After President-Elect Obama revealed that Eric Holder would be his choice for attorney-general, several observers raised questions about the nominee’s role as a private lawyer defending Chiquita Brands, the U.S. fruit company. Holder helped Chiquita negotiate a plea agreement with the Justice Department for the years of payoffs that the company made to paramilitary groups in a part of Colombia where the right-wing militias massacred hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians.
Hofstra University’s Mario Murillo, writing for CounterPunch: “not one Chiquita official involved in the illegal transactions was forced to serve time for a crime that others have paid dearly for, mainly because they did not have the kind of legal backing that Holder’s team provided. … If the Obama Administration is seriously concerned about impunity and human rights in Colombia, Holder should probably step out of the way immediately.”
Dan Kovalik of the U.S. Steelworkers’ Union, writing in the Huffington Post: “Eric Holder would have a troubling conflict of interest in carrying out this work in light of his current work as defense lawyer for Chiquita Brands international. … Holder himself, using his influence as former deputy attorney general under the Clinton Administration, helped to negotiate Chiquita’s sweeheart deal with the Justice Department in the criminal case against Chiquita.”
Jason Glaser, writing in the Guardian: “Does Holder represent the change we need and the change we were promised? It is time that someone who chooses to represent and serve human beings over corporations holds the position of attorney general.”
The story here is that after the Clinton administration drew to a close Holder, a former Clinton assistant attorney-general, went into private practice at the Covington and Burling law firm, where his clients included Chiquita. In 2003, Holder led the legal team that advised the fruit company to admit to the U.S. Justice Department that it had been making payments to the murderous United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) since 1997 – a relationship that started out as “protection” money but went on way too long. The payments, which finally stopped in 2004, totaled about US$1.7 million to a group that, as of September 10, 2001, was on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Oddly, as the Washington Post has reported, despite the terrorism link Holder and Chiquita at first had difficulty even getting a response out of Assistant Attorney-General Michael Chertoff, who would later go on to be the Bush administration’s Homeland Security secretary.
Eventually, though, with Holder’s assistance Chiquita and the Justice Department came to an agreement in which the fruit company would pay a $25 million fine – the price of the company’s sale of Banadex, its Colombian subsidiary – for having made payments to a foreign terrorist organization. The fine’s proceeds went to the U.S. Treasury.
There is a widespread perception that Chiquita’s punishment was quite lenient given the link with a terrorist group responsible for mass murder. Notably, the Justice Department indictment makes no mention of a potentially more serious charge, documented in a 2003 OAS investigation: that Chiquita’s Colombian subsidiary helped run weapons and ammunition from Nicaragua to the AUC.
How can we characterize the attorney-general-designate’s role? On one hand, Holder’s actions were commendable. Upon discovering that his client had broken the law, he advised it to go to the U.S. authorities. Notably, no other fruit company operating in northwestern Colombia’s conflictive Urabá region – and there are several – has come forward to admit to paying off armed groups. (It seems absurd that Chiquita would be the only one, and indeed demobilizing paramilitary leaders – including Salvatore Mancuso in a May 2008 60 Minutes interview – have alleged that they took payments from other companies in Urabá.)
Writing for Salon, Glenn Greenwald meanwhile makes the point that Holder should not be criticized for defending for a client, since all accused people have the right to defense counsel.
Attempts to criticize a lawyer for representing unsavory or even evil clients are inherently illegitimate and wrong — period. Anybody who believes in core liberties should want even the most culpable parties to have zealous representation before the Government can impose punishments or other sanctions. Lawyers who defend even the worst parties are performing a vital service for our justice system. Holder is no more tainted by his defense of Chiquita than lawyers who defend accused terrorists at Guantanamo are tainted by that.
This is true, and Holder’s defense of Chiquita should not disqualify him from serving as the Obama administration’s attorney-general.
Nonetheless, there are questions about Holder’s role that the Senate Judiciary Committee should explore before deciding on his nomination.
- Did Holder benefit from his contacts with former colleagues at the Justice Department in a way that allowed him to achieve a more lenient plea agreement than would have been possible for a less well-connected attorney?
- What role has Holder played in defending Chiquita from a class-action lawsuit filed in 2007 by 173 victims of paramilitary violence in the Urabá region? Has he advised his client to refuse any and all demands for restitution or reparations to victims? If so, how did he justify this position?
- In general, does Holder personally believe that U.S. corporations that do direct or indirect harm to citizens of a foreign country need not be held accountable to those citizens?
It will be difficult to get a definitive answer to any of these questions, and in fact the answer to all of them may be “no.”
Still, the U.S. Justice Department is likely to be dealing with Colombian paramilitary groups in several contexts, including possible future actions against U.S. corporations that may have aided them, and of course the criminal cases against fifteen extradited paramilitary leaders in U.S. custody since May of this year.
In private practice, Holder sought to downplay the severity of his client’s funding of Colombia’s paramilitaries and perhaps sought to prevent or minimize reparations to victims. As attorney-general, however, Holder can do great harm to U.S. credibility in Colombia and Latin America if he is perceived to be throwing obstacles in the way of the paramilitaries’ victims’ rights to truth and reparations. Because of his past work with Chiquita, his Justice Department’s actions with regard to future paramilitary cases will deserve extremely close scrutiny.
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:19 am
Adam –
Thank you for the informative post. I’m trying to stifle the urge to throw my arms up in the air and give up completely. The more I see of Obama’s supposed “change,” the more difficult it is.
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:00 am
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081202/OPINION01/812020302
It’s never about ideals… it’s about $$$.
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Well, at least the detnews article isn’t obviously biased. . .
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:20 pm
I think a better question is whether the plea agreement was in the interest of his client (the corporation), or was in the interest of the officers and directors of the corporation. Or was it just bad advice that wasn’t in anyone’s interest?
The plea agreement exposes the corporation to endless civil liability and could put Chiquita out of business in the long run. One of the apparent benefits is that none of the directors or officers would be charged with a crime in the US. However, there is a real chance they could be extradited to Colombia to face charges there, and I don’t believe there is a statute of limitations for these crimes in Colombia.
I started the lawsuit a year and a half ago with the 173 wrongful death claims mentioned above. Now I have about 10,000 clients, and there are numerous competing lawsuits, making the case next to impossible to settle. There are also four shareholder derivative claims, in which groups of stockholders are suing the officers and directors for the damage done to their investments.
Although its been a year and a half since the case was first filed, the preliminary legal arguments have yet to be resolved. Once its clear the case will not be dismissed, Chiquita will have to decide whether to begin a discussion about settling the case, or pay an expensive DC firm to defend thousands of murder cases from now until they go out of business.
I think the consensus among the ‘bananeros’ in Uraba, Colombia, is that Chiquita’s plea bargain has endangered all of them. Although Mr. Holder was obviously hired for his extensive experience in the DOJ and in Washington in general, it’s hard to understand why his client took the plea.
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Adam, just as Block, thanks for the info. If you are not quite acquianted with Colombia’s past here’s a brief article on the wikipedia, accounting for a long term relationship of Chiquita Brands with Colombia:
Chiquita Brands procede de la United Fruit, firma involucrada en masacre de las bananeras en 1928
Chiquita Brands fanned out from The United Fruit Co, involved in the banana massacre
The Banana massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_massacre
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 pm
MZR,
Where are you? Last time I used wiki you razed me!
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Hey Chris, I’m here! I’m just a bit busy at the moment so haven’t had time to write (or read) much on this blog.
Ok, Jaime, I’m going to tell you off too! Wiki is… Um… Well, it isn’t great, to say the least! Although, a few months back, I searched for G.W. Bush for his DOB (or something similar) and the page said something like “idiot” or “donkey” and, literally, displayed nothing else. So, it’s not all bad, eh?!
Hope all is well with you guys, despite our differences regarding Wiki!
MZR
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:04 am
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/andres-oppenheimer/story/792864.html
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:56 pm
It seems he did his duty as a lawyer. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, legally, but that can be questioned in terms of morality and politics like with the questions asked in the text.
Just like how Mr. Paul Wolf here has done the same with other characters or organizations. This isn’t slander, just search with Google or Yahoo. That is obviously legal as well but it is also morally questionable and someone should ask some questions to him too.
Regards,
Marcos
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Is Mr wolf the namesake of the researcher on the assessination of Jorge E. Gaitan, or the real deal?
December 5th, 2008 at 1:31 am
To me, this is minor stuff compared to Holder’s role in forcing a small boy whose mother died for his freedom back to a hellish life of communism. He has yet to say he’s sorry for that.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Chris –
Re: Oppenheimer: Which bloc of the world will Africa be divided into? The Americas, Asia or Europe?
December 5th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Block,
I recieved a briefing from the economist that created that determined the global povert line to be at $1 some few years back…
He told me that even if Africa demonstrated GDP growth rates greater than China’s in the last decade… that the continent wouldn’t even come close to resurrecting itself from the slump its in. His bottom line, Africa is screwed. I don’t know what bloc it could be thrown into… it’s out there on its own.
December 6th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Camilla:
Yeah, defending a coorporation that has payed paramilitary groups that have murdered thousends of colombians, displaced millions and planted terror in the heart of colombian country is nothing compared with defending the father´s right to costudy of his own son…geezzz, you right wingers have your set of moral priorities well defined.
December 8th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I am the wife of an American missionary who was held hostage for 18 months and then executed in June 1995 by a paramilitary group by the name of F.A.R.C. Where on earth is our country going when we put in office a man who defends a company like Chiquita who undoubtedly gave monies to this group and others like it, thus supporting their actions!!! God help us all!
December 18th, 2008 at 6:23 am
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March 7th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Speaking of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder:
Eric Holder is a racial-minority individual, and in his heart and mind he inevitably does not endorse hate crimes committed by George W. Bush.
George W. Bush committed hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism (indicated in my blog).
George W. Bush did in fact commit innumerable hate crimes.
And I do solemnly swear by Almighty God that George W. Bush committed other hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism which I am not at liberty to mention.
Many people know what Bush did.
And many people will know what Bush did—even to the end of the world.
Bush was absolute evil.
Bush is now like a fugitive from justice.
Bush is a psychological prisoner.
Bush has a lot to worry about.
Bush can technically be prosecuted for hate crimes at any time.
In any case, Bush will go down in history in infamy.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
“GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY†BLOG OF ANDREW YU-JEN WANG
_____________________
I am not sure where I had read it before, but anyway, it is a linguistically excellent statement, and it goes kind of like this: “If only it were possible to ban invention that bottled up memories so they never got stale and faded.†Oh wait—off the top of my head—I think the quotation came from my Lower Merion High School yearbook.
March 4th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
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