C.O.S.A is an occupied social centre in Setubal since October 2001, where, in an anti-authoritarian and self-organised way, people develop alternative activities like workshops, video sessions, debates, non-commercial parties, concerts, vegetarian dinners and more. Last year in the Bela Vista neighbourhood a policeman shot a young man to death. The squatters worked on solidarity actions with the people denoucing police brutality and impunity. For that they had the banners on the roof of the squat with sentences against police repression.
On September 2003, with a paper permission from the court, the police were able to enter the house in order to confiscate the banners! The 4 persons in the house were enclosed in a room, handcuffed and were given a moral authority lesson which include physical aggression against the detainees. The police also found and took 2 innocent cannabis plants sitting beside some parsley. 3 of those people are now being charged on minor drug-traffic offenses and invasion of public space. Now the squatters are having legal support from a lawyer who says the accusations are not very strong or consistent. The accusations are made in order to force the shutdown of the squat but when scrutinised it is possible to fight it in a court of law, also because the squatters never broke in- the door of the house was open and was used by junkies, a detail that decriminalizes the action under the portugese civil code. Also the owner actually never presented a complaint against the occupation.
The policeman who killed the young man was declared innocent by the judge of Setubal's court. It was considered to be an action of self-defense (against an unarmed boy!). The court case was manipulated, with police lies and schemes to give a false image of the young man as being armed and violent, when there was even a video showing that there were no weapons what so ever but only the police weapons. In this way, again, the 'justice' system proves not to be reliable. Squatters are on alert to what can happen in the court of injustice and the tricky actions of police.
The C.O.S.A appeals to the solidarity of everyone to protest, to squat more and more, to mutliply the activities of squatted social centres in Portuagal and everywhere else, to resist in the defense of squatted places. They can stop some squatted houses but they can never stop our ideas, the love for freedom is stronger than police and state repression!
A new era of repression (more explicit) in Portugal has begun since the Social Democrats and the Popular Party (both right wing parties) together became the new government in the beginning of 2002. At that time there were two squats in Lisbon, one in Caldas da Rainha, one in Queluz and one in Setubal (at least!).
In the first months of the new government, the squat in Caldas da Rainha and one the Lisbon squats (Casa da Luz) were evicted. New social housing policies were being planned in order to give a 'new face' to Lisbon, more open to Capital, free of old buildings, with more parking lots for cars and more shopping centres, and with a new expensive project for building a big casino in the capital city, with 4000 homeless people and 90000 abandoned houses!
Later, at the end of summer 2002 the Lisbon city hall and the media started a propaganda campaign to shut down the oldest squat in Portugal - Casa Encantada (since 1996), declaring that the kids didn't have good conditions there, that the house was dangerous to live in, and that they had to tear it down for safety reasons. In a big police operation, squatters and their supporters were expelled from the house, and before the destruction of the house started, the media made 'partial pictures' in order to prove the bad conditions of the building, not including that it was actually not so easy for the machine to destroy the roof of the 'rotton' building. A political act, included in the city hall's program, for the 'eradication of poverty' (and the poor!), was made clear in the authoritarian statement: "In Lisbon there is no tolerance for squatting!"
The following year there were at least ten attempts of squatting new houses mostly in the metropolitan area of Lisbon, and all of them were evicted very soon with many different situations including violent police actions with shotguns being fired, people arrested, illegal procedures the police and media poison helping the credibility of the authorities procedures, denying the development of squatted social centres for alternative relationships and activities between people. There was a new big squat - Kasino which lasted six months with lots of activites (Kung fu, cakes, art space, alternative journal, bar, acoustic concerts, debates on abortion, prison repression..). There was a trial for acting on the eviction orders without the squatters being informed! Still, there are thousands of empty houses, as much as the desire to squat and transform them.. What does not kill us makes us stronger!
After being a paradise for cheap labour, Portugal is now being abandoned by multi-nationals who prefer to open their factories in cheaper countries in Eastern Europe or Asia, creating a new situation of increasing unemployment (above 10%). The prime minister calls it the respectable sacrifice of the Portugese population: People are losing their jobs and their houses because of government economic goals to reduce the deficit percentage. Squatting can be in future a necessity for the increasing number of homeless people and families fucked by by the pro-european government they voted for.
The indifference of this quite mediteranean population can cracl in a blow of hot emotions! The global-social-civil war has already begun, you cannot stop it, you can only chose how you contribute for it...
Portugese squatters together with other groups and individuals try to create connection to other squatting or other anti-capitalist movements in the rest of Europe. In this corner of Europe we know isolation is a poison of self-defeat.
Zaragata - Taska Contra-Cultural: Estrada da Graca no190 Setubal