Chiquita Washes its Hands in Death Squad Case

by clorenz1 | March 23, 2007 at 03:01 am | 1038 views | add comment

Another reason to understand where your food comes from. What you eat can have grave consequences! There may be no justice for the people in this case, but you can show your outrage by boycotting this company and others like them. It is a small token, but an important one...

I thought of Marino Cordoba and the other survivors of the Riosucio massacre the other day when I read that Chiquita (the former United Fruit Company)had plead guilty to charges of financing a terrorist group in federal court after admitting to paying $1.7 million to the AUC over a ten year period. Their punishment a $25 million fine – less than half the money the company made by selling its Colombian subsidiary, a company that could never have grown as big as it did were it not for the role the paramilitaries played in preventing union organizing on the banana plantations and forcing communities off prime farming land. Chiquita Colombia made a lot of its money in Uraba.

None of the survivors of the AUC's crimes will ever see a penny of that money.

And even though top executives personally approved the payments to the AUC,none of them are facing a single day in jail.