Title: Chiquita accused of funding Colombia terrorists - CBS News
Headings: Chiquita accused of funding Colombia terrorists
Chiquita accused of funding Colombia terrorists
Content: The cases filed around the country are being consolidated before a South Florida federal judge who must decide whether to dismiss them or let them proceed. "A company that pays a terrorist organization that kills thousands of people should get the capital punishment of civil liability and be put out of business by punitive damages," said attorney Terry Collingsworth, who filed one of the first lawsuits on behalf of Colombians. Chiquita has long maintained it was essentially blackmailed into paying the paramilitary groups — perpetrators of the majority of civilian deaths in Colombia's dirty war — and insists the lawsuits should be dismissed. "Chiquita was extorted in Colombia and company officials believed that the payments were necessary to prevent violent retaliation against employees," said company spokesman Ed Loyd. The lawsuits could be strengthened by the recent release of some 5,500 pages of internal Chiquita documents that were produced during the Justice Department probe. The documents detail how payments were hidden by accounting maneuvers, and shed light on Colombian government and political involvement with the paramilitary group. They also show there was a debate among Chiquita executives about whether the payments were proper. In a 1997 handwritten note, one Chiquita executive said such payments are the "cost of doing business in Colombia." "Need to keep this very confidential — people can get killed," he wrote. Chiquita, with some 21,000 employees on six continents, is best known as the top U.S. banana seller but also markets a variety of other produce and fruit-based snacks.