Fruit importer Chiquita Brands International "knowingly provided material support to a terrorist organization" by paying protection money and providing weapons to a Colombian rebel group, a lawsuit filed in a Florida court this week alleges.
Three US citizens who survived a five-year hostage ordeal at the hands of Colombia's notorious FARC paramilitary group, along with the family of a fourth man who was killed by FARC rebels, say Chiquita owes them damages because it paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to FARC for a decade beginning in 1989.
Chiquita "knew that FARC was a terrorist organization and that it kidnapped, killed and terrorized thousands of people in Colombia," the complaint (PDF) states, "but [they] ignored these risks in order to further their own narrow business interests in growing and exporting bananas in Colombia."
The complaint goes on to say that Chiquita "knowingly provided currency or monetary instruments, weapons (including arms and ammunition), and other forms of material support and resources and transport of munitions" to FARC.
Marc Gosalves, Thomas Howes, and Keith Stansell, employees of defense contractor Northrop Grumman, were traveling by plane in Colombia in 2003 when they were shot down by FARC rebels, who immediately killed the plane's pilot, Thomas Janis, and a Colombian guide accompanying them.
