Miners in the mountains of Asturias who have been on indefinite strike for nearly two months have arrived in Madrid to take their strike to the streets.
Faced by escalating police terrorism were wounded in the Spanish capital over the last few days by cannonades of plastic bullets and batons rained on them by the riot police.
The miners' only demand is that they be given back their jobs, with the Spanish State declaring an end to subsidies which effectively destroy the livelihoods of thousands of people, which effectively add up to the destruction of the main source of income to the region.
The strikes kicked off in the mountains of Asturias, (in the north of the country between Galicia and Cantabria) and then spread to other parts of Spain, including Leon and Galicia. Parrallels have already been drawn to the insurrections of Asturians in the Spanish Civil War as miners of the time led the charge against feudalism and autocratic repression.
Now the State is playing the same game and like in Britain where two of the strongest politically active cities have been targeted by EDL marches, political thinkers believe there is a conscious attempt to target the bases of popular dissent with the same fascist policies of repression as an attempt to prove the public are too comfortable to do anything when faced with dictatorship.
However, the miners have refused to lie down. The austerity cuts have been resisted with all manner of physical protest, as they barricaded themselves in streets and fired homemade rockets from the mountains in response to plastic bullets and tear gas from the militarised police repression. Roads were blockaded by burning tyres and trees which prevented dangerous men in riot gear reaching them except on foot, further slowing State forces. And everytime police units managed to overcome these defences and moved into the towns and villages they were greeted by verbal abuse by the elderly as well as the youngest generations as the local community turning out in force to support the miners.
The movement, hailed as one of the first joint regional resistances against the cuts in Europe has seen various other businesses strike in solidarity with the miners who bring in the majority of funds to other industries like services.
"We refuse to lie down!" exclaimed one of the miners. "All we want to do is work and there is any reason for the government call us terrorists. Mining is really hard work but we are prepared to fight to the end because our families are worth it"
The irony of the situation is that while the government decided to cut around 300,000,000 pounds of aid to the miners, and thus to the livelihoods of thousands of people reliant on their hard work in their local areas, they agreed to a 100,000,000,000 pound aid package to save the banks. "This is injustice of the highest order," said one of the miner's wives in a recent interview. "A government is supposed to take care of the people, not a select elite who individually earn millions every year. Every rescue package just means we pay for the blatantly irresponsible behaviour of the bankers, who don't even go to prison like in Iceland where they have been jailed for playing God with others' hard-earned saving".
The miners then proposed to take their fight for justice to the State capital and literally walked there over two weeks to voice their dissent. But rather than being met with dialogue they were attacked with bullets despite the overwhelming solidarity of many city-dwellers. "When they use bullets and batons to repress our democratic right to protest we are no longer in a democracy. This is a dictatorship which, like in Libya and Syria, has to be removed by any means necessary," exclaimed one protestor as blood dripped down her forehead.
And while the miners' power base is attacked in Spain, in London one of the largest military lockdowns in the capital's history continues to build up and with around a combined force of 50,000 private and public security personnel set to hit the streets for the Olympics, political commentators are fearful of a nationwide repression of the already impoverished under class. This class, which includes people from backgrounds as diverse as ethnic minorities, the unemployed and squatters will most likely be targeted by a wave of repression which is sure to increase their already impoverished state, with police controls, house raids and imprisonment without trial to become the norm. This will connect to the mass gentrification of areas around London over the last year with rent hikes as much as four times the original amount being recorded in areas like Hackney and Brixton.
Some of these factors were reportedly behind the riots last summer and with brute force and nationalist propaganda created by the Jubilee the authorities are expecting a smoothly operated authoritarian summer of profit for the fat cats from BP, Coca-Cola and McDonalds.
Original article on IMC London:
