AFP. 30 January 2002. Maoists bomb second Coca-Cola plant in Nepal.
KATHMANDU -- Maoist rebels bombed a Coca-Cola plant in Nepal, two months after a similar attack on the US beverage giant's only other factory in the Himalayan kingdom, officials said Wednesday. S. B. Gurung, the manager of the plant in Bharatpur, 180 kilometres (112 miles) south of Kathmandu, said the Maoists cut down barbed wire late Tuesday above the factory's tall brick wall and planted powerful bombs. But he said the explosion did not cause extensive damage and will not affect Coca-Cola's operations in Nepal. "The production will resume from Thursday normally," Gurung told AFP. He said Coca Cola, based in Atlanta, and the insurance company were assessing the damage. No one was reported injured by the bombing Tuesday, although the Nepali-language newspaper, Kantipur, said the blasts shattered window panes and caused cracks in houses within 200 metres (yards) of the factory. The Maoists in late November bombed Coca-Cola's other factory in Nepal, on the outskirts of Kathmandu, after the government declared a state of emergency to contain the guerrillas. Local businessmen said the attacks clearly were meant to show resentment against the United States, as the Nepalese own almost no shares in Coca-Cola's factories in the country. "Had there been equal equity investment, this problem would not have surfaced," businessman Binod Upadhyay said. The United States has strongly backed Nepal's crackdown on the Maoists, who are staunchly anti-American. Nepal in turn has firmly backed the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews
