Testimonies of tortured by Spanish police

Political repression in the Basque Country, including arbitrary arrests, false accusations, trials without guarantees and tortures, is so common that I cannot certainly make mention of everything. In fact, I fear that I am so used to reading about repression that I don't even give it too much importance or even try to take it off my mind.

But at least now and then I must make mention so my readers get an idea of what is going on here. These is what happened, by their own accounts, to the last spat of arrested and tortured Basques, the victims of the reaction of the state to the confirmation by ETA that they were in a unilateral truce. All them were arrested by the Guardia Civil, a military police corps similar to the French Gendarmerie or the Italian Carabinieri, that has the worst reputation. The typical journey to Madrid by car may last some 4-5 hours but tortures continued once in police dependencies. Sexual abuse has become lately a common way of torture.

Sandra Barrenetxea had her upper clothes removed while being transported to Madrid. In the transport, she was systematically insulted, beaten and touched. Eventually a policeman took away her pants, forcing her to open her legs while another hit her on the head. She was forced to wear only her underwear in the interrogations and was threatened with rape repeatedly. In one occasion she was forced to lie her torso on a piece of furniture while the policemen tied her legs with a rope and threw cold water to her genitals between threats of rape.

Ugaitz Elizaran claims to have suffered more than 20 times the torture known as "the bag" (they put a plastic bag on your head and tighten it so you cannot breath and experience the agony of death). In one case, while suffering this torture, they tied his hands at the back and enveloped him in a mattress, with several policemen sitting on him. He tells that he even lost his sight once. Additionally they forced him to make physical exercises and beat him, as well as issuing threats against his relatives and friends, showing him a manipulated photo to make him believe, falsely, that his couple was also arrested.

Rosa Iriarte told that she was forced to touch a white narcotic dust, what caused her lose the feeling of her hands. Then they threw the same dust on her legs loosing sense in that part of the body as well. When they finally gave her a glass of water, she also ingested some of the substance, having all the mouth "asleep". Additionally she was forced to hear how the other arrested were tortured and was applied electrodes but no shocks (a threat).

Eneko Compains suffered the bag as well since the very moment he was introduced in the police van. He also denounced a very harsh psychological treatment with systematic threats against his relatives and a threat of anal rape with a stick. Curiously, he mentions that when he rejected to make a declaration at the police station the attitude of the cops relaxed. He asked to the physician for habeas corpus but his petition was rejected by the tribunal.

Aniaiz Ariznabarreta was, like Barrenetxea, deprived of her upper clothes in the journey to Madrid, suffering touchings and sexist insults. The same pattern was repeated at the police station for the four days of the arrest, when she was forced to stay naked and suffered sexual abuse (touchings on breasts and vagina). Ariznabarreta also reports that she was once enveloped in a blanket and then in a mattress, with a policeman sitting on her while the other five officers did not stop yelling, insulting and making threats.

Egoitz Garmendia was also applied the bag with some peculiarities (tape on his mouth and sometimes throwing water to his face when releasing the grip). He was heavily beaten and also enveloped in a blanket and/or mattress for policemen to jump on him (one on his genitals). He also reported repeated hits against his genitals (without the mattress) and threats of rape with a stick. In one occasion, when being brought back to the cell, they threw water on him, forcing him to stay naked with the only aid of a blanket (police cells are not warm, I can tell you).

Erika Bilbao was forced to stay in difficult postures, beaten and threatened, reporting as well a harsh psychological treatment full of threats against her loved ones. Like the rest, she could not rest because of continuous noise and yelling.

Joxe Aldasoro was kept in a dark room in which he could see nothing. When moved, he was blindfolded. Otherwise he reports continuous threats against his relatives and friends.

Urko Aierbe was beaten so badly that his leg was injured and he cannot walk normally now. His report includes the bag (twice), forced positions and continuous beatings.

Source: Gara.

Make up your own mind. But this is essentially what we read, hear or just know from experience that happens when someone is arrested, in particular (but not only) by the Guardia Civil. Spanish 'anti-terrorist' laws allow for incommunicado arrest without any guarantees for several days and when these are applied the usual thing to happen is torture of this or that sort. Later they may well let you free with or without charges, for the media your a "terrorist" anyhow and most won't listen to your denounces.

Video: Basque police violence and arbitrary arrests in the General Strike of June 29

This video showing the actuation of the Basque Autonomous Police, Ertzaintza, against union pickets illustrates well how is the reality of police control and who exerts most violence in our daily lives, hidden behind masks so not be pointed at when they go back to their homes.

It's nothing that surprises me at all, as we have been suffering this systematic police harassment since I have memory and before, even before the Ertzaintza was created.

But maybe for readers from other socio-political contexts, where human rights are not just an empty word, this may be revealing.



The immediate source for this video is Spanish alternative news site La Haine, however I imagine it is a small part of the many sequences filmed on the day of the General Strike that were never broadcasted by any TV and that have been generously donated to the public domain by some anonymous worker tired of so much hypocrisy.

Gora San Fermin!

Today officially begin the most famous fiestas worldwide: the San Ferminak of Pamplona.

Panoramic view of the City Hall Plaza at the txupin

Of course, the tensions between the official Navarre and the other Navarre have been present all the time.

For instance, it was the turn for the txupin to be launched by a member the Basque Nationalist Left municipal group and that has caused that for the first time it has been launched instead by the members of the Giants and Big-Heads konpartsa instead of a councilor. Furthermore the councilors of this group were forbidden to access the balcony on the grounds that their t-shirts had Basque flags on them.

However the Basque banner was visible in the plaza anyhow:

Another conflict is the censorship imposed on some peñak (popular groups that co-organize the fiestas and give it the real feeling) because their banners, traditionally critical and humorous depictions of the social and political reality, included references to Basque prisoners.

For that reason all peñak have agreed that this year their banners will be black, representing censorship.

Again, regardless the municipal government, solidarity with the prisoners has been present in form of the traditional salutation, this year by the hand Asier Aranguren, a recently liberated local prisoner:

Yet another conflict has been with the platform for participative fiestas Gora Iruñea! The city government has repeatedly denied them permission to install scenarios and such, so this year they have asked for the very minimums, bringing the rest of activities to the street (1200 hours of street music, activities for children, 14 rock concerts, dances...). Still the right-wing Mayor and camarilla have rejected to concede any permission, forbidding even a popular dinner. The association will therefore be forced to relocate these activities in less adequate spaces but the clowns Pirritx eta Mari Motots need an scenario for their actuation so they may have to cancel this activity. However they have promised to act for the children of Pamplona in some other occasion.

Another prohibition is vuvuzelas.

Source: Gara (link 1, link 2, photo gallery).

And, by the way, who was San Fermin? Nobody seems to know nor care... ask the Pope. What the people really wants is a pretext for wild, almost endless party.

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Update (Jul 8): La Haine reports of one person arrested and two more brutally beaten by local police for carrying the Basque flag to the txupin (inaugural ceremony repeated daily). It's perfectly legal and nobody would mind if it'd be the banner of Australia or Andalusia but the Basque ensign is apparently forbidden de facto by the fascist government of the city.

Spanish Supreme Court sees no crime but false confession under tortures, revoking Inquisition sentence

The Spanish Supreme Court has slapped again the New Inquisition tribunal (Audiencia Nacional) in the case of five Basque youths earlier declared guilty on the crime of support of terrorist organization and sentenced to five years of prison.

The five Basque citizens denounced tortures upon arrest and incommunication and signed self-inculpatory declarations at the police station where they "acknowledged" that they had distributed ETA's bulletin Zutabe.

Only on such "evidence", they were sentenced to five years of jail for support of terrorist organization.

Now the Supreme Court considers that there is total lack of evidence and that they should have been acquitted in first trial, accusing the Audiencia Nacional of sloppiness. It also says that the attitude of the state attorney in the case, trying to keep the original condemnatory sentence is "improper", as the state is supposed to defend human rights and the presumption of innocence.

Another issue highlighted by the high tribunal is that issuing the sentence after the original trial, took more than two years!

One of the victims of this case of tortures and false accusations, Mikel Zenigaonaindia, denounced recently (photo above) that he had been stalked by police, who threatened him with murder: "you are going to end like Txiki and Otaegi", who were the last two people executed by the Fascist regime in September 27 1975.

Of course no action was or will be taken against those policemen. That's how justice works in the Kingdom of Spain.

Source: Gara.

Basque class division in figures

According to Iñaki Gil de San Vicente, 1.30% of Southern Basques have 44.4% of the country's GDP (not counting real state). In raw numbers that means that 36,000 Basques have almost half of the wealth created collectively by some 2,776,000 people.

Meanwhile there is an official figure of 12.7% unemployment (surely much higher in fact because this figure only includes those in the official unemployment office, which is almost useless to find job) and 40% of people (1,110,000 Basques) has incomes under 1069 euros per month, which is considered officially the poverty line (life is quite expensive here, specially housing), many of them on what is called the "social salary" which is a subsidy of 650 euros per family (only slightly higher if you have children), less than what costs the usual rent of a cheap apartment (700 euros or higher per month).

The GDP per capita in the Western Basque Country (Navarre must be close if not higher but I lack the exact data) was 31,110 euros (2008), making a rough total of 86.4 billion euros (or some 120 billion USD in 2009) for the whole southern Basque Country. What means (a bit roughly) that the 40% of Basques under the poverty line are getting less than 41% of their theoretical share of the GDP.

Meanwhile, that tiny elite of 36,000 rich Basques own collectively some 38.4 billion euros, more than one million euros each (average).

So while the bulk of the citizenry is getting through life with less than 13,000 euros per year, a tiny oligarchy enjoys one million each. A hundred or more times what the common poor Basque has.

I know that elsewhere it can be much worse (for example here it is mentioned that a Chilean worker can earn as little as $182 per month, with the official minimal salary being of $312, $250 after taxes, less than the effective cost of housing) but I wanted to calculate and write down these figures, just for the record.

News on the human shields against the High Speed Train

This is the continuation of the info I posted last week on four activists entering abandoned mines with the intention of becoming human shields against the destructive, undemocratic, useless and extremely costly Basque High Speed Train, that is being built in the Western Basque Country.

The information was not being actualized properly at the AHT Gelditu site, I think (at least not when I checked), but now there are several news items.

I now reckon that the people giving the press release, some of which I identified, were not the same ones going to the mines.

Whatever the case, the news are:

The Government and its companies have continued work as if nothing happened. Explosions continued on thrusday and friday and it's reported that the activists felt rocks falling, though they are alive so far. This criminal attitude triggered that a legal denounce has been placed at court.

Two of the activists chained to each other through a cement filled barrel to make forced evacuation more difficult.

Another problem they are reporting is that the mines have high humidity levels, what makes their stance very uncomfortable and unhealthy. In fact unspecified health problems have been reported.

Demo in Ordizia.
The banner reads: 'Through disobedience until the High Speed Train (AHT) is stopped. Resistance in the mines of Itsasondo'.

There was an important demonstration at Ordizia on Saturday (photo above).

As police did absolutely nothing, the AHT Gelditu platform sent a group to check for the situation of the activists, which are alive but with the important caveats mentioned above that imply serious danger for their lives and health.

Contact group wading through the mine galleries

Finally today, police has shown up at the site and it is speculated that their intention is to take them out.

___________________

Update (July 6): the four activists were finally expelled from the mines yesterday evening, reports Gara. After passing through the health center, they were arrested and charged with "public disorder, resistance and disobedience to authority".

Risking their lives to stop the High Speed Train

Four people have become human shields to stop the Basque High Speed Train (AHT-TAV) work. The four ecologists have entered an abandoned mine at Itsasondo in the Gipuzkoan highlands near where the development companies are carrying on prospections by means of continuous explosions, which could destroy the old mine nearby at any time.


Above: the four nonviolent activists at the press conference where they announced their action. I am quite sure. in spite of the low quality of the pic and the lack of names in the source, I know personally one of them (Jaxo, the second from the right) and probably all four. No big surprise: this is a really small country. Guess I'll feel emotionally obligued to go to demo this Sunday.

And sure: I feel even more worried.


The High Speed Train is a waste

Not only it is enviromentally hostile, it is a total waste: a bottomless pit for public money and a relevant factor in the public deficit that so problematic has become.

It is not me who says that, it is a big business speaker: the president of the Spanish Association of Spanish Concessions of Highways, Tunnels, Bridges and Toll Roads (ASETA), José Luis Feito declared yesterday at a major university that this type of train is useless for the low population density and rugged orography of Spain, that the existing trains (between Seville, Madrid and Barcelona) can't pay even the 30% of the costs. To offset this, he admits, the ticket price would have to be at least tripled but that would mean that nearly nobody would use them.

He instead proposes to build freight railroads, which are almost non-existent in Spain, what means that most cargo traffic goes by road, crippling them.

He acknowledged that the high speed trains in Spain are one of the causes of the growing public deficit and proposed that something will have to be done about it.


5000 euros of debt to every Western Basque

The Basque High Speed Train is projected to cost 4900 euros to each Western Basque citizen. And as the Spanish government has, in an unprecedented act of pragmatism, removed its support for the Basque HST, that means we are going to have to pay that in full (Southern Basque territories are semi-autonomous in tax collection and allocation - it has been that way since the Castilian invasions of 1199 and 1512, except partially for the fascist interlude).

For that reason there is now a campaign going on to stamp or write down on the bank notes a short message denouncing the unduly high cost that the HST is having for us. This major financial argument may possibly persuade the indifferent after all because everybody knows how hard is to gather those 4900 euros.

Strikes in the Basque Country, Greece and Metro Madrid

Yesterday, June 29, there were general strikes in Greece and the Basque Country, as well as a sectorial 'wild' strike at Madrid's subway that blocked the metropolis.

Basque general strike has been considered a great success: about 75% of workers joined it in the Western autonomous region. Particularly strong incidence in the industrial, banking and administration sector, though the arbitrarily high 'minimal services' may have hidden some of the impact, specially in transport. 65,000 people demonstrated in the main protests at the provincial capitals.

In Navarre the following was irregular, with total closure in the North, high following in the Pamplona urban area, specially in the industrial sector, and more occasional impact in the South.

Police presence was overwhelming, so whoever went to the strike did so on their own will. The opposite may not be true in some cases as it is well known that some big corporations like El Corte Inglés coerce their workers systematically.

The regional governments and corporative associations have tried to minimize the impact but their figures (well under 10%) are simply not credible at all.

Demo Donostia (San Sebastian)

Demo Vitoria-Gasteiz

Demo Iruñea (Pamplona)

Above pictures from Gara. More images and some videos can be found at La Haine and the sites of LAB union.

Sources: Gara (link1, link 2) , La Haine, Euskal Herrian Info, Hala Bedi Irratia, Eguzki Irratia.



Greece keeps up the fight

Dramatic fights between protesters and the police broke again at the Republic's Parliament today in yet another episode of the class war that is gradually gaining momentum as the rich and their lackey governments try to put the cost of the crisis they have created on the workers' shoulders.

It happened in the context of another strike called at public service and transport sectors.

Source: Al Jazeera and local TV.

In this context, Al Jazeera blog on Europe has an interesting analysis by Barnaby Philips. It deals with the occasional home-made bombs so typical of Greece, where revolutionary factions are particularly strong, in particular with the latest, unusual, parcel-bomb that killed an aide of the Greek interior minister. What really called my attention was this paragraph:

I was surprised when I asked a conservative Athenian friend what he thought of the bombing. “I’m sorry that someone was killed, but I’m glad they let the bomb off, to show how unhappy people are” was his blunt reply.

Metro Madrid strike paralyzes the metropolis

The second day of the strike at Madrid subway was also the first one of "wild" strike, not respecting the abusive minimum services of 50% imposed by the government, which is also the owner.

The reasoning behind is that, if the regional government is taking illegal measures, breaching the collective agreement, workers are also entitled to break the law.

According to La Haine, it was a total success with not a single train circulating today. This totally disrupted the normal life at the Spanish capital, with people having to walk long distances, take packed buses or almost impossible to find taxis.

Tomorrow the strike continues. It will be the last day, also without minumum services... by the moment. The ball is now at the right-wing regional government's court: workers demand a written compromise that it will respect the collective agreement signed by both parties months ago.

General Strike today

Leherensuge joins the General Strike of today in the Basque Country against the institutional degradation of working conditions, pension and services cuts in order to pay the banks and allow the oligarchs to keep their robbery (erm... profit) margins.


We will have to eat something... even if it's fatty pigs, right?

General Strike tomorrow in the Basque Country

Tomorrow, June 29, there will be a General Strike against the budgetary cuts and legal measures that intend to attack the Working Class, the most severe attack in almost a century.

The Strike is being called by the majority of labor unions, specially Basque Workers' Solidarity (ELA) and Patriotic Workers' Union (LAB), with the support of all the small and sectorial unions. Even pro-Spanish Worker Committees (CC.OO.) has called separately for this General Strike, leaving the Spanish Social-Democrat General Workers' Union (UGT) as the only such organization not calling for the strike.

There are mobilizations scheduled along the whole day, beginning at 8 am in Bilbao, and massive support is expected.

In solidarity with the Strike, I will not update the blog nor reply to comments in the 24 hours (CET) of tomorrow.

This is Bilbao: no kissing

You thought that Talibanism was restricted to countries like Afghanistan, Iran, Saudia and maybe Indonesia... well, it seems not: the (undemocratic) Town Hall of Bilbao has designed a new fascist municipal decree that will forbid many normal recreational activities including, believe it or not, kissing.

For that reason people went out to the streets yesterday to... break the law. Well, would be the case if the decree would have been implemented, not yet but soon.

They did such criminal activities as cooking and eating, flying kites (yes, this was also forbidden in Talibanistan) and the most criminal of all acts: kissing in public!


Ironically, the Town Hall is ruled with the support of the supposedly left-wing party United Left, whose alliance with the Basque Christian-Democrats has severely damaged their prestige and sunk the bloc in a deep internal crisis.

Source: Boltxe Kolektiboa.

Genetic comparisons of Basques and Jews

This past week I have been really oblivious to anything that was not directly related to the Zionist criminal assault of the Freedom Flotilla. I really did not feel that almost anything else mattered. Sometimes the tragedy of History just takes all the emotional and mental space and there is not really much room for anything else, I guess you can understand that.

However some more or less interesting stuff has been published in the meantime, in particular two papers on West Eurasian autosomal genetics which have been addressed at Dienekes' Anthropology Blog. So it's time to make a brief mention of them:


Basque genetics and other Europeans

Naiara Rodríguez Ezpeleta et al. High-density SNP genotyping detects homogeneity of Spanish and French Basques, and confirms their genomic distinctiveness from other European populations. Human Genetics. Pay per view.

See: Dienekes' relevant post for abstract, some details and his very questionable opinions, as well as for some discussion among readers.




Particularly questionable is his opinion that Basques should still be genetically identical to all other Iberians, based on one paper's Fst data but ignoring a whole array of other papers. These are (at least) Bauchet 2007 (discussed here), Achili 2007 (discussed here), Tian 2009 and Athaniasiadis 2010 (discussed here).

While Iberians are not sampled and plotted, based on the data of Tian 2009, they should show up very close to French and Italians (except the unique Sardinians), slightly above the (0,0) coordinates, in the graph above. Of course, it dependends on which Iberians but I'm talking about the main cluster, not Cantabrians nor Catalans.


Jewish genetics: yet another instance of truth avoidance

G. Atzmon et al. Abraham's Children in the Genome Era: Major Jewish Diaspora Populations Comprise Distinct Genetic Clusters with Shared Middle Eastern Ancestry. American Journal of Human Genetics, 2010. Pay per view (but should be freely accessible in six months).

See also Dienekes' relevant post.

Note: capitalized labels refer to Jewish subgroups. I strongly suspect, based on Fst distances (see second update below), that Palestinian and Bedouin labels are mistaken and should be the other way around.

It really frustrated me once again that Turks (nor Greeks nor Syrians) had been compared with. [note: see update below, this is not true after all and is quite revealing] The most logical hypothesis, based both on historical and the available genetic data, suggests that modern Jews (or most of them) are not so much descendants of historical Jews from Palestine as from a hybrid population that coalesced mainly in Asia Minor in Hellenistic and Roman times.

The above graph does not contradict this hypothesis at all, at least for the main Jewish population of Europe, Turkey and Syria. Irano-Iraqi Jews instead probably had different origins, the same that Yemeni, North African and Ethiopian Jews do as well (not studied here).

The affinity to Adigey (a NW Caucasian people) strongly suggests this, as well as the fact that they seem less Levantine than such an outsider population as are the Druzes (with Anatolian and Egyptian origins, not Levantine). Anyone familiar with European genetics would expect Greeks and Turks to pop up almost exactly where most Jews do.


Comparing with Bauchet-2007

But if you doubt my words, I suggest that you look at Bauchet 2007, which is the only paper so fare that has compared Jews (Ashkenazi) with Greeks and Armenians, resulting in almost total identity in all comparisons (k-means, PC analysis), as well as with South Italians. None of these groups are present in this analysis but they should show up pretty much where the main Jewish cluster is.


PC analysis of West Eurasians (fig. 4-A)

K-means clustering (fig. 4-B)

This paper remains to date one of the main and more clear references to understand European genetics at autosomal level and in particular to understand Basque and Jewish affinities or lack of them.

Together with other materials, some of them listed above, the case is clear:

• Basques are a distinct subgroup of Europeans, though probably akin to some North/NE Iberians and some South/SW French
• Iberians are also a distinct subgroup to the exclusion of Basques, even if they overlap at times (but not more than they overlap with Eastern Mediterraneans)
• Jews seem impossible to take apart from other Eastern Mediterraneans (Greeks, Armenians, South Italians, Adigey) but they seem somewhat distinct from Palestinians, meaning they probably coalesced in Anatolia. The fact that Zionist researchers systematically avoid comparing with Turks, Greeks, etc. probably means that they know this is true but want to hide it.

If you still doubt of the distinctiveness of Basques in relation to Iberians, I would recommend to look at this other PC graph from Achilli 2007, even if it is about mtDNA, where the case is very clear even with a very small Basque sample in an ocean of other European and many different Iberian samples. Iberians do look quite diverse anyhow but none of them really clusters with Basques:

Update: Jewish genetic affinity with Turks and Cypriots revealed in the supplementary material.

Someone has sent me a copy of Atzmon's paper and I must correct my previous statement that no Turks were sampled. In fact there is a small sample of Turks and Cypriots which cluster very closely with the main Jewish group (Euro-Turco-Syrian Jews):


I can't tell at the moment if the subgroup that clusters most closely are Turks or Cypriots or a bit of each but that is all what is in the ESE control group. There are also a couple of NW Europeans who also cluster very tightly and are most likely descendant of recently assimilated Jews (maybe in the time of the Holocaust, when some families found that such was their only hope of survival).


Update: Fst distances

Table 1 is pretty interesting, even if it lacks the Turkish/Cypriot sample, in particular the Fst distances. In it, it seems quite obvious that Iranian and, to a lesser extent, Iraqi Jews are different populations from the main Jewish cluster of this study, that I will call hereafter Western Jews (incl. Turkish, Greek, Syrian, Italian and Ashkenazi subgroups). The most representative subgroup of this "Western Jewry" of Hellenistic-Roman origins are probably Turkish Jews (labeled TUR in the study), followed closely by Greek Jews (GRK) and then Syrian, Ashkenazi and Italian Jews.

In order to simplify, I averaged Fst distances within this group, resulting in the following pairwise comparisons with other populations (bold type):

North Italian - 0.006 (0.004) [0.010]
Palestinians - 0.008 (0.005)
French - 0.009 (0.007) [0.014]
Druze - 0.009 (0.007) [0.009]
Iraqi Jews (IRQ) - 0.010 (0.009) [0.010]
Adygei - 0.010 (0.008) [0.012]
Sardinian - 0.012 (0.010) [0.017]
Bedouin - 0.013 (0.010) [0.009]
Iranian Jews (IRN) - 0.016 (0.014) [0.017]
Basques - 0.016 (0.014) [0.021]
Russians - 0.016 (0.014) [0.021]

Figures in regular brackets (...) are Fst pairwise distances with Turkish Jews (TUR) only, while figures in square brackets [...] are distances with Palestinians.

For reference, the average Fst distance between Western Jewish populations with each other is 0.005 (0.004 of Turkish Jews with the other Western Jews on average).

Venezuela arrests Basque internationalist

In a still obscure incident, the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) has arrested German-Basque internationalist activist Walter Wendelin at his arrival to Caracas.

Walter Wendelin, who has German nationality but is member of Basque internationalist movement Askapena (Freedom), arrived to Venezuela from Mexico, where he had taken part in the congress of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). According to Solidaridad Pueblo Vasco (Solidarity Basque People) his journey to Venezuela was meant to explain the new proposals of the Basque Nationalist Left.

Walter Wendelin

According to the Venezuelan Association of Friends of the Basque Country, Wendelin has not been allowed access to an attorney and has been filtered that "he will be returned to Spain", what they protest that make no sense because he has never been charged with any offense in the European kingdom.

A demonstration has been called for tomorrow at the consulate of Venezuela in Bilbao.

Sources: Askapena, Gara, La Haine, Hala Bedi Irratia (live).

This arbitrary arrest may be related to the pressure put by the Spanish regime upon Venezuela, with judges and media attacking the American republic on false grounds of collaboration with ETA and FARC.


PSUV leader resigns

In a mostly unrelated episode, Venezuela Analysis reports that the former vice-president of the ruling Socialist Unified Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Alberto Muller Rojas, has resigned from politics. His advanced age and delicate health partly explain the resignation but Muller also mentioned that in the last three months the revolutionary process in Venezuela has been wretched, "everything that is going on isn't healthy for the revolutionary process". He said that the PSUV is infiltrated by the bourgeoisie and that the government is turning away from internationalism and heading towards "petty bourgeois nationalism".

Alberto Muller said some time ago to Hugo Chávez that he sits on a scorpions' nest.

Postcards from the Basque Coutry (Aralar)

Not all postcards have to be about urban settings and political unrest. This one is most postcard-like than others, in fact.

What you see is not just a mountain but actually a former coral reef. No wonder that the ancients venerated the mountains as emblems of Divinity, so integrated they are with everything natural, like cloud formation and rain.

But also beyond what they could understand back then: like geology and paleo-ecology.

This is what María Isabel Millán has discovered in this iconic Basque mountain: that the coral reef on top of it shows sings of sudden collapse at the OAE1a event because of acidification caused by excess of CO2. Just as is happening today.

More at Science Daily.

Postcards from the Basque Country

Some masked people threw down a trash container in a "day of struggle" at Vitoria-Gasteiz (they did not even set fire to it... what kind of "struggle" is that!) Police arrived at the scene and had all students at the nearby school retained for 40 minutes of school time, while they proceeded to identify them.

While some teachers protested in vain that the activists were none of their students, the directors of the center hid in their offices and let the police do.

And then they are surprised that police and hierarchies are so much hated by the Basque youth. An eye-opening experience for many of these young people I presume.

Source: La Haine.

Class struggle pays off: Auchan corporation defeated by workers

After nothing less than 16 months of strike, the workers of Sabeco supermaket at Arrasate (Gipuzkoa, Basque Country) have achieved their goal of getting a decent salary and working conditions, in agreement with the Basque statutes and not the Spanish ones, which the French multinational Auchan wanted to implement.

By the Spanish statutes the workers were getting a misery salary of just 730 euros per month, just slightly above welfare payment levels and clearly insufficient for the cost of life in the Basque Counrty, where most home rentals are at those prices or higher.

The 52 workers of the Basque supermarket have therefore achieved a salary increase of 38% (from 13,113 to 18,118 euros/year), got a reduction in their journey of 53 hours/year and secured that in case of incpacity for any health reason, workers get 100% of their salary from the very first day.

Source: Gara.

Spanish "Chernobyl" fails again

The highly controversial nuclear power plant of Garoña (NE Burgos province, near Miranda de Ebro) has failed again causing the central to stop. According to Greenpeace, a valve failed, while according to the owners, Nuclenor, the stop was caused by mere "maintenance".

The obsolete plant has been working since 1971 and for long has been subject to popular demand for clausure on serious safety and environmental concerns. Greenpeace denounces that the last extension of its lifetime (was due to close in 2009) was granted on a very strict regime, including the total replacement of the electric wiring and the fixing of the systematic problems of ventilation, that has been systematically unfulfilled by the owners.

The "programmed" stop was announced only the very day it had to stop.

A disaster in this obsolete nuclear central would severely affect large areas of Spain and, notably, the Basque Country, including my hometown of Bilbao.

Source: Gara.

Catholic Church steals public property

Using a law decreed by the Fascist government in 1946 and relaunched by the neofascist rule of J.M. Aznar in 1998, the Catholic Church has consigned as their own 1086 public properties in Navarre, including: 650 parochial churches, 191 hermitages, 9 basilicas, 42 homes, 26 commercial lounges and stores, 2 atriums, 8 cemeteries, 107 unbuilt real state, 38 pastures and prairies, 12 vineyards, olive orchards, forests and even a fronton (to play Basque pilota, a popular sport).

The original fascist law allowed the Church to appropriate consign property to their name without any need of notary, being an exception temples. The reform by the conservatives, very much penetrated by the Opus Dei and other far-right Catholic organizations, removed this exception.

117 town halls and councils have gathered in the Platform for the Defense of the Navarrese Patrimony and have denounced this law and the Church's actions as unconstitutional. They have tried to bring their complaints to the Navarrese Parliament but have been ignored.

Examples of the real ownership of these temples are the St. Saturnine church of Artajona, that had been repaired by the Navarrese government, spending three million euros, and the Basilica of El Romero in Cascante, paid and reformed by the town hall.

Source: Nabarralde.

Snow on beaches: not seen since the 80s

Just a silly postcard post from "Ice Age Europe", so to say.

While forecasters have been warning that snow could reach the coast, their previous warning of this kind simply failed. So I suspected it would also be the case now, in spite of watching this impressive satellite image of frozen Britain, which is some many degrees further north anyhow, largely because it has not happened since more than 20 years ago.

But it did arrive in the end, just that not really here but further east. Some curious pics from Gara:

Donibane Lohitzune (St. Jean de Luz)


Donostia (San Sebastian)

Not here anyhow. Biscay is the only Basque region that seems largely unaffected by the storm, though it's damn cold anyhow.

General strike, figures and electricity

There has been a huge expenditure of salive and ink on wether the Basque general strike of thursday was a huge success or a total failure. But here there is an interesting figure: Spanish electrical consumption fell by 4% on that day, what would imply that some 700,000 people did not work the 21st. There is absolutely no other reason for such absentism such as holidays or whatever, though, of course, it could be "a mere coincidence".
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