[Marxism] Colombia: a more just resolution

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

By John I. Laun



             Those of us who follow responses in the United States to  
the paramilitary activities in Colombia are very concerned. We  
believe evidence clearly shows that the paramilitaries, who have  
carried out so much death and destruction in the Colombian  
countryside, were a creation of the Colombian state, or at least  
acted in concert with state security forces from the beginning. Our  
question now is how the Obama Administration may view the attempts on  
behalf of the Colombian victims of paramilitary atrocities encouraged  
and paid for by U.S. corporations, among them Chiquita Brands and  
Drummond Corporation.



             The reason for our concern: President-elect Obama has  
chosen Eric Holder as U.S. Attorney General. Besides advising  
President Clinton that he was “neutral, leaning toward favorable” for  
the indefensible pardon of Marc Rich, Holder reportedly played a  
major role as a private lawyer for Chiquita Brands in negotiating an  
agreement under which the Company paid a $25 million fine and its  
executives, who had approved payments to the A.U.C. paramilitary  
organization in Colombia, were relieved of further liability. The  
Chiquita officials knew the A.U. C. was identified as a terrorist  
group by the U.S. State Department, having been placed on the U.S.  
terrorist list by Secretary of State Colin Powell on September 10,  
2001. The money Chiquita paid was purportedly to provide protection  
to Chiquita installations and personnel in Colombia. In fact, the  
A.U.C. used the money in a generalized campaign to terrorize and  
murder peasants and workers in the Uraba region of northern Colombia.  
They have murdered literally thousands of defenseless civilians, the  
vast majority of whom had no ties whatever to guerrilla organizations.



             The idea that a monetary payment to the U.S. Government  
is sufficient penalty for the knowing illegal acts of U.S.  
corporations which caused thousands of innocent deaths in Colombia  
is, in a word, wrong. It is wrong morally, wrong politically and  
wrong legally. The $25 million fine does not go to the victims of  
A.U.C. atrocities; it goes to the U.S. Government. And these victims  
of the Chiquita-financed terrorism receive nothing! And the man who  
negotiated that disposition is now to be U.S. Attorney General!



             The Colombian counterpart to the U.S. Attorney General,  
Fiscal General Mario Iguaran, has said he is not pleased with a deal  
that lets Chiquita off the hook in return for a $25 million forfeit  
to the U.S. Government. He wants to see Chiquita executives answer in  
Colombia for their willing financing of illegal paramilitary  
violence. That would be a good step. It would also be good and right  
for the Obama Administration to permit, and even support, claims in  
U.S. courts fr damages against Chiquita, and not raise as a defense  
that these claims have been foreclosed by the settlement negotiated  
by Attorney Holder.



             And what about the $25 million paid by Chiquita as a  
fine? That money should rightly go to compensate the victims of  
Chiquita’s hired paramilitaries. If President Obama favors justice,  
he should provide at least this much toward a just resolution of the  
claims of the Colombian victims and their families. older
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