And the U.S. did so even as the U.S. State Department itself concluded year after year that the military has been collaborating with illegal death squad groups, including the AUC, by providing them with weapons, ammunition, soldiers and logistical support. In short, by protecting Chiquita, the U.S. was covering up its own culpability for heinous violence in Colombia. And now, the U.S. is set to pass the long-stalled Colombia FTA
even as massive violence is being carried out in Colombia against labor leaders (7 of whom have been murdered so far this year), peasant leaders, Afro-Colombians and Indigenous. Indeed, the FTA is designed to benefit companies, just as Chiquita, in their quest to intensify the exploitation of Colombian land and labor -- many times through violence. For example, the FTA will support the massive expansion of palm oil companies, about half of which are actually owned and controlled by paramilitary death squads.
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