Chertoff, Chiquita and Death Squads

As Jonathan Schwarz recently noted, there is a deeply discouraging sameness about the outrages that dissenting writers must address -- and a new front-page story in the Washington Post is a perfect example. In fact, it's a piece that could have been written at any time in the last 100 years or more: "Feds Look the Other Way While United Fruit Company Peddles Death and Corruption in Latin America"

Today of course, the infamous United Fruit of yore (whose machinations in Guatemala led to a CIA coup that set off decades of mass-murdering chaos) is known by the more perky name of Chiquita, and conjures up cheery pictures of childhood banana-munching around the family table. But while corporations may change their spots (or their peels) and their personnel over the years, the nature of the beast remains much the same, because its raison d'etre remains the same: maximizing profit. And United Fruit/Chiquita has traditionally been willing to push the banana boat way out when it comes to ensuring that its exploitation of cheap labor remains undisturbed. Counterpunch