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COKE CAN'T HIDE ITS CRIMES IN COLOMBIA A few corporate power brokers at Coca-Cola and Atlanta-based SunTrust Banks today stand accused as accessories to a violent crime wave. While they sit on their assets, workers at Coke bottling plants in Colombia risk their lives every day simply by going to work. The world's largest beverage company recently launched a $250 million U.S. advertising blitz on behalf of its flagship brand, keyed to the theme, "Coca-Cola…Real." Meanwhile, the influential men who comprise the "$ix-Pack" subbornly refuse to acknowledge the horrific reality that Colombian Coke workers and their families are facing. Let's take a look at six individuals who could easily point Coke in the right direction — if only they would challenge the complacency and indifference that envelops their respective boardrooms. Warren Buffett, No. 2 on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans, has an estimated net worth of $30.5 billion. Nebraska's celebrated "corn-fed capitalist," chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, owns more than 200 million shares (8.1%) of Coke stock and has served on Coke's Board of Directors since 1989. Buffett not only ranks as the top Coke shareholder, but owns five million-plus shares (more than 2%) of SunTrust Banks, the financial institution so closely tied to Coke since its first public stock offering in 1919 that it is known as "Coke's bank." Douglas Daft, Chairman and CEO of the Coca-Cola Co., raked in more than $105 million in compensation for 2001. He owns 3.5 million Coke shares and 9,413 shares of SunTrust, where he sits on the Board of Directors. A form letter written "on behalf of" Daft last year to whitewash Coke's role in Colombia claimed there's "no evidence" to support "outrageous allegations against the company and its bottling partners." Coke Director Barry Diller, Chairman and CEO of USA Interactive, is a Hollywood honcho who has "run more major studios — Paramount, Fox, Universal — than any mogul still standing," according to Vanity Fair. With a net worth estimated at $900 million in 2001, he was quoted in The Wall Street Journal recently on corporate values: "When the values are right, good ideas catch on." SunTrust Banks Chairman, President and CEO Phillip Humann also a director of Coca-Cola Enterprises, owns 668,826 shares of the bank and 41,402 shares of CCE, Coke's largest subsidiary. His 2001 compensation was a mere $2.27 million. Gary Fayard, Coca-Cola's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, serves on the boards of CCE and Panamerican Beverages (also known as Panamco), one of Coke's "anchor bottlers" and the distributor of its products in all of Venuzuela, most of Colombia and parts of Brazil, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama. He may soon have an expanded role in the "new" company to be formed when Panamco, based in Miami, merges wtih Coca-Cola Femsa, based in Mexico. Coke Director Donald McHenry is a professor at Georgetown University and a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He owns 35,066 shares of Coke stock. He frequently spoke out on human rights while serving in the Carter Administration, but he can't seem to face up to Coke's shameful collaboration with paramilitary terrorists and unionbusters in Colombia.
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