The Catalan people have been demonstrating massively for their independence. About one million people mobilised this 11 September in the Diada (traditional national holiday of Catalonia) to support the country’s independence and establish a republic. The Catalan Parliament approved the call for a referendum on self-determination so that it is the Catalan people who decide whether to be independent. The Catalan government set it up for next 1 October.
The overwhelming manifestation of support makes up a clear response to the monarchical regime that tries by all means to prevent the consultation. The President of the Spanish Government, Mariano Rajoy (Popular Party), with the support of the social-democratic PSOE and Ciudadanos [Citizens], and the Constitutional Court of the Spanish State — with the approval of the Spanish monarchy — have warned that they will not tolerate the referendum and have announced a series of repressive measures to prevent it. There have been arrests, searches and seizures of materials, prohibition of political rallies, suspensions and takeovers of Catalan institutions, threat of imprisonment and political disqualification for the main positions of Parliament (including its president, Carme Forcadell) and the government of Catalonia; criminal proceedings against those who collaborate with the referendum (whether institutions or persons); etc. They threaten to arrest 750 Catalan mayors for supporting the referendum. These are reprehensible facts.
We defend the right of the oppressed peoples and nations (Scotland, Kurdistan, Euskadi or Catalonia) to self-determination and independence if they so choose. A Republic in Catalonia would open a way for other peoples and nations to end this anachronistic monarchist regime imposed at the end of Franco’s rule. This democratic struggle is part of a more fundamental struggle for the implementation of an economic plan at the service of workers and other popular sectors, the suspension of foreign debt payments to meet the urgent needs of the people and the break with the bankers and multinationals of the Spanish State and the European Union. This is why the revolutionary socialists will fight for that republic to be of and for the workers, towards a Federation of Socialist Republics.
On this path, today we defend the democratic right to hold on 1 October, with no legal interference or repression from the regime and monarchy, the referendum called to decide freely for independence.
From the International Workers Unity – Fourth International (IWU-FI), we call for the peoples of the world solidarity with the struggle of the Catalan people for the right to decide freely on their future and the relations they want to establish with the Spanish State.
We vigorously reject and demand an end to the repressive and judicial measures aimed at intimidating and preventing the free exercise of national self-determination by the Catalan people in the 1 October referendum.
We call on trade union, student, political, human rights, and anti-imperialist and left-wing organisations to carry out and coordinate unitary actions to support the Catalan people, especially in front of embassies or consulates of the Spanish state.
International Workers Unity – Fourth International (IWU-FI)
20 September 2017
