Report from Boycott Killer Coke meeting in Trinity

dublin | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Tuesday February 27, 2007 12:31 by Boycott Killer Coke

There was a good turnout in the Davis Theatre in Trinity for a meeting hosted by TCD One World, Anarchist Society, Labour Youth, Pol Soc and SWSS.

The meeting started with two short news videos which featured Coca Cola workers in Colombia and also the leader of an independent investigation to the bottling plants.

Ray Rogers

Ray Rogers of the Stop Killer Coke campaign in the U.S.A. then took to the floor and spoke for about 40 minutes about Cokes human rights abuses around the world focusing in particular on Colombia but also referring to India, Mexico, Turkey and Sudan.

There was then a number of questions from the floor which Ray answered in great detail. Despite being invited to debate and contribute no-one from the pro Coke side made any comments, contributions or fielded any questions.

To give an example of the foul play and dirty tricks that the Coca Cola coporation has engaged in Ray talked about the pesticide issue in India. A laboratory in India sampled Coke products and found pesticide levels as high as up to over 40 times what is allowed in EU countries.

Coke disputed these claims - and produced results from a presitgious UK lab that found the level of pesticides to be marginal.

After further investigation by the Stop Killer Coke campaign it transpired that the laboratory in the UK - rather than sourcing its Coke for testing independently from shops in India - got its Coke sample to test "independently" from none other than the Coca Cola Corporation itself. Surprise, surprise that Coke didn't hand over a poisonous sample of Coke to be tested!

So far the pro Coke campaign in Trinity has barely shown its face - voting takes place over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with a result in the third referendum on Coke expected on Thursday evening.

Members and supporters of the Boycott Killer Coke campaign