"Bananagate": Oswaldo Lopez Arellano received $ 1.25 million? Nicaragua Zelaya 
By Juan Carlos Rivera /
three years ago, I proposed to a former coup former President Oswaldo López Arellano (1963 and 1972), during a telephone conversation and through emails , we wrote a book on the true story of the scandal known as "Bananagate."
The former official told me that was not yet time to revive and to float the large bribe plot of which may have been López Arellano, the retired officer who died last Sunday at the age of 88.
López Arellano assaulted power twice. On October 3, 1963, when he held the position of Chief of the Armed Forces, gave the coup President Ramon Villeda Morales. In 1972, Ramón Cruz ousted.
Now that the military coup, eventually became a banker and businessman, died (prostate cancer), it is likely that the second part of the story of "Bananagate" is narrated by someone who was shaking the general.
On April 9, 1975, The Wall Street Journal published a report (signed by journalists Kenneth H. Bacon, Mary and Stephen J. Sansuite Bralove) in which it stated that Lopez Arellano received a bribe of $ 250,000 million from United Brands to reduce him the banana export taxes. REPORTING
According to the first paragraph of the story that brought to light the case, United Brands Co., a multinational food company in New York, admitted paying a bribe of $ 1.25 million to a Honduran official to win concessions that country in the export tax on bananas.
that date, the Journal, after months of investigations, also reported that the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) was examining the evidence in the case, given that they bribed officials linked to the name of the president of Honduras.
The scandal exploded in the wake of the investigations by the SEC about the suicide of Eli M. Black, chairman of United Brands, a rare occurrence for the U.S. authorities for being a top executive.
On 3 February, two months before the scandal, Black, 53 years old, was dropped from the 44 floor of the Pan Am building in Manhattan, where he had his office.
The SEC put more effort in investigating the suicide of Black after he received important information from the State Department stating that the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa had collected information on payments made by the United Brands apparent the Honduran president.
The Embassy sent the information to Washigton and the State Department transferred to the SEC. CONFIRMED
journalists
First Journal, the company said its board had learned that the company paid in 1974 to an official of the Republic of Honduras $ 1.25 million for a reduction of export tax on Honduran bananas.
The company stated that the payment had been authorized by Mr. Black, who was then the president and top executive of United Brands. The payment was made through foreign subsidiaries of the company and not properly identified in their logbooks.
The company said that it was an arrangement that included an additional payment of $ 1.25 million. Although the company refused to name the official, sources close to the journalists who conducted the investigation indicated that "the payment was made to General Oswaldo López Arellano."
In the report, journalists stated that they contacted a spokesman for the office of Lopez Arellano in Tegucigalpa, but he informed them that "the president was out and did not know where to locate." The Journal said, moreover, that for reasons that are unclear, the general had been suspended a week earlier as head of the Armed Forces. In Washington, the Embassy of Honduras also avoided comment.
In the statement, (made up of six lawyers) that the company offered to the media, announced that the board had determined that the additional payment Honduran official would not take place and had anticipated that the discovery of the first payment would cause "a considerable reduction of future earnings and a substantial loss of assets at the same time, affect the operations of the company. "
At that time, United Brands said he feared that as a result of the discovery of bribery, Honduras could expropriate the properties 28 000 acres of banana he owned in the north coast, which supplied 25 percent of the total production of that firm.
In the statement, United Brands said its board had determined to appoint a special committee to investigate and report on the circumstances in which the payment made to Honduran officials, as well as "certain other payments in countries outside the Western Hemisphere," whose amount would be about $ 350 000. TAXES
According to figures from the SEC, considered in the report, the United Brands in 1974 recorded an increase of 11 million dollars in banana export taxes approved by Honduras, Panama and Costa Rica.
In April 1974, Honduras, then the third largest banana producer, announced it would impose a tax of 50 cents per box exported through their jobs.
Honduran tax would cause the company to pay 15 million dollars. However, the company persuaded the government of Honduras so that only charged 25 cents per box. Thus achieve a reduction in costs of $ 7.5 million. FLAT 44
These and other work pressures, according to friends and partners at the time, forcing Black to jump from heights. The employer had made the United Brands company two billion dollars.
Prior to becoming the number one of the firm, in 1954, Black had a factory ($ 5 million) producing cartons for milk containers. The company is called American Seal Kap Corporation, in which he played the presidency. Black
changed his name to the firm and named AMK Corp. In 1970, he negotiated a merger with United Brands.
Later, in 1974, the company received severe blows to their profits, because, in addition to raising taxes, Hurricane Fifi devastated 70 percent of plantations in Honduras and, consequently, it reduced the production of bananas. In short, the natural phenomenon caused him losses $ 20 million.
That year, the United Brands was in the midst of difficult conditions, since at the same time, emerged in the international market more competitive and Central and South American countries formed the Union of Banana Exporting Countries (UPEB) in order to achieve better prices.
This organization agreed that all member countries would establish a tax of one dollar forty pound box of bananas exported.
In April 1974, the Honduran government approved the 50-cent levy, delayed until June of that year. That same month, United Brands said it had reached an "understanding" with the administration of López Arellano and had achieved a reduction of 50 cents to 25 cents in tax. Also, take effect from 1975.
