Last year, Chiquita paid a $25 million fine after admitting supporting terrorist groups in Colombia during 1990s and the early part of this decade. This week, the world’s largest banana company was sued by the families of five Florida missionaries killed by the AUC – the right-wing terror faction that the banana company was paid the money to. Three of the missionaries – David Mankins, Mark Rich, and Rick Tenenof – were kidnapped in 1993 and never seen again; they were declared dead nine years later. Steve Welsh and Timothy Van Dyke, also of the New Tribes Mission, were abducted and killed by the AUC in 1994.
A lawyer for the families said that the news of Chiquita’s protection payments “started the ball rolling” on the suits, arguing that the money enabled the AUC to arm itself and expand activities. A Chiquita spokesperson called the allegation “absolutely untrue.”
In an analysis on the Family Security Matters website, Douglas Farah writes:
“Wow. And now we have evidence the FARC is kidnapping people, producing cocaine and building front companies. A sad and bloody story that will not end soon, and is dragged on by companies like Chiquita who place their business ventures with terrorists above human life.”
Strong words, but hard to argue, given the millions of dollars Chiquita gave to the drug-running, murdering AUC (not my opinion; the U.S. Department of Justice, under both the Clinton and Bush administrations, says so) just to bolster banana sales (after all, “protecting employees” meant maintaining a presence in the country – Chiquita could have shut down all Colombia operations.)
Dozens of Americans were killed by guerilla and terrorist groups in Colombia during the time Chiquita was paying the so-called protection money. If the New Tribes suit is successful, look for a run on the courts.
Links:
Sticker image from Becky Martz’s fabulous collection
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman 
I was a NTM missionary, as well as a good friend of Steve and Tim. I know and love the families of the two men and I was present when they were taken hostage by the FARC. I was disappointed to read about the payments that Chiquita made to the FARC. I have also had friends that worked in the management levels of the Chiquita company. It’s dusturbing to think that the money extorted from them might have been used to arm the men who attacked us and changed our lives forever by their actions. I previously held these men, from Chiquita, in high esteem. There was one in particular, that befriended me in Panama, whom I would still count as a friend. While we were still numb from the FARC hostage-taking at our base camp in January 1994, and were living in cramped conditions, not unlike refugees, in the nearby town; we watched in horror as Colombian television aired the video from a couple of banana plantations where the FARC had entered a remote village on the edge of the plantation, gathered-up all of the workers, then executed them in a wholesale fashion. The video showed the bodies lying in heaps, bloating in the sun. We did not miss the similarity to our own recent experiences. We all felt very fortunate to be alive at that point. Could the Banana company have yielded to the FARC extortion tactics with an eye to preventing more massacres like that one? That is my expectation. Clearly, many more have been harmed over time as a result of the FARC terrorism but I expect that the intent of the payoffs was to save lives.