need to add title here

The Price of Bananas

August 9, 2009 4:20 PM

Chiquita Brands International says it paid murderous paramilitaries in Colombia to protect its employees there, but families of civilians killed by paramilitaries fault the company for their deaths.

The Price Of Bananas
Add a Comment See all 16 Comments
by constitutionunderattack July 12, 2012 9:51 PM EDT
This is rediculous. This company gets fined for providing money to a terrorist organization. And the U.S. government provides money to terrorists all the time. And backs dictators with money around the world.

Hypocrites.
Reply to this comment
by c_kim January 4, 2012 11:32 PM EST
kudos to 60 minutes. I've been watching this company's stock since they announced a stock buy back program several months ago - this 60 minutes story was most enlightening - ...so you have to do a bit of reading between the lines ...whatever, still good stuff IMO (good stuff from all those that posted comments as well) ... all this reminds me of another tangled web: narco-terrorists/bankers/gold miners
Reply to this comment
by moh2o August 14, 2009 9:38 AM EDT
This is a cover up story. Notice how the involvement of the CIA is never mentioned. The black ops history of the CIA in central America is horrific.
Reply to this comment
by sameehebrahim August 14, 2009 12:09 AM EDT
watch aljazeera's peoples power report on chiquitas illegal payments to AUC..it was not paying the money to protect its employees as is usually claimed by multimillion giants who exploit poor countries.they paid the paramilitary to kill union leaders who askd 4 increase in wages or who even believed in marxist ideals..a paramilitary leader who ordered the murder of around 1000 people has confirmed this report.no wonder this channel got 23 emmy awards.its for these kindof reportings they do.the journalist either didnt investigate well or he was nt intrstd in bringin out the truth.he was just doin this story for the sake of doin a report on this incident coz evry other news org. was doin it.
Reply to this comment
by BFShields August 10, 2009 10:05 PM EDT
News of a US company having to pay for employee and/or business protection in a foreign country should not surprise anyone. In countries other than the US, this is a standard business practice.

I formerly worked for an automotive supplier to the Big 3 who was forced to open a plant in Mexico in order to keep their business. According to our state international representative at the time, we were expected to pay the local police for employee protection (which they said was against the law but you had to do it anyway), we would have to hire employees from a "union" group (and to pay the union for the privilege), and for our plant management we would have to house them in a gated community and pay for private schooling for their children in order to protect them. After setting up our facility in Mexico, in once instance, we had to pay the Mexican border officials a bribe in order to allow our product into their country.

Everyone knows what is going on, yet nothing happens until someone files a lawsuit. Then everyone is after everyone else. No one wins in this situation. And still the bribery will continue until the foreign governments put a halt to it or until the US companies stand up and say "no more."
Reply to this comment
by antilawyer August 10, 2009 8:06 PM EDT
I started watching your program last night on dvr and had to erase it it made me so mad to think a company here in this country could be sued for protecting it's employees from terrorist.If they would have hired mercenaries to kill the terrorist they would have been sued for killing freedom fighters.What else could chiquita do? And why isn't this lawyer locked up for economic terrorism? this makes me want to go out and buy bannanas and I'm alergic to them.
Reply to this comment
by scohen305 August 10, 2009 4:04 PM EDT
America and our global village require a total holistic makeover. We need to recreate government, money, and the control of weapons of destruction.
For furhter information log on to http://www.realworldnewworld.com and http://www.scohen305.blogspot.com
Reply to this comment
by justme1123 August 10, 2009 9:22 AM EDT
I realize that Americans are pretty uneducated about other countries but are there really that many people in our country that didn't know companies pay to do business in a lot of the other countries? Look at what's going on in Mexico. Do you really think the companies doing business there are not paying? The funny thing is it never occurred to me that these payouts were not "common knowledge".

To say it is about exploitation is silly. They paid the groups so that their employees would stop being murdered. And now they have other groups trying to jump on the bandwagon and get theirs out of the company as well.
Reply to this comment
by thurston2001 August 10, 2009 9:05 AM EDT
Corporate America acting without ethics or a soul in the name of greed. And this is suprising, why?
Reply to this comment
by Freedom_First August 10, 2009 12:27 AM EDT
The vast majority of violence in Columbia is a direct result
of the U.S. imposed war on drugs which is, in fact, a war
against human beings and their freedoms.
Reply to this comment
See all 16 Comments
Recent Segments

60MinutesOverTime

60 Minutes Overtime is a weekly web show that begins where the weekly television broadcast ends

  • 48 Hours iPad App

    Big changes for the 2012-2013 season! Watch the current week's episode for FREE up to a week after it airs or subscribe for access to all shows, classic episodes and more!