Colombian killings spark Coke boycott

http://www.guardian.co.uk/colombia/story/0,11502,1004612,00.html

Trade unions around the world have launched a boycott of Coca-Cola products, alleging that the company's locally owned bottlers in Colombia used illegal paramilitary groups to intimidate, threaten and kill its workers.

The unions claim Coca-Cola bottlers hired far-right militias of the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) to murder nine union members at Colombian bottling plants in the past 13 years.

Two years ago, the Colombian food and drink union Sinaltrainal sued Coca-Cola and its Colombian bottling partners in a US federal court in Miami over the deaths of its members.

The suit alleged that the bottling companies "contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilised extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders", and that Coca-Cola was indirectly responsible for this.

I hereby plege not to snort Columbian coke either! :evilgrin:

Seriously though, I'm more of an Irn-Bru kinda guy anyway.

They've got my pledge to cut Coke products out of my life FOREVER.

(snip) Coca-Cola said in a statement on Tuesday that the allegations against the company and its partners were "completely false", and that the campaign was "nothing more than a shameless effort to generate publicity".

But Mr Correa insisted that - despite increased international attention - actions against union members have continued.

He said that in May, an anonymous caller to the union headquarters in Colombia warned that the offices would be targeted for a bomb attack. In March, a worker in the city of Bucaramanga received a notice from paramilitary groups that he had been declared a military target. (snip/..)

Hope the Coke company gets enough publicity for its hellish actions to put it out of business.

Ever since I read about their abuses, I've become slightly nauseated every time I see one of their products.

in perfect harmony!

That old Coke song sounds fairly bogus, doesn't it?

I've been looking for a good reason to quite drinking Coke and your email gave me a good enough reason to do so. I had heard rumors a while back about Coke and death squads, but was always too lazy to do the google.

I just finished going to the Coke corporate website and told them why I was boycotting their products and why in their feedback section.

Guess I'm just going to have to pop open some Pepsi until I kick the soda habit.

Thanks for the informative post Thankfully_in_Britain

in abject poverty.
I might deny the world of hope
to keep this company.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Boycotting this giant is no easy task. Coca-cola has a finger in so many different pies. Below is a link to a list of all of its brands.


http://www2.coca-cola.com/brands/brandlist.html

:hi:

(edited for punctuation)

Coke owns Oasis?? I really liked that "Definitely Maybe" album too...*sigh* ;)

Perhaps you were unaware that Pepsi was one of the corporations pressuring the CIA to invade Cuba in the 1960's, having lost a cheap source of sugar when Batista got the boot.

And in a related note, Tricky Dick Nixon just happenned to be adressing a meeting of Pepsico corporate leaders on 11-22-1963 - In Dallas Texas.

And though I don't have the exact statistics handy, I seem to remember that historically, Pepsico has contributed to far more Republican candidates than Democrats.

And let's not forget the KFC/Pizza Hut/Taco Bell/Skippers/Frito - Lay/etc. etc attempted monopolization of the entire junk food industry.

Not an innocent corporation by any means.

So with Coke and Pepsi "evil", and Dr Pepper, 7-up, and RC owned by Carlyle/BCE.....

Thank God for microbrews!! :beer: