Dole and Del Monte also facing crimes against humanity charges for financing death squads in Colombi

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

Dole and Del Monte also facing crimes against humanity charges for financing death squads in Colombia: report
written by Adriaan Alsema February 4, 2017



Colombia’s prosecution is set to charge almost 200 companies, including multinationals like Dole and Del Monte, for financing death squads in the banana-growing region of the country, according to Blu Radio.

The radio station reported contents of the alleged set of indictments a day after the country’s chief prosecutor announced his office would charge companies for crimes against humanity for their alleged voluntary support for the paramilitary death squads.

Among the companies facing crimes against humanity charges is Chiquita’s subsidiary.




Read more: http://colombiareports.com/dole-belmonte-also-accused-crimes-humanity-financing-banana-death-squads-colombia-report/

[mucifer]

1. We have known about this for decades.I'm glad something is happening in court.

I hope people responsible do hard time.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Chiquita guilty of crimes against humanity in Colombia?

Chiquita guilty of crimes against humanity in Colombia?
written by Adriaan Alsema February 3, 2017


Companies who financed paramilitary death squads in Colombia’s banana growing region, including Chiquita’s subsidiary, will face charges for crimes against humanity, the Prosecutor General’s Office said Thursday.

The prosecution decision is unprecedented as never before have private enterprises been charged with crimes against humanity.

The charges will be brought before the transitional justice system that seeks justice for the 8 million victims of Colombia’s 52-year war, the majority of whom fell victim to paramilitary groups financed and supported by politicians and businesses.

The banana companies that operated in the northwestern region of Uraba are either accused, or in the case of Chiquita convicted, for financing the “Banana Block” of paramilitary umbrella organization AUC that killed thousands of Colombians.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/chiquita-guilty-crimes-humanity-colombia/

[Mc Mike]

10. Banana republic,

banana repuglicans.

[Achilleaze]

3. This kind of evil shit is part of what corporations do to put industrial food on your plate

Mark it well. This is just one of the malignant outgrowths of the remote industrial corporate GMO chemical manipulative profit-driven-mad food machine, inc.

The IKGOPR is like 'full-speed-ahead-don't-stop-to-think' to give this enormous corporate machine earth&human exploitation system even more power and even more license to bribe, enslave & despoil while monetizing and degrading the fundamental goodness of food.

[tenorly]

4. The United Fruit business model.

The only thing missing is the drug running on the side,

[Mc Mike]

5. Coca Cola:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr.colombia

[Judi Lynn]

6. It's an old, evil story, isn't it? Very typical, tragically, consequences of hiring death squads

to keep workers from trying to beg for better conditions are described in your Guardian article:

The suit alleged that the bottling companies "contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilised extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders", and that Coca-Cola was indirectly responsible for this.

Only money, and domination matter to these monsters. Money taken from a country by not treating workers with respect is stolen, not earned.

[Mc Mike]

9. I remember reading about the United Fruit Dulles coup in Guatemala.

It was several decades after the fact, but it was an eye opener for me, in college. When a company looks at production workers, foreign, like that, they look at consumer workers, domestic, with the same cold calculating dead eyes. "Injustice anywhere ... "

The top coca cola conglomerate people knew what their franchise holders were doing to reduce costs, obviously, as no franchise licensing was revoked. Hire death squads for a few cents more profits on a bottle of pop.

I followed the anti-union death squad stuff in real time, and when I was seeing US corporate soda bottling combined with Colombia, it reminded me of a story in Alfred McCoy's The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. (pp 186-7, hardbound).

This clique of Vietnamese and Laotians (associated with Viet Air Vice-Marshall Ky and Laotian Prime Minister Phouma's son) and got a bunch of USAID money for a pepsi bottling plant in Vientiane. After 5 years (up thru '71), it hadn't produced a single bottle. Pepsi's competitors wondered about the lackadaisical attitude Pepsi took about the issue. The then-US Bureau of Narcotics reported that the bottling operation was a cover, for purchases of chemicals tied to heroin production like ether and acetic anhydride, and for large financial transactions.

Coke got its start before 'coke' was a controlled substance, cocaine was an ingredient, and Colombia is a big center for 'coke' production. Not to say the union people aren't doing actual pop bottling in Colombia, just shows more clearly where the US and Colombian bosses are coming from, and what kind of connections they can bring to bear in dealing with pesky labor problems. And exactly what kind of people those para military death squads are.

[burrowowl]

7. Here is hoping they are found guilty

and put in prison!

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

8. I guess they thought they were in the USA, where it's no longer a crime to

make money, no matter how you do it.

[Maeve]

11. People have to understand where the term 'banana republic' comes from

It ain't just a clothing store!

Banana republic or banana state is a political science term used originally for politically unstable countries in Latin America whose economies are largely dependent on exporting a limited-resource product, e.g. bananas. It typically has stratified social classes, including a large, impoverished working class and a ruling plutocracy of business, political, and military elites.[1] This politico-economic oligarchy controls the primary-sector productions to exploit the country's economy.[2]

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