Teargassed in Madrid, March 21, 2003

national | miscellaneous | news report Saturday March 22, 2003 12:28 by Tom Spain tomspain at teleline dot es

Peaceful marchers teargassed in Madrid, March 21, 2003, Eyewitness account

Madrid, Friday 21st March

For the first time in my life today I was fired at.

I had been watching the news on the television complete with live pictures of the terrible bombing of Iraq when they reported that thousands of people were demonstrating against the war outside the US embassy.
There was a heavy riot-police presence but the protest was peaceful.

About an hour later a large march passed the end of my road going up Atocha street towards the centre of Madrid. I ran down to join them - they numbered thousands rather than hundreds - and we marched peacefully but noisily, cutting off all traffic along the way. I was more or less in the middle of the body of marchers. It was mainly young people of 18 to 25 but there were middle-aged people as well, including a mother and her daughter and a husband and wife near me. Many people clapped and shouted encouragement as we pased.

When we were approaching the top of the street I heard what sounded like gunfire and looked up to see tear-gas canisters raining down on us. There had been no violence at all from the crowd, who in fact responded by chanting “¡Estas manos, nuestras armas son!” ( Our hands are our only weapons ).

We ran back down the street, regrouped and headed for Sol - Madrid’s central square. A similar pattern occurred. Traffic through the square was blocked as people staged a sit-down protest which included drawing chalk silhouettes of each other on the ground to simulate bomb victims. Twenty minutes later the police charged again, once again firing tear gas canisters. And once again there had been no provocation and no violent incidents.

However, as we ran up the street out of the square people were pulling rubbish bins and boxes into the middle of the street as makeshift barricades against the police. There was a general call to head for Lavapiés – one of Madrid’s oldest central neighbourhoods with a large artist and immigrant population.

I left at this point and as I made my way home down Atocha street I saw that some recycling containers had been dragged into the street and up-ended and a bin had been set on fire. Small groups of protestors were chanting at the riot police who were still there in full battle regalia. I saw one young girl shouting at one of the policemen who told her to “Go to hell, slut!” ( ¡Vete a la mierda, guarra! ), at which point she chanted “Policía - Asesina!” ( Police - assassins ) back . He immediately raced after her and hit her as hard as he could across the backs of her legs with his truncheon.

When I arrived home and turned on the news they had a brief report about demonstrators staging a sit-down protest to cut off the Castellana, the city’s main North-South avenue. It appeared that they had been trying to get to the headquarters of the Partido Popular but police barriers had stopped them. Once again the protest appeared to be peaceful but, with the tv camera rolling, the police baton-charged.

I left the march at about 11 o’clock and as I write at one in the morning I can still hear the police helicopter not far away. One of the crowds favourite chants questioned the fact that we really live in a democracy. On the evidence of tonight I’m not so sure either.

Tom Spain