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INPRIMATU
Growing tension in the Old Town of San Sebastian between GKS members and the youth assembly
  • In San Sebastian, a conflict arises between the Young Assembly of the Old Party (AZGA) and the Socialist Movement. AZGA denounces that nearly twenty people from GKS have attacked two people on Saturday and that GKS hit one of its members on its home portal the same night. ARGIA has spoken to many people from all over the world who were there to rebuild what happened.
Lander Arbelaitz Mitxelena @larbelaitz 2022ko ekainaren 06a

The latest conflict has erupted around the material “taken out” or “stolen” – a word that changes according to the versions – of Gaztetxe Kijera last week. After several days of increasing tension, there have been beatings and fights on Saturday night in the Old Town.

There are several reports published by the different agents and here are available those of AZGA and GKS. The village has been spread by watsapp by cultural association.

To contextualize, despite the tensions that have occurred in recent years in the Old Town of San Sebastian, there was a certain coexistence between different agents, considering that almost all share a street above all: C/ Ikatz. Moreover, as almost an anomaly, along with individuals and other agents, Ernai, Jarki and many GKS militants were organized at the Young Assembly of the Old Party (AZGA). Until last week.

The atmosphere came badly on Saturday. Accused of stealing Gaztetxe's material, the day before the PAS unanimously decided to throw the GSC of the Assembly and that the GSC be the main agent for managing this conflict.

GKS denounces that one of its members, featured in the videos recorded outside Kijera, has suffered for a week memes, insults, photomontages and finally death threats, and was also fired on Friday at the request of the Abertzale Left.

To conclude what happened on Saturday, comment that most of the people of Ernai were in the demonstration organized in Bilbao, and that of GKS was in the days organized by Itaia in Hernani.

20:30 first fight

AZGA says 20 people have been beaten by two people on Ikatz Street. The GKS environment says it wasn't against 20 spins, but about five, with more people in the area, faced a couple and crossed punches. The witnesses claim that one of the two assaulted people ended up on the ground collecting kicks and blows.

This is what the PAS says: “Around 20:30 a member of the PAS and a young neighbor were attacked and beaten by about 20 members of the socialist line, and it has to be said that many militants of the socialist line were from outside. In addition, every neighbor who entered a quiet situation was threatened and assaulted.”

This is what GKS explains in his note, why they came to these people: “The goal was to say that they would not let the socialist militants attack more. In fact, this Jarki member was the one who touched one of the GKS members this week. The socialist militants in San Sebastian have threatened us on several occasions or have been expelled from public space, preventing access to bars, for example. Contrary to the character that the PAS wants to give to the facts, these people ended up playing and there was no lynching, there was a typical combat. In fact, about a dozen members of the socialist movement were in total on that street and when the struggle began, although we got closer, a quarter of them participated in the struggle.”

Those who played left Ikatz Street. Not everyone was from Donostia. From GKS, they claim that the persecution they have suffered throughout the week led them to make the decision to go from towns close to protecting their peers.

The beatings also left. The atmosphere was confused on Ikatz Street. Meanwhile, the message that Iñaki Egaña wrote on social media began to spread and the people of GKS of San Sebastian decided to go to Ikatz Street, why it happened. The people of Ernai also came from the demonstration in Bilbao.

Everyone was around their usual bars, with a lot of people who had nothing to do with these agents and who were on the go, and it seemed like nothing else was going to happen.

The second at midnight

When several people from the GKS came to urinate to the toilets of the Plaza de la Trinidad, one of the people who faced a few hours before the People, the PAS member himself and the Jarki. The tension broke out in a few seconds, starting to be insulted and screaming. The people of GKS quickly approached the area, some with their faces covered, and faced the entrance of the village. The struggle among many people lasted four or five minutes.

The PAS note reads: “When two PAS members were on the street, three members of the socialist line proudly rebelled against the colleague who had been attacked before. Although the other AZGA member tried to reassure the situation, some 40 militants of the socialist line threw themselves at the neighbors by throwing glass bottles at both ends of the street (those that entered the back).”

This is indicated by the GKS note: “The same militant of the Jarki, previously mentioned, attacked a socialist militant from San Sebastian who was not in the events of the afternoon and provoked the confrontation, after which there was a second mass battle between the two sides, in which the Left Abertzale and the Jarki were always together.”

According to the note of the cultural association Herria, in Ikatz Street there were two attacks, and in the second, “The people faced a group of older people that we were on the outskirts of the bar, with neighbors and neighbors of different ages (…) The attack was fully organized, as in addition to the militants of the socialist line in San Sebastian, they knew whom to head directly encapuchados that brought matons from others. We were surrounded on one side and on the other.”

Then they decided to close the Herria bar. “We have worked for many years in the neighbourhood field, but it has touched us to see and endure attacks of other kinds of uncontrolled attacks on our streets. In the face of such attacks, we will continue to work for a habitable and safe neighborhood, as we have always done.”

GKS members met in the vicinity of their bar and stayed there until the bars were closed. So they went into their houses in groups.

On the way home, attack

Finally, the GKS member, who has denounced lynching on social media and who was dismissed from his work, went home with another person. When the two separated, in the lobby of the house, he was chased by a person from the Jarki and struck him. When he had to rise from the Earth and hit again, some members approached and the event ended.

He denounces that Sunday has received death threats from Instagram.

Differences and political knots

The members of the GKS environment feel that the conflict has not begun in San Sebastian with the material of gaztetxe, but at the national level, the Abertzale Left “fills” in many political spaces, for example in the txosnas of the peoples, and with this they want to “choke” financially. They believe that the effort to “dive” the socialist movement is not new.

On the contrary, there are people from the Abertzale left who believe that GKS has a strategy at the level of the Basque Country to seek the clash with them. And specifically, going to the Old Town of San Sebastian, he has never managed to “control” the assembly, and with a political wager behind him, they have decided to “seek the clash” in the thread of jaimas, chairs and tables.

The GKS considers that the material extracted from gaztetxe is an excuse for confrontation, as it had been for several years, since previously there were other agents involved in the reception of materials and no such pedrisco was generated. They say that the other agents were informed when they were going to come in and that they were willing to go out for others, or to talk about how what was going out was being distributed, but that it was impossible to understand us. "The problem is not the material, but we are the ones who have taken the material."

PAS agents see clearly that the SGS has “stolen” the material, which was not of them, that it was community in character and that they had no right to negotiate, receive and carry what they wanted with the agents against the opinion of the assembly.

In contrast to the GGS, Left Abertzale wanted to “seek conflict” with this fact and has tried to “discredit” its movement and “politically destroy” its militants. “We didn’t want to have a crystal leaflet for a few chairs,” a colleague told ARGIA. They denounce that on that material day a member of the PAS stabbed one of the GGS and that the fact that he recorded the scandal shows them that from the very beginning they wanted to integrate into society.

Surely there are more discrepancies. On Monday at 19:30 AZGA convened a press conference in which the appearance of residents will also be explained. But there is one question that stands out above all: What are the political consequences of this? You can't know yet. However, both sides consider that, in view of the situation that is taking place, the incidents can be repeated in more localities, especially considering that the village festivities are surrounded by doors and txosnas.