2nd Intercontinental Encounter of Peoples against Neo-liberalism
Barcelona 24.07.97
Today at "El Lokal", a social-cultural centre of the Barcelona movement which has become the reference point for all the Catalonian realities involved in preparing for the 2nd Encounter, a day has been organised to promote the Encuentro.
Things began in the morning at the Le Pertuse frontier post on the Spanish/French border, a frontier post through which members of the International Brigades and Spanish exiles were forced to flee after the Civil War. Here there is a monument which records their passage, a pyramid-shaped monument with a broken apex. The Catalan, Italian and French comrades already present in Barcelona that day brought banners with messages such as "a world that contains many worlds, and another" and placed them at the foot of the monument.
This initiative was organised so as to gather together the European groups (French, Belgians, Italians and Germans) arriving via Le Pertuse, who stopped to participate in the demonstration.
In the afternoon we returned to Gerona, a small municipality on the edge of Barcelona, for a press conference outlining the organisational and program details of Catalan leg of the Encuentro.
At 8pm, with all the Catalan comrades, some hundreds of people held a demonstration at the statue of Christopher Columbus, which is near the port in a square into which runs the famous Ramblas. People arriving by car from the frontier joined those already present in attaching banners and various things to the statue. One in particular stated ironically "Columbus was a Zapatista too"; others spelt out the most symbolic facets of the Zapatista insurgency.
The evening continued with street spectacles and fireworks only to move on to Vallbona, a sports field in the north of the city, where celebrations continued until dawn.
"From Tactical Media Crew - Barcellona"
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