A-Infos (en) Asturies burning p.2 (ca)

[prat@chem.ucsb.edu (Luis Prat)]

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JANUARY 14: The confrontations become more radical in this second day of 
mourning.
Meanwhile the top levels of CCOO and SOMAFIA-UGT in Madrid start to worry 
about the tone of
the mobilizations. Groups of unemployed youth and students join the struggle 
en masse in the
mining regions. During the night a group of unknown people attack the 
headquarters of CCOO
and UGT at Candi'n mine, causing a fire that forces the firemen to 
intervene. Meanwhile in
Mieres the Student's Union tries to manipulate the protest like their elders 
(CCOO-UGT) do, but
the ploy backfires: groups of middle school students dump containers and 
wreck several phone
booths in several Mieres neighborhoods. The Student's Union disavows and 
condemns the
deeds. The press reveals that the day before there appeared posters calling 
to protest and
described the process of making molotov cocktails in a secondary school. The 
posters had no
signature. An 18 year old student is arrested in Mieres and charged with 
erecting a barricade and
carrying gasoline. At the Nalo'n a civil guard is hit by a "volador" when he 
tried to stop the raising
of a barricade in the valley's corridor, at Rian~o. Next to Soto'n mine 
another picket blocked the
same road at 7AM, the police left after half an hour of combat without 
getting the road cleared.
The barricades return once again to highway A-66 that links Asturies with 
the central plains, this
time at Campomanes. At Pola de Lena there's a demonstration of over 1,000 
students in
solidarity with the miner's struggle and for the future of Asturies.

JANUARY 15: There are assemblies at the mines at the urgings of Corriente 
Sindical de
Izquierdas (Left Sindicalist Current, T.N.). Mobilizations begin after the 
assemblies. Since the
previous night highway A-66 is blocked at Figaredo. At 10AM a group of 
miners, unemployed
and students erect new barricades at the FEVE station in Figaredo. The civil 
guard charged with
anti-riot material forcing the picket members to seek refuge in the forest, 
from where they
attacked the civil guard with rockets and steel balls. The neighbors join 
the melee, throwing hard
objects  at the civil guard from the balconies, and the guards breaking 
windows in response.
Confrontations in El Bata'n (Mieres) between miners and the police, the 
miners taking refuge in a
coal wash where they exchanged blows with the repressive forces of spanish 
capitalism. In the
Aller valley another great barricade in front of the mine shaft was erected, 
cutting off access to
the villages, railroad as well as road traffic, leaving the valley totally 
uncommunicated. The
police and the civil guard don't make their presence known since their 
defeat on the 9th. Groups
of miners, unemployed and students block A-66 throughout the day, with 
constant confrontations.
In Nalo'n highway AS-17 is blocked  in several places. Two members of a 
picket are arrested at
Maria Luisa mine, 5 cops are wounded. The police retreats, according to 
their spokesman, due to
"the extreme aggressiveness of the miners towards the forces of public 
order", not without first
firing against residences in Sotrondio, causing damages. At the Modesta wash 
miners dump
three truckloads of coal thus blocking traffic. Nearby, students block AS-17 
the whole day. In the
afternoon another truck load is dumped on the railroad tracks that access 
the wash. There are
also barricades and confrontations at other points in the Nalo'n Valley 
throughout the day
(Rian~o, Barredos and Tuilla tunnels, Carbonera road ...). While the people 
fight in the streets,
members of JCA lock themselves up in the school of mining in Uvieu, where 
they don't bother
anyone and keep themselves safe from danger.

JANUARY 16: The confrontations continue during the night and start again at 
dawn, spreading
throughout the day. At 4 hrs. anti-riot units take Maria Luisa mine 
(Cian~o-Nalo'n) to prevent the
miners from making a stronghold inside. When the miners arrive they have an 
assembly and
decide to denounce the police occupation of the mine, then they go to Soto'n 
mine. At 11AM a
miner is seriously injured at Modesta wash, being taken to Uvieu for 
surgery. Meanwhile at
Soto'n and El Fondo'n mines (Nalo'n) the confrontations between anti-riots 
and miners don't stop,
traffic blockades are intermittant, a cop is wounded. In Serrallo a group of 
women and youths
raises barricades during the day, when the police arrive to remove them they 
remain on the
sidewalk as espectators, only to resume erecting the barricades once the 
police is gone, and so
on throughout the day. At Caudal the police arrested the regional secretary 
of retired UGT
members, accused of taking part in the confrontations at Bata'n wash. 
Barricades are constant in
A-66. In Figaredo serious confrontations take place, the police fire against 
windows and a woman
in her home is wounded with a rubber ball fired point-blank, she was taken 
to a nearby hospital.
In the afternoon more clashes in Figaredo. The police make use of a large 
deployment of
material, including a helicopter. The regional authorities begin to worry 
about the spreading of
the struggle to unemployed youths and students: the regional president, 
Sergio Marque's says
from abroad ("by coincidence" he's travelling) that "radical " youth that 
take place in the
confrontations are "subproducts" that "must be removed as soon as possible 
from social life"
because they may destabilize "community harmony": "We must get rid of them 
as soon as
possible" said the president without especifying the methods (gas chambers, 
firing squads, the
very spanish garrote vil or simply death by shots "in the air" from "his" 
security forces or
disappeared). That same night hard clashes on A-66 and AS-242 in Figaredo, 
the police get to
enter the center of  town in Ujo and Figaredo. Five unemployed youths and 
students from the
valley are arrested accused of taking part in a picket. The police uses 
brutality once again,
beating people indiscriminately, in this ocassion they charge against the 
customers in a bar.

JANUARY 19:
After the cease fire this weekend, mobilizations start again in the 14th day 
of strikes. Many
roadblocks in the valleys. Serious confrontations all day long around Maria 
Luisa mine (Nalo'n), a
miner is seriously wounded, then taken to the hospital. At 10AM as usual 
since the conflict
began, the students join the fight in Cian~o, getting support from miners in 
M. Luisa mine with a
coverage of "voladores". Confrontations in Barredos, near Carrio mine: the 
civil guard sets the
forest on fire. Other confrontations in the Nalo'n Valley take place at El 
Fondo'n crossing, at
Sama and at Serrallo. FEVE Llaviana Xixo'n railroad cut at Carbayi'n. N634 
blocked by a
barricade of burning logs. Miners from Siero block the Canta'brico highway 
at Los Corros for
over an hour and a half: a miner is arrested after being threatened of 
getting his head blown off
by the civil guards, once arrested he is beaten. Barricades in Moreda. 
Several blockings of
highway A-66 at Caudal, near Campomanes and Vega del Rey the civil guards 
start a fire in the
vecinity of Sta. Cristina de Lena pre-romanic church. Confrontations in 
Figaredo around highway
A-66. It is made known that the anti-riot's expenditure of material used 
against miners,
unemployed youth and students is over 3.5 million pesetas per day, and this 
is only for the
confrontations at Soto'n mine.

JANUARY 20: Confrontations with "security" forces , roadway blockades and 
other incidents
continue. However a change of "mood" is noticed in the police as well as the 
civil guard and the
bourgeois media (radio, press, TV). On the one hand the different police 
forces involved avoid
making arrests, which are substituted by beatings - a miner from CSI 
Figaredo was beat up and
left on the tracks, at Nalo'n similar incidents occur; on the other hand the 
mass media minimize
or hide the incidents, trying to portray a "progressive return to normalcy". 
The police deployment
is overwhelming, taking the mines to prevent the protestors from making 
strongholds inside.
Important confrontations happen in Cian~o near the different mine entrances. 
Several roadways
are blocked. However the government delegation claims that there have not 
been any incidents
nor confrontations. Corriente Sindical de Izquierda calls a press conference 
at Candi'n mine to
demonstrate its support for the unemployed and student's struggle in the 
mining valleys. At 9:50
hrs. attempt to erect a barricade in Uvieu on the Xixo'n-Avile's highway is 
frustrated by the quick
police intervention, with at least one arrest. A group of 200 miners called 
by SOMAFIA-UGT
gathers at noon in Uvieu in front of the regional parliament, where they 
block traffic and hurl
several fire crackers. Calls to the disinformation media protesting police 
brutalities multiply.

JANUARY 21: Confrontations at M. Luisa mine: a young student, 16,is 
seriously wounded when
he is hit by a rubber ball in the eye, amid hard clashes with the police 
which have occurred
uninterruptedly around this mine for the past 12 days, with large 
participation of students and
local unemployed. A press photographer is wounded at this mine when hit on 
the head by a
smoke canister. A Demonstration of over 500 residents of Figaredo against 
police repression,
with the blockade of highway A-66. According to a resident's spokesperson 
:The agents arrived
armed to the teeth, with a reckless and provocative attitude, which didn't 
even exist during the
Franco days". In Xixo'n a strike in the middle schools in solidarity with 
the miner's struggle:
hundreds of students demonstrate fron El Humedal to City Hall claiming their 
future and the
reindustrialization of Asturies, at the end of the demonstration a group of 
students dumps two
containers, the police charging at that moment. Hundreds of retired miners 
demonstrate in Uvieu
demanding guarantees of payment of the coal voucher and exemption from 
paying the IRPF
(some tax? T.N.) for the permanent disability pensions.

JANUARY 22: The UGT and CCOO unions seclude themselves in the Hunosa and 
Figaredo
Mines to find a solution to the conflict. In Mieres a demonstration by 
students, miners and
residents march to Figaredo, where they block traffic on A-66, as well as 
the railroads: the police
intervene arresting a student who allegedly carried a slingshot and steel 
bolts. Another blocking
of A-66 happens near Pola de Lena, with confrontations with the civil guard 
(one of them was
wounded). A resident of Langreo not connected with the incidents lost one 
eye due to a rubber
ball fired point-blank as he was leaving a pub the night before, in the 
middle of hard clashes near
M. Luisa mine. A metal worker from Nalo'n was arrested accused of taking 
part in a barricade in
Llangreu. Two student demonstrations from Llaviana and La Felguera come 
together at
Sotrondio. At the last hour the barricades and the confrontations come back 
to the Nalo'n
highway, at Cian~o, between miners and the police. The local students join 
the fight near the
Institute. There are also confrontations in Rian~o. In other localities in 
Asturies, such as Avile's
there are likewise student mobilizations in solidarity with the miners. That 
night there is graffitti in
Uvieu at the headquarters of UGT and CCOO such as "the young will not 
forgive", "traitors",
"workers autonomy" etc. Likewise some billboards with the slogan "I do not 
pay commissions.
Carlos" were ammended and left to read "I do not pay commissions. Carlos Marx".
 
   Luis
@@@@@@@@@@                                 
                                           
Luis J. Prat                             
                                          
University of California                   
Chemistry Dept.                             
Santa Barbara CA 93106
(805) 893-3295
(805) 893-4120  FAX

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2374

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           greedy  murderers  and  polluters
     remember Ken Saro Wiwa and the slaughtered Ogoni


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