BOYCOTT COCA-COLA - STOP THE VIOLENCE
CAMPAIGN LAUNCH 6pm Piccadilly
Circus, London Tuesday 22 July
"We ask Coca Cola to stop
killing ... and you to stop drinking Coke" Carlos Julia,
SINALTRAINAL, Colombia
An international boycott of Coca Cola products
will be launched this Tuesday. Its main aim is to stop the
policy of violent treatment that has left eight Colombian Coca Cola
workers assassinated in recent years. The boycott has been
called by Colombian food and drinks workers union SINALTRAINAL and
has the endorsement of the country's main trade union federation
the CUT as well as the World Social Forum.
SINALTRAINAL accuses Coca Cola of working
in consort with paramilitary death squads to remove union activists
and hence the union organisation from its plants. Accusations centre
on the murder of Carepa plant in Antioquia where 5 union members
were assassinated between 1994 and 1996.
The union and the families of assassinated
Coca Cola workers have also brought a civil court case under the
US Alien Torts Act which is being considered by courts in Miami. On
31st March 2003 US District Court Judge Jose E. Martinez ruled that
the case for compensation for human rights violations committed
by paramilitaries on behalf of Coca-Cola bottlers Panamerican Beverages,
Inc. ("Panamco") and Bebidas y Alimentos ("Bebidas")
in Colombia can go forward.
Lawyers point out it is significant
that the US court has held that the allegations were sufficient
to allow the case to proceed on a theory that the paramilitaries
were acting in a symbiotic relationship with the Colombian government.
Secretary of the UK based Colombia
Solidarity Campaign, Andy Higginbottom said in London this weekend:
"Colombia's current president Alvaro
Uribe Velez was governor of Antioquia at the time. And in many ways
the Carepa case exposes the sort of policies that he is attempting
to now implement nationally."
SINALTRAINAL and its supporters have
called for a year long boycott of all Coca Cola products until a
number of demands have been met, including that there are no more
assassinations, that Coca Cola prints a memoriam of the murdered
workers on its product labels and pays full reparations to the victims'
families. The union also demands that Coca Cola supports an
annual forum on human rights for workers in multinational companies.
SINALTRAINAL and its supporters have
held three international public hearings in the last year. The first
one was outisde Coca Cola's coprorate headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia
on 20th July 2002, followed by a hearing in the European Parliament
in Brussels on 10th October and concluding with a forum in Bogota, Colombia
on 5th December 2002. The campaign will be simultaneously launched
in Bogota, several European capitals and the United States.
Colombia Solidarity Campaign organiser David
Rhys-Jones adds that in the UK: "Many groups around the country
want to participate in the boycott campaign. The very fact that
Coca Cola is sold just about everywhere means that the message of
its wrong doings in Colombia can reach a mass audience."
For more information contact David Rhys-Jones:
07932 034477
Colombia Solidarity Campaign,
PO Box 8446, London N17 6NZ.
E-mail: colombia_sc@hotmail.com
COCA COLA WORKERS WHO HAVE
BEEN ASSASSINATED
AVELINO ACHICANOY ERAZO
Worker at Embotelladora Nariñense S.A. -COCA COLA [Nariño
Bottlers Ltd] in the city of Pasto in south west Colombia. He was
assassinated by a shot through the right ear on 30th July 1990,
at a time when the workers were on strike because their employer
had refused to negotiate a set of demands presented by the Sintradingascol
(Colombian National Union of Fizzy Drinks Workers). Avelino was
member of the union's Executive Committee and a member of the strike
committee.
JOSÉ ELEASAR MANCO DAVID
A workers at Bebidas y Alimentos de Urabá S.A. -COCA COLA
[Drinks and Foods of Urabá] in the town of Carepa, in Urabá,
Antioquia. A leader of Sinaltrainal in that rich banana region in
the north west of Colombia. He was assassinated on 8th April 1994.
LUIS ENRIQUE GIRALDO ARANGO
He worked for at Bebidas y Alimentos de Urabá S.A. -COCA
COLA., in Carepa for 17 years. A member of Sinaltrainal, Luis was
assassinated on 20th April 1994.
LUIS ENRIQUE GÓMEZ GRANADO
Also a worker at Bebidas y Alimentos de Urabá S.A. -COCA
COLA- in Carepa. A regional leader of the union. He was assassinated
in front of his wife and children at the door of his house in Carepa
on 23rd April 1995.
ISIDRO SEGUNDO GIL GIL
Another worker at Bebidas y Alimentos de Urabá S.A. -COCA
COLA in Carepa. The last post he fulfilled for Sinaltrainal was
the union's Secretary General and a member of the negotiating team
that had presented demands to the employer on 30th November 1996,
but the employer refused to negotiate. He was assassinated at his
work post inside the Carepa plant on 6th December 1996. His brother
Martín Emilio Gil Gil was an adviser to Sinaltrainal in these
negotiations. Martín had had to renounce his job at the same
employer due to continuous death threats. On 18th November 2000,
ALCIRA DEL
CARMEN HERRERA PEREZ, the
wife of Isidro Segundo, was pulled out of her home in Apartadó
- Urabá, Antioquia and assassinated a few yards away.
JOSÉ LIBARDO HERRERA OSORIO
At about 5.00pm on 26th December 1996 this gentleman aged 65 years
old and a worker for Coca Cola in Carepa, was taken by force from
the plant by heavily armed men, presumed to be paramilitaries, and
assassinated near to the cemetery at Chigorodó. Señor
Herrera had been working as Head of Technical Maintenance.
GUILLERMO GÓMEZ MAIGUAL
Worker with Embotelladora Nariñense "Embonar" Ltda.
-COCA COLA- [Nariño Bottlers Ltd.] where he was a Sinaltrainal
leader. He committed suicide by poisoning on 20th April 1998 inside
the bottling plant, due to the economic difficulties of the workers
and their families. This situation was a result of the cancellation
of the franchise contract by Coca Cola with Embonar Ltda on 1st
June 1996 Coca Cola, which occasioned closing the plant and sacking
150 workers, liquidating the Collective Agreement and the union
organisation in Pasto. A note was found in Guillermo's clothes,
saying that he had made his decision due to "the total crisis"
that he found himself in. The workers stayed in the plant for more
than 2 years, fighting for the payment of their labour credits.
When the workers evacuated the plant it was bought for a derisory
sum by Panamco Colombia S.A. -Coca Cola- and reopened with temporay
workers with lower wages, without a trade union and without a collective
agreement.
ADOLFO DE JESÚS MÚNERA
LÓPEZ
Ex-worker at the Coca Cola plant in Barranquilla, Atlántico
department. He was assassinated at 7 p.m. on 31st August 2002 at
the door of his mother's home in en the "el Bosque" [the
Woods] district of the city. Coca Cola had sacked him on 6th April
1997 after his home had been raided by state forces as a result
of him being marked out by the employer. In this same year svereal
Sinaltrainal leaders were imprisoned in Bucaramanga, having been
branded by Coca Cola as reposnible for terrorism and rebellion.
The comrades had been placed at liberty when this assassination
occurred.
ÓSCAR DARÍO
SOTO POLO
A worker with Embotelladoras Román S.A. -COCA COLA
{Román Bottlers] at the Montería plant in Córdoba
departament. He was a leader of Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores
de la Industria de las Bebidas en Colombia [Colombian National Union
of Drinks Industry Workers] "Sinaltrainbec" and a member
of the delegation presenting the workers demands to the employer
on behalf of his union and Sinaltrainal. He was assassinated on
21st June 2001 in Montería, when we were negotiating these
demands.
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