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 Fruit 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.” Hundreds, possibly thousands of locals were murdered by paramilitary group AUC in Chiquita’s area of influence in the northwestern Uraba region.
The AUC paramilitaries received $1.7 million from Chiquita between 1997 and 2004, the year that possible legal consequences of the mass human rights violations forced the company to leave the country.
No Chiquita executive has ever been criminally charged in Colombia, in spite the fact the prosecution possessed hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence linking the banana giant to the death squads’ crimes against humanity.
Colombia charges 13 former Chiquita executives over hundreds of murders
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