EYEWITNESS REPORTS FROM BARCELONA

national | miscellaneous | news report Saturday March 16, 2002 10:35 by the red flag - socialist youth / resistance

a report of 14 young comrades of International Socialist Resistance(socialist youth in Ireland) in Belgium who are at present intervening in the Barcelona anti EU protests.

Below is a report of 14 young comrades of International
Socialist Resistance in Belgium who are at present intervening
in the Barcelona anti EU protests.There's more (in Dutch) on
our special Barcelona site:
http://users.pandora.be/militant.links/ml/2002/barcelona.html

International Socialist Resistance in Spain!
Report from Barcelona

Tuesday 12 march

At 22h we leave Gent with a mini-bus direction France. We hope
to be able to travel quicker by driving through the night and
hope to get in Barcelona at noon. Unfortunately this was too
optimistic. A car from Brussels which left several hours later
obviously took a quicker way and arrived at about the same time
as us in Barcelona.

Wednesday 13 march

During the trip we were checked twice. The first time was around
Paris and due to ourselves... We stopped for a short break and
saw two empty police-cars. As we were interested we had a look
and thought this was perfect tot take some pictures. We sat down
in front of the empty police-cars as if we were arrested and
took pictures of this heroic event. The police-men who were
sitting in a nearby restaurant came outside as they thought our
behaviour was rather suspicious. We decided to walk back to our
minibus. After having checked their cars, the policemen came in
our direction to control our passports. We decided this would be
the first and last practical joke with the policeforces on our
trip to Spain.

The second control was at the French-Spanish border, where we
had to unload all our lugage. The control was not very
efficient, the police was only interested in our political
material. They demanded a copy of the Spanish edition of 'Under
Siege' (anti-capitalist pamphlet of the CWI).

When we arrived in Barcelone we parked the minibus nearby a
policestation. We thought that would be safe while we were
looking for a sleepingplace. A local guide brought us to a
squat, but this was too risky. We decided to contact the
convergence centre to find a safer place. When we got back at
our minibus we found an unpleasant surprise. Despite the
presence of a policestation someone had broken into our car and
stolen a digital photo-camera, a mobile phone and the luggage of
two of us. As if this wasn't enough we also were harassed by 4
undercover agents. They weren't interested in the theft and
said: "this is what happens in Barcelona". We recognized one of
them as someone who was near the squat where we first got into.
They obviously were following us.

In the Convergence Centre we met the other members of ISR who
came with a car from Brussels. In the centre they sent us
through to a safe sleepingplace. When we got there we again were
stopped by undercover police. They checked our passports.
Afterwards they asked the names of our parents, we still wonder
why... After this they started to examine our passports in a
search for our names (our passports are in Dutch or French). As
they got our names they started to phone their headquarters and
then we could get some sleep. After travelling for 24 hourse the
cold floor felt like a luxuous matrass.

Tursday 14 march: trade union demo

On thursday there was the trade union demo organised by the
ETUC. We thought there was less people than in Brussels on the
13th of December. We looked for the Belgian delegations of the
ACV (christian union) and ABVV (socialist unions). A bus of the
FGTB (Frenchspeaking ABVV) was stopped at the border as the
police thought their flags and sticks for the flags could be
used as "weapons". The two delegations, together some 300
people, came to Barcelona for 1 day by plane. A city-trip is
relative cheap with Virgin: 150 Euro per person. Count this for
300 persons... who afterwards got a luxuous meal on the costs of
the union. It was clear that this was only the top of the unions
who were allowed a nice and free city-trip.

During the demo we sold our political material: badges,
stickers, the Spanish edition of Under Siege, whistles,... It
was strange to see we could sell our badges against the fascist
demo in Gent last week to Spanish demonstrators while in the
Belgian delegation we couldn't sell a single badge or paper...

While walking through the city on our way to the demo we
received positive greetings from a lot of local people who were
enthusiastic to see our young group marching with red banners.

On our way back of the union demo we were surprised to see a
demo of policemen. This wasn't the first protest of policemen.
Obviously the Aznar government isn't that popular even in the
ranks of the police. We however think that the police troops
tommorrow will be very disciplined...

Friday 15 march

Today starts the EU summit. Through some small meetings with
local activists we get an idea of the different actions which
take place. Today is the day of the decentralised actions. At
different times and places there will be actions on different
issues. The idea is to get the local people of Barcelona
involved by being present in different neighboorhoods.

We decided to make a selection of actions we'd go to:

Caça-lobbies (Lobby-buster demo):

At 9h30 there was a demo starting at the Gaudi cathedral to
protest against the lobby-groups of the multinationals. The
press was present in big numbers. We met journalists of the
Dutch and the Frenchspeaking national Television.

At different buildings in town the demonstrators organised
interactive street theatre. There was a good mood and it was
fun. Despite the abscence of any violence the police attacked
before the demo even started. Luckily this didn't lead to
serious problems.

Los ricos tamién lloran ("The rich will cry"):

This action was announced as a "risky event", so we couldn't
stay absent for this one! A couple of hours before the demo
started the Rambla (meeting point for the demo) was already
filled with police. In a short distance of 200 metres we were
stopped twice for a passportcontrol! At 13h we met again at the
Convergence Centre. A lot of people told us not to got to the
demo, which arouse our interest. We decided to go to the Rambla
as there also were a lot of tourists there we hoped that could
serve as an excuse.

We met a strange tourist, the Belgian minister and chairman of
the Frenchspeaking social democrats, Elio Di Rupo. We asked him
how the summit was proceeding. He said: "it's not really
interesting, the issues Aznar wants to discuss aren't really
interesting for us". For the chairman of the Parti Socialiste a
discussion on privatisations these days only
is 'uninteresting'... Di Rupo was obviously searching for TV-
crews to get his face on the news with demonstrators on the
background instead of the normal shots of politicians amongst
each other.

When a group of about 100 demonstrators arrived as a group all
the press started to film and you could see the tension growing.
The police put on its helmets and it got started: some
demonstrators got masked, the TV's were making shots, some
people started to shout and the riots got started. Undercover
agents attacked their targets, the police went into the demo
very heavily while stones were being thrown around.

We don't think this can make the movement stronger. The Spanish
workers won't start to support the anti-capitalist movement by
seeing TV-images of masked youth destroying windows.