---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Editor's note; Stories pierce veil of
secrecy

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: Lawrence K. Beaupre
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Two thousand miles from its banana plantations in Central America,
Chiquita Brands International Inc. is one of Cincinnati's most
prominent corporations. It is also one of its most secretive.  

Controlled by financier Carl H. Lindner Jr., whose aversion to the
press is legendary, Chiquita nevertheless has been thrust
prominently into the public realm in recent years.  

As the stories on A1 and in this section describe, Chiquita is
involved in political, environmental, legal and labor controversies
in many parts of the world.  

A year ago, The Cincinnati Enquirer decided to look beyond the
company's press releases to gain a better understanding of how the
Cincinnati-based banana giant operates.  

Reporters Mike Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter undertook a wide-
ranging investigation into Chiquita's business practices. After
conducting scores of interviews in the United States and reviewing
numerous public and internal documents, Mr. Gallagher and Mr.
McWhirter traveled late last summer to Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama,
and the Caribbean islands of St. Lucia and Dominica. They also
traveled to Brussels, Antwerp, Vancouver, New York and Washington,
D.C.  

They spoke to a wide range of sources, including farm laborers and
managers, environmentalists, government officials, financial
experts, lawyers, professors and others.  

They interviewed numerous Chiquita executives, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Extensive
documentation also was provided by sources or obtained elsewhere.  

Those records included more than 2,000 copies of taped voice mail
messages. These were provided by a high-level source who was one of
several Chiquita executives with authority over the company's voice
mail system.  

The source also provided copies of the same tapes to the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission, which has launched its own
investigation into Chiquita.  

Chiquita executives often used voice mail as internal memoranda,
often "copying" other executives, sometimes as many as five or six,
with the same message. Many of the messages were highly detailed.  

Chiquita executives refused repeated requests for interviews.
Instead, they designated lawyers from the Washington, D.C., office
of Kirkland & Ellis to take questions and provide company answers in
writing. There was none of the give-and-take of a normal interview. 

Chiquita, through its lawyers, provided hundreds of pages of
comments and documents, though some of it was not responsive to the
actual question asked. In several cases, Chiquita chose not to
provide any response at all.  

We are confident that thorough reporting for more than a year has
resulted in an accurate and eye-opening portrait.  

Readers with information or comments may contact us by e-mail at
enterprise@enquirer.com or write to me at The Cincinnati Enquirer,
312 Elm St., Cincinnati, OH 45201.  

About the staff  

Mike Gallagher, 40, investigative reporter, joined the Enquirer in
1995. He reported and wrote the Enquirer's award-winning series in
1996 on problems with the cleanup of the uranium-processing plant at
Fernald. E-mail: 75057,3062@Compuserve.com  

Cameron McWhirter, 34, has been an investigative reporter with the
Enquirer since 1994. His award-winning projects have included an
examination of dangerous flaws in the nation's interstate  parole
system. In 1996, the newspaper sent him to Bosnia to report on the
war's impact. E-mail: cmcwhirter@enquirer.com  

David Wells, 46, local news editor at the Enquirer, has been with
the newspaper since 1974. He oversees the local news department and
personally directs the investigative team.  

Designed by Ron Huff and John Humenik. Graphics by Randy Mazzola.
Maps by Ron Cosby.  

All photographs in this report by Mike Gallagher, Cameron McWhirter
or taken from Enquirer files unless otherwise noted. Photo of Sam
Zemurray by Elliot Elisofen, Life Magazine, copyright Time, Inc.
Historic photos on C18 were taken from The Story of the Banana
(United Fruit Co., 1921).  

Due to production limitations, Spanish grammatical markers have not
been included in the text.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Enquirer investigation finds questionable
business practices, dangerous use of pesticides, fear among
plantation workers; Chiquita: An empire built on controversy

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: MIKE GALLAGHER AND CAMERON MCWHIRTER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

A year-long investigation by The Cincinnati Enquirer has found that
Chiquita Brands International Inc., the world's largest banana
company, is engaged in a range of questionable business practices.  

Chiquita, based in Cincinnati at 250 E. 5th St., has disputed
suggestions that any of its practices are improper.  

The Enquirer investigation took reporters to the sweltering lowlands
of Central America, where bananas are grown, as well as to Canada,
Belgium, New York and Washington. Findings are outlined in a special
18-page section in today's Enquirer.  

These findings include:  

Chiquita secretly controls dozens of supposedly independent banana
companies. It does so through elaborate business structures designed
to avoid restrictions on land ownership and national security laws
in Central American countries. The structures also are aimed at
limiting unions on its farms.  

Chiquita and its subsidiaries are engaged in pesticide practices
that threaten the health of workers and nearby residents, despite an
agreement with an environmental group to adhere to certain safety
standards.  

Despite that environmental agreement, Chiquita subsidiaries use
pesticides in Central America that are not allowed for use in either
the United States or Canada, or in one or more of the 15 countries
in the European Union.  

A worker on a Chiquita subsidiary farm died late last year after
exposure to toxic chemicals in a banana field, according to a local
coroner's report.  

Hundreds of people in a Costa Rican barrio have been exposed to a
toxic chemical emitting from the factory of a Chiquita subsidiary.  

Employees of Chiquita and a subsidiary were involved in a bribery
scheme in Colombia that has come to the attention of the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Two employees have been
forced to resign.  

Chiquita fruit-transport ships have been used to smuggle cocaine
into Europe. Authorities seized more than a ton of cocaine (worth up
to $33 million in its pure form) from seven Chiquita ships in 1997.
Although the company was unaware and did not approve of the illegal
shipments, problems were traced to lax security on its Colombian
docks.  

Security guards have used brute force to enforce their authority on
plantations operated or controlled by Chiquita. In an
internationally controversial case, Chiquita called in the Honduran
military to enforce a court order to evict residents of a farm
village; the village was bulldozed and villagers run out at
gunpoint. On a palm plantation controlled by a Chiquita subsidiary
in Honduras, a man was shot to death and another man injured by
guards using an illegal automatic weapon. An agent of a competitor
has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that armed men led by Chiquita
officials tried to kidnap him in Honduras. 

Chiquita Chairman and CEO Carl H. Lindner Jr., his family and
associates made legal but controversial contributions to political
figures at a time the company desperately sought U.S. backing in a
trade dispute over banana tariffs in Europe.  

In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita said the
company "has been an active and enthusiastic engine for a better 
way of life throughout the region (and) is a leader in preserving,
enhancing and cleaning the environment through Central America."  

Throughout its investigation, the Enquirer sought to meet with Mr.
Lindner and other Chiquita officials, including Keith Lindner, vice
chairman, and Steven G. Warshaw, president and chief operating
officer. They declined. Instead, the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis in
Washington, D.C., was hired to provide company responses to
reporters' questions. Chiquita, through its lawyers, provided
hundreds of pages of responses, although refusing to address some
questions and avoiding direct responses to others.  

Several high-level sources within Chiquita spoke with reporters on
the condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation. They also provided
extensive documents and other information including copies of more
than 2,000 taped voice mail messages recorded by Chiquita
executives.  

A high-level source told the Enquirer that he has also provided
copies of those tape recordings to SEC investigators. SEC sources
confirmed that they have the tapes and they are part of an
investigation into Chiquita's business practices. SEC and Chiquita
sources also confirmed that, in April, SEC investigators issued
multiple subpoenas to Chiquita for documents.  

Enquirer reporters spent a month in Central America and the
Caribbean late last summer, visiting plantations, government
offices, villages and university research centers. They personally
observed practices and spoke with residents, laborers, Chiquita
managers and government officials. They obtained hundreds of
internal and public documents and interviewed legal, financial and
environmental experts in Cincinnati, Brussels, Antwerp, New York,
Vancouver and Washington, D.C.  

Key figures in stories  

Baker, Lorenzo Dow - Massachusetts sea captain who helpd begin the
banana trade in 1870.  

Bakoczy, Alejandro - chief of security for Chiquita.  

Binard, Phillippe - delegate general of the European Community
Banana Trade Association.  

Birns, Larry - director of Council on Hemispheric Affairs. A
Chiquita critic.  

Black, Eli - owner of United Fruit Co., who in 1970 changed the
company's name to United Brands. Committed suicide in 1975 while the
company was under investigation for bribing Latin American
officials.  

Brester, Susan (Chappano) - Chiquita finance executive.  

Castejon, Amilcar - Honduran lawyer hired by Chiquita to oversee
payroll and personnel records of COBALISA, a farm service company.  

Castro Diaz, Josque Moises - A 21-year-old villager living amid the
San Alejo Plantation in Honduras. He was shot and killed by
plantation security guards.  

Coleridge, Ged - Chiquita executive in Belgium concerned with
shipping issues.  

Connoley Sevilla, John - former resident and schoolteacher in the
destroyed village of Tacamiche.  

Escobar Galeano, Carlos Guillermo - bodyguard of Otto Stalinski and
expected witness in his federal suit. He was shot to death near his
home in Honduras on March 24.  

Escobar, Renaldo - Chiquita lawyer in Colombia involved in alleged
bribery with Chiquita executive Douglas Walker.  

Flores Discua, Iris Gisela - a lawyer representing the guards and
Chiquita's Tela Railroad Co. in a shooting case on the San Alejo
plantation.  

Forton, Jorge - Chiquita executive in Medellin, Colombia, involved
in alleged bribery with Mr. Walker and Mr. Escobar.  

Gleason, Carolyn - Chiquita's trade attorney and registered lobbyist
in Washington, D.C.  

Hills, David - Chiquita lawyer.  

Holst, Eric - New York coordinator for the "Better Banana"
certification program of the Rainforest Alliance.  

Hughes, G. Philip - ambassador to the Windward Islands under the
Bush administration. Later a Chiquita consultant.  

Kistinger, Robert - Chiquita Banana Group president.  

Kondritzer, Gerald R. - Chiquita vice president and treasurer.  

Lindner, Carl H. Jr. - chairman and CEO of Chiquita Brands
International Inc.  

Lindner, Keith - Carl's son and vice chairman of Chiquita Brands
International Inc.  

Marquardt, Sandra - environmental consultant who formerly headed up
Greenpeace International efforts to ban U.S. export of pesticides.  

McBride, Ann - president of Common Cause.  

Mendoza, Jorge - an official of Chiquita Tela Railroad Co.
subsidiary in Honduras who was involved in the destruction of the
Tacamiche village.  

Moore, Robert - president of the International Banana Association, a
Washington, D.C., group that lobbies for the banana interests.  

Murray, Henry - former employee of Chiquita's Tela Railroad
subsidiary who is leasing Tacamiche banana land.  

Obregon, Jose - general manager of the supposedly independent
COBALISA, but carried on Tela payroll.  

Olson, Robert - senior vice president and general counsel for
Chiquita Brands International Inc.  

Ordman, John - Chiquita senior vice president of finance.  

Palma, Arnaldo - general manager of Chiquita's Honduran operations. 

Paz, Benjamin - Chiquita official.  

Ploughman, Dale - Chiquita executive in Antwerp, Belgium,
responsible for shipping issues.  

Raymer, Joel - Chiquita lawyer.  

Rodriguez, Eugene - Chiquita executive.  

Rodriguez, Manuel - Chiquita lawyer.  

Stalinski, Ernst "Otto" - former consultant for Fyffes, a Chiquita
competitor, who claims Chiquita agents tried to kidnap him in
Honduras in 1990. He has filed a federal suit in Cincinnati against
the company.  

Stephens, Clyde - retired chief of Chiquita Banana Research
division.  

Theodoredis, Roger - Chiquita executive in Cincinnati assigned to
investigate problems at the company Polymer subsidiary in Costa
Rica.  

Valerin Bustos, Greddy Mauricio - A worker killed by organophosphate
intoxication while working on a Costa Rican plantation controlled by
Chiquita.  

Veliz Tobar, Carlos Ermelindo - union official shot to death on
Sept. 30, 1994, on a Chiquita-controlled plantation in Guatemala.  

Walker, Douglas - Chiquita vice president of operations, fired for
participation in a Colombian bribery scheme.  

Warshaw, Steven G . - Chiquita Brands International Inc. president
and chief operating officer.  

Welsh, Magnes - Chiquita's director of investor relations.  

Zemurray, Sam "the Banana Man" - architect of the modern banana
industry.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Environment; "At first we had thought it
could be the solvent that people were smelling, but approximately 16
to 17 samples were taken outside of the plant for chlorpyrifos and
15 of them turned up positive in fairly high quantities." - Roger
Theodoredis, Chiquita executive assigned to investigate the Polymer
Plastipak problems; Smokestack emits toxins; 'We cry for our
children'

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: MIKE GALLAGHER AND CAMERON MCWHIRTER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

A Chiquita subsidiary is exposing more than 500 men, women and
children of Barrio Paris to a toxic chemical that the company knows
is spewing from a San Jose factory smokestack in high quantities,
internal company records reveal.  

Chiquita officials in Cincinnati have been aware of the problem for
several months, but their efforts to solve it have been
unsuccessful, according to company sources and internal voice-mail
messages provided the Enquirer by a high-level company source.  

The plant manufactures plastic bags impregnated with a pesticide
called chlorpyrifos. The bags are used to cover bananas ripening on
plants to protect them from insects. Community leaders and neighbors
in Barrio Paris have complained to the national health ministry that
fumes have caused residents - including children and pregnant women
- to suffer chronic respiratory problems, blistered skin and other
serious ailments.  

The U.S. EPA classifies chlorpyrifos as a highly-toxic pesticide
that is dangerous to humans if inhaled or if it comes into contact
with skin for a protracted period of time. According to the EPA,
universities and chemical manufacturers, chlorpyrifos can cause
delayed nerve damage, multiple sclerosis, loss of use of limbs, lung
congestion, paralysis, convulsions, dizziness, mental disorders,
blurred vision, chest pain, loss of reflexes and death.  

For years plant officials of the Chiquita subsidiary, Polymer
Plastipak, have denied those claims to Costa Rican health officials,
according to more than a dozen letters from company officials and
lawyers sent to the Ministry of Health since 1992. The company has
conceded only that the plant emits a "bad odor."  

Despite company claims that the fumes are harmless, a 1997 Costa
Rican national laboratory report asserted that the company
repeatedly failed to conduct government-mandated air tests to
determine whether the plant is discharging the pesticide into the
atmosphere and causing health problems for nearby residents.  

The report, translated for the Enquirer, also stated that the
company's use of chlorpyrifos results in "high risk for ... health
of the neighbors."  

"It is proven that extended exposure to this pesticide (especially
children and pregnant women)produces health problems to people," the
report said.  

The March 20, 1997, report was prepared by Defensoria de Los
Habitantes, a Costa Rican congressional agency created to ensure
that other government departments protect citizens on health,
environmental, and other issues.  

Testing at the plant, conducted by Chiquita after the Enquirer began
questioning company officials about the problem, revealed high
quantities of chlorpyrifos were being spewed into the air through
the plant's smokestack. The pesticide also is being released inside
the plant and into the atmosphere where the bags are cut and
separated, the Enquirer has learned.  

In an Oct. 3, 1997 voice-mail message to Robert Olson, Chiquita's
chief counsel in Cincinnati, Roger Theodoredis, a company executive
in Cincinnati assigned to investigate the Polymer problems,
confirmed that Polymer Plastipak was emitting chlorpyrifos into the
atmosphere in "high quantities."  

"At first we had thought it could be the solvent that people were
smelling, but approximately 16 to 17 samples were taken outside of
the plant for chlorpyrifos and 15 of them turned up positive in
fairly high quantities," Mr. Theodoredis said in the message.  

"I wanted to alert you to that. There appear to be two sources of
chlorpyrifos getting out into the atmosphere. One is the smokestack
which is part of the process. That is when the bags are formed in
the  extrusion process; heated exhaust air goes up the stack and
apparently there is chlorpyrifos going up the stack.  

"The second, unexpected source of chlorpyrifos is taking place in
another room of the factory in which the bags are cut. That cutting
of the bags is causing chlorpyrifos to be emitted," he added.  

A tape recording of the voice-mail message was provided to the
Enquirer by a company source who asked not to be identified because
of fear of retribution. In the message, Mr. Theodoredis also told
Mr. Olson of the long-standing problems between Polymer Plastipak
and the Costa Rican Ministry of Health over the toxic fumes issue.  

"There is a history of contention between the plant and the Ministry
of Health. On August 8th, for example, the Ministry of Health shut
down the Polymer (Plastipak) plant for about 12 hours due to the
smell issue. Currently the plant is working under a temporary
suspension of that shutdown order."  

Chiquita denied to the Enquirer that there is any threat to nearby
residents. In a statement issued through its lawyers, Chiquita made
no reference to any concerns about chlorpyrifos levels it or the
government may have had about Polymer:  

"Investigation by Chiquita and independent consultants (hired by the
company) confirms that the Plastipak plant does not pose a threat to
the surrounding community. Any concentrations of chlorpyrifos
measured at the surrounding residences fall well within the Average
Acceptable Ambient Air Concentrations used in the United States."  

Chiquita did not respond to Enquirer requests to provide the
newspaper with copies of its complete Polymer test results.  

Additionally, the letter said: "Any concentrations of pesticides
within the plant pose no health threat to workers."  

Chiquita officials refused to provide the Enquirer with any written
test results, reports or findings of its independent consultants who
performed the tests on the plant's emissions.  

And according to Defensoria and Health Ministry officials, neither
Chiquita nor its  Plastipak company executives have submitted  the
written findings of its consultants' plant emission testings to them
for review.  

Residents of Barrio Paris described for the Enquirer health problems
they attribute to the Polymer Plastipak plant and their fears for
their children's health.  

"We have a very huge problem here," Blanca Brenes Morales, 62,
president of the Barrio Paris Neighborhood Association, said through
a translator. "They (Polymer) use a chemical that goes right up into
the air and we breathe it. All of us knew when we moved  here that
we would live in an industrial area, but no one, not even the
government, knew or agreed that they could poison us with their
chemicals."  

Ms. Brenes said that whenever the fumes become heavy in the air, she
calls Polymer plant officials.  

"They always tell me they are just changing their filters," she
said.  

She said most of her fears center around the children in the
neighborhood. "We don't really know how this poison will affect us
in the future. We cry for our children."  

Ms. Brenes said she and many other residents of Barrio Paris are too
poor to leave their homes and wouldn't be able to find comparable,
affordable housing elsewhere.  

Criticisms in Defensoria's report were not only aimed only at
Polymer Plastipak.  

Defensoria repeatedly criticized offices of the Costa Rican
government's own Health Ministry for failing to conduct needed blood
tests of the Barrio Paris residents to monitor the harmful effects
of the chlorpyrifos.  

In 1993 the Health Ministry did take blood samples from the
residents after repeated complaints that fumes from the Polymer
Plastipak plant were making people ill. But necessary follow-up
tests to confirm the levels of pesticide in the residents'
bloodstreams never were taken because health ministry officials
cited a lack of manpower, according to the Defensoria report.  

Polymer Plastipak officials in Costa Rica declined requests for
interviews from Enquirer reporters.  

Since the 12-hour shutdown in August, Polymer and Chiquita officials
have failed to provide the Health Ministry any documented proof of
"substantive changes to either the mixture or its filtration system
that would prevent further harm to the company's own workers or the
residents who live near there," said Rodrigo Alberto Carazo, a
director in Defensoria.  

Mr. Carazo said that Polymer officials have for years not only
denied toxic fumes were affecting workers at the plant or nearby
residents, but also that the "non-harmful smell problem had not been
contained because of ongoing problems with a plant filtration
system."  

"That has been their excuse for many, many years," said Mr. Carazo.
"We've been receiving letters like that since at least 1993 or
1994."  

Plastipak's letters hold little sway with Gerardo Campos Cartin, 48,
who cites his own doctor's findings that he has been contaminated by
chlorpyrifos. Chiquita's plant in Barrio Paris is the only company 
in that section of the city using chlorpyrifos, according to Health
Ministry records.  

Walking out to a children's playground located directly behind the
Polymer plant, Mr. Campos talked of a respiratory disease he said
his doctor has linked to the plant's poisonous fumes.  

"It is so bad that many times I cannot breathe without help (from
drugs or a respirator)", Mr. Campos said through a translator. "When
the factory is running and the smokestack belches out those fumes, I
must run inside my house and hide under my bed. If I smell (the
fumes) at all I begin choking. My skin also turns red with rashes
and I become so sick I sometimes want to die."  

But Mr. Campos said his greatest fear is for Barrio Paris' children.

"Look at this playground right here by the plant," he said, pointing
to the swing set, teeter-totter, climbing bars and small basketball
court. "All the children play here. They have no place else to go." 

In another development, the Enquirer also has learned from company
sources that Chiquita plans to sell its Polymer operations. When
asked through its attorneys about the plans, Chiquita officials did
not respond.  

In internal company voice-mail messages obtained by the Enquirer
from a high-level company source, several Chiquita executives and
lawyers discuss plans to sell its Polymer operations, including the
Plastipak plant in Costa Rica.  

"We don't really know how this poison will affect us in the future."
- Blanca Brenes Morales, 62  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Environment; "The one thing that (the
Enquirer) asked me that I hedged on was how much did Chiquita pay
you, CI (Conservation International), to do this study. I said I'll
have to check, even though I actually know... I don't feel that it's
really any of his (the reporter's) business." -- James Nations,
Conservation International; Some pesticides highly toxic

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Chiquita uses products with low EPA toxicity classification for
mammalian and aquatic life," the company stated to the Enquirer
through its attorneys. However, the Enquirer found numerous examples
on Chiquita's own list of approved pesticides of products that have
been designated by U.S. government agencies as possibly cancerous to
humans, or toxic to animals or fish.  

Those pesticides, all used by Chiquita and its subsidiaries in
aerial spraying in Latin America, include:  

Propiconazole, sold as Tilt: Propiconazole has been classified by
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a "possible human
carcinogen." According to published documents by the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, Forest Service, the pesticide "can cause skin
irritation and substantial, but temporary, eye irritation.  The
petroleum solvent in some formulations can cause a chemical
pneumonitis (lung complications) if breathed into the lungs.  

Prolonged inhalation of vapors may irritate throat and nasal
passages and cause central nervous system effects, which can include
headache, dizziness, confusion, and nausea. If swallowed, abdominal
pain, nausea, gastritis, breathing difficulty, or diarrhea can
occur."  

The department recommends workers exposed to the chemical wash hands
"before eating, drinking, chewing gum, using tobacco or using the
toilet. Do not get in eyes, on skin, or on clothing. To avoid
breathing vapor or spray mist, wear a NIOSH(National Institute of
Occupational Safety and Health)-approved organic cartridge
respirator"  

Azoxystrobin, sold as Bankit: The EPA has ruled this new product is
"highly toxic to freshwater fish and invertebrates, highly toxic to
estuarine - marine fish, and very highly toxic to estuarine - marine
invertebrates."  

The product labels, observed in Chiquita storage facilities in
southeastern Costa Rica, read clearly "MARINE POLLUTANT" and bear a
symbol of a fish with an "X" through it.  

Benomyl, sold as Benlate: This pesticide, classified by the EPA as
possibly cancer-causing for humans, has been in wide use in the
United States and around the world for years. But the pesticide has
come under increasing attack from people who claim it has harmed
them.  

In 1989 and 1991, manufacturer E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company,
known as DuPont, recalled a dry version of the pesticide, Benlate 50
DF, after American farmers reported severe crop damage after using
the product. The company faced several lawsuits in Texas, Hawaii,
Florida and other states. In 1996, a Florida jury awarded $4 million
to John Castillo, a boy born with no eyes. His mother, while
pregnant with him, was accidentally drenched in the pesticide on a
Florida farm. The jury found both DuPont and the farm negligent.
That farm was not connected to Chiquita and did not grow bananas.
Chiquita uses the wet, soluble version of the pesticide. 

Thiophanate-Methyl, sold as Topsin: The U.S. Department of
Agriculture found the pesticide to be moderately to highly toxic for
various types of fish. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has found
that the pesticide is hazardous to 10 endangered species in the
United States.  

The pesticide was listed as a possible carcinogen for humans,
according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It was also found
to damage the thyroid gland. The department has ruled that people
not wearing protective equipment cannot return to a field sprayed
with thiophanate-methyl for at least 12 hours.  

Tridemorph, sold as Calixin: Tridemorph is a hazard to fish,
according to the EPA.  

Mancozeb, sold as Dithane: Mancozeb is "moderately to highly toxic
to fish and aquatic invertebrate animals," according to the Forest
Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The department
recommends "Do not apply when weather conditions favor drift (wind
carrying pesticides away) from treated areas. Do not apply in a way
that will contact workers or other persons, either directly or
through drift. Drift and runoff may be hazardous to aquatic
organisms in neighboring areas."  

The department recommends that workers not enter treated areas for
24 hours after spraying.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Environment; "They don't want us doing
any research. For example, water pollution. It is better (for a
company) to suspect that the water is polluted than to know that the
water is polluted." - Professor Luisa Castillo, Costa Rica's
National University Pesticide Program; Industry resists curbs, but
bananas safe

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Commercial banana growers like Chiquita use numerous pesticides to
combat fungus, insects and other pests that could destroy the fruit.
And they use those pesticides often.  

The reason is simple. Bananas sold in the United States or Europe
are almost all one type: the Gran Cavendish, the large banana that
consumers have grown to expect. On miles of plantations from
Guatemala in Central America to Ecuador thousands of miles to the
south, the fruit is genetically identical.  

Because the tropical plants are planted in close proximity and come
from the same genetic source - a system known as "monoculture"
farming - an outbreak of pests, fungi or disease can quickly wipe
out a plantation.  

It would be as if scientists cloned one person who was likely to get
a disease. If that person got the disease, soon all of the clones
would catch it as well, unless they were given massive amounts of
medicine. In the case of bananas, you use pesticides.  

"You're creating an extremely artificial situation. You're creating
a situation that is ripe for some kind of a pest or fungal problem
to sweep your plantation," said Dr. Thomas Lacher, Jr., an associate
professor at Texas A&M's Department Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences
and co-author of a recent article on risks to the environment by the
banana industry.  

He said the multinational companies, including Chiquita, use
pesticides now that are dangerous and toxic or "pretty hot" when
applied.  

But these pesticides don't just go on the plants. Applied by air or
by workers with backpack sprayers, pesticides drift through the air.
They get into the soil and onto workers, villagers and animals.  

Scientists and environmentalists stress that the industry's
pesticide problem is not endangering the consumer, but endangering
the workers and villagers where the bananas are grown.  

"What makes you ill or can even kill you as a worker may not affect
you as a consumer," according to Colorado State University Professor
Douglas Murray, author of Cultivating Crisis: The Human Cost of
Pesticides in Latin America.  

Over the decades, the banana industry has faced a series of problems
related to the use of pesticides. One of the most highly publicized
cases involved Dibromochloropropane, known by the acronym DBCP,
which was widely used in the 1970s to combat tiny parasitic worms
that attack the roots of the banana plant.  

DBCP, through improper application and toxicity, allegedly caused
sterility in male workers, according to lawsuits filed in U.S.
courts. By 1997, more than 24,000 banana workers, mostly in Costa
Rica and many of them employees of Chiquita or its subsidiaries,
signed up for class action law suits against the manufacturer, Dow
Chemical, and users of the pesticide, including Chiquita.  

The lawsuits stated that many men had become sterile and medical
evidence linked their sterility to the pesticide. The companies,
including Chiquita, which said it used the chemical only in the
early to mid-1970s, have fought efforts to get the case tried in a
U.S. jurisdiction. In June, Dow Chemical offered $22 million in a
global settlement - which worked out to a few hundred dollars per
worker.  

"We continue to dispute our liability," Dow Chemical spokesman Dan
Fellner told the Enquirer. "Unfortunately, many of the users and
purchasers of DBCP did not read the labels or follow the
instructions."  

The plaintiffs accepted the offer from Dow, but cases  against the
banana companies are pending.  

"If we ever get in a courtroom, we'll kill them," said one of the
plaintiff attorneys, Charles Siegal of Dallas.  

In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita did not
mention litigation but stated it stopped using DBCP in 1977, "two
years before the EPA banned DBCP in 1979."  

EPA records show it ordered DBCP phased out for use in the United
States in 1977. The product was banned in Costa Rica in 1978. The
EPA ordered a complete ban on the product in 1979, meaning any
product that tests positive for even a trace of the pesticide may
not be brought into the United States.  

As consumer consciousness about pesticide use increased over the
years, the banana industry changed pesticides when problems were
brought to the public's attention in North America and Europe.  

For example, in 1990, the pesticide Aldicarb was banned by the EPA
after levels above EPA safety guidelines were found in potatoes
being brought to market. Later, excess levels were found by FDA
checks of some bananas coming to American ports. Quickly, the
pesticide was dropped by the entire banana industry.  

Professor Luisa Castillo, head of the National University's
Pesticide Program in Costa Rica, said she and other scientists had
complained about Aldicarb to banana growers for years, with little
result. Chiquita stated that it used the pesticide for only one
year.  

"Aldicarb was very popular, but it was causing a very high number of
pesticide poisonings to workers, and it was also causing fish kills
and other problems here," she said. "We had already pointed out this
problem with Aldicarb, but nothing had been done. It was only in the
moment that the residue appeared in the fruit that immediately they
(growers) stopped using Aldicarb."  

Industry supporters said that banana companies don't misuse
pesticides.  

"Pesticides are very expensive, so you only use them if you
absolutely have to," said Robert Moore, president of the
International Banana Association (IBA), a Washington D.C.-based
group working for the interests of the American banana industry.  

Since the Aldicarb scare, the banana industry has met safety
standards for U.S. Food and Drug Administration spot checks at the
ports. According to FDA reports, administration tests from 1992 to
1994 showed traces of pesticides in the bananas sampled but rarely
in unsafe amounts. The FDA checks only a fraction of the bananas
brought into the United States. In 1996, it conducted tests on fewer
than 800 shipments. During the same period, tens of thousands of
shipments brought more than 22.3 billion bananas into the country,
according to the IBA.  

Polly Hoppin, director of agricultural pollution prevention at the
World Wildlife Fund and an expert on pesticides said the FDA checks
don't reveal much about what is going on at the plantations.  

Professor Scott Witter at Michigan State University's Institute of
International Agriculture said that most pesticides applied these
days may show up in FDA banana sampling, but virtually always within
safe amounts for consumers. But for the thousands of people working
on or living near the banana plantations, pesticides threaten  their
health.  

"The people who tend to take it on the nose are the Costa Ricans or
the Hondurans or the Ecuadoreans who work on the plantations when
they are doing the spraying," he said. "They're in the field. Their
water supplies get contaminated. Their kids play in the dirt that's
contaminated that day. I've yet to witness a really wonderful
program where they say, OK, we're spraying today, everybody needs to
stay inside."  

Chiquita, through its lawyers, has stated that "There is no soil
contamination problem on Chiquita farms."  

Scientists complain that figuring out how exactly pesticides are
affecting people and the environment on banana plantations is
extremely difficult, because gathering any hard data is constantly
resisted by banana companies.  

"They don't want us doing any research," said Professor Castillo at
the Pesticide Program. "For example, water pollution. It is better
(for a company) to suspect that the water is polluted than to know
that the water is polluted."  

The large banana companies resist independent scientific studies on
their plantations, because they don't want the public to know, she
contended.  

"They are always saying that hard data can affect them in the
international market," Professor Castillo said. "So if it is known
that there are pollution and health problems, then people won't want
to buy the product. From our point of view, we feel we have to know
the situation in order to change it and that we hope that the  more
educated consumer will change things."  

Professor Lacher at Texas A&M said he and his co-authors on his
recent paper about agrochemicals in the banana industry tried to get
the multinational companies to cooperate, but could not get anyone
to talk with them.  

"We didn't publish the industry perspective, but you can't get
access to industry information," said Mr. Lacher. "If everything  is
proprietary, there's nothing we can do about it."  

Mr. Lacher said the industry is defensive on the pesticide issue.  

"Nobody's saying you shouldn't grow bananas," he said. "Nobody's
saying you shouldn't apply chemicals. But what you need to do is
look at what the major sources of risks are."  

Scientists aren't the only ones feeling a cold shoulder.  

Several years ago, the Intergovernmental Group on Bananas of the
United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization set up a special
committee called the Banana Improvement Project. In a 1995 report,
project officials stated that they hoped the major companies would
provide the project with money and technical assistance to tackle
difficult problems facing banana production, including Black
Sigatoka - the destructive, airborne disease that threatens the
entire banana industry and has led major companies to increase
aerial spraying on their farms.  

At the Intergovernmental group's meeting in Rome last May, the
Banana Improvement Project wrote its own epitaph in the meeting
report.  

"The lack of financial support from the banana industry is
surprising and extremely disappointing," the report read.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Environment; 'Better banana' program
under attack

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Despite Chiquita's promotion of the ECO-OK - "Better Banana"
certification, the program has come under increasing attack for what
has been perceived by some environmentalists and scientists as a
sell-out to corporate interests.  

Chiquita quickly became a major force in the program, as the only
major banana producer to participate. While the Rainforest Alliance
has continued to try and present the program as open to everyone,
Chiquita's participation overshadows all others, according to
scientists, environmentalists and former employees of Chiquita.  

In material and advertisements in the United States and Europe,
Chiquita has been quick to use its Rainforest Alliance certification
to link its products to environmental safety. Of the 81 farms
certified on the program worldwide by January 1998, 74 - 91 percent
- were directly owned Chiquita subsidiaries.  

Connie Smith, who was Chiquita's Central American environmental
coordinator before leaving her post in 1996, said the certification
program ran into problems because banana companies were too
competitive to cooperate. Once Chiquita began to dominate the
program, the two other large companies, Dole and Del Monte, lost
interest in the idea.  

"It all started out on good intentions," said Ms. Smith, who lives
with her family in San Jose, Costa Rica. "It was going to be an
industry-wide voluntary program....But (the banana multinationals)
are big competitors....The ECO-OK became an issue of competition- If
we get the certification and they don't that will differentiate (our
bananas).' That should never have happened."  

The program was orginally called "ECO-O.K.," but the alliance later
changed the name to "Better Banana."  

Ms. Smith said the connection today between Chiquita and the
Rainforest Alliance "does have a tendency to make people wonder"
about the program's validity. She said "the program needs to be re-
evaluated."  

Eric Holst, coordinator of the Rainforest Alliance's "Better Banana"
program in New York, said the alliance receives no donations from
Chiquita, but it does accept corporate donations from other
companies that it is not certifying. It does charge a fee for
certification. The money is paid directly to its Costa Rican
partner,  Fundacion Ambio, the group that performs the inspections
on Chiquita subsidiary farms.  

Mr. Holst said Fundacion Ambio conducts scheduled inspections on
farms once a year in Costa Rica and Panama. Mr. Holst said the group
reserves the right to conduct spot checks and conducts between one
and 10 a year. No certified plantation ever has had its
certification revoked for violations. Violations are usually not
written up and are not made public, Mr. Holst said.  

If inspectors find violations, plantation managers are notified and
asked to correct the problem. Specific information about the
inspections or any violations is proprietary and not available to
the public, Mr. Holst said.  

This fiscal year, Fundacion Ambio has a budget of $312,000,
according to Mr. Holst. About 25 percent of that budget comes from
Chiquita's fee payments, he said.  

Mr. Holst said all of Chiquita's subsidiary farms in Costa Rica are
certified under the Rainforest Alliance's program. Those
certifications do not include many associate farms that sell fruit
to Chiquita. In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita
stated that as contracts are renewed,  it is asking associate farms
to apply for certification with the alliance. About half of
Chiquita's subsidiary plantations in Panama are certified. Thirteen
Chiquita subsidiary farms in Colombia have also been certified.  

None of Chiquita's subsidiary farms, or the farms of its associate
growers, in Honduras, Guatemala or Ecuador are certified yet,
because the program was first tested in Costa Rica. Chiquita has
publicly committed to bringing all of its plantations into the
"Better Banana" program by 1999. Rainforest Alliance officials said
they are lining up local environmental groups in those countries  to
begin inspections.  

In 1996, Chiquita paid the Washington-based environmental group
Conservation International to send a team of eight environmental
experts to visit its certified farms in Costa Rica and Panama.  

In response to questions by the Enquirer, Conservation International
issued a two-page letter to Chiquita, which was then forwarded to
the Enquirer. It declared Chiquita's environmental efforts as "an
innovative system that looks for environmental improvements in the
effects of monocultures (single-crop farms), serves as a guide for
the establishment of environmental measures, and promotes  gradual
changes in land use practices. This program should be continued and
supported for its goals."  

James Nations, vice president of Mexico and Central America Programs
for Conservation International who led the Chiquita- commissioned
study, told the Enquirer that he found the certification "very
positive" and "a very above-board system."  

After the discussion with the Enquirer, Mr. Nations called Magnes
Welsh, Chiquita's director of investor relations, according to Nov.
13 tape-recorded voice mail-message provided to the Enquirer through
a company source.  

He told Ms. Welsh that "I gave (the reporter) a very positive
story."  

"The one thing that (the Enquirer) asked me that I hedged on was how
much did Chiquita pay you, CI, to do this study," Mr. Nations told
Ms. Welsh. "I said I'll have to check, even though I actually know.
Now, I want to know from you, and also I'm going to ask people here,
Pete and Karen (CI staffers), what they think about this idea of
actually releasing that information. Because I don't feel that it's
really any of his (the reporter's) business. So let me know what you
think about that."  

Mr. Nations did not return follow-up calls from the Enquirer.  

Chiquita does support other environmental work outside of the
"Better Banana" program.  For example, the company is funding the
nonprofit organization Amigos de Las Aves (Friends of the Birds),  a
group run by two expatriate Americans who work to raise macaws in
captivity and then release them into the wild.  

The group stated in an e-mail response to the Enquirer that it
received about $20,000 so far from Chiquita, as well as weekly free
bananas to feed their birds.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Environment; Death on farm shows danger

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Pesticides can kill more than pests.  

Take Greddy Mauricio Valerin Bustos, a worker on Plantation 96, a
farm in Costa Rica owned by Chiquita's subsidiary, the Chiriqui 
Land Company.  

On the morning of Nov. 13, 1997, the 18-year-old had been working
since 5 a.m. collecting "piola," the thin rope used to support the
banana plants. At about 7:30 a.m., according to the police, he was
found writhing on the ground, choking and vomiting up a white
substance. He was dead by 9:17 a.m.  

Police investigators interviewed one of the co-workers who brought
his body to the medical clinic.  

"He was working in an area called Los 50s, that had been sprayed
with the agrochemical Counter (the brand name for the pesticide
terbufos, an organ-ophosphate) three days ago," Miguel Herra Miranda
told police, according to a translation of the investigation report.
"He (Mr. Valerin) didn't have any experience in this kind of job and
he wasn't using any protective gear like gloves and mask either."  

The autopsy report, obtained by the Enquirer, determined that Mr.
Valerin died from intoxication from organophosphates, which caused
internal bleeding and brain damage.  

Chiquita, in a statement through its lawyers, said the company
acknowledged that the Costa Rican government coroner declared the
cause of death to be organophosphate poisoning. The company also
stated it operated the farm safely and the death was "an isolated
incident."  

"Although Chiquita has attempted to understand the details
surrounding Mr. Valerin's collapse, Chiquita is unable to explain
(and will not speculate) how Mr. Valerin might have died," Chiquita
stated.  

Under an agreement with the New York-based environmental group the
Rainforest Alliance, Plantation 96 is certified under the "Better
Banana" program to meet certain environmental and worker safety
guidelines. But often problems can be hard to detect because the
program requires inspectors visit plantations only once a year, with
possible spot checks afterward, said Eric Holst, New York
coordinator of the "Better Banana" program.  

"That's one of the weaknesses of certification. You can't be there
every day," Mr. Holst said.  

As a rule, Chiquita and its subsidiaries do not provide protective
gear for workers unless those workers are directly involved in the
application or storage of pesticides. The vast majority receive no
protective clothing, though they are exposed to pesticides in their
work on the plantations.  

Carl Smith, publications director and an expert on pesticide exports
at the Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education (FASE)
in Los Angeles, said the use of many pesticides like terbufos are
legal in the United States but only under strict safety regulations.
When these chemicals are exported to Central America, where worker
safety and environmental laws are less stringent, the result can be
dangerous for the workers and the environment.  

"When you look at conditions of use in areas like Central America,
there are a lot of compounds that are awful dangerous," he said.
"It's one thing if a guy is wearing a full moon suit with a
respirator and gloves. It's another thing if teenagers are walking
around the stuff with no shirt."  

Nearby Plantation 96 is Plantation O3, a farm that has an exclusive
contract to sell bananas to Chiquita. Like other farms in the area,
the farm, owned by Proyecto Agroindustrial de Sixaola, S.A, (PAIS),
ships bananas with Chiquita labels and in Chiquita boxes. The
plantation grows bananas only for Chiquita and to contractual
specifications set by Chiquita.  

In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita said it was
not responsible for anything that happened on the farm, but said it
does exert pressure in its contracts to monitor safety and
environmental standards.  

"Chiquita - although it is not in any way required to do so - is
insisting that independent growers adopt Chiquita's own strict
environmental standards and practices if they want to renew
contractual relations with the company," the company stated.  

On the farm, Enquirer reporters saw a work team applying terbufos, a
nematicide classified as extremely hazardous to humans by the World
Health Organization. Terbufos is under "restricted use" in the
United States by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  

Nematicides are pesticides used to kill nematodes, tiny worm
parasites that can destroy a crop's roots. According to EPA
guidelines, once the pesticide is put on the ground, no one should
be allowed in the area for at least 24 hours unless wearing
protective clothing and a respirator.  

Children playing  

But with the air thick with the heavy smell of pesticides, the
Enquirer team observed children from the nearby village playing in
the area amid open bags of terbufos and plants just treated with the
pesticide. No warning signs were posted and no workers tried to stop
the children from playing in the area or passing through. The
Enquirer saw signs with a warning in Spanish, "DANGER, nematicide
application in this area," leaning against the wall of a packing
plant about a mile away.  

When asked about Plantation 03, and PAIS, Chiquita issued a
statement through its attorneys declaring "The Pais farm is owned
and operated by a Costa Rican quasi-governmental institution.
Chiquita does not own or operate the farm. What the Enquirer says it
observed at Pais should not have happened."  

The company stated that it has since renegotiated its contract with
the owners of PAIS and requires the company to adhere to Chiquita
standard operating procedures regarding environmental safety.  

Enquirer reporters also observed pesticide workers at Finca O3
taking off their masks because of the stifling heat. Mr. Smith of
FASE said the protective clothing is a fundamental problem in
tropical agricultural, which neither "Better Banana" nor any other
program has solved.  

He said the limited safety equipment that has been created for these
materials is often heavy rubber, suitable for northern, colder
climates. In the tropics, a mask, rubber gloves, a rubber apron,
rubber boots, long pants and a sweatshirt make for incredibly
uncomfortable work days on a sweltering plantation. Such heavy
clothing itself could be unsafe because of the danger of heat
exhaustion, Mr. Smith said.  

"The equipment doesn't even exist that is suitable for tropical
climates," he said.  

Even workers who wear protective clothing properly are not safe,
workers told the Enquirer. On Cocobola plantation, owned by one of
Chiquita's Costa Rican subsidiaries - Compania Bananera Atlantica
Ltda. (COBAL) - in northeast Costa Rica, pesticide worker Emilio
Colero, 41, told Enquirer reporters that he was concerned about his
health.  

He was issued protective clothing when he applied the ground
pesticides. But he said through a translator that "when I bend over,
some of the herbicide liquid gets on my neck. I get a rash every
time until I take a shower."  

Mr. Colero said his wife is constantly concerned about him, but he
works in pesticides because the pay is better than other field 
jobs. He makes 680 Costa Rican colones per hectare, and sprays about
three or four hectares a day. That salary is about $15 a day.  

Through its attorneys, the company issued a written statement that
Chiquita strictly adheres to safety recommendations of the
pesticides that it uses. The company said also that it has reduced
its use of nematicides like terbufos by more than 50 percent since
1995, "demonstrating its continuing commitment to minimizing the
environmental impact of its farming operations."  

New chemicals applied  

Another problem is at Chiquita packing plants and those of
affiliates, where the bananas are brought to be boxed before
shipment. In these processing centers, the bananas are washed of
chemicals that have been applied in the fields.  

After this washing process, the bananas then are sprayed with new
chemicals, either thiabendazole or imazalil or both, to keep the
fruit from rotting. As Chiquita boxes state clearly, "Thiabendazole
and - or Imazalil applied to fruit to preserve quality in transit." 

Workers then pick up these pesticide-covered bananas, usually with
their bare hands, and place them in boxes for shipment. Scientists,
union officials and workers told reporters of rashes on the arms of
women in the packing houses.  

Chemical runoff from washed bananas and newly applied pesticides
also flows into water passing through plant operations and back into
irrigation canals. Those canals then flow into nearby rivers.  

Chiquita stated through its attorneys that it has conducted
comprehensive tests of water running off its farms and "Chiquita
never has detected a level of pesticides that posed any threat to
the environment or people."  

The Enquirer visited packing plants on certified plantations of
Chiquita's subsidiaries in Costa Rica. Most did not have containment
or treatment systems to remove chemicals from the water supply.
Almost none of the workers had gloves.  

Thiabendazole is a fungicide that the EPA has determined is harmful
to fish. According to the Pesticide Users' Health and Safety
Handbook, government laboratory studies have also pointed to the
fungicide as a possible cause of anemia and a possible
cancer-causing agent in mammals.  

Imazalil is classified as a moderately toxic compound by the
Extensions Toxicology Network, a cooperative information group on
pesticides set up by Cornell University and other universities and
funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  

According to a Network document, lab animals fed imazalil have
suffered symptoms including "muscle incoordination, reduced arterial
tension, tremors, and vomiting."  

Professor Luisa Castillo, who heads Costa Rica's National University
Pesticide Program, said the two chemicals are a major concern for
environmental scientists in Costa Rica. Scientists in her program
have conducted studies of rivers in national parks downstream from
banana plantations, some of which were operated by Chiquita.  

"We have found high levels of imazalil and thiabendazole in the
water, and we have also found toxicity (by those two pesticides)
toward aquatic organisms," Ms. Castillo said.  

Her program's studies have not pinpointed the specific source of
this pollution.  

She said one of the key components of any sincere attempt to improve
the environment would be to stop those chemicals from getting into
the water supply.  

"I would immediately put water treatment plants in the packing
plants and not allow that water to flow into the natural courses of
water because it is quite polluted," Ms. Castillo said.  

In a statement issued through its lawyers, Chiquita stated that it
has spent at least $3.3 million installing special chambers at its
packing plants to apply thiabendazole or imazalil to the bananas,
reducing the amount of these pesticides used and the amount to which
workers are exposed. The company stated that it has installed these
chambers on a number of its farms.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Environment; Industry attacks report
critical of farm growth

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

A report critical of banana farm expansion for causing environmental
and social problems at the beginning of this decade was kept from
the public for years by the Costa Rican environmental ministry -
after the banana industry, including Chiquita, attacked the study.  

Now that the report has been released, banana plantation owners
continue to criticize the internationally-respected group that wrote
it.  

In the early 1990s, almost 100 square miles of Costa Rican grazing
land and forests in the northeastern section of the country were
bought by banana companies like Chiquita and turned into banana
fields. According to Costa Rican government statistics, 70,740 acres
were in banana production nationwide in 1990. By 1995, that number
had jumped to 131,117.5 acres, an increase of more than 85 percent. 

A Catholic bishop near the region, labor leaders and
conservationists publicly expressed concerns about the expansion's
effect on the environment and the treatment of workers. In response,
the Costa Rican ministry for environmental affairs commissioned a
report on the banana industry from the Central American office of
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in
1991. The IUCN, one of the oldest international conservation groups,
runs conservation projects  around the world and counts agencies of
74 governments as members, including the United States, Panama,
Japan and the United Kingdom. 

The 129-page report - parts of which were leaked in 1993 - discussed
various problems caused by an increase in banana cultivation.  

Deforestation  

One of the biggest problems cited was deforestation. The huge
increase meant the loss of thousands of acres of cattle farms and
more than 13 square miles of primary rain forest, according to the
report.  

Another issue was that the increase in banana plantations led to a
dramatic rise in pesticide use in an area permeated by rivers and
creeks that flow into the Caribbean, according to the report. The
new plantations also were located near many sensitive forest
preserves and conservation areas. Environmentalists were concerned
about pollution from pesticides causing fish kills and other
environmental problems, the report said.  

The report also dealt with unemployment prompted by the expansion.
While workers were brought in initially to build the plantations,
many were fired afterward because it took fewer people to maintain
the farms. As a result, many people moving to a remote area of the
country found themselves unemployed.  

Goal was awareness  

The goal of the report was to raise awareness of  these issues among
government officials, the public and the banana industry leaders.  

"What we would like to see is a more environmentally and socially
aware banana industry," Enrique Lahmann, regional director of the
IUCN, said.  

But the public didn't get to see the report for years. When some
draft findings were leaked, the banana companies declared open
opposition and set up their own commission, Comision Ambiental
Bananera, to coordinate the industry's response.A new administration
came into office in 1996 and the report was released in early 1997. 

Asked if the government endorsed the report, the Costa Rican embassy
in Washington D.C. sent the Enquirer an old press release from
CORBANA, a state-owned banana company, condemning the report. Asked
if that represented the government's position, the Costa Rican
embassy referred all questions to MINAE, Costa Rica's environmental
department. That agency did not respond to repeated phone calls, e-
mails and fascimile transmissions.  

In its 1997 official statement on the final IUCN report, the
commission reiterated its longstanding recommendation that "the
(environmental) minister must not endorse the diagnostic report as
an updated document" and suggested that it only be considered "an
historical document" (translation). If the document was not
considered updated, it could not be considered by the environmental
ministry in its policy decisions as relevant to the banana industry
today, the statement said.  

Mr. Lahmann said powerful American banana interests have operated in
Costa Rica for more than 100 years, and their political influence
was applied to hold the report for years.  

"There is no question that the banana industry has a lot of weight
in national politics in Costa Rica," Mr. Lahmann said.  

Chiquita officials refused to be interviewed by the Enquirer about
this project, including the IUCN report. Through attorneys the
company released a statement that it never tried to keep the report
from the public. The statement condemned the IUCN report as
"unbalanced" and "not based on scientific method but, instead,
solely on casual observation."  

The research team was comprised of 16 scientific and academic teams
looking at different aspects of the expansion like pesticide use,
agro-ecology, legal issues, social impact, refuse, economics and
forestry. The "environmental diagnostic" included analysis of high-
grade maps of the region as well as satellite photographs.  

Visited region  

The teams made numerous visits to the region to interview workers,
conservation groups, medical personnel, local government officials,
health ministry officials and environment ministry officials. The
teams also held numerous talks with administrators from all the
major multinational companies, including Chiquita's main Costa Rican
subsidiary, Compania Bananera Atlantica Ltda. (COBAL).  

"I don't think that it is unscientific. Well-known professionals
participated in the report," said the IUCN's Mr. Lahmann, who has a
Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of Miami and who is an
expert in wetlands pollution.  

Mr. Lahmann said that while the IUCN came under a lot of criticism
from the banana companies, the report helped raise awareness of
environmental issues in Costa Rica.  

"I wonder if that would have happened without this report," he said.
Chiquita dismissed the IUCN as "a confederation of environmental
interest groups."  

The IUCN is a federation of conservation groups and government
agencies with several important U.S. institutions as official
members. These members include the U.S. State Department's Bureau of
Oceans, International Environment and Scientific Affairs, the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Forest Service and the Nature Conservancy.  

Conservation International, which Chiquita itself described as a
"highly respected independent environmental organization" when it
paid the organization last year to critique the company's own
environmental program, also is a member.  

Chiquita also said the IUCN would not endorse the report. Mr.
Lahmann said preliminary drafts carried a label that the opinions
expressed in the report were those of the consultants during
discussion. Once the environment ministry officially released the
report this year, it was endorsed publicly by the IUCN, according to
Mr. Lahmann.  

Report suppressed  

While Chiquita stated that it had nothing to do with keeping the
IUCN report from the public, the company has kept an environmental
report in Honduras from public review.  

In 1995, the Honduran Centro de Estudios y Control de Contaminantes
(the Center for the Study and Control of Contaminants) audited the
banana industry throughout Honduras, including Chiquita plantations.
Dr. Luis Munguia Guerrero, CESCCO's director, said the audit found
serious problems on Chiquita's farms, but he said he could not
release the report because of a confidentiality agreement signed
with the company. He said, however, that Chiquita could release it
if it chose. The Enquirer asked Chiquita to see the report.  

The company declined to release it. In a response issued through its
attorneys, it stated that "CESCCO conducted an initial audit of the
banana industry in 1995, identifying several general areas in which
improvement was needed ... For its part, Chiquita has taken
affirmative steps to address issues raised in the 1995 CESCCO
report."  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Environment; Unregistered toxins used
despite claims

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Chiquita's environmental partner, the Rainforest Alliance, claims
that Chiquita's  "Better Banana" certified farms "only use products
that are registered for use in the United States, Canada  and
Europe," according to the alliance's "General Production Standards"
and agreed to by Chiquita.  

But the Enquirer found that Chiquita systematically uses chemical
products on its certified farms that are not registered for use,
meaning they are not allowed to be used, in the United States,
Canada or one or more countries of the European Union.  

These pesticides include:  

Bitertanol, sold as Baycor: In documents provided to the Enquirer,
Chiquita stated that it has used this product since 1993. According
to documents provided to the Enquirer by the manufacturer -  the
Bayer Corporation - the pesticide is not, and never has been,
registered for use in the United States. U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) spokesman Albert Heier confirmed that
bitertanol is not approved for use in the United States on bananas
or any other crop. The  pesticides' full impact on people or the
environment is not known at this time because the EPA has not
conducted tests on the product, Mr. 

Heier said.  

In a statement issued to the Enquirer through its attorneys,
Chiquita stated that company policy "allows only for the use of
agrichemicals that are approved by the United States Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) for use on bananas."  

Denise Kearns, spokesperson for the EPA on pesticide issues, said
that the EPA has set a "tolerance level" for bitertanol, that is the
level of detectable pesticide residue at which the EPA will allow a
crop to be imported into the United States. But this level, set
after scientific review, does not constitute approval for use in the
U.S. on bananas or any other crop, Ms. Kearns said.  

Bitertanol also is not registered for use in Canada, according to
Antony Simpson, spokesman for Health Canada's Pest Management
Regulatory Agency, the Canadian government's counterpart to the
EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs. The pesticide is approved for
use in the European Union.  

Chlorpyrifos, sold as Lorsban. This product is widely used by
Chiquita to put in plastic bags that hang over the banana bunches as
they grow. It is registered for use in the United States. However,
the EPA is reviewing safety levels for all organophosphate
compounds, and chlorpyrifos is one product that could be severely
restricted because of health and environmental risks, according to
published reports by the Washington State Department of Agriculture.
Last year, the EPA declared chlorpyrifos as a "Restricted Use
Product," a restriction allowing for use only under special
circumstances with specific EPA approval. 

Chlorpyrifos is not authorized for use in Finland and Sweden,
according to European Union government reports.  

Carbofuran, sold as Furadan: This pesticide is used to combat
nematodes, small worms that attack the banana plants. Chiquita has
used the product since 1975. The product is listed by the EPA as
"severely restricted" in the United States. According to EPA
documents, the product's high risk of danger to people and the
environment make it "a pesticide for which virtually all registered
uses have been prohibited by final government regulatory action,"
but it can still be used in some special cases. The product also is
severely restricted in Canada, according to Health Canada. Its use
is not authorized in Finland. 

Ethoprop, sold as Mocap: This organophosphate also is registered for
use in the United States but is being reviewed by EPA. Like
chlorpyrifos it has been singled out as facing severe restrictions,
according to the Washington State Department of Agriculture.
Ethoprop  is not registered for use in Canada, according to Health
Canada. It is not authorized for use in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and
Luxembourg,  according to European Union government reports.  

Terbufos, sold as Counter: This product is registered for use in the
U.S., but it is being reviewed by EPA for possible restrictions. It
is not authorized for use in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, the
United Kingdom and Portugal according to European Union government
reports.  

Azoxystrobin, sold as Bankit: This fungicide used in aerial spraying
is not registered for use in Canada, according to Health Canada.  

Imazalil, sold as Fungaflor: This fungacide, applied to bananas
before shipment, is not registered for use in Canada, according to
Health Canada.  

Tridemorph, sold as Calixin: This fungicide used in aerial spraying
is not registered for use in Canada, according to Health Canada. It
is not authorized for use in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Portugal. 

Where chemicals are approved for use  

Chiquita's environmental partner, the Rainforest Alliance, has
regulations to which Chiquita has agreed that state the company
cannot use chemicals on its alliance certified banana farms that are
not authorized for use in the U.S., Canada and Europe. But according
to Chiquita's own list of approved pesticides, it does.  

Chemicals: Azoxystrobin  

Sold as: Bankit  

Type: Fungicide  

Used for: Black Sigatoka  

Authorized for use in:  

U.S.: Yes  

Canada: No  

European Union*: Unknown  

Chemicals: Bitertanol  

Sold as: Baycor  

Type: Fungicide  

Used for: Black Sigatoka  

Authorized for use in:  

U.S.: No  

Canada: No  

European Union*: Yes  

Chemicals: Carbofuran  

Sold as: Furadan  

Type: Nematicide  

Used for: Nematodes  

Authorized for use in:  

U.S.: Yes  

Canada: Yes  

European Union*: No  

Chemicals: Chlorpyrifos  

Sold as: Lorsban  

Type: Insecticide  

Used for: Insects  

Authorized for use in:  

U.S.: Yes  

Canada: Yes  

European Union*: No  

Chemicals: Ethoprop  

Sold as: Mocap  

Type: Nematicide  

Used for: Nematodes  

Authorized for use in:  

U.S.: Yes  

Canada: No  

European Union*: No  

Chemicals: Imazalil  

Sold as: Fungaflor  

Type: Fungaflor  

Used for: Crown Rot organisms  

Authorized for use in:  

U.S.: Yes  

Canada: No  

European Union*: Yes  

Chemicals: Terbufos  

Sold as: Counter  

Type: Nematicide  

Used for: Nematodes  

Authorized for use in:  

U.S.: Yes  

Canada: Yes  

European Union*: No  

Chemicals: Tridemorph  

Sold as: Calixin  

Type: Fungicide  

Used for: Black Sigatoka  

Authorized for use in:  

U.S.: Yes  

Canada: No  

European Union*: No  

* A "no" in this column means that one or more of the 15 nations of
the European Union do not authorize the use of this chemical on its
farms.  

Sources: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Health Canada and
European Union reports.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Environment; Workers sprayed in the
fields

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

In the fiercely competitive banana trade, Chiquita Brands has made a
strong effort to set itself apart as the industry's "environmental
leader."  

Chiquita's brochures, posters and company website proudly trumpet
its partnership with the Rainforest Alliance, a New York-based
environmental group known worldwide for setting up environmental -
business partnerships.  

Since 1993, the two have worked on the "ECO-O.K. - Better Banana"
program, an environmental certification to assure protection for
workers and the environment on Costa Rican farms of Chiquita's
subsidiaries, Compania Bananera Atlantica Ltda. (COBAL) and the
Chiriqui Land Company. The program, originally called "ECO-O.K." but
later changed to "Better Banana," has since expanded to Chiquita
subsidiary farms in Panama and Colombia.  

But an Enquirer investigation into Chiquita's use of pesticides on
plantations shows disregard not only of the company's stated
environmental guidelines and partnership agreements with the
alliance, but also the safety of its tens of thousands of field
workers.  

The Enquirer found:  

Aerial spraying when workers are in the fields, is a practice
condemned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
scientists and even Chiquita's environmental partner, the Rainforest
Alliance. The spraying violates the rules of the "Better Banana"
program.  

The Rainforest Alliance's policy paper on the "Better Banana"
program states, "All workers and neighbors must be warned when
pesticides are being applied." According to the program's general
regulations, workers and neighbors are not supposed to be exposed to
aerial spraying.  

Chiquita's subsidiaries use pesticides in Latin America that are not
registered for use in the United States, Canada or Europe. They do
so even though Chiquita has issued public statements and agreed to
an environmental contract with the Rainforest Alliance that on its
farms certified by the alliance it will "only use products that are
registered for use in the United States, Canada and Europe."  

Chiquita subsidiary farms use pesticides in aerial spraying that are
highly toxic to fish and birds, contrary to Chiquita's stated
environmental policies.  

These findings come as the "Better Banana" project is under
criticism from scientists in Central America, Europe and the United
States. Chiquita's showcase environmental program has been attacked
as disingenuous, superficial and unverifiable.  

"The changes are more aesthetic than anything else," said Catharina
Wesseling, a scientist with the Karolinska Institute of
Environmental Medicine in Stockholm, Sweden, and author of the book
Health Effects from Pesticide Use in Costa Rica. "They don't address
the real problems."  

However, an executive of a Washington, D.C. - based conservation
group, Conservation International hired by Chiquita to visit its
certified subsidiary farms called the project "very positive."  

Scientists critical of the program say it doesn't adequately address
a problem that the entire banana industry has been wrestling with
for decades: use of pesticides that endanger the health of workers,
villagers or the environment in Latin America.  

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for
checking pesticide levels on bananas imported for American
consumers, said the overwhelming majority of bananas brought into
the United States and tested by the administration show pesticide
residue well within safety standards set by EPA.  However,
scientists  and environmentalists said the methods and amount of
pesticide use practiced by Chiquita and other large banana growers
endangers banana workers and the environment where the bananas are
grown.  

Aerial spraying  

Chiquita's "Environmental Charter" states that the company works "to
protect the rainforest; to maintain clean water; to minimize the use
of agrochemicals; to reduce, re-use and recycle waste; to support
environmental education; and to ensure our workforce is well-trained
and works safely." Those guidelines also are supported by the
Rainforest Alliance.  

But the Enquirer has found that Chiquita subsidiaries have sprayed
toxic cocktails, varying mixtures of potent chemicals, on their
plantations without removing workers first. These aerial sprayings
can take place more than 40 times a year on plantations that are
threatened by a widespread banana disease. Often these pesticides
fall on workers, nearby villages, rivers or forests.  

Eric Holst, coordinator for the Rainforest Alliance's "Better
Banana" certification program in New York, said that aerial spraying
while workers are in the fields would be a violation of the
certification program. "We require that workers have protection from
the application of chemicals. That clearly is a violation."  

Through its attorneys, Chiquita provided the Enquirer with a list of
chemicals it has approved for use on its banana farms. For aerial
spraying, the company uses the fungicides propiconazole, benomyl,
mancozeb, azoxystrobin, thiophanate-methyl, tridemorph and
bitertanol.  

Propiconazole and benomyl have both been found to be possibly
cancer-causing for humans by the EPA. Mancozeb,  azoxystrobin,
thiophanate-methyl and tridemorph are considered hazards to fish by
the EPA. Bitertanol is not allowed for use on farms in the United
States, while azoxystrobin and tridemorph are not allowed for use in
Canada.  

A source at Chiquita's headquarters in Cincinnati provided the
Enquirer with tape recordings of internal voice-mail messages,
several of which dealt with the issue of aerial spraying while
workers are in the fields.  

After the Enquirer asked Chiquita's attorneys and a Rainforest
Alliance official about the company's aerial spraying policy, Robert
Kistinger, president of Chiquita Banana Group based in Cincinnati,
said in an Oct. 29, 1997  voice-mail message to John Ordman,
Chiquita's senior vice president of finance, that he wanted
officials to figure out "how quickly we can begin to implement a
procedure for taking our workers out of the fields when we spray ...
It is something we have to think about getting done fairly quickly."

For workers, the unannounced aerial spraying is a constant fear.  

"Some of the workers are affected by the aerial spraying, especially
with rashes," Luis Perez Jimenez, 31, a leaf cutter on COBAL's
Cocobola plantation, said through a translator. "They never tell us
about the aerial spraying. We just see it coming and boom, it's
here."  

Small crop dusters will fly low over the banana trees and emit
clouds of pesticides that settle over the tall, leafy plants. They
also settle on workers, nearby villagers, animals, and open water.
As two Enquirer reporters witnessed, on recently sprayed farms the
air is heavy with a stifling chemical stench. Breathing is difficult
and the pesticide residue covers everything.  

At Cocobola, one of COBAL's larger farms, and nearby COBAL's Gavilan
farm hundreds of employees can be working in the fields at any one
time. The plantation, laced with irrigation canals, is adjacent to
Rio Sucio, a large river in northeast Costa Rica.  

Mr. Perez, through a translator, said that a white film gets all
over his clothes and body when spraying occurs.  

"I don't get any protective clothing," said Mr. Perez, whose job is
to cut diseased leaves from plants. "The white stuff gets all over
my arms and on my clothes. I get a lot of rashes."  

Jose Gomez, 45, another worker on the Cocobola plantation, also said
the planes come over with no warning.  

"You're just working and then suddenly you see it coming," he told
the Enquirer as he stood amid lush rows of banana plants. "I try to
hide under the banana leaves when I hear the planes. If the
chemicals get on me, I get rashes on my back. I try to be careful
when the planes come. I try to protect myself under these leaves."  

Mr. Gomez, through a translator, said that he was afraid of the
long-term impact of the pesticides on his health, but this job was
the only work he could find in the region.  

Under the "Better Banana" certification program touted by Chiquita,
workers who apply pesticides with spray packs are supplied with
protective clothing and training on how to handle pesticides. But
thousands of other field workers like Mr. Gomez, who do not apply
pesticides, receive no protective clothing. Enquirer  reporters
observed, and were told by workers, union leaders and company
officials, that field workers not directly involved in the
application or storage of pesticides do not receive protective
clothing.  

Speaking of the industry-wide problem of aerial spraying on banana
workers, Sandra Marquardt, an environmental consultant in San
Francisco who formerly headed up Greenpeace International's efforts
to stop the U.S. export of banned pesticides, said, "These airplanes
come over and just nail the suckers."  

Dole and Del Monte, the two other large U.S. banana companies, also
employ aerial spraying. But neither has joined the "Better Banana"
program or publicly acknowledged any alliance with an environmental
group claiming to limit workers' exposure to pesticides.  

In response to Enquirer questions, Chiquita, through its attorneys,
issued a three-page statement on aerial spraying but did not address
the issue of workers being sprayed in the fields.  

The company stated that the spraying was necessary to combat a
banana disease called Black Sigatoka.The airborne fungus causes
streaks on the plants, makes the fruit smaller and eventually kills
the plant if unchecked.  

The attorneys said the company has hired environmental consulting
groups to conduct water monitoring of nearby rivers, and those
groups have found almost no contamination.  

Despite the concerns ex-pressed by Mr. Kistinger in his October
voice-mail message, aerial spraying of fields while workers were in
them was still going on four months later.  

In a  Feb. 23 voice-mail message to Mr. Ordman, Mr. Kistinger
pointed out the company's political and public relations problem
with continuing aerial spraying while workers are in the fields.  

"One of the key focuses that we have not been successful so far ...
has been the issue of aerial spraying," Mr. Kistinger said. "The
environmental groups, the social groups, the NGO (non-governmental
organizations) say it is not right to be spraying people when they
are working in the field. ... And so far we have been able to make
very little progress in this regard."  

Prodding his executives to develop an alternative to spraying
workers, Mr. Kistinger added that there is "enormous build-up of
pressure" from the public in Europe to protect banana workers.
Noting that steps must be taken to curb the practice, "even if
they're small at this point"  it is "very necessary to do from a
public relations' standpoint."  

Chiquita recently has created an "environmental" website on which it
has posted a position paper on aerial spraying. On the website,
Chiquita states that spraying is necessary to protect the banana
crop. But the company stated it is working on several methods of
applying the pesticides from the ground, which it claims would
reduce pesticide exposure to workers and the environment.  

Earth College science professor Jorge Arce Portuguez said Sigatoka
has become the major pest threatening the banana industry in recent
years. Earth College is an agricultural science college in central
Costa Rica partially funded by the U.S. government and supported by
dozens of major American universities. The industry's only answer so
far has been to increase the potency and regularity of aerial
spraying, he said. But the disease has adapted quickly, becoming
resistant to many of the chemicals.  

"In 1990, we controlled Sigatoka with more or less 25 to 30 aerial
sprayings per year," he said. "Now, seven years later ... we are
dropping by plane more than 40 times per year."  

Anti-Sigatoka chemicals make up the bulk of pesticides used on most
banana plantations,  according to Lori Ann Thrupp, senior associate
and expert on sustainable agriculture at the World Resources
Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank on environmental
issues.  

Drifting pesticides  

In a 1996 edition of the science journal Ambio, Scott Witter,
associate professor at Michigan State University's Institute of
International Agriculture, and colleague Carlos Hernandez published
a report on the Costa Rican banana industry that found that 15
percent of aerial pesticides completely drifted off the studied
plantations because of wind; 40 percent drifted away from the plants
and into the ground; and 35 percent washed off in the rain. Only 10
percent of the fungicide sprayed actually stayed on the plant.  

"There's considerable debate about how much drift there is,"
Professor Witter told the Enquirer. "We had in that article
references for as much as 90 percent of it not ending up on the
banana plants. Some of the transnationals say 'no, no, it's more
like only 40 percent that's lost.' But still that's a lot of
fungicides going off into the water supply. You have a lot of the
poor folks who take their water directly from surface sources. They
end up ingesting these. Costa Rica is blessed with a tremendous
amount of rainfall, and so dilution  in many instances becomes a
solution to some of the pollution. 

But over time, it does tend to bio-accumulate."  

In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita stated that it
is aware of the drift problem and has worked in recent years to
reduce drift by installing special pesticide spray nozzles on its
airplanes and other measures.  

In the village of Bananito Norte, in the heart of banana country
southeast of the coastal city of Limon, Esther Rodriguez Anchia
lives with her husband and three children in a one-room wooden shack
next to Chiquita's Super Amigo packing plant and Chiquita subsidiary
plantations.  

When the crop dusters come over, her family is sprayed with the
chemicals, she said.  

"There is no warning," Mrs. Rodriguez said through a translator.  

"It just comes, usually once a week but sometimes twice. My children
get very rashy when the planes come. I just have them run inside,
but we usually are stuck with the rashes. I'm very allergic myself,
so it's much worse for me. I have to visit the doctor all the 
time.," she said.  

Mrs. Rodriguez, 52, said the aerial spraying has made her hate the
village.  

"I would love to fly away from here," she said.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Life on a banana plantation; Growing
Chiquita bananas: pesticides and hard work

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: Cameron McWhirter and Mike Gallagher
---------------------------------------------------------------------

On farms from Mexico to Ecuador, Chiquita and its affiliates grow
millions of bananas every year for consumers in North America and
Europe. The fruit is grown and harvested in a labor-intensive
process  that involves an army of workers, lots of equipment,
crop-dusting airplanes, foam cushions, string, bags, special
cartons, refrigerated  trucks and trains, and tons of pesticides.  

While production methods vary slightly from plantation to
plantation, the basic operations illustrated below remain the same.
This illustration is a composite plantation, drawn from Enquirer
reporters' visits to Chiquita subsidiary plantations and Chiquita-
affiliated farms in Honduras and Costa Rica, as well as interviews
with plantation workers and environmental scientists.  

1. Commercial banana plants grow from 15 to 30 feet in height and
are grown in long rows on large irrigated plantations. Most bananas
consumed in the United States are grown in the lowlands of Central
and South America. The average banana plant produces fruit about
every nine months. The stem usually grows to contain about 150
bananas. When the manager decides, the fruit is cut green from the
plant and dropped carefully on the back of a worker carrying  a
cushion to stop any bruising of the fruit.  

2. Herbicides: To kill off other plants growing around the bananas,
workers apply herbicides. The chemicals are toxic and wash into the
ground and ground water during rains.  

3. Nematicides: To kill off nematodes, small worms that attack
banana plants from the roots, workers cover the ground around the
plants with nematicides. These chemicals are highly toxic and make
an area extremely dangerous for 24 to 48 hours after application.  

4. Banana plants do not have strong trunks, they can easily be
knocked over in a tropical windstorm. To prevent 'blowdowns,'
workers tie the plants down with string.  

5. Aerial spraying is an integral part of pesticide application in
commercial banana farming. The main purpose is to combat Black
Sigatoka, an airborne fungus that can destroy a plantation's crop.
In areas that are infected with the fungus, including much of
Central America, airplanes may spray fields more than 40 times a
year.  

The spray lands on the plants' upper leaves, the ground, irrigation
canals, streams and rivers and nearby homes, workers and residents,
scientists told the Enquirer.  

Workers on Chiquita subsidiary plantations and other farms producing
Chiquita bananas told the Enquirer that they receive no warning when
the planes come over and they often hide under banana leaves to
escape the pesticide dust. Nearby villagers complain the aerial
spraying often drifts into their yards, sending children running
into the houses to escape rashes. Many worker villages are located
close to banana plantations.  

6. The water used in the in the packing plants to wash pesticides
off the bananas comes from the irrigation canals and then is routed
back out into the water supply. Chiquita has built berms in recent
years on some plantations to limit pesticides from flowing directly
into rivers. But many irrigation canals, laced throughout every
plantation, remain directly exposed to pesticides.  

7. Plastic bags imbedded with the powerful chemical chlorpyrifos
protect the the growing fruit from insects throughout its entire
gestation. In previous years,the bags were simply discarded after
use, though the major banana companies have now started recycling
programs.  

8. At harvesting, the stem is placed on a large overhead cable
system that runs throughout the plantation. Workers place foam
cushions among the fruit to stop bruising. The fruit is then pushed
along the cable toward the "Empacadora," the packing plant.  

9. In the packing plant, workers remove the cushions. Other workers
then cut the stems into smaller bunches.  

10. The bunchesare then put in a "pila de seleccion," a selecting
trough, where selectoras, usually women, choose the bananas and cut
them further down to shipping size with small hooked knives.  

11. Larger troughs called 'pilas des leches," milk troughs, wash off
the pesticides applied in the fields as well as natural fluids from
the banana plant.  

12. New pesticides are applied to the bunches after they are placed
on a conveyer belt. The new pesticides, either thiabendazole or
imazalil, are applied to prevent "crown rot," a fungus that attacks
the extremities of the banana bunch. On some plantations, Chiquita
has installed small plastic containment systems that save money on
pesticide costs and reduce worker exposure to the pesticides. But
most plantations do not have this system, according to Chiquita
statements issued through its attorneys to the Enquirer.  

13. Boxes of banana bunches, freshly applied with pesticides, are
put on large skids for shipment. On all the plantations visited by
the Enquirer, most workers viewed by reporters did not wear gloves
when handling the pesticide-covered bananas.  

14. Trucks or trains are brought to the plant and loaded with the
skids. The bananas are taken to port, where the large refrigerated
containers are lifted onto ships. The ships then sail to various
destinations, usually in North America or Europe. About ten days to
two weeks after being harvested, the bananas are on display and for
sale at local groceries.  

Pesticides in the banana ecosystem  

The ecosytem of a banana plantation is extremely wet and hot. The
soil is very loose, helping the banana plants grow but also making
it easy for pesticides to spread throughout the system.  

It often rains in these areas, flushing pesticides into the ground
and water table. The banana industry's answer to this dissipation
has been to apply pesticides frequently.  

Ways pesticides get into the environment:  

Air: Airplanes drop toxic chemicals regularly from the air.
Pesticides fall on the plants, but also on workers, the ground and
irrigation canals and streams.  

Ground: Workers apply pesticides to the ground around the plants.
These chemicals seep into the ground with every rainfall.  

Water: Pesticides also get into water that is used to wash bananas
in the packing plants. That water then flows back into the
irrigation  canals.  

Bags: Plastic bags with the insecicide chlorpyrifos cover all the
banana bunches from their inception. The chemical leaks off the bags
in rain storms and flows into the ground and water.  

Black Sigatoka  

is a banana plant disease that plagues most areas where Chiquita
bananas are produced. The airborne fungus eats away at the plant
leaves, turning them black. The disease shrinks the size of the frui
and makes it ripen too quickly to be shipped to market. Eventually,
the disease kills the plant. Some researchers are now trying to find
a Sigatoka resistant banana that will still appeal to consumers, 
but nothing has been discovered thus far. To date, the industry's
reaction to the problem has been to increase aerial spraying of
powerful pesticides.  

The roots of the banana  

Humans have been cultivating bananas since almost the beginning of
civilization. Varieties of the plant are referred to in ancient
Chinese and Arabic manuscripts.  

Believed by scientists to have developed in southeast Asia more than
4,000 years ago, the plant eventually spread to other parts of Asia
and into Africa. The species' scientific classification, Musaceae,
comes from the Arabic word for the fruit, mu'uz. Spanish and
Portuguese explorers are believed to have come into contact with the
plant in their travels to West Africa, where they adopted a
variation of a local term, banana. Spanish explorers brought bananas
to the Americas in the 1500s.  

Today hundreds of banana varieties thrive in almost every tropical
region of the world. But more than 90 percent of the bananas found
at grocery stores in the United States and Europe are one variety,
the yellow Gran Cavendish. The banana is one of the most productive
plants in the world. In the right climate and weather it produces
year round, and for decades at a time.  

The plant itself is actually an herb. What looks like a trunk of a
banana "tree" is in fact densely packed leaves growing up from a
base clump of roots. The plants that produce commercial Gran
Cavendish bananas do not produce seeds for reproduction, and are
'sexless' perennials. Planted in rows on giant farms, they
regenerate  after each harvest. The plant grows a stalk, called in
Latin America "la Madre" or the mother, which produces a purple stem
with white flowers from its center. The stem transforms into a large
'hand' of as many as 150 bananas each. The "hand," which eventually
bends over from the weight of the fruit, can weigh up to 140 pounds.

The fruit is harvested before it is ripe, and cut into the bunches
that are transported to grocery stands. Once the fruit is harvested,
the stalk is cut and a little stalk , called "el hijo" or
"offspring" in Spanish, sprouts from the same root to begin the
process again. Bananas are comprised mostly of sugary carbohydrates,
but it is also a source of vitamins A and C as well as potassium.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Politics & History; "About the EU tour
that this minister in Panama wants to take is just highly dangerous
 . . "And I was saying that we should, if we could politely do it
without ruffling too many feathers, get that minister's trip
cancelled. So that would be exactly my program."  - Keith Lindner,
Chiquita vice chairman, on canceling the trip of Panamanian foreign
minister; Contributions buy influence

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Carl Lindner is well known in this town as a big contributor to both
Democrats and Republicans.  

What is he getting for his money?  

Mr. Lindner, chairman of the board and CEO of Chiquita Brands
International Inc., is buying the power of the White House and
Capitol Hill, according to advocates of campaign finance reform and
opponents  of Chiquita's trade battles with Europe.  

"Although he has given more to Republicans, he has also been a
double giver. And double giving is the clearest evidence that this
money is not about elections, it's about buying influence," said Ann
McBride, president of  Common Cause, the non-profit group leading
the campaign for finance reform. "The way Carl Lindner has given has
been to give to both parties so that no matter who wins, he'll have
a place at the table."  

Mr. Lindner, a registered Republican who has spent at least two
nights at the Clinton White House, certainly has a place at the
table of the Democratic administration as well as both sides of the
aisle in Congress.  

Mr. Lindner has made large contributions - totaling millions of
dollars - to Republican and Democratic candidates over the years.
But that largesse has come under scrutiny since 1993 when the
European Union established trade preferences limiting how many
bananas Chiquita could bring to Europe. Chiquita began asking the
White House to intervene while also making large donations to the
Democratic Party.  

In 1995, the U.S. Trade Representative's Office of the White House
took the company's cause to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the
first case by the United States brought before the newly created
international body.  

The U.S. decision to take up an international case on behalf of one
multinational company contributed to the recent debate about
campaign finance reform.  

Dole and Del Monte, the two other large U.S. banana producers, did
not file requests with the White House. Dole proposed a compromise
in 1995 to avert the WTO action, but it was turned down.  

Mr. Lindner and other Chiquita officials declined repeated requests
to meet with the Enquirer to discuss campaign contributions or any
other subject. Through attorneys hired to deal with the Enquirer,
Chiquita issued the following written statement:  

"Neither Carl Lindner Jr. nor any other Chiquita, United Brands, or
American Financial official has ever asked for or received any
promises in return for political contributions related to the WTO
(World Trade Organization) proceeding or any other matter, nor have
any such promises or quid pro quos (things given in exchange  for
something else) been anticipated or expected by Mr. Lindner or
Chiquita."  

The White House also firmly denied any improper support for
Chiquita's case because of Mr. Lindner's donations.  

"It's absolutely not true and has no foundation in reality," said
Jay Ziegler, spokesman for the White House's trade office.  

But the Enquirer has obtained, through the Freedom of Information
Act, correspondence between the White House, members of Congress and
Chiquita dealing with the European banana issue beginning in 1994.
Though many portions of the letters have been blacked out by the
government, the correspondence demonstrates the influence that
Chiquita  exerts on the U.S. trade office.  

The correspondence shows that:  

Powerful congressional leaders sent letters to the White House
pressuring the administration to support Chiquita's position.
Chiquita supporters included U.S. Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, U.S. Sen.
Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, U.S. Rep. and Speaker of the House Newt
Gingrich, R-Georgia, U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, U.S. Sen. and
Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-
Conn., and others who had received donations from either the
Lindners, their controlled companies or company officials.  

Chief support appears to have come from Bob Dole, while he was still
the senior Republican senator from Kansas. Many of these letters
were faxed to the trade office by Carolyn Gleason, Chiquita's trade
attorney, registered lobbyist and key liaison to the Clinton
administration on this issue. On one letter from Mr. Dole dated June
21, 1995, then U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor scrawled a
note to his staffers: "Please give me a way to proceed. Pressure is
going to grow. MK"  

Chiquita's lobbyist, Ms. Gleason, sent faxes to the trade office -
at the office's request - providing policy position papers on the
banana issue for U.S. embassy staff around the world. Other faxes
show Ms. Gleason writing legislation on this issue for the trade
office to submit to the Federal Register.  

Staff of the White House's trade office discussed how to manage the
press to Chiquita's advantage. In an e-mail message sent June 14,
1996, Ralph Ives, deputy assistant U.S. trade representative and the
Clinton administration's point man on the banana issue, wrote about
a segment on the trade dispute that was being planned by public
television's News Hour.  

"Chiquita is urging that we either try to kill this (preferable, but
not sure how) or either Peter (Allgeier, a trade office staffer) or
I agree to be interviewed....I will find out more after talking with
Chiquita."  

The segment never ran. Producers at the News Hour told the Enquirer
that they did some initial reporting on the subject but never
planned  to air a segment on the dispute.  

Mr. Lindner held at least two meetings with high-level staff of the
White House. In addition, Chiquita's lobbyist, Ms. Gleason, had
frequent contact with the office.  

In one letter, dated July 19, 1995, Mr. Lindner, and his son, Keith,
wrote to Mickey Kantor that they hoped to meet soon to discuss "our
larger case strategy and to discuss our mutual efforts in greater
detail." They had meetings before and after the letter. Senators,
including Mr. Glenn, also met with Mr. Kantor on Chiquita's behalf. 

Tape-recorded internal Chiquita voice-mails, provided to the
Enquirer by a company source, also show the influence that Chiquita
has with the White House's trade office. In a Jan. 30 message from
Keith Lindner, Chiquita's vice chairman, to Steven G. Warshaw,
company president and chief operating officer; Robert Olson, chief
counsel; Ms. Gleason and others, Mr. Lindner recommended that
Chiquita try to cancel the trip of Panamanian Foreign Minister
Ricardo Alberto Arias to the European Union.  

"About the EU tour that this minister in Panama wants to take is
just highly dangerous," Keith Lindner said, adding later, "And I was
saying that we should, if we could politely do it without  ruffling
too many feathers, get that minister's trip canceled. So that would
be exactly my program."  

Later that day, Ms. Gleason called Mr. Olson and others with a
voice-mail message stating the trip had indeed been canceled.  

A Chiquita consultant met with the Panamanian minister and convinced
him that the U.S. trade office could not meet with him on Monday,
but only later in the week, she said. The later meeting meant the
minister would not have time to travel to the EU.  

Ms. Gleason then learned that the U.S. trade office had scheduled a
meeting for Monday.  

"USTR (the trade office) went ahead and scheduled a meeting on
Monday," she said. "That has since been corrected."  

The trade office moved the meeting with Mr. Arias from Monday to
Wednesday, meaning the minister would not have time to visit Europe,
according to Ms. Gleason's voice-mail message.  

In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita stated,
"Chiquita never asked the United States Trade Representative to
reschedule meetings with the Panamanian foreign minister."  

Minister Counselor Fernando Eleta at the Panamanian Embassy in
Washington, D.C., said he could not believe "Chiquita would do
something like that." He said he would withhold comment, however,
until he had a chance to review the Enquirer article.  

Today, Chiquita plays a major role in formulating U.S. banana trade
policy. At the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
ba-nana conference in Rome last May, the U.S. delegation consisted
of three U.S. trade diplomats and four other people listed as
"advisers."  

The advisers were Michael O'Brien, president of European Offices of
Chiquita; Manuel Rodriguez, Chiquita's assistant general counsel
from Cincinnati; Ms. Gleason; and Robert Moore, the head of a banana
trade group that represents the entire industry. No one from Del
Monte or Dole was represented on the U.S. delegation. According to
the head of the FAO's Intergovernmental Group on Bananas, delegation
advisers are chosen by the individual governments.  

Through Ms. Gleason, a partner in the law firm of McDermott, Will &
Emery, Chiquita presents its views in meetings and telephone calls
with Amy Wynton, chief of Agriculture for the State Department and
other top Clinton officials.  

The Chiquita-State Department connection extends even further. When
an Enquirer reporter  called the U.S. Embassy in Honduras to ask
about a former embassy staffer now working for Chiquita, embassy
staff said they could not provide the information.  According to an
internal, tape-recorded voice-mail message obtained by the Enquirer
from a company source, embassy staff informed Chiquita of the call
later that same day.  

Washington favors  

Opponents of Chiquita's actions in Washington, D.C. say Chiquita has
bought White House support for a cause that will hurt U.S. allies
only to help the bottom line of the Cincinnati company.  

"It's a clear issue of buying trade favors," said Randall Robinson,
the head of TransAfrica Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying
group for African and developing world issues. "The President ought
to be ashamed of himself."  

Mr. Robinson, initially a supporter of President Clinton, and his
wife, Hazel Ross-Robinson, have taken up the trade issue because
they feel that if Chiquita can remove Europe's banana protections,
developing economies in the Caribbean and Africa will be severely
damaged.  

Ms. Ross-Robinson, who lobbies for Caribbean countries in
Washington, D.C., has organized visits by several political leaders
to the Caribbean islands to meet with farmers and has brought
farmers from the Caribbean and Africa to lobby Congress.  

Mr. Robinson, the leader of the successful boycott effort of
apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, has twice dumped bananas as a
protest in Washington, D.C. to call attention to what he sees as the
White House sellout. At his urging, prominent black Americans,
including Bill Cosby and Jesse Jackson, have written the White House
to express concern about the Clinton administration's support for
Chiquita's position.  

Mr. Robinson and other Chiquita opponents point to April 1994, when
Mr. Lindner and his associates contributed hundreds of thousands of
dollars to numerous state Democratic parties, shortly after then
U.S. Trade Representative Kantor took the banana case to the WTO.
The money was donated to state parties and did not have to be filed
with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), making it harder to
track because the donations were spread among many offices.  

Caribbean leaders saw the connection as a payback by President
Clinton to Mr. Lindner.  

"There was no reason for them to go to the WTO,"  said Jamaican
Ambassador to Washington, D.C. Richard Bernal. "We were given
assurances by Ambassador Kantor that the U.S. wanted to resolve
this. It was a breach of faith with the Caribbean."  

Recently, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a non-profit research
institute focusing on Latin American issues, called on the Federal
Election Commission to investigate Mr. Lindner's donations because,
they said, Mr. Lindner has "bought himself a U.S. foreign policy."  

According to a Common Cause analysis of soft money donations, Mr.
Lindner, relatives and officers of his companies gave a total of
$3,164,460 in "soft money" donations to Republican and Democratic
national fund-raising committees from 1988 through the first six
months of 1997. Most of the money went to Republicans.  

Soft money donations can be given in an unlimited amount to
political committees. Contributions to individual candidates for
national office are restricted.  

In March 1998, Common Cause ranked American Financial Group and
related companies as the fourth largest giver in soft money to both
parties in 1997. (Tobacco firm Philip Morris was the top giver.) The
group reported that American Financial, its subsidiaries and
executives gave $310,000 in soft money to Republicans and $75,000 
to Democrats in 1997 alone.  

Soft money donations are legal, but they have become the focal point
in the debate about campaign finance reform.  

Ms. McBride said Mr. Lindner was "one of the biggest soft money
givers and one of the pioneers in double giving."  

Mr. Lindner's donations have favored Republican candidates, but he
also has given millions to Democrats, and stayed in the Lincoln
bedroom twice at the invitation of President Clinton.  

Mr. Lindner was called by Vice President Al Gore in October 1994
while the White House was considering diplomatic action against the
European Union on the trade issue. White House records reviewed by
the Associated Press show that in the following weeks, Lindner
companies and associates donated $250,000 to the Democratic National
Committee.  

A Dec. 2, 1994, White House memo referred to the October calls made
by the Vice President from the White House. Mr. Lindner, one of the
persons named in the memo, was listed as giving $150,000, apparently
part of the $250,000, according to the Associated Press.  

Another memo indicates that Mr. Lindner invited Vice President Gore
to stay at his Florida estate. According to the White House, Mr.
Gore did not take Mr. Lindner up on his offer.  

Mr. Lindner's and Chiquita's reach in Washington, D.C. goes beyond
campaign contributions. Chiquita also has hired the influential
lobbying group Public Strategies Washington, Inc., paying it
$279,402.08 in 1996 alone.  

"Carl Lindner and Chiquita are giving hundreds of thousands of
dollars to both Democrats and Republicans and are getting people to
support them," said E. Courtenay Rattray, executive director of the
Jamaican banana exporting company Jamco. "This is just money
politics."  

But as Mr. Lindner's supporters have pointed out in the past, Mr.
Lindner was involved in money politics long before the banana trade
issue in Europe. He was a major contributor to Richard Nixon. He
contributed heavily to Ronald Reagan's candidacy, and helped fund
both of his inaugurations. He also gave heavily to George Bush's
1988 and 1992 campaigns.  

The Center for Public Integrity, a public interest group, stated in
a report that Mr. Lindner was one of the major "career patrons" of
Sen. Bob Dole. Mr. Lindner and Chiquita officials heavily supported
Mr. Dole's 1996 presidential bid. Mr. Dole was also a frequent
passenger on Mr. Lindner's private jet.  

Despite recent calls for campaign finance reform, Mr. Lindner still
makes large contributions.  

According to FEC reports on 1996 election cycle donations, Mr.
Lindner and other leading Chiquita and subsidiary officials gave to
the congressional and Senate campaigns in at least 35 states.  They
also gave "soft money" contributions to political committees on both
sides of the aisle.  

The bulk of the donations were given to Republican candidates, but
substantial funds went to Democratic "soft-money" organizations. For
example, Mr. Lindner himself gave money to the National Republican
Senatorial Committee and also to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign
Committee. The Clinton - Gore campaign, the Democratic National
Committee, the "DNC Services Corporation" and other soft money
groups also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mr.
Lindner, his family and officials of his companies, according to FEC
records stored on the computers of a non-partisan public interest
group, the Center for Responsive Politics. 

For the 1997-1998 election cycle, FEC records show that as of April
1, Mr. Lindner's American Financial Group has given $150,000 in soft
money to various committees, making the company the largest soft
money contributor in Ohio. The second largest soft money contributor
in the state is Mr. Lindner himself, with $125,000 in donations.  

Mr. Lindner, his relatives and company officials also have given
thousands to various candidates and political action committees.
Candidates receiving money so far in the 1997-98 election cycle
include Mr. DeWine, Sen. Alphonse D'Amato, R-New York, Rep. Rob
Portman, R-Ohio, Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, and Rep. John Boehner,
R- Ohio.  

Gary Ruskin, who runs the Congressional Accountability Project, a
Washington, D.C.-based interest group that tracks financial
contributions in Congress, said that he sees Mr. Lindner's name
repeatedly when reviewing campaign finance filings.  

"The guy is fascinating," he said. "He shows up all the time."  

Mr. Lindner's name often comes up in Capitol Hill discussions about
campaign finance reform.  

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, planning hearings on
campaign finance reform, issued subpoenas to Mr. Lindner and
Chiquita for documents regarding campaign contributions last August.
But the hearings were dropped in November, when chairman Sen. Fred
Thompson, R-Tenn., announced that his committee would not pursue the
issue, citing lack of cooperation from other politicians and
lobbyists.  

The majority of Sen. Thompson's committee had first-hand knowledge
of Mr. Lindner's political giving. Both Mr. Thompson and Mr. Glenn,
the ranking Democrat, had received direct contributions from Mr.
Lindner. So had five of the other 10 committee members.  

The World Trade Organization  

The World Trade Organization was created in January 1995 to
implement the goals set out in several world trade agreements,
particularly the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The
objective of GATT is to reduce trade barriers among countries that
have signed the accord so that eventually nations can trade as
freely as possible. The United States, the European nations and most
of the major industrial economies of the world are members of GATT. 

One of the key functions of the WTO, headquartered in Geneva,
Switzerland, is to resolve  trade disputes between nations. A nation
that feels another GATT member is not trading fairly can ask for a
special WTO panel to investigate and resolve the matter. Only
nations can bring this request to the WTO, so Chiquita had to enlist
the help of the United States and several Latin American governments
to present its case against the European Union's banana trade
restrictions.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Politics & History; "If Chiquita come in,
we are no way, they will do us in . . . We  don't know who to
believe anymore, and we don't know the future." - Humbert Nicholson,
small banana farmer in Grande Rivere, St. Lucia.; Island economies
on the line

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Chiquita's efforts to end European trade protections for bananas
grown in the Carribean could devastate a string of tiny island
nations whose economies depend on small independent farmers who know
nothing else.  

"We afraid, but we are still planting bananas because that is all we
know," said Nicholas Espirit, 42, who farms four acres in the north
island village of Bells. "We scared about this Chiquita business.
It's a pressure, man, it's a pressure."  

Mr. Espirit worries about how to feed his five children if the
banana business - the vast bulk of the region's exports - goes bust.
That scenario could happen if Chiquita gets its way in a world trade
dispute with the European Union (EU).  

Currently, several developing nations - including the tiny Caribbean
islands of Dominica, St. Lucia and St. Vincent- receive preferences
for their bananas because they were former colonies of Europe.  

Since 1993, the European Union has imposed an elaborate importing
system that granted preferences to former colonies that export
bananas while limiting access to the European market for banana
exporters with large operations in Central and South America.
Chiquita, backed by the Clinton administration, wants to end those
protections.  

Both Chiquita and the Clinton administration, which has formally
taken Chiquita's objections to the trade dispute panel of the World
Trade Organization (WTO), have stated repeatedly that their argument
is with the Europeans, not the Caribbean. But farmers on these
islands are convinced that if Chiquita gains a larger share of the
highly profitable European market, their tiny economies will be
crushed.  

Through its attorneys, Chiquita issued a statement that the banana
regime set up by the European Union benefitted mainly "European
banana distributors, rather than Caribbean or African nations."  

Removing the European protections won't just hurt these small
islands. It would have a severe impact on at least 10 independent
nations and European territories, from the Caribbean to Africa, a
combined population of almost 35 million.  

The island nations of the Eastern Caribbean-Dominica, St. Lucia and
St. Vincent - would be among the hardest hit if the WTO's ruling
stands and the system is dismantled.  

"I'm not a very emotional man," Peter Carbon, Dominica's minister of
agriculture and environment, told the Enquirer. "But if we lose
bananas, there will be no country."  

The islands provide only a small percentage of bananas to Europe's
protected market - at most 3 percent annually. All the countries and
territories that receive the protections account for only about 15
percent of all the bananas that go to Europe, according to the EU.  

If Chiquita were to grab this market share, the European consumer
probably would notice little change at the local grocery. But the
business loss would have catastrophic implications for nations like
Dominica, St. Lucia and St. Vincent.  

"The worst case scenario is you have increased poverty, increased
hunger, educational opportunities for children declining," said
Lawrence Grossman, an expert on the Eastern Caribbean banana
industry and an associate professor at Virginia Tech. "What Chiquita
will gain compared to what will be lost in the Caribbean, well, it
truly creates a tragic situation."  

Bananas  

Bananas were introduced to the Eastern Caribbean by the British at
the turn of the century. The crop did extremely well on the
mountainous, humid islands. For the first time, farmers had a large
export crop that would grow easily on the hillsides. Banana plants
could not survive a hurricane, but they would grow back after only
nine months or so. For small farmers, bananas have become a perfect
crop because they can be farmed year-round.  

Today, the government of Dominica estimates that at least 20,000
people out of a workforce of 35,000 depend on the banana, or "le
fig" as it is known in the patois of that part of the world. The
estimates on St. Lucia and St. Vincent are considered about as high.

While bananas help the region's economy, poverty still reigns. The
per capita gross domestic product on Dominica is estimated at about
$2,100, less than one-tenth the almost $25,000 per capita gross
domestic product of the United States. Signs of poverty are visible
everywhere on these islands, from the open sewers in the capital to
the shack homes of villages.  

However, internal Chiquita documents obtained by the Enquirer show
that the company has made major political efforts in the islands
since 1994. That year the company sent representatives to St. Lucia
to make the offer of a joint venture with local growers. Under the
deal, Chiquita would have become the exclusive European distributor
of these islands' bananas.  

Chiquita hired G. Philip Hughes, former ambassador to the islands
under the Bush Administration, to meet with government and banana
industry officials in the Eastern Caribbean, according to company
records. His mission was to persuade them to create a joint venture
with Chiquita and transfer the island's special banana export
licenses to Chiquita. Those licenses allow growers to ship a certain
number of bananas duty free to Europe.  

Mr. Hughes said he was hired by Chiquita as a consultant for about
nine months.  

"I knew the leaders in the governments intimately and I knew the
issues that they confronted economically," said Mr. Hughes, who
currently is an executive for the Association for International
Practical Training, based outside Washington D.C.  

Chiquita had a lot to gain from the venture, as it listed in one of
its executive summaries on the issue:  

It would get the islands' European banana trade licenses, allowing
Chiquita to send up to 2.5 million more tons of bananas to the
lucrative European market.  

It would save money in shipping and in sending bananas to southern
Europe while shipping its Latin American bananas to the wealthier
markets of Northern Europe.  

In its documents sent to island officials, Chiquita stress-ed that
it would provide the islands with technical support, offer slightly
more for bananas and other benefits.  

Mr. Hughes, the former ambassador, had "reconnaissance meetings"
with government officials in the Eastern Caribbean as well as
Washington and New York. But despite lobbying efforts by Mr. Hughes,
officials on St. Lucia and other islands turned down Chiquita's
offer.  

"Chiquita was offering a terrific deal," Mr. Hughes said. "But they
had one problem: the mind-set of the Caribbean leaders... The
leaders really had a negative mind-set about Chiquita. They really
considered it almost their enemy."  

When the island governments rejected the offer, Chiquita's agents
went to the growers' associations and in some cases to the farmers
themselves. The banana growers associations refused the offers
because they didn't trust Chiquita's intentions, according  to
Rupert Gajadhar, chairman of the St. Lucia Banana Growers
Association.  

Mr. Gajadhar said the offer from Chiquita agents was attractive to
some farmers and caused a split in the farmers movement. Tensions
between some farmers and the government led to violence, strikes and
riots. In 1993, two farmers were shot and killed and another 25 were
wounded when police opened fire on a roadblock set up by the Banana
Salvation Committee, a grassroots group of banana farmers.  

Mr. Gajadhar said he believed the salvation committee today is
supported by Chiquita and that the group's leader, Patrick Joseph,
meets regularly with Chiquita officials.  

Mr. Joseph, a newly elected senator for the Labour Party, told the
Enquirer that he has met many times with Chiquita, but denied the
company was funding his operation.  

"I always maintain that if Chiquita had given me money, and it means
that it would help the cause that I am fighting, I would accept the
money," he said. "But so far they haven't offered me money. Neither
am I asking them for any."  

Mr. Joseph said he and his supporters see the Caribbean banana
industry as a lost cause. Chiquita will destroy West Indian banana
production because it can grow bananas cheaper in Central America.
He said the government should focus its energies on helping banana
farmers find some other work.  

"We do live in a capitalist society, and in capitalism the strong
eat up the weak. Basically, that's what it is about," he said.  

Mr. Hughes said the company was simply trying to obtain island
licenses so it could sell more bananas under the banana protection
scheme created by the European Union.  

But many banana farm leaders on St. Lucia see Chiquita as a sinister
force out to crush West Indian banana growers for the sake of
profit.  Elias John, president of the St. Lucian National Farmers'
Association, said farmers initially thought the Chiquita agents
simply wanted to buy their bananas. But then farmers began to
believe Chiquita wanted to get control of the islands' banana import
licenses to Europe.  

"When we begin to get the truth, things were coming out about the
amount that they used for the American (presidential) campaign and
all that. We lost our faith and began to realize they were just
after us to destroy us," he said.  

Gripping a rusty cutlass while propping himself next to a banana
plant, farmer Humbert Nicholson surveyed his 15-acre hillside farm
in Grande Rivere, St. Lucia.  

"If Chiquita come in, we are no way," said the 53-year-old farmer.
"They will do us in."  

Standing in worn rubber boots caked with mud, wearing grimy pants
and a shirt so old the armpits have worn out, Mr. Nicholson is a
typical Eastern Caribbean banana farmer - hard working and poor.  

"We don't know who to believe anymore," Mr. Nicholson said. "And we
don't know the future."  

Decision could devastate islands  

If the Caribbean banana industry collapses, the problem also could
hit the United States in a powerful way: a dramatic increase in
illegal drugs coming through the region.  

"At the end of the day, when you have destroyed the economies of the
islands and other countries, what is the fallback position? Crime,
drugs, mass migration, insecurity of property," said Grayson
Stedman, 56, the owner of a Dominican banana plantation and former
chief financial officer of a local banana farmers' cooperative.  

This view isn't just being espoused by citizens of the Caribbean. In
1996, U.S. Gen. John Sheehan, commander of the U.S. Atlantic Command
responsible for drug interdiction efforts in the Caribbean, told a
Washington, D.C. policy forum that the Caribbean banana industry
must be maintained for U.S. interests.  

"If you start deteriorating the economic infrastructure in the
region, it is going to become my problem," he told the group.  

The Caribbean islands are strategically located along key drug-
shipment points from Colombia. Drug Enforcement Agency officials
report that Colombia supplies most of the cocaine and much of the
marijuana for the U.S. illegal drug market. Desperate farmers with
empty fields and hungry children could make eager recruits for the
drug cartels, officials say.  

Caribbean Islands worry about enonomic future, farms  

The economies of the Windward Islands in the Eastern Caribbean have
been dependent on bananas for much of this century. If European
Union banana protections opposed by Chiquita are overturned, the
islands expect their already weak economies to collapse. Below are
two islands that will be hit the hardest.  

Dominica  

Population: 83,000  

Size: 290 square miles  

Top crops: bananas, citrus, mangoes  

A former British colony, Dominica has been independent since 1978.  

St. Lucia  

Population: 159,639  

Size: 238 square miles  

Top crops: bananas, coconuts, cocoa  

A former british colony, St. Lucia has been independent since 1979  

Economies threatened  

Other countries and territories that would be impacted if their
preferential access to the European Union was overturned include:  

Jamaica (Caribbean)  

population: 2.6 million  

crops: sugar, coffee, bananas  

Ivory Coast (West Africa)  

population: 15 million  

crops: coffee, rubber, bananas  

Cameroon (West Africa)  

population: 14.7 million  

crops: cocoa, coffee, cotton, bananas  

St. Vincent and the Grenadines (Caribbean)  

population: 120,000  

crops: bananas, coconuts  

Martinique (Caribbean)  

population: 403,000  

crops: bananas  

Guadeloupe (Caribbean)  

population: 412,000  

crops: bananas, sugar  

Canary Islands (Atlantic)  

population: 1.6 million  

crops: bananas  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Politics & History; U.S. helps Chiquita
fight tariffs in Europe

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON McWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

The busy produce section of the GB supermarket in Evere, a middle
class neighborhood in Brussels, holds the key to understanding the
bitter dispute between Chiquita and the 15-nation European Union
(EU).  

Chiquita - alone among America's giant banana companies - has waged
an international five-year campaign to overturn the EU's banana
trade restrictions. The restrictions are a complex system of tariffs
and quotas that place limits on how many Central American bananas
can be brought into Western Europe.  

The reason for the campaign is simple: The amount of profit that
Chiquita realizes for its bananas is greater in Europe than anywhere
else in the world. And Chiquita dominates the European market.  

In the Evere GB, a typical store in the European Union's capital,
Chiquita bananas sold for 89 Belgian francs per kilogram on April
24, or about $1.10 a pound. The average American price is about 50
cents a pound (some U.S. stores sell bananas as low as 19 cents a
pound). Next to the Chiquita bananas sit the GB brand bananas,
selling for 20 francs less, or about 85 cents a pound.  Shoppers -
from elderly pensioners to teenagers- overwhelmingly reach for
Chiquita.  

Despite the higher price, Chiquita sells well, making up more than
half of the 120,000 to 150,000 kilos sold every week by GB,
Belgium's  largest supermarket chain. Chiquita has dominated the
European market for decades. Its brand recognition means the
company's product commands a high price from the 250 million
consumers who live in the European Union.  

"The quality is not better," said Johan De Vos, GB's auditor
responsible for purchasing bananas. "Other bananas have the same
quality. It's only the name, only the name....In Belgium we can sell
Chiquita for a high price."  

Europe accounted for a majority of the company's net revenues in the
1980s. Although major setbacks in the past five years have sharply
reduced profits, the continent still generates more net revenue for
Chiquita than any other market.  

At the beginning of this decade, Chiquita had hoped to turn Europe
into an even greater financial engine by selling even more of its
relatively expensive bananas there. The EU was consolidating its
trade policies, and Eastern Europe was opening its markets after the
fall of Communism.  

As the leading banana exporter to a continent with almost twice as
many consumers as the United States, Chiquita was brimming with
optimism.  

The company had seen sustained profits and growth ever since
Cincinnati financier Carl Lindner took complete control in 1984, in
great part due to growth of sales in Europe. Wall Street expected
expanded operations there would swell Chiquita's profits even
further.  

"Our leadership in the European marketplace enables us to continue
our growth in the high-potential markets of Eastern Europe, and to
benefit from the transition to a single market economy in the
European Community," Mr. Lindner and his son Keith, then president
and chief operating officer, wrote to stockholders in the company's
1991 annual report.  

But far from the predicted bonanza, the 1990s have been a financial
disaster for the company.  

Chiquita blames losses as far back as 1992 on the EU's banana trade
protections first drafted that year and implemented in July 1993.
The protections have blocked Chiquita from importing as many bananas
as it wants into Europe from Central America. The EU also has placed
tariffs on the bananas that Chiquita does bring in. The company
claims to have lost more than $355 million since 1992, most of it as
a direct result of the banana protections, according to Chiquita
annual reports and the U.S. Trade Representative's Office, which has
argued the company's cause since 1994.  

The issue led the Clinton Administration to take Chiquita's case to
the World Trade Organization (WTO), an international trade court in
Geneva, which last year ordered Europe to alter its system.  

But others, including former high-ranking Chiquita officials, say
Chiquita's losses also are due to errant business decisions and poor
planning by company officials. Still others argue that Chiquita,
which has hired lobbyists and lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic
to fight the European protections, may have won Pyrrhic victories in
court rulings that will do little to help its bottom line in the
near future.  

Sinking in the 90s  

In 1992, Chiquita reported losses of $221.7 million, a number that
shocked Wall Street and sent Chiquita stock plummeting from the high
forties into the teens. The company claimed that increased
competition prior to the new protections led to much of that loss.
In 1993, it reported losses of $51.8 million, and in 1994, $84.3
million. The company's stock continued to skid. In 1995, the company
turned a profit of $27.9 million, mostly through selling assets and
laying off workers, according to its own reports filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).  

In 1996, the company was again in the red, with losses of $27.7
million.  

For 1997, the company eked out a net profit of $300,000, but because
of payments to owners of preferred stock, the per share result for
the year was a loss of 29 cents. Net sales dropped slightly also, to
$2,433,726,000 in 1997 from $2,435,248,000 in 1996. On April 22, the
company announced its first quarter profit this year was $41.1
million, down $2.2 million from the previous year.  

Chiquita's stock closed Friday at $14.25 per share.  

The stock is trading roughly for what it was worth in 1987, while
the overall stock market has seen one of the largest growth periods
in its history.  

Analysts have little good to say about the company's performance.  

"You tend to crawl before you walk, and you tend to walk before you
run," said John McMillan, industry analyst for Prudential
Investments in New York. "There's no doubt that Chiquita is still in
a hospital bed."  

Tim Ramey, industry analyst for Deutsche Morgan Greenfell in New
York and long a critic of Chiquita, told the Enquirer recently  that
"Chiquita has been a disaster of management...They have an amazing
ability to shoot themselves in the foot."  

No one argues that Chiquita has been losing lots of money. What they
argue about is how the company has been losing it.  

Chiquita traces its problems to the creation of the European Union
banana protections. The EU Council of Ministers, the main law making
body of the EU, ended years of internal debate in 1993 by reaching a
compromise on how the EU would collectively import bananas.  

Some countries in the EU advocated free trade of bananas. Other
countries advocated a system to protect banana trade for developing
countries that were former colonies. These nations were dependent on
the banana trade for economic survival but could not produce bananas
that successfully competed with production from larger corporate
farms in Latin America.  

Prior to the EU policy, many individual countries had provided these
protections for their former colonies.  

The two sides battled to a compromise. Regulation 404, as it was
called, guaranteed a certain section of the European market was
reserved for these poorer nations, mostly in the Caribbean and
Africa.  

Under the system, Central and South American countries, where
Chiquita grew most of its bananas, had heavier tariffs imposed on
all their bananas and a limit to how much they could import to
Europe. The system also created a complex array of import "licenses"
that favored European importers.  

An important provision was that these protections would last for 10
years, and then an open market on bananas would go into effect
throughout the EU. The changes still left Chiquita as Europe's
largest banana importer, but it restricted the amount that the
company imported and imposed higher tariffs on bananas that it
brought in from Latin America.  

Chiquita issued statements through its attorneys that "the EU banana
import regime challenged by Chiquita is illegal and an unfair trade
practice. Chiquita was right to oppose it."  

Poor business decisions?  

Opponents of Chiquita on the trade issue, politicians and former
Chiquita employees argue that Chiquita made unsound business
decisions and now it wants developing world banana growers to pay
for them by cutting out European protections.  

They point to the huge capital investments that Chiquita made in the
early 1990s in anticipation of an Eastern European banana boom that
never happened.  

In 1990, the company reported to the SEC that it had a long-term
debt of $494.1 million. In 1991, the figure jumped to $1.23 billion
- an increase of more than 135 percent in one year. The next year it
climbed to $1.41 billion.  Since then, the company's long-term debt
has remained more than $1 billion. For 1997, the company reported
its long-term debt at approximately $1.1 billion.  

Much of this money was used to buy and lease ships and expand
plantations in Central America in anticipation of a huge growth in
European sales, according to Clyde Stephens, who retired as chief of
Chiquita's Banana Research division in 1991 after working for the
company for decades.  

"I thought this was crazy," Mr. Stephens said. "But I was ordered
from the top to go along with it....And they went ahead and just
spent untold millions of dollars in expansion. Pretty soon the whole
damn thing blew up on them. Now to this day, they are stuck  with a
lot of these properties they bought that they never should have
bought.  

"They invested heavily in ships because they said, 'Hey, we're going
to Europe and we're going to break that European market wide open.
And we're going to Eastern Europe. Those bankrupt countries are
going to be in the money.' And the Soviet Union. It was a gross
mistake, and they're paying for those mistakes right now," he added.

Eastern Europe has opened up to banana imports, with sales
moderately increasing, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization. But many Eastern European consumers don't have enough
money to afford bananas as a steady part of their diet.  

The belief that Chiquita caused its own financial problems is also
widely held by banana producers in the former colonies. These
competitors say they stand to lose their market share if the banana
regulations are overturned.  

"Chiquita has made some errors when the common market was created,"
said Mbarga Atangana, European representative of the Association of
Cameroon Banana Producers. "They want now that all the growers in
the ACP (African-Caribbean-Pacific) countries pay for their
mistakes."  

Economic studies done Europe show that Chiquita made mistakes in not
preparing for the creation of the European protection system, while
other American companies did.  

Dole, by strategically purchasing banana plantations in EU-
protected countries like Cameroon, has been able to acquire chunks
of Chiquita's market share. A 1995 report by auditors Arthur D.
Little, who were hired by supporters of the European banana
restrictions, said that Chiquita's market share in Europe had
dropped from 25 percent in 1991 to 18.5 percent. Almost all of that
decrease had been lost to Dole.  

Since the new banana restrictions, Chiquita has bought some
plantations in the Ivory Coast and other places where banana imports
have low tariffs to Europe.  

Chiquita did not provide specific numbers on its European market
share. The EU "has severely attacked and cut into Chiquita's market
position.  

There is no doubt about it. Whereas Dole was very pragmatic," said
Jeroen Douglas, project officer for Bananas for Solidaridad, a Dutch
Christian group that aids development in poorer countries.  

Dole, Chiquita's largest competitor, refused to comment for this
series.  

But analysts like Mr. Ramey of  Deutsche Morgan Grenfell point to
Dole's relative success in the stock market in recent years, with
profits up.  

As of April 21, Dole's stock was trading at more than $45 per share.

Accounting for a stock split in 1995, the stock has increased more
than 77 percent since 1990, according to Bloomberg News. Meanwhile,
Chiquita stock was trading at about $14 per share on April 21. At
the close of 1990, the stock was trading at $32 per share, a
decrease in value of 56.25 percent, according to Bloomberg News.
Chiquita has not had a stock-split since 1988.  

"Dole has said, 'We can't do a whole lot to fix the political
solution,' " Mr. Ramey said. "Instead, they said, 'Let's just adapt
to the situation.'...Meanwhile, Chiquita continues to stagnate while
they are fixated on this WTO (World Trade Organization) decision."  

Chiquita fights  

Chiquita was the only major banana producer to fight against the EU
banana restrictions. And it has fought fiercely, marshaling top
lobbyists in Brussels, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. It has hired
top lawyers in Washington, D.C. to petition the Clinton
administration and Congress to fight the EU protections.  

Meanwhile, a coalition of European human rights  activists, small
importers and others have banned together to counter Chiquita's
efforts. Since 1994, the White House has been a strong supporter of
Chiquita's position, successfully arguing its points at the World
Trade Organization (WTO).  

In 1996, the White House won a WTO ruling and the EU's appeal of
that ruling ordering the EU to change its system to be less
restrictive.  

The White House position is simple at this point: Europe has to
change the system. Ralph Ives, deputy assistant U.S. Trade
Representative and the Clinton administration's point man on the
banana issue, said the administration doesn't care whether the
changes help Chiquita or not, just as long as they are consistent
with principles of international free trade.  

"Our line for the last four years has been we just want the EU to
adopt a system that is consistent with the International rules of
trade," he said.  

"So we haven't been wedded to any particular system....This is
hurting Latin America. It's hurting growth in bananas. It's hurting
our companies. So just abide by the rules."  

Politics and money  

But Chiquita's competitors think the Clinton administration's
aggressive pursuit of this issue is a direct result of Mr. Lindner's
healthy contributions to the Democratic party.  

Tim Cuniff, Del Monte's director of marketing for North America,
said Chiquita is trying to cover its own financial mistakes by
blaming it on the European restrictions.  

"Lindner paid a ton of money supporting presidential campaigns, and
he thought that he was going to get some type of favors," he said.
"Now he's got to start calling in some marks to show that he was
doing right by his shareholders."  

European supporters of the banana protections also see political
contributions as the driving force behind the White House efforts.  

"The government of the United States has itself invested a lot of
time, people and money to this conflict when there is no domestic
export to the European Union so this is, from our point of view, a
little bit strange," said Alvaro Gonzalez de Cossio, Brussels
delegate for ASPROCAN, the association for banana plantations on the
Canary Islands. "You can see that the lobbyists there have worked
very well for the big company, for Chiquita."  

Changes coming  

Politics aside, the EU must change its system or face severe trade
sanctions under the WTO ruling. The EU has stated that it plans to
change the system, but just how it will comply is uncertain.  

Mr. Gonzalez of ASPROCAN said that if the EU proposes changes that
his farmers don't like, the organization will work to block
ratification in the European Council. Under the current
representation, Spain, Portugal, France and the United Kingdom would
have a blocking minority in the council.  

"It doesn't matter if the council has done something that makes the
Americans and Chiquita very happy," he said. "If we don't like it,
there will be a major political problem."  

Banana trade experts say the contentious nature of the dispute means
that Chiquita is unlikely to prevail anytime soon, if ever.
Phillippe Binard, delegate general of the European Community Banana
Trade Association, an organization that represents Chiquita and
other large producers, as well as smaller banana producers, said
Chiquita's victories at the WTO may mean little to Chiquita's bottom
line.  

"These political battles will go on for the next two or three
years," he said. "But it's not surprising. The system has been
seriously challenged from the very beginning, but it has not stopped
us from operating within the limits that have been put on us from
the beginning...The (Banana protection) regime will not disappear,
this is for sure."  

In January, the EU Council announced a proposal that kept its system
intact but altered the way its licenses were given out.  

Mr. Ives at the White House  said the Clinton Administration was not
satisfied with the EU proposal and would continue to fight for "full
compliance" before the WTO.  

"It would be very naive to assume that the WTO decision will be a
meaningful help to anybody in the near to medium term," said Mr.
Ramey at C.J. Lawrence. "It (the WTO-EU negotiation) is going to be
marathon foot-dragging."  

What is the European Union?  

The European Union is a group of 15 nations, most of them in Western
Europe, committed to political, economic and monetary union. In
coming years, more countries are expected to join. The goal is to
become a United States of Europe, with no trade barriers or economic
restrictions between the member states.  

After World War II, countries in Europe began to talk about reducing
political and economic barriers to reduce the chances of another
world war. In 1992, the nations involved (then only 12 countries)
signed the Maastricht Treaty, which recognized the formal union with
a government headquartered in Brussels. It also committed the member
states to full economic integration with a single currency by 1999. 

The fifteen members states are: France, Germany, the United Kingdom,
Italy, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium,
Austria, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Luxembourg.  

The EU government operates through executive commission with a
rotating president and a council, whose members are appointed by the
states, as well as a European Parliament, whose members are elected
directly by the people of Europe.  

While the goal of the EU is unity, the process of getting to that
unity has often been divisive, with individual countries balking at
certain policies. Such was the case with the current banana trade
policy.  

Value of Chiquita stock  

Year-end close and close on Friday, May 1, 1998  

CHART  

Source: Chiquita Brands International, Inc.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS revealed; Violence & drugs; "I was very restless
that night. I couldn't sleep that whole night. I didn't know what it
was, but I knew something had happened. At 3 a.m., people came over
to tell me my son had been shot." - Felicita Diaz, mother of Josque
Moises Castro Diaz; Villagers fear brutal guards

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Security guards here have used violence and brute force to impose
their authority, according to villagers living amid the dense
African palm forests of this plantation.  

The farm is a joint venture between Chiquita's main Honduran
subsidiary, the Tela Railroad Co., and a group of Latin American
businessmen. Tela owns the farm land and manages the operations,
according to company records.  

People living here say they have been harassed by gun-toting guards
who detained them on allegations of stealing or trespassing in the
miles of fly-infested palm forests. But the complaints go beyond
harassment: people have been shot, one person fatally.  

In the early morning hours of Aug. 16, 1996, plantation guards
driving in a security truck opened fire on three men as they came
home from visiting a nearby village. One man, 21-year-old Josque
Moises Castro Diaz, was shot off the horse he was riding and killed
instantly. His cousin, Lisandro Antonio Juarez Coto, then 14, was
shot in the back as he bicycled ahead of the horse. Mr. Juarez's
brother, Cesar Augusto Juarez Coto, then 26, was not injured and ran
into the forest.  

Four San Alejo security guards have been charged with homicide and
are awaiting trial in a Honduran jail.  

Mr. Castro, the oldest of eight children, was the key source of
income for his family, bringing in as much as 800 lempiras (about
$62) a week during picking season from his job picking African Palm
nuts for the Chiquita joint venture. Off season, he would make about
400 lempiras (about $31).  

His mother, Felicita Diaz, 46, said through a translator that her
son was a "church-going man of the family" who never got into
trouble before the night of the shooting.  

"I was very restless that night. I couldn't sleep that whole night,"
she said. "I didn't know what it was but I knew something had
happened. At 3 a.m., people came over to tell me my son had been
shot."  

A year after the incident, the spot where the young man died was
still marked with flowers and mementos. With their main breadwinner
gone, the family is struggling to make ends meet.  

Lisandro Juarez, now 15, showed the Enquirer the huge scars where
the bullet entered and exited his back, passing just an inch from
his spine. He said he was bicycling home with his brother and cousin
when the security truck passed them, doubled back and then started
firing. Next thing he knew, he was shot.  

"I was just laying on the ground, and I couldn't feel my body," he
said through a translator. "So I just began crying to my brother,
'Help me, help me, I can't get up! I can't feel my body!"  

His brother bicycled home with the boy on his back. They then drove
to the hospital, and learned their cousin was dead.  

Mr. Juarez' father, Lisandro Juarez Fuentes, 66, is still angry.  

"I'm furious with them," he said through a translator. "If they had
killed my son, I certainly would have killed the people who did it.
I don't like fact that they killed a relative and wounded  my boy
for sport. There is a lot of rancor here."  

The four guards were identified in court documents as Redin Santiago
Turcios, Angel Maria Reyes, Santos Rosalio Argueta and Raul Antonio
Gutierrez. Iris Gisela Flores Discua, a lawyer who represents Tela
and also the four company guards, has argued in court filings that
the guards fired in self-defense against people who shot at them.  

But reports by police investigators state the guards had shot up
their own truck in an apparent attempt to make it look like they
were attacked. Also, police found no evidence to show the victims
were armed. Police ballistics also showed that one of the guns used
by the security guards in the shooting was an AK-47 assault rifle, a
weapon that under Honduran law may be used only by military
personnel.  

A police report filed with the court reads in translation that "with
the reconstruction that was made, it is established that the people
driving the car saw the offended from the beginning and therefore
could prevent the criminal act from happening; ....It has been
proven by the Judgment from Ballistics that all six empty cartridges
found in the place where the situation happened match the AK-47
rifle confiscated from the San Alejo's Security Chief."  

Chiquita officials refused to be interviewed for this series and
directed all questions to outside attorneys. In a statement issued
through its attorneys, Chiquita distanced itself from the shooting,
that it described as "a tragic event of the utmost seriousness."  

"The security guards involved in the August 16, 1996, shooting at
San Alejo were under the direction and supervision of a joint
venture company managed by Chiquita's joint venture partner - not
Tela Railroad Company or Chiquita....The security guards involved in
the shooting were not employees of Chiquita or Tela Railroad
Company," the statement read.  

The company also stated that "immediately after the incident, the
joint venture dismissed the four security guards who were involved."

According to documents filed with the court by Ms. Flores Discua,
all four men were fired four days after the shooting, not because of
the murder of Mr. Castro but, as the signed letter stamped "Tela
Railroad Company" states, they did not show up to work "and their
whereabouts are unknown" (translation from Spanish). They did not
show up to work because they were in jail, where they remain to this
day, according to the country's main human rights organization,
Comite para La Defensa de Los Derechos Humanos en Honduras (CODEH). 

Court records filed by Tela and obtained by the Enquirer state that
the guards involved were employees of the "Palm Operations of the
Tela Railroad Company."  

In a document filed with the court 10 days after the shooting, Ms.
Flores Discua, "acting in my condition as a legally appointed
representative of the Tela Railroad Company and the Division of
African Palms San Alejo"(translation) asked the court to charge
three villagers - Josque Moises Castro Diaz (then dead), Lisandro
Antonio Juarez Coto (shot in the back) and Cesar Augosto Juarez Coto
with attacking the guards first. In the document, the Tela attorney
identified the guards as "security agents working for the company
whom I represent." (translation)  

She also filed documents with the court identifying herself as the
defense attorney for the accused.  

A statement issued by Chiquita to the Enquirer made no reference to
the lawyer retained by Tela for the case or the guards' connections
to Tela. The company statement maintained that "it is unclear how
the altercation developed or whether security personnel were acting
in self defense."  

Court delays have kept the case from being tried, and the guards
remain in the central jail of La Ceiba in northern Honduras,
according to CODEH.  

In the statement issued by Chiquita through its attorneys, the
company stated that shots fired on Aug. 16 "may have come from an
automatic weapon, the possession of which is prohibited by Honduran
law. Based on that investigation, Chiquita and its joint venture
partner concluded that it was necessary to restructure the security
operation of San Alejo."  

The company stated that the security operation has since been
"completely rebuilt," with more than 10 people, including the chief
of security, being dismissed. The company stated it and its joint
venture have since hired an outside security firm to assist.  

Leonel Milla, 22, hasn't seen much of the changes on the San Alejo
plantation. In another shooting incident, he reported to officials
of CODEH that his right foot was blown apart by a security guard's
gun in the afternoon of April 2, 1997, as he, his cousin and two
friends tried to push-start their broken-down truck.  

Mr. Milla's cousin and one friend were arrested and charged with
stealing, he said. Their charges were dropped after one night in
jail, and Mr. Milla was never charged in the incident, he said.  

"We had nothing and they still shot us," Mr. Milla said through a
translator. "They just ran out after us shouting 'Stop, you sons of
bitches.' "  

Mr. Milla said he ran from the guards for a simple reason: fear.
Plantation guards had already shot Mr. Castro.  

"I didn't want to end up dead too," he said.  

Since the shooting, Mr. Milla has to hobble wherever he goes.  

"Tela never paid for any treatment or care or anything," he said.  

Government doctors have told him that further operations might help
him walk a little better. Chiquita did not respond to Enquirer
questions about this specific incident.  

Other villagers in the 16 communities spread out amid the
plantations said the harassment continues. In September 1996,
leaders from the various communities signed a public letter
complaining about San Alejo security guards' treatment of villagers
and livestock.  

Adalid Garcia, 45, a cattleman from the tiny village of Citronella
amid the plantation, said security guards harass him and his cows
and pigs. He produced photographs of dead pigs. He said one had been
shot and one had been poisoned.  

Through its attorneys, Chiquita released a statement that the
plantation has a problem with trespassing animals, who can damage
the palm plants by eating their roots. The statement said that
company security has detained animals on occasion, in accordance 
with Honduran law, and sent farmers to the local court, where the
court, not Chiquita, issues a fine.  

"Security personnel at San Alejo have never impermissibly fined or
arrested neighboring persons," the statement read. "If, however,
persons or livestock are trespassing or damaging San Alejo property,
the security personnel have the right to detain them."  

In a further response, Chiquita stated through its attorneys that it
was "aware of an incident in which a security guard shot a bull
owned by Mr. Adalid Garcia (an ex-employee) as the bull charged at
the guard. The bull survived."  

Andres Pavon Murillo, 34, a regional coordinator for CODEH, said his
group has received numerous complaints from citizens about
mistreatment by the plantation security. Tela or its joint venture
have done little to solve problems, he said.  

He said most of the disputes arise over control of the roads.
Security has guard houses at the main entrances so people cannot
leave or enter without their approval, even though the miles of
unpaved roads are publicly owned, he said.  

Mr. Pavon took Enquirer reporters to an open area on the plantation,
which he described in Spanish as "a security training ground." The
area, on San Alejo palm land, was littered with thousands of spent
and discarded rifle shells, including those fired from one or more
automatic weapons. CODEH concluded spme of the shells probably were
fired from a AK-47 assault rifle. While it was not determined who
fired the weapons, ownership and firing of such weapons by anyone 
other than the Honduran military is a violation of Honduran law.  

Through its attorneys, Chiquita stated that after the shooting of
Mr. Castro, evidence "suggested" that the plantation's chief of
security had an automatic weapon.  

"His possession of the automatic weapon, which had not been issued
or purchased by his employer, had been without the knowledge or
permission of his employer or Chiquita," the statement read.  

Chiquita stated that the man was dismissed.  

Chiquita denial  

"Chiquita completely denies and rejects any assertion that it has
ever committed any illegal or violent actions against any person in
any country or that it has ever instructed others to do so."  

- A Chiquita attorney  

Shooting at San Alejo  

1. In the early morning hours of Aug. 16, 1996, three young
villagers who lived amid the San Alejo plantation were returning
home after visiting a nearby village. Josque Moises Castro Diaz, 21,
was riding a horse with his cousin, Cesar Augosto Juarez Coto, 26.
Mr. Juarez's brother, Lisandro Antonio Juarez Coto, 14, was riding a
bicycle. In the darkness, a truck carrying plantation security
guards passed them on the road. According to police reports, the
truck stopped down the road, turned around and came back to the
three men, shining its headlights.  

2. The guards opened fire with an automatic weapon, which police
reports indicate was an AK-47 assault rifle. Mr. Castro was shot off
the horse and killed. His cousin, Mr. Juarez, ran into the woods.  

3. The security guards then drove up to the 14-year-old boy on the
bicycle and shot him in the back, severely wounding him. The guards
then sped away from the scene. Mr. Juarez returned for his brother
and carried him home. He was then taken to the hospital and
recovered.  

Source: Honduran police reports  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS revealed; Violence & drugs; "I would tell him, why
don't you give us our back pay and salary  that is rightfully due
us? I gave you 31 years of my life. Why are you paying me back this
way? It is a betrayal. Don't you know what's going on down here?" -
Miguel Angel Tejada Pineda, a fired Honduran union official who
worked for Tela; Workers lead precarious lives in squalid camps

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Chiquita television advertisements in the United States show
smiling, tanned workers strolling through verdant, flowering jungles
drenched in sunshine.  

No one ever has made a commercial about Barrio Brooklyn, a
squatter's camp down the road from the seven large plantations of
Chiquita subsidiary Compania Bananera Atlantica Ltda. (COBAL) at San
Alberto in east-central Costa Rica.  

Here Juana Isabel Guerrero Montero, 38, lives with her seven
children in a 10-foot by 10-foot hovel made of castoff wooden
planks, tree trunks and plastic sheeting.  

Ms. Guerrero had been a contract worker on Chiquita-controlled farms
on and off for the last 15 years. Last year, she was let go before
her most recent contract with the company expired. Pregnant, she
tried to keep working. But after the seventh month of her pregnancy,
her boss refused to move her to work that allowed her to sit down.
When she complained, he fired her, she said.  

In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita stated that it
is "policy and practice not to discuss with the media - or with
anyone else - its relationships with particular employees or the
circumstances in which a person may leave the company."  

Ms. Guerrero's job at San Alberto was to be a "selectora," selecting
and cutting the huge banana stalks into the bunches sold in
supermarkets. The job required her to stand and bend over
constantly. On a good day, if her packing plant filled two trailer
trucks for shipment, she made about $12, she said.  

"I didn't mind working hard. I have worked for Chiquita for a long
time," she said through a translator. "But I was getting so tired
because I was pregnant. I asked my boss, please, let me do something
else, but he said no."  

Ms. Guerrero's story illustrates living conditions for many banana
contract workers on Chiquita- controlled farms from Guatemala to
Ecuador. Unlike Ms. Guerrero, other workers receive housing and
other benefits from the company. But all workers interviewed by the
Enquirer said that they are increasingly worried about how to make
ends meet.  

Even those who are fortunate enough to receive company housing lead
precarious lives.  

Gladys Tellez, 40, has lived for years in a four-room house in the
Chiquita-owned village of Cocobola. The Nicaraguan immigrant and her
family would have lost their housing six years ago after her
husband, Jose Maria Altamirano Pineda, then 40, died after a leg
injury while working on the Cocobola plantation. In a response
issued through its attorneys, Chiquita stated that Mr. Altamirano
died on May 5, 1993, while he was a worker on "Chiquita's Cocobola
farm in Costa Rica." The company stated that he died of bone cancer,
not a work-related injury.  

Mrs. Tellez said her son was able to start work at the Chiquita's
local packing plant, so they were able to stay at the house.  

"The company paid for his (her husband's) coffin, transportation to
(the cemetery), and 25,000 colones," she said through a translator. 

At that time, 25,000 colones was worth about $175.  

"If my son is ever fired, we will have to move out immediately, and
we would have nowhere to go," she said.  

Chiquita stated through its attorneys that it deposited an
undisclosed amount in death benefits with Costa Rican judicial
authorities, as well paying for the casket and the 25,000 colones.  

In squalid camps and towns among the sweltering flatlands of banana
territory, workers interviewed by the Enquirer said that in recent
years working to produce Chiquita bananas has meant less pay (either
in real money or because of inflation), fewer benefits, less union
representation, unenforced employment protections and little job
security.  

An Enquirer investigation into Chiquita's business practices found
that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, officials at the company's
Cincinnati headquarters formulated policies that diminished union
influence on farms controlled by Chiquita and created plans to limit
workers' wages and benefits.  

These business practices include:  

Using computerized hiring logs in Honduras that alert Chiquita-
controlled farms when to rotate some workers at supposedly
independent companies before they can receive state-mandated salary
and health benefits. The companies are all, in fact, controlled by
Chiquita. Though the percentage of workers affected by this policy
is unknown, the rotations also create an unstable workforce on the
plantations, making union organization difficult, according to
Amilcar Castejon, a former administrator for the company -that
manages the farms.  

Firing union activists and suppressing union activity in Honduras,
Costa Rica and Guatemala. In recent years, complaints have been
lodged by unions in those countries. Severe strikes over Chiquita
business practices have occurred in Honduras, Guatemala and Panama. 

Financing the Solidarismo Movement in Costa Rica. The movement is a
workers' association, partially funded by Chiquita and other
multinational companies, that supplants unions, takes management on
its board,will not provide legal representation to protect dismissed
workers and does not authorize workers to strike.  

Chiquita officials declined to comment for this story, referring all
questions to their attorneys. In a statement issued through its
attorneys, Chiquita officials said that it treated all workers,
union or otherwise, fairly, and provided the workers and the
regional economy with good jobs and other benefits.  

"We believe that our record of contributions to the quality of life
in Central America is unsurpassed by any corporation," the company
stated.  

Rotating workers  

Under Honduran law, workers become permanent employees of a company
after six months, entitling them to company benefits like a 13th
month of pay for every 12 months worked and severance if dismissed. 

Mr. Castejon, who was a records administrator for Compania Bananero
Ltd., S.A. (COBALISA), a company secretly controlled by Chiquita,
said the workers are fired, and then rehired shortly thereafter at
another subsidiary farm of COBALISA. This rotation of workers keeps
benefits down but also creates permanent instability for the
workers, making it difficult to unionize, he said.  

"The jobs are not permanent. They are only for six months," said Mr.
Castejon, who said he spoke to the Enquirer because he was angry at
Chiquita's policy. "How are they (workers) going to have anything to
do with the unions if every six months they are changing over the
personnel? That's exactly why they are doing it, to avoid the
unions."  

According to company executives who spoke to the Enquirer on a
condition of anonymity, Chiquita and its subsidiaries save money in
benefits every year by terminating Honduran workers and "flipping"
them from one secretly controlled Chiquita farm to another.  

"Once many of those workers get close to the six month deadline to
become permanent, we fire and then later flip them to our next
farm," said an official of the Tela Railroad Co., Chiquita's main
subsidiary in Honduras, who provided documents to the newspaper.  

The main use of this policy in Honduras is with farms under
COBALISA, which employ about 15,000 workers. Workers are shunted
from one farm to another in COBALISA to avoid payment of benefits,
according to Mr. Castejon, as well as sources within Chiquita and
Tela. The officials requested anonymity. COBALISA has employed
thousands of non-union workers while Chiquita's directly-owned farms
have been cutting thousands of union jobs in recent years.  

"Chiquita neither has a 'fire or rehire' policy nor does it engage
in the 'mass firing' of workers," Chiquita stated through its
lawyers to the Enquirer. "The countries where Chiquita operates are
heavily unionized (or operate under analogous collective bargaining
structures) and, as a practical matter, such a policy or practice
would not be tolerated by these associations or the constituent
labor force."  

However, a high-level Chiquita official has provided the Enquirer
with tape recordings of Chiquita internal voice-mail messages that
discuss rotating workers on the COBALISA farms.  

In an April 7 voice-mail message to Robert Olson, Chiquita's general
counsel and others, Chiquita attorney David Hills stated: "COBALISA
does have a permanent staff, a corporate staff of employees. But the
workers that actually work on the banana farms are not employed by
COBALISA. Instead they are employed on a rotational basis by the
underlying farm companies."  

Computerized printouts the Enquirer obtained from a high-ranking
Chiquita official, list COBALISA subcompanies and workers.  

The printouts, all in Spanish, also list date of entrance, date of
termination and the "parameter date," time remaining before they
reach the six-month period. While many workers on the printout
passed the six-month date, others were being let go just prior to
the six- month period. The Enquirer could not determine the exact
number of workers being rotated.  

In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita did not
address the issue of rotating its workers, but said it did pay high
salaries.  

The statement said: "Wage scales for Chiquita's workers are
substantially higher than those for other agricultural workers in
Central America. A chart showing Chiquita wages in various Central
American nations is attached."  

The chart, dated Oct. 15, 1997, listed minimum salaries by law in
Honduras, Panama and Costa Rica, then listed "Chiquita's Actual
Average Salary." In all cases, the chart shows Chiquita was paying
substantially higher than the minimum wage.  However, the chart did
not detail salaries by job category or whether the employees were
management or union.  

The company's response also did not include any reference to workers
on any of its secretly controlled banana farms throughout Latin
America, including its COBALISA operations in Honduras.  

By not including in its salary chart the lower, non-union wages of
its secretly controlled farms, Chiquita's average wage figures
appear higher than they actually are.  

While helping to prepare Chiquita's response to the Enquirer, Magnes
Welsh, Chiquita's director of communications, in an Oct. 31
voice-mail message, asked an executive of the Tela Railroad Co. -
Chiquita's main Honduran subsidiary - if Tela's financial figures
included those of the secretly controlled farms.  

"Does that number include COBALISA payroll, COBALISA worker social
security, workers compensation, that sort of thing?" she asked. "If
it does, we need to be able to subtract that number out."  

Besides many workers bringing home less money because they work on
non-union farms, all workers in Honduras have seen a real loss in
buying power through substantial inflation.  

Honduras - one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere -
has seen double-digit inflation throughout the 1990s, according to
statistics from the Honduran Central Bank. In January, the Central
Bank reported a inflation rate of 12.8 percent, down from 25.3
percent in 1996. Costa Rica and Panama also have experienced high
inflation.  

In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita said its main
subsidiary in Honduras, the Tela Railroad Co., has good relations
with its union, SITRATERCO (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Tela
Railroad Company), through a "Together Is Better" program of mutual
cooperation.  

But officials of COSIBAH (Coordinadora de Sindicatos Bananeros de
Honduras), an umbrella organization of banana unions that includes
SITRATERCO, told the Enquirer that they didn't agree with Chiquita's
view. They said the relationship has been combative, much like
relationships between unions and companies in the United States.
Battles often have ended up in court.  

In July 1994, after a month of labor unrest following Chiquita's
announcement that it would close four farms and cut more than 800
jobs, Chiquita fired 58 union leaders. Several took severance
packages, but 43 filed suit, claiming Chiquita had unlawfully fired
them for their union activism. In 1996, Honduran courts ruled that
the firing was improper and ordered the company to rehire the 43.  

The court also ordered Chiquito give workers back pay for their time
off, according to court records and press accounts. The company did
rehire the workers. But a few months later,  it fired all 43, citing
economic reasons. The group has sued again, but the case remains
unresolved in the courts.  

In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita said Tela has
made efforts to improve relations with workers in recent years and
the company "encourages open communications between employees and
management."  

Strikes and union complaints against Chiquita and its subsidiaries
also have occurred in recent years in Guatemala, Costa Rica and
Panama.  

In Guatemala, recent labor disputes severely disrupted production at
two farms under exclusive contracts to provide bananas to COBIGUA, a
company secretly controlled by Chiquita. On Feb. 12,  22 workers -
all members of a union executive committee attempting to organize on
the farms Finca Arizona and Finca Alabama - were fired. The unions
alleged the firings were illegal and filed complaints with the
courts, because the company did not have a court order to override
an injunction against taking such action. The U.S. - Guatemala Labor
Education Project, a Chicago-based group concerned with labor issues
in Guatemala, has written a letter of protest to Chiquita but has
received no response. 

The Guatemalan Embassy in Washington D.C. issued a statement this
month that "the Ministry of Labor is committed to continue mediating
to bring the parties to an agreement through dialogue." In a
statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita said that it had no
connection to the farms and "it is inappropriate for Chiquita to
comment as to the cause of any labor unrest at these farms."  

In Costa Rica, the banana workers union has several court cases
against the company for alleged illegal firings of union activists. 

In Panama, 4,600 workers in the Pacific Coast division for
Chiquita's subsidiary, the Chiriqui Land Company, have been on
strike since February.  

Miguel Angel Tejada, 52, one of the fired Honduran union officials
who is suing Tela,  said he wished Chiquita's top official would
come down to Honduras to meet with the fired union officials.  

"I would tell him, why don't you give us our back pay and salary
that is rightfully due us?" Mr. Tejada, who has worked for Tela for
31 years, said through a translator. "I gave you 31 years of my
life. Why are you paying me back this way? It is a betrayal. Don't
you know what's going on down here?"  

Solidarismo in Costa Rica  

Many banana workers in Costa Rica criticize a burgeoning labor
movement that has supplanted unions on many plantations, including
Chiquita farms. The movement, called Movimiento Solidarista
Costarricense (also known as Solidarismo) is funded in part by
companies, including Chiquita.  

Solidarismo officials say the nationwide movement is intended to
foster a better working relationship between workers and employers
through more informal discussions, cooperative planning and
implementation of employee job improvement recommendations.  

More than 1,000 companies and 150,000 workers participate in
Solidarismo associations throughout Costa Rica, according to
Solidarismo records.  

Critics of Solidarismo, including traditional labor unionists, call
the movement an attempt by big business to eliminate the strong
unions in place in Costa Rica.  

Banana workers with ties to traditional unions said Solidarismo
chapters on Chiquita farms often are controlled by the company since
it helps fund the organization. Chiquita executives, along with
worker representatives, jointly hold top positions in the movement's
local chapters.  

Soldiarismo officials said they get money from Chiquita, but denied
they are beholden to the company. Those officials also say, however,
they have no authority to force Chiquita to institute any corporate
changes, retain any employee or provide lawyers or financial
assistance to a Chiquita employees who believe they have been
wrongly fired or forced to resign.  

"Solidarismo is nothing more than a front for Chiquita to control or
eliminate workers who dare to speak out for better wages or working
conditions," said Gilbert Bermudez, general secretary of Sindicato
de Trabajadores de Plantaciones Agricolas and founder of a
coordinating committee of banana unions. "It can do nothing to
protect the workers. It has no power; only what Chiquita allows it
to do."  

Ms. Guerrero of Barrio "Brooklyn" said she paid dues to Solidarismo
while working for Chiquita. She said she doesn't think the
organization will protect her: she found that out when she was let
go.  

Because she had no rights, no union representation, no money to hire
a lawyer, Ms. Guerrero said she left her job. Now living in extreme
poverty without an income, Ms. Guerrero said she would try to sign
up with Chiquita again when her baby was old enough.  

"We need the money," she said.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS revealed; Violence & drugs; Drugs found on Chiquita
ships; Lax company security in Colombia blamed for smuggling

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: MIKE GALLAGHER AND CAMERON MCWHIRTER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Taking advantage of Chiquita's lax security system, Colombian drug
lords are using the company's ships to smuggle large amounts of
cocaine into Europe.  

Despite knowing of the problem, Chiquita's subsidiary officials have
been reluctant to tighten security and inspections at the company's
Santa Marta, Colombia, shipping center where most of the smuggling
originates.  

High-level Chiquita sources told the Enquirer that the company does
not willingly or knowingly ship the illegal drugs.  

Asked about the drugs smuggled on Chiquita vessels, Chiquita through
its attorneys, declined to discuss "the specifics of its drug
interdiction policies and procedures." Chiquita, however, solicited
a letter from the U.S. Customs Service attesting to its cooperation.

"Chiquita is a leader among commercial ocean carriers in cooperating
with the U.S. Customs Service regarding the prevention of drug
smuggling on company operated vessels," the letter said.  

Drug enforcement agents and customs officials in Belgium and the
United Kingdom found a total of more than a ton of almost pure
cocaine hidden in at least seven Chiquita ships in 1997, according
to European custom services and Chiquita sources.  

The seized cocaine is worth up to $33 million in its pure form, and
valued at more than $100 million if sold on the streets, according
to Van Quarles of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Washington,
D.C.  

In internal communications, company officials cite sloppy security
and ship-loading operations by Chiquita employees in Colombia as the
main reasons that smugglers can get the drugs on board the ships.  

The most recent drug seizure verified by the Enquirer was made in
Belgium on the Chiquita Bremen on Oct. 31. When the ship reached
Europe more than 500 kilos of cocaine were discovered in the
insulation of a large container packed with boxes of fruit,
according to Chiquita and Belgium's custom service records.  

The smugglers in Colombia had peeled back half of the interior wall
of the container, removed the foam insulation, replaced it with
packets of cocaine, and then resealed the wall, according to Belgian
officials and Chiquita records.  

Based on standard quantity -  purity - price estimates of the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) the cocaine found on the Bremen had
value of up to $18 million in its pure form and more than $50
million if sold on the streets.  

In a written statement issued through its lawyers, Chiquita told the
Enquirer that "the security and smuggling concerns that Chiquita
faces in Colombia are not unique to the company or even the banana
industry."  

However, the drugs are being found on Chiquita ships sailing to
Europe and not those of its banana-shipping competitors, according
to a Nov. 1 voice-mail message sent to John Ordman, Chiquita's
senior vice president for finance, from Dale Ploughman, a Chiquita
executive  in Antwerp responsible for company ship transportation
issues.  

"(Let's) see if we can tighten things up in Colombia," Mr. Ploughman
said. "It seems like drugs that are coming into Europe are primarily
on Chiquita vessels rather than on other people's vessels. Let's put
it this way: they have only been detected on Chiquita's vessels and
not on other people's vessels. But even so, it does seem that we
have a high incidence of (drug) finds on our vessels."  

Spokesmen for the DEA, and customs agencies in Belgium and United
Kingdom, confirmed that sei-zures of illegal drugs there in 1997
were made on Chiquita ships and not on those of its competitors,
such as Del Monte, Dole or the Irish company Fyffes, that also ship
fruit from South and Central America.  

U.S. Customs Service spokeswoman Erlinda Bird said a check of
seizure records reveals no drugs have been found on Chiquita vessels
at U.S. ports during the past three years.  

Ged Coleridge, a Chiquita official at the company's Belgium office,
detailed the smuggling problem to Mr. Ordman in a Nov. 1 voice-mail
report.  

"There's been about seven (drug) finds on our ships in the course of
this past year which amounts to a total of at least about a ton of
cocaine," Mr. Coleridge said. "And Customs is telling me that it is
only the Chiquita ships. It's all ex-Santa Marta and it's only
Chiquita ships."  

In his report, Mr. Coleridge then tells Mr. Ordman about another
large cocaine shipment found on the Chiquita Bremen after it arrived
in England.  

"(Belgium Custom agents) picked up a Frenchman wandering around the
port," Mr. Coleridge said in the voice-mail. "He had a container
number in his pocket on a piece of paper in his pocket. They located
this container. It also had been sent to England and they advised
the Customs in England and, lo and behold, they found 21 kilos (of
cocaine) in that container."  

Criticizing Chiquita's security and fruit-loading operations in
Colombia, and comparing it to  Dole, Mr. Coleridge recommended
increasing security at the company's Colombian facility.  "Look at
the installation that Dole has in Santa Marta versus the Chiquita
operation in Santa Marta for containers ... Dole is a very well run
and orchestrated operation where ours ... is somewhat of a
mismatch," he said in the voice-mail. "So whether or not that is
something to think about, I don't know. It's food for thought."  

However, Mr. Coleridge said that company officials in Colombia
didn't want to make extra security checks.  

"(Chiquita Colombia officials) seemed to think at that stage it
might be a little bit too dangerous for our chaps to be doing that,"
Mr. Coleridge said. "(They said they) check them when they arrive
here (Belgium)."  

A Chiquita lawyer, who requested anonymity, said he believed that
"if it became well-known that we have this problem, it could result
in tighter scrutiny of our ships by foreign law enforcement
officials, which could cost us time, money and customers. We compete
in a global market with a perishable product that has to get to
market quickly, or our competitors take our customers. It's that
simple."  

Ship route of Chiquita Bremen  

Drug lords hid cocaine in banana containers aboard Chiquita Bremen
in Santa Marta, Colombia, which then sailed to Antwerp and the
United  Kingdom where drug finds where made in each port.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS revealed; Violence & drugs; Mr. Stalinski and his
attorneys "are just trying to shake us down for money so that
they'll go away " - Steven Warshaw, then Chiquita's vice president,
in a 1995 Enquirer interview; Chiquita sued over alleged kidnap plot

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Chiquita security forces tried to kidnap a former agent for a banana
company competitor in Honduras in 1990, the agent contends in
lawsuits filed in federal court in Cincinnati and the Inter-American
Court in Washington D.C.  

Ernst "Otto" Stalinski, 47, a former consultant for Fyffes - an
Irish banana company that did business in Honduras - filed suit in
November in Cincinnati accusing Chiquita of fraud, attempted
kidnaping, piracy, menacing and other charges. Chiquita officials
have vigorously denied the allegations and Chiquita attorneys have
filed a motion with the court to have the case dismissed.  

Mr. Stalinski and his attorneys "are just trying to shake us down
for money so that they'll go away," Steven Warshaw, then Chiquita's
executive vice president, told the Enquirer in 1995.  

The case, reported before by the Enquirer, has wallowed in Honduran
courts for years but is now making its way toward trial in U.S.
District Court.  

In February, Mr. Stalinski's lawyers filed a similar case in the
Inter-American Court which presides over international legal issues
involving foreign countries. In both cases, Mr. Stalinski charges
that Chiquita has corrupted Honduran judges through bribes and
threats, in an effort to have his case dismissed. The cases are
pending.  

The lawsuits stem from 1990, when Mr. Stalinski began working for
Fyffes in Honduras  to woo banana growers whose contracts with
Chiquita had expired. For decades, Chiquita has been the main banana
multinational in Honduras.  

The federal lawsuit names Chiquita, its main Honduran subsidiary -
the Tela Railroad Company - and Chiquita's Chief of Security,
Alejandro Bakoczy, as defendants.  

The complaint alleges that Mr. Bakoczy, with orders from Chiquita
officials, headed an effort to terrorize, kidnap and harm Mr.
Stalinski. According to the complaint, Chiquita also  allegedly
hired paramilitary groups to destroy Fyffes' banana shipments and
harass those growers under contract to supply bananas to Stalinski's
company.  

The lawsuit further alleges Chiquita was involved in the destruction
of shiploads of Fyffes bananas that were stolen from its ships and
destroyed by people working for Chiquita during Honduras' 1990
"banana wars" as they were called, according to Honduran court
records.  

In April 1990, three armed, uniformed men and an attorney working
for Chiquita tried to arrest Mr. Stalinski at his hotel in San Pedro
Sula, in northern Honduras, according to documents filed in the
lawsuits. Mr. Stalinski said he escaped from the hotel with the aid
of hotel employees.  

In his lawsuits, Mr. Stalinski accused the group and Chiquita of
using a trumped-up arrest order to try to kidnap and harm him.
Chiquita has insisted that it had a valid arrest order charging Mr.
Stalinski with stealing bananas.  

Mr. Stalinski said the actions of Chiquita in Honduras "must be
investigated to bring their secret actions into the spotlight of
public scrutiny.  

"Chiquita is a company that makes its own rules," he added. "Money
is its driving force. They tried to kidnap me because I became an
obstacle that needed to be removed."  

If Mr. Stalinski's case does go to trial, it will be without the
presence of a key witness in the case.  

Carlos Guillermo Escobar Galeano, 34, was Mr. Stalinski's bodyguard
at the time of the alleged incident and had helped Mr. Stalinski
escape the alleged kidnaping. On March 24, Mr. Escobar, 34, was shot
to death near his home. Mr. Stalinski said he had planned to use Mr.
Escobar in the case. Mr. Escobar's assailants, who shot him nine
times, remain at large.  

Mr. Escobar, a former member of a Honduran military intelligence
unit, worked for a furniture company at the time of his death. When
Enquirer reporters visited Honduras for this project last year, they
hired him as a driver. The Enquirer was referred to Mr. Escobar by a
source in the Central Intelligence Agency.  

In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita told the
Enquirer that "no Chiquita personnel were in any way involved in his
(Mr. Escobar's) death, and any allegations or innuendo to the
contrary would be outrageously false, irresponsible and defamatory."

Some allegations of the lawsuit filed against Chiquita by Otto
Stalinski  

"In order to protect its monopoly situation, Defendant Chiquita
caused officers, employees, agents and representatives in Honduras,
within the scope of their employment and authority and acting on
behalf of Defendant Chiquita to:  

a) threaten and intimidate plaintiff, as well as plaintiff's
immediate superior and subordinates, with criminal violence;  

b) engage in piracy by having Chiquita's paramilitary forces board
ships that were being loaded with bananas under the supervision  of
the plaintiff in Puerto Cortes, Honduras;  

c) at various times during this period, pursue with Chiquita's
paramilitary forces, and subject to attackby gun fire from Chiquita
agents, the plaintiff, as well as his subordinates and his superior
in the Fyffes' organization; and  

d) under color of the law of Honduras, cause fraudelent court orders
to be issued and enforced by Honduran police at the airport of San
Pedro Sula to physically arrest and confine Plaintiff."  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS revealed; Violence & drugs; Union official murdered
on plantation

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Honduras isn't the only country where there has been violence on
Chiquita-controlled farms.  

On Sept. 30, 1994, in Guatemala, Carlos Ermelindo Veliz Tobar,
secretary of agreements for the workers' union at a plantation
called "Chinook," was shot to death in broad daylight by two men who
drove onto the nearby Kickapoo plantation. The men then drove off
and escaped. No arrests have been made. Police in Guatemala continue
their investigation.  

Both Chinook and Kickapoo farms are controlled by a company called
COBIGUA and sell bananas exclusively to Chiquita. Through its
attorneys, Chiquita declined to define its relationship with
COBIGUA, citing competitive reasons. However documents provided to
the Enquirer by Chiquita sources show that COBIGUA, in fact, is
controlled by Chiquita.  

Chiquita issued a statement through its attorneys that the company
had no knowledge of, or any involvement in, the shooting of Mr.
Veliz.  

The country's presidential human rights committee, COPREDEH, also
investigated the murder and issued a report quoting a union official
that the case was not an act of violence against the union movement
and was probably the result of personal problems.  

But the banana workers' union, Union Sindical de Trabajadores de
Guatemala (UNISTRAGUA), has issued a formal statement labeling Mr.
Veliz's death "an assassination" (translation) and demanding the
government find his killers. The union also attacked the COPREDEH
report and stated that the murder was not a personal matter, but
instead an attempt to quell union activity.  

The union noted that COBIGUA's security force has strict control
over all vehicles entering and leaving the plantations. However, the
killers drove onto the plantation, repeatedly shot Mr. Veliz and
then drove away with no COBIGUA security guard recording the arrival
or departure of the vehicle, according to the union statement.  

A U.S.-based human rights group with offices in Guatemala also has
investigated the killing. The group sent representatives to
interview workers on the farm. The U.S. - Guatemala Labor Education
Project, a Chicago-based non-profit group supporting workers' rights
in Guatemala, concluded that facts of the killing make it appear
anti- union in nature, according to Robert Perillo, the group's
representative in Guatemala.  

On Nov. 4, 1994, Stephen Coats, executive director of the project,
wrote to Carl Lindner, Chiquita's chief executive officer, asking
him to inquire into the shooting.  

"One of the disturbing aspects of this case is that security guards
failed to record in their log the arrival or departure of the
vehicle, suggesting possible collusion between plantation personnel
and the killers," he wrote.  

Mr. Coats went on to state that he hoped Chiquita officials would
tell "the owners" of the Chinook farm to improve security since
other workers said they had received death threats. Mr. Coats did
not know that Chinook was controlled by Chiquita through COBIGUA,
but he did know the farm sold its bananas exclusively to Chiquita.  

"Given the element of danger and fear involved, we would appreciate
your response to our request as soon as possible," Mr. Coats wrote. 

Chiquita never responded, according to Mr. Coats.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS revealed; Violence & drugs; Village destroyed;
Armed soldiers evict residents in Chiquita plan to eliminate union

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: CAMERON MCWHIRTER AND MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing remains of Tacamiche but a few concrete foundations. No one
lives here any more but lizards and crows.  

The churches are gone. The homes of the banana workers are gone.
Even the streets are overgrown with tall grass.  

After six decades as a community among Chiquita's banana fields in
northeastern Honduras, the village was plowed under in February 1996
by about 500 Honduran soldiers. Former residents have not forgotten
their village, nor have they forgiven Chiquita and its subsidiary
for the fact that soldiers with bayonets and bulldozers forcibly
evicted more than 600 people before wiping Tacamiche off the map.  

Villagers had been told to leave. When they refused, Chiquita's
subsidiary Tela Railroad Co. obtained a court-order to evict them.
When they still refused to leave, Tela brought in the army.  

Tela announced in 1992 it planned to close the Tacamiche plantation
because it was no longer suitable for banana production. A
company-wide strike forestalled the closure.  

In 1994 Tela once again announced it was closing the Tacamiche farm,
claiming the plantation's land was bad. The company stated it had to
close the farm, plus three others - all located in Honduras' Sula
Valley - and sell off the land. The company said it would evict the
villagers from those farms.  

Tela officials' claims that the Tacamiche land "was no longer
conducive to the cultivation of bananas in the quantity and quality
required by Tela and Chiquita for the world market" were based on
internal Tela soil tests, according to Chiquita officials in a
written response to the Enquirer.  

But the Enquirer has obtained a 1989 Chiquita legal document
outlining a plan to close company-owned farms in Honduras to
eliminate costly unions.  

While the document does not name the farms to be closed, it does
refer to "a specific group of farms in the (Honduran) division." At
the time, almost all of Chiquita's banana plantations in Honduras,
including Tacamiche, were located in the Sula Valley.  

The Enquirer also has learned that Chiquita has leased the Tacamiche
land with an intent to sell it to a trusted former employee, who
continues to grow bananas on the land. When asked about the leasing,
Chiquita, in a statement issued through its attorneys, stated that
the former employee, Henry Murray, is using a farming method called
"crop-timing": planting bananas so they can be picked and sold when 
the market is at a premium. Mr. Murray sells his bananas exclusively
to Chiquita. Chiquita stated that crop-timing "can be profitable on
a small scale, but it has not been demonstrated to be successful
over the long term and is not suitable for a large scale producer
like Tela."  

To clear the way for the leasing and future purchase of the land,
Chiquita and Tela insisted on the removal of Tacamiche village
despite the impact on its inhabitants, whom the company referred to
as "squatters."  Tacamiche village was de-stroyed but three other
villages were not. All the four Tela farms were closed.  

"Chiquita left us without any past," said John Sevilla Connoley, 43,
a lifelong resident of Tacamiche and the former village's
schoolteacher. "They erased all evidence of our childhood."  

In August 1997, Mr. Sevilla Connoley visited his former village for
the first time since the eviction. "This is the street where I
lived. These roads, I walked them as a child looking for firewood. I
know them like I know my heart."  

Speaking through a translator, Mr. Sevilla Connoley said the
eviction ripped him away from his roots.  

The village had been created by Chiquita, then called the United
Fruit Co., in the 1930s to house workers for its farms. The company
acquired the land in 1936 for $1 from the Honduran government as
part of a larger land deal. Until Tacamiche was destroyed, the
majority of the villagers continued to work for Chiquita in the
fields, and many had lived in the village most of their lives.  

Several other villages also were set for demolition, but Tacamiche
was the first to go. After getting a final court order for eviction,
Chiquita asked Honduran military police to remove the 123 families
in 1996. The decimation of the village on Chiquita's orders was a
hot political issue in Honduras and was condemned by human rights
groups around the world.  

Chiquita has responded that the Tacamiche closing was a regrettable
but unavoidable decision based on hard economic reality: the land
was no good.  

But an April 12, 1989, legal memorandum by Manuel Rodriguez, a
Chiquita lawyer, detailed a plan to close Honduran farms in order to
reduce labor costs. The memo deals with farm closures in the
company's Honduran division but does not mention any farm by name.  

Under a section titled "Labor Issues," Mr. Rodriguez states: "Only
feasible grounds for termination of employees is 'liquidation,  or
permanent closing of company or establishment."'  

Mr. Rodriguez also stated, "(Chiquita subsidiary) Tela should seek
(Honduran government) approval for sale, and immediately thereafter
sever the workers. Should be simultaneously as possible; though for
legal reasons, closing of farms must be completed first.  

"Tela has never implemented closing of farms and termination of
workers in the size and nature of this proposed project," the memo
continued.  

"Review with local (Honduran) counsel the procedure to effectuate
terminations; our recommendation is to terminate all the workers at
affected farms, rather than follow procedures of labor contract and
- or (Honduran) Labor Code."  

The Enquirer made repeated attempts to contact Mr. Murray for
comment on the Tacamiche closing and his proposed purchase of the
land. He did not respond to the interview requests. Mr. Rodriguez
also did not return Enquirer calls for comment.  

In a March 16 internal voice-mail message from Robert Olson,
Chiquita's general counsel, to Mr. Rodriguez, Mr. Olson said he did
not want Mr. Murray talking to the Enquirer. Mr. Olson also said
that if the Enquirer did reach Mr. Murray, he should not tell the
reporters that Chiquita officials had told him not to speak with
them.  

A Chiquita statement, issued through its lawyers, described Mr.
Murray as the prospective buyer of the Tacamiche land and "an
associate producer" of Tela. Chiquita defines an associate producer
as an independent grower with a contract to supply Chiquita with
bananas.  

Chiquita records obtained by the Enquirer show that Mr. Murray was a
long-time employee of Tela. Company records reveal Mr. Murray was
the administrator in the early 1990s of a Honduran company,
gropecuaria Petare S.A., that was secretly controlled by Chiquita.  

Tacamiche gone  

The Tacamiche villagers did not dispute the company's right to the
almost 3,000 acres of plantation surrounding the village. What they
did dispute was Chiquita's claims that the company owned the 925
acres of the village proper. Honduran courts, however, upheld
Chiquita's claim to the entire property.  

In 1994, the 6,000-strong Honduran union for Chiquita banana
workers, SITRATERCO, struck over the proposed closings but settled
several months later. Chiquita offered workers jobs on other farms
or buyouts but did not make offers to the hundreds of villagers who
were relatives or descendants of Chiquita workers who lived in
Tacamiche.  

In statements issued through its attorneys to the Enquirer, Chiquita
said the company requested Honduran military police to evict the
villagers as "appropriate legal action to protect its property and
business interests."  

Chiquita tried to enforce its court eviction of the village several
times, but villagers refused to leave. The military came into the
village in February 1996 with tear gas, bulldozers and rifles. In a
statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita stated that the
February eviction "took place peacefully and no one was hurt."  

Tacamiche villagers dispute that claim, arguing that shots were
fired and tear gas used. Photographs of the event show soldiers with
assault rifles forcibly removing women and children as bulldozers
destroy the village. Several villagers claimed to the Honduran and
international media at the time that they were  beaten.  

Chiquita in its written statement said that it eventually issued
more than $360,000 in relocation costs and buyouts to set up a "new"
Tacamiche on the land of a sugar company several miles away. Each
family was paid about $500 by Chiquita as a "relocation subsidy."
The company also paid money to build houses or move those that had
been knocked down.  

Chiquita emphatically denied through its attorneys that it paid the
military police who raided Tacamiche. However, in an Oct. 11,
voice-mail message by Tela employee Jorge Mendoza to Chiquita
attorney David Hills in Cincinnati, Mr. Mendoza detailed in-kind
payments to the military for their services.  

"We did have feeding expenses for the personnel and soldiers who
were in all that process. There they were paid, uh, the food was
bought by us from a restaurant....Car rents were paid for some of
the movements that were to be done when all the necessary equipment
was not available and some cars were rented by us. Fuel was
administered to the army trucks that were mobilizing the soldiers
and this was done before, during and after this thing was calming
down."  

In its official statement, the company claimed that many of the
"squatters" were in fact new people who had come into the village to
cause trouble. Villagers disputed this allegation.  

Regardless of such arguments, Tacamiche was a public relations
disaster for Chiquita. The situation was covered widely in the
Honduran press.  

After the Tacamiche incident, Chiquita stopped plans to remove other
nearby villages.  

For the Tacamiche villagers, now ensconced in their "new" village
miles away from their home, Chiquita's decision to destroy their
homes is unforgivable.  

"Once you are no longer useful, they discard you," said Juan Pablo
Barahona Romero, 66, who said he had worked for Tela since 1946
before being evicted and fired. "If the president of Chiquita were
ever to come down here, all I would tell him is that we want our
land, to recover the place that we have always known, where we have
lived our whole lives."  

Mr. Romero was let go from Chiquita after the eviction. His
severance package for a lifetime of service was about $3,200 plus a
house in the new Tacamiche.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Power, money & control; Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; "At the end of
the day this has cost us a tremendous amount of money from the
standpoint of our reputation in the marketplace once again with the
Honduras fruit. And once again, no one ends up paying the piper is
what it comes down to." - Robert F. Kistinger, Chiquita Banana Group
president; Overripe fruit hurts reputation, bottom line

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: MIKE GALLAGHER and CAMERON McWHIRTER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Chiquita lost millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of boxes
of bananas, damaging relations with corporate customers worldwide
because of a breakdown of its quality control operations in Honduras
late last year.  

The problem contributed to Chiquita's 1997 fourth quarter losses of
more than $56 million. Chiquita did not report the problem publicly,
and it was not legally required to do so. Company officials  did not
say how much of the $56 million loss resulted from its Honduran
problems.  

The fruit that was shipped from Honduras - one of Chiquita's largest
operations in Central America - arrived overripe at its ports around
the world and resulted in many customers' refusal to accept or keep
the bananas. Chiquita's sales people today are still dealing with
the aftermath of the problem as they try to persuade customers to
accept once again the Honduran fruit, according to company records. 

Asked about the problem by the Enquirer, Chiquita responded through
its attorneys that "the process of harvesting and shipping
perishable products is a delicate one, and we carefully monitor
quality at each stage of production. Nevertheless, temporary supply
disruptions can occur in the produce industry."  

Internal, tape-recorded voice-mail messages of Chiquita employees
obtained by the Enquirer showed the company lost business over the
Honduran fruit problem.  

Chiquita stated to the Enquirer that it did not lose any customers
because of the problems. The company's reputation was hurt with
customers around the world. Chiquita Banana Group President Robert
F. Kistinger chastised employees of Chiquita's main Honduran
subsidiary, the Tela Railroad Co., because of their failures,
according to Chiquita records obtained by the Enquirer.  

In a Nov. 5 voice-mail message to Benjamin Paz, a Chiquita official,
Mr. Kistinger said: "To me, the bigger issue here is ... the total
lack of discipline, the lack of responsibility, the lack of
accountability on the part of the people in Honduras not to allow
things like this to happen because it's just not right ... I'm
prepared to make changes in Honduras. This type of behavior is just
unacceptable."  

The ongoing Honduran fruit problem reached a crisis point in October
and November when customers in Greece, Syria, Turkey, Canada and
Russia either refused to accept or returned boxes of overripe
Chiquita bananas.  

Chiquita had to negotiate a lower price for the bananas or look for
other buyers for the problem fruit. In many cases, the company had
to destroy hundreds of thousands of boxes of the worthless product,
according to company records.  

After Cincinnati-based company officials threatened to replace their
Honduran managers, the quality of the Honduran banana shipments
began to improve in December and January, according to company
records.  

Chiquita's efforts to stop the substandard fruit from being boxed in
Honduras, regain customers and generally improve the quality of the
Honduran fruit shipped to Europe, Canada and Russia has come with a
large price tag, according to Mr. Kistinger and Jeff Filliater, a
Chiquita marketing executive.  

First, Chiquita bolstered its quality-assurance program by putting
high-level company employees on the Honduran docks to check each
load of fruit before it was placed on company ships.  

Secondly, Chiquita's new efforts resulted in 70,000 to 100,000 boxes
of bananas left rotting on Honduran docks each week because the
fruit did not survive the greater scrutiny imposed by the company's
Cincinnati officials.  

The cost to Chiquita for each box of unusable or returned bananas
depends on its contracts with independent growers, time of year,
quality of fruit, the company's own production costs, etc.
Chiquita's cost per box averages between $5 and $7, sources said.  

Mr. Kistinger, in a Nov. 5 voice-mail message to Mr. Paz, said: "At
the end of the day this has cost us a tremendous amount of money
from the standpoint of our reputation in the marketplace once again
with the Honduras fruit. And once again, no one ends up paying the
piper is what it comes down to.  

"(This is a) process we have to stop and change because apparently
no one is paying attention by slapping them on the wrist," he said.
"And this is incredibly significant. It's in a short period of time
involving a tremendous amount of fruit and some very key customers.
You know and I know that you can deliver somebody good fruit for 20
weeks straight and then one or two bad weeks taints your whole
reputation and that is what the Honduran division has successfully
done."  

Providing examples of how serious the Honduran situation was, Taras
Kowalczyn, a Chiquita logistics expert, told Arnaldo Palma, general
manager of Chiquita's Honduran operations, in a Nov. 6 voice- mail
message:  

"We (recently) had two shipments leave out of Honduras," Kowalczyn
said. "The first shipment was going to the Med (Mediterranean)
mainly to Turkey, Greece and Syria. The last shipment ... was going
to St. Petersburg (Russia)."  

Referring to the Mediterranean shipment, Mr. Kowalczyn said, "Of the
136,000 boxes that were loaded for that ship we find approximately
23,500 boxes that were either destroyed, had claims (problems) on
them or some other action ...  

"There were 6,900 boxes destroyed at the berth prior to even being
sent to a customer. Primarily these were found to be in the very,
very late stages of ripening ... Another approximately 16,500 boxes
were, in fact, shipped to customers and we have found that since
then customers are either calling in complaints, claims on these
items or in turn just want to return them," he said. That
represented 17 percent of the entire shipload, he added.  

Mr. Kowalczyn suggested a way to lessen Chiquita's financial losses
on the returned fruit: "We could just try and send them to someone
else to mitigate our losses."  

Describing the fallout over the problem fruit, Mr. Kowalczyn said,
"Right now there is an issue that our customers have with Honduras
fruit. Some of it's perception, some of it's based on the reality
that ... the number of claims and complaints we've been getting on
Honduras fruit has escalated proportionately week in and week out
and (has) kind of hit a crescendo ..."  

And even though Chiquita has instituted tighter quality control
measures on the Honduras fruit, Mr. Kowalczyn said the company's
sales staff was having a hard time recouping past customers. Many
customers said that they would only do business with Chiquita if
they were guaranteed not to get Honduran fruit, he added.  

"The customers told our sales people ... they would rather go to the
Del Monte's and Dole's of the world who have plenty of fruit in the
marketplace and purchase it from them since they have very little
confidence in the Honduras fruit," Mr. Kowalczyn said.  

The quality of Honduran fruit improved after the company criticized
its Honduran employees and changes were made for stricter fruit
inspections. But Mr. Filliater, the marketing executive, told Mr.
Kistinger of ongoing problems in a Nov. 11 voice-mail message.  

"The major issue is that they're (Honduran workers) leaving behind
(on the docks) somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 boxes a week in
Honduras right now," Mr. Filliater said, referring to the boxes of
substandard Honduran fruit found unacceptable for shipment.  

A result of all that leftover problem fruit, he said, was that
Chiquita packing stations were ordered to reduce cutting and boxing
of bananas.  

Mr. Kistinger, in several voice-mail messages to company employees,
including Chiquita's Honduran officials, pleaded for an effort to
regain and maintain shipments of high-quality fruit. "We have to
work together to regain what we have lost. This is a serious problem
for all of us."  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Power, money & control; Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; "We can only fire
him (Renaldo Escobar) with cause because of his involvement in the
Colombian problem if we file a criminal charge against him with
Colombian authorities. Clearly we would not want to do that because
we would be implicating ourselves" - David Hills, Chiquita lawyer,
discussing how to deal with a subsidiary company lawyer involved in
a Colombian bribe scheme; Bribe scheme covered up

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: MIKE GALLAGHER AND CAMERON MCWHIRTER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

An Enquirer investigation has found that Chiquita made business
decisions in Latin America to cover up a bribery scheme involving
company and subsidiary employees, helped foreign growers try to
evade taxes, and ran into tax problems.  

Corrupt activities committed by U.S. companies abroad may fall under
the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).  

The act, passed in 1977, followed a series of international scandals
in which American companies operating overseas were caught bribing
foreign officials, paying kickbacks for contracts and committing
other acts that would be illegal in the United States. The act
prohibits United States companies or their employees from offering a
bribe to influence a foreign government official's acts or
decisions. The act also requires that U.S. companies maintain
accurate records of their foreign operations.  

Bribery  

The bribery incident involved paying government officials in Turbo,
Colombia, to help the company's Colombian subsidiary Banadex obtain
use of a large government storage facility. Company records and
high-level sources within the company described how, after learning
of the scheme, company officials took action to hide it.  

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigators have
issued subpoenas to Chiquita seeking documents reflecting how
Chiquita obtained access to the Colombian government-owned storage
space.  

Chiquita, through its lawyers stated, "Chiquita's policy is not to
make illegal payments to any government officials."  

Sources told the Enquirer that two Chiquita executives have been
forced to resign: Douglas Walker, vice president for operations, 
and Renaldo Escobar, a company lawyer in Colombia.  

Jorge Forton, a Chiquita executive in Medellin, Colombia, who is now
in the United States, also is being forced to resign, but company
officials, including Chiquita President and Chief Operating Officer
Steven G. Warshaw, have allowed him to stay on temporarily while he
seeks other employment in the U.S.  

High-level Chiquita sources said Mr. Escobar and Mr. Walker were
given generous severance packages and have signed confidentiality
agreements preventing them from discussing any company business,
including the Colombian incident.  

After leaving Chiquita, Mr. Walker was hired by Corporex Companies,
Inc. in Northern Kentucky. As part of Mr. Escobar's severance
package, he has been hired as an outside lawyer in Colombia for
Chiquita, company records revealed.  

One high-level Chiquita executive provided the Enquirer with
recorded, internal company voice-mail messages to back up his
information. Citing fear of losing his job and company retaliation,
the executive requested confidentiality.  

Prior to leaving the company, Mr. Escobar, in a Dec. 13, 1997
voice-mail message to Chiquita lawyer Manuel Rodriguez, described
how and why Banadex - Chiquita's Colombian subsidiary - became
involved in the incident that included payments to Colombian customs
agents. He also explained Chiquita's need to obtain the
Colombian-owned storage facility. Mr. Escobar's message was spoken
in Spanish and translated for the Enquirer.  

The customs area Chiquita was allowed to use after paying Colombian
customs agents is both an enclosed and open area "in which the
imported cargoes we bring in (to Colombia) are stored," Mr. Escobar
said. "While the nationalization process takes place, we bring
fertilizers, fungicides, etc., in pretty big amounts."  

The "nationalization process" is when cargo arriving in Colombia
from other countries is kept stored at an indoor - outdoor facility
controlled by Colombian customs officials. The cargo remains in the
customs area until it is inventoried, recorded and all taxes are
paid to the Colombian government. The customs agents then release
the cargo so the company that owns it can deliver it to its
operations in that country.  

"If we didn't have the customs (storage) area, we would have to ask
a third party to give us the service of having this cargo in storage
while the nationalization process happens," Mr. Escobar said. It
would cost Banadex more than $1 million a year to obtain a similar
storage facility for imported cargo during the nationalization
process, he said.  

Responding to suggestions by Chiquita officials in Cincinnati that
they may want to "shut down" the Colombian government storage
operation due to concerns that the way that the use of the property
was obtained would surface, Mr. Escobar, in his voice-mail message
responded:  

"I'm afraid there's an excess of prevention in this, almost
paranoia. I personally don't find it logical to shut down ours
(storage operation) so a third party will give the service. It is
better to leave it as is, or let it die by itself, but not using it,
frankly, makes no sense to me."  

Discussing how payment was made to Colombian customs agents to
secure the storage area, Mr. Escobar said: "What happened, remember
Manuel, was that the company, for security reasons, delivered what
had to be delivered to the customs agents, who gave it to a third
party and this party to its final destination, which means a lot of
time without being traced.  

"I see no risk, maybe one in a thousand, that this thing could mean
that we are in trouble," Mr. Escobar said. "If whomever found about
this inside the company decides to make a scandal out of it, that's
another thing that you will be able to analyze better than me."  

In a Nov. 17, 1997 voice-mail message from Mr. Walker to Robert
Olson, Chiquita's general counsel in Cincinnati, Mr. Walker
confirmed the bribery issue as the reason he was leaving the
company. In the message, Mr. Walker also expressed concern that
other Chiquita employees were learning of it after promises the
matter would be kept confidential. He said one of his best friends,
a Chiquita finance executive, had asked him about gossip that he
(Walker) was fired for being involved in a Colombian bribery scheme.

Mr. Walker, Chiquita's vice president of operations, in his voice-
mail message, said his friend had heard that "Jorge Forton and
myself had been fired for bribing a Colombian official for a
warehouse facility in Turbo. So he has it pretty close to accurate
if not completely accurate."  

Noting that he had signed a confidentiality agreement with Chiquita
prohibiting him from discussing the matter with anyone, Mr. Walker
said in his voice-mail message:  

"So here I am by contract totally precluded from being able to
address with my closest friends information they're hearing in the
most mundane fashion through the office and obviously it's extremely
disturbing to me, extremely frustrating to me, and I don't know what
at this point you guys can do about it, but I hope you're able to do
something."  

Mr. Walker did not return repeated telephone calls from the
Enquirer.  

In a Dec. 10, 1997 voice-mail message to Mr. Olson and Chiquita
President Warshaw, Chiquita lawyer David Hills described a
conversation he had with outside lawyers in Colombia regarding
Renaldo Escobar and the ways in which his employment could be
severed due to the Colombian incident.  

Mr. Hills advised against firing Mr. Escobar because the only way to
legally do that would alert Colombian authorities to the fact the
bribery occurred. Additionally, he added, notifying Colombian
authorities would publicly tie Chiquita to the bribe.  

Mr. Hills' message, in part, said, "We can only fire him (Escobar)
with cause because of his involvement in the Colombian problem if we
file a criminal charge against him with Colombian authorities.
Clearly we would not want to do that because we would be implicating
ourselves. So basically, the only thing we can ask Renaldo to do is
to basically have a, we're basically asking him to resign, which
doesn't put us in the best legal position."  

Chiquita, in a written response through its lawyers to the Enquirer,
declined to discuss the Colombian incident, the resignations of the
employees, or whether the company violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act.  

"Chiquita's 'Code of Conduct for Associates' requires employees to
comply at all times with the laws that affect the company's
business," the response said. "It is Chiquita's policy and
consistent practice to take appropriate disciplinary action where
employees fail  to abide by this standard of conduct. Employment
information, however, is strictly confidential.  

"Chiquita respects the privacy and personal interests of its
employees. As a result, it is Chiquita's policy and practice not to
discuss with the media - or anyone else - its relationships with
particular employees or the circumstances in which a person may then
leave the company's employment."  

Tax schemes  

Other internal documents indicate that Chiquita may have helped
foreign brokers and banana growers evade or avoid taxes in their
respective countries.  

For example, an Oct. 17, 1991, internal report marked "Confidential"
from Marco A. Garcia, a former Chiquita financial analyst, to Mr.
Hills, explained how Chiquita maintained financial records in Miami
for the purpose of helping Ecuadoran growers, with whom it had
contracts, evade taxes.  

The report detailed the growers' financial transactions with a
Chiquita subsidiary called Agricola Del Guayas.  

Under a section called, "Purpose of Offshore Books - Miami account,"
it reads: "Competitive pressures. Growers want dollars offshore to
evade taxes and to avoid converting to Sucres (Ecuadoran currency)
at the official rate which is 5% to 8% less than the free market
rate."  

In another case, a series of tape-recorded voice-mail messages among
Chiquita lawyers, company executives and employees reveals
Chiquita's plan to help a broker avoid paying taxes on an
anticipated commission payment from the company.  

According to Chiquita records, a company called Corporacion Midori
S.A. in San Jose, Costa Rica, was hired in 1996 to help sell some of
Chiquita's Honduran and Colombian companies, land and equipment.  

Prior to agreeing to broker the sales deals, representatives of
Midori and a Chiquita subsidiary called Chiquita Brands Inc., of
Delaware, signed a contract to allow Midori to search for potential
buyers and negotiate possible deals, according to Chiquita records. 

Midori then signed a similar contract with one of Chiquita's
Colombian subsidiaries, the records show.  

Eugene Rodriguez, a Chiquita executive coordinating the Midori deal,
told Chiquita officials in Cincinnati in an Oct. 11, 1997 voice-mail
message that the company had agreed to pay Midori its commission
"offshore" in "a deal where they don't have to pay taxes."  

In his voice-mail message to Mr. Hills, Mr. Rodriguez said:
"Actually we asked the guys to provide a deal for us, an offshore
deal. A deal where they don't have to pay taxes...They (Midori)
didn't want to pay taxes. And we always said that they would have
the payment offshore."  

A high-level source within Chiquita who was involved in the Midori
payment scheme confirmed how the deal was arranged. An offshore
account would be used to pay Midori so the Colombian government
would not have access to any paperwork, such as invoices, etc., to
prove how much, if anything, Midori would be paid for its
commission, he said.  

But in early October, a problem arose after Midori negotiated the
sale of a Chiquita banana operation in Colombia called Shangri-La.  

When Midori asked about its commission, experts in Chiquita's tax
department in Cincinnati questioned whether Chiquita was legally
obligated to withhold 35 percent in taxes from the commission  per
Colombian tax laws, according to several internal Chiquita
voice-mail messages.  

To avoid jeopardizing the sale, Chiquita officials devised a plan to
pay Midori its commission without withholding the Colombia- required
tax.  

Midori had complicated the commission payment problem by signing a
broker's agreement to sell Chiquita's Colombian property with both
Chiquita Brands Inc. and its Colombian subsidiary, according to
company records. That problem had to be overcome if Midori's
commission was to be paid without withholding the Colombian tax,
according to Mr. Hills in an Oct. 11 voice-mail message to John
Ordman, Chiquita's senior vice president of finance, and others.  

To solve the legal dilemma, Chiquita officials came up with a plan
to pay Midori its commission without taking out taxes. The plan was
described in an Oct. 20, 1997 voice-mail message from Mr. Hills to
Mr. Ordman. Chiquita would obtain every copy of Midori's contract
with Chiquita's Colombian subsidiary. All copies of the contract
would be sent to Cincinnati headquarters where officials  would
"annul it, kill it, mutually terminate it," said Mr. Hills.  

Chiquita wanted to hide the fact that Midori's commission was going
to be paid offshore, according to an Oct. 20, 1997 voice-mail
message to Mr. Hills from Scott Wittman, a Chiquita tax specialist. 

"We have consulted with counsel (and) gotten their input on this
transaction. They feel that we have a position that we can take. It
says because this agreement is between CBI (Chiquita Brands Inc.)
and Midori that the withholding tax would not apply.  

"The one thing they caution us on is definitely do not include in
the (land sale) agreement anything related to the brokerage
commission and the fact that it is getting paid offshore. We
obviously don't want to highlight that," Mr. Wittman said. Company
records did not reveal the amount of the proposed land deal or the
proposed broker's fee.  

At the last minute, Midori's deal to sell the Shangri-La property
apparently fell through, according to a March 23 voice-mail message
from John Ordman to Mr. Hills. Mr. Ordman said that more than five
months after the Midori commission tax issue surfaced, Chiquita
still owned and controlled the Shangri-La property.  

"It's not a perfect secret," Mr. Ordman said. "There are people who
know that Chiquita owns Shangri-La. But it is not generally known in
Colombia, and it's particularly not generally known among the
popular groups, if you will, in Colombia. There is probably no place
that I can think of that this company has more exposure to an easy
$10 million loss than Shangri-La. If Shangri-La were to be invaded
by squatters, or as you know, it is in a bit of a guerrilla-active
area, it could really become extremely difficult to protect. We've
had some near misses there in the past. It's one of the things that
really keeps me awake at night."  

In a Chiquita response to Enquirer questions issued through its
attorneys, the company stated that information provided to the
Enquirer was false and that "any implication of wrongdoing on the
part of Chiquita in connection with these alleged transactions  is
false."  

Chiquita further stated that "Chiquita has not sold the property
referred to by the Enquirer and has not terminated any contract with
Midori."  

Honduran tax problem  

Chiquita's main subsidiary in Honduras also has run into a tax
problem there.  

In early 1997, the Honduran tax department completed an
investigation of the Tela Railroad Co. to pay hundreds of thousands
of dollars in asset taxes from at least 1992, according to Chiquita
re-cords and Honduran officials.  

After unsuccessful attempts to get the company to pay, Honduran tax
officials took their case against Chiquita's subsidiary to court,
according to several voice-mail messages of Chiquita tax specialist
David Hochwalt to Mr. Hills, Mr. Ordman and others. That action was
confirmed for the Enquirer by Jorge Ramirez Mendoza, a Honduran tax
department spokesman.  

In November, Chiquita "threw in the towel" and agreed it had,
indeed, failed to pay asset taxes of 8.7 million lempiras (about
$700,000 U.S.), since 1991, according to Mr. Hochwalt, in a Nov. 14,
1997 voice-mail message to Mr. Olson, Chiquita's general counsel and
senior vice president.  

The company paid its disputed taxes in late November.  

To keep from paying an additional hundreds of thousands of dollars
in penalties and interest on the unpaid taxes, Chiquita lawyers
asked Honduran officials to eliminate those charges under a Honduran
tax amnesty plan, according to Mr. Hochwalt  

In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita said that the
company's subsidiary and the Honduran government had "divergent
views" on the taxes owed and the company was challenging the amount
in court. The subsidiary eventually "elected to participate in a
national tax amnesty program by paying the tax in dispute (about
$700,000). Participation in the program eliminated the risk of
interest or penalties that might have resulted if the (legal)
challenges had not succeeded."  

"If whomever found about  this inside the company decides to make a
scandal of it, that's another  thing that you will be able to
analyze better than me." - Renaldo Escobar, a Chiquita lawyer,
discussing the possible fallout from the Colombian  bribery scheme  

Chiquita's problems with brokered land deal in Colombia  

Chiquita officials in Cincinnati approved hiring a San Jose, Costa
Rica company to find buyers for the banana giant's non-core assets
in Colombia and Honduras. Problems arose when the Costa Rican
company  - Midori - found a buyer for Chiquita's Shangri-La
plantation in Colombia, but insisted its commission be paid
off-shore as a way to avoid paying taxes. The land sale apparently
fell through.  

Key Chiquita players  

Chiquita Brands International is the world's largest banana company,
employing more than 36,000 workers and selling its fruit in 40
countries.  

The company deals in fruit juices, ready-to-eat salads, margarine,
shortening, vegetable oils and canned food. But its signature
product has always been the bright yellow banana that it bills as a
"perfect" food.  

Carl Lindner, 79, self-made multi-millionaire , is Chairman and CEO
of Chiquita Brands International. He took control of the company in
1984 .  

Keith Lindner, 38, made president and chief operating officer of the
company in 1991. Later moved to the position of vice-chairman.  

Steven G. Warshaw, 43, president and chief operating officer of
Chiquita Brands International Inc.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
POWER, MONEY & CONTROL; Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; "Both Chiquita
and our government have assured us that Chiquita has nothing to do
with COBALISA other than to make contracts with them to purchase
their bananas." - Edgardo Zepeda, president of the Honduran banana
workers union; Locals front for Chiquita

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 3, 1998
By: MIKE GALLAGHER AND CAMERON MCWHIRTER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

In addition to using interlocking trusts to hide control of Latin
American companies, Chiquita has used a system in which local
citizens are named as company shareholders but secretly sign over
their shares in blank, thereby allowing the Cincinnati-based banana
giant to exercise control.  

The company used this method to avoid restrictions of national
security laws and limits on land ownership by foreigners, and to
reduce political and union pressure.  

Called "nominee ownership," the system was first widely used by
Chiquita in Honduras in 1990. It has since been spread by the
company to operations in other Latin American countries, including
Guatemala and Colombia, according to company records obtained by the
Enquirer.  

A report entitled "Honduras operations, Legal Structure Description
and Rationale" written in February 1992 by Chiquita's legal
department to the company's lawyers and executives in Honduras,
explained how the system worked. "The farms ... are set up with five
Honduran nominees as owners, and with their shares signed in blank
over to the Chiquita company." Signing shares in blank is analogous
to a person endorsing a check without designating a payee.  

Under the Honduran civil law system, a nominee system may be illegal
if the purpose or intent is to circumvent the law. However, no cases
could be found in the Honduran legal system where this specific
issue was decided in court.  

Chiquita arranged for a company called Compania Bananera Limitada
S.A., (COBALISA) in La Lima, Honduras, to be the management -
service company to handle personnel, cash flow, tax issues and other
functions of the supposedly independent Honduran companies.  

Amilcar Castejon, a Honduran lawyer who was in charge of COBALISA's
internal records, spoke openly to the Enquirer in February when he
said Chiquita set up the farm companies and is hiding its control
"to get rid of its Honduran labor union, which would save the
company millions of dollars; hide its assets, because the country's
agrarian law limits foreign ownership of agricultural land; and
shield itself from liability for such things as worker lawsuits and
child labor violations."  

Mr. Castejon said he was hired by Chiquita to oversee all COBALISA
payroll and personnel records, time sheets, benefit reports and
other internal financial and corporation records at COBALISA.  

Chiquita officials in Cincinnati declined to discuss COBALISA. Velmi
de Irias, COBALISA's personnel director, denied any connection to
Chiquita.  

However, documents ob-tained by the Enquirer list top COBALISA
officials as employees of the Tela Railroad Co., Chiquita's primary
Honduran subsidiary. The Enquirer also has obtained written
correspondence and other company records identifying Jose Obregon,
COBALISA's general manager, as a Tela employee, including a Jan. 22,
1997, letter with a Tela letterhead discussing COBALISA personnel
matters.  

Mr. Obregon's paycheck also is paid directly out of Chiquita's
Cincinnati headquarters, Chiquita records show.  

A high-level Chiquita executive provided tape recordings of company
voice-mail recordings showing Mr. Obregon's connection to Chiquita
in Cincinnati. The source told the Enquirer that he is one of
several executives with authority over company voice-mails.  He
requested anonymity.  

In an April 6 message from Chiquita lawyer David Hills to Robert
Olson, Chiquita's general counsel and senior vice president, Mr.
Hills said: "Bob, Jose Obregon is the general manager of COBALISA in
Honduras ... I looked into his HR (human resources) status and he is
actually an employee of Chiquita Brands Inc.  

"He (Obregon) has had previous postings in Panama where he was the
chief financial officer for (Chiquita's) Chiriqui Land Co. He was
then sent to Honduras where he was, I believe, the chief financial
officer of Tela before he became the general manager of COBALISA ...
"  

Also, in an Oct. 25, 1997 message from Tela executive Ernesto
Interiano to Mr. Hills, Mr. Interiano said: "Jose Obregon is not on
Tela's payroll; he is being paid by Cincinnati. . . It is a direct
payment between Chiquita headquarters and him.  

"And I want to confirm to you that Raul Schrunder, who is the person
in charge of agricultural operations in COBALISA, is one of our
employees, Tela's employee. He is, in fact, on our payroll."  

Chiquita officials refused to answer several Enquirer questions
about the connection between Mr. Obregon, Chiquita and COBALISA,
citing competitive reasons.  

The company response did state: "Chiquita has not violated the
Honduran Agrarian Reform Law or the National Security provisions of
the Honduran Constitution."  

Chiquita's control of COBALISA was unknown by the Honduran labor
community, said German Edgardo Zepeda, president of Coordinadora de
Sindicatos Bananeros de Honduras (COSIBAH), which coordinates unions
that represent Honduran banana workers.  

"Both Chiquita and our government have assured us that Chiquita has
nothing to do with COBALISA other than to make contracts with them
to purchase their bananas," he said through a translator.  

How Chiquita's secret Honduran banana companies are  structured  

Above: Chiquita officials in Cincinnati created a chart in 1993 to
show how COBALISA - a management service company controlled by
Chiquita - would manage some of its secretly controlled companies
and farms located throughout Honduras.  

Right: This internal company document also reveals how Chiquita
planned to control newly acquired farm land and companies.  

"The farms under this entity are set up with 5 Honduran nominees as
owners, and with their shares signed in blank over to the Chiquita
company. The nominee form of ownership has been the traditional
method of setting up legal ownership of new farms."  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; 'How can you take money from a
corporation . . .  doing that kind of thing to perfectly good and
totally innocent people?'; Catholic leader rips Chiquita; Cincinnati
banana giant responds to Enquirer probe

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 4, 1998
By: MIKE GALLAGHER and CAMERON McWHIRTER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

In response to revelations about Chiquita Brands International's
overseas business practices in Sunday's Enquirer, a prominent
Catholic bishop has called on Catholic institutions not to accept
donations from Carl H. Lindner Jr. or Chiquita.  

Chiquita, meanwhile, issued a statement Sunday defending itself "as
a good corporate citizen notwithstanding the unfair and inaccurate
assertions of the Enquirer."  

But Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, an auxiliary bishop of Detroit, said
the Enquirer's findings reflect what he saw firsthand on Chiquita
farms he visited in Honduras last year. A member of the U.S.
Catholic  Conference's Social Justice Committee, Bishop Gumbleton is
an internationally known spokesman and investigator for the Catholic
Church on human rights and social justice issues. The Catholic
Conference is the social policy arm of the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops.  

On Sunday, Bishop Gumbleton called for Catholic leaders to reject
donations from Chiquita and Mr. Lindner, the company's chairman and
chief executive officer. He said such gifts involved "blood money
earned off the backs of the poor peasants of Central America."  

The bishop made his comments after reading the Sunday Chiquita
stories on the Enquirer Web site.  

In the 18-page special section Sunday, the Enquirer described the
findings of a yearlong investigation into the Cincinnati-based
banana giant. Among those findings:  

Chiquita secretly controls dozens of supposedly independent banana
companies in Latin America. It uses elaborate business structures to
hide its control, avoiding restrictions on land ownership and
national security laws. The structures also are aimed at limiting
unions on the farms.  

Chiquita's subsidiaries engage in pesticide practices that endanger
the health of banana workers and nearby residents, despite an
agreement with an environmental group to adhere to certain safety
standards. Those practices include aerial pesticide spraying while
workers are still in the fields.  

Security guards of Chiquita subsidiaries and their joint-venture
partners have used brute force to enforce their authority on
plantations. The violence by these guards has resulted in the death
and wounding of unarmed peasants, including children.  

Chiquita is "an evil institution for exploiting the poor," Bishop
Gumbleton said. "I saw (people) living in a dismal situation.  What
I would ask the Catholic leaders of Cincinnati and elsewhere is 'How
can you take money from a corporation or . . . (a chairman) of a
corporation who is doing that kind of thing to perfectly good and
totally innocent people and depriving them of a chance to get a
decent livelihood?' "  

In October, Mr. Lindner and his family donated $1.5 million to the
Archdiocese of Cincinnati to provide computers for inner-city
Catholic schools.  

Efforts to reach Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk and
archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco were unsuccessful Sunday.  

Telephone calls to Mr. Lindner and Steven Warshaw, president and
chief operating officer of Chiquita Brands International Inc., were
not returned. Robert Olson, Chiquita's general counsel, spoke with
an Enquirer reporter but would not say whether the company  would
issue a statement in response to Bishop Gumbleton's comments.  

Bishop Gumbleton said the 2,000-mile distance that separates
Chiquita's banana farms and its Cincinnati headquarters is no excuse
for allowing the problems in Latin America to continue. "It doesn't
take a big effort for Carl Lindner to go down there and just find
out what's going on at his plantations.  

"I don't believe that a person like Carl Lindner is the only
corporate leader in this country doing this kind of thing," he said.
"But the evidence uncovered by (the Enquirer), and what I have
personally observed, makes it clear that he and his company must
make changes to protect the very lives of the people who made them
so wealthy."  

Chiquita Brands statement  

On Sunday, May 3, the Cincinnati Enquirer published a sensational
and highly inaccurate story impugning the reputation and business
practices of Chiquita Brands International. Chiquita is known
globally as a leading international producer of wholesome and
healthy foods and as a good corporate citizen - investing in local
communities, building schools and improving the quality of life for
tens of thousands. We are proud of the success we have had in
providing benefits and wages in Latin America that far exceed those
available from other jobs and protecting the environment in a manner
that has earned praise from the most prominent independent
environmental organizations. 

Chiquita is proud of its work and denies the false implications of
the Enquirer's article.  

The information contained in the Enquirer's story was selectively
edited, incomplete and presented out of context and portrays a false
and highly inaccurate image of Chiquita. Chiquita and other
independent sources made extraordinary efforts to provide facts and
documents which demonstrate the true record. Unfortunately, the
Enquirer ignored the hundreds of pages of documents detailing the
facts regarding Chiquita's sound business practices. Instead, the
Enquirer has affiliated itself and worked in concert with persons
having financial, political and economic motives to damage Chiquita.

Chiquita adheres to the highest standards of product quality and
social responsibility, applying world-class standards regarding
associate relations, product quality and environmental controls.
Chiquita will continue to meet its obligations as a good corporate
citizen notwithstanding the unfair and inaccurate assertions of the
Enquirer.  

On the Web  

The complete text of the Enquirer's investigation into Chiquita
Brands International Inc. can be accessed at the Enquirer's Web
site: enquirer.com - chiquita  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; European official calls for Chiquita
probe

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 5, 1998
By: CAMERON McWHIRTER and MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

A member of the European Parliament on Monday called on a European
Union commission to look into Enquirer reports that Chiquita Brands
International Inc. is involved in a wide range of questionable
business practices in Latin America.  

The EU's Commission on Agriculture is the 15-nation European Union's
lead agency in dealing with the banana industry. On Sunday, the
Enquirer published an 18-page section detailing the overseas
operations of Cincinnati-based Chiquita. Those operations include
secret control of supposedly independent banana companies, a bribery
scandal in Colombia and the buying of political influence with
campaign contributions.  

"It just makes me very angry," said Glenys Kinnock, member of the
European Parliament for Wales. "We've just been to the commission
now and met with the director general about this. They are very keen
to see these stories. They are not very happy with Chiquita."  

Mrs. Kinnock has been a longstanding opponent of Chiquita's efforts
to roll back EU banana protections. Those protections, in place
since 1993, favored small banana growers from former European
colonies in Africa and the Caribbean. But those protections have
hindered sales for Chiquita, the largest banana provider to Europe. 

Mrs. Kinnock made her remarks on the opening day of the
International Banana Conference, a gathering of banana producers,
environmentalists, governments and union groups concerned about
problems in the industry. The three-day gathering in Brussels,
capital of the EU, has drawn more than 300 delegates from 44
counties to discuss issues from pesticide use, to market
protections, to corporate codes of conduct.  

Delegates also include scientists, major banana distributors,
industry consultants and a representative of a chemical company.
Most of the world's major banana companies have sent
representatives, including Dole, Del Monte and the Irish banana
company Fyffes. Chiquita sent no delegate, though a public relations
firm that has represented the company in Europe has sent an
observer.  

Government representatives are here from the United Kingdom and
several other members of the European Union and Costa Rica. The U.S.
trade representative's office was invited to send a delegate, but as
of Monday, no U.S. representative had registered.  

Ralph Ives, deputy assistant U.S. trade representative and point man
on banana issues for the Clinton administration, did not return
calls Monday seeking comment on the United States' absence  from the
conference.  

Mrs. Kinnock told the Enquirer she wants the European Union
Parliament's legal services division to investigate the newspaper's
findings. The issues are of interest here because the U.S. trade
representative's office, in support of Chiquita, has led efforts to
overturn the EU banana restrictions.  

Among the Enquirer findings:  

Chiquita acquired land in Latin American countries for expanded
banana production - even though those nations' laws prohibit and -
or limit Chiquita from directly buying property.  

Employees of Chiquita and a subsidiary were involved in a bribery
scheme in Colombia that has come to the attention of the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission.  

Chiquita Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Carl H. Lindner Jr.,
his family and associates made legal, but controversial
contributions to political figures at a time the company desperately
sought U.S. backing in the trade dispute over the EU banana
restrictions.  

European and Caribbean critics of President Clinton's support for
Chiquita's position have pointed to large campaign donations that
Mr. Lindner has made to the president and the Democratic Party. The
United States, working closely with Chiquita, has carried the case
to the World Trade Organization (WTO), an international body set up
to mediate trade disputes.  

The WTO has ruled that the EU protections run counter to the
principles of global free trade, and must be altered.  

The EU Council, a body of ministers that serves as the
organization's executive branch, is expected to submit an
alternative plan to the WTO in June.  

In addition to Mrs. Kinnock, Philip Lowe, the EU's director general
for development, said he also was looking into the newspaper's
findings. Claire Godfrey, policy adviser of Oxfam International, a
British charity organization concerned with hunger in the developing
nations of the world, has long been a supporter of the EU
protections  and said the information published in the Enquirer puts
the U.S. trade office on shaky ground" in the EU trade dispute.  

"If the U.S. or the Latin Americans want to take the case back to
the WTO in June, I think their credibility is going to be weakened,"
she said.  

Ron Oswald, secretary general of the Geneva-based International
Union of Food and Agricultural Workers, which represents more than
3.6 million dues-paying members worldwide, said the findings provide
insight into how some global companies operate in the 1990s.  

"The concept of trying to create virtual companies, that control
only marketing and strategy, and therefore can wash their hands of
all responsibility of what happens on the ground, is becoming quite
common," he said. "The structure of ownership is obviously extreme
in the Chiquita case."  

He said his union takes the position that companies should not be
able to hide ownership at the expense of employees in the developing
world. "I think that as soon as a company makes money out of an
arrangement, I don't care how complex or clever the ownership
structure they set up, they have a social responsibility."  

Chiquita criticizes use of tapes  

The following statement was issued Monday by Chiquita Brands
International:  

Yesterday, Chiquita denied the highly inaccurate account in the May
3 Cincinnati Enquirer regarding the Company's business practices. In
so  doing, the Enquirer virtually ignored Chiquita's record of
providing among the most competitive wages and benefits of any major
employer in Latin America, of being a major engine of progress,
building roads, schools and hospitals and, and of being singled out
for praise by independent environmental groups for its progressive
policies.  

The Enquirer based its article on selective, out of context voice
mail messages that were stolen from private voice mail boxes of
Chiquita employees.  

Steven G. Warshaw, Chiquita's President and Chief Operating Officer,
said: 'We at Chiquita are shocked by the Enquirer's admission  that
it obtained more than 2,000 messages containing confidential,
privileged  and proprietary information that was stolen from the
private voice mail boxes of Chiquita  employees. This behavior
raises serious moral and legal questions. We doubt that any citizen
of Cincinnati is comfortable with a newspaper thinking it
appropriate to obtain stolen  private voice mail messages, much less
selectively and inaccurately publishing them. Newspapers are
supposed to guard against Big Brother, not be Big Brother.'  

Enquirer responds  

In response, Enquirer President and Publisher Harry M. Whipple
issued the following:  

As explained in Sunday's package of stories, The Enquirer's
investigation into Chiquita's business practices was supported by
multiple sources inside and outside the company, and by extensive
documentation.  

The documentation includes the executives' own words contained in
copies of taped voice-mail messages. Copies of these tapes were
provided to Enquirer reporters by a high-ranking Chiquita executive,
who was one of several with authority over the company's voice-mail
system. These voice-mail messages were essentially internal
memoranda.  

The source, who requested confidentiality for fear of retribution,
also provided the same tapes to the Securities and Exchange
Commission, which has launched its own investigation.  

The Enquirer stands by its stories. We are proud of them.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Pilarczyk defends accepting donation; Detroit bishop calls such
Lindner gifts 'blood money'

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 5, 1998
By: MIKE GALLAGHER and CAMERON McWHIRTER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk on Monday defended his
acceptance of a $1.5 million donation from Carl H. Lindner Jr. and
his family after a prominent Catholic bishop characterized it as
"blood money."  

Archbishop Pilarczyk said through a spokesman that he thought it was
all right to accept the Lindner money despite a call by Detroit
Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton for Catholic institutions to
refuse such donations because Mr. Lindner is chairman and chief
executive officer of Chiquita Brands International. Bishop Gumbleton
said Chiquita earns its money "off the backs of the poor peasants of
Central America" where bananas are produced.  

Bishop Gumbleton is a member of the U.S. Catholic Conference's
Social Justice Committee. His statement was in response to
revelations in Sunday's Enquirer about Chiquita's Latin American
business practices. Those findings included aerial spraying of
pesticides while workers were still in the fields; brute force used
on peasants by guards on banana plantations; and failure to adhere
to established  health and safety standards for workers.  

"The Archdiocese of Cincinnati was aware last fall that concerns of
social justice were being raised in conjunction with the operations
of Chiquita Brands International," Archbishop Pilarczyk said in a
statement issued through spokesman Dan Andriacco.  

"Those concerns were considered by the archbishop before he decided
to accept the gift of $1.5 million from members of the Carl and
Edith Lindner family, which controls Chiquita. On the basis of the
information available, there seemed no reason to refuse the gift.  

"The money from the Lindner family is being used to fund computer
technology and equipment for seven inner-city Catholic schools
serving 1,327 children, 75 percent of whom are black; 70 percent of
whom are non-Catholic and 64 percent of whom have family incomes
below the poverty level."  

The archbishop declined to speak directly with the Enquirer for this
story.  

When asked whether the archbishop had any additional concerns about
Chiquita based on the Enquirer's report, Mr. Andriacco responded:
"Sure it raises concerns. There were many, many allegations raised
by the Enquirer and denied by Carl Lindner, and we are not in a
position to choose between the two."  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Scrutiny of Chiquita widens

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 6, 1998
By: CAMERON McWHIRTER and MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

The president of the union representing banana workers in Honduras
said Tuesday his union will investigate Enquirer findings that
Chiquita Brands International Inc. set up secretly controlled
companies in Honduras to undermine union membership and pay lower
wages.  

In separate actions, representatives of Costa Rica and France said
their governments have begun looking into findings contained in an
Enquirer report that was published Sunday.  

Additionally, the director of a coordinating group for all of
Central America's banana unions said he was calling on the Honduran
government to investigate Chiquita's secret business practices "that
have now been exposed by The Cincinnati Enquirer."  

The new calls for investigations of Chiquita echo that of European
Parliament member Glenys Kinnock. Mrs. Kinnock, a member of the
European Parliament from Wales, on Monday called on the European
Union commission to investigate Chiquita.  

On Sunday, the Enquirer published an 18-page section detailing
questionable business practices of Cincinnati-based Chiquita. Those
included secret control of supposedly independent banana companies,
the cover-up of a bribe in Colombia and the buying of political
influence with campaign contributions.  

Chiquita has challenged the Enquirer findings, saying the reports
were based on "selective editing" and were "inaccurate and
misleading."  

The government and union officials made their statements while
attending the International Banana Conference, a gathering of banana
producers, environmentalists, governments and union groups concerned
about problems in the industry. The three-day gathering in Brussels,
capital of the EU, has drawn more than 300 delegates from 44
countries to discuss issues from pesticide use, to market
protections, to corporate codes of conduct.  

Chiquita and the U.S. trade representative's office have not
attended the conference despite being invited. Ralph Ives, deputy
assistant U.S. trade representative and the administration's point
man on banana policy, said he was not attending because of a
scheduling conflict.  

"There will be a major reaction to this," said Juan Funes Estrada,
40, president of Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Tela Railroad
Company (SITRATERCO), the union representing Chiquita workers in
Honduras. The Tela Railroad Co. is Chiquita's main subsidiary in
Honduras, though the company is incorporated in Delaware. The union
is the largest in Honduras and one of the largest in Central
America, with 5,600 members.  

"We have always suspected that the company wasn't being fair with
us, but now we have the confirmation," Mr. Funes said, speaking
through a translator. He was referring to Chiquita documents and
quotes from Chiquita officials in internal voice-mail messages that
were provided to the Enquirer by a confidential source.  

German Edgardo Zepeda, director of Coordinadora de Sindicatos
Bananeros de Honduras (COSIBAH), a coordinating group for all of
Central America's banana unions, said that the Honduran government
will have to take some kind of action on the Enquirer findings. He
said his organization will demand investigations by the Honduran
government.  

"The government is bound to react," he said through a translator.
"It has to clarify these issues to get to the bottom of this."  

Meanwhile, a Costa Rican delegate here said his government is going
to review the Enquirer findings as well.  

Carlos Rojas, a member of the Costa Rican delegation and a former
minister of agriculture, said he did not want to comment yet on the
Enquirer stories until the review is concluded.  

Jean Louis Bonicel, who heads the agricultural department for the
French government's Ministry of Overseas Territories, said his
office had also begun a review of the findings.  

The French government has long opposed U.S. efforts on behalf of
Chiquita to overturn European trade protections. These protections
benefit small banana growers in Africa and the Caribbean, but hurt
Chiquita, which is Europe's largest importer.  

Chiquita officials did not respond to Enquirer requests for comment
Tuesday.  

According to the Enquirer report, Chiquita set up structures to
avoid the restrictions of Honduran land ownership and national
security laws as well as to limit or eliminate unions on its
plantations.  

This system included trusts being set up in the Channel Islands and
Liechtenstein, two well-known European tax and trust havens, and in
Honduras with the involvement of large Honduran banks.  

Another form of control was the formation of farm companies
involving five trusted Honduran citizens with ties to Chiquita
subsidiaries. These Honduran citizens were made shareholders of the
farm companies. But once those companies were established and shares
issued, the shares were signed in blank and then given to Chiquita. 

Chiquita has used similar legal structures in other Latin American
countries, including Colombia and Guatemala.  

One company involved in these schemes was Compania Bananera Limitada
S.A., (COBALISA) which is based in La Lima, Honduras, headquarters
of Chiquita's Honduran banana operations.  

"The truth is, we didn't know about COBALISA," said Mr. Funes, who
also lives in La Lima. "We knew it existed as a company, but
(COBALISA officials) kept it very secret and said they were
independent and said they had nothing to do with Chiquita."  

Mr. Funes said he thinks Tela may have violated its contract with
the union. "I plan to discuss this with my board as soon as I get
back (to Honduras)," he said.  

Mr. Funes said SITRATERCO could take several actions, including
calling for national strikes, lawsuits or public campaigns with the
help of other unions around the world.  

He said the union, if it determines the Enquirer findings are true,
will lodge a complaint with the United Nations and the International
Labor Organization (ILO), a world body dealing with employees'
rights.  

He also said the issues will be raised at the union's contract
negotiations with Tela, set for August.  

Mr. Funes said Tela had launched a program several years ago with
the slogan that translates from Spanish, "Together is Better," a
plan that is supposed to promote company - union cooperation.  

These latest findings, he said, make it clear Tela and Chiquita are
not interested in doing anything "together with the union."  

"We don't trust them at all," he said.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita secrets revealed; Colombia to investigate bribe scheme

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 8, 1998
By: MIKE GALLAGHER and CAMERON McWHIRTER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

The Colombian government has launched an investigation into reports
that employees of Chiquita Brands International Inc. and its
Colombian subsidiary were involved in the bribery of customs agents
to obtain storage space at a government-owned compound.  

Officials at the Colombian Embassy in Washington, D.C., also
confirmed they will ask U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC)
investigators to provide copies of tape-recorded voice-mail messages
of employees of Chiquita and its Colombian subsidiary detailing the
bribe scheme and efforts to cover it up.  

The tapes were provided to the Enquirer and to the SEC by a high-
level Chiquita source with authority over the company's voice-mail
system. Chiquita President and Chief Operating Officer Steven G.
Warshaw disputed this week that anyone had such authority.  

Those tapes, if released by the SEC to Colombian investigators, will
be used in the Colombian government's own bribery probe, according
to Alfonso Lievano, commercial adviser of the Foreign Trade
Ministry's Colombian Government Trade Bureau in Washington.  

The SEC has begun a formal investigation of Chiquita and its
subsidiaries on a wide range of topics, including the Colombian
bribery scheme and hidden control of supposedly independent
companies in Latin America, according to company and SEC sources.  

SEC investigators served multiple subpoenas on Chiquita in April
seeking documents, voice-mail messages, reports, memos, etc., in
connection with its probe of the Cincinnati-based banana giant,
according to SEC sources. The information also was confirmed in
voice-mail messages of Robert Olson, Chiquita's general counsel, and
other company officials.  

The Enquirer also has been provided voice-mail messages linking one
of Chiquita's lawyers - Manuel Rodriguez - to an effort to cover up
the bribe scheme to prevent Colombian and U.S. officials from
connecting the banana company to the illegal act.  

"Yes, we are investigating all this and it is a very serious
matter," said Mr. Lievano. "It is also a most delicate matter but
one that must be looked into. We will be asking the SEC for those
records (voice-mail tapes)."  

Also confirming the Colombian probe was Fidel Cano, the Colombian
Embassy's press attache. "My government will want answers to what is
going on in this matter with Chiquita. This will all be looked
into."  

The Colombian authorities said they learned of the alleged bribe
scheme after the Enquirer published an 18-page special section
Sunday describing the findings of a yearlong investigation into
questionable business practices by Chiquita.  

The bribery incident involved paying customs agents in Turbo,
Colombia, to help Chiquita's Colombian subsidiary Banadex obtain use
of a large government storage facility.  

The Enquirer detailed the bribery scheme in its Sunday report. The
voice-mail tapes and high-level Chiquita sources described how,
after learning of the scheme, company officials took action to hide
it.  

The tapes reveal that two company executives have been forced to
resign: Douglas Walker, vice president for operations, and Reinaldo
Escobar, a lawyer for Chiquita's Banadex subsidiary.  

Jorge Forton, a Banadex executive in Medellin, Colombia, also is
being forced to resign, but company officials, including Mr.
Warshaw, allowed him to stay on temporarily while he sought other
employment in the United States, according to the tapes.  

High-level Chiquita sources, and the voice-mail messages, show Mr.
Escobar and Mr. Walker were given generous severance packages and
signed confidentiality agreements preventing them from discussing
any company business, including the Colombian incident. Mr. Forton
also signed a confidentiality agreement, the tapes show.  

After leaving Chiquita, Mr. Walker was hired by Corporex Cos. Inc.
in Northern Kentucky. As part of Mr. Escobar's severance package, he
has been hired as an outside lawyer in Colombia for Chiquita,
company records revealed.  

One high-level Chiquita executive provided the Enquirer with the
voice-mail messages to back up his information. Citing fear of
losing his job and company retaliation, the executive requested
confidentiality.  

Mr. Walker, in a Nov. 17, 1997, voice-mail message to Mr. Olson,
confirmed the bribery issue as the reason he was leaving the
company. In his message, Mr. Walker said a friend had told him that
he heard "Jorge Forton and myself had been fired for bribing a
Colombian official for a warehouse facility in Turbo. So he has it
pretty close  to accurate if not completely accurate."  

Mr. Escobar, in a Dec. 13, 1997, voice-mail message to Mr.
Rodriguez, said Colombian custom agents were paid so Banadex could
use the government compound for storage, thus saving the company
more than $1 million in private storage costs at the Colombian port.

Discussing how payment was made to Colombian customs agents to
secure the storage area, Mr. Escobar said: "What happened, remember,
Manuel, was that the company, for security reasons, delivered what
had to be delivered to the customs agents, who gave it to a third
party and this party to its final destination, which means a lot of
time without being traced."  

Mr. Walker, Mr. Escobar and Mr. Forton declined repeated Enquirer
requests for comment.  

Mr. Cano, the Colombian Embassy press attache, said the Colombian
government "does not lease or rent space" at its custom facilities -
including Turbo - to private companies such as Chiquita. "That is
strictly for use by our government."  

Mr. Rodriguez, in an Oct. 16, 1997, voice-mail message to John
Ordman, Chiquita's senior vice president of finance, described what
sparked the company officials' decision to offer the three men
incentives to resign in lieu of being fired. Mr. Rodriguez's message
was in Spanish and was translated for the Enquirer.  

"Hey, John Ordman, there was an article in El Tiempo newspaper (in
Colombia) where it was reported that ten custom officials were
arrested for alleged corruption and paybacks," Mr. Rodriguez said.
"It is important that you know this because apparently there has
been several others, 30-60 custom people were arrested and are being
investigated and will obviously make statements against other
officers and it is going to come to light regarding all types of
corruption."  

Mr. Rodriguez then discussed why it would be a good idea to allow
Mr. Escobar to resign and give him a Chiquita consulting contract
instead of fining or firing him for his involvement in the Colombian
incident.  

"We have to give him that consulting contract for many reasons, but
the other additional point is that if Reinaldo questions this
action, we would have to prove (his) termination to the (Colombian)
authorities, which means that we have to reveal the fact that the
payment was made and try to justify the firing.  

"This has legal repercussions, but in addition, it has greater
political repercussions," he said. "Particularly . . . given that
(Colombian President Ernesto) Samper wants to make an example
against the multinationals, and what a better time than to declare
war on Chiquita over this point. This would have international
repercussions . . . Therefore, it is a very delicate issue.  

"Let me tell you that the same situation can be made in relation to
Walker and Forton. If they decide to fight this (forced resignation)
I don't see that we have any other option. Up to a certain point
we're risking that possibility."  

Chiquita lawyer David Hills, in a Dec. 10, 1997, voice-mail message
to Mr. Olson and Mr. Warshaw, also advised against firing Mr.
Escobar, because the only way to legally do that would alert
Colombian authorities to the fact the bribery occurred.
Additionally,  he added, notifying Colombian authorities would
publicly tie Chiquita to the bribe.  

Mr. Hills' message, in part, said, "We can only fire him (Escobar)
with cause because of his involvement in the Colombian problem if we
file a criminal charge against him with Colombian authorities.
Clearly we would not want to do that because we would be implicating
ourselves. So, basically, the only thing we can ask Reinaldo to do
is basically have a, we're basically asking him to resign, which
doesn't put us in the best legal position."  

Chiquita, in a written response through its lawyers to the Enquirer,
declined to discuss the Colombian incident, the resignations of the
employees or whether the company violated any U.S. laws.  

The company response did say, "Chiquita's 'Code of Conduct for
Associates' requires employees to comply at all times with the laws
that affect the company's business."  

Corrupt activities committed by U.S. companies abroad may fall under
the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).  

The act, passed in 1977, followed a series of international scandals
in which American companies operating overseas were caught bribing
foreign officials, paying kickbacks for contracts and committing
other acts that would be illegal in the United States. The act
prohibits U.S. companies or their employees from offering a bribe to
influence a foreign government official's acts or decisions.  

The act also requires that U.S. companies maintain accurate records
of their foreign operations.  

The SEC and the U.S. Justice Department have responsibility for
investigating reports of FCPA violations.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed; Stockholders sue Chiquita  over reports;
Three separate lawsuits charge mismanagement

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 9, 1998
By: MIKE GALLAGHER and CAMERON MCWHIRTER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Three stockholders of Chiquita Brands International Inc. have filed
separate lawsuits against the company and its board of directors,
saying they violated their duties by engaging in illegal acts, gross
mismanagement and abuse of corporate control.  

Shareholder Helen Bondy filed her lawsuit Thursday, while Hal
Bloomberg and Anne Shapiro filed theirs Friday. No addresses were
provided in the court papers for the three stockholders. Ms.
Shapiro's lawyer said she lived in Putnam County, N.Y. None could be
reached for comment.  

Wording of the lawsuits, filed in Hamilton County Court of Common
Pleas, was virtually identical. Named as defendants were Chiquita
and all seven members of the board: Carl H. Lindner Jr., chairman
and chief executive officer; Keith E. Lindner, vice chairman; Fred
J. Runk, director; Jean Head Sisco, director; William W. Verity,
director; Oliver W. Waddell, director, and Steven G. Warshaw,
director, president and chief operating officer.  

The three lawsuits recount questionable business practices revealed
in an 18-page section in Sunday's Cincinnati Enquirer.  

They allege that the board of directors violated its "fiduciary
responsibilities" to protect the company, its assets, reputation,
and its shareholders' investments. They claim that Chiquita and its
directors were involved in, permitted, or should have been aware
that company employees engaged in activities such as:  

The bribing of Colombian government officials to obtain access to a
state-owned warehouse facility in violation of the U.S. Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act.  

Routinely conducting aerial spraying of hazardous and toxic
pesticides on its banana crops while unprotected workers were in the
fields.  

Endangering the lives and health of employees by the misuse of
pesticides and the emission of toxic fumes from a Costa Rican
factory run by a Chiquita subsidiary.  

Maintaining a system to routinely rotate workers from one subsidiary
to another to deprive them of benefits and prevent them from
organizing in unions.  

Circumventing existing labor agreements by closing farms and
employing foreign military forces to raze long-standing villages
over the protest of local residents and international human rights
organizations.  

Assisting companies with which it does business to avoid tax
obligations.  

Creating an international trust structure to circumvent foreign
nations' land-ownership and national security laws.  

"No reasonable individual could have believed that the company was
justified in failing to monitor and impose adequate mechanisms and
safeguards and to investigate and correct the misleading, deceptive
and illegal practices," Ms. Bondy's lawsuit stated.  

The lawsuits, called derivative complaints, state that Chiquita
directors, by failing to halt illegal and improper actions by
company employees, left shareholders vulnerable to extensive
financial losses through potential lawsuits and state and federal
investigations.  

The lawsuits also cite the possibility that an ongoing U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into Chiquita's
business practices could lead to substantial fines, court-ordered
sanctions and criminal prosecution. Any or all of those things would
harm and diminish the shareholders' investments, the suits state.  

"The company has engaged in illegal activities, its corporate assets
have been wasted, the value of its common stock has been adversely
affected, the company has been and will continue to be subjected to
litigation as a result of the wrongful conduct alleged, and the
company has lost credibility, its reputation has been damaged, and
its ability to be competitive has been seriously undermined," Ms.
Shapiro's lawsuit alleges.  

Chiquita officials did not respond Friday to Enquirer questions
about the lawsuits.  

The lawsuits were filed on behalf of the shareholders by Richard S.
Wayne and William K. Flynn of the Cincinnati law firm Strauss &
Troy. Each shareholder also has retained New York lawyers.  

Efforts to reach Mr. Wayne and Mr. Flynn were unsuccessful.  

Stanley M. Grossman, the New York lawyer representing Ms. Shapiro,
told the Enquirer Friday that the "extensive and well-documented"
newspaper articles, along with additional information obtained by
the attorneys, prompted the quick legal action.  

"It sounds like a very serious situation at Chiquita and there is
just no reason to wait when this information is currently
available," Mr. Grossman said. "Hopefully, these lawsuits will
prompt some corrective action by the (Chiquita) board."  

Mr. Grossman said "it is still being decided" whether Ms. Shapiro
will attend Chiquita's annual stockholders' meeting in Cincinnati on
Wednesday.  

Arthur N. Abbey, the New York attorney representing Ms. Bondy, and
Marian P. Rosner, the New York attorney for Mr. Bloomberg, could not
be reached for comment.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Environmental group loosens pesticide standards; Chiquita SECRETS
Revealed

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 13, 1998
By: CAMERON McWHIRTER and MIKE GALLAGHER
---------------------------------------------------------------------

The environmental partner of Chiquita Brands International Inc.
issued pesticide standards Tuesday that loosen restrictions to
conform to Chiquita's existing pesticide practices.  

In a two-page statement issued in response to questions by the
Enquirer, the New York-based Rainforest Alliance stated that its
rules prohibit banana plantations from using pesticides that are
banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or the
European Union. These rules are less re- strictive than previously
pub-  +1l lished alliance standards.  

The statement comes a week after the Enquirer published a special
section May 3 on Chiquita's business practices. The newspaper
reported that Chiquita subsidiary farms used several pesticides in
violation of stated alliance policy.  

In documents provided earlier to the Enquirer, the alliance stated
in its "General Production Standards" for its Better Banana program
that certified farms can "only use products that are registered for
use in the United States, Canada and Europe."  

To be banned by the EPA or the European Union means a chemical
cannot be used anywhere in the world on produce shipped to the
United States or Europe, a restriction that must be adhered to by
food importers according to U.S. and European law.  

But the alliance's previously issued "General Production Standards"
held producers to a higher standard. If a chemical is not registered
for use in the United States, it cannot be used on farms in the
United States but may be used on produce being shipped from
overseas. The list of banned chemicals is far shorter than the list
of chemicals not registered by the EPA or authorized by the European
Union.  

The Enquirer reported May 3 that several pesticides on Chiquita's
own list of approved chemicals were not registered for use in the
United States, Canada or one or more nations of the European Union,
in contradiction to stated Rainforest Alliance policy.  

Those pesticides included bitertanol, sold as Baycor, a pesticide
that Chiquita and its subsidiaries use in aerial spraying. Both the
company that manufactures the product as well as the EPA stated that
bitertanol is not, and never has been, registered for use in the
United States on bananas or any other crop.  

Under the standards released Tuesday, pesticides used by Chiquita
subsidiaries that were in violation of the previous rules are now
permitted.  

Since 1993, the Rainforest Alliance and Chiquita have worked on the
ECO-O.K. - Better Banana program, an environmental certification
designed to assure protection for workers and the environment on
Costa Rican farms of Chiquita's subsidiaries, Compania Bananera
Atlantica Ltda. (COBAL) and the Chiriqui Land Co. The program,
originally called "ECO-O.K." but later changed to "Better Banana,"
has since expanded to Chiquita subsidiary farms in Panama and
Colombia. Of 81 Latin American farms involved in the program, 74 are
Chiquita subsidiaries. The farms pay for the alliance's
certification process. 

Eric Holst, New York coordinator of the alliance's Better Banana
program, would not commment on the statement issued Tuesday, except
to say that it had been approved by Chiquita.  

Joseph Hagin, Chiquita's vice president for corporate affairs, did
not return calls Tuesday.  

The alliance statement made no reference to an Enquirer finding that
Chiquita also conducts aerial spraying of banana farms while the
workers are in the fields - another violation of the alliance's
environmental policy.  

In a story published May 3, the Enquirer reported that workers are
exposed to pesticides through aerial spraying on Chiquita subsidiary
farms in Costa Rica - and all these farms are certified under the
Better Banana program. The newspaper quoted workers on Chiquita
subsidiary farms.  

For that story, Mr. Holst told the Enquirer, "We require that
workers have protection from the application of chemicals. That
clearly is a violation."  

The Enquirer also published statements from tape recordings made
from internal Chiquita voice-mail messages in which company
officials discussed that Chiquita subsidiaries are conducting aerial
spraying while workers are in the fields. Those tapes were provided
to the Enquirer by a high-level source in Chiquita's Cincinnati
headquarters.  

In the United States, aerial spraying while workers are in the
fields is banned by the EPA. EPA spokeswoman Denise Kearns said the
EPA will, on rare occasions, allow an individual dressed in full
safety gear to "flag" for a crop-dusting airplane, but all other
workers are removed.  

Asked why the EPA had such regulations, Ms. Kearns said "because of
the acute reactions to pesticide applications of this kind and also
over time, you have all kinds of chronic effects that creep up for
the workers, so we simply don't permit it," she said.  

(Copyright 1998)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chiquita backed at annual meeting; Banana giant defends practices,
blasts Enquirer

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: May 14, 1998
By: URSULA MILLER and MARK SKERTIC
---------------------------------------------------------------------

More than 400 shareholders and employees turned Chiquita Brands
International Inc.'s annual meeting Wednesday into a testimonial to
the Lindner family and the Cincinnati-based banana company.  

The outpouring of support, which included a standing ovation for
Chiquita Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Carl H. Lindner Jr.,
followed a May 3 investigation of the company by the Enquirer. That
report revealed questionable overseas business practices including
bribery, hidden control of farms, environmental problems and
political influence.  

"We reject the outrageous allegations reported by the Enquirer,"
Chiquita President and Chief Operating Officer Steven G. Warshaw
told shareholders and employees at the meeting at the Omni
Netherland hotel downtown.  

"You cannot imagine the moral outrage of Chiquita associates in this
room and around the world," he added.  

Enquirer Editor Lawrence K. Beaupre declined to comment on any
specific criticism Wednesday, except to say: "The Enquirer's stories
were highly detailed and fully documented."  

Mr. Warshaw wrapped up the regular business portion of the meeting
in less than 15 minutes. He then took a few moments to say Chiquita
expects improved profits in its core banana business this year.  

But the bulk of his remarks - 20 minutes of the 55-minute meeting -
were spent denouncing the Enquirer's reporting as "tabloid
journalism" and "atrocious misrepresentations."  

Though Mr. Warshaw adamantly defended Chiquita's business practices,
he did say he "couldn't guarantee" the honesty of each of the
company's "40,000 associates in 50 countries." He added that
Chiquita disciplines employees who disobey company policies.  

Mr. Warshaw also attacked the newspaper for publishing the contents
of internal Chiquita voice-mail messages. A high-level source within
Chiquita provided the Enquirer with tape recordings of more than
2,000 voice-mail messages. Mr. Warshaw said the tapes were "stolen."
The Enquirer has reported that its source also has turned copies of
the tapes over to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
investigators. In April, the SEC launched an investigation into the
company's business practices and issued multiple subpoenas for
internal Chiquita records.  

Mr. Warshaw did not mention the SEC investigation during his speech.
However, talking to reporters after the meeting, he said the company
is cooperating with the investigation.  

At the conclusion of his remarks, Mr. Warshaw opened the floor to
questions from shareholders.  

A half-dozen shareholders or friends of the company spoke. Only two
asked questions. The others lambasted the Enquirer and praised
Chiquita for its contribution to Cincinnati's economy and the
Lindner family's charitable donations.  

Mr. Warshaw was the only company executive who discussed official
business at the meeting. Mr. Lindner thanked the audience for the
standing ovation. Keith Lindner, the elder Lindner's son and vice
chairman of Chiquita, briefly offered his appreciation for the
shareholders' support.  

Meanwhile, on the sidewalk outside the Omni, more than 30 protesters
demonstrated against Chiquita. Several badgered Mr. Lindner as he
pulled up to the hotel in his white Bentley.  

"Hey, Carl, stop killing the workers," one of the protesters
gathered along Race Street shouted at the 79-year-old businessman.
Mr. Lindner ignored the man and questions from local media as he
walked into the hotel.  

The group was hoping to send a message to shareholders, said Scott
Campbell, a North Avondale resident.  

"They call themselves good corporate citizens, and they've certainly
done a lot for Cincinnati," he said. "But being a good corporate
citizen involves more than that."  

A second group of protesters arrived while the meeting was in
progress to demand the Enquirer take a hard look at its practices.
Unlike the anti-Chiquita crowd, which was mostly dressed in jeans
and carried homemade signs, those supporting the banana company came
dressed in business suits or white shirts and dark slacks. The signs
they carried had been printed by a computer and all carried  the
same message:  

"Enquirer ought to investigate their own unethical business and
union practices."  

Among the findings of the Enquirer's May 3 report:  

Chiquita secretly controls dozens of supposedly independent banana
companies through business structures designed to avoid restrictions
on land ownership and security laws in Central American countries.  

Chiquita and its subsidiaries are engaged in pesticide use that
threatens the health of workers and residents at the company's
Central American banana plantations, despite an agreement with an
environmental group to adhere safe practices.  

Authorities seized more than a ton of cocaine from seven Chiquita
ships in 1997. The company was unaware and didn't approve of the
cocaine shipments, but the problem was traced to lax security on its
Colombian docks.  

Employees of Chiquita and a subsidiary were involved in a bribery
scandal in Colombia.  

(Copyright 1998)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

