A jury in South Florida has ruled that Chiquita Brands is liable for eight killings carried out by a right-wing paramilitary group the company bankrolled in a fertile banana-growing region of Colombia during the country’s decades-long internal conflict.
“We’re very happy about the jury’s verdict, but you can’t escape that we’re talking about horrific abuses,” said Marco Simons, a lawyer for EarthRights International, an environmental and human rights group, who represented one family in the legal claim. They formed in 1997 as a coalition of heavily armed far-right groups that drug traffickers and businesspeople turned to for protection from leftist guerrilla groups.when the government and the main leftist group, which was also responsible for killing civilians, signed a peace deal.
“The situation in Colombia was tragic for so many,” Chiquita officials said in a statement. “However, that does not change our belief that there is no legal basis for these claims.”
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