Hey John,

Thanks for posting your thoughts.  I don't want to just brush aside Chiquita's history of legal and human rights violations, but I am going to 
play it down.  The reason is that, to me, this is an entirely different company from what it was when those violations took place.  The last of
those "departures" from moral and sound business practices took place in 2003-2004.  You see the year 2007 floated around, but that was just the 
year the case was finally closed and Chiquita paid a fine.  The actual events, in this case basically paying terrorists to not, well, terrorize 
their banana farms in Columbia, took place in 2003-2004.  (Chiquita has since sold off its farms in Columbia).

The reason I'm making a big deal out of the dates is that the company was steered by entirely different people then, both on its board of 
directors and its executive team.  Take a look at the current company leaders and when they joined the company...



Board Members	               Board member since:	
Fernando Aguirre	             2004	
Kerrii Anderson, CPA	             2009	
Howard Barker Jr, CPA	             2007	
William Camp	                     2008	
Clare Hasler, Ph.D.	             2005	
Robert Fischer	                     2002	
Steven Stanbrook	             2002	
Jaime Puche, Ph.D.                    ?
		
Executives	                Executive since:    With Chiquita since:
Fernando Aguirre - CEO	             2004	           2004
Michael Sims - CFO	             2000	           1988
Manuel Rodriguez - Int'l Affairs     2004	           1980
Brian Kocher - Pres, N. America	     2005	           2005
Michel Loeb - Pres, Eur. & M.E.	     2004	           2004
Tanios Viviani - CMO	             2005	           2005
Kevin Holland - CPO	             2005	           2005
Lori Ritchey - Controller	     2009	           2008
Manjit Singh - CIO	             2006	           2006
James Thompson - Gen. Counsel	     2006	           2006
Waheed Zaman - Product Supply	     2004	           2004
Joe Huston - Salads & Healthy Snacks 2004	           2004


First of all, importantly, CEO Fernando Aguirre came on in 2004, after the last deed was done.  In 2004, the company voluntarily reported its 
behavior in Columbia to the U.S. Department of Justice (they said they learned of the activities of their subsidiary there and they had not 
authorized them), and since then there have been no further cases.

Running down the list, very view executives or board members from before 2004 remain on the board.

Notably, CFO Michael Sims began his executive tenure at Chiquita as CFO of the European division, and he lived and worked in Europe from 2000
to 2006.  Only in 2006 did he take over as CFO of the whole company.  Presumably, while in Europe he was uninvolved with paying off terrorist 
groups in Latin America.

Pre-existing board members Robert Fischer and Steven Stanbrook are a private investor and a president at S.C. Johnson & Son, respectively.

I included Jaime Puche on the BoD list, even though I couldn't immediately find when he joined the board, just for the sake of being 
interesting.  Jaime Puche has, among other things, served a Mexico's Secretary of Finance and Public Credit, founded the Mexican Investment 
Board, won the National Scientific and Social Sciences Research Award (1986), won the Mexican National Prize in Economics (1979), and taught 
at Stanford, the University of Barcelona, NYU, and Princeton.  Most notably, he led the Mexican negotiations in NAFTA as well as free trade 
agreements with Chile, Columbia, and Venezuela, and he was involved with the creation of the WTO.  Pretty valuable guy to have on your board.

Cheers,
Alex