In the movie _Burn!_, the island of Quemada had already been burned down by the Portuguese to quell a slave revolt before William Walker arrived with a mission to foment a nationalist revolution and thereby wrest economic control over the island from the Portuguese. Hence the name of the island. In the course of the movie, the island will be burned down again, this time by Quemada's military junta with William Walker's supervision and British military assistance (both serving the interests of the Antilles Royal Sugar Company, the neo-colonial successor to Portugal). So, the thesis of the movie is that, yes, the power elite will not hesitate to destroy even lucrative economic assets (sugar plantations in the case of the movie) -- not to mention human lives -- in one place to prevent the threat of revolution menacing assets in other places, _and yet_ revolts will happen again and again, regardless. -- Yoshie
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