Colombia asks US info on Chiquita executives

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

Colombia asks US info on Chiquita executives
Tuesday, 13 January 2009 11:27

Colombia's Prosecutor General's Office has asked the United States Justice Department for information on twenty (former) executives of Chiquita Brands.

Chiquita Brands was sentenced to pay a US$25 million fine in 2007 after it had admitted having paid paramilitary organization AUC protection money. The Cincinnati-based company and several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers paid about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

The AUC, in those days in control of the region where Chiquita was operating, committed numerous human rights violations against the population and murdered several unionists representing banana workers. So far, none of the Chiquita Brands executives were ever trialed in Colombia.

But according to official sources, Colombia's Supreme Court has recently asked information about middlemen who were responsible for the Chiquita payment of the paramilitaries, Caracol Radio reported Tuesday.



Read more: http://colombiareports.com/colombian-news/news/2559-colombia-asks-us-info-on-chiquita-executives.html

[Bluenorthwest]

1. Chiquita's lawyer in 2007

Eric Holder, Attorney General nominee.

[antimatter98]

3. Holder and Chiquita Brands

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/lawyer-for-chiquita-in-co_b_141919.html

"...Holder himself, using his influence as former deputy attorney general under the Clinton Administration, helped to negotiate Chiquita's sweeheart deal with the Justice Department in the criminal case against Chiquita. Under this deal, no Chiquita official received any jail time. Indeed, the identity of the key officials involved in the assistance to the paramilitaries were kept under seal and confidential. In the end, Chiquita was fined a mere $25 million which it has been allowed to pay over a 5-year period. This is incredible given the havoc wreaked by Chiquita's aid to these Colombian death squads." -- see above link for more.

[Jambalaya]

7. Going bananas in Ohio

izzy3r on HuffingtonPostIf anyone did, McC would be questioned constantly about his shady connections, starting with Charles Keating, Carl H. Lindner Jr., G. Gordon Liddy, ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/izzy3r?action=comments&display=news&sort=newest

McCain Backer's Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In ...Don Diamond, Charles Keating, Charlie Black, Carl Lindner and those are only the one's we currently know about here in Arizona. ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/02/mccain-fundraiser-oversaw_n_110354.html?page=9

McCain Was Strong Supporter Of Group Accused Of Terrorist ActivitiesI suspect he is referring to through Carl Lindner, vis a vis Charles ... Carl Lindner, an Ohio billionaire with CIA and underworld connections who owned ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/31/mccain-was-strong-support_n_139732.html?show_comment_id=17515805

McCain Campaign Donor's Giving Raises Questions... that would have benefited the owners of the Spur Cross Ranch, which included a company controlled by former Charles Keating associate Carl Lindner Jr. ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/29/mccain-campaign-donors-gi_n_138836.html?show_comment_id=17411306

[Pastiche423]

6. Very important point

Thank you and the poster below me for bring up Eric Chiquita Holder's name and participation in this.

[phoebe]

2. Joe Hagin

n/t

[EFerrari]

4. Going at Obama the long way. n/t

[Jambalaya]

5. Yes. we have no bananas

Interesting that the Colombian gov't wasn't asking questions during McCain's presidential campaign,recently. Herewith:

McCain Still Receives Big $$$s from Keating S&L Figure Linked to BCCI and Organized Crime
Posted by leveymg in General Discussion
Thu Aug 21st 2008, 05:18 PM
A lot of people are familiar with S&L crook Charles Keating's illegal contributions to John McCain in the 1980s. What most don't know, however, was that Keating was implicated in the BCCI takeover of a number of S&Ls, including his own. With me, so far?



Carl Lindner, an Ohio billionaire with CIA and underworld connections who owned Chiquita Bananas, was Charles Keating's original partner, banker, and mentor. Lindner got Keating wrapped up with schemes involving the usual cast of BCCI characters, shady Saudi bankers, the Bush family, and Iran-Contra money laundering. Keating was always a sort of pass-through guy, without any real money of his own. But, a lot of money flowed through Keating to McCain and his wife, Cindy, in an Arizona real estate scam. Lindner who was recently convicted of financing Right-wing death squads in Colombia, is still giving big, dirty campaign checks to McCain. Now, that's a story that the American people need to hear.




leveymg's Journal - THE CRIMES AND COVERUPS OF JOHN McCAIN, “REFORMER” Jun 3, 2008 ... Like the Bush Family, McCain had his Hand in the BCCI and S&L Scandals McCain claims that his involvement in the Keating S&L scandal wasn’t ...
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/... - 48k

McCain Backer's Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In Colombia ...Jul 2, 2008 ... Late last week, Lindner co-hosted a $25000-per-person fundraiser for McCain and the Republican Party in the wealthy Indian Hills ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/02/m... - 146k -

[Peace Patriot]

8. Interested in the "middlemen," who would likely be Colombians, but not in the

Chiquita execs themselves, who are protected by the U.S. government, thanks to Eric Holder and the deal he made for them with the Bushwhacks.

]i]"...according to official sources, Colombia's Supreme Court has recently asked information about middlemen who were responsible for the Chiquita payment of the paramilitaries, Caracol Radio reported Tuesday."

That's how I read it, but I could be wrong. Chiquita funneled $1.7 million to rightwing death squads over a seven year period, who murdered some 4,000 union leaders and members who were organizing to improve working conditions and wages at Chiquita farms in Colombia. How was the money funneled to these murderers? Through whom? More than likely Colombians tied to the Colombian military and its closely associated death squads, who are also tied to top government officials--people on whom the U.S./Bushwhacks (and collusive Democrats) have larded $6 BILLION in military aid (one of the biggest U.S. military aid packages in the world).

If we are criticizing Karl Rove and his and others' use of the Department of Justice for political purposes---which we rightfully should do (prosecutions are in order)--then we should also criticize Obama's A.G. appointee Holder for using his clout as a previous Clinton DoJ appointee and judge to do such a wrongful favor for a global corporate predator like Chiquita. Holder's action in that case does not bode well for equal justice under the law, for the powerful corporate executives and the super-rich.

We have a tremendous problem in this country--an epochal problem, the biggest problem we have--of corporate rule, including hijacking of our military for corporate resource wars, corporate control of our legal system to give them rights they shouldn't have, corporate lawyers writing our laws and our tax code, corporate control of our elections with 'TRADE SECRET' code voting machines, corporate monopoly control of the 'news' media, corporate control of trade policy to circumvent labor and environmental laws and outsource multi-millions of jobs, and on and on. If Obama wants "balance," which seems to be his thing--not fundamental reform, no FDR "New Deal," but a bit more advocacy for the unrepresented in Washington DC (the American people), he should be appointing leaders who are more objective than Eric Holder is on the vast imbalance currently favoring the corporate rulers and leaving the rest of us in the dust.

Holder's connection to this death squad case is particularly offensive, but he is not alone among questionable appointments by Obama. Hillary Clinton, whose chief campaign adviser was Mark Penn--a paid agent of the Colombian government--is equally worrisome as to U.S. policy in Latin America. Do we support justice, peace and democracy, or are we going to continue with this egregious hypocrisy, wherein we mouth baldfaced lies about these things and support--and even fund and arm--fascist murderers?

[unkachuck]

9. K&R....n/t