Madrid

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)

Gaspar Llamazares, a Spanish politician and member of the Communist Party of Spain, is the focus of part of a recent cable released by WikiLeaks.

The cable from Madrid covers a meeting between Ambassador Solomont and Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba that touched on several topics including Haiti, Al Qaeda, training of security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and Guantanamo detainees. It also featured a conversation on Llamazares, whose photo had days ago been reported to have been used by an FBI forensic artist “to create an age-processed image of Osama bin Laden" for a "Rewards for Justice" website featuring photos of most wanted terrorists.

From 10MADRID49 on January 18, 2010:

This Day in Cable History. (May 12th 1986. Madrid)

QADHAFI RETALIATES AGAINST SPANISH EXPULSIONS.LIBYA MAY 12 RESPONDED TO FRIDAY'S EXPULSION OF ITS CONSUL GENERAL, CHARGED WITH PASSING FUNDS TO A SPANISH ARMY COLONEL ON THE ANTI-DEMOCRATIC RIGHT, BY PNG'ING THE SPANISH COMMERCIAL AND CULTURAL COUNSELORS IN TRIPOLI. MFA'S SUBDIRECTOR GENERAL FOR NORTH AFRICA TELLS US THAT THE GOS WILL NOT RETALIATE SPECIFICALLY FOR THESE EXPULSIONS; AS INVESTIGATIONS CONTINUE INTO THE LIBYAN ACTIVITIES HERE, HOWEVER, MORE EXPULSIONS ARE QUITE POSSIBLE.

This Cable, written on a Monday afternoon in 1986 describes some of the "realpolitik" between Spain and Libya at the time. Further, this cable was written 27 days after the United States bombed Tripoli and surrounding military bases. Though QADHAFI and his administration were not an innocent party to the events leading up to the raid; the raid-bombing itself was condemned by many countries.

By a vote of 79 in favor to 28 against with 33 abstentions: