 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to be reading another passage from an inspirational poet and This Poet is Ernesto Cardinal He was from Nicaragua and this is poem zero hour enjoy zero hour Tropical nights in Central America with moonlit lagoons and volcanoes and lights from presidential palaces barracks and sad curfew warnings Often while smoking a cigarette. I've decided that a man should die Says ubiko smoking a cigarette in his pink wedding cake palace ubiko has a Head-cold outside the people were dispersed with phosphorus bombs San Salvador laid in with night and espionage with whispers in homes and boarding houses and screams in police stations Kariya's palace stoned by the people a Window of his office has been smashed and the police have fired upon the people and Managua the target of machine guns from the chocolate cookie palace and steel helmets patrolling the streets Watchman what hour is it of the night watchman? What hour is it of the night? the comp the comp The Campesinos of Honduras used to carry their money in their hats When the Campesinos sowed their seed and the Hondurans were masters of their land When there was money and there were no foreign loans or taxes for JP Morgan and company and And the fruit company wasn't competing with the little dirt farmer But the United Fruit Company arrived with its subsidy subsidiaries the Tela Railroad Company and the Trujillo Railroad Company allied with the Kuyamel Fruit Company and Vacharo Brothers and Company Later Standard Fruit and Steamship Company of the Standard Fruit and Steamship Corporation the United Fruit Company with its revolutions for the acquisition of Concessions and exemptions of millions in import duties and export duties revisions of old concessions and grants for new exploitations violations of contracts violations of the Constitution and All the conditions are dictated by the company with liabilities in case of confiscation liabilities of the nation not of the company and The conditions imposed by the latter For the return of the plantations to the nation Given free by the nation to the company at the end of 99 years Quote and all the other plantations Belonging to any other person or companies or enterprises, which may be dependence of the contractors and in Which this latter has or may have in future any interest of any kind will be as a consequence included in the previous terms and conditions unquote Because the company also corrupted pros The condition was that this company build the railroad But the company wasn't building it because in Honduras mules were cheaper than the railroad and a congressman was chipper than a mule as Zemure used to say Even though he continued to enjoy tax exemptions and a grant of a hundred and seventy-five thousand acres for the company With the obligation to pay the nation for each mile that he didn't build But he didn't pay anything to the nation even though he didn't build a single mile Korea's is the dictator who didn't build the greatest number of miles of railroad and after all That shitty railroad was of no use at all to the nation because it was a railroad between two plantations And not between the cities of Trujillo and to Gucci Galpa They corrupt the pros and they corrupt the congress the banana is left to rot on the plantations Or to rot in the cars along the railroad tracks Or it's cut over ripe so it can be rejected when it reaches the wharf or be thrown into the sea The bunches of bananas declared bruised or too skinny or withered or green or overripe or diseased So there'll be no cheap bananas or so as to buy bananas cheap Yes, so there'll be no cheap bananas or So as to buy bananas cheap until there's hunger along the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua and The farmers are put in jail for not selling at 30 cents and their bananas are slashed with bayonets and the Mexican trader Steamship sinks their barges on them and the strikers are cowed with bullets and The Nicaraguan congressmen are invited to a garden party But the black worker has seven children and what can you do you've got to eat and you've got to accept what they offer to pay 24 cents a bunch While the tropical radio subsidiary was cabling Boston We assume that Boston will give its approval to the payment made to the Nicaraguan congressmen of the majority party Because of the incalculable benefits that it represents for the company And from Boston to Galveston by telegraph and from Galveston by cable and telegraph to Mexico and From Mexico by cable to San Juan del Sur and from San Juan del Sur by telegraph to Puerto Limón and from Puerto Limón by canoe Way canoe way into the mountains arrives the order of the United Fruit Company Unite United is buying no more bananas and workers are laid off in Puerto Limón and the little workshop Clothes little workshops clothes Nobody can pay his debts and the bananas rotting in the railroad cars So there'll be no cheap bananas and so that there'll be bananas cheap 19 cents a bunch The workers get IOUs instead of wages instead of payments debts and the plantations are abandoned for their useless now and give given to colonies of unemployed and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica with its subsidiaries the Costa Rica Banana Company and the Northern Railway Company and the International Radio Telegraph Company and the Costa Rica Supply Company are fighting in court against an orphan The cost of a derailment is $25 and damages But it would have it would have cost more to repair the track and Congressman and Congressman cheaper than mules Zamora used to say Sam Zamora the Turkish banana peddler in Mobile Alabama who one day took a trip to New Orleans and on the wharf saw United Throwing bananas into the sea and he offered to buy all the fruit to make vinegar He bought it and he sold it right there in New Orleans and United had to give him land in Honduras to get him to break His contract in New Orleans and that's how Sam Zamora Abointed presidents in Honduras He provoked border disputes between Guatemala and Honduras which meant between the United Fruit Company and his company proclaiming that Honduras his company must not lose One inch of land not only in the disputed strip, but also in any other zone of Honduras of his company not in dispute While United was defending the rights of Honduras in its lawsuit with Nicaragua lumber company Until the suit ended because he merged with United and afterward He sold all his shares to United and with the proceeds of the sale He bought shares in United and with the shares he captured the presidency of Boston together with its employees the various presidents of Honduras and He was now the owner of both Honduras and Guatemala And that was the end of the lawsuit over the exhausted lands that were now of no use either to Guatemala or Honduras I'll read a little more There was a Nicaraguan abroad a Nica from Nica no Homo working for the Huasteca petroleum company of Tampico and he had $5,000 saved up and he wasn't a soldier or a politician and he took $3,000 of the $5,000 and went off to Nicaragua to join Moncada's revolution But by the time he arrived Moncada was laying down his arms He spent three days miserable in the people's hill miserable not knowing what to do and he wasn't a politician or soldier He thought and thought and he finally said to himself Somebody's got to do it and then and then he issued his first proclamation General Moncada sends a wire to the Americans all my men agree to surrender except one Mr. Stimson sends him an ultimatum the people thanks you for nothing is Moncada's message to the holdout. He assembles his men in El Chipote 29 men and with him 30 against the USA except one one from Niquino Homo and with him 30 anyone who sets out to be a savior winds up on the cross says Moncada in another message Because Moncada and Sandino were neighbors Moncada from Mazatepe and Sandino from Niquino Homo and Sandino Replies to Moncada death is quite unimportant and to Stimson I have faith in the courage of my men and to Stimson after the first defeat Anybody that thinks we're defeated doesn't know my men and he wasn't a soldier or a politician and his men Many of them were kids with palm leaf hats and sandals or barefoot with machetes old men with white beards 12 year olds with their rifles whites Inscrutable Indians and blondes and kinky-haired blacks with tattered pants and with no provisions Their pants and shreds Parading an Indian file with the flag up front a rag hoisted on a branch from the woods Silent beneath the rain and weary their sandals sloshing in the puddles of the town long live Sandino and they came down from the mountain and they went back up to the mountain Marching sloshing with the flag up front a barefoot or sandaled army with almost no Weapons that had neither discipline nor disorder where neither Officers nor troops got any pay but nobody was forced to fight and they had different military ranks But they were all equal Everybody getting the same food and clothing the same ration for everybody and the officers had no aides More like a community than an army and more united by love than by military discipline Even though there has never been greater unity in any army a happy army with guitars and hugs a love song Was its battle hymn This has been Ernesto Cardinal from his poem Zero Hour Read to you by Tons Gauntlet from 24 hour flamenco