from Hacker News

Banana giant Chiquita held liable by US court for funding paramilitaries

by no_exit on 6/11/24, 2:58 PM with 318 comments

  • by thebeardisred on 6/11/24, 5:53 PM

    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

  • by xvector on 6/13/24, 3:02 AM

    It is clear that most HNers aren't reading the article. This has nothing to do with the UFC's "banana republic" atrocities, and seems to be a rather unjust situation:

    - Chiquita was forced to pay "protection money" to the AUC. Read: "pay us or we kill your employees and burn your plantations to the ground."

    - Chiquita makes the payment and alerts the Department of Justice that they were forced to pay under duress.

    - The AUC kills 8 people, as cartels tend to do.

    - Chiquita is held accountable.

    This does not seem reasonable: First you get extorted at threat to life/property, then you get punished for getting extorted. Furthermore, it's tenuous at best to say "8 people died because you paid the AUC." The AUC kills/maims/tortures children every day for fun. This is not an exaggeration, most people will never comprehend the sheer evil of these organizations.

    Calling for the execution[1] of Chiquita execs as some HNers are doing is absurd. Should Chiquita just let their employees get tortured to death and watch their properties burn to the ground?

    Perhaps the government of Columbia itself should be responsible for not exterminating its cartels, and instead allowing them to infiltrate the deepest ranks of its military and government.

    [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40663586

  • by sensanaty on 6/13/24, 8:11 AM

    The punishment being fines is criminal in and of itself.

    Everyone involved needs to be locked away for a long, long time, not have to pay pennies as "punishment"

  • by advisedwang on 6/12/24, 9:58 PM

    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-...

  • by lbsnake7 on 6/12/24, 3:41 PM

    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.

  • by 9cb14c1ec0 on 6/13/24, 12:36 AM

    The term banana republic comes from Chiquita history in various countries, in case you didn't know.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

  • by hi-v-rocknroll on 6/13/24, 9:15 AM

    Merely a sliver of the total suffering through coups, wars, and corporate exploitation imposed on Central and South American countries in the spirit of America's Monroe Doctrine colonialism project spanning 200 years.

  • by Gualdrapo on 6/12/24, 6:09 PM

    Allegedly also Coca-Cola, Drummond and even some local companies like Postobón have been involved with paramilitary groups and sponsored crimes against civilians - and haven't faced any consequences. But this is a good precedent.

  • by tomcam on 6/11/24, 7:52 PM

    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.

  • by rgovostes on 6/12/24, 4:58 AM

    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

  • by buildsjets on 6/12/24, 9:58 PM

    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...

  • by kjkjadksj on 6/13/24, 4:38 AM

    $38 million fine for funding paramilitaries for a company that commands a little under $2 billion in revenue a year is a total joke of course. Then again if these US courts were actually worth their salt and not total kangaroo courts, they'd hold the US liable for funding paramilitaries in Latin America as well.

  • by caf on 6/13/24, 2:13 AM

    When I saw the headline I assumed this was going to be about practices from the "banana republic" era in the 60s.. almost unbelievable that they were still doing this in the 21st century.

  • by dmix on 6/13/24, 12:40 AM

    > During the 2007 trial, it was revealed that Chiquita had made payments amounting to more than $1.7m to the AUC in the six years from 1997 to 2004.

    > The banana giant said that it began making the payments after the leader of the AUC at the time, Carlos Castaño, implied that staff and property belonging to Chiquita's subsidiary in Colombia could be harmed if the money was not forthcoming

    Not saying this is the case here but imagine if Mexico allowed families harmed by cartels to sue every businesses that paid off cartel mobsters threatening to ruin their business, because they happen to operate in areas where the police/army consistently fail to control them and the gov/police often colludes with the cartel.

    AUC is pretty notorious for penetrating the Colombian gov and law enforcement at varying levels.

  • by sharpshadow on 6/13/24, 8:38 AM

    That might be the reason why we find some much cocaine in banana shipments in Europe.

  • by msarrel on 6/12/24, 4:37 PM

    Better call out the Marines to enforce the US interests in bananas.

  • by sofixa on 6/11/24, 8:01 PM

    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.

  • by barbazoo on 6/13/24, 4:11 PM

    > Lawyers for Chiquita argued that the company had no choice but to pay the AUC to protect its Colombian employees from violence.

    They had the choice between not doing business there and paying the criminals. They chose paying the criminals.

  • by lupire on 6/13/24, 1:37 PM

    This is essentially paying taxes to the local government for national security.

    It's the same thing US residents do, with the same abusses by the government.

  • by ETH_start on 6/13/24, 6:40 AM

    Social justice campaigns like this lead to capital flight from less politically stable and economically developed regions of the world.

  • by bimguy on 6/13/24, 4:59 AM

    Just more hypocracy from the US. US have been funding and training paramilitaries in just about every continent for decades now. Don't your government have anything better to do then throw their weight around the global arena?

  • by forinti on 6/13/24, 9:59 AM

    I guess it's a sign that the CIA and the US military don't do their dirty jobs for them anymore.

    In another 100 years they might actually get a real sentence.

  • by banku_brougham on 6/12/24, 8:11 PM

    Ive been learning about colonialsm and this shows up on HN

    edit: I just learned about Ken Saro-Wiwa

  • by mediumsmart on 6/12/24, 3:32 AM

    War is a racket and governments are the shadows of corporations.

    we, the people, are liable

  • by silexia on 6/14/24, 8:00 PM

    I see the lies of Communists have now expanded from our public schools and infected the population as a whole. These US companies did massive amounts of good in terrible environments they worked in and now that has been twisted around.

  • by bluSCALE4 on 6/13/24, 6:05 AM

    Lol? What about avocados?

  • by dventimi on 6/12/24, 10:08 PM

    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...

  • by notatoad on 6/13/24, 2:27 AM

    >in the six years from 1997 to 2004.

    so not like, historical atrocities from the era most people think of when they say "banana republics". current-era atrocities, perpetrated by people who probably still work at the company today.

  • by njovin on 6/12/24, 3:47 PM

    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.

  • by debo_ on 6/12/24, 3:31 PM

    The banana republic jokes just write themselves!

  • by password_ on 6/12/24, 8:10 PM

    The US government would never do such a thing.