US court orders banana company Chiquita Brands International to stand trial for allegedly financing paramilitary death squads in Colombia
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"U.S. COURT ORDERS CHIQUITA TO STAND TRIAL FOR COLOMBIANS’ MURDER CLAIMS", 15 March 2023
...[F]ederal judge Kenneth Marra of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida ordered the banana company Chiquita Brands International to stand trial for illegally financing paramilitary death squads in Colombia, allowing 17 victims’ families to present their cases to a jury in January of 2024.
“After nearly 16 years of litigation, this is a historic advance toward justice for these families,” said Marco Simons, General Counsel at EarthRights International, which represents several of the plaintiffs now proceeding to trial. “Chiquita funded death squads that murdered thousands of people, and while they admitted to a federal crime, they have never provided any compensation to the families who were shattered by their illegal and abhorrent conduct.”
For nearly a decade in the 1990s and early 2000s, Chiquita Brands International made regular payments to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), totaling more than $1.7 million. In turn, AUC death squads engaged in a campaign of violence against communities in Colombia’s banana-growing regions, including trade unions, political opponents, and Indigenous advocates. In 2001, the U.S. government classified the AUC as a terrorist organization...
In March 2007, Chiquita pled guilty to a federal crime for funding the AUC and paid a $25 million fine to the U.S. government. Shortly thereafter, in July 2007, EarthRights filed a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of victims of the AUC. Since then, the suit has been proceeding alongside several other suits filed against Chiquita...