Two agents of the Civil Guard speak with the members of a picket /
Vice President Calviño is at the forefront of the negotiation given the seriousness of the situation and will meet on Monday with representatives of the carriers
The Civil Guard, through emails and WhatsApp sent to various commands and posts of the armed institute between Friday and Saturday, is ordering the agents to toughen the treatment of the strikers, both semantically in the reports and in the police actions themselves. A response from the State Security forces and bodies that until now the Executive has considered too lukewarm with protests that, according to the Government, are encouraged by the extreme right.
In one of those emails to which this newspaper has had access, sent at 1:43 p.m. on Thursday, a chief lieutenant of a Spanish province orders all his subordinates, “following directives from superiors,” to immediately change the “terminology” that is being used in the “submission of news”. «As of the receipt of this email, in the list of statistical files in relation to the stoppage of means of land transport that began on the 14th of this month, the term ‘strike’ will not be used, being replaced by ‘stoppage’. ‘, just as the term ‘picket’ will not be used, using ‘activist’ instead.
The communications to the members of the armed institute to be much more forceful with the strikers and to urge that any incident be reported are also happening through chats and messaging, according to what JUClL, the largest professional association of the body, denounced this Saturday.
“Illegal Gathering”
“If there are detainees/investigated/injured, report immediately. If there are more than 20 people, report that it is considered an illegal meeting and it will be reported to law 4/2015 (sic) (gag law). Any traffic cut must be solved immediately, ”point out the messages that are being bounced in the last hours from the command posts. In these communications to the deployed civil guards, the commanders warn that next Monday may be “crucial” and that the agents must report “if it is known if the activists are going to Madrid to demonstrate.”
In the messaging, in which those responsible for the device ask the agents to be “proactive” and to “convey calm”, they also reveal that they are going to “remit” what they describe as “suspicious license plates” and ask the officials to They are on the roads that are especially aware of the “rest areas where there may be trucks” in the face of the “possible presence of activists.”
The head of JUCIL, Ernesto Vilariño, insisted this Saturday on the “extraordinary concern” unleashed in the body by the fact that “Interior demands more forcefulness from the Civil Guard to restrict the rights of transport strikers.” “We are very concerned about the orders that our colleagues are receiving to change in the reports and news of the strike, the term pickets by activists and the reference strike to strike,” said JUCIL Communications Secretary Agustín Leal. .
Three ministries involved
Faced with a situation that worsens day by day, the Government has decided to put Vice President Nadia Calviño at the helm of the negotiations, who will meet on Monday with representatives of the transport sector. She will address the situation starting at 10 in the morning with the goods department of the National Committee for Road Transport (CNTC). The vice president will be accompanied by the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, and the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez.
There are already several industries that have stopped their production or threaten to do so in the coming days if the situation is not resolved. For this reason, they urge the Government to guarantee the free movement of goods so that they reach supermarkets, where the first effects of this strike are already beginning to be felt. Especially in the case of fresh products such as fruit, vegetables and fish and shellfish, but also milk and yogurt after the strike of the dairy industry for four days.
But the Executive continues to refuse to meet with the strikers, whom the Minister of Transport has described as “ultras” and “violent”. For its part, the Platform for the Defense of Transport claims to be detached from any political tendency and maintains that they will not call off the strike until they are received by the ministry.
And to put the finishing touch to this pressure situation, this Sunday around 200,000 people -according to calculations by the conveners- related to the rural world will demonstrate in the streets of Madrid to demand a shock plan against the high prices that drown farms livestock and for the “dignity” of those who live in the countryside.