Coke is the Drink of the Death Squads
About half of the union organizers that are killed in the world each year are Colombian. Colombia is also the biggest recipient of United States military aid in the hemisphere. Coincidence?
We need your help to stop a gruesome cycle of murders, kidnappings and torture of SINALTRAINAL (National Union of Food Industry Workers) union leaders and organizers involved in daily life-and-death struggles at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia.
In July 2001, the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Forum (www.laborrights.org) filed a lawsuit on behalf of SINALTRAINAL, several of its members and the estate of Isidro Gil, one of its murdered officers. The lawsuit and campaign aim to force Coca-Cola to prevent further bloodshed and to provide safe working conditions.
Coca-Cola bottlers “contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilize extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders,” the lawsuit states. It also notes that Colombian troops connected with the paramilitaries have trained at the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas (SOA) now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation or WHINSEC at Fort Benning, Ga., where trainees were encouraged to torture and murder those who do “union organizing and recruiting;” pass out “propaganda in favor of workers;” and “sympathize with demonstrators or strikes.” This was made public when the Pentagon was forced to reveal the contents of training manuals used at the school. (For more information, see School of the Americas Watch websiteSOA Watch.) The year that the lawsuit was filed, The Coca-Cola Co. made $4 billion in profits and paid its CEO, Douglas Daft, more than $105 million. Coca-Cola continues to rake in billions each year, yet the frightening conditions at the Coke plants remain unchanged. Labor unions and human rights advocates in the United States can stop these atrocities at Coca-Cola’s bottling plants.
Please read the enclosed exposés. The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke will move the fight to the doorsteps and into the boardrooms of Coca-Cola and its key financial ally, SunTrust Banks. As long as SunTrust, “the bank of Killer Coke,” maintains its intimate ties to Coke through board interlocks, large stock holdings and credit relationships, SunTrust, along with Coca-Cola, will be a principal target of this campaign. We ask you to take part in this most important struggle. By working together, we can protect our sisters and brothers and restrain corporations like SunTrust and Coke that behave so immorally and irresponsibly. Any support you give will be greatly appreciated and acknowledged.
In solidarity,
Javier Correa, President, Sinaltrainal
William Mendoza, President of SINALTRAINAL, Barrancabermeja.
Ray Rogers, Director, Campaign to Stop Killer Coke
Campaign to Stop Killer Coke
P.O. Box 1004, Cooper Station
New York, NY 10276-1004
You can email us at: stopkillercoke@aol.com
You can call us at the following number:
(718) 852-2808
Ray Rogers, Campaign Director
Protest Coke and Lobby Coke’s Board of Directors
COKE CAN’T HIDE ITS CRIMES IN COLOMBIA
A few corporate power brokers at Coca-Cola and Atlanta-based SunTrust Banks today stand accused as accessories to a violent crime wave. While they sit on their assets, workers at Coke bottling plants in Colombia risk their lives every day simply by going to work.
The world’s largest beverage company recently launched a $250 million U.S. advertising blitz on behalf of its flagship brand, keyed to the theme, “Coca-Cola…Real.” Meanwhile, the influential men who comprise the “$ix-Pack” subbornly refuse to acknowledge the horrific reality that Colombian Coke workers and their families are facing.
Let’s take a look at six individuals who could easily point Coke in the right direction — if only they would challenge the complacency and indifference that envelops their respective boardrooms.
Warren Buffett, No. 2 on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans, has an estimated net worth of $30.5 billion. Nebraska’s celebrated “corn-fed capitalist,” chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, owns more than 200 million shares (8.1%) of Coke stock and has served on Coke’s Board of Directors since 1989.
Buffett not only ranks as the top Coke shareholder, but owns five million-plus shares (more than 2%) of SunTrust Banks, the financial institution so closely tied to Coke since its first public stock offering in 1919 that it is known as “Coke’s bank.”
Douglas Daft, Chairman and CEO of the Coca-Cola Co., raked in more than $105 million in compensation for 2001. He owns 3.5 million Coke shares and 9,413 shares of SunTrust, where he sits on the Board of Directors. A form letter written “on behalf of” Daft last year to whitewash Coke’s role in Colombia claimed there’s “no evidence” to support “outrageous allegations against the company and its bottling partners.”
Coke Director Barry Diller, Chairman and CEO of USA Interactive, is a Hollywood honcho who has “run more major studios — Paramount, Fox, Universal — than any mogul still standing,” according to Vanity Fair. With a net worth estimated at $900 million in 2001, he was quoted in The Wall Street Journal recently on corporate values: “When the values are right, good ideas catch on.”
SunTrust Banks Chairman, President and CEO Phillip Humann also a director of Coca-Cola Enterprises, owns 668,826 shares of the bank and 41,402 shares of CCE, Coke’s largest subsidiary. His 2001 compensation was a mere $2.27 million.
Gary Fayard, Coca-Cola’s Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, serves on the boards of CCE and Panamerican Beverages (also known as Panamco), one of Coke’s “anchor bottlers” and the distributor of its products in all of Venezuela, most of Colombia and parts of Brazil, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama. He may soon have an expanded role in the “new” company to be formed when Panamco, based in Miami, merges with Coca-Cola Femsa, based in Mexico.
Coke Director Donald McHenry is a professor at Georgetown University and a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He owns 35,066 shares of Coke stock. He frequently spoke out on human rights while serving in the Carter Administration, but he can’t seem to face up to Coke’s shameful collaboration with paramilitary terrorists and union busters in Colombia.
Protest Coke and Lobby Coke’s Board of Directors
Lyrics: Coke is the Drink of the Death Squads
Coke came to Colombia
Seeking lower wages
They got just what they came for
But as we turn the pages
We find the workers didn’t like the sound
Of their children’s hungry cries
So they said we’ll join the union
And they began to organize
So Coke called up a terrorist group
Called the AUC
They said “we’ve got some problems
At the factory”
So these thugs went to the plant
Killed two union men
Told the rest, “you leave the union
Or we’ll be back again”
Now Coke did not complain
About this dirty deed
Why give workers higher wages
When Coke is all they really need
They phoned the AUC
Said “thanks, without you we’d go broke
And to show our appreciation
Here’s one hundred cases of Coke”
(Chorus)
The baby drinks it in his bottle
When the water ain’t no good
The dog drinks it
But he don’t know if he should
Some folks say
It’s the nectar of the Gods
But Coke is the drink of the Death Squads
Well the workers wouldn’t take
This situation lying down
Some went up to Georgia
Said “look what’s happened to our town
You American workers got downsized
And as for us we just get shot
And those of us who survive
Our teeth begin to rot”
(Chorus)
Well now that’s the situation
What are you gonna do
‘Cause death squads run Colombia
And they’re paid by me and you
We can let Coke run the world
And see what future that will bring
Or we can drink beer and smash the state
Now that’s the real thing
(Chorus)
Visit KillerCoke.org
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