JFK RFK MLK Assassination Forum

04.25.2017:Dear JFK Murder Solved Forum Members and Readers:NOT ONLY DID THIS CATCH MY EYE ON THE CONTINUED BASIS OF THIS ONGOING BANKROLLINGOF COLUMBIA DRUG DEALERS AND TERRORISM, BUT THE TOTAL BLACKOUT OF THIS WHOLEESCAPADE TO "We the People..."THIS IS MEANT TO GET YOUR INVESTIGATIVE AND THINKING PROCESSES GOING ON THIS WAVELENGTH.YEARS AGO WE LEARNED THAT OIL COMPANIES WERE DROPPING MILLIONS OF BARRELS OF CONTAMINATED AND RADIO ACTIVE WASTE INTO THE OCEAN. BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WERESAVED IN LEGAL, PROPER PROCESSING OF MANY TYPES OF WASTE.IF CAUGHT, THE OIL COMPANY INVOLVED WAS CITED, AND PAID A $ 25,000.00 FINE. GET THEMATH ? BILLIONS SAVED. THE FISH, OCEAN, AND OCEAN LIFE ARE IRREVERSIBLY POISONED.IF CAUGHT - A FINE OF $ 25,000.00.HOW ABOUT THE FAST AND FURIOUS ATF, CIA, DEA, DIA, and DOD GUN DEALING PROJECT TOTHE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS SO WE COULD TRACK WEAPONS ? OOPS, THEY LOST THE WEAPONS, AND AMERICANS WERE KILLED WITH THOSE WEAPONS.OH WELL, THAT'S COLLATERAL DAMAGE, RIGHT ?HOW ABOUT CITO OIL AND PETROLEUM THAT HAS GAS STATIONS IN THE U.S. ?CITGO WAS TAKEN OVER BY THE VENEZUELAN SOUTH AMERICAN COMMUNISTS YEARS AGO.SO WHAT, RIGHT ?ROYAL DUTCH SHELL OIL FROM HOLLAND SELLS THEIR SHELL GAS HERE.AND BP (BRITISH PETROLEUM), ORIGINALLY ROCEFELLER'S STANDARD OIL, THEN BECAME AMOCO, AND IS NOW BRITISH OWNED BP. YOU KNOW, THE COMPANY THAT SPILLED A LITTLE OIL OFF THESHORE OF LOUISIANA. BUT THEY'RE SORRY.WHAT HAS BEEN GOING ON BEHIND CLOSED DOORS THAT WE - MAY - MAY - MAY - LEARN ABOUTIN 10 - 25 YEARS ?HOW ARE WE DOING ON THE JFK, MX, MLK, RFK, THE OKLAHOMA BOMBING OF THE MURRAH BUILDING, 09.11.2001, etc., etc. ?PEOPLE - YOU WILL NEVER - NEVER - NEVER GET THE TRUTH IN YOU LIFETIME. PERIOD.(04.25.2017, BB.)SEC Testimony of Robert Kistinger, January 6, 2000, p. 87.THE NEW CHIQUITA PAPERS: SECRET TESTIMONY AND INTERNAL RECORDS IDENTIFYBANANA EXECUTIVES WHO BANKROLLED TERROR IN COLUMBIA.SEC Deposition Transcripts Detail Years of Payments to Colombian Paramilitary, Guerrilla Groups.Top Chiquita Exec: “Not Realistic” to Halt Colombia Operations over Guerrilla Payments. Posted April 24, 2017National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 586Edited by Michael EvansRELATED LINKS:Chiquita Papers Home.Chiquita’s Terrorist Funding, Bureau of Prisons Admits CIA Afghanistan Prison Visit, and More.Court Rejects Chiquita's Bid to Hide Terror Payment Records.“Did your fruit fund terrorists ?” New Report Asks Why Chiquita Blocked 9/11 Victims Bill.Judge Rejects Chiquita’s Effort to Block Release of Documents on Terror Payments.Big Victory for Plaintiffs in Chiquita Paramilitary Suit.The “Cost of Doing Business in Colombia.”The Chiquita Papers: Banana Giant's Paramilitary Payoffs Detailed in Trove of Declassified Legal, Financial Documents. TIMELINE:Washington, D.C., April 24, 2017 - Ten years ago, Chiquita Brands International became the first U.S.-based corporation convicted of violating a U.S. law against funding an international terrorist group—the paramilitary United Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). But punishment for the crime was reserved only for the corporate entity, while the names of the individual company officials who engineered the payments have since remained hidden behind a wall of impunity.As Colombian authorities now prepare to prosecute business executives for funding groups responsible for major atrocities during Colombia’s decades-old conflict, a new set of Chiquita Papers, made possible through the National Security Archive’s FOIA lawsuit, has for the first time made it possible to know the identities and understand the roles of the individual Chiquita executives who approved and oversaw years of payments to groups responsible for countless human rights violations in Colombia.Today’s posting features the first in a series of articles published jointly by the National Security Archive and Verdad Abierta highlighting new revelations from the Chiquita Papers, identifying the people behind the payments, and examining how the Papers can help to clarify lingering questions about the case.* * *THE NEW CHIQUITA PAPERS: SECRET TESTIMONY AND INTERNAL RECORDS IDENTIFY BANANAEXECUTIVES WHO BANKROLLED TERROR IN COLOMBIA: In the last few years of the 1990s, Chiquita Brands International, the U.S.-based fruit company, fell under a cloud of suspicion. An exposé in the Cincinnati Enquirer, the company’s hometown paper, revealed some of the banana giant’s dirtiest secrets—among them: the messy fallout from bribes paid to Colombian customs agents by officials at Banadex, Chiquita’s wholly-owned Colombian subsidiary.The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—the U.S. financial crimes watchdog—was also looking into the bribery allegations. The agency subpoenaed thousands of Chiquita’s internal records and soon made a startling discovery. Tucked away in the same accounts where Chiquita concealed the bribes were millions of dollars in additional payments to a rogues’ gallery of armed groups, including leftist insurgents, right-wing paramilitaries, notorious army brigades, and the controversial, but government-approved, “Convivir” militias.SEC Testimony of Robert Kistinger, January 6, 2000, p. 87.With these documents in hand, the SEC deposed seven Chiquita executives, each of whom played a different role in administering the so-called “sensitive payments.” In secret testimony on January 6, 2000 Robert F. Kistinger, head of Chiquita’s Banana Group based in Cincinnati, Ohio, told the SEC he had direct knowledge about many of the payments to armed groups, especially when they began in the late 1980s, but claimed that he had become less and less involved with the specifics over time. In his view, the amounts of money paid to the groups—hundreds of thousands of dollars per year—were simply not large enough to affect the company’s bottom line.Kistinger, who is a named defendant in a massive civil litigation case pending against former Chiquita executives in U.S. federal court, and a likely target of future investigations in Colombia, said it was “not realistic” to halt Chiquita’s Colombia operations over such insignificant amounts of money. “I’m sorry,” he said, “it doesn’t hit the scorecard.”“We’re not going to stop doing business in Colombia, because, you know, we’re going to have to spend an extra $25,000. That’s not realistic. Right ?”In 2013, Chiquita brought a rarely-seen “reverse” Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the SEC in an effort to block the agency from releasing transcripts of these depositions (and thousands of additional documents) to the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research group based in Washington, D.C. Two years later, a federal appeals court panel rejected Chiquita’s claim, clearing the way for the release of more than 9,000 pages of the company's most sensitive internal records.It’s easy to see why the company would want to keep them under wraps. The secret, sworn statements from the SEC probe are the de facto oral history of Chiquita’s ties to terrorist groups in Colombia—a unique and damning firsthand account of how one multinational corporation developed and routinized a system of secret transactions with actors on all sides of the conflict in order to maintain normal business operations—even thrive—in one of the most conflictive regions of the world, all the while treating the payments as little more than the “cost of doing business in Colombia.”[1]Chiquita auditor's notes, ca. 1997.This article is the first in a series from the National Security Archive and Verdad Abierta, the award-winning Colombian news website, highlighting new revelations from the Chiquita Papers, identifying the people behind the payments, and examining how the Papers can help to clarify lingering questions about the case. What was behind Chiquita’s decision to wind down payments to guerrillas and increase payments to their right-wing rivals? Exactly how much money did Chiquita pay to the various armed groups? What was the role of the Colombian security forces in encouraging the tilt toward paramilitaries? Did Chiquita knowingly fund specific acts of violence? And at what point did employees and executives with knowledge of the payments understand that the company was dealing with paramilitary death squads and not a government-sponsored militia group?* * *The new set of Chiquita Papers has for the first time made it possible to know the identities and understand the roles played by individual Chiquita executives like Kistinger who approved and oversaw years of payments to groups responsible for countless human rights violations in Colombia. These records are of particular importance now that Colombian authorities have signaled that they are prepared to prosecute business executives for funding groups that committed war crimes and other atrocities during the conflict.Ten years ago, Chiquita became the first major multinational corporation convicted of “engaging in transactions with a specially-designated global terrorist.” In a March 2007 sentencing agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Chiquita admitted transferring some $1.7 million[2] to the United Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) from September 10, 2001, when the group was first named on the U.S. State Department's terrorist list, through June 2004, when the payments ceased.Even after outside attorneys warned in February 2003 that it “[m]ust stop payments” to the outlaw paramilitary organization, Chiquita continued to pay the AUC for another 16 months. Until that point, Chiquita’s strategy, set forth by senior executives in Cincinnati, was to “just let them sue us, come after us.”[3]The AUC was a loose federation of rightist militants and drug traffickers responsible for a terrible legacy of violent acts in Colombia going back to the 1980s. Chiquita began to pay the AUC sometime in 1996-1997, just as the group launched a nationwide campaign of assassinations and massacres aimed at unionists, political activists, public officials and other perceived guerrilla supporters, often working with the collaboration or complicity of Colombian security forces. Over the next several years, the AUC dramatically increased its numbers and firepower, raised its political profile, infiltrated Colombian institutions, drove thousands of Colombians from their homes, and for the first time challenged guerrilla groups for control of strategic areas around the country.Chiquita agreed to pay a relatively modest $25 million fine as part of its deal with the DOJ, but not a single company executive has ever been held responsible for bankrolling the AUC’s wave of terror. Nor have any Chiquita officials faced justice for millions more in outlays to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), and practically every other violent actor in the region.Efforts to hold individual Chiquita executives accountable for financing the groups are complicated by a deliberate decision on the part of the U.S. Justice Department to withhold the names of the people behind the payments scheme. At the September 2007 sentencing hearing in the terror payments case, U.S. government attorneys specifically argued against the public identification of the Chiquita officials “to protect the reputational and privacy interests of uncharged individuals.”Instead, the Factual Proffer memorializing the plea agreement revolves around ten anonymous “Relevant Persons” identified only as “Individual A” through “Individual J.” The public version of a 2009 report by Chiquita’s Special Litigation Committee (SLC) likewise omits the names of most of the individuals identified in the report, replacing them with anonyms like “Chiquita Employee #2,” “Banadex Employee #1,” and “Chiquita lawyer.”In 2011, the Archive published its first Chiquita Papers, posting, revealing, among other things, that the company appeared to have engaged in quid pro quos with guerrilla and paramilitary groups in Colombia, contrary to the Factual Proffer’s finding that Chiquita had not derived any benefit from the payments.The original Chiquita Papers revealed the company had engaged in quid pro quos with guerilla and paramilitary forces in ColombiaThe first Chiquita Papers collection offered some important new revelations, but lacked a coherent contextual narrative. There were few indications as to who had written the documents, and it was nearly impossible to say for sure how the named individuals related to one another. Handwritten notes, auditing records, legal memos, and accounting schedules—among thousands of pages of internal records released under FOIA by the DOJ—offered tantalizing clues, but few concrete conclusions could be drawn from them.The key that unlocks many of the mysteries of the Chiquita Papers is the secret testimony given by Kistinger and six other Chiquita officials during the SEC’s expansive bribery investigation. Through a relatively simple, if laborious, process of cross-referencing among the three sources, it is possible to identify almost all of the individuals whose names were scrubbed from the Factual Proffer, the SLC Report, and the SEC testimony—effectively stripping away the redactions that have shielded Chiquita personnel from scrutiny and that have helped guarantee impunity for individuals linked to the payments.The records are the primary evidence behind a 2016 declaration (submitted by the author) identifying Chiquita “persons of interest” in the pending U.S. civil litigation. Those positively identified through this process include members of Chiquita’s board of directors, the corporate security team, regional and country operations managers with responsibility for Colombia, accountants and internal auditors, attorneys, and third-party bagmen who, over more than a decade, facilitated, negotiated, and delivered payments directly to guerrillas and paramilitary groups.As the most thoroughly-documented case study on the role of multinational corporations in Colombia’s conflict, the new set of Chiquita Papers should factor into the forthcoming investigations of transitional justice authorities created by the recent peace accord with the FARC. The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) will prosecute the most serious crimes committed during the conflict, while the recently-approved Colombian Truth Commission is an extrajudicial body established to provide clarification about the worst abuses of the conflict and to explain the phenomena that perpetuated the longest continuous war in the world.* * *Buried inside nearly 400 pages of SEC testimony are many of the clues needed to learn the identities of executives and managers at Chiquita who authorized and carried out the “sensitive payments” program but whose names Chiquita, the DOJ, and the SEC tried to hide from public view.One of the witnesses who is easier to identify is John Ordman, who was Senior Vice President of European Banana Sourcing for the Chiquita Fresh Group. SEC censors redacted almost every indication of his identity from the transcript, save for one, near the beginning, in which he was asked to spell his last name (“O-r-d-m-a-n”).SEC Testimony of John Ordman, September 23, 1999, p. 5.By linking Ordman to this particular testimony, it becomes clear that he is “Chiquita Employee #2” in the SLC report and also “Individual J” in the Factual Proffer, and was for many years a central player and an important informational link in the secret payments operation. As “Individual J” in the Factual Proffer, we now know that Ordman was specifically instructed to “continue making payments” to the AUC on May 5, 2003, long after the company realized that to do so was a felony violation of a U.S. law against funding terrorism.[4]Based in Costa Rica, Ordman was a key link between Chiquita’s Colombian operations and senior executives at company headquarters in Cincinnati. He told the SEC he had “bottom line operational responsibilities” for “essentially all of Chiquita’s activities in Colombia” for more than a decade after Chiquita returned to Colombia in the late 1980s. His main point of contact was the general manager in Colombia, who personally approved many of the payments.Ordman’s testimony confirms that the guerrilla payments were “a big deal” in Cincinnati and were discussed “at some pretty high levels in Chiquita.”“[S]o it was discussed with me and I discussed it with my boss and so forth and so on.”SEC Testimony of John Ordman, September 23, 1999, p. 67.The testimony of Ordman’s direct superior, Robert Kistinger, is equally revealing. As Senior Executive Vice President of the Banana Group and later President and Chief Operating Officer of Chiquita's Fresh Group in Cincinnati, Kistinger, like Ordman, was well aware of the security challenges in Colombia and was directly involved in creating and overseeing corporate policies governing payments to armed groups.His vivid accounts of the dire security situation there are key to identifying him as one of the seven SEC witnesses and as one of the ten “Relevant Persons” whose names were censored from DOJ’s Factual Proffer.For example, in one of the SEC transcripts, the witness characterizes Colombia as “somewhat of a war zone” exactly matching a quote that the SLC report attributes directly to the “SEC testimony of Robert Kistinger.”[5]Report of Chiquita's Special Litigation Committee, p. 58.Compare the above text to the raw transcript from the SEC interview, below.SEC Testimony of Robert Kistinger, January 6, 2000, p. 37.From there, it is relatively simple to identify Kistinger as the Factual Proffer’s “Individual D,” one of two Chiquita executives who told Colombia-based staff to “continue making payments” to the AUC on April 8, 2003.[6]The Factual Proffer in the terrorist payments case omits names of individuals behind the scheme.As with Ordman, the Kistinger testimony provides a wealth of new information on how “sensitive payments” were approved and managed at the company and includes critical information about the corporate chain-of-command. Kistinger confirms that the general manager and the chief accounting officer at Banadex—the officials responsible for the routine management of the payments—reported to him through Ordman, and that Kistinger then reported to Dennis Doyle, who approved the company’s first payment to the FARC in the late 1980s.[7]SEC Testimony of Robert Kistinger, January 6, 2000, p. 17.Later in his testimony, Kistinger again confirmed that most of the information he received about payments to illegal groups came from Ordman. Asked how he learned about the approval process for “sensitive payments,” Kistinger replied, “Discussions with John.” When asked to verify whether a statement was an accurate characterization of “the level of detail” about guerrilla payments “[t]hat Ordman was giving you,” Kistinger replied, “Yes…Absolutely.”SEC Testimony of Robert Kistinger, January 6, 2000, pp. 73-74.* * *To Ordman and Kistinger, who were based outside of the Colombian “war zone,” payments to insurgents and death squads, alarming at first, soon became business as usual—the price to be paid for access to the rich plantations of Colombia’s violently-contested Atlantic coast.In their SEC statements, both describe a process of becoming comfortable with the legal justifications in place and the specific procedures the company had established to handle the payments.Kistinger said he viewed the payments as a “normal expenditure,” not unlike the purchase of fertilizers or agrichemicals—“an ongoing cost” of the company’s business operations.SEC Testimony of Robert Kistinger, January 6, 2000, p. 82.Ordman also preferred to focus on the big picture, describing an increasingly hands-off approach to the payments where he was mainly “concerned about the general level of activity,” the size of the expenditures, and the general trend in payment activity—whether the amounts paid were fluctuating for any reason. Ultimately, he said he was “comfortable that this was being handled in a responsible way”—that the payments were “not being handled willy-nilly or out of control.” Of the groups on the receiving end of those payments, Ordman said he “knew them to be taken seriously.”SEC Testimony of John Ordman, September 23, 1999, p. 70.No one took the illegal armed groups more seriously than the people whose job it was to secretly negotiate, approve, and deliver cash payments to them. The SEC transcripts reveal that Chiquita’s Colombia-based staff were less comfortable with the payments than their bosses in Costa Rica and Cincinnati, and that at least one employee openly questioned whether the company had moved beyond protection payments and was willingly funding the operations of violent groups.The story of these individuals—country operations managers, accountants, security personnel, and the shadowy network of intermediaries they relied on to communicate with insurgents and paramilitaries—will be the subject of the next article in this series.THE DOCUMENTS:Document 011999-09-23[SEC Testimony of John Ordman], excerpt, pp. 5-8.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionIncludes spelling of Ordman's last name, helping to identify him as this witness (p. 5, line 16).Document 021999-09-23[SEC Testimony of John Ordman], excerpt, pp. 65-68.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionOrdman says that the guerrilla payments were "a big deal" that "required discussing...at some pretty high levels in Chiquita..."Document 031999-09-23[SEC Testimony of John Ordman], excerpt, pp. 69-72.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionOrdman testifies that "became comfortable" with the way the payments were being handled he knew that the recipient groups were "taken seriously."Document 042000-01-06[SEC Testimony of Robert Kistinger], excerpt, pp. 17-20.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionKistinger describes the chain of command with respect to Chiquita's Colombia operations.Document 052000-01-06[SEC Testimony of Robert Kistinger], excerpt, pp. 37-40.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionQuote from p. 37, lines 11-18, matches text in SLC Report, helping to identify Kistinger as this witness.Document 062000-01-06[SEC Testimony of Robert Kistinger], excerpt, pp. 73-76.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionKistinger identifies Ordman as the source of most of the information he received about illegal payments in Colombia.Document 072000-01-06[SEC Testimony of Robert Kistinger], excerpt, pp. 81-84.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionKistinger says that guerrilla payments were “a normal expenditure” of Chiquita business operations in Colombia comparing them to money spent on “fertilizers and agrichemicals and transport to wharf and wharf-loading costs and stevedoring costs and things of that nature…” He characterizes the payments as “an ongoing cost of this business.”Document 082000-01-06[SEC Testimony of Robert Kistinger], excerpt, pp. 85-88.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionKistinger says it is "not realistic" to expect Chiquita to cease operations in Colombia over payments to guerrilla groups that were small relative to the overall budget, adding, "We're not going to stop doing business in Colombia because, you know, we're going to have to spend an extra $25,000."Document 092007-03-19Factual Proffer in re: United States of America v. Chiquita Brands InternationalSource: U.S. District Court for the District of ColumbiaLists facts and circumstances surrounding $1.7 million in payments by Chiquita Brands International to the United Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).Document 102007-09-17Transcript of Sentencing Hearing in re: United States of America v. Chiquita Brands InternationalSource: U.S. District Court for the District of ColumbiaTranscript of court hearing on sentencing of Chiquita Brands International for payments to the United Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).Document 112009-02-00Report of the Special Litigation Committee, Chiquita Brands InternationalSource: Special Litigation Committee, Chiquita Brands InternationalExamines whether Chiquita officers and directors breached their duties to the company in violating U.S. anti-terrorism statute.Document 122016-03-08Declaration of Michael Evans in re: Chiquita Brands International, Alien Tort Statute and Shareholder Derivative LitigationSource: National Security ArchiveIdentifies pseudonymous individuals in reports and documents related to payments by Chiquita to armed groups in Colombia. NOTES[1] See, “The ‘Cost of Doing Business in Colombia,’”Unredacted (the National Security Archive blog), April 7, 2011. https://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2011/04 ... olombia/[2] $1.7 million figure is not adjusted for inflation.[3] SLC Report, p. 89, fn. 132.[4] For instance, the “O-r-d-m-a-n” testimony includes a portion where he says he was told that by another employee that he had approved an illegal bribe to a Colombian port official, “because I was absolutely convinced that it was a payment to the guerrillas...” SEC Testimony of John Ordman, p.155.SEC Testimony of John Ordman, September 23, 1999In the SLC report, the exact same quote, uttered in the same context, is attributed to the SEC testimony of “Chiquita Employee #2,” indicating that this individual is probably John Ordman.According to [Chiquita Employee #2’s] SEC testimony, [Banadex Employee #1] told him that he approved the customs payment because he “was absolutely convinced that it was a payment to the guerrillas. . . .” SLC Report, p. 56, fn. 79.A similar process was used to determine that Ordman is also the Factual Proffer’s “Individual J,” who the Justice Department said was told to “continue making payments” to the AUC on May 5, 2003. The SLC report describes a remarkably similar conversation of May 5, 2003, in which Ordman (here as “Chiquita Employee #2”) and another individual (who has been separately identified as another person) are told by a “Chiquita lawyer” to resume making payments to the AUC. SLC Report, 95.[5] Kistinger is one of several Chiquita executives who is named in the SLC Report.[6] The SLC reveals that at this meeting Kistinger and Olson (along with a Chiquita lawyer and “Chiquita Employee #1”) met with Banadex Employees #5 and #10 and told them to continue making payments to the AUC. SLC Report, p. 89. As “Individual C” has been separately identified as Robert Olson, “Individual D” is Robert Kistinger.[7] SLC Report, p. 30.National Security ArchiveSuite 701, Gelman LibraryThe George Washington University2130 H Street, NWWashington, D.C., 20037Phone: 202/994-7000Fax: 202/994/7005nsarchiv@gwu.eduAs always, I strongly recommend that you first read, research, and study material completely yourself about a Subject Matter, and then formulate your own Opinions and Theories.Any additional analyses, interviews, investigations, readings, research, studies, thoughts,or writings on any aspect of this Subject Matter ?Bear in mind that we are trying to attract and educate a Whole New Generation of JFKResearchers who may not be as well versed as you.Comments ?Respectfully,BB.

05.02.2017:Dear JFK Murder Solved Forum Members and Readers:I analyze, read, study, and write about Opinions from the Extreme Right, to the ExtremeLeft, so to speak, on a wide variety of Subject Matters. My focus of course, often reflectedhere on the JFKMS Forum, includes: the Developmental Economic, Educational, Financial, Historical, Industrial, Legal, Military, Political, Psychological, Societal, etc., Aspects of theUnited Stated of America, and the Evolution and Revolution of All Inter-Related Aspects ofLife HERE on MOTHER EARTH as my AMERICAN INDIAN FRIENDS CALL OUR PLANET - EARTH.The Removals of JFK, MX, MLK, and RFK, the Oklahoma Bombing, 09.11.2001, etc., and alldirectly related, inter-related, or tangentially related Subject Matters often receive a majority of my focus here on the JFKMS Forum.I LIKE TO KNOW WHAT's OUT THERE. AND I HOPE, AND THINK, THAT MANY OF OUR JFKMSFORUM MEMBERS ARE SO LIKE MINDED.THEREFORE, I OFTEN POST MATERIAL THAT I DISAGREE WITH FROM SLIGHTLY TO TOTALLY.AND I ALSO OFTEN POST MATERIAL THAT I AGREE WITH FROM SLIGHTLY TO TOTALLY.HERE ON THE JFKMS FORUM I DO SO TO SEEK THE ANALYSIS, COMMENTS, INPUT, REVIEW,STUDY, AND WRITINGS OF OUR INTERESTED JFKMS FORUM MEMBERS, AND THE SOURCEMATERIAL THAT THEY CONSIDER, AND REVIEW.I am either an: Associate Member, Contributor, Guest Researcher, Student, or Writer,Member, Visiting Member, etc., and/or have access to Many First Class Authoritative Sources.I often Post NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE material, such as the Chiquita Papers as I havedone in this Post and Headline.Some of The Points and Questions that I raise here are:* THIS HAS GONE ON FOR WELL OVER 18 YEARS, YET THIS MATERIAL IS JUST BEGINNINGTO BE DISTRIBUTED TO "We the People..." IN THE SLIGHTEST OF REALITIES, AND VAGUESTOF MANNERS, DECADES LATER.* WHY WAS THIS COVERED UP FOR SO LONG ?* IF CHIQUITA BANANA CORPORATION HAS BEEN DOING THIS, HOW MANY OTHER AMERICACORPORATIONS HAVE BEEN DOING THE SAME OR WORSE, FOR DECADES OR MORE ?* IF AMERICAN CORPORATIONS ARE ROUTINELY PRACTICING "BUSINESS" LIKE THIS, I CANONLY EXTRAPOLATE MY THINKING AS TO HOW THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITIES, AND THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL CORPORATIONS HAVE BEEN, AND ARE CURRENTLY, CONDUCTING "BUSINESS."* FOR EXAMPLE, WE HAVE ONLY RECENTLY LEARED THAT STANDARD OIL DELIVERED THEIRCREATED, MANUFACTURED, AND SOLD ZYCLON B GAS TO NAZI GERMANY FOR CONTINUEDUSE IN THE NAZI GERMAN GAS CHAMBERS DURING WW II.* FOR EXAMPLE, WE ONLY RECENTLY LEARED THAT ADOLPH HITLER HAD A LIFE SIZEDPICTURE OF HIS IDOL, HENRY FORD, FACING HIS DESK. FORD BOTH DELIVERED TO NAZIGERMANY, AND SET UP PRODUCTION FACILITIES THERE, TO MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTEVEHICLES TO NAZI GERMANY DURING WW II.AND AFTER WW II FORD BOTH SUED AND RECOVERED FROM THE U.S. GOVERNMENT MONEYDAMAGES FOR BOMBING FORD PLANTS IN NAZI GERMANY DURING WW II.Hence, this, and so many other Subject Matters that I Post here on the JFKMS Forum arein an effort to stimulate input, responses, and deeper thinking than perhaps has beenshown here before.(05.20.2017, BB.)SEC Testimony of Jorge Forton, April 27, 1999, pp. 90-91.Chiquita Papers: Uncertainty Fueled Staff Concerns about Payments to Guerrillas and ParamilitariesColombia Payments a “Leap of Faith”“We are funding their activities, or we are protecting ourselves. It’s questionable.”CFO asks: “How can I audit that? I cannot ask them to sign a receipt.” Posted May 2, 2017National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 589Edited by Michael EvansFor further information, contact: mevans@email.gwu.edu Twitter: @colombiadocs RELATED LINKSChiquita Papers HomeChiquita’s Terrorist Funding, Bureau of Prisons Admits CIA Afghanistan Prison Visit, and More.Court Rejects Chiquita's Bid to Hide Terror Payment Records“Did your fruit fund terrorists?” New Report Asks Why Chiquita Blocked 9/11 Victims BillJudge Rejects Chiquita’s Effort to Block Release of Documents on Terror PaymentsBig Victory for Plaintiffs in Chiquita Paramilitary SuitThe “Cost of Doing Business in Colombia”The Chiquita Papers: Banana Giant's Paramilitary Payoffs Detailed in Trove of Declassified Legal, Financial DocumentsIN THE NEWS“Did Your Fruit Fund Terrorists ?”By Natasha Del Toro, Fusion MediaOctober 8, 2014"Underreported: The Chiquita Papers"Radio Interview: The Leonard Lopate Show (WNYC)April 14, 2011"Court Documents Reveal Chiquita Paid for Security"By Jim Lobe and Aprille MuscaraInter Press ServiceApril 7, 2011"Chiquita pagó por seguridad a 'paras': NSA"El Espectador (Colombia)April 6, 2011"Militares colombianos habrían incentivado a Chiquita a pagarle a Auc"El Tiempo (Colombia)April 7, 2011"Lo que prueban los memorandos de Chiquita Brands"La Silla Vacía (Colombia)April 11, 2011"La práctica teórica"By Antonio CaballeroSemana (Colombia)April 9, 2011"Cuestión de tiempo"By Laura GilEl Tiempo (Colombia)April 7, 2011"El oro del diablo"By German PatiñoEl País (Colombia)April 10, 2011"El Ejército pidió el primer aporte para los paramilitares"Noticias Uno (Colombia)April 11, 2011"Revelan amplia relación de la bananera Chiquita con paramilitares colombianos"By David BrooksLa Jornada (Mexico)April 8, 2011"Chiquita pagó por seguridad a los 'paras' de Colombia"El Comercio (Ecuador)April 7, 2011 Washington, D.C., May 2, 2017 – Chiquita’s Colombia-based staff questioned the company’s payments to illegal armed groups, and asked whether Chiquita had gone beyond extortion and was directly funding the activities of leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups, even while top company executives became “comfortable”with the idea.This is the second in a series of stories jointly published by the National Security Archive and VerdadAbierta.com documenting how the world’s most famous banana company financed terrorist groups in Colombia.The New Chiquita Papers are the result of a seven-year legal battle waged by the National Security Archive against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and later Chiquita itself, for access to tens of thousands of records produced by the company during an investigation of illicit payments made in Colombia.The Archive has used these records to identify individual Chiquita executives who approved and oversaw years of payments to groups responsible for countless human rights violations in Colombia, but whose roles in the affair have been unknown or unclear until now.In this installment, we examine the roles of financial officers, security staff and hired intermediaries on the ground in Colombia who managed an unorthodox payments process one official described as a “leap of faith.”The following article was also published today in Spanish at VerdadAbierta.com.* * *Payments to Armed Groups Generated Internal Conflicts at Chiquita Brands The banana company invented an accounting system to hide payments to guerrilla groups in Colombia that they admitted were “impossible to audit.” Even while senior Chiquita officials became “comfortable” with the way the payments were made, officials based in Colombia had their reservations.By Tatiana Navarrete and Juan Diego Restrepo E. Edited by Michael Evans – This is the second in a series of articles published jointly by the National Security Archive and VerdadAbierta.com“[These] were payments that, you know, are questionable, payments to the guerrillas that at the end are payments that, you know, are questionable,” said Jorge Forton, chief financial officer for Banadex, Chiquita’s wholly-owned subsidiary in Colombia, in his April 27, 1999 statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). “We are funding their activities, or we are protecting ourselves. It’s questionable.”[1]The deposition of this Peruvian accountant, who worked for Chiquita from 1990-1998, turns out to be key evidence on a little-known chapter in the history of Colombia’s banana-growing zone: payments made by the multinational fruit company to anti-government guerrilla groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN), and the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), and the funding of political organizations like the Current for Socialist Renovation (CRS), Hope, Peace and Liberty, and the Popular Commands.Forton began in 1990 at Chiquita headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio, looking for opportunities to expand the company’s worldwide operations. In the middle of 1994, he was sent to Colombia to assess how the local economy was affecting the prices of banana production. Over the next few months, Forton returned to the country several times and proposed alternatives for reorganizing Colombian operations. At the end of the year, Forton accepted a new position as chief financial officer for Banadex in Medellín.Since his arrival in Colombia in early 1995, the accountant knew that Chiquita made “sensitive payments” to illegal armed groups to ensure, as he was told, that its workers were not killed or kidnapped and that its plantations were not burned to the ground. “My role was to see how we could standardize and have a good control of those payments,” he said to the SEC.At that time, there were two Chiquita offices in Colombia: Banadex, in Medellín, and Samarex, in Santa Marta; each with independent accounting systems and separate sets of books to record payments not only to guerrillas but to the Colombian Armed Forces, which also benefitted from the company’s secret security fund. Forton’s job was to unify the accounts so Cincinnati could better track the payments. The company asked him to prepare a report on all the “sensitive payments” realized since 1992, something that, according to Forton, was almost impossible given the “poor accounting records” that had existed up to that point.SEC Testimony of Jorge Forton, April 27, 1999, pp. 45-46.So Forton implemented a new procedure to better account for the payments. He introduced two basic rules: there would be no more cash payments, and none would be authorized without an invoice.Forton said he was “not comfortable” with the guerilla payments: “How do I feel those payments are really going to those groups? I mean, how can I audit that? I cannot ask them to sign a receipt.”The fact that Colombian guerrilla groups could not be counted on to provide receipts elevated the role of the Security Department and the intermediaries they relied on as go-betweens with the insurgent factions, military units, and paramilitary groups at the receiving end of those payments. These are the names and signatures that appear on the forms used to request payments to the various armed groups.The fewer people who knew about the “sensitive payments,” the better, so the payments only needed the authorization of the general manager, Charles Keiser, and the signature of Forton. Keiser was followed as general manager by Álvaro Acevedo, who later oversaw several years of payments to the paramilitary United Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and today works for a fruit producer in Ecuador. VerdadAbierta.com tried to contact Acevedo, but did not receive a response.Forton instituted the “1016” form to register all of the payments and to camouflage them among the fruit multinational many other expenses. To do so, he created two new accounts: “Logistics,” for payments to government agencies; and “Operations” for payments to guerrilla groups.This rigorous accounting system coldly recorded the harsh reality of life in the violently-contested region of Urabá during the 1990s. Forton was aware of the impact that the payments had on public order and thought it indispensable to know whether the money found its way to the intended recipients. At the very least, the ultimate destination of the payments mattered more to Forton than to his superiors in Cincinnati, who had not witnessed Colombia’s war in person.In a vivid account to the SEC, Forton said the surge in paramilitary groups (or “anti-guerrilla groups,” as he called them)—who were also financed by the company—had intensified conflict in the region. He recalled a day when some 20 bus riders were killed, and a subsequent call fromcompany staff in Urabá asking what to do. “I have a wife that carried the body of her husband into the office to ask for money to bury him,” he remembered.SEC Testimony of Jorge Forton, April 27, 1999, p. 57.“There were situations where, I mean, things that I hope not to live again. But after being exposed to those horrible stories, I understood better if the money was reaching the end or not,” he explained.Forton left Colombia in 1996 and was effectively fired from the company in 1998 for his role in authorizing bribes to Colombian port authorities in Turbo, Antioquia. Forton is now a high-ranking official at Dun & Bradstreet, according to his LinkedIn account. VerdadAbierta.com did not receive a response from a message sent to Forton through the social media network.WHERE DID THE MONEY ACTUALLY GO ?The names of the individuals from the Security Department who handled the “sensitive payments” to armed groups in Colombia during that time, Juan Manuel Alvarado and John Stabler, are found in a draft Chiquita legal memorandum dated January 5, 1994.One of the chief intermediaries used as a bridge between the company and the insurgent groups was René Alejandro Osorio J., an attorney from Antioquia who in 1992 signed a services contract with the Compañía Frutera de Sevilla, another of Chiquita’s Colombian subsidiaries.His role as a “Security Consultant” for Chiquita is revealed in an earlier draft of the same memo, dated January 4, 1994, which identifies Osorio as the company’s “contact with the various guerrilla groups in both Divisions.” The professional middleman was responsible for making “guerrilla extortion payments” for Chiquita. In many internal company records, he is referred to by the initials “R.O.”Another document obtained by the National Security Archive is a copy of a contract signed by Osorio indicating that he was paid five million Colombian Pesos (about five thousand U.S. dollars) every three months. Osorio assumed all risks involved with the assigned work, but Chiquita would provide legal assistance if it ever became necessary. VerdadAbierta.com contacted him in Medellin, where he apparently resides, to hear his version, but made clear that he "was not going to refer to that subject".The sort of informality that existed between Chiquita Brands and the intermediaries made it even more difficult to determine if the money was actually reaching the guerrillas and generated suspicions among some of the managers in Medellín.Even when the payments were made in cash, before the arrival of Forton as CFO, it was never really known whether they arrived in their totality to the guerrillas. John Ordman, based in Costa Rica, was a key link between Chiquita's Colombian operations and top executives at the company's headquarters in Cincinnati (as explained in the first article in this series). Ordman called these payments "a leap of faith."“Now does it get distributed to the people that it should be? Does it get distributed – you know, there’s a commission for this guy [name redacted]. Does he take half of it and put it in his pocket ? How do you tell ? There’s no way of determining that.”SEC Testimony of John Ordman, November 23, 1999, pp. 124-125.In spite of this, Ordman said he felt “comfortable that this was being handled in a responsible way.” The view of Robert F. Kistinger, head of Chiquita’s Banana Group, was much the same. He told the SEC he saw the guerrilla payments as an “ongoing cost” of company operations, like the purchase of fertilizers or agrichemicals.Forton told the SEC that he took the concerns about his inability to track the payments to a top executive in Cincinnati, asking, “How can I audit this?” And the response was: “If nobody is killed, it’s because the money is reaching the end. That’s the only way to say that the money is there.”SEC Testimony of Jorge Forton, April 27, 1999, p. 58.The person who provided that response may well have been Robert Kistinger, since SEC investigators asked him about this same episode during his interview, but denied ever having such a conversation with Forton.SEC Testimony of Robert Kistinger, January 6, 2000, pp. 66-67.Forton was not the only person who worried that the money could not be tracked. His replacement in Colombia, John Paul Olivo, who arrived in 1996, voiced similar concerns in his SEC testimony. Olivo’s name has been known to Colombian investigators since 2009 when the Attorney General opened an investigation against him and two other officials, Charles Keiser and Dorn Wenninger, for conspiracy to commit an aggravated felony—a process that has gone nowhere in eight years.In his December 1999 testimony to the SEC, Olivo said he did not feel comfortable with the way the company made the payments, since it was impossible to know whether Alvarado, Osorio and the others were actually delivering the money to the armed groups. “The only person that requests funds and payments for guerrillas is the head of security,” he said. “No one ever knows who – or negotiates with this groups, except for himself. And that’s been my . . . concern since day one.”SEC Testimony of John Paul Olivo, December 15, 1999, p. 64.MORE THAN EXTORTION ?In his declaration, Kistinger said the company made the payments because they were being extorted and wanted to protect the lives of their workers amid constant threats. For this reason, Chiquita also paid Colombian military and police forces, above all when they needed special security services.While the internal discussions of Chiquita employees mostly revolved around the technical aspects of the payments, Forton’s deposition is testament to the thin line between paying extortion and willingly funding the operations of a violent group.SEC Testimony of Jorge Forton, April 27, 1999, pp. 90-91.Other documents obtained by the National Security Archive indicate that Chiquita’s outlays to guerrillas were perhaps not as innocent as the company portrayed them in negotiations with Colombian and U.S. authorities. As the following draft legal memorandum demonstrates, at least some Chiquita officials believed the payments were illegal under Colombian law, while others wanted to eliminate evidence of such knowledge from the record.The same memo also suggests that not all of the payments were the result of extortion. If indeed the multinational made the payments to protect itself from guerrilla threats, it is equally clear that some of Chiquita’s farms were supplied with “security personnel” from “Guerrilla Groups.”Why did Chiquita Brands make payments to virtually every guerrilla group in Urabá? How much did the FARC, ELN, EPL and the other groups receive each year, according to company records? Were there any contracts or agreements with insurgent groups ?The complex relationship between Chiquita Brands and Colombian guerrillas will be the subject of the next report in this series, to be published next Tuesday by the National Security Archive and VerdadAbierta.com.* The depositions of the seven Chiquita employees interviewed by the SEC were obtained by the National Security Archive after seven years of litigation. Although the names of those officials remained hidden, it was possible to identify them by comparing the transcripts to other official sources.READ THE DOCUMENTSDocument 011992-12-14[Bill for Services Rendered]Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionBill for services rendered to Compa�ia Frutera de Sevilla on letterhead of "Rene Alejandro Osorio J."Document 021992-12-18["Contract for Provision of Professional Services"] [Includes original attachment]Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionCopy of a contract between a Chiquita subsidiary and Rene Osorio, identified by the initials "R.O." The attached forms indicate that the three million Peso payment was to a "security advisor" who "works as liaison with activist groups."Document 031994-01-04"Reportable Payments in Colombia and Manager's Expense Payments" [Draft; includes original annotationsSource: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionDraft Chiquita legal memorandum on payments to guerrilla groups in Colombia identifies intermediary employed by Security Department to handle payments to guerrilla groups.Document 041994-01-05"Reportable Payments in Colombia and Manager's Expense Payments" [Draft; includes original annotationsSource: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionDraft Chiquita legal memorandum on payments to guerrilla groups in Colombia identifies members of the Security Department, John Stabler and Juan Manuel Alvarado.Document 051999-04-27[SEC Testimony of Jorge Forton], April 27, 1999, pp. 45-48.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionForton describes the challenge of auditing payments to guerrillas since the groups do not provide any kind of receipt.Document 061999-04-27[SEC Testimony of Jorge Forton], April 27, 1999, pp. 57-60.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionForton recounts a call with company staff who told him about a massacre of some 20 bus travelers in Urabá.Document 071999-04-27[SEC Testimony of Jorge Forton], April 27, 1999, pp. 89-92.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionForton says it was “questionable” whether payments to guerrillas were for self-protection or for “funding their activities.”Document 081999-10-23[SEC Testimony of John Ordman], November 23, 1999, pp. 121-128.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionOrdman says there is “no way of determining” whether money channeled through the Security Department and third-party intermediaries ever reached the intended recipients.Document 091999-12-15[SEC Testimony of John Paul Olivo], December 15, 1999, pp. 61-64.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionOlivo says his “concern since day one” was that he could never be sure that money intended for guerrillas and other groups was not being stolen by a third-party intermediary.Document 102000-01-06[SEC Testimony of Robert Kistinger], January 6, 2000, pp. 65-68.Source: Freedom of Information Act Request to U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionKistinger does not recall telling “Jorge” the way to know whether company funds had reached illegal armed groups was “if there are no killings.” NOTE[1] While the name of the SEC witness identified here as Jorge Forton was redacted from the transcript, there is abundant evidence indicating that Forton is the Chiquita witness interviewed by the SEC on April 27, 1999.A 1998 series in the Cincinnati Enquirer identified Forton as one of the officials central to the bribery case that triggered the SEC probe.The witness describes the role he played overseeing Chiquita’s financial operations in Colombia from 1994-1998, while an account for “Jorge Forton” on the popular social media network LinkedIn indicates that he held various positions at Chiquita from 1990-1998, including “Country Controller.”Throughout the testimony, the witness describes how he sent financial reports to his superiors about so-called “sensitive payments” that were made in Colombia, mainly to government officials and to guerrilla insurgent groups.The witness describes a conversation he had about these payments with a superior at the company: “… I questioned the nature of the payment. And he said: [Redacted], don’t get involved in this. I’m handling this and I know this is correct.” And basically, that was an invitation to get out. I mean, I wasn’t—I shouldn’t worry about questioning those payments, because, as I said, if no killings are, meaning that the payments were correct, reached the end user.”Another witness who has been separately identified as Robert Kistinger, is asked by the SEC about this same conversation during his later testimony: “[Redacted] also said that … that you had responded to him, “Jorge, if there are no killings, you know the money is getting to the guerrillas.”Another witness separately identified as Orlando Dangond mentions “Jorge” as being present at a key meeting where the bribe was discussed: “[Redacted] and myself may have explained to Jorge what had been going on, and then I believe [Redacted] explained to him about the payment.”While questioning a witness separately identified as John Ordman the SEC investigator mentions “JorgeForton” during a discussion of how certain sensitive payments were recorded and reported to corporate headquarters: “… [T]his document related to Jorge Forton and this document contains disclosures…”Information at beginning of interview reveals that the witness is from Arequipa (assumed to be Peru).The LinkedIn account for Jorge Forton (mentioned above) says that he is a graduate of Catholic University of Santa María, a university in Arequipa, Peru.National Security ArchiveSuite 701, Gelman LibraryThe George Washington University2130 H Street, NWWashington, D.C., 20037Phone: 202/994-7000Fax: 202/994/7005nsarchiv@gwu.eduAs always, I strongly recommend that you first read, research, and study material completely yourself about a Subject Matter, and then formulate your own Opinions and Theories.Any additional analyses, interviews, investigations, readings, research, studies, thoughts,or writings on any aspect of this Subject Matter ?Bear in mind that we are trying to attract and educate a Whole New Generation of JFKResearchers who may not be as well versed as you.Comments ?Respectfully,BB.