Damanga Co-Sponsored Protest as Part of world refugee day

June 20, 2008

            On June 20th 2008, in correlation with World Refugee day, the Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy staged a rally outside of the Coca Cola Company’s DC offices. The purpose of this rally was to put pressure on Coca Cola to speak out against the genocide in Darfur. As they are key stakeholders in the Olympic Games, what they say can have a large effect of what China does, and as of now, China is a major backer of the Sudanese government, investing large quantities of money in their oil industry as well as providing weapons.
            The rally had a good turn out of about 50 or so people from various organizations and included speeches by Faith Macdonell of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, Isaac Shapiro from Save Darfur, and Mohamed Yahya, Executive Director of Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy. After several hours of posters, speeches and chanting, a petition was brought in to the Coca Cola office stating that if Coca Cola continued to refuse to speak out, we would refuse to watch their commercials turning the Olympic Games. We regret to report that this petition was not accepted by the office workers at the Coca Cola Company; rather it was unceremoniously rejected and handed back to us.
            Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy vows to continue to make their voice heard. We will continue to speak until someone listens. If nothing else, the Coca Cola Company has added fuel to the fire by showing themselves, a formerly “good guy company”, for what they really are and where they really stand on world issues.

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