The execution of banana plantation worker “David” by right-wing Colombian paramilitary members in 1997 was as swift as it was brutal.
Minutes after his bus was stopped at a checkpoint in the coastal region of Urabá, he was dragged off, beaten to death in front of his fellow passengers, and dumped on the side of the road – where his killers covered his corpse with a banana plant. Cows would later feed on his body, according to court documents.
The brutality did not end there. His daughter and sister-in-law disappeared weeks later, never to be found again. Death threats were made to another member of the family.
What was left of the family soon left Urabá for good.
He was just one of thousands of people targeted by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, an infamous right-wing terrorist group that, at the height of Colombia’s civil conflict around the turn of the century, was able to mobilize tens of thousands of fighters.
More than a quarter century later, a landmark civil case in a US federal court this week found banana company Chiquita Brands International liable for financing the paramilitary group, and ordered Chiquita to pay $38.3 million in compensation to “David’s” family and those of seven other victims – whose real identities were concealed in court documents.
The details of those deaths, which took place between 1997 and 2004, and accounts of the impact they had on the families, were read to jurors before they deliberated whether Chiquita – one of the world’s largest banana producers – had acted “as a reasonable businessperson” by paying the AUC what the company characterized as extortion payments.
The families argued that payments from Chiquita to the AUC had helped to prop up the paramilitary group’s violence in Colombia and that the company should therefore be held liable for the group’s murders.
The verdict has been celebrated as a legal breakthrough. According to the lawyers who won the case in Florida, it marks “the first time an American jury has held a major US corporation accountable for complicity in serious human rights abuses in another country.”
“I feel great joy, we waited for so long and suddenly, we won. I had almost lost hope, but God helped us,” one of the plaintiffs told CNN after the ruling.
The mother of four daughters recalled telling the court how her partner was killed by AUC paramilitaries on November 14, 2003, to pressure the family to sell a banana plantation at below market rate.
“I don’t want the money myself, I’ll be gone soon… but at least, for the girls: may they get some justice now!” she said of the compensation.
A bellwether case?
The verdict follows a nearly two-decade judicial fight by the families, who sued Chiquita International after a separate court case in 2007. In that case, the company admitted paying $1.7 million in “protection money” to the AUC – at that time considered a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department – and agreed to pay the US government a $25 million fine.
However, it’s unlikely to be the last of the matter, and not only because Chiquita has already said it will appeal the verdict.
Marco Simons, general counsel for Earth Rights International, a human rights NGO that provided legal assistance to the victims, described his legal strategy as a “bellwether process,” with his team selecting the nine strongest cases they had from over 4,500 complaints. He now hopes many more cases will follow.
“It’s been an honor to represent these victims for the past 17 years. It’s not over yet, but this is a significant step forward, and we hope that this will pave the way for compensation for all the victims,” Simons told a press conference in Washington on Tuesday.
Because of Chiquita’s appeal, Simons says it is unlikely any of the victims will receive compensation soon, however, he says the case has sent a strong message to corporations about the need to respect human rights.
“Ultimately, this money is not going to replace what’s been lost. We’re still talking about horrific abuses that these families have suffered, but the money is important because, unfortunately, the language that corporations understand best is money. Sometimes it takes a significant monetary penalty to change corporate behavior,” Simons said.
‘Tragic for so many’
Chiquita has maintained in its defense – both throughout the latest case and in previous litigation – that it was itself a victim, as it had been forced to pay the AUC protection money.
While that argument was not enough to convince the jury that it had acted “as a reasonable businessperson would have acted under the circumstances,” the company told CNN following the latest verdict that it remained “confident that our legal position will ultimately prevail.”
“The situation in Colombia was tragic for so many, including those directly affected by the violence there, and our thoughts remain with them and their families. However, that does not change our belief that there is no legal basis for these claims,” the statement read.
In its 2007 case against the US Justice Department, the company admitted making more than “100 payments to the AUC totaling over $1.7 million.” Chiquita recorded the AUC payments as “security services,” though the company never received any actual services from these payments, according to a US Justice Department press release from the time.
Eric Holder, who represented Chiquita in the 2007 trial before serving as US Attorney General under President Barack Obama, told the court then that: “The company had to pay a variety of terrorist groups for over 15 years because those were the groups that controlled the areas in which the company operated. Not the Colombian government.”
However, in that trial, the company ended up admitting in a plea deal that it had willingly continued to pay the AUC even after the group was declared a terrorist organization by the US government in 2001, and even after a senior director lodged an objection to Chiquita’s board reiterating “his strong opinion to sell our operations in Colombia,” due to the protection money issue.
Federal attorneys found that Chiquita made $49.4 million in profit from their Colombian operations between 1997 and 2004.
A time of ‘real terror’
The AUC was founded in 1997, during one of the most tragic phases of the Colombian civil conflict, which saw the government wrestle for control against left-wing guerrilla forces, right-wing paramilitaries, and criminal organizations.
Around that time, left-wing guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) were moving against the state and terrorizing the civilian population. Chiquita said in the 2007 case that it had paid ransoms to the FARC and ELN before it turned to the AUC in 1997.
Faced with the possibility of an armed communist revolution in the country, Colombian landowners and right-wing sympathizers created groups of vigilantes to respond to the guerrillas blow for blow. The AUC were once such a group and spent the years before their final demobilization in 2006 terrorizing the population of northern Colombia to stem the rebellion.
At its zenith, the AUC could mobilize tens of thousands of fighters, and was heavily financed by drug trafficking: following demobilization, more than a dozen AUC leaders were extradited on drug charges to the US.
“I remember that period, it was real terror,” one of the plaintiffs awarded compensation on Monday told CNN. “My husband was killed, but my daughter was also raped, you had victims all across town.”
In other testimony heard by the jurors in the most recent court case, a minor girl was forced to watch from a taxi as her mother and stepfather were executed on the side of the street, before being given the equivalent of less than a dollar to return home and survive as an orphan.
Colombia today
Colombia today is a vastly different country to the one in which the AUC was born.
A few years after the demobilization of the AUC, a peace deal in 2016 also brought to an end the 52-year conflict between the government and the FARC, though some dissidents continue to fight.
Both right wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas have since been included in transitional justice processes aimed at bringing closure to some of the darkest pages of the conflict.
Yet the fear in Urabá remains.
Some of the AUC’s former members remain at large and have joined a new organized criminal group, the Gulf Clan, that challenges government control in northwestern Colombia.
Rights groups say powerful corporate interests continue to collude with local politicians and criminal groups to repress activism, particularly in defense of the environment, which can be a dangerous business in South America.
Even so, for at least some of the many victims of the AUC, this week’s court verdict is a reason for optimism. One of the plaintiffs who spoke with CNN asked to share her message as an act of defiance.
“My daughter, my son, they’re all ‘Mom don’t pick up the phone, mom don’t talk.’ But hey, fear can only last until someone decides to speak,” she said.
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