The camps slowly disappear
After weeks of tension and negotiations last week the General Assembly of Puerta del Sol (Madrid) and Plaza Catalunya (Barcelona) agreed to lift camp today. Starting early in the morning the squares have been progressively stripped bare and will be lifted completely this evening, almost 25 days after they started. In Madrid, the makeshift furniture, tents and posters have been slowly removed all week long. Today various trucks are being loaded and the last remaining parts are being taken down, the 4000 books donated to the library will end up in various social centers, while most of the furniture will be recycled or destroyed by a disposal vehicle brought in by the city authorities. Some of the protestors, in both cities, have decided to remain, arguing that initial idea was to stay indefinitely. Their freedom to do so has been respected but they fear that it will result in police action. Some of them also proposed the idea of making it an itinerant camp that could move through squares around the city but a consensus was not achieved on this matter. It is also to be seen if a permanent information booth will be installed and left behind.
(Video of the demonstration that took place this night in the main street of Madrid (Gran Via) to end Plaza Sol Camp)
A restructuring of the movement
“We are not leaving, we are expanding” is the motto behind the lifting of the tents. This coincides with the idea that the central camp of Sol will hand over the baton to the neighborhood assemblies, who are in charge of local action, such as the ones carried our already: protests outside health centers that are to be privatized, gatherings before local government representatives or debates for specific action in each district. All of these smaller assemblies will carry the movement onward, while Sol square will remain as an extraordinary gathering place, a symbol for the movement and a space for the General Assembly.
Other camps in Spain
The camps in Huelva, Granada, Mieres, Langreo, Aviles, Gijon, Oviedo, Teruel and Salamanca have chosen to follow the examples of the main cities and leave the squares. Some of them, like Pamplona will have a permanent information point where people can ask for ways to participate. In other places such as in Tenerife, Santiago de Compostela, Valencia and Santander the camps will go on indefinitely.
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