The U.S. & Chiquita: Blood on their Hands!
Since 2000, the U.S. has spent almost 5 billion dollars on Plan Colombia, the military aid package which funds the Colombian government’s war against their own people. U.S. tax dollars are used to terrorize Colombians who exercise their democratic rights by speaking out against U.S.-backed free trade policies or for democratic rights.
Recent scandals have proven governmental links to paramilitary violence. Eight members of Colombian President Uribe’s government – including the army chief & his domestic spy chief - have been arrested for their ties to paramilitaries. Democratic leaders in the U.S. Congress are finally beginning to question what the U.S. is funding in Colombia. Now is a key time to raise our voices!
The government is not the only one colluding with paramilitaries. Corporations – including Drummond Coal, BP Amoco, Occidental, & Nestlé – all have a history of using paramilitaries to kill union organizers & to intimidate workers to keep them from joining unions. Coca-Cola has been subject to an international boycott for its collusion with paramilitaries who have killed 8 union organizers & intimidate, threaten, and kidnap workers and their family members.
Chiquita admits to funding Colombian paramilitaries
In March, banana giant Chiquita plead guilty in Washington to doing business with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia or AUC, a right-wing paramilitary organization that is responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia’s civil war. The State Department listed the AUC as a terrorist organization in 1997. Despite this, the top 8 Chiquita executives paid the AUC 1.7 million from 1997-2004. In addition, in 2001 Chiquita used one of their ships to deliver 3,000 AK-47 rifles & more than 2.5 million bullets for the AUC.
Chiquita claims that they assisted the AUC to protect their employees & that it was simply a cost of doing business in Colombia. The reality is that hundreds of union members, including Chiquita banana workers, have been killed by weapons purchased with Chiquita's blood money.
Chiquita’s fine is only half of the profits its subsidiary, Banadex, made from 2001-4. Chiquita told the U.S. Justice Dept. about the payments in 2003 and then continued to make payments with the full knowledge of the Bush administration. Chiquita executives are facing NO CRIMINAL CHARGES! If members of the Colombia solidarity movement were to support the rebels they
would not be treated with the same sympathy by the Bush administration.
Fighting Back!
Despite repeated massacres of banana workers who try to organize unions, Colombians are still organizing. In July 2006 the CAN met with the newly formed banana workers union, SINAGRANCOL, near Santa Marta. Their union was growing tremendously and demanding better wages and conditions – especially protection from being sprayed by pesticides. The government claims that the paramilitaries are demilitarizing, but the death squads are in full force in banana country. The union is organizing despite military and paramilitary spying and repression. The union refuses to remain silent about their treatment and demands real change in Colombia.
A Call to Action
The coverage of Uribe’s government and Chiquita’s scandals bring light to what human rights organizations and social movement leaders have been saying since 2000 – that U.S. aid funds death squad violence. Currently, Bush is requesting 3.9 billion in new aid. The Democratic Congress is questioning supporting more funding for such an unsuccessful & repressive policy. We need to send a clear message. Please call your Congressperson at
202-224-3121 to say no aid for Colombia – even for aid with human rights conditions because Bush will allocate the funds regardless of conditions. In addition, demand that Congress investigate Chiquita for their support of death squads and the Justice Department for their murderous activities in
Colombia.
Colombia Action Network
colombiasolidarity.org
Info@colombiasolidarity.org
