yesterday the long awaited eviction of the big squatted social centre (The Laboratorio 3) near my house came... with 15-20 vans of riot police the ten or so residents who were there had no hope of resistance, I think they agreed to go peacefully in return for the chance to take some of their stuff. so they took their stuff to the street where there rapidly gathered a group of a hundred or so sympathisers, myself included. we chanted slogans and helped move the stuff out, a cooker and loads of booze from the bar. There were quite a few jounalists there interviewing people and talking to one of the centre´s lawyers. The mood was sad, and sombre but insolent, the police managed to keep their sticks to themselves and only arrested 6 people for not having identification, they also stopped us cooking a meal on the street using the cooker (which runs on bottled gas) which was hilarious... ok ok the chef said we´ll have salad... when they told him he couldn´t cook on the street. this all happened before lunch

In the evening at 8 there was a protest called in a square nearby, where a thousand or so people gathered... this was where the real genius of these people was exposed, in the 3 months of impending eviction they had planned a publicity coup...

we were lead up through the narrow streets to a small looking building where the organisers proceded to break in the door and occupy a new building, "the Laboratorio 4" (there have been 3 previous ones, all in the same area, and we chanted "the Laboratorio stays in Lavapies") .The small looking building turned out to be enormous... which turned the resigned rebeliousness of the crowd into a new euphoria. It was perfect, the building was an old Socialist party building, now owned by the city council, but unused... there is something beautiful in this... the pathetic socialists (PSOE party) being occupied, no private owner and owned by a public institution not using it´s resources. The goal of course is for the council to be forced to give the building to the squatters eventually. Also with the crowd it was imposible for anybody to see who exactly was doing the "breaking and entering", the changing of locks, or to intervene in any way, the street was packed.

The Labo needs to be big as the last edition housed a cinema, concert hall, gallery and numerous rooms for dance, yoga etc etc... It is also, more importantly in my opinion, a planning and meeting centre for organising protests and legal advice after the protests. Many alternative organisations and events are also held there such as the Madrid Cannabis Cup, memorials to human rights lawyers, magazine launches, charity dinners, Zapatista meetings, experimental theatre amongst many others.

¡viva el laboratorio!