimed to end the feudal system and give unused land held by big land owners to the poor peasants. Productive land would not be redistributed. The government was ready to pay that price for the land which the owners had entered in their tax declarations. 

Countryside in the Guatemala mountains

“His inordinate love for democracy represents a serious threat to United Fruit. This, gentlemen, is good to know, not to say” Mario Vargas Llosa 

Small scale agriculture 

Bernays’ campaign was successful. The CIA started a campaign involving the dominican dictator Trujillo and the dismissed colonel of the guamalteken army Carlos Castillo Armas to revolt against the government under Árbenz. With the help of mercenaries from all over south america and secret bomb attacks of US air force planes operating from Nicaragua and El Salvador the revolt succeeded. Árbenz declared his resignation and took refuge in the mexican embassy in Guatemala City, from where he, like his predecessor Arévalo, was forced to start the restless life in exile under the permanent threat of attacks on his life from enemies like Trujillo. 

“What had worked very well was the radio and press campaign accusing the Árbenz government of having turned Guatemala into a beachhead for the Soviet Union and of planning to seize the Panama Canal” Mario Vargas Llosa 

Small settlers cottage

Against all promises given to convince Árbenz to resign, the next president, Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, reversed the land reform and started a relentless campaign against union members, supposed left wing supporters and political opponents. During his term of office he was basically the secretary of the american ambassador, John Emil Peurifoy, nick name “the cowboy”, who gave the orders he had to carry out. 

-The United States has sent us a chimpanzee as their ambassador. 

-Why not? she replied. Aren't we a kind of zoo for the gringos? 

Mario Vargas LLosa 

Water well in an indian village

The intervention of the United States was disastrous for Guatemala, disastrous for Latin America and certainly harmful for the United States. In Guatemala, the campaign basically fueled a civil war which would last for 36 years. It led to chaos, violence and undemocratic political systems not only in Guatemala, but also had consequences for the revolution in Cuba. During the coup against Árbenz a poor future revolutionary had to go from door to door to sell encyclopedias to earn a living. His name was Che Guevara. The anticommunist massacres after the coup by Castillo Armas had increased the anti-US sentiments and shifted not only the Cuban, but various other Latin American liberation movements towards communism. 

Leaving the central american countries in a kind of pseudo colonial state eventually stopped their development, caused widespread poverty and finally the wave of immigration to the United States happening in the 21st century. 

“History was racing back toward tribe and ridicule. "Will slavery be reestablished soon?" Mario Vargas Llosa 

In 1994, the US embassy in the Honduran capital of Tegucicalpa was bigger than any government building. 

Prensa libre, the newspaper of Guatemala 

The influence of the military on guatemalen politics had lasted all the years of the civil war until end of the 1980ies. Meanwhile, after his cousins futile attempt to become president, Ramiro de León Carpio had become the national defender of human rights. He did not have any power, but became a threat for the incumbent president, Jorge Serrano. On May 25, 1993, Serrano led an autogolpe, a form of putsch in which a nation's leader, despite having come to power through legal means, puts out of function the national legislature and assumes dictatorial powers. Serrano abrogated the constitution, dissolved the National Congress, and gave order to arrest Ramiro de León Carpio. The latter escaped over the roofs of the adjacent houses, condemned the coup and Serrano was forced into exile. Although the army wanted to install the conservative vice president as new president, the National Congress swore in de León as President until the end of the term of rebellious Serrano in January 1996. 

But the country had not come to rest. Jorge Carpio, the president’s cousin was murdered in 1994 by conservative forces. In 1995 the chief of the supreme court was murdered. The army continued to massacre civilians in the countryside. Nevertheless, Ramiro de León Carpio succeeded in reducing the influence of the military, continue the peace talks with the guerrilla and organize free elections which were won by Álvarú Arzú, the following president. 

Abandoned tank and fruit box cars of the United Fruit railway in Golfito, Costa Rica, and Tela, Honduras   

The remainders of the presence of the United Fruit company are visible everywhere in Central America. In Honduras the company owned big areas of the lowland along the coast between La Ceiba, Tela and San Pedro Sula. A railroad was built along the coast to serve the plantations and in Tela a long pier was constructed. In 1994, railroad and pier were in a state of utter disrepair. The huge shunting yard in Tela was filled was box cars not used for a long time. Similarly, the company owned big tracts of land along the pacific coast at the border of Costa Rica and Panama. A railroad was built across the border. Remainders of the station and the huge loading pier in the bay of Golfito were still present. 

Loading piers in Tela, Honduras, and Golfito, Costa Rica

In many places United fruit built company compounds to accommodate their (expat) employees. The characteristic airy wooden buildings on poles had overhanging roofs, verandas and balconies. Some buildings in the towns were built in a similar style. 

United Fruit employee compound buildings in Tela, Honduras, and Golfito, Costa Rica

Their policies in Guatemala did not benefit the United Fruit Company for very long. Its profit and stock market value declined. Already in 1958 the Eisenhower administration proceeded with antitrust action against the company. In 1972, the company sold off the last of its Guatemalan possessions after a long era of decline. Eventually the company ended up as part of Chiquita Brands International. But the legacy of United Fruit persisted. Chiquita has paid 1.7 million $ to AUC, the united self defense forces of colombia, to protect their interests. The company was accused of supporting an acknowledged terrorist organization and fined $ 25 million in compensation payments to the victims of AUC. Chiquita was also guilty of smuggling at least 3000 AK-47 aussualt rifles to the AUC in Colombia. Although the colombian government requested extradition of the US citizens responsible for that incredible act, the US government refused. 

“I no longer even knew whether or not I believed in something” Mario Vargas Llosa 

Link to the previous post

https://h-s-coronastories.blogspot.com/2021/01/number-53-new-zealand-2001.html

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemalan_Civil_War

"Ramiro de Leon Carpio, 60; Former Guatemala Leader", Associated Press, April 17, 2002 

https://www.themodernnovel.org/americas/latin-america/peru/vargas-llosa/hard-times/

Mario Vargas Llosa “Bittere Tijden” 

"Chiquita Brands Part III-C: Of Bananas, Money, Guns, and Drugs: What Did Chiquita Really Do?". Colombia Law & Business Post. 2007-07-23