Chiquita Banana gets off with a slap on the wrist for murder

[ProudDad]

United Fruit Company rides again...

"With a $25 Million Fine, Chiquita Washes its Hands in Death Squad Case

"Chiquita has admitted to making payments to Colombian death squads -- but the death squads' victims won't get any money from the multinational, and none of the company's executives are facing jail time."

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2007/3/17/231647/347

[ocdem]

1. yep

coca cola has been killing union organizers for years.

no biggie.

[ocdem]

2. umm

please google "killer coke" and you'll see.

[Rex]

19. This is what happens when multi-national companies have bigger

budgets than the countries they 'operate' in. Welcome to DU.

[newyawker99]

17. Hi ocdem!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Judi Lynn]

3. And Americans appear to be the only ones who don't know about this stuff.

What a damned shame. Here's an account of a Colombian child:

Deadly Chiquita bananas

Millions of green bananas are shipped out from the harbour town Turbo where Maria, 12, lives. Many of them are marked Chiquita when they reach their buyers in Europe. But even bananas kill in Colombia. Rich and powerful plantation owners hire paramilitaries to frighten away the poor small farmers and take their land. Then they grow bananas for export on the stolen land. Maria's father was shot to death and his family forced to flee.

Maria is part of the same group in the Children's Peace Movement as Sofia. She dreams of becoming an actress in a soap-opera and when the Children's Peace Movement comes to her block there is much dancing and singing.
- We haven't always lived here in Turbo. We used to live in a village in the countryside. But we had to run away and leave everything, relates Maria.

Soldiers came
It was four year ago. Even as they walked into the village the villagers saw that the soldiers hadn't come there to act nice.

- Papa became paralyzed with fear and closed the door. Mama and we children stopped talking and just sat there quietly and waited. Suddenly there was a pounding on the door and the soldiers rushed in. They screamed at mother and father that they had to leave immediately, otherwise they would kill us all!.
Maria hasn't forgotten what happened.

- They shot several farmers in the head, over and over again. I was so afraid that I shook and my little brother Juan hid under the bed.
(snip/...)

http://www.korubo.com/Colombia/maria.htm

Also from the same site:

• At least 6,000 children participate in the war as child soldiers.
• Every sixth child soldier has killed someone. As many have seen torture.
• Six of ten have seen people killed and 8 of 10 have seen dead bodies.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Outsourcing never looked better.

[fasttense]

4. Now that's what I call deregulation. n/t

[soothsayer]

5. I dunno what else chiquita can do except pay protection. Those

terra-ists are the ones who kidnap missionaries and behead folks all the time. Very creepy stuff.

[rman]

16. Apparently, paying protection did not prevent atrocities.

Fact is Chiquita did pay -and- atrocities against the local population took place. Makes me wonder what Chiquita got for the money they payed.

Is it that Chiquita did not pay on some occasions, or did not pay enough, or is the protection money only to prevent Chiquita CEOs from being beheaded?

More often than not the result of death squad activities is that the local population is discouraged to oppose corporations such as Chiquita, which invariably offer low pay and poor labor conditions - if not to displace populations so that corporations such as Chiquita can take their land to grow bananas.

[formercia]

6. Chiquita is part of the BFEE

http://electromagnet.us/dogspot/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=322

Gomez does not cover the corporate intrigues that connect United Fruit to Zapata Oil and Zapata Offshore, properties of the Bush family founded with money from the banking firm of Brown Brothers Harriman: the largest private banking institution in the world.



In 1969, Zapata bought the United Fruit Company of Boston...
In 1981, all Securities and Exchange Commission filings for Zapata Off-Shore between 1960 and 1966 were destroyed. In other words, the year Bush became vice president, important records detailing his years at his drilling company disappeared.

The youngest member of this group of incestuous corporations that enjoy the full protection of the US "intelligence community" is Arbusto Energy, founded by the current president of the United States: George W. Bush. His partners in this dubious venture include James R. Bath of BCCI infamy, and Salem Bin Laden.





During the 80's, there was a supposed civil war in Guatamala where hundreds of thousands of mostly indigenous people were driven off their land or killed so that United fruit could expand their banana plantations. At the time, GHW Bush was Vice president and directing that war in which he had a personal financial interest.

What is happening today in Colombia is directly connected.

[rman]

7. $25 Million Fine, paying deathsquads - no small matter

But very few will get to know about this part of history, even though it's not a secret.


By the way, BFEE is tied up in the history of United Fruits / Chiquita

from DU:

Zapata Oil was formed in 1953 by George H.W. Bush and Brown Brothers Harriman. Later George H.W. Bush bought the subsidiary Zapata Off-Shore and went into business for himself. It merged in 1963 with Penn to form Pennzoil. Even though Zapata never found any oil, it was succesfully sold in 1966 to Robert Gow. (All SEC filings between 1960 and 1966 were sadly destroyed in 1981)

In 1969 Zapata bought the United Fruit Company. On the board of directors was Ralph Gow, Robert Gow's father. Later that year on sept. 24. Eli Black makes the third largest transaction in Wall Street history up to that moment by buying 733,000 shares of United Fruit in a single day. Black becomes the largest shareholder of the company. In June 1970 United Fruit merges with AMK-John Morrell to become the United Brands Company.

After Eli Black's spectacular suicide on February 3, 1975 he jumped out of the window of his New York City office on the 44th floor of the Pan Am Building Cincinnati-based American Financial, one of millionaire Carl H. Lindner, Jr.'s companies, bought into United Fruit. In August 1984, Lindner took control of the company and renamed it Chiquita Brands International.

[mod mom]

9. NYT: Columbia May Extradite Chiquita Officials

Colombia May Extradite Chiquita Officials

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Published: March 19, 2007


CARACAS, Venezuela, March 18 — Colombian officials said over the weekend that they would consider seeking the extradition of senior executives of Chiquita Brands International after the company pleaded guilty in United States federal court to making payments to paramilitary death squads.

Chiquita, one of the world’s largest banana producers, agreed to pay a fine of $25 million last week to the United States Justice Department to settle the case. Chiquita told the Justice Department that from 1997 to 2004, a subsidiary in Colombia had paid $1.7 million to right-wing paramilitary groups, which are classified by the United States government as terrorist organizations.

The company said that the payments had been motivated by concern for the safety of employees, and that similar payments had also been made to left-wing Colombian groups.

Officials from Chiquita, which is based in Cincinnati, did not respond Sunday to repeated requests for comment.

-snip
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/world/americas/19colombia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[formercia]

10. for what it's worth:

http://www.kosel.com/it/sh/livdmb.htm

[mod mom]

11. what is this?

[formercia]

12. Books on the Knights of Malta membership by Lindner

just a lead to a possible direct connection. Poppy is an Honorary Knight of Malta.

[rman]

20. The Sovereign Military Order Of Malta

The Sovereign Military Order Of Malta is Not a Country
http://geography.about.com/od/politicalgeography/a/knightsmalta.htm?rd=1

"Some claim that there is a country even smaller than the world's smallest country, Vatican City. They claim that world's actual smallest country is an organization headquartered in Rome called the Sovereign Military Order Of Malta (SMOM for short but also known as the Knights of Malta and also officially the Sovereign Military Hopsitaller Order Of St. John Of Jerusalem, Of Rhodes And Of Malta).

While the Knights of Malta was once an independent country, today it is no more an independent country than any other organization such as the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The Knights of Malta as a religious organization that provides humanitarian and medical assistance worldwide. It has held Permanent Observer status at the United Nations (as does the Red Cross) since 1994 and issues "passports" to its diplomats for diplomatic business but it does not meet the criteria for being an independent country. It lacks territory, a permanent population, police power, and has no economy."

more...


official website
http://www.orderofmalta.org/index.asp?idlingua=5

====

Not the smallest country - but it does issue passports and it does have diplomats. It has no territory but it appears that it is a sovereign State of sorts. Why would any organization call itself "sovereign" unless that's what it is?

[formercia]

21. Would not anyone who is a member

be an agent of a foreign power?

[rman]

23. I'd think so.

At the very least, passports and diplomats create interesting possibilities for such an organization. Diplomatic immunity and all that.

[formercia]

25. Get out of jail free

makes it very convenient when the op goes sideways.

[formercia]

15. More on United Brands

Those pesky Germans again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiquita_Brands_International

[mod mom]

18. on Carl Lindner (former CEO):

Carl H. Lindner (with Edyth)
March 5, 2001

Since 1994, Carl Lindner and his Chiquita banana empire have been Exhibit A in the fight to reform campaign finance. Through his insurance company, American Financial Group, Lindner controls nearly 40 percent of Chiquita. And through his millions in campaign contributions to both parties, he has persuaded the nation's top politicians to marshal U.S. foreign policy to fight Chiquita's trade war against the European Union.The Clinton administration went out of its way to punish European nations for blocking imports of Chiquita's bananas, imposing tariffs on everything from French cheese to Scottish cashmere sweaters. But even normally staid observers were stunned last October, when Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott tried to insert language into an appropriations bill that would have given Chiquita veto power over any settlement of the trade dispute. The Wall Street Journal called the move "extraordinary." The Los Angeles Times termed it a "mockery of the government's trade policy." Noting that Lott's move would have put Lindner on a near-equal footing with the president, the Washington Post called it a "caricature of bad trade policy."

-snip

Chiquita has a long history of counting on American might to get its way in international affairs. The United Fruit Company, Chiquita's corporate predecessor, relied on U.S. military aid to virtually colonize Central America during the early 20th century. More recently, a 1998 investigation by the Cincinnati Enquirer uncovered internal company records detailing Chiquita's elaborate efforts to circumvent government restrictions and monopolize farmland in Central America. "Using more than one bank in Honduras and more than one country to establish offshore trusts further obfuscates the ownership of the farms," a Chiquita executive noted in one internal memorandum. In a recorded voice mail, a company lawyer described "wink, wink" strategies for denying ownership of a front company in Guatemala.

Mike Gallagher, the lead reporter on the investigation, later pleaded guilty to stealing the company's voice mail messages for use in his stories. The Enquirer renounced the stories as "false and misleading," fired Gallagher, and paid Chiquita more than $10 million in damages. But many of Gallagher's central charges remain uncontested. "No one has disputed the authenticity of the voice mail and internal Chiquita records that formed the basis of the most sensational allegations," notes the New York Times.

Chiquita has also been criticized for endangering the lives of farmworkers with its pesticides, an allegation the company denies. In addition, the firm has been accused of covering up a bribery scheme in Columbia; three employees linked to the scandal have been forced to resign.

-snip

http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/mojo_400/6_lindner.html

[Beelzebud]

13. The next time I hear about how many people died to get marijuana into the country.

I'm going to get this story out and throw it in someone's face.

[Horse with no Name]

14. I'm curious if this is an industry wide practice

because I would hate to give up bananas.
Yes, there will be no Chiquita bananas in this house.

[populistdriven]

22. check out this book

http://www.amazon.com/Gangster-Capitalism-United-Globalization-Organized/dp/0786716711/ref=sr_1_12/104-5342327-8012767?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174328997&sr=1-12

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0786716711.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

[rman]

24. from amazon's book description

...
"The trouble is, as Woodiwiss demonstrates in shocking and surprising detail, what everyone knows about organized crime is pretty much completely wrong. In reality the most important figures in organized crime are employees of multinational companies, politicians and bureaucrats. Gangsters are certainly a problem, but much of their strength comes from attempts to prohibit the market for certain drugs. Even here they are minor players when compared with the intelligence and law enforcement agencies that selectively enforce prohibition and profit from it. Woodiwiss shows how respectable businessmen and revered statesmen have seized these opportunities in an orgy of fraud and illegal violence"


--

Sounds interesting.
I was starting to think along those lines; that it isn't so much that there are two distinctly different kinds of criminals - ordinary criminals including mafia types, and some sort of elitist mafia that exists in politics and business - but rather that it is a continuum.

Added to my book list.

[whoneedstickets]

26. Good thing these were Right Wing Terrorists!!

And not Marxists or worse yet Muslim Terrorists or that poor fruit company might have drawn the attention of the administration.

I wouldn't doubt it if the Chiquita company had been working with the CIA on this all along!