Dole Foods (criminals)

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Criticism
Dole Food Company is among three major fruit companies cited for exploiting workers in developing nations.[11] The company is named as a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of 73 heirs of victims of paramilitary violence in Colombia.[12]

In 2007, Nicaraguan plantation workers with Juan Dominguez as the lawyer representing them sued Dole claiming the use of illegal pesticides like Nemagon had made them sterile and over general mistreatment. The suit and two others were subsequently thrown out by California courts after it was concluded that “[c]ontrary to their sworn testimony, most of the plaintiffs never worked on Dole-affiliated banana farms and none were involved in the DBCP application process”, while other lawsuits are pending in U.S. and Nicaraguan courts.[13]

Swedish director Fredrik Gertten made a documentary film about Dominguez and the alleged banana workers. The movie Bananas!* premiered in the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival, with Dole threatening to sue the festival if they allowed it to participate in the documentary film competition.[14][15][16][17] Although the film was screened with a disclaimer from the festival, Gertten was subsequently sued for defamation by Dole.[18]

Percy Bratt, the chairman of Civil Rights Defenders has commented Dole's suit in Swedish press, and stated that the suit violates both the European Convention on Human Rights as well as Swedish law. The lawsuit was dropped by Dole before hearings.[19]

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Dole sued over links to Colombian death squads

Thu, 07 May 2009 01:17:27 GMT

Dole Food Company is being sued by the families of 57 people allegedly murdered by paramilitaries hired by the US firm at its banana plantations in Colombia.

A lawsuit filed in Los Angeles alleges that Dole hired the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) despite the fact that the group had been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department.

Lawyers for the families of the murdered people say the AUC was responsible for driving farmers off the land used to plant bananas, purging leftist guerillas from banana-growing regions and targeting union leaders at banana plantations.

Dole hit back at the allegations in the lawsuit, decrying them as "bogus and baseless" in a statement.

The lawsuit accused the company of causing wrongful death, battery, assault, negligent hiring and supervision, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

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Bananas!* vs the Dole Food Company
p2pnet news view P2P | Movies | Freedom:- Today was the day set for the makers of Bananas!* to show their documentary in the Swedish parliament.

But it isn’t about bananas. It’s about freedom of speech — about, “efforts by Los Angeles trial lawyer Juan Dominguez to represent fruit workers allegedly made sterile after Dole sprayed them with a banned pesticide,” says The Local.

The Dole Food Company is a US-based agricultural multinational headquartered in California. It’s the “leading grower and packer” of such food items as bananas, pineapples, grapes, strawberries, and other fresh and frozen fruits, says the Wikipedia.

The company, “recently filed a lawsuit against Fredrik Gertten, the Swedish filmmaker behind the movie, claiming the film is inaccurate and defamatory toward the company,” says The Local, going on:

“The food giant was also successful in blocking a previously scheduled screening of the film in Los Angeles.

“Dole`s actions caused two Swedish parliamentarians, Mats Johansson of the Moderate Party and Social Democrat Luciano Astudillo, to schedule a screening of the film in a show of support for Gertten.”

But, “Right now, there is a legal process in the United States where questions about free speech are being pushed to its limits,” say the chairmen of Sveriges Television (the Swedish public service television), Producentföreningen (the Swedish Film & TV Producers Association) and Svenska Filminstitutet (the Swedish Film Institute) on the Bananas!* blog.

Their comments came in an editorial in in Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.

“Should it be possible, in a democratic society, to prohibit the screening of a documentary criticizing a major company?” – they ask. “Should a company be able to stop the criticism in advance and stifle discussion and debate?”

In the OpEd, Lars Engqvist, Sveriges TV, Björn Rosengren, Producentföreningen, and HÃ¥kan Tidlund, Svenska Filminstitutet, continue, in part »»»

Dole’s lawsuit concerns the very basic principles of freedom of expression.

In a globalized world, where economic and political interests moves freely across national borders, free speech must also be global and without frontiers.

A Swedish film crew must have the freedom to examine the actions of a large American company in another country, and must be able to put forward their criticism to public examination and debate.

The foundations of an open society are poisoned when journalists, writers, artists and filmmakers have to work under the threat of being sued every time a financially strong party is examined.

If companies, public institutions or organizations believe that they are subjected to false or unfounded criticism, they all have the option and means to respond in an open discussion. To prohibit a critical examination is a serious restriction of free speech.

We urge Dole Food to withdraw their lawsuit and instead acknowledge our open society and freedom of expression.