Bocas del Toro in general, and Changuinola in particular, are indebted to Chiquita for its first public infrastructures. The banana company arrived in the area in 1896, when Panama was still part of Colombia. Since then, and up until 2014, Chiquita was part of the Chiquita Brands company, based in Charlotte, on the east coast of the United States.
That year the multinational decided to sell its operations in Changuinola. It was acquired by the Brazilian group Cutrale-Safra, but the bananas were still marketed under the Chiquita brand and the local people continued to associate them with that company. The power that the company exerted since it arrived to this location has diminished, even though it continues being the main source of employment in the region. 80% of the workers from Changuinola work in the company, according to the Workers Trade Union of the Banana, Agricultural, and Allied Industries (Sitraibana).
Since its installation, and for decades, Chiquita was a kind of parallel government for the people in the region. At the same time that it exploited hundreds and hundreds of hectares of bananas, it built schools, streets, aqueducts, electricity, railways, and even stores where workers bought their goods.
Luis Nuques Saneth is a historian. He was the mayor of Changuinola in the military period and the governor of the province in the government of Mireya Moscoso. He is also a producer of bananas. When he arrived to the isthmus, Chiquita negotiated with the Colombian authorities the purchase of a valley. They paid half a million in gold for it, as Panama hadn't adopted the US dollar back then. That valley was what is now known as Changuinola.
Chiquita built a port in Almirate to export the bananas that were originally transported from Changuinola, by the company's railroad. Now it does it in containers, but the port remains the same a century later.
From Almirante, the company exports some 17 million boxes of bananas a year to different countries, such as Iceland, which paradoxically has two points in common with Panama: the same amount of population, and that it participated for the first time in a soccer world cup this year. During the World Cup in Russia, journalist Carlos Montero published a video on social networks, in which he said he had eaten a very delicious banana in Iceland and wondered were it came from. Then he revealed that the banana had the Chiquita seal. "The best bananas in Iceland are from Panama, let's go Latin America!" said the journalist.
Chiquita began to build in Bocas del Toro an international trade disconnected from the rest of the country, at the same time that the United States was building the Canal. The company exploited the banana sector without the intervention of the Panamanian government, but the military coup came and things began to change. The land was owned by Chiquita because the company had bought it from Colombia and Omar Torrijos wanted it to be returned to the State. This led to the negotiation of the first contract between the State and the company, a document that was signed in January 1976. The contract was signed by the then lieutenant colonel and minister of Agricultural Development and, now retired general, Ruben Dario Paredes, when the military government decided to buy the lands from Chiquita for $151,456.42.
The lands then passed to the State which, in the same contract, leased 15,700 hectares to the company, 12,700 hectares for agricultural exploitation and 3,000 for the company's facilities. The lease was agreed for $1,000,000 a year, which were to be paid per quarter.
Paredes said that the company even paid the salary of the teachers who taught in the schools built by Chiquita and that in the 1970s the province of Bocas del Toro only had an air and sea connection with the rest of the country. The military had begun to bring public infrastructure to the area and built the second hydroelectric plant in the country.
With the restoration of democracy, after the invasion, government interventions continue and the road that connects Bocas del Toro with Chiriqui and the rest of the country was completed.
The second contract with Chiquita, which is currently in force, was negotiated and approved by the Legislative Assembly on September 12, 1997.
This contract has been violated by local authorities, which in dubious transactions have sold lands that are part of the lease with the State. The irregularities began in 2006, a year before the Ministry of Economy and Finance decided to transfer the land to the Municipality of Changuinola with the commitment that the municipal authorities respect the letter of the contract with the Nation.
Only Chiquita can decide at what moment it frees an estate for the Municipality to use for public infrastructure. However, several farms have been sold and not for this purpose.
Source: laestrella.com.pa