The assailants of the City Council of Lorca, to the councillors: "We are going to kill you, slackers"

Pedro Sosa, spokesman for the United Left in the Lorca City Council (Murcia, 96,200 inhabitants), defines Monday's assault on the room where a plenary session was to be held as "a buffalo stampede."

On the agenda, it was planned to approve a modification of the urban planning plan to regulate the construction and expansion of pig farms.

This Tuesday afternoon, a rancher who was part of the thirty protesters, who stormed around 10:45 a.m. this Monday, handed over to the local police and broke the police cordon that protects the Consistory, which in at that time it housed around 200 people spread over its four floors, some of them dedicated to hosting courses for the unemployed.

The assailants stood at the doors of the hall.

They shouted insults and shouts at the councillors:

The protester who has surrendered, a rancher, has addressed the local police in Lorca, who has taken him to the National Police Station, the body that directs the investigation.

Sources from the Government Delegation indicate that the police contingent that protected the City Hall building was equipped for a demonstration that had been communicated and authorized, but that the forces did not suspect that an assault was going to take place, reports

Councilor Sosa works in a slaughterhouse and knows the livestock sector first-hand.

He tried to placate the assailants.

He asked what the reason for the protest was.

What did they consider to be that to which there was no right.

He did not get a response, he says: "They did not know what they were asking for, a state of tremendous confusion reigned."

More information

A group of farmers assaults the City Council of Lorca and prevents a plenary session that was going to limit the macro-farms of pigs

For her party colleague, Gloria Martín, one of the keys to this violent episode is, moreover, that part of those who participated in it were not pig farmers, but "violent militants in parties" and that they have taken this issue to the extreme.

One of the assailants is Pedro Giner, an artisan cheesemaker from Lorca, whose sector is not affected by the new municipal regulations.

In a telephone conversation with EL PAÍS, he apologized for the events because he considers that they occurred in a climate in which "tension shone above common sense."

Agents of the Local Police lead one of the ranchers, surrendered voluntarily, who assaulted the plenary session of the Lorca City Council on Monday. Marcial Guillén (EFE)

However, he categorically denies that the ranchers who demonstrated were uninformed, and even less so, he says, politically manipulated.

He believes that they came to protest because “there was an agreement with the City Council that has been broken”: “We are perfectly informed through our organizations, and we are the ranchers who have organized the protest.

We have not met with any politician, nor has there been political mediation of any kind,” he maintains.

In the same idea insists the president of the Association for the Defense of Livestock Lorca (Adespolorca), Francisco Román, who has stressed that "it is totally untrue" that there has been political interference in the call. "We have been deceived, but by a government team that wanted to approve a regulation that is not the same as that agreed in 2020," he warns, and reiterates that there has been no meeting with the PP or with Vox, nor has the politicization of no sign on this matter.

On the other hand, another rancher, Alfredo Artero, is very critical of the turn events have taken. Owner of a farm with 1,300 pigs, he assures that this Monday he decided not to attend the demonstration when he understood that the motion that was going to be approved included the same thing that the farmers had already accepted in 2020. “None of this has neither head nor tail , complain about standards that are European and national, that have existed for years. The farmers have been manipulated from the PP and from Vox, they have been given false data. Today, any rancher who participated in the protest regrets it, because everything has been a real nonsense”, he laments. He assures that the two people who most vehemently pushed the agents to break the police cordon are ranchers, but from the goat sector, not affected by the new regulations.

In addition to politicians and farmers, various neighborhood groups participated in the negotiations held in 2020 to regulate pork exports in Lorca, such as the Spartan Federation of Highlands of Lorca, which brings together all the neighborhood associations of districts and population centers of that area of ​​the municipality, in which there is a greater number of pig farms.

Its vice-president, José Antonio García, also considers that there has been "authentic manipulation" by political parties that "are looking for revenue" and that "they have emboldened ranchers by telling them that they were going to close their farms, when this is not the case."

Currently, he laments, there are farms "50 meters from the houses", which has generated a "climate of tension" among the residents, such as Antonio Sánchez, from the town of Coy,

who points out that in summer "there is such a plague that you cannot live".

“If you open your mouth, it fills you with flies.

If you hang the clothes, the smell is impregnated, ”laments another neighbor who prefers not to give her name.

Both insist that they are not against pig farming, but they do demand a regulation that makes coexistence more friendly.

“Information manipulation”

The councilor for Urban Planning and Citizen Security, the socialist José Luis Ruiz, attributes the virulence of the protest to a climate of "information manipulation" by the PP in particular and, to a lesser extent, by Vox, which "has joined the car” and both parties “now compete for the rural vote”.

He does not find another explanation for such a virulent response to a regulation that was agreed with the ranchers in June 2020 to equalize the conditions of construction and expansion of farms between the urban area of ​​the city and its districts.

For its entry into force, the City Council requested the necessary reports from a dozen national and regional bodies.

All have given their approval and have taken the opportunity to remember the current legislation in their respective areas.

🔴Reports @SER_Murcia

"We were misinformed. I'm ashamed of others": statements by one of the ranchers assailants to the municipal plenary session of the Lorca City Council

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– BE Murcia (@SER_Murcia) February 1, 2022

For the municipal spokesman of the PP, Fulgencio Gil, this additional regulation is the key by which the ranchers "have felt cheated", because they had not been informed about it.

In his opinion, the local government has exceeded its functions by asking for these reports, since such an extensive urban modification was not necessary.

“As the City Council has requested reports, the technicians have begun to ask for requirements that are not in the law, such as traffic impact studies or landscaping studies when a farm is built,” argues Gil.

“That is not in the urban planning regulations as such, but they ask the technician for a report, he comes up with it and puts it in”.

The PP municipal spokesman acknowledges that he himself attended a meeting with ranchers last Friday and transferred the full text of the motion that was going to be approved. “From 32 pages, when the 2020 agreement had only seven.” And, also, that he himself and other members of his party participated in the demonstration prior to the riot, "as in all the calls that the livestock sector has made." Not at all, he points out, the party has urged mobilization or the information provided to the protesters has been misrepresented. "I categorically deny any manipulation, the farmers' organizations know perfectly well the agreement that was going to be voted on and what motivated their anger is the proposed regulatory change, which is not the one adopted in 2020."

The president of the autonomous community and the Murcian PP, Fernando López Miras, has condemned the violent acts on Tuesday, to which he has shown his "absolute rejection", and has asked that negotiations be resumed to reach a new agreement with the ranchers .

For PSOE, IU and Ciudadanos, the politicization of this issue is clear.

The deputy mayor, Francisco Morales (Cs), even talks about the use of "public address" on the Sunday before the plenary session, encouraging ranchers to go out into the street in a situation that he considers "unusual", since both PP and Vox agreed on 2020 with the modification of the norm.

The only point in common that the municipal groups now seem to have is that of the "strong" condemnation of the act of assaulting the plenary session, which they describe as "unjustifiable", "shameful" and a direct attack on democratic institutions.

This newspaper has tried to contact the Vox councilors to obtain their version, without success.