"Obey Your Conscience: Refuse Coke's Bitter Drink"

CPT and PJSN March on Coca-Cola
 
Between July 4-7, members of Christian Peacemaker Teams and the Peace and Justice Support Network conducted a commemoration of Colombian Coca-Cola bottlers assassinated by paramilitaries by holding a series of three prayer walks and vigils in front of the World of Coca-Cola, in Atlanta, GA. Atlanta is host to Coca-Cola's corporate headquarters. The commemoration coincided with the denominational conference of the Mennonite Church USA.
 
Beginning at the World Congress Center convention site, the group marched half-a-mile through downtown Atlanta to the World of Coca-Cola, a tourist-attraction public relations museum documenting Coke's changing advertising over the decades. In the plaza, the group prayed for an end to the murder of Colombians and read a litany of resistance to violence, invoking the names of the murdered Coke workers, and called on Coke to tell its Colombian bottling companies the violence must stop.
 
The motto of Sprite, a Coke product, is "Obey Your Thirst." CPT invited Mennonites to "Obey your conscience" and abstain from Coke products during the convention as a way of remembering assassinated and threatened Colombian workers. Colombian unions will be calling for an international boycott of Coke products on July 22.
 
Since the mid 1980's, nine Coke labor leaders have been killed. According to eye-witness testimony of Colombian workers, managers at Coca-Cola bottling plants use paramilitaries to intimidate, kidnap, torture and assassinate labor leaders as a way of undermining workers organizing. CPT's Colombia team, based in Barrancabermeja, knows some of these threatened workers. Worldwide, over 80% of all assassinated labor leaders are from Colombia. While Coke does not directly own these contracted bottling companies, it can exert significant influence over its bottlers. A growing movement of US justice and labor groups are pressuring Coke to take action.
 
CPT initiated conversation with Mennonite Mutual Aid whose socially responsible mutual funds include some stock in Coca-Cola. Mark Regier, MMA's Stewardship Investing Services Manager, explained that according to MMA's broader investment criteria, Coke qualified as a responsible corporation due to practices such as its charitable work and treatment of women in the workplace. But with constituents raising concern over treatment of Colombian Coca-Cola workers, Regier welcomed the opportunity to take these issues to his Coca-Cola contacts. Coca-Cola consistently denies that it has any linkages to and responsibility for the targeting of workers in Colombian Coca-Cola bottling plants.
 
------------------------
Mark Frey
Christian Peacemaker Teams
Chicago Support Team