Florida Jury Finds Chiquita Financed Colombian Death Squads

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida – A South Florida jury has found banana giant Chiquita Brands International liable for financing the paramilitary death squad United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)

“The jury’s decision reaffirms what we have long asserted: Chiquita knowingly financed the AUC, a designated terrorist organization, in pursuit of profit, despite the AUC’s egregious human rights abuses,” said Marco Simons, an EarthRights International attorney for one of the plaintiffs.

By providing over $1.7 million in illegal funding to the AUC from 1997 to 2004, Chiquita contributed to untold suffering and loss in the Colombian regions of  Urabá and Magdalena, including the brutal murders of innocent civilians, the jury found.

This verdict also means some of the victims and families who suffered as a direct result of Chiquita’s actions will finally be compensated.

“It’s 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. There’s a debate about justice and reparation; we’ve been fighting since 2007. We’re not in this process because we want to be; it was Chiquita, with its actions, that dragged us into it. We have a responsibility to our families, and we must fight for them,” said one of the victims in a press release. 

This ruling marks the first time that an American jury has held a major U.S. corporation liable for complicity in serious human rights abuses in another country. 

“This verdict sends a powerful message to corporations everywhere: profiting from human rights abuses will not go unpunished. These families, victimized by armed groups and corporations, asserted their power and prevailed in the judicial process,” added Simons.