Spain stories - Robin Hood lives ......

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Robin Hood mayor promises more supermarket food raids

Renegade leftist also leads squatter takeover of military base

LOURDES LUCIO Seville 8 AGO 2012 - 21:01 CET

Juan Manuel Sanchez Gordillo (on telephone) at the squatter camp in Osuna. Arrest warrants have been issued for the mayor and his followers. /

The mayor of the Seville town of Marinaleda, Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, promised on Wednesday a repeat of the extraordinary scenes he orchestrated the day before, when he led hundreds of members of the Andalusian Union of Workers (SAT) in robbing products from two supermarkets. The Robin Hood-style escapade was carried out, Sánchez Gordillo explained, because "someone has to do something so that families can eat."

The politician, who has been mayor of Marinaleda for 33 years and is also a deputy in the Andalusia regional government for the left-wing grouping United Left (IU), spent Wednesday on a Seville estate that belongs to the Ministry of Defense. Sánchez Gordillo and his supporters occupied the land just over two weeks ago.

While the media was there in force, given the furor over the supermarket thefts the day before, there was no sign of the authorities, despite the fact that the interior minister, Jorge Fernández Díaz, ordered the arrest of the perpetrators of the theft.

Sánchez Gordillo did not take part in the robbery of goods at the Mercadona supermarket in Écija, but was outside the store, directing the operation with the use of a megaphone. At the same time, the general secretary of SAT, Diego Cañamero, entered a Carrefour store. Each group took around a dozen shopping carts filled with sugar, oil, milk and other staples, and left without paying.

But no NGO had put out a request for the items, and food banks reported that they have sufficient supplies without having to resort to stolen goods.

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Around 200,000 of the more than five million people who are currently out of work in Spain have been left without the June payment of a 400-euro state subsidy, due to what the government has called "an accounting problem."

Those who form part of the so-called Plan Prepara are yet to receive the funds, which should have been paid at the end of July. Participants in Plan Prepara are among the neediest in terms of state support, given that to qualify for the scheme they must have already exhausted their regular unemployment benefit, and have annual income of less than 75 percent of the minimum wage (7,696 euros). In exchange, recipients join a program aimed at getting them into the job market.

According to the Employment Ministry, the problem has arisen given that the new budget for 2012, which was approved on June 29, has now come into force. Such changes to the budget, the ministry said, cause delays to the administrative processing of payments such as Plan Prepara.

But the problem "is already on its way to being solved, and credit has been freed up to make the payments," the ministry claimed.

The 400-euro benefit scheme was approved by the former Socialist administration of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to deal with the growing problem of unemployment in Spain.

After winning the elections in late 2011, the Popular Party government of Mariano Rajoy extended the plan until August 15 of this year, after which it will be reviewed. Spain's biggest labor unions, UGT and CCOO, have joined forces with the opposition Socialists to demand that the government extends the plan for another six months.

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A further five members of the Andalusian Union of Workers (SAT) were arrested on Friday for taking part in the supermarket raids coordinated by the mayor of Marinaleda and a United Left (IU) deputy in the regional assembly, Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, earlier this week.

Two of the detainees, Néstor Salvador and José Caballero, were later released. Both men face charges of robbery with violence and public order offenses, as do two other SAT members arrested a day earlier. Salvador was detained at the Las Turquillas estate in Osuna, Seville, when 100 police and civil guards moved in to break up a makeshift camp occupied by SAT members for the past 18 days.

Gordillo, who had previously said that the actions were a “symbolic” gesture to draw attention to the plight of day laborers in Andalusia, said his group would leave the area “peacefully.”

SAT spokesman Diego Cañamero said the workers “do not wish to clash with anybody.” The union wants the disused military base to be put up for public auction so it can be obtained and used by collective farmers in the area.

What is really barbaric is that in Andalusia there are 1.25 million unemployed"

The IU hierarchy on Friday sought to distance itself from Gordillo’s rabble-rousing campaign. The controversial mayor, who has been in office for 33 years, has promised more supermarket raids. The leader of the IU’s coalition partner in Andalusia, Socialist José Antonio Griñán, spoke of “barbarism.”

However, Gordillo pointed out in an interview with this newspaper: “If my party, and it says so in its manifesto, is anti-capitalist, it shouldn’t have a problem.”

“What is really barbaric is that in Andalusia there are 1.25 million unemployed, that 34 percent of the active population is unemployed, that three million people live below the poverty line and that, according to the latest report by Cáritas, there are 350,000 families living on food aid,” Gordillo continued. “I think what is really serious are the ERE case [Andalusian government corruption scandal], where we are talking about 1.7 billion euros, the Gürtel scandal, [Iñaki] Urdangarin; that there are 100 billion euros in the underground economy, and that our famous sportsman don’t pay taxes because they have all their money in tax havens.

“Desperate people”

“There are many things more barbarous than simply carrying out an act of peaceful disobedience to draw attention to the fact that this crisis has a face and a name. As Mariano Rajoy said [about swingeing public spending cuts], we don’t like what we’re doing, but we have no other choice because of social circumstances that he doesn’t see.”

Despite the arrests, Gordillo promised more action. “We are going to march to every Andalusian province, and we are not ruling out reoccupying Las Turquillas. We are obliged to grab attention in this way so that somebody stops and thinks. They have to understand that people here are desperate.”