Posts Tagged ‘ Banana Politics ’

Dole, Others Sued in U.S for Ecuador Pesticides

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This exclusive report copyright 2008 www.bananabook.org.

Two of the world’s biggest banana companies, the American chemical companies who supply them, along with several other companies they do business with, are being sued by pilots, ground crew, and residents of the Ecuadorian plantation town of Puerto Viejo for health damage they allegedly suffered during years of spraying of Mancozeb, a fungicide used to combat Black Sigatoka, the most common and costly disease affecting commercial bananas.

The suit was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.) on September 18, 2008. It names Dole, Monsanto, Dupont, Dow Chemical and Noboa – which markets bananas in the U.S. under the “Bonita” brand name – as primary defendants, and accuses them of using the chemical despite knowing that it would cause birth defects, cancer, and respiratory and fertility problems among banana workers and their families.

Mancozeb is listed by the Pesticde Action Network as having “toxicity to humans, including carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and acute toxicity.” Mancozeb is a fairly common garden fungicide, and the U.S. EPA regards it as safe, but only in small quantities and with proper protective gear and usage. The suit alleges all were lacking.

The suit is one of several that banana companies are facing and have faced in U.S. courts for their actions overseas. Last year, Dole received a mixed verdict in a similar pesticide suit involving Nicaraguan workers, with some receiving damages, and some charges being dismissed. Chiquita is currently being sued by families who allege that payments the company made to Colombian terrorist groups directly funded activities that led to the deaths of their loved ones.

Obama’s Pick For Attorney General Has Banana Problems

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Eric Holder, Chiquita defender and Obama pick for U.S. Attorney General.

I’ve gotten dozens of emails in the 48 hours since Eric Holder emerged as President-elect Barack Obama’s choice as U.S. Attorney General. To summarize: Holder is a former deputy U.S. attorney general in the Clinton administration who has been described as a “long-time Obama advisor.” He was part of the committee that helped Obama choose Joe Biden as vice-presidential nominee. Holder would be the nation’s first African-American attorney general. He’s currently in private practice with the law firm of Covington & Burling, which is where the banana trouble begins.

Here’s the key part of the Wikipedia page on Holder that explains it (I urge you to read the whole entry, which summarizes his entire career.)

“In 2004, Holder helped negotiate an agreement with the Justice Department for Chiquita Brands International in a case that involved Chiquita’s payment of “protection money” to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a group on the U.S. government’s list of terrorist organizations. In the agreement, Chiquita’s officials pleaded guilty and paid a fine of $25 million. Holder represents Chiquita in the civil action that grew out of this criminal case.”

The civil action mentioned in the article is a lawsuit on behalf of the families of seven missionaries who were murdered by Colombia’s United Self Defense Forces (AUC). The suit alleges that since Chiquita was funding the AUC at the times the killings occurred, the banana company bears some responsibility for them.

I agree, and I’ve blogged about the issue numerous times. Here are links to some of the previous entries:

  • In May, the CBS News program “60 Minutes” did a segment on the Colombia-Chiquita story. It included an interview with Chiquita CEO Fernando Aguirre. Read (and view the interview) here.
  • Here’s the entry about the lawsuits that Holder and his law firm, Covington and Burling, are defending Chiquita against.
  • The families of U.S. victims of the AUC aren’t the only ones suing Chiquita. Similar cases have been brought by 400 Colombian families. My November, 2007 entry on is here.

So what to do about this?

Silence isn’t an option. Anyone who reads this blog knows where my political sympathies lie. I was, and remain, and Obama supporter. I know that the Washington merry-go-round – and especially when it comes to attorneys – makes for strange bedfellows. I don’t know if I’d excuse the fact that Holder represented Chiquita in negotiating the terms of the fine it paid to the Justice Department. But I know that representing the company against the families of the AUC victims is inexcusable. As my colleague Jason Glaser – whose upcoming documentary, “The Affected,” directly illustrates how dangerous the lives of banana workers in Latin America are, even when they don’t have to deal with terrorism – notes, “isn’t it about time we have a lawyer in [the U.S. attorney general's] position from a plaintiff’s firm [italics mine], someone who may have at one time served the interests of a mammal as opposed to a corporate entity?”

The liberal/progressive community is going to do a lot of hand-wringing about this. It needs to do more. We elected Obama – and we need to keep him honest. To fail to do so would be to write him the same kind of blank check that supporters of the previous administration handed over to the officials they elected. Holder owes us an explanation, though I don’t see how any words from him could be convincing – especially to those in Latin America whose trust we have already lost. Getting Chiquita to agree to agree to full disclosure and restitution would be an appropriate way for Holder to spend his remaining weeks in the private sector – and a good start.

So here’s what to do.

First, learn about Holder – not just about his actions regarding Chiquita, but his entire career. Decide for yourself whether he deserves a pass. Then, use the network – the one we used so successfully to get Obama elected. Blog, Twitter, and email the links about Holder that you think are most important, good or bad (my Twitter handle is “soulbarn”, if you want to follow my posts.) The point is to make sure the information gets out there. The most important thing we can do right now is establish, early, that transparency is one of the things we voted for on November 4th.  Our ability to spread this information quickly, and spark a public debate about it – rather than use this information simply in a destructive way – is key.

Here are some good places to find out more about Holder, and to discuss the nomination. I invite you to add more links in the comment thread.

  • Dan Kovalik, in the Huffington Post (11/18/08), not mincing words. Headline: “Lawyer for Chiquita in Colombia Death Squad Case May be Next U.S. Attorney General.”
  • Discussion thread at Democratic Underground forums.
  • Slate’s “Bananas of Mass Destruction” (2007), including Chiquita’s court filings.
  • “The Trouble With Eric Holder,” from The Nation, 11/18/08. Not just bananas – Holder, according to the story, also has some Patriot Act issues.
  • “Preliminary Facts and Thoughts About Eric Holder,” from Salon, 11/18/08. A still-being-updated, roundup on Holder’s dealings, positive and negative.

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Banana Companies Rat Each Other Out

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The biggest news item I avoid in this blog are banana trade wars. That’s because it would take me thousands and thousands of words to explain why the U.S., Europe, and the big banana companies have been fighting for years over who gets to sell bananas where. There have been resolutions that have led to no resolutions, problems that have led to more problems, and lots of ugly behavior on both sides. Suffice it to say that the whole thing is corrupt, and that none of it really affects whether or not bananas show up on store shelves (though it does affect where those bananas come from, and prices, as you’ll see, below.) The problem is that when you enter the labyrinth, you just can’t find your way back. Sorry.

But sometimes, I just have to say something. Last week, Dole and Del Monte – Dole’s the second biggest banana company in the world, and Del Monte, depending on how you count, is probably third or fourth – were fined a total of $83 million by the European Union for conspiring to fix banana prices in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Sweden. These fines were good. Price-fixing is bad, and I’m always happy – we should all be happy – when banana company skullduggery is exposed.

The interesting thing about all this is who turned the Dole and Del Monte in: it was Chiquita, their rival, and the world’s biggest banana company.

This time, I won’t comment, other than to refer you to the source of the picture, above.

This is not meant to be the Chiquita blog, but…

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You really can’t help it when you see stuff like this. What does this mean? I can’t tell, because – and this is another news flash – Chiquita has redesigned its website so that it de-emphasizes bananas – and made it unnavigable in the process (I tried to find some kind of marketing info on the sticker. No luck.) But even weirder, given the company’s recent history of terrorist payoffs in Colombia – money which went directly for arms purchases – is the slogan itself. Fights for you? Does anybody at the banana giant’s corporate headquarters think about this stuff?

I would love to see some normal news come out of Chiquita – but there doesn’t seem to be much, other than an announcement of increased profits thanks to higher banana prices in the first quarter of this year.

Chiquita’s bad news leads to a bigger question. As I noted in the post before this one, Dole and Del Monte have also now been accused of paying protection money in Colombia. But it is Chiquita that is getting hammered in the media. I wonder if the company regrets going public. Probably. But the reason it is getting the beat down it is now receiving – in my view – is not because it went public. The reason is that it went public only halfway. Watch the 60 Minutes interview again, if you haven’t already. Chiquita CEO Aguirre is ducking and covering. He’s pretending to take responsibility while not taking responsibility. The company is getting hit because it is claiming to have done the right thing when it clearly didn’t, and that leads to the suspicion that it went public not because it felt that it was ethical, but because bad stuff was coming down the pike, and it needed some quick cover.

Have Banana Prices Gone Insane?

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Flooding in Ecuador – the world’s largest exporter of bananas – have raised prices of what is traditionally the cheapest fruit in the supermarket. Since January, 2008 – if you buy bananas, you’ve certainly noticed this – prices have gone way up: in Los Angeles, from about 59 cents to as much as 79 cents a pound.

So far, the largest Ecuadorean banana company – Bonita – has made no statement on the crisis, and banana sales have remained strong – but flat – because the fruit remains the lowest-priced on store shelves. But the situation is an illustration of how fragile the banana market is; if disease should strike Latin America, prices will go up far more than the floods have prompted them to, and for the first time in over a century, apples (which now cost between about a dollar and three dollars a pound) could once again be a better value than the world’s favorite fruit.

Despite the troubles, former Ecuadorean presidential candidate Alvaro Noboa remains the richest man in his country, and child labor laws there remain weak. Pressure to keep banana prices down in the face of the flooding crisis will likely affect neither.

This ninny says bananas disprove evolution…

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This fellow, Ray Comfort, is using a banana to prove that a “designer” created the universe. The general idea is that only an intelligent force could have created such a naturally convenient item (with a protective wrapper, an easy-to-use “pull tab,” perfect shape, etc.) There is so much stupid about this that it would be laughable, if so many people didn’t fall for it. The reality, simply put, is that the banana is so “perfect” for human consumption because we’ve spent seven millennia – longer than just about any other crop – cultivating it to be so. In other words, since we’ve selected and reselected the best bananas, finally arriving at the one we eat today, the fruit – rather than proving that an unseen hand created it – tells us the opposite: we’re the ones who made it what it is, and we used the tools of evolution to do so.

Oh, and also, the other guy in the video is washed-up child star Kirk Cameron, of “Growing Pains.” Crediblity achieved.

Watch the video…if you want to read more about Comfort, or the Athiest Test, click below (you’ll also find out why peanut butter contains yet another proof of a willful creator of the universe…)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sanplNTr6c]

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