Avalanche - The Anarchist correspondence zine Avalanche - The Anarchist correspondence zine 2 | Page 31

After the eviction of La Grieta &
Los Libros de la Esquina (Argentina)
Buenos Aires, Argentina - 27th of April 2014

[After 11 years of occupation, and following a judicial order from April 2012, the space of two anarchist
projects in Buenos Aires, La Grieta and Los Libros de
la Esquina, have been evicted in the morning of the 9th
of April 2014. Two days later, at the other side of the
Rio de Plata rivier (in Montevideo), molotov cocktails
were thrown against the Argentinean consulate by
some solidary hands. What follows here is a text of the
comrades talking about their project as well as about
the resistance against the eviction and the slander that
were spread.]
On Wednesday April 9, in between 8 and 9 o’clock in
the morning, the house we were occupying got evicted:
La Grieta and the library “Los Libros de la Esquina” no
longer exist.
This space had been used since more than 11 years.
Its history and its characteristics have turned it into a
space where different dynamics and diverse initiatives
came together. The upper part of the house has always
served as a living space for many comrades, squatters and punks from all over the world. Below, projects
which had started in other squats continued, such as
the library “Los Libros de la Esquina”.
Both La Grieta as a living space and the library as a
social space have experimented in their own way with
another way of living. Other ways of relating towards
each other outside of the social conventions, the capi-

talistic logic and consumption. It created a breach
with the system, by propaganda and action, with ideas
as well as concrete practices. To spread autonomy and
propagate an anti-statist and anti-capitalist critic (and
attitude). We would like to clear out some points about
the lies spread by the media and the comments of our
neighbours (those that have talked, in a more or less
intentional way).
The library has never been the headquarters of leftist
party, neither has it been sponsored. We have never
wanted to legalize this space, neither to ask of any
kind of subventions. We are against domination in all
of its forms. Up till the last day, the space has maintained thanks to people that recognized themselves in
the project or sympathized with the space which has
always functioned in an autonomous and self-organized
way. And yes we might say that it was a pretext. But
it has never been a pretext in order to stay in an occupied house “without paying taxes” and justifying
our existence, as was stated by some of the neighbourhoods reactionaries (enthusiast by the idea of security,
the project Cinturon Sur and a new Av. Patricios, the
liberation of garbage and immigrants, the same kind of
people that are in favour of death penalty and lynching). So, we were saying that is was a pretext. A pretext
for us to meet each other. Our doors have always been
open to those wanting to participate. There were a lot
of inviting activities and workshops. We have never
been official librarians and never have wanted to be.
With our successes and errors, we have always been

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