"In March 2007, Chiquita admitted that it made payments from 1997 to 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by its acronym in Spanish, AUC), a paramilitary organization that the US Government had designated a terrorist group. Chiquita settled a criminal complaint by the US Government at that time and agreed to pay a $25 million fine.
In July 2007, a group of Colombians filed a lawsuit against Chiquita under the Alien Tort Claims Act in US federal court in New Jersey. The plaintiffs are family members of trade unionists, banana workers, political organisers, social activists and others in Colombia who were targeted and killed by paramilitaries during the 1990s through 2004. The plaintiffs contend that the funds that Chiquita paid to Colombian paramilitary organizations during this period made the company complicit in extrajudicial killings, torture, forced disappearances, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Chiquita’s Colombian banana-growing region. "
Do you still care for a banana?
Info from http://www.amnestybusinessgroup.se/default.aspx
Ps. I love bananas...my favorite food but I at least refuse to eat any Chiquitas.
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