Fronting for Paramilitaries: Holder, Chaquita and Colombia
by Mario A. Murillo
This article appeared in Counterpunch on
November 19, before it became certain that Eric Holder is President-Elect
Barack Obama's choice for Attorney General.
"Holder and his Chiquita clients claim that the company
was forced to make these illegal payments to armed thugs specifically to
repress the rights of workers."
First the good news: We're two months away from
President George W. Bush's last full day in the White House. The countdown for
the end of the nightmare has begun in earnest.
Now the bad news: As Barack Obama puts together
his cabinet and eyes a slew of former Clinton officials for key staff positions,
it is becoming ever more apparent that all those calls for change coming from
progressive circles in the U.S. - and abroad - have fallen on deaf ears.
Most striking, at least for the time being, is
the soon to be named position of the top law enforcement official of the
country. It looks like the first African-American President will appoint the
first African-American attorney general in the coming days, something that on
the surface looks like an advance, but should actually sound alarm bells for anybody
seeking true change in the way things are done in Washington, especially when
it comes to bringing corporate criminals to justice.
Although no final decision has been made, the
New York Times reports that the President-elect's transition team has signaled
to Eric H. Holder Jr., a senior Clinton Justice Department official, that he
will be selected as the next attorney general. Holder helped lead the team that
selected Sen. Joe Biden as Obama's VP choice.
"Holder's appointment should sound alarm bells, especially
when it comes to bringing corporate criminals to justice."
Most news accounts about the pending appointment
seem to be limiting their criticism of Holder to one of his final acts as
President Bill Clinton's deputy attorney general in 2001. At the time, on the
last day of Clinton's term, Holder apparently said he was "neutral,
leaning toward favorable" for a presidential pardon for Marc Rich, the
wealthy commodities dealer whose ex-wife, Denise, was a major donor to the
Democratic Party. Clinton's pardon of the tax-evading Rich was criticized as
politically motivated, leading to a congressional investigation over the
matter.
What is not being discussed too much, and was
not even mentioned in today's New York Times report, is Holder's key role in
defending Chiquita Brands International in a notorious case relating to the
company's funneling money and weapons to the United Self-Defense Forces of
Colombia, AUC, the right-wing paramilitary organization on the U.S. State
Department's own list of terrorist organizations.
In 2003, an Organization of American States
report showed that Chiquita's subsidiary in Colombia, Banadex, had helped
divert weapons and ammunition, including thousands of AK-47s, from Nicaraguan
government stocks to the AUC. The AUC - very often in collaboration with units
of the U.S.-trained Armed Forces - is responsible for hundreds of massacres of
primarily peasants throughout the Colombian countryside, including in the
banana-growing region of Urabá, where it is believed that at least 4,000 people
were killed. Their systematic use of violence resulted in the forced
displacement of hundreds of thousands of poor Colombians, a disproportionate
amount of those people being black or indigenous.
In 2004, Holder helped negotiate an agreement
with the Justice Department for Chiquita that involved the fruit company's
payment of "protection money" to the AUC, in direct violation of U.S.
laws prohibiting this kind of transaction. In the agreement brokered by Holder,
Chiquita officials pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a fine of $25 million, to
be paid over a 5-year period. However, not one Chiquita official involved in
the illegal transactions was forced to serve time for a crime that others have
paid dearly for, mainly because they did not have the kind of legal backing
that Holder's team provided. Holder continues to represent Chiquita in the
civil action, which grew out of this criminal case.
One of the arguments in defense of Chiquita's criminal
acts was that the company was being strong-armed by thugs in Colombia, and that
it either had to make the payments, or close up shop in the country, which
would have resulted in the loss of tens of millions of dollars in profits.
Chiquita officials even disclosed to the Justice Department that they were
making the illegal payments to the AUC, to see what could be done.
"The AUC - very often in collaboration with units of the
U.S.-trained Armed Forces - is responsible for hundreds of massacres."
As the Washington Post reported back in 2007,
Federal prosecutors had said in court papers that Justice Department officials
made clear in April 2003 that Chiquita was clearly violating the law and that
"the payments . . . could not continue."1 The Post reported
"lawyers at Justice headquarters and the U.S. attorney's office in
Washington were incensed by what they considered the flagrant continuation of
these payoffs, despite the warnings." At the time, Holder said he was
concerned that company leaders who disclosed the corporation's illegal activity
to prosecutors were facing the possibility of prosecution.
"If what you want to encourage is voluntary
self-disclosure, what message does this send to other companies?" asked
Holder, deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration. "Here's a
company that voluntarily self-discloses in a national security context, where
the company gets treated pretty harshly, [and] then on top of that, you go
after individuals who made a really painful decision."2
So in Holder's view, we should feel sympathy for
these poor corporate executives, whose identities were kept confidential, and
who were forced to make "very painful decisions" about opening up to
their own criminality. Never mind that this company was complicit in the
above-mentioned human tragedy waged by the AUC. The many victims of this
paramilitary terror did not even cross the mind of the well-connected defense
attorney now being considered for the Attorney General job.
Yet the opposition to Holder's nomination to the
top position at Justice should not stop with this sordid history, one that
perhaps can be excused as the obligation of a lawyer to defend his or her
client regardless of the alleged crime. The disappointment in Obama's pick for
AG should stem from the President-elect's strong words during the campaign in
defense of human rights, particularly for those of workers in Colombia. On
several occasions, including in the last presidential debate held at Hofstra
University just three weeks before the election, the Democratic Candidate said
he opposed the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement precisely on the grounds of
the human rights violations carried out consistently against trade unionists in
Colombia, and the ongoing impunity that has followed in most of those crimes.
This is directly connected to the Holder
nomination because currently, there is a lawsuit underway from the families of
173 banana workers, who were killed by one of these paramilitary groups in
Colombia. These family members do not buy into the argument, made by people
like Holder and his Chiquita clients, that the company was forced to make these
illegal payments to the AUC. Their claim is that Chiquita Brands International
deliberately hired these armed thugs specifically to repress the rights of
these workers, a tool used by other major multinationals operating in Colombian
hot spots, including Coca Cola, BP, and the Drummond Corporation.
"If the Obama Administration is seriously concerned about
impunity and human rights in Colombia, Holder should probably step out of the
way immediately."
As Dan Kovalik recently wrote in the Huffington
Post, the major concern that emerges with a Justice Department led by Holder is
that none of these allegations will ever be fully investigated. Kovalik points
to the Human Rights Watch report entitled, "Breaking the Grip? Obstacles
to Justice for Paramilitary Mafias in Colombia," where the organization
recommends that,
"in order to assist with the process of
ending the ties between the Colombian government and paramilitary death squads,
the U.S. Department of Justice should, among other things, "[c]reate
meaningful legal incentives for paramilitary leaders [a number of whom have
already been extradited to the U.S.] to fully disclose information about
atrocities and name all Colombian or foreign officials, business or individuals
who may have facilitated their criminal activities," and
"[c]ollaborate actively with the efforts of Colombian justice officials
who are investigating paramilitary networks in Colombia by sharing relevant
information possible and granting them access to paramilitary leaders in U.S.
custody."3
Will this recommendation be carried out by a
Justice Department led by the man who defended one of the most visible
protagonists in these crimes? If the Obama Administration is seriously
concerned about impunity and human rights in Colombia, Holder should probably
step out of the way immediately.
Furthermore, and as Kovalik pointed out in his
Huffington Post commentary, one of the most notorious paramilitary leaders
currently in U.S. federal custody, Salvatore Mancuso, claims that he has
extensive knowledge, not only about Chiquita's relationship with paramilitary
death squads in Colombia, but with other major firms such as Dole and Del
Monte. None of these firms are even on the radar screen of the Justice
Department, and the question is whether or not they will be should Holder be
appointed the next Attorney General. My assumption is that it is not a priority
for Obama, certainly not for Holder.
"Corporate criminality is not a major priority, and justice
is only an empty promise."
The calls for change in Washington's
relationship with Latin America are coming from both within the United States
and throughout the continent. There was no doubt that here in Colombia, people
were relieved to hear of Barack Obama's historic victory on November 4th. Given
his public denunciations of the murders of hundreds of union leaders in
Colombia, and his interesting life story which points to at least somewhat of a
distinct international perspective, it was not surprising to hear car horns go
off in the streets of some towns when he was declared the winner on election
night.
But it now seems like business as usual in
Washington, where corporate criminality is not a major priority, and justice is
only an empty promise made on the backs of the victims of these crimes,
directed mainly at gullible voters before elections.
We cannot let this happen.
Mario A. Murillo is associate professor of
Communication at Hofstra University in New York and author of Colombia and the United states: War, Unrest and Destabilization.
He is currently living in Colombia working on a book about the indigenous
movement and its uses of communications media. He can be reached through his
website.
1 The Washington Post, "In Terrorism-Law
Case, Chiquita Points to U.S.," by Carol D. Leonnig, Thursday, August
2, 2007; Page A01.
2 Ibid.
3 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/lawyer-for-chiquita-in-co_b_141919.html