EUROPA
Marches of Dignity 22M arrives in Madrid
We are coming to Madrid to kick out the friends of the Troika. Thousands of people are converging in Madrid from various regions of Spain to participate in a big demonstration on March 22nd, mobilizing against the cuts and the payment of illegitimate debt, demanding dignified employment, basic income, universal access to public services, housing and refusing the TROIKA government.
In total six columns of protestors from different corners of the country – Andalusia; Extremadura; Murcia, Alicante and Valencia; Catalonia, Aragon and Navarre; La Rioja; and Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria – will be converging in Madrid on Saturday to protest the budget cuts “dictated by the Troika,” a reference to the trio comprising the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank that has established economic policy for the countries that received a bailout like Ireland, Portugal and Greece.
The demonstration was called by more than 150 social movements, trade unions, organizations and local assemblies (like CGT, the Andalucian Workers Union-SAT, Civic Front-Frente Cívico, the Mortgage Victims Platform-Plataforma de Afectadas/os por la Hipoteca-PAH, 15M movement, Camps Dignity of Extremadura, and many other civic organizations), under the name of Madrid 22-M, Marches for Dignity
.
Those attending the march, a large proportion of whom are unemployed, announced their intention to camp in Madrid to continue the protest in which they hope to gather hundreds of thousands of participants. According to regional media, also hundreds of trains, cars, buses, and even pedestrians, will travel to Madrid with people from Extremadura, Andalusia, Valencia, Murcia, Asturias, Galicia and Aragon, among other Spanish regions. The online newpaper Publico indicated that in more than a dozen cities in other countries events are also being organized with people from Spain that were forced to emigrate to find work due to the crisis in the country, where more than six million are unemployed and the Youth unemployment rate is over 58%. Oslo, London, Frankfurt, Vienna, Berlin, Belfast, Brussels, Prague, Edinburgh, San Salvador and Santiago de Chile are some of the locations where these protests will occur, according to the source.
The government of Madrid informed that it has expected 35 authorized manifestations in this capital for next Saturday 22. Those demonstrations, with the expected participation of hundred of thousands people, will protest against privatizations, budget cuts in education, health and other public services imposed by the Spanish Government under the harsh adjustment programs of the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund, among other socioeconomic problems.
Madrid is preparing for a democratic and peaceful mobilization against a government that has deceived the people and has lost all moral legitimacy. “About 900 buses will arrive in the capital tomorrow from different territories and four trains, so we expect tomorrow some 60,000 people arriving to Madrid” was said in today’s press conference. On Sunday 23rd there will take place big assemblies in public squares and on Monday 24th there will be an other demonstration “Surround the Stock Exchange” which will start at 11.30 am. In the afternoon at 19.00 h there is an other demonstration with the slogan “Do not pay for your crisis” will arrive to various ministries to protest against the cuts. The event starts at the Ministry of Economy.
More information (video, Live-Streaming, photos): http://marchasdeladignidad.org
Twitter: @Marchas22M
MANIFESTO: MARCHES FOR DIGNITY 22-M
No to pay the debt // No more cuts // Out governments Troika // Bread, work and shelter for all
We’re starting 2014 with no improvement for the workers, sunk in an unprecedented capitalist crisis and without any measures on the part of this illegitimate government other than misery, precariousness and repression, rulers who act as reall representatives of big banks, employers and big business, of capitalism, under the order of the Troika (the European Commission, the Central European Bank and the International Monetary Fund).
We’re living in a situation in which every minute we’re being pushed to brink, a situation against which we must all start to give a real, collective, mass answer, by fighting from the grassroots, from our different territories but with one voice. Because with every day that goes by the situation is getting more agonizing, more difficult.
In the Spanish State there are hundreds of thousands of us who have lost our homes or who don’t receive benefits for dependents. There are more than 6 million of us without paid work and unemployed. We’ve got tens of thousands of working people without any unemployment benefits at all. There are more than a million of us who are living below the poverty line – and all that’s going down while the “Popular Party” continues with its cuts, destroying and robbing the health system, education, culture, pensions, closing down local television stations that are essential to the survival of minority languages and other public services. And they go on privatizing anything that’s profitable and giving tax benefits to the rich (bankers, big business, the Church, etc.)
There are more than 500,000 of us, young and not so young people, that have been forced to emigrate in order to try to eke out our living in one way or another. And despite this, they go on shutting down small and medium businesses with impunity, destroying most the real productive fabric, both industrial and agricultural, which could give work to the majority of the population.
In this context women have long had fewer rights: the right to live without male violence or to decide over our own bodies the right to family planning. In our country if you were born somewhere else in the world, if your skin’s a different color or you have another religion, they take away your fundamental rights (healthcare, education et.) and can even shut you up in an Internment Center, even though you’ve committed no crime. Simply for speaking our own minority language, simply for wanting to live in accordance with the culture of our land, we can be fined or even thrown into prison like during Franco’s fascist dictatorship, but now they call it democracy.
Fines and criminal penalties, imposed just for exercising the right of freedom of speech or the right to disobey unjust laws, are heavy, but the corrupt élite never go to prison and never have to pay for the damage they cause. While the Government continues to hand out cash to big building firms, to the energy companies, to bankers and to corrupt businessmen etc. They’re leaving us with no work, no house, no health care, no pensions, no university grants, no schools, no education, no future: in a word no life. They’re raising taxes, the price of energy and basic products for the poorest of use, while they’re reducing to a bare minimum employers’ social security contributions, to “create” work, they cynically say, and they turn a blind eye to massive fraud, corruption and capital flight. And without money we’re left with no house, no job and no wherewithal to survive.
Both the so-called Popular Party (PP) and the so-called Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) are the culprits. To reduce us to this situation they made the constitutional reform in 2011, a Treaty with the European Union and an Organic Law to guarantee payment of the debt and, if need be, to suppress any public institution (like the Statute of Autonomy of the Valencian Country), if it doesn’t reduce its debt (and so its provision of public services) whenever and however they want. We fought with great sacrifice to gain our social rights and we’re just not prepared to lose them. We demand from politics the transformation of our economy to make it an economy at the service of humanity and to guarantee that these rights can be universally exercised.
That’s why we demand:
The abrogation of all the counter-reforms that have been forced down our throats (labor laws, laws affecting pensions, education the right to safe legal abortion, the 15/97 act which commoditizes health care, the law of civil repression etc).
A realistic plan against unemployment and a law establishing a basic income.
Stoppage of all evictions, the guarantee of the fundamental right to housing and to the basic utilities of water and energy.
Universal, free and high-quality public services´.
Realistic and effective policies to ensure equal opportunities, regardless of a person’s origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, diversities or age.
A guarantee of the reimbursement of the loans made to banks and their nationalization along with the nationalization of all strategic companies and sectors.
A fiscal policy whereby those that have more, pay more and public social expenditure is guaranteed above everything else.
A guarantee of the right to decide, in all spheres, as persons, workers, peoples. Because we demand real democracy.
In order to advance in the construction of unity and people’s power … we must advance in the Marches for Dignity so we can arrive in Madrid on March 22 from all cardinal points of the Spanish State!
We want to live and work with dignity in our land with our people! To defend all that is and should be ours, struggle is the only way! Bread, a roof, rights and dignity for all workers.
Some press links:
http://www.diagonalperiodico.net/global/22145-distintas-banderas-y-cuatro-reclamaciones-camino-madrid.html
ENGLISH: http://libcom.org/news/diverse-flags-four-demands-march-madrid-20032014
ENGLISH: http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/03/21/inenglish/1395427167_056393.html
http://www.eldiario.es/sociedad/Vamos-Madrid-enfrentarnos-paro-injusticia_0_240776880.html
http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/2088578/0/testimonios/marcha/dignidad …
http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2014/03/20/actualidad/1395346698_902812.html
http://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/view/122886-madrid-marcha-dignidad-22m