US multinationals accused of paying 'war taxes' to rebels

American multinational fruit companies are financing illegal paramilitary organisations across war-torn Colombia, according to a former paramilitary commander currently on trial.

Salvatore Mancuso, who is accused of involvement in drug-trafficking and massacres, is reported as saying Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte paid the men under his command for each box of bananas they exported. These payments are said to be common practice as a so-called ‘war tax’ for protection against attacks.

The accusations come at a difficult time for the Colombian President, Alvaro Uribe, who is in the midst of a scandal over the arrest of a number of congressional allies on charges that they conspired with right-wing death squads.

Chiquita recently admitted making such payments and as a consequence was ordered to pay a $25 million (£18.5 million) fine in March by the US Justice Department. Chiquita argued that these payments were needed to ensure the safety of their workers, but the prosecutor said the money only ensured that the company shared the blame for the atrocities with the paramilitaries.

A spokesman for California-based Dole denied the accusation: “Recent press accounts implicating Dole with illegal organisations in Colombia are absolutely untrue.”

Wealthy landowners and drug traffickers first created the paramilitaries in the early 1980s to protect them from rebel extortion and kidnapping, but the groups have since largely degenerated into murderous gangs.

The paramilitaries, collectively grouped together as the United Self-Defense Forces (AUC), were listed as a foreign terrorist organisation in 2001 by the US Government. Official statistics estimate that the paramilitaries have killed at least 10,000 people.

The intimate connection between paramilitary groups, state-security institutions and politicians in Colombia is discussed in this report by Jenny Pearce, a Professor of Latin American politics, at OpenDemocracy.