Waarom u Chiquita bananen laat liggen in de supermarkt...

Contrary to claims by Chiquita Brands International that its payments to Colombian paramilitary and guerrilla groups over more than a decade were extorted, internal company documents released here Thursday strongly suggest that the transactions provided specific benefits to the banana giant.

They detail Chiquita's handling of what the company referred to as "sensitive payments" from 1990, when it was paying left-wing guerrilla groups active in Uraba, to 2003 when a PowerPoint presentation obtained by the NSA presents options for how to conceal improper payments.

A March 2000 memo, for example, recorded a conversation between Chiquita Senior Counsel Robert Thomas, the memo's author, and managers from the company's wholly-owned subsidiary, Banadex, in which the latter indicate that Santa Marta-based paramilitaries formed a front company to disguise "the real purpose of providing security" to Banadex's local operations. 

...
The AUC are supposed to have been disbanded from 2003-2006, but successor groups and criminal bands, or "bacrim", continue to dominate large swathes of the country.

"It is of great concern that the U.S. is moving forward with an FTA with Colombia without addressing the full dismantlement of Colombian paramilitary groups," Gimena Sanchez, an Andean expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, told IPS.

"As such, we worry about the proliferation of more Chiquita- like cases," she continued. "Currently in the Choco region, 23 oil palm industrialists are under indictment for links to paramilitarism and violent displacement."(*)


Source IPSNews: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55178
Español: http://www.ipsnoticias.net/nota.asp?idnews=97943

(*) Zie ook: INTERNATIONAL MISSION TO VERIFY THE IMPACT OF AGROFUEL PRODUCTION IN 5 ZONES AFFECTED BY OIL PALM AND SUGARCANE MONOCROPS IN COLOMBIA