'Para-politics' Goes Bananas (The Nation)

[marmar]

article | posted March 29, 2007 (web only)
'Para-politics' Goes Bananas
Michael Evans



In a scandal with wide-ranging implications for US-Colombia ties, Chiquita Brands International, the mega-fruit company, agreed earlier this month to pay $25 million in fines to the US government for making payments of more than $1.7 million to a Colombian terrorist paramilitary group.

At the center of the scandal is the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia--AUC), a right-wing paramilitary umbrella organization responsible for countless massacres and forced displacements over the last decade. The AUC's operations have often enjoyed the tolerance or collaboration of Colombian security forces, who view the paramilitaries as de facto allies in their decades-old struggle against leftist guerrillas.

Colombia's attorney general has now opened a similar case, and has requested information from the Justice Department. Colombia might also seek the extradition of eight Chiquita officials on charges that the company used one of its own ships to smuggle weapons to the same paramilitary group.

The news about links between bananas and terror comes amid continuing revelations about the depth and breadth of paramilitary influence at all levels of government. "Para-politics" has already taken down the country's foreign minister, a provincial governor and the head of the secret police, among others.
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The Chiquita case provides one additional twist. Lauded in recent years for the unprecedented number of narco-trafficking suspects it has handed over to the United States, the Colombian government has now turned the extradition issue on its head, putting the US government in the delicate position of responding to Colombia's request for the extradition of Chiquita executives. This case will surely be one to watch, as the Colombian government relishes its chance to divert attention away from its own paramilitary problem.

But if history is any guide, the Chiquita execs have little to fear. Impunity is far more frequently the rule than the exception in Colombia. And for the time being at least, coming to some sort of modus vivendi with paramilitaries is likely to remain the "cost of doing business" in Colombia. .....

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/evans