Eduardo Galeano - The Memory of Fire Trilogy - Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind

(381)

Fidel

At dawn on July 26, a handful of youths attack the Moncada barracks. Armed with dignity and Cuban bravura and a few bird guns, they assault the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and half a century of colonization masquerading as a republic.

A few die in battle, but more than seventy are finished off by the army after a week of torture. The torturers tear out the eyes of Abel Santamaría, among others.

The rebel leader, taken prisoner, offers his defense plea. Fidel Castro has the look of a man who gives all of himself without asking anything in return. The judges listen to him in astonishment, missing not a word. His words are not, however, for the ones kissed by the gods; he speaks for the ones pissed on by the devils, and for them, and in their name, he explains what he has done.

Fidel Castro claims the ancient right of rebellion against despotism: “This island will sink in the ocean before we will consent to be anybody’s slaves …”

He tosses his head like a tree, accuses Batista and his officers of exchanging their uniforms for butchers’ aprons, and sets forth a program of revolution. In Cuba there could be food and work for all, and more to spare.

“No, that is not inconceivable.”

(90, 392, and 422)

The Accused Turns Prosecutor and Announces: “History Will Absolve Me”

What is inconceivable is that there should be men going to bed hungry while an inch of land remains unsown; what is inconceivable is that there should be children who die without medical care; that thirty percent of our campesinos cannot sign their names and ninety-nine percent don’t know the history of Cuba; that most families in our countryside should be living in worse conditions than the Indians Columbus found when he discovered the most beautiful land human eyes had ever seen …

From such wretchedness it is only possible to free oneself by death; and in that the state does help them: to die. Ninety percent of rural children are devoured by parasites that enter from the soil through the toenails of their unshod feet .

More than half of the best cultivated production lands are in foreign hands. In Oriente, the largest province, the lands of the United Fruit Company and the West Indian Company extend from the north coast to the south coast …

Cuba continues to be a factory producing raw materials. Sugar is exported to import candies; leather exported to import shoes; iron exported to import plows …

(90)

United Fruit

Throne of bananas, crown of bananas, a banana held like a scepter: Sam Zemurray, master of the lands and seas of the banana kingdom, did not believe it possible that his Guatemalan vassals could give him a headache. “The Indians are too ignorant for Marxism,” he used to say, and was applauded by his court at his royal palace in Boston, Massachusetts.

Thanks to the successive decrees of Manuel Estrada Cabrera, who governed surrounded by sycophants and spies, seas of slobber, forests of familiars; and of Jorge Ubico, who thought he was Napoleon but wasn’t, Guatemala has remained part of United Fruit’s vast dominion for half a century. In Guatemala United Fruit can seize whatever land it wants — enormous unused tracts — and owns the railroad, the telephone, the telegraph, the ports, and the ships, not to speak of soldiers, politicians, and journalists.

Sam Zemurray’s troubles began when president Juan José Arévalo forced the company to respect the union and its right to strike. From bad to worse: A new president, Jacobo Arbenz, introduces agrarian reform, seizes United Fruit’s uncultivated lands, begins dividing them among a hundred thousand families, and acts as if Guatemala were ruled by the landless, the letterless, the breadless, the less .

(50 and 288)

Arbenz

President Truman howled when workers on Guatemala’s banana plantations started to behave like people. Now President Eisenhower spits lightning over the expropriation of United Fruit.

The government of the United States considers it an outrage that the government of Guatemala should take United Fruit’s account books seriously. Arbenz proposes to pay as indemnity only the value that the company itself had placed on its lands to defraud the tax laws. John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state, demands twenty-five times that.

Jacobo Arbenz, accused of conspiring with Communists, draws his inspiration not from Lenin but from Abraham Lincoln. His agrarian reform, an attempt to modernize Guatemalan capitalism, is less radical than the North American rural laws of almost a century ago.

(81 and 416)

Dictator Wanted

Guatemalan General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes, distinguished killer of Indians, has lived in exile since the fall of dictator Ubico. Now, Walter Turnbull comes to San Salvador to offer him a deal. Turnbull, representative of both United Fruit and the CIA, proposes that Ydígoras take charge of Guatemala. There is money available for such a project, if he promises to destroy the unions, restore United Fruit’s lands and privileges, and repay this loan to the last cent within a reasonable period. Ydígoras asks time to think it over, while making it clear he considers the conditions abusive.

In no time word gets around that a position is vacant. Guatemalan exiles, military and civilian, fly to Washington to offer their services; others knock at the doors of U.S. embassies. José Luis Arenas, “friend” of Vice-President Nixon, offers to overthrow President Arbenz for two hundred thousand dollars. General Federico Ponce says he has a ten-thousand-man army ready to attack the National Palace. His price would be quite modest, although he prefers not to talk figures yet. Just a small advance …

Throat cancer rules out United Fruit’s preference, Juan Córdova Cerna. On his deathbed, however, Doctor Córdova rasps out the name of his own candidate: Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, trained at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, a cheap, obedient burro.

(416 and 471)

The Deciding Machine, Piece by Piece

Dwight EisenhowerPresident of the United States. Overthrew the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran because it nationalized oil. Has now given orders to overthrow the government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.

Sam ZemurrayPrincipal stockholder in United Fruit. All his concerns automatically turn into U.S. government declarations, and ultimately into rifles, mortars, machineguns, and CIA airplanes.

John Foster DullesU.S. Secretary of State. Former lawyer for United Fruit.

Allen DullesDirector of the CIA. Brother of John Foster Dulles. Like him, has done legal work for United Fruit. Together they organize “Operation Guatemala.”

John Moors CabotSecretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. Brother of Thomas Cabot, the president of United Fruit.

Walter Bedell SmithUnder Secretary of State. Serves as liaison in Operation Guatemala. Future member of the board of United Fruit.

Henry Cabot LodgeSenator, U.S. representative to the United Nations. United Fruit shareholder. Has on various occasions received money from this company for speeches in the Senate.

Anne WhitmanPersonal secretary to President Eisenhower. Married to United Fruit public relations chief.

Spruille BradenFormer U.S. ambassador to several Latin American countries. Has received a salary from United Fruit since 1948. Is widely reported in the press to have exhorted Eisenhower to suppress communism by force in Guatemala .