Blood Bananas: Chiquita in Columbia
Blood Bananas: Chiquita In Columbia is a difficult case that touches on fundamental questions of ethics and morality while operating a business abroad. It is a case that depicts the challenges faced by a company trying to maintain production and protect its employees while navigating between two very different cultures in a hostile situation. the lines of the ethics and morality are not as straight forward as they seem on the surface, and Chiquita’s management struggles to make decisions that will transcend both cultures’ view of right versus wrong. was one of the largest and growing fruit company in America who faced a dramatic problem in the 90’s with the AUC, a Colombian paramilitary organization that promoted violence act and considered to be terrorist, what happened was they inquired the fruit company to pay them specific amount of money monthly that was required for their security services as they claimed!
The situation was straightforward, either Chiquita pays for the terrorist
Chiquita Brands International and its leaders learned a very hard lesson about paying off terrorist groups to protect their employees. Over the past 25 years, no place has been more perilous for companies than Colombia, a country that is finally beginning to emerge from the effects of civil war and narco-terrorism. In 2004, Chiquita voluntarily revealed to the U.S. Justice Department that one of its Colombian banana subsidiaries had made protection payments to terrorist groups from 1997 through 2004. The Justice Department began an investigation, focusing on the role and conduct of Chiquita and some of its officers in this criminal activity. Subsequently, Chiquita entered into a plea agreement that gave them the dubious distinction of being the first major U.S. company ever convicted of dealing with terrorists, and resulted in a fine of US$25 million and other penalties. To make matters worse, the industry was facing pressure from increasing retailer purchasing power, major changes in consumer tastes and preferences, and Europe's imposition of an "onerous tariff" on companies that sourced bananas from Latin America. With this in mind, Fernando Aguirre, Chiquita's CEO since 2004, reflected on how the company had arrived at this point, and what had been done to correct the course so far. He faced major challenges to the company's competitive position in this dynamic industry. What would it take to position the company on a more positive competitive trajectory? Would this even be possible in this industry and in the business climate Chiquita faced? they will find another job or another way of earning their living, the cycle of life doesn’t stop when you become unemployed ! and if you asked them would they prefer losing their jobs temporary or losing their lives forever? Am pretty sure they won’t chose the second alternative. The company already thought about its worker’s lives as their primary concern and didn’t take the second choice, so the least thing is to think about their existence and to do what’s in their best interest.
Last but not least, the fruit company if decided to leave will encounter huge costs of abandon their current business and starting all over again in another place, but paying one time huge cost is more effective than paying annually amount of money to the AUC for God knows when ! plus they will have their current profits and they can sell their company in Colombia and gain extra money that will enable them to start again somewhere else. they are a well-developed corporation, if they did a good strategy with a well written plan they will manage to start up over and maybe even better ! These militant groups forced anyone under their power to pay “taxes”, which for all intents and purposes were cash bribes. The failure to pay these bribes resulted in death threats, and these were not empty threats. At least 50 Chiquita employees in Columbia have been killed by the violent factions. As Chiquita CEO Fernando Aguirre put it, “These lands were lands where there was no law. It was impossible for the government to protect Chiquita employees.” This absence of a strong central government was a major root cause of many of their problems.
Another factor was the culture that had been developed over this time of lawlessness. The presence of drug cartels

In conclusion, Chiquita was in a bad situation, and as a normal corporation whose aim is to make profits they need to consider what’s in their best interest and that is to execute the country. Costs will occur no matter what option they choose, but some were less harmful and less costly than others, it’s like what they say” the best of the worst” all the alternatives were bad but abandon the country is the best between them.

Work cited 1. "Blood Banana Case Study" StudyMode.com. 04 2011. 04 2011 <http://www.studymode.com/essays/Blood-Banana-Case-Study-647462.html>.