‘We will never be silenced again’: Catalans rally against secession
HUNDREDS of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Barcelona yesterday in protest at the Catalan government’s plan to announce an imminent secession from Spain.
Two days before an anticipated declaration of independence by Catalan leaders, it was the turn of the people whom Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish prime minister, has labelled as the “silent majority” to raise their voices against the drive towards secession.
“Catalonia belongs to us all, and not just to the nationalists,” said Álex Ramos, of the anti-separatist Catalan Civil Society, which organised the protest.
From a stage positioned a stone’s throw from Catalonia’s parliament, where Carles Puigdemont will make his crucial address tomorrow, Mr Ramos screamed: “They will hear our voice. They have no alternative because we will never be silenced again.”
Madrid fears that Mr Puigdemont, the Catalan president, could make a unilateral declaration of independence tomorrow.
The massive demonstration came as Mr Rajoy again threatened to take “drastic” measures to maintain the integrity of Spain, including using Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, which allows central government to take control of the governance of a region.
“The ideal situation would be that I don’t have to find drastic solutions, but for that to happen there will have to be some rectifications [by Catalan leaders],” Mr Rajoy told El Pais newspaper.
Organisers claimed that around one million people had joined the march, a figure revised downward by Barcelona police to 350,000.
Many demonstrators waved Spanish and Catalan flags to demonstrate their dual identity, while some shouted for Mr Puigdemont to be sent to prison for going ahead with the Oct 1 referendum on independence after Spanish courts had suspended the ballot’s legality.
The Catalan government says that 90 per cent of 2.3million votes counted were in favour of independence, though only 43 per cent of the region’s 5.3million eligible voters turned out as voters who do not support independence largely boycotted the poll.
The event was marred by police raids of polling stations, which were condemned across Europe and have significantly raised tensions between Barcelona and Madrid.
Pre-referendum polls have shown a 60 to 40 majority of Catalans in favour of remaining part of Spain, a majority that supporters said had turned out in Barcelona.
A source close to Mr Puigdemont told The Daily Telegraph that the Catalan leader had not yet made up his mind about exactly what he would say tomorrow, amid speculation that he may use a formula that postpones an actual declaration of independence.
Sabadell and Caixabank, Catalonia’s two major banks, have led an exodus of major companies from the region in recent days, increasing pressure on breakaway Catalan leaders to seek a negotiated settlement.
“If there is a unilateral declaration of independence, that will be that. The Spanish state would have no alternative but to intervene with all its might,” said Josep Borrell, a Catalan socialist and former president of the European Parliament. “Catalonia is not a colony; it’s not under occupation. It’s not a state like Kosovo,” Mr Borrell told the crowd.
Mario Vargas Llosa, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature who lived in Barcelona as a young writer, blamed “the ravages of nationalism” for the current impasse. “We don’t want businesses leaving Catalonia as if it were a medieval city affected by the plague. We want companies to return to Catalonia so it is Spain’s industrial motor. We want Barcelona to be Spain’s cultural capital,” the novelist said to cheers.
‘We don’t want businesses leaving Catalonia as if it were a medieval city affected by the plague’
Mr Vargas Llosa is also among 60 Spain-based intellectuals and academics who have signed an open letter asking the international community not to support the idea of external mediation as a solution to the crisis in Catalonia.
The letter blames a nationalist elite or a campaign of “distortion, in which any reminder of Spain is made to disappear”.
Felipe Moreno, an engineer from Barcelona and a member of the Catalan Civil Society, agreed that the region has been “fractured into two absolutely distinct communities” that must be brought together.
“The fear is real; if you disagree with independence, you will be singled out, even though it has not yet reached the stage of physical violence.”
The Catalan Civil Society says it has documented several instances of intimidation and even death threats against town mayors who refused to cooperate with the illegal referendum.
For Ana Losada, a campaigner for equal rights for Spanish speakers in Catalonia’s education system, in which most classes are taught in Catalan, the indoctrination starts with small children. “My daughter’s schoolbook says the Ebro river rises in a ‘foreign land’, and there is no mention of the Oct 12 Spain Day in the year diary. If you ask questions or complain, people call you fascist or a Spanish poodle.”