Chiquita Brands doled out money to the FARC, and the AUC

[rabs]

Intriguing and wild story in El Tiempo today:

-- Two new lawsuits have been filed against the company in Washington.

-- They concern the assassination and torture of 931 persons in the Urabá banana zone.

-- One of the cases is in reference to the massacre of 254 people by the FARC.

-- Lawyer for the victims, Paul Wolf, said Chiquita had admitted in court that it paid the FARC between 1987 and 1999 to protect the company's banana plantations from attacks by a rival guerrilla group, the EPL (Popular Liberation Army).

-- Then in the 1990s, the situation changed drastically when the narco-traffickers and the owners of the large plantations created the AUC paramilitaries.

-- Chiquita then changed sides, contracting the AUC to protect it from the FARC. The remnants of the EPL were integrated into the AUC.

-- The second lawsuit is in reference to the assassination of 677 persons by the AUC, the majority between 1995 and 1996, which were not included in previous lawsuits against the company.

-- In 2007, the company pleaded guilty of paying 1.7 million dollars to the paramilitaries between 1997 and 2004, for which Chiquita was fined 25 million dollars by a U.S. federal court.

Story in El Tiempo

http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial/articulo-258542-demandan-chiquita-brands-presuntos-nexos-farc-y-paras

Found Bloomberg story from March 9.

---------- snips -----

$11.8 BILLION ?

At least 10 other related lawsuits have been filed against Chiquita, Loyd said.

Those cases included one filed in 2009 by other family members of Pescatore. Today’s complaint was filed on behalf of Sparrow’s estate by her husband. Jane Sparrow died in 2005.

Four were filed on behalf of about 600 Colombian FARC victims seeking at least $11.8 billion in damages. Those cases were consolidated in Miami. A related suit by shareholders was settled in January.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-09/chiquita-sued-in-washington-by-family-of-slain-victim-of-terrorism.html

[Bacchus39]

1. extortion common FARC and para practice n/t

s

[rabs]

2. Read the El Tiempo and Bloomberg stories again

and maybe reading comprehension will kick in.

Chiquita was the one PAYING the FARC. Later Chiquita hired the AUC and PAID them.

[Bacchus39]

3. read it again, and the practice goes like this:

Farc and/or paras tell a business or land owner, "pay us money on a recurring basis in X amount and we will let you operate, if not there will be problems" comprendes????

I'll make it simpler for you. its the same as paying protection money to the mafia in the US. the farc and paras aren't the company's security guards although I suppose some individuals could be. comprendes???

so therein lies the problem, you illegally pay off a terrorist organization for "protection" or you don't do business.

[rabs]

4. Reading comprehension bad on Wednesdays, eh?

Here, to help you along I have put the pertinent info in CAPS.

------------------------

Chiquita Brands International Inc. (CQB), owner of the namesake banana label, is facing a second lawsuit accusing the company of HELPING MARXIST REBELS IN COLOMBIA who kidnapped and murdered an American geologist.

Jane Pescatore Sparrow’s estate, in a complaint filed today in federal court in Washington, alleges THE COMPANY AIDED AND ABETTED IN THE MURDER OF HER BROTHER AND PROVIDED MATERIAL SUPPORT AND RESOUCES TO TERRORISTS. Chiquita PAID THE FARC GUERRILLA GROUP FOR PROTECTION AND SUPPLIED IT WITH WEAPONS FROM 1989 TO 1997, according to the complaint.

[Bacchus39]

5. that is what the complaint alleges, comprendes???

and I say what happens is the both the FARC and the paras extort money from businesses and land owners. its quite common and common knowledge for those who know about Colombia.

that doesn't make it legal particularly given that the FARC and AUC are terrorist organizations.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Oh, NO! "Chiquita Brands "DOLED" out money." Oh, yikes.

Some headline writer undoubtedly felt proud of him/herself for that one!

[EFerrari]

7. Am I mistaken or was our Attorney General involved in the Chiquita litigation?

[Judi Lynn]

8. Up to his eyebrows in paramilitaries. "Eric Holder: death-squad defender"

Eric Holder: death-squad defender
Submitted by WW4 Report on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 02:34.

~snip~
Do not expect these recommendations to be carried forward if Eric Holder decides to forgo his lucrative corporate law practice at Covington & Burling and accept the U.S. Attorney General position for which many believe he is the top contendor. Eric Holder would have a troubling conflict of interest in carrying out this work in light of his current work as defense lawyer for Chiquita Brands international in a case in which Colombian plaintiffs seek damages for the murders carried out by the AUC paramilitaries - a designated terrorist organization. Chiquita has already admitted in a criminal case that it paid the AUC around $1.7 million in a 7-year period and that it further provided the AUC with a cache of machine guns as well.

Indeed, Holder himself, using his influence as former deputy attorney general under the Clinton Administration, helped to negotiate Chiquita's sweeheart deal with the Justice Department in the criminal case against Chiquita. Under this deal, no Chiquita official received any jail time. Indeed, the identity of the key officials involved in the assistance to the paramilitaries were kept under seal and confidential. In the end, Chiquita was fined a mere $25 million which it has been allowed to pay over a 5-year period. This is incredible given the havoc wreaked by Chiquita's aid to these Colombian death squards.

According to Mario Iguaran, the Attorney General of Colombia, Chiquita's payments to the AUC paramilitaries led to the murder of 4000 civilians in the banana region of Colombia and furthered the growth of the paramilitaries throughout Colombia and their violent takeover of numerous Colombian regions. Iguaran, in response to the claims of both Chiquita and Eric Holder himself that Chiquita was somehow forced to pay "protection" to the paramilitaries, ...stated unequivocally that "his was not payment of extortion money. It was support for an illegal armed group whose methods included murder." See, Christian Science Monitor , "Chiquita Case Puts Big Firms on Notice."

One former paramilitary leader who is in federal custody in the U.S., Salvatore Mancuso, has stated that he has more knowledge about Chiquita's relationship with the paramilitary death squads in Colombia. Mancuso further claims that Dole and Del Monte also made payments to the paramilitaries, just as Chiquita did. Yet, Dole and Del Monte remain un-indicted. Query whether, as Human Rights Watch recommends, a Justice Department under Holder would be interested in pursuing this and other similar leads. This is a serious matter given the fact that the Justice Department has already come under great scrutiny for turning a blind eye to what appears to be rampant corporate support for terrorist groups in Colombia. See, LA Times , "US accused of bending rules on Colombian Terror."

More:
http://www.ww4report.com/node/6357