It’s bananas! The historic ruling against Chiquita for financing paramilitaries in Colombia
A US court recently found banana giant Chiquita guilty of financing a death squad in Colombia. It ordered the brand to pay 38 million dollars in compensation. Should we stop buying Chiquita bananas?
On 10 June 2024, the US Federal Court of South Florida found the fruit exporter Chiquita Brands International guilty of providing substantial assistance to the Colombian paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).
The paramilitary group was created in 1997 to integrate and coordinate different right-wing paramilitary groups across the country into a unified group. From that moment onwards, the group sought to stop the expansion of the guerillas (mainly the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC) and regain control over the territories, leading to the escalation of violent confrontations.
A feared death squad
The paramilitary group is well-known for its horrifying practices, and especially the perpetration of massacres and forced disappearances. The Colombian Truth Commission found that paramilitaries are responsible for over 45% of deaths and 52% disappearances related to the conflict.
Who is financing paramilitaries?
The short answer is: prominent landowners, right-wing associations and companies, including Chiquita. In 2007, the first class action lawsuits were filed in the US, arguing Chiquita’s involvement in financing the paramilitary group. Chiquita pleaded guilty to paying over 1.7 million dollars to the AUC even after the US government had designated it a terrorist group back in 2001.
Employee protection
In 2008, amended lawsuits were filed arguing that Chiquita had endorsed the paramilitary group’s violent conduct, which had enabled it to ‘seize land from peasants; eliminate or dominate labour union organisers’. Chiquita filed several requests to dismiss the cases, claiming that they had been extorted by the paramilitary group and that the contributions were necessary to protect its employees from left-wing armed groups in the country. However, most of the accusations were dismissed.
In 2020 and 2021, various additional cases were filed, which ultimately led to a trial. In its 2024 decision, the Florida court found that Chiquita had not proven that the assistance provided was necessary to protect its employees or property, nor was there no other reasonable alternative. It held that Chiquita had ‘knowingly provided substantial assistance to the AUC to a degree sufficient to create a foreseeable risk of harm’. It therefore ordered Chiquita to pay 38 million dollars to the plaintiffs in compensation.
The violent history of Chiquita Brands
To better understand the magnitude of the decision, it is necessary to look at the violent history of Chiquita’s parent company, the United Fruit Company (UFC). Perhaps the most blatant involvement of the UFC in violence was the Banana Massacre of 1928. Between 1890 and 1920, the UFC used indirect contracts to avoid Colombian law and recruit cheaper workers to the banana plantations. The situation peaked on 6 October 1928, when the banana workers and labour union decided to present a list of demands to the UFC’s general manager. UFC rejected all the demands and refused to negotiate, which resulted in a strike involving over 25,000 workers.
According to recent research, after one month of strikes, the UFC hired a steam boat to bring in 200 military men and gain control over the town hall. Similarly, the US sent a warship, allegedly to evacuate American citizens in the region. The Colombian government was under tremendous pressure to act.
Massacre among workers
On the evening of 5 December, as part of a peaceful protest by the workers, the governor of Magdalena issued a decree ordering them to disperse immediately. The army, which had been deployed to Cienaga several days previously, read the decree in the main square, with over 1,500 workers present. They were given just 15 minutes to leave, and when they refused, the army opened fire on the protestors, killing over 1,000 people.
Bananas: a tainted trade?
Nowadays, Chiquita Brands International is not the only banana company involved in criminal activities in Latin America. Unibán – the parent company of Turbana Bananas – has been named by demobilised paramilitaries as a financier of paramilitary organisations. During his declarations to the Peace and Justice Judges, the Colombian ex-paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso also testified about the ties and payoffs of banana companies to the AUC, referring specifically to the group’s relationship with Dole and Del Monte. Similarly, Fyffes, which Chiquita now owns, has been accused of violations of human rights and labour rights both in Colombia and Honduras.
Milestone in pursuit of justice
In this sense, the ruling against Chiquita marks a milestone in Colombian victims’ pursuit of justice and Latin American resilience. It is the first time in history that a US federal jury has found a major US company liable for financing mass atrocities and human rights violations abroad. It is also the first international recognition and one of the few judicial sentences against companies for their long-standing involvement in violence in Latin America. The judgment will hopefully pave the way for future litigation regarding business and human rights violations. At the bare minimum, the decision should generate consumer awareness for the blood involved in Europe’s beloved banana consumption.
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Chiquita Lawsuit Attorneys
When an American corporation admits to financially supporting terrorist activities to protect its own profits, the Law Firm of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley steps in to fight for the Columbia victims and their families.
Day after day in Colombia, the death toll rises, and the rate of rapes and assaults climbs, at the hands of paramilitary groups such as FARC and AUC. The world reads the statistics in newspapers, hears them recounted on radio and television. But they don’t understand.
The attorneys at Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley understand. Because we know what happens when big corporations put profits before safety. We know that these are not just numbers. Each number represents a human face: a brother, a child, a wife, a nephew.. savagely slaughtered, mercilessly tortured, or violently raped by terrorists and mercenaries who got millions of dollars in funding from Chiquita Brands International.
Why does this happen?
- Because at any cost, Chiquita Brands was determined to keep victimizing
the Colombian families it exploited in order to continue growing, distributing, and selling bananas. - Because Chiquita Brands made billions of dollars off the backs, and the lives, of Colombian workers.
- Because Chiquita Brands paid blood money to terrorists like Carlos Castano to protect its financial interests.
- Because Chiquita Brands valued the dollar over the priceless miracle of human life.
Chiquita Brands is so invested in the fruits of death and torture that it ignored warnings that their so-called protection payments were illegal. Last year, the corporation chose to pay $25 million in fines to the US government because it failed to stop the flow of blood money or alleged arms shipments to Colombian outlaws even after those receiving the payments were officially designated as terrorist organizations (www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2007March/07_nsd_161.html).
If a loved one has been murdered, or you or a family member has been seriously harmed by thugs from United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), you know what we are talking about. Whether a well-publicized massacre or an isolated incident, the atrocities are equally devastating. We want you to know that attorneys at Searcy Denney are available to help you find justice against Chiquita Brands. Jack Scarola has put together a team of investigators and attorneys who are meeting with victims and their families on a monthly basis and will continue to do so until we can, together, put a stop to the support that American corporations provide to terrorist organizations.
For more than 30 years, the skilled and compassionate attorneys at Searcy Denney have been taking Big Corporations to task, fighting for social justice and standing up for people like you. Through the American justice system, we have served notice to greedy corporations that their patterns of exploitation and reckless endangerment will not be tolerated. Whether against cancer-causing Big Tobacco or big pharmaceutical companies that peddle deadly drugs, we help innocent victims exercise their rights to pursue justice.
Thanks to a well-established legal precedent, this right extends to non-Americans like you, whose lives have been devastated by an American corporation (www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/11/14/chiquita.lawsuit).
We want to hear your story
To learn more, you can:
- Complete our Contact Form on the right
- E-mail us at searcysite@searcylaw.com
- Or call us at 001-561-686-6300
This initial conversation is confidential and free of charge. We would be honored to help you protect your family and tell Chiquita Brands International that they can’t get away with murder.
