🗞️ Multinational banana company Chiquita Brands has been found liable for murders committed by paramilitary groups in Colombia.
In a landmark ruling, a Florida judge declared the company complicit in crimes perpetrated by the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), funded by Chiquita from 1997 to 2004. The AUC was the country’s largest far-right terrorist group.
Chiquita paid paramilitaries during Colombia's armed conflict in order to maintain control of its profitable operations in Colombia's banana-growing regions.
These payments were made with full knowledge of senior management in the US, who regarded financing armed groups as the "cost of doing business in Colombia.” At trial, however, the company failed to prove that support for the AUC was the result of impending harm either to its business or its employees.
The court’s decision confirms that funds Chiquita sent to the AUC were used to commit war crimes, including torture, kidnapping, and murder – particularly of union members and activists. The company also allowed the AUC to use its ports to import weapons and export cocaine.
Chiquita will now have to compensate eight families of men murdered by the AUC in the subregions of Urabá, Antioquia, and Magdalena Medio. Compensation ranges from 2 to 2.7 million US dollars per family.
This is the first time that a US court has held a US corporation accountable for human rights abuses abroad. It is also the first time that Chiquita Brands has been ordered to pay compensation to Colombian victims, establishing legal precedent for thousands of others to seek restitution.
This legal process has taken 17 years; the company now has one month to decide whether to appeal this first ruling against it.
🗞️ The government’s education reform bill has unanimously passed through the Senate’s First Commission.
The bill aims to guarantee education as a fundamental right, to close the gap in access to education in rural and remote territories, and to promote comprehensive education that includes arts, culture, and sports. The unanimous approval of the Bill has been seen as a good sign for cross-party consensus in Congress.
To become law, the bill must pass a final debate in the Senate plenary before the 20th of June.
However, the country’s largest teachers’ union, Fedecode, has called a national strike in response to the bill, which it sees as neoliberal and regressive, claiming that Fedecode’s proposals for the Bill were not adequately taken into account. The government has said that, even in the face of a national strike, they will not withdraw the Bill.
🗞️ Another major protest this week, as the People’s Congress – a group made up of indigenous, campesino, Afro-descendent, and student movements - mobilised in various part of the country to demand the dismantling of paramilitarism in Colombia. Protests and roadblocks were held in places including in Chocó, Cesar, Cauca, and Bogotá.
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Emily Hart to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
