Families sue Chiquita in deaths of 5 men

No, it's not about paramilitaries this time.

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Families sue Chiquita in deaths of 5 men
By Carmen Gentile
Monday, March 17, 2008

MIAMI: Tania Julin remembers hearing the distinct sound of feet racing through the dark Panamanian forest moments before armed, masked men burst through the door of the modest hut she shared with her husband.

Julin and her husband, Mark Rich, were missionaries living in a remote village near the Colombian border when the gunmen - leftist rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC - descended on the village.

At gunpoint, Julin was ordered to pack a bag for her husband; then Rich and two other men, Charles David Mankin and Richard Lee Tenenoff, were marched out of their homes, flanked by the gunmen who chattered in Spanish and fired into the air.

"That was the last time we saw our husbands," Julin said, recalling the night of Jan. 31, 1993.

A year later, FARC rebels abducted two other missionaries - Stephen Walsh and Timothy Van Dyke. The authorities said Rich and the four other captives had been killed, although their bodies were never recovered.

Last week, Julin, who has remarried, and the widows of the four other men filed a lawsuit against Chiquita Brands International, saying the company contributed to their husbands' deaths by financing the leftist group.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court here, seeks unspecified damages for the families of the victims from the New Tribe Mission, based in Sanford, Florida.

The 63-page complaint asserts that Chiquita provided "numerous and substantial hidden payments" to the rebels in addition to weapons and supplies. That financing, the plaintiffs say, contributed to the deaths of the five men because Chiquita had in fact supported "acts of terrorism."

Colombia and the United States have designated FARC a terrorist organization.

Ed Loyd, a spokesman for Chiquita, which is based in Cincinnati, said payments to FARC were made during the 1990s to ensure the safety of Chiquita employees working on banana plantations near the Panamanian border, a former stronghold of the leftist guerrillas.

Later, when FARC was forced out of the region by the right-wing paramilitary force known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, Chiquita paid the new strongmen for protection.

"We always acted to protect the lives of our employees, and the threat was very real," Loyd said.

Last year, the company pleaded guilty to paying $1.7 million from 1997 to 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces - also considered terrorists by Colombia and United States - and agreed to pay $25 million in fines.

Chiquita's agreement with the Justice Department and the acknowledgment that it paid the same group that captured and killed the New Tribe missionaries is what prompted Julin and the other wives to seek compensation for their loss, she said.

"It took a while to sink in what they were admitting to," Julin said. "It was a slow realization that they played a role in my husband's death, that one of those guns could have been used to kill my husband."

Chiquita officials disagree. In a telephone interview, Loyd said the lawsuit's assertion that Chiquita armed the FARC rebels was "categorically untrue" and that the company would "vigorously defend" itself against the accusations.

Gary Osen, one of several lawyers for the plaintiffs, said his clients' lawsuit - along with at least four others accusing Chiquita of complicity in killings carried out by the rebel groups - would be brought under the civil provision of the anti-terrorism act.

The act states that any U.S. citizen "injured in his or her person, property, or business by reason of an act of international terrorism" can sue for damages in any appropriate federal court "and shall recover threefold the damages he or she sustains and the cost of the lawsuit, including attorney's fees."

Adam Isacson, director of the Colombia program at the Center for International Policy in Washington, said compensation for the families of the slain men was not a foregone conclusion.

"It's not a criminal case, so will the court require Chiquita to pay the families? I don't know," said Isacson, who has been following the litigation.

He said Chiquita was just one of many companies doing business in Colombia that paid "protection money" to rebel groups, the price of doing business in a notoriously violent country.

Julin said she and the others whose husbands were killed by the FARC do not see it that way.

"Chiquita was there to make money and fund these people," she said. "How could anybody be involved in something like this without regard to the human lives lost?"

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/17/america/rebels.php

By juancegomez on Mar 17, 2008, 07:48 in Politics & the war.

TioCharlie says on Mar 17, 2008, 09:08:

Money is the root of all evil. I m servin in the military and and have also seen how big money has funded terrorism in Afganistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Qatar, and Somolia. I cn only hope that there is a better life in the future for the next generation.

Sam Salmon says on Mar 17, 2008, 11:12:

Odds are long these women will ever see a peso it wasn't Chiquita who kidnapped their husbands-will they sue every Cocaine trafficker who paid 'tax' to FARC?

' a la orden!'

bamacellist says on Mar 17, 2008, 21:09:

I guess it's bookends. This goes nicely with the suit against them for paying protection money to the AUC, during this same time. Talk about a bind...

"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."

romy says on Apr 29, 2008, 23:30:

I'm glad to see progress being made in this issue. Apparently the link between Chiquita Brands and paramilitaries has been captured.

http://www.univision.com/contentroot/wirefeeds/world/7470643.html
Capturan en Colombia a enlace entre bananera Chiquita Brands y paramilitares
29 de Abril de 2008, 11:29pm ET
BOGOTA, 29 Abr 2008 (AFP) -

El empresario bananero Raúl Hasbún, sindicado de ser el enlace entre grupos paramilitares de ultraderecha y la multinacional bananera Chiquita Brands -sancionada por haber financiado a estos grupos-, fue capturado este martes en Colombia, señalaron las autoridades.

Según una fuente de la Fiscalía colombiana, Hasbún -sindicado de ser el encargado de que el dinero de la multinacional llegara a las arcas de los grupos paramilitares, fue capturado en la ciudad de Cúcuta, fronteriza con Venezuela.

La Fiscalía también decidió, según la misma fuente, investigar a varios directivos de compañías bananeras colombianas que serían responsables, según la acusación, de donar parte de la venta de las cajas de banano a las Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).

Mendoza fue jefe del bloque Bananero de las AUC y en noviembre de 2004 se desmovilizó junto a un centenar de sus hombres en medio de unas negociaciones de paz con el gobierno de Alvaro Uribe que entregó beneficios jurídicos a cambio de la confesión de crímenes y reparación a las víctimas.

Salvatore Mancuso, jefe político de las AUC, reveló que Hasbún -cuyo alías era 'Pedro Bonito'- fue el enlace entre los empresarios bananeros y los escuadrones paramilitares y quien se ideó el sistema de cobrar tres centavos de dólar por cada caja de banano que exportara la multinacional.

En diciembre, representantes legales de la multinacional estadounidense Chiquita Brands fueron llamados a indagatoria por la Fiscalía colombiana en el marco de una investigación por nexos de paramilitares con compañías nacionales y extranjeras.

La citación se produjo pocos meses después de que la justicia de Estados Unidos le impusiera una multa de 25 millones de dólares a Chiquita, al aceptar que pagó, entre 1997 y 2004, 1,7 millones de dólares a paramilitares para su protección.

El 17 de septiembre de 2007 un juez federal en Washington autorizó una multa de 25 millones de dólares a la bananera, que ésta accedió a pagar a plazos, en marzo pasado, dentro de un arreglo judicial.

poco says on Apr 29, 2008, 23:39:

What happened,, well,,, Chiquita was paying the USUAL tax to the FARC,, pay,, or guess what,, your employees are killed.

Someone at Chiquita determined payments were being made to a designated terrorist group and guess what,, Chiquita turned themselves into the U.S. government.

Chiquita was Fined,, 20 or 25 million,, can't remember which. Then, of course, the Colombians smell money and have their,, or their attorneys hand out.

I wonder who is operating the area now? Having trouble?

"Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent" - Isaac Asimov