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There are plenty of conflicting claims about the number of strikers killed. Even though the U.S. telegrams could presumably be more authoritative (though they do little more than present the statements and opinions of the personnel involved, without giving any further details), that still doesn't constitute the final word on the subject. Some quotes that illustrate that a variety of interpretations exist (sorry for the Spanish):
1. Gabriel García Márquez, aka "Gabo", (admitting that he had to exaggerate the number, whichever it was, for the purposes of his novel):
"No podía ceñirme a la realidad histórica. No podía decir que hubo 3, ó 7, ó 17 muertos. Con ellos no llenaría ni un vagón pequeño. Así que me decidí por tres mil muertos porque esto se acomodaba a la dimensión del libro que estaba escribiendo." [1] Juancarlos2004
2. Elsa Cajiao Cuéllar (claims that the number was closer to 80)...
"Tal es el caso de la Masacre de las bananeras: en Cien años de soledad el número de muertos asciende a tres mil, cuando en realidad estos fueron alrededor de ochenta. Esta última cifra de por sí no disminuye la gravedad del suceso, pero sí pone de manifiesto a dónde puede llevar el "todo vale" de algunos críticos. Juancarlos2004
...and in turn quotes another part of the above "Gabo" statement...
'[...]Fue un problema para mí cuando descubrí que no se trató de una matanza espectacular. En un libro en el que las cosas se magnifican, tal como en Cien años de soledad… necesitaba llenar todo un tren con cadáveres. No podía ceñirme a la realidad histórica. [...] Así que me decidí por 3.000 muertos porque esto se acomodaba a la dimensión del libro que estaba escribiendo. La leyenda ahora se ha aceptado como historia.' Juancarlos2004
...plus also mentions the Carbó article (in order to point out that there is a lack of investigative rigor in literary critics that take GGM's version as fact):
En su artículo Fiction as History: the Bananeras and ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ (1998), Posada Carbó demuestra que esa cifra de tres mil muertos es hoy aceptada comúnmente por los críticos literarios como un dato histórico. Y es que tras muchas interpretaciones aparentemente fenomenológicas lo que hay de verdad es falta de rigor en la investigación y excesiva confianza del crítico en su propia intuición." [2] Juancarlos2004
3. Germán López Velásquez (claims no more than 50):
"La imaginación exacerbada, la hipérbole y la fantasía, se metieron a narrar la masacre de las bananeras, que a decir verdad, no pasó de más de cincuenta muertos." [3] Juancarlos2004
4. 1928 Colombian press sources (There was enormous confusion early on, and claims of "a few dead" or "thousands of dead" co-existed. The quote below is from a 2005 EL TIEMPO article, via Google):
"Hubo enorme confusión en las primeras versiones. Los despachos periodísticos hablaban en unos caos de “miles de muertos” y en otros de “unos pocos muertos y heridos”" [4]
5. David Bushnell in "The Making of Modern Colombia", page 180:
"This proved to be just the start of an all-out campaign of repression that led to an indeterminate number of deaths and to the arrest of the principal strike leaders...The novelist's account need not be taken as literal truth: from sixty to seventy-five seems to be the most authoritative estimate of the death toll. That was certainly bad enough."
Marco Palacios in "Entre la Legitimidad y la Violencia. Colombia 1875-1994", page 120 (points to the fact that the numbers are contradictory: 47 from the Colombian Army General, 1000 from the American consulate in Santa Marta, and 1500 from one of the strike leaders):
"Como casi siempre ocurre en estas tragedias, los números son contradictorios: el general que dirigió la matanza contó 47 muertos en la plaza de Ciénaga y la línea del ferrocarril; el informe del cónsul norteamericano en Santa Marta estimó los muertos en un millar y Alberto Castrillón, uno de los dirigentes de la huelga, en 1.500."
Signed: Juancarlos2004 23:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I can't read the Spanish - sorry. Are we basing our accounts of the number of people killed and the reasons the army killed them, on a novel or on eyewitness accounts, or what?
I'm not defending US corporations or their stockholders. "People before profits" is my personal motto.
But I'm also not willing to assume the worst about American or Central American businessmen, politicians or military leaders. I want facts, not guesses or prejudices. Most of our readers probably do, also.
Let's clear this up, please. -- Uncle Ed 02:43, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas (American Encounters/Global Interactions) by Steve Striffler on Page 219:
Here is another blatant contradiction, from another author:
Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 30, No.2. (May, 1998), pp. 395-414. Fiction as History: The bananeras and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude *:
1:30 in the morning? Didn't it occur in the afternoon?
Here is another two contradictions:
The Making of Modern Colombia: A Nation in Spite of Itself by David Bushnell, p 194
Matters came to a head on December 6, when in the town of Ciénaga soldiers fired into a mass of strikers, killing by official admission some thirteen people. ..
signed:
Travb 10:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
The massacre happened on December 6. The introduction talks about a month long strike, and the first section states that the strike started in December. What gives? peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) ( talk) 16:22, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
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Hello everyone,
This massacre is back in the news again, at least in Colombia, so I thought it would be a good time to bring this to your attention.
In the introduction, it says the death toll was eighty, but in the section specifically about the death toll, it says it cannot be verified. This seems like a contradiction to me. If the number can't be verified, we shouldn't be able to say it was eighty.
I think both the introduction and the section on the death toll should say it can't be verified.
What do you all think?
Thanks. I hope I'm handling this post correctly...first time.
( 181.137.23.51 ( talk) 19:49, 30 November 2017 (UTC))
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While I was trying to translate the Spanish version of the article into English, I noticed that in the English version, the details of the massacre are a tad bit off.
According to the article, the massacre took place during the day, on a Sunday, on a crowd of workers who had just been to Sunday mass. However, in the Spanish version the massacre took place at 1:30 in the morning of December 6th, on a Thursday. I'm inclined to agree with the Spanish version, due to the mistake with saying the massacre took place on a Sunday, as well as the fact that the Spanish version is likely to have more reliable sources in the language of the country it took place in.
I recommend that someone change this, since the English version is not accurate to what actually took place. DunDonjon ( talk) 18:57, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Banana Massacre article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
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This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
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There are plenty of conflicting claims about the number of strikers killed. Even though the U.S. telegrams could presumably be more authoritative (though they do little more than present the statements and opinions of the personnel involved, without giving any further details), that still doesn't constitute the final word on the subject. Some quotes that illustrate that a variety of interpretations exist (sorry for the Spanish):
1. Gabriel García Márquez, aka "Gabo", (admitting that he had to exaggerate the number, whichever it was, for the purposes of his novel):
"No podía ceñirme a la realidad histórica. No podía decir que hubo 3, ó 7, ó 17 muertos. Con ellos no llenaría ni un vagón pequeño. Así que me decidí por tres mil muertos porque esto se acomodaba a la dimensión del libro que estaba escribiendo." [1] Juancarlos2004
2. Elsa Cajiao Cuéllar (claims that the number was closer to 80)...
"Tal es el caso de la Masacre de las bananeras: en Cien años de soledad el número de muertos asciende a tres mil, cuando en realidad estos fueron alrededor de ochenta. Esta última cifra de por sí no disminuye la gravedad del suceso, pero sí pone de manifiesto a dónde puede llevar el "todo vale" de algunos críticos. Juancarlos2004
...and in turn quotes another part of the above "Gabo" statement...
'[...]Fue un problema para mí cuando descubrí que no se trató de una matanza espectacular. En un libro en el que las cosas se magnifican, tal como en Cien años de soledad… necesitaba llenar todo un tren con cadáveres. No podía ceñirme a la realidad histórica. [...] Así que me decidí por 3.000 muertos porque esto se acomodaba a la dimensión del libro que estaba escribiendo. La leyenda ahora se ha aceptado como historia.' Juancarlos2004
...plus also mentions the Carbó article (in order to point out that there is a lack of investigative rigor in literary critics that take GGM's version as fact):
En su artículo Fiction as History: the Bananeras and ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ (1998), Posada Carbó demuestra que esa cifra de tres mil muertos es hoy aceptada comúnmente por los críticos literarios como un dato histórico. Y es que tras muchas interpretaciones aparentemente fenomenológicas lo que hay de verdad es falta de rigor en la investigación y excesiva confianza del crítico en su propia intuición." [2] Juancarlos2004
3. Germán López Velásquez (claims no more than 50):
"La imaginación exacerbada, la hipérbole y la fantasía, se metieron a narrar la masacre de las bananeras, que a decir verdad, no pasó de más de cincuenta muertos." [3] Juancarlos2004
4. 1928 Colombian press sources (There was enormous confusion early on, and claims of "a few dead" or "thousands of dead" co-existed. The quote below is from a 2005 EL TIEMPO article, via Google):
"Hubo enorme confusión en las primeras versiones. Los despachos periodísticos hablaban en unos caos de “miles de muertos” y en otros de “unos pocos muertos y heridos”" [4]
5. David Bushnell in "The Making of Modern Colombia", page 180:
"This proved to be just the start of an all-out campaign of repression that led to an indeterminate number of deaths and to the arrest of the principal strike leaders...The novelist's account need not be taken as literal truth: from sixty to seventy-five seems to be the most authoritative estimate of the death toll. That was certainly bad enough."
Marco Palacios in "Entre la Legitimidad y la Violencia. Colombia 1875-1994", page 120 (points to the fact that the numbers are contradictory: 47 from the Colombian Army General, 1000 from the American consulate in Santa Marta, and 1500 from one of the strike leaders):
"Como casi siempre ocurre en estas tragedias, los números son contradictorios: el general que dirigió la matanza contó 47 muertos en la plaza de Ciénaga y la línea del ferrocarril; el informe del cónsul norteamericano en Santa Marta estimó los muertos en un millar y Alberto Castrillón, uno de los dirigentes de la huelga, en 1.500."
Signed: Juancarlos2004 23:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I can't read the Spanish - sorry. Are we basing our accounts of the number of people killed and the reasons the army killed them, on a novel or on eyewitness accounts, or what?
I'm not defending US corporations or their stockholders. "People before profits" is my personal motto.
But I'm also not willing to assume the worst about American or Central American businessmen, politicians or military leaders. I want facts, not guesses or prejudices. Most of our readers probably do, also.
Let's clear this up, please. -- Uncle Ed 02:43, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas (American Encounters/Global Interactions) by Steve Striffler on Page 219:
Here is another blatant contradiction, from another author:
Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 30, No.2. (May, 1998), pp. 395-414. Fiction as History: The bananeras and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude *:
1:30 in the morning? Didn't it occur in the afternoon?
Here is another two contradictions:
The Making of Modern Colombia: A Nation in Spite of Itself by David Bushnell, p 194
Matters came to a head on December 6, when in the town of Ciénaga soldiers fired into a mass of strikers, killing by official admission some thirteen people. ..
signed:
Travb 10:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
The massacre happened on December 6. The introduction talks about a month long strike, and the first section states that the strike started in December. What gives? peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) ( talk) 16:22, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 21:13, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
Hello everyone,
This massacre is back in the news again, at least in Colombia, so I thought it would be a good time to bring this to your attention.
In the introduction, it says the death toll was eighty, but in the section specifically about the death toll, it says it cannot be verified. This seems like a contradiction to me. If the number can't be verified, we shouldn't be able to say it was eighty.
I think both the introduction and the section on the death toll should say it can't be verified.
What do you all think?
Thanks. I hope I'm handling this post correctly...first time.
( 181.137.23.51 ( talk) 19:49, 30 November 2017 (UTC))
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Banana massacre. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 13:29, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
While I was trying to translate the Spanish version of the article into English, I noticed that in the English version, the details of the massacre are a tad bit off.
According to the article, the massacre took place during the day, on a Sunday, on a crowd of workers who had just been to Sunday mass. However, in the Spanish version the massacre took place at 1:30 in the morning of December 6th, on a Thursday. I'm inclined to agree with the Spanish version, due to the mistake with saying the massacre took place on a Sunday, as well as the fact that the Spanish version is likely to have more reliable sources in the language of the country it took place in.
I recommend that someone change this, since the English version is not accurate to what actually took place. DunDonjon ( talk) 18:57, 4 December 2022 (UTC)