[HN Gopher] Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for fu...
___________________________________________________________________
Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding
paramilitaries
Author : no_exit
Score : 171 points
Date : 2024-06-11 14:58 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| thebeardisred wrote:
| It's about time one of these Chiquita (ex United Fruit Company,
| Cuyamel Fruit Company, and others) / Dole (ex Standard Fruit
| Company) are held liable.
|
| [1]:https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/story-bananas-
| ban...
|
| [2]:https://growjungles.com/united-fruit-company-in-costa-rica/
|
| [3]:https://www.biggerlifeadventures.com/chiquita-bananas-cia-
| fu...
|
| [4]:https://history.wsu.edu/rci/sample-research-project/
|
| Edit: formatting
| tomcam wrote:
| Offhand, I agree with the judgment. But I am also gratified that
| the term "Banana giant" led off a Hacker News title. Surprisingly
| it wasn't on my 2024 HN bingo card.
| iwontberude wrote:
| "Giant banana" almost hit, I won't lose hope now.
| sofixa wrote:
| I'm curious about why nobody from Chiquita went to prison for
| financing a terrorist group.
|
| Random Afghans and Iraqis were kidnapped for Guantanamo or
| outright murdered for less.
| hulitu wrote:
| > I'm curious about why nobody from Chiquita went to prison for
| financing a terrorist group.
|
| That's not how democracy works. /s
|
| Companies do not have to obey the law and, when they are
| caught, nobody goes to jail. They just need to pay some
| protection money.
|
| Want to be a criminal without fear of prosecution ? Join a
| company, preferably on a management position.
| lazide wrote:
| Because they were working in the vein of manifest destiny/US
| gov't interests.
|
| The CIA helped them, by overthrowing at least one gov't. [https
| ://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%2527%...]
|
| Money has always been a national interest for every gov't
| everywhere.
| jjk166 wrote:
| This was a civil case, seeking damages for actions that
| occurred over 2 decades ago, it's unlikely anyone currently
| with the company was sufficiently high ranking then to be
| considered personally responsible.
|
| For the 2007 criminal case, the company came to the department
| of justice and disclosed the payments, saying they had been
| made under threat of violence. Specifically the AUC was
| threatening physical harm to employees of a Chiquita subsidiary
| in Columbia. The department of justice appears to have accepted
| that the payments were made under duress, but did not recognize
| that as a sufficient excuse, and decided to prosecute anyways.
| The company reached a plea agreement.
|
| Honestly, it seems like the justice department came down pretty
| hard. Obviously giving money to terrorist groups under any
| circumstances shortly after 9/11 would be highly scrutinized,
| and the company could have dropped the columbian subsidiary,
| which they wound up doing eventually anyways, instead of
| continuing to pay the protection racket. But still it seems
| like they were victims in this too.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| This is really important context. As is the relatively small
| amount of money paid.
|
| It's also strongly analogous to an issue faced in tech:
| whether to pay the demands or ransomware gangs.
|
| If the ransomeware gang has ties to terrorism, it's a crime
| to pay the ransom.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _curious about why nobody from Chiquita went to prison for
| financing a terrorist group_
|
| It looks like the people who could be held individually
| criminally liable were in Colombia [1]. (I also imagine
| Chiquita gets points for notifying the DoJ versus getting
| caught.)
|
| > _Random Afghans and Iraqis were kidnapped for Guantanamo or
| outright murdered for less_
|
| To be fair, there is a world of difference between financing a
| foreign terrorist group and financing one that is attacking
| Americans. (That and we're cavalier with the lives of South
| Americans.)
|
| [1]
| https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2007/March/07_nsd_161...
| adhamsalama wrote:
| And why were those Iraqis attacking American soldiers?
| Perhaps because the US invaded Iraq?
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| You're claiming that Iraqi's were so happy under Saddam's
| reign, that some even fought for him?
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| Never underestimate people defending their home. Remember
| the Serbs going out with targets painted on their
| t-shirts when NATO (read "USA") was bombing Belgrade? Of
| course that was the 90's.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| First protest of Iraq was in 1991, but a decades long
| dictator ofc. has severe military superiority.
|
| A lot of Iraqi's were a big fan of toppling Saddam.
|
| Note : not saying it was a good idea with what we know
| now.
|
| And about Serbia. The bombing from "NATO" with a focus on
| military targets made it possible for it's population to
| overthrow Milosevic by the citizens a year later.
|
| The boots on the ground in this case were the Serbs
| themselves. From my POV, NATO only provided air-support
| for them.
| zardo wrote:
| An anti-communist paramilitary in Columbia? They aren't exactly
| going to top the US most wanted list.
| frontalier wrote:
| you might find the answer to this when looking out the window
| of the train as you head to the yearly jazz festival by the
| lake
| riddley wrote:
| I think we can all be happy with the fine that's less than a
| hundredth of a percent of their annual income that they'll have
| to pay. Justice is served.
| mediumsmart wrote:
| War is a racket and governments are the shadows of corporations.
|
| _we, the people, are liable_
| rgovostes wrote:
| See also the Banana Massacre instigated by the United Fruit
| Company against plantation workers making outrageous demands like
| limiting the work week to 6 days. 100 years later, that company
| operates under the name Chiquita.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Massacre
| greenhearth wrote:
| Documented in the famous Neruda poem
| dpig_ wrote:
| And alluded to by Marquez.
| rflrob wrote:
| Also the Guatemalan coup that was heavily lobbied for by the
| United Fruit Company.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%2527%...
| slantedview wrote:
| "The United Fruit Company (UFC), whose highly profitable
| business had been affected by the softening of exploitative
| labor practices in Guatemala, engaged in an influential
| lobbying campaign to persuade the U.S. to overthrow the
| Guatemalan government."
|
| It's amazing how decades later, they heirs of United Fruit
| Company are still using violence as a tool for increasing
| profit. This is what happens when individuals are not
| criminally prosecuted for bad conduct. I'm sure it will
| happen again.
| Obeehhh wrote:
| Absolute capitalist classic.
| debo_ wrote:
| The banana republic jokes just write themselves!
| frontalier wrote:
| check out where they're headquartered
| stonogo wrote:
| Does it count as a joke when the term was originated to
| describe governments who enabled this exact behavior from this
| exact company?
| lbsnake7 wrote:
| Great documentary that Frontline made about something similar
| called Firestone and the Warlord. Firestone paid warlord Charles
| Taylor money to 'protect' their rubber plantations (essentially
| extortion), this money ended up providing him almost all of his
| funding during the Liberian civil war and made him a major
| player. He is now in prison for war crimes for what he did during
| this period.
| njovin wrote:
| They have been fined $38m for killing 8 people, which amounts to
| a tad over 1% of their 2023 revenue.
|
| I'm very happy that an example is being made of them to warn
| other corporations that committing murder to protect your profits
| may cause a slight dip in your next earnings report.
| evulhotdog wrote:
| Of course it's not nearly as much as it should be, but it is
| certainly a step in the right direction.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Incrementalism normalizes dystopia, in my view; this becomes
| just another contingency that can be budgeted for.
|
| Imagine, by contrast, the impact that executing one Chiquita
| executive would have.
| evulhotdog wrote:
| I don't know if I necessarily agree with eye for an eye
| mentality, but risk of prison or enough money that it makes
| you actually consider your decisions, seems like a better
| path. The goal being that it is enough so that it cannot
| and should not be planned for and can't be covered by
| insurance or similar.
| debo_ wrote:
| Perhaps they would hire two executives.
| msarrel wrote:
| Better call out the Marines to enforce the US interests in
| bananas.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| Allegedly also Coca-Cola, Drummond and even some local companies
| like Postobon have been involved with paramilitary groups and
| sponsored crimes against civilians - and haven't faced any
| consequences. But this is a good precedent.
| password_ wrote:
| The US government would never do such a thing.
| banku_brougham wrote:
| Ive been learning about colonialsm and this shows up on HN
|
| edit: I just learned about Ken Saro-Wiwa
| buildsjets wrote:
| My family home is built on the former estate of Minor Cooper
| Keith, a founder and former VP of United Fruit, who did many
| similar horrible things to people in Central and South America. I
| learned this while researching the name of the waterway behind
| our house, called "Keith Canal". You can see the history of the
| development in historic maps from 1829 thru 1976.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_Cooper_Keith
|
| https://westisliphistoricalsociety.org/index.php/archives/ma...
| mistrial9 wrote:
| none of that Wikipedia article reflect the comments here..
| maybe take a minute to organize some references and edit? a new
| section on "controversy" might fit
| advisedwang wrote:
| The Alien Tort Statue [1], the reason this case [2] is in the US
| at all has sometimes been used for significant environmental and
| social justice global legal activism. Because of this, it is in
| the sights of the conservative legal movement. Sadly I suspect
| this case may end up at the supreme court and end up another
| victim of the removal of redress for the evil of the powerful.
|
| [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/alien_tort_statute
|
| [2] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4232180/in-re-
| chiquita-...
| dventimi wrote:
| Through at least two administrations, Republican and Democrat,
| Bush and Obama, the U.S. has funded anti-leftist militarism in
| Colombia, to the military and to paramilitary groups like AUC.
| It's not just a fruit company and it's not just a relic from the
| past.
|
| http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2013/12/21/co...
| xray2 wrote:
| I cant take you seriously if you can't spell Colombia correctly
| Obeehhh wrote:
| Also calling it anti-leftist is just poor framing,
| paramilitar organizations have very close ties with the
| right-wing politicians here.
| dventimi wrote:
| > _" Paramilitary organizations have very close ties with
| the far-right politicians here."_
|
| Does that make it more likely those paramilitary
| organizations are on the left, or on the right?
| digging wrote:
| I think they're implying that anti-leftist isn't the same
| as far-right. A centrist could in theory function as an
| anti-leftist.
| dventimi wrote:
| Are there anti-leftist militarists in Colombia who are
| centrist?
| ajhurliman wrote:
| Maybe they meant the university
| dventimi wrote:
| I apologize. I sometime introduce typos, especially when
| using autocomplete on tiny mobile keyboards. I'm sure it's
| just me and never happens to anybody else.
|
| Anyway, I corrected that typo. Please, oh please, take me
| seriously now.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-06-12 23:01 UTC)