The Minister of the Interior of the Generalitat, Miquel Sàmper, this Monday with the mayor Ada Colau, in Barcelona.MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI
The Catalan Government has now assumed the difficulty of stopping the disturbances unleashed during the protests in favor of rapper Pablo Hasél.
"The situation is of unprecedented complexity," admitted the acting Interior Minister, Miquel Sàmper, yesterday due to the "excessive and unbridled" violence of the last two weeks.
The counselor, who yesterday made a common front with the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, has not considered for now the possibility of requesting the help of the National Police Force.
He hoped not to have to: he believes that the "peak" of the protests is over.
Catalan businessmen ask the Government to act against protests "without complexes"
The Minister of the Interior points to the youths of the CUP for encouraging violence in Catalonia
The Círculo de Economía sees in the altercations of the protests by Pablo Hasél “lack of authority” of the Government
The Mossos d'Esquadra have managed for more than a decade episodes of public order of the first magnitude: student demonstrations against the
Bologna plan
, the 15-M movement, strikes against the labor reform or due to the economic crisis, evictions the
Can Vies
squatter
center
and the most recent protests over the
procés
sentence
, in 2019, which were more numerous and caused more damage than the Hasél freedom marches.
The latter, however, have been going on for two weeks and come at a fragile political moment, with a functioning Government and in full negotiations with the CUP - which demands the dissolution of the riot police and refuses to condemn the violence - to the formation of a new pro-independence Executive.
The Catalan police neither feel overwhelmed by events nor are they incapable of putting an end, with their means, to the disturbances.
But trust in one's own energies does not prevent violence from running amok at a given moment.
"The guarantee of public order, when there are demonstrations of 10,000 people, there is no body that can guarantee it," he said in an interview with Onda Cero Sàmper, who is a lawyer and speaks openly in his public appearances.
Appointed to the position by Junts per Catalunya, Sàmper cited as an example the assault on the United States Capitol, where not even "the best police and the best army in the world" could stop the assailants.
Or the protests of the
yellow vests
, which have often also overwhelmed the French security forces.
"The mobilization capacity of those who want to exercise violence is increasingly complex," warned the counselor, who attributed the responsibility for the altercations to an amalgam of groups of "200, 300 or 400 people": from "combative communism" even "anarchist cells" passing through "common criminals" who take advantage of the calls to loot shops, as has happened these days in the main commercial areas of Barcelona, such as Portal de l'Àngel or Passeig de Gràcia.
Sàmper even pointed to the youth of the CUP - the formation that holds the key to governing in Catalonia - as one of the groups that encourage street violence.
The discomfort over the incidents, which have affected Barcelona with particular intensity, is increasing.
Neighbors and merchants demand an end.
The businessmen have publicly demanded that the Government "exercise its democratic authority" and show itself capable of "recovering peace and coexistence."
The administrations got the message: the Department of the Interior and the Barcelona City Council met yesterday urgently - also with the police officers - to address the crisis.
"We show the institutional unity to firmly reject acts of violence," said the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, after the meeting, at a joint press conference with Sàmper.
The counselor had regretted hours earlier, in the same interview, that there had not been "clear enough messages" from the authorities from day one.
In the first protests, the debate focused on the right to freedom of expression - for Hasél's imprisonment to serve a sentence for glorifying terrorism - and on the actions of the Mossos.
Inflection point
The first night of riots, a protester lost an eye when she was hit by a
foam
projectile
allegedly launched by the Mobile Brigade, the anti-riot unit that the CUP intends to suppress.
That action provoked criticism from the anti-capitalists, who brought the public order model to the negotiating table.
Sàmper insisted yesterday that an investigation has been opened and that the victim will be compensated for the damages suffered.
But he stressed the need to remove the Mossos from public debate.
“
Foam
bullets
and pepper spray are allowed.
If we are not happy with this system, let the Parliament decide it, "he added on Cadena SER.
Last Saturday night, protesters set fire to a Guàrdia Urbana van in the old town with an agent inside.
The policeman was injured.
But the fire marked a before and after in the political approach to the protests.
"Violence is never the way, and less if it puts people's lives at risk," Colau settled.
The incidents, the mayor said, are "the last thing they need" neighbors and businesses who "already suffer from the crisis" of the coronavirus.
Sàmper recalled two previous episodes that also touched on tragedy.
The first, on Tuesday, February 16, was an "unprecedented attack, for the first time in history," on a Mossos police station, Vic. The second, a traffic light fire that could reach a residential building in Barcelona.
