A US court in Washington DC Sept. 17 ordered Chiquita Brands International to pay a $25 million fine to settle charges that it underwrote a terrorist organization in Colombia. Chiquita had agreed to the fine when it pleaded guilty in March to paying protection money to Colombian paramilitaries from 2001 to 2004. US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth approved the agreement, which also places the company on probation for five years. The fine is the largest ever imposed under US counter-terrorism laws. The amount is slightly more than half the profits Chiquita earned from growing bananas in Colombia during that period. Company spokesman Michael Mitchell said Chiquita will pay the fine in five equal installments over five years.

Colombia's Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos announced Sept. 3 army troops have killed Tomas Medina Caracas AKA "Negro Acacio," a top commander in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), wanted in the US on drug trafficking charges since 2002. The US accuses Medina of being the top contact for the guerilla organization's globe-spanning drug deals—including receipt of some 10,000 AK-47s, purchased in Jordan by arms traffickers thought to be working with then-Peruvian spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos.

Fears of "Civil War" as Constituent Assembly Deadlocks

by Federico Fuentes, Green Left Weekly

The Colombian Army's Third Brigade, based in Cali, was deeply penetrated by drug trafficking mafia, according to a recent criminal investigation. "What the prosecutors' investigation has shown as it progresses," reported Bogota's Semana magazine Aug. 4, "is that 'Don Diego' [a drug mafia kingpin] didn't just buy these officers in exchange for one-time favors, but that many of them belonged to his organization. They were part of the mafia and put their jobs in the Army at its service." Brigade commander Leonardo Gomez Vergara resigned Aug. 16 as a result of the investigation, and a dozen other officers have been arrested or are under investigation.

Israel Corp., one of Israel's major holding companies, is evaluating the acquisition of Peruvian utility Electroandes' four hydroelectric plants, the government paper El Peruano quoted the Israeli company's president Idan Ofer as saying. The US-based Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) controls Electroandes, and is seeking to divest it. Israel Corporation has already completed the 180MW Kallpa thermo plant, which recently went on line (at Chilca, 65 kilometers south of Lima). Israel Corp. took over the Kallpa project form the UK-based Globeleq. "The principal motivation for investing in Peru is the stability and transparency of the electric market," Ofer said. The holding company also is looking at Peru's biofuels and port sectors. (Business News Americas, July 25, via BBC Monitoring)

Bolivian President Evo Morales has announced he and his cabinet will donate part of their pay to families left homeless by the devastating earthquake that hit neighboring Peru last week. "Peru has always shown solidarity toward us, and the first contribution I'd like to announce is that the president and vice president will donate 50 percent of their salaries," Morales told a news conference in La Paz. Morales said all ministers and deputy ministers will donate 25% of this month's salaries and urged all Bolivians to contribute to relief funds.

In an operation dubbed "Hurricane," Peruvian national police arrested at least 20 suspected Shining Path guerillas linked to cocaine trafficking in a series of simultaneous raids in Lima and the eastern rainforest region Aug. 13. More than 200 agents took part in the sweeps targeting 48 suspects allegedly tied to a regional Shining Path boss known as "Artemio." Some escaped, but President Alan Garcia claimed it as a major blow against the Maoist guerillas. "Archaic communists who are anti-social and bent on ending the economic and social advancement of Peru have been knocked down once again," he said. (Reuters, Aug. 15)

Peru's President Alan Garcia, "afraid of foreign investors," is sitting idly by as a U.S. corporation devastates the city of La Oroya. Missouri-based Doe Run's toxic lead smelting operation has children breathing sulfur dioxide pollution up to 300 times the level permitted by the World Health Organization. [EarthJustice, March 21] In addition, newborn babies are being born with lead poisoning inherited from their mothers, local residents and company employees are dying prematurely, the air quality is tainted with dangerous levels of arsenic, cadmium and lead, while parts of the water supply are contaminated by a toxic cocktail of chemicals. [The Observer, Aug. 12]