This HuffPo piece seems to not really put things into perspective:
The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company’s board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University’s National Security Archive as an “illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country’s most notorious civilian massacres.”
However, the story really is not that simple, and 60 Minutes had a piece on this in May that I thought was fascinating. Some backstory:
But since the 1980’s, the business of bananas there has been punctuated with gunfire. First, the area was taken over by Marxist guerillas called the “FARC,” whose ruthlessness at killing and kidnapping was exceeded only by the private paramilitary army that rose up to fight them. Chiquita found itself trying to grow bananas in the middle of a war, in which the Colombian government and its army were of no help.
“These lands were lands where there was no law. It was impossible for the government to protect employees,” says Fernando Aguirre, who became Chiquita’s CEO long after all this happened.
Aguirre says the company was forced to pay taxes to the guerillas when they controlled the territory in the late 1980s and early 90s. When the paramilitaries, known as the “AUC,” moved in in 1997 they demanded the same thing.
“Did the paramilitaries state, specifically to you, that if you didn’t make the payments, your people would be killed?” Kroft asks.
“There was a very, very strong signal that if the company would not make payments, that things would happen. And since they had already killed at least 50 people, employees of the company, it was clear to everyone there that these guys meant business,” Aguirre says.
Chiquita only had a couple of options and none of them were particularly good. It could refuse to pay the paramilitaries and run the risk that its employees could be killed or kidnapped, it could pack up and leave the country all together and abandon its most profitable enterprise, or it could stay and pay protection, and in the process, help finance the atrocities that were being committed all across the countryside.
“These were extortion payments,” Aguirre says. “Either you pay or your people get killed.”
“And you decided to pay,” Kroft remarks.
“And the company decided to pay, absolutely,” Aguirre says.
There was no doubt in the company’s mind that the paramilitaries were very bad people, Aguirre says.
Read the whole thing.
Not to go all corporate shill and defend McCain and Chiquita, because I know what would be going on if the shoe were on the other foot (witness this bullshit WaPo piece on Obama’s home loan– also notice that the Red State hacks still have not commented on our appropriating torture methods from the chicoms but sure as hell are lying about Obama’s loan), but the facts are more complicated than “a prominent McCain backer supports terrorism.”
donovong
“it could pack up and leave the country all together and abandon its most profitable enterprise….”
Well, that makes it all better then, huh? Better to allow yourself to support those assholes, rather than take your enterprise somepleace a little less profitable.
Martin
Are they?
So the conclusion was that profits trump atrocities. And we should be okay with that?
Basically, they gave money to terrorists knowing they were terrorists because it was in their best interest to do so. How is that any different from ANY other person that gives money to terrorists? Just because he got profits out of it rather than the satisfaction of seeing his enemies blown up? Wouldn’t a corporation knowingly selling weapons to terrorists be perfectly alright then by the same reasoning?
stickler
Nice explanation. But who cares: wrap this bastard around McCain’s neck as tight as you can anyhow. He deserves it.
But what I don’t get is this — who actually reads RedState nowadays? Except for comedy value, what could possibly be the purpose? Watching Moe Lane type “blam!” can’t be that amusing after the fiftieth time, right? I mean, they’re just a tiny part of the Regnery money-losing propaganda apparatus.
Seriously — what are their numbers like?
The Bearded Blogger
Actually, Chiquita Brand does support terrorism.
American banana companies have used violence against workers since, at least, the 1920’s, with the aim of keeping workers from demanding fair wages and working conditions(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_massacre).
Today, in general, private industries in Colombia use the AUC as a way of killing off union leaders and producing a pro-corporate environment. Chiquita Brand didn’t just pay off the AUC, they gave helped them acquire 3000 AK-47s and 5 million projectiles in 2001 (http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=56717- sixth paragraph, it’s in spanish, sorry). I find it hard to believe that C.B was not glad when the AUC displaced FARC as the dominanting force in Colombia’s banana producing region.
Even if C.B was just paying protection, that is a monstrous criminal act in itself. They gave 1.7 million dollars to an organization that has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions and kidnapped thousands of people. Among other things, they are famous for playing soccer with the skulls of victims ad dismembering them live with a chainsaw.
For the record, the FARC are probably just as nefarious as the AUC, but the fact that asshole A is the enemy of asshole B does not make neither A nor B any less of an asshole
Wilfred
Said facts will no doubt be treated as such in this case, but in similar cases they have not been. this was how Tariq Ramadan was denied a visa to the United States after Notre Dame had offered him a tenured faculty position. Ramadan had donated money to a Palestinian charity BEFORE the government had declared it a terrorist enabler.
This guy is lucky he left in 2002. According to 18 U.S.C.
2339B (material support for designated terrorist organizations)he can be prosecuted. See, if he were a Muslim, he would have known that. This is how the State Department justifies its lack of entry visas to Iraqis. If a family pays ransom money to kidnap that’s, you guessed it, material support for terrorism.
Quite an educational series of posts today, John.
The Bearded Blogger
Martin is absolutely right. Helping terrorists, whatever the motive, is helping terrorists.
“Basically, they gave money to terrorists knowing they were terrorists because it was in their best interest to do so. How is that any different from ANY other person that gives money to terrorists? Just because he got profits out of it rather than the satisfaction of seeing his enemies blown up? Wouldn’t a corporation knowingly selling weapons to terrorists be perfectly alright then by the same reasoning?”
calipygian
Making money counts for more than how you make it and who gets paid off in the process. Not to mention who gets killed and hurt in the process.
As for McCain and Chiquita, I take my cue from the Deciderer – You’re either with us or against us.
Seebach
Combat heroism matters: McGovern ’72
El Cid
I’m sure if the situation were reversed, and this were an Obama fund-raiser, that the McCain / Republican / Mainstream nexus would be urging us to see the issue for its complexities, like they always do.
Palooza
But.. but… Obama attended a cocktail party with a 60s radical!
Wilfred
I forgot to add that 18 U.S.C. 2339B has also severely restricted the activities of US Muslim charities since the government has refused to alert Muslim organizations as to which of them it (the government) considers to be ‘material supporters of terrorism’. Knowing that they would avoid them. But DOJ said it would not disclose the list.
Think about that for a minute and you’ll see how Kafkaesque DOJ has become under Bush.
The Bearded Blogger
L’esprit de l’escalier is what the french call a witticism that comes a little to late. After having posted twice, here’s mine:
So John, it’s okay to fund terrorist organizations as long as it’s for profit?
Zifnab
Right, let’s put this in a bit of context. I’m a small oil trader operating out of the Arabian Peninsula and I regularly have to deal with AQI or Iranian agents to get through the Straight of Hormuz. So I cough up a few million dollars to an organization that kills US troops and another organization that is picking fights on the Iraq-Iran border.
How kindly do you think the US Government is going to treat me?
Or, let’s say I’m a diamond miner in Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe comes calling. He says I can keep mining diamonds, but I have to support his Presidential run and donate money to his campaign. Oh, and he’s going to be killing a bunch of the locals who aren’t a member of his tribe, so please stay out of his way.
How about if I’m a rice grower in Vietnam / Cambodia / Laos circa 1973, and the Vietcog rolls into my part of town demanding I offer them money for “protection”?
I mean, I could go on forever with these analogies. Chiquita did what I imagine any savy business would do. It ran the numbers and found the solution most profitable to its enterprise. The problem, from a US and humanitarian perspective, was that Chiquita’s math lead them to decide giving mafia goons large kickbacks was preferable to closing up shop and refusing to support the blood bath.
Had the AUC been a band of Islamic Radicals or Maoist anti-capitalists or Cuban-affiliated insurrectionists would we be cutting them slack? If the AUC was being run by Che Guevera?
Just wondering…
Tim H.
Just for a change, let’s go with the literal truth (McCain’s buddy is a terrorist financier) and let the GOP expound on the complications and subtleties. Because they’re so good at it.
DR
Problem is: Chiquita was convicted of providing help to terrorists…. by the Bush administration, no less.
So whatever story they have concocted to “justify” those payments, which were really a way to arm a pro-business right-wing guerilla to ensure FARC wouldn’t interrupt their little ultra-profitable anti-democratic racket.
Chiquita has left a trail of blood throughout Latin America; to take “their word for it”, as you’re doing now, would be like saying “but Hitler only did it because he was fighting Communism!”…
Sirkowski
But bananas are worth more than beaners, AMIRITE?
/sarcasm
BFR
Yeah, I recall from my Latin American history classes in college that bananas are pure evil. Think about it – there is no reason on earth that bananas, shipped halfway around the world should generally be cheap fruit. The only way that this works is by using factory techniques and borderline, if not outright slave labor.
If you are in the banana business, then you pretty much are a terrorist.
SpotWeld
See, this is just bad business practice.
What the bananananana people should have is just hire a well known and obviously above reproach contactor like Black Water to handle all these problems. Then there would be no issue what so ever… right?
John Cole
Did I ever say that? I said the facts in this case are more complicated that simply ‘McCain backer supporters terrorism.’
And, as Martin and the links I have provided have shown, it is true. Additionally, they were convicted because they acted in good faith and turned themselves in, as it is noted in the 60 minutes piece.
For my part, I see a fundamental difference with funding terrorism for the express point of funding terrorism and paying off people to not kill your employees. Both are obviously problematic, but I would argue the latter is much less so.
Additionally, we have been funding terrorism for decades, anyway. You have heard of petroleum and Saudi Arabia, right?
calipygian
Win.
rawshark
But these types of ‘facts’ only matter when a republican is involved. Would anyone care about these facts if someone from Obama’s campaign supported terrorism? Would old John Cole care if it was a Kerry’s campaign or Gore’s?
kth
There’s a difference between someone who contributes to a terrorist org out of sympathy with its aims, and someone who contributes out of fear. But it’s a continuum, not a categorical distinction: no doubt a lot of Al-Qaeda’s money comes from Arab plutocrats who want to deflect political pressure away from themselves, or even fear for their personal safety if they don’t pony up.
Wilfred
Doesn’t matter – justice being blind and all. They can bring up whatever they want in their defense at the trial but if they’re not prosecuted there ought to be a better explanation than they meant well.
Ramadan was kept out of the US for things much less severe. Maybe they only go after brown skinned people. Nah.
Jon H
Perhaps the lesson to take from this is that support for terrorism in general is more complicated than we have assumed.
Lots of people have similar reasons for “supporting terrorism”, but then most of them lack the resources and power and options that Chiquita had.
Wilfred
FYI:
donovong
“Both are obviously problematic, but I would argue the latter is much less so.
Additionally, we have been funding terrorism for decades, anyway. You have heard of petroleum and Saudi Arabia, right?”
Oh, alright, Fuck it. That makes it all okay. Two wrongs making a right, and all that.
Jon H
Wilfred wrote: ” They can bring up whatever they want in their defense at the trial but if they’re not prosecuted there ought to be a better explanation than they meant well.”
I believe they were made to pay a sizable fine, something like $20 million, which was more than the $1.7 they claim to have paid these terrorists. (Though I wonder if the actual amount was larger, leading to the large fine, but was kept quiet.)
John Cole
When did I ever say it makes it alright and okay? When?
When did you guys start channeling your inner Red State and adopt Bush’s Manichean view of the world? Christ. If you have something to offer, go for it, but quit pretending I said something I didn’t.
Genine
This is a terrible situation and I do not agree with what C.B did. However, I see a big gray area here.
Yes, it could move to something less profitable and then cut a ton of jobs. It sucks but, in a lot of cases if a company is making less profit they will cut jobs rather than deny the CEO his or her $10 million dollar bonus.
If they paid terrorists to take out union leaders and such, that’s horrible and they should be strung up for that. But paying “protection” money to keep your employees from being killed- that’s horrible, but understandable to a certain degree. (Please note I am saying I understand it. I do not condone it.)
One can certainly see this situation in more simplistic terms and they would be correct. But there is more to the story, which doesn’t necessarily make it sound better. But it makes the situation a little more complex.
Wilfred
Here’s a real victim:
The law’s the law. If only Iraqis and Muslim-Americans get prosecuted (see US vs. Afshari) then that’s complete injustice. Change the law or apply it to everybody.
Napoleon
I don’t have time to look it up, but around a couple of weeks ago I saw a pretty good story, I think in the NY Times about how the era of cheap and/or available bananas is at an end, and part of the story was how banana’s are much cheaper then things like apples even though apples are easy to ship, last forever and tend to be grown close to where they are sold, and part of the way they did it cheaply was labor suppression methods. It was an eye opener.
Dennis - SGMM
Anyone care to guess how many companies worldwide are paying someone off? My guess: lots. If they’re operating in a region that has insurgents or a thuggish government or both then the odds are pretty damned good that payoffs are a cost of doing business. They may have to hire certain individuals as “security guards”, fund specified “charities” or pay made-up fees and tolls but, they’re paying off nonetheless. Calling in hits on troublemakers is way beyond the pale and likely unnecessary – once the locals determine which side their bread is buttered on they probably take care of the troublemakers without being asked.
rawshark
Another difference is these were right wing terrorists.
jibeaux
You’ve just declared yourself an asshole, too!
Zifnab
That sure as hell sounds like a tacit endorsement to me. Or, at the very least, a “whatcha complainin’ ’bout?” retort. Are you suggesting that we don’t regularly bitch about the oil industry for-profit stranglehold on Arab nations? Cause, you know, its not like people were chanting “Blood for Oil” all the way through the Iraq War. We clearly missed that connection.
Yikes, dude. “I didn’t pay the mafia to snuff out my competition because I wanted them to snuff out my competition. I was just paying protection money and… oops… competition up and died on me.”
This line of logic might work if you can show where Chiquita was paying off FARC with equal abandon. And EVEN THEN, I’m not seeing why a US Company should be doing business in the middle of a civil war hotzone while paying off militants because, by golly, we’ve got to protect our stockholders. We’ve got longer standing embargos against Cuba for doing far less damage over the same amount of time.
But still, its the basic premise. Chiquita was passing millions of dollars to a right-wing guerrilla cell that just happens to target unionizers and left-wing orgs and you’re saying they did it all because they were protecting their sub-minimum wage employees?
Give me a fucking break.
jeroen
As other posters have pointed out, Chiquita has a history of doing nasty stuff for profit,
I just read Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World’. It’s a great read about a subject that’s much more fascinating than I would have guessed before reading the book.
Wilfred
Nope, you remain the only asshole:
Pretty scary, huh? Few people gave a shit. I’ve been screaming about infringements on academic freedom around here for a long time. What happened to Ramadan could happen to anyone. Well not anyone, if you’re Pipes you can get away with anything.
Dennis - SGMM
Time to dust off an old quote from General Smedley Butler. This should be read to Congress at least once a year.
John Cole
No. It is not that simple. They were passing millions to rightwing groups, before that, left-wing groups, and basically, anyone who would not kill their people.
Somehow or another you all seem to think I am defending the practice, and I think what really has you all in a dander is the appearance of “right-wing” and “McCain.” It all sucks, but it isn’t as simple as people are making it out to be.
Additionally, this sort of shit is going on everywhere, almost anywhere there is a resource worth extracting- see also diamonds, oil, whatever. Fucking cut me some slack. I am not endorsing the shit, just saying that McCain is hardly to blame for a standard (yet deplorable) business practice of one of his backers. granted, and I said this in the post, the Republicans would be running with it with their usual level of dishonest and faux outrage.
Thom
John
The reason people took it the way you did is because you wrote this after the blockquote: “Not to go all corporate shill and defend McCain and Chiquita…” which is usually something said when someone is defending someone. Y’know?
And it seems to me that the 60 Minutes story starts late. The existence of rebel groups in Columbia are largely in response to what Chiquita and the U.S. in general have been doing there for decades. You can’t start in 1980 and say, “Oh look, those rebels are dangerous!”
jibeaux
Wait, did something happen to TZ?
The Moar You Know
No such thing. Right-wing terrorists are “freedom fighters”, i.e. Contras.
jibeaux
By the way, Wilfred, my point is nothing substantive about Mr. Ramadan. It is that you said I had declared myself an asshole because I stated that Clinton had declared someone a terrorist. You stated that a Palestinian charity was declared to have enabled terrorism, ergo under Wilfred Rules, you have declared yourself an asshole too, or at least declared yourself to have enabled assholery.
John Cole
Well, in my case I said it because I meant it. I am not defending them, just stating it is not as clear cut as it seems.
Susan Kitchens
TO: James Carville reads Balloon Juice! He just told Ben Smith about the Duke Cunningham, fighter pilot angle.
Susan Kitchens
Ack. two letter dyslexia, or dystypia. meant to say O.T. as in off-topic. But my typo-correcting macro thought I meant “to” and helpfully corrected me. Now that I’ve taken things off-off-topic, I offer double apologies.
jibeaux
I’ve got your back, JC. Context is always helpful. I concur with Wilfred that the statute has no intent component, which is what I think he’s getting at there, and I am certainly inclined to think that it should have one.
But it does matter, if for no other reason than more information and context mean greater understanding, to know that they aren’t funding FARC because they support and like kidnapping, rape, murder, and narcotrafficking. It doesn’t mean John’s saying they’re good guys. It means he’s saying there’s more to the story.
Remember, we’re liberals. Liberals want information. Conservatives want ammunition. We’re better than that.
Martin
And this helps their case how? Now you’ve excused paying terrorists in order to protect the CEO bonus by noting that they really don’t care about the jobs anyway. So, when the CEO is paying terrorists, he’s really paying himself!
Simply acknowledging this is the reality of how business works doesn’t make it right. Next question: are terrorists smart enough to recognize which acts are more likely to help the profitability of those corporations willing to pay, and change behavior accordingly?
You have to start somewhere, and the head of the GOP seems like as appropriate a target as any, even if he has no personal involvement. The standard out there seems to be to point out these little issues and see what the candidate has to say about them. Does McCain have it in him to call it a standard business practice?
I don’t say that to tear him or you down, but I think we’re better off walking through life with our eyes open. If that’s standard business practice, then let’s advertise and celebrate that fact. Maybe offer some MBA courses in it and open it up for everyone to participate. And if it’s a standard business practice let’s get everyone the same opportunities to participate, because just letting the multinationals (or even corporations) play is hardly free-market.
Randy Paul
John,
Chiquita in its various incarnations (United Fruit, for example) has been a consistent bad actor in Latin America, whether engineeering the overthrow of a democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954, which ushered in a series of brutal dictators that resulted in nearly forty years of civil war and over 200,000 dead or the murder of hundreds of strikers in Cienaga, Colombia in 1928.
The message that this sends to Latin America is that McCain believes in business as usual. He doesn’t deserve a pass on this at all.
John Cole
That shit is just outrageous. My blood boils everytime I think of the pitiful numbers of people who have been allowed to flee Iraq to the United States. This is even worse.
Why the fuck couldn’t Terri Schaivo happen in 2002?
Jeff
No open thread today, but thought this Scalzi observation was interesting:
jibeaux
He wasn’t giving him a pass. He was providing context, just like you did vis a vis Chiquita.
John Cole
Anyone have some links that could serve as a primer? In undergrad I was more interested in Africa (in particular Julius Nyrere), and really overlooked Latin America.
Brachiator
OT, but maybe not.
Not only is McCain about business as usual, evidently he has decided to run officially as the third Bush term (McCain Orders Shake-Up of His Campaign):
Wilfred
Nah, this is, actually. More from the Annals of the Age of Bush:
Dennis - SGMM
United Fruit Company
Punchy
OT (via TPM):
Wow. It’s not even subtle. It’s egregious.
Wilfred
Nice mention of General Butler. read his bio when I was 16 and always admired him. He was actually the first victim of swiftboating – ragged unmercifully as a Bolshevik. A real red fighting man. Today he’d be trashed to smithereens on Fox.
DR
@John:
Primer on United Fruit and Chiquita:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiquita_Brands_International
Also: Let’s not forget that UFC was in league with Batista, and that its actions were in significant part responsible for the rise of a certain Fidel…
They are one of the worst corporate offenders out there. If they were trying to protect anyone, it was THEMSELVES and only THEMSELVES. They’ve let thousands of their workers die; it’s only when the bosses are threatened that they take action…
Martin
Kos needs to buy you a new server and better software… or at least some hamster food.
Martin
Remember the lawsuit against Fox that Fox won on appeal: News organizations have no legal obligation to tell the truth.
Just putting the law to practice.
Randy Paul
John,
Read Bitter Fruit by Stephen Schelsinger and Stephen Kinzer. It’s the best book on the subject I have read.
Napoleon
This wasn’t the only place I saw it pointed out. I also saw pointed out that Bush Sr was a fighter pilot as well several others (names excape me now) who have not turned out so good.
Genine
What are you talking about? That is NOT what I am saying and I am not making excuses for them. I think the practice is horrible and have said so.
What I am saying is if they moved their business to something less profitable it will mean job cuts. I was talking about that aspect and that aspect only in that particular sentence. If profits fall, its the employees who pay the price, not the CEOs and I think that sucks. I am not saying they should engage in the practice. I am not saying they are “good guys”. I think its wrong.
I do not think it is acceptable and how we do business should be changed. However, at the moment, what happened/is happening is the reality right now. How it is happening right now is wrong and more complex than how people are framing it.
Kyle
The slave labor the wife and children provided violated a provision of U.S. immigration law, one that forbids admittance of anyone who provides “material support” to a terrorist organization. Whether that support — the cooking and the fetching of water — took place under threat
of torture or death is irrelevant.
So they’re refugees because they were kidnapped and enslaved by terrorists, but they supported terrorism by working for their captors under threat of death so they are inelegible for refugee status.
Just. Fucking. Horrible.
And I’m sure this legal standard will be applied impartially to Chiquita and its corporate officers. Not.
rawshark
‘hit piece’ is popular on the right isn’t it? Must be a tool of dismissipacity.