Chiquita case puts big firms on notice

The company's admission that it paid Colombian paramilitaries $1.7 million has sparked outrage in Colombia.

from the April 11, 2007 edition

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Alberto is a tall, self-assured man in his early 40s. But his voice drops to a whisper when he says he personally witnessed at least 10 murders on one of Chiquita's 26 plantations where he worked for 11 years.

He vividly remembers the last murder he saw on the Banafinca farm in 1999. When Alberto and his coworkers arrived on the plantation they saw two men known to be paramilitary henchmen standing menacingly near the packing plant. The thugs waited until everyone took up their workstations and then went into the field where one of Alberto's coworkers was climbing a ladder to bag a banana stem. "No one knew who they had come for that day," Alberto says.

The thugs waited until everyone took up their workstations then went into the field where one of Alberto's coworkers was climbing a ladder to bag a banana stem. "They cut off his head with a machete, dumped the weapon, then calmly walked to their motorcycle and drove off, without saying a word," says Alberto, who asked that his real name not be used.

Alberto cannot say whether the murder had anything to do with Chiquita's payments. But he says that the company's contributions to the paramilitary groups helped strengthen them and allowed them to expand throughout the country. "The money Chiquita paid helped finance the paramilitaries. Their coffers grew, and they were able to buy more weapons.

José Benítez, a leader of the banana workers' trade union, said Chiquita and the other firms that have paid paramilitaries must be held accountable.

"It's like they are trying to erase all those deaths with money that the victims here will never see. If there is justice, the Chiquita executives will see the inside of a Colombian prison," says Mr. Benítez.

Yolanda Rúa, a member of a women's peace organization in Urabá, says however that it serves little purpose to lock up company executives. Instead, she says, the $25 million that Chiquita will pay to settle the Justice Department's investigation should go to the victims of the paramilitaries that Chiquita supported. "We don't need a long prison sentence for them. We need to see some sort of reparation."

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