From AxisofLogic.com
News - Americas
Chiquita banana company is fined $25m for paying off Colombian death squads
By Andrew Gumbel
Mar 16, 2007, 00:59
The Chiquita banana company, one of the world's biggest and most powerful food companies, has admitted paying "protection" money to Colombian paramilitary groups identified by the US government as terrorist organisations - and has agreed to pay a $25m (£13m) fine to wrap up a federal investigation.
The settlement was quickly denounced as too lenient by human rights groups, which have long said that Chiquita's bananas are "stained with blood", accusing the company of paying paramilitary groups not only to protect workers, but also to target union leaders and agitators perceived as going against the company's commercial interests.
They also pointed to President George Bush's policy that anyone financing a terrorist organisation should be prosecuted as vigorously as the terrorists.
Rather than handing down indictments through a federal grand jury, the Justice Department chose to file a "document of criminal information" against Chiquita Brands International - a less aggressive form of prosecution that usually leads to a settlement rather than a criminal trial.
Under the deal worked out on Wednesday, Chiquita will plead guilty to one charge of doing business with a terrorist group, and face no immediate sanction other than the fine.
Chiquita itself insists that the only money it ever paid was to protect the well-being of its workers.
Local human rights groups in Colombia have accused the company in the past of using the ports it controls to smuggle weapons into the country for the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, often described as a death squad.
Gloria Cuartas, the former mayor of Apartado in the heart of banana country in Colombia, told CNN she was calling for a boycott of Chiquita products.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2362755.ece
News - Americas
Chiquita banana company is fined $25m for paying off Colombian death squads
By Andrew Gumbel
Mar 16, 2007, 00:59
The Chiquita banana company, one of the world's biggest and most powerful food companies, has admitted paying "protection" money to Colombian paramilitary groups identified by the US government as terrorist organisations - and has agreed to pay a $25m (£13m) fine to wrap up a federal investigation.
The settlement was quickly denounced as too lenient by human rights groups, which have long said that Chiquita's bananas are "stained with blood", accusing the company of paying paramilitary groups not only to protect workers, but also to target union leaders and agitators perceived as going against the company's commercial interests.
They also pointed to President George Bush's policy that anyone financing a terrorist organisation should be prosecuted as vigorously as the terrorists.
Rather than handing down indictments through a federal grand jury, the Justice Department chose to file a "document of criminal information" against Chiquita Brands International - a less aggressive form of prosecution that usually leads to a settlement rather than a criminal trial.
Under the deal worked out on Wednesday, Chiquita will plead guilty to one charge of doing business with a terrorist group, and face no immediate sanction other than the fine.
Chiquita itself insists that the only money it ever paid was to protect the well-being of its workers.
Local human rights groups in Colombia have accused the company in the past of using the ports it controls to smuggle weapons into the country for the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, often described as a death squad.
Gloria Cuartas, the former mayor of Apartado in the heart of banana country in Colombia, told CNN she was calling for a boycott of Chiquita products.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2362755.ece
