Gee, I sure am glad Chiquita employees were "protected"

This article from Newsvine goes into greater detail about the role of Chiquita in funding paramilitary and rebel operations and supplying them with assault rifles and ammunition. While I still question attaching the "terrorist" label to these groups, I am deeply concerned about the role that these groups have played in torturing and massacring who knows how many people in Columbia.

Let's go down the list of gross human rights violations that far-right paramilitary groups and leftist rebel groups have without question committed against fellow Columbians:

- Main source of cocaine for the world. People (of all ages) are kidnapped and forced to traffic the drug by acting as human "mules."

- Main source of sex slaves for the world, but mostly to Holland, Japan, and Spain. Females of all ages (including small children) and males (mostly small children) are kidnapped by various groups and sent around the world to act as sex slaves.

- Famous for using women as "trophies of war." Women from opposing groups are held hostage and raped repeatedly and are then mutilated and murdered. Those women are probably lucky if one leader takes a liking to them because at least then they will only be raped by one guy rather than being subjected to repeated gang-rapes by the "troops."

- Sweatshops mostly "employing" children. As if drug and sex slavery weren't enough, now we know that the kids are used as slaves to make the world really inexpensive t-shirts.

- Child soldiers are used to fight the various skirmishes going on at any given moment. They control the female pre-teen soldiers by raping them repeatedly. If they don't fall in line and kill when they are told to, they are raped and subjected to horrible sexual violence. If you still fail to comply or if you try to escape, you'll be murdered by firing squad - usually by other child soldiers.

According to the article, Chiquita stock is only down six cents and although I am not an expert of, or even very knowledgeable about, the stock market, that doesn't seem like too big of a deal. So I guess the next time you want to enjoy a delicious sweet Chiquita banana, just think about how much better that banana must taste because it was harvested via funding that enabled rebel groups to kidnap, rape, mutilate, torture, and murder.

Mmmmm. Tasty bananas.

Information garnered from the following sources:
CNN
CNN Money
Freedom House
Amnesty International
Newsvine
U.S. State Department
U.S. Department of Justice
Transparency International
Human Rights Watch