RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: US Firms Face Charges for Aiding Paramilitary Killers

By Barin Masoud
NEW YORK
Jun 22

Two U.S. corporations operating in war-torn Colombia -- Chiquita Brands International and Drummond Company Inc. -- have been accused of aiding far-right paramilitary groups with alleged ties to the Colombian government. They are facing charges in two separate suits filed in U.S. district courts by plaintiffs seeking justice for human rights abuses.

Chiquita Brands International, the banana giant based in Cincinnati, Ohio, is being sued for its alleged role in the murder of hundreds of Colombian workers killed by paramilitary groups. Drummond Company, a major coal producer based in Birmingham, Alabama, is facing similar charges in the murder of three trade union leaders.

It is estimated that over 4,000 trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia in the past two decades alone, reports the AFL-CIO Solidarity Centre.

Fifty-eight Colombian labour activists were killed in 2006, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, while the Escuela Nacional Sindical, a Colombian labour rights group, put the number of killings for that year at 72.

"Beginning in the mid-1990s, the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, or AUC) took control of the banana-producing region and today maintain a reign of terror, killing persons suspected of sympathising with opposing political factions," said attorney Paul Wolf in a statement. His co-counsel in the Chiquita case is Terry Collingsworth, executive director of the International Labour Rights Fund.

The AUC completed a controversial partial demobilisation process last year as a result of negotiations with the government of right-wing President Álvaro Uribe. However, there have been abundant reports of the paramilitaries regrouping.

According to the John F. Henning Centre for International Labour Relations at the University of California, Berkeley: "Links between the right-wing paramilitary groups that carry out the majority of these killings and both U.S.-based corporations operating in Colombia and U.S. military assistance to the country have become increasingly evident."

"Of greatest concern are the alarming links between the official Colombian military and the ultra-right-wing organisations of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, who are responsible for 90 percent of trade union assassinations in Colombia," researchers at the Centre found.

Wolf also pointed out in his declaration that the AUC has been on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organisations since 2001.

Many activists and experts argue that its geostrategic location is a key factor fuelling Colombia's four-decade armed conflict. "Urabá is in the northwestern region, connected to Panama and the Caribbean. It is strategic for the transport of illegal drugs, arms, and soldiers of various sorts," Renata Rendon, advocacy officer for the Americas for the London-based rights watchdog Amnesty International, told IPS.

Banana production in Colombia takes place predominantly in two northern regions, Urabá and Santa Marta.

Rendon said that Urabá is a poor farming area, where "the civilian population has historically been targeted by paramilitary groups."

"The paramilitaries have always received political, military, and economic support. Support from politicians, from businessmen within the country, whether internationals or locals," she added.

Meanwhile, Wolf told IPS, "There are two levels of cases that I found. There are two warring factions and the companies (in the country) have to pay extortion." And while extortion may be commonplace in many parts of the world, "we can't go after them all, but we can go after U.S. companies."

According to the filed complaint, Wolf visited Colombia from Apr. 24 to May 24, conducting covert interviews of the plaintiffs in the Chiquita case. The 144 victims fear for their lives. Some are using pseudonyms to protect their identities, while others have representatives who speak on their behalf.

"One victim's advocate in Apartadó (a town in Urabá) had recently been shot in the stomach three times, and continues to receive death threats," the court document states.

"The case is extremely complex; 173 people are involved in filing this suit (and) we have to prove those murders," said Wolf. "There is a fight for the confidentiality of the victims as well as the element of corruption."

The attorney said that while the suit was filed anonymously, the identities of the victims would eventually have to be released to Chiquita Brands for investigation. Such an unavoidable court procedure will leave the plaintiffs at high risk.

Amid such qualms, the witness protection programme is a major element in the case, said Wolf.

"The highest-ranking directors and officers of Chiquita had met with paramilitary groups at the highest level," Wolf alleges. "The Chiquita banana company actually benefited from arms-dealing; they shipped 3,000 machine guns and paid them on a commission basis."

"It is an unusual relationship," he added.

"The fact that terrorist paramilitary groups operate openly and are financed by companies such as Chiquita indicates the level of impunity still existing in Colombia," the legal complaint concludes.

Wolf believes this case may also be historic. "Instead of making 143 people rich, we want to negotiate to help thousands of people down the line and prevent them from having to go to a court battle," he said.

Marselha Gonçalves Margerin, programme officer at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for Human Rights in Washington, D.C., told IPS she believes that the world is discussing Colombia as if it were a post-conflict area, when the country is actually still embroiled in a civil war.

"The Colombia problem is multi-fold; the concern is that money from the U.S. to Colombia is helping paramilitary groups, hence perpetuating the human rights problem," said Margerin, who noted that Colombia has been declared the most dangerous country for human rights activists.

"The human rights problem, the security problem, the war on terrorism -- definitely the situation for human rights defenders is very serious," she said.

"We have seen the situation for human rights defenders deteriorating a lot in the past few years," said Margerin, who pointed to the "very serious" allegations comparing human rights defenders to terrorists, which she said gives paramilitary groups the green light to go ahead with their activities. President Uribe himself has made statements along those lines.

The U.S. government has provided Colombia with billions of dollars in aid over the last decade, making it the world's third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid, after Israel and Egypt.

A number of human rights groups have called for a decrease in such aid to Colombia, which they claim helps strengthen paramilitary groups, whose ties to the Colombian armed forces have been amply demonstrated. In its place, they want to see aid money go towards social development in Colombia, such as poverty alleviation programmes and aid to the internally displaced, who number more than three million.

Democratic Representative Nita Lowey, chair of the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, has introduced a bill in Congress that proposes to cut the proportion of military aid to Colombia from 76 to 55 percent of total aid to that country. The appropriations bill for the State Department is being debated this week.

"We would like the bill to eventually go to the Senate," Lisa Haggard, executive director of the Latin American Working Group, told IPS. When asked about the State Department, she said "We would like to see a constant dialogue with the U.S. State Department and the need to apply human rights in the law."

Twice a year, the State Department certifies Colombia's compliance with the human rights conditions contained within U.S. legislation, in order to release military aid.

"Our concern is really that there is a process whereby the secretary of state notes that the links between paramilitary groups and the government are being severed," and that "the secretary of state has been certifying this (Colombia's progress on human rights) for six years," said Rendon of Amnesty International.

"It may be true that it could be improving on some level. But on human rights, not so much," she added.

IPS contacted the State Department for comments on the lawsuits against Chiquita and Drummond, but they declined to provide comments and said they were currently reviewing the Drummond case.

"When you hear about Colombia, you hear about the drug trade. That's half the problem. The other half is extortion," said Wolf.

According to sources close to Wolf, the same paramilitary group in the Chiquita case is accused of assassinating trade unionists in the Drummond case. "A lot is considered subversive," says Wolf. "Really the whole society is wrapped up in it. It is hard to be neutral. We did not want to take sides."