In dialogue with The Coronell Report from The W, Salvatore Mancusowho was the top leader of the calls United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) after the murder of Carlos Castañospoke about the ruling issued by a federal jury in Florida in the United States against the banana multinational Chiquita Brands Internationalaccused of financing paramilitary groups that left thousands dead in Colombia.
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According to the ruling of the civil trial in a West Palm Beach court, Chiquita Brands will have to pay $38.3 million to plaintiffs and relatives of the victims. This, after determining that, after a decade of litigation, Chiquita did not demonstrate that “the assistance it provided” to the paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) to protect its employees from violence was the result of an “illegal, immediate and imminent threat” from this terrorist group.
Chiquita Brands also failed to demonstrate that “I had no other reasonable alternative.” than “provide assistance to AUC”as stated in the verdict.
In this regard, Mancuso warned that this ruling “is a resounding success” for the victims and for Colombia, “to the extent that it is recognized that the money that entered the armed conflict, regardless of the actor to whom it was delivered, (…) they produced a humanitarian tragedy in Colombia (by being used by) the actors in the conflict to wage war.”
Thus, Mancuso stated that Chiquita “He gave resources to the EPL and FARC guerrillas.”
“Chiquita Brands gave money to the Self-Defense Forces, it was not with a rifle to the head. They had just delivered resources to the guerrilla when Commander Carlos Castaño and other commanders met with them.. They contributed three cents per box of bananas exported, I have already said it and I was even a witness in that trial in the United States,” said Mancuso.
About Pedro Juan Moreno, who was Secretary of the Government of the Government of Antioquia at that time, Mancuso acknowledged having had contact with him, as did “many other Self-Defense commanders.”
At that moment, Mancuso recalled, the governor of Antioch was Alvaro Uribe Vélez y Moreno was his right hand.
“Chiquita Brands gave money to the AUC and it was not with a rifle to the head”: Mancuso
