In a recent report Human Rights Watch recommended that the U.S. Department of Justice end the ties between the Colombian government and paramilitary death squads. Little information will flow now that Eric Holder has relinquished his weighty law practice at Covington & Burling in favor of the U.S. Attorney General nod. Holder has a conflict of interest since he is a defense lawyer for Chiquita Brands in which Colombian plaintiffs seek damages for the murders carried out by the AUC paramilitaries, a terrorist organization. Chiquita has already admitted in a criminal case that it paid the AUC around $1.7 million in a 7-year period and that it provided the AUC with a cache of machine guns as well.
In the Clinton Administration, Holder helped to negotiate Chiquita's plea bargaining with the Justice Department in the criminal case against Chiquita. Subsequently, no Chiquita official received jail time. Moreover, the identity of the key corporoate officials involved in the shenanigans are sealed.
Mario Iguaran, the Attorney General of Colombia, is on record noting that Chiquita's payments to the AUC paramilitaries led to the murder of 4000 civilians.