refusing to give up hope

Today I, a daughter of an Allied soldier, met with a friend, the daughter of a German soldier, to plan our peace work for next year, the 65th anniversary of the the end of the Battle of Cassino.

We work with veteran soldiers and youth, to commemorate and reconcile, to remember and to educate. We bring together the soldiers and the civilians. It is a small thing, perhaps, but surely it is worth doing?

Our blog may seem a small thing, but surely it is worth doing too?

Many people read, but do not write. That is the way of the world. We don't know if we have planted a small seed somewhere, and will not be able to watch that seed grow. But we must have hope,and peace and hope are not empty words to me.

Starting again, but from where?

The idea of this blog was born months ago with a specific purpose: education for a culture of peace.

It wanted to be a virtual place where the wonderful people who believe and are committed in their daily lives to seeing a different world emerge could meet and discuss to find the best way to achieve common objectives. That's because educating other people to peace is an almost desperate goal but educating yourself to peace is only a matter of time and will.

This blog was intended to be a place where people who want to cultivate a culture of peace could find the necessary exchange of ideas to do so.

However I must admit that things have gone in a different way.

I must admit that the debate and exchange have turned into a monologue from myself to a captive and wonderful audience, a select group of people with fantastic principles and strong motivation but who not talk to each other, who hear my words perhaps with pleasure, perhaps with friendship, but do not talk to the others and perhaps even do not hear themselves.

From my point of view I have learned so much from this work, every day having to find, understand and put in the form of short articles the struggles that many are fighting throughout the world in search of justice. Newspapers report such events only marginally giving us only superficial information instead of debate on justice in the world, and without justice there is no peace.
But this is a project for myself that I would do even without this blog, so then I do wonder why a blog? To whom should I speak and in which way? In the same moment I admit that I have not reached my goal then I need to rethink how to get back to work on the culture of peace effectively. Where should I start from?

I need to think about it and maybe I need help in my reflection.

Turn off Olympic flame, turn off TV

1 million 300,000 signatures in Italy against the "democradura" of the Italian media
1 million 300,000 signatures for the respect of human rights and the principle of self-determination of peoples
1 million 300,000 glances of disapproval toward the Olympic torch which celebrates the power of those who don't want any question to their own power
1 million 300,000 voices against the shameless opportunism of Western governments that give priority to GDP growth regardeless to moral issues
1 million 300,000 choirs against cultural genocide in Tibet and Eastern Turkestan, against 5,000 death sentences each year, against the repression of dissent
1 million 300,000 switched off TVs during the Olympic Games 2008
1 million 300,000 unsold copies of the main sport magazines
1 million 300,000 click less on the main online newspapers
1 million 300,000 advertising contracts less for those who give us information deprived of any content

1 million 300,000 people who believe that a better world is possibile

Gandhi said: be the change you wish to see in the world!

It would be a claim opposed to a true culture of peace asking a few thousand professional athletes to sacrifice years and years of work, to sacrifice perhaps the only chance in life to get a sponsor, because *** I *** do not agree with the significance of these Olympic Games 2008.
I do not agree then I boycott! I do not watch the Games on TV, I do not buy newspapers that talk about it, I do not talk with friends about it, I delete the Games from my existence. This year I will live without the Olympics.
This is non-violent struggle, intellectual resistance, active citizenship: let's turn off the Olympic torch by the cold of our disapproval!

By the same disapproval we will hit the hypocrites trade agreements signed by our blind politicians, the tributes to an illiberal regime by our deaf politicians, the silence on human rights by our dumb politicians.
By the same disapproval we will hit all acts of abuse, oppression, repression, cancellation of the opposition and dissent that go on all over the world, from China to Italy, from Tien An Men to Abu Ghraib to Bolzaneto.
We will rise our voices at the same time against all the lies to justify war, against all the hidden wars in the world, against the dominance of economy on civil society, against the increase of GDP at the expense of moral issues, we will shout to the arrogance of those who believe that having the power means having the truth.

Let's turn off the Olympic flame, unguilty symbol of injustice in the world.
During the Olympic Games, let's turn off TV!

This appeal starts from the BIPPIblog but must travel on the web. I invite all the bloggers to publish it.
I invite all my five readers to copy and paste this post on all blogs and forums that you can find, on message boards and mailing lists. Translate it into other languages, send it to all by mail, stick it in university bulletin boards, send it to newspapers and radios. I invite all those who live without chains to dissociate themselves from these Olympic Games 2008 and to declare it with a message. Declaring is important, so that everybody will be able to read and know it: I do not agree!

We are millions, let's not be dumb, we too, in this desert of dumb television, let's rise our voice high on Internet, the last place of intellectual freedom; let's hit the blind, deaf and mute power in his wadding kingdom of money and publicity; let's shout our peaceful protest in the only way that the nomenklatura and the caste can understand: let's turn off TV!

PS
Till May 10th there will be no other posts on this blog.

Mothers will cry...

The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, is an imposing mausoleum, erected after the “war to end all wars”, WWI. It was built to have a soul, designed like a Greek temple; democracy is thought to have begun in Greece. It was built to be everlasting, eternal. Two of the three architects were returned soldiers. It was built in the belief that there would be no more war.

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, Armistice Day, a ray of light passes through an opening and strikes the word “Love” on an inscription. The marble plaque, placed where it must be viewed with heads bowed, and where no hand may touch it, reads “Greater love hath no man than this”.

The imposing monument was built as a tribute to sacrifice for peace. That peace lasted only 21 years.

I stood amongst the wreaths and remembrance poppies looking at a statue of fathers and sons by Raymond Ewers. It was erected after WWII. I was told that it was erected by the women of Victoria, the mothers, the daughters. I cried.

I am a mother, and the daughter of a veteran soldier. I am not ashamed of my tears. Every soldier has a mother.

Does a culture of peace start in the home?

Read a veteran soldier's comments on a woman's tears

What was the tipping point?

Michael Stokely, 23, killed in 2000 a few miles south of Baghdad. Read the comments on The 48th goes to war.

What makes a man prepared to kill?

I remember a conversation with a young man. A devout Christian and youth leader, he lived a responsible life. He wanted to take a year “off” after leaving school to work with street kids in another city through his music. His parents expected him to go to university and continue to live at home.

He was passionate about planes; he wanted to fly or to be a doctor, but he is colour blind. He thought about being a paramedic, being flown in to rescue injured in the mountains. His career options were always to serve others.
Finances were tight at home. Family expectations were for a university degree. The armed forces would provide a salary as well as a degree. He joined the army as an officer cadet. He was 18. He reached a point where he had to face the question about whether he was prepared to kill another human being, or order his men to kill.
He signed.

Another student who wanted to fly looked to the air force to get a degree, to have some adventure, to be with his mates. He was told that he would not be able to fly a particular plane because the length of his leg from his hip to his knee was too long. He would lose his legs if he had to eject. He thought a bit more.
He paid his own way through university.

Neither choice was “right” or “wrong”. But I wonder, when a self-declared Christian and pacifist who wanted to help street kids through music signs that he is prepared to kill, what happened along the way?

Does a culture of peace start with an equitable distribution of wealth? Or does it start when love and respect over-rides ambition?

Kay de Lautour Scott

14 years on, has anything changed?

Watch the video

From the blog Gnuwanda Lounge, April 7, 2008.

A mark and a question mark.
Today is the fourteenth anniversary of the "beginning" of Rwandese genocide . "Beginning" is in quotation marks because in reality the genocide began some years before with meticulous attention to detail, today (or rather yesterday evening at 8) brought down the President's plane and from there began the 100 days of collective madness that has pervaded this country [800 thousand people murdered]. 14 years, today the week of memory begins, dim lights, no music, a sense of mourning justifiably permeates the country this week. The country for 14 years has changed and much, I do not have enough information to really understand if there is the famous reconciliation, and there is probably no. Certainly the country is peaceful, certainly it is safe, even at the cost of an African-way democracy, where the leader takes 98% of the Bulgarian votes. But just as certainly there are outbreaks, which will disappear only with another two generations, others will take perhaps 15 years to reach one another or for both to seek reconciliation (with a vision 2020 in the midst). They're taking all the dead from the genocide and slowly are burying them in memorials. Hundreds of thousands of bodies will be moved today and in coming years to gather all the bodies of madness under common roofs. Today it is up to the husband of Valerie too. 14 years ... I do not know if it is enough to hear less pain, if things are safe enough to hold hope for a different future, and I hope for this country that it will be.

(in translation, original blog written in Italian)

The second thing I learnt

Culture of peace is also giving place to other's thinking and opinion. As a matter of fact only from a different opinion we can recognize the mistakes of our thinking.
On Los Angeles Times, March 9th, 2008, I found this very interesting article.

All wars have to be sold, but World War II, within the memory of the pointless carnage that then became known as World War I, was a particularly hard sell. Roosevelt and Churchill did it well, and their lies have been with us ever since.

Nicholson Baker's "Human Smoke" is a meticulously researched and well-constructed book demonstrating that World War II was one of the biggest, most carefully plotted lies in modern history. According to the myth, British and American statesmen naively thought they could reason with such brutal fascists as Germany's Hitler and Japan's Tojo. Faced with this weakness, Hitler and Tojo tried to take over the world, and the United States and Britain were forced to use military might to stop them...

Read the whole article on Los Angeles Times.

Would you like a Coca Cola? No thanks!

In Colombia twenty-two trade unionists were killed since the beginning of the year. The last victim was Jesùs Caballero, kidnapped on April 16 and found lifeless on a side street in a village north of Bogota, with obvious signs of torture.
Caballero, director of syndicated "Servicio Nacionalde Aprendiaje", was among the promoters of a large popular demonstration on March 6 last year against the extreme-right paramilitaries and against the deaths of state, as those of trade unionists killed because demanding rights for workers.
In the first line there is Coca Cola.
7 trade unionists who worked in various factories of Coca Cola were killed in the last ten years. Another 5 survived murder attempts. 61 received death threats. 74 workers were kidnapped and tortured. With these systems Coca Cola Company today buys low-cost Colombians workers and sells us tasty and expensive drinks and an excellent marketing campaign with Santa Claus as a testimonial.
Despite 97% of these murders remaining unpunished, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has put a price on those responsible, saying that the goal of paramilitary guerrillas is to "discredit the country and prevent the approval of the Treaty of free trade with U.S. ' in which he and the U.S. are so much interested.
To underline the words of the President, just yesterday Mario Uribe, cousin of the President, President's adviser and senator of the state was arrested: he will have to respond to conspiring with the death squads of the extreme right, the same that the President claims he wants to fight. At least this is what he says.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Leaders warn on biofuels and food

Today, on the BBCNEWS:

Speaking at the UN in New York, Bolivian President Evo Morales said the development of biofuels harmed the world's most impoverished people. And President Alan Garcia of Peru said using land for biofuels was putting food out of reach for the poor.
Meanwhile UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is hosting a meeting to discuss European policy encouraging biofuels.
But as food prices climb worldwide, there is a fear that development of biofuels could reduce the production of badly-needed basic foodstuffs. The global prices of wheat, rice and maize have nearly doubled in the past year, while milk and meat have more than doubled in price in some countries.
Such rises, combined with high oil prices, are causing increasing political instability in less developed countries across the world. Food riots earlier this month in Haiti, which is highly reliant on imports of food and fuel, led to the deaths of at least six people, including a UN peacekeeper. There has also been unrest in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal.

"Biofuels" have shown great promise in weaning the world away from the use of petrofuels. They are supposed to be less polluting, renewable, and all that acreage (primarily corn and soybeans) will go a long way toward absorbing that excess CO2 in the atmosphere.
Not so fast, say critics in the science community. First of all, they say, there's no proof that "biofuels" are any better than their fossil-fuel counterparts when it comes to greenhouse emissions. The other concern is what it may do the planet's ecology. The rush to plant additional acreage for biofuel production could put rainforests at risk, deplete fresh water supplies, deprive wildlife of habitat and eventually, affect the world's food supply.
It comes down to deciding whose needs are greater: the 800 million people all over the world who own and drive automobiles, or the billions of others who survive on a day and already spend half their income feeding themselves.

The political experience of South America

Once South America was synonymous with dictatorship, bad governance, poverty, exploitation of the poor. Today I do not believe that the reality of the continent has changed. But reading carefully the complexity of the South American politics we discover that something is emerging which we do not understand. While the Western democracies are becoming increasingly 'democraduras' media drowned in the laws of profit, the Latin-American area is experiencing a Spring socialist who was confirmed in elections yesterday in Paraguay, giving power the Patriotica Alianza por el Cambio, a left-wing coalition led by "Red Bishop" Fernando Lugo after 61 years of dictatorship or pseudo-democracy from the very currupted Colorado party.

Today - excluding Uribe of Colombia - Latin America is governed by left-wing radical leaders (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina) or centre-left (Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru).
Time will tell if this is good news for Latin America. Lula, in Brazil, has already experienced how difficult it is to reconcile election promises with the reality of government. Chavez, in Venezuela has on his side the popular masses but has suffered an unexpected democratic stop to its programme of constitutional amendment.

Paraguay today is very poor and backward but has enormous wealth in the hands of a few families. We accept bets on the future of this country.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Does anybody know where Western Sahara is?

The image shows a view of Saharawi Dakhla's refugee camp, near Tindouf in southwestern Algeria.

Western Sahara was occupied by Morocco in 1975, starting a war which killed 11.000 people. Saharawi refugees from Western Sahara rarely make it into the news, but for the past 30 years up to 165.000 of them have been living in remote desert camps in Algeria, most of them totally dependent on humanitarian aid.

On December 14-16, 2007, the 12th Congress of the SADR (Saharawi Republic without a land) was held. More than 1,500 Saharawi delegates discussed if resuming armed struggle, pursuing negotiations or starting preparations for the resumption of war while pursuing negotiations at the same time.

Then on January 7-9, 2008, a third round of peace talks (Manhasset III) was held in Manhasset, just outside New York City. UN mediator Peter van Valsum said the parties continued to be far apart on the question of independence. Morocco maintained that its sovereignty over Western Sahara should be recognized and affirmed that independence cannot work as ethnic Sahrawis live in four different countries and a referendum is impossible to stage. The Polisario's position was that the Territory's final status should be decided in a referendum including independence as an option.

In March a fourth round of U.N.-sponsored talks ended without solution.

Someday the newspapers will announce a new war starting and nobody will know who, why and what!!!

Goodbye Pippa

From the blog of Pino Scaccia, 12 april 2008.

Buried few inches below ground, just before midnight the Turkish police have found the naked corpse of Giuseppina Pasqualino, the 33 year old Milanese artist who disappeared on 31 March in Istanbul where she had arrived with an Italian friend.
A chronicle of news like many others, a girl killed, the curiosity of her bridal clothes. Friends used to call her Pippa and she had a peace plan, those clothes had a specific meaning. There is the Brides on Tour website (note: in Italian but look at the map - Kay) to explain the project:

"An ambitious and poetic dream. A dream of travelling independently through countries that were upset by recent wars and not always completely secure. The trip is not the normal travel of two daring travellers, but the journey of two beautiful brides dressed for a wedding that perhaps has already happened or is not done or perhaps is the trip itself. A marriage to the earth, peace, all people, or in search of the bridegroom? Who is and what is the husband? Two brides, two is a number for togetherness and femininity, also of multiples, and difference. Readings of an artistic gesture of this type are endless. The bride is white, light, feminine, she generates life, so peace, love and purity. "
A dream shattered, in the worst possible way. The world is not yet ready for the idea of peace. Good bye, Pippa

Pino Scaccia (in translation)

Our global food crisis

Watch (in Italian) RAI Report

A few days ago Marco Revelli [Professor of Science of Politics at the University of eastern Piedmont] wondered how it was possible that the alarm launched by FAO in Rome on global food crisis in the closing days of the Italian election campaign was not taken into account by politicians. Right now, in thirty countries of the southern world, beginning with Egypt and Haiti, the population is in turmoil.

But during the weekend election in Italy one early evening a RAI Report dedicated to food was broadcast: importing a kilo of asparagus from Peru which is air-freighted to get to our flat, we were told, means leaving in the air six kilos of CO2; meanwhile we pay eight euros per kilo for grated carrots contained in a [plastic] tank, while those who produce it earn a few cents. But that price does not include even paying the cost that nature pays with the pollution of air, land and water.

Reports also gave some alternatives: Solidarity Purchasing Groups [and from that day hundreds of people have begun to question the promoters SPG], the "kilometer zero" food and restaurants, organic farming. Perhaps the model of industrialization of agriculture [and therefore the use of pesticides, the import of products not in season on the other side of the world, the removal of land to be allocated to agrofuels] all to the advantage of the multinationals' agrobusiness has arrived at the endpoint. Certainly, this food crisis and the interest of thousands of people wanting to consume good, healthy and equitable food, say that we can’t carry on like this.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Chronicles from a dictatorship

Burma, Birmania, Myanmar...
In 2007 the increase in the price of petrol caused the rise in price of basic needs, resulting in the famous protest of the Buddhist monks who were joined by students and other groups. Protests were strongly repressed by the military regime of General Than Shwe who holds unlimited power after decades of military "socialist" dictatorship .

A few days ago the fifty four members employed by the Burmese government for the drafting of the new constitution finished their work, 194 pages that will be on sale at 1000 Kyat, one euro in governmental libraries. All those who can afford to may buy and read the text before the referendum for its conversion into law set for May 10 next year. In the web it is said about strong pressures and threats to farmers by the military to get a "yes" vote.

The new constitution, the writing of which opposition parties were not allowed to contribute to, strengthens the power of the military against opposition and minorities. In the future Burmese parliament 440 seats out of 110 in the high chamber and about 56 of 224 lower chamber will be reserved for the military. There is also an "ethnic barrier": no politician married to a foreigner can be elected. This clause excludes nominations from the opposition party leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the widow of an English professor.

The military junta has also reiterated its rejection of the presence of UN observers during the referendum and the elections in June. Only the Chinese government can bring assistance.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

From war to peace in Nepal

This man has a complicated name but he is better known as Prachanda, the Fierce.
For ten years he drove tens of thousands of Nepalese Maoists in a bloody war against the ancient pluricentenaria monarchy and its one hundred thousand soldiers, in a country of nearly 30 million inhabitants. The war has killed more than 13 thousand, there has been abuse, kidnappings, torture, massacres, atrocities of all kinds. Both armies were responsible, civilians have been the victims, as always.
In 2006 the opposition parties and the Maoists agreed on a democratic programme based on the abolition of monarchy, and the war is over. The King did everything to oppose this but in the end there were democratic elections, supervised by an international team of observers led by Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States. The American government has the Nepalese Maoists on a list of terrorists!
Civilians, once victims, have become actors and democratically voted for a constituent assembly in which the Maoists have easily won a majority of seats, contrary to all expectations of Western observers.
Other parties to win elections were the autonomous southern ones struggling with strikes and weapons for the rights of Madhesi people, majority in the rich southern plains. Whoever called Madhesi to boycott was repudiated by the great participation in the vote.
The ferocious Prachanda has led his supporters in the war and now leads them to peace, in a democracy that will write a new constitution, abolishing the monarchy and its privileges, making agrarian reform and seeking good relations with powerful neighbours, India and China.
The people were called to vote and gave him great confidence. Confidence will be removed if the promises of the Maoists not become reality.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

China is a polluter!

Today on BBCnews homepage there is an article claiming: China 'now top carbon polluter'
The news say that according to a report from the University of California, China has overtaken the United States for CO2 emissions, even if they do not know exactly when this happened.
But we already knew it...
A very alarming sentence says, "unless China radically changes its energy policies, its increases in greenhouse gases will be several times larger than the cuts in emissions being made by rich nations under the Kyoto Protocol."
But we already knew it...
The only possible solution, says some super-researcher Max Auffhammer, is a "massive transfer of technology and wealth from the West."

...mmm ... ...?!?

But is it not the Western Countries who, while possessing wealth and technologies in abundance, have until now polluted more than China?
Is it not Australia that, in proportion to population, is pollutinig today ten times more than China?
Is it not that we have cut our forests, polluted our rivers, contaminated our land, depleted our seas, destroyed our biodiversity? Is it not that we go around with antismog masks and die of cancer and liver cirrhosis?
Technology and riches are sacred, nobody denies this.
But is it not the solutions perhaps in a massive change in lifestyle by middle-rich class? Anybody has ever heard of sustainable development?
When will they stop selling us the miracles of technology, 1 euro the bottle?
Technology does not make miracles.
The solutions are always in our political choices and China is failing its environmental policies as we have failed ours. And for the same reasons.

Dear Chinese,
We offer you our technologies and our lifestyle. And our lies and the secret to live well with all of it: blame the others for your future economic, social, cultural and environmental crises.
Good luck!

Genetically Modified Organisms

The distribution of GMO cultivation in the world

GMO, literally Genetically Modified Organisms, are organisms obtained through the alteration of their natural gene system through genetic engineering techniques.
There is talk about the use of GMOs for pharmaceutical purposes, to improve agricultural production, as an answer to hunger in the world.
The only certainty at the moment is the risk of genetic contamination due to the dispersion of transgenic pollen going to affect soil and other plants, with evident danger of altering the natural system with unpredictable consequences. The history of GMOs as an solution for hunger in the world is a fairy tale written by multinational companies that own and sell GM seeds. The hunger in the world is not due to a lack of production but to an unbalanced distribution of income and productive resources, which reduces access to food for the peoples of the southern world.

From Carta daily news, 14 March 2008.
The European Farmers Coordination [CPE] and the Coordination of agricultural organizations and farmers [Coag] have called for a moratorium on all European transgenic crops as of this year. In the call we can read:

"The European Union must now take a clear decision. The majority of Europeans farmers and consumers are opposed to the use of GMOs in agriculture and in food. GMOs are used by large corporations to privatize seed to the detriment of food sovereignty of peoples and communities of rural world. An increasing number of scientific studies show that the transgenic organisms are harmful to health and the environment."

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Bush aware!

Read the whole article on ABC News, April 11, 2008.

President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday.

"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

As first reported by ABC News Wednesday, the most senior Bush administration officials repeatedly discussed and approved specific details of exactly how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the CIA.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news.

Read the whole article on ABC News, April 11, 2008.

We are not doing a good job!

Look at video

Education for a culture of peace.
Some think that is the responsibility of the school, someone else points to the family, others unload the burden on the Child Jesus. Many think they are just words. We will make a big step forward when we will understand that a culture of peace depends on everyone, on all of us. Especially those who have great influence on young people: parents, teachers, tutors, stars. Yes, stars! The very VIP of the world of entertainment with whom young people identify themselves. They spend many hours a day with the children and talk to them of a fake world that to all children seems true. Children move increasingly to that world; they dream it, they follow suit.

I would say that we are not doing a good job!
We have all grown up with images of shootings and TV murders and self-made vendettas, destructive videogames, good against evil, the strong against the weak, reds against blacks, exasperating competition in every corner of our lives. The opponent is not to be respected nor understood, we must reduce him, attack verbally, physically, we must strip him of any sympathy and humanity, it is only an enemy to be destroyed. As in the award-winning video clip "Girlfriend" by the beautiful Avril Lavigne, idol of teenagers, where edifying acts of shameless arrogance and bullying three-against-one, absolutely without any irony, are rewarded with the prize for "Best Canadian Video", as this is the most clicked video clip of all time on Youtube.
I prefer to be considered a stupid moralist: this video clip appears to me imbecile, vulgar and uneducational!

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Want a Coca Cola? No thanks!

Watch the video

It had to happen sooner or later, talking about Coca Cola.
The symbol of "Made in the USA" is not having easy times in India. The community opposition to the exploitation of massive sources of fresh water for the bottling of soft drinks for the multinational Atlanta gave the go-ahead to a campaign that in a few years spread a stain of oil throughout the country, till it obtained the closure of one of the main plants.

The Indian movement against Coca-Cola has become a firmly rooted presence involving hundreds of thousands of people. In India, 70 percent of the inhabitants base their livelihood on agriculture and hence on the availability of water. The communities living next to the bottling plants of the multinational plants have, in few decades, suffered the gradual contamination of the territory and a progressive lack of water, caused by the large quantities of fresh water necessary for the processing of beverages. The impact of these factors has mainly affected the most vulnerable communities: indigenous peoples, women, disadvantaged social classes, small farmers, landless sharecroppers own, all people who have suffered the loss of traditional livelihoods and food security.
The impoverishment of local water reserves has put entire communities in serious danger.

In addition, Coca-Cola is accused of having distributed toxic waste as fertilizer to farmers living next to the plants. The long-term consequences of exposure to toxic residues cannot yet be calculated, but Coca-Cola is guilty of having contaminated soils and both ground and surface water, as well as having sold drinks with high levels of toxicity.
Following a study conducted by CSE (Centre for Science and Environment), December 7 2004, the Supreme Court of India has imposed on the multinational an obligation to label every package warning of danger to consumers.

Coca Cola has become a worldwide example of bad management of resources, and demonstrated that it operates in total violation of the criteria of social and environmental responsibility causing poverty, disease and contamination.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)