The agrarian organization Asaja Extremadura is going to cut off four of the seven accesses to Cáceres this Wednesday to protest the situation in the countryside. Faced with the imminent protests, the president of the entity, Ángel García Blanco, has issued a warning: “If any riot police come out, the hives will open. And the hives have bees.”
García Blanco has asked that “people stay away” because the beekeepers have threatened to open their hives to let the bees out in case there are confrontations with the security forces and bodies, since, according to the president of Asaja, Expect the presence of riot police in the city. “We ask the Government delegation to submit to this brute force that they are trying to send us because the only thing we have left is action with the beehives,” he threatened in an appearance before the press that has gone viral on the networks.
Asaja Extremadura hopes to gather around 200 vehicles including tractors, trucks, cranes and private cars that will then circulate through the city center until they reach the Government Subdelegation, on Virgen de la Montaña Avenue.
The cuts will occur from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and will affect the entrances through Malpartida de Cáceres (N-521 at the Carrefour roundabout), the N-630 (V Centenario roundabout), the Ex- 206 (Charca Musia roundabout), and the N-521 roundabout at the junction with CC-38 (old Casar de Cáceres road). These points will only be opened for cases of “extreme need,” said García Blanco.
The only free access during those hours will be from the N-630 at the fair roundabout, whose cut has not been authorized by the Government Delegation. They also have permission to cut the access roundabout from the Trujillo highway, but entry to the University Hospital will be allowed but not exit from the city, and the Ex-390 (Monroy highway) will also be left free to facilitate the celebration of the weekly market in the Vegas del Mocho area.
García Blanco explained this Tuesday at a press conference that the objective is for “Cáceres to be a cage” and the entry and exit of the city is interrupted during the four hours that the protest will last, which will also extend to several streets in the center of the city, which could suffer traffic problems due to the presence of tractors and trucks.
However, he has guaranteed that the University Hospital will operate “with complete normality” and that the Cefot soldiers will also be able to access their jobs, because the fair roundabout will be the only one completely free of cuts. Nor will the free market be interrupted where “many of the province’s agricultural and livestock products are sold.”
“This mobilization is logically authorized by the Government Delegation, including the roundabout of the university hospital that we are not going to close,” insisted García Blanco, who stressed that the capital of Cáceres “will be a cage with an open window that will be the fairgrounds”.
After the concentration of trucks and tractors, the protesters will begin a march to arrive at the Government Subdelegation around 1:30 p.m. They will be put into circulation through the Ronda Norte, and then go up through Hernán Cortés, Clara Campoamor, Paseo de Cánovas until arriving along Avenida de Alemanía to the Renfe roundabout.
There they will turn around to enter the city again through the Cross of the Fallen, go down Paseo de Cánovas to Plaza de Colón and go up Avenida Virgen de la Montaña to finish at the Government Subdelegation.
Many of the vehicles that will participate in the protest, specifically about 82, are beekeepers who come from the Las Hurdes region and who will leave Caminomorisco at 8:30 a.m. to gather at the Las Capellanías industrial estate in the capital of Cáceres and begin the Announced road closures.
The majority presence of beekeepers is due to the entry of syrup that is labeled as if it were honey and is produced in different countries, including Portugal. This unfair competition is denounced in Brussels and there is a proposal to modify honey labeling so that the amount of honey that comes from each of the countries appears, but it has not yet been done.
In addition to this central protest in Cáceres, Asaja Extremadura has also called for road blocks in Fuenlabrada de los Montes and concentrations in front of the Agrarian Extension Offices of Plasencia and Coria.
Regarding the demands of farmers and ranchers, García Blanco recalled that the countryside is “in an extreme situation” while more and more “bureaucracy” and documentation are required to be able to develop agricultural and livestock activity.
García Blanco has indicated that “they are fed up” with demands for “good agricultural and environmental conditions” and “tired of new eco-regimes that only cause the countryside to be abandoned.” “We ask that the same thing that they demand of us be fulfilled,” he stressed, and that “the amounts that farmers receive from European aid be updated, since the CPI is not taken into account.”
“For all this, we appeal to the population of Cáceres because it will not be possible to enter or leave. Anyone who wants to leave or enter Cáceres should not do so between ten thirty and two thirty,” he said. concluded García Blanco, who has asked in advance for “apologies” to those affected by these cuts as well as “understanding” for the situation on the field.
