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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 03:45 PM        Coca-Cola In India
http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=7728
ndia: Coke Adds Life?

Impoverished Farmers are Fighting to Stop Drinks Giant "Destroying Livelihoods"

By Paul Vallely, Jon Clarke and Liz Stuart in Kerala
Independent/UK
July 25, 2003

Three years ago, the little patch of land in the green, picturesque rolling hills of Palakkad in the Indian state of Kerala yielded 50 sacks of rice and 1,500 coconuts a year. It provided work for dozens of labourers. Then Coca-Cola arrived and built a 40-acre bottling plant next door.

In his last harvest, Shahul Hameed, the farmer who owns the modest smallholding, could coax only five sacks of rice from the land, and a meagre 200 coconuts. His irrigation wells have run dry. Meanwhile, the huge factory extracts up to 1.5 million litres of water a day from the deep wells it has drilled into the aquifer to produce Coke, Fanta, Sprite and the drink the locals call, without irony, Thumbs-Up.

But the cruellest twist is that the plant bottles a brand of mineral water while local people - who could never afford it - have to walk up to six miles twice a day to fetch water. The turbid, brackish water which remains at the bottom of their wells is now too high in dissolved salts to be healthy to drink, cook with or even wash in. Some claim it made them ill.

As the summer and the water crisis intensifies, the hardship of the local people is worsening. So is the row between them and the company whose name is for many a synonym for the global power of transnational capitalism. For the past 459 days, there has been a daily picket of the factory. There have been street demonstrations and rallies, and spontaneous blackening of Coca-Cola hoardings. More than 300 people have been arrested.

Then earlier this year the Perumatty panchayat (local council) revoked the factory's licence to operate. It did so despite losing almost half of its annual income - some 700,000 rupees (about ?9,000) - from the decision. Coca-Cola's lawyers appealed to the next level of government, which suspended the revocation and allowed the factory to continue operating. The matter comes to a head at an appeal before the state government next week.

It is an iconic dispute, a David and Goliath battle between multinational power and some of the world's poorest people. Many of those affected are classed by the Indian government as "primitive tribals". Most of the rest are dalits - "untouchables". Few in power took much notice when they began to complain, six months after the factory opened, of changes in the quantity and quality of well water. So the anger of the local people grew.

Shahul Hameed looked out over one of his bone-dry paddy fields this week and visibly shook with anger. "My irrigation pump, which I installed with a bank loan in 1980, used to run for 12 hours throughout the night; now it runs dry after 30 minutes," he said, above the noise of clinking glass from the factory next door. "Coke managed to acquire all the lowest lying land in the area and after digging a series of deep wells they took all the water. It is downright theft."

Every day 85 lorryloads leave the premises, each containing 550 cases of 24 bottles. To produce them the company siphons off enough water to meet the minimum requirements of about 20,000 people. They have not only lost their water but, with the dried-out farms closing, also their jobs. Those worst affected are up to 10,000 landless labourers.

Coca-Cola denies responsibility for all this. In a statement from its headquarters in Atlanta, it said: "We would like to emphasise that, to the best of our knowledge, these allegations made against the plant in Kerala are untrue.

"In fact, we believe that the allegations are politically motivated. The plant concerned has not drained the aquifers and uses only six bore wells. In fact, the local villages receive tankers of free water supplies each day from the plant to supplement their existing water sources." And, it said, the company was establishing an elaborate system for rainwater harvesting.

The real culprit, the company says, is a reduction in rainfall in the area - from 1,213 mm in 2000, to 1,147mm in 2001 and just 670mm in 2002. It quotes India's National Geophysical Research Institute in Hyderabad as saying: "There is no field evidence of overexploitation of the groundwater reserves in the plant area."

All of this is disputed. A local human rights and development organisation, VAK, which is funded by Christian Aid, claims state meteorological reports show rainfall rose between 2000 and 2001. Another campaign group, CorpWatch India, challenges Coke's claims about rainwater harvesting, saying "how much you save through your rainwater harvesting is not the issue; how much additional load you add to the aquifer is".

The quality of the water is an issue too. CorpWatch sent samples for analysis to the United States. The resulting report concluded that high levels of dissolved salts were produced by the fast rate of depletion of the aquifer - and that washing in it would cause "severe hardship"..

Then there is pollution. Chemical effluents produced by bottle-washing contaminate the groundwater, protesters say. Early attempts to dry the foul-smelling slurry and market it as fertiliser failed when farmers started to develop sores on their skin and noticed that their coconut palms were dying. The plant tried to give it away but no one wanted it. Protesters have been gathering it up and dumping it in front of the plant.

The company denies there is a problem. It says: "Technologies are also equivalent to most Coca-Cola bottling plants in the United States and Europe. Further, our effluents comply with standards and norms set by the Kerala State Pollution Control Board."

The local authorities have backed the multinational, arguing that it creates jobs. A wide spectrum of politicians shared a platform at a rally outside the factory last year to threaten "dire consequences" if the protests did not stop.

Demonstrators took no notice. Local council tax records, they said, showed that there are only 134 permanent staff at the plant. Indeed, some of the protesters had once worked there but quit. "'I used to get terrible headaches working there," Saraswathi Kaliappan, 38, who worked as a bottle washer for two years, said. Conditions were so poor she claimed she wouldn't go back if the pay was doubled.

But then, in April, the local council changed its mind. Prompted by new data from the Kerala State Health Department that people should not drink from wells neighbouring the plant, it acted. The panchayat decided not to renew the industrial licence issued to Coca-Cola on the ground of "protecting public interest".

"We were persuaded the company would bring money and jobs to the area," Arychami Krishnan, the council's president, said. "But the reality is few local people have been employed and the water situation and pollution is a calamity."

The decision did not stand for long. Coca-Cola workers set up a counter-protest outside the council headquarters and 1,000 demonstrators marched on the town hall. The US ambassador to India wrote to the Indian Prime Minister, stating: "I would like to bring to your attention, and seek your help in resolving, a potentially serious investment problem of some significance to both our countries. The case involves Coca-Cola, one of the largest single foreign investors in India." The Kerala Local Self Government Department ruled the factory could stay open pending next week's appeal hearing.

Aid agency campaigners have protested. "This is a shocking situation where it appears that the rights of a big corporation are being put above those of poor communities," an Action Aid spokesman said. "This is a classic case of corporate irresponsibility," said Christian Aid, which is calling for "binding international regulations".

But few expect that the final verdict for the waterless people of Kerala will be anything other than "Let them drink Coke".
How Search for Headache Remedy Spawned Global Industry

By Oliver Duff

* Coca-Cola started life in Atlanta in 1886, the result of a search for a headache remedy.

* It is now the biggest selling and most popular soft drink in history.

* The first international bottling plants opened in 1906 in Canada, Cuba and Panama.

* Among its brands are Sprite, Dr Pepper, Bacardi Mixers, Nestl?, Nescaf?, Schweppes and Fanta.

* More than 13,000 Coca-Cola beverages are consumed every second of the day, reaching six billion consumers.

* 70 per cent of its income comes from outside the US.

* In 2000 Coca-Cola paid out $192.5m (?120m) to African-American employees who accused the company of racial discrimination.

* Coke remains the biggest-selling soft drink brand in America, but sales there slumped by 2 per cent in 2002.
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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 04:33 PM       
gee, and we don't understand why they(many 3rd world peoples) hate us!
Americas prosperity comes at the price of many others livleyhoods..
here's a good tune about Coke.
"Drink of the Death Squads"
http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/3126/3126031.html

fucking corporate bastards using the right of 'free trade' to screw everybody while they make a buck. how the hell can anyone call this progress or prosperity?
Coke is responsible for many murders of labor union folks in 3rd world countries, they have yet to do anything but say things like 'this shouldnt happen' without firing anyone or even reprimands.

capitalism without morality just sucks so freaking bad.
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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 04:37 PM       
capitalism without morality? wha-a-a-a? we agr....agree...on something? oh good Lord, I can see the Horsemen...
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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 04:59 PM       
IBM is moving 3 million US jobs to India by 2015. Why? "Because our competitors are doing it."
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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 05:32 PM       
cheers italian

oh yea, not sure of the numbers but i just heard that the cost of the war on iraq so far is nearly equal to the amount corporate america has escaped in taxes by moving thier offices/plants out of the country! 8(
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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 07:59 PM       
The factories and shit in India are actually helping the Indian economy by providing jobs. Rather than bitch about how he can't farm coconuts anymore, why doesn't that guy get a job at the Coke plant? He lives right next door.
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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 08:12 PM       
Quote:
Originally Posted by AChimp
The factories and shit in India are actually helping the Indian economy by providing jobs.
And destroying the economy and jobs here when they move them. Or did you just forget about that part?
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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 09:48 PM       
Quote:
Originally Posted by AChimp
The factories and shit in India are actually helping the Indian economy by providing jobs. Rather than bitch about how he can't farm coconuts anymore, why doesn't that guy get a job at the Coke plant? He lives right next door.
Did you even read the article? Let me spell it out for you in a way even you can understand:
COKE SUCKING UP WATER. NO WATER FOR VILLAGE.
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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 10:25 PM       
So? They should drink Coke.
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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 10:30 PM       
Let them eat cake, too.
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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 10:53 PM       
I'm sure Coke's diversified into that, too.
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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 10:58 PM       
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Originally Posted by AChimp
So? They should drink Coke.
Are you really this much of a moron or just pretending?
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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 11:05 PM       
What? The Coke is probably healthier than that crappy water they have to walk miles to fetch. Besides, there's probably a Coke machine on the street corner or something, and it's most likely the best stocked in all of India.
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Old Jul 29th, 2003, 11:35 PM       
I don't see the problem personally. Maybe I'm just blind
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Old Jul 30th, 2003, 12:15 AM       
Quote:
Originally Posted by AChimp
What? The Coke is probably healthier than that crappy water they have to walk miles to fetch. Besides, there's probably a Coke machine on the street corner or something, and it's most likely the best stocked in all of India.
jus because they're a 3rd world country doesnt mean they dont have clean water, i mean they could be from spring water from teh himalayas which is remotely close to india...
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Old Jul 30th, 2003, 02:30 PM       
http://www.fanta.dk/showmovie.asp?mi...B-DF1AB2BCA58C
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Old Jul 30th, 2003, 06:09 PM       
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Originally Posted by AChimp
What? The Coke is probably healthier than that crappy water they have to walk miles to fetch. Besides, there's probably a Coke machine on the street corner or something, and it's most likely the best stocked in all of India.
Yep...Coke is just fucking great for bathing, cooking, and irrigating your crops. Will a single bottling plant employ the ten thousand landless laborers who lost their farms due to lack of water? Especially when there are only 134 permenant staff there, some of whom got sick due to poor conditions.
And I'm sure they will love having to to pay for Coke when water is/was basically free.

You didn't even read it, did you?
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Old Jul 30th, 2003, 07:26 PM       
Wait... how are they taking up all the water?
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Old Jul 31st, 2003, 09:38 AM       
Can't run a plant at all without using a lot of water for drinking, cooling, cleaning. Can't run a WATER BOTTLING plant without using a whole lot more.



And I'm pretty sure Chimp is being Ironic.
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Old Jul 31st, 2003, 10:45 AM       
Yeah, he does that but good.

Favorite (not mine) saying by a sergeant who used to be my supervisor on the enemy ... whomever they were at the time :/

"We'll have them drinking cokes and smoking Marlboros inside a month!"

I don't know why I brought that up or if it's even relevant.
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Old Jul 31st, 2003, 01:22 PM       
Quote:
Originally Posted by mburbank
Can't run a plant at all without using a lot of water for drinking, cooling, cleaning. Can't run a WATER BOTTLING plant without using a whole lot more.



And I'm pretty sure Chimp is being Ironic.

Right... but I was under the impression that Coca Cola dug their own wells to collect water.
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Old Jul 31st, 2003, 01:42 PM       
There is only so much water in the ground, One and Only.
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Old Jul 31st, 2003, 01:46 PM       
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There is only so much water in the ground, One and Only.
And it is all under the bridge at this point.
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Old Jul 31st, 2003, 02:07 PM        Alternatives...
Would it be slanderous of me to alternatively point out that while it's true that the Coke factory may have put the squeeze on the local thriving coconut and rice industry, it has no doubt provided a substantial number of decent paying jobs for those same locals?

I think Senor Chimp was only half kidding. Mr. Coconut farmer would likely make in a week at the factory what he would have earned from his annual haul of ripe, moist coconuts. Take the factory away so the rice growers can be prospersous again. And then you can post another article about how an evil American corporation sent hundreds of local workers back into poverty by shutting down its plant. That would be swell.
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Old Jul 31st, 2003, 02:29 PM        Re: Alternatives...
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Originally Posted by GAsux
Would it be slanderous of me to alternatively point out that while it's true that the Coke factory may have put the squeeze on the local thriving coconut and rice industry, it has no doubt provided a substantial number of decent paying jobs for those same locals?

I think Senor Chimp was only half kidding. Mr. Coconut farmer would likely make in a week at the factory what he would have earned from his annual haul of ripe, moist coconuts. Take the factory away so the rice growers can be prospersous again. And then you can post another article about how an evil American corporation sent hundreds of local workers back into poverty by shutting down its plant. That would be swell.
Quote:
Demonstrators took no notice. Local council tax records, they said, showed that there are only 134 permanent staff at the plant. Indeed, some of the protesters had once worked there but quit. "'I used to get terrible headaches working there," Saraswathi Kaliappan, 38, who worked as a bottle washer for two years, said. Conditions were so poor she claimed she wouldn't go back if the pay was doubled.
Next time, try READING THE FUCKING ARTICLE before you post your inane comments!
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