ANARCHIST UNIONS TAKE TO THE STREETS

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Saturday March 20 2010

SPAIN'S two anarchist trade union federations held demonstrations in Tenerife's capital Santa Cruz on Saturday.

by JAMES TWEEDIE

The anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation of Labour (CNT) protested outside the regional headquarters of the Socialist Party of Spain (PSOE) – controls the national but not the Canarian regional government – against a variety of policies.

They carried a banner reading “Defend your rights – not one step further” in reference to budget cuts and tax rises.

CNT regional general secretary Alex Rodríguez said that the the protest was against the government's €50 billion bail-out of Spanish banks alongside the same amount in cuts to public spending.

Mr Rodriguez said that the government had “money for the banks and businesses, but nothing for the workers.”

The CNT, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, also opposes government plans to increase Value Added Tax (IVA) and to raise the retirement age to 67.

And it is critical of the recent agreement reached between Spain's two largest union federations, the communist Workers' Commissions (CCOO) and the PSOE - aligned General Union of Workers (UGT), and big business in the face of La Crisis.

After half an hour two police officers arrived and demanded the identity cards of everyone present, including the press. One protester explained that police permission is required for demonstrations of more than 20 people, which the CNT event had not reached.

Zapatistas

The same day the anarchist General Confederation of Labour (CGT), a 1979 split form the CNT, held a protest in solidarity with Mexico's Zapatista movement in Santa Cruz' central Candelaria Square.

Particpants held a banner reading “The Zaapatistas are not alone” and painted temporary murals on parcel paper taped to the wall of a nearby building.

The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), formed in 1994, is named after early-19th century Mexican revolutionary peasant leader Emiliano Zapata.

Represented by the balaclava-wearing, pipe-smoking Subcomandante Marcos, the EZLN is thought of as an revolutionary guerilla movement.

But CGT member Juan Blasco insisted that the Zapatistas are a community movement campaigning for the rights of indigenous Mayan people in the southern Chiapas state.

He said: “The Zapatistas are a movement only for education, healthcare and justice.”

The protesters called for landowner-funded paramilitary squads, which they claim are also supported by the Mexican government, to leave Chiapas.

The paramilitaries have carried out a number of murders, including the 1997 Acteal massacre of some 45 unarmed men-women and children at church prayer meeting.

Chiapas has several hydro-electric dams and oil wells, but its majority Mayan or mixed-race population of smallholding farmers are among the poorest people in Mexico.

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