Via the IWA/AIT/IWA Secretariat:
“As militants of the french speaking Anarchist Federation (Fédération Anarchiste, FA), we denounce the scandalous attacks, in Spain, of the CNT-CIT against the CNT-AIT.
The fact is that the CNT (National Confederation of Labour) known as “AIT”, a Spanish anarcho-syndicalist organisation affiliated with the International Workers’ Association (IWA-AIT), is currently
being dragged before the bourgeois courts by another parent syndicalist organisation: the CNT-CIT, affiliated with the International Labour Confederation (ICL-CIT) which it co-founded after being excluded from the IWA-AIT in 2016 and split, as a result, from the CNT-AIT.
It turns out that the CNT-CIT has gone to war, not against the State and Capitalism, but against… its counterpart: a truly anarchist syndicalist organisation with which, less than ten years ago, it
formed a single structure! If the situation were not already far-fetched, the means implemented are, themselves, quite simply delirious.
In essence, the CNT-CIT accuses the CNT-AIT of usurping an identity that belongs to them and of seeking to deceive syndicalists. It intends to force the CNT-AIT to stop using the name “National Confederation of Labour”, the acronym “CNT”, its distinctive signs (flags and logos) and its historical emblem (Hercules fighting the Nemean lion). But there is no “amicable resolution” there.
To this end, the CNT-CIT invokes “private property” after having registered everything as “national trademarks” with the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office. To enforce this “right”, it appealed to a bourgeois court (the National Court) to bring a lawsuit against the CNT-AIT, which would allow it to claim up to €50,000 in damages from more than thirty unions accused of alleged “moral damages”.
Needless to say, none of the various CNT-AIT unions is in a position to pay such a colossal sum. This affair, which threatens to decimate the organisation, could even see fellow union members sentenced to extremely heavy fines or even imprisonment. Right now, our comrades in Madrid are even facing eviction from their historic premises in Tirso de Molina Square, in the centre of Madrid!
And this is only the beginning of the offensive…
It is clear that these legal maneuvers are not only aimed at depriving the CNT-AIT of its assets and heritage. They are also intended to bury it under enormous compensation and, ultimately, to make it disappear completely, requisition its premises and impose themselves — in a manner as hegemonic as it is fallacious — as the only “anarcho-syndicalist” organisation in the country.
We would not even have to take a position on the ideological differences that separate the two organisations, so absurd is the situation! The reason for our support is self-evident: whatever
arguments the CNT-CIT may put forward, nothing could justify resorting to bourgeois justice to extort money from the CNT-AIT by invoking its right to private property. This is the height of irony,
for an organisation that claims to be “anarchist”! This is political and economic violence that we cannot condone, neither in substance nor form.
We must nevertheless distinguish between the responsibility of the leadership of the CNT-e and the CIT on the one hand, and that of the activists who are members of these organisations on the
other. Nevertheless, who else but file-and-rank militants, in their company branches, local unions, and respective trade unions and federations, could prevent their leaderships from engaging in
such folly?
Some may prefer not to take sides in what they may see as a mere “turf war”, or may even feel unconcerned by this “Spanish problem” — despite the internationalism that has moved us since the very beginnings of our movement.
Yet, this situation seems to us to be of a certain gravity. These attacks by the CNT-CIT, in total contradiction with the anarchist principles by which it claims to be animated, are not only an affront
to the history and heritage of the Spanish CNT. Even more vile, these maneuvers, barely worthy of the worst collaborationist unions, driven by the thirst for power and the greed of the leadership, end up playing the game of the State and Capital: hand in hand to bring to their knees both the CNT-AIT and union activists sincerely and resolutely involved in economic and social struggles.
That is why we hope that these attacks against the comrades of the Spanish CNT-AIT will cease, and we criticise those who continue to condone or justify the absolutely indefensible actions of the
Spanish CNT-CIT.
Let us not turn a blind eye to this grim situation and show the mutual aid and solidarity that is called for, especially towards an organisation that is resolutely anarchist and a legitimate heir to
the CNT of the Spanish Revolution!
We therefore call on all organisations, groups and individuals, anarchists and syndicalists alike, to express a firm and resolute support for our comrades of the Spanish CNT-AIT, so
that the odious attacks by the CNT-CIT cease once and for all!
We invite, even more so, our fellow comrades from the French-speaking CNT-f to join us in denouncing these openly anti-anarchist actions by the main organisation of the CIT, a structure
which they have just joined.
Solidarity with the anarchist comrades of the Spanish CNT-AIT!
Long live anarcho-syndicalism!”
Signed by : liaison Commune de Lyon (FA69, communedelyon@federation-anarchiste.org), liaison Calvados (FA14,
calvados@federation-anarchiste.org) & groupe Henri Laborit (FA85, henri-laborit@federation-anarchiste.org) of the
french-speaking Anarchist Federation / Fédération Anarchiste (FA), member of the International of Anarchist
Federations (IAF-IFA).
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