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Spain: monarchs pelted with mud as rage over avoidable deaths boils over in Valencia

Spain: monarchs pelted with mud as rage over avoidable deaths boils over in Valencia

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Six days after flash floods left at least 214 people dead, the Spanish King and Prime Minister were pelted with mud and chased away by angry protesters. These unprecedented scenes were an expression of seething class rage.

Six days after the flash floods which have left 214 people dead mainly in Valencia, an official visit by the head of state, the Spanish King, his wife, Queen Leticia, Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez and Valencia regional president Mazón was organised to several of the worst affected areas. As they arrived in Paiporta, outside Valencia capital, they were met by angry local residents who pelted them with mud and chased them away. These unprecedented scenes were an open expression of the class rage that had been building up for days.

The Spanish Monarchy has always been regarded as the last line of defence of the bourgeois state. It is an institution which in normal times pretends to be above party politics and cultivates an image of being close to the people, so that it can be used as a trump card when all else has failed. I cannot remember any other time in recent history in which the King and Queen were publicly and physically attacked by a crowd of angry people.

The residents of Paiporta shouted “asesinos” (“killers”) at the monarchs and accompanying politicians. The official visit was cut short, and plans by the state officials to travel to the hilltop village of Chiva were abandoned. Locals there cheered the decision with shouts of “cowards” as police officers – who had come not to help the relief and cleaning efforts but just to protect the authorities – left them to their own devices, again. What led to this unprecedented explosion of anger?

From the very beginning, a powerful idea has been slowly crystallising in the minds of the masses across Valencia and beyond: this was not just a natural tragedy caused by a meteorological phenomena. Many of the deaths could have been avoided.

There are a whole series of factors which confirm this conclusion.

What causes a DANA storm?

The DANA (from the Spanish acronym for ‘high altitude isolated depression’) which caused the flash floods on Tuesday 29 October, is quite a common phenomena along the Mediterranean coast of Spain around this time of the year. Hot humid air coming up from the sea, warmed over the summer months, collides with pockets of cold air at high altitude, which have detached from the polar jet stream. This leads to the formation of columns, up to 10km high, of cumulonimbus clouds which provoke massive localised rain storms. These storms become static, hemmed between the Levante easterly wind and the mountain ranges which run parallel to the sea, meaning the rain falls on the same spot.

As global warming increases the average temperature of the Mediterranean, these DANA storms tend to become more virulent. This year, median sea surface temperature levels in the Mediterranean reached a record high of 28.9ºC on 15 August.

But climate change was only a general factor in the 29 October disaster. There were a whole series of more immediate causes for it, which can be attributed directly to the regional government. The right wing PP has traditionally ruled the region, with only a very short interval in which a broad left coalition won the election. The party has strong connections with local developers involved in land and construction speculation, as well as mass tourism. For a long period of time, areas which are subject to flooding risk have been built up, profits trumping any other considerations. For years nothing happened, until one day disaster struck.

One of the first measures taken when the current regional government of Carlos Mazón came into power in July 2023, was to implement a package of austerity measures and cuts in social spending, amongst which was the disbanding of the Valencia Emergency Unit, the body which had been created to coordinate emergency response.

Ignored warnings

While weather phenomena are notoriously unpredictable, the likely location of DANAs can be forecasted with some accuracy. Already on 25 October the AEMET (Spanish Association of Meteorology) issued a general warning for the Valencia region. On 28 October, on the eve of the disaster, the AEMET issued an orange warning for the region but also a red warning pinpointing exactly the localities which were most at risk of flash flooding.

The regional government largely ignored warnings and after the fact tried to argue that the AEMET had issued no such warnings. But there is a record of the AEMET bulletins, and in fact the Valencia University decided to cancel its activities for 29 October in line with the warnings.

It has become clear that a powerful factor in the attitude of the regional government was the protection of capitalist profits. Issuing guidance to close down workplaces would have cut into bosses’ earnings for the day.

Worse than that. At midday on 29 October, when torrential rains were already battering towns and villages in the hilltops, the regional president Mazón issued a statement saying that the storm was likely to subside by 6pm. No further guidance was given. Some of these hilltop villages accumulated over 400 l/m2, or as much as a year’s worth of rainfall in just a few hours. Videos were already circulating of violent torrents of water coming down the streets in Chiva, Letur (in Albacete) and other towns, in some cases reaching as high as second floor level. You do not have to be a trained meteorologist to understand that all that rain is going to make its way down towards the sea, smashing any obstacles in its path.

Nevertheless, further downstream, in the towns of the Horta Sud, in the southern outskirts of Valencia city, it was not raining, and most people continued their daily lives, oblivious to what was coming.

It was not until past 8pm that the regional government finally decided to issue a warning to mobile phones in the whole province, advising people to stay at home or move to higher ground. By that time, thousands of people had already been trapped by torrential flood water in their homes or in their vehicles as they were making their way back from work. Many received the warning as their cars were literally being taken away by the strength of the water.

Capitalist profits before lives

There are several cases of workers who were told to stay put and not allowed to leave work early. Some were then trapped in their workplaces (at an IKEA store, the Ford Almussafes plant, the Bonaire shopping mall, etc). Others were caught by the floods as they were driving back home who could have been saved had they left work a bit earlier. Several workers were trapped and drowned in a supermarket.

Home shopping delivery vans for Mercadona, one of the country’s largest supermarket chains, were sent out, only to be stranded. A Mercadona delivery van driver had to be rescued by firefighters in a helicopter as his vehicle was submerged under the rising water level. The images were broadcast and widely shared on social media. The Mercadona brand logo had been pixelated out from the images, to avoid embarrassment, but everyone recognised the distinctive green van.

The government’s incompetence was not just that. It was largely motivated and compounded by the urge to preserve profits. “Your profits, our dead” is a slogan which has been graffitied across the region in the aftermath of the disaster and one which sums up the situation neatly.

The number of people killed is staggering. It stands at 214 at the time of writing. Many fear that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The massive underground car park at the Bonaire shopping mall, with a capacity for nearly 2000 cars, is still completely under water and rescue teams have not yet been able to access it. The lower level of the giant shopping mall is also under water. Bonaire workers denounced the fact that they were not allowed to leave early, as water levels started to rise, and hundreds of workers and customers were trapped overnight, unable to leave. In the mall’s cinema, management callously banned the workers from eating any of the food on sale. Even during a tragedy of these proportions, the insatiable thirst for profits dominates the bosses’ actions.

As days go by, dead bodies have started to wash up on the shore, having been carried by the unleashed force of the water coming down from the hilltops. At one point the Barranco del Poyo creek – usually dry, or at most a humble stream – carried four times as much water as the Ebro river.

The final figure of those killed is likely to increase substantially. According to official figures, there are about 1900 people who have been reported missing by their relatives. Not all of them will be dead, and some who have now been located have not been reported as there is no real centralised way to do so. Many, unfortunately, may never be found.

To that, we have to add the massive destruction to peoples’ homes and the region’s infrastructure (roads, railway lines, electricity lines, water supply, pavements, telephone lines, etc). Tens of thousands have lost everything, their houses completely filled with mud. Piled up cars line the streets, making the cleaning up process even more difficult.

Bungling the relief effort

To add insult to injury, the regional government of Mazón, and now also the national Socialist Party government of Sánchez, have completely bungled the rescue and cleaning effort. To a large extent, this is part of a petty political calculation about which administration (regional or national) is to have the authority for the relief effort or bear the blame for its shortcomings.

There has been a long delay in using the army for the rescue operations. Fire fighting brigades from nearby provinces in Valencia, from Catalonia, Bilbao and even France, have offered their services, only to be refused by the regional government which claimed to have enough resources on its own. But the residents of the affected towns could see this was a straight lie. In some of the worst affected villages, six days after the flood, no heavy machinery has been sent. Some of the firefighters went public to protest. They were finally allowed to travel to Valencia, four or five days later.

The whole relief effort is chaotic and lacks proper coordination and central command. A coordination body including the national government was not established by the regional government until five days after. Some people are still, to this day, without access to running water or electricity.

“Only the people save the people”

As happens with any disaster, the best in human nature came to the surface. Thousands of working class people volunteered to help, donned wellies, picked up buckets and brooms and walked to the affected towns, spontaneously starting to organise themselves to help in the cleaning effort. They emptied peoples’ homes of mud, removed obstacles from the streets, emptied underground car parks and cellars of water, and provided those affected with water, food and basic necessities.

A particular role has been played by the local llauradors (small scale farmers) who, organised through their union, have mobilised their tractors and other equipment to help remove cars and other heavy objects from the streets, a job normal volunteers cannot carry out.

Meanwhile, some callous business owners created artificial scarcity and increased prices. The class struggle was not suspended by the enormity of the losses.

What was the reaction of the regional authorities to the flood of volunteers? First they told them they were not needed. Even worse, they said they would impede the relief effort and told them they were an obstacle to it!

Then, backtracking in the face of rising anger, they decided to ‘organise’ them. On Saturday, 2 November, they were called to turn up at the City of Sciences and Arts at 7am. Some 10,000 to 15,000 went, but the authorities could only accommodate a limited number of them in buses to go to the affected areas. Some realised that instead of being sent to the towns to help their neighbours, they were being directed to the Bonaire shopping mall. They refused, saying they had not volunteered to help businesses but working class people. Some spent most of their time in the buses, stranded, or waiting to be taken somewhere, only to be sent home in the afternoon, having wasted their time.

On Sunday, 3 November, using the excuse of the danger of more rain, the regional government decided to ban the volunteers from accessing some 10 towns in the Horta Sud. The furious but determined volunteers, in their thousands, defied the order, found alternative routes and went to continue in the relief effort.

Throughout Spain, in cities, working class neighbourhoods, and also in small towns, people and organisations have collected food, diapers and other necessities to be delivered to Valencia.

In fact, to a large extent, the capitalist state has been absent, or has arrived very late, and it has been down to the local people and volunteers from nearby towns to undertake the titanic relief and cleaning effort in the affected areas. The slogan that summarises this situation is “only the people save the people”, which has been used to organise and coordinate the volunteers by all sorts of working class organisations.

As a result of all this, anger at the authorities had been building up. Not only were they rightly seen as responsible for many of the deaths because of their inability to issue a warning. On top of that, they have been criminally negligent in the organisation of the relief effort.

In the days after the tragedy, several left wing and rank and file working class organisations took the initiative to call for a protest demonstration on 9 November, with one slogan demanding the resignation of the regional president: “Mazón dimissió”.

This is the anger which boiled over when the capitalist state decided to send the monarchs to visit the affected areas for a photo op. As soon as the King and Queen, Spanish PM Sanchez and regional president Mazón, arrived in Paiporta, the people on the streets – covered in mud as they were working in the cleaning operation – started to hurl abuse at them. Then they threw mud. “Killers”, “where were you”, “nobody warned us” shouted the angry crowd. One man demonstratively offered his shovel to King Felipe VI and then to Sanchez. The message was clear: what are you coming here for?

“Get a shovel, you lack nothing” an angry woman spat at Queen Leticia. Another resident confronted the King and Queen: “the fact that you are here means that heavy equipment could not come in today, thus delaying the efforts”. Many had to contain their anger when confronting the royals. Some shouted “Bourbons to the guillotine”.

In a separate incident, when the boss of Mercadona, Juan Roig, went to one of his supermarkets, also for a photo op, he was confronted by angry shoppers, berating him for having sent his delivery van drivers out on the day of the flash floods. “You have no shame. You sent your workers out to die”.

Such an outburst of anger is not separate from the recent uptick in mass demonstrations across Spain, particularly over the impact of mass tourism and housing issues, both of which are closely related. Some have described these spreading mass demonstrations as the beginning of another 15-M, in reference to the mass protest movement of the indignados in 2011.

Eventually that movement subsided and was channelled into parliamentary politics by the rise of Podemos. The party, which started by presenting itself as a challenge to the whole regime, gradually moderated its language and became the junior partner in a coalition government with the PSOE, managing the crisis of capitalism. Podemos was finally, unceremoniously booted out from the government when PSOE felt it was no longer necessary as a left cover to its capitalist policies.

Capitalism kills. We must kill capitalism

The comrades of the Revolutionary Communist Organisation, the section of the RCI in the Spanish state, are involved in the volunteering in Valencia. They have also issued an article, written by a comrade in Valencia, and a statement, highlighting the main political points. As they point out, people have not died: they have been killed. Killed because under the capitalist system, private profit comes before people’s lives.

The comrades are calling for the deepening and strengthening of the spontaneous organisation of the volunteers into neighbourhood committees, to take charge of the distribution of help, the organisation of the cleaning effort, the control of public order, and the control of prices and supplies.

They also point out that the price for this tragedy should be borne by the ruling class, not the workers, through the expropriation of the insurance companies, and the requisition under workers’ control of all necessary equipment for the relief and cleaning effort. Any companies that request public subsidies should be forced to open their books first. If help is found to be needed, they should be taken into public ownership under workers’ control.

Without any doubt, the demonstration on 9 November in Valencia will be massive. Solidarity protests are being called in Catalonia and will certainly also take place across the Spanish state. The potential is there for this movement to at least bring down the regional government. But beyond that, the only logical conclusion from the realisation that capitalism kills is that the whole system must be overthrown.

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