Belching Out the Devil (22 page)

 

Roberto D'Aubussion was a charismatic leader for the right wing, and his nickname was ‘Blowtorch Bob'. The clue is in the name. Can anyone think of a civil rights leader or progressive figure that has a nickname based on building tools? ‘Pliers Luther King'? No. ‘Gandhi the Mallet'? No. Basically if your moniker is linked to anything sold by Black
and Decker then it is more than likely that you are a cunt. This is a hell of a monument to erect to so recent a war criminal.

 

Armando sighs and continues, ‘So the gangs, a lot of them are armed….'

 

The one thing for sure about The Coca-Cola Company is that it never knowingly undersells itself. It can't have passed your attention that Coke does love to wrap itself in the cloak of its own benevolence, and one of its proud boasts is the company's commitment to working in sustainable communities. ‘As the world's largest beverage company…' so starts Neville Isdell, former CEO of Coke ‘….we have a presence in people's lives that reaches beyond that magical moment of providing that simple moment of refreshment...'
³
Wow, who would have thought a fizzy pop salesman could have that much self-worth. Neville Isdell continues ‘We're also an employer, a business partner, part of the community, a global citizen; and I believe we must play our role in supporting sustainable communities.'
⁴
Who knew Coca-Cola had so many roles, the only one he left out was ‘whore in the bedroom'.

 

To find out what kind of a role Coke plays in a sustainable community I am visiting Nejapa, a rural town some ten miles drive from the city. I would describe it as having one main street but that is typical of my tendency to exaggerate. Other towns and cities have main arteries to traverse, Nejapa…well let's just say the van jostled along the main capillary. The street is lined with single-storey squat houses, once painted in bright colours that are now bleached by the sun. The shops are essentially people's living rooms containing a few shelves, packs of biscuits, batteries and a Coke fridge. Next to a mural of Che a middle-aged woman sells lunch from an aluminium pot perched on a table. Downwind of her an older woman
squats by a rug full of lemons laid out in the street. Opposite and under the shade of an improvised awning boys in black sleeveless T-shirts, baggy shorts and baseball caps listen to Latin hip hop. The speakers sit outside trailing wires across the street through a front door.

 

The town square is a cultural mix. It has the classic simplistic charm of any decent Western combined with the utilitarian finesse of a 1950s' British housing estate. So opposite an evocative white-walled church with a bell tower and brown wooden doors lies a kids' playground with some creaky swings and a slide. A toddler rocks back and forth on a scuffed plastic chipmunk which is nailed into the ground on a bendy spring, while a father looks on. If Ken Loach ever remade
For Few Dollars More
or Sergio Leone ever remade
Kathy Come Home
, this would be their location. Old men in straw hats sit on benches watching the square while women in shawls head to church. As for the handful of street dogs that stumble in the heat, they look good for nothing but swerving a car around. If I said that not much happens here I would be lying. It is less than that. Or at least that is how is seems, because this is the place that Coca-Cola forgot to sustain but this community fought back. And won.

 

The Mayor of Nejapa is a wily fellow and with having won four elections, he's popular too. His name is Rene Canjura and his office is just by the municipal gardens in the square. He is short, fit and dresses like a trade unionist on a Saturday night out - smart trousers and a casual checked button-down shirt. Rene loves football. His office is full of cups and trophies of little silver footballers. But the heart of the room are two pictures on his wall. One of them is the obligatory framed Che Guevara print. Every left-winger in Latin America has one. It's almost religious. I wouldn't be surprised to find pictures of him surrounded by
candles and incense, a shrine to Che, patron saint of beret wearers. Next to Che is a framed black-and-white photo. Nine young men, unshaved and smiling, pose for the camera, they are guerillas dressed in khaki and jeans standing amidst tropical palms and plants. One wears shades, one a Che beret, another an army combat hat. They all have guns, some held upright pointing at the air. The biggest man of the group sports a large moustache and has a great metal buckle on his jeans, he holds a belt-fed machine gun on a stand. The confidence of the group is unmistakable. They are happy and defiant.

‘These are my comrades' says Rene.

‘FMLN?' I ask, using the acronym for the revolutionary front that fought the government in the war.
⁵

‘Yes.'

 

This was Rene's guerilla unit. This was Rene at war, these are his friends and it is virtually impossible that they are all alive today. I have a mechanism of dealing with complex emotional situations, especially ones about which I know absolutely nothing and that mechanism is to blurt out ill-considered suburban responses. Today is no exception.

‘Gosh. Do you ever have reunions?'

 

Rene the Mayor keeps his eyes on the photo.

‘They are mainly dead. There are only two living now. One is me and the other,' he says pointing a finger at one of the men, ‘he lives in America.'

‘Right…well…sorry to hear about that…'

‘It was the war,' he says with a shrug that seems to cast aside a brief and monumentally crushing sadness.

‘Shall we chat about Coca-Cola?'

Rene the Mayor turns from the picture and says, ‘Come,' ushering me to a chair.

And there on the wall hang these two photos, one of Che and one of the smiling guerillas - the ideal and the reality. Right next to ‘brand Che', the logo of the revolution, is the actuality of the revolution: seven of the defiant men are dead.

In the run-down world of Nejapa the Coca-Cola bottlers must have ridden into town like a cavalcade. The council were delighted they wanted to open up a bottling plant. ‘We welcomed them,' explains Rene, as he places a cup of coffee in front of me. His eager reception of the company is not the predictable response of a gun-toting ex revolutionary footballer but times and needs change. The reason he welcomed Coke was simple.

‘Jobs,' says Rene the Mayor sitting down behind his desk. ‘It's a poor region, most people here are working class and their economic level is quite tough.'

I tentatively enquire, ‘Did it seem odd to you, with your history, to now be working with Coca-Cola?'

‘Well…' he says resting his hands on his lap with just the tips of his fingers touching, ‘…a little. I came from the war. They were a strong company. They had the idea that we couldn't do business. But we got past that stage and as a council we were able to give them permission, even though sometimes they were not meeting all the requirements. As a demonstration of our goodwill we said “Come.” Because we wanted the employment they offered the community.'

 

He flicks a piece of lint from his button-down shirt and sits back.

 

Nejapa really wanted those jobs, the problem was that the Coke bottlers Embotelladora Salvadorena (Embosalva) did not have a spotless public record when it came to community relations. The previous plant in Soyapango, a working-class
area a few miles to the east of San Salvador, was shut down amidst allegations the company had over exploited the area's water supplies whilst residents only had tap water for eight hours of the day.
⁶
So when Coke's bottlers, Embosalva, came to Nejapa the council had a few conditions. Rene the Mayor explains that the company were told ‘There are four conditions you must agree to before opening up here: provide jobs, pay your taxes, respect the environment and provide some funding for the local amateur football team.'

 

If the company met these conditions it would indeed be fitting for Coke to boast of playing a role ‘in supporting sustainable communities'.

 

So how well did Coca-Cola manage to comply with these conditions? Did they fund the local football team? No. Though as Rene says, ‘lately they have taken up the issue again. I hope that it works this time.'

 

OK. Did they provide employment for the community? Rene says, ‘they didn't employ anybody in Nejapa.'

‘They have employed no one?' I question.

‘No, no one. Absolutely no one.'

 

Though to be absolutely fair to the company, I later heard a very strong rumour that one person from Nejapa was employed at the new plant…as a part-time gardener. Though this is unconfirmed.

 

To find out how the company managed with one of the other conditions Mayor Rene has arranged for me to meet Councillor Carlos in the town square at midday. And in a manner befitting the time and place, Councillor Carlos appears with the sun behind him. Middle-aged, trim and sporting jeans, polo shirt and a quiff that any elderly fan of Bronski Beat or
Bros would be proud of, Councillor Carlos has been tasked with two jobs. Firstly to take us to the community he represents, who rely on the stream running downstream from the Coke bottling plant. This hopefully will provide some insight into how Coke works with sustainable communities. His second job is to act as our minder. It transpires that Armando's earlier worries about gangs are not unfounded. The Coke bottlers are supposed to protect the environment and the councillor is to protect us. I hope he does a better job than the company.

 

We are given directions to the community. The van is to turn right at the top of the town, follow the road for about five minutes, keeping an eye out for a dirt track on the right, it should be obvious as it is directly after a pile of old fridges lying on their side in a field. Then onwards down the dirt track, until we reach a standpipe, turn sharp right and we will have arrived. It is obvious we are not going to the salubrious end of the neighbourhood. Any explanation of how to get to someone's home, that involves the directions ‘turn right at some abandoned fridges', tells you the person you're visiting is pretty much fucked.

 

By the standpipe lies Councillor Carlos' constituency, a narrow lane, with overhanging leaves and palms cutting out the light. The sides of the lane are banked high with dirt and debris forming walls to create a tunnel wide enough for the van but not its mirrors. These walls are where roots and scrub entwine with junk and litter, held together with packed mud. Gnarly branches are meshed into an old mattress frame, its springs knotted through with crawlers, which is all propped up by a tyre set in soil and baked hard. Into these walls of litter and grime are steps cut in the dirt and the steps lead to homes. This is the Gallera Quemada Canton of Nejapa.

Kids in shorts crouch on their haunches at the top of the steps. From up there they look straight into the van windows, our faces just feet away from each other. As we slowly rumble down this tunnel of hovels people stop what they are doing, adults stop cooking, girls stop hanging clothes out, kids stop playing; they stop and stare at us.

 

David our American raises his eyebrows and softly says, ‘This is
Apocalypse
fucking
Now
, man.'

 

Except that it isn't. A foreign documentary film crew has just turned up with a camera that's worth more than three year's wages, so the locals are hardly likely to quip, ‘Not another polemic on globalisation, well, there goes the neighbourhood.'

 

Getting out of the van Councillor Carlos greets a few of his constituents with a nod and a word or two. ‘The people here make a living when it's the rice or sugar cane season, they get some building work too,' says Councillor Carlos

‘How much do they get paid?'

‘About $40 a month.'

 

But the one thing they had in their favour was access to clean water. The stream runs past the community and feeds into the San Antonio River. ‘Originally the stream had more water flowing through it and everybody could use it to water their flocks. Within the stream we still had wells and people could use this water.' Poor yes, but with drinking water for themselves, their animals and for washing, they at least had that.

 

As we walk Councillor Carlos refers to the water in two distinct time zones, Before Coke and After Coke. ‘Previously,' he says implying the time Before Coke, ‘the water wasn't polluted. People would come and wash and children would get into the stream to have a swim; then as time went by the
children would come out of the water with some kind of allergy on their bodies. They were sent to the clinic and that's when they found out it was because of the contamination of the water.' He pauses as we glimpse a field beyond the lane, with one solitary thorny tree and some small grey breeze-block homes in the distance made colourful with the laundry drying in the sun.