Going Bananas for Terrorists
Chiquita has agreed to pay $25 million in fines for bribing Colombian terrorist groups to safeguard its banana plantations. One of the groups, a right-wing paramilitary organization, has been guilty of some of Colombia's worst atrocities.
Chiquita has agreed to pay $25 million in fines for bribing Colombian terrorist groups to safeguard its banana plantations. One of the groups, a right-wing paramilitary organization, has been guilty of some of Colombia’s worst atrocities.
Your support is crucial...AP:
In court documents filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors said the Cincinnati-based company and several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers paid about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC for its Spanish initials.
The AUC has been responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia’s civil conflict and for a sizable percentage of the country’s cocaine exports. The U.S. government designated the right-wing militia a terrorist organization in September 2001.
Prosecutors said the company made the payments in exchange for protection for its workers. In addition to paying the AUC, prosecutors said, Chiquita made payments to the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as control of the company’s banana-growing area shifted.
As we navigate an uncertain 2025, with a new administration questioning press freedoms, the risks are clear: our ability to report freely is under threat.
Your tax-deductible donation enables us to dig deeper, delivering fearless investigative reporting and analysis that exposes the reality beneath the headlines — without compromise.
Now is the time to take action. Stand with our courageous journalists. Donate today to protect a free press, uphold democracy and uncover the stories that need to be told.
Business & Economy
Here’s what to expect as lawmakers try to hash out a new farm bill.
Politics
Revisiting the Agrarian-Distributists and their fabrication of an American past.
Health & Wellness
Meat and dairy groups have paid for advertisements that cast meat-based alternatives as unhealthy, unnatural and ultra processed.
Health & Wellness
Government-backed factory farming has become a dominant force in the last five decades.
Environment
In addition to being the main cause of animal cruelty in the world, factory farming is a primary source of environmental degradation.
Business & Economy
There is a massive movement, backed by billions of dollars, to keep animal meat on our tables and plant-based meat back in the fads of the pandemic.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.