IN RESPONSE TO THE EPPK ATTACK ON THE PRO-AMNESTY MOVEMENT
Posted on Sat, 05/30/2020 – 11:46
(translated from Castillian published version by D.Breatnach 31/ 05/2020).
Amnistia demonstration (photo sourced: Internet).
Unfortunately, once again and contrary to what we would like, we are obliged to respond to an attack against our movement. On this occasion it has been the EPPK1 that, while applauding the institutional parties that are part of the system, has launched an attack against the popular movement in an attempt to damage what they do not control.
It does not go unnoticed that the day chosen to publish this attack is the Day of Mobilisations that we have called in support of Patxi Ruiz. In addition to being an electoral movement with its mind set on the elections, the EPPK note, written in one of the Sortu offices, aims to weaken today’s mobilisations. Despite referring to us, we interpret the fact that they do not mention the name of the Movement for Amnesty and Against Repression as a symptom of political weakness. It is our custom to say things more clearly than that. Nothing would call for such action but seeing that they stand to lose hegemony in the street, they act from their gut instead of their head.
We recall other similar attacks that, far from strengthening unity among prisoners, have served to divide the EPPK itself. For example, the false accusation leveled against our movement by prisoners who were being tried in the Paris Court in 2015, had the effect of causing four other prisoners with long sentences to separate themselves from the EPPK. All four publicly criticised it, and things like that should make those who plan these attacks reflect on the consequences that actions of this type have on those inside (including many of the EPPK).
Dealing with the content of today’s EPPK statement, the first thing we should highlight is its lack of rigor. They say that we have used Patxi’s dramatic situation to criticize Sortu, EH Bildu, Etxerat, EPPK and Sare. We must say that these groups are not the navel of the world and that we have put all our strength into Patxi. But in addition to that, we have not mentioned in any statement either the EPPK, or Etxerat or Sare.
We have mentioned EH Bildu and Sortu, always to respond to the accusations hurled by them against the Pro Amnesty and Against Repression Movement. Like the EPPK now, the previous two have accused us of pushing Patxi Ruiz towards his death and, in the face of such petty statements as these, our position will always be firm. We will not accept attacks of this kind in the difficult situation we are experiencing, and less so from those who think only of the elections. We will not admit it from those who have not said anything about Patxi until after ten days, except when it was to criticise the actions in his support.
The position of the Pro Amnesty and Against Repression Movement has been, from the outset, to prioritise Patxi’s life over anything else. For this, we have maintained direct contact with the group that acts as the family’s representative, with the lawyers and with a group of professionals who work in different fields of medicine and who advise us.
All the decisions that we have made in these hard times, including the political initiatives that we have promoted, have been made taking into account and following the advice of these three groups. We ask for respect and responsibility from Sortu and from all the organizations that move in its orbit, towards us, towards the aforementioned groups and above all towards Patxi, who is the one who makes the decision to continue with the hunger strike. Of course, we can assure that we will be supporting Patxi to make the decisions that he makes regarding this issue.
Image used on Amnistia movement’s web page.
ATTITUDE OF THE PRISONERS IN MURCIA II
We must state that our movement has at no time made assessments of the personal attitudes of any member of the EPPK. We have not doubted the concern that the rest of the prisoners of Murcia II may have about Patxi’s situation. The Pro Amnesty Movement makes political evaluations and far from treating prisoners as if they were “unfortunates”, it treats them like the political militants they are.
For this reason, on May 20 we said that the fact that they had not moved in support of Patxi was a consequence of the “Basque Road to Peace” proposal by EH Bildu and Sortu. Specifically, we explained that entering the game of grade progressions2 left prisoners defenceless in prison, because if they took action they would lose the possibility of advancing in grades. To this we added that we have been warning about the consequences of this path for six years and that the only thing that confirms or denies theories is practice. This case confirms that our theory is correct, above opinions and objectively.
As a last point, it seems really audacios to say that if Patxi was taken to the hospital, it was because the members of the EPPK requested it from the prison management. Patxi was hospitalised on the eleventh day of the hunger and thirst strike, following kidney failure and following a judge’s order.
MEDIATION OFFERED BY SORTU
On the night of May 14th, Sortu contacted the Pro Amnesty and Against Repression Movement through an intermediary. Sortu offered us to take advantage “under the table” of some contacts it has in Madrid to change Patxi’s situation. According to what we were told, the movement should give them the “green light” for this. They suggested that with the activism we promote, we could be pushing Patxi to continue with the hunger and thirst strike.
The group that looks after Patxi’s situation evaluated the proposal, consulted with those around them and drew conclusions: the first is that Patxi does not want something like this and that his will must be respected. The second is that the only reason for asking for a “green light” can be is that in return we request to stop the street actions. The third is that those who made us the offer (we know how to distinguish them from the party bases), more than for Patxi’s life, are concerned about the consequences that his death can cause in the political situation.
The day after receiving the proposal, we replied that if they have a real option to avoid Patxi’s death, they would not need anyone’s “green light” to take the necessary approaches. Despite the fact that they asked us for confidentiality, on May 19th EH Bildu made public through an electoral note that it had offered us its means to help resolve Patxi’s situation and the next day Sortu, in a note in the same vein, accused us of pushing Patxi towards his death. By making this contact public and making serious accusations, they showed that their only intention was “to get rid of the body on top of them.” We know how to maintain discretion and appreciate the help offered when it is sincere, but we will not allow manipulations tailored to anyone’s partisan interests.
In closing, we call on the Basque Country to continue supporting Patxi, to denounce the attacks against prisoners, and to continue pressing the fight for amnesty. Only the cessation of all kinds of oppression implicit in the political concept of amnesty will bring about a true peace based on justice. We are proud of the response given in Euskal Herria and of the internationalist support we have received.
Patxi Ruiz Romero, Basque political prisoner, now on hunger strike. (Image sourced: Internet)
FOOTNOTES
1Basque Political Prisoners’ Collective, part of the Abertzale Left movement following the political line of the official leadership. Currently the vast majority of the Basque political prisoners are following its general line although a number of male and female prisoners have broken ranks to take actions in solidarity with Patxi and a number of ex-prisoners have also published a statement in his support.
2The Spanish penal system applies one of a number of grades to prisoners, according to which the conditions of imprisonment and possibility of early release on parole are decided. Formerly the EEPK, in line with the official leadership of the Abertzale Left movement, the decision was to maintain an attitude of political opposition to the system and to take collective decisions. When the position of the leadership on the overall struggle changed, so too did the recommendations to the prisoners, which was now to respond to the prison system as individuals and progress through the grades in what would be considered ‘good behaviour’ by the authorities.
3 “The Land Where the People Speak Euskera” (Basque native language), the name for the entire Basque Country, north and south.
Minister of the Interior for the PSOE-Podemos coalition, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, ex-judge of the National Court. (Photo source: Publico.es)
Newcomers to Spanish politics witnessing the recent sound and fury in the Spanish Parliament might conclude that there was a real battle going on between a reactionary Right and a progressive Left but they’d be right only about the existence of a reactionary Right. The same newcomers might then remark that well, the opponents of the reactionary Right must at least be liberals and they’d be wrong about that too.
Parliamentary delegates from the reactionary Right – and that is to call them much less than the reality – were sharply criticising the Spanish coalition Government. The senior partner in the coalition is the Partido Socialista Obrero which, as has on occasion been commented, is neither “socialista” nor “obrero” and while its junior partner Podemos has left-wing credentials coming from the mainly Trotskyist (and Communist Party-managed) Izquierda Unida, it has to keep up an accommodation with the PSOE.
The parties of the Right in this case were the Partido Popular, which was created to represent erstwhile supporters of the deceased fascist dictator General Franco, along with Ciudadanos, which was founded by former supporters of the PP. The fascist Vox party comes from the same stable but with less democratic pretence.
The criticisms of the Spanish coalition Government on this occasion were mostly with regard to the sacking on Monday of the chief of the Guardia Civil in Madrid, Colonel Diego Perez de los Cobos. The Guardia Civil is a paramilitary police force, which is to say it is organised along military lines and has been the main instrument of State repression during Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975) and since. It was mainly they, for example that invaded Catalonia to beat up voters during the October 2017 Referendum on independence there and shot the banned rubber bullets at demonstrators and in fact the sacked officer led that operation.
The sacking occurred allegedly because on behalf of a Madrid magistrate, the Guardia Civil carried out an investigation of a number of political demonstrations in Madrid which it alleged had violated the pandemic restrictions and even contributed to the spread of virus, even though they had predated the Lockdown. The investigation, it is also being alleged, was in order to check whether the Health Minister’s actions regarding the pandemic had been appropriate or not.
In order to bolster their investigations, the Guardia Civil had claimed that the World Health Organisation had declared a pandemic in January whereas in fact it had only done so on March 11th (the Government ordered the lockdown on the 14th). The public events the Guardia Civil were investigating with a view to prosecution were mostly democratic or left-wing, including a march to celebrate International Women’s Day (March 8th) and to denounce male violence against women (and the State’s two-level crime of rape) but also included a cavalcade organised by the fascist Vox party.
The Right generally is no friend of women’s rights but more to the point feels duty-bound to defend the Guardia Civil, acting as though they own it (which is not that far from the truth). However the PSOE has had no difficulty in sending the Guardia Civil to attack the Basques or Catalans in the past. And while in government in the 1980s, the PSOE’s Minister of the Interior along with some senior police and Guardia Civil officers were exposed running the GAL terrorist group against the Basques and had to spend some time in jail. The person widely suspected of having set the whole thing up, the Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, was not even questioned by the investigators, no doubt for fear of what might come to light.
That Fernando Grande-Marlaska is the Minister of the Interior under current attack in Parliament for allegedly being unfair to the Guardia Civil points out in full the irony of the situation. This is one of the Judges of the Spanish National Court most denounced by Basques for attacking their democratic rights and of at least turning a blind eye to their torture, while sentencing them to long terms in prison on the basis of their “confessions” and Guardia Civil “evidence”. Another of those ex-judges considered infamous by many Basques is also of the PSOE, Baltazar Garzon, beloved of many left and liberal people because he agreed to process an international crimes against humanity accusation against Pinochet and also ordered the exhumation of a mass grave of victims of fascists and military (Spain has more mass graves than any other territory except Cambodia). Neither of those two cases came to fruition, unlike the violation of the civil and human rights of thousands of Basques and the torture of hundreds under his watch.
PUNCH AND JUDY PUPPET SHOW
In the Punch & Judy traditional dramas, Punch carries out a murder or two but, unlike some of the children watching it perhaps, we know that the puppet performance is not describing a real event. Of course, the Right in the Spanish state DID carry out murders – they have a list of 100,000-200,000 to their ‘credit’, most actually after the fighting of the Spanish Anti-Fascist War. And an additional number to force through the Transition to nominal democracy and more afterwards by ‘unofficial’ GAL and official Guardia Civil operations, mostly against Basques.
Punch & Judy puppets (Photo sourced: Internet)
The historic fact is that all left-wing organisations, even the social-democratic PSOE were banned during the Dictatorship. In order to stabilise the State and prevent its overthrow by the oppressed masses during the mid-1970s, it had to have the help of the Left. The Partido Comunista de España controlled a huge militant illegal trade union organisation, the Comisiones Obreras, while the PSOE controlled the smaller but substantial Unión General de Trabajadores (which it does still) – no setup would be safe unless they were brought on board. They were legalised and supported the new Constitution, even accepting the imposed monarchy and the “Pact of Amnesia”, under which all those guilty of tortures and murders under Franco walked free.
This is why there is some heat in the exchanges in the Spanish Parliament but no substance. The thinking of the Right goes something like this: “We had to legalise you and allow you into government but that doesn’t mean we have to even pretend to like you.” While the PSOE thinks: “You tortured and murdered our grandparents but we will share power with you and tolerate much of your antics. We all depend on one another. But sometimes you go too far and have to be restrained. For your own good as well as ours.”
And what does Podemos and Izquierda Unida think, while they share a government with the PSOE? And does any of this make any real difference to the situation of the mass of Spanish people or to those nations imprisoned within the state?
end.
Mariaon Rajoy, former Prime Minister and ex-leader of the right-wing PP, shakes hands with Sanchez of the PSOE in a pre-Pandemic Spanish Parliament. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The Basque pro-independence movement, the Abertzale Left, fought the Spanish State for over four decades. in 2012 its leadership renounced armed struggle without any reciprocal agreement with the Spanish State, declaring its faith in an imagined “Basque peace process”, sought alliances with social democratic and capitalist-nationalist parties and publicly apologised for its past actions of resistance. The movement sank into general inactivity except on the electoral front. But in recent weeks there have been signs of awakening, though under a different leadership – or is the giant merely muttering and twitching in its sleep?
Map of the Basque Country showing the provinces; the three to the north-east are inside the French state, while the other and larger four are in the Spanish state. (Image source: Internet)
THE GIANT
How does the description “Giant” fit a resistance movement in a total population of less than three million people? A nation divided between the Spanish and French states? Part of the answer is precisely in those features, also in its history during the Spanish Civil / Anti-Fascist War and “French” Maquis and earlier. Also in its long struggle in defence of its native language Euskera, almost certainly the oldest in Europe and perhaps the first to reach it in neolithic times.
This is a movement that carried out general strikes against the Franco dictatorship, ensured that three of its provinces rejected the 1978 Constitution of the Spanish State which, in atmosphere of fear and murderous repression and with the collusion of the newly-legalised social-democratic (PSOE) and communist (CPE) political parties, was voted in by a majority in every other region of the Spanish State (population another 35 million people).
The serpent of wisdom and the axe of armed struggle, symbol of ETA. (Image sourced: Internet)
Inspired by the examples of the Algerian independence struggle and socialist Cuba, the Abertzale Left movement rose from the defeat of the nation in the Spanish Civil/ Anti-Fascist War and the terrible repression under the fascist dictator General Franco and in 1959, formed the ETA (Land and Freedom) organisation. The youth wing of the conservative Basque Nationalist Party conceded the Left-inclination in order to join with them. Enduring arrests and torture of its supporters, it was not until 1968 that ETA took an armed action; halted at a police checkpoint and determined not to be arrested, Txabi Etxebarrieta shot a policeman dead and was in turn killed himself by pursuing police.
Mural honouring Txabi Etxebarrieta, first ETA martyr. (Image sourced: Internet)
The first planned armed action carried out was also that year when an ETA squad shot dead Meliton Manzanas, head of the political police in the Basque Country, a notorious torturer of prisoners and a Nazi sympathiser in the past.
A woman dressed in the Basque national colours dances the aurresku, ceremonial honour dance, in commemoration of ETA martyrs. Organising or participating in such an event could easily lead to torture and a prison sentence under the “anti-terrorism” laws of the Spanish State. (Image sourced: Internet)
A number of other actions were taken by ETA over the years, some of them spectacular but, like many armed resistance groups, some also questionable in value or even in justification from a revolutionary point of view. But in December 1973 an ETA squad in Madrid assassinated Admiral Carrero Blanco, General Franco’s nominated successor, an action which many credited with hastening the progress of the Transition of the Spanish State to nominal democracy. General Franco died without a strong agreed political replacement almost exactly two years later, in December 1975 and the Transition process ran from then until 1978.
Admiral Carrero Blanco, Franco’s intended replacement, assassinated by ETA in Madrid in December 1973. (Image sourced: Internet)
The struggle continued after the Transition, since the new Constitution declared any breakaway from the unity of the Spanish State a crime unless a majority in the Spanish Parliament voted in favour. The military and police repression in the Basque Country was huge. In the 1980s the social-democratic (PSOE) Spanish Government was exposed as heavily implicated in a number of terrorist groups operating against Basques through kidnapping, torture, gun and bomb attacks (see GAL) and eventually the Minister of the Interior and a number of high-ranking officers were given jail sentences.
In 1983 mass demonstrations and armed actions by ETA brought about the abandonment of the Spanish State’s nuclear reactor at the picturesque coastal spot at Lemoiz, followed by a new Spanish government declaring a moratorium on all building of nuclear reactors.
1975 mass demonstration against nuclear reactor being built by the Spanish State at Lemoiz. (Image sourced: Internet)
Another aspect of the struggle was against compulsory military service, which the Spanish State only ended in 2002. People not only evaded it but also protested publicly against it.
Many people in the Spanish state opposed being part of NATO in the 1986 referendum but the Basque Country was highly represented in the vote against, around double the vote of those in favour and along with Catalonia being the only regions with a majority voting “no”.1
Photo taken of me by my guide on my camera above the abandoned nuclear site at scenic Lemoiz, possiblt 2016. Not many people can claim to have halted a nuclear reactor building program.
The ideology of the movement which found expression in ETA was national liberationist and socialist and this was reflected to a greater or lesser degree in all its parts, whether military or civilian. The Abertzale Left during the period organised itself into one political party after another after each in turn was banned by the Spanish State and forbidden to field candidates in elections.
Women industrial workers in Basque anti-fascist armaments factory, Spanish Civil/ Anti-Fascist War, 1936. (Image sourced: Internet)
But the movement had a huge social following too, in youth movements, punk and heavy metal bands, social-cultural centres, pirate radio stations and promoters of Euskera as a spoken language (all leaders of the Abertzale Left were required to be able to speak the language and all public meetings were addressed in Euskera and Spanish or even Euskera alone). There was even a popular Abertzale style of haircut and dress. The Abertzale Left also had a sizeable trade union, LAB which, along with ELA, a union founded by the Basque Nationalist party, recruited the majority of unionised Basque workers2. Feminist, LBGT, linguistic, eco-friendly, anti-animal cruelty sectors all contained many people broadly in support of the Abertzale Left or at least of its stated objectives.
The movement also had newspapers, radio stations and internet sites and many of these were closed down by the Spanish State, alleging that they were “collaborating with terrorism”. Currently the Spanish State is moving towards the closure of the movement’s social-cultural centres, the Herriko Tabernak (People’s Taverns). This arises from a judgement by the National Court in 2011, a judgement corresponding to an infamous statement by Baltazar Garcón, at the time a prominent Judge of that Court, that “Everything is ETA”. The closures are to be carried out now although ETA ceased armed activity permanently in 2012 and disbanded itself a little later.
Annual January prisoners’ solidarity march, Bilbao, 2016. (Image sourced: Internet)
Repression by the Spanish State has included executions and clandestine assassinations and led to relatively huge numbers of Basque political prisoners, not all by any means military fighters and conviction with “confessions” extracted through torture during the five-day incommunicado period ensured a problem-free conveyor belt for the Spanish State. That conveyor belt delivered its victims to jails dispersed all over the Spanish state, nearly every one hundreds of kilometres and sometimes over a thousand from the prisoners’ homes. The financial, physical and mental strains on friends and relatives, including elderly and children having to travel such distances to visit their loved ones are hard to imagine, often facing abuse or harassment on the way or at their destination, apart from serious accidents on motorways (including fatalities). Many pickets and demonstrations are held in the Basque Country throughout the year and each January a monster march clogs the streets of Bilbao.
The issue of the prisoners has always been a big one for the Abertzale Left and despite dispersal the prisoners built an organisation within the jails, responding to their situation in a disciplined manner.
SLEEPING
During the first decade of this century it was clear that ETA was not doing well and the Abertzale Left in general was facing many more years of struggle against an unyielding state with repression everywhere and hundreds of political prisoners in jails.
The leadership was attracted to the much-advertised pacification/ peace processes of South Africa, Palestine and Ireland. By any estimation the Palestine process soon collapsed and its rejection by most of Palestinian society was clearly indicated first by the Intifada and secondly by the electoral gains of Hamas, pushing Al-Fatah into second place. To undiscerning eyes the Irish and South African3 processes seemed to be doing well and both the ANC and Sinn Féin lent strong support to the Abertzale Left’s imagined “peace process”. Despite that support and that of such prominent imperialist figures as Tony Blair and Kofi Annan, the Spanish ruling class was not interested in playing and eventually the Abertzale Left’s leadership was left with nowhere to go. However, they persisted in trying to build alliances with the majority Basque National Party and with smaller nationalist-social-democratic groups; they succeeded with the second sector but failed with the first and seem condemned to second-party status electorally in a Spanish colony, a nation divided by the French-Spanish border.
However, in their search for acceptance by the above-mentioned sectors, the Abertzale Left not only renounced armed struggle but apologised for past actions, ended street confrontations and called on the prisoners to negotiate their progress individually through prison system grades to eventual parole. Some of Abertzale Left public representatives even attended events commemorating Guardia Civil and Ertzaintza (Basque police) killed by ETA in the past.
EH Bildu Mayor of Errenteria participates in commemoration of a Guardia Civil killed by ETA. (Image sourced: Internet)
When the struggle for independence broke out again recently in Catalonia with the 2017 Referendum and the Spanish State responded with a violent Guardia Civil invasion and jailing of politicians and social activists, the Abertzale Left leadership noticeably declined to open up a second front of struggle.
STIRRING
There were early but sporadic signs that not all movement was happy with the Abertzale Left’s new path. Askapena, an organisation set up within the Abertzale Left to work on internationalist solidarity, which at one time could list affiliated groups in Ireland, Germany, Italy4, Paris, Brittany, Barcelona, Madrid, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and a number of Latin American countries, broke quietly with with the Abertzale Left over its change of policies5. Notably also, when four members of Askapena were accused of “assisting terrorism” in 2010, they refused to apologise for their work and fought the case, being eventually cleared of all charges in 2016.6
In addition, many Basques were critical of the process, feeling that even if they were prepared to go down the new road, it had been handled badly by the leadership.
A leading Marxist theoretician of the movement, Inaki Gil, resigned from the national leadership years ago, though not from the movement; however he may well be persona non-grata in it now due to a published interview in which he criticised the decision of the 47 on trial in September last year to apologise for past actions of the Basque liberation movement, even after 50,000 had marched through Bilbao streets in their support two days earlier.
When Arnaldo Otegi — generally seen as the architect of the new road for the Abertzale Left7 – was arrested with others in 2009 and, while on pre-trial detention began a hunger strike only to end it soon afterwards, it did not reflect well on him. While he beat a charge of “glorifying terrorism”, he was convicted in 2011 for allegedly reorganising Batasuna, banned political party of the Abertzale Left and sentenced to ten years, reduced on appeal to six and walked free in 2016. In the meantime a Free Otegi campaign (2015) attracted some notable foreign support (including Desmond Tutu) but was criticised in the Basque liberation movement for highlighting the case of one political prisoner above many others8 (including those who were serving much longer sentences).
Arnaldo Otegi, leader of the official Abertzale Left. (Image sourced: Internet)
Some years ago a new Basque political prisoner solidarity organisation came into being, calling itself ATA (Amnistia Eta Askatasuna – Amnesty and Freedom9). They enjoyed a good showing at their first demonstration but came under public attack not only by the Abertzale Left leadership but by a number of ETA members on trial in France. They were accused of using the prisoners as a stalking horse when what they really wanted was to attack the new line of the movement’s leadership. Censorship and condemnation in the Abertzale Left’s daily newspaper GARA followed.
Amnistia Ta Askatasuna demonstration Bilbo 2016. (Image sourced: Internet)
Although their public support waned for awhile, in 2018 a youth group of the Abertzale Left was expelled after they had publicly denounced their annual conference managers for refusing to put their position paper forward for discussion; this youth organisation now collaborates with ATA. Last year, a new Basque revolutionary group called Jarki was formed and drew a sizable crowd to their commemoration of the annual Gudari Eguna (Basque Soldier Day)10.
ATA demonstration Donosti/ San Sebastian, September 2019. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
However the issue of development remained in doubt and no-one could predict with confidence that the movement would be rebuilt along revolutionary lines under a new leadership.
WAKING
The week before last, Basque political prisoner Patxi Ruiz embarked upon a hunger and thirst strike and although he abandoned the thirst component after 11 days he continues on the hunger strike. He took this action in protest against harassment and beatings by the prison administration and jailers and highlighted the fact that prisoners
Patxi Ruiz, Basque political prisoner, now on hunger strike. (Image sourced: Internet)
were being refused virus-protection clothing or testing and that the jailers were not being tested either. He also wanted visits from his family to be permitted and prisoners allowed to attend funerals of family members (he had been refused permission to attend his father’s funeral). More recently he has demanded that prisoners be relocated to jails near their homes, a long-standing demand of the movement and which is entirely in accordance with model rules for prisons in the EU and the UN. Despite the official leadership of the Abertzale Left firstly ignoring the situation and then condemning his supporters, Ruiz’s struggle galvanised the mostly dormant Abertzale movement.
Every day has seen small actions across the Basque Country, including protest pickets on bridges, beaches, town squares etc; solidarity fasts; slogans painted … Large solidarity marches have been held in Irunea/ Pamplona (Nafarroa province), Donosti/ San Sebastian (Guipuzkoa), Baiona (Bayonne), Bilbao and Durango (Bizkaia). ATA’s web page is full of developing news and the facebook page, which had fallen into silence, is active again. Last Sunday in Pamplona/ Irunea, police attacked demonstrators with batons and fired rubber bullets at close quarters.Patxi Ruiz solidarity demonstration 24 May 2020 attacked by police with batons and rubber bullets
Patxi Ruiz solidarity march in Bayonne, northern Basque Country. (Image source: Internet)
Some of the Basque prisoners who are part of the “official list” have begun taking solidarity action, refusing food or to leave their cells for periods in Almería, Brevia-Ávila, Castelló I, Córdoba, Huelva, Murcia (where Patxi is), Puerto III, Rennes, Sevilla II, Topas-Salamanca …. refusal to leave one’s cell also means forgoing family phone calls. Patxi had been expelled from the Abertzale prisoners’ collective in 2017 for speaking out against the new line of the official leadership which another four prisoners have repudiated also11.
However the mass of Basque political prisoners have so far remained quiet, “concentrating on moving through their grades while Patxi lies dying”, in a quotation from an ATA commentary which blamed this new lack of unity on the fragmentation engendered by the official leadership.
A group of ex-prisoners has now also called for solidarity with Ruiz.
“COULD NOT SINK LOWER”
According to a public statement by ATA denouncing political parties Sortu and EH Bildu, the official Abertzale leadership made no comment until Patxi Ruiz was into his fifth day of hunger and thirst strike and then it was to mention him only in passing, while denouncing the spray-painting of political parties’ buildings by protesters and the burning of an ATM. On the 10th day the official leadership again released a statement, saying they were trying to organise one of their elected politicians to visit the prisoner but condemning the mobilisations across the Basque Country and accusing them of endangering Patxi Ruiz’s life. “They could not sink lower”, commented ATA, who also pointed out how late the official leadership had come to comment and that without the public-space protests, neither the media nor the official leadership would have taken any notice whatsoever.
What the future holds for Patxi Ruiz in the short-term is hard to predict, already weakened by ten days of thirst strike and now into his 16th day of hunger strike. What the near and medium-term future holds for the Basque movement is also an open question, depending to some extent on how ATA is able to capitalise on this upsurge and build an organisation or a network of coherence and unity, at least in action.
Patxi Ruiz solidarity march Bilbo 23 May 2020. (Source image: Boltxe)
The official Abertzale leadership will do what they can to destroy any such movement but they have already yielded the streets, one of the main arenas of the movement in the past. Both groups are mutually exclusive and the advance of one in the wider Basque movement can only be at the expense of the other.
The Spanish State too will be watching developments and no doubt considering its own options of repression, although not so easily done as before, without even an ETA existence to justify their response to the public.
Meanwhile the Catalan independence struggle simmers on and if both should link up in mutual solidarity …..
2The main unions in the Spanish state, Unión General de Trabajadores and Comisiones Obreras were founded respectively by the PSOE and the CPE. Both are Spanish unionist and have the majority of unionised workers in every region of the Spanish state except the southern Basque Country and Galicia.
3While the people in South Africa have the vote and the ANC political party has done well out of the deal, going almost straight into Government, the mass of people struggle on low level income, high level violent crime, unemployment and badly-delivered services, while an ANC clique wallow in riches gained through corruption. Sinn Féin went first into the British colony’s government and now has the most elected parliamentary delegates from the February 2020 General Election in the Irish State; however over two decades after the Good Friday agreement the country is no nearer unification or nation-wide independence and is run by neo-liberal capitalist classes selling out the natural resources and services of the nation.
4Germany and Italy had a number of these; in Ireland the cities of Belfast, Dublin and Cork each had one.
5This organisation effectively ceased to exist due to the new line of the Abertzale Left. Although a number of foreign committee delegates did not disagree with the new line (some certainly did) nevertheless it began to fade away from then on.
6In marked contrast to the apology in September last year for previous actions of the movement by 47 members of a number of Abertzale Left organisations, including those against repression and in solidarity with prisoners, before they had even been tried by the court. This shameful action was taken two days after 50,000 had taken to the streets to support them and left deep hurt, bewilderment and shame throughout the movement. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/16/mass-trial-of-basque-activists-in-spain-ends-with-plea-deal
7He had come into the political leadership with Joseba Permach of the Abertzale Left in 1997 after 23 members of the Batasuna leadership were jailed for seven years by the Spanish State. He was elected General Secretary of the political party Sortu in 2013.
8The Abertzale Left had never previously endorsed any campaign focusing on individual prisoners except in the case of terminally and seriously-ill prisoners, of which at one time there were as many as 15 who, even under Spain’s own prison regulations, should have been paroled home or to hospital.
9Though now it gives the translation as “Amnesty and Against Repression”. An Amnistia organisation had existed earlier but dissolved or reformed after banning by the Spanish State and one of the accusations of the Abertzale Left is that dissidents misappropriated the name.
According to news reports, the Government is considering a relaxation of restrictions and a return to work – but with people wearing masks1 and with monitoring of preventative measures. An obvious question is, if these measures are thought to be effective in future, why are they not being implemented now? And why not in the past? Will we be going back to work but also to contagion?
Conductor on Seattle trolley-bus, USA, masked against Spanish ‘Flu 1918. (Image sourced: Internet)
PRESSURE TO LIFT RESTRICTIONS
There is clearly some pressure to lift restrictions – many people want to be able to earn money and socialise as before. People want to go on holiday, get on with education and projects, visit relatives. Small businesses want to save themselves from bankruptcy or climb out of debt. And bankers and industrialists want to continue squeezing people for profits. The State too, in both its ‘national’2and municipal forms, wants to raise taxes to fund its essential services: power generation and supply, water purification and sewage treatment, health service, postal and electronic communications, public transport and road maintenance, fire-fighting, refuse collection and disposal …. To all of those pressures the Government seems to be bowing – but have they thought it through?
In Germany, which has lifted some restrictions, people have been obliged to wear masks in public but even so, the authorities are urging people to be cautious, that they “will have to live with the virus” for some time. In other words, “forget about going back to normal, probably for a long time”. Initial statistics show a rise in infection cases there after the lockdown easing. In Britain, especially England, trade unions have attacked the “mixed messages”from the Prime Minister, Boris Johnston, about returning to work as “potentially lethal”.3
Germany experienced a rise in numbers infected after relaxation of lockdown. (Image sourced: Internet)
So, about the pressure. Ordinary working people have bills, mortgages and rents to pay, small business people have the same and clearly a state needs to have money to fund essential services. Yes, and big companies and banks are pressurising too. And we all know how successful banks are at pressurising governments, don’t we? Especially our governments.
Apart from banks and building societies, the Government could ease the pressure on ordinary working people and small business people by declaring a moratorium on mortgages and rents for the duration of loss of earnings due to the pandemic. Yes, it would need to take powers to do that but wouldn’t most people support them in doing so?
The building societies, banks and big businesses wouldn’t support it however, all of which are interconnected. Well, when the banks and building societies messed up – and not for any reason like a pandemic, either – our governments forced US, the ordinary working people, to bail THEM out. In fact we’re still paying for that out of our national reserves and in cuts in all kinds of provision. A little bit of “comes around” would do them no real harm.
As to the finances to run the essential services of the State and of local authorities: end the tax write-offs, holidays and low taxation rates etc. And change the line on “We don’t want Apple to pay us the money which even the neo-liberal capitalist EU says they owe us!”. Yes, we DO want it – and we NEED it, ALL of it and NOW!
Industrial workers masked against the Spanish ‘Flu pandemic in Britain 1918. (Image sourced: Internet)
“FALSE CONFIDENCE”
The German authorities, with a much more efficient and better-funded health service and financial reserves, have been warning its public about false confidence. Now and again we see some indications of that here in Ireland too.
OK, so a section of the public is not properly educated or just willfully ignorant – stupid even. But if when you introduce a lockdown to deal with a pandemic you talk about it being for an initial two weeks ….. what kind of message are you giving out? And if you tell most people not to bother with masks or gloves? And if in the early days of the pandemic told them firstly that public events would not need canceling4 and then that to attend outdoor events of up to 500 and indoor events up to 100 people5 was basically safe? If the responsible authorities never seemed to be taking it all that seriously until late in the day and even then have managed it quite lightly – are some people to be blamed for having false confidence?
Another cluster of infections has just come to light, ten meat processing plants accounting for 566 cases so far. Prof. Catherine Motherway, President of the Intensive Care Society was reported as cautioning that a lot more needs to be done before restrictions are eased. “We need to know that our health system can cope … find and isolate the cases and treat them.”6
New York street cleaner masked against Spanish ‘Flu infection, 1918. (Photo sourced: Internet)
FACE-MASKS NOW – BUT NOT EARLIER
According to reports, the Government will want us to wear face-masks when they relax the restrictions. But ….. weren’t they telling us from the start that there was no point? Wasn’t even the World Health Organisation playing down their usefulness?
Well, either they know they don’t work, in which case they just want us to feel safe enough to start the wheels of industry turning and the money flowing into the big accounts …. Or they know they do work, and they’ve been advising us wrongly all along.
That’s where my bet is and I’ve written about this already, weeks ago7. It’s bloody obvious that face masks must help prevent spread the virus and depending on the type and procedures employed, would also help protect the wearer to some degree. Quite a number of countries made wearing them in public obligatory. And now the Government will be doing that here too.
Good. But I just wonder how many people got sick – or even died – because the authorities discouraged them from wearing them earlier?
People wearing masks and “Wear a mask or go to jail” placard, 1918, during Spanish ‘Flu pandemic, probably USA. (Image sourced: Internet)
The Government has yet to specify where the masks are going to come from and, little respect as I have for any person prominent in the Labour Party, Alan Kelly TD is obviously correct when he says that the Government should be organising the production of those masks NOW!8
OTHER MEASURES AND MONITORING
Face-masks help you not to spread droplets on to other people – and you don’t know for sure whether you have the virus or not, because you can carry it for a few days before it starts to show. Good face-masks will help you not catch it from someone else too. But you really need gloves as well and a good procedure in removing the gloves and face-mask, combined with hand-washing. And of course, social distancing. To be honest, with all those being practiced, there should be no need for 2km distance from home limits on exercise or travel – or even for telling older people to stay indoors, vulnerable to depression and ill-health through lack of exercise and even to accidents in the home.
But, for effective measures, don’t they/ we need to know who is infected and who is not? And where the major infection points in society are to be found? Yes — and for that we need mass testing, which our Government has not been doing because of how the health service has been run down. Not even with sending test samples away (to Germany) for analysis!9
And then we need tracking, tracing where people think they may have got infected, who they may have infected in turn, testing them …. the proper pandemic scientific procedures. But our Government is hardly doing that either. We get the following estimates10 of infection sources based on people who tested positive: 34% close contact, 63% community contact, 3% travel abroad.11But what do these categories actually mean?
OK, “travel abroad” is reasonably clear. “Close contact” might mean family, close friends, lovers, elderly relatives in nursing homes (more about them further on). But “community contact”, which accounts for almost two-thirds of the total? Would these be neighbours, workmates? You know what I suspect? Shops and supermarkets – customers and staff – are a big section. Why? Because most people visit them at least weekly and the precautions taken there have been all along — and are still – inadequate. But the authorities don’t do the tracking to find out. Or if they have, they’re not telling us.
Customers in a supermarket (none seem to be taking any precautions other than perhaps social distancing). (Photo source: Internet)
The fact that it was only last week that a high cluster of infection around meat-processing plants was revealed shows the need for testing, tracking and testing again and how little work on that level is being done. Ten sites with 566 people infected12 so far is not something that should be coming to light over two months after the first case was identified in Ireland.
Who will carry out the monitoring, ensuring best practice and compliance? I’d like to believe that whichever body the Government sets up will do a good job but unfortunately I doubt it. It was left up to the supermarkets and shops to monitor their own provisions and they did it late and inadequately13. The Government at first even left it up to the pubs whether to remain open or not! Now this body appointed by them, aware of the lack of enthusiasm of the Government to interfere with the business of making money, will be supervising and monitoring every factory, shop, depot and farm? Really?
In this small relatively low-industry state of the 26 Counties, the Health & Safety Agency recorded 22,500 non-fatal workplace accidents reported to it for the year 2017-2018, along with 48 fatalities. Remember that all generic studies maintain that most and possibly all accidents at work are avoidable and result from lack of awareness or of appropriate training, or of fatigue as well as from bad practices, bad supervision and badly-maintained equipment.
The understaffed HSA is not adequate to the task of monitoring even a representative sample of workplaces and relies a lot on accidents and breaches of regulations being reported to it; the trade unions in general are not up to the job either, especially with the low percentage of union membership of recent decades.14 So whichever agency is set up for monitoring good working practices during the pandemic, even if such adequate practices have been identified and published, is not likely to be up to the job either.
Masked Clerical Female Workers during Spanish ‘Flu pandemic 1918, probably USA. (Image sourced: Internet)
But at the very least that agency should publish its general guidelines and insist each workplace publish the specific procedures in place along with the underlying rationale. Then at least employees and public can see what they are, complain if they are felt to be inadequate and report those that are not being practiced. And gloves and face-masks at least should be provided for all, with work practices adapted to allow for them.
THE DISPOSABLE PEOPLE
As soon as the pandemic took hold in other countries, a high percentage of infected people were known to be healthcare workers – around 10% as an average. Even if you didn’t realise straight away that nursing homes were going to have a high rate of infection, as soon as you thought about healthcare workers you’d be quick getting to that point (and one step away from thinking about homeless hostels and direct provision centres etc too). Once you thought of the high vulnerability of those facilities, you’d make special provisions for them, wouldn’t you?
But no. No provision at all until a few weeks ago. No special issuing of guidelines for staff and visitors, insufficient PPE (protective equipment etc), low admission rates to ICUs for the infected ….. According to stats published at the weekend, 855 coronavirus-19 deaths have been associated with care homes and 740 of those were residents. And since the total deaths recorded within the state at that point were 1,429, well over half the deaths have taken place in care homes.
A shocking rate of attrition out of ineptitude for which the Government and the National Public Health Emergency Team should be held responsible. Or …. was it even worse than that? These facilities contain, on the whole, people who are no longer economically active, people some might even consider a drain on society’s resources. And often low-paid migrant workers caring for them. Could it be that they were all just considered “disposable”?
2I use the term here to mean the whole of the State’s territory, well aware that a true national perspective would include not just the 26 Counties but also the Six County British colony.
11Yes and most intelligent people wonder why the Government allowed people to travel to an international rugby match in a country swamped with the virus and, even worse, not have them quarantined upon their return. And for heaven’s sake, why people can still leave and arrive at our air and marine ports and sit on planes next to one another with cabin crew having to bend close to attend to them during the flight, do a turnaround and bend close to another group of passengers on the flight back.
The Herriko Tabernak (People’s Taverns) are a feature of Basque Society, in particular in the Southern Basque Country, i.e the part under Spanish control. Founded by members of the Abertzale (pro-Independence) Left, run by supporters and frequented by sympathisers, they have been a place to have a drink and some pintxos, have a coffee and chat with friends, hold social events and large group meals, as well as occasional meetings. The Spanish State is now seizing their funds.
One of the Herriko Tabernak in Bilbo, this one in Errondabide, Casco Viejo; view from the back towards the entrance and street. Photo: D.Breatnach 2015)
In 2016 the Audencia Nacional, the Spanish National Court, handed down a judgement that the funds of these taverns are forfeit, in what the Abertzale Left party Sortu called “the greatest political and economic plunder since the Civil War”. This is a reference to the wide-scale misappropriation of funds, machinery and land of the losers of that war by the victors, General Franco and his supporters. The wealth of many individuals and families in the Spanish State today can be traced back to that theft.
They will not be served alcohol! Parents often meet at the Herriko for a while after collecting their children from the Basque-language pre-schools. (Photo: D.Breatnach 2015)
While a number of these taverns were closed down in the past, most kept going, supported by their loyal clientele and local communities. Although the punitive judgement of the Audiencia against the Herrikos was in 2016, its origin dates back further to the reign of one of the Audencia’s ex-judges, Baltazar Garzon, who infamously claimed that every aspect of Basque independent expression was linked to the armed organisation ETA. Baltazar, loved by liberals, claimed that “everything is ETA”, under which dictum homes were raided, activists tortured and jailed on their “confessions”, political organisations banned, social and cultural centres closed, along with newspapers, radio stations and social media.
Arrano Herriko Taberna, Zarautz, Gipuzkoa province, southern Basque Country. Banner above it calls for freeing of the officially-recognised Abertzale Left political prisoners. (Photo: D.Breatnach, 2018)
Some modest afternoon pintxos available in the Errrondabide Herriko (Photo: D.Breatnach 2015)
EXPROPRIATION TAKES PLACE DURING A MILITARISED LOCKDOWN
This expropriation is taking place, as commented the left-wing media Izquierda Diario, in the midst of an emergency pandemic lockdown in which more than 7,000 sanctions in little over a month have been applied by the military and police who are in charge of and patrol the streets. (Unlike Ireland and many other countries, people in the Spanish State are not permitted to take exercise outside their homes, whether maintaining social distances or not).
“While the judicial apparatus cannot process the massive claims of illegal dismissals, unpaid wages, unpaid ERTEs” (temporary compensation for loss of earnings due to the pandemic) commented the Diario, “or thousands of resources for fines during these days for the restrictions of the pandemic, yes there is time to seize the money of more than 100 taverns.”
COMMENT
Cafe esnea and “Bring the prisoners home” serviettes, Herriko Taberna. (Photo: D.Breatnach 2015)
While it is true that in many areas there are privately-owned bars sympathetic to the movement and that also in many areas dissenters from the line of the Abertzale Left official leadership decline to use the Herrikos, nevertheless the disappearance of the latter must entail serious damage to the social and cultural base of the broad Basque independence movement.
end.
Protest against the original judgement by some supporters of the Herriko Taberna of Inpernupe, Zumaia (scene of some of the Game of Thrones footage), Guipuzkoa Province, Southern Basque Country. Banner declares “Ipernupe will not close!” while another in background declares it is in danger of closing. (Source photo: Izquierda Diario)
Gárdaí ‘can’t’ enforce social distancing on visitors from the Six Counties…!
Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time text: 5 minutes)
Irish Republicans looking at the sub-headline could be forgiven for bursting into laughter, for the Gárdaí, in particular the Special Branch, the political police, have never had any reluctance in harassing, arresting and even refusing bail to Republicans from the Six Counties.
And likewise with their counterparts on the other side of the British Border, who have never had much problem enforcing and even exceeding their laws with regard to Republicans from the Twenty-Six counties.
However, according to a news report in today’s breakingnews.ie, day-trippers from the Six Counties are flooding into the picturesque coastal areas of County Donegal and ignoring Coronavirus-19 legislation. The report says that the day-trippers are from “Northern Ireland” which is nonsense of course, since Donegal is the real Northern Ireland, i.e the northernmost geographical point of the country. And it is in Ulster too, though not under British occupation.
Anyway, back to the main issue in the report, which is that Donegal residents have been complaining that the Gardaí there are not enforcing social distancing on day-trippers from across the Border.
Garda Checkpoint Donegal (Photo source: Internet)
It appears that the Gárdaí were applying the Coronavirus-19 restrictions but were told that they could not. Why would this be? The laws against theft, assault and public disorder apply not only to residents in Ireland but also to visitors – why would laws intended to control a pandemic be any different? Indeed, one would think they’d be, if anything, more enforceable.
Meanwhile, “a Gárda statement” quoted in the report states that “anyone visiting the State even temporarily is amenable to such criminal laws of this State while visiting here.”
So it’s the law, applies to everyone including visitors, so … what’s the problem?
There is a saying that states that “where there’s a will, there’s a way” and it is difficult to see an explanation in this case other than that for some reason there is no political will to enforce the law on visitors from the Six Counties. Of course, if they were Republicans attending some Republican event, well in that case ……
“THE VIRUS DOESN’T RESPECT THE BORDER”
According to a number of Donegal public representatives, local people have been bombarding them with complaints about the incursions and the lack of Gárda action. Councillor Jack Murray, from the Inishowen area, saying he had been “inundated” with complaints about Gárda failure to apply the legislation to people from the Six Counties, said that “the virus does not respect the Border and tackling it should recognise that.” Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, a TD (member of the Irish Parliament, the Dáil) for Donegal, lives in Buncrana, a popular destination in the holiday season. “This error is unacceptable,” he said, “considering that all government legislation goes through the Attorney General’s office.”
Clearly, a rational response to the pandemic would require either an Ireland-wide approach or a strict closing of the Border between the two administrations. The authorities on each side have done neither.
At the end of February, the first person recorded positive for the virus arrived in Dublin from Italy aboard an Aer Lingus plane and was permitted to travel on to Belfast – she is/was a resident of the Six Counties. No quarantine was ordered for the rest of the passengers. And so on.
Ineptitude of Governments apart, it has never made sense to partition Ireland on economic, geographical or human rights grounds. Now we see that it doesn’t make sense on grounds of pandemic control either. How does it make sense? Well, on the wish of the rulers of Britain to keep a foothold in Ireland and of their loyal subjects in the Six Counties to remain in domination of that foothold.
Cartoon DB
GENERAL PROBLEMS WITH 2Km LIMITS
To be honest, I have never seen the point of the 2km limit. Is it the case that you can infect or be infected by someone outside the 2km limit but not inside? Of course that does not make sense but how does this limit make any sense otherwise?
I don’t drive a car but if I did and were to get in my car in my garage, drive out to a secluded spot on the mountains, get out and walk, then return to my car and drive home, how would I have endangered myself or anyone else? If I went to a park or beach outside the 2km limit from my home and, while there, kept my distance from other walkers, how would I be endangering anyone?
The danger in general, we are told, comes from physical contact with people or being within two metres of them, when droplets from an infected person may reach us. Would that danger be reduced if everyone were obliged to wear a face-mask of any kind? Clearly. Yet not only are we not obliged to wear such masks in public but we are being actuallydiscouraged from doing so by statements from the HSE (and also from the WHO). Would the danger be reduced if, in addition to wearing masks, we wore gloves in public and had a safe procedure for removing them at home? Obviously – yet we are not being informed, never mind encouraged, in this regard either.
We hear talk from time to time about essential frontline workers, a discussion the origins of which can be traced to the call on the Government to shut down all non-essential work. That of course raised the issue of what is essential work and therefore, who are the essential workers. High among the category considered essential were health practitioners and their rate of infection, when statistics were published, was exceeding 25%. But there is another group of workers who are essential and vulnerable and although most members of the public are in contact with them on a weekly basis at least, nevertheless they are given little protection and rarely mentioned.
Essential workers include, apart from healthcare workers, those maintaining our supplies of clean water, electricity and gas, sanitation, agriculture, production of necessary equipment, public transport, transport of essential supplies, fire-fighting, telecommunication (but not commercial call centres), postal services …. All of these should be in the first rank of consideration for protection from the Coronavirus-19, because they are vulnerable and for the selfish reason that we need them. But much more exposed on a daily basis to a greater number of people are the shop and supermarket workers.
Customer and staff both wearing mask and gloves in a foreign supermarket (Photo source: Internet)
They are the most numerous of the essential workers in daily contact with the public, which puts them at risk and, if they become infected, puts the general public, the shopping customers at risk too. And yet, their levels of protection organised by their employers are very poor overall. Despite this, we rarely hear them mentioned in public discourse, they do not receive particular attention from the Left and even their own trade unions are inactive on the issue.
WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE
Let us take a moment to consider what should have been the measures put in place for these workers and for the public coming into contact with them:
Immediate training program in prevention for all staff, with regular refresher or reinforcement measures
Immediate supply of protective clothing, disposed/ washed after each break and shift, this to include face-mask and gloves
Hand-sanitiser at every work station
Wrap-around screens at all checkout points
Disinfection routines for all work stations at shift changes
No shelf-filling during hours open to the public or non-essential interaction between public and staff inside of six feet distance
Staff in necessary close proximity to members of the public, including security staff, to be given special protection in clothing and in shift arrangements and testing
Safe social distances enforced by restrictions on numbers of customers in store at one time
Safe social distances marked for queues and enforced
Regular disinfection of automatic checkout machines
Supply of hand-sanitiser at all entrances/ exits and checkout machines for the public
Prevention informational visual and audio prompts for public and staff
All companies obliged by Government to publish their protocols so as to educate staff and public and also give a point of correction if either feel that the protocols are not being adhered to.
Some readers may protest that management had no previous experience of a pandemic, that some of these measures were implemented but a delay was inevitable and some measures are too extreme. I would respond that any group of reasonably intelligent people, knowing the danger and typical transmission routes, sitting down to think of precautions, would come up with a similar list. Companies are supposed to carry out risk assessments of their procedures. Trade union officials and representatives would be trained in how to assess levels of risk and how to employ measures to eliminate or reduce the level of risk as much as practicable.
Should anyone consider any of those measures excessive, they should be able to point out which and to say why. Or likewise justify the claim that late implementation was unavoidable.
Notice on screen in one shopping chain. (Photo source: Internet)
WHAT WAS DONE
Let us now take a moment to review which of those measure have been implemented, how and when.
I am not in a position to give a definite answer on whether staff were given intensive training in avoiding infection or not but from my observation while shopping of staff in a number of supermarkets I would feel confident in saying that they had not or, if they had, that the required practice was not being monitored by management.
Even to the day of writing this piece, in only one workplace, Eurospar in Fairview, have I seen all the staff wearing face masks. Workers in a number of other companies have told me that they are not supplied with them.
Hand-sanitiser was supplied to work-stations in some supermarkets (possibly all) but weeks after the pandemic hit Ireland (though it had been raging abroad for many weeks before that and covered in news reports).
No screens were in place at work-stations until weeks after the arrival of the virus and even now are rudimentary in many places. Single screens with spaces between permit staff and customers to position themselves in the open spaces, which I have seen both do at times. A number of cashier screens with an open section for customers to receive and load their checked-out purchases are well inside six feet of the staff member.
Whether there are any such shift-change disinfection routines at any supermarket I cannot say but in some supermarkets I have seen staff leave or take up work at a station without any evidence of its disinfection.
I have seen frequent shelf-filling during-open-to the-public hours in Dunnes, Tesco, Centra and Aldi (I have not been in a Lidl since the virus arrived) and even without gloves; also unprotected staff moving among customers on other pieces of work, including stacking and removing empty baskets. Even this evening in a Tesco outlet, although at least they were wearing orange (?) gloves, staff were attending to shelves (and without face-masks, as was the staff member stationed near the automatic machines).
In addition to the above, staff maintaining queue lines, including security staff: every single one without masks and all being passed by customers at distances inside of six feet. The most shocking case was of a security guard in Tesco Drumcondra being passed by customers at distances of between one and three feet – he had no mask and only his company uniform, which he probably takes home to his family and puts on again next day. As to testing, given the long waiting times reported for testing and even longer for results, along with the general level of care for employees shown by the companies, how likely is any are being regularly tested?
Yes but in at least one case, I saw that the security guard on the door monitoring numbers was absent for awhile. Of course, there are calls of nature but shouldn’t the protocols require the temporary replacement of the person at this post? Would we wish to be the ones who were infected because this probability had not been foreseen and provided for?
The safe social distances for queueing customers – but not among staff — are now being enforced in most supermarkets, weeks after the arrival of the virus (but I noticed today that the separation is actually less than the advertised two metres).
I have very rarely seen disinfection of automatic machines.
In a local Centra, the first I saw to erect perspex screens, there was a sanitiser dispenser at the entrance with instructions. On at least one occasion it was empty and I have seen customers pass it without using it or having it called to their attention. I saw none in any other chain supermarket, although in Aldi a spray was provided by the baskets with instructions to use it on the basket handles.
Prevention information posters may be seen but usually of the most generalised kind (like those from the HSE) and asking forstaff to be treated with patience; graphic posters very rarely, film and audio prompts never. In other words, the means supermarkets use when they really want something, like mood enhancement, customers aware of bargains or special promotions, urgent attention to a checkpoint machine or stores about to close – are precisely those that they are not using for promotion of infection prevention.
The Government has not obliged companies to publish their protocols (not even suggested that they should do so) and the companies have not done so themselves.
Customers in a supermarket (none seem to be taking any precautions other than perhaps social distancing. (Photo source: Internet)
CONCLUSION
This is a serious lack of care provision for a large section of essential workers and with a potential collateral effect on most of the public. First in line of responsibility for this failure must beof course the companies but their main motive has always been profit. Next in line must be the Government, which has the power to implement emergency measures (and used it recently with giving extra power to Gardaí an courts to employ against individuals) but our governments have always been primarily in the service of capital. Who do I personally blame most for this area of neglect? Those whose very publicised reason for existence is the protection of workers and the promotion of a just society – the trade unions and the Left.
Among the statistics that are published on rates of testing positive and deaths attributed to the virus, there are breakdowns into age and gender groups and, at least in the earlier days, of healthcare workers. We never see, among those statistics, any for shop workers. Or for those who might in turn have been infected by them. The largest statistic given for route of infection is that of “social contact” and presumably that’s where they are, hidden. We remain uninformed and the low level of protection continues, with no real effort being made to change the situation.
End.
PS: Readers may wonder at the absence of information directly from the workers themselves. The reason is that personally I am unaware of anyone in my acquaintance working in this sector and did not wish to cause the workers more stress than they have to deal with already.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
For focus on steps trade unions and the Left failed to take, see article titled WHAT DID NOT HAPPEN in Rebel Breeze.
To wear a face-mask or not? This article seeks to clarify some of the issues of conflicting advice around the advisability or otherwise of people who are not healthcare frontline staff wearing face-masks.
There has been some discussion around this on social media and in my sphere some of it particularly tense and even illogical. I have observed at a number of times throughout my life that the reaction of some people to a stressful situation is to create more stress around it – as human behaviour one assumes it must have a function, though I find it difficult to see what it might be. However, the question, with possible repercussions to general safety from the Coronavirus-19 is a serious one.
It is worth remarking that some bad advice and information about the Coronavirus-19 has circulated on social media and even been given by Governments. I myself have seen advice on drinking hot drinks as an effective remedy and I am aware that the President of an East European country claimed that drinking vodka killed the virus or prevented one contracting it. Why anyone should wish to put out unscientific advice about such a serious matter is beyond me but it has happened a number of times from different sources.
FACT AND ARGUMENT
There is general agreement that the primary method of contamination by the virus, especially in the case of no physical contact with an infected person, is by droplets from a person who has the virus passing it on to us. The method of passing these droplets might be sneezing, coughing, spitting (for example unintentionally, during speech). The virus then lingers on our face until we convey it to our mouths by touch from the infected area, or by inhalation etc, from whence it proceeds to infect our lungs.
That being so, it is completely counter-intuitive and appears to contradict logic to say that masks would be of no preventive use whatsoever. However, intuition is sometime wrong and many times what has been promoted as “common sense” has turned out to be merely an expression of prejudice or ignorance – or belief in an individual or institution. So maybe a face-mask provides no protection, right? Well no, because frontline health practitioners are wearing them and in fact there is some agitation about their not being available in sufficient numbers for their use.
A SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENT AGAINST EFFICACY OF FACE-MASKS?
OK, so what is being said by the main group of face-mask-usefulness deniers, from my observation, is that the particular face masks used by those health professionals, with a filter, is a good defence against contracting the virus from direct contact with infected droplets to the face. But only those. OK, that might be so, in which case we’d expect to be given a rational scientific reason. However, no-one arguing with me has supplied such an explanation nor have I seen scientific argument justifying it. In fact, I have seen, quite apart from my “common sense”, scientific evidence that seems to show that other types of face-mask do indeed help to prevent direct droplet infection.
So why are some authorities arguing against it? A conspiracy theorist might suggest those who rule us don’t want the expense of supplying us with those masks but, considering the effect this pandemic is having on our economy, I would be inclined to dismiss that explanation. What I tend to believe instead is that the authorities fear that wearing such masks will give us a false sense of security, leading to incautious behaviour and a greater chance of contracting and spreading the virus.
If that were so, why don’t they give us the best advice all around about face-masks but still strongly advise us about the other precautions, such as wearing gloves, washing hands with soap, keeping a distance of six feet etc? I would assume they don’t do that because they don’t trust us, they think most of us are stupid. The behaviour of some during this pandemic would indeed seem to prove their point which in some ways might not be surprising; if you deprive people of responsibility for most things that regulate their lives, it’s somewhat contradictory to then expect them to act responsibly. But in fact, most people have been acting responsibly – and caringly. And neither the Government, the HSE or the capitalist concerns are in a great position to be lecturing us on our lack of responsibility – but I leave that for another day’s discussion.
I am not a scientist and I have not done a huge amount of research but I think I have done enough to convince me that wearing of most kinds of face-mask in public does indeed provide some protection against direct contaminated droplet contact. And in fact, even many of those who say it would not give the wearer any protection do admit that it would give other people some protection from an infected person. And since one can be carrying the virus for some days without exhibiting signs of it, surely everyone should be wearing a face-mask in public? EVERYONE!
When I was employed managing teams working with homeless people and/ or substance misusers, our health safety advice was to assume that anyone we worked with was HIV positive. Because you can never know for sure.
The advice being put out from the HSE is that in the case of this virus no face-masks except the special ones work. However, the World Health Organisation began in the early days by saying it would help but lately says only that it would only help to prevent its spread. Well, well …. only help to prevent its spread? ONLY?
COUNTRIES ENCOURAGING OR ENFORCING GENERAL FACE-MASK WEARING
A number of Asian countries insist that the level of transmission in their countries is much lower than in some European countries and they ascribe that to the universal wearing of face-masks. Czech Republic says the same. I have not seen statistics to confirm those claim but nor have I seen a statistical refutation. The US Centre for Disease Control recommends everyone wear face-masks.
I have seen reported an experiment which seems to prove that the droplets do not pass through a cotton-and-paper barrier (see the accompanying video for the experiment and also practical demonstration on how to construct such a reusable face-mask from a T-shirt). I have also read an article in the well-respected medical journal The Lancet, discussing the scientific merits of the arguments for and against.
I think the evidence tends to support the case that wearing most kinds of face-mask does help protect the wearer but the fact that they help in preventing the spread to others should be enough on its own to encourage us all to wear them.
There are some social issues with wearing the masks that have emerged in some parts of the world and I list the ones I have come across:
STIGMA: People may shun someone wearing a mask as they consider the wearers to be infected. So what, if they have an effective role? And isn’t countering this a job for the responsible authorities, community organisations etc?
EXCLUSION: Some facilities may refuse to permit entry to people not wearing face-masks, as is apparently the case in Hong Kong. But the exclusion has a fairly simple solution.
EXPENSE & RACKETEERING: Yes, we saw some examples of that here in Ireland with some suppliers of latex etc. gloves and hand sanitiser gel. If we learn how to make effective ones we can overcome this problem but, in any case, the benefits of wearing the mask outweigh the negative aspects involved in supply.
Image sourced: Internet
WHO SHOULD WEAR THE MOST EFFECTIVE FACE-MASKS?
Some people have put forward the argument that no-one but the front-line health professionals should wear the most effective models and I have even seen posters on the internet telling people not to wear one unless they are infected. Their reasoning is that there are not enough of these available to supply those who need them most. Well that seems to make sense except that their condemnation is often directed at the occasional non-healthworker person wearing such a mask rather than at the Government and HSE which have not laid in sufficient stocks.
Is it an issue that many people are wearing the special face-masks and that is the reason health-workers are not being supplied with them? Certainly there has been no evidence of this in Ireland.
Some concede that certain high-risk groups are entitled to wear the special face-masks also, which is very gracious of them.
On a personal note, my special mask was given to me as a gift, I did not seek it nor was I aware of its special nature when I received it. In addition, on a number of counts I do belong to a high-risk group; readers are free to believe or disbelieve me but I do not intend to explain that or to justify it.
On this and other general questions I would encourage people to concentrate on the overall issue and to be a part of the solution rather than add to the problem.
Feel free to comment on the scientific and practical points made in this article but please do not respond with purely personal opinions or those substantiated by restricted sources (e.g “HSE professionals have told me”) and without dealing with sources and points listed here.
A number of people have commented on Nature proceeding unaffected by the crisis of humans faced with the current Coronavirus pandemic. Although not entirely unaffected, it certainly seems that is so but it is a reflection of our generally subjective view of the natural world around us that we should be surprised at all.
The grass does not grow for us though we may have sown some of it, the leaves do not open nor flowers bloom to please our eyes, the birds do not sing to bring us pleasure through our ears, nor do blossoms and flowers pump out fragrances to please our nostrils. They are engaged in the deadly serious business of alimentation and procreation.
Here in early April the leaves unfurling and already unfurled from their winter sleep inside their branches of willow, sycamore, birch, rowan, elder, lime, alder, oak and chestnut will not notice much difference this year as they spread their catchers to collect the rays of the sun, the chlorophyll working to feed a new year’s growth. The ash is a little behind, its hard black protective bud-covers about to break open. Flower racemes are already well advanced on the invasive and poisonous cherry laurel and making a good start on the horse chestnut tree. If they are aware of anything, it is probably that suddenly the air has become much cleaner, as the volume of industrial and vehicle air-pollutants has suddenly dropped dramatically.
Weeping willows (saileach shilte) along the Tulcadh (Tolka), Griffith Park, Dublin. early April. (Photo source: D.Breatnach)
Not that it’s all peaceful out there – they all have their own struggles, competing for light and moisture, resisting attacks by insects, fungi and even other plants like ivy.
The robin (spideog), blackbird (londubh) and finch (glasán) are not singing for us nor even “merrily”, as the poets would have it – it’s a serious business, attracting a mate, fighting off competitors, then building a nest and raising young in safety from predators. The lowering of the air pollution level might bring a bloom in some invertebrate populations, animals without backbones like insects and snails, which would be welcomed to feed the birds’ young.
Birds (éanlaith) that will probably miss our usual level of activity will be those heavily dependent on human activity and some of its waste products, i.e the city pigeons (colúir) and seagulls (faoileáin), while the latter at sea might well do well from less commercial fishing and pollution. The fish will certainly benefit from a reduction in human activity.
In the streams and rivers the finger-length three-spined stickleback male will soon be establishing and defending his territory, where he will build a nest into which to entice an egg-filled female, there to lay her many eggs for him to fertilise. She’ll be off then, thank you ma’am and dad will raise the young until they are capable of free-swimming and feeding themselves, though still tiny. These are those that in parts of Ireland are called “pinkeens”, an interesting combination of two languages: the English “pink” and the diminutive ending “ín” in Irish (however the Irish name is completely different: “garmachán”). Look at the female and you’ll see no hint of the “pink” but the male in full breeding colour is something to see alright: throat and chest in bright red, an almost luminous green upper body and head with bright blue eyes.
Male Three-spined Stickleback in mating colours showing bright red belly and blue eyes. This is a sub-species from British Columbia — the Irish version has a green head and body. (Source photo: Internet)
In the city, with less waste on the street, the population of rats (francaigh) and mice (lucha) might be in for some tougher times, as might the foxes (sionnaigh). Developing a life-style as a scavenger on the refuse of other life-forms can be very beneficial but such populations are vulnerable to the fate of their unconscious benefactors.
Much animal and plant life benefits from the activity of humans, it is true – but a lot more suffers from it and would not be harmed at all by our disappearance.
A stand of different species of trees with cherry in blossom, Griffith Park, early April. (Photo source: D.Breatnach)
On a day when it is claimed the rate of infection is dropping (but with the highest number of infected and dead yet in Ireland), the social distancing and lockdown measures are said to be working. But Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tony Holohan denies that doing this earlier would have lowered the infection rate! And Eoghan Harris tweets a pat on the back for his Government that private health facilities are to be made available in the public health interest, a measure socialist TDs were calling for weeks ago. But Varadkar rushes to reassure that it’s not nationalisation – neo-liberalism will continue as before.
THE HOLOHAN PUBLIC FATIGUE SYNDROME
Tweeting, Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of National Public Health Emergency Team’s IEMAG: “The model reveals that before restrictions were in place, daily growth rate of confirmed cases was at 33%. This has fallen in recent days to around 15%. But it is still growing and needs to fall further.”
To a person of average intelligence, this means that had these measures been introduced earlier, the graph curve would have begun to flatten out much before now. But Chief medical officer Dr. Tony Holohan is much more intelligent than that – way beyond the rest of us. Because that would have risked “public fatigue” and now is “the right time.” Well it must be the “right time”, mustn’t it, because that’s when he ordered it. He couldn’t have recommended it late, could he?
If “public fatigue” is the danger, that can come in at any time once the restrictions are in place, getting worse as time goes on – one would think. So if introduced say at the beginning of March, we’d be “fatigued” by now, wouldn’t we? So is he telling us that in a number of week’s time, with restrictions still in place, we won’t be “fatigued”? The logic is that we will just as fatigued whenever the crisis is over as if the measures had been put in place earlier – just that it would have been over more quickly and with less fatalities.
Of course, it won’t be over anything like that quickly. They have not even closed the borders, airports or sea-ports! And it’s not that I am in favour of the British colony’s Border, by the way, but this State and Government have no control over the colony’s airports and seaports. And how did the virus arrive in Ireland in the first place? Yep, by plane. But it’s ok, Holohan is going to “discuss” those options. And if they do – finally – close those ports and Border, it will of course be exactly “the right time” to do it.
Let’s return to this “fatigue” notion. What we are experiencing is a pandemic, a national emergency. The people of Leningrad withstood a hard fascist siege, running out of supplies, constantly bombarded, for 852 days. And the battle in defence of Moscow for three months and five days.
But of course, they were Russians (mostly). Alright, the people in Britain (quite a few of them Irish) withstood the Battle of Britain — with almost daily air-raids — for three-and-a-half months!
But the Irish, in Ireland, cannot stand a few extra weeks without becoming “fatigued” and – what? Flood the streets in civil disobedience? Start running up to people and brushing against them? Go back to jobs the Government has closed?
Could it be, just possibly, nothing at all to do with early “fatigue” syndrome but rather late actions reluctantly taken by a Government? Reluctant because it would deplete the capitalist coffers? The thing is, reprehensible as that motivation would be, if action had been taken earlier, capitalism would have suffered less and recovered more quickly!
NEO-LIBERAL POLICY BUSINESS AS USUAL
Which brings us neatly on to Eoghan Harris patting the Government on the back for roping in the private healthcare facilities – weeks after being asked by Socialist TDs to do so. No, you’re right, he didn’t mention that bit. Well, you can’t get everything in a tweet, can you?
And Varadkar rushed to reassure the Gombeen capitalists he represents and the foreign capitalists his party facilitates – along with Fianna Fáil, Labour and the Greens – that this is not nationalisation.
“This is a public private partnership, expanding our public health service in response to this emergency but also cooperation with the private sector.”
“This is private and public sectors to (sic) learning and growing together and working together in the common good.”
Leo Varadkar, Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) of a defeated Government but has yet to step down. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The private healthcare system has parasitised on the public health service, here and in Britain. It has used existing public structures, services, contracts, buildings, personnel, training facilities, government grants and tax cuts. It has no right to exist, least of all when the public body on which it has been feeding is staggering on its feet, in which state it has been long before this pandemic struck.
And Leo’s government, one of the leading proponents of the system that has caused this situation, let us not forget, was given a massive shove recently by the electorate! With the state of the public health service being one of the main issues on which they were shown the road.
You could never accuse Varadkar of not having a hard neck!
rebelbreeze 