NAPM hails direct action at Coca Cola's Plachimada plant

Activists at Coca Cola's Plachimada factory on Saturday -- Photo: Robin Keraleeyam

The following is a statement issued by the National Alliance of People’s Movements in New Delhi hailing the direct action by activists at the Coca Cola plant in Kerala:

Twenty-two members of Plachimada Coca-Cola Virudha Samara Samithi and Plachimada solidarity forum including Vilayodi Venugopal, N. P. Johnson, N Subramanyan, Fr. Augustine, M N Giri and Sahadevan walked into the premises of the Coca Cola Factory and courted arrest. When produced in court, the Magistrate ordered their release on furnishing personal bond but they refused to take bail in protest against apathy on the part of state government and the delaying and subverting tactics in favour of Coca Cola.

NAPM hails the action of these activists and salutes their courage for choosing to do this to bring home the dire need for quick passage of the ‘Plachimada Coca-Cola Victims’ Relief and Compensation Claims Special Tribunal Bill, 2011.

It needs to be noted that based on the report submitted by the Plachimada High Power Committee appointed by Goverment of Kerala, the Plachimada Coca-Cola Victims’ Relief and Compensation Claims Special Tribunal Bill, 2011 was passed by the Assembly on February 24, 2011. The Bill was sent by the Governor of Kerala to the President through the Union Ministry of Home Affairs on March,30. The Home Ministry sent it to various related ministries for their comments on April 17.. They were then supposed to forward the Bill to the President with the consolidated comments.

The decision to send the Bill to the President was taken by the State Law Department, although there was no issue of repugnance and hence there was no need for Presidential assent. There is no question of repugnance as the law deals, in its operative part, with entirely state subjects, namely, losses in agriculture, health care, animal husbandry, job loss and groundwater contamination.

Very recently, the Union government has referred the Bill back to State government but till date the State Law Ministry has not done anything on this. We fail to understand this delay, when in the State as well as at the Centre the Congress party is in power in coalition. Is this delay part of a larger design? Is the government trying to serve the interests of the Coca Cola Corporation? It is extremely shameful that the governments at the State and the Centre are neglecting the demands of the suffering communities and the elected Gram Sabha. We all know that continuous Satyagraha has been going on since Earth Day in 2002, which has now completed almost a decade. How long are they expected to wait?

Amidst all this the Kerala government is planning to give distribution rights to Coca Cola for providing drinking water to government hospitals in the state. Union Minister of State for Food K.V. Thomas declared that months back. It was sustained people's movements and pressure from groups across the country which forced the government to enact this special tribunal Bill. It is high time the government brought this enactment into force and justice is done to the suffering communities and Coke is held responsible for their corporate crimes and made to pay for this. Our struggle to hold the corporations accountable will continue until justice is done to the people.

Medha Patkar,Sandeep Pandey, Gabriele Dietrich, Prafulla Samantara, Geo Josh, Hussain master, Gabriele Dietrich, Suniti S R, Rajendra Ravi, Ramakrishna Raju, Anand Mazgaonkar, Vimal Bhai, Madhuresh Kumar.

Symbolic confiscation of Coca Cola plant in Kerala

About 20 activists who marched into the Coca Cola factory at Plachimada in Kerala on Saturday to confiscate the company’s property in the name of the people were arrested by the police.

The factory which poisoned land and water in the area was closed down following prolonged agitation by the people, which attracted worldwide attention.

The Kerala Assembly has passed a bill providing for the setting up of a tribunal to determine the compensation payable to victims of the pollution. The bill is awaiting the signature of the President.

The symbolic confiscation of the company's property was part of an attempt to impress upon the Centre and the State government the need to implement the law. “We are demanding proper compensation for the people of Plachimada from Coca Cola and it is the people’s natural right,” a spokesman for the group which staged the protest action said.

He added that most of the arrested persons would remain in jail and not seek bail.

Plachimada agitation is 2,500 days old

The agitation by residents of Plachimada in Kerala’s Palakkad district and nearby villages against the multinational giant Coca Cola is 2,500 days old. It thus becomes the longest popular struggle in the State’s history.

The MNC set up the Plachimada plant in 1999. As the factory depleted and polluted their water sources, the villagers, mainly Adivasis, began an agitation on April 22, 2002, with a symbolic blockade and continuous picketing.

When the panchayats stepped in to protect the interests of the villagers, the company dragged it into costly legal proceedings that extended all the way to the Supreme Court.
Eventually, however, the company had to shut down the plant as the State Pollution Control Board and the panchayats refused licences for continued working.

Mylamma, an Adivasi woman who emerged as the leading spokesperson of the Adivasis, has since died.

Although expert committees have upheld the villagers’ contention that the company has polluted their water sources, the government has desisted from taking any punitive action against it.

Velur Swaminathan, Secretary, Plachimada Adivasi Samrakshana Sangham (Tribal Protection Council) and R. Ajayan, Convener, Plachimada Samara Aikyadardya Samithi (Agitation Solidarity Committee) last week wrote an Open Letter to former UN Under Secretary General Shashi Tharoor taking exception to his association with the company as a member of the advisory board of Coca Cola India Foundation.

They listed the following charges against the company:

Coca Cola polluted the ground water with deadly toxic and carcinogenic cadmium and lead, which it has not listed under ‘raw materials’, and refused to provide an explanation for their presence.

Coca Cola distributed and spread the deadly toxic and carcinogenic cadmium and lead through its waste sludge and slurry, passing them off as good soil nutrients.

Coca Cola did not supply piped water to the affected families as ordered by the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee on Hazardous Waste.

Coca Cola, as the single largest extractor of ground water and largest transporter of water to other centres through soft drinks, a non-essential luxury good, made the most contribution to depletion of ground water.