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PROTEST AGAINST KILLER COLA

Colombia Solidarity Campaign | 20.07.2005 20:52 | Globalisation | Repression | Social Struggles

Send messages of protest to Coca-Cola on the 2nd anniversary og the international campaign against the multinational for their crimes in Colombia.

FRIDAY 22 JULY 2005 -SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF THE
INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST COCA-COLA
MAKE YOU FEELINGS KNOWN- SEND MESSAGES OF PROTEST TO COCA-COLA
Two years ago SINALTRAINAL (the Colombian Food and Drink Workers Union) launched an international boycott of Coca Cola and all its products, in response to a brutal policy of terror and repression that Coca Cola had unleashed against their own workers in Colombia. Since 1994, 8 Coca-Cola workers and SINALTRAINAL union leaders have been assassinated by paramilitaries, who the evidence suggests, were hired by Colombia’s Coca-Cola management. Hundreds of other workers and union members have been imprisoned, tortured, threatened, disappeared or forced into exile.
The boycott campaign has been a success in many ways. Individuals and social and trade union organisations all around the world have pledged their support of the boycott (including UNISON, PCS and the Scottish Socialist Party). However Coke have refused to abandon their hard line, have refused to negotiate with SINALTRAINAL, and the repression against the workers has continued. Since the boycott started on 22 July 2003,
• Coke workers in Colombia had to go on hunger strike to fight mass sackings.
• Union Vice President Juan Carlos Galvis was injured in an assassination attempt.
• Union leader Luis Eduardo Garcia’s son escaped from a paramilitary kidnap.
• 4 members of union leader Efrain Guerrero’s family were slaughtered in their beds by paramilitaries
• Coke launched their seventh libel case against a SINALTRAINAL leader.
When the union launched the boycott campaign, they knew there would be a price to pay, and are relying on international support and solidarity to see them through to the end of their fight for justice. We have a moral obligation to support the workers of SINALTRAINAL.

SEND PROTEST MESSAGES ON 22 July 2005
On 22 July this year, please send messages of protest to Coca-Cola (an example is included).
Fax, email or telephone (or all 3) to make your feelings known.
Send messages to:

Tim Wilkinson, Director of Public Affairs and Communications Coca-Cola GB.
Telephone: 0800 227711 or 0208 237 3000
Fax: 0208 237 3700.
E-mail:  twilkinson@eur.ko.com
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Dear Coca- Cola,
The International Boycott of all your products has been going for two years, and people across the world now know about Coca-Cola’s crimes in Colombia. However, I am very worried that instead of negotiating with SINALTRAINAL, Coca-Cola seems to have increased the repression against their Colombian workers. I will continue to boycott all your products, until Coca Cola has
• mitigated the pain of the victims by making reparations for damage caused.
• publicly recognise that it benefited from crimes carried out by paramilitaries against Coke workers.
• committed itself to not making any new attacks on the workers, and hand over to justice those criminals who carried out attacks on their behalf.
• negotiated with the union, a code of conduct to safeguard workers’ lives, in the presence of international observers.
Yours Sincerely

Colombia Solidarity Campaign
- e-mail: colombia_sc@hotmail.com
- Homepage: http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Are you freaking kidding me?

22.07.2005 13:27

Are you kidding me...Coke...with their own militia...hiring gunman to kill their workers...give me a break. Are you reading this...really.... I mean, this is Columbia... I think you might be mistaking Coca-Cola with a Cocaine company...now that I would believe. Yeah, those illiterate, un-educated workers down in Columbia making $.10 per hour are such a threat to the great and mighty corporation that they are going to hire gunman to assasinate these guys to keep them in line. What freaking planet are you from?

DaveUS


Sorry Dave,but...

22.07.2005 16:53

Sorry Dave, but you seriously have gotta check out these sites, cos this is well-documented stuff. I heard about this roughly a year ago and wouldn't fully believe it, until I checked out the facts for myself. It's probably not the specific workers themselves, but what they and the union represent; if you think about it, if Coke show the world how repressive they can be in Columbia, they're sending that message out to workers in Mexico, India, and wherever else too. What they fear is not the wokers at a number of plants in Columbia, but the solidarity that can be built with others accross the world, which could potentially pose a threat to their profits.

Wikipedia says; 'In Colombia, the company is alleged to be responsible for 179 major human rights violations, including nine murders.'

Check out;

 http://www.killercoke.org/who.htm

 http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/cocacolacampaign.html

 http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11925

For a selection of just a few stories about the allegations.

Sophie