Isolda Agazzi - Chiquita played along with the blackmail of Colombian paramilitary groups, but it was only when one of them was described as a "terrorist" by the United States that the company was taken to court. The scandal has, however, not ended for the multinational. The victims are asking for compensation from Chiquita on grounds of complicity.

Interviewed by telephone at the American headquarters of Chiquita, Communications Director Mike Mitchell, explained that the "United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC in Spanish) threatened the security of our staff and had been blackmailing us since 1997”. It is for this reason that, according to Agence France Presse (AFP), the multinational paid the paramilitaries up to 1.7 million dollars. “But US law changed in September 2001 and the AUC was put on the list of terrorist organisations," he said.

"When we found out, we voluntarily revealed our role to the US justice authorities in April 2003 and to the public in May 2004. On March 14, 2007, we negotiated a deal with the Department of Justice to pay a fine of 25 million dollars.”

Jose Humberto Torres, Colombian lawyer and activist with the Solidarity Committee for Political prisoners, met with the Human Rights Tribune in Geneva, where he was participating in a round table discussion during the Human Rights Council. He confirmed that "the northern bloc of the AUC controlled the Atlantic coast and extorted money from small water sellers right up to the multinationals.

"Chiquita, amongst others, was seeking to protect itself from the Marxist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). The AUC controlled everything, right up to the banana workers union".

Mike Mitchell confirmed that payments had also been made to FARC and ELN before 1997, but said the fine only related to the payments to the AUC, declared as a terrorist organisation by Washington.

Business and Armed Conflict

Can a company do business in a country in the grip of an internal armed conflict - the definition given by the working group on forced disappearances - without being blackmailed by one or other of the factions? Jose Humbert Torres said: "Chiquita should have asked the Colombian government for protection as it pays a security tax. And the government should have been in a position to guarantee this, particularly when it obstinately continues to deny the existence of an armed conflict and claims to have a democratic security policy. But Chiquita preferred, out of convenience, to ask for protection from the paramilitaries."

"That is totally unrealistic!" retorts Mike Mitchell. "The political and legal situation in Colombia is extremely complex: factions from the right and left are confronting each other and to protect employees it is necessary to yield to the extortion demands of one or the other, according to the balance of power on the ground." Media reports seem to bear this out: Nestle, which refused to be blackmailed, had one of its factories in Colombia set on fire.

And, Mike Mitchell concludes: "We were in such a dilemma that in 2004 we sold one of our plantations in Colombia because we wanted to act in a legal and responsible manner. Today we have farms in Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala and Honduras and continue to buy bananas in Colombia, but without directly owning the plantations."

US law vs. human rights?

Recognizing that Chiquita voluntarily admitted responsibility, are businesses now beginning to develop a conscience? For Jose Humberto Torres, it is nothing of the kind: "The fine relates to a breach of American law and not to any collusion in the serious human rights abuses committed by the paramilitaries."

And he says: "My organisation is going to formally ask the American government that the 25 million dollar fine be used to compensate the victims of these abuses and their families. We are also going to request a prison sentence for Chiquita’s top management for having financed an organisation responsible for murders, terrorism, forced disappearances, sexual violence and forced recruitment. We are asking that truth, justice and compensation for the victims be recognised."

According to the Colombian Commission of Jurists (CCJ), more than 6,000 people have been murdered for political reasons during the first term of President Uribe (2002-2006), 61 percent by the paramilitaries and 25 percent by Marxist guerrillas. With the establishment of the justice and peace law in 2004, a part of the AUC - the main paramilitary organisation - was demobilised and given an amnesty. But it was replaced with a network of organisations more fragmented and therefore more difficult to control. Since then, the number of murders committed by the paramilitaries has gone down, but according to the CCJ, there have been 1,060 in the past year, particularly among the peasants and indigenous people.

Chiquita; another Unocal?

Do multinationals have a responsibility, whether direct or indirect, when violating human rights? John Ruggie, the special representative for multinationals and human rights, is going to present his report to the Council of Human Rights on March 28. According to him, few businesses are likely be directly implicated in international human rights crimes but they do risk being held responsible for "collusion".

The Alien Tort Claim Act (ATCA) is an American law that allows companies in the US to be sued for crimes committed abroad. It is currently the most comprehensive national jurisprudence on the issue. Amongst the more than 40 cases examined to date, most concern allegations of collusion by a company in cases where the criminals were private or public security forces, or armed factions in a civil war.

The most well known case - and the only to have been tried by the US Supreme Court - is that of Unocal, the American oil company accused by Burmese human rights activists of complicity in the crimes committed by the military junta. According to the report by John Ruggie, a company could be considered responsible not only when it has knowingly contributed to perpetrating the crime, but even when it knew or should have know that its involvement was going to contribute.

The recent evolution of jurisprudence and practice appears to show that businesses can no longer associated themselves with the violators of human rights without paying a heavy price, both financially and in terms of pubic relations. Not to yield to blackmail, or to do business elsewhere, seem to be the only alternatives.