Coca-Cola and PepsiCo driving indigenous people and small farmers off of their ancest

[boiler]

We’ve just found out that Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are supplied by companies that have been caught driving indigenous people and small farmers off of their ancestral land all around the world.

Our Oxfam has discovered that a sugar company in Brazil has forced a small community from its land and sent a gang of thugs to burn down 53 families' homes -- all to supply sugar to companies like Coke and Pepsi. In Cambodia, a major sugar company drove hundreds of families from their land -- because they no longer had documentation they lost during the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge.

These horror stories are only the tip of the iceberg. Coca-Cola and Pepsi have been alerted, but they’ve failed to implement policies to stop their suppliers from grabbing land. Now we need to show them that consumers are ready to hold them accountable.

Tell Coca-Cola and Pepsi: ensure that your suppliers aren’t stealing land.

For the last decade, the price of sugar and other agricultural commodities has skyrocketed, and investors have gobbled up more than 33 million hectares of land in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, frequently displacing people who lived and worked on the land for generations.

As food prices skyrocket, small farmers are losing their livelihoods along with their homes. Indigenous communities are having their traditional ways of life destroyed as their ancestral hunting and farming land is seized to make way for sugar production. And sugar producers frequently resort to violence and intimidation to drive people off their land when they can’t evict them legally.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are some of the world’s largest purchasers of sugar, and they have the power to hold sugar growers accountable for grabbing land and displacing small farmers. By adopting zero-tolerance policies for land grabs, the beverage giants could ensure that sugar producers can’t afford to drive poor farmers off their land. But right now, Coke and Pepsi don’t even bother to monitor their suppliers’ behavior.

The only way these companies will change their ways is if consumers stand up and make them. We know that the SumOfUs community can convince beverage companies to take a stand for human rights -- just last year we got Pepsi to speak out against Uganda’s “kill the gays” law. Now we need to come together again to ensure that the beverage industry doesn’t profit by robbing impoverished farmers.

Sign our petition demanding that Coca-Cola and Pepsi stand up to land grabbers.

***********

[Venas Abiertas]

AZUNOSA (Northern Sugar Company in English) is a giant sugar producer on the North Coast of Honduras owned by SAB, South African Breweries, which is a joint British-South African firm. It took over thousands of acres of prime bottom land which used to belong to the banana company that at one time ruled Honduras and still does through its modern manifestations. AZUNOSA is a leader on using its sugar cane to generate "biofuels" instead of food for hungry people.

Because of the size of its plantations and their location, this company has been in violation of Honduran law since the year 2000, when it purchased the plantations. An act of Honduran Congress dating back to the 1960's or 70's prohibits ownership of more than 250 hectares by any private firm in the country's rich Sula Valley where AZUNOSA is located. Landless farmer organizations have been trying to take back this land for the Honduran people for more than four decades and have succeeded in forming several cooperatives but the majority of the land remains in the hands of big companies tied to the local oligarchy. Judicial stonewalling and even military/police repression have been the answer to most of their demands.

This last year has seen one of these organizations, called MOCSAM, recover parts of the AZUNOSA plantation, only to be forcibly removed by police.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XcZQyfIxns

Just a few months ago a labor union organizer was run over by one of AZUNOSA's trucks. So far no action has been taken by the government to investigate the case, much less hold anyone responsible.

http://hondurasresists.blogspot.com/2013/08/la-voz-de-los-de-abajo-condemns-murder.html

Another sugar company which supplies sugar for Coca Cola is CAHSA, and it too has been the object of intents to recuperate land by the campesino organization MOCSAM. CAHSA is accused of murdering two campesinos in May of this year.

http://honduprensa.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/una-campesina-del-mocsan-otra-victima-mortal-en-el-valle-de-sula/ (Spanish only)

[A.J.]

Anyone ever tried Vita-Cola before?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vita_Cola

[boiler]

Anyone ever tried Vita-Cola before?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vita_Cola

Thats a great link, do you have any other links for products that were sold in the eastern bloc countries?

[Popular Front of Judea]

The question I have to ask is what opposition is possible to this within the Marxist framework. Industrialization historically has been driven by the displacement of small farmers and farm laborers into the cities. This is the origin of the English proletariat that Engels and Marx wrote extensively about. The English industrial revolution was the inevitable outcome of the Enclosures. Hard to see how one can oppose what is seen as an inevitable, progressive development.

I am not saying that what is occurring is not an injustice. Just as far as I can see any opposition has to occur outside of the Marxist framework. (Classic Marxism, not the political movements that claim Marx. Think "history of shaving". )

[Sea]

And who says primitive accumulation doesn't happen any more? Outright theft is still a strategy even among the most "developed" companies.
The question I have to ask is what opposition is possible to this within the Marxist framework. Industrialization historically has been driven by the displacement of small farmers and farm laborers into the cities. This is the origin of the English proletariat that Engels and Marx wrote extensively about. The English industrial revolution was the inevitable outcome of the Enclosures. Hard to see how one can oppose what is seen as an inevitable, progressive development.

I am not saying that what is occurring is not an injustice. Just as far as I can see any opposition has to occur outside of the Marxist framework. (Classic Marxism, not the political movements that claim Marx. Think "history of shaving". )Marx showed us how capitalism developed. That doesn't mean that these things can't be opposed any more than one needs to step "outside the Marxist framework" to oppose the exploitation of labor power. Your claim that a criticism of these things don't exist in Marx is silly.

[Popular Front of Judea]

And who says primitive accumulation doesn't happen any more? Outright theft is still a strategy even among the most "developed" companies.Marx showed us how capitalism developed. That doesn't mean that these things can't be opposed any more than one needs to step "outside the Marxist framework" to oppose the exploitation of labor power. Your claim that a criticism of these things don't exist in Marx is silly.

So on what grounds do you oppose them?

[synthesis]

I feel like I'm missing something here, but would boycotting Pepsi/Coca-Cola in the U.S. actually accomplish anything given that they all use high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar? Obviously that's irrelevant for anyone living outside the U.S., it's just a minor quibble I had.


So on what grounds do you oppose them?

Well, the grounds that a victory for the sugar workers would be a victory for the international working class. Outside of the working class of the sugar industry, I agree that it's hard to argue that protecting the agricultural petit bourgeoisie - no matter how egregious their position - is related to working class politics. That's not to say that it shouldn't be attempted - we have hearts, after all - but it also shouldn't be framed as a struggle of the international working class.

[Sea]

So on what grounds do you oppose them?On the grounds that it's oppressive, deadly, had disastrous effects, etc. Same reasons that I oppose capitalism in general. How about you? Why do you oppose them? What non-Marxist opposition did you have in mind? To go around saying "Oh no, we don't have any reasons to oppose a specific type of exploitation!" is really shitty sophistry and/or trolling.

Furthermore, dispossession isn't even necessary for Pepsico and the Coke Bros. to get rich. The exploitation of wage labor suffices. At this point in capitalist development, it would be absurd to say that outright dispossession like this is still necessary for the survival of the capitals class. Marx was talking about it being necessary for the origination of the capitalist class so it's not like you can say opposing it would be opposing something necessary.

[Popular Front of Judea]

On the grounds that it's oppressive, deadly, had disastrous effects, etc. Same reasons that I oppose capitalism in general. How about you? Why do you oppose them? What non-Marxist opposition did you have in mind? To go around saying "Oh no, we don't have any reasons to oppose a specific type of exploitation!" is really shitty sophistry and/or trolling.

Furthermore, dispossession isn't even necessary for Pepsico and the Coke Bros. to get rich. The exploitation of wage labor suffices. At this point in capitalist development, it would be absurd to say that outright dispossession like this is still necessary for the survival of the capitals class. Marx was talking about it being necessary for the origination of the capitalist class so it's not like you can say opposing it would be opposing something necessary.

@synthesis above nails it.

[synthesis]

On the grounds that it's oppressive, deadly, had disastrous effects, etc. Same reasons that I oppose capitalism in general.

So, essentially, for moralistic reasons?

[RedGuevara]

Regardless of the "reasons", we have a common issue. Big business is killing off land and indigenous peoples. Sure let's say it's moralistic to try and fight back but standing up for the indigenous people of the countries shouldn't even be argued on. To argue on what's the reasoning is ignorant. Inidigenous folk of all countries have always been displaced for imperialistic/capitalist reasoning, i.e. Trail of Tears in the USA. Seems a bit asinine to even argue over.

[RedGuevara]

Sorry for the repeated wording but the point still stands.

[Sea]

So, essentially, for moralistic reasons?An oppressive, deadly, and disastrous economic system has objectively negative consequences for my class. Is that moralism to you?

[Tim Cornelis]

An oppressive, deadly, and disastrous economic system has objectively negative consequences for my class. Is that moralism to you?

Yes. Because these are all value judgments and moral issues. Also, it's not objectively negative as negative is a value judgment and hence subjective. Why is it so hard to apply Marxism in analytical issues and 'socialist ethics' in social issues?

[waqob]

Anyone ever tried Vita-Cola before?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vita_Cola


Or Leninade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leninade