Chiquita Brands International Inc. (NYSE: CQB) is a Cincinnati, Ohio-based producer and distributor of bananas and other produce, under a variety of subsidiary brand names, collectively known as Chiquita. Chiquita is the successor to the United Fruit Company and is the leading distributor of bananas in the United States. The company also owns a German produce distribution company, Atlanta AG, which it acquired in 2003. Chiquita was formerly controlled by Cincinnati billionaire Carl H. Lindner, Jr., his majority ownership of the company ended as a result of Chiquita Brands International exiting a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 19, 2002.

Contents

* 1 Chiquita Banana
* 2 History
* 3 Cincinnati Enquirer controversy
* 4 Protection payments to paramilitary groups
* 5 Ongoing workers' rights violations
* 6 Use in fiction
* 7 References
* 8 Bibliography
* 9 See also
* 10 External links
* 11 Updated News

*1 Chiquita Banana

The trademark logo mascot, Chiquita Banana, was created by Dik Browne, who is best known for his Hägar the Horrible comic strip. 1940s vocalist Patti Clayton was the original 1944 voice of Chiquita Banana, followed by Elsa Miranda, June Valli and Monica Lewis.

*2 History

Chiquita Brands International Inc. was formed in 1871 by U.S. railroad entrepreneur Henry Meiggs as the United Fruit Company. In 1970 it became the United Brands Company. And then in 1985 it became Chiquita Brands International.

In 1975, a SEC investigation revealed that the company had bribed the Honduran President (dictator): Oswaldo López Arellano and Italian officials. The scandal was named Bananagate.

In the 1980s, the company (then known as United Brands Company) was involved in a leading Competition Law Case when they were found to abuse their dominant position in the banana and fruit supply markets by the European Commission.

*3 Cincinnati Enquirer controversy, Chiquita Scandinavia, a former Chiquita Brands International ship. [1]

On May 3, 1998, The Cincinnati Enquirer published an eighteen-page section, "Chiquita Secrets Revealed" on Chiquita. The articles, written by Enquirer investigative reporters Michael Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter, charged the company with mistreating the workers on its Central American plantations, polluting the environment, allowing cocaine to be brought to the United States on its ships [1], bribing foreign officials, evading foreign nations' laws on land ownership, forcibly preventing its workers from unionizing, and a host of other misdeeds.

Chiquita denied all the allegations, suing after it was revealed that Gallagher had repeatedly hacked into Chiquita's voice-mail system (no evidence ever indicated that McWhirter was aware of Gallagher's crime or a participant). A special prosecutor was appointed to investigate—the elected prosecutor having ties to Carl Lindner, Jr.. On June 28, 1998, the Enquirer retracted the entire series of stories, published a front-page apology, and paid the company a multi-million-dollar settlement. The Columbia Journalism Review would report both $14 million and $50 million for the amount. Chiquita's Annual Report mentions 'a cash settlement in excess of $10 million'. One of the reporters, Gallagher, would be fired and prosecuted and the paper's editor, Lawrence K. Beaupre, would be transferred to the Gannett's headquarters amid allegations that he ignored the paper's usual procedures on fact-checking in order to win a Pulitzer Prize. Chiquita has not formally challenged any of the factual claims raised in the original articles.

*4 Protection payments paid to paramilitary groups

See also: Colombian armed conflict and Doe v. Chiquita Brands International

On March 14, 2007, Chiquita Brands was fined $25 million as part of a settlement with the United States Justice Department for having ties to Colombian paramilitary groups. According to court documents, between 1997 and 2004, high ranking corporate officers paid approximately $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the AUC, in exchange for employee protection in Colombia's volatile banana harvesting zone. Similar payments were also made to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as well as the National Liberation Army (ELN) from 1989 to 1997 [1][2]. All three of these groups are on the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

On March 19, 2007, Chiquita Brands admitted in federal court that the company paid Colombian terrorists to protect employees at its most profitable banana-growing operation. As part of a deal with prosecutors, the company pleaded guilty to one count of doing business with a terrorist organization. In exchange, the company will pay a $25-million fine and court documents will not reveal the identities of the several senior executives who approved the illegal protection payments [2].

Chiquita currently faces serious charges in a lawsuit, issued in June 2007. According to the attorney of 173 family members of victims of the AUC militia this could be the biggest terrorist case in history and may put Chiquita out of business. "Terry Collingsworth, a lawyer with International Rights Advocates who is leading the multi-million dollar litigation, said: "This is a landmark case, maybe the biggest terrorism case in history. In terms of casualties, it's the size of three World Trade Center attacks. [3]"

*5 Ongoing workers' rights violations

In May 2007, the French NGO "Peuples Solidaires" publicly accused the Compañia Bananera Atlántica Limitada (COBAL), a Chiquita subsidiary, of knowingly violating its workers' basic rights and endangering their families health and their own. Allegedly, the banana firm has carelessly exposed laborers at the Coyol plantation in Costa Rica to highly toxic pesticides on multiple occasions. Additionally, the human rights group accuses the company of using a private militia to intimidate workers. Finally, Peuples Solidaires claims that Chiquita, despite a regional agreement between the company and local unions requiring prompt investigation of grievances, has ignored certain union complaints for more than a year [4].

*6 Its use in fiction

Several authors have used the operations of the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) as inspiration for fiction works. The most important ones are:
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel García Márquez,
GREEN POPE by Miguel Angel Asturias,
LA CASA GRANDE by Alvaro Cepeda Samudio, and the poem
"UNITED FRUIT COMPANY" by Pablo Neruda included in his epic work
CANTO GENERAL. Garcia Marquez,
Asturias, and Neruda were awarded with the Nobel Prize’s in Literature. According to some studies, the work NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad was also inspired by the UNITED FRUIT COMPANY.

*7 References

1. ^ Michael Evans, 'Para-politics' Goes Bananas, The Nation, 4 April 2007 (English)
2. ^ a b Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press writer, Chiquita to Pay $25M Fine in Terror Case, ABC News, 15 March 2007 (English)
3. ^ Chiquita faces Colombia lawsuit, Al Jazeera, June 7, 2007 (English)
4. ^ COSTA RICA - CHIQUITA : INDIGESTIBLE BANANAS, Peuples Solidaires, From 7 May to 30 June 2007 (English)

*8 Bibliography

* Bender, Nicholas (May/June 2001). "Banana report". Columbia Journalism Review.

* Frantz, Douglas. "After apology, issues raised in Chiquita articles remain", The New York Times, July 17, 1998, pp. A1, A14.

* Frantz, Douglas. "Mysteries behind story's publication", The New York Times, July 17, 1998, p. A14.

* Stein, Nicholas (September/October 1998). "Banana peel". Columbia Journalism Review.
* Mike Gallagher & Cameron McWhirter, "Chiquita SECRETS Revealed," Cincinnati Enquirer, May 3, 1998.
* "The Business and Human Rights Management Report—Chiquita Brands International," Ethical Corporate Magazine, Nov. 2004.

* Bucheli, Marcelo (2005). Bananas and Business: The United Fruit Company in Colombia: 1899-2000. New York: New York University Press.

* Taylor, Gary; Patricia Sharlin (2004). Smart Alliance: How a Global Corporation and Environmental Activists Transformed a Tarnished Brand. New Haven: Yale University Press.
* "The Importance of Corporate Responsibility," Economist Intelligence Unit, Jan. 2005.

* "Chiquita Brands: A Turnaround That Is Here to Stay," Winslow Environmental News, January 2004.

* "The banana giant that found its gentle side," Financial Times, Dec. 2002

* '"Chiquita Wins Raves for Outstanding Sustainability Reporting," Greenbiz.com, April 3, 2003

*9 See also:

* Union of Banana Exporting Countries
* One Hundred Years of Solitude
* United Fruit Company

*10 External links

Chiquita Brands International official site
www.chiquita.com


* United Fruit Historical Society: This site contains a detailed chronology of the history of Chiquita, biographies of the company's main protagonists, and an extensive bibliography.
* Relatives of Colombia Death Squad Victims Sue U.S.-Based Fruit Giant Chiquita for Arming, Funding Their Killers Friday, July 20th, 2007 report from Democracy Now! www.democracynow.org
Retrieved from "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiq...onal"

NEW YORK - Victims of Colombia's bloody civil conflict sued the U.S. banana importer Chiquita Brands International on Wednesday for making payments to a paramilitary group responsible for thousands of killings.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, accuses the company of complicity in hundreds of deaths because of its financial support of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, also known by its Spanish initials, AUC.

The plaintiffs include relatives of 387 people believed to have been killed by the right-wing group, which was responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia's long-running conflict. It was designated a terrorist group by the U.S. government in 2001.
The families are seeking $7.86 billion in damages from Chiquita, which they accuse of abetting atrocities including terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A spokesman for the Cincinnati-based company vowed Wednesday that it would fight the civil lawsuit, one of several filed recently by Colombian citizens and human rights groups.

Chiquita has acknowledged that its former subsidiary, Banadex, made $1.7 million in payments to the AUC between 1997 and 2004. The company has also admitted that the payments were illegal; it pleaded guilty this year to violating U.S. counterterrorism laws and agreed to pay a $25 million fine.

But Chiquita has repeatedly insisted that it had no choice but to pay protection money to groups that had threatened to turn death squads loose on its banana plantations and employees.

"We reiterate that Chiquita and its employees were victims and that the actions taken by the company were always motivated to protect the lives of our employees and their families," said Chiquita spokesman Michael Mitchell.

Chiquita sold its Colombian subsidiary in 2004 but continues to buy Colombian bananas from independent suppliers.

The company's punishment for giving money to AUC outraged some Colombian officials, as has a Justice Department decision not to prosecute 10 Chiquita executives.

Colombia's interior minister, Carlos Holguin, said the fine was insufficient for a company that has "financed a mass massacre of Colombians."

Chiquita has also acknowledged making protection payments to other combatants, including the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.