|
Fruit companies pays almost 2m to terrorists { March 21 2007 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003628380_banana21.htmlhttp://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003628380_banana21.html
Extradition of Chiquita executives sought
Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 12:00 AM
By Juan Forero
The Washington Post
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Colombia's attorney general said Tuesday that his office would try to seek the extradition of eight executives from Chiquita Brands International, the Ohio banana company that last week admitted to paying $1.7 million to right-wing death squads that have killed thousands in this country's long civil conflict.
In deal with the Justice Department, Chiquita last week agreed to plead guilty to doing business with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a coalition of paramilitary groups whose members have massacred peasants and murdered leftist activists for years. The company agreed to pay a $25 million fine but characterized the payments as extortion that helped protect workers in the northwest Uraba region near the Panama border.
Attorney General Mario Iguaran said his office did not view Chiquita's link with the paramilitaries as "an extortionist, victim-of-extortion relationship." Colombia and the United States have an extradition treaty.
Mike Mitchell, a company spokesman, said the payments were "old news" that has been dredged up because of the plea deal with the Justice Department.
Iguaran also said his office has made significant progress in an investigation of Drummond Co. of Birmingham, Ala., which is being sued in the U.S. by Colombian workers alleging that the company paid paramilitaries to murder three union organizers. The company denies the allegations.
Iguaran has been investigating ties between paramilitaries and lawmakers allied with President Álvaro Uribe and dredging up links that death squads might have had with big companies and wealthy families. He said his office also is investigating the November 2001 unloading of assault rifles and ammunition at a Caribbean dock operated by a Chiquita subsidiary, Banadex.
The Justice Department did not deal with the smuggling operation in its plea deal. Chiquita admitted paying the paramilitaries from 1997 to 2004, which Iguaran said violated Colombian law. On Sept. 10, 2001, the State Department declared the AUC, as the paramilitary coalition is known, a terrorist group, making Chiquita's payments a violation of U.S. law as well.
Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company
|
|
