Free Trade & Terrorismo: Banana Biz Backfires

- This article illustrates some of the affairs major corporations are involved with as the traverse the planet on their great 'paper chase'.

Chiquita to pay $25M in terror case
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press WriterWed Mar 14, 7:30 PM ET

"Banana company Chiquita Brands International said Wednesday it has agreed to a $25 million fine after admitting it paid a Colombian terrorist group for protection in a volatile farming region.

The settlement resolves a lengthy Justice Department investigation into the company's financial dealings with terrorist organizations in Colombia.

In court documents filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors said several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers at the Cincinnati-based company paid about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC for its Spanish initials.

The AUC has been responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia's civil conflict and for a sizable percentage of the country's cocaine exports. The right-wing group was designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization in September 2001.

Prosecutors said the company made the payments in exchange for protection for its workers. The company also made similar payments to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, according to prosecutors.

Colombia's banana-growing region is a zone over which leftist rebels and far-right paramilitaries have fought viciously. Most companies have extensive security operations to protect employees in the area.

"The information filed today is part of a plea agreement, which we view as a reasoned solution to the dilemma the company faced several years ago," Chiquita's chief executive, Fernando Aguirre, said in a statement. "The payments made by the company were always motivated by our good faith concern for the safety of our employees."

Colombia has one of the highest kidnappings rates in the world. Arrangements between companies and either guerrillas or paramilitaries are not uncommon but it is impossible to know how much money is paid each year.

Chiquita sold its Colombian banana operations in June 2004.

Details of the settlement were not included in court documents but Aguirre said Chiquita would pay $25 million in fines, which it set aside this year. The company reported the deal to the Securities and Exchange Commission. A plea hearing was scheduled for Monday.

The payments were approved by senior executives at Chiquita, prosecutors wrote in court documents. Prosecutors said Chiquita began paying the right-wing AUC after a meeting in 1997 and disguised the payments in company books.

"No later than in or about September 2000, defendant Chiquita's senior executives knew that the corporation was paying AUC and that the AUC was a violent paramilitary organization," prosecutors wrote in Wednesday's court filing.

Company attorneys made it clear the payments were improper, prosecutors said.

"Bottom line: CANNOT MAKE THE PAYMENT," the company's outside counsel advised in February 2003, according to an excerpt of a memo included in court documents.

In April 2003, company officials and lawyers approached the Justice Department and told prosecutors they had been making the payments. According to court documents, the payments continued for months.

The document filed by federal prosecutors is known as an information. Unlike an indictment, it is normally worked out through discussions with prosecutors and is followed by a guilty plea."

-Here is a blog with more information regarding the "Banana Trade": http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Bananas.asp

- Also, here is another link to Zmag.org with an article entitled "Battling the Banana Barons", about Chiquita resistance in Honduras: www.zmag.org/zmag/zarticle.cfm?Url=articles/jan97corr.htm

PEACE!

Immokolee: Fightin' the power

From the earliest of contact with Europeans, we have seen their intent involved 'trade'. Whereas they sought to trade freely, across the entire planet, acquiring and selling goods at any cost. Original people have traded 'fairly'. We have exchanged goods based, not solely on supply and demand, b-u-t based on need and availability. Free trade has created debt, ushered chattel slavery, and destroyed the planet by exhausting natural resources. Fair trade has brought positive cultural exchanges and wealth to civilizations, life, peace and prosperity.

Fair trade versus free trade. Fair trade is an economic system based on humanity and social responsibility as opposed to Capitalism, and it's cut-throat policies and obligation towards investment. I strive more and more to purchase products that are obtained through fair trade. Fair trade means that the people who worked to produce are fairly treated and not enslaved, abused etc. Capitalism, free trade and Neo-liberalism have led to the flight of major corporations overseas, to countries where people will work for less than the U.S. worker. The corporations aren't obligated to provide lunch breaks, bathroom breaks, sanitary working conditions, insurance or anything else. They are devoted to maximizing their overall profit while decreasing their production costs.

Free trade has ripped through Native and so-called Latin America with ferocity. There are hundreds of thousands of men, woman and children who are 'modern-day slaves'. They work under the most horrible conditions. Not because they choose to. Because Capitalism, especially in the 3rd world, has left them no other choice in order to survive. the only ones' who truly prosper from this system is the corporations and their investors. Many must starve in order for a few to eat well. This is the reasoning behind Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution and move towards "21st century Socialism" and his outright opposition to the U.S. and it's economic policies throughout America Latina. This is also something we must fight against here in the wilderness of North America. For the Devil, desires to make slaves out of all that he can, so he may rob them and live in luxury. Slavery still exists....

I was recently at my local food co-op perusing through the fair trade bags of cafecito, after diminishing the supply mi papi sent me from Adjuntas (Puerto Rico), my families hometown. While at 'the Co-op', I saw some bags of coffee with some very intriguing cover artwork. One of the bags read "Coalition of Immokolee Workers" on it. The name looked so familiar,so I decided to investigate. I recently came across the following article.

Zapatismo vs. McDonald's

by zapagringo - SFA Wednesday, Feb 21 2007, 1:22amorganize@sfalliance.org international / miscellaneous / opinion/analysis

Florida's Coalition of Immokalee Workers Puts Global Justice Back on the (US Kitchen) Table

How did the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a 2,500 member organization of farmworkers with no legal rights to organize in the USA, bring the world's largest restaurant corporation, Yum! Brands (Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, A&W, Long John Silver’s, and Pizza Hut), to its knees in an age of rising corporate power and declining worker unionization?

First things first: Find some way to get yourself to Chicago this April 13th & 14th to join the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, and their allies from around the world, in what will be an historic mobilization and gathering for "Fair Food, Real Rights, and Dignity" in the USA!

There's more information on how to do that below, but first a couple questions:

How did a small group of Mayan indigenous people armed with machetes, sticks, and a few guns-certainly no military threat to the Mexican regime-force the then-ruling PRI to make more concessions to the political opposition of their country in the three weeks following the Zapatistas' 1994 uprising than they had in the 50 years prior?

How did the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a 2,500 member organization of farmworkers with no legal rights to organize in the USA, bring the world's largest restaurant corporation, Yum! Brands (Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, A&W, Long John Silver’s, and Pizza Hut), to its knees in an age of rising corporate power and declining worker unionization?

Well, neither of them did it alone for one, so see below for how you can join the CIW this April in Chicago and support them in the meantime. You'll also find below a few connections between the CIW and the Zapatistas...not the least of which there statement of adherence to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, translated into English (for the first time?) here at Zapagringo.com...

For starters, and to give credit where credit's due, you can check out this article from the October 2005 Monthly Review that breaks down specifics of the "who, what, where, when, how, and why" of the CIW and their struggle...and the zapatismo connections.

The connections between the CIW and the Zapatistas are not difficult to make. As Melody Gonzalez of the Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA) discovered, they may even have overlapping membership...the SFA is an ally formation to the CIW and as a representative for them at an early meeting of the Other Campaign in September 2005, Melody encountered a Zapatista compa who had been working in Immokalee's fields until 1992 when he returned to Chiapas to participate in the uprising!

Immokalee's farmworkers, coming mainly from Mexico and Guatemala (with significant membership who are also either Haitian or African-American), earn sub-poverty wages that have been stagnant for almost thirty years. They are denied the right to overtime pay, the right to organize and, in some cases, endure violence and abuse at work; and, in some extreme cases, conditions of modern-day slavery.

Employing the secondary boycott, the most successful tactic in labor movement history (and one that formal unions are denied by the federal government through the Taft-Hartley Act), these workers have forced Taco Bell to meet their demands (and more!) and are now going after McDonald's.

They are demanding that McDonald's take responsibility for the poverty and inhumane working conditions that it directly contributes to through its mass-volume, low-cost tomato purchasing practices. They assert that it is farmworker poverty that has contributed in no small measure to the wealth of McDonald's.

This struggle is about worker's rights, immigrant's rights, human rights and the struggle for fair food. It's also about being compañeros to our fellow adherents to the Sixth Declaration!

Join the CIW this April 13 in Oak Brook, IL, for a major rally outside McD's global headquarter and April 14 in downtown Chicago for a "Carnaval and Parade for Fair Food, Real Rights, and Dignity." This is a global justice struggle led "from below and to the left" in the USA! There are CIW allies organizing transportation to Chicago from cities across the country, you can contact organize[@]sfalliance[.]org to get connected locally.

You can also work to get the CIW's PSAs played on radio stations and elsewhere...here they are in English and Spanish.

If you are in NYC, you can check out Celeste Escobar of the SFA presentating at Bluestockings in the Lower East Side at 7p on March 5th.

And without further ado, here's the Statement of adherence to the Zapatistas' Sixth Declaration from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers...

At a September 2005 gathering of the Other Campaign in the Zapatista Autonomous Municipality "Javier Hernandez" in Chiapas, Mexico:

My name is Melody Gonzalez and I am a Xicana from Califaztlán, the stolen Mexico. I am the daughter of immigrants from the state of Michoacán. I am representing the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a community organization of immigrant farmworkers in southwest Florida.

Neoliberalism, the freed trade agreements, and the large corporations have forced many people to leave their lands and come there, many times they end up working for miserable wages for the very same corporations. These workers don’t only represent cheap labor, they are also the most vulnerable, least protected, and represent production and profits at a minimal cost for agroindustry and fast food.

In Immokalee, a community that for many years did not exist on the map, a large part of the farmworkers are from the south of Mexico, especially the south, and from Guatemala and Haiti. They arrived knowing they would have much work but many didn’t imagine the conditions they would face. They didn’t imagine that they would receive a wage that’s been the same since 1978. Picking tomatoes is the largest industry in Florida and all of the East coast, in this industry a worker has to pick 2 tons of tomatoes to make just $50. At the end of the year, they’ve earned $7,500. Meanwhile, the rent in Immokalee averages $400 per week for a trailer. With these miserable salaries, the people are forced to live in trailers with up to 16 people. It’s the only way to have money to survive and to send money to the family that stays in Latin America. In addition to this, there is no form of benefits.

We describe these conditions of ours as sweatshop conditions but in the fields, but there is another reality even more extreme-slavery. These are the cases of workers that are put in isolated labor camps, forced at gunpoint to work against their will, and many times threatened and violently attacked. Many of these workers are tricked when coming to the United States and end up in debt bondage to their bosses. In the past 7 years, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers have freed more than 1,000 slaves.

All of this drove us to organize ourselves to fight for our rights and in 1993 we began, organizing ourselves first against the violence that was happening in the fields and against the miserable wages. One of our mottos is "Consciousness + Commitment = Change". Together, we began to analyze our situation to understand why wages were stagnated and why slavery still existed in the 21st century. We realized that there were large fast food corporations and supermarkets that, in demanding the cheapest price from their suppliers, had pushed wages down. And so they sell their cheap product to the consumers, who for many years did not ask from where their food came and under what conditions, and they made their profits. As it says in the Sixth [Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle], in the market we see products but we don’t see the exploitation from which they came. And they are sweatshop conditions that are fertile ground for slavery.

After analyzing the situation, we committed ourselves to this struggle and launched a national campaign for just food, leading a boycott against Taco Bell, that is a part of Yum Brands, the largest fast food company in the world; and one of the biggest purchasers of tomatoes. After 4 years of boycott, and nearly 11 years of struggle, making alliances with religious people, students and awakening the conscience of the consumers, the boycott ended when Taco Bell and Yum Brands accepted the demands of the Coalition. Today our struggle continues, because this victory is just one step. We are analyzing how we can struggle against the other corporations that also benefit from our poverty, to impact in this way the rest of the food industry and so that farmworkers receive the respect and dignity that they deserve. We continue fighting against slavery at the root of the problem and not simply helping with the investigation and prosecution of case after case because as it says in the Sixth, we fight to be free people, not to change our master.

We understand that although our struggle for better wages and conditions in the fields is one struggle of one grassroots organization, it is, without a doubt, connected to the global struggle for justice and peace. The same forces that oppress us are the ones that oppress so many communities in Mexico and in many other countries.

A struggle that we have already taken on is the struggle against the FTAA [Free Trade Agreement of the Americas]. We organized in 2003, along with various other grassroots organizations, a 34 mile march against the FTAA in Miami, Florida. Each mile that we marched represented a country that would be a part of the agreement. Today we continue our struggle and do not want free trade that exploits human beings, but fair trade that respects the dignity of all. We have made alliances with other organizations locally, nationally, and also internationally. We are going to continue forming alliances, sharing experiences, and organizing ourselves as one force against the free trade pacts.

We understand that our struggle is already part of the Sixth thus we commit ourselves to the Sixth continuing the work we are already doing. And we also wish to strengthen our paths of communication and dialogue with the organizations and people in Mexico that also struggle against free trade and in favor of fair trade. We see this trip to Chiapas as an opportunity to learn what is being done and what is going to be done in Mexico. We are constantly learning from other struggles and this is part of our consciousness-raising. Many of our friends there [in Immokalee] are from Chiapas and since back in the day they have talked of the struggle here. We commit ourselves to continue learning from the struggle here and in all parts of Mexico, and also to assure ourselves that the Zapatista word continues being expressed in our work. We also wish to leave some materials from our struggle to share our experience with you. My compañeros in Immokalee send their greetings and brotherly hugs to the Zapatista communities and say that although you don’t know them in person, they know that work, commitment and consciousness converts us into compañeros. We are with you and the Sixth.

For more information visit- www.ciw-online.org

YA BASTA !

"Poca-haunt-us"

YA BASTA !!!

"Uncle Tonto"- White Money over Black Membership

The fate of the Cherokee freedmen does not surprise me. It is the result of white supremacy and the conditioning that Original people have faced for the last 514 years. Although this claim may be virulently denied a member of the Cherokee, this denial is the same as an average so-called Latin American denying his/her African blood. It's disgraceful and disgusting. The Cherokee's own history, as well as even some of the other so-called "5 civilized Tribes" but more so the Cherokee, has paved the way for this kind of situation.

Many/most tribes acknowledge the planet Earth as their Mother, and ultimately as a feminine principle. This is because it is the truth. The Original woman is the Earth, the mother of civilization, and exhibits many qualities that reflect this. The Earth, the land is vital to our existance as a people. This principle has been well known through out time and has been employed in most aspects of civilization, even war. To control a people during times of war you must have the advantage of the land, the terrain, as it states in the Art of War. Many times, when one people would invade another the first task, aside from plundering and defeating the opposing army, was to confiscate the women. This is down by abduction or by raping the women. When you control a people's women you control their ability to reproduce and often control the inheritance of wealth and land. Thus, the sole purpose of any form of acknowledged 'legitimate bondage' or marriage between a man and a woman. The conqueror would attempt to marry into the top or head family. the family with the most wealth, to gain control of that people by becoming king or chief. One example would be Alexander the Great and the influx of Persian blood into Egypt during his reign. His army made it a point to marry into the royal family subsequently mixing the blood and lightening the complexion of the the Black Egyptians. There are those who claim that the Egyptians were not black based of of the majority of the population appearance in these times. They are not aware of the history of Egypt and the constant influx of invading 'white' blood by the Hyksos, Persians, Romans, etc which contributed to their modern appearance.

Another example of this strategy of control over wealth came with the European colonizers in the Americas. Colonizers would take Indian women was wives, marrying into the tribal Nation or even aim for the Chief's daughter from the start. Other times they would simply rape the Indigenous women. Either method would produce 'mixed blood' children would would be more than likely sympathetic to their 'white blood line' and still afford them the privileges of their Native social/tribal status (the reason why the sons and daughters of chiefs were shipped to the Carlisle Indian School, to transform their mindsets, to make them 'think' white and be sympathetic and compliant with the white cause) . This increased the potential for Europeans to establish a favourable contact amongst the Original people, giving them space to dictate policy and ultimately control the Indian's lives, relieving them of their land. This produced people like Cherokee Chief John Ross, who as 7/8th's Scottish, was Principle Chief of the Cherokee and was one of the people responsible for the Treaty of New Echota and ultimately selling out his people. John Ross pretended/attempted to take his people's best interests into consideration and strove to avoid the total extermination of the Cherokee by signing off Cherokee land in Georgia to the state of Georgia and the Andrew Jackson regime. Let us be reminded that the '5 Civilized Tribes" were referred to as such by whites because they are the ones who seemed to be more acceptable of the European culture and ways of life. Many wealthy amongst the tribes held plantations and slaves, both Indian and African. It most be said that, according to most documents I've read, they dealt with their 'slaves' more humanely. Most times a slaves never wanted to run away from their Cherokee plantation. The Chickasaw were a little more less humane. However, many of the slaves were able buy their freedom and were accepted as a tribal member. This is one reason so many so-called African Americans fled with their Native counterparts to Indian territory or Oklahoma, during the Trail of Tears. The popular cuisine's throughout the South and so-called 'Soul Food'- greens, cornbread, black eyed peas, were all Cherokee dishes. However, in attempts to show that they were "civilized" and not "fighting-rebellious-injuns", John Ross and other like Major Ridge and his son John Ridge, ceded land to the whites and accepted their destiny in the West. This outraged the Cherokee Nation, who maintained a strict policy that no one individual could buy or sell land or make decisions without the whole like that. Viewed as a betrayal, vengeance was taken against John Ross and the Ridge's as they were murdered in front of their families.

Many tribal Nations were being led by 'mixed bloods'. While I, myself, don't subscribe to such an idea as 'mixed blood' because color, melanin is dominant. If one of your parents are Original, you are Original. The fact though, that many Nations were and are under the leadership of Chiefs who are 'mixed blood' and whose policy for tribal growth and development is akin to Nations establishing Free-Trade agreements with the U.S. They have been sympathetic to and more than willing to work hand in hand with policies that ultimately do not favor their people. Why? Because if you don't own any casinos then the majority of your income comes from U.S. grants and subsidies. The is the reason that Puerto Rico remains a puppet of the U.S. and sambo of the Carribean. To much of the island's income comes from the U.S. If the U.S. was to stop funded Puerto Rico they island would literally plunge into nothingness. They are dependant on the U.S. and so are most Native Tribal Nations. So they are scared to call shots with Big Brother for fear they won't receive money or help from the institution that didn't help you anyway. After all, what treaty has really been upheld? And the Trail of Tears still happened? So that's what trying to work out a deal with the U.S. governement has gotten you. Rather than working to becoming self sufficient and through new means or strategies as Hugo Chavez is doing in Venezuela.
Instead, many of our people want to cling to the old ways. Old ways are good, but you can't travel backwards to move forward. You can retain some of the old ways and improve upon them while at the same time forging new ways. Many Indigenous people want to simply 'just get along'. While others resurrect Warrior Society's and move towards their survival like the Zapatistas.

The issue with the Cherokee and their expulsion of the freedmen is laden with racism, regardless to their claims.They are not the only tribe who has been cutting people from their rosters. While the the 'freedmen's' tribal membership will affect their housing, health insurance etc, it goes to show that our focus has been misdirected. We need to move towards independance and self-sufficiency. The Cherokee are exhibiting the racism that they have internalized whether they know it or not. To look down on 'blackness' is to be a reactionary, a victim of the the wicked U.S. institutions. "Blackness" did not become a 'sin' until 1492. Not until Ferdinand and Isbella waged their campaign against the Moors, expelling them from Spain, under the banner of 'White Christianity'. They aligned their ethnicity with religion and demonized the Moors, irregardless to the sciences and wealth the Moors exposed to Europe (bringing them out of the 'dark ages').
The Principle Chief, Chad Smith, remarked that the decision was not race based and that it was based on a 1906 tribal membership document. To him I say, you are full of shit. If you were near anything of an intelligent human being you would know that the current method of qualifying who is and who is not Indigenous was introduced and instituted by the U.S. government via the Bureau of Indian Affairs. That means that an opposing force created the guidelines that you are using. They created the tribal rosters and the reservation cards. They did this to foster the idea of private property and individual land ownership. So they could take the Indians away from their collectiveness and solicit land to specific individuals and your enrollemnt determined that. The point that many are missing is that the governement didn't and doesn't want to allocate any land anyway. So they created some tough guidelines. Also, if you do research you'll see that after these guidelines were established in the late 1800's, the number of 'white people' claiming Native ancestry and applying for membership skyrocketed. It was the great land grab. So Chad Smith, is relying on the U.S. government's interpretation of who is and isn't Indian, from a hundred years ago. The U.S. plays with definition and defines who they want to be what when it suits them. The U.S. government looks at Mexicans as 'illegal aliens' of Spanish descent, not as Indigenous peoples, "Indians", crossing a government established border into land that rightfully and naturally belongs to them. They don't look at the 85% of Latin America as Indigenous. Instead we were given the concocted idea that we were "Mestizo". It's all political. You have to be "100% Indian" (or 'white' with a sprinkle of 'Indio' in you) to be considered an 'officially recognized tribal member'. Well, if that's the steps Chad Smith is taking, then I will that he cut loose those 'white' Cherokee members as well. In all honesty, since the advent of colonialism, capitalism and globalization, no one is 100% anything in this day and time, except a small population of people across the planet.

I'll admit, I do not recognize Reservation ID's or tribal enrollment cards. I don't have one and don't want one. I don't want anything from these devils. I know who I am and no one can take that away from me. These guidelines have allowed for the formation of elite circles of identity and privilege. The bourgesie of Indian country. And I also don't buy that idea of a person's indentity being matrilineally based. If you do, then you're more than welcome to. I respect and love the Original woman. However, I know and understand, scientifically and mathematically, I came through her and not from her. I came from my father. The organism of life exists within the man. Some may argue that the man came through woman. I say that the woman didn't impregnant herself and neither did the Earth, before the Sun's light penetrated her. The Sun is symbolic to Man, as the proactive force within the universe. He is the spark of life. The man contains the XY chromosomes necessary to bring forth man and woman. The woman only contains XX which can only beget herself, a woman. Man was first and is the foundation.

With all that being said, the Cherokee decision shows us that "Uncle Tonto" like Uncle Tom, still sits rights amongst us.

For further reading, please check out- http://www.meadvilletribune.com/opinion/cnhinscolumns_story_067093413.html?keyword=topstory

Proper Education Abolishes Conditioning by Europeans