Spain counting cost of bloody clashes

Press, 3 May 1977, Page 8

Spain counting cost of bloody clashes

NZPA-Reuter Madrid’ Spain is counting the cost of the worst street violence! for months, with only six weeks to go before the first] free elections for 40 years, j Observers suggest that the' severity of police action on Sunday against unauthorised! May Day demonstrations! could lose the Government! the support of many moder-1 ate Spaniards.

Labour sources say that] some 200 people were injured. and at least 50 arrested. as riot policemen fired rubber bullets, tear-gas. and smoke bombs.

. Eyewitnesses say demonstrators were beaten to the ground and often kicked bv the grey-uniformed riot forces. An NZPA-Reuter cdr-l respondent, Richard Wallis.! was lashed with a horsewhip! and hit with a wooden! truncheon. Two other | foreign correspondents with] him were also attacked. I

Police helicopters scoured! the capital looking for de-1 monstrators as tens of thousands of workers took to the] streets in response to a call; from the newly-legalised; Left-wing trade unions. ; Police sources say that at! least one petrol bomb was, thrown at a police jeep, and; some shots were fired from; a passing car.

I The clashes seem certain. I to undermine the already-! I strained relations between I the Government and the! : country’s nine million; workers, posing the threat of further disturbances in the) election campaign. The violence may also in-[ crease anger among conser-l vative Spaniards disgusted!

by the recent legalisation of the Communist Party. Wallis saw the police clear bars and force customers to run the gauntlet through lines of policemen wielding clubs.

In Bilbao, several thousand demonstrators were dispersed by rubber bullets and police charges. About 15 are reported to have been injured.

In Barcelona, hundreds of demonstrators ran through the city, setting up barricades before being cleared by policemen. Demonstrations by several hundred people in the Mediterranean port of Valencia were also broken up by policemen In neighbouring Portugal more than 50,000 supporters of the Communist-controlled unions peacefully celebrated May Day beneath a sea of red flags while the ruling Socialists stayed away. The Socialist Partv refused to participate in festivities organised bv the f'ommnnistcontrolled C.G.T.P. intersvndical movement, empha sising the difference between the two main Left-wing

parties. The Socialist Partv met in the northern city of Oport< and pledged to fight Com munist domination of the trade union movement. Relations between Socialists and Communists are at their lowest point since the Anril. 1974, coup that ended 50 vears of Right wing dictatorship.

Dr Matio Soares’s minority Socialist Government is in bitter dispute with the Communists over land reform and worker control of industry.