Belching Out the Devil (23 page)

‘We no longer use the water in the way we used to…People coming to the stream no longer use it for drinking water.'

 

Two men appear and smiling take the councillor to one side, say a few words and then Councillor Carlos explains that we should leave the area and that he will take us to a quieter location where we can continue the interview. The local gang is on their way down here to rob us and take the camera equipment. Apparently they are going to finish their drinks first, then come and get us. Great. Not only are we to be mugged, but we have to give the gang drinking-up time too. Armando the driver fumbles the gear stick gently muttering ‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.'

‘Have we got a security situation?' David the American cameraman asks, adding, ‘I want a guard with a shotgun and I want one fucking now.'

 

Everyone ignores him, the engine revs and we leave. We have been saved by the universal phenomena of a bloke in a bar saying, ‘You can't leave that, that's still half full.'

 

We drive for a further 15 minutes in glorious and valiant retreat; in situations like this there is nothing finer than the nobility of cowardice. We have followed the stream and charted a course deeper into the countryside, there is no one is sight and we are quite alone. Out here the water sashays along flat plains hemmed in by distant hills and against the
backdrop of a clear blue sky. It is easy to forget this countryside is contaminated.

 

‘The gangs will not come here,' says Councillor Carlos as we walk to the stream to set up the camera equipment. ‘We are safe here,' he says. But nobody asks how he can be sure of this, no one says ‘What if the gang had a car?' or ‘What if they drove down the track they saw us leave on?' Or being a rural gang, ‘What if they had a horse?' Tattooed gang members trotting along doing a twos-up on a horse might not seem a possibility but this is the countryside - an unfamiliar place in my own land let alone another continent. For all I know the gangs round here could use pigs as pitbulls and pimp tractors. We are in the middle of nowhere, a little shaken up and in need of some reassurance.

 

The sound of a motorbike revving in the distance is not reassuring. Nether is the vision of the solitary bike heading towards us down the hillside, with billowing dry earth blowing up behind it. A black cop car then screeches to a halt on a ridge, three men step out into the swirling dust, silhouetted in the dirt clouds. The red and blue lights mounted on the roof flash a dull light in the haze. They wait, looking on, as the lone cop on the motorbike drives towards us. The dust and roar gets nearer until the rider guns the engine, brings the bike to a stop, flicks out a stand and dismounts all without taking his gaze off us. He wears reflective shades and is dressed head to toe in black, laced paratrooper boots, combat trousers, short-sleeve shirt, gun belt and holster. Even his jungle hat is black. Perhaps it is a nervous reaction but I get an overwhelming urge to say, ‘Fuck me it's a paramilitary goth.' But the words come out as, ‘Hi, there.'

We have no idea if we are breaking the law, if we need permission to film here, if he will take exception to foreigners making films that might be critical of his country. He stands tall, legs astride, one hand resting on his belt. Councillor Carlos explains we are filming for a programme about water contamination. The cop removes his shades looks at us and says, ‘I'm pleased, especially in view of what's going on.' Then he continues in a deep, serious and sincere tone, ‘As a rural police officer we're involved with everything to do with the natural world and the environment. The other forces work within the city, within the urban areas. We ourselves are here for the well-being of the natural world, the rural areas.'

 

Oh my God, we've just meet our first genuine green cop. He's tough, rides a motorbike, looks as sexy as hell and wants to protect his local eco system. Does he have any idea of how many boxes he ticks? I have women friends who would ovulate at the sight of him…men too.

 

As if this isn't enough he initiates a brief and succinct critique of multinational corporations. ‘Most of the companies, like Coca-Cola, for example - it's a very obvious example, isn't it? - these companies, the waste products which they produce: the only outlet they find is here in our scanty resources.' He gestures to the stream, smiles and says, ‘I'm really pleased that groups like yourselves are concerned about rescuing the few natural resources we enjoy today.' And with that he touches the tip of his hat, nods his head, mounts his bike and roars off to fight wrongdoers, hug trees and break hearts.

 

It's a hard act to follow but Councillor Carlos returns to the matter in hand, telling us the final episode of his saga. The story so far: the Coca-Cola bottling plant dumps waste in the water, kids get rashes, fish die and are found floating belly up, the mayor and the council can't leave the community without
water. Carlos says, ‘We obtained water tanks…[everyone] gets their water from the water tanks.'

‘Where does the water come from?'

‘There is a well where the water comes from which by means of piping feeds water to the tanks…so the well water supplies these water tanks for the benefit of the community.'

‘Who pays for it?'

‘We as a community pay for it. If we get a bill for X amount and 50 people use the tanks then we divide up the bill by 50.'

 

So the company that was supposed to bring employment to the community doesn't employ anyone, pollutes the stream and causes people earning about $1.50 a day to pay out more money for their drinking water.

 

Carlos shrugs, ‘We fought and struggled so that Coca-Cola would pay for the water tanks, so that they would pay for the consumption of water that we have. Unfortunately Coca-Cola, like the huge company they are, merely came here to take over the resources…'

 

The question that worrying me is a simple one: how can a company that makes fizzy pop produce waste that kills fish and pollutes drinking water? They are making Coca-Cola in there, they are not Dow Chemicals or British Nuclear Fuels, and to the best of my knowledge they are not the final hiding place for The Mythical Weapons of Saddam Hussein. So how is this pollution happening?

 

Chemical engineer Daniel Martinez, has agreed to meet me to explain. He's a chubby, clean-faced man with an innocent friendliness. A Salvadorean by birth he trained in Canada. ‘I used to work for City Hall and was in charge of monitoring how Coca-Cola was handling waste products,' he says while we scramble down to the stream. We are looking for the Coke bottling plants' waste pipe and find it halfway down the bank
side protruding on to a brick overflow that cascades into the stream. The pipe leads straight to the plant and is easily big enough for a man to crouch and walk in, Tom Cruise could probably get in standing upright and would do too, especially if you told him L Ron Hubbard was in there.

 

Daniel stands by the constant flow of water coming out of the pipe and explains how the waste is produced. ‘There are two processes, one is the actual production and the other is when they wash the bottles. They use caustic soda to wash the bottles and detergents, that's what gives the water the high PH. The other contaminant is from the process itself, that's sugar mostly.'

 

Science admittedly isn't my strong point but if sugar is being dumped into the water don't the inhabitants just face very sweet water, surely their problem is calorific at this point?

 

Daniel develops a habit for dealing with my stupidity, namely he giggles then ignores me.

‘The main problem is the biowaste contains too much nutrients. And they are all biodegradable but to be biodegradable they absorb the oxygen in the water.'

Somewhere in my mind a light bulb goes on.

‘OK, so when people told us that the fish died when Coca-Cola moved here, it is because this stuff uses the oxygen and there is nothing left in the water.'

‘Exactly,' he flashes a quick encouraging smile, ‘they suffocate, they drown. When you have these multiple species dead, it's because Coca-Cola had a problem with the plant and they had a dumping…they just opened the gate,' he says referring to the pumps and sluice gates that release the waste, ‘ and the problem goes away.'

‘Except it doesn't go away.'

‘Except it comes to the community.'

With no resolution in sight it was at this stage that the council took the extraordinary move of taking the company to court over the non-payment of the council taxes. Daniel furrows his forehead and raises his eyebrows, ‘To get the taxes they had to go to the Supreme Court to make them pay.' He shakes his head slightly almost in disbelief and smiles, ‘I don't know how City Hall won that case, but they did, they actually made them pay.'

 

Back in the mayor's office, sitting with another cup of coffee, Rene the Mayor reveals how the company fared on its last condition to pay its council taxes. ‘They also broke their promise to pay their taxes to the municipality.'

‘What were the taxes for?'

‘Rubbish collection, for electricity and other things' says Rene.

‘Would the taxes include water rates as well?'

‘No, the water, they are not paying anything for the water and they should.'

 

So the council took the Coca-Cola bottlers to court to get their taxes, and the council won.

 

I ask Rene the mayor and erstwhile revolutionary how he feels to have won in court against such a large company. ‘Happy,' he says. Though he isn't displaying a huge amount of that particular emotion at the moment. ‘To win against a company of this nature is not easy. They were thinking logically, “well we owe them two hundred thousand dollars, we'll pay one hundred thousand to a good team of lawyers and we'll save half the money and we'll win”. They were wrong.' He shrugs the shrug of a stoic.

 

‘After two years we won. They paid us two hundred thousand dollars, and it was a shame that we had to go to court to get
them to pay us an amount which is not much for them, but for us it is a lot of money.'

 

So The Coca-Cola Company's assertion that they have a role to play in helping communities become sustainable is bogus in this case. The water was polluted. The poorest people in town now have to pay for their water. The football team got no support. No jobs came to the town, save the near-mythical part-time gardener. The company did not pay its taxes. Yes, the council won but as Rene says, ‘we had to go to court to get them to pay us something which by law…they should have paid.' Which may be why he is so resolutely un-celebratory in this victory.

 

The ex-revolutionary mayor who welcomed Coca-Cola into town sighs, spreads his hands out and explains how it could have been. ‘If you go and live in an area the best thing you can do is get integrated with the local population, look after them, so the place where you live is the best. But they have not done anything…they go to a place, they exploit all the resources and when there aren't any they leave, and they leave the people in the place with the problem.'

 

Before the
Dispatches
programme was broadcast in November 2007, I put these allegations to Coke. They said they had a certificate to show they met international enviromental standards.
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They are also keen to promote their water stewardship efforts in Nejapa - which runs to providing two schools with clean water.
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Which I wouldn't really want to criticise save for the fact that it doesn't really address the concerns raised. But maybe I'm just picky…