Chiquita Peeled: The Cinncinatti Enquirer’s Censored Scoop
Under intense pressure from Chiquita, which threatened to sue, the
Enquirer’s owners disavowed the story, paid Chiquita a $1 million [?] fine,
wrote a front-page apology and fired the story’s lead reporter Mike
Gallagher. Gallagher, a prize-winning veteran reporter, was accused of
misrepresenting the source of internal CBI voicemail tapes. Gallaher
claimed his source was “a high ranking Chiquita executive.” The Enquirer
concluded that Gallagher had stolen the tapes.
Enquirer publisher Harry M. Whipple and editor Lawrence K. Beaupre
apologized to Chiquita for the reporter’s “alleged unethical and unlawful
conduct” and for the exposés “untrue conclusions.” The subsequent media
uproar masked some important facts: The validity of the tapes (which
comprised only a small portion of the extensive report on CBI’s activities)
was never questioned nor has Chiquita challenged the validity of the
disclosures in the Enquirer’s expose.
Since the Cincinnati Enquirer has disowned their report and have removed
it from their website in an attempt to erase it from the public record, Earth
Island Journal, in cooperation with the Campaign for Labor Rights is
reprinting excerpts from the series. The following text is condensed from
the Enquirer series.
Bananas, Bulldozers and Bullets
by Mike Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter, Renounced by the Enquirer
HONDURAS – 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.
An April 12, 1989, memorandum by Manuel Rodriguez, a Chiquita
lawyer, detailed a plan to close Honduran farms in order to reduce labor
costs. 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....’ 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.”
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. Photographs
of the event show soldiers with assault rifles forcibly removing women and
children as bulldozers destroy the village.
In Honduras, gun-toting Chiquita plantation guards shoot at banana workers
and plantation residents without cause. Even where this violence is not
specifically anti-union in target, it creates an atmosphere in which workers
reasonably fear that joining a union or participating in a strike might costs
them their lives.
Without warning, in the early morning hours of August 16, 1996,
plantation guards driving a security truck opened fire on three men as they
returned home from visiting a nearby village. One was was killed, another
wounded and the third escaped into the forest. One of the guns used was an
AK-47 assault rifle, a weapon that under Honduran law may be used only by
military personnel.
LOW PAY, ILLEGAL PRACTICES
Chiquita television advertisements in the US 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.
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, 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. The
rotations also make union organization difficult.
- Financing the Solidarismo Movement in Costa Rica. The movement,
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 and Pesticides
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. The huge increase meant the loss of
thousands of acres of cattle farms and more than 13 square miles of primary
rain forest.
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. The
new plantations are located near many sensitive forest preserves and
conservation areas. Environmentalists are concerned about pollution from
pesticides causing fish kills and other environmental problems.
Black Sigatoka is a disease that plagues most areas where Chiquita
bananas are produced. The airborne fungus eats away at banana leaves,
turning them black. The disease shrinks the size of the fruit and makes it
ripen too quickly to be shipped to market. Eventually, the disease kills the
plant.
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.
Chiquita’s use of pesticides degrades and destroys rainforests and poisons
workers, sometimes fatally. Chiquita executives have found that it is far
cheaper to pay willing “environmental” organizations to apply their stamp
of approval than to pay for cleaning up the problem. Chiquita’s
environmental cover comes chiefly from its participation in the “Better
Banana” program.
Chiquita’s primary partner in greenwashing is the Rainforest Alliance but
the company also paid Conservation International for its services on behalf
of the company image. In a telephone interview with Campaign for Labor
Rights, Tim Hermach, founder and director of the Native Forest Council,
described Conservation International as a major player in the greenwashing-
for-hire business and described the Rainforest Alliance as a bit player.
The Rainforest Alliance stated that, while the alliance receives no
donations from Chiquita, it does charge a “fee” for certification, paid to its
Costa Rican partner, Fundacion Ambio, the group that performs inspections
on Chiquita farms. This fiscal year, about 25 percent of Fundacion Ambio’s
$312,000 budget comes from Chiquita fee payments. No certified plantation
ever has had its certification revoked for violations. Violations are usually
not written up and are not made public.
Chiquita’s environmental partner, the Rainforest Alliance, claims that
Chiquita’s “Better Banana” certified farms apply only “products that are
registered for use in the US, Canada and Europe.” But the Enquirer found
that Chiquita systematically uses chemical products that are not registered
for use in the US, Canada or one or more countries of the European Union.
In 1996, Chiquita paid the Washington-based Conservation International
to send a team to its certified farms in Costa Rica and Panama. Conservation
International has declared Chiquita’s environmental efforts “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.”
After a discussion with the Cincinnati Enquirer, James Nations, a vice
president of Conservation International called Magnes Welsh, Chiquita’s
director of investor relations,. According to a Nov. 13 tape-recorded voice
mail-message provided to the Enquirer, 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. 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.”
WORKERS SPRAYED IN THE FIELDS
The Enquirer found that, in clear violation of industry safety standards,
Chiquita subsidiaries spray toxic cocktails of pesticides on their plantations
without removing workers first. These aerial sprayings can take place more
than 40 times a year.
For aerial spraying, the company uses the fungicides propiconazole,
benomyl, mancozeb, zoxystrobin, thiophanate-methyl, tridemorph and
bitertanol. Propiconazole and benomyl have both been found by the EPA to
be possibly cancer-causing for humans. Mancozeb, azoxystrobin,
thiophanate-methyl and tridemorph are considered hazards to fish.
Bitertanol is not allowed for use on farms in the US, while azoxystrobin and
tridemorph are banned in Canada.
For workers, the unannounced aerial spraying is a constant fear. “They
never tell us about the aerial spraying. We just see it coming and boom, it’s
here,” Luis Perez Jimenez, 31, a leaf cutter on a Chiquita plantation in Costa
Rica, said through a translator. 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.
Death on the Farms
On Nov. 13, 1997, an 18-year-old worker on a Chiquita banana plantation in
Costa Rica had been working since 5 a.m. At about 7:30 a.m., he was found
writhing on the ground, choking and vomiting a white substance. He was
dead by 9:17 a.m.
One of the co-workers who brought his body to the medical clinic stated:
“He was working in an area… that had been sprayed with the agrochemical
Counter (the brand name for the pesticide terbufos, an organophosphate)
three days ago… and he wasn’t using any protective gear like gloves and
mask ….”
The autopsy report determined that Mr. Valerin died from intoxication
from organophosphates, which caused internal bleeding and brain damage.
On a nearby plantation, Enquirer reporters saw a work team applying
terbufos, classified as extremely hazardous to humans by the World Health
Organization. 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.
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.
SMOKESTACK EMITS TOXINS
A Chiquita subsidiary in Puerto Barrios, Costa Rica is exposing more than
500 men, women and children to a toxic chemical that the company knows
is spewing from its factory smokestack in high quantities, internal company
records reveal.
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
chronic respiratory problems, blistered skin and other serious ailments.
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.
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.
Residents of Barrio Paris are too poor to leave their homes. A children’s
playground is located directly behind the plant. “Look at this playground
right here by the plant.
Sidebar: Background on The Enquirer's Censored Scoop
Campaign for Labor Rights [1247 “E” Street SE, Washington, DC 20003,
(202) newsletter subscriptions: Send $35.00. For a sample copy, send your
postal address to clr@igc.apc.org]. For the full text of the Chiquita exposé,
consult the following websites:
www.compugraph.com/clr/alrets/chiquita.
For more background on the controversy, contact:
www.coha.org
www.salonmagazine.com/media/1998/07/08media.html
www2.pbs.org/wbgh/pages/frontline/president/players/lindner.html
labor.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa051998.htm
www.ohio.com/bj/news/ohio/docs/007827.htm
