The Furukawa Plantaciones Company of Ecuador mocks abaca workers and once again violates their human rights, specifically the right to comprehensive reparation. On January 17, 2025, company personnel showed up at the Isabel hacienda (kilometer 42 of the Santo Domingo—Quevedo highway) and pretended to have complied with the public apologies ordered by the Constitutional Court in November 2024. However, this act violated the terms of the ruling and the reparation standards issued by the Inter-American Human Rights System (IACHR).
Both the Court's ruling and the IACHR have established that public apologies are part of a "public act of recognition of responsibility" for the violation of human rights, "with the presence of the affected persons and the media," and with the aim that "citizens know that Furukawa subjected generations of people to a practice analogous to slavery for more than five decades" (Paragraph 204 of the judgment).
Some of the abaca workers who still live in two of the camps on the Isabel hacienda immediately rejected this despicable action by the company, refused to participate, and informed their legal representative. In this regard, we point out that even though this act took place on the Isabel plantation, the designated place by the Constitutional Court, the company violated the following standards established for this type of reparation:
The act of apologies was not discussed or agreed upon with the victims. In contradiction, the company arrived by surprise, accompanied by the police and without notifying the 342 recognized victims or their legal representatives.
The company's legal representative did not make the apologies—whether its manager, Adrián Herrera, or its president, Corazón Misa. The person who made them has not been identified.
The interview was conducted in front of a tiny group of workers who were not victims of the case. On the contrary, they work in another camp under the protection of an illegal agreement signed in 2019, allowing them to continue harvesting the fiber in exchange for not reporting the company and renouncing their rights.
After the Furukawa official read the apologies, he immediately stated, expressing his displeasure, that “the Constitutional Court does not observe and is not tied to the reality of what is happening. And the names of the people who are being forced to make reparations (...) many of them have never cut an abaca plant.”
This vile statement is accompanied by the “myths and truths” campaign that the company has launched on its social networks X and Facebook, in which it insists on denying its responsibility for having subjected 342 abaca workers to contemporary forms of slavery, ignores the ruling of the Constitutional Court and claims that the company will not be able to comply with the sentence. One of its lawyers, Juan Francisco Guerrero, also participated in this campaign through interviews and insisted that it was a purely labor issue.
The company only invited two local media outlets to attend when it should have issued a broad invitation to ensure the publicity of an act of recognition and public apologies.
The irregular event was also attended by the Second Notary of the Canton of Santo Domingo, Alex Samaniego, who told one of the media that he had verified the fraudulent compliance with the reparation measures.
As Carlos Beristain, an expert in psychosocial care for victims, has pointed out, acts of recognition and public apologies are very sensitive due to their symbolic component about the injustice of the acts committed, the dignity of the victims that has been denigrated, and the restoration of their good name. In this sense, they should constitute a social validation of the victims “immersed in an explicit acknowledgment of the veracity of the facts and the responsibility” of the perpetrators, in this case, the Furukawa company and the Ecuadorian State.
The affected abaca workers and the Furukawa Never Again Solidarity Committee declare that Furukawa Plantaciones CA's action does not acknowledge responsibility or public apologies. On the contrary, it adds to the series of attacks, defamations, and humiliations it has perpetrated since 2018.
We also express our concern about the public apology that the Ecuadorian State is preparing. This comes after the Minister of Defense issued a weak apology to the families of the four Afro-Ecuadorian children who disappeared and were later burned to death by the Armed Forces. It is alarming that he has denied the State's responsibility for this crime, that he has threatened the judge who ruled on the habeas corpus, and that he has delusionally claimed that the defense of human rights is being used for political persecution.
The Constitutional Court must ensure strict compliance with the ruling and not allow the Furukawa company to continue to mock workers after having enriched itself at the expense of their work in conditions of modern slavery.
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