Coca Cola - 'War Versus the People' Continues 

COLUMBIA

Robinson Remolina died on April 20, 2004, shortly after receiving gunshot wounds when armed men attacked his family in Bucaramanga, Colombia.  They entered the house with automatic weapons and indiscriminately opened fire, killing his mother, father and wounding two of his siblings.  The victims were relations of Efrain Guerrero, President of SINALTRAINAL-Bucaramanga.  SINALTRAINAL represents the workers of Coca-Cola FEMSA, the multinational corporation's main bottler in Colombia.  While Coke has attempted to distance itself from the operations of its subsidiary and the violations committed against its workers, Juan Carlos Galvis, Vice President of SINALTRAINAL Barrancabermeja Section, says that 'Coca-Cola knows what is happening in Colombia.  Coca-Cola is directly responsible.'

Directly responsible for the assassination, kidnapping and imprisonment of SINALTRAINAL leaders.  Directly responsible for the shutting down of nine bottling plants, the loss of 2,500 jobs and the forced resignation of negotiated contracts--for the robbing and pollution of water sources and the continued opposition of labour organizing and the repression of communities not only in Colombia but in other countries in Latin America and the rest of the world. 

To hold them accountable for their business practices, SINALTRAINAL and other organizations have launched a world-wide consumer campaign and boycott against Coca-Cola, and along with the Union Sindicato Obrero (USO), have also filed a lawsuit against the company in the Federal Court of the South District of Florida for international human rights violations, demanding that the multinational compensate its victims.

As SINALTRAINAL and other labor unions in Colombia harden their resistance and assert their rights, they suffer increased intimidation and violence by the police, military and especially the right-wing paramilitary groups.

At 12:10 on August 22, 2003, Juan Carlos Galvis was riding in an armored van in Barrancabermeja when a man fired two shots at his vehicle.  Galvis' bodyguards returned the fire as the assailant escaped on a motorcycle.  Four months later, Galvis was in Coca-Cola FEMSA's bottling plant in the same city when two armed men aboard a Moto-90 drove by, shooting at the plant and into the air. Galvis describes the situation for labor organizers in Colombia as desperate.  Fourteen SINALTRAINAL leaders, seven representing Coca-Cola workers, have been murdered, including Isidro Segundo Gil--shot to death inside Coke's Carepa bottling plant in 1996.

On September 10, 2003, David Jose Carranza, the 15 year-old son of SINALTRAINAL leader Limbero Carranza, was abducted in Barranquilla by four men.  He was tortured and then dumped in a place known as 'Canon de la Ahuyama' at the same time as his father was receiving a death threat on the telephone.

These attacks followed a public statement released in Barrancabermeja by an armed group calling itself 'MASIN-Muerte a Sindicalistas' (Death to Trade Unionists), who have declared their intention to liquidate labor leaders and activists.

Barrancabermeja, because of its importance as the 'Petroleum Capital' of Colombia, is one of the most heavily militarized cities in the country.  It is also one of the most violent ones, situated in the fractured and polarized Magdalena Medio, an area in which the Regional Defensor del Pueblo recorded 150 killed, 80 'disappeared' and 800 displaced in the year 2003.  Seventy percent of the human rights abuses committed in Colombia are perpetrated by the right-wing paramilitaries employed to protect wealthy landlords, cattle ranchers, narco-traffickers and corporations.  The 'paras', the largest group being the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), collaborate with the military and police.  The paramilitaries control Barrancabermeja, and have declared union members and activists military targets in their 'Dirty War' against dissent, collective bargaining and organizing.

'There are so many deaths,' says Ulpiano Quintero, the Secretary General of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT)--Barrancabermeja.  Quintero ticks off the names of some of the labor leaders killed, a fraction of the as many as 100+ eliminated every year.

Repression of labor organizing has not been limited to Barrancabermeja or Coca-Cola FEMSA workers.  SINALTRAINAL members working for Nestle have been harassed and murdered, and on March 12, 2003, Soraya Patricia Diaz, member of the Risaralda Teacher's Union, was assassinated in Agua Salada.  And according to Ulpiano Quintero, 'all this illegal activity is done with impunity.'

The impunity under which the paramilitaries operate is unlikely to decrease under the right-wing rule of President Alvaro Uribe.  Shortly after being inaugurated in August 2002, Uribe established a 'State of Unrest and Democratic Security' and several 'Zones of Rehabilitation and Consolidation,' not only intensifying the four decade-old civil war with the leftist Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionario de Colombia (FARC) and Ejercito Liberacion Nacional (ELN), but unleashing the military in conducting mass detentions of labor leaders, indigenous activists and leftists.  In early December of 2003, the Colombian Congress legalized Uribe's hard-line policies by passing an 'anti-terrorist' measure granting the military judicial police powers to conduct searches and raids without a warrant and make arrests solely on the basis of accusations.  Members of the security forces who commit human rights violations while battling 'terrorists' will be immune from prosecution.  For daring to question the administration's 'martial law' type tactics, a number of NGO's and activists were labeled by Uribe as acting in the 'service of terrorism,' putting them directly in the cross-hairs of the security forces and paramilitaries

In January 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell notified Congress that Colombia had passed the certification for human rights standards and could receive $34 million in military aid left over from the fiscal year 2003, and the U.S. Congress approved a total aid package of $700 million for this year.  Tax dollars will continue to flow into Colombia, despite the fact that, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the Bush administration has not abided by the law as specified in the Leahy Ammendment--that Colombian military units cannot receive U.S. aid until they sever ties with the paramilitaries.

But 'war is a business,' says Regulo Madero Fernandez, President of the Corporacion Regional para la Defensa de las Derechos Humanos--CREDHOS.  And though Coca-Cola claims to operate its business in a socially responsible manner, the workers and labor leaders at its subsidiary in Colombia continue to be fired, harassed and assassinated with impunity.

'We and our bottling partners operate in accordance with local laws...,' states Coke's headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.  But the law in Colombia is the law of the gun, with paramilitaries roaming Barrancabermeja and other parts of Colombia in collusion with U.S.-funded police and military units.  They target union leaders, activists, feminists and anyone who dissents, in what Juan Carlos Galvis calls 'a war versus the people.'
BRAD MILLAR

VENEZUALA

A group of 50 Coca-Cola workers announced that they were fired because of refusing to sign up against democratically elected President Hugo Chávez.

Daniel Centeno, secretary general of the Bolivarian Trade Union of Soft Drinks (Sintrab-Inbev) and worker of the company, said that Coca-Cola FEMSA de Venezuela's top managers decided to dismiss them as they could not show evidence of having signed the petition supporting a presidential recall vote..

Francisco Carrasquero, president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), said that 'a wave of opinion' is being created 'to ignore the results (of the ratification process for the presidential recall petition), discredit the electoral authority and provoke the
intervention of international organizations in Venezuela.'

The ratification process being held this weekend is actually the fourth signature collection campaign undertaken by the opposition in the last 18 months in its attempt to obtain a popular vote against the president.

'Washington is conspiring against Venezuela... and my country's people are willing to fight for their freedom, their sovereignty and their independence' said President Hugo Chávez on May 27, at the EU-Latin America and Caribbean summitin Guadalajara.