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A red, white and blue hand pours out a dark stream of blood from a can of Coca-Cola, with the company’s symbol looming overhead.
A poster with that image greeted all who attended the “Stop Killer Coke: Columbian Unionist Speaks Out” presentation Tuesday night at Little Hall, where Luis Adolfo Cardona told his audience through translators what Coca-Cola doesn’t say in its commercials.
“Behind the perfect image of Coca-Cola are all the lives the company has destroyed,” said Cardona, a former employee of the Carepa Coca-Cola bottling plant in Antioquia, Colombia.
The striped hand on the image symbolizes America’s control over the Coca-Cola company and the river of blood symbolizes all the deaths the company has contributed to worldwide, Cardona said. Nine assassinations have occured in Columbia over 10 years, Cardona said, including one he witnessed in 1996.
Cardona said he saw his friend, union leader Segundo Gil, shot seven times by a paramilitary group with connections to the local bottling company. The same group later kidnapped him, Cardona said, but he escaped, and with the help of the Columbian police, he and his family fled their home and were later granted asylum in the United States.
He did not cry during his friend’s death or during his kidnapping, but when Cardona was forced to leave his home, he was moved to tears by his 2-year-old daughter’s words, Cardona said.
“I cried when she tugged at my pants and said, ‘I don’t want to leave my house,’” Cardona said.
The paramilitary group that organized Cardona’s kidnapping and his friend’s assassination receives its weapons from United States funding, according to Cardona.
“The guns the U.S. sends to Columbia to help prevent the drug trade support the paramilitary death squads,” Cardona said. “North American money is killing Columbians.”
The paramilitary group tore apart his family’s life the same way they tore apart his country, Cardona said. Children are born with birth defects in Columbia due to the polluted water pregnant women drink, he said. The bottling company refuses to hire Black Columbians, kidnaps workers and forces them to work in factories without pay, and labels defiant workers as terrorists and sends them to jail, Cardona said.
“People walk down the street and say, ‘Oh look, there is the terrorist’s wife, or the terrorist’s son, or the terrorist’s daughter,’” Cardona said. “Then months later the worker is released because there is no evidence against him.”
Cardona spoke passionately about the changes that need to be made in Columbia, and asked for the help of University of Maine students.
“Students are the ones right now in the United States that can make a difference,” Cardona said. “But people have to become aware in order to stop this.”
Junior Adam Chittenden attended the event, and said he was surprised by what he learned and is interested in taking action.
“It opened my eyes,” Chittenden said. “The people look so good in commercials, you would just never know what’s really behind it. I definitely sympathize, and I want to help them and their cause.”
Cardona has embarked on a nationwide tour sponsored by the Columbian Action Network, and entreats students to get involved with the fight against Coke and U.S. aid to Columbia.
Cardona asked students to form a coalition asking the school to not renew its contract with Coke. Unless it is stopped, the power of Coca-Cola will spread until it exploits the United States the way it has Columbia, he said.
“Coke is like an octopus, and its tentacles are all over the world,” Cardona said. “The U.S. is at the center, and when it closes in, your kids and grandkids are going to ask you what you did to stop it.”
Bangor Daily News