Victims Win Historic Victory Against Chiquita in Colombia Paramilitary Case

Photograph Source: APIMADERO – CC BY-SA 3.0

In what prosecutors called a “landmark ruling in the fight for human rights,” a U.S. jury in Miami has found banana giant Chiquita Brands International liable for the deaths of Colombian civilians due to its financing of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a brutal paramilitary death squad.

The AUC was responsible for thousands of civilian deaths and hundreds of other human rights violations while it was active between the late 1990s and mid-2000s...