Battle Over Bananas

Today watchdogs keep a close eye on U.S.-based companies that produce merchandise overseas. Starbucks Coffee serves as one example, along with the banana company Chiquita Brands International.

I had no idea about the struggles both companies face, until I visited Colombia in June of 2007. Apparently I’d missed CBS’s detailed report, released just months before.

According to a CBS News.com report, on March 14, 2007, Chiquita agreed to a $25 million penalty fee for paying off Colombian terrorists to protect banana-farming regions in South America.

According to U.S. prosecutors, the company paid nearly $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a.k.a the AUC, a group of paramilitary linked with narcotics trafficking, massacring civilians and kidnapping.

Government officials convicted Chiquita of making payments to the AUC in exchange for protecting the banana plantations in Colombia. The company also funded the terrorist group National Liberation Army (ELN) and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

According to the CBS report, these arrangements between companies and paramilitaries like the AUC, ELN and FARC remain quite common. The companies want to insure their product, farmland and employees are protected, but at the same time they're funding terrorism.


"The payments made by the company were always motivated by our good faith concern for the safety of our employees,” said Chiquita's chief executive, Fernando Aguirre.

Finally after years of coordinating with the guerilla and paramilitary groups, Chiquita came forward and told the U.S. government about the payments.

At a plea hearing, Chiquita agreed to end their illegal activity and pay millions in fines.

Now on the Chiquita Web site, a link appears on the home page to a Corporate Responsibility section. Here the company outlines their code of ethics, core values, corporate responsibility reports and foundation, which claims Chiquita remains “committed to improving the communities where [it does] business.”

A link to an article written by Augirre entitled, "An Excruciating Dilemma Between Life and Law: Corporate Responsibility in a Zone of Conflict," addresses the issue in Colombia.

In the article, Aguirre states that in 2003 the company learned "protection payments the company had been making to paramilitary groups in Colombia to keep workers safe from the violence committed by those groups were illegal under U.S. law."

Well, no kidding, Mr. Aguirre. Did you really think that it WOULD BE legal to pay a group that kills, kidnaps and traffics cocaine?

He also claims that the payments were only meant to protect workers and their jobs.

Aguirre cites an example when the paramilitary massacred 28 Chiquita employees while riding a bus to work. In 1998, two more Colombian workers were killed on a banana plantation.

So, apparently, Chiquita’s solution to the problem was bribery.

But, isn’t that just indirectly helping the enemy kill more? Yes.

Why would you trust the enemy to keeps their word even after being paid off? You can’t. But Chiquita did nonetheless.

Finally, the company had some sense knocked into it and came forward to the U.S. Department of Justice.

In the article Chiquita pats itself on the back by saying, “had we not come forward ourselves, it is entirely possible that the payments would have remained unknown to American authorizes to this day.”

Wow, way to go Chiquita—way to congratulate yourselves for being even more sneaky and deceptive. Give yourself a pat on the back.

The last sentence of Aguirre's statement says, “for our part, we believe the settlement with the government was a reasoned solution to the difficult situation the company faced several years ago. We hope no other companies have to face such dilemmas in the future.”

You would think that their first hope would be that their own company does not have to face this dilemma again.