1 out of 5 Barcelona citizens vote in favour of secession of Catalonia
AP - 04/11/2011 | Barcelona, Spain |
now The referendum had a 21.37 percent turnout with 257,745 participants, including registered foreign immigrants and anyone over 16.

The citizens of the Spanish city of Barcelona voted on Sunday by more than 90 per cent in favour of independence for the province of Catalonia from the central government in Madrid.

The unofficial referendum was organised by Decideix, which describes itself as "a citizen's initiative to organise a referendum in the city of Barcelona on Catalonia's independence from Spain."

The referendum had a 21.37 percent turnout with 257,745 participants, including registered foreign immigrants and anyone over 16.

By 23.30 local time (21.30GMT) some 44 percent of the votes had been counted, with just over 91 percent in favour of the secession of Catalonia from the rest of Spain.

Critics say this had more to do with warm spring-like weather than political commitment and democracy.

Barcelona is the last city, and the second biggest in Spain, to symbolically decide about independence following a series of plebiscites across Catalonia over the past 18 months.

The Spanish government has tried to stop all unofficial referendums but so far 515 Catalan towns and villages have held them, around half of Catalonia's municipalities.

Next Wednesday, April 13, the Catalan parliament will debate a bill to unilaterally declare independence from Spain.

Catalonia accounts for around one-fifth of Spain's economy, about one seventh of the population, and has long complained it contributes more than a fair share.

Along with the Basque region, Catalonia was heavily oppressed under the 1939-1975 dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, which made it a crime to speak the Catalan and Basque languages in the interest of promoting Spain as a Madrid-run Castilian-speaking unified country.

Countries Not In Favor of Kosovo Sovreignity and Thier Rational
(69 countries, including the United States and 22 of the EU’s 27 members, have recognised Kosovo....)
-Courtesy of The Economist-
7/29/10


on Orthodox Christian Solidarity
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on Domestic Seccessionist Issues
-Russia
-China
-India
-Romania
-Slovakia
-Cyprus
-Spain

on Non-Aligned Nostalgia
-India
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-Egypt
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-India

on Geopolitical Concerns
-Russia
-China
-Brazil
-Greece
-Cuba

on Territorial Integrity True Believers
-China
-Brazil
-Romania
-Slovakia
-Cyprus
-Greece
-Spain
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Eleuterio Sanchez, (1942-) the Roadrunner to the infamous Wile Coyotesc-Franco Regime that ruled Spain for several decades, following the Spanish Civil War. Eleuterio, dubbed "El Lute" by the Spanish press, El lute escaped from Spanish prison several times after being unjustly convicted of capital offences in the late 1960's. El Lute would eventually win his freedom. He would go on to law school and author several books about his escapades with the Fascist Spanish Regime of Franco.

New poll says Catalans back independence
Sat, Feb 27, 2010
© 2010 Reuters


A majority of Catalans would vote in favour of independence from Spain if a referendum on the subject were held, according to a poll published yesterday showing more support for separatism than other surveys.

The poll which its sponsors said was more extensive than previous surveys, comes as pro-independence activists have stepped up a campaign for an independence referendum in the wealthy northeastern Spanish region.

With regional elections due in the autumn, any increase in Catalan nationalism would be a headache for Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, just as he struggles to convince debt markets that Spain can get its fiscal books in order.

According to the poll, carried out for the Open University of Catalonia by private company DYM and which spoke to 1,883 Catalans and 2,614 non-Catalan Spaniards late last year, 50.4 per cent of Catalans would vote in favour of independence if they were given the chance.

Eighteen per cent say they would vote against independence for the region, which has its own culture and language, and 25 percent say they would abstain.

Al-Jazeera on Basque Country

The Second Republic of Spain
democracy before facism

excerpt from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives

Spain in 1931 was a country riven by inequalities. Still predominantly an agrarian country, traditional divisions endured between wealthy landowners, doggedly preserving their position, and a huge number of landless labourers and poverty-stricken smallholders, desperate to lift themselves from an existence of near-starvation. One of the largest landowners was the Catholic Church who, in addition to any theological motivations, were thus determined to maintain the status quo. Opposing the Church was the largest Anarchist movement in Europe, with a history of incendiary anti-clericalism. 'Spaniards' it was said, 'followed their priests either with a candle or a club'.

In the very few areas witnessing industrial change- chiefly Catalonia and the Basque regions- corresponding social and political change was largely absent. Aspirations by these regions for some degree of autonomy were bitterly opposed by the Spanish army who, fighting in Morocco to regain an empire which had been lost with the catastrophic defeat to the United States in 1898, strongly resisted any attempts to break up Spain. Large, powerful and extremely top-heavy in officers, the Spanish army had a tradition of involvement in politics; Primo de Rivera's military dictatorship had ruled Spain as recently as the 1920s. The dictatorship's legacy was a huge budget deficit at a time when the world was already sinking into economic depression, and its collapse spelled the end for the Spanish monarchy.

In April 1931, municipal elections were taken to be a plebiscite on the monarchy and the result was an overwhelmingly hostile vote against it. The King, Alfonso XIII, realising that he had lost not just the support of the populace but, crucially, the support of the military, fled Spain. Thus, on April 12, 1931, Spain's Second Republic, la nina bonita, was born.