Honduras

Re “Tide of Misery Surges as Workers Lose Jobs in Wake of Flooding,” March 8: How very sad and ironic that the same U.S. government, now offering some few millions of dollars to aid the destitute Honduran banana workers who have lost even their meager jobs, is simultaneously imposing a half-billion dollars of tariffs on European imports to the U.S. This is in retaliation for the European profits that American banana companies like Chiquita were “unfairly” deprived of.

The American position in this so-called “banana war” is that European nations illegally favored bananas produced in their former colonies, shutting out American competition. Yet hasn’t Honduras been a colony of the U.S. in all but name for sad generations now? Hurricane Mitch alone didn’t devastate Honduras. Honduras was a nation once rich in resources and people. Now all its wealth has been extracted, one banana at a time.

JOHN CLOUD

Santa Barbara