Miami, Jun 10 (EFE).- A jury in the United States on Monday found the multinational banana company Chiquita Brands International responsible for the wrongful deaths of eight men murdered by paramilitary militias and ordered it to pay 38.3 million dollars in damages to the surviving family members.
A slew of civil lawsuits followed a 2007 guilty plea by Chiquita to federal criminal charges brought by the United States for its payments to the AUC, the terrorist group responsible for the murders.
The AUC (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) was a far-right paramilitary and drug-trafficking group ostensibly created to fight left-wing guerrilla groups but known for assassinating union organizers, left-wing political activists, peasant leaders, and civilians it loosely suspected of supporting the rebel movements.
Colombia’s Truth Commission estimated that the group was responsible for 205,000 murders.
The US Department of State designated the AUC a foreign terrorist organization in 2001, making supporting the AUC a federal crime.
Chiquita Brands International, which closed its Colombian operations in 2004, admitted in a New York court in 2007 that it had paid 1.7 million dollars to the paramilitaries “under pressure,” according to the company.
Chiquita’s lawyers had argued that the multinational had no choice but to pay to protect its workers from violence.
However, the victims’ relatives argued that the fruit company voluntarily partnered with the AUC to protect its business, not its workers.
After a US Department of Justice investigation that described Chiquita’s support for the AUC as “prolonged, steady, and substantial,” Chiquita pleaded guilty and settled the case with a 25 million dollar fine, but did not compensate the families whose loved ones were killed by the groups it funded.
Thousands of relatives of victims filed lawsuits against Chiquita.
The claims were consolidated and a small group of eight plaintiffs, a test case known as a bellwether trial, was selected to proceed to trial, which began on Apr. 22 and ended with Monday’s decision. The second bellwether trial is scheduled to begin on Jul. 15, 2024.
“After a long seventeen years against a well-funded defense, justice was finally served,” said Leslie Kroeger, one of the lawyers on the plaintiffs’ trial team, adding that her firm, Cohen Milstein, “look(s) forward to the next round of bellwether trials and will continue to fight for our clients.”
The West Palm Beach civil jury verdict found that Chiquita failed to prove that the assistance it provided to the AUC was the result of an unlawful, direct and imminent threat from that terrorist group and that it had no reasonable alternative to providing assistance to the group, according to the ruling, which was obtained by EFE.
The ruling also states that Chiquita’s assistance to the AUC constituted a dangerous activity that increased the risk to community members beyond the dangers to which they were normally exposed.
For all these reasons, the multinational was ordered to pay 38.3 million dollars to the plaintiffs, who are survivors and relatives of victims of paramilitary violence in the 1990s and early 2000s, especially in the banana-growing region of Urabá, in northwestern Colombia, near the border with Panama.
EFE
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