Allegations that the Coca-Cola corporation is contributing to human rights violations in Colombia were brought to a new audience earlier this month when political poet Martin Espada refused to accept the companies money during a speaking engagement at Kansas University. Espada requested that the $1200 put forth by Coca-Cola through the Kansas University Endowment Association instead be donated to the National Food Workers Union in Colombia that represents workers at Coke plants in that country. The company is accused of allowing paramilitary groups to intimidate workers and in some cases murder trade union leaders. Espada says it is the companies attitude towards the situation that upsets him the most:

[Espada1]: Coke refuses to cooperate with any independent investigation of what is happening down there. It's one thing to issue press relapses, but to issue press releases suggests you see this as a public relations problem, and not as a human rights problem.

At least nine universities have banned Coke products on campus and some are considering it, such as University of Massachusetts-Amherst where Espada is a professor. Espada says the $1200 will go a long way in Colombia, where the union has been decimated. He hopes that it will give the union some fighting power against plant managers who are suspected to be working with the paramilitary forces.

[Espada2]: The membership in that union is way down and the percentage of unionized workers in Coke bottling plants is something like 20 percent. This is directly related to the repression of that union.