As if this isn’t enough, wells around Indian bottling plants—already polluted from toxic sludge and waste water—are drying up due to Coca-Cola’s excessive water extraction. It takes nine liters of water to manufacture one liter of Coke, and the plant in Plachimida is capable of drawing 500,000 liters a day from local aquifers with disastrous results for the surrounding villagers. These larger water privatization issues have motivated six communities in India to take action against Coca-Cola. Their vigils and hunger strikes are well documented by the India Resource Center, an organization set up to aid the fight against corporate globalization in India. In August of 2005 activists gained a major victory when the Kerala State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) ordered the plant shut down. Their struggle continues as they focus on forcing the closure of bottling plants in Mehdiganj and Kala Dera, while ensuring Plachimida’s remains closed. To the Indian villagers, the few low-paying jobs these bottling plants provide (they are largely mechanized and bring in outside contractors) aren’t worth the costs of operation.

Coke Denies Responsibility

Expectedly, the Coca-Cola Company has absolved themselves of any wrongdoing by attempting to spin their problems away. While the company’s stance is filled with inconsistencies, it is mainly based around a strategy of distancing themselves from their bottling companies while stigmatizing SINTRAINAL and communities in India. The company maintains it can’t be held responsible for the actions of its bottling companies since they are in fact “independent businesses.” This argument allowed Coke to be dismissed from the Tort Claims lawsuit in Miami, but their rhetoric quickly becomes laughable upon closer scrutiny. Workers who apply for a job at any bottling plant fill out a Coca-Cola application form, wear a Coca-Cola logo on their uniforms, and follow Coca-Cola’s product guidelines. The Coca-Cola Company even owns 46 percent of voting stock in Coca-Cola Femsa-Panamco—one of the “independent” bottling companies involved in the lawsuit. Coca-Cola would no doubt take action if their meticulous bottling standards were ignored and yet it ignores the violations taking place in Columbia. One can only conclude this is because the convenient executions of union members are beneficial to the company.

Perhaps using Coca-Cola’s sugary, mildly-addictive soft drink as a metaphor for the American way is fitting after all.

Through a website ironically called “Coke Facts,” the company is attempting to discredit the first hand accounts of villagers in India, the findings of the BBC and the CSE, and the testimony of SINTRAINAL members. The site makes claims about the protection it offers its union members in Columbia (the workers deny this exists) while quoting another union, SINALTRAINBEC, who has publicly stated they’ve seen no evidence plant managers are working with paramilitaries. The statement doesn’t hold much weight as SINALTRAINBEC only has ten members and was set up by the company. Close analysis of the site’s other assertions reveal them for what they are—skillful sleights of hand.

Perhaps using Coca-Cola’s sugary, mildly-addictive soft drink as a metaphor for the American way is fitting after all. The rationale employed by Coke to distance itself from the repercussions of its deplorable business practices sounds eerily familiar to the techniques the Bush Administration has used to separate itself from the results of its foreign policy. This fragile façade of marketing magic is crumbling away, revealing the atrocities necessary to keep an American icon afloat in an age of corporate expansionism. It is going to take more than ubiquitous advertising and appeals to the company’s core values of “uplifting refreshment, stubborn optimism, and universal connections,” to resurrect the image of this degenerate brand. Around the globe, entire cities and universities are boycotting Coca-Cola products—including Minute Maid and Frutopia—and demanding the corporation be held accountable for the actions being carried out in its trademarked name. It is time to join them in solidarity and just say no to Coke.

For more information visit killercoke.org or indiaresource.org

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