Well-Connected R Lawyer says CHERTOFF OKAYED Chiquita Payments to Terrorists

[mod mom]

Judi Lynn has a post about the Chiquita Banana Case on LBN but Marcy Wheeler provides some very interesting revelations about the case that should be noted:

Marcy makes 2 important points here: 1. Chiquita's Republican Attorney Alleges Chertoff okayed payments and 2. the government is recommending that Chiquita be able to keep half of its profits from doing business under the protection of a terrorist organization

September 12, 2007

Banana Republic

by emptywheel

The Sentencing Memorandum the government filed in the Chiquita case reveals something rather interesting. Chiquita was an equal opportunity terrorist supporter. You see, from 1989 to 1997, Chiquita paid protection money to FARC and ELN, left wing terrorist groups. Then, after FARC and FLN were declared terrorist groups in 1997, Chiquita switched sides, paying protection money to right wing terrorist group AUC instead. Of course, Chiquita got in trouble because, in 2001, after the US declared AUC a terrorist organization, Chiquita kept right on paying their protection money, presumably having no other side to flip to. I guess it's nice not to be bound by ideology in your support of terrorist organizations.

In spite of funding the AUC long after Chiquita became aware they were breaking the law, the government is recommending that Chiquita be able to keep half of its profits from doing business under the protection of a terrorist organization. They're recommending a fine of half their profits, when the maximum fine was twice their profits for the period.

We knew that that was the government's recommendation for a fine. What is new, though, is that the government has decided not to indict the well-connected Republican lawyer Roderick Hills for recommending his clients engage in ongoing criminal behavior. Perhaps Michael Chertoff had something to say about that decision. You see, Hills alleged that Michael Chertoff, the guy who's in charge of our Homeland Security, okayed Chiquita's ongoing payments to right wing terrorists. The government denies those allegations in its Sentencing Memorandum.

The Department of Justice never authorized defendant Chiquita to continue under any circumstances the Company's payments to the AUC--not at the meeting on April 24, 2003, nor at any other point. To be sure, when first presented with this issue at the meeting on April 24th, Department of Justice officials acknowledged that the issue of continued payments was complicated. But this acknowledgment did not constitute an approval or authorization for defendant Chiquita to continue to break the law by paying a federally-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.

-snip

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/banana-republic.html



Here is the info Judy Lynn provided on LBN FROM THE AP:



Chiquita's US court settlement over paramilitary payments sparks outrage in Colombia



The Associated Press
Published: September 18, 2007






BOGOTA, Colombia: Colombia's interior minister slammed a U.S. judge's approval of a US$25 million (€18 million) fine for Chiquita Brands International Inc., saying Tuesday the company was able to get off cheap for making payments to a militia responsible for killing thousands of Colombians.

Rights groups said Chiquita should be barred from ever doing business in Colombia.

A U.S. federal court on Monday court imposed the fine on Chiquita as part plea agreement in which the company acknowledged paying about US$1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to Colombian paramilitary groups.

The ruling sparked outrage within the staunchly pro-American government, as well as among victims of paramilitary violence.

"You can't help but feeling betrayed by the American justice system," said Interior Minister Carlos Holguin. "For US$25 million those who financed a mass massacre of Colombians were able to purchase impunity."

-SNIP

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/18/america/LA-GEN-Colombia-Chiquita-Fine.php

[mod mom]

1. Some Historical Background on Cincinnati-based Chiquita from a '98 Democracy Now

Last week, in one of the largest and most unusual settlements by a news organization, The Cincinnati Enquirer published an apology across the top of its front page and said it had agreed to pay Chiquita Brands International Inc. more than $10 million to avoid being sued for a series of articles that exposed the fruit company's criminal practices.

The articles, which appeared in an 18-page special section on May 3rd, were partially based on 2,000 internal voice mails that were said to have been obtained from "a high ranking Chiquita executive."

-snip




Nevertheless, the Enquirer has erased all the articles from its website; previously existing links on the internet to the stories now all lead to the Enquirer's apology to Chiquita instead.

Chiquita, formerly known as the United Fruit Company, is the world s largest banana producer. Among the illegal Chiquita practices uncovered by the Enquirer s investigation:

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.


-snip
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0342243

[mod mom]

2. More background from Salon:

-snip

A "false and misleading picture"? The Enquirer's lawyers may have found it necessary to bend over fast and far. But in fact the "Chiquita Secrets Revealed" series presents a damning, carefully documented array of charges, most of them "untainted" by those purloined executive voice mails. Gallagher's and McWhirter's allegations are largely based on old-fashioned reportorial legwork: land records in Central America, interviews with environmental scientists and trade unions, lawsuit records, leaked corporate memoranda and the reporters' own visits to workers' villages and camps.

Consider:

In Honduras, Guatemala and Colombia, Chiquita "secretly controls dozens of supposedly independent banana companies," the articles charge, evading laws limiting foreign companies' ownership of farms by setting up local fronts for the corporation's under-the-table investments. One Honduran lawyer who works for Chiquita openly told the reporters that the corporation was trying to "hide its assets" to evade ownership restrictions, to "get rid of its Honduran labor union" and protect itself from "lawsuits and child labor law violations."

Throughout much of Latin America, McWhirter and Gallagher charge, Chiquita subsidiaries spray plantations with highly toxic pesticides banned in the United States and Europe, in direct violation of an agreement with environmentalists. They uncovered the autopsy report of an 18-year-old agricultural worker at a Chiquita subsidiary in Costa Rica who died after working in a recently sprayed field. "He didn't have any experience in this kind of job and he wasn't using any protective gear like gloves and mask either," one of the young man's co-workers had told Costa Rican authorities. The company refuses to allow independent scientific researchers to study the impact of pesticides on its plantations; workers are exposed to pesticides without protective clothing, and runoff from Chiquita pesticides contaminates workers' drinking water.

Chiquita security guards, according to the Enquirer series, are widely accused of using "brute force to enforce their authority on plantations operated or controlled by Chiquita. In an internationally controversial case, Chiquita called in the Honduran military to enforce a court order to evict residents of a farm village; the village was bulldozed and villagers run out at gunpoint."

McWhirter and Gallagher also detailed the precarious economic condition of workers on Chiquita plantations.

To repeat, none of these charges -- none -- depend on Chiquita's hacked voice mails. The series does present one allegation to which the voice mails are central: that company executives bribed Colombian officials to gain use of a government warehouse. And there, the voice mail messages Gallagher recorded, legally or not, were deeply revealing of Chiquita's mind-set. "We can only fire him with cause because of his involvement in the Colombian problem if we file a criminal charge against him with Colombian authorities," the series quoted company lawyer David Hills saying of another executive. "Clearly we would not want to do that because we would be implicating ourselves." Another message caught company Vice Chairman Keith Lindner suggesting the company muscle Panama's foreign minister out of a European Union trade mission deemed not in Chiquita's best interests.

-snip

http://www.salon.com/media/1998/07/08media.html

[mod mom]

3. from WaPo: More on Chertoff's Role (then Asst AG):

In Terrorism-Law Case, Chiquita Points to U.S.
Firm Says It Awaited Justice Dept. Advice
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 2, 2007; Page A01



On April 24, 2003, a board member of Chiquita International Brands disclosed to a top official at the Justice Department that the king of the banana trade was evidently breaking the nation's anti-terrorism laws.

Roderick M. Hills, who had sought the meeting with former law firm colleague Michael Chertoff, explained that Chiquita was paying "protection money" to a Colombian paramilitary group on the U.S. government's list of terrorist organizations. Hills said he knew that such payments were illegal, according to sources and court records, but said that he needed Chertoff's advice.

Chiquita, Hills said, would have to pull out of the country if it could not continue to pay the violent right-wing group to secure its Colombian banana plantations. Chertoff, then assistant attorney general and now secretary of homeland security, affirmed that the payments were illegal but said to wait for more feedback, according to five sources familiar with the meeting.

Justice officials have acknowledged in court papers that an official at the meeting said they understood Chiquita's situation was "complicated," and three of the sources identified that official as Chertoff. They said he promised to get back to the company after conferring with national security advisers and the State Department about the larger ramifications for U.S. interests if the corporate giant pulled out overnight.

-snip

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080102601.html?hpid=topnews

[DemReadingDU]

4. Thanks for all this info in one place