Britain's Channel 4 on Coca-Cola in South America
Corporate behemoth Coca-Cola is no stranger to suggestions that its international empire is responsible for social and environmental ills. Now the company stands accused of propping up the harsh dictatorship in Swaziland.
This is far from the first question mark over Coke's expansion into new markerts. In a recent documentary for Britain's Channel 4 (see top of entry), Mark Thomas follows serious accusations about Coca-Cola's sweep across South America, particularly in Columbia and El Salvador.
Business Week noted in 2010 that Coke is struggling to make profits in developed countries and is looking to Africa as a new frontier for "Coca-Colonialism". Already the continent's largest employer, Coca-Cola plans to invest some $12 billion in the Africa this decade. The article quotes Coke CEO Muhtar Kent:
"Africa is the untold story, and could be the big story, of the next decade, like India and China were this past decade," Kent says. "The presence and the significance of our business in Africa is far greater than India and China even today. The relevance is much bigger."
"You've got an incredibly young population, a dynamic population. Huge disposable incomes. I mean, $1.6 trillion of GDP, which is bigger than Russia, bigger than India," he says, leaning into the table. "It's a big economy, and so rich underground. And whether the next decade becomes the decade of Africa or not, in my opinion, will depend upon one single thing—and everything is right there to have it happen—and that is better governance. And it is improving, there's no question."
Such comments ring sour when one reads of the latest complaint against Coca-Cola. Writing in The Guardian, David Smith reports on the allegation that Coke is helping keep Swaziland dictator King Mswati III, accused of gross human rights abuses, in power:
Coca-Cola has been accused of propping up one of Africa's most notorious dictators.
The multibillion dollar beverage company owns a concentrate-manufacturing plant in Swaziland, an impoverished kingdom ruled by Africa's last absolute monarch, Mswati III.
The king has travelled to Coca-Cola's headquarters in Atlanta in the US, much to the disgust of Swazi political activists who blame him for human rights abuses and looting the nation's wealth.
Mary Pais Da Silva, co-ordinator of the Swaziland Democracy Campaign, called for Coca-Cola to pull out of the country immediately.
"Coca-Cola must know they're doing business with the wrong people," she said. "At the end of the day it doesn't benefit the economy in any way. Their profits don't help the average Swazi, while the king is getting richer by the day." She added: "The king is milking the country. This is entrenching him more and more, giving him economic strength to crush opposition. Nobody should do business with the regime in Swaziland. They should cut ties and take their business elsewhere."
Mswati III has 13 wives and hosts an annual dance where he can choose a new bride from tens of thousands of bare-breasted virgins.
With a fortune of about $100m (£64m), he presides over one of the worst-off countries in the world, with most people living in absolute poverty. Political parties are banned and activists are regularly arrested, imprisoned and tortured.
Coca-Cola says that Mswati III does not receive any profits or dividends from its Swaziland operation, its biggest in Africa. But some activists estimate that Coca-Cola, the world's biggest beverage company, contributes as much as 40% of the country's GDP. The company admits it cannot account for how the money it pays in taxes is used by the Swazi government.