Jury rules Chiquita should pay millions for Colombian paramilitary killings

A federal jury in Florida has found fruit giant Chiquita Brands responsible for killings carried out between 1997 and 2004 by a right-wing Colombian paramilitary group to which the company gave millions of dollars – even after the US government named the group as a foreign terrorist organization.

The jury on Monday awarded the families of eight men killed in Colombia a total of about $38.3 million in damages, ruling that Chiquita was responsible for the killings carried out by the AUC – the acronym for Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia ( United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia). Colombia).

The company announced its intention to appeal the verdict. Faced with these allegations, Chiquita claims it paid the AUC under duress to protect its banana growing operations in areas affected by Colombia’s civil war. But the plaintiffs say the jury was right to hold Chiquita liable. And they call the result historic.

“From what we have been able to determine, this is the first time ever that a major American company has been held liable for injuries to foreign nationals in a U.S. court,” said Jack Scarola, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs who presented opening and closing arguments in the trial told NPR.

The verdict comes about 17 years after Chiquita pleaded guilty and paid $25 million to settle federal criminal charges brought by the Justice Department over some $1.7 million paid to the AUC – both by through intermediaries and, later, in the form of direct cash payments. The federal admission prompted surviving relatives of those killed by the AUC to file a civil suit against Chiquita. Since then, more than 5,000 wrongful death claims have been filed, Scarola said.

What does Chiquita say?

In response to this week’s verdict, Chiquita acknowledged the terrible losses suffered by civilians in Colombia, but the company also said it believed it would succeed in overturning the jury’s decision.

“The situation in Colombia has been tragic for many people, including those directly affected by the violence there, and our thoughts remain with them and their families,” the company said in a message to NPR. “However, this does not change our belief that there is no legal basis for these assertions. Although we are disappointed by this decision, we remain confident that our legal position will ultimately prevail.

But in its verdict, the jury decided that Chiquita “knowingly provided substantial assistance to AUC” in an amount likely to create risks of harm to others. Jurors rejected Chiquita’s claim that it had no choice but to pay the AUC.

In response to the verdict form’s question whether Chiquita “did not act as a reasonable businessman would have acted under similar circumstances,” the jury voted yes.

What do the plaintiffs say?

There are many plaintiffs — and many lawyers representing them.

“This is the triumph of a process that has lasted almost 17 years, for all of us who have suffered so much during these years,” said one victim, in a statement relayed by EarthRights International, a non-profit organization that handles cases involving victims. human rights and environment.

The victim added: “We are not in this process because we want to be; it was Chiquita, with its actions, who led us there. We have a responsibility to our families and we must fight for them.

“Our clients risked their lives to hold Chiquita accountable, putting their trust in the American justice system,” another lead attorney, Agnieszka Fryszman, said in a statement on the case. “The verdict does not bring back the husbands and sons who were killed,” she added, “but it does set the record straight and places the responsibility for financing terrorism where it belongs: at the doorsteps.” from Chiquita. »

What happens next?

The case decided Monday is the first of two “landmark trials” planned this year, after thousands of complaints were consolidated to be heard in a Florida federal court. The next procedure is expected to begin on July 15.

Initially, each of the two trials was to consist of 10 complaints chosen from the numerous complaints brought against Chiquita. The first lawsuit eventually went to court with nine complaints – and the multinational banana company was found responsible for eight of the deaths.

After years of legal wrangling and logistical hurdles, the next trial could move more quickly than the first, Scarola said, “because many of the court rulings made in the first proceeding will be applicable and binding in the second procedure “. Things could move even faster, he added, if the jury’s factual findings also applied.

What did Chiquita do?

The Justice Department said in 2007 that Carlos Castaño Gil, who led the AUC from 1997 until his death in 2004, met with the chief executive of Banadex, a Chiquita subsidiary, and told him that payments would be necessary once the AUC forced out another violent group. , the left-wing FARC, outside the territory where Banadax grew bananas.

The 2007 settlement included a “factual proposition” summarizing the U.S. government’s case. Fernando Aguirre, then Chiquita’s chairman and CEO, signed the document, stating that the information was true and accurate and noting that, had the case gone to trial, the United States would have proven its case “beyond all reasonable doubt.”

In that summary, the DOJ said Chiquita’s top executives at its Cincinnati headquarters were aware of the company’s dealings with the AUC. He also said Chiquita’s Colombian subsidiary never received any real security services or safety equipment in exchange for the payments it made.

The U.S. government designated the AUC as a foreign terrorist organization on September 10, 2001. But between then and February 4, 2004, the government said, Chiquita made 50 additional payments to the AUC, for a total of more than 825 000 dollars. The company began paying the violent group in 1997, according to the DOJ.

As for the amount of money Chiquita made from its banana operations at the time, the document states that from September 10, 2001 to January 2004, Chiquita earned up to $49.4 million in profits from to its banana production operations in Colombia. And in 2003, Chiquita’s Banadex subsidiary was Chiquita’s most profitable banana production operation. The company sold Banadex in June 2004 but continued to purchase bananas from the new owner.

Chiquita has a long and troubling history in Latin America

American companies like United Fruit, later called Chiquita, used a combination of public relations expertise, land acquisition, railroad construction, and other advantages to build a financial empire based on the banana – which has quickly gone from an obscure and exotic product to one of the most popular. most commonly consumed fruits in the United States (and elsewhere).

Chiquita and its predecessor company have wielded enormous power and influence over the past 100 years, linked to the impeachment of politicians in Honduras, Guatemala and other countries. And although the DOJ ended up targeting the company, the federal government had previously acted as an enabler of a burgeoning American fruit empire.

In 1928, for example, United Fruit faced a strike by banana workers in Colombia – a labor action that ended in a notorious massacre, as Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: the destiny of the fruit that changed the world, told NPR’s Throughline in 2020.

“The American ambassador reported these events to his superiors in Washington,” Koeppel said. He then recited the diplomat’s message: “I have the honor to report that the Bogota representative of the United Fruit Company told me yesterday that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian army exceeded a thousand.”

It was just one of many interventions to come, Koeppel told NPR’s Fresh Air in 2011, claiming that banana companies were using close ties to the U.S. government to get help from entities ranging from the U.S. Marines to the CIA.

Describing how these dynamics played out in Central America, for example, Koeppel said: “Any leader who was either against the banana companies, or even just wanted a fair wage for his people, was immediately deposed, sometimes assassinated, often humiliated, and it happened. more than 20 times between 1900 and 1955.”