Report from Scott Nicholson, University of Montana, April 22, 2003

Hi All,
Way to go Berkeley!

On April 22, William Mendoza (president of Sinaltrainal, the Coca-Cola workers’ union, in the city of Barrancabermeja in Colombia) and I had a meeting with University of Montana president, George Dennison. When we arrived for the meeting, we found that S’bu Mngadi (Coke’s director of media relations) was also there. He’s the Coke rep. that spoke at Berkeley this week. To quickly and easily send a message to Mngadi, see the end of this message.

Last December, the university signed a seven-year exclusive contract with Coke. In addition to granting Coke a monopoly for the sale of beverage products on campus, Coke can now refer to itself as a “sponsor” of the University of Montana, and can use the university’s name, teams, logos, and mascots in its advertising. In exchange, Coke is paying the university $303,600 per year.

William began the meeting by describing four specific cases of collaboration between Coca-Cola and the paramilitaries:

1. Isidro Segundo Gil, president of the local union, was murdered by the paramilitaries inside the Coke bottling plant in Carepa on December 5, 1996. Four days later, the paramilitaries entered the plant and told the workers they had until 4 P.M. to resign from the union. The workers did resign and the union no longer exists in Carepa.

2. Sazl Rincón, a paramilitary, went into the Coke plant in Barrancabermeja and met with Reynaldo Gonzales (one of the managers) on October 2, 2002. Juan Carlos Galvis, vice president of the local union, confronted Gonzales about the meeting with Rincón. Gonzales confirmed that Rincón was a paramilitary and said he was a client.

3. Miguel Imbreth, a paramilitary leader, went into the Coke plant in Barrancabermeja on March 4, 2003. When he was inside the Customer Service office, he identified himself as a paramilitary. Two days later, on March 6, he was again allowed inside the plant.

4. Three paramilitaries tried to kidnap William’s daughter, Karen, when she and her mother were in the central plaza of Barrancabermeja on June 18, 2002. Two days later, the paramilitaries called William and told him that he had been lucky — the paramilitaries had been planning on killing Karen. They said that if William didn’t stop denouncing Coca-Cola, they were going to kill one of the members of his family.

Mngadi responded by saying that these were baseless allegations that had never been tried nor proven in a court of law. I asked him if he had any idea how the Colombia legal system actually works, and he responded that Coke recognizes the authorities in all the countries where it operates.

Mngadi then handed out a document listing the benefits that he said were for all of the Coca-Cola workers in Colombia. William pointed out that the benefits are only for the 16 percent of the workers that have collective bargaining agreements with Coke — the 84 percent of the workers that are temporary employees don’t have any benefits.

William asked Mngadi, “Do you know where my family is right now?“ William’s family is in hiding following death threats on January 7 and 17 of this year. Mngadi responded, “I thought you came here to discuss the situation of all the Coca-Cola workers, and not just your personal situation.”

I asked Mngadi if the Coca-Cola Company denies that Isidro Gil was murdered inside the Coke plant in Carepa by the paramilitaries. Mngadi responded that Coke doesn’t have any evidence of that.

After the meeting was over, Mngadi complained that we had put his e-mail address on our web site. He was much more concerned about that, than he was with the murder and repression of union activists in Colombia. Since then, we’ve been strongly encouraging people to go to our site — www.caja.org/coke — and send Mngadi a message. By just entering your name and e-mail address, and hitting send, you send a message to Mngadi and Dennis Anderson (manager of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Montana) that informs them of your decision to boycott Coke because of their violation of human rights in Colombia and the exclusive contract with the university. Please take a moment now to use the site and send Mngadi a message!

In solidarity,

Scott Nicholson
Community Action for Justice in the Americas
Missoula, Montana