For more than six years, from 1997 to February 2004, Chiquita Brands International, through its subsidiary in Colombia, Banadex S.A., made monthly payments to the paramilitary structures in the regions of Urabá and Santa Marta, which resulted in more than 100 payments for more than $1.7 million dollars. Chiquita Brands began to make these payments in 1997, following a meeting between then paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño and the then Banadex general manager.
This financing, which turns Chiquita Brands into one of the founders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC by its initials in the Spanish language), propelled the massive commission of crimes against humanity and grave human rights violations committed by paramilitary organizations in these two regions, including forced displacement, homicide, torture, and forced disappearance, among other crimes.
In addition to being sustained in both the Colombian and US judicial systems, the relationship between Chiquita Brands International and the paramilitary structure in Colombia -and therefore the responsibility of this enterprise in the commission of multiple crimes against humanity and grave human rights violations- has been further corroborated over the last year by such paramilitary chiefs as Salvatore Mancuso Gómez, aka Santander Lozada, Freddy Rendón Herrera, aka El Alemán, Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, aka Jorge 40, Nodier Giraldo Giraldo, aka El Cabezón or Jota, and Éver Veloza García, aka HH.
...there are not only “eight people allegedly involved with Chiquita’s payments” that should be investigated. Due to their positions in management, auditing, finances or operations, at least 14 directors, executives and senior employees of Chiquita Brands International should be investigated and requested in extradition, namely CYRUS FREIDHEIM JR., RODERICK M. HILLS, ROBERT OLSON, MORTEN ARNTZEN, JEFFREY D. BENJAMIN, STEVEN STANBROOK, DURK I. JAGER, JAIME SERRA, ROBERT F. KISTINGER, JAMES B. RILEY, ROBERT W. FISHER, CARL H. LINDNER, KEITH LINDER, and STEVEN WARSHAW.
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