Chiquita sues to block release of documents related to terror group payments
Source: Charlotte Observer
Chiquita sues to block release of documents related to terror group payments
By Ely Portillo
elyportillo@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Friday, Apr. 05, 2013
Charlotte-based Chiquita sued the Securities and Exchange Commission, seeking to block the release of documents related to payments the company made to terrorist groups in Colombia to protect its banana-growing interests.
The company paid the Justice Department a $25-million fine in 2007, after admitting that it had given Colombian paramilitary groups the U.S. classifies as terrorist organizations more than $1.7 million. Chiquita has maintained that it was extorted by the groups and made the payments in an attempt to protect its workers.
But a lawsuit by thousands of Colombians who claim their relatives were killed by the paramilitary groups is still working its way through federal court in Florida. The plaintiffs allege the paramilitary groups helped keep labor unions out of the banana fields and brutalized workers.
Current and former employees of Chiquita and its former Colombian subsidiary Banadex are also facing a criminal investigation in Colombia related to the payments.
Chiquitas newest legal action, filed Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., attempts to block the SEC from releasing documents tied to the case.
Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/04/05/3962238/chiquita-sues-to-block-release.html#storylink=cpy
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)TheBlackAdder
(28,070 posts)cbrer
(1,831 posts)Who would believe it?
*edited for spelling
Solly Mack
(90,740 posts)Catherina
(35,568 posts)Over 250,000 people died for Chiquita's profits in Guatemala alone. I have no idea how many died in other countries but there were countless massacres.
They've murdered labor leaders, acitivists, politicians and their depravity has no bounds. Their crimes were so horrendous that this is where Che Guevara had his awakening and realized he had to something to help his brothers and sisters.
Release those documents now and throw those rat bastards in jail where they belong.
In the early 1950s, a small percent of elite landowners owned the majority of the arable land. In a continuation of the liberal polices that began with the election of Juan Jose Arevalo to the presidency in Guatemala, an attempt was made under an agrarian reform law to redistribute large estates 160,000 acres of uncultivated land owned by United Fruit Company into small farms.
Arevalo began a a string of social programs including social security and health care, and maintained power despite several coup attempts by right-wing military forces. Arévalo was succeeded by Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán who was elected president in 1951.
During this time period in Guatemala, United Fruit owned all of Guatemalas banana production and monopolized banana exports; United Fruit also owned the telephone and telegraph system, and virtually all of the railroad track. But president Guzmán challenged United Fruits stranglehold on the country by redistributing United Fruit land, and competing with United Fruit in the production and export of bananas.
...
read more here: http://blog.friendseat.com/chiquita-banana-controversy/
polly7
(20,582 posts)I'm seeing red right now, but thanks Catherina!
Catherina
(35,568 posts)Living in Central America and seeing old people who slaved for that corporate profit walking around barefoot with barely a penny to their name fills me with deep shame and rage everyday. I'd like to see everyone of the crooks raping Latin America handed over to the victims of their crimes and hanging from a banana tree.
Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)It's information EVERYONE needs to know.
Thank you so much, Catherina, for this education imparted in a short blast! (Long overdue by years, thanks, corporate media.)
City Lights
(25,171 posts)Very enlightening! So glad I took the time to watch it.
starroute
(12,977 posts)US Attorney Jeffrey Taylor, who was one of the "loyal Bushies" (remember them?) made sure to let Chiquita off with a slap on the wrist in the criminal case. That's what provoked the civil case, which is still underway and which is referred to in the OP.
http://www.progressive.org/chiquita_in_the_dock.html
The massive civil litigation is fallout from a March 2007 criminal indictment, in which the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeffrey Taylor charged Chiquita with engaging in transactions with a specially designated terrorist organization, namely, the AUC. Secretary of State Colin Powell had declared the paramilitary group a foreign terrorist organization in 2001, thus prohibiting any United States person from providing the group with material support or resources, including any kind of money or weapons. The indictment didnt charge individuals even though it stated that nine Chiquita employees, including five high-ranking corporate officers, had played roles in approving or delivering $1.7 million to the group from 1997 to 2004, in 100 installments. Nearly half of that sum went to the AUC after its 2001 terrorist designation.
According to the indictment, in March 2003 high-ranking Chiquita executives ignored the advice of outside counsel that the company must stop paying the group. Prosecutors also documented a Chiquita board of directors meeting in April of that year during which two executives revealed to their colleagues that the corporation had been funding a foreign terrorist organization. An alarmed board member responded by suggesting the banana company consider taking immediate corrective action, including selling its operations in Colombia.
Sensing they were in big trouble, senior executives from Chiquita then sought a meeting with Justice Department officials and basically confessed to breaking the federal antiterrorism statute. At an April 24, 2003, meeting Justice Department attorneys warned the executives that the payments must stop. But Chiquita continued to authorize payments to the paramilitary group. Investigators documented an internal Chiquita conversation in which senior executives advocated a strategy of continuing to fund the AUC and forcing the Justice Department to come after us. Four years later, prosecutors did.
In a deal negotiated with the help of future Attorney General Eric Holder, who was then one of Chiquitas lead lawyers in the case, the banana firm pleaded guilty to making payments to a designated terrorist organization. . . . Chiquita agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Thats a small fraction of the companys annual revenues, which Chiquita has reported to be about $4 billion in recent years.
http://harpers.org/blog/2007/05/us-attorneys-scandal-district-of-columbia/
Over the last month Ive gotten a number of notes from readers suggesting that closer attention should be paid to Jeffrey A. Taylor, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Taylor arrived at his new post on September 22, 2006, using the special new procedure allowing Attorney General Gonzales to skirt the Senate confirmation process. He had previously worked as a Republican staffer on Capitol Hill. His arrival on the scene does in fact parallel the purge process elsewhere in a number of other respects, and the political significance of the U.S. Attorneys office in the nations capital is obvious.
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/1909-us-attorney-botches-biggest-ever-tax-fraud-case-keeps-job-treasury-out-100-million
The U.S. Attorney Scandal has struck a new victim: the American taxpayer. A judge ruled Wednesday that an epic blunder by federal prosecutors in the largest tax prosecution ever means that the treasury can't recoup at least $100 million in restitution.
Telecommunications entrepreneur Walter Anderson pled guilty to tax evasion, but U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman said the binding plea agreement listed the wrong statute. This problem could have been overcome had prosecutors not failed to include any discussion of probation as is routine in such deals. . . .
The case was prosecuted by the office of the interim U.S. Attorney for D.C., Jeffrey A. Taylor. Taylor was appointed directly by Attorney General Gonzales without Senate confirmation in November 2006 under a provision of the Patriot Act that Congress has recently voted to reverse.
Sure enough, Taylor came straight from the Bush Administration. He served as Counselor to Attorney Generals John Ashcroft and Gonzales for four years prior to his selection. Before that he worked as an aide to Sen. Orrin Hatch, where he actually participated in the writing of the Patriot Act.
xocet
(3,870 posts)By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 2, 2007
...
Chiquita International's lawyer in this case, Eric H. Holder Jr., said he is concerned that company leaders who chose the difficult path of disclosing the corporation's illegal activity to prosecutors are now facing the possibility of prosecution.
"If what you want to encourage is voluntary self-disclosure, what message does this send to other companies?" asked Holder, deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration. "Here's a company that voluntarily self-discloses in a national security context, where the company gets treated pretty harshly, [and] then on top of that, you go after individuals who made a really painful decision."
...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080102601.html
On a closely related note, here is an argument against both having a kill list and execution by drone:
In the absence of legitimate due process and proper evidence, tenuous connections may be solidified about any given individual as the following case will illustrate.
This is the case of Mr. Xxxx Xxxxxx, a US citizen who is held in high regard by many. Others, however, may allege that his past dealings are suspect. In fact, the subsequent, superficial chain of associations (tenuous though they may be) shows that a distinct association between Mr. Xxxxxx and Al Qaeda may be constructed if one were to desire to do so or may be alleged to exist if one were of a suspicious or prosecutorial mindset.
...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002402513
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)City Lights
(25,171 posts)Release the documents!
Octafish
(55,745 posts)...and all the BFEE stooges and henchmen over the decades.