Chaos: Spanish Coal Miners Fire Homemade Rockets at Police to Protest Austerity Measures
- Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:00pm by
Erica Ritz
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(Photo: Emilio Morenatti / AP)
(The Blaze/AP) — In a scene that looks more like Gaza than Spain, striking coal miners armed with homemade rockets and slingshots clashed with police Friday, leaving seven people injured– two of them seriously– the Interior Ministry said.
The strike is the latest and the most violent of many in Spain in reaction to harsh austerity measures aimed at digging the debt-burdened country out of its financial crisis.
(Photo: Emilio Morenatti / AP)
The miners are concerned that government cuts — including a reduction in mining subsidies from €300 million to €110 million ($375 million-$137 million) a year — will devastate their industry.
Spain is applying across-the-board cutbacks as part of an economic overhaul aimed at slashing its swollen deficit, but that plan comes at a time when the country’s unemployment rate is nearly 25 percent.
(Photo: Emilio Morenatti / AP)
When police tried to remove roadblocks of flaming tires set up as part of the protest, they were reportedly met with a “barrage of missiles fired by the miners, the regional office of the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Four police officers and three journalists were injured as a result, and police responded with rubber bullets and tear gas.
Miners block a motorway with a barricade of tires (Photo: Emilio Morenatti / AP)
A journalist was taken to the hospital with a chest injury caused by a rubber bullet, and a policeman received medical treatment after a ball bearing smashed through his visor.
Three other policemen were treated for burns caused by skyrocket fireworks fired through lengths of pipe held shoulder high, and two journalists suffered minor cuts and bruises, the statement said.
Riot police run past a burning barricade during a miner's strike in Vega del Rey (Photo: Juan Manuel Serrano Arce /AP)
“We were protesting to defend our jobs and police charged at us, so my colleagues defended themselves,” said Gerardo Cienfuegos, 39, who said he has been a coal miner since he was 16 years old.
Cienfuegos said around 4,000 mining jobs in the region were in danger of disappearing as a result of the government’s austerity measures.
Here is video of the chaos, via the Telegraph:
Mining has been an integral part of the economy of the northern provinces of Asturias and Leon since Romans discovered gold and coal there nearly 2,000 years ago.
Several thousand miners clashed with police in Madrid early in June as they marched to complain that stripping government aid would doom their sector to collapse. In that case, police baton-charged one group that was throwing stones and bottles, arresting two people and nine were slightly hurt.
(Photo: AP)
However, the use of homemade rockets seemingly indicates that matters have escalated since then.
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Comments (90)
sasquatch08
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 4:37amCan someone explain how the “homemade” rockets look exactly like what they sell in fireworks stores as “large” bottlerockets?
Or how the launchers look exactly like 0.5″ aluminum fence posts?
Report Post »NOT A CRAZY
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 10:47amMy thoughts exactly!
Report Post »Dustoff
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 11:02amJust think.. that rocket is moving at close to or above 80 to 100MPH.
Report Post »blackyb
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 3:21amI still do not understand the Paul love affair. It is a diversion? Perhaps someone to take conservative votes from Romney? These may want the Obamaites to win another round. Be careful what you wish for. I wanted Santorum or Alan West, but we have to settle for what we are getting and I hope it is at least someone eligible to be President and one who is loyal to this country. I will be voting for Romney.
Report Post »SocialistSlayer
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:16amI agree!
It looks like it is getting even more serious in Europe. Look for things to fall apart soon.
Report Post »barber2
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 9:22amTotoally agree. The so-called Bots are just the Far Left wing of the Democrats , aka the anarchists, doing their Jason Levin fool the dumb conservative routine . These are the ” let’s have a revolution ” crowd. Can’t tell tell by their comments ? They are itching for “ a fight ” which is why the Obama people fire them up with their hateful rhetoric ! These will be the “ canaries” in the Left’s attempts to really CHANGE America. These will be the test dummies the Democrats will use and, then, either be successful in “ changing” America , or the Democrats will distance themselves from the fighting and throw these “soldiers ” of the revolution under the bus ! That is what Far Lefties do ! They USE people to achieve their Marxist ends. With our Alinsky inspired Left , the plan was A.) smear each “dumb” conservative candidate and then B.) divide the “dumb” conservative voters. Our little Lefties are always arrogant and crafty. Pretty transparent what is happening under everyone’s noses . Just read between the lines which is where the truth is hidden !
Report Post »Bracsim
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 7:17pmIm a Ron Paul suppoter all the way but, but since he is out of the race my vote will go to Romney plain and simple.
Report Post »blackyb
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 3:14amWhat is there to LYAO over? I don’t get it. A woman is dead.
Report Post »jacst102
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:22amThis is the end result of socialism / collectivism. Eventually it runs out of someone else’s money. The collusion between big labor unions and socialist politicians is draining the economies of the world dry. Throw in the bottomless pit of progressive social programs that do nothing but remove incentive to work and you have the mess the world finds itself in.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 2:49amKids with toys! Looks like a poor man’s 4th of July!
Report Post »barber2
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 9:54amangry boys with toys. world is filled with them today.
Report Post »Carlinpa
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:29amThese “workers” are self loving social economic terrorist should be dealt with accordingly.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:13amYeh… sentence them to… digging Coal in Mines!
Report Post »Walkabout
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:17amCops should not have to put up with that buIIsh_t.
If police snipers shot everyone holding a molotov cocktails or a homemade rocket launcher it would be justice. It would also make things worse.
The dumba$$ miners need to pick up a economics book & a programming book. After they read an econ book they need to program simulations. Then they would realize how f_cking stupid they are.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on June 17, 2012 at 12:58am@WALK…
Report Post »Yeh… send em to Harvard or an alike School… alike the OWS Crew… that will fix it!
The-Monk
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:24amI’ve seen this movie before….
“Hoodies vs Helmets”
Report Post »Carlinpa
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:20amIf there is anyone that still doesn’t believe that we are in Biblical end times now, they never will. There has never been this much craziness, chaos, violence, wickedness, bloodshed in so many places in all of human history. It will take a God to put an end to all this.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 2:43am400 years is the period of Servitude for the Hebrews that began in Egypt! Each of 7 Candles is a Flame of Service, being a Church Age… where each Age is 400 years. There is Time before the Big One!
Report Post »The-Monk
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:09amObama was cutting US coal production until he saw coal powered rocket launchers used by the Spanish OWS crowd…. too bad the US OWS are too lazy to dig coal.
Report Post »blackyb
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 3:18amNo, the difference is these want to work. The OWS want others to work and give them the earnings.
Report Post »MRMANN
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 7:55amAnd too p.c.– politically corrupt.
Report Post »Walkabout
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:23am“Several thousand miners clashed with police in Madrid early in June as they marched to complain that stripping government aid would doom their sector to collapse”
You can’t pay subsidies to industries like coal or green energy forever. The miners have to realize this. It didn’t work for the British coal industry. Many Americans complain about green energy subsidies.
Maybe coal is not profitable because the green party is killing their jobs!
Maybe they ought to take their slingshots, rockets & molotov cocktails to green party rallies & have at it.
Report Post »The-Monk
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 4:01pmI forgot to add an “end sarcasm” at the end…… again.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 11:06pmIf this happens in Expectation of a Potential… What happens in Real Reality?
Report Post »ColoradoMaverick
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 11:02pmThe unions around the world are destroying this country.
Report Post »Carefreeflyer
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:40pmThe War has begun. Coming to a city near you.
Report Post »Mosin Nagant
Posted on June 19, 2012 at 10:12amBetter now than later,while we still have a chance.
Report Post »lassiegirldawn
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:27pmIf we don’t kick everyone in office out and start over, we are over.
Report Post »barber2
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:27pmMaybe Mother Nature is having her revenge ? Human bad genes killing themselves off in “revolution” to balance the population explosion and to cleanse the gene pool of those dysfunctional genes ? Just too many people alive today ? Cull the species ? Lemmings off to the cliff of self-descruption? Something odd is happening here , folks….
Report Post »blackyb
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 3:17amRead Revelations of the Holy Bible.
Report Post »wdittgasn
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 6:01amIt is not about the gene pool….. It is about man’s inability to deal with spiritual matters….. Man can deal with the physical, computers, to the moon and back, dissect the genome. etc, etc, but when it comes to a spiritual thing like responsibility, greed, loving your fellow man as yourself, humans are not capable of dealing with spiritual matters, That is why we need the Spirit of God!
Report Post »Voice1percent
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:26pmThis is obama’s and dems end game for America folks. If you‘ve been paying attention you’ve witnessed this happening across the globe the last few years. Soros and his gang have organized their paid “protesters” and occupy is only the tip of the iceberg! Don’t expect any help from the authorities they are in on the plan. Put it together folks, obama’s secret meetings with Canadians, Mexico, leaked articles on a united Canada, US, and Mexico; failure of any elected official to close our borders, elected officials genuflecting with our enemies! It’s right there before our eyes folks, you and I have been sold down the river! If you haven‘t seen or heard of it yet there’s even photos circulating of the new “Amero” dollar. They will stall the economy until the nation defaults, then they will say we have to do something drastic, why look at the last three years etc.
Report Post »LOL my fellow Americans you are fools! Happening right before your eyes, yet you kicked God out of schools, corporations, and our society in general. We eschewed the morality of the God of Bible for what? Now we are being led into the bondage to sharia, soroesque greed, and a government run amok crazy drunk with power. Fools….! Find it in the Bible yourselves…where it says “fools have said there is no God!”
TRILO
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:53pmYou need to add Bush and the Republicans to your list. Bush was in Canada and Mexico working on the same issues while he was in office. BOTH parties have sold America down river. We are now nothing more than debt slaves living in a police state.
Report Post »barber2
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 9:06amVOICE you are 100% correct. Time to take back America from this band of international Lefties whose local franchise, the Obama administration, has incited our less than stable anarchists ! This is our only hope. If Obama and his Lefty henchman get 4 more years, America will look like Greece and Spain. ( and cut the Blame Bush crap. All Republicans have come to realize that austerity measures/ business incentives are all that can help us recover. The fact that all of our little anarchists are pushing Paul tells me NO WAY is he a solution. These guys are totally self-destructive, anger magnets. Paul’s economic austerity cries need to be heeded. Within the present framework . Go away hoodie crowd. You need therapy for your anger issues )
Report Post »Unix
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:08pmTrilo, you are a mutt, just like your picture j/k, but I‘m afraid you are correct the R’s have had a hand in this as well, but NOT to the extent the left has. Global communism is headed our way, and we will ALL be equally poor, equally slaves and equally dead!
Report Post »lassiegirldawn
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:24pmThat is ok guys our Commie In Chief will take care of you.
Report Post »AUsername
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:22pmi wish these people luck in taking back their country and nice to see some people standing up for themselves and fighting for their country. cook those piggies.
Report Post »Walkabout
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:24amI am going to email them & tell them that you vote for people that shut down coal power plants that they use to supply with coal. You suppose they will find you?
Report Post »barber2
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:43ambrilliant. homemade rockets are always the solution to austerity problems. bet I know who you’ll vote for. guess this explains all of his fiery, angry rhetoric! grab your hoodies and your cocktails. this sounds right up your alley. idiots.
Report Post »Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:20pmComing to America all too soon via the Occupy, Radicals, Unionists and the Administration.
Report Post »Individualism
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:23pmYeah Revolution lets take our country back!
Report Post »barber2
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:44amINDI: why don’t you go to Spain. join your comrades. in arms, not in brains.
Report Post »rickc34
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:19pmAmericas future? Thank You Obama for all you have done to bring us to that future event.
Report Post »jespasinthru
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:19pmThose homemade rocket launchers are straight out of The Poor Man’s James Bond. Did they get the idea from Kurt Saxon, or the other way around?
Report Post »broker0101
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:18pmIf only Spain had a military….
Report Post »Walkabout
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:27amI think austerity will cause an economic contraction. I think that holding spending steady & doing away with baseline budgeting/automatic increased will solve the problem.
But merely holding spending steady will provoke vicious attacks from the left & they will cause some of their soldiers to kill people.
Report Post »kindling
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:16pmIt seems we have taught kids all around the world that you can spend money you don’t have and they have grown up to think there will be a never ending flow if money. It reminds me of when I was a child. I wanted something and I would remind my parent when they said they didn’t have any money to just write a check. I didn’t understand that there had to be money in the bank to cover that check. These strikers don‘t understand there isn’t any money to cover the checks they want the government to write them.
Report Post »possom
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:15pmThe homemade rocket’s are pretty cool, we might need some ourselve’s here shortly!
Report Post »Individualism
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:17pm2nd amendment ftw this is going to be fun soon.
Report Post »Belchfire V-8
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:30amHey, sicko, a revolution and killing isn’t fun.
Report Post »RepubliCorp
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 5:46amBELCHFIRE V-8 It is if you win
Report Post »Baddoggy
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:10pmThe end is near….Wonder if Chicago or Watts will be the first city to burn? Could be Houston, lots of feckless worthless people there….
Report Post »kaydeebeau
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:20pmSheila Jackson-Lee keeps getting re-elected – I see your point
Report Post »Mutiny
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:23pmI am betting they burn at the same time.
Report Post »Individualism
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:28pmnot the end but a new start when the bankers corporatists and bilderbergs get whats coming.
Report Post »jespasinthru
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:44pmLet ‘em burn. I don‘t give a rat’s a$$, because I live nowhere near a big, ugly, decaying liberal city. And for all I know, it might happen because of an Electro-Magnetic Pulse terrorist attack. That would shut down the country’s entire electrical grid for months on end, and cause the deaths of millions of people in those high-density population areas. Then I won’t even be able to watch the fun & games on TV, or even hear it on the radio. From a safe distance. Do the research. Educate yourselves, while you still have time.
Report Post »ManThong
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:09pmWhen till the pretender lender of last resort runs out of smoke and mirors in a year or two and see what ends up happening here..
Report Post »kaydeebeau
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:06pmThere is no money – what do expect to happen? Do you want to be paid monopoly money? Will that assuage your angst? What about the future of your children and grandchildren – do you care nothing baout them? – Get a clue “man” up……Coming to a major city near us – unless…….???
Report Post »Mutiny
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:25pmSo what you are saying is the government keeps spending more money than they take in? Funny thing is we have a president and a GOP nominee that have plans that dont cut current spending levels.
Obama/Romney 2012, where the spending never stops!!!
Report Post »Individualism
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:29pmreject fiat money and the central banking system.
Report Post »Captain Crunch
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 11:07pmSomeone let the Paulbots out. Please don’t feed the bots!
Report Post »Belchfire V-8
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:33amAnd the Bots don’t even make good pets.
Report Post »Walkabout
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:35amIndividualism
You do realize they had fiat money on the island of Yap?
You do realize that cigarettes have been used as currency.
Money & fiat money is a naturally occurring phenomena.
Fiat money can fairly work (within certain parameters). Giving banks money at near zero is not a ‘“fair” way.
Silver backed money has also failed. Farmers & other got the government to back money with silver in the 1870s & that did not work. There was a decade long depression.
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