Colombian leader favors extraditing Chiquita execs

CNN ^ | 17 March 2007 | AP

[burzum]

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said Saturday he favored the extradition to his country of executives of U.S. banana producer Chiquita after the company's admission that it paid Colombian right-wing death squads more than $1.7 million.

"That would be normal. Extradition should be from here to there and from there to here," Uribe said.

Colombia's attorney general said he would ask the U.S. Department of Justice for full disclosure about the case and would investigate possible links to another case from 2001. In that case, weapons and ammunition were smuggled into Colombia through a port facility operated by Chiquita's Colombian subsidiary, Banadex.

The Justice Department alleges Banadex paid protection money to Communist guerrilla groups, namely the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN), between 1989 and 1997.

[burzum]

Chiquita is the successor to the much loathed United Fruit Company. I would like to see any executive who supported paying the protection money end up in a dirty Colombian prison. I will do my part by only buying fruit from Dole from now on.

[billorites]

I like Uribe.

He's as close as any of these Latin countries has to a straight arrow.

[mc6809e]

I would like to see any executive who supported paying the protection money end up in a dirty Colombian prison.

Would it have been much better for those executives to have been murdered?

[burzum]

Would it have been much better for those executives to have been murdered?

The executives bribed terrorist organizations! Consider if we had another US business bribing Al Qaeda so that they could do business in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Would you still use the excuse that it is OK since the executives had to pay the money to be able to do business and not be murdered?

The correct response for those executives in this case is to report the contacts to the federal government and reduce their business interests in an country that can't enforce its laws.

[snodog]

Would it have been much better for those executives to have been murdered?

They the executives were never in danger, they paid to protect thier workers.

[snodog]

Would it have been much better for those executives to have been murdered?

They the executives were never in danger, they paid to protect thier workers.

[Caipirabob]

I can understand the anger of the Colombian government. Each day these people are risking their lives and their families lives confronting and facing down the evil of these terrorist groups. Do not doubt it, these people are terrorists. My own family has been confronted by some of the leftist terrorists and my MIL has denied them money when they demanded it.

So when you have executives who are basically guests in the country simply pay these evil SOBs cash when you have so many brave patriots risking their lives, well, you're going to make enemies on the wrong side.

When you are a guest in such a country, you need to respect the agenda of the government. That agenda has been to face down the terrorists and starve them of cash, not pay them off.

When those executives accepted their jobs and their posts, this should have been the understanding. If nothing else, they should have consulted and worked with the government instead of funneling cash to the enemy.

Colombia and President Uribe are a good friend to our nation. More than people generally know. We need to stand by our friends, especially in Colombia.

That being said, AUC is killing off FARC and ELN members. Sounds kind of like a broken clock scenario in their case. Yet if they aren't a legitimate government entity they only weaken the nation as a whole. They need to be dismantled as any other terrorist group.