Luego, en una columna de varias cuadras, la movilización se dirigió a La Model, prisión de hombres y de internamiento de disidentes políticos durante la dictadura de Franco. La metáfora de la movilización era clara, de las instituciones a la cárcel.
Durante las cuadras que duró la movilización y entonada a viva voz junto con la consigna de libertad presos políticos, los miles de manifestantes cantaron “la escuela catalana no se toca”, para hacerle sentir al Estado español que no podrán avanzar contra la lengua de la nación catalana. Otra de las consignas más cantadas fue “unidad, unidad.”
Al llegar a la Model, el momento más emotivo de la noche se vivió cuando Oriol Sànchez, hijo de Jordi Sànchez, leyó una carta escrita por su padre desde Soto del Real. Lo mismo hizo el sobrino de Jordi Cuixart. En tanto que Jordi Pairó, miembro del secretariado nacional de la ANC, fue quien leyó el manifiesto ‘Cuatro meses de frío’.

Desde Portal Anticapitalista participamos de esta nueva acción por la Libertad de los presos políticos y llamamos a seguir movilizados cada vez con más fuerza y unidad.

En Cataluña, la Generalitat aplica el programa de inmersión lingüística desde la cursada 1983-1984, a partir de la iniciativa y organización de los padres y maestros que se unieron para reclamar una escuela pública en la que la lengua vehicular fuera el catalán. También se habla castellano, para que se manejen como mínimo esos dos idiomas. Estas medidas contaron con consultas y un amplio apoyo social y de distintos partidos políticos.
Más allá de las necesidades sociales concretas, estaba el telón de fondo de la prohibición del franquismo, e incluso anterior, de hablar catalán. En ese momento, los que querían hablar su idioma tenían que acudir a la enseñanza privada.
No se puede abstraer este debate, que puede encararse desde distintos ángulos, sin considerar la situación concreta de Cataluña intervenida por Rajoy y Soraya Sáenz Santamaría. Desde el gobierno el PP intenta aprovechar la intervención y la falta de gobierno electo para avanzar sobre distintos aspectos de la vida económica, social y cultural catalana.
Los rechazos, ya comenzaron. El portavoz del sindicato USTEC, Ramon Font, la central mayoritaria entre los docentes de Cataluña, llamó al PP a «estudiar qué pasó en las Islas Baleares», en referencia a la huelga indefinida de docentes que provocó la «marcha atrás» de medidas similares. Según Font, no descartan movilizaciones, huelgas e incluso desobediencia llegado el momento.
Tenemos que enfrentar este ataque movilizados y unificadamente, ya que se trata de una ofensiva del Estado español en su carácter de opresor del pueblo catalán.

Manel Pere Lecha

In response to the Catalan Parliament´s declaration of independence, the Spanish Senate decided to apply the antidemocratic article 155 of the Francoist constitution in all its strength, allowing Rajoy´s Council of Ministers to take over the regional government of Catalonia. The Council, which had already taken over Catalonia´s finances, deposed its president, Carles Puigdemont, and his ministers, dissolved its parliament, with the excuse of calling antidemocratic regional elections on 21 December, and took over the Catalan police force, the Mossos D´ Esquadra, among other institutions.

Rajoy and King Felipe VI, with the enthusiastic support of Ciudadanos, and the shameful support of the PSOE, have the clear determination of uprooting the will of a people who have decided to self-determinate as an independent republic and was initiating a constituent process.

To achieve this, they threaten to use the Spanish armed forces if the thousands of civil guards and national police that they have deployed as an occupation army on Catalan territory result insufficient. Faced with the difficuly of replacing the complex regional state apparatus, they attempt to intimidate public workers who may be insubordinate with disciplinary sanctions, ranging from withholding pay to sacking and prison.

In its repressive charge, the Spanish regime has begun to imprison the leaders of the independence cause. On Thursday 2 October, the National Court judge, Carmen Lamela, ordered the jailing without bail of Catalan vice president Oriel Junqueras, and seven other ministers of the Catalan government, Jordi Turull, Raul Romeva, Josep Rull, Dolors Bassa, Meritxell Borras, Joaquim Forn and Carles Mundo. They stand accused of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds, crimes with sentences of 30 years of prison. Another minister, Santi Vila, was also indicted and released on probation after paying a 50,000 Euro bail.

The arrests of Junqueras and the ministers, together with the previous detentions of the leaders of the Asamblea Nacional Catalana and Omnium, Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, sum up ten Catalans who are imprisoned for the “crime” of defending their peoples´ right to decide and abiding by the mandate of the urns, in which the Catalans sovereignly decided on 1 October.

To these detentions, we must also add judge Lamelas extradition request to Belgian and EU authorities, that weighs over Catalan president Puigdemont and the ministers that are exiled in Brussels, and ther persecution of Carme Forcadell and the Board of the Parliament.

These arrests reveal Rajoy´s lies about the “measure” with which the Spanish regime is supposedly approaching the Catalan crisis, and the “democratic process” leading to the 21D elections. They reveal the authentic coup d´etat that Madrid has carried out by deposing the authorities legitimately elected by the Catalan people, with the objective of impeding their right to become independent from the Spanish state.

So much brutality can only by explained by the deep crisis of legitimacy that the bonapartist regime of Spain is in after the popular resistance the Indignados opposed to the austerity measures it implemented to try to reestablish Iberian capitalists´ profits after the global crisis of 2008.

It is a bonapartist regime born out of the antidemocratic constitution of 1978, thanks to the complicity of the Spanish peoples´ leaders of the PSOE, the Communist Party and the opportunist “nationalisms” of then, who allowed the heirs of Francoism to continue in power, supporting the monarchy and betraying all who gave their life fighting for a democratic republic against fascism.

The Catalan population has responded immediately to these attacks. Thousands took to the streets in Barcelona the day of the arrests. On Friday 3 November a massive “cacerolazo”, a rally in Barcelona and marches in the towns and cities of Catalonia, have called for a general strike on 8 November, and a great mobilization on 12 November, to demand the liberty of the political prisoners and the lifting of article 155.

In Spain and around the world, a great number of organizations and renowned persons have spoken out against this new assault of the Spanish regime. Although Rajoy´s PP is now trying to avoid responsibility for judge Lamela´s decisions, with false arguments of the courts´ “independence”, everyone can see that they are a direct consequence of the application of article 155 and the decision to ignore the peoples´ elemental right to self-determination.

What is at stake in Spain and Catalonia affects all workers and peoples of the world who fight against repression and the denial of democratic rights by dictatorial regimes, or by others who, wearing a democratic disguise, don´t hesitate to trample the most elemental liberties when the interests of the capitalist multinationals that they represent are endangered. This is the case of the Spanish governmnet, regime and monarchical state.

This is why we, the signatories, of this statement add our voice to those of others who condemn these detentions and persecutions worldwide. We call, in the broadest and most unitarian manner, on all organizations and persons who defend democratic liberties, to carry out a strong campaign demanding the immediate release of the Catalan prisoners, the end of persecutions of independentist officials, the lifting of article 155, and the recognition of the right to self-determination of the Catalan people, their inalienable right to decide and to consitute an independent republic, as they have expressed by majority in the 1 October plebiscite.

4 November of 2017

Movimiento Socialista de los Trabajadores of Argentina

Marea Socialista of Venezuela

Movimiento de Esquerda Socialista – PSOL of Brazil

Bloque de Anticapitalistas Movilizados of Chile

Alternativa Socialista of Paraguay

MPGT of Peru

Rumbo Socialista de Uruguay

Movimiento al Socialismo of Panama

La Commune of France

SMOT of Belorus

29 October 2017

The 27th of October will forever be remembered. That day, the Parliament of Catalonia, with the support of an enormous popular mobilization at its doors, declared the independence of the Republic of Catalonia from the Spanish state and the monarchy of King Phillip VI. With their vote, the Catalan parliament merely ratified what the people of that country had decided in the plebiscite of 1-O, for which they turned out en masse, defending their right to decide, even in the face of a brutal repression by the Spanish state that did not distinguish men from women,  or young from the elderly.

In response to this sovereign decision by the people of the northeastern Iberian peninsula, the Spanish Senate, with the votes of the PP, PSOE and Ciudadanos, decided to apply Article 155 of the Spanish constitution and allowed the Council of Minister of Rajoy´s government to take over the regional government, its executive power headed by Puigdemont, dissolve the Catalan parliament with the excuse of calling a new antidemocratic regional election, take over the Catalan police, and the foreign Catalan delegations, among other measures, which are completed by the intervention of the attorney general, who has charged and ordered the arrest of Puigdemont, and the utilization of the constitutional court to turn down the declaration of independence of the Parliament.

Although Rajoy´s government has spoken of acting with care and “mesure” to reestablish Spanish “rule of law”, it hasn´t had any “measure” in attempting to impose a coup d´etat, as it didn´t when it broke into regional government offices and arrested various officials of the Catalan government, or when it sent its police to savagely beat thousands of citizens whose only crime was trying to vote in the plebiscite that established their will for independence.

Since these repressive attempts were defeated by the massive mobilization of the Catalan people, the government now escalates its offensive against the independence revolution with Article 155, to try to smash a struggle that has overcome and defeated it at every turn.

“Reestablishing the rule of law” in a territory whose people are mobilizing by the thousands and hundreds of thousands in defense of their right to decide to be independent, can only be done resorting to the repressive apparatus that the Spanish state has stationed in Catalonia, which counts with thousands of officers of the Civil Guard in the National Police, acting as an authentic army of occupation. The Spanish government´s return to “rule of law” has meant applying severe coercive measures, from facilitating the economic boycott of large businesses, to trying to isolate an independent Catalonia, internationally.

The Spanish regime and  its PP government did not modify its repressive path at any moment, despite the regional government´s many offers of dialogue. On the contrary, the only “dialogue” offered by the monarchical regime has been unconditional surrender, and for Catalan leaders to renounce the right to independence that their people consecrated. Its “dialoguist” spirit has materialized in the unjust imprisonment of Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, leaders of the ANC and Ominum. They are political hostages of the Spanish state and their liberty is demanded by the people of Catalonia and the democratic people of the world.

The imperialist parliamentary monarchy that rules Spain is the direct descendant of the Francoist regime and the disastrous constitution of 1978, that established a monarchy against the democratic republic for which the Spanish people fought against Franco´s fascist beast. An undemocratic constitution born of the Moncloa Pact, in which the leaders of the Spanish working class, particularly the PSOE, the PC and “nationalist” parties, betrayed those who fought againt francoism, renouncing republican democracy, which had been the banner of the antifascist struggle.

Now, that constitution, its King, and the entire antidemocratic regime born out of that act against the Spanish people, stand against a nation that demands its most elemental and democratic right of self-determination. The regime has the open support of Spanish and European transnational corporations, the main governments and leaders of the EU and Donald Trump, and the old and traitorous political and labor leaderships of Spain, like the UGT, dominated by the PSOE, or the CCOO, led by the PC.

Unfortunately, new political currents that emerged out of the crisis of the old regime and the struggle against its brutal austerity policies, that expressed the magnificent movement of “indignados”, and then had its political materialization in the formation of PODEMOS, have maintained a mistaken ambiguous position that condemns the repression of Article 155 and, at the same level, also condemns the declaration of independence of Catalonia. When what is called for is an unconditional defense of the right to self-determination and independence of the Catalan people.

A serious danger hovers over the Catalan revolution, over those who chose to stand up to the police batons, over those who have bravely defended their dignity and right to decide taking to the streets, over those people that have decided to take a great historical step and not let themselves be unnerved by the threats, nor by the saber rattling of the Spanish barracks.

The struggle of the Catalan people, of its young and its old, of its women and men, is the struggle of all who defend democratic rights over repression and imperialist barbarism. The struggle of the Catalans for their self-determination and their right to independence, is the struggle of all the peoples oppressed by the Spanish state, the Basques, Galician, Andalucian, Canarian, etc.

The struggle against the monarchy is part of the struggle of all the workers of Spain against the capitalist austerity of Rajoy and the corporations. It´s the struggle of those who won´t stand a monarchical empire any longer and fight for a republic, of those who fight against the “gag law” and want the crimes of Francoism that the current regime covers up, taken to court.

Defending the Catalans´ right and supporting their decision is part of the struggle of all the peoples of Europe that fight against austerity and anti-labor reforms driven by the European Central Bank, its corporations and the EU leadership. Those who have supported the side of Rajoy and the Spanish and European “rule of law”, have done so against the most elemental democratic right of a people that demand their self-determination.

The cause of the Catalan revolution is, in short, a struggle of all the peoples of the world that fight against the barbarism of this decadent capitalist imperialist system and its political regimes. Regimes that disguise themselves as democratic, but show their repressive and antidemocratic essence when the interests of the corporations and their bonapartist power are questioned.

This is why we call for mobilizing in support of the Catalan people, in defense of their self-determination and independence, against Rajoy´s repression and the implementation of the antidemocratic Article 155.

We call on workers and peoples to mobilize around the globe. We call on all those who stand for defending the democratic rights of the Catalans to repudiate Rajoy´s new coup and repressive threat. We call to demand all governments to immediately recognize the Republic of Catalonia.

We are convinced of the necessity of consolidating the independence of Catalonia, carrying out the call of a free and sovereign constituent assembly, that should found the new republic and carry out all the democratic measures that the Francoist constitution of 1978 has impeded, as well as discuss and resolve a set of immediate anticapitalist measures to solve workers´ most urgent problems. We also urge the workers and peoples of Spain to take the same path. We do this from the socialist perspective that we defend for Catalonia and Spain, convinced that the necessary workers unity will be achieved hand in hand with a Free Federation of Ibearian Socialist Republics.

At the same time, we call for the broadest unity of action to generate a great mobilization on a global level to support and defend independent Catalonia. Because we are conscious that there is more at stake in Catalonia than its right to independence. Its odyssey is now the vanguard of the struggle of all the peoples of the world that fought for their liberty against imperial oppression and barbarism, against those who drop their merciless bombs on children and innocent victims in Syria and other countries where they want to assure their dominance, against those who encourage xenophobia and racism, the deepening of patriarchy and ecological depredation, against those for whom the sacrosanct profit motive of the corporations is more important than the most elemental rights of workers and the people; than life on Earth itself.

This is why the Catalan struggle is, for us, a struggle of all humanity.

Movimiento Socialista de los Trabajadores of Argentina

Marea Socialista of Venezuela

Movimiento de Esquerda Socialista – PSOL ofB Brazil

Bloque de Anticapitalistas Movilizados of Chile

Alternativa Socialista of Paraguay

La Lucha Continua of Peru

Rumbo Socialista of Uruguay

La Commune of France

SMOT of BelarusM

MASof Panama