Protest planned at Coca-Cola launch, 19-2-04

On 17/02/04 at 20:38 John Smith wrote:

>Please note the following forwarded message from the Colombia Solidarity
>Campaign. There WILL BE a protest at the Peace Gardens to coincide with
>Coca-Cola's stunt... please get there if you can; please cascade this
>message to everyone you feel should know. Within hours of launching the
>protest, hundreds of people in Sheffield already know of it. By teatime
>tomorrow it will be thousands.
>
>A comment: there is something deeply ironic about Coke's launching of a
>new line of purified tap water. Colombia's food workers' union,
>SINALTRAINAL, charges Coca-Cola with impeding programmes in various Latin
>American countries aimed at cleaning up the polluted drinking water that
>forces millions of people to instead consume soft drinks.... and just a
>few days ago the Indian government upheld charges that Coca-Cola was
>selling soft drinks that are contaminated with pesticides and other
>toxins, at up to 40 times the level permitted in the EU. Coke's head of
>operations in India complained that the Indian government shouldn't be
>making a fuss about contaminants in its products. "Most of India's
>drinking water is unfit for human consumption but the politicians have
>found it more convenient to go for the global brand names," he said.
>
>
>
>Forwarded from Colombia Solidarity Campaign...
>
>Dear friends in Sheffield and area,
>
>Coca Cola wants to promote its new water product Dasani through a show in
>Sheffield this Thursday lunchtime. The company is using dare-devil divers
>to get a lot of publicity in local and national press.
>
>On behalf of the families of eight assassinated Colombian trade unionists
>and their trade union SINALTRAINAL we call for protests at the launch and
>an immediate boycott of Dasani and all other Coke products. Coke has got
>blood on its hands.
>
>SINALTRAINAL demands that Coca Cola:
>
> a.. publicly recognises that it benefited from the crimes committed by
>paramilitary groups continually carried out against the human rights of
>the workers and the communities
> b.. pays compensation for the damages caused
> c.. hands over to justice those criminals who carried out actions to its
>benefit
> d.. commits itself to not making any new attacks on our people and
>negotiates with the union ways to protect life, with international
>witnesses.
>The launch will be at Peace Gardens, Pinstone Street from 12 noon.
>
>Please let me or local contacts know if you can come.
>
>We have bulletins and (some) placards, and we are printing new leaflets
>tomorrow (Wednesday) and can arrange to get them all to you.
>
>The bigger and noisier the turn out the better.
>
>Andy Higginbottom
>Secretary, Colombia Solidarity Campaign
>
>(For further information see Coke Activists Pack
> http://colombiasolidarity.org.uk/cocacolacampaign.html and Colombia
>Solidarity Bulletin No 11
> http://colombiasolidarity.org.uk/Solidarity%2011/SolidarityNo11.html)
>
>
>"SM" reports: This is Coke's offering for the health conscious. This isn't
>actually a natural mineral water, rather they strip the impurities from
>tap water and then add the minerals. Ooh err! The corporate spiel that I
>was handed at work says that they can turn the flow on or off at the touch
>of a button allowing them to optimise production for warm periods. Expect
>a huge campaign in then next couple of months, big enough to rival the
>relaunch of Walkers Cheese and Onion crisps. They make the process sound
>all nice and expensive, expensive for us customers, nice - tastes awful,
>like Vittel but even nastier (I didn't think it possible, but it's true!)