Chiquita Brands International
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Image:Chiquita center.jpg
Chiquita Center in downtown Cincinnati
Chiquita Brands International Inc. (NYSE: CQB) is a Cincinnati, Ohio-based producer and distributor of bananas and other produce, under a variety of subsidiary brand names, collectively known as Chiquita. Chiquita is the successor to the United Fruit Company and is the leading distributor of bananas in the United States. The company also owns a German produce distribution company, Atlanta AG, which it acquired in 2003. Chiquita was formerly controlled by Cincinnati billionaire Carl H. Lindner, Jr., his majority ownership of the company ended as a result of Chiquita Brands International exiting a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 19 2002.
Chiquita BananaThe trademark logo mascot, Chiquita Banana, was created by Dik Browne, who is best known for his Hägar the Horrible comic strip. 1940s vocalist Patti Clayton was the original 1944 voice of Chiquita Banana, followed by Elsa Miranda, June Valli and Monica Lewis. HistoryChiquita Brands International Inc. was formed in 1871 by U.S. railroad entrepreneur Henry Meiggs as the United Fruit Company. In 1970 it became the United Brands Company. And in 1985 it became Chiquita Brands International. In 1975, an SEC invesitgation revealed that the company had bribed the Honduran President (dictator): Oswaldo López Arellano and Italian officials. The scandal was named Bananagate. In the 1980s, the company (then known as United Brands Company) was involved in a leading Competition Law case when they were found to abuse their dominant position in the banana and fruit supply markets by the European Commission. The Cincinnati Enquirer controversyImage:ChiquitaScandinavia.jpg
Chiquita Scandinavia, a former Chiquita Brands International ship. [1]
On May 3, 1998, The Cincinnati Enquirer published an eighteen-page section, "Chiquita Secrets Revealed" on Chiquita. The articles, written by Enquirer investigative reporters Michael Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter, charged the company with mistreating the workers on its Central American plantations, polluting the environment, allowing cocaine to be brought to the United States on its ships, bribing foreign officials, evading foreign nations' laws on land ownership, forcibly preventing its workers from unionizing, and a host of other misdeeds. Chiquita denied all the allegations, suing after it was revealed that Gallagher had repeatedly hacked into Chiquita's voice-mail system (no evidence ever indicated that McWhirter was aware of Gallagher's crime or a participant). A special prosecutor was appointed to investigate—the elected prosecutor having ties to Carl Lindner, Jr.. On June 28, 1998, the Enquirer retracted the entire series of stories, published a front-page apology, and paid the company a multi-million-dollar settlement. The Columbia Journalism Review would report both $14 million and $50 million for the amount.[citation needed] Chiquita's Annual Report mentions 'a cash settlement in excess of $10 million'. One of the reporters, Gallagher, would be fired and prosecuted and the paper's editor, Lawrence K. Beaupre, would be transferred to the Gannett's headquarters amid allegations that he ignored the paper's usual procedures on fact-checking in order to win a Pulitzer Prize. Chiquita has not formally challenged any of the factual claims raised in the original articles. Protection payments to paramilitary groups
On March 14, 2007, Chiquita Brands was fined $25 million as part of a settlement with the United States Justice Department for having ties to Colombian paramilitary groups. According to court documents, between 1997 and 2004, officers of a Chiquita subsidiary paid approximately $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the AUC, in exchange for local, employee protection in Colombia's volatile banana harvesting zone. Similar payments were also made to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as well as the National Liberation Army (ELN) from 1989 to 1997.[1][2] All three of these groups are on the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. On March 19, 2007, Chiquita Brands admitted in federal court that the subsidiary company (which was subsequently sold) paid Colombian terrorists to protect employees at its most profitable banana-growing operation. As part of a deal with prosecutors, the company pleaded guilty to one count of doing business with a terrorist organization. In exchange, the company will pay a $25-million fine and court documents will not reveal the identities of the group of senior executives who approved the illegal protection payments.[2] Chiquita currently faces serious charges in a lawsuit issued in June 2007. According to the attorney of 173 family members of victims of the AUC militia this could be the biggest terrorist case in history and may put Chiquita out of business. "Terry Collingsworth, a lawyer with International Rights Advocates who is leading the multi-million dollar litigation, said: "This is a landmark case, maybe the biggest terrorism case in history. In terms of casualties, it's the size of three World Trade Center attacks."[3] Ongoing workers' rights violationsIn May 2007, the French NGO "Peuples Solidaires" publicly accused the Compañia Bananera Atlántica Limitada (COBAL), a Chiquita subsidiary, of knowingly violating its workers' basic rights and endangering their families health and their own. Allegedly, the banana firm has carelessly exposed laborers at the Coyol plantation in Costa Rica to highly toxic pesticides on multiple occasions. Additionally, the human rights group accuses the company of using a private militia to intimidate workers. Finally, Peuples Solidaires claims that Chiquita, despite a regional agreement between the company and local unions requiring prompt investigation of grievances, has ignored certain union complaints for more than a year.[4] Use in fictionSeveral authors have used the operations of the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) as inspiration for fiction works. The most important ones are One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, Green Pope by Miguel Angel Asturias, La Casa Grande by Alvaro Cepeda Samudio, and the poem "United Fruit Company" by Pablo Neruda included in his epic work Canto General. Garcia Marquez, Asturias, and Neruda were awarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature. According to some studies, the work Nostromo by Joseph Conrad was also inspired by the United Fruit Company. Another author in Costa Rica, Carlos Luis Fallas, wrote "Mamita Yunai[2]" (United=Yunai). References
Bibliography
See alsoExternal links
es:United Fruit Company eo:United Fruit Company eu:United Fruit Company fr:United Fruit Company it:Chiquita Brands International nl:United Fruit Company ja:ユナイテッド・フルーツ pl:United Fruit Company sv:Chiquita Brands International |
