Chiquita case puts big firms on notice
The company's admission that it paid Colombian paramilitaries $1.7 million has sparked outrage in Colombia.
By Sibylla Brodzinsky | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the April 11, 2007 edition
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APARTADó, Colombia - Rows of stout trees hang heavy with bright green bananas on plantations near Colombia's border with Panama. Workers slice off each bunch and package the fruit in boxes with a label recognized worldwide for its fresh bananas: Chiquita.
In Colombia, however, the Chiquita name has recently come to symbolize the confirmation of a long-suspected relationship between multinational firms and illegal armies fighting in the nation's four-decade-old war.
Chiquita Brands International admitted in US court last month that it paid $1.7 million to Colombia's brutal right-wing militias over the course of eight years. The company said it did so to protect its employees and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. The case is sparking outrage in the capital, Bogotá, where officials want to see company executives on trial.
Many in Urabá, Colombia's banana growing region, shrug off the payments as normal. Chiquita pulled out of Colombia in 2004 by selling its Banadex subsidiary to a local company for $43.5 million. But the case could have implications for other companies doing business here or in other conflict areas around the world, analysts say.
"It's one of the first – if not the first – times that a [US-based] company is indicted and pleads guilty to providing material support to an organization known to commit widespread human rights abuses," says Arvind Ganesan, director of the Business and Human Rights program at the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
"But it's actually not a case about human rights," he says. "It's a unique case where terrorism is the crux of the whole thing." The single-count indictment against Chiquita was for "engaging in transactions with a specially designated global terrorist."
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