For over 10 years now, we have heard various things about the CNT-AIT which have turned out to be false. For today, we would like to concentrate on one interesting story and this is about how members of the Spanish union of CIT were supposedly attacked physically by members of the CNT-AIT.

Concretely, they have recently been spinning a tale about what happened in Madrid in 2018. According to the authoritarians of the Spanish union of CIT, they were „attacked” seemingly without provocation. Currently they are crying about this attack to try to pressure other unions of CIT to withdraw any solidarity with the CNT-AIT. But what actually happened.

If you were watching the live stream of the drama from Madrid, then you know exactly what happened. The Regional meeting was happening in another office in Madrid and there was a motion to expel the Local Federation of Madrid from the CNT. While the people from the Local Federation were at the meeting, two women from this Federation were in the offices at Tirso de Molina. While the meeting was taking place elsewhere, and before any vote was discussed, several people from the Regional Secretary attempted to take possession of the offices and evict the unions, who were not there. As can be imagined, they were alerted to the situations by the two comrades inside and a group of people rushed back to the offices.

The Local Federation of Madrid expelled the two authoritarian unions, the Transportation Union and Graphic Arts Union. These unions were also expelled by what later became the Spanish union of CIT. Despite the fact that the statutes of the CNT states that expelled members cannot rejoin the union, for example by affiliating to another union, the first International Secretary of CIT was in fact an expelled member of the Transportation Union who returned to that union anti-statutorily. (Such returns happened a number of times under the irregular and anti-statutory practices of that faction.)

The Spanish union of CIT lies, claiming that somebody from CNT-AIT „attacked them with an ax”. Anybody who saw the video saw what happened: an ax was used to stop the eviction but it was used on the lock. By contrast, one of the women from CNT-AIT who was alone in the office had to be taken to the hospital.

This was not the only physical attack on members of the CNT-AIT. We can recall the attacks on the Cadiz union, which were stopped when members of the local community fought off the authoritarian thugs.

According to the Spanish union of CIT, using the logic of private property ownership, they claim all sorts of premises which they did not recouperate, nor did they maintain over many years. We are disgusted by this capitalist logic, which goes against our philosophy that those who use in and invest in spaces should have all moral right to use them. The statements of this union do not take into account at all how properties were acquired by CNT-AIT, with years of struggle and effort.

Come April, the IWA will again repeat our Days of Solidarity with the CNT-AIT. In the meanwhile, in the world where too many are too eager to believe BS, we will continue to debunk the lies when we hear them.