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Urgent Action: Bucaramanga Coca-Cola Workers Receive Imminent Death Threat

Colombia Solidarity Campaign | 16.12.2007 15:06 | Anti-militarism | Repression | Workers' Movements | London

In the last fortnight, three Coca-Cola workers in Bucaramanga, Colombia have
been told that before the end of December they will be killed and buried in
a mass grave. The threat demands that their union cease all protest against
Coca-Cola. Join us in emergency action to defend their lives!

Nelson Perez, Luis Eduardo Garcia, Jose Domingo Flores, Javier Correa
Nelson Perez, Luis Eduardo Garcia, Jose Domingo Flores, Javier Correa


The men – Luis Eduardo, Jose Domingo and Nelson Perez – belong to
SINALTRAINAL, the trade union representing Coca-Cola workers in Colombia.
Union president Javier Correa and his family have been receiving similar
threats. Since 1994, nine Coca-Cola workers have been murdered by
paramilitary death squads in response to the union’s resistance.

5-7pm Thursday 20th December

PICKET: Coca-Cola Great Britain, Head Office
1 Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith, London W6 9HQ
(near to Hammersmith tube)

The paramilitary group Aguilas Negras (Black Eagles) have claimed
responsibility for this threat and the five others issued to SINALTRAINAL
members this year, demanding that they cease all protest against the
company. The situation was covered in Channel 4’s recent Dispatches: Mark
Thomas on Coca Cola which featured interviews with Luis Eduardo.

Watch at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5JXmDApzp4

The Christmas season is a particularly dangerous time for social and human
rights activists in Colombia. Please help protect our friends. Make sure
that the threat that they end up in a mass grave this December isn't carried
out.

WHAT CAN YOU DO? BOYCOTT COCA-COLA PRODUCTS

WHAT ELSE YOU CAN DO

Call on Coca-Cola Corporation and its bottling subsidiary FEMSA to:

* provide immediate protection for the threatened workers - Luis
Eduardo Garcia, Jose Domingo Florez, Nelson Perez, Javier Correa - and their
families;

* denounce the Black Eagles as the authors of these threats and
demands that they be brought to justice;

* condemn the government's 'Justice and Peace' Law as a device for
legitimising the Black Eagles and other paramilitary groups.

Write to Ed Potter, Coca-Cola Director of Global Labor Relations at E-mail:
 colombia_action@Coca-Cola.com; Juan
Carlos Jaramillo President Coca-Cola FEMSA in Colombia at
 jarbelaez@panamco.com.co ; and Corporate
Responsibility at UK Coca-Cola at  corporate_affairs@ge.cokecce.com

Demand that the Colombian government breaks the impunity enjoyed by the
Black Eagles and:

* pursues an immediate criminal investigation into the Black Eagles in
Bucaramanga;
* stops its process of legalisation of paramilitary groups under the
misnamed 'Justice and Peace' Law .

Write to President Álvaro Uribe Vélez via Colombian Embassy to the UK
E-mail:  mail@colombianembassy.co.uk


The Colombia Solidarity Campaign meets on every third Tuesday of the month
at The Apple Tree pub, 45 Mount Pleasant, WC1 0AE.

Future meeting dates are: 22nd January, 19th February, 18th March, 22nd
April. We will be discussing the re-launch of the Coca-Cola campaign and
monitoring the situation for SINALTRAINAL union members.

I would like more information/ to join the campaign:
Name………………………….Contact (phone/email)…………………………..
Address …………………………………………………………………………….

 info@colombiasolidarity.org.uk
Colombia Solidarity Campaign, PO Box 8446, London N17 6NZ

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

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