Chiquita Brands International, the company that brings us bananas, has admitted to paying off terrorists to protect its workers in Colombia. Chiquita agreed to pay about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC, for its protection of Chiquita workers. Chiquita also made payments to the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as control of the company's banana-growing area shifted. Chiquita, in its guilty plea will pay a $25 million fine. Did you ever think that it took so much protection to bring us bananas? I wonder if Juan Valdez also pays for protection of coffee from Colombia?
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