A Verdict Against Chiquita's Impunity in Colombia

CARLOS CRUZ MOSQUERA

The recent ruling against the Chiquita fruit company for its ties to a terrorist death squad is a victory for workers and peasants in a country where violent repression has long been the norm.

06.17.2024

Chiquita, one of the United States’ and the world’s biggest fruit companies, has finally been charged in a Florida court for its links to a terrorist organization. In 2007, following a similar trial in New York, the company admitted to financing one of Colombia’s most notorious right-wing death squads, the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), resulting in a $25 million fine. In the latest case brought against them by representatives of thousands of Colombian victims, Chiquita’s lawyers, like in the New York trial, argued that the company had been a victim of the AUC — that the company was extorted into making financial contributions.

This time around, witnesses included former AUC commanders who stated that Chiquita’s nearly $2 million funding to the terror group between 1997 and 2004, filed under “services for security,” was part of a partnership rather than extortion. One of the witnesses, Ever Veloza García, stated that they had “received orders to control the banana zones, prohibit worker strikes, and persecute trade union members to protect the multinationals,” adding that those involved should do time in prison.

Welcome as this victory is for the victims, Chiquita’s links to the most extreme forms of violence suffered by Colombians are symptomatic of a wider conflict shaped by social structures rooted in colonial hierarchies and a particular form of capitalist development.

That Chiquita would associate with a terrorist organization in recent decades should come as no surprise given their long history of violence in Colombia and the wider region. Their power to dictate the political and economic destiny of entire countries in Central and South America in their previous incarnation as the United Fruit Company inspired the now widely used expression “banana republic.”

More:
https://jacobin.com/2024/06/chiquita-colombia-florida-court-auc/