Chiquita Brands: Ethical Responsibility or Illegal Action?

Should Chiquita have agreed to make the payments to the terrorist group to protect its employees? In knowing the history of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, also known as FARC, I can understand Chiquita’s executives reasoning in making the decision to pay the paramilitary group. I agree with their decision to make the protection payments.
What ethical principles support your opinion? One of the strongest principles is: Do no Harm. This means to prevent or minimize harm to the general public and to the stakeholders of the company. Chiquita’s managers took the threat from the paramilitary group very seriously due to the 1995 bombing and murdering of 17 banana workers that they (Chiquita) felt the group was responsible for. The protection payments were to “prevent and minimize” this harm to the company and its employees both physically and financially. Physical protection is self explanatory. The financial protection to the company is payout $1.7 million in the course of ten years or the cost of completely shutting down business and rebuilding. Along with that comes the possibility of Chiquita folding completely in between the loss of the business in Colombia and finding a new area to rebuild.
Is there anything that Chiquita could have done to protect its employees adequately without paying the terrorists? Chiquita could have brought in a private security group. That would have been more expensive for the company. Also, the private group would only be hired to protect the plantations, not the employees once they were off the plantation. The power that this right winged FARC group had over Colombia; bringing in private security would have probably only created more danger for Chiquita and the workers. In order to keep their business up and running in Colombia, no there wasn’t much of a choice for Chiquita. Colombia is a country highly known for the cartel and guerillas. Guerillas are members of irregular and usually politically