Coca-Cola: A Classic
Get Your Facts Right, Mr Editor
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Author:
Ratheesh Das
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Time:
07/05/2006 11:13
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Text:
I had written a personal mail to Joel after reading his article in this website to point out certain inaccuracies. He has not responded to me even after a week, giving me the impression that he is conceding the points I had raised. I am giving below the my mail Joel pointing out such inaccuracies in the article.
Dear Mr Joel,
Reference your article on Coca-Cola in Political Affairs Magazine Website. I am a person living in a village where Coca-Cola has reportedly caused water depletion. Reading your article, I felt sad for your readers. I quote below the passage you had written about Coca-Cola operations in India and point out the points of inaccuracy. If it can be this wrong, I can imagine how imaginative rest of the article could be. Please spend a while to do research on the Internet or elsehwhere to get the facts right. At least basic facts have to be right in an article for people to trust your analysis and conclusions.
Water Heist
Coke’s complicity in attacks on trade union members in Colombia and other countries isn’t the only issue fueling anger at the company. In the state of Kerala, India, where the South India Bottling Company manufactured the soft drink exclusively for Coke until 2004, (South Indian Bottling Company is not In Kerala, but in the nearby state of Tamil Nadu and it began production two months ago) labor union and environmental critics of the company charged the Coke bottler with depleting and contaminating the water table (these charges are in Kerala plant and labour unions never made such charges). The local city (not city, it is village) council and the Kerala High Court agreed with the community (High Court disagreed with the village council and said the Company can take five lakh litres of water daily) and withdrew the company’s license (licence renewal was not done by the village council, but after the High Court order, it is being renewed every three months), forcing the plant to close (the plant is not operating to avoid confronation with people like me in the area). According to War on Want, subsequent analysis of the water in the area (who analysed? None analysed it so far. I would welcome if you could come do it, avoiding this kind of desktop works and lip service) showed that it had become unfit for both human consumption and irrigation as a result of Coke’s usage. Communities in the states of Rajasthan, Utter Pradash and Maharashtra have had similar experiences, though Coke-controlled bottlers remain in operation in those places (get you facts rights in these cases too...since I am not from these places, I am venturing into it).
Last year, a local union leader in Kerala affiliated with the Center of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), R. Karumalayan (no such union leader in Kerala, could be from Tamil Nadu), said, "The track record of Coca Cola in India is not encouraging. Moreover, several parts of Tirunelveli already face drinking water problems and if the company is to draw 5 lakh litres of water from the Tamiraparani River as proposed, the region is sure to face severe water crisis in the future." In effect, killer Coke demands that local communities exchange their free drinking water for cola.
In 2003, Indian youth organization, All-India Youth Federation (AIYF), called for the closure of Coca-Cola bottling facilities due both to the water shortages and the increase in toxicity levels in well water created by the plant’s operations. (it was organisations like Greenpeace that first made such demands in 2003 and the Greenpeace campaigner who made the demand has joined Coca-Cola after failing to prove all these allegations). While both CITU and AIYF have maintained strong pressure on Coca-Cola and the state and national government’s in India, neither organization has endorsed the international boycott. The Democratic Youth Federation of India, the largest youth movement in India with 12.5 million members, however, has endorsed boycotts of both Coca-Cola and Pepsi and other goods manufactured by US-based multinational corporations (You must referring to anti-imperialist campaign during the Iraq War by these organisation in 2003. There is no boycott by any organisations exist in Kerala).
It is a shame that an editor's article is full of complete discrepency. Please get your facts right before indulging in desktop activism and journalism.
Best of luck.
Ratheesh Das
Plachimada, Kerala
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Message threads
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Ratheesh Das
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07/05/2006 11:13
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Joel Wendland
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07/06/2006 11:48
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Joel Wendland
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07/06/2006 19:54
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