| The United States' largest banana distributor, Chiquita, has been found not liable for killings and torture committed by a Colombian terrorist group funded by the company. Claims that fruit giant Chiquita should be liable for thousands of killings by Colombian paramilitaries it has admitted to funding, were dismissed by an appeals court in the United States on Thursday. As many as 4000 Colombians brought the lawsuit against Chiquita on behalf of victims of paramilitary killings and torture. However, the court ruled 2-1 the allegations didn't fall within U.S. court jurisdiction. “The torture, if the allegations are taken as true, occurred outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States,” the ruling stated. “Noble goals cannot expand the jurisdiction of the court,” it stated. The plaintiffs alleged Chiquita should be held liable for deaths and torture carried out by the Colombian paramilitary organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Considered a terrorist group by the U.S. government, the AUC was a coalition of right-wing extremists that carried out a violent campaign targeting the leftist FARC guerrillas from 1997 to 2003. Colombian prosecutors believe the AUC was responsible for killing around 50,000 people – but almost all were civilians, not guerrillas. The case against Chiquita dates back to 2007, when the company pleaded guilty to U.S. charges that it had paid the A.U.C. US$1.7 million between 1997 to 2004. The company was fined US$25 million for dealing with a terrorist group. However, no Chiquita executive was hit with criminal charges under the plea bargain. The company was represented by Eric Holder – a lawyer at the time, but now the U.S. attorney general. The company has stated it was blackmailed into paying the AUC, and only did so to protect employees in Colombia. The plaintiffs had tried to sue the company under the Torture Victim Protection Act and the Alien Tort Statute. However, the court ruled the Act could only apply to people, not corporations. It also deemed the statute couldn't be applied to incidents of torture that took place outside the U.S. A lawyer for a group of plaintiffs, Paul Wolf, described the outcome as a “tragedy”. The company welcomed Thursday's ruling. “The decision reinforces what Chiquita has maintained from the beginning – that Chiquita is not responsible for the tragic violence that has plagued Colombia,” the company stated. Chiquita is the largest distributor of bananas in the U.S., and is the successor company to the controversial United Fruit Company (UFCO). The UFCO was a major player in Central American politics throughout the first half of the 20th century, and was accused by critics of exploiting local workers and having undue influence over governments. The company has long been accused of supporting the 1954 overthrow of Guatemala's progressive, democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz. Arbenez had attempted to undertake land reform that would have seen the nationalization of vast tracts of largely uncultivated UFCO land. The government intended to then hand the land over to small-scale farmers. The overthrow of Arbenez preceded decades of civil war in Guatemala. Source URL |