Honduras candidates back negotiated solution to coup
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - The front-runners in Honduras' presidential race backed a negotiated solution to the country's political crisis on Wednesday, but stopped short of calling for the return of ousted president Manuel Zelaya.
The candidates said they supported the efforts of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to resolve the crisis touched off by the June coup that forced Zelaya into exile.
Arias has proposed that Zelaya return to office to serve out the remainder of his term, while coup participants would be given amnesty, but the de facto government has refused to consider any deal that would allow Zelaya back.
The candidates stressed they were not speaking on behalf of the de facto government.
Zelaya was arrested and flown out of the country by the military on June 28 after he angered the judiciary by seeking constitutional changes that would allow presidents to seek reelection.
The leftist leader, who allied himself with Venezuela's anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez, has denied he intended to prolong his stay in power.
Zelaya's supporters say the de facto government is seeking to hold out until the general elections on November 29 in order to legitimize the coup.
The United States cut more than $30 million in aid to the country earlier this month as it stepped up pressure on the coup leaders. Washington has also warned it could not recognize the elections as legitimate because of Zelaya's ouster.
(Writing by Robert Campbell; editing by Todd Eastham)
| Honduras: Colombian ex-Paramilitaries Recruited by Pro-Coup Forces |  |  |
| Written by Jason Wallach | |
| Wednesday, 16 September 2009 | |
| The Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reports that high powered former paramilitaries in Colombia are recruiting ex-paramilitary members for work in Honduras. The short article which appeared in the Sept. 13 edition of the paper, claims that 40 men participated in a “training” that took place at the “El Japón” ranch, close to the rural town of La Dorada, half way between Medellín and Bogotá. The ranch was ex-propriated from its former owner and convicted narco-trafficker Jairo Correa Alzate, and turned over to the DNE (Dirección Nacional de Estupefacientes), the Colombian version of the DEA. The 1000 hectare ranch was parceled out in 2004, supposedly under the charge of the DNE, but 300 hectares were leased to Gustavo Isaza, who is linked to the brutal Omar Isaza Self-defense Front, a decommissioned branch of the former AUC paramilitary group. According to the paper’s sources, the recruits were offered salaries of US$750 per month to “guard ranches” in Honduras. The recruits were reportedly waiting for higher-ups to decide whether they would be transported by plane through Panamá, or illicitly by boat up the coast. In Honduras, the National Front Against the Coup has repeatedly denounced the presence of foreigners employed as paramilitaries who target key leaders in the resistance movement against the coup. Bertha Olivo of the Committee of Families of the Detained and Disappeared told El Tiempo about a group of 120 paramilitaries funded by pro-coup businessmen. Reports point to various concentrations of paramilitaries in San Pedro Sula, and the Santa Barbara Department. Tomás Andino, an elected Deputy from the leftist UD party said, “Many rightwing extremist organizations from different countries have offered support to the de facto government. They offer manpower and weapons.” “We know of combatants from Cuba and El Salvador, so the possibility of Colombians doesn’t surprise us.”  Miguel Angel- from the ACVC |
History Repeats Itself in Honduras
Banana Workers Unions Apply Lessons of 1954 General Strike to Coup Resistance
By Belén Fernández
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
September 14, 2009
In mid-August of this year, a contingent of Honduran policemen gathered near the headquarters of the Coalition of Honduran Banana and Agroindustrial Unions – COSIBAH - in the town of La Lima in northwestern Honduras. Founded in 1994, COSIBAH is a federation of seven unions, three of which are heavily involved in the resistance to the June 28 coup that overthrew Honduran President Mel Zelaya. According to the leaders of the organization, the police had intended to arrest them but had changed their minds after noting the large number of people present at the headquarters for a meeting; the staff nonetheless continued to take extra safety precautions such as monitoring suspicious vehicles in the area and keeping the front door of the building locked.As for recent police endeavors that had not been thwarted, Iris Munguía – Secretary of Women at COSIBAH - described her experience at an anti-coup roadblock in San Pedro Sula on July 2, when after fleeing tear gas she had been shoved into the back of a police pickup truck and taken to jail. Subsequent analysis of such incidents had led Munguía and her colleagues to conclude that police repression in Honduras was gender-specific and that men were generally beaten on their heads and backs while women were beaten on their legs and rear ends. Munguía outlined additional forms of treatment the police reserved for females, such as yelling “¿Por qué no estás en la casa cocinando?” – “Why aren’t you at home cooking?” – and putting their tongues in the ears of nuns.
 |
As for other kinds of replacement, Nuñez announced that many of the banana plantations in the vicinity of La Lima had been replanted with African palms, which produce palm oil and biodiesel. University of California professor Dana Frank, well – known by all at COSIBAH, offers one explanation for the proliferation of the African palm in her book Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America. According to Frank, banana corporations like Chiquita took advantage of the destruction of the majority of the Honduran banana plantations by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 to withdraw from plantations that had workers’ unions or else replant them with African palms, which require less of a work force and thus presumably generate fewer workers’ demands.
Other objectives of African palm proliferation were suggested by Nuñez, one of them being the expropriation of land from small farmers who had been encouraged to convert to the crop and then gone bankrupt due to increased Asian production of palms and their diminishing market price. Nuñez listed Honduran politician and businessman Jaime Rosenthal as an example of someone who might end up in possession of the expropriated land and proceeded to list other things already in the Rosenthal family’s possession, such as banks, crocodiles, the newspaper El Tiempo, and the Marathon soccer team – which, he added mischievously, workplace safety coordinator Gloria García avidly supported. García laughingly protested that media coordinator José María Martínez was even worse than she was due to his affinity for the Olimpia soccer team owned by golpista Rafael Ferrari; as for the destructive environmental effects of the African palm, which reportedly rendered land cultivatable for other crops, García remarked on the danger of being inmediatistas and not taking the future into account.
Martínez in turn stressed the importance of taking the past into account, especially when it came to the 69-day general strike in 1954, driven by the nation’s banana workers, which paralyzed the Honduran economy and achieved the formation of SITRATERCO, the Tela Railroad Company Workers’ Union. The Tela Railroad Company was the Honduran subsidiary of the US-based United Fruit Company and the union was the first in Honduran history; Martínez drew attention to the fact that the current Honduran coup resistance was, at the time of discussion, verging on 69 days of existence, and emphasized that in order for a general strike to paralyze an economy it would have to truly be general. He described a recent meeting of the frente de comunicadores – the media workers against the coup – during which the participants had proposed holding forums in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula to consider the lessons of the 1954 strike and the methods the strikers had used to garner public support.
Unearthing a book entitled La verdad de la huelga de 1954 y de la formación del SITRATERCO – “The truth about the strike of 1954 and the formation of SITRATERCO” – Martínez suggested that the coup resistance may one day rewrite the book with its own story, a process that will likely be simple given his claim that history is repeating itself. Martínez cited evidence of repetition such as the rapid maturation of the public conscience and the policy of repressing peaceful demonstrations in the streets, although he acknowledged that the streets are now paved. He then responded to the question as to the whereabouts of the “railroad” portion of the Tela Railroad designation by explaining that such infrastructure had disappeared with Hurricane Mitch, thus adding trains and large amounts of rain to the list of themes currently shared by La verdad de la huelga de 1954 and One Hundred Years of Solitude, which already included banana workers’ strikes and repetitions of history.
Nelson Nuñez pointed out additional similarities between 1954 and the present, such as that in both cases outside influences were accused of fomenting domestic workers’ aspirations to basic rights. He shared that when COSIBAH had reported the mid-August police gathering near its headquarters on its website, the organization had received such responses as: “Hijos de puta comunistas” by citizens apparently concerned by Venezuelan influence in Honduras. As for outside influence in 1954, this had consisted of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz’ attempt to usurp Guatemalan land from the United Fruit Company; not deemed to be outside influences, meanwhile, were the United Fruit Company and the 1954 military assistance agreement between the US and Honduras that facilitated the coup d’état against Arbenz.
Time magazine has a different take on the historical parallels of the present political crisis in Honduras, and a July 1 article entitled “Hondurans Take Sides and Hit the Streets” determines that “scenes of divided crowds protesting in a tropical republic may seem like a time warp to the war-ridden ‘80s.” Crowds become further divided when “groups of young men gather on street corners burning tires and smashing windows before troops hit back with baton charges and tear gas,” a sequence of events which fails to explain what happens to people who are not groups of young men, such as COSIBAH Secretary of Women Iris Munguía at the July 2 roadblock. Time magazine’s ability to distinguish cause and effect is again called into question when a sentence describing how “as darkness descends, everyone rushes to their homes to beat curfews that last through the night” is juxtaposed with the following link: “(Read about U.S. gang members being deported to Honduras.)”
The placement of the link to this Time article from 2008 generates a number of possible interpretations, such as that forced confinement to one’s house is in fact preferable in a country infested with gang members courtesy of the US, or that police violence is nothing if we consider that members of the Mara Salvatrucha have hacked rivals to death with machetes and flushed the pieces down the toilet. As for other US contributions to Central American violence, Dana Frank points out in her book on bananeras that the regional insurgencies of the 1970s and 80s were not replicated in Honduras due in part to its function as a US base for counterinsurgency operations and to the AFL-CIO’s hold on Honduran organized labor during the Cold War.
Past US control over Honduran unions does not detract from the significance attached to the 1954 general strike, and the event features prominently in the reading materials published by COSIBAH. Pamphlet topics include labor laws and gender issues – often explored via conversations in Honduran slang between cartoon banana workers – as well as the minimum wage for 2009, which Zelaya raised to approximately $290 a month in urban areas. The Time magazine article on Hondurans taking sides offers the opinion of a representative of one of the sides who claims that by raising the minimum wage the president “declared war on business”; the nature of the victimized businesses is meanwhile suggested in Time’s preceding observation that “[i]n another flashback to ‘80s politics, supporters of the ouster have denounced Zelaya as a communist who planned to turn the nation of sweatshops and banana plantations into a Soviet-style fortress.”
The article does not mention any flashbacks to 1954, although it does speculate that Honduras might be “stuck in the past, while much of the rest of the world seems to have moved on.” Evidence of the rest of the world’s movement, according to Time, consists of the fact that the US has condemned a right-wing coup; opportunities for Honduran mobility meanwhile increase if being stuck in the past is instead viewed as repeating history.
Terror in Honduras: One Family's Tragic Story of Life After the Coup
"There is no justification for this behavior," says COFADEH Coordinator General Bertha Oliva. "It's monstrous. [The de facto government] has no respect for human rights." COFADEH has documented about nine thousand illegal detentions since the coup, and scores more have been physically (and sexually) assaulted by police and soldiers. About a dozen people have been killed, including at least two more during the march on Toncontin.
"This is a highly abusive regime, a kind of hybrid of military and oligarchic rule," says Grahame Russell, Co-Director of Rights Action, a U.S.-based organization involved with the Murillo case. "The elites will do anything to protect their fiefdom."
After signing the bogus document, Pastor Murillo was driven to a penitentiary in the Olancho district, where he was held in solitary confinement for the next 37 days. There were never any formal charges filed in court, which makes his detention illegal under the Honduran Constitution. Finally, on August 13, after weeks of pressure and investigation by COFADEH and others, the pastor was fined $25,000 lempira (about $1,322 U.S. dollars), and released. But it didn't end there.
The government still refuses to release the autopsy results for Isis Obed, and the ballistics report on the bullet lodged in his skull. Pastor Murillo must report to the prison in Olancho every two weeks, and the family is still deeply in debt from paying the fine. Murillo recently applied to have his driver's license renewed, but was turned down when the computer system showed him to be a "felon." Their home is under constant surveillance, including helicopter fly-bys. A few weeks ago, when two of their daughters received death threats, the family was forced to go into hiding. Being on the run makes it almost impossible for Murillo to serve his community, either as pastor or conservation activist.
"All of this is being done to shut me up," says Murillo. "To intimidate me. But the price of my son's life is not negotiable."
This reporter met with the pastor and his wife in the offices of COFADEH, where the couple expressed acute concern over future reprisals, including great fear that the authorities would learn they'd met with an American journalist.
"I love my country," says the pastor, "but I want people to know the raw truth of what is happening here." The only hope for Honduras, he says, "Is for the U.S. to help us. They are the greatest country in the world. The only transparent democracy in the hemisphere. If they won't come to our aid," says the Pastor, as tears of emotion well in his eyes, "then who will?
Money talks in U.S. policy toward Honduran putsch regime
Posted by Bill Conroy - September 13, 2009 at 2:27 pmDespite recent State Department aid-cut media show, millions of taxpayer dollars continue to flow into Central American country
The U.S. government’s policy toward the de facto government that now rules Honduras can best be described as two-faced — expressing rhetorical outrage publicly while quietly continuing to prop up the putsch regime economically behind the scenes.
To date, the U.S. government has declined to declare officially that the June 28 overthrow and exiling of democratically elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was carried out via a “military” coup d'état — thereby avoiding the invocation of a U.S. law that would mandate a draconian cutoff in U.S. aid to the Honduran government.
However, in its diplomatic dance with terminology, the Department of State, under the leadership of Secretary Hillary Clinton, is telling the media that what happened in Honduras on June 28 was still a coup d'état — absent the military modifier.
From a Sept. 3 press State Department press briefing:
... The President made clear very early on, and the Secretary [of State, Hillary Clinton] as well, this was a coup d’état. … The Secretary is not required by our law to come to a conclusion regarding what type of coup it is in order to cut off assistance. She cut off assistance because it was a coup d’état. …
But that’s where the rub is, the little matter of “assistance.”
Earlier this month, for the second time since the coup played out in late June, the Department of State ginned up U.S. press coverage of its efforts to ratchet up the economic pressure on the de facto Honduran regime, led by strongman Roberto Micheletti.
But despite the media show, as of today, more than two months after the coup and a little more than two months before Honduras’ scheduled presidential elections, nothing has changed — including the fact that the U.S. government continues to send millions of dollars in foreign aid to Honduras, which continues to be ruled by an illegal, thuggish junta.
The Evidence
The board of directors of the Millennium Challenge Corp., a U.S. aid agency funded by taxpayers and chaired by Secretary of State Clinton, on Sept. 9 issued a press release indicating that it had voted to terminate $11 million in funding for Honduras related to two transportation projects and also to "put on hold" another $4 million in assistance pegged for yet another road project.
The road-improvement funding is part of a five-year (2005-2010), $215 million aid compact between MCC and the government of Honduras.
“Good governance and accountability are at the heart of our poverty reduction programs, and governments that are inconsistent in these areas jeopardize not only MCC funding, but also the long-term impact that good policies can have on growth in their local economies,” MCC’s Acting CEO, Darius Mans, said in a prepared statement announcing the Honduran aid cut.
But was it really an aid cut?
MCC spokesperson Sarah Stevenson told Narco News last week that as part of her agency’s $215 million compact with Honduras, as of Aug. 31, MCC had “committed approximately $191 million to contracts; approximately $91 million has been disbursed” — actually sent to Honduras.
She added that the $11 million in funding terminated at the Sept. 9 board meeting involved money not yet committed under contract. Although she failed to address the $4 million put on hold, the MCC press release makes clear that money also is linked to funds that have not been “contractually obligated.”
A simple math computation tells us, then, that MCC still has some $100 million in contractually committed funding to deliver to the putsch regime in Honduras between now and the end of 2010.
In fact, according to recent reports released by the Honduran Central Bank, MCC has delivered $10.7 million to Honduras since the June 28 coup — including $3.8 million in late August, a little more than a week prior to MCC’s funding-termination media show. And the balance of the MCC funding can be expected to continue to flow into Honduras, to the benefit of the putsch regime, to the tune of an additional $100 million, in the weeks and months to come.
U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens has previously stated that terminating the remaining $100 million in contractually committed MCC funding in Honduras would create major legal liabilities for the U.S. government. But that assessment seems to be a dodge, if not an outright fabrication.
The MCC aid funds are distributed to Honduras through an independent government agency, called MCA-Honduras, set up in Honduras under that nation’s laws and whose board is dominated by members of the putsch regime. In addition, MCC’s own compact language makes clear that “MCC is not a party” to the contracts inked by MCA-Honduras with vendors.
From MCC’s Web site:
These [contract] procurements are awarded and administered by the country [Honduras] through an “accountable entity” (also known as an “MCA Entity”) … established by the country to manage the programs identified in their Compact. MCC is not a party to these contracts.
So, it would appear, based on the structure of its funding program, if MCC chose to cut off the remaining $100 million in contractually committed aid under the Honduran compact, it would be the Honduran putsch regime that would be on the hook legally and economically for making good on the contracts — and not the U.S. government.
Deception or Dysfunction?
Within days of the June 28 coup in Honduras, the U.S. announced that it was suspending some $20 million in assistance to the Central American nation. Then, in early September, the State Department began beating the drums again over its plans to terminate some $30 million in aid to Honduras — a figure that includes the $11 million in terminated MCC funding.
What has consistently not been made clear in most mainstream press coverage of the State Department-trumpeted aid cuts is the fact that there was no new money involved between the initial announcement of aid cuts in July and the September announcement. As evidence of that fact, here’s what a senior administration official told the press at the Sept. 3 State Department press briefing announcing the $30 million in foreign aid cuts related to Honduras:
The [$20 million in] aid that was – as you know, that was suspended right after the coup … was formally terminated today.…
The MCC is another 11 million, which had already been suspended, and we are working very closely with MCC looking in terms of formalizing that. [That $11 million in already suspended aid was terminated officially at the MCC's Sept. 9 board meeting. Emphasis added.]
So, in effect, since the earliest days of the coup regime in Honduras, the U.S. has done little more than repackage and rebroadcast the same aid cuts to appease the media and to complement its rhetorical position of being against the coup. But behind the scenes, the economic effect of the aid cuts has been little more than symbolic posturing.
As an illustration of this shifting repackaging effort, following are a series of statements issued by State Department and USAID officials since the June 28 coup — all referring to the same pool of USAID funding cuts that were part of the larger $20 million aid reduction announced in July and then re-announced in early September (along with the termination of the previously suspended $11 million in MCC aid).
[Emphasis added by Narco News.]
• From a July 6 State Department press briefing:
The assistance suspended by USAID thus far totals approximately $1.9 million. …
• From the Sept. 3 State Department press briefing:
The aid that was – as you know, that was suspended right after the coup … I’ll run down a couple numbers for you – 9.4 million from USAID. [Senior Administration Official Three], chime in here if I get any of this wrong.
• From an Aug. 27 statement provided to Narco News by USAID press officer Lisa Hibbert-Simpson:
USAID's actual FY 2008 budget for Honduras was $37.3 million. In FY 2009, USAID expects to provide to Honduras $46.8 million. Following the June 28 events in Honduras, USAID suspended previously funded projects and activities totaling $3.7 million in basic education, family planning, and some environmental activities.
• From a follow-up Aug. 31 statement provided to Narco News by Hibbert-Simpson — which relays the official response of USAID’s Honduras Mission:
Thanks for your inquiry. USAID's actual FY 2008 budget for Honduras was $37.3 million. In FY 2009, USAID expects to provide to Honduras $41.7 million. Following the June 28 events in Honduras, USAID suspended previously funded projects and activities totaling $3.7 million in basic education, family planning, and some environmental activities.
• From a Sept. 4 statement provided by USAID’s Hibbert-Simpson, which attempts to reconcile the varying USAID funding-cut figures:
The $3.7 million is a part of the $9.4 million. There was $3.7 million in remaining previous year's money and $5.7 million in FY09 money which brings the total to $9.4 million.
As those statements illustrate, the supposed USAID component of the $20 million/$30 million in funding cuts targeting the Honduran junta announced initially in early July has fluctuated from $1.9 million, to $3.7 million to $9.4 million at the same time USAID itself reports two different fiscal 2009 total funding figures for Honduras.
In addition, as the State Department itself acknowledges, the supposed new $11 million funding termination related to MCC was, in fact, simply a formalization of a previously announced (in mid-July) funding suspension.
But despite the barrage of convoluted number schemes unleashed on the media, no matter how you cut it, at a minimum in the case of MCC and USAID combined, Honduras is still in line to receive more than $130 million in U.S. tax dollars. And that continues to be the case even though the country is now ruled by a coup regime publicly deemed illegitimate by both the U.S. President and Secretary of State.
In addition, the “funding cuts” announced to date with respect to MCC — the major source of foreign aid to Honduras — involve only a promise of future aid and not the tens of millions of dollars already committed to the country to fund contracts now under the legal control of the putsch regime.
That is the story not being told by the mainstream media.
But this two-faced U.S. policy toward the Honduran coup regime is really nothing new in the history of U.S./Latin American relations — which are marked by a tendency on the part of the U.S. government to undermine Latin American democracies when it proves convenient (and in the interest of the oligarchs in control of the region’s crony capitalism). In that dynamic, the now-exiled President Zelaya crossed a line in his move to embrace synergy with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez — including Zelaya's decision to join the ALBA, the Bolivarian alternative to U.S.-backed free-trade initiatives.
Henry Kissinger was brutally honest about the U.S. diplomatic reality in Latin America, when commenting decades ago on the government of democratically elected President Salvador Allende of Chile — who was overthrown in a 1973 U.S.-backed coup that led to Allende’s assassination and a subsequent reign of terror by the dictator General Augusto Pinochet.
I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves. — Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon
Under Secretary of State Clinton, that fundamentally anti-democratic foreign policy appears to continue to be the status quo for Latin America — absent a much more hands-on effort to change that course by the president of the United States.
Stay tuned. …
From Arbenz to Zelaya
Chiquita in Latin America
By NIKOLAS KOZLOFFWhen the Honduran military overthrew the democratically elected government of Manuel Zelaya two weeks ago there might have been a sigh of relief in the corporate board rooms of Chiquita banana. Earlier this year the Cincinnati-based fruit company joined Dole in criticizing the government in Tegucigalpa which had raised the minimum wage by 60%. Chiquita complained that the new regulations would cut into company profits, requiring the firm to spend more on costs than in Costa Rica: 20 cents more to produce a crate of pineapple and ten cents more to produce a crate of bananas to be exact. In all, Chiquita fretted that it would lose millions under Zelaya’s labor reforms since the company produced around 8 million crates of pineapple and 22 million crates of bananas per year.
When the minimum wage decree came down Chiquita sought help and appealed to the Honduran National Business Council, known by its Spanish acronym COHEP. Like Chiquita, COHEP was unhappy about Zelaya’s minimum wage measure. Amílcar Bulnes, the group’s president, argued that if the government went forward with the minimum wage increase employers would be forced to let workers go, thus increasing unemployment in the country. The most important business organization in Honduras, COHEP groups 60 trade associations and chambers of commerce representing every sector of the Honduran economy. According to its own Web site, COHEP is the political and technical arm of the Honduran private sector, supports trade agreements and provides “critical support for the democratic system.”
The international community should not impose economic sanctions against the coup regime in Tegucigalpa, COHEP argues, because this would worsen Honduras’ social problems. In its new role as the mouthpiece for Honduras’ poor, COHEP declares that Honduras has already suffered from earthquakes, torrential rains and the global financial crisis. Before punishing the coup regime with punitive measures, COHEP argues, the United Nations and the Organization of American States should send observer teams to Honduras to investigate how sanctions might affect 70% of Hondurans who live in poverty. Bulnes meanwhile has voiced his support for the coup regime of Roberto Micheletti and argues that the political conditions in Honduras are not propitious for Zelaya’s return from exile.
Chiquita: From Arbenz to Bananagate
It’s not surprising that Chiquita would seek out and ally itself to socially and politically backward forces in Honduras. Colsiba, the coordinating body of banana plantation workers in Latin America, says the fruit company has failed to supply its workers with necessary protective gear and has dragged its feet when it comes to signing collective labor agreements in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras.
Colsiba compares the infernal labor conditions on Chiquita plantations to concentration camps. It’s an inflammatory comparison yet may contain a degree of truth. Women working on Chiquita’s plantations in Central America work from 6:30 a.m. until 7 at night, their hands burning up inside rubber gloves. Some workers are as young as 14. Central American banana workers have sought damages against Chiquita for exposing them in the field to DBCP, a dangerous pesticide which causes sterility, cancer and birth defects in children.
Chiquita, formerly known as United Fruit Company and United Brands, has had a long and sordid political history in Central America. Led by Sam “The Banana Man” Zemurray, United Fruit got into the banana business at the
turn of the twentieth century. Zemurray once remarked famously, “In Honduras, a mule costs more than a member of parliament.” By the 1920s United Fruit controlled 650,000 acres of the best land in Honduras, almost one quarter of all the arable land in the country. What’s more, the company controlled important roads and railways.In Honduras the fruit companies spread their influence into every area of life including politics and the military. For such tactics they acquired the name los pulpos (the octopuses, from the way they spread their tentacles). Those who did not play ball with the corporations were frequently found face down on the plantations. In 1904 humorist O. Henry coined the term “Banana Republic” to refer to the notorious United Fruit Company and its actions in Honduras.
In Guatemala, United Fruit supported the CIA-backed 1954 military coup against President Jacobo Arbenz, a reformer who had carried out a land reform package. Arbenz’ overthrow led to more than thirty years of unrest and civil war in Guatemala. Later in 1961, United Fruit lent its ships to CIA-backed Cuban exiles who sought to overthrow Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs.
In 1972, United Fruit (now renamed United Brands) propelled Honduran General Oswaldo López Arellano to power. The dictator was forced to step down later however after the infamous “Bananagate” scandal which involved United Brands bribes to Arellano. A federal grand jury accused United Brands of bribing Arellano with $1.25 million, with the carrot of another $1.25 million later if the military man agreed to reduce fruit export taxes. During Bananagate, United Brands’ President fell from a New York City skyscraper in an apparent suicide.
Go-Go Clinton Years and Colombia
In Colombia United Fruit also set up shop and during its operations in the South American country developed a no less checkered profile. In 1928, 3,000 workers went on strike against the company to demand better pay and working conditions. At first the company refused to negotiate but later gave in on some minor points, declaring the other demands “illegal” or “impossible.” When the strikers refused to disperse the military fired on the banana workers, killing scores.
You might think that Chiquita would have reconsidered its labor policies after that but in the late 1990s the company began to ally itself with insidious forces, specifically right wing paramilitaries. Chiquita paid off the men to the tune of more than a million dollars. In its own defense, the company declared that it was merely paying protection money to the paramilitaries.
In 2007, Chiquita paid $25 million to settle a Justice Department investigation into the payments. Chiquita was the first company in U.S. history to be convicted of financial dealings with a designated terrorist organization.
In a lawsuit launched against Chiquita victims of the paramilitary violence claimed the firm abetted atrocities including terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity. A lawyer for the plaintiffs said that Chiquita’s relationship with the paramilitaries “was about acquiring every aspect of banana distribution and sale through a reign of terror.”
Back in Washington, D.C. Charles Lindner, Chiquita’s CEO, was busy courting the White House. Lindner had been a big donor to the GOP but switched sides and began to lavish cash on the Democrats and Bill Clinton. Clinton repaid Linder by becoming a key military backer of the government of Andrés Pastrana which presided over the proliferation of right wing death squads. At the time the U.S. was pursuing its corporately-friendly free trade agenda in Latin America, a strategy carried out by Clinton’s old boyhood friend Thomas “Mack” McLarty. At the White House, McLarty served as Chief of Staff and Special Envoy to Latin America. He’s an intriguing figure who I’ll come back to in a moment.
The Holder-Chiquita Connection
Given Chiquita’s underhanded record in Central America and Colombia it’s not a surprise that the company later sought to ally itself with COHEP in Honduras. In addition to lobbying business associations in Honduras however Chiquita also cultivated relationships with high powered law firms in Washington. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Chiquita has paid out $70,000 in lobbying fees to Covington and Burling over the past three years.
Covington is a powerful law firm which advises multinational corporations. Eric Holder, the current Attorney General, a co-chair of the Obama campaign and former Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton was up until recently a partner at the firm. At Covington, Holder defended Chiquita as lead counsel in its case with the Justice Department. From his perch at the elegant new Covington headquarters located near the New York Times building in Manhattan, Holder prepped Fernando Aguirre, Chiquita’s CEO, for an interview with 60 Minutes dealing with Colombian death squads.
Holder had the fruit company plead guilty to one count of “engaging in transactions with a specially designated global terrorist organization.” But the lawyer, who was taking in a hefty salary at Covington to the tune of more than $2 million, brokered a sweetheart deal in which Chiquita only paid a $25 million fine over five years. Outrageously however, not one of the six company officials who approved the payments received any jail time.
The Curious Case of Covington
Look a little deeper and you’ll find that not only does Covington represent Chiquita but also serves as a kind of nexus for the political right intent on pushing a hawkish foreign policy in Latin America. Covington has pursued an important strategic alliance with Kissinger (of Chile, 1973 fame) and McLarty Associates (yes, the same Mack McLarty from Clinton-time), a well known international consulting and strategic advisory firm.
From 1974 to 1981 John Bolton served as an associate at Covington. As U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under George Bush, Bolton was a fierce critic of leftists in Latin America such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. Furthermore, just recently John Negroponte became Covington’s Vice Chairman. Negroponte is a former Deputy Secretary of State, Director of National Intelligence and U.S. Representative to the United Nations.
As U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985, Negroponte played a significant role in assisting the U.S.-backed Contra rebels intent on overthrowing the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Human rights groups have criticized Negroponte for ignoring human rights abuses committed by Honduran death squads which were funded and partially trained by the Central Intelligence Agency. Indeed, when Negroponte served as ambassador his building in Tegucigalpa became one of the largest nerve centers of the CIA in Latin America with a tenfold increase in personnel.
While there’s no evidence linking Chiquita to the recent coup in Honduras, there’s enough of a confluence of suspicious characters and political heavyweights here to warrant further investigation. From COHEP to Covington to Holder to Negroponte to McLarty, Chiquita has sought out friends in high places, friends who had no love for the progressive labor policies of the Zelaya regime in Tegucigalpa.
Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008) Follow his blog at senorchichero.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment