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Support for Independence Seen Waning in Spain's Catalonia

Martin Arostegui

   MADRID - When Spain's national anthem blared from a hotel balcony
   during Catalonia's National Day ceremonies last week, regional police
   cut electricity to the building and searched it for Spanish unionists
   suspected of placing the loudspeakers.

   But when a few thousand radical separatists tried to rush the regional
   parliament building the same day, overturning police barriers, hurling
   sharp objects and attacking a Spanish television news crew, no arrests
   were made.

   "Catalonia is caught in a dichotomy," says Erik Encinas, publisher of
   the Barcelona digital magazine Mediterraneo. "Although public
   enthusiasm for independence shows signs of waning, the bureaucracy and
   police are increasingly controlled by hardliners."

   Catalan regional president Quim Torra has called for "general civil
   disobedience" next month to protest the expected convictions of
   regional officials tried by Spain for organizing an independence
   referendum and subsequent declaration of secession two years ago.

   But there are doubts that he will get the mass turnout he wants.
   Organizers had hoped for a huge show of force at this year's Catalan
   National Day parade, but the turnout of more than half a million people
   was only about half as large as in past years.

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