Overview
«¿Para qué compro tu país si al final de cuentas ya es mío?»
¿Por qué somos un continente rico con gente pobre? Las cicatrices del viento intenta explicar los orígenes del atraso latinoamericano a través de una vigorosa narración novelada que revela el nacimiento, la evolución y el comportamiento diplomático, militar, político y social de la United Fruit, el Pulpo, la compañía bananera más grande del mundo, en Centroamérica, el Caribe y las Antillas. La United Fruit norteamericana generó riqueza y transformación económica, pero también desestabilizó gobiernos, compró congresos, sobornó a la prensa, la compró, explotó a trabajadores, organizó intervenciones militares con el apoyo de los marines, el brazo armado de la Casa Blanca para defender sus intereses foráneos en países indefensos gobernados por tiranos corruptos. Incluso llegó a constituirse como una autoridad superior a la de los propios presidentes de las repúblicas, en muchos casos impuestos y depuestos por la propia United Fruit, dando lugar, entre otras razones, al surgimiento de dictaduras como las de Batista, Somoza y Trujillo y al golpe de Estado contra el gobierno del presidente Jacobo Arbenz en Guatemala. ¿Existen las culpas absolutas? ¿Dónde termina entonces la de Estados Unidos y comienza la de las naciones integrantes del hemisferio sur?
En esta obra reveladora, saturada de perfiles humanos, de colores, emociones, arrebatos amorosos y pasiones desbridadas, en las que, como en la guerra, todo es válido con tal de satisfacer un capricho sensual pasajero, quedan abiertamente expuestas, sin pudor alguno, las ambiciones de hombres ávidos de poder, titulares de una inmensa capacidad económica especialmente útil para seducir, amenazar y matar. Como decía Robert Keith, presidente de la United Fruit, cuando los miles de campesinos a su servicio le solicitaban un aumento de sueldo: “Eso pídanselo a la virgen, ustedes que tanto creen en ella…”.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
“Why should I buy your country if, in the end, it already belongs to me?”
Why are we a rich continent with poor people? The Scars of the Wind attempts to explain the origins of Latin America’s underdevelopment through a vigorous novelized narrative that reveals the birth, evolution, and diplomatic, military, political, and social behavior of the United Fruit Company—the Octopus, the largest banana corporation in the world—in Central America, the Caribbean, and the Antilles. The U.S.-based United Fruit created wealth and economic transformation, but it also destabilized governments, bought off congresses, bribed the press—and even purchased it outright—exploited workers, and orchestrated military interventions with the support of the Marines, the White House’s armed wing sent to defend foreign interests in defenseless countries ruled by corrupt tyrants. In many cases, the company rose to become an authority greater than the presidents themselves, often installed or removed by United Fruit, giving rise—among other consequences—to the emergence of dictatorships such as those of Batista, Somoza, and Trujillo, and to the coup d’état against President Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala. Do absolute faults exist? Where, then, does that of the United States end and that of the nations of the southern hemisphere begin?
In this revealing work—rich in human portraits, colors, emotions, bursts of passion and unbridled desires, in which, as in war, everything is permitted so long as it satisfies a fleeting sensual whim—the ambitions of men ravenous for power are laid bare without the slightest shame: men endowed with immense economic capacity, useful for seducing, threatening, and killing. As Robert Keith, president of United Fruit, would say when the thousands of campesinos in his service asked him for a raise: “Go ask the Virgin for that—you’re the ones who believe in her so much…”.
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