Chiquita in Colombia: Terrorism Gone Bananas?

What happens when "Business as Usual" clashes with the vocabulary of the "War on Terror"? We got a glimpse of one case this March when the Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands International, Inc., paid a $25 million settlement to the United States Justice Department for paying off right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia, groups which Washington classifies as "terrorist organizations."

Chiquita is one biggest and most powerful food marketing and distributing companies in the world, and one of the world’s largest banana producers. The company shows annual revenues of approximately $4.5 billion and about 25,000 employees operating in more than 70 countries.[1] The banana market, worth about $5 billion a year in 2001, is the most important global fruit export. The majority of the 14 million tons of bananas exported every year come from Latin America.[2]

The charges state that from 1997 to 2004 several unnamed, high-ranking corporate officers from Chiquita and its Colombian Banadex subsidiary made monthly payments, totaling $1.7 million, to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).[3] Even though Chiquita's outside lawyers insisted that payments stop in 2001, Banadex continued write checks to the AUC, though Chiquita executives later decided that cash was a better idea.[4] (read)

Written by April Howard
Tuesday, 03 April 2007

Comments

Volan's last will.

This is a picture of the envelope I received. On September the 29th I received a letter sent from London Metropolitan Police’s forensic department. The envelope contains Volan’s death report. I am still recovering from such a terrible moment. As Volan’s closest (and perhaps sole) friend I am in the obligation of publishing these lines on his own blog, as it was his last will. In strange circumstances my dearest friend Volan passed away in the dawn of the 23rd of September in Homerton Hospital in London. His body was carted off from the churchyard of Saint Paul’s Cathedral after a mad night out with Siobhan (Sweeny), -an Irish-Scottish blues singer whose Volan had just met few hours before in the surrounding areas of Anexo Bar, close to Farringdon Station. At the moment that the ambulance arrived at the place Volan showed a critical state and almost without vital signals dying a while after indoors, in the above mentioned hospital. The death certificated shows a very cryptic language

Ain't it shame....Summer is here........Aaaaagggghhh

Summer is here, yet I am not really happy, things are not going well but what can I do?. There is a new entry, new music, and a new drawing by Ferney . (he seems to be quite busy nowadays to visit his friends). A hot June damped by the Monsoon, full of football, (oh dear! I am still looking forward watching FOOTBALL.). The musical selection* for this very week is made of the Scotish band Belle & Sebastian , David Gilmour's great Pink Floyd ,the ex-gunners (Guns and Roses) Velvet Revolver , Gomez (pretty new band but very very good -sometimes it reminds me "Beck" -Not David Beckham of course),a bit of powerful punk by Bob Geldof's Boomtown Rats -Irish Band-, Lou Reed's Velvet Underground ,a song by Nirvana from the "Nirvana Box" for those who say that the lads from Seattle never played Blues -and for a very special friend whose I believe hates Nirvana-, The Cure ; because we all were lovely children (with good taste) once upon a time, British

It's so cool to use NIKE.

Adbusters is a political magazine, founded by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz that is published in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada by the Media Foundation. It is an activist magazine, devoted to numerous political and social causes, many of which are anti-consumerism or anti-capitalist in nature. The Adbusters Media Foundation is a 120,000-circulation magazine, the founder of Buy Nothing Day , and one of the sponsors of TV-Turnoff Week . Adbusters is not-for-profit, and is reader-supported. Adbusters has affiliation with sister organisations such as L'association Résistance à l'Aggression Publicitaire in France , Adbusters Norge in Norway, Adbusters Sverige in Sweden and Culture Jammers in Japan. The Adbusters mission statement: We are a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a maj

Nevermind the bollocks!

Search This Blog