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Bolivia Kicks Out Coca-Cola

  • Spence Cooper
  • August 7, 2012

Bolivia’s Minister of External Affairs, David Choquehuanca, recently announced that Coca-Cola will be expelled from Bolivia on the same day that the Mayan calendar enters a new cycle”December 21.

According to Choquehuanca, the date marks the end of capitalism and the start of a culture of life in community-based societies.

Bolivia’s Minister of External Affairs has the support of Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, who has encouraged his country in the past to boycott Coke in favor of soft drinks produced locally.

Bolivia’s government is planning a series of celebrations that will take place at the Southern Hemisphere’s Summer Solstice on La Isla del Sol, one of the largest islands in Lake Titicaca.

“The twenty-first of December 2012 is the end of selfishness, of division. The twenty-first of December has to be the end of Coca-Cola and the beginning of mocochinche (a local peach-flavored soft drink),”Choquehuanca told reporters at a political rally for Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales.

“The planets will line up after 26,000 years. It is the end of capitalism and the beginning of communitarianism,”he added.

Forbes points out that sales of coca leaf are big business in Bolivia, accounting for 2% of the country’s GDP, or approximately $270 million annually, and representing 14% of all agricultural sales.

Coca is legally sold in wholesale markets in some Bolivian cities, and there’s even a cocaine bar in La Paz.

The culturally driven boycott against American companies forced McDonald’s to withdraw from the country in the early 2000s because they were unable to make a profit there.

“After 14 years in the nation and despite many campaigns and promos McDonald’s was forced to close its 8 Bolivian restaurants in the major cities of La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz de la Sierra.”

Forbes notes McDonald’s failure was chronicled in a McDonald’s produced documentary “Why McDonald’s Failed in Bolivia.”

Bolivia Kicks Out Coca-ColaSometime later in a statement about Bolivia’s decision to expel Coca-Cola, Consuelo Ponce, the spokeswoman to the South American nation’s Foreign Minister of External Affairs said Choquehuanca’s comments during a July rally for Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, “were taken out of context”

Apparently Choquehuanca was only expressing his personal desire, and encouraged the people of Bolivia to drink Mocochinche, a peach-flavored soft drink, as an alternative to Coca-Cola.

In 2009, Hugo Chavez removed Coke Zero, the no-calorie beverage produced by the Coca Cola, from Venezuela store shelves.

According to then Venezuela’s Health Ministry, Coke Zero was banned from store shelves because tests confirmed it contains the artificial sweetener sodium cyclamate, which has been known to have adverse health effects.

The Coca Cola Company, however, disputes the claim, saying that Coke Zero products sold in Venezuela use Acesulfame-K and Aspartame as sweeteners.

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