So Chiquita (as in bananas) is a terrorist organization?

Danny Tse

Don't believe me? Put that banana down!!

Check out the following....

WASHINGTON - Banana company Chiquita Brands International said Wednesday it has agreed to a $25 million fine after admitting it paid a Colombian terrorist group for protection in a volatile farming region.

The settlement resolves a lengthy Justice Department investigation into the company's financial dealings with terrorist organizations in Colombia.

In court documents filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors said the Cincinnati-based company and several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers paid about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC for its Spanish initials.

The AUC has been responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia's civil conflict and for a sizable percentage of the country's cocaine exports. The U.S. government designated the right-wing group as a terrorist organization in September 2001.

Prosecutors said the company made the payments in exchange for protection for its workers. The company also made similar payments to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, according to prosecutors. The group also is known as FARC, the acronym for its Spanish name.

Leftist rebels and far-right paramilitaries have fought viciously over Colombia's banana-growing region. Most companies have extensive security operations to protect employees there.

"The information filed today is part of a plea agreement, which we view as a reasoned solution to the dilemma the company faced several years ago," Chiquita's chief executive, Fernando Aguirre, said in a statement. "The payments made by the company were always motivated by our good faith concern for the safety of our employees."

Such arrangements between companies and guerrillas or paramilitaries are not uncommon but it's impossible to know how much money is paid each year.

Chiquita sold its Colombian banana operations in June 2004.

Details of the settlement were not included in court documents but Aguirre said Chiquita would pay $25 million in fines, which it set aside this year. The company reported the deal to the Securities and Exchange Commission. A plea hearing was scheduled for Monday.

The payments were approved by senior executives at Chiquita, prosecutors wrote in court documents. Prosecutors said Chiquita began paying the right-wing AUC after a meeting in 1997 and disguised the payments in company books.

"No later than in or about September 2000, defendant Chiquita's senior executives knew that the corporation was paying AUC and that the AUC was a violent paramilitary organization," prosecutors wrote in Wednesday's court filing.

Company attorneys made it clear the payments were improper, prosecutors said.

"Bottom line: CANNOT MAKE THE PAYMENT," the company's outside counsel advised in February 2003, according to an excerpt of a memo included in court documents.

In April 2003, company officials and lawyers approached the Justice Department and told prosecutors they had been making the payments. According to court documents, the payments continued for months.

The document filed by federal prosecutors is known as an information. Unlike an indictment, it is normally worked out through discussions with prosecutors and is followed by a guilty plea.

Ricardo

Wow; I wouldn't call the company a "Terrorist Organization". Nevertheless, I think that a fine is too much of an easy way out; IMO officials involved in the decision of paying these organizations should face criminal charges.

sucks2beme

Cost of doing business. Would it of been better to have people die?
That's what we're talking about. It's one thing to to talk about it here.
Quite another to be out on the plantation in a third world country.
It's a **** charge.

BIZILL

duh, i thought everyone knew that they were a little banana's over there at chiquita. ha ha!:p

BaggedLancer

this story is bananas

Ricardo

sucks2beme wrote:

Cost of doing business. Would it of been better to have people die?
That's what we're talking about. It's one thing to to talk about it here.
Quite another to be out on the plantation in a third world country.
It's a **** charge.

I disagree; if you cannot do business without getting away from what's legal, then move out. They didn't and I am sure the consequences will be a lot more than a $25MM fine.

One thing is pay for protection to an established security company (normal procedure in those countries), but pay to the organizations that are actually the threat IMO is not right for a company like that.

hearingimpared

I wonder if that fine is going to affect the price of Chunky Monkey?

POLKOHOLIC

I must say this is a **** charge. Chiquita is traded on the NYSE: CQB

You can argue that Chiquita could have gone one of the following routes:

1. hire security teams - this might not have worked in a 3rd world country due to high levels of corruption and even without the corruption it might have been no use to implement the teams becasue as we all know, terrorists will succeed regardless of how much security is implemented
-ie: 9/11

or

2. leave the country - but apparently they are making too much money over there to just leave.

financially, they did the smart thing. morally, probably not.

if you don't like it, you can sell your Chiquita stock and refuse to eat Chiquita bananas. doing so will lose you money becasue chiquita is infact a really good company and the stock still has room to grow and if you stop eating bananas, well where else are you going to get your potassium from?

mrbigbluelight

POLKOHOLIC wrote:

Chiquita is traded on the NYSE: CQB

You can argue that Chiquita could have gone one of the following routes:

1. hire security teams - this might not have worked in a 3rd world country due to high levels of corruption and even without the corruption it might have been no use to implement the teams becasue as we all know, terrorists will succeed regardless of how much security is implemented
-ie: 9/11

or

2. leave the country - but apparently they are making too much money over there to just leave.

financially, they did the smart thing. morally, probably not.

if you don't like it, you can sell your Chiquita stock and refuse to eat Chiquita bananas. doing so will lose you money because chiquita is in fact a really good company and the stock still has room to grow and if you stop eating bananas, well where else are you going to get your potassium from?

Well....... uhm ....

" FARC Activities "

Bombings, murder, mortar attacks, narcotrafficking, kidnapping, extortion, hijacking, as well as guerrilla and conventional military action against Colombian political, military, and economic targets. In March 1999, the FARC executed three US Indian rights activists on Venezuelan territory after it kidnapped them in Colombia. In February 2003, the FARC captured and continues to hold three US contractors and killed one other American and a Colombian when their plane crashed in Florencia. Foreign citizens often are targets of FARC kidnapping for ransom. The FARC has well-documented ties to the full range of narcotics trafficking activities, including taxation, cultivation, and distribution.

... I guess ..... uhm ....

"The FARC has been charged with terrorism and drug-related crimes in several previous indictments. The indictments allege that the FARC is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating in and from Colombia, that is trying to overthrow the Colombian government by force. The FARC seeks to oppose by force, violence and other criminal activity the nations, governments and individuals who do not share its views. Since at least the early 1960s, the FARC has been violently anti-American and has worked against the interests of the United States, saying in March 1998 that all U.S. officials are legitimate military targets. In addition to narcotics trafficking, the FARC targets through extortion, kidnapping and murder U.S. citizens who work in, visit or do business in Colombia and neighboring countries."
.
...banannas are cute , and taste good ......

"The FARC is a dangerous organization of terrorists, drug traffickers, kidnappers and murderers," said Assistant Attorney General Christopher A. Wray. "Our indictments and extradition requests should send a clear message to all who participate in or support their deplorable and criminal acts: We will work with other nations to see that you are brought to justice in a U.S. court of law."

....I'd hate for the price of bannanas to go up from 3 lbs for $1 to only 2 lbs for a $1 just to pay for security measures .....

...... and if the Chiquita profit margin were reduced by 0.05 %, than the renumeration that Chiquita executives receive might be affected, and that wouldn't be fair to them, after all ....

http://www.upmj.co.uk/ira_farc.php4