Editorials & Other Articles

Judi Lynn

(160,545 posts) Sat Sep 1, 2018, 09:09 PM Sep 2018

Chiquita Brands faces new death squad charges in Colombia

Updated 6:34 pm CDT, Friday, August 31, 2018

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian prosecutors have charged 13 Chiquita Brands International employees with aiding a right-wing death squad that murdered hundreds of people at the turn of the century.

In a statement issued on Friday, prosecutors said that they traced payments made by a local Chiquita affiliate to a paramilitary group that operated in Colombia's volatile Uraba region from 1996 to 2004. Some of the money was allegedly used to buy hundreds of machine guns.

The company based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, said in 2007 it had been forced to pay protection money to paramilitary groups and guerrilla organizations operating near its Colombia banana farms and paid a $25 million fine as part of a U.S. court settlement.

The company has not responded to the new charges levelled by Colombian prosecutors.

(Short article, no more at link.)

https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Chiquita-Brands-faces-new-death-squad-charges-in-13197874.php

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Chiquita Brands faces new death squad charges in Colombia (Original Post) Judi Lynn Sep 2018 OP

Colombia charges 13 former Chiquita executives over hundreds of murders Judi Lynn Sep 2018 #1

K&R SamKnause Sep 2018 #2

Judi Lynn

(160,545 posts)

1. Colombia charges 13 former Chiquita executives over hundreds of murders

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Sat Sep 1, 2018, 09:15 PM

Sep 2018

Colombia charges 13 former Chiquita executives over hundreds of murders
by Adriaan Alsema September 1, 2018

Colombia’s prosecution said Friday it would charge more than a dozen former executives of the popular Chiquita bananas on charges they used death squads to increase profits.

In a press statement, the prosecution that said 13 former Chiquita executives, including three Americans, one Costa Rican and one Honduran for mass killings by paramilitary groups that took place between 1997 and 2004, will be expected in court to respond to terrorism support charges.

The criminal charges against Chiquita are the first after more than a century of often brutal labor practices, initially under the name of the United Fruits Company.

How much blood is there on a banana?
The charges brought are only about human rights violations between 1990 and 2004 when Chiquita allegedly financed paramilitary groups through subsidiaries and death squads’ front companies in a phenomenon called “para-economics.”

More:
https://colombiareports.com/terror-for-profit-colombia-charges-14-former-chiquita-executives/

SamKnause

(13,108 posts)

2. K&R

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Sat Sep 1, 2018, 09:34 PM

Sep 2018

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