It has been a long time since any mass demonstration dared to choose Praza do Obradoiro as the setting for its final act.
Normally, the marches in Compostela end in A Quintana, with a capacity that does not reach half that of the main square of the Galician capital, where more than 20,000 people can fit together (and close to 17,000 if it rains and you have to open the umbrellas ).
The march “in defense of the future of the sea”, supported by almost 150 groups from the sector, environmental groups, unions and all opposition parties to the Galician PP, dared to end in O Obradoiro – as in times of clamor and indignation of Never Again—and filled it (without an umbrella until almost the last moment, because it was only drizzling).
So much so that from the stage we waited more than an hour to read the manifesto because the human tide continued to enter the square.
And when in the end it was decided that it had to be read now, that the group of bagpipes and drums could not continue to liven up the wait any longer, people continued to arrive and many missed the speech.
Due to the size of the most representative monumental esplanade in Galicia, 7,700 square meters, the organizers estimate that several tens of thousands of people braved the cold and humid weather forecasts to confirm that the spirit of Never Again is still alive 21 years after being born with The
Prestige
catastrophe .
And to cry out against “politicians who make the same mistakes again”: “hide, lie, deny” and “put at risk the health” of people and “the environment.”
The Local Police reduces participation in this march—which before the last dumping of
pellets
in the Atlantic was already being developed by organizations in defense of the sea sectors—to “about 15,000” souls.
Hundreds of people protest this Sunday in the Plaza del Obradorio in Santiago de Compostela.
Lavandeira Jr (EFE)
Environmental and sea defense organizations have mobilized this Sunday in the center of Santiago de Compostela.
Gustavo de la Paz
Hundreds of people during the protest held this Sunday in the Galician capital.
Lavandeira Jr (EFE)
Participants in the demonstration in defense of the sea and fishing and shellfish resources, this Sunday in the Plaza del Obradoiro, in Santiago de Compostela.
Gustavo de la Paz
Hundreds of people walk the streets of Santiago de Compostela during the protest.
Gustavo de la Paz
Hundreds of people this Sunday in the Plaza del Obradoiro, during the protest.
Lavandeira jr (EFE)
The socialist candidate for the presidency of the Xunta de Galicia, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro (center), participates in the demonstration this Sunday in the Galician capital. Lavandeira Jr (EFE)
Protesters this Sunday in the Plaza del Obradoiro during the rally in defense of the sea and fishing and shellfish resources.Gustavo de la Paz
The leader of the BNG, Ana Pontón (center) together with the party's spokesperson in Congress, Néstor Riego (second from the right), during the demonstration this Sunday in Santiago de Compostela.
Lavandeira Jr (EFE)
Goldfish swallowing white balls;
seahorses;
skeletons;
networks;
the strainers, rakes, brooms and sieves with which the volunteers have been harvesting the daily tides of pellets for two long weeks;
or a mermaid vomiting the same plastic granules (drawn by the artist Leandro Lamas) were some of the images that toured the streets of Santiago from the meeting point, this Sunday at noon in the Alameda of the Galician capital.
The leaders of the main parties (except the PP), candidates for the next Galician elections, joined the event, from Ana Pontón, spokesperson for the first opposition force, the BNG;
even Marta Lois (Sumar), accompanied by the second vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz;
Irene Montero, political secretary of Podemos;
and fellow candidate José Ramón Gómez Besteiro (PSdeG) after participating with Pedro Sánchez in the closing of the PSOE National Convention.
In this last event, held in the city of A Coruña, they went live to show the participants images of the demonstration.
And Sánchez took the opportunity to charge against the Xunta, “a government installed in apathy, lies and mismanagement,” criticized the President of the Government.
“When there is a crisis, what we rulers have to do is put ourselves in front of these crises, exercise leadership and what the Xunta have heard is to say that the beaches are the responsibility of the City Councils and the sea, of the Government of Spain” , he reproached.
“A bad situation is susceptible to being aggravated and that is what has happened with the pellet crisis
”
, He defended: “The Xunta responded with pride to the outstretched hand of the Government of Spain to carry out loyal cooperation”.
Protest against the management for the dumping of the 'pellets', this Sunday in Santiago de Compostela.
Álvaro Ballesteros / Europa Press (Europa Press)
“Welcome, people of the sea, welcome colleagues who feel that the land and the sea are our responsibility.
They are our way of life.
The heritage that we receive, that sustains us and that we have to take care of for future generations," said one of the readers of the manifesto from the box, supported by almost 150 groups, including many sailors, shellfish harvesters, environmental groups or those affected by mining spills. .
At that moment, a cloud of socialist party flags, of militants who had been straggled because their leaders had had to travel from the event in A Coruña, were still trying to make their way into the square.
“Our rulers are getting confused.
They think that the sea can do everything.
Rather than take action, they prefer to hide, lie, deny.
As if we were as ignorant as them,” a representative of the marine sector continued to cry.
“They underestimate us, they put our health and that of the environment at risk.
They are making the mistakes of 20 years ago again with the
Prestige
.
And once again it is the citizens who have to solve the problems.
Once again we were the ones who went to the beaches to remove the
pellets
, without means of protection and without containers.”
“From O Obradoiro, a space that represents all Galicians, today we denounce the defenselessness of our coastline, of our sea,” he added.
“In recent weeks, a tide of toxic granules flooded the coast.
The massive arrival of
pellets
demonstrated once again how the Xunta de Galicia minimizes the problems, ignores scientific data and only solves them with lies and incompetence.”
Protest against the management for the dumping of the 'pellets', this Sunday in Santiago de Compostela.
Álvaro Ballesteros / Europa Press (Europa Press)
At the same time that the big demonstration was taking place in Santiago, in Ourense, the PP was holding the popular Interparliamentary meeting.
The president of the Xunta and PP candidate, Alfonso Rueda, attacked the Galician opposition, especially against his biggest rival in the polls, the Galician Nationalist Bloc.
He accused him of sowing “lies and hoaxes” that cause “damage” to the fishing sector and then, in the same vein as in the previous days, Rueda invited people to “eat the best fish in the world.”
The Xunta Government announced to the Galician Federation of Fishermen's Guilds four days before the demonstration (which was already expected to be massive) and one month before the regional elections, the distribution of 15 million euros in aid for the sector due to of production due to the “torrential rains” this fall-winter.
At the same time, the Rueda Executive has launched a propaganda campaign in the media under the slogan “A-Mar Galicia”: “Feed on Galician fish and seafood, not hoaxes.”
But on the street, the protesters this Sunday denied that their act was “partisan” and chanted slogans against Alfonso Rueda, the Xunta and its
councilors.
“Wheel, pay attention, the sea is not for sale”, “Xunta, listen, the sea is in struggle”, “we want to work and not emigrate” and, above all, “in-com-pe-ten-cia”, sounded of beginning to end.
“This white-glove
Prestige
, whose harmful effects will last for decades in the environment, shows the failure of everything that was learned 20 years ago, the failure of the operational maritime security systems, both of the Maritime Rescue dependent on the State and of the Coast Guard. dependent on the Xunta,” another speaker continued, reeling off the manifesto from the stage after two-thirty in the afternoon.
“Where are the ships with surveillance drones to monitor the marine environment?
"Where are the operational oceanography means to determine the movement of the bags at sea?" asked the reader of the manifesto about the means not deployed to combat the spill that the fallen container of the Toconao ship continues to spit from the bottom of the
Atlantic
on December 8, with 26 tons of plastic pellets.
“How can you explain that the Xunta takes a month to activate the maritime contingency and accident plan [Camgal] and that, under pressure from citizens, it issues a report saying that it is inert material and for food use?”, he continued. .
“35 ships of toxic merchandise” a day
“We cannot allow these nonsense.
Counting only those carrying toxic goods, 35 ships pass by our coasts a day, this coastline that has one of the greatest riches in biodiversity and marine resources on the planet.
That it feeds us and that identifies us as a country,” the speaker continued after taking over from the first speaker in the middle of the text.
“Our sea needs professional, coordinated and transparent management.
Greater inspection and control of ships that pass through the Fisterra Traffic Separation Device.”
“We demand from the Xunta and the State coordination to act, transparency in information, the removal of the bags at sea and the provision of means to collect them on the coast.
We demand adequate means of protection for volunteers and specific containers on the beaches,” he then claimed to applause, while many protesters raised their arms with the strainers that have become a symbol of this crisis, the weapon improvised by the volunteers to patiently sift. the sand.
“We demand transparency about the toxicity of materials and their effects on health and marine ecosystems.
We cannot allow the oceans to become a plastic dump,” he concluded shortly before giving way to a music recital that put the finishing touch to the event.
“We demand that international institutions declare
plastic
pellets as dangerous goods.
In defense of our sea, lies and incompetence Never Again.”
Shellfish “at risk of disappearance”
The president of the Platform in Defense of Ría de Arousa (PDRA), Xocas Rubido, reproached before starting the march that the Xunta had not done “its duties” and had not “fulfilled its powers.”
“Abandon our sea, and our shellfish harvest is at risk of disappearance,” he warned.
For his part, the president of the Platform in Defense of the Ría de Muros e Noia, Rogelio Santos Queiruga, intervened in the controversy fueled by the Galician Government about the politicization of the protest: “Attending a demonstration is political;
Not attending is politics.
Supporting this great crowd is politics.
We have been doing it for many years and we will continue to do it, no matter who governs, because we carry it in our soul, we love the sea and we love our profession,” he warned.
“Whoever” the next president of the Xunta is, Santos Queiruga requested, “the fishing model” and “the ecological model” must change to have “productive estuaries for the people of the sea and for the entire population”: “ "That the estuaries be cleaned, that sailors are not left stranded when there is a cessation of activity and that the discharge of dams be regulated so that [fresh water] does not kill the shellfish."
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