The Cincinnati Beacon
The politics of fruit? Chiquita, McCain, Coups and Dictatorships
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Posted by Justin Jeffre
Amy Goodman’s new column “Celebrate the release, not the regime” discusses Senator McCain’s ties to Colombia. In it she refers to the Huffington Post’s recent report about McCain’s ties to local billionaire and financier Carl Lindner. Coincidentaly, yesterday Goodman interviewed a writer that discusses the politics of fruit.
Yesterday, Goodman interviewed Adam Leith Gollner, author of “The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce, and Obsession”. He says that delicious, lethal, hallucinogenic and medicinal fruits have led nations to war, fueled dictatorships, and lured people into new worlds. During the interview, Leith discusses Chiquita’s (formerly known as United Fruit Company) sordid past.
ADAM LEITH GOLLNER: Well, the United Fruit Company was more than just a fruit company. In fact, they were called the Octopus, because of their many-tentacled agglomeration of political clout. They owned the railroads. They controlled the postal service in Central American and Caribbean countries. And in fact, they controlled the entire economies of these countries. As some of us know, they orchestrated the coup in Guatemala in the ’50s, and they also—
AMY GOODMAN: This is 1954.
ADAM LEITH GOLLNER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: The overthrow of Arbenz, United Fruit Company integrally involved. And this was a year after Iran, Mohammed Mosaddeq was overthrown by the CIA?
ADAM LEITH GOLLNER: Absolutely. And we saw some footage of the Great White Fleet, which is what the name of the United Fruit Company’s shipping line was called. And those boats were used in the world wars for moving weapons and soldiers around. The company also funded the Bay of Pigs invasion. And so, they—
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean?
ADAM LEITH GOLLNER: Their money was used in the invasion of Cuba. And so, they have played all sorts of roles that go far beyond just bringing fruits into America.
The Cincinnati based fruit company’s rotten past continues to bruise its sweet image. The term “Banana Republic” literally comes from this US backed coup in Guatemala.
Despite a lack of in-depth local coverage from the Enquirer, many may remember how Chiquita recently slipped away with just a slap on the wrist for funding a known terrorist group (the AUC) in Colombia. But the recent release of FARC hostages has put Colombia back in the spotlight and McCain’s fundraiser Carl Lindner and Chiquita right along with it.
In Goodman’s new column she writes;
The Huffington Post reports that a McCain fundraising event was just given by billionaire Carl Lindner of Cincinnati, the former CEO of Chiquita Brands International. Chiquita, under Lindner’s watch, paid and armed one of the most notorious right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The U.S. government fined Chiquita $25 million for its funding and arming of the AUC, designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the U.S. State Department as early as 2001. One of the conditions of the deal was that Chiquita would not have to name the top executives involved.
The Chiquita executives managed to get a sweet deal by not being punished and not being named either. It just goes to show how it pays to be politically connected or shall I say, invested.
Goodman’s article shines a light on the Colombian regime. She writes of her interview with Manuel Rozental, a Colombian doctor and human-rights activist who fled Colombia after receiving several threats on his life and now lives in Canada.
Rozental says, “We’re talking about the regime with the worst human-rights record in the continent and the army with the worst human-rights record in the continent with the greatest U.S. support, including the contractors or mercenaries. So the fact that this regime was involved in this liberation does not and should not and cannot cover up the fact that it is a horrendous regime.”
According to Goodman Colombia has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid outside of Israel and Egypt. Amnesty International USA has called for a halt to all support for Colombia, saying ” … torture, massacres, ‘disappearances’ and killings of noncombatants are widespread, and collusion between the armed forces and paramilitary groups continues to this day. In 2006, U.S. assistance to Colombia amounted to an estimated $728 million, approximately 80 percent of which was military and police assistance.”
Goodman says McCain’s links to Colombia are worth noting.
The Huffington Post and The New York Times recently reported another McCain connection to Colombia. His top adviser, Charlie Black, resigned in March as chairman of the Washington, D.C., lobbying firm BKSH & Associates in order to work full time on the McCain campaign. Since 1998, BKSH has earned $1.8 million representing Occidental Petroleum, which has controversial oil operations in Colombia. Occidental worked with a military contractor and the Colombian military to counter pipeline attacks. In December 1998, the Colombian military dropped a bomb on the village of Santa Domingo, killing 11 adults and seven children. According to the Los Angeles Times, Occidental “supplied, directly or through contractors, troop transportation, planning facilities and fuel to Colombian military aircraft, including the helicopter crew accused of dropping the bomb.”
I find it interesting to watch how the Chiquita/Lindner connection to McCain makes headlines around the nation, but local media fails to connect the dots even when others have done the work for them. The Enquirer actually did some investigative reporting over a decade ago which found that Chiquita had shipped a ton of Cocaine in their banana boats to Belgium and England. Though their expose on Chiquita was legit, the paper was sued and has never been the same since.
The Beacon is still waiting for a response from Chiquita as to what exactly a banana is. Our invistigation leads us to believe that it is technically a “false berry”. Whatever it is, it is one delicious and nutritious freak of nature. On a somewhat related note, check out the secret history of this “Miracle Berry.” As Huey P. Newton said, “everything is political”, even berries and false berries.
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