Hi Yves. This may seem like a small victory, and will likely be an isolated one. But it is a well-known practice for US multinationals to hire various thugs to do their dirty work abroad, and of course one of the things most Americans are woefully ignorant about. Corporate thuggery goes hand in hand with the CIA’s dirty work. ITT is a notorious company in Latin America, and it’s hard to believe it wasn’t very close with US intelligence. Even a relatively ignorant person like me knows that some multinationals are used as fronts for operatives (AIG before its collapse, for example).
Indeed, the misfortune of the Boeing whistleblowers may be making ordinary Americans aware of just how cruel big US corporations can be when they feel their interests are seriously threatened. Of course, the bar for action is lower for smaller countries and non-British and European victims. But the following shocking details are what you’d expect from the United Fruit crime family.
By Brett Wilkins. A common dream
In a case that plaintiffs say marks the first time a U.S. jury has found a U.S. company legally liable for atrocities overseas, a federal jury in Florida on Monday found that Chiquita Brands International funded paramilitary death squads in Colombia to kill, torture and terrorize workers to quell labor unrest in the 1990s and 2000s.
A federal jury in West Palm Beach, Florida, found the banana giant responsible for funding the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and awarded $38.3 million in damages to eight families killed by the right-wing paramilitary group.
EarthRights International, the first to file the lawsuit,Doe v. Chiquita-In 2007, It is called The ruling is a “landmark for justice.”
“The jury’s verdict reaffirms what we have long held: Chiquita knowingly funded the designated terrorist organization in order to derive profits from AUC’s gross human rights violations,” the group said.
“Chiquita illegally funded the AUC with more than $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004, causing immeasurable suffering and loss, including the brutal murder of innocent civilians in Colombia’s Uraba and Magdalena regions,” EarthRights added. “This historic ruling means that some of the victims and families who suffered as a direct result of Chiquita’s actions will finally be compensated.”
BREAKING: In a landmark victory for human rights, US jury decides@ChiquitaThe company was found guilty of funding Colombian death squads that were killing people near its banana plantations.
This is the first time a US court has held a major corporation accountable for human rights abuses overseas. pic.twitter.com/GD9aOYcpng
— Steven Donziger (@SDonziger) June 11, 2024
One of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit It is called The ruling is “a victory in a process that has lasted almost 17 years for all of us who have suffered so much over the last 17 years.”
Agnieszka Frischmann, lawyer for the plaintiffs Said “While this verdict will not bring my murdered husband or son back to life, it sets the record straight and places responsibility for terrorism financing where it belongs – on Chiquita.”
US Labor Reporting Site A More Perfect UnionIt is called The ruling is “an unprecedented victory against corporate violence and is likely the first of many.”
Chiquita spokesperson SaidFruit Net The company plans to appeal the ruling.
The AUC was formed in 1997 by a coalition of right-wing paramilitary groups that had been fighting left-wing guerrillas (mainly the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN)) in South America’s civil war. The AUC has close ties to Colombia’s US-backed forces (some of whose members are TrainedThe Israeli-run organization was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001. Quote “Involvement in massacres, kidnapping of civilians, and drug trafficking.”
United Fruit finally gets its comeuppance. In many ways, these fruit companies are a microcosm of the bloody US empire in Latin America.
It is also an important reminder that Chiquita’s actions took place during the tenure of NATO liberal Bill Clinton.
It’s scary and disgusting. https://t.co/MATGWaxnHT
— Scott Parkin (@sparki1969) June 11, 2024
2007, Chiquita Plead guilty It was sued in federal court for funding AUC and agreed to pay a $25 million penalty. The company admitted to making payments to AUC through its wholly owned Colombian subsidiary, Vanadex, which was also its most profitable business. Chiquita recorded these transactions in its corporate records as “security payments” or payments for “security” or “security services.”
Chiquita said it began making the payments after Carlos Castaño, who headed the AUC at the time, suggested that Vanadex employees and assets might be harmed. But despite the payments (and critics say because of them), AUC members brutally targeted Vanadex workers in what victims and advocates say was an attempt to stifle labor unrest.
Previous litigation Explained The fate of the victim, identified by the pseudonym “Pablo Pérez”:
In the early hours of November 1, 1997, a group of heavily armed paramilitary men in camouflage uniforms raided the home of Pablo Pérez in the village of Guacamayal in the banana region of Magdalena while he was sleeping. They broke down the door of his home, found and arrested him, tied him up, forced him at gunpoint to be taken away, and beat him as they kidnapped him. His body was found the next morning with marks of torture and one bullet wound in the head and one in the torso.
According to the plaintiffs in the suit, a ship carrying 3,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 5 million rounds of ammunition left Nicaragua in 2001, but instead of heading to its declared destination of Panama, the weapons were unloaded at a Vanadex-run port in Turbo, Colombia. Castaño called the procurement “AUC’s greatest achievement to date.”
Today, a jury found Chiquita Brands International responsible for funding the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a violent Colombian paramilitary group that committed serious human rights abuses during the 1990s and 2000s. https://t.co/EAaU0LCmKM
— Christy Thornton (@llchristyll) June 11, 2024
The previous lawsuit said that in addition to using the funds provided by Chiquita to “drive leftist guerrillas out of the banana-growing regions of Santa Marta and Uraba,” AUC fighters also intended to “resolve the grievances and issues of banana workers and their unions.”
“Specifically, when banana workers became a ‘safety problem,’ Chiquita notified the AUC, which executed the workers at the company’s instructions,” the document states. “According to AUC leaders, numerous people were executed at Chiquita’s direction in the Santa Marta area.”
Chiquita has a long history of horrific repression of workers. Formerly known as the United Fruit Company (UFC) and infamously nicknamed “The Taco,” this New Orleans-based giant monopolized land and markets across Latin America in the 20th century. Through slick marketing campaigns, UFC introduced the previously unknown banana to consumers in North America and beyond. Across the region, the company supported so-called “banana republics”: extractive economies characterized by state repression, highly stratified social classes, and subservient local plutocracies.
The UFC Participation By the 1930s, UFC controlled about 90% of the U.S. banana import business. The company owned or controlled bananas. Nearly half Guatemala in the 1940s.
UFC employees Almost equal In 1928, when striking workers in Ciénaga, near Santa Marta, went on strike, the UFC refused to negotiate with workers earning $1 a month. U.S. and UFC officials falsely portrayed the strike as an attempt to overthrow Communism, and Colombia’s right-wing government sent in 700 troops to put down the workers’ actions. Subsequent Notification “I am honored to report that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military has now exceeded 1,000,” then-Secretary of State Frank Kellogg said.
Violence against Colombian banana workers has continued into the 21st century, with perpetrators often going unpunished. Doe v. Chiquita He said Monday’s jury decision marks the beginning of a new era of accountability.
“This ruling sends a strong message to companies around the world: profiting from human rights violations cannot be punished,” said Marco Simons, general counsel for EarthRights International. statement“These families, who were victimized by armed groups and companies, have asserted their rights and won in the judicial process.”
