Catalonia once again strangled with support from the USA and the European Union

Interview and comment, part a and b in English, part 3, the concluding comment, unfortunately not dubbed. Produced in 2008.

The Spanish Crisis

November 2017: Catalonian Crisis or the Hunt Down of Political Dissidents in Europe

by Tonina Alomar,

Counterpunch, November 6, 2017 

On 6 October 1934, president Lluís Companys proclaimed the Catalan State. This attempt ended up with the imprisonment of the members of the Catalan Government and the suspension of the Statute of Autonomy by the Spanish Government. Lluis Companys was executed in 1940 by Franco’s firing squad. He remains the only incumbent democratically elected president in European history to have been executed.

We all expected the worst outcome, it was an open secret wriggling through the labyrinths of the Spanish court. Earlier this week, one of the bailiffs, during a microphone testing, said it out loud: “a la cárcel todos” (all to jail).
Read more in Counterpunch

 

Catalonia and the Unsustainable Strategy of Conservative Spain

COUNTERPUNCH; October 3, 2017; by Victor Lasa

When Spanish President Mariano Rajoy deployed thousands of police forces to Catalonia to repress an illegal referendum for independence, he probably thought it would bring some closure to an open issue. Perhaps, enforcing the law violently on peaceful citizens who just wanted to cast a vote, and doing it on the global stage would finally convince those rebellious Catalonians that their cause was lost.
Far from closure, the events of 1 October 2017 will cause more consternation in Catalonia than ever before. It is fair to question if Catalonians live in a 21^st Century democracy, whether their most basic human rights are going to be respected and whether there is any room for political dialogue. Many of those who were not pro-independence before yesterday but supported a referendum, are probably wondering today whether there is any point in even considering staying in Spain, after all. In total, at least 60% of the electorate supported a referendum as per the last State elections in Catalonia in 2015.

Read on here