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New Lawsuit Against Coca-Cola for Colombia Abuses
ILRF & USW Bring New Complaint Against Coca-Cola, Alleging Complicity
With the Colombian DAS and AUC Paramilitaries in Killing of Labor
Leader
International Labor Rights Fund
June 2, 2006
Contact:
Terry Collingsworth (202) 347-4100, Ext. 104
Daniel Kovalik (412) 562-2518
On Friday, June 2, 2006, the ILRF and USW filed a new Alien Tort Claims
Act case against the Coca-Cola Company and its Latin American Bottler,
Coca-Cola FEMSA. This new Complaint charges that managers at the Coke
bottling plant in Barranquilla, Colombia conspired with both the Colombian
Administrative Department of Security (“DAS”) and the AUC paramilitaries
to intimidate, threaten and ultimately kill SINALTRAINAL trade union
leader Adolfo de Jesus Munera on August 31, 2002. The Complaint further
allege that, despite a number of warnings to Coca-Cola management
in Atlanta that the management at the Barranquilla bottler has continued
to meet with and provide plant access to paramilitaries, the paramilitary
infiltration of this bottling plant continues unabated to this day.
Meanwhile, these same paramilitaries have continued to threaten SINALTRAINAL
members and leaders with death and even kidnapped the child of one
SINALTRAINAL leader to pressure him into refraining from his union
activities.
These allegations come at a time when the DAS in Colombia has come
under fire for collaborating with paramilitary forces. In particular,
credible allegations have surfaced in recent weeks that the DAS, which
has responsibility to protect trade unionists under threat has actually
been creating and maintaining hit lists of trade union leaders and
providing these lists to the paramilitaries to act upon. These allegations
also come at a time when the Coca-Cola Company has been kicked off
of numerous campuses throughout the U.S. over allegations that it
has failed to adequately address such labor and human rights abuses
in Colombia.
According to ILRF Executive Director Terry Collingsworth, “This new
Complaint underscores the need for The Coca-Cola Company to spend
more of its effort and resources in protecting the lives and well-being
of its workers in Colombia in lieu of focusing on its public relations
campaign to deflect the allegations of abuse being leveled against
it.” There is no question, however, that it is the Coca-Cola Company
that is the proper defendant in this case because it has complete
control of its empire and Coca-Cola managers have been traversing
the United States claiming that the Coca-Cola Compnay is taking all
possible steps to address human rights violations in its bottling
plants in Colombia. USW Associate General Counsel Daniel Kovalik states
that “The continued assassination of trade unionists in Colombia with
the complicity of the Colombian DAS and military, as well as corporate
interests, calls into grave question the propriety of the U.S.’s continued
commitment to aid for the Colombian military forces.”
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