Court ruling against Chiquita and the possible prosecution of other transnationals with alleged ties to paramilitaries in Colombia

Published by Brent Patterson on June 18, 2024June 18, 2024

Photo: The paramilitary AUC. Image by Image: EFE/dpa/picture alliance.

On June 11, The Guardian reported: “A Florida court has ordered Chiquita Brands International to pay $38m to the families of eight Colombian men murdered by a paramilitary death squad [the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia/AUC], after the American banana giant was shown to have financed the terrorist organisation from 1997-2004.”

The article adds: “[The ruling] marks the first time a major US corporation has been held liable for such rights abuses in another country and could lead to a series of similar lawsuits involving rights violations across the world.”

Terry Collingsworth, the Executive Director of International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates), the law firm that filed the civil case against Chiquita, stated: “In my experience, corporations operating in the global economy will do whatever they can get away with. We just showed them that there are real consequences for corporate outlaws.”

Drummond

Now, Deutsche Welle reports: “The mining company Drummond has faced two civil lawsuits in the United States for allegedly financing paramilitary groups to protect its mining operations, which would have resulted in the intimidation and murder of union and community leaders. Although the U.S. Justice rejected the claims, in January 2024 the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office announced that it will call 72 businessmen of the firm to trial.”

Coca-Cola

The Deutsche Welle article also notes: “In a similar case, Coca-Cola was accused of various human rights violations, including alleged links with paramilitary groups to suppress trade union activity, which resulted in the murder of more than ten trade unionists. The complaint, filed in 2002 before a judge of the District Court of Miami (Florida), was filed in 2009, but it remains an emblematic case.”

Ecopetrol

In May 2022, Aljazeera reported: “[Santander’s Magdalena Medio region] comprises the heart of Colombia’s petroleum industry, and the local town of Puerto Wilches has been selected for the country’s first fracking project, meeting strong resistance from locals and environmental groups. This opposition, in turn, has drawn threats from local armed groups. …Local environmental defenders and a representative of the JEP [Special Jurisdiction for Peace] told Al Jazeera that they suspected a connection between the paramilitary groups intimidating them and the state-owned Ecopetrol, which is behind the fracking project. The company has been accused of having ties with the Gulf Clan [also known as the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia/AGC]  specifically. For its part, Ecopetrol has denied all such allegations and publicly denounced any violence towards environmental defenders.”

GCM (Gran Colombia Gold)

And in October 2022, The Breach reported that Toronto-based mining company GCM (aka Gran Colombia Gold) operates in Segovia, Antioqua, a “town belonging to the most powerful criminal armed group in Colombia, the Gaitanista Self Defense Forces of Colombia, or AGC by its initials in Spanish.”

Journalist Joshua Collins further notes in that article: “Faced with labour disputes, criminal armed groups and a local community in rebellion, Gran Colombia … hired Colombian sub-contractors to mine their gold, as a way of dealing with escalating security, legal and social issues. Using subcontractors gave Gran Colombia a key advantage: plausible deniability. The company could put distance between their operations and the problems that come with working in a region effectively controlled by criminal armed groups. Gran Colombia has in the past claimed that it has no knowledge of any of the subcontractors in their employ making payments to armed groups. The company did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Breach.”

Concerns about “cooperation agreements”

In July 2019, the Rutas del Conflicto [Routes of Conflict] and La Liga Contra el Silencio [League Against Silence] reviewed 200 cooperation agreements between companies and the Military Forces and the Police.

They found that “more than 70 national and international companies, mainly in the mining-energy sector, enter into cooperation agreements with public institutions such as the Ministry of Defense… These agreements have existed since 1996, but were only regulated by the Ministry of Defense in 2014, through resolution 5342.”

And they report: “Senator Iván Cepeda; the lawyer of the José Alvear Restrepo Collective, Rosa María Mateus; and the director of the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz), Camilo González, are concerned about aspects of these agreements that can lead to the violation of human rights.”

Photo: PBI meets with Rosa Maria Mateus in Bogota.

Frontera Energy

In a December 2019 report to the Human Rights Council, UN Special Rapporteur Michel Forst highlighted: “The Special Rapporteur is concerned at the apparent connection between Frontera Energy, the army’s 16th brigade and the Attorney General’s Support Office in this criminalization and the possible impact of the agreement between Ecopetrol S.A. and the Attorney General’s Office on the situation [in which] eight leaders from San Luis de Palenque were arrested and accused of collusion to commit an offence, violence against a public servant and obstructing a public road, and two of them with attempted homicide in connection with their participation in and leadership of the social protests between 2016 and 2018 in response to the failure of Canadian public company Frontera Energy to fulfil its obligation to compensate communities affected by environmental damage and to repair damaged roads.”

Photo: PBI in San Luis de Palenque, July 2022.

“Companies, an actor sometimes hidden behind the scenes”

Tweet by Alirio Uribe Muñoz:

“In Colombia, attacks on human rights defenders, social leaders, defenders of the environment and the territory continue by different armed, illegal, state actors, but also by companies, an actor sometimes hidden behind the scenes.

For this reason, legislation that incorporates the responsibility of companies in respecting human rights is important.

Oscar Ramírez, Solidarity Committee”

We continue to follow this.