Police attempt to disperse the protesters in Santiago. / Cabalar (EFE) / ATLAS
Protests Angela Merkel’s visit to Santiago and against the austerity policies met only a few hundred people in the vicinity of the square Obradoiro, where heads of Spanish and German government did a short walking tour from the place of its meeting to the Cathedral of Santiago. Although the demonstration was relatively peaceful, there was a tense moment when the -mainly group of leftist militants and nationalists tried to enter the square and struggled with the police cordon. The agents displayed their batons and beat some of those leading the march, which ended finally receding.
The police were stationed at all entrances to Obradoiro without impeding the passage of pedestrians, although recorded bags and backpacks while taking steps to ensure that no protests were registered within the plaza. A group of activists of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, attempting to deliver a letter to German Chancellor agents confiscating a banner.
A few hundred meters on the square de la Quintana, across from the cathedral, were concentrated hundreds of people with banners and flags Galician nationalists. They were mostly leaders and activists of BNG, as its spokesman in the Galician Parliament, Francisco Jorquera, but also included members of United Esquerda among them their leader, Yolanda Diaz and social groups as a retiree, returnee migrants from other countries which are in conflict with the Treasury for the payment of the corresponding taxes on pensions received from abroad. There were banners in German, with slogans against the Troika and austerity policies, and disguised Merkel and Rajoy, with the figure of Chancellor dragging the Spanish chairman of a millstone around the neck strap couple.
incidents occurred when the group left the Quintana in order to bring the protest to Obradoiro, just at the time that Merkel and Rajoy offered their conference in one of the buildings in the square. “Freedom of expression”, “want to get into our place!” Protesters chanted. The police clubbed avoided. Among those who took a blow was BNG spokesman in the city of Santiago, Ruben Cela. After police intervention, pulled up a few feet and not rush back to try more.
The heads of government had changed the program officially announced and went to the cathedral, across the Obradoiro from the Hostal dos Catholic Reis, half an hour ahead of schedule. They filed for lacing hall, after which a few dozen people were posted, most tourists who merely watch and photograph the scene. There was some scattered applause and a man shouted in English Merkel: “Your Policies kill people” (“His policies kill people”).
There the small group of activists was also found by historical memory, and no banner, led by a man of 94 years, Galician-Argentine Darío Rivas. Son of the last Republican mayor of Castro de Rei (Lugo), killed by the Phalangists, Rivas was the promoter of the complaint in Argentina for crimes of Francoism. His purpose was to deliver a letter to Merkel to demand that you apologize for the support of Nazi Germany to the military rebels against the Second Republic. “I do not want compensation or anything. Apologize just that,” explained the old man, clothed, among others, by the Galician writer Manuel Rivas. “I know Germany, respect for Mrs. Merkel and I think can do it.”
Darío Rivas stood in the front row behind the cordon and when Merkel and Rajoy past him, called them. Both did hint to stop, but the guards prevented them hand over the letter, which, among other things, said: “We have repeatedly hearing about months of payment of the Spanish debt to Germany, but there is a huge debt the country from which you is Chancellor for the victims of the Franco dictatorship in Spain. “
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