well, that is our news run down to the so we all signing off from moscow until the top, but to keep us down to run his the width. let us jump terry up to enjoy the jury in south florida has held that chiquita brands. the purveyors of chiquita bananas is liable for 8 killings carried out by a right wing paramilitary group for the company help to finance and afford open and a growing region of columbia during that countries decades long, civil conflict, the jury ordered chiquita to pay $38300000.00 to $16.00 family members of farmers and other civilians who were killed in separate incidents by the so called united self defense forces of columbia,

a right wing paramilitary group that chiquita bank rolled from 1997 to 2004. the companies still faces hundreds of similar lawsuits, of course, across america. but this is the 1st one that has resulted in a jury verdict. the company said that it would appeal, it did not say, however, how it was could reconcile the fact that the united self defense forces of columbia, which the state department list as a foreign terrorist roof educated brands entered into an agreement whereby the company transferred $1700000.00 to the terrorist john curiosity. welcome to the whistle blowers the . 2 2 2 2 2 2 the tequita is the modern iteration of a notorious predecessor, known as the united fruit company, the united fruit company, once so,

nearly 2000000 acres of land in guatemala, on doris costa rica, belize. and along the coast of columbia, it was the largest landowner and the largest employer in central america for more than 50 years. and it had the power and authority to overthrow governments. indeed, with members of its board of directors, that included president dwight eisenhower, secretary of state john foster, dulles, and his brother, c. i, a director allen dollars. the united food company was able to overthrow the guatemalan government and replace it with a pro american military dictatorship. in 1954, that's a little fide, the companies pre eminence over the central american economy and gave rise to the term, banana republic. although the united food company was a party to a number of mergers, acquisitions by outs and name changes over the years, it remained a power house in the region. as well as the largest employer and land owner. a

series of strikes through the 19 seventy's and 19 eighties. we can script on political power somewhat, but as it turned out, corporate leaders decided to continue operating on the dark side. executives admitted to the us justice department in 2007, that the company had financed a colombian terrorist group, and it paid a $25000000.00 fine at the time. the saga is not over, however, jury's across america in the coming years, will him hear more and more testimony about chaquita, the damage that it's done to central american communities and families. and it's cooperation with and financing of terrorist groups. we're very happy to be joined today by professor terry carl. she's the guild rid professor of latin american studies and professor emeritus of political science at stanford university, a series or bachelor's and master's degrees as well as her ph. d from stanford. doctor carl is the recipient of several of the most important academic prizes bestowed by the university and has served as the expert witness and other notorious

human rights trials. for example, the murder of archbishop oscar romero now a catholic saint, in the massacre of el, most of the day, the largest massacre in latin america in contemporary history. she received the real bronco prize from the brazilian president fernando enrique cardoso. in recognition of her work in fostering academic relations between the united states and latin america. dr. karl, thank you so much for joining us. thank you for inviting me. before we get into the history of the united fruit company, i want to ask you about the most recent news about a jury finding shaquita liable for the depths of 8 colombians. can you explain this to us? why in the world, what a fruit company be involved with a terrorist group? let alone be financing that terrorist group. and why was it found liable in these debts? well, i can't really answer why they made these decisions only they can answer

this, but what we can see is that from their decision to re enter columbia in 1988, this is chiquita. as decision to re enter columbia in 1988 is the at the height of violence. in the banana producing regions from that decision flows, everything they did, which ends up at the pain of a paramilitary of a right of an ultra right wing paramilitary founded in this region by the banana plantation owners. what had to be to prove and in the trial were essentially 3 things. the 1st was that this parent military actually kills the plaintiffs or the plaintiff's families in killed torture or committed extra judicial killings of the families that were in this particular trial in florida.

so we had to show that 1st of all they were responsible for the killings. the 2nd thing we had to show is that shaquita paid them in effect, paying for some of the bullets, the guns, etc. and the violence that was occurring in this region. and the 3rd thing was that shaquita did this not as a normal business practice, but did, and not as extortion did not do so under duress, but in fact made what the lawyers call the pact with the devil meeting the a you see they pair the right one kind of paramilitary to a break up to the, the trade unions to stop labor organizing in that area to force people off their land so that land could become cheap and could be bought by chiquita, in particular, etc. so that's what had to be proven in the trial. that is why it was proven in the trial. and therefore chiquita was found responsible for the murders of

the families of the plaintiffs. in this case, they were awarded almost $39000000.00 for this. and there are many other places to come. this federal court decision strikes me is a very important development in that there are hundreds of such cases pending in federal district courts around the country. this is the 1st one that has gotten as far as a jury verdict. and even if the company appeals, which it says it will, the decision sets a precedent for the other cases. tell us how important this verdict was and what are people saying about it in columbia and elsewhere in latin america? this is a very important precedent of lawyers believes that this is the 1st us based multinational that's ever been held accountable in a trial for its actions in another country. so this has never happened before you.

you might remember that shaquita is considered the very 1st multinational in some ways. so this is a very important precedent. what matters is that the, in this trial, the plaintiffs were called bellwether plaintiffs. that means they were plaintiffs that actually showed were exemplars of other plaintiffs. each plaintiff became a bell weather for a range of other plaintiffs behind a possible plaintive behind them. there could be as many as 5000 or more victims in this pretty killer story. so in that sense, it opens up of a whole can of worms richard key there because many, many more plaintiffs can come forward and charge them using the same evidence of this trial and then their own particular evidence. so that's one thing. the only thing is that i think is very important is that this was covered by all the

business um business magazines like forbes and others. and it's like a warning shot across the bell of multi nationals on how to do business in other countries. this was really not a normal pissed business practice, not the quote. what took you to claim the cost of doing business in columbia. but in fact, the disregard for the lives of the people who lived in the banana producing region . and in that sense, it's a very important, very important precedent. you touched on these other cases around the country, are they essentially the same? chiquita is admitted that it paid $1700000.00 to these death squads. the debt squads and wantonly killed people. and the company must take responsibility, is that essentially what these cases are? the cases are all similar to that they come from bell, whether the idea of bell weathers again. so each case may be somewhat different

based on the individual characteristics of the extra additional killings who was killed, where they were killed, what piece of land was involved, etc. so they may be somewhat different. i do want to say that 1700000 doesn't sound like very much, but it was considered saved money to get the a u. c. i started organized, incorporated into an umbrella organization. so it was very important early money. so if i can put it that way, see other thing is, it's not, um, it's not the only money use involved, nor is it the only benefits that the you see receive from shakita. we, it is the, these are the funds that could be proven. in other words, these are the checks, the actual payments that we, that the lawyers had evidence of. and that is,

that's very important. the other thing was very important is there's all kinds of income and benefits. for example, if it is clearly evident that shaquita is port it had a private port was used by the a u. c to ship drugs. the ac was also a drug trafficking, paramilitary to ship drugs, particularly the europe. um, from the port on banana boats on sometimes small, been in a lot order call launches are small speed boats. and this, these, these, these drugs were sent from the port. we don't know how many, but we do know there's some the other thing that was so important is that this port was used to bring in guns for drugs and other words, the drug money went into europe and the guns came in. and there's a very important case of this that was proven that we were able to

use and then this the bill of lading for chiquita said rubber ball. so in other words, it said that the, the, the, the, the shipments that were coming in were rubber balls. and when you opened up the boxes, they were actually a k 40 sevens and ammunition. tequita certainly is not the only fruit company in latin america did other companies do what chiquita is accused of doing? did they associate themselves with paramilitary groups or other malign characters? no, and this is very important because this does all stem from a series of very bad chaquita. the decisions stemming from i would say the early ninety's on these decisions were particular to key to if you look at the door and you look at delmonte release, there's no evidence that they did anything like this. which a key to did is instead of moving out of columbia and out of these very violent areas, which other banana other foreign banana companies did. so as not to get involved

with the paramilitaries. what chaquita did instead? is it changed. it actually moved in deeper and deeper and deeper. thank you, terry. we're going to take a short break and when we come back, we're going to speak with professor terry carl about the history of the united food company in latin america. how can a private company accumulate so much power and authority that it can overthrow governments stay to the. 2 2 2 in the late 18 ninety's, french soldiers led by general to boot a arrived in asia with the goal of expanding french control in west africa to the territory of more than shot. the sonia, i mean, he stuck up some issues around the custody and dix shown the list to the tent, the food i on the east, one of the most horrific campaigns of atrocities to have ever taken place in the

history of the continent. what is somebody i know the question, richard dental. hey, i'm glad you found out there. do some people do that? sure. most likely multiple villages would devastated a numerous members of resistance groups. what the headed apartment is in for us to get the movie financing. i moved to a young investigator in search of his own identity and box on the journey to africa . the traces general good eyes, blood drenched roots in an effort to establish how your legacy still echoes throughout the confidence. so my name is penny, and i come from england and i've come really to find out more about the, the mission, hopefully. and the history and the region, the

welcome back to the whistle blowers. i'm john kerry onto we're speaking with per fessor. terry. carl. she's the gilford, professor of latin american studies and professor of political science emeritus at stanford university, and is the recipient of several of the most important and prestigious academic prizes bestowed by the university. she also received the real bronco prize from brazilian president fernando and re k cardoso in recognition of her work in fostering academic relations between the united states and latin america. thanks again for being with us professor. thank you for inviting me. shaquita and its predecessor company. the united fruit company have worked with repressive regimes and terrorist groups for a century. they were the most powerful force in all of latin america in the 19 fifties and they even overthrew governments. they were also credibly accused of

using slave labor to work on the banana plantations in guatemala. how's a company like this? still in business? it seems to me that if this were a government, it would have been overthrown decades ago. what do you think? now what's particularly important about what you key to did, is it not only kept on digging itself in deeper and deeper in this region. but i mean, i dug a hole for a self and that it deeper and deeper. and by this, i mean, it moved from just buying the fruit to bananas from local producers to actually buying land, becoming the largest land owner in the area, changing its business practices so that it was deeply involved. not only in land holdings that were acquired is because of the violence in large part. in other words, when it's so violent, people flee, there are lands and this is columbia. at this time,

was producing the greatest amount of out migration. i believe in the world. although i cannot verify that right now, but it had a huge out migration from this region because of the violence. in other words, the terror was forcing pest and saucer land by forcing peasants off their land. shaquita was able to move in, acquire this land off and acquire it through what they called legal carpentry. that's their language, not mine. legal carpet treatment that you acquired land in a sketchy way. and then found ways to create a legal title to that land. so that also was happening and that was as it did that it got deeper and deeper into the region more and more involved with a right we've here military, the ac. to take us back to the early days of the united fruit company. it actually

began as a railroad expanded into bananas only because one of the original investors, $81.00 product was delicious and decided to plant them. and then the company really took off by transporting its own bananas on what was a monopoly railroad. it took decades for this to happen. why was there no regulation or oversight at the time? is it because it was an american company working in a region with certain governments? we'll go back to the time you're talking about, as i said, as the 1st of all to national in some ways, this is the time when the united states is expanding beyond its borders for the very 1st time. so this is when you get the united states in latin america, in particular, it's the period of time, which is the biggest expansion of us interest abroad. another thing that is unusual about the banana companies is it actually creates the market for bananas and it innovative really figures out how to store bananas so that you can actually ship

them to the united states. it creates its own market. it creates its own market with this very, very is considered one of the most innovative ad campaigns of all time. you know, it's time to key the banana and i wanna say and, and that ad campaign is, is, is important in, in creating this kind of market. so what you see is this expansion, the creation of the market, the moving of, uh, bananas, from the banana present, previous egregious which are mostly jungle at this point. and the beginning of big mass occurs of banana workers. so if your listeners ever read a 100 years of solitude, my personal favorite book, and they'll see that garcia mark is with colombian, writer, it has a whole section of that book where he describes the 1928 massacre in columbia

of indiana workers. and the colouring up of that massacre by both to keep what it was they knew, united fruit, called united food interest, and the colombian government. so this is an old practice. what's changed is the way of carrying out the and conducting the practice. as the world gets smaller, i'm interested in how from a legal perspective this was permitted to happen even in early to mid 20th century america. the ethical problems just scream out the involvement in the united fruit company of the dallas brothers. and as another example, the brother of president eisenhower secretary is so obviously an ethical and probably illegal. how was that allowed to happen? well, i think one real reason is racism, frankly, because i think fed banana workers, excuse me, were considered little brown people. and what is this donna shane?

not just then. it's not so astonishing them in that the way we understand our history and are beginning to learn about us actions abroad in a better way, i think has changed. but back then there is memory. there's no internet, there's no communication. nobody knows what's going on in guatemala. don't really care what's going on in guatemala. and in guatemala, in particular, we're talking about my in indians. so there's a, a, an estimate racial issue here of little brown people that don't count. i think what's more astonishing, not the ethics and morality and legality in the postwar period. and remember, we the, it's very easy to say these are common sharpened and workers or communists. cold war, it's russia doing this. so therefore, you can to not pay any attention to,

to their lives as the quality of their lives was happening them. what's more astonishing to me is that it can happen in the eighty's and ninety's and all the way up, we're in the 2 thousands. remember, they're paying this list. this trial is payments to the a you see the cost of doing business. that's what 2 key to says in 2000. and that is what's astonishing because there is no regulation of this. there is no way the a u. c. a excuse me, that kid is being asked to consider the lives of its own workers in another country it's that's dismissed as an issue. they know that these murders are going on. they know that the a you see is killing these people. they know what is happening, you can see it in their mammals. but it is, as i said, consider the cost of doing business. now this is not legal because you have to have quote, normal business practices. it is not normal to hire desk squads to kill labor union

leaders or force peasants off their land. and that's why they got caught. now the sanctions also think about it for a moment. the sanctions are probably worth the effort. they were charged $25000000.00 uh by the doj, which founded guilty of these, of these actions in 2007. that's just not a lot of money. and it's not for a company like tequita. so you also could do a risk assessment and say, well, you know, even if we get caught, we're not gonna pay very much. that is what changed in this trial. because even though $38000000.00 is, is a relatively small amount for a multinational. what happened in this case because of the bell, whether plaintiff is it's opened up more and more cases against a key to so their alternate losses could be in the billions is agriculture. and our

company is like tequita as important in latin america today as they were in the past. no, i mean, it does depend on the area. it depends, for example, it is very important in central america, and it is not surprising that central america produces so much out migration to, to, to mexico, the united states and other places because it is still looks a lot like what you're describing are i'm describing in 1954 in guatemala, and that's it still looks very much like that. it's still an agricultural ex forwarding area. but if you really look at latin america, what counts now? much more is not the export of fruits and vegetables from places like coast to recur. and mexico. that's important. but what really, where the big money is, what i call the rants that means excess profits. so the big money is in mining

minerals and foss off all types of fossil fuels, oil. so what you see is the oil companies off and not all of them. but a company like accidental will follow some of the same practices and embed itself with paramilitaries. but you'll also see that the big issue in latin america today is really capturing mineral wealth and fighting and mental and oil wealth and finding china for those resources. the key one now is lift the which i think the country of sheila has half of the world's lithium. so what? well, that's what our computers are run with. that's what our cell phones are run by. this is a very, very valuable energy, a battery pre eh, eh, minerals to use me for batteries. and we'll see all kinds of issues arise with this in the future. thank you, terry, for your insights into this case?

the novelist, j. k. rowling, the creator of harry potter once, wrote the quote, have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress, all of them realize that one day amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one that rises against them and strikes back and forth. that is what has happened to chiquita and it looks like the best is yet to come. i'd like to thank our guests professor terry carl for being with us today. and thank you to our viewers for joining us for another episode of the whistle blowers. i'm drawn to reaku, please follow me on some deck at john kerry echo. we'll see you next time. the . 2 2 2 the, the center for sponsor,

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lights on this day one, been even the convention was being drafted in early 19th. the united states was very clear that they could not take any action that would affect it, its economy. they did not allow climate negotiations to make progress and did not take strong targets based on this fashion based on that as part of the emissions for the camp that i can defeat and camp and what the responsibility on china and india and other developing countries. the everything had changed with our daughter. she was completely when they came back and they told jamie, your daughter is having a diabetic, you do it as it is. i was miserable. i just felt sick that nauseous and hardest

cancer diabetic prefer owner. obviously that affects every part of it organises, measuring american diabetes association is that the american diabetes association has been bought all by the millions of dollars they form a surgical corporations. yes ma'am. every year i wasn't given a specific diet. just told to inject and test. so i wish i could go back and change the governing bodies, put these recommendations out, forces physicians to live within those guidelines for fear of reprisals. people have not been told the full truth on how to manage the diabetes and what, what the consequences are funding low carbohydrate diet. there was a multiple $1000000000.00. they found the corporations that were go bankrupt

the today it had a have it strikes that close to the destruction. as you might see. the idea of having a school sheltering displays kind of spinning as in 7 full concepts. meetings, 131 people that according to in place health ministry, the bid it man in dresses power to me and all do differentiates the last software and what seemed to be an old pull clips. parsons, let me take opening ceremony is pulling pull. i lost the wrong reason, given up lindsey, shes this euro atlantic security model has been proven a long time ago to have the main goal of ensuring the domination of the us and its allies over to everyone else. raw says foreign minister ones at the risk. so the nature of that security system.