Coke Kills
19/11/2007

Coke kills indeed, and not just by contributing to diabetes levels and heart disease. I just watched an interesting episode of Dispatches on Channel 4 by Mark Thomas about the actions of Coca Cola in third world and second world countries. I have heard Mark talking about this sort of thing at one of his live shows and his stories are very moving. I'd like to condense some of the programme here, and add some further info on the “family friendly” brand.

A lawsuit is being brought by the workers for Coca Cola in Columbia regarding alleged connections between Coke and union busting militia groups. Coca Cola is also currently the subject of a suit in Turkey due it's alleged part in the intimidation and torture of union members and their families. The company has also been accused of union busting activities in Pakistan, Guatemala, Russia and elsewhere.

This is all alongside ongoing accusations of stealing abundant sources of water from poor community aquifers, destroying local agricultural livelihoods and leading to potential famines as well as selling water back to the people that is theirs as a basic human right. Not only this but there is evidence to suggest that Coke is dumping toxic waste in other water supplies used for drinking and washing in rural communities near bottling plants. The blatant irony in all this is that Coca Cola have the audacity to be one of the main sponsors of the “World Water Forum”.

In Kaladera in India since Coke began operations there local water supplies have more than halved from an already unsustainable amount. In El Salavador a Coke bottling plant is accused of polluting the local river in Nejapa, which is villagers only supply of water, to five times the acceptable limit for consumption. There is evidence too which proves that Sugar Cane plantations from which Coke derives the sugar for it's drink, have children working on them despite this contravening countless international legislation on the forced labour of minors.

These are not isolated examples. The catalogue of worker abuse, water stealing, waste dumping and more is available to view at the War on Want website .

All this ripping off of the poor goes on behind the scenes while the squeaky clean image portrayed on the adverts around the world costs a mind-blowing £1,000,000,000. That's a billion of yer English pounds!!! Many people and organisations are waking up to the methods Coke is using to stay number one in the market. Become one of them!