Approximately 2000 Ecuadorian farmers who suffered physical and mental injuries and property damage as a result of aerial spraying of toxic pesticides on or near their land brought Alien Tort Statute and state law claims against DynCorp, a U.S. government contractor.
A U.S. jury in Washington declined to award damages Thursday in a trial testing claims by the first six of 2,000 Ecuadoran farmers who allege that they were poisoned by an American security contractor in a years-long coca-eradication campaign by the U.S. and Colombian governments.
On Thursday, April 20, 2017 a federal jury returned a verdict in the first of the test trials against DynCorp International, the defense contractor that did the aerial fumigations in Plan Colombia. The International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) first filed this case in 2001 on behalf of over 2,000 Ecuadoran farmers who live near the border with Colombia and allege that they had their farms destroyed when the toxic chemicals used by DynCorp to kill coca and poppy plants was also sprayed on their farms. The Ecuadoran farmers also alleged that they received personal injuries and suffered battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
After a 15-year legal battle, a U.S. jury will begin deliberations Wednesday over whether a U.S. security contractor must pay damages to as many as 2,000 Ecuadoran farmers who say they were poisoned by the U.S. and Colombian governments’ years-long, coca-eradication campaign.
Defense contractor DynCorp and plaintiffs suing it for allegedly poisoning farmers in Ecuador with herbicide while trying to eradicate drug crops in Colombia sparred in midtrial briefs filed in Washington, D.C., federal court Sunday over whether the company could be held liable for actions of pilots employed by subcontractors and Colombian police.
On April 3, 2017, International Rights Advocate's trial commenced in Quinteros v. Dyncorp, an historic 15-year old human rights case concerning the harmful effects of Defendant Dyncorp's spraying of our Ecuadoran Plaintiffs and their property in Ecuador, during their efforts to eradicate coca crops as part of Plan Colombia.
On April 3, 2017, after a 15-year struggle with the notorious defense contractor, DynCorp International, International Rights Advocates, together with co-counsel Ted Leopold of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, will go to trial on behalf of more than 2,000 Ecuadoran plaintiffs at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to establish that when DynCorp implemented Plan Colombia, it unlawfully invaded Ecuadoran territory and fumigated thousands of farmers and ruined their farms.
International Rights Advocates (www.iradvocates.org) is a small human rights advocacy group that promotes corporate accountability through legal advocacy. We focus on human rights cases and rely on individual donations and support from foundations to continue our work. After a 15-year struggle with the notorious defense contractor DynCorp International, we are going to trial on April 3, 2017 to establish that when DynCorp was implementing Plan Colombia, it unlawfully invaded Ecuadoran territory and fumigated thousands of farmers there and ruined their farms. We have been in this struggle since we filed the case on September 11, 2001, and to finally bring DynCorp to justice, we need your support.
"For over twenty years, and with the support of the United States, the Colombian government has sprayed a powerful herbicide called Roundup on illegal coca crops. But this chemical, produced by Monsanto, is reported to be a danger to both people’s health and the environment." - France24
Reporters investigated the effects of this spraying in this short documentary video: http://www.france24.com/en/20150508-reporters-colombia-drug-trafficking-....
By Nora C. Godkin, IRAdvocates Litigation Fellow
The recent classification of the herbicide glyphosate as a probable carcinogen highlights the potential for serious, long-term consequences of unlawful corporate activity around the world, and emphasizes the importance of the ongoing Arias v. DynCorp & Quinteros v. DynCorp litigation.
New Evidence Linking Glyphosate to Cancer
