Comments on: This should make you choke on your Banana

This should make you choke on your Banana

adamvasco — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 03:40:48 -0800

Chiquita will plead guilty to a count of doing business with a paramilitary group in Colombia. Mefites might remember Chiquita from here. In Colombia they are not the only brand to have been on "Trial". Chiquita is not new to controversy. If you are choking on your banana co-op america might interest you.

By: toma

toma — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 04:09:47 -0800

Chiquita Charged in Terror Investigation, to be less diplomatic, criminal assholes. Thanks, av.

By: DenOfSizer

DenOfSizer — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 04:16:09 -0800

Coca-cola, similarly.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 04:52:45 -0800

Banana republic indeed. Huge multinational corporations should start being dismantled. Broken up. And held much more accountable to the citizenry as a whole, not just their major stockholders. They already have far, far too much power, and I've got a feeling we ain't seen nothing yet.

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 05:07:05 -0800

Ring-ring-ring, banana fine.

By: magullo

magullo — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 05:16:36 -0800

I blame Chávez

By: jaduncan

jaduncan — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 05:29:32 -0800

See Shell in Nigeria, United Fruit/Chiquita in Honduras, or even Blackwater paying Pinochet's ex-enforcers in Iraq. I only wish the current revelations shocked me.

By: honest knave

honest knave — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 05:31:09 -0800

This is actually a reversal of the standard fruit company multinational stereotype. While the Coke case seems to be one of hiring organized thugs to terrorize union leaders, the Chiquita case is being described as extortion payments. The fact that the U.S. is trying Chiquita makes the question much more complicated, since the U.S. Government has itself supported paramilitaries, and since the stereotype is usually that the fruit companies are in collusion with the government against left-wing reforms. Here, according to the BBC, Chiquita is in the wrong for funding paramilitary left-wing groups. Oh the tangles!

By: chlorus

chlorus — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 05:55:49 -0800

Sounds like they were just paying taxes to a different boss.

By: Talanvor

Talanvor — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 05:56:35 -0800

Well, if Chiquita had supported the correct paramilitary groups, then they'd be getting tax breaks and not court dates. Wow, I feel bad about that one.

By: nofundy

nofundy — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:04:14 -0800

daylight come and I wanna go home

By: econous

econous — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:24:06 -0800

Reasonable behaviour for a business. What should they have done? Closed up shop? Hired a security force? Holy fuckwad I'm outraged.

By: breezeway

breezeway — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:27:08 -0800

Hey mister tally man, tally me death.

By: adamvasco

adamvasco — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:32:08 -0800

honest knave AUC = Right wing Paramilitaries; FARC = Marxist guerillas. They are both a bunch of mudering bastards. Google FARC + massacre = 185,000 hits. AUC + massacre = 63,000

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:46:43 -0800

God, you people are pathetic. I suppose you would have preferred they just had growers in regulated industry? Is that what you would have preferred? Unionized workers? DIRTY, FILTHY UNIONS contaminating your produce with their collective bargaining and basic human rights?

UNIONS! BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!

By: cavalier

cavalier — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:00:08 -0800

I just want 'Ted' and robocop to know I love them. And that I'm feeling awfully bizarre holding my banana right now. They did close up operations in that country in 2004, no? So maybe my banana has not supported any coups? I hope? (eats banana quietly)

By: Balisong

Balisong — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:08:50 -0800

What's more important? The War On Terror, or cheap bananas for breakfast? I'm low on potassium, too.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:40:33 -0800

Chiquita Banana on de floor watch the mercenaries slide right out the door...

By: fidelity

fidelity — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:45:25 -0800

This is why I buy only Standard Fruit & Steamship Company bananas.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:51:43 -0800

Maybe they could at least get some tastier breeds of bananas to US markets. The majority of bananas you can get in stores here now, even so called organic ones, taste like plaster compared to what you can get in more tropical countries.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:57:39 -0800

If you were willing to pay for air shipping your bananas, I bet they would taste better.

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:35:06 -0800

Hey Mr. Taliban, tally me banana? I'm so very, very sorry

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:07:54 -0800

Weird. This doesn't seem to bad, actually. They were basically paying the paramilitaries to protect rather than kill their employees. I suspect Chiquita is guilty of far greater crimes.

By: nofundy

nofundy — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:35:16 -0800

I hear union bananas taste like cavendish. Yes, Chiquita and others are and have historically been guilty of far worse. Not that they get a free ticket for this because of their dark past/present.

By: Ogre Lawless

Ogre Lawless — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:42:18 -0800

Mefites might remember Chiquita from here. ...in my case here, though perhaps not quite so anciently.

By: JJ86

JJ86 — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 11:28:31 -0800

Bacardi also is no stranger to funding terrorist groups.

By: Milkman Dan

Milkman Dan — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:12:21 -0800

I know this is going to sound really crazy, but I had a dream on the weekend that sounds like it was lifted straight out of this news article. It's especially weird because outside of 100 Years of Solitude, I have not been hearing about or following anything at all regarding Coca-cola or Chiquita. My dream was set in Colombia, too. I wrote about it on my blog the morning I woke up. You can read it in full on my site, but here's the pertinent section: There are crates of bananas on the floor, with a banana company's logo. The company is called Bana-banana, but it has a similar corporate presence to Coca-Cola or Chiquita. The company has some sort of role in this story, and I understand that this company is the oppressor, the captor, but simultaneously the supplier of the bananas which keep these people alive and grateful for it. "How does this company feel about being such a villainized part of the story?" I ask the producer. "They know they have to accept it," replies the producer. "It's part of the Story." Is it just me, or is that a pretty creepy coincidence?

By: IronLizard

IronLizard — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:27:08 -0800

Metafilter: I'm feeling awfully bizarre holding my banana right now. I know, I know, I couldn't resist that one.