Toxic Cola

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

 

 

Coke with Yet Another New Twist: Toxic Cola

 

 

 

Opinion

By Amit Srivastava

Special to CorpWatch

January 17, 2004

 

 

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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