Irish anarchists and the Seville protest

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday June 06, 2002 15:47 by Andrew

As you are probably aware the protests in Seville on the weekend of June 20th against the European summit are liable to be the largest globalisation protests to date. Anarchists from Ireland will be at the protests and in Dublin (and maybe elsewhere) we are arranging solidarity activity and a public meeting. If you want to get involved details are below. In Seville

We are advising people to make arrangements with friends to travel as a group to Seville. It is likely that the Spanish state will suspend Schengen (which allows free movement of EU citizens) three days before the protest which will enable them to stop people entering Spain. The experience of previous protests is that this is most often used against those entering in obvious delegations, especially by coach. It is least likely to be used against small groups entering by air, particularly if you don't look like protesters. Spain has a massive tourist industry and Malaga is quite close to Seville so small groups entering this way should be OK. Flying into Madrid and travelling by train or bus to Seville is another option providing you have arrived by the 20th.

For those who arrive early there should be a good bit to keep you occupied as the various Spanish anarchist organisations should be organising events as we presume will other organisations. So far we have received details from the anarcho-syndicalist union, the CGT (http://www.cgt.es) which is the largest of the anarchist organisations with some 45,000 members. They are organising a 'Red and Black' campsite in Seville. Also from the 15th there will be a huge march through the small towns in Andalucia going to Seville. A general strike will take place on the 20th so you should not plan to travel by train on that day and it is possible road transport may also be disrupted. In the Basque country the general strike will take place on the 19th.

In Seville we will probably take part in the section of the demonstration that includes the anarchist groups involved in the SIL which will include a lot of revolutionary unions and the platformist groups. It is not clear at this stage what other anarchist blocs may exist on the demonstration but it does seem likely that if there is a Black Bloc it will be separate from this. If you want to meet up with us there then email [email protected], if you will having a working mobile phone in Seville please include your number.

It is our intention to send regular reports back from Spain on the demonstrations, hopefully starting on the 17th or 18th. These will be posted to Ainriail list.
In Ireland

The real importance of the Seville protest is in building the movement in Ireland. In the period around the protest we will be distributing thousands of leaflets about Seville, the European union and globalisation. This will include a major door to door distribution and we will need lots of people to help us out in this. So if your willing to distribute leaflets in the period from June 18 to June 30 email us at [email protected]. The more responses we get by June 9th the more leaflets we will be printing.

The leaflet will cover the following areas, hopefully the final text will be available around June 12th.
Seville, Globalisation and the EU - how it effects you, bin charges, transport, migration
May 6th (RTS) and European summit policing - Not due to maverick cops, preparing for Dublin summits in 2004.
Campaigns worth getting involved with
Ad for meeting (see below)

We will also be holding a public meeting in Dublin on Seville, the repression of the May 6th RTS party and the forthcoming European summit in Dublin in 2004. This will include eyewitnesses from Seville and hopefully RTS defendants. It will probably be early on the Saturday, more details nearer the date.
Info on the Seville protests and events in Ireland will be added to the global Ireland page at http://struggle.ws/global.html

Spanish web pages that may have info closer to the date in English and which now have some info in Spanish
http://www.cnt.es/
http://www.cgt.es
http://barcelona.indymedia.org
http://madrid.indymedia.org/