Coke with Yet Another New Twist: Toxic Cola

Opinion By Amit Srivastava, Special to CorpWatch

January 17, 2004, CorpWatch

http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=9568

The Indian parliament has banned the sale of Coke and Pepsi
products in its cafeteria. Indian parliamentarians should take the
logical next step, and ban the sale of Coke and Pepsi products in
the entire country.

The ban came as the result of tests, including those by the Indian
government, which found high concentrations of pesticides and
insecticides, including lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos,
in the colas, making them unfit for consumption. Some samples
tested showed the presence of these toxins to be more than 30
times the standard allowed by the European Union. Tests of samples
taken from the US of the same drinks were found to be safe.

Double standards? You bet. An isolated incident? Not quite. Large
multinationals are notorious for serving up products that have
been banned in the West to new and emerging markets in developing
countries. The tobacco industry, faced with dwindling sales after
successful anti-tobacco initiatives in the US, is investing
heavily in addicting developing countries. Dow Chemical (owner of
the Union Carbide company of the Bhopal gas disaster fame)
aggressively markets the pesticide Dursban in India, in spite of
the US Environmental Protection Agency announcing plans to phase
out Dursban in the US because it is harmful to humans.

More on Coke in India:

Indian NGO Finds Pesticides in Colas

Coca-Cola India has hired a public relations firm, Perfect
Relations, to rebuild its tarnished image in India. But the story
of Coca-Cola in India goes much deeper than the toxic colas being
served to the public, and no measure of public relations alone can
solve this problem.

Communities in and around Coca-Cola’s bottling operations are
facing severe shortages of water as a result of the cola major
sucking huge amounts of water from the common groundwater source.
To add insult to injury, the scarce water that remains has been
polluted by Coca-Cola as a result of its operations. In a gesture
of goodwill, Coca-Cola now proudly trucks in water tankers for the
community. And the main raw material for Coca-Cola’s product —
water — is practically free for the cola major.

Water problems created by Coca-Cola are not an isolated incident.
At least five communities in India located next to Coca-Cola
facilities are facing similar problems, and the number of families
affected, mostly the rural poor, runs into the thousands.

And as if there wasn’t enough fizz in the water already, so to
speak, Coca-Cola, in another goodwill gesture, was giving away the
toxic sludge from its plant in Kerala to farmers for free — as
fertilizer! Tests on samples of the toxic sludge commissioned by
BBC, not surprisingly, found high levels of lead and cadmium.

Coca-Cola has chosen to "fix" the problem of water shortage and
groundwater pollution by assigning it to its public relations
department. Any letter or email to Coke on this issue will be
responded to by a form letter, accusing the issue to be the work
of a "handful of extremists". A visit to the communities, as well
as numerous studies including those by government agencies, will
confirm that nothing could be further from the truth. Thousands of
people continue to protest Coke facilities all across India.

Unable to control the increasing number of communities speaking
out against Coca-Cola, we are now witnessing the increasing use of
force in dealing with local complaints against the cola
multinational. On September 11 this year, armed security forces
violently attacked a peaceful demonstration of over a thousand
community members in Mehdiganj, Uttar Pradesh, resulting in grave
injuries to some. On August 30, this time in Kerala, 13 activists
were arrested during a peaceful demonstration and a leader of the
movement was severely beaten by the police.

Coca-Cola, along with the government, may believe that the use of
force will make the problem go away. It was this kind of tactics
which has led to a lawsuit in the US against the Colombian
subsidiary of Coca-Cola for using para-military forces to kill
union leaders in Coca-Cola plants in Colombia.

Such blatant abuses by a large multinational like Coca-Cola
highlight the problems of economic globalization. Communities no
longer have any control over their natural resources or even
development policies that directly affect their lives. Governments
such as India prefer to turn a blind eye to serious abuses in the
fears that it will hinder further foreign investment- a criteria
often used by the US to "measure" a country’s commitment to the
war on terrorism. And they may have a point. The US government has
intervened strongly on behalf of Enron and Coca-Cola in India in
the past. And institutions such as the World Trade Organization,
essentially a corporate bill of rights, will make it a crime to
stop Coca-Cola from perpetuating such abuses.

For the communities in India reeling from Coca-Cola’s practices,
Atlanta based Coca-Cola is the oppressor. Very ironic, given that
Atlanta is the center of the civil rights movement in the US.
Contrary to Coca-Cola’s slogan about it being the real thing, it’s
more like the unreal thing.

[Amit Srivastava coordinates the India Resource Center,
www.indiaresource.org, a project of Global Resistance, a San
Francisco-based organization that works closely with social
movements in India and globally.]

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