Super Criminals:Chiquita Lauded for Human Rights Abuses

[Judi Lynn]

January 12, 2010

Super Criminals
Chiquita Lauded for Human Rights Abuses
By DAN KOVALIK

In its most recent edition, the magazine, “Super Lawyers,” gave its cover story to the General Counsel of Chiquita Brands International, praising him for navigating the complex and difficult waters of Colombia. What it failed to mention is the trail of tears in Latin America left behind by Chiquita (formerly United Fruit, the architect of the 1954 coup in Guatemala as well as the 1928 massacre of striking banana workers in Cienaga, Colombia memorialized in One Hundred Years of Solitude). The following letter, by union labor lawyer, Dan Kovalik highlights the contradictions in the applause given to Chiquita. We note that, just after this letter was written, Chiquita also received (quite ironically) a “sustainability award” for its business abroad.


Re: Super Criminals

Dear Mr. White,

I just had the unfortunate experience of reading the cover story of your recent publication, "Super Lawyers," which lauded the atrocities of Chiquita (formerly, United Fruit) -- a company with a laundry list of atrocities to its name, to be sure.

Your publication, which purports to highlight "not just the 'Usual Suspects,'" actually did focus on one of the "Usual Suspects" for war crimes in this issue. In this particular issue, you chose to applaud the General Counsel of Chiquita for what he claimed to be Chiquita's "extra-difficult decisions to save lives" by paying murderous paramilitaries over $1.7 million over a 7-year period. Nothing is said of the lives lost due to these payments, nor is there mention of the cache of arms provided to the paramilitaries by Chiquita's Colombian subsidiary (another count Chiquita pled guilty to).

According to Colombia's Attorney General, Mario Iguaran, Chiquita's payments to the paramilitaries were "not paid for protection, but rather, for blood; for the pacification of the Uruba banana region." Iguaran, hardly a liberal, having been appointed by President Alvaro Uribe, estimates that around 4,000 civilians were killed as a result of the assistance Chiquita gave to the paramilitaries. Moreover, Iguaran has opined that the very phenomenon of parmilitarism which has gripped Colombia for years and which has led to countless murders, rapes and other atrocities, would not have been possible without this assistance by companies like Chiquita.

Yet, notwithstanding these facts, you chose to give Chiquita's General Counsel your cover story to spew his apologies for his company's support for war crimes. Of course, I should not be surprised, the law, after all, being an instrument created and maintained to protect the rich and strong from the poor and oppressed. I might just suggest that, to keep up the facade of a justice system blind to the pocketbook of the parties coming before it, you might not want to be so obvious in your publication in highlighting the legal profession as a guardian of those who amass profit through acts of massive violence.

I guess Bob Dylan said it best when he wrote, "All the criminals in their suits and their ties, are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise . . . ."

I could end my note here, but a bit more is worth saying. Thus, even if we take Chiquita and Mr. Thompson at their word, their conduct hardly warrants congratulations. First, even by their own admissions to the Justice Department and to your magazine, it allegedly took them over 2 years to realize that the paramilitaries they were paying and providing arms to were designated by the U.S. State Department as "terrorists." Is this a mark of great lawyering? Most of us would be fired for taking so long to realize our client was engaged in such a high crime. Indeed, what you call "super lawyering" would simply be called "malpractice" by most reasonable observers. And, even if they were paying "protection" to these killers to grow and profit from bananas as they claim, is that also a reason for praise? The Justice Department, which certainly let these folks off quite easily (they should all be in jail), certainly didn't think this excused them from punishment.

I will end this by asking that you please refrain from ever sending me your publication again. You should be ashamed of yourself and your magazine. But, of course, we live in a world largely without shame, where petty criminals spend years in jail and the big criminals rule the world, thanks to the law you claim to be so dedicated to.

Sincerely,
Dan Kovalik

http://www.counterpunch.org/kovalik01122010.html

[Downwinder]

1. To be expected when the President of the U.S. gets a "peace prize." n/t

[Peace Patriot]

2. 4,000+ "murders, rapes and other atrocities" would not have been possible without Chiquita!

I had not heard of this statement before, from Colombia's chief prosecutor.

"According to Colombia's Attorney General, Mario Iguaran, Chiquita's payments to the paramilitaries were 'not paid for protection, but rather, for blood; for the pacification of the Uruba banana region.' Iguaran, hardly a liberal, having been appointed by President Alvaro Uribe, estimates that around 4,000 civilians were killed as a result of the assistance Chiquita gave to the paramilitaries. Moreover, Iguaran has opined that the very phenomenon of parmilitarism which has gripped Colombia for years and which has led to countless murders, rapes and other atrocities, would not have been possible without this assistance by companies like Chiquita".

I believe that I just read the estimate of 30,000 murders by the Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing death squads. This would not have been possible, according to Iguaran, without the funds and encouragement provided by Chiquita and other U.S. corporations. Not sure of the figure, nor over what period, but I'm sure it's in the tens of thousands over the last decade (and such murders are still happening). Amnesty International attributes 92% of the murders of union leaders in Colombia to the Colombian military (about half) and its death squads (the other half)--and only 2% to the FARC guerillas. The recent UN report attributes 75% of the overall extrajudicial murders (union leaders and all others) to the same parties--the Colombian military and paramilitaries (in the same proportion). So, in addition to Chiquita's material support for this mass slaughter, the U.S. government is also culpable, since it lards $6 BILLION on the Colombia military, despite their having one of the worst human rights records on earth. One other thing that both governments are responsible for is the forced displacement of 3 million Colombian peasant farmers--the second worst human displacement crisis in the world, after Sudan.

The article doesn't mention that not only has Chiquita's chief counsel gotten rewarded, for aiding 4,000+ murders and other atrocities, with cover story praise in an important legal publication, but another of Chiquita's legal defenders, Eric Holder, got rewarded by being appointed Attorney General of the United States. The current chief law enforcement officer of the U.S., when he was a private attorney, represented Chiquita in arranging for a mere handslap from the Bush Junta, for their part in mass murder--not a terribly difficult task, I imagine, but very lucrative, I'm sure, as well as rewarding in other ways.

The U.S. relationship with Colombia is something like "Dante's Inferno"--with many levels of horror, in that poem inflicted on sinners, but in our reality inflicted on innocent men, women and children--peasant farmers, teachers, community organizers, union leaders, human rights workers and others. Sometimes they would cut them up alive and throw their body parts into mass graves. Children were eviscerated in front of their parents. Pregnant women were slit open. Rarely were the victims just shot. Most were tortured. Their crime: trying to exercise their civil rights or merely being related to someone who did.

Daring to ask for a better wage.

Daring to meet with others to organize a union.

Being born.

[Vidar]

3. K&R.