12/21/2018
Banana Officials Accused of Crimes Against Humanity in Colombia
Breaking Newstags: Colombia
Banana executives with Chiquita Brands now the subject of a major criminal investigation in Colombia were instrumental in the development and execution of company policies surrounding secret payments to Colombian guerrilla and paramilitary groups, according to an article and Web posting published today by National Security Archive senior analyst Michael Evans.
The National Security Archive is publishing its findings in collaboration with VerdadAbierta, a longtime Archive partner that works to shed light on the roots of Colombia's conflict. The new publications synthesize information drawn from public sources and a 48,000-page trove of corporate records obtained through the Archive's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Among the highlights of today's posting is the secret deposition of John Paul Olivo, who from 1996-2001 was the chief financial officer for Banadex, Chiquita's wholly-owned subsidiary in Colombia. In hours of secret testimony before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Olivo detailed the steps the company took to negotiate, approve and conceal the illegal payments to armed groups in Colombia, acts that the Colombian prosecutor says are crimes against humanity.
Today's Web posting looks at the role of Olivo and a dozen other fruit company executives named in the Colombia case, including Charles Keiser, the longtime general manager at Banadex who oversaw the illegal payments process and personally authorized many of the secret expenditures. Also profiled is Álvaro Acevedo, who succeeded Keiser as general manager and who "became increasingly concerned" that the company was using his personal salary to smuggle money into the country intended for illegal paramilitary groups.
comments powered by Disqus
News
- Chair of Florida Charter School Board on Firing of Principal: About Policy, Not David Statue
- Graduate Student Strikes Fight Back Against Decades of Austerity, Seek to Revive Opportunity
- When Right Wingers Struggle with Defining "Woke" it Shows they Oppose Pursuing Equality
- Strangelove on the Square: Secret USAF Films Showed Airmen What to Expect if Nuclear War Broke Out
- The Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
- New Books Force Consideration of Reconstruction's End from Black Perspective
- Excerpt: How Apartheid South Africa Tried to Create a Libertarian Utopia
- Historian's Book on 1970s NBA Shows Racial Politics around Basketball Have Always Been Ugly
- Kendi: "Anti-woke" Part of Backlash Against Antiracist Protest Movements
- Monica Muñoz Martinez Honored for Truth-Telling in Texas History