Sinn Féin accepted a $10,000 donation from the former president of the Coca Cola Corporation four months before US unions began a legal battle against the company for alleged human rights abuses in Colombia.
The donation came on the same week that Sinn Féin accepted a $5,000 donation from the Coca Cola Corporation, which has been strongly condemned by Sinn Féin's newspaper, An Phoblacht, for alleged human rights abuses in South America and India.
Coca Cola strongly denies any human rights abuses and says it has made efforts to improve working conditions at plants hired to bottle their products.
The former president and chief operating officer of Coca Cola, Mr Donald R. Keough, was a chief adviser to the company's board of directors when he made the donation to a Friends of Sinn Féin St Patrick's Day fundraiser in Atlanta in 2001.
Mr Keough, who remains an adviser to the Coca Cola board, was on holidays in Europe this week and was not available for comment.
Last December, an international delegation monitoring the Colombia Three trial, including members of Sinn Féin and the "Bring Them Home" campaign, met trade union officials in Bogota and heard of alleged intimidation and murder in Coca Cola plants. Last July, US and Colombian unions began a one-year boycott of Coca Cola.
