http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/123996/1/4536 

OneWorld U.S.
December 14, 2005

Coca-Cola Faces Mounting Pressure over Abusive Practices at Plants
Worldwide

By Haider Rizvi

NEW YORK

Coca-Cola, the multinational soft drink giant, is facing
the wrath of rights advocacy groups here in the United
States and abroad for refusing to take responsibility
for abusive practices at its bottling plants.

While a number of universities and colleges in the
United States have already banned the sale of Coke
products on their campuses, mounting pressure from
student bodies throughout Europe is pushing hundreds of
schools to terminate their contracts with the company
as well.

The company is also under fire in a number of Asian and
Latin American countries, where labor unions, peasant
groups, and consumer associations are relentlessly
campaigning to force Coca-Cola to just pack up and
leave.

Last week, in India, for example, hundreds of villagers
protested outside the company's bottling plant in Kala
Dera in the northern state of Rajasthan. Demanding
immediate closure of its plant, they charged that Coca-
Cola was directly responsible for severe water
shortages in the area because its continued operations
had caused massive groundwater depletion and soil
pollution.

Their demonstration came less than two weeks after
another major protest was held in front of a Coca-Cola
plant in Mehdiganj in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
Thousands of people turned out to demand the plant's
closure, activists say.

"Coca Cola is looting our natural resources. These
resources belong to the public," says Sawai Singh, a
prominent social activist in India who organized the
march.

To Singh, "water is a basic need for people and trading
in water is not acceptable because it deprives people
of a basic need."

Activists say the anti-Coca-Cola campaign has spread
all over India and that it has so far met with some
success.

In Piachimada in south India, for example, Coca-Cola
had to shut down its biggest plant for about 20 months
after it failed to cope with the mounting pressure from
community groups.

Rights activists in the Latin American nation of
Columbia are equally angry at Coca-Cola, but for
different reasons. They allege that the company is
complicit in the murder and torture of union organizers
at its plants in Columbia.

But the company has repeatedly denied that it bears
responsibility for troubles at the Colombian plants,
arguing that its business "in each country is a local
business."

With about one million employees, the company says it
operates in more than 200 countries worldwide.

Activists in the United States say they want the
company to agree to an independent probe of labor
violations and violence against union leaders at its
Colombian bottling plants.

To address this issue, the company hired a private firm
to conduct a probe into its Columbia plants, but says
that it found no instances of anti-union violence or
intimidation.

But activists remain skeptical about the company's
claim.

"We believe the evidence shows that Coca-Cola and its
corporate network are rife with immorality, corruption,
and complicity in murder." says Ray Rogers, director of
the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, an independent group
based in the United States.

Last week, the U.S.-based campaigners scored a major
victory when New York University, the largest private
school in the country, declared that it had decided to
ban Coke products on campus.

Rogers claims that more than 100 colleges and
universities already have anti-Coke programs in place,
adding that 20 of them have either banned Coke products
or axed exclusive contracts with the company.

Still, there is more bad news for the multi-billion
dollar corporation.

Recently, the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Science
in the Public Interest indicated that it was preparing
a lawsuit against Coca-Cola that would link its
additive caffeine levels with childhood obesity.

Meanwhile, encouraged by growing support from the West,
activists in India say they will continue their
campaign to revoke Coca-Cola's contracts until the
communities' demands are met.

"Coca-Cola in India is a perfect example of what goes
wrong when institutions like the World Trade
Organization (WTO) give more powers to corporations,"
says Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center, a
U.S.-based advocacy group that has supported the anti-
Coke campaigners.

"The campaign to hold Coca-Cola responsible is
significant because it asserts the rights of
communities over natural resources--rights that are
increasingly under threat from the WTO. 
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