Saturday, August 27, 2011
Thursday, August 02, 2007
non-commercial filesharing ruled legal
interesting ruling in spain that non-commercial filesharing is legal. as long as you don't intend to profit, you may be safe in spain's courts, for now...
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Sign Petition Against Guestworker Abuse
I just received this petition from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to stop the all-too-common abuse that guest workers endure in the US.
Guest workers are basically individuals who come here from other countries to work for a specified amount of time. Many people come to be live-in nannies for families with children, and while many of these workers are treated well, there have been countless instances of abuse, unpaid wages, etc.
The SPLC has a nearly 40 year history of legally fighting against racial discrimination and white supremacy. There is more information on this petition below, and a link to some more information on the SPLC as well. Please sign!
-----------------------------
PETITION
-----------------------------
Southern Poverty Law Center
Petition to Stop Guestworker Abuse
Sign our petition and help stop the virtual enslavement and abuse of guestworkers.
Sign the petition If you believe in the American ideals of fairness and human dignity, you'll be appalled at the way tens of thousands of foreign "guestworkers" are being systematically exploited in a government-sanctioned program that many describe as modern-day slavery.
"We had no electricity. The first week we were not paid. The second week we were paid $70."
— Mexican H-2B worker
"El patron would put a lock on the gate where our trailers were. After a time, they would not let us communicate with other people."
— Mexican H-2A tomato worker
"I felt like an animal without claws — defenseless. It is the same as slavery."
— Dominican H-2B hotel worker
These are the workers, mostly poor Latinos, who are lured here by U.S. businesses with promises of decent jobs only to be cheated out of their wages; forced to live in squalid conditions; and denied medical benefits for injuries. If the workers complain, they face deportation, blacklisting and other forms of retaliation.
We've documented the abuses in a new report — Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States — and are filing lawsuits against the most abusive employers.
As a nation, we must fix our broken immigration system. But we must not condone a program that abuses and enslaves poor workers from other countries who are lured under false pretenses. Not only does this system violate our most deeply held values, it undermines the rights and wages of American workers as well.
Congress has the opportunity to right this terrible wrong. Though lawmakers are unlikely to pass comprehensive immigration legislation this year, Congress can still reform the guestworker system. But lawmakers will act only if the American people speak out strongly against this moral outrage.
Sign the petition. You can make a difference. Please sign our petition to stop guestworker abuse. We'll make sure the president and the appropriate Members of Congress receive it.
Your commitment to justice and acceptance is so important to us. Thank you for your support.
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104
---------------
THE SPLC
---------------
More info on the SPLC via Wikipedia.
The SPLC web site.
One of the SPLC's web-based initiatives, Tolerance.org.
Guest workers are basically individuals who come here from other countries to work for a specified amount of time. Many people come to be live-in nannies for families with children, and while many of these workers are treated well, there have been countless instances of abuse, unpaid wages, etc.
The SPLC has a nearly 40 year history of legally fighting against racial discrimination and white supremacy. There is more information on this petition below, and a link to some more information on the SPLC as well. Please sign!
-----------------------------
PETITION
-----------------------------
Southern Poverty Law Center
Petition to Stop Guestworker Abuse
Sign our petition and help stop the virtual enslavement and abuse of guestworkers.
Sign the petition If you believe in the American ideals of fairness and human dignity, you'll be appalled at the way tens of thousands of foreign "guestworkers" are being systematically exploited in a government-sanctioned program that many describe as modern-day slavery.
"We had no electricity. The first week we were not paid. The second week we were paid $70."
— Mexican H-2B worker
"El patron would put a lock on the gate where our trailers were. After a time, they would not let us communicate with other people."
— Mexican H-2A tomato worker
"I felt like an animal without claws — defenseless. It is the same as slavery."
— Dominican H-2B hotel worker
These are the workers, mostly poor Latinos, who are lured here by U.S. businesses with promises of decent jobs only to be cheated out of their wages; forced to live in squalid conditions; and denied medical benefits for injuries. If the workers complain, they face deportation, blacklisting and other forms of retaliation.
We've documented the abuses in a new report — Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States — and are filing lawsuits against the most abusive employers.
As a nation, we must fix our broken immigration system. But we must not condone a program that abuses and enslaves poor workers from other countries who are lured under false pretenses. Not only does this system violate our most deeply held values, it undermines the rights and wages of American workers as well.
Congress has the opportunity to right this terrible wrong. Though lawmakers are unlikely to pass comprehensive immigration legislation this year, Congress can still reform the guestworker system. But lawmakers will act only if the American people speak out strongly against this moral outrage.
Sign the petition. You can make a difference. Please sign our petition to stop guestworker abuse. We'll make sure the president and the appropriate Members of Congress receive it.
Your commitment to justice and acceptance is so important to us. Thank you for your support.
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104
---------------
THE SPLC
---------------
More info on the SPLC via Wikipedia.
The SPLC web site.
One of the SPLC's web-based initiatives, Tolerance.org.
Volunteering in Ecuador
Anyone want to join me in Ecuador to do some volunteer work?
Round trip airfare is about $450 from NY/NJ area, you can stay with me for free while you're there. Food is cheap. I'll be there from August 7th til at least October, perhaps up to Christmas. If you want to stay longer than a short trip, you can do it and fund it through teaching English, and I can help you do it.
There are a few different options for volunteering: helping with house construction for a rural family, helping to create an international food market to increase the income of the farmworkers, organizing eco-travel tours to educate on how petroleum companies are ruining the jungle, or any ideas you have, please throw them out there.
Let me know if you're interested!
Round trip airfare is about $450 from NY/NJ area, you can stay with me for free while you're there. Food is cheap. I'll be there from August 7th til at least October, perhaps up to Christmas. If you want to stay longer than a short trip, you can do it and fund it through teaching English, and I can help you do it.
There are a few different options for volunteering: helping with house construction for a rural family, helping to create an international food market to increase the income of the farmworkers, organizing eco-travel tours to educate on how petroleum companies are ruining the jungle, or any ideas you have, please throw them out there.
Let me know if you're interested!
Labor victory for Oregon farmworkers!
this short letter is copied out of the mass e-mail i got from United Farmworkers, more info below that...
Victory at Threemile Canyon Farms Dairy
Following four and a half years of struggle, a groundbreaking historic contract was just signed with the United Farm Workers and the Threemile Canyon Farms LLC, Boardman, Oregon.
We want to thank everyone for all the support they gave us in this campaign. This was a tremendous victory for farm workers at the Threemile Canyon Dairy. It is the first UFW contract in the state of Oregon and it is the first time farm workers in this state will be insured family medical benefits, a pension plan, regular wage increases and better working conditions.
Below please find video, photos, news clips and press statements from the press conference announcing this victory. To find the most recent information you can visit our campaign page at: www.ufw.org/threemile.
Thank you so much for your support and we look forward to many more farm worker victories in the state of Oregon.
Si Se Puede,
Arturo S. Rodriguez
President
----
Videos and more info on UFW and the recent contract signing can be found here.
Detailed information on the labor contract can be found here.
Victory at Threemile Canyon Farms Dairy
Following four and a half years of struggle, a groundbreaking historic contract was just signed with the United Farm Workers and the Threemile Canyon Farms LLC, Boardman, Oregon.
We want to thank everyone for all the support they gave us in this campaign. This was a tremendous victory for farm workers at the Threemile Canyon Dairy. It is the first UFW contract in the state of Oregon and it is the first time farm workers in this state will be insured family medical benefits, a pension plan, regular wage increases and better working conditions.
Below please find video, photos, news clips and press statements from the press conference announcing this victory. To find the most recent information you can visit our campaign page at: www.ufw.org/threemile.
Thank you so much for your support and we look forward to many more farm worker victories in the state of Oregon.
Si Se Puede,
Arturo S. Rodriguez
President
----
Videos and more info on UFW and the recent contract signing can be found here.
Detailed information on the labor contract can be found here.
A very interesting restaurant...
thanks lis for passing this along...this restaurant in denver allows people to have lunch even if they can't pay, so long as they chip in to help out with the dishes, mopping, or something else. interesting idea, no?
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5490648,00.html
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5490648,00.html
working through the Internet
I'm just sitting here early in the morning trying to figure out ways to make money through the Internet to fund my travels. I'm thinking of checking out Google AdSense and maybe some other ads. I've been editing through the Internet for awhile and may have a new job doing Spanish to English translation, but its slow getting clients. Anyone who has any ideas on working via the Internet please send them along!
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
chiquita terrorist scandal
the following are two articles that i emailed out awhile back and never posted online, but i think it's still worth putting up in case anyone hasn't seen it yet.
--------------------
EMAIL and ARTICLE 1
--------------------
hey everyone...the story below was front page news down here in colombia...i thought it might appear on cnn but big surprise it wasn't in the main headlines or even in the americas subsection of their world news section. so, below, first you can read the short news story on the incident of chiquita banana company admitting to paying both rightist and leftist terrorists in order to "protect its workers." one can only speculate as to how many innocent workers were threatened, fired, forcibly displaced, tortured, and/or killed because of this.
chiquita (previously known as the united fruit company), has been involved in terrorist scandals before, including involvement in a military coup in guatemala to help install a vicious dictatorship in 1954 (this happened with active support from the US government and CIA) and a massacre at a worker's protest in colombia in 1928, just to name the two things i have come across from brief reading. there are some links to this information below the article, and you can certainly seek out alternative sources on the web.
hope all is well and take care for now...
saludos,
rock
Chiquita to pay $25 million in terrorism probe
By Matt Apuzzo
Associated Press
Published March 15, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Banana company Chiquita Brands International said Wednesday that it has agreed to a $25 million fine and to admit paying a Colombian terrorist group for protection in a volatile farming region.
The settlement resolves a lengthy Justice Department investigation into the company's financial dealings with terrorist organizations in Colombia.
In court documents filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors said the Cincinnati-based company and several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers paid about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known by the Spanish acronym AUC.
Prosecutors said the company made the payments in exchange for protection for its workers. The company also made similar payments to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, according to prosecutors. The group also is known by its Spanish acronym, FARC.
Colombia's banana-growing region is a zone over which leftist rebels and far-right paramilitaries have fought viciously. Most companies have extensive security operations to protect employees in the area.
"The information filed today is part of a plea agreement, which we view as a reasoned solution to the dilemma the company faced several years ago," Chiquita's chief executive, Fernando Aguirre, said in a statement. "The payments made by the company were always motivated by our good-faith concern for the safety of our employees."
Such arrangements between companies and either guerrillas or paramilitaries are not uncommon, but it is impossible to know how much money is paid each year.
Chiquita sold its Colombian banana operations in June 2004.
Details of the settlement were not included in court documents, but Aguirre said it would pay $25 million in fines, which it set aside this year. The company reported the deal to the Securities and Exchange Commission. A plea hearing was scheduled for Monday.
The payments were approved by senior executives at Chiquita, prosecutors wrote in court documents. Prosecutors said Chiquita began paying the AUC after a meeting in 1997 and disguised the payments in company books.
In April 2003, company officials and lawyers approached the Justice Department and told prosecutors that they had been making the payments. According to court documents, the payments continued for months.
- - -
Colombian rebels
Civil conflict in Colombia has produced a range of rebel and paramilitary groups spanning the political spectrum. U.S. prosecutors said Chiquita Brands International made payments to the AUC and FARC, two of the principal groups:
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)--The AUC's origins can be traced to the paramilitaries established by drug lords in the 1980s. The group says it took up arms for self defense in the absence of government-provided security, but others see it as little more than a drug cartel.
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)--Founded in 1964, the Marxist group vowed a broad-based struggle to overthrow Colombia's government. But attacks by right-wing paramilitaries have changed its tactics, and the group is now believed to be involved in drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping.
-- Compiled from the BBC, news reports
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703150132mar15,1,3035294.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
ALSO, SOME INFO ON CHIQUITA'S HISTORY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/United_Fruit_Company
--------------------
EMAIL and ARTICLE 2
--------------------
hey there everyone...just came across this article (below) on upsidedownworld.org, which really ties together some of the history of the chiquita banana company in latin america, including its involvement in arms and drug dealing, bribery of government officials, and repression of workers, to name a few.
it's a bit long, but worth the read. there are some links to the sources at the bottom, and you can dig further for primary sources if you like. one of the most interesting questions for me is the extradition issue; specifically, if we don't send the admitted and convicted terrorists abroad to face the law, are we harboring terrorists?
in any case, hope all is well for everyone and that you find this interesting. take care for now!
saludos,
rocks
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/684/1/
Chiquita in Colombia: Terrorism Gone Bananas? Print
Written by April Howard
Tuesday, 03 April 2007
Bananak-47What happens when "Business as Usual" clashes with the vocabulary of the "War on Terror"? We got a glimpse of one case this March when the Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands International, Inc., paid a $25 million settlement to the United States Justice Department for paying off right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia, groups which Washington classifies as "terrorist organizations."
Chiquita is one biggest and most powerful food marketing and distributing companies in the world, and one of the world’s largest banana producers. The company shows annual revenues of approximately $4.5 billion and about 25,000 employees operating in more than 70 countries.[1] The banana market, worth about $5 billion a year in 2001, is the most important global fruit export. The majority of the 14 million tons of bananas exported every year come from Latin America.[2]
The charges state that from 1997 to 2004 several unnamed, high-ranking corporate officers from Chiquita and its Colombian Banadex subsidiary made monthly payments, totaling $1.7 million, to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).[3] Even though Chiquita's outside lawyers insisted that payments stop in 2001, Banadex continued write checks to the AUC, though Chiquita executives later decided that cash was a better idea.[4]
The AUC, often described as a "death squad," was incorporated as one of 28 "Foreign Terrorist Organizations" on the U.S. Department of State website in September, 2001.[5] Not without reason; even Forbes Magazine describes the AUC as "responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia's civil conflict and for a sizable percentage of the country's cocaine exports." With approximately 15,000 to 20,000 armed troops, the AUC uses "kidnapping, torture, disappearance, rape, murder, beatings, extortion and drug trafficking" among its standard techniques.[6] One of many massacres committed by the AUC took place in 2001, while the AUC was receiving funds from Chiquita. In the early morning on January 17, 80 AUC paramilitaries entered the rural town of Chengue and killed 24 men by smashing "their skulls with stones and a sledgehammer." Only one 19-year-old paramilitary member has been punished, though he named police and navy officials who organized the mass murder.[7]
Apparently, the company also funded two other Colombian groups on the US lists include the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, both of Colombia’s main leftist rebel groups, which Chiquita also paid off as these groups took control of the banana-growing area.[8] This area has inspired deadly battles between left and right-wing paramilitary groups. Most of the victims of these wars are local residents, human rights workers and trade unionists.[9]
Chiquita's involvement with the paramilitaries developed at a time when the right-wing groups were growing quickly and deepening their ties with politicians, security forces and businesses across Colombia. In the state of Antioquia, Chiquita's business boomed as the groups took over banana-growing lands and were blamed for the killings of human rights workers and trade unionists. As the U.S. complaint noted, "by 2003, Banadex was defendant Chiquita's most profitable banana-producing operation."[10] Chiquita sold its wholly owned subsidiary Banadex to the local company Banacol in June, 2004 for between $43.5 and $52 million.[11]
From United Fruit to Chiquita: An Inglorious Past
Chiquita’s history in Colombia is more than a century old. Its roots grow out of the United Fruit Company, notorious in Latin America as a U.S. Army backed opponent to agrarian reform and agricultural workers’ unions. Though later known as United Brands in 1970, and then Chiquita in 1989, business in Latin America has continued in similar veins. In 1928, several thousand workers of Colombia’s banana plantations began a strike demanding written contracts, eight-hour days, six-day weeks and the elimination of food coupons. According to the United Fruit Historical Society, the strike turned into "the largest labor movement ever witnessed in the country."[12] The strike continued in 1929, and received national attention and support from opposition political parties.
When the army fired on strikers during a demonstration in the city of Cienaga, killing a disputed number of workers (between 47 and 2,000), it created waves that contributed to the downfall of the Conservative Party and features in the masterworks of two famous Colombian authors.[13] The Santa Marta Massacre, as it came to be known, appears in Álvaro Cepeda Samudio’s novel "La Casa Grande" (1962), and Gabriel García Márquez’s epic novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (1966). Nobel-awarded Chilean writer Pablo Neruda also recognized the influence of the United Fruit Company with a chapter of the same name in his epic work "Canto General" about the history of Latin America.
Through out the 20th century, the company was infamous for using a combination of its financial clout, congressional influence and violent refusal to negotiate with striking workers to establish and maintain a colony of "banana republics" in Latin America. Often the CIA and the US Marines provided the company’s muscle, as in the case of the overthrow of the populist Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz in 1953.[14] Currently, Chiquita employs most of its 45,000 workers in Honduras and Guatemala.
United Fruit/United Brands/Chiquita has owned banana exporting companies in Honduras since 1899, and the U.S. Army has come to call frequently since then, first in 1903, then 1907, then 1912, 1919 and 1924. Chiquita workers have gone on strike more than 40 times during the 89 years the company has operated in Honduras. In 1930, workers held strikes against the company. In 1932 Juan Pablo Wainwright, the leader of the 1930 banana workers' strike in Honduras, was assassinated in Guatemala. It wasn’t until 1949 that the Honduran Congress passed labor regulations for children and women and establishes an eight-hour working day. In 1954, however, massive strikes for wage increases paralyzes all banana operations and peak with 25,000 striking workers (around 15% of all the country's labor force). United Fruit fired 10,000 workers. [15] More recently, in 1992, workers went on strike to demand housing, health care and schools for their families, increase salaries by ten percent.[16]
It wasn’t until March of 1974, that the governments of Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama signed the Panama Agreement, imposing banana export taxes of $1 per 40-pound box. Later the same year, the governments of Costa Rica, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, and Panama formed the Union de Paises Exportadores de Banano (UPEB) -Organization of Banana Export Countries- to defend the interests of the member countries, raise and maintain high prices, and adopt common policies. United Brands threatened unsuccessfully to pull out.[17]
In 1975, "Bananagate" struck. A federal grand jury accused United Brands of bribing Honduran President Osvaldo Lopez Arellano with $1.25 million, with the promise of another $1.25 million later, in exchange for a reduction in the export taxes Honduras committed under the light of UPEB rules. Lopez Arellano was removed from power, but later investigations revealed repeated bribes carried out by the company. [18]
Silencing Reporters
Over twenty years later, business proved to be similar. In May of 1998, The Cincinnati Enquirer published a series of articles that exposed Chiquita's still-questionable business practices. The articles, written by Mike Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter, reported cases in which the company used tactics including "bribery, abusive corporate control in Honduras and Colombia, the use of harmful pesticides, and repressive actions against workers" to bolster profits.[19] Bribery proved to be the least of it.
The investigation found Chiquita to be the secret owner of "dozens of supposedly independent banana companies." The writers found cases of worker and union suppression on Chiquita-controlled farms, though the "employee pamphlet" assures worker that they have the right to unionize.[20] In one case the company used the Honduran military to "evict residents of a farm village; the soldiers forced the farmers out at gunpoint, and the village was bulldozed."[21] When Chiquita does face competition, they prove to be similarly ruthless. A federal lawsuit filed by a competitor’s employee filed charged that Chiquita-hired thugs attempted to abduct him in Honduras.[22]
The investigation also found that Chiquita was aerially spraying workers, despite its pact with the Rainforest Alliance since November of 2000, which forbids aerial spraying.[23] Furthermore, in defiance of the "Better Banana" pact to abide by pesticide safety standards, Chiquita subsidiaries have used pesticides in Central America that are banned in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union, such as Bitertanol sold as Baycor, Chlorpyrifos, sold as Lorsban, Carbofuran, sold as Furadan and five other dangerous pesticides and fungicides.[24] In Costa Rica, a coroner’s report attributed a worker’s death to toxic chemicals released into farms by the company. Despite probably well funded articles and a book green-washing Chiquita’s transformation in 2004, it’s questionable if Chiquita has really changed its practices.[25]
Chiquita didn’t take the criticism kindly, however, and when their shareholders sued the company, Chiquita sued the newspaper, claiming that reporter Mike Gallagher obtained voice-mail tapes illegally . "The Cincinnati Enquirer published an apology across the top of its front page and said it had agreed to pay Chiquita Brands International Inc. more than $10 million to avoid being sued for a series of articles that exposed the fruit company's criminal practices." [26] In court The Enquirer was forced to fire Gallagher. The facts found in the investigations were never challenged, however.[27] Several years later, on January 23, 2001, news leaked that Gannett Co. Inc., The Enquirer's owner, paid Chiquita $14 million in an out-of-court settlement.[28]
Bananas, Cocaine and AK-47s
While the company claims that it was strong-armed into making the recent payments to paramilitaries in Colombia in order to protect its employees, human rights groups accuse the company of paying the paramilitaries not only to ‘protect’ workers, "but also to target union leaders and agitators perceived as going against the company's commercial interests," and to force communities off farming land.[29]
In fact, beyond simply paying the AUC, local human rights groups say that in the past the company has used its company-controlled ports to smuggle weapons into the country for the AUC.[30] Nor would this be the first time that Chiquita’s ships have been used to transport something other than bananas. The Enquirer’s expose also found that in 1997, authorities seized more than a ton of cocaine from 7 Chiquita ships, though the shipment was attributed to lax Colombian security than the company.[31] A 2003 report by the Organization of American States states that a Banadex ship could also have been used illicitly in November 2001 to ship 3,000 rifles and 2.5 million bullets to the paramilitary groups. In late march, the chief prosecutor's office in Colombia said that it would ask the U.S. Justice Department for more information about the case.[32]
Michael Mitchell, Chiquita spokesman acknowledged the OAS report, however, "there is no information that would lead us to believe that Banadex did anything improper," he said. However, Colombia's chief prosecutor's office has noted that Banadex's legal representative, Giovanny Hurtado Torres, was one of four people already convicted in the arms smuggling scheme. Politicians are also wondering about the role of the U.S. Government. Leading opposition lawmaker Senator Jorge Robledo queried publicly, "My question is: How much more does the U.S. government know about payments to the paramilitaries?''[33]
Drug Traffickers to the U.S., CEOs to Colombia?
In light of the smuggling scandal, CNN reports that Gloria Cuartas, a former mayor in the banana producing area, is calling for a boycott of Chiquita products. Colombians like Cuartas know the implications of the U.S. funding for the AUC. After the information was filed, Colombian officials announced that they would seek the extradition of senior executives of the company. Extradition is a well known term in Colombia, where hundreds of suspected drug-traffickers have been extradited to the United States as part of the US War on Drugs. Even President Álvaro Uribe, possibly the Bush administration's closest South American ally, gathered up a semblance of righteous indignation to comment that extradition "should be from here to there and from there to here."[34] However, since Uribe’s own links to the drug cartels are only overshadowed by his links to the paramilitaries, it is unlikely that he will be seeking any real action in the case.[35]
Former Colombian attorney general Jaime Bernal Cuellar, along with opposition law makers, called for an immediate "criminal investigation of the people who financed these illegal groups."[36] Extradition supporters point to Federal Prosecutors statements that the Chiquita Company itself did business with the AUC, that senior executives in the company’s Cincinnati headquarters approved the payments and kept corporate books to hide the deals. The Justice Department reported that Chiquita's payments to the paramilitaries "were reviewed and approved by senior executives of the corporation, to include high-ranking officers, directors and employees,'' but did not mention names.[37] In the court filing prosecutors wrote that "No later than in or about September 2000, defendant Chiquita's senior executives knew that the corporation was paying AUC and that the AUC was a violent paramilitary organization."[38] Though this could be a sign of greater scrutiny of the company in Colombia, the U.S. is not known for sending its own ‘traffickers’ to other countries to do jail time.
A Slap on the Wrist
While headlines about the fine insinuated that Chiquita had been caught in the act, the company is dangerously nonchalant about the case. In fact, besides pleading guilty and paying the fine, counts which it has offered no objection to, the company faces no other sanctions.[39] This has most to do with the way that the Justice Department chose to file the case, through a "document of criminal information," as opposed to handing down indictments through a federal grand jury. While grand jury indictments can lead to a criminal trial, a "document of criminal information" usually leads to a settlement, as in this case.[40]
The company had no qualms it declaring that it will now pay a fine of $25 million, payable in five annual installments. Actually, it’s even possible that Chiquita suggested its own fine, as "the company recorded a reserve in 2006 for the full amount of the fine in anticipation of reaching an agreement."[41] This possibility is expanded by the fact that Chiquita carried out the payments for a time with the full knowledge of the Justice Department to which it will now pay its fine. "According to U.S. court documents, Chiquita told the Justice Department in April 2003 that it was funding the paramilitaries, and then kept paying them for another 10 months with the department's knowledge." [42]
Chiquita itself shows no signs of shame or concern. Chairman and CEO Fernando Aguirre described the "information" as "a reasoned solution to the dilemma." In fact, the company says it voluntarily disclosed the information to the Department of Justice in 2003, but only "after senior management became aware that these groups had been designated as foreign terrorist organizations under a U.S. statute that makes it a crime to make payments to such organizations."[43] In other words, "The War on Terror" clashed with its old mentor, "Imperialism as Usual". What of President Bush's policy that anyone financing a terrorist organization should be prosecuted as vigorously as the terrorists?
The fine gives no reason to suppose that Chiquita’s overall policies will change. As journalist Sean Donahue notes, "death-squads' victims won't get any money from the multinational, and none of the company's executives are facing jail time. Nor has the U.S. Justice Department shown any interest in investigating companies like Coca Cola or Drummond Coal that have even clearer links to paramilitary violence in Colombia than Chiquita."[44] Ultimately neither the U.S. State Department nor the company show any continued concern for the true victims of this kind of business: Latin Americans.
April Howard is a Journalist and History Teacher in Vermont and abroad. You can contact her at April.M.Howard(at)gmail.com
Notes:
[1]Kirdahy, Matthew. "U.S. Goes Bananas On Chiquita." Forbes. (March 18, 2007).
[2] Michael Jessen, "Going Bananas." AlterNet (February 6, 2001).
[3] United States of America V. Chiquita Brans International Inc.
[4] Goodman, Amy. "Chiquita's Slipping Appeal" King Features Syndicate (March 21, 2007) http://alternet.org/story/49588/
[5]Kirdahy, Matthew. "U.S. Goes Bananas On Chiquita."
[6] Goodman, Amy. "Chiquita's Slipping Appeal."
[7]Goodman, Amy. "Chiquita's Slipping Appeal."
[8]Kirdahy, Matthew. "U.S. Goes Bananas On Chiquita."
[9] "Banana firm fined for paying off Colombian paramilitaries." Guardian Unlimited. (Thursday March 15, 2007).
[10] Muse, Toby, "Colombians Want Banana Execs Extradited." Associated Press (March 17, 2007). and "Banana firm fined"
[11] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society, and Muse, Toby, "Colombians Want Banana Execs Extradited."
[12] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society.
[13] Herrera Soto, Roberto and Rafael Romero Castañeda. La zona bananera del Magdalena. Colombia: Imprenta Patriótica del Instituto Caro y Cuervo (1979), p. 79.
[14] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society."
[15] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society."
[16] Krebs, Al, "Compounding Infamy: Chiquita, Its Workers and Colombia's Death Squads." Counter Punch (March 16, 2007). ()
[16] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society."
[17] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society."
[18] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society."
[19] "Chiquita SECRETS Revealed" Series is available online at
[20] "Nuestros Valores Fundamentales y Código de Conducto" [Our Fundamental Values and Code of Conduct] Chiquita Brands Inc (2001).
[21] "The Chiquita Banana Story," Democracy Now! (July 7, 1998).
[22] "The Chiquita Banana Story."
[23] Michael Jessen, "Going Bananas." Also see "Banana Workers Sprayed in the Fields: Chiquita SECRETS Revealed," By Mike Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter. Cincinnati Enquirer (May, 3, 1998)
[24]"Unregistered Toxins Used Despite Claims: Chiquita SECRETS Revealed," By Mike Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter. Cincinnati Enquirer (May, 3, 1998).Also see "'Better Banana' Program Under Attack: Chiquita SECRETS Revealed," By Mike Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter. Cincinnati Enquirer (May, 3, 1998).
[25]Alsever, Jennifer, "Chiquita cleans up its act."Fortune Magazine (November 17 2006). Book: Taylor, J. Gary and Scharlin, Patricia J. Smart Alliance: How a Global Corporation and Environmental Activists Transformed a Tarnished Brand. Yale University Press (April 10, 2004).
[26] "The Chiquita Banana Story." Democracy Now!
[27] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society."
[28] Michael Jessen, "Going Bananas."
[29] Gumbel, Andrew, "Chiquita banana company is fined $25m for paying off Colombian paramilitary groups." The Independent (March, 16 2007). Also see Donahue, Sean "With a $25 Million Fine, Chiquita Washes its Hands in Death Squad Case," The Narcosphere (Mar 17, 2007).
[30] Gumbel, Andrew, "Chiquita banana company."
[31] "The Chiquita Banana Story." Democracy Now!
[32] Romero, Simon, "Colombia May Extradite Chiquita Officials." The New York Times (March 19, 2007).
[33] Muse, Toby, "Colombians Want Banana Execs Extradited."
[34] Romero, Simon, "Colombia May Extradite Chiquita Officials."
[35] Feiling, Tom, "Alvaro Uribe Velez" New Internationalist (Oct, 2004).
[36] Muse, Toby, "Colombians Want Banana Execs Extradited."
[37] Muse, Toby, "Colombians Want Banana Execs Extradited."
[38] "Chiquita Banana Charged With Funding Terrorists," KTLA (March 14, 2007).
[39] Gumbel, Andrew, "Chiquita banana company is fined $25m."
[40] Gumbel, Andrew, "Chiquita banana company is fined $25m."
[41] "Chiquita Statement on Agreement with U.S. Department of Justice," Food Ingredients First (Mar 19,2007).
[42] Muse, Toby, "Colombians Want Banana Execs Extradited."
[43] "Chiquita to plead guilty to ties with terrorists," CNNMoney.com (March 14, 2007).
[44] Donahue, Sean "With a $25 Million Fine, Chiquita Washes its Hands in Death Squad Case." For more information, see http://www.killercoke.org/ and http://www.nomorevictims.org/drummondwatch/.
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EMAIL and ARTICLE 1
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hey everyone...the story below was front page news down here in colombia...i thought it might appear on cnn but big surprise it wasn't in the main headlines or even in the americas subsection of their world news section. so, below, first you can read the short news story on the incident of chiquita banana company admitting to paying both rightist and leftist terrorists in order to "protect its workers." one can only speculate as to how many innocent workers were threatened, fired, forcibly displaced, tortured, and/or killed because of this.
chiquita (previously known as the united fruit company), has been involved in terrorist scandals before, including involvement in a military coup in guatemala to help install a vicious dictatorship in 1954 (this happened with active support from the US government and CIA) and a massacre at a worker's protest in colombia in 1928, just to name the two things i have come across from brief reading. there are some links to this information below the article, and you can certainly seek out alternative sources on the web.
hope all is well and take care for now...
saludos,
rock
Chiquita to pay $25 million in terrorism probe
By Matt Apuzzo
Associated Press
Published March 15, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Banana company Chiquita Brands International said Wednesday that it has agreed to a $25 million fine and to admit paying a Colombian terrorist group for protection in a volatile farming region.
The settlement resolves a lengthy Justice Department investigation into the company's financial dealings with terrorist organizations in Colombia.
In court documents filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors said the Cincinnati-based company and several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers paid about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known by the Spanish acronym AUC.
Prosecutors said the company made the payments in exchange for protection for its workers. The company also made similar payments to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, according to prosecutors. The group also is known by its Spanish acronym, FARC.
Colombia's banana-growing region is a zone over which leftist rebels and far-right paramilitaries have fought viciously. Most companies have extensive security operations to protect employees in the area.
"The information filed today is part of a plea agreement, which we view as a reasoned solution to the dilemma the company faced several years ago," Chiquita's chief executive, Fernando Aguirre, said in a statement. "The payments made by the company were always motivated by our good-faith concern for the safety of our employees."
Such arrangements between companies and either guerrillas or paramilitaries are not uncommon, but it is impossible to know how much money is paid each year.
Chiquita sold its Colombian banana operations in June 2004.
Details of the settlement were not included in court documents, but Aguirre said it would pay $25 million in fines, which it set aside this year. The company reported the deal to the Securities and Exchange Commission. A plea hearing was scheduled for Monday.
The payments were approved by senior executives at Chiquita, prosecutors wrote in court documents. Prosecutors said Chiquita began paying the AUC after a meeting in 1997 and disguised the payments in company books.
In April 2003, company officials and lawyers approached the Justice Department and told prosecutors that they had been making the payments. According to court documents, the payments continued for months.
- - -
Colombian rebels
Civil conflict in Colombia has produced a range of rebel and paramilitary groups spanning the political spectrum. U.S. prosecutors said Chiquita Brands International made payments to the AUC and FARC, two of the principal groups:
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)--The AUC's origins can be traced to the paramilitaries established by drug lords in the 1980s. The group says it took up arms for self defense in the absence of government-provided security, but others see it as little more than a drug cartel.
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)--Founded in 1964, the Marxist group vowed a broad-based struggle to overthrow Colombia's government. But attacks by right-wing paramilitaries have changed its tactics, and the group is now believed to be involved in drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping.
-- Compiled from the BBC, news reports
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703150132mar15,1,3035294.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
ALSO, SOME INFO ON CHIQUITA'S HISTORY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/United_Fruit_Company
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EMAIL and ARTICLE 2
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hey there everyone...just came across this article (below) on upsidedownworld.org, which really ties together some of the history of the chiquita banana company in latin america, including its involvement in arms and drug dealing, bribery of government officials, and repression of workers, to name a few.
it's a bit long, but worth the read. there are some links to the sources at the bottom, and you can dig further for primary sources if you like. one of the most interesting questions for me is the extradition issue; specifically, if we don't send the admitted and convicted terrorists abroad to face the law, are we harboring terrorists?
in any case, hope all is well for everyone and that you find this interesting. take care for now!
saludos,
rocks
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/684/1/
Chiquita in Colombia: Terrorism Gone Bananas? Print
Written by April Howard
Tuesday, 03 April 2007
Bananak-47What happens when "Business as Usual" clashes with the vocabulary of the "War on Terror"? We got a glimpse of one case this March when the Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands International, Inc., paid a $25 million settlement to the United States Justice Department for paying off right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia, groups which Washington classifies as "terrorist organizations."
Chiquita is one biggest and most powerful food marketing and distributing companies in the world, and one of the world’s largest banana producers. The company shows annual revenues of approximately $4.5 billion and about 25,000 employees operating in more than 70 countries.[1] The banana market, worth about $5 billion a year in 2001, is the most important global fruit export. The majority of the 14 million tons of bananas exported every year come from Latin America.[2]
The charges state that from 1997 to 2004 several unnamed, high-ranking corporate officers from Chiquita and its Colombian Banadex subsidiary made monthly payments, totaling $1.7 million, to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).[3] Even though Chiquita's outside lawyers insisted that payments stop in 2001, Banadex continued write checks to the AUC, though Chiquita executives later decided that cash was a better idea.[4]
The AUC, often described as a "death squad," was incorporated as one of 28 "Foreign Terrorist Organizations" on the U.S. Department of State website in September, 2001.[5] Not without reason; even Forbes Magazine describes the AUC as "responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia's civil conflict and for a sizable percentage of the country's cocaine exports." With approximately 15,000 to 20,000 armed troops, the AUC uses "kidnapping, torture, disappearance, rape, murder, beatings, extortion and drug trafficking" among its standard techniques.[6] One of many massacres committed by the AUC took place in 2001, while the AUC was receiving funds from Chiquita. In the early morning on January 17, 80 AUC paramilitaries entered the rural town of Chengue and killed 24 men by smashing "their skulls with stones and a sledgehammer." Only one 19-year-old paramilitary member has been punished, though he named police and navy officials who organized the mass murder.[7]
Apparently, the company also funded two other Colombian groups on the US lists include the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, both of Colombia’s main leftist rebel groups, which Chiquita also paid off as these groups took control of the banana-growing area.[8] This area has inspired deadly battles between left and right-wing paramilitary groups. Most of the victims of these wars are local residents, human rights workers and trade unionists.[9]
Chiquita's involvement with the paramilitaries developed at a time when the right-wing groups were growing quickly and deepening their ties with politicians, security forces and businesses across Colombia. In the state of Antioquia, Chiquita's business boomed as the groups took over banana-growing lands and were blamed for the killings of human rights workers and trade unionists. As the U.S. complaint noted, "by 2003, Banadex was defendant Chiquita's most profitable banana-producing operation."[10] Chiquita sold its wholly owned subsidiary Banadex to the local company Banacol in June, 2004 for between $43.5 and $52 million.[11]
From United Fruit to Chiquita: An Inglorious Past
Chiquita’s history in Colombia is more than a century old. Its roots grow out of the United Fruit Company, notorious in Latin America as a U.S. Army backed opponent to agrarian reform and agricultural workers’ unions. Though later known as United Brands in 1970, and then Chiquita in 1989, business in Latin America has continued in similar veins. In 1928, several thousand workers of Colombia’s banana plantations began a strike demanding written contracts, eight-hour days, six-day weeks and the elimination of food coupons. According to the United Fruit Historical Society, the strike turned into "the largest labor movement ever witnessed in the country."[12] The strike continued in 1929, and received national attention and support from opposition political parties.
When the army fired on strikers during a demonstration in the city of Cienaga, killing a disputed number of workers (between 47 and 2,000), it created waves that contributed to the downfall of the Conservative Party and features in the masterworks of two famous Colombian authors.[13] The Santa Marta Massacre, as it came to be known, appears in Álvaro Cepeda Samudio’s novel "La Casa Grande" (1962), and Gabriel García Márquez’s epic novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (1966). Nobel-awarded Chilean writer Pablo Neruda also recognized the influence of the United Fruit Company with a chapter of the same name in his epic work "Canto General" about the history of Latin America.
Through out the 20th century, the company was infamous for using a combination of its financial clout, congressional influence and violent refusal to negotiate with striking workers to establish and maintain a colony of "banana republics" in Latin America. Often the CIA and the US Marines provided the company’s muscle, as in the case of the overthrow of the populist Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz in 1953.[14] Currently, Chiquita employs most of its 45,000 workers in Honduras and Guatemala.
United Fruit/United Brands/Chiquita has owned banana exporting companies in Honduras since 1899, and the U.S. Army has come to call frequently since then, first in 1903, then 1907, then 1912, 1919 and 1924. Chiquita workers have gone on strike more than 40 times during the 89 years the company has operated in Honduras. In 1930, workers held strikes against the company. In 1932 Juan Pablo Wainwright, the leader of the 1930 banana workers' strike in Honduras, was assassinated in Guatemala. It wasn’t until 1949 that the Honduran Congress passed labor regulations for children and women and establishes an eight-hour working day. In 1954, however, massive strikes for wage increases paralyzes all banana operations and peak with 25,000 striking workers (around 15% of all the country's labor force). United Fruit fired 10,000 workers. [15] More recently, in 1992, workers went on strike to demand housing, health care and schools for their families, increase salaries by ten percent.[16]
It wasn’t until March of 1974, that the governments of Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama signed the Panama Agreement, imposing banana export taxes of $1 per 40-pound box. Later the same year, the governments of Costa Rica, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, and Panama formed the Union de Paises Exportadores de Banano (UPEB) -Organization of Banana Export Countries- to defend the interests of the member countries, raise and maintain high prices, and adopt common policies. United Brands threatened unsuccessfully to pull out.[17]
In 1975, "Bananagate" struck. A federal grand jury accused United Brands of bribing Honduran President Osvaldo Lopez Arellano with $1.25 million, with the promise of another $1.25 million later, in exchange for a reduction in the export taxes Honduras committed under the light of UPEB rules. Lopez Arellano was removed from power, but later investigations revealed repeated bribes carried out by the company. [18]
Silencing Reporters
Over twenty years later, business proved to be similar. In May of 1998, The Cincinnati Enquirer published a series of articles that exposed Chiquita's still-questionable business practices. The articles, written by Mike Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter, reported cases in which the company used tactics including "bribery, abusive corporate control in Honduras and Colombia, the use of harmful pesticides, and repressive actions against workers" to bolster profits.[19] Bribery proved to be the least of it.
The investigation found Chiquita to be the secret owner of "dozens of supposedly independent banana companies." The writers found cases of worker and union suppression on Chiquita-controlled farms, though the "employee pamphlet" assures worker that they have the right to unionize.[20] In one case the company used the Honduran military to "evict residents of a farm village; the soldiers forced the farmers out at gunpoint, and the village was bulldozed."[21] When Chiquita does face competition, they prove to be similarly ruthless. A federal lawsuit filed by a competitor’s employee filed charged that Chiquita-hired thugs attempted to abduct him in Honduras.[22]
The investigation also found that Chiquita was aerially spraying workers, despite its pact with the Rainforest Alliance since November of 2000, which forbids aerial spraying.[23] Furthermore, in defiance of the "Better Banana" pact to abide by pesticide safety standards, Chiquita subsidiaries have used pesticides in Central America that are banned in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union, such as Bitertanol sold as Baycor, Chlorpyrifos, sold as Lorsban, Carbofuran, sold as Furadan and five other dangerous pesticides and fungicides.[24] In Costa Rica, a coroner’s report attributed a worker’s death to toxic chemicals released into farms by the company. Despite probably well funded articles and a book green-washing Chiquita’s transformation in 2004, it’s questionable if Chiquita has really changed its practices.[25]
Chiquita didn’t take the criticism kindly, however, and when their shareholders sued the company, Chiquita sued the newspaper, claiming that reporter Mike Gallagher obtained voice-mail tapes illegally . "The Cincinnati Enquirer published an apology across the top of its front page and said it had agreed to pay Chiquita Brands International Inc. more than $10 million to avoid being sued for a series of articles that exposed the fruit company's criminal practices." [26] In court The Enquirer was forced to fire Gallagher. The facts found in the investigations were never challenged, however.[27] Several years later, on January 23, 2001, news leaked that Gannett Co. Inc., The Enquirer's owner, paid Chiquita $14 million in an out-of-court settlement.[28]
Bananas, Cocaine and AK-47s
While the company claims that it was strong-armed into making the recent payments to paramilitaries in Colombia in order to protect its employees, human rights groups accuse the company of paying the paramilitaries not only to ‘protect’ workers, "but also to target union leaders and agitators perceived as going against the company's commercial interests," and to force communities off farming land.[29]
In fact, beyond simply paying the AUC, local human rights groups say that in the past the company has used its company-controlled ports to smuggle weapons into the country for the AUC.[30] Nor would this be the first time that Chiquita’s ships have been used to transport something other than bananas. The Enquirer’s expose also found that in 1997, authorities seized more than a ton of cocaine from 7 Chiquita ships, though the shipment was attributed to lax Colombian security than the company.[31] A 2003 report by the Organization of American States states that a Banadex ship could also have been used illicitly in November 2001 to ship 3,000 rifles and 2.5 million bullets to the paramilitary groups. In late march, the chief prosecutor's office in Colombia said that it would ask the U.S. Justice Department for more information about the case.[32]
Michael Mitchell, Chiquita spokesman acknowledged the OAS report, however, "there is no information that would lead us to believe that Banadex did anything improper," he said. However, Colombia's chief prosecutor's office has noted that Banadex's legal representative, Giovanny Hurtado Torres, was one of four people already convicted in the arms smuggling scheme. Politicians are also wondering about the role of the U.S. Government. Leading opposition lawmaker Senator Jorge Robledo queried publicly, "My question is: How much more does the U.S. government know about payments to the paramilitaries?''[33]
Drug Traffickers to the U.S., CEOs to Colombia?
In light of the smuggling scandal, CNN reports that Gloria Cuartas, a former mayor in the banana producing area, is calling for a boycott of Chiquita products. Colombians like Cuartas know the implications of the U.S. funding for the AUC. After the information was filed, Colombian officials announced that they would seek the extradition of senior executives of the company. Extradition is a well known term in Colombia, where hundreds of suspected drug-traffickers have been extradited to the United States as part of the US War on Drugs. Even President Álvaro Uribe, possibly the Bush administration's closest South American ally, gathered up a semblance of righteous indignation to comment that extradition "should be from here to there and from there to here."[34] However, since Uribe’s own links to the drug cartels are only overshadowed by his links to the paramilitaries, it is unlikely that he will be seeking any real action in the case.[35]
Former Colombian attorney general Jaime Bernal Cuellar, along with opposition law makers, called for an immediate "criminal investigation of the people who financed these illegal groups."[36] Extradition supporters point to Federal Prosecutors statements that the Chiquita Company itself did business with the AUC, that senior executives in the company’s Cincinnati headquarters approved the payments and kept corporate books to hide the deals. The Justice Department reported that Chiquita's payments to the paramilitaries "were reviewed and approved by senior executives of the corporation, to include high-ranking officers, directors and employees,'' but did not mention names.[37] In the court filing prosecutors wrote that "No later than in or about September 2000, defendant Chiquita's senior executives knew that the corporation was paying AUC and that the AUC was a violent paramilitary organization."[38] Though this could be a sign of greater scrutiny of the company in Colombia, the U.S. is not known for sending its own ‘traffickers’ to other countries to do jail time.
A Slap on the Wrist
While headlines about the fine insinuated that Chiquita had been caught in the act, the company is dangerously nonchalant about the case. In fact, besides pleading guilty and paying the fine, counts which it has offered no objection to, the company faces no other sanctions.[39] This has most to do with the way that the Justice Department chose to file the case, through a "document of criminal information," as opposed to handing down indictments through a federal grand jury. While grand jury indictments can lead to a criminal trial, a "document of criminal information" usually leads to a settlement, as in this case.[40]
The company had no qualms it declaring that it will now pay a fine of $25 million, payable in five annual installments. Actually, it’s even possible that Chiquita suggested its own fine, as "the company recorded a reserve in 2006 for the full amount of the fine in anticipation of reaching an agreement."[41] This possibility is expanded by the fact that Chiquita carried out the payments for a time with the full knowledge of the Justice Department to which it will now pay its fine. "According to U.S. court documents, Chiquita told the Justice Department in April 2003 that it was funding the paramilitaries, and then kept paying them for another 10 months with the department's knowledge." [42]
Chiquita itself shows no signs of shame or concern. Chairman and CEO Fernando Aguirre described the "information" as "a reasoned solution to the dilemma." In fact, the company says it voluntarily disclosed the information to the Department of Justice in 2003, but only "after senior management became aware that these groups had been designated as foreign terrorist organizations under a U.S. statute that makes it a crime to make payments to such organizations."[43] In other words, "The War on Terror" clashed with its old mentor, "Imperialism as Usual". What of President Bush's policy that anyone financing a terrorist organization should be prosecuted as vigorously as the terrorists?
The fine gives no reason to suppose that Chiquita’s overall policies will change. As journalist Sean Donahue notes, "death-squads' victims won't get any money from the multinational, and none of the company's executives are facing jail time. Nor has the U.S. Justice Department shown any interest in investigating companies like Coca Cola or Drummond Coal that have even clearer links to paramilitary violence in Colombia than Chiquita."[44] Ultimately neither the U.S. State Department nor the company show any continued concern for the true victims of this kind of business: Latin Americans.
April Howard is a Journalist and History Teacher in Vermont and abroad. You can contact her at April.M.Howard(at)gmail.com
Notes:
[1]Kirdahy, Matthew. "U.S. Goes Bananas On Chiquita." Forbes. (March 18, 2007).
[2] Michael Jessen, "Going Bananas." AlterNet (February 6, 2001).
[3] United States of America V. Chiquita Brans International Inc.
[4] Goodman, Amy. "Chiquita's Slipping Appeal" King Features Syndicate (March 21, 2007) http://alternet.org/story/49588/
[5]Kirdahy, Matthew. "U.S. Goes Bananas On Chiquita."
[6] Goodman, Amy. "Chiquita's Slipping Appeal."
[7]Goodman, Amy. "Chiquita's Slipping Appeal."
[8]Kirdahy, Matthew. "U.S. Goes Bananas On Chiquita."
[9] "Banana firm fined for paying off Colombian paramilitaries." Guardian Unlimited. (Thursday March 15, 2007).
[10] Muse, Toby, "Colombians Want Banana Execs Extradited." Associated Press (March 17, 2007). and "Banana firm fined"
[11] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society, and Muse, Toby, "Colombians Want Banana Execs Extradited."
[12] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society.
[13] Herrera Soto, Roberto and Rafael Romero Castañeda. La zona bananera del Magdalena. Colombia: Imprenta Patriótica del Instituto Caro y Cuervo (1979), p. 79.
[14] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society."
[15] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society."
[16] Krebs, Al, "Compounding Infamy: Chiquita, Its Workers and Colombia's Death Squads." Counter Punch (March 16, 2007). ()
[16] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society."
[17] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society."
[18] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society."
[19] "Chiquita SECRETS Revealed" Series is available online at
[20] "Nuestros Valores Fundamentales y Código de Conducto" [Our Fundamental Values and Code of Conduct] Chiquita Brands Inc (2001).
[21] "The Chiquita Banana Story," Democracy Now! (July 7, 1998).
[22] "The Chiquita Banana Story."
[23] Michael Jessen, "Going Bananas." Also see "Banana Workers Sprayed in the Fields: Chiquita SECRETS Revealed," By Mike Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter. Cincinnati Enquirer (May, 3, 1998)
[24]"Unregistered Toxins Used Despite Claims: Chiquita SECRETS Revealed," By Mike Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter. Cincinnati Enquirer (May, 3, 1998).Also see "'Better Banana' Program Under Attack: Chiquita SECRETS Revealed," By Mike Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter. Cincinnati Enquirer (May, 3, 1998).
[25]Alsever, Jennifer, "Chiquita cleans up its act."Fortune Magazine (November 17 2006). Book: Taylor, J. Gary and Scharlin, Patricia J. Smart Alliance: How a Global Corporation and Environmental Activists Transformed a Tarnished Brand. Yale University Press (April 10, 2004).
[26] "The Chiquita Banana Story." Democracy Now!
[27] "Chronology" United Fruit Historical Society."
[28] Michael Jessen, "Going Bananas."
[29] Gumbel, Andrew, "Chiquita banana company is fined $25m for paying off Colombian paramilitary groups." The Independent (March, 16 2007). Also see Donahue, Sean "With a $25 Million Fine, Chiquita Washes its Hands in Death Squad Case," The Narcosphere (Mar 17, 2007).
[30] Gumbel, Andrew, "Chiquita banana company."
[31] "The Chiquita Banana Story." Democracy Now!
[32] Romero, Simon, "Colombia May Extradite Chiquita Officials." The New York Times (March 19, 2007).
[33] Muse, Toby, "Colombians Want Banana Execs Extradited."
[34] Romero, Simon, "Colombia May Extradite Chiquita Officials."
[35] Feiling, Tom, "Alvaro Uribe Velez" New Internationalist (Oct, 2004).
[36] Muse, Toby, "Colombians Want Banana Execs Extradited."
[37] Muse, Toby, "Colombians Want Banana Execs Extradited."
[38] "Chiquita Banana Charged With Funding Terrorists," KTLA (March 14, 2007).
[39] Gumbel, Andrew, "Chiquita banana company is fined $25m."
[40] Gumbel, Andrew, "Chiquita banana company is fined $25m."
[41] "Chiquita Statement on Agreement with U.S. Department of Justice," Food Ingredients First (Mar 19,2007).
[42] Muse, Toby, "Colombians Want Banana Execs Extradited."
[43] "Chiquita to plead guilty to ties with terrorists," CNNMoney.com (March 14, 2007).
[44] Donahue, Sean "With a $25 Million Fine, Chiquita Washes its Hands in Death Squad Case." For more information, see http://www.killercoke.org/ and http://www.nomorevictims.org/drummondwatch/.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Take Action to Support Guatemalan Women!
just pasting this in for those who are interested...all the links you need are below...spread the word!
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Dear Friends,
For 36 years, Guatemala suffered through an internal armed conflict in which at least 200,000 people were "disappeared" or killed. State-sponsored violence was widespread, entire villages were burned and razed, and rape was commonly used as a weapon of war against women. Numerous investigations have concluded that the vast majority of these human rights violations were conducted by members of the Guatemalan Army or intelligence services.
Today, a decade after the conflict's resolution, many of those responsible have escaped prosecution and now work with the police or private security forces. Perhaps it is no wonder that violence against women continues unabated, and that the perpetrators are virtually never brought to justice.
Human rights groups have documented a sharp increase in the rate of "femicides" or killings of women in Guatemala since the beginning of 2000. As of August 2006, 2,300 Guatemalan women had been murdered, and only 17 cases had been resolved, including both convictions and exonerations. In fact, so few convictions have been handed down that there is almost complete impunity for those who murder women in Guatemala. Investigators mishandle crime scenes and officials blame the victims themselves, often deciding that their murders are not worth investigating because they are deemed to be "nobodies."
The Women's Edge Coalition and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies have joined together to condemn the institutional acceptance of violence against women in Guatemala. In November 2006, members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a resolution calling on the Secretary of State to urge the Government of Guatemala to improve its procedures for investigating and prosecuting crimes of violence against women. Representative Hilda Solis of California re-introduced the resolution (H. Res. 100) in January 2007, and a vote is expected in the House very soon. (A similar resolution is currently being considered in the Senate.)
Join us in asking your representative in Congress to sign on as a co-sponsor of H. Res. 100. To identify and contact your Congressperson in the U.S. House of Representatives, click here; to check and see if your representative is already a co-sponsor of H.Res. 100, click here. If he or she has not yet signed on, you will find a sample message that you can personalize and send below.
The war in Guatemala is long over. It's time for Guatemalan women to enjoy the benefits of peace.
In Solidarity,
Karen Musalo
Director
Center for Gender & Refugee Studies
Barb Gottlieb
Director of Outreach & Membership
Women's Edge Coalition
[SAMPLE MESSAGE]
Dear Representative [name],
During Guatemala's decades of internal armed conflict, state-sponsored violence was widespread, and rape was commonly used as a weapon of war against women. Numerous investigations have concluded that the vast majority of these human rights violations were conducted by members of the Guatemalan Army or intelligence services.
Today, a decade after the conflict's resolution, many of those responsible have escaped prosecution and now work with the police or private security forces. Perhaps it is no wonder that violence against women continues unabated, and that the perpetrators are virtually never brought to justice.
Human rights groups have documented a sharp increase in the rate of "femicides" or killings of women in Guatemala since 2000. As of August 2006, 2,300 Guatemalan women had been murdered, and only 17 cases have been resolved, including both convictions and exonerations. In fact, so few convictions have been handed down that there is almost complete impunity for those who murder women in Guatemala. Investigators mishandle crime scenes and officials blame the victims themselves, often deciding that their murders are not worth investigating because they are deemed to be "nobodies."
I urge you to join your colleagues in Congress in condemning the institutional acceptance of violence against women in Guatemala by signing-on as a co-sponsor of H. Res. 100, which encourages the Guatemalan government to bring an end to these crimes. To co-sponsor H. Res. 100, contact Representative Hilda Solis's office at (202) 225-5464.
The war in Guatemala is long over. It's time for Guatemalan women to enjoy the benefits of peace.
Sincerely,
[name & address]
--------------
Dear Friends,
For 36 years, Guatemala suffered through an internal armed conflict in which at least 200,000 people were "disappeared" or killed. State-sponsored violence was widespread, entire villages were burned and razed, and rape was commonly used as a weapon of war against women. Numerous investigations have concluded that the vast majority of these human rights violations were conducted by members of the Guatemalan Army or intelligence services.
Today, a decade after the conflict's resolution, many of those responsible have escaped prosecution and now work with the police or private security forces. Perhaps it is no wonder that violence against women continues unabated, and that the perpetrators are virtually never brought to justice.
Human rights groups have documented a sharp increase in the rate of "femicides" or killings of women in Guatemala since the beginning of 2000. As of August 2006, 2,300 Guatemalan women had been murdered, and only 17 cases had been resolved, including both convictions and exonerations. In fact, so few convictions have been handed down that there is almost complete impunity for those who murder women in Guatemala. Investigators mishandle crime scenes and officials blame the victims themselves, often deciding that their murders are not worth investigating because they are deemed to be "nobodies."
The Women's Edge Coalition and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies have joined together to condemn the institutional acceptance of violence against women in Guatemala. In November 2006, members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a resolution calling on the Secretary of State to urge the Government of Guatemala to improve its procedures for investigating and prosecuting crimes of violence against women. Representative Hilda Solis of California re-introduced the resolution (H. Res. 100) in January 2007, and a vote is expected in the House very soon. (A similar resolution is currently being considered in the Senate.)
Join us in asking your representative in Congress to sign on as a co-sponsor of H. Res. 100. To identify and contact your Congressperson in the U.S. House of Representatives, click here; to check and see if your representative is already a co-sponsor of H.Res. 100, click here. If he or she has not yet signed on, you will find a sample message that you can personalize and send below.
The war in Guatemala is long over. It's time for Guatemalan women to enjoy the benefits of peace.
In Solidarity,
Karen Musalo
Director
Center for Gender & Refugee Studies
Barb Gottlieb
Director of Outreach & Membership
Women's Edge Coalition
[SAMPLE MESSAGE]
Dear Representative [name],
During Guatemala's decades of internal armed conflict, state-sponsored violence was widespread, and rape was commonly used as a weapon of war against women. Numerous investigations have concluded that the vast majority of these human rights violations were conducted by members of the Guatemalan Army or intelligence services.
Today, a decade after the conflict's resolution, many of those responsible have escaped prosecution and now work with the police or private security forces. Perhaps it is no wonder that violence against women continues unabated, and that the perpetrators are virtually never brought to justice.
Human rights groups have documented a sharp increase in the rate of "femicides" or killings of women in Guatemala since 2000. As of August 2006, 2,300 Guatemalan women had been murdered, and only 17 cases have been resolved, including both convictions and exonerations. In fact, so few convictions have been handed down that there is almost complete impunity for those who murder women in Guatemala. Investigators mishandle crime scenes and officials blame the victims themselves, often deciding that their murders are not worth investigating because they are deemed to be "nobodies."
I urge you to join your colleagues in Congress in condemning the institutional acceptance of violence against women in Guatemala by signing-on as a co-sponsor of H. Res. 100, which encourages the Guatemalan government to bring an end to these crimes. To co-sponsor H. Res. 100, contact Representative Hilda Solis's office at (202) 225-5464.
The war in Guatemala is long over. It's time for Guatemalan women to enjoy the benefits of peace.
Sincerely,
[name & address]
An Inconvenient Truth
i know i'm behind the bandwagon on this one, but i just saw An Inconvenient Truth yesterday, and i feel the least i can do is to pass this link along with information about the documentary and things we can do to make an impact.
http://www.climatecrisis.net/
it's truly alarming and i think we all have a responsibility, especially those of us in the US with our generally high-consumption lifestyles. living in the city has made the transportation issue easier for me, i often walk 150 blocks in a day and take mostly buses when not walking. i'm definitely a believer in walking, biking, and public transportation when possible. the only change i'd like to make is to cut down on flying, which i think i have mostly minimized by taking buses down here when possible and staying in one place for a while. cutting down on water use has been fairly easy and i'm getting better about turning off lights, computers, and appliances. we use natural gas here and don't keep the pilot light on all day so that's also a plus. i'll have to cut down on my meat consumption though, which has went back up again recently, but every day is a new day.
http://www.climatecrisis.net/
it's truly alarming and i think we all have a responsibility, especially those of us in the US with our generally high-consumption lifestyles. living in the city has made the transportation issue easier for me, i often walk 150 blocks in a day and take mostly buses when not walking. i'm definitely a believer in walking, biking, and public transportation when possible. the only change i'd like to make is to cut down on flying, which i think i have mostly minimized by taking buses down here when possible and staying in one place for a while. cutting down on water use has been fairly easy and i'm getting better about turning off lights, computers, and appliances. we use natural gas here and don't keep the pilot light on all day so that's also a plus. i'll have to cut down on my meat consumption though, which has went back up again recently, but every day is a new day.
heading out of bogotà
well, another traveling chapter is coming to a close. i arrived in bogotà last august. i had said i wanted to live for a while in a big city, and now i've had that experience.
i know the city and it's various transportation systems fairly well, and getting to most places is more of a problem of traffic and timing than actually knowing what to do. i live with two other extrajeros, lyndsey and mike, in the oldest part of the city, a colonial area called La Candelaria. it's definitely relaxed compared to the rest of the city, and the museums are interesting. i've seen very little of colombia outside of the city, although i recently took a trip to Villa de Leyva, which was beautiful, and hope to see some other surrounding pueblos such as Paipa and Melgar before heading out.
i've picked up some of the accent, which most people from bogotá are quick to say is the best and most clearest in the world. I'm not sure if I agree with that; rather, it's been another fun accent to learn...new words, new diminutive which they use just a bit (solo un poquitico, claro)...well, actually, it is used so often perhaps it has taken on a new meaning.
in any case, i have also gained some insight into the culture. bogotà is probably the most conservative place i have lived in Latin America so far. there are many formalities in speech, dress, and interaction that, although having seen them elsewhere, seem to be heightened here. i can't quite tell if the beauty salons are used more than in other LA countries here, but i do know that at 5:30am you're just as likely (if not more so) to see a beauty salon up and running as to find a place to buy a piece of bread for breakfast. and walking around with bandages from your recent plastic surgery is not only socially acceptable, but viewed quite positively. taking care of your appearance has been important in all places i've been, but i think caracas and bogotà have been a new sight for me. i hear another city in colombia, cali, is known for their plastic women, but not sure if i will get there before i leave at the end of april. i'm hoping to head to cartegena if i have the time, perhaps some of the pueblos outside of bogotá, and perhaps cali on the way down to ecuador, which is currently where i plan to go next.
the experience in bogotà has been a good experience for me, mostly to remind me of what's most important to me and what i hope to experience and contribute with my life. teaching english to upper middle class professionals has been good for teaching experience, but not where i want to be in terms of a career, which for now i am content not to have. but the exchange of culture and language has been worth the experience, and i'll take the knowledge and skills into future social work. i am currently applying for a month-long volunteer experience doing construction work in a pueblo in ecuador, a couple of hours south of quito. i think that will happen during the month of may, and i should be back in the states for a month or so to do some editing and perhaps research work with a professor of social work who i've been working for the past couple of years. i hope to save a little money during this time and then head off to the US southwest and/or northern Mexico to work with the immigrants and refugees trying to cross the border. some of the projects, such as giving water to undocumented immigrants crossing the border, are quite controversial, although alliances between at least one organization and the border patrol have been formed, and permits have been obtained for the work. i think immigration is an issue i would like to work with in the future, partly because of the experiences i have had in Latin America and partly because I think the issue hits directly at US imperialism. who are we, after all, to deny peaceful access to land that our ancestors and others conquered with all manners of force, rape, biological warfare, slavery, and repression? even if we personally had nothing to do with it, i still feel we should do something to take more positive paths in the future. allowing open access to the US is a radical idea that perhaps not many support, but i find myself supporting it more and more in my thoughts. would our economy suffer or gain? probably both. would economic loss be fair? i believe so. our country and by association, us, have so much compared to the rest of the world, i think we should share more than we do.
in any case, i'm still forming opinions, but i don't foresee a sharp divergence from them in the future. i feel good about the changes to come, and i look forward to them. for now, it's a month more of teaching experience and spending time with the friends i have made, and at least for this afternoon, it's off to make some refried beans, man i miss the food from Mexico!
i know the city and it's various transportation systems fairly well, and getting to most places is more of a problem of traffic and timing than actually knowing what to do. i live with two other extrajeros, lyndsey and mike, in the oldest part of the city, a colonial area called La Candelaria. it's definitely relaxed compared to the rest of the city, and the museums are interesting. i've seen very little of colombia outside of the city, although i recently took a trip to Villa de Leyva, which was beautiful, and hope to see some other surrounding pueblos such as Paipa and Melgar before heading out.
i've picked up some of the accent, which most people from bogotá are quick to say is the best and most clearest in the world. I'm not sure if I agree with that; rather, it's been another fun accent to learn...new words, new diminutive which they use just a bit (solo un poquitico, claro)...well, actually, it is used so often perhaps it has taken on a new meaning.
in any case, i have also gained some insight into the culture. bogotà is probably the most conservative place i have lived in Latin America so far. there are many formalities in speech, dress, and interaction that, although having seen them elsewhere, seem to be heightened here. i can't quite tell if the beauty salons are used more than in other LA countries here, but i do know that at 5:30am you're just as likely (if not more so) to see a beauty salon up and running as to find a place to buy a piece of bread for breakfast. and walking around with bandages from your recent plastic surgery is not only socially acceptable, but viewed quite positively. taking care of your appearance has been important in all places i've been, but i think caracas and bogotà have been a new sight for me. i hear another city in colombia, cali, is known for their plastic women, but not sure if i will get there before i leave at the end of april. i'm hoping to head to cartegena if i have the time, perhaps some of the pueblos outside of bogotá, and perhaps cali on the way down to ecuador, which is currently where i plan to go next.
the experience in bogotà has been a good experience for me, mostly to remind me of what's most important to me and what i hope to experience and contribute with my life. teaching english to upper middle class professionals has been good for teaching experience, but not where i want to be in terms of a career, which for now i am content not to have. but the exchange of culture and language has been worth the experience, and i'll take the knowledge and skills into future social work. i am currently applying for a month-long volunteer experience doing construction work in a pueblo in ecuador, a couple of hours south of quito. i think that will happen during the month of may, and i should be back in the states for a month or so to do some editing and perhaps research work with a professor of social work who i've been working for the past couple of years. i hope to save a little money during this time and then head off to the US southwest and/or northern Mexico to work with the immigrants and refugees trying to cross the border. some of the projects, such as giving water to undocumented immigrants crossing the border, are quite controversial, although alliances between at least one organization and the border patrol have been formed, and permits have been obtained for the work. i think immigration is an issue i would like to work with in the future, partly because of the experiences i have had in Latin America and partly because I think the issue hits directly at US imperialism. who are we, after all, to deny peaceful access to land that our ancestors and others conquered with all manners of force, rape, biological warfare, slavery, and repression? even if we personally had nothing to do with it, i still feel we should do something to take more positive paths in the future. allowing open access to the US is a radical idea that perhaps not many support, but i find myself supporting it more and more in my thoughts. would our economy suffer or gain? probably both. would economic loss be fair? i believe so. our country and by association, us, have so much compared to the rest of the world, i think we should share more than we do.
in any case, i'm still forming opinions, but i don't foresee a sharp divergence from them in the future. i feel good about the changes to come, and i look forward to them. for now, it's a month more of teaching experience and spending time with the friends i have made, and at least for this afternoon, it's off to make some refried beans, man i miss the food from Mexico!
Thursday, January 04, 2007
responding to the white house's annoying auto-response message
i think i posted this before, but it was filled with errors. in any case, if anyone would like to use the message i have pasted below (or a modified version) to respond to the white house's annoying auto-response email message, please go right ahead. i've pasted the white house's msg first and then my email. also, if you notice any typos or anything, please post them in a comment. take care!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
the white house's bs...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your correspondence.
We appreciate hearing your views and welcome your suggestions.
The President is committed to continuing our economic progress,
defending our freedom, and upholding our Nation's deepest values.
Due to the large volume of e-mail received, the White House
cannot respond to every message. Please visit the White House
website for the most up-to-date information on Presidential
initiatives, current events, and topics of interest to you.
In order to better receive comments from the public, a new system
has been implemented. In the future please send your comments to
comments@whitehouse.gov.
Thank you again for taking the time to write.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
one possible response to the white house's bs...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To whom it may concern in White House staff,
Thank you for the response to my correspondence.
With respect to the third sentence of the first paragraph, if the President is truly committed to upholding our Nation's deepest values, I would imagine he is committed to upholding the values of liberty and justice for all. If this is the case, the President's support for free trade policies and his failure to make satisfactory efforts for adequate environmental, labor, and human rights protections reflect, at least to me, that he is not indeed committed to these values. The vast majority of our natural resources and finished products have been and continue to be obtained with the conscious exploitation of people and their lands, usually the most poverty-stricken and vulnerable of all, which is disgraceful, especially considering that our government and corporations have the resources to ensure the aforementioned rights while still remaining competitive in the global economy. This is but one example of the President's failure to respect "our Nation's deepest values." Perhaps it was overlooked by the White House staff because it is overshadowed in the President's and his administration's conscious manipulation of our people to garner support for a dishonest and contrived war.
So, with all due respect to the President, please cordially but firmly ask him to truly stand up for liberty and justice for all (the importance of honesty might be a worthwhile topic of conversation as well). Not only is this the right thing to do, both according to the President's stated religious beliefs and to anyone who believes that exploitation is fundamentally wrong, but also it is important to set an example if we wish for true democracy and justice to take shape in the world and within our own country as well.
Additionally, with all due respect to whoever wrote the automatic response that was sent to me, I ask that you please modify it to reflect the President's true track record in regard to environmental and human exploitation. I find the rhetoric insulting. Further, it is manipulative and dangerous to consciously misinform the public. I am particularly worried about the effect this manipulation might have on the moral and political beliefs of future generations, and, consequently, on their actions as our future leaders.
Thank you for your time and expected cooperation in the matter. Best wishes with becoming more positive and honest leaders of our country. I hope, for the sake of everyone affected by our country's political and economic policies and interventions, that you do.
With the utmost sincerity and good intent,
Your Name, an educated and deeply concerned citizen
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
the white house's bs...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your correspondence.
We appreciate hearing your views and welcome your suggestions.
The President is committed to continuing our economic progress,
defending our freedom, and upholding our Nation's deepest values.
Due to the large volume of e-mail received, the White House
cannot respond to every message. Please visit the White House
website for the most up-to-date information on Presidential
initiatives, current events, and topics of interest to you.
In order to better receive comments from the public, a new system
has been implemented. In the future please send your comments to
comments@whitehouse.gov.
Thank you again for taking the time to write.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
one possible response to the white house's bs...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To whom it may concern in White House staff,
Thank you for the response to my correspondence.
With respect to the third sentence of the first paragraph, if the President is truly committed to upholding our Nation's deepest values, I would imagine he is committed to upholding the values of liberty and justice for all. If this is the case, the President's support for free trade policies and his failure to make satisfactory efforts for adequate environmental, labor, and human rights protections reflect, at least to me, that he is not indeed committed to these values. The vast majority of our natural resources and finished products have been and continue to be obtained with the conscious exploitation of people and their lands, usually the most poverty-stricken and vulnerable of all, which is disgraceful, especially considering that our government and corporations have the resources to ensure the aforementioned rights while still remaining competitive in the global economy. This is but one example of the President's failure to respect "our Nation's deepest values." Perhaps it was overlooked by the White House staff because it is overshadowed in the President's and his administration's conscious manipulation of our people to garner support for a dishonest and contrived war.
So, with all due respect to the President, please cordially but firmly ask him to truly stand up for liberty and justice for all (the importance of honesty might be a worthwhile topic of conversation as well). Not only is this the right thing to do, both according to the President's stated religious beliefs and to anyone who believes that exploitation is fundamentally wrong, but also it is important to set an example if we wish for true democracy and justice to take shape in the world and within our own country as well.
Additionally, with all due respect to whoever wrote the automatic response that was sent to me, I ask that you please modify it to reflect the President's true track record in regard to environmental and human exploitation. I find the rhetoric insulting. Further, it is manipulative and dangerous to consciously misinform the public. I am particularly worried about the effect this manipulation might have on the moral and political beliefs of future generations, and, consequently, on their actions as our future leaders.
Thank you for your time and expected cooperation in the matter. Best wishes with becoming more positive and honest leaders of our country. I hope, for the sake of everyone affected by our country's political and economic policies and interventions, that you do.
With the utmost sincerity and good intent,
Your Name, an educated and deeply concerned citizen
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