Next Thursday, September 19th, the trials against 16 unions of the CNT-AIT (IWA) begin as a consequence of the lawsuits brought by the CNT-CIT (ICL), a union with which we formed a single organisation until less than 10 years ago. We will not go into the reasons for this situation, something we already did 3 years ago in a text entitled ‘Against all odds’. Today our intention is to inform and point out some questions about the content and the meaning of the lawsuits.
The lawsuits seek to force us (through the State) to stop using ‘the name National Confederation of Labour, the initials CNT, its distinctive signs [flags and logos] ... and its emblem [Hercules fighting the Lion of Nemea]’, with the argument that ‘they are registered as National Trademarks’ (at the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office) in the name of the CNT-CIT. They accuse us of supplanting an identity that they claim belongs to them and seek to confuse their potential affiliates by using this historical prestige. But the only certainty is that, of the two parties, the CNT-AIT is the only one that has always made it clear who it is and to which international it belongs (the International Workers' Association founded in 1922). About the CNT-CIT, on the other hand, one could almost say that they deliberately hide this as a marketing strategy. Who is creating the confusion? The answer seems obvious to us.
Another point that we think is relevant in the lawsuits is their intention to judicially prevent us from publically saying what happened, about their intolerable behaviour, their political manoeuvres and their corrupt practices. They intend to silence us by making use of the National Court, achieving by the force of the State what their lack of moral legitimacy has been unable to achieve.
As if this were not shameful enough, they are asking for €50,000 from each defendant union (a total of €800,000) for the alleged ‘moral damages’ caused, with the aim of crippling us financially.
It is clear that this lawsuit not only seeks to take away our name and identity, but to deny us what we have built up over more than a century and bury us under outrageous compensation payments. The argument of the alleged ‘moral damages’ is completely ridiculous, a punitive and dishonest strategy to achieve what they have been seeking for years. Our disappearance.
Once again, and in conclusion, we call on the entire membership of the ICL ashamed of the actions of its committees to put an end to this, and on the anarchist movement in general to come out of passivity and abandon equidistance.
Salut and Social Revolution.
Press and Propaganda Secretariat of the CNT-AIT
September 12, 2024