Title:
African Film Shows Tensions Between Banana Growers,
Villagers
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
See text below
Text:
A movie from Cameroon called "The Big Banana" has
come to the United States. It looks at issues with
the banana industry like disputed land rights, food
insecurity and pollution. One Cameroonian woman in
the film says the land belongs to local villagers
and they are asking operators of banana plantations
to give it back. Franck Hameni Bieleu directed the
documentary film. He says officials prevented a
showing in Yaounde, the capital. He says making the
movie was difficult, and even led to his brief
detention. "I got arrested because the chief of that
part of the village did not want me to film because
he is being paid by the banana company. You
understand, the thing is, everything around that
area is controlled by the company. If you look at
the congressman of the region, he is also the
director of public relations of the company. The
minister of trade of Cameroon is also president of
the board of directors of the company."The company,
Plantations du Haut Penja, is French and American
owned. Representatives would not talk to the
filmmakers. The company and Cameroonian officials
did not answer a request for a VOA interview. Mr.
Bieleu says large parts of fertile land in Cameroon
are being used for banana exports. As a result,
local residents have more and more difficulty
growing their own food or finding food to buy. Also,
the use of pesticide chemicals is blamed for
polluting water and causing health problems.
Villagers accuse the company of destroying their
fields to expand the banana plantations after
getting land leases from the government. Mr. Bieleu
says the problem exists across Africa as foreigners
increasingly invest in agricultural land. He says
government corruption is stronger than the people's
traditional rights to the land. "When a company
arrives and just shows the money, the big cash, what
happens is the government just gives them the land
that they want, and these people cannot defend
themselves because they do not have any rights on
that land."Emira Woods from the American-based
Institute for Policy Studies helped organize the
showing of "The Big Banana." She says: "Because of
threats from multinational corporations, from
sovereign wealth funds, whether it is Saudi Arabia
or Iran, the list is actually growing of countries
that are looking to Africa as a source of access to
land when arable land is becoming much more scarce
on this planet."For VOA Special English, I'm Alex
Villarreal.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
