Friday, November 21, 2008

ERIC HOLDER, CHIQUITA & THE AND COLOMBIA DEATH SQUADS



Kevin Gray, Portfolio, October 2007
- For years, Chiquita Brands secretly paid off death squads in Colombia. Now the U.S. Congress is asking questions. . .

In northern Colombia's lush banana-growing region. . . Chiquita Brands International, the $655 million fruit giant, slipped into a blood-soaked scandal. Between 1997 and 2004, Chiquita gave $1.7 million to the A.U.C., whose death squads destroyed unions, terrorized workers, and killed thousands of civilians. Chiquita's top officials admit approving the payments but say they thought that if they didn't pay up, the A.U.C. would kill its employees and attack its facilities. Because the U.S. State Department has labeled the A.U.C. a terrorist organization, federal prosecutors charged Chiquita in March with engaging in transactions with terrorists. In an agreement with the Justice Department, Chiquita pleaded guilty and will pay a $25 million fine. . .

The firm's lawyers have struggled to explain publicly that Chiquita had to make a choice between "life and law" and that it chose the "humanitarian" route of protecting its workers. "This company was in a bad position dealing with bad guys," says Eric Holder, a Washington attorney representing Chiquita. "There's absolutely no suggestion of any personal gain here. It's not a case like Tyco, where someone is squirreling money away. No one is out buying great shower curtains."

As a corporation, though, Chiquita stood to benefit greatly from the lethal cleansing that Castano delivered. At the time, the Marxist guerrillas routinely kidnapped U.S. executives, blew up railroads, and sabotaged oil pipelines. Chiquita says it became increasingly difficult to protect its workers and their families. Castano's death squads, however, were squarely pro-business. They were not just ridding Uraba of guerrillas; they were killing leftists and eradicating unions. . .

During the A.U.C.'s reign of terror, according to the federal complaint, the region would become Chiquita's most profitable farming operation in the world.

While the A.U.C. was murdering thousands of Colombians, "to our knowledge, the paramilitaries never touched a hair on the head of a U.S. citizen or company," says Adam Isacson, director of the Colombia program at the Center for International Policy, in Washington. In fact, Isacson says, the A.U.C.'s stranglehold brought "a strange form of peace to the region through terror. It created a much more friendly business environment."

But for Eric Holder, Chiquita's lawyer, that argument falls flat. "It's like saying a shopkeeper feels safe because the Mob is extorting him for protection payments," Holder says. "You're not paying these guys to protect you from someone else; you're paying them to protect you from them."

Scott Creighton - Barack Obama, the man who spoke so eloquently in the last debate about not passing the Columbia Free Trade Agreement until more was done to bring the killers of the union workers to justice, has just announced that he is going to make the lawyer for one of the companies responsible for these killings, his Attorney General. You can't make this stuff up.

There are also allegations from a French NGO that Chiquita is exposing it's workers to a dangerous pesticide. So the workers that don't get killed by their Chiquita Death Squads, will slowly wither away from horrible illnesses.

There are also criminal charges pending facing some Chiquita executives, in Columbia.

ERIC HOLDER CONT'D

Stephanie Mencimer, Washington City Paper, 1997 - After three and a half years on the job, Holder is still revered in the city's halls of power and widely respected by his peers in the legal field. He is the presumptive nominee to replace outgoing U.S. Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, a major plum position. He is infinitely qualified by all accounts, and his appointment would be a historic one, since the position has never been held by an African-American. But for all the love Holder has engendered in the community as U.S. Attorney, he has had precious little impact on the city's endemic municipal corruption. Barry has returned to his old tricks, nudging contracts and city jobs to old cronies and new girlfriends. Holder is apparently leaving, and he hasn't thrown a punch.

It isn't for lack of targets. Since Holder was sworn in on Oct. 16, 1993, federal investigators have opened at least a half-dozen major probes of District government fraud and corruption, including investigations of allegations that:

- in 1995 Cora Masters Barry arranged to launder campaign money through the 17-year-old son of her housekeeper to pay cash to her brother Walter;

- in 1995 Korean businessman Yong Yun performed renovation work on the Barrys' house in exchange for a sweetheart deal on a city lease;

- last year the police department subverted city procurement regulations to give former members of Barry's security detail city contracts to install a fence and security system at Barry's home;

- the directors of IPACHI, a now-defunct nonprofit group, misappropriated more than $1 million in federal and District money;

- the executive director of JMC Associates Inc., the bankrupt mental health contractor, used money from city contracts and the Social Security benefits of mentally ill clients to buy fur coats, wedding dresses, and a condo on Martha's Vineyard;

- the 27-year-old director of Kedar Day School misappropriated city money intended for educating special-education students;

- and that employees of the lottery board were running businesses out of the board's office and steering contracts to friends of the mayor.

Not one of these cases has resulted in an indictment so far. And the list doesn't reflect a sickening array of other government-related wrongdoing during Holder's watch that seems to have gone unpunished, including voter fraud, allegations of widespread corruption at the taxicab commission, allegations of rampant bribe-taking in the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, and dozens of reports of graft within the public schools.

Holder, whose sheriff's badge was forged by taking down corrupt public officials, has not had a single high-profile D.C. public corruption case since he became U.S. Attorney. By comparison, during his 5-year tenure diGenova successfully prosecuted two deputy mayors and a dozen lower-level city officials. Holder may have had his way with the media and kept the community at bay, but now that he seems to be moving on, people are wondering why he isn't leaving behind a more honest, or at least more chaste, D.C. government. . .

Just because Holder's office hasn't produced any indictments in these cases doesn't mean they won't be coming eventually. But the lack of any visible prosecution has people wondering why Holder hasn't lived up to all the hype about his credentials. More importantly, they worry that by not prosecuting cases quickly, he has reinforced D.C. government's reputation as a culture without consequence.

Former D.C. Auditor Otis Troupe is willing to wait and see, to a point: "He came into his job with a mandate for reform, and in that sense his job is unfinished. I hope he is just biding his time. He's a homeboy. He has reason to know many of the city's structural problems. If all he's doing is taking his time, more power to him. But I haven't seen too many cases.". . .

Former D.C. Corporation Counsel Fred Cooke and others have suggested that Holder is running a low-key office because he wants to keep his head down so that he can get in line for a federal judgeship. While New York City mayor and former prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani used indictments as a way of getting headlines and winning voters, he never actually convicted many people in court. But Cooke says Justice Department jobs or seats on the federal bench are won by keeping an even keel, doing a respectable job, and not ruffling too many feathers by taking risks. . .

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