The streets of Bilbao became a chaotic scene of fire this Monday when several groups of nationalist radicals broke away from a protest over an uncelebrated act by Vito Quiles. Around 300 young people - many of them minors - organized to burn a Local Police motorcycle and half a dozen cars in the Deusto neighborhood. Another group knocked down and set containers on fire when they were heading to the Ertzaintza police station armed with stones.
The images reproduced the hardest moments of the kale borroka in Euskadi and forced the Basque Police to intervene, which, according to the Security Councilor, Bingen Zupiria, made 19 arrests, including minors, apart from three people under investigation.
In statements to Radio Euskadi, reported by Efe, Zupira has placed "organized Basque groups" behind the incidents. "The detainees did not know the years of violence by ETA or the 'kale borroka'," stressed the counselor, who concluded that for this reason "it is possible to think that they have external references or may follow slogans from organized Basque groups."
He has shown his concern about this type of altercation because its protagonists may think that "the use of violence is justified" and has warned that in a society like the Basque one "there is no room for half measures" and "a lot of pedagogy" must be done.
Flames from burned vehicles and containers along with smoke from flares spread across Bilbao after 9 p.m.
The groups of young people spread terror and staged scenes that recalled the sabotage carried out by ETA sympathizers in the 1990s. The hooded men began their attacks against vehicles and street furniture in the Deusto neighborhood, just a few meters from the bridge over the Ría del Nervión where thousands of people had gathered on Monday afternoon to protest against Vito Quiles. However, the influencer did not appear and when the majority of the organizers dispersed, groups of young people dressed in black emerged and, masked, began to cause large bonfires along Lehendakari Agirre Street in Bilbao.
The Ertzaintza - as happened in recent altercations such as those suffered by followers of 'La Roja' last July - was overwhelmed and had to intervene when the radicals had already divided into several fronts.
Dozens of residents of Deusto and Abando - in the vicinity of the Guggenheim museum - recorded with their cell phones the flares of the fires caused by radicals who, when detected by the Ertzaintza, tried to camouflage themselves with neighbors sheltering in bars and restaurants. "He's just a boy!" some neighbors pointed out as a reproach to the ertzainas when they detained hooded troublemakers who were teenagers barely 14 or 15 years old. But the aggressiveness of some of these "children" caused them to clash with Bilbao residents who reproached them for destroying street furniture.
The Ertzaintza warned late in the afternoon that the saboteurs had acted "in a premeditated manner with the sole intention of causing disturbances" and the Basque Government, led by the Lehendakari, Imanol Pradales, wanted to "condemn" all the incidents. Demonstrations of rejection that occurred when police charges were still being carried out against the groups of rioters who moved through the center of Bilbao, intimidating thousands of neighbors who were watching from their windows.
