Last month, Corporate Accountability Lab submitted the report A Comprehensive Transitional Justice: The Role of Economic Actors in the Colombian Armed Conflict and a Restorative Justice to Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (“JEP” for its Spanish acronym). The report analyzes the role that multinational banana companies played in the Colombian armed conflict and provides evidence obtained by U.S. courts of financing arrangements benefiting these companies and illegal armed groups that committed widespread human rights abuses.
CAL’s report aims to support the JEP’s investigation related to human rights violations and crimes committed during the armed conflict by state actors, paramilitary groups, and third-parties (Macrocaso 08). These third-parties include economic actors, a category that includes multinational corporations.
This report follows an earlier submission in which CAL presented evidence related to The Prodeco Group (“Prodeco,” which comprises three companies that are Glencore subsidiaries) and Drummond Ltd.’s alleged financing of right wing paramilitary organizations in the Gran Magdalena region. Communities and workers in this region suffered widespread abuses during decades of armed conflict, including labor rights abuses, forced displacement, and targeted killings. Victims have provided evidence that multinational companies contributed to and benefited from this abuse.
The second part of the report addresses the alleged role that multinational banana companies Chiquita Brands International, Inc. (“Chiquita”) and Dole Food Company (“Dole”) played in the armed conflict. The information included in this report draws largely from evidence presented in United States courts in the course of civil litigation against these companies for alleged human rights violations and torts committed in Colombia. CAL also provides observations and recommendations based on our work with victims, civil society organizations, and communities that have been impacted by human rights abuses allegedly associated with the financing schemes between multinationals and paramilitary groups.
This post provides information regarding Chiquita and Dole’s alleged role in the armed conflict by financing paramilitary groups. This post also expands on CAL’s earlier submission on the role that Drummond and Prodeco had in the conflict by addressing and providing recommendations on the issues of anti-union violence, a just transition away from fossil fuels, and a restorative justice.
Alleged complicity of multinationals in financing terror during the Colombian armed conflict
CAL’s recent submission to the JEP focuses on evidence that Chiquita and Dole entered into financing schemes with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (“AUC”), a paramilitary organization designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. government, in Colombia’s Gran Magdalena region.
Chiquita was associated with human rights violations in Colombia even before the armed conflict. In 1928, Chiquita, formerly known as the United Fruit Company, played a role in the killing of hundreds of banana workers who were demanding better labor conditions in one of the most gruesome massacres in Colombia’s history. In a strategy that would reverberate decades later, the company portrayed union leaders and others opposing the company as communists who threatened their financial interests.
Although Chiquita executives knew about the extreme guerrilla and paramilitary violence in the banana regions and hostility to American companies, it made a strategic decision to prioritize profit and expand its business interests in Colombia. Chiquita, through its Colombian subsidiary, Banadex, acquired banana farms in the Uraba and Gran Magdalena regions—farms that were allegedly acquired at rock bottom prices or through land grabs due to the ongoing conflict. (Part I of this report addresses similar practices of land grabbings and land dispossession connected to Drummond Ltd’s operations).
CAL’s report presents evidence on Chiquita’s alleged role in human rights violations and harms including targeted assassinations, forced displacement, and torture committed by armed actors in the Gran Magdalena region during the conflict. The evidence provided is connected to civil lawsuits filed in U.S. federal courts against Chiquita, a preliminary investigation by the International Criminal Court, and a 2007 settlement between Chiquita and the U.S. Department of Justice for making payments to the AUC, for which the company was fined $25 million. Although Chiquita pled guilty in 2007 to knowingly financing the AUC and more than 4,000 plaintiffs have brought related claims against the company in U.S. courts, individual executives involved in the payment schemes have not been held accountable in the United States or in Colombia. CAL’s report also highlights Dole’s role in the armed conflict. Through its subsidiary Tecbaco, Dole allegedly financed paramilitary groups, including the AUC. While the pursuit of justice against Chiquita has been long and disappointing, accountability for Dole has been even more evasive. These cases highlight the difficulty of holding powerful multinationals accountable and support the need for further investigations by institutions like the JEP.
The report also analyzes the nexus between economic actors, paramilitary groups, and state actors. Evidence suggests that at times, the AUC acted under the color of law allowing for criminal conduct to be committed with impunity.
A preliminary blueprint toward a restorative justice
CAL consulted with impacted communities in Gran Magdalena about the meaning of remedy and reparation through a restorative justice lens, and their observations and recommendations were included in the report. Some community recommendations for remedial measures include increased victim participation, symbolic reparations, pedagogical materials on the issue of freedom of association, and a just transition and responsible disengagement from coal. Through this victim-centered approach, CAL presented to the JEP a preliminary blueprint for the development of comprehensive reparation plans and sanciones propias, or those sanctions that the JEP will impose upon all those who acknowledge their responsibility and contribute with exhaustive truth.
Additionally, CAL shared observations regarding the absence of victim participation in ongoing processes within the JEP and other institutions. This issue was previously identified through our work in Colombia with program partners, Dejusticia and Comision Interecleasial Justicia y Paz, This finding led to the development of two policy papers shared with the JEP: (1) Victim Participation in the JEP: findings and recommendations for cases involving economic actors who voluntarily sought JEP’s jurisdiction and (2) Victim Reparation in Cases Involving Economic Actors. (These policy papers were published by Dejusticia within the framework of CAL’s Transitional Justice Program).
The evidence analyzed and the outcomes and observations based on CAL’s work in Colombia depict a clear picture of the role that multinational companies played in the exacerbation of the armed conflict and the harms suffered by civilians. Investigating the role of economic actors, including multinationals, and holding perpetrators responsible for their role in perpetuating violence is crucial to achieve a comprehensive peace process and the development of a lasting framework for non-repetition.
Colombia is in the midst of a transitional justice process, which provides a framework for truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-repetition through its Truth Commission, the JEP, and the Special Unit to locate disappeared victims. For further context, check out this blog on CAL’s previous submission to the JEP and this blog on combating corporate impunity in Colombia’s transitional environment.
This post is also available in Spanish.
Tatiana Devia is a Staff Attorney and Danny Cossey is a Legal Intern and a 3L at George Washington University Law School
