Reply #7: Chiquita sued in NY over killings in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Chiquita sued in NY over killings in Colombia
Wed Nov 14, 2007 4:09pm EST

NEW YORK, Nov 14 (Reuters) - The largest U.S. lawsuit to date against top banana producer Chiquita Brands International (CQB.N: Quote, Profile, Research) was filed on Wednesday, claiming the company funded and armed a Colombian paramilitary organization accused of killing banana growers.

The civil lawsuit seeks a total of $7.86 billion on behalf of 393 victims and their relatives and accuses Chiquita of conspiring with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym AUC, to control Colombia's banana growing regions.

"It was about acquiring every aspect of banana distribution and sale through a reign of terror," plaintiffs' lawyer Jonathan Reiter told reporters in New York. The suit seeks damages for supporting terrorism, war crimes, wrongful death and torture.

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, is the latest of several complaints filed by Colombian victims against Chiquita in the United States this year.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/americasCrisis/idUSN14211578

Whenever propagandists tell you these scums were paying leftists as well as right-wing death squads, just remind yourself it has always been the leftist union workers, and union organizers and human rights workers who are getting murdered.

Sometimes they lie. If they want to make poor people work for virtually NOTHING, they are going to start killing them if they can get death squads to do it, when the poor try to organize for better working conditions, and the meager-est increase in wages. That's why people despise these murderous, cheating, stealing, lying, power-playing merchants of death.

Their reputation precedes their dirty, vicious exploitation in Colombia to other countries, other genocides. It's what they DO.