Scenes from the class struggle in spain: Evictions and deportations … and resistance

The State employs whatever means available to it to protect the free flow capital.  The flow of capital however requires restricting the movement of people, such that unequal possibilities of economic development, or exploitation, are assured.  The eviction of squatters and the control of the movement of migrants, or their deportation, are two facets of the same politics …

From Periódismo Humano and Jaime Alekos (20/04/2015) …

Isabel, 35 years old and two months pregnant, her husband, Amalio, 41 years old, and their three children live with income from street vending and 530 Euros per month from a public minimum income.

A year and a half ago, they occupied an empty apartment, property of the Bankia bank of spain in the neighbourhood of Entrevias, of Madrid.

Isabel tried, without success, to negotiate with Bankia the suspension of the eviction and the possibility of paying a “social rent”.

According the latest statistics (2011), there are in spain 3.4 miilion empty houses, 13.7% of the total housing stock.

Bankia, bailed out in 2012 with 23,465 million Euros of public money, has for sale more than 23,000 houses in the country, 3,000 of which in Madrid.

Bankia sells at “sale” prives apartments that have been occupied illegally, with their residents still inhabiting them, and then closes off the house after eviction.

Four days after the eviction of Isabel and her family, Bankia announced profits of 827 million Euros for the first semester of 2014.

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From Periodico Diagonal (22/04/2015) …

The Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) organised this morning a coordinated action at the level of the spanish state, called PrePAHrate Bankia, with the objective of pressuring the bank to negotiate social rents, in the place of speculatively selling evicted properties.

The action involved occupying bank branches throughout the country, in Alicante, Barcelona, Burgos, Madrid, Valencia, paralysing the different branches activities.

The PAH promises to continuing increasing pressure on Bankia until they cede.

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On the 16th of April, spanish police are filmed beating a dominican migrant into submission, for purposes of deportation …

The exploitation of “illegal” migrant labour, deportation, internment in camps, border security and the thousands who die endeavouring to cross borders are but the effects, ultimately the accepted, desired, effects of the “integration” of millions of people into global capital.  The resistances of the “third world” have now given way to generalised pillage.  Movement in this instance becomes itself an act of resistance.

(From the platform Stop deportación)

 

 

 

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