(Adds Chiquita comment, more background) By Patrick Markey BOGOTA, June 7 (Reuters) - Victims of Colombia's conflict on Thursday filed for damages against Chiquita Brands after the U.S. fruit company pleaded guilty to paying off a violent paramilitary group and agreeing to a $25 million fine, one of their attorneys said. The lawsuit against Chiquita in Washington came just as President Alvaro Uribe visited the U.S. capital to assuage U.S. Democrats skeptical over ties between some of his allies and militia commanders accused of atrocities in Colombia's war. Chiquita <CQB.N>, one of the world's largest banana producers, pleaded guilty in March to paying off the violent AUC paramilitary group from 1997 to 2004, and has acknowledged past payments to the FARC left-wing rebel organization. "We filed a complaint in U.S. federal court for damages on behalf of the 144 people who had family members who were murdered by the AUC or the FARC during the period of time Chiquita was providing them support," Terry Collingsworth, an attorney with International Rights Advocates, told Reuters. Chiquita says it was obliged to make payments to Colombian armed groups at a time when kidnappings and murders were more common and state presence in the area was weak. The company says those pay-offs were made to defend workers. The AUC, or the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, is accused of committing massacres before it began disarming in 2003. The illegal militias began in the 1980s to counter the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC guerrillas. "Given that Chiquita has pleaded guilty to the criminal aspects of this case it is going to be extremely difficult for them to say they are not responsible in any other way for what happened down there," Collingsworth said. Violence has fallen sharply under Uribe, who has received billions of dollars in U.S. military and counter-narcotics aid to fight the guerrillas and cocaine traffickers. But the FARC is still fighting a drug-fueled insurgency. "The company was forced to make payments to both left and right-wing paramilitary organizations to protect the lives of our employees," Chiquita spokesman Mike Mitchell said although he had yet to see the lawsuit. "It is absolutely untrue for anyone to suggest the payments were made for any other purpose," he said. According to its March plea agreement, Chiquita paid more than $1.7 million to the paramilitaries and continued even after the U.S. designated the AUC as a foreign terrorist organization in 2001. Chiquita disclosed its payments to the Justice Department in 2003. Uribe is under fire at home and in the U.S. Congress over an investigation that has linked several of his legislative allies to the paramilitaries, who have disarmed under a peace deal with his government. He says the probe shows his government is working to curb criminal elements.
