{"id":5687,"date":"2017-02-10T10:46:18","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T15:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=5687"},"modified":"2017-02-10T10:46:18","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T15:46:18","slug":"dole-del-monte-also-facing-crimes-humanity-charges-financing-death-squads-colombia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2017\/02\/10\/dole-del-monte-also-facing-crimes-humanity-charges-financing-death-squads-colombia\/","title":{"rendered":"Dole and Del Monte also facing crimes against humanity charges for financing death squads in Colombia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0 <span class=\"author-post\"><a class=\"author-url\" href=\"http:\/\/colombiareports.com\/author\/adriaan\/\">Adriaan Alsema<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Colombia\u2019s prosecution is set to\u00a0charge almost 200 companies, including multinationals like\u00a0Dole and Del\u00a0Monte, for financing death squads in the banana-growing region of the country, according to Blu Radio.<\/p>\n<p>The radio station reported contents of the alleged set of\u00a0indictments a day after the country\u2019s chief prosecutor\u00a0announced his office would charge\u00a0companies for crimes against humanity for their alleged voluntary support for the paramilitary death squads.<\/p>\n<p>Among the companies facing crimes against humanity charges is Chiquita\u2019s subsidiary.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h5 class=\"post-title single-post-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/colombiareports.com\/chiquita-guilty-crimes-humanity-colombia\/\">Chiquita guilty of crimes against humanity in Colombia?<\/a><\/h5>\n<hr \/>\n<p>In spite of the reportedly hundreds of charges against large land owners and businesses, the are in which the local businessmen and the\u00a0death squads was relatively small. The \u201cBananero Block\u201d controlled an area of approximately 80 by 30 miles.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/d\/embed?mid=1L8OE0slYbRU3WJxlbuIBer8ybnQ\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Bananero Block specialized in the protection of banana producers\u2019 interests and became\u00a0one of the most feared\u00a0paramilitary groups and led by \u201cHH,\u201d Raul Hasbun and Carlos Casta\u00f1o who would become the leader of paramilitary umbrella organization <a class=\"aalmanual\" title=\"AUC profile\" href=\"http:\/\/colombiareports.com\/auc\/\" target=\"_self\">AUC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The group was partly able to gain so much power\u00a0because the then-governor of <a class=\"aalmanual\" title=\"Antioquia, Colombia\" href=\"http:\/\/colombiareports.com\/antioquia\/\" target=\"_self\">Antioquia<\/a>, former President <a class=\"aalmanual\" title=\"Alvaro Uribe profile\" href=\"http:\/\/colombiareports.com\/alvaro-uribe\/\" target=\"_self\">Alvaro Uribe<\/a>, promoted the formation of legal self-defense groups that ended up working together with their illegal counterparts and in many cases became par of the AUC\u00a0when the so-called \u201d Convivir\u201d groups were banned in 1997.<\/p>\n<p>The Convivir Papagayo group that\u00a0was certified by Uribe became the entity that receiving the funds funneled to\u00a0the Bananero Block, according to the Prosecutor General\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>A total of 194 banana companies contributed to Convivir Papagayo and the Association of Special Services. Among these are Banamex, subsidiary if Chiquita Brands, that made payments between 2001 and 2004 1.67 billion pesos ($586 thousand).On one hand, they fought the guerrillas and violently finished off their social support base with the help of the military authorities in the region, and the businessmen who paid them to recover security in the area.<\/p>\n<h6>Prosecutor General\u2019s Office<\/h6>\n<hr \/>\n<p>With the financial support of the local capitalists and politicians, the group violently took over the banana-growing region that in the 1990s in some parts was\u00a0under political control of leftist parties and under military control of the <a class=\"aalmanual\" title=\"FARC profile\" href=\"http:\/\/colombiareports.com\/farc\/\" target=\"_self\">FARC<\/a>, much to the dislike of the\u00a0large landowners, local businesses and multinationals began paying the paramilitaries, who were forced to pay extortion money.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/colombiareports.com\/para-economics-in-colombia\/\">Para-economics | Fact sheet<\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Meanwhile, the paramilitaries converted the region in the home of some\u00a0of Colombia\u2019s most important arms and <a class=\"aalmanual\" title=\"Colombia drug trafficking\" href=\"http:\/\/colombiareports.com\/drug-trafficking-in-colombia\/\" target=\"_self\">drug trafficking<\/a> routes that are still used by AUC successor group AGC today.<\/p>\n<p>By 2004, when Casta\u00f1o was killed and the AUC began to demobilize, the FARC had been pushed out of Uraba and most leftist politicians, labor rights workers and human rights defenders had been assassinated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHH\u201d demobilized with almost 500 men in December 2004 and was extradited by Uribe in 2008 just when he was revealing the names of the sponsors of the AUC.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, the Prosecutor General\u2019s Office has been able to retrieve the list of sponsors, all of whom will be tried for crimes against humanity before the transitional justice tribunal so fiercely opposed by Uribe.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/colombiareports.com\/dole-belmonte-also-accused-crimes-humanity-financing-banana-death-squads-colombia-report\/\" target=\"_blank\">colombiareports.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">By\u00a0 Adriaan Alsema Colombia\u2019s prosecution is set to\u00a0charge almost 200 companies, including multinationals like\u00a0Dole and Del\u00a0Monte, for financing death squads in the banana-growing region of the country, according to Blu Radio. The radio station reported <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2017\/02\/10\/dole-del-monte-also-facing-crimes-humanity-charges-financing-death-squads-colombia\/\" title=\"Dole and Del Monte also facing crimes against humanity charges for financing death squads in Colombia\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":5689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2],"tags":[2800,2801,2799],"class_list":{"0":"post-5687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-human-rights","8":"category-news","9":"tag-colombia","10":"tag-death-squads","11":"tag-del-monte-dole","12":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5687"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5690,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5687\/revisions\/5690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}