International Rights Advocates, a non-profit human rights organization, and the Conrad and Scherer law firm filed a new civil lawsuit against The Coca-Cola Company. The case was first filed in the State Supreme Court in New York on February 25, 2010, and in April it was moved to the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York (Case # 10-CIV-03120).
The case involves a campaign of violence that includes rape, attempted murder and murder against two Guatemalan trade unionists and their families. The two trade unionists are Jose Armando Palacios, who was forced to flee to the U.S. in early 2006, and Jose Alberto Vicente Chavez, whose son and nephew were murdered and whose daughter was gang raped on March 1, 2008. (Watch the interview.)
Some find it unbelievable that human rights abuses--the systematic intimidation, kidnapping, torture and murder--are occurring at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia and Guatemala. But it's not the first time Coke has committed such atrocities.
The back cover of a 1987 booklet, "Soft Drink, Hard Labour," published by the Latin America Bureau in London, England stated:
"For nine years the 450 workers at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Guatemala City fought a battle for their jobs, their trade union and their lives. Three times they occupied the plant — on the last occasion for 13 months. Three General Secretaries of their union were murdered and five other workers killed. Four more were kidnapped and have disappeared. Against all the odds they survived, thanks to their own extraordinary courage and help from fellow trade unionists in Guatemala and around the world."
The kinds of atrocities that happened at the Coke bottling plant in Guatemala City in the '70s and '80s continue to be an issue at Coke bottling plants in Colombia and in Guatemala