BY SEAN HEALY
Not even a decision by the World Bank to cancel its Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics was enough to divert the anger of 40,000 Catalans, who on June 24 demonstrated against the World Bank and its devotion to corporate globalisation even in the institution's absence.
The World Bank had decided in May to scrap its Barcelona June 25-27 conference, citing a fear of massive protest. It instead decided to hold the conference in cyberspace.
The coalition behind the planned protests, the Campaign Against the World Bank, determined to continue with its plans, shifting its geographic target from the conference venue to the Barcelona Stock Exchange.
The four days of protest from June 22, which took place under the banner "Another world is possible", began with a two-day counter-conference, comprising some 300 different groups, organisations and social movements.
Then, on June 24, 40,000 people gathered for a march through Barcelona's main financial street, the Passeig de Gracia, to the Barcelona stock exchange.
While the march was entirely peaceful, protesters broke the windows of the major banks along the street, in protest at their activities, and, according to one account circulated on the UK Independent Media Centre, "liberat[ed] a mannequin from the store window where its life had heretofore been confined to ostentatious displays of clothing for the wealthy or would-be affluent".
Several hours later, however, after the demonstration reached its final destination, the Plaza de Catalunya, police launched an unprovoked attack on the demonstrators, arresting 19 and injuring 32.
A spokesperson for the Campaign Against the World Bank, Ada Colau, said, "Police provoked the fight. They were part of it."
Eyewitness reports claim that the attack began after police provocateurs staged a fight, giving the pretext for police to wade in with batons.
The stick-wielding provocateurs, some wearing headsets, were able to freely walk through police lines, pull on masks and take up positions between the demonstrators and police lines.
Associated Press writer Kernan Turner said that he asked one of the men if he was a police officer: the man at first said yes, then said no and then walked back through police lines undeterred.
That evening, in a further display of brutality, riot police broke up an assembly of 300 activists discussing how to respond to police tactics.
The following day, thousands gathered again for a march on the stock exchange, dubbed "La Borsa o la vida" (the exchange or life). Two thousand people were able to blockade the exchange, but an attempt to occupy it and turn it into a "people's building" was prevented by large numbers of riot police.
Protest organisers have announced that they will sue Barcelona police for their actions against demonstrators, in an effort to discover the truth about the police operations.