U.S. Says Chiquita Banana is a Terrorist

Wed14Mar2007

U.S. Says Chiquita Banana is a Terrorist

Seems like Ms. Chiquita Banana was packing more than fruit in her sombrero, at least according to U.S. Federal prosecutors.

Federal prosecutors said the company and several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers did business with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. The group is described in court documents as a violent right-wing organization that the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization.
The company also did business with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, according to prosecutors.

Without getting into the politics of what makes a terrorist a terrorist or how a multinational company uses a feminine, sexual "latinized" fruit as its mascot, it's a shame that prosecutors didn't get the company formally known as The United Fruit Company for other illegal activities.

*Chiquita secretly controls dozens of supposedly independent banana companies. It also suppresses union activity on the farms it controls.
* Despite its pact with environmental groups to abide by pesticide safety standards, Chiquita subsidiaries have used pesticides in Central America that are banned in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union. Chiquita also released harmful toxic chemicals into farms, killing at least one worker in Costa Rica according to a coroner's report.
* Chiquita's fruit transport ships have been used to smuggle cocaine into Europe. More than a ton of cocaine was seized from 7 Chiquita ships in 1997. (The Enquirer story says the illegal shipment was traced to lax Colombian security rather than to Chiquita)
* Chiquita executives bribed Colombian officials
* Chiquita called in the Honduran military to evict residents of a farm village; the soldiers forced the farmers out at gunpoint, and the village was bulldozed.
* An employee of a competitor filed a federal lawsuit charging that armed men hired by Chiquita tried to kidnap him in Honduras.

Why wasn't this on Bush's Latin American agenda? I guess one man's terrorist is another man's business buddy.

Via / Fox News and Democracy Now.

Image Via / Nodium