The Death Penalty for Chiquita

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Apparently multinational Chiquita Banana has paid $1.7 million dollars to identified terrorist groups in Colombia.

In Colombia, however, the Chiquita name has recently come to symbolize the confirmation of a long-suspected relationship between multinational firms and illegal armies fighting in the nation's four-decade-old war.

Chiquita Brands International admitted in US court last month that it paid $1.7 million to Colombia's brutal right-wing militias over the course of eight years. The company said it did so to protect its employees and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. The case is sparking outrage in the capital, Bogotá, where officials want to see company executives on trial.

Many in Urabá, Colombia's banana growing region, shrug off the payments as normal. Chiquita pulled out of Colombia in 2004 by selling its Banadex subsidiary to a local company for $43.5 million. But the case could have implications for other companies doing business here or in other conflict areas around the world, analysts say.

"It's one of the first “if not the first “ times that a [US-based] company is indicted and pleads guilty to providing material support to an organization known to commit widespread human rights abuses," says Arvind Ganesan, director of the Business and Human Rights program at the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"But it's actually not a case about human rights," he says. "It's a unique case where terrorism is the crux of the whole thing." The single-count indictment against Chiquita was for "engaging in transactions with a specially designated global terrorist."

From: The Miami Herald:

''The Chiquita case simply demonstrated what we've been saying all along: that companies doing business in Colombia are necessarily in bed with the paramilitaries,'' said Terry Collingsworth, executive director of the Washington-based Labor Rights Fund.

As United Fruit and later United Brands, Chiquita has had controversial operations in Latin America for a century.

A 1928 strike at its Colombia operations was quelled by army troops who opened fire and killed as many as 1,000 protesters. It helped foment a 1954 coup against Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. Earlier this decade, Human Rights Watch linked Chiquita with companies that used child labor in Ecuador.

Now it is only one of several U.S. companies facing troubles for its Colombia operations.

The Labor Rights Fund filed the lawsuits against Drummond and Coca-Cola under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victim Protection Act, which allows victims to sue in U.S. courts for human rights violations committed anywhere in the world.

In 1996, paramilitary fighters entered a Coca-Cola bottling plant, Bebidas y Alimentos, in Antioquia owned by Key Biscayne resident Richard Kirby and assassinated a union leader, Isidro Gil. The next day, they returned and told the workers to disband the union or die. By the afternoon there was no union, and several workers had fled.

The U.S. State Department reported in 2003 that about 4,000 union members had been slain in Colombia in the past 20 years. The International Labor Rights Fund, citing human-rights groups in Colombia, said 444 were slain from 2002 to 2005.

Gil was one of four union members in Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia whose killings are part of one lawsuit against three bottlers: Bebidas y Alimentos, Panamco and Panamerican Beverages, as well as Atlanta-based Coca-Cola. A judge in Miami dismissed the suit against the corporate giant, but the plaintiffs have appealed the dismissal.

An attorney for Coca-Cola in Atlanta would not comment. Robert M. Brochin, the Miami attorney for Panamco and Panamerican Beverages, said they were not involved in the union activists' killings.

''There is no proof that the bottlers were in any way involved in a conspiracy with the paramilitaries,'' said Brochin.

The attorney for Bebidas y Alimentos did not answer a telephone message left by The Miami Herald. Lawyers for Coca Cola and Drummond have denied the allegations. The Drummond case is scheduled to go to trial in Alabama in July.

Colombian authorities are pursuing their own investigations into Chiquita's protection payments, and have threatened to seek the extradition of Chiquita executives from the United States. The Colombian attorney general's office also is investigating the Drummond and Coca-Cola cases.

''I do not regard this as a relationship between a blackmailer and his victim,'' Attorney General Mario Iguarán told journalists. ``What I can see is a criminal relationship.''

Criminal .... that's right. It's also an outrage.

Here is a link to música fariana, or FARC-EP revolutionary tunes in Spanish ... if you are interested. Music is often a way of maintaining the revolutionary spirit, especially for the illiterate.

Comments

[Rosa Luz]

Does anyone know the FARC's Policy toward the Latin Tridentine Mass? I understand many of the Colombian Rebel Movements in the 1960s were actually founded by Catholic priests who were the Jefes, is that true? And back then there was only the Old Latin Mass before those Conciliar Changes of the Vatican II Council. In China, I know that the Chinese Communist Patriotic Catholic Church, which rebelled from Rome, still celebrates the Old Latin Mass Liturgy with their valid succession of bishops. But, I am not sure does the FARC-EP have chaplains like a regular military? And how about the ELN, and the various other rebel groups? Do these various rebel groups communicate together for special feasts (Communcatio in Sacris)?

Do they tolerate Traditionalist Catholic Priests? Also what is their policy toward Russian Orthodox Priests? Someone said they kill priests a lot, is that true?

I am little worried to hear Chavez mentioned, I read he is involved in the Sin (Betrayal) of Communicatio in Sacris with non-Catholics (like Muslims). I read these matters from a scholarly book written by a Latino author, Dr. DeTucci (I think he studied at the Javierana?), you can browse the book online:

http://www.lulu.com/content/1753466

I also read Simon Bolivar forbade Non-Catholic Churches in Gran Colombia (and any "Communicatio in Sacris"), is that true? Does President Uribe take a stance on this? Or is he under the control of the AUC? I read also that Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos of Medellin, Colombia (Head Vatican Official of the Latin Mass Indult Commission Ecclesia Dei--which ironically is trying to heal the Latin Schismatic Rebel Groups formed by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre of France which extend globally including in Europe and the Americas) is a secret-Jefe of the AUC, and he also has helped the M-19 Block officially pontificating the Old Latin Mass for Medellin and Cali Cartel Families, and of course collecting their donations or la comienza, does anyone have revealing information on this scandal? I guess the rumor may be true that he also helps certain Israel Programs with financial laundering of funds under the guise of Church Hierarchy (Most Holy Family Monastery's Michael Dimond being the Zionist Superior Jefe of this program). Further, I saw on television that Director Oliver Stone is investigating this whole Latin-Colombian Schism and claims to have the necessary inside information on Uribe and Friends to definitely expose him in a Documentary that will be released on video. I guess there is a certain Bishop Spadafore (from Palma de Troya, Spain) involved in the fiasco?

Thanks,
Rosa

P.S. I also read about Vlad Tepes, a Catholic Prince who resisted the Turkish Muslim Invasion in Romania, he is a national hero to Romania, and he actually died a Roman Catholic! Vlad certainly put fear into his enemies by his strict justice, and his enemies lied that he was a vampire to demonize him. So people can make up stories about people, and call them terrible things, like a terrorist. You can read more here:

http://www.vladcatholic.com

[Rosa Luz]

Does anyone know the FARC's Policy toward the Latin Tridentine Mass? I understand many of the Colombian Rebel Movements in the 1960s were actually founded by Catholic priests who were the Jefes, is that true? And back then there was only the Old Latin Mass before those Conciliar Changes of the Vatican II Council. In China, I know that the Chinese Communist Patriotic Catholic Church, which rebelled from Rome, still celebrates the Old Latin Mass Liturgy with their valid succession of bishops. But, I am not sure does the FARC-EP have chaplains like a regular military? And how about the ELN, and the various other rebel groups? Do these various rebel groups communicate together for special feasts (Communcatio in Sacris)?

Do they tolerate Traditionalist Catholic Priests? Also what is their policy toward Russian Orthodox Priests? Someone said they kill priests a lot, is that true?

I am little worried to hear Chavez mentioned, I read he is involved in the Sin (Betrayal) of Communicatio in Sacris with non-Catholics (like Muslims). I read these matters from a scholarly book written by a Latino author, Dr. DeTucci (I think he studied at the Javierana?), you can browse the book online:

http://www.lulu.com/content/1753466

I also read Simon Bolivar forbade Non-Catholic Churches in Gran Colombia (and any "Communicatio in Sacris"), is that true? Does President Uribe take a stance on this? Or is he under the control of the AUC? I read also that Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos of Medellin, Colombia (Head Vatican Official of the Latin Mass Indult Commission Ecclesia Dei--which ironically is trying to heal the Latin Schismatic Rebel Groups formed by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre of France which extend globally including in Europe and the Americas) is a secret-Jefe of the AUC, and he also has helped the M-19 Block officially pontificating the Old Latin Mass for Medellin and Cali Cartel Families, and of course collecting their donations or la comienza, does anyone have revealing information on this scandal? I guess the rumor may be true that he also helps certain Israel Programs with financial laundering of funds under the guise of Church Hierarchy (Most Holy Family Monastery's Michael Dimond being the Zionist Superior Jefe of this program). Further, I saw on television that Director Oliver Stone is investigating this whole Latin-Colombian Schism and claims to have the necessary inside information on Uribe and Friends to definitely expose him in a Documentary that will be released on video. I guess there is a certain Bishop Spadafore (from Palma de Troya, Spain) involved in the fiasco?

Thanks,
Rosa

P.S. I also read about Vlad Tepes, a Catholic Prince who resisted the Turkish Muslim Invasion in Romania, he is a national hero to Romania, and he actually died a Roman Catholic! Vlad certainly put fear into his enemies by his strict justice, and his enemies lied that he was a vampire to demonize him. So people can make up stories about people, and call them terrible things, like a terrorist. You can read more here:

http://www.vladcatholic.com