[Imc-africa] Coca Cola poisons Kenya

[Danielle Chynoweth]

Sounds like a story IMC Kenya may wish to pursue. Our  university campus
recently ended its contract with Coke in part due to student pressure here.
- Danielle

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shivali Tukdeo <tukdeo at gmail.com>
Date: Aug 8, 2007 9:26 AM
Subject: Another message on CACC account
To: CACC_UIUC at googlegroups.com

==
from Richard Mutahi:

I am a editor of a small community newspaper in rural Kenya. Nyeri
Town - two hundred Kilometers from the capital Nairobi. I have lead a
one man crusade against a Coke Contract with a local jail house with
more than 5,000 inmates.
The contract entailed the Coke Plant emptying its used waste water to
the prison farm through open canals cutting across the neighborhood.
The Plant is half kilometer from the jail house.
The contract entailed purifying the waste water through three dams and
then the water will be used for farming vegetables to feed prisoners
and officers living in the expansive compound.
Now the waste water has been blame for the many stomach ailments among
officers, their families and prisoners. The soil in the farm has
turned chalk white and nothing can be planted any more. The prison
population has refused to feed on the greens and even the cows in the
prison have found the greens unpalatable.
The Coke plant never intended to ensure that the contract would be
successful. They knew it could not. They were looking for a way to
dispose the toxic waste at the lowest cost to the company shareholders
and at the expense of  the prison community.
Now the contract has affected residents of a slum down the River
Chania valley. The Contract was abandoned. The dams are bleeding
ground for mosquitoes and other vermin. Not even birds visit the dams.
The smell of the dammed waste water can be felt half a kilometer away.
The waste is now overflowing down to the river and adding more
contamination to the river which suffers more contamination from waste
in the town. The more than 1,000 dwellers rely on this river for their
domestic water.
The Coke plant relies on boreholes and the river for its production.
It employs nearly 1,000 people directly. Its effect on the population
in terms of social development and corporate responsibility is nil.
Join me in this campaign now that Coke has decided to build a 7
million dollar African headquarters in Nairobi. The focus will not be
difficult to achieve. Lets join against coke contracts
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