Faced with potentially billions of dollars in legal liability, Chiquita Brands International is asking a federal appeals court to block lawsuits filed against it in the U.S. by thousands of Colombians whose relatives were killed in that country's bloody, decades-long civil war. The produce giant…has admitted paying a right-wing Colombian paramilitary group $1.7 million over a seven-year period. The…company insists it was blackmailed into paying or risking violence against its own operations and employees, although in 2007 Chiquita pleaded guilty to U.S. criminal charges that it had supported terrorists…Chiquita wants the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss the lawsuits because, the company claims, each murder cannot be tied specifically to the company…Chiquita also says the Colombian cases should be tossed because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling…in…Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum…