The Banana Massacre 1928 - Ciénaga, Colombia

The Banana Massacre of 1928 was a violent crackdown on a labor strike by banana plantation workers employed by the United Fruit Company (UFC) in the town of Ciénaga, Colombia. These workers, protesting harsh conditions, low pay, and lack of labor rights, had issued a list of nine demands including written contracts, fair wages, and better working conditions. The UFC, a powerful U.S. multinational corporation with significant influence in Colombia, pushed back against the strike, branding it as a communist threat with the support of the Colombian Conservative government under President Miguel Abadía Méndez.

On the night of December 5–6, 1928, the Colombian Army opened fire on a large crowd of workers and their families gathered near the Ciénaga train station, reportedly waiting to hear the results of negotiations. The massacre's death toll remains contested: official reports claimed fewer than 100 dead, while other estimates—including U.S. diplomatic sources—suggest the number could have been as high as 2000 or more. The U.S. had positioned naval forces nearby, prepared to intervene in defense of UFC interests, highlighting the role of foreign influence in domestic labor disputes.

The massacre left a lasting scar on Colombian society, becoming a rallying point for labor and leftist movements and contributing to a broader critique of foreign corporate control and government complicity. It was immortalized in Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, where the event symbolizes the erasure of painful truths and state repression. Today, the Banana Massacre is remembered as a defining episode in Colombia’s labor history and a powerful example of the dangers of unchecked corporate and governmental power.