Interview with UK students against Coke activist

dublin | worker & community struggles and protests | news report

Wednesday June 14, 2006 16:32

by Jim

Interview with UK students Against Coke activist Claire Hall who is coming to Ireland this weekend to speaking at the Connolly Festival. Lara Coleman from London based Colombia Solidarity who has just returned from Colombia where she worked for two months with Sinaltrainal will also be speaking. The meeting will take place at 11.30 in the Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square this Saturday June 17th

Boycott Killer Coke campaign

1. How did you get involved in the boycott coke campaign?

I got involved in the campaign back in October 2004. I had just been in a meeting of the expeditions society at the students union when leaving the room, i got handed a flyer for a meeting taking place in the same room. It was a meeting about Cokes crimes in India and Colombia with Edgar Paez from Sinaltrainal and Amit Srivastava from the India Resource Centre. I was curious, there and stayed.

It was that meeting and the consequent smaller meetings with Colombia Solidarity Campaign where my political life began. I spent a lot of time reading about the case, sometimes doubting my convictions, believing what opposition stuff was saying, discussing this with my housemates and trying to come to our own conclusions. This experience is a strength for me when campaigning as I can relate to people who are cynical and 'walk with them', trying to explain the broader contexts so events make more sense to people. .

2. About how many colleges are involved in the boycott campaign in the UK?

First I should clarify what UKSAC is. We are a network of students who started working together when we discovered that our union contracts were national, and hence needed collective national action. We shared information, experience and knowledge about the complicated NUSSL and NUS process and supported each other in getting involved in the bureaucratic side of student politics.

We are not constituted, have no formal decision making structure and as a network have no political line beyond Coke. Each university uses the campaign in their own way, but it hopefully has prompted debate amongst students. For example: In Portsmouth it has united People and Planet, Socialist Workers and the Green party student groups to form the Anti-Coke Coalition.

In the UK there are about 10 universities active but others are taking action without being part of the network. Most recently East Anglia held a referendum where students voted to end relations with Coke and Portsmouth have formed a coalition of different student groups to kick Coke out.

3. Have you heard anything/ have any thoughts about the campaign in Ireland?

In the UK we know little about what is currently happening in Ireland, other than Irish Labour Youth have been giving us a lot of support, which people in the network are really grateful for. The information that we got about the after effects of the boycott at Dublin was really useful and was used on leaflets at conference.