interests. But it's way too premature to declare the movement is over.
n Brazil we now have Lula's government dominated by PT Workers
Party) ministers. Without doubt Lula has taken some radical measures, notably the cancelling of an order to jet fighters to reallocate the money towards the poor. However there is no doubt this government is a bourgeois government, and increasingly Lula seems like a populist leader, not a workers' leader.
Why do we have this outcome in Brazil? The drift of the PT majority to the right has been a long process. The election of a PT government comes not after an ascending wave of popular struggles, but rather after their sharp decline - and the defeats suffered by the Brazilian popular movements international boycott of Coca Cola and all their products.
The trade union Sinaltrainal, the Colombian Food and Drinks Workers Union, is calling this international boycott following the assassination of 8 trade union leaders.
The 8 died at the hands of paramilitary gunmen employed by the bottlers working on behalf of Coca Cola. In a similar situation in Guatemala in the early 1980's, Coca-Cola was forced by a consumer campaign to terminate its bottling agreement with a Guatemalan bottler who had used right wing death squads to murder union leaders at that plant.
In his call for support Carlos Julia of Sinaltrainal stop drinking Coke". you remember this boycott call. said "..we ask Coca Cola to stop killing ... and you to Maybe the colour of the label or of the can will help
lost their lives.
COLOMBIA: THE KILLER • In 2000 112 trade unionists in Colombia were assassinated • In 2001 172 trade unionists in Colombia were assassinated • In 2002 almost 200 trade unionists in Colombia were assassinated, more than in the rest of the world combined • In Colombia a trade union leader is assassinated every 3 days
© In the last 7 years 437 massacres have occurred, in which more than 3,000 people have
page 26 of the scan
26 socla ..• nce Summer 2003