Financing chainsaw murderers no big deal

The US government has just helped to clarify the difference between terrorism that deserves aggressive prosecution and terrorism that's not really worth making a fuss about.  Illustrating the latter:

Federal prosecutors won't seek terrorism-related charges against five former officials of Chiquita Brands International Inc. following an investigation into whether they aided the company's illegal payments to a violent Colombian group. ...

"The United States gave serious consideration to bringing additional charges in this matter," prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in the sentencing memo. "In the exercise of its prosecutorial discretion, the United States has decided not to do so."

For details of just what Chiquita did, let's go to the Department of Justice's press release of 3/19/2007:

For over six years – from sometime in 1997 through Feb. 4, 2004 – Chiquita paid money to the [right-wing paramilitary] AUC in two regions of the Republic of Colombia where Chiquita had banana-producing operations: Urabá and Santa Marta.  Chiquita made these payments through its wholly-owned Colombian subsidiary known as "Banadex."  By 2003, Banadex was Chiquita's most profitable operation.  Chiquita, through Banadex, paid the AUC nearly every month.  In total, Chiquita made over 100 payments to the AUC amounting to over $1.7 million.

...nearly half of which was paid after the AUC was (finally) officially designated as a terrorist organization by the US on September 10th, 2001.  The DoJ goes on to say:

For several years Chiquita paid the AUC by check through various intermediaries. Chiquita recorded these payments in its corporate books and records as "security payments" or payments for "security" or "security services." Chiquita never received any actual security services in exchange for the payments.

Apparently when they say that "Chiquita never received any actual security services" they mean that the AUC never posted night watchmen or installed chain-link fences around Chiquita facilities.  A less disingenuous observer might point out that the AUC's achievement of making Colombia the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists year after year would count as a major "security service" to Chiquita, and could even be part of the reason that Banadex had become "Chiquita's most profitable operation" after six years and $1.7 million worth of payments.  It certainly sounds like Chiquita  got their money's worth to me.

A lawsuit (pdf; press release here) filed against Chiquita alleges that their involvement with the AUC went far beyond monetary payments:

40. Chiquita, through Banadex, operates a private port facility at the Colombian municipality of Turbo, used for the transport of bananas and other cargo.  The arms ship docked at the Chiquita port, and Banadex employees unloaded the 3,000 assault rifles and 2.5 millions rounds of ammunition.  These arms and ammunition were then transferred to the AUC.

And just what was the AUC doing during this time with the money they were receiving from Chiquita and others?

The victims were dragged into the town slaughterhouse. Amid chains and meat hooks, they were bound, suspended and interrogated. Where are the guerrillas? Are you a guerrilla? The men had machetes and chainsaws. Whatever the victims said, however they pleaded, they lost a hand. An arm. A leg. Finally, almost mercifully, they were decapitated.

That's just a sample; there's more here, if you have the stomach for it.  Chiquita knew full well the kinds of unimaginably brutal atrocities the AUC was committing, but continued financing them even a year after first admitting to the Justice Department that they'd done so.  They finally stopped in 2004, as the push for "demobilization" of the AUC and other paramilitary groups was picking up steam (and so the benefits of the "security services" the AUC could offer--with machetes and chainsaws--were presumably dwindling).

So the moral of the story seems clear: if you're planning to finance terrorists as they torture and slaughter thousands of innocent people, first check carefully to make absolutely sure that the terrorists you're supporting have the same ideological goals as the US government, and if at all possible, try to be a major corporation.  Otherwise you might end up spending some time in jail.

Comments

[Jon]

check carefully to make absolutely sure that you're a major corporation

Nah, I'm sure it would also have been okay if individuals or non-profits payed AUC.

[John Caruso]

Yeah, you're right. I cheated and changed it.