Chiquita jury verdict in Colombia paramilitary killings awards millions : NPR

A federal jury in Florida says fruit giant Chiquita Brands is responsible for killings between 1997 and 2004 by a right-wing Colombian paramilitary group that the company paid millions of dollars to – even after the U.S. government designated the group a foreign terrorist organization .

A 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). .

The company says it plans to appeal the decision. In the face of the allegations, Chiquita says it dutifully paid the AUC to protect its banana-growing operations in areas embroiled in Colombia’s civil war. But the plaintiffs say the jury is entitled to hold Chiquita liable. And they describe the result as historic.

“As far as we have been able to determine, this is the first time that a major American corporation has ever been held liable for injuries caused to foreign nationals in an American court,” Jack Scarola. A lead plaintiff’s attorney who gave opening and closing arguments at the trial told NPR.

The decision comes about 17 years after Chiquita pleaded guilty and paid $25 million to settle federal criminal charges brought by the Justice Department over about $1.7 million it paid to AUC — both through intermediaries and, later, in direct payments in money. The federal admission prompted surviving relatives of people killed by the AUC to file civil suits 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 believes it will succeed in getting the jury’s decision overturned.

“The situation in Colombia was 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 claims. While we are disappointed by the decision, we remain confident that our legal position will ultimately prevail.”

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

In response to the verdict form’s question of whether Chiquita “failed to act as a reasonable business person would have acted under similar circumstances,” the jury voted yes.

What do the plaintiffs say?

There are many plaintiffs – and many lawyers representing them.

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

The victim added: “We are not in this process because we want to be; it was Chiquita, with her actions, that dragged us into it. We have a responsibility to our families and we have to fight for them.”

“Our clients risked their lives to hold Chiquita accountable, trusting in the United States justice system,” another lead attorney, Agnieszka Fryszman, said in a statement about the case. “The decision does not bring back the husbands and sons who were killed,” she added, “but it sets the record straight and places the responsibility for financing terrorism where it belongs: at Chiquita’s doorstep.”

What happens next?

The case decided Monday is the first of two “bellwether trials” set for this year, after thousands of claims were consolidated to be heard in federal court in Florida. The next trial is scheduled to begin on July 15.

At their inception, each of the two trials was to consist of 10 claims selected from the many claims brought against Chiquita. The first case eventually went to court with nine claims – and the multinational banana company was held responsible for eight of the deaths.

After years of legal wrangling and dealing with logistical hurdles, the next trial may move faster than the first, Scarola said, “because many of the legal decisions that were made in the first trial will be applicable and binding in the second trial “. Things could move even faster, he said, if the jury’s factual findings are enforced.

What did Chiquita do?

The Justice Department said in 2007 that Carlos Castaño Gil, who led AUC from 1997 until his death in 2004, met with the general manager of Chiquita’s subsidiary Banadex and told him that payments would have to be made as soon as AUC to force another violent group. , the left-wing FARC, outside the territory where Banadax was growing bananas.

The 2007 settlement included a “statement of fact” summarizing the US government’s case. Chiquita’s then-Chairman and CEO, Fernando Aguirre, signed the document, stating that its information was true and accurate and noting that, had the case gone to trial, the U.S. would have proved her case “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

In that brief, the DOJ said Chiquita’s top executives at its Cincinnati headquarters knew about the company’s relationship with AUC. He also said Chiquita’s Colombian subsidiary was never provided with any actual security services or security equipment in exchange for the payments it made.

The US government designated AUC as a foreign terrorist organization on September 10, 2001. But between that date and February 4, 2004, the government said, Chiquita made 50 more payments to AUC, totaling more than $825,000. The company began paying the violent group in 1997, according to the DOJ.

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

Chiquita has a long, troubling history in Latin America

American companies like United Fruit, which later became Chiquita, used a combination of PR expertise, land acquisition, railroad construction, and other advantages to build a banana-based financial empire—which quickly became from an unknown and exotic item to one of the most commonly eaten fruits in the US (and elsewhere).

Chiquita and its predecessor company have wielded enormous power and influence over the past 100 years, linked to the removal of politicians from office in Honduras, Guatemala and other countries. And while the DOJ eventually targeted the company, the federal government had previously acted as an enabler of a growing US fruit empire.

In 1928, for example, United Fruit faced a strike by banana workers in Colombia—a labor action that ended in an infamous massacre, as Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate 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 representative of the United Fruit Company in Bogota told me yesterday that the total number of attackers killed by the Colombian army exceeded 1,000.

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

Describing how those dynamics played out in Central America, for example, Koeppel stated, “Any leader who was either against the banana companies or even just wanted a fair wage for his people would be immediately overthrown, sometimes killed, he would often be humiliated and this happened. over 20 times between 1900 and 1955.