Chiquita Lawsuit – Banana Company or Warlord Clique?

By Court Lloyd

Chiquita, a well known banana company, is on the losing side of a major lawsuit for financing paramilitary death squads in Colombia.

Their dark history is finally catching up with them. The Banana Company’s 17 year lawsuit is tipping in favor of the victims of more then a century of exploitation and violence

Routes of United Fruit Company steamship service.

 

Chiquita Banana Company is the successor to a way more notorious banana company known as the United Fruit Company.

The United Fruit Company was founded in 1899 by the merging of several smaller fruit companies in South and Central America. It was created by Minor C. Keith, who owned numerous banana plantations in Costa Rica, and Andrew W. Preston, who had established fruit distribution networks in the US.

From here, the fruit company began to expand in South and Central America by building ports, controlling railways, and even controlling mail services. They not only conquered the Latin American economy, but the American market as well. The Company, at their height, had 80% of all imports of bananas to the United States, giving them a monopoly over the entire industry.

 

The Fruit Company was far from graceful or fair. They treated their workers like slaves and they would on regularly beat and torture workers who hadn’t made the daily quota. The Fruit Company also had private armies, major connections in the government, and owned very important infrastructure like railways and mail services. This allowed them to get away with all of this.

But in the late 20th century the United Fruit Company was on the decline due to competitors like Dole and other allegations about their violence and mistreatment. In 1984, United Fruit Company dissolved and the main company that emerged out of the wreckage was Chiquita Brands International.

The lawsuit filed against Chiquita Brands International stems from the alleged involvement in financing the Colombian far right paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (I will be referring to them as the AUC) in the 1990s. In 2007, victims of the violence sued the company for these allegations.

 The AUC has been involved in numerous war crimes and massacres throughout their existence, such as in 1997 when the group murdered, tortured, chainsawed, and dismembered innocent civilians in Mapiripán, Colombia.

In 2007, Chiquita admitted to paying $1.7 million to the AUC from 1997 to 2004 under the guise of “security payments” to protect their banana operations. These payments were made despite the group’s numerous war crimes and human rights violations.

ACCU Fighters

 

That same year, Chiquita made an agreement with the US Department of Justice to pay a $25 million fine for violating anti-terrorism laws, but they did not admit to any liability in the civil cases. So the legal battle with the civilians went cold until 2018 When Judge Lorna G. Schofield of the U.S. the District Court ruled that the company could face liability for the deaths of Colombian civilians at the hands of the AUC.

As of 2024, the lawsuit is not fully concluded, but the civilians are pushing ever harder and new allegations of Chiquita’s bloody hand in the Colombian pie are being uncovered. If this lawsuit ends in a loss for Chiquita, one of the most recognized and beloved fruit companies in the United States could crash and burn like its predecessor.

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Court Lloyd

Court Lloyd is a sophmore at Orem High School. He has always had an intrest in writing, history, geography, and music. He really enjoys talking and learning about people and what their story is. He is thinking pursuing something in this field and is trying his best to come up with good stories for the students here at OHS.

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