"Chiquita, Hills said, would have to pull out of the country if it could not
continue to pay the violent right-wing group to secure its Colombian banana
plantations. Chertoff, then assistant attorney general and now secretary of
homeland security, affirmed that the payments were illegal but said to wait for
more feedback, according to five sources familiar with the meeting...
Sources close to Chiquita say that Chertoff never did get back to the
company or its lawyers. Neither did Larry D. Thompson, the deputy attorney
general, whom Chiquita officials sought out after Chertoff left his job for a
federal judgeship in June 2003. And Chiquita kept making payments for nearly
another year."
This is an interesting issue, what it appears to show is that for the United Fruit Company, oops sorry they changed their name, Chiquita, money is more important than not supporting terrorists. It goes on to talk about how the company knew that money that was being given to the group by Chiquita was being used to target peasants in villages and labor unions. The simple truth of the matter is that this is about bananas, but it raises the question of how many other deals like this are being done by other companies selling other goods. It is not a stretch to wonder if oil companies that serve in dangerous parts of the world are using money paid to terrorists as a form of security.
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