During a two-week trial in Washington that ended Tuesday, a lawsuit against McLean, Va.-based DynCorp probed one of the bitter legacies of America’s long war against Latin American cartels and its own insatiable drug appetite.
The mostly peasant farmers in the case, represented by International Rights Advocates, say their families, animals and crops were collateral damage in recklessly executed aerial spraying efforts using glyphosate, the active ingredient in the popular weed killer Roundup, when aircraft or clouds of fumigant drifted south over the Colombia-Ecuador border.
The human rights groups say the American corporation should be held liable for its role in alleged abuses by an element of Plan Colombia, a sweeping, $10 billion U.S. counternarcotics effort launched in the 1990s that became the government’s largest foreign policy initiative in South America and is credited for helping a democratic U.S. ally end a bloody civil war.
In a first test trial involving six farmers before U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle , the plaintiffs have suggested giving each farmer damages of $50,000 to $500,000, plus potential punitive damages.
“For DynCorp to deny its role is for it to stand up and refuse — refuse — to take responsibility,” fellow lead counsel Theodore J. Leopold told the 10-person jury in closing arguments.
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