United Fruit Finally Pays

Not enough, but a jury has found Chiquita liable for damages as a result of its policy of funding death squads.

It only took SEVENTEEN F%$#ING YEARS: 

In a landmark ruling in the fight for human rights, a jury has found banana giant Chiquita Brands International liable for financing the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a brutal paramilitary death squad. After 17 years of legal proceedings, the first set of victims and their families have finally obtained justice.

The jury’s decision reaffirms what we have long asserted: Chiquita knowingly financed the AUC, a designated terrorist organization, in pursuit of profit, despite the AUC’s egregious human rights abuses. By providing over $1.7 million in illegal funding to the AUC from 1997 to 2004, Chiquita contributed to untold suffering and loss in the Colombian regions of  Urabá and Magdalena, including the brutal murders of innocent civilians. This historic verdict also means some of the victims and families who suffered as a direct result of Chiquita’s actions will finally be compensated.

The victims welcomed this decision as recognition of their suffering and an opportunity for reparation. “It’s a triumph of a process that has been going on for almost 17 years, for all of us who have suffered so much during these years. There’s a debate about justice and reparation; we’ve been fighting since 2007. We’re not in this process because we want to be; it was Chiquita, with its actions, that dragged us into it. We have a responsibility to our families, and we must fight for them,” said one of the victims.

This historic ruling marks the first time that an American jury has held a major U.S. corporation liable for complicity in serious human rights abuses in another country, a milestone for justice.

Now, how about f%$#ing arresting the f%$#ing psychopath executives who made, or authorized, these payments.

These people literally hired mercenaries to murder people.