It has been something of an obsession here in this shebeen to keep an eye on the attempts by the corporate class to monetize the most basic building block of all life—namely, water. The New York Times reported this weekend from a small, impoverished place in Mexico, where that phenomenon has put the people there in an impossible position—namely, perish from thirst or contract diabetes.

Potable water is increasingly scarce in San Cristóbal de las Casas, a picturesque mountain town in the southeastern state of Chiapas where some neighborhoods have running water just a few times a week, and many households are forced to buy extra water from tanker trucks. So, many residents drink Coca-Cola, which is produced by a local bottling plant, can be easier to find than bottled water and is almost as cheap. In a country that is among the world’s top consumers of sugary drinks, Chiapas is a champion: Residents of San Cristóbal and the lush highlands that envelop the city drink on average more than two liters, or more than half a gallon, of soda a day. The effect on public health has been devastating. The mortality rate from diabetes in Chiapas increased 30 percent between 2013 and 2016, and the disease is now the second-leading cause of death in the state after heart disease, claiming more than 3,000 lives every year.

You will not be surprised to learn that the Coca-Cola people get the residents of this place coming and going.

Buffeted by the dual crises of the diabetes epidemic and the chronic water shortage, residents of San Cristóbal have identified what they believe is the singular culprit: the hulking Coca-Cola factory on the edge of town. The plant has permits to extract more than 300,000 gallons of water a day as part of a decades-old deal with the federal government that critics say is overly favorable to the plant’s owners.

Public ire has been boiling over. In April 2017, masked protesters marched on the factory holding crosses that read “Coca-Cola kills us” and demanding that the government shut the plant down. “When you see that institutions aren’t providing something as basic as water and sanitation, but you have this company with secure access to one of the best water sources, of course it gives you a shock,” said Fermin Reygadas, the director of Cántaro Azul, an organization that provides clean water to rural communities. Coca-Cola executives and some outside experts say the company has been unfairly maligned for the water shortages. They blame rapid urbanization, poor planning and a lack of government investment that has allowed the city’s infrastructure to crumble.

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Those Chinese climate hoaxsters have a hand in this situation, too.

Climate change, scientists say, has also played a role in the failure of artesian wells that sustained San Cristóbal for generations. “It doesn’t rain like it used to,” said Jesús Carmona, a biochemist at the local Ecosur scientific research center, which is affiliated with the Mexican government. “Almost every day, day and night, it used to rain.”

The president*? Glad you asked.

But at a time of growing strife between Mexico and the United States, fed by President Trump’s vow to build a border wall and his threats to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement, the increasing antipathy toward Coca-Cola has come to symbolize the frustrations that many Mexicans feel about their northern neighbor. The plant is owned by Femsa, a food and beverage behemoth that owns the rights to bottle and sell Coca-Cola throughout Mexico and much of the rest of Latin America. Femsa is one of Mexico’s most powerful companies; a former chief executive of Coca-Cola in Mexico, Vicente Fox, was the country’s president from 2000 to 2006.

And there are the inevitable ripple effects, which do not touch the wealthy people on both sides of the border who own the water.

Laura Mebert, a social scientist at Kettering University in Michigan who has studied the conflict, says Coca-Cola pays a disproportionately small amount for its water privileges — about 10 cents per 260 gallons. “Coca-Cola pays this money to the federal government, not the local government,” Ms. Mebert said, “while the infrastructure that serves the residents of San Cristóbal is literally crumbling.” Among the issues facing the city is a lack of wastewater treatment, meaning that raw sewage flows directly into local waterways. Mr. Carmona, the biochemist, said San Cristóbal’s rivers were rife with E. coli and other infectious pathogens. Last year, in an apparent effort to appease the community, Femsa began talks with local residents to build a water treatment plant that would provide clean drinking water to 500 families in the area. But rather than easing tensions, the plan led to more protests by locals and forced the company to halt construction of the facility.

The relationship between Coca-Cola and the indigenous communities in this area is so entwined that Coca-Cola literally has become an object of religious devotion. In The Gods Must Be Crazy, the Kalahari bushmen worship a discarded glass Coke bottle as a gift from the gods. In this small place in Mexico, the drink itself has become something akin to communion wine.

But the main draw here for tourists is to watch the faithful, who pray over bottles of Coke or Pepsi, and also over live chickens, some sacrificed on the spot. Many Tzotzil believe carbonated soda has the power to heal the sick. Mikaela Ruiz, 41, a local resident, recalls how soda helped cure her infant daughter, who was weak from vomiting and diarrhea. The ceremony was performed by her diabetic mother, a traditional healer who has performed the soda ceremonies for more than 40 years.

But, for many in San Cristóbal, the ubiquity of cheap Coca-Cola — and the diabetes that stalks nearly every household — simply compounds their anger toward the soft drink company. Local health advocates say aggressive marketing campaigns by Coke and Pepsi that started in the 1960s helped embed sugary soft drinks into local religious practices, which blend Catholicism with Maya rituals. For decades, the companies produced billboards in local languages, often using models in traditional Tzotzil garb.

As bad as the wars over oil have been, they are going to be Sunday school picnics compared to the wars over water. And they’re coming.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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