Spiegel, Germany: The sun has just risen on this Wednesday, as the Spanish military police are launching the “Operación Anubis”. In the morning hours units of the Guardia Civil are running at the government, the Ministry of Foreign and Economic Affairs of the autonomous region of Catalonia.
They are launching raids, ransacking offices and documents – in search of evidence that suggests that Catalonia’s government is actively pushing forward the announced Independence Day on 1 October. And at the latest when the military police arrested fourteen people, including Josep Maria Jové, the economic and financial secretary, Spain has a state crisis.
Thousands of people have gathered here in Barcelona for spontaneous protests before the ministry buildings of the Catalan government. They swing the Estrelada, the red-yellow striped separatist flag with a white star on a blue background. They are singing the Catalan anthem, calling out in specherches for civil disobedience against the Spanish government and its prime minister, Mariano Rajoy . Policemen are standing around, a little helpless. Helicopters circling over the millions of metropolises.
“The Spanish government has become a democratic disgrace,” says Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan Prime Minister. “We will not go back to the darkest times.” Jordi Sanchez, president of the citizens’ initiative ANC, organized the major demonstrations of separatist movements, called for “peaceful resistance”. So far the controversy over the popular vote over the seceding of Catalonia was violent, but nonviolent. Now he threatens to escalate. In the case of the Catalan socialists who are opposed to the separation, unknown people have thrown a brick into the entrance door. According to media reports, the first spontaneous protests in Barcelona have come to an end.
Is the political conflict now on the road? For months the conservative central government in Madrid under Rajoy and the separate regional government in Barcelona under Puigdemont in the clinch. The separatists want the Catalans to vote on October 1 to decide whether they will split off from Spain – and in the case of a majority “yes” already declare independence on 4 October Catalonia.
Rajoy’s government wants to prevent the secession of the above-average region at any cost. The Spanish constitution does not provide for a split-off.
Now it gets serious. In the week before, the Catalan Parliament passed the vote on October 1 with the votes of Puigdemont’s center-right-left alliance JuntsPelSí (“Together for Yes”) and the left-wing CUP. The Spanish Constitutional Court has prohibited the vote. And Rajoy’s government is now working with the judiciary and the police to prevent any vote.
